White House officials are bracing for oil prices to surge past the $150-a-barrel mark as the Iran war stretches into its second month and the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, according to a new report.
In recent weeks, the average cost of a barrel of crude has hovered around $100, a figure that the Trump administration now sees as the new “baseline,” though a potential spike to $200 hasn’t been ruled out, a source familiar with the matter told Politico.
As a result, officials have entered “all hands on deck” mode, urgently evaluating options to tame soaring oil prices — which pushed gas above $4 a gallon this week and risks inflating costs across the broader economy.
americans complaining about gas prices will never be not funny
If only in the decades since the oil embargo of the early 1970s we kept investing in alternative energy sources we could have been in a much better place energy wise.
Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House roof. Reagan took them down. Pretty succinct summary of the past 40 years.
before anyone says “those solar panels didn’t work very well” THAT’S NOT THE FUCKING POINT. they represented a commitment to invest in the technology. the presidency is the bully pulpit. a person can change a lot about the direction of the country there without making meaningful change in the moment. Grant and Carter are probably the two presidents who tried the hardest to do something positive with that power
Let’s not idolize Carter too much. I like a lot of what he did, and I obviously love his “old man building houses for the needy” golden years, but Carter was also the beginning of the dismantling of antitrust which is the primary reason we have wealth consolidation and market capture as the de facto norm today.
He started the ball rolling with a bizarre policy of “big businesses are good for everyone” which meant antitrust laws–while still on the books and our official policy–simply stopped being enforced. Regan capitalized on this but Carter started it.
oh for sure. and Grant wasn’t great for indioenous people. America has never had a good president. just a limited selection who qualify for “most least worst”
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Yeah, but windmills cause cancer and solar is basically gay. And EVs - I’m pretty sure if you drive those when you are male, your penis shrivels up, falls off and you grow a vagina.
your penis shrivels up, falls off and you grow a vagina.
Oh hey, maybe if they didn’t dismantle all the green energy and EV initiatives then the impacts would be mitigated a little bit…
Funny how that works…
Literally couldn’t be doing anything different to help Russia more.
That’s gotta be the point, isn’t it? It’s not really a secret that trump’s a russian stooge…
Automakers have billions of dollars in brand new EV manufacturing equipment and lines sitting around doing nothing since the new administration changed all the regulations and incentives.
they’re also putting some new programs on hold, so at least they’re not all outright cancelled yet
but oh boy have a lot been cancelled. we built a huge cell that was shipped to the customer and scrapped the next year. the customer actually ended up taking apart the tools we built and shipping us back a bunch of the components to build them another cell for a different project. that was neat.
And they arrested/deported most of the engineers who were supposed to train manufacturing employees…
Gotta subsidise the undead oil economy or else the old farts might actually have to read a journal and try to figure where else to invest the money they don’t need!
Trump officials prepping for nighttime scenario as Trump dies…
Trump administration -> Epstein network
It honestly makes me sick that this appears to be the line for most Americans. Fuck this country.
To be fair, once fuel prices go up the cost of EVERYTHING also goes up. So no it’s not just about pain at the pump, it’s pain at the grocery check out. Pain when the oil truck comes to deliver your liquid heat. Pain when you buy anything plastic, anything grown with fertilizers. People don’t realize petroleum is in almost everything! And if it doesn’t use a petroleum product in manufacturing, it certainly does in shipping.
No one cares about victims of rape and pedophilia, that’s other people, caring about other people is un-American.
$ is the only thing sacred in america, always has been
When people are struggling to get by and exhausted from the news, they end up focusing on themselves. The reality is most Americans don’t have the energy, time, or resources to focus on something that’s disconnected from their lives - including attrocities on the other side of the planet.
But gas prices hit HARD. When you’re spending 20-30% of your income on gas and the price of that gas doubles, it’s a problem even before it makes everything else skyrocket in price.
That excuse is honestly not acceptable. Americans have had ample time and opportunity to consider the impact of their voting decisions. This is their choice. Collectively, the country has failed.
Too ignorant, selfish, or stupid.
The only thing that keeps most people complacent is they can manage to scrape by with their meager salary buying crappy goods. Take that away and Americans might get more revolutionary.
“americans are 3 hot meals from a revolution” is the saying I think.
Yeah, but I don’t think America existed when that phrase was first said. More like “The people are…”
If ONLY Iran would OPEN up the Straight
that was ALREADY Open BEFORE Trump bombed them for some Reason!WE wouldn’t be in This Mess! We NEED Trump to FixTrump’s Fuck Up!Iran!-NOT Sheep Republicans!
https://www.amazon.com/100pcs-Trump-Stickers-Donald-Merchandise/dp/B0DVSW4WD8
100pcs Trump I Did that Stickers Gas Pump Stickers Decal, Anti Trump Stickers, Fuck Donald Trump Mega Merchandise
5K+ bought in past month
https://www.amazon.com/Trump-Did-That-Stickers-2-5inch/dp/B0DWN53KXY
Trump I Did that Stickers, 2.5inch I Did that Trump Sticker 100PCS
10K+ bought in past month
So if each of those sticker packs has 100 stickers, and people have bought over fifteen thousand packs in the past month alone on those two Amazon items (and there are more) alone, that’s over 1.5 million gas pumps that you’d need if you were going to use just those sticker packs.
https://www.fuelexpress.net/blog/general-information/how-many-gas-stations-are-in-the-us/
As of recent estimates, there are about 160,000 gas stations across the United States.
Like, people are going to have to be putting them on in layers or something. I don’t think that there are enough gasoline pumps.
Yeah but it’s not the only thing he did. There’s plenty of things to stick them on
I really want to see Iran say they’ll reopen it only after trump is personally handed over to stand trial for his war crimes…
It will never work, but it’ll fracture his support and more importantly he’ll be ome convinced it’s gonna happen and start turning on his own cronies even if they’re loyal.
Except it’s going to devastate a lot of people financially who don’t deserve it. So ireally don’t find it funny.
But if gas hits that high it will devastate rural areas and the people who voted for this
30% of the American public voted for these grifting idiots, not just the president, but his enablers too. This slightly disproportionately affects rural areas. We should be getting off of gas and investing in green energy anyway.
I choose to laugh. It’s better than what the people of Iran got out of it.
Man, I wonder if a better president would have come up with some kind of treaty to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
US&A has nuclear weapons and is obviously a threat to world right now.
While that’s true, it doesn’t really contribute to the conversation or the problem at hand.
Are you implying that because the US has nuclear weapons that you’d like Iran to have them too? Because that’s the only way I can relate this back.
Remember those weapons over which US&A started the war in Iraq? They’ve probably existed as much as theirs in Iran. I don’t believe I’ve seen Iran attack anyone before it was attacked. US&A on the other hand…
I think you missed the point, which is that I think the way to handle this was Obama’s treaty before Trump dismantled it because it was an Obama accomplishment.
Trump officials bracing for nightmare scenario of renewable energy and end of global hegemony.
What exactly are they “bracing” for? Not a single one of them has to pay out of pocket for it.
They are bracing for the voters to finally turn on them. Commit fraud? It’s fine my gas is cheap. Sex with children? Eh whatever I don’t want to consider if that’s true or not as long as my gas is cheap. Bomb a school overseas? Whatever you’ve gotta do to keep my gas cheap. GAS PRICES ARE UP?! WTF IS THIS ADMINISTRATION DOING?! VOTE THEM OUT.
It’s sickening, but it seems the price of gas is really all that matters to the Republican voter.
This country has done nothing except wait for someone else to solve the “trump problem.” Protests are great to show unity and dissatisfaction, but I don’t think the regime cares. Protests are not force, and the only thing, if it isn’t obvious, this administration understands is abuse and use of force. They’d probably be fine with a Tiananmen Square scenario in the US, it would justify the final grab for power.
That said, I hope you’re right and gas is finally enough to force change. Hopefully we don’t replace one idiot with another.
The Sociopathic Oligarchs see the Dow as the leading indicator of the economy, and never notice gas prices.
But to the average American, the price of GAS is the leading economic indicator, and that number psychologically symbolizes the health of the economy in their minds. That number is displayed on every corner in the country, and every American passes it many times a day, driving it into their skulls.
This is NOT good for MAGA, and a reckoning is coming. MAGA is feral, and when they feel cornered, wounded, and scared, they will strike out ferociously. It’s going to get uglier before it gets better.
The best part is that even if everything in the Strait were to return to normal tomorrow, the oil price shock is just barely beginning to filter through the system, so there’s absolutely nothing Trump can do to stop what he caused.
They’re gonna nationalize our oil aren’t they? Required sale to the government at a set rate and then government will turn around and sell into the domestic and international markets to balance prices at our pumps.
It’s about the only option other than stop bombing Iran and that’s not happening.
Trump could ban US oil export. That would bring the price of gas down here.
He won’t do that.
That would bring the price of gas down here.
I’m doubtful of that. Oil is a globalized commodity, and international prices will still affect local sales, even if none of our oil actually comes through the strait of Hormuz.
I’m convinced the strait being closed is the whole point of this mess. It’s just an excuse to charge more despite local production costs not changing. If export were banned, I think they’d just lower production to keep their margins high.
The point is that banning the export of US oil would cause oil to stop being a globalized commodity (in the US.) US production and US consumption have not changed since the Iran war started. But US prices are up since US production is being shipped to places where their supply from Hormuz is cut off.
Other responder said that US refining can’t refine US oil, which would be extremely odd and I hadn’t heard that before but if true would indeed destroy my logic here.
That would be hilarious actually
Oh Undoubtedly. I look forward to all the explanations as to why it’s Capitalism when we do it and Socialism when Venezuela does it.
One idiotic move administration has made is to increase ethanol content of gasoline. Ethanol is corn based in US. Cost of corn is fertilizer based. The futures price of corn has only increased about 10%, while fertilizer costs are up 100%, and so no logical reason to plant corn that has been losing money for farmers for last 5 years.
Easiest plan to bring down energy prices would be to import chinese solar tariff free, to use on ethanol corn fields in Nebraska. Leaving room for Corn between panel rows when it is viable to grow corn for food again. There’s even a path towards 0 cost electricity for 24/7 datacenters or other loads. https://lemmy.ca/post/59615557?scrollToComments=true
Your linked AI slop post has a LOT of assumptions and it’s kinda expensive. If the total system capex is 50k for 1 kW load, it’ll be 500 million for a modern 10MW data center. Then covering the deficit off employee BEVs for peanuts a kWh: That assumes you have enough employees for that and that they’re willing to wear their batteries for this.
But yes, the whole ethanol requirement is stupid for a country that has its own oil anyway
