The Main Driver of Inflation is a Murderous Maniac in Riyadh

[tenderfoot]

Saudi Arabia is withholding oil production because Biden won’t meet with Mohammed bin Salman after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the president suggested.

SAUDI CROWN PRINCE Mohammed bin Salman is enacting revenge on Democrats in general and President Joe Biden specifically for the party’s increasingly standoffish attitude toward the kingdom — by driving up energy prices and fueling global inflation.

Biden himself seemed to allude to this at a town hall event with CNN last month, during which he attributed high gas prices to a certain “foreign policy initiative” of his, adding, “There’s a lot of Middle Eastern folks who want to talk to me. I’m not sure I’m going to talk to them.”

Biden was making a not-so-veiled reference to his refusal to meet with Salman and acknowledge him as Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler due to his role in the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October of 2018. The move came after Biden vowed during a debate with President Donald Trump to make MBS, as he’s known, “a pariah” and represented a stark departure from Trump’s warm relations with the desert kingdom and the crown prince.

:snip:

In June 2018, heading into the midterms, Trump requested that Saudi Arabia and its cartel, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, lower energy prices by increasing output, and the kingdom complied. Prices bottomed out in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic, and usage sank to record lows. Prices surged once the pandemic waned and the economy reopened, and Biden in August 2021 requested that OPEC again increase output.

This time MBS refused, angry at having yet to be granted an audience with Biden and contemptuous of the U.S. pullback from the war in Yemen. As one of his first pieces of business, Biden had ordered the end of American support for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates’s war, though caveated it by barring only the backing of “offensive operations.” Saudi Arabia nevertheless received it as a grievous blow.

Ali Shihabi, a Saudi national who is considered a voice for MBS in Washington, made that clear in October, tweeting, “Biden has the phone number of who he will have to call if he wants any favours.”

https://theintercept.com/2021/11/11/inflation-saudi-arabia-biden-mbs-oil/

[Bettie]

1. And for the rest of it

enormous corporations set prices and, since there is little real competition, they can charge more while continuing to make ever increasing profits.

[al bupp]

2. True, but only until use of non-gas fueled vehicles reach a tipping point

From: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-20/efficient-autos-push-peak-road-fuel-forecast-forward-by-4-years

Demand for gasoline and diesel to fuel cars and trucks will peak in 2027 -- four years earlier than expected -- as more fuel-efficient autos and increasing adoption of electric vehicles curb global consumption, according to BloombergNEF.

Decline in demand for road fuel will be steepest in Europe and the U.S. and an anticipated rise in fuel use in countries such as India and China will fail to materialize, Bloomberg’s energy data and analysis firm said in a report published Tuesday. BloombergNEF, which forecast just a year ago that road fuel would peak in 2031, sees the change as bringing a significant drop in sales to those regions for fuel producers during the next decade.

[Midnight Writer]

3. Exxon stock price has doubled in the last year. Doubled.

It's not like bin Salmon is the only player with a motive. There are a lot of them. And they all have an interest in seeing Biden and his agenda go away. They had an open bar with TFG.

It's amusing to watch business news decrying inflation while heralding the CEO of Exxon as a money making genius.

The smartest thing I ever heard Jared Kushner say is that if the former Administration just kept quiet about the murder of Kashoggi, simply deflect comment, then the media would get tired of chasing the story and the whole affair would fade away.