Peter Schiff: "WE ARE DOOMED ... "

“Especially considering Congress will borrow the principal and even the interest payments, never paying down a dime.”

Who told you that’s what is going on?

Federal Outlays: Interest as Percent of Gross Domestic Product (interest on Treasury debt)

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S

1980: 1.84%

2021: 1.53%

Federal Receipts as Percent of Gross Domestic Product (federal taxes)

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S

1980: 18%

2021: 17.6%

Federal Net Interest Costs: A Primer

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56910

“In fiscal year 2020, net outlays for interest totaled $345 billion, equal to 1.6 percent of GDP and 5.3 percent of total federal spending.”

“The entirety of our assets, civilian and land, total maybe $93 trillion. Even if we sold all of it off, we owe around $200 trillion.”

And why exactly do we need to pay off the debt?

We have used a funded public debt ever since Alexander Hamilton became Treasury Secretary.

Hamilton’s genius was to recognize that the massive debt run up during the Revolution could be converted into an asset by means of a funded public debt. Which it was. And mostly still is.

The national debt was paid off only once, from 1835 to 1837 during Andrew Jackson’s presidency. And despite having no debt the country went into an economic depression in 1837 that lasted seven years.

Just anecdotal observations the past few days. Restaurants have cut their opening hours citing lack of workers. Gasoline is near 6 and the traffic has been very light. Many people here drive 20 to 30 miles to get to and from the shops. That is $30 in gasoline per day just to work a $15 an hour part time entry level job. So all entry level positions are being abandoned. It’s simply not worth it. There are endless “NOW HIRING” signs in the labor jobs. All now moved to 4 10 hour days. Still no one is working. All other service jobs (painting, concrete, lawn service) are cutting back hours and availability.

LET’S GO BIDEN!!!

Why do people think this wasn’t the plan? Astounding.
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Most people are too stupid to understand the consequences of what’s going on. Those who do understand what’s going on are either part of the plan or supportive of it, or those who understand it but lack the power to do anything to stop it.
Did I miss anyone?

Nonsense.
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Perhaps you’re right, but why do you think that?

Gasoline is near 6 and the traffic has been very light.
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I’ve noticed a big decline in traffic in western Maryland and on the nearby Interstates over the past two weekends. Gas at the closest station is $5.06 gal. for 87 regular.

It takes time but going back to energy independence by supplying our own oil would be relatively fast and greatly alleviate the situation as would manufacturing and production here.

Relatively? Au contraire. You underestimate what Biden has done to our energy infrastructure and the regulatory changes that have discouraged capital investment. More oil production will not change things quickly.

Why Diesel-Fuel Costs Are Really Rising

You’ve heard a lot about gas prices, and hopefully at some point you’ve noticed that, as bad as it is to fill up your sedan or SUV, the cost of diesel fuel is skyrocketing even faster. Today, we’re taking a deep dive into why diesel-fuel costs are rising so quickly — and no, President Biden, it’s not just because oil companies are “greedy.” It has a lot to do with the shutdown of six refineries, the upcoming closure of a seventh, and the fact that the U.S. has built only one new oil refinery since 1977.

But the cost of a gallon of unleaded gasoline or diesel fuel is not just a matter of how greedy an oil company feels on any given day and has very little to do with how much that company is paying in taxes. The cost of crude oil makes up 59 percent of the cost of gallon of regular gasoline, and just 49 percent of the cost of diesel. Refining is a slightly bigger share of the cost of a gallon of diesel fuel than of the cost of a gallon of regular gas — 23 percent for diesel to 18 percent for regular, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Distribution and marketing costs make up 18 percent of diesel costs.

But if we really want to know why the cost of diesel is increasing faster than the cost of regular gasoline, we need to look at those refining costs. It doesn’t matter how much we “drill, baby, drill,” unless we also have the ability to “refine, baby, refine,” — or we become dependent upon foreign refiners.

Back in 2020, U.S. oil-refinery capacity peaked at 19 million barrels per day, according to the EIA. But because of the pandemic, and the delayed decision to permanently shut down the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery after a major accident in 2019, U.S. refinery capacity declined significantly during that year. (PES was the largest oil refinery on the East Coast and refined 335,000 barrels per day.)

In addition to the PES refinery, five more shut down over the course of 2020: the Shell refinery in Convent, La., the Tesoro Marathon refinery in Martinez, Calif., the HollyFrontier refinery in Cheyenne, Wyo., the Western Refining refinery in Gallup, N.M., and the Dakota Prairie refinery in Dickinson, N.D. Those six collectively refined more than 1 million barrels of oil per day.

Thus, the U.S. started 2021 with its lowest annual refining capacity in six years, and that capacity did not expand significantly over the rest of the year. And as the pandemic’s effects on American life faded, month by month, demand for fuel increased — not just from drivers but from trucking and shipping companies, construction companies — remember, 98 percent of all energy use in the construction sector comes from diesel — and from airlines and other consumers of jet fuel.

Why are we experiencing these stunning fuel prices? Because we’re getting back to pre-pandemic levels of demand, while our refineries are pumping out about a million fewer gallons of fuel per day than they did before the pandemic. And you know what happens when you mix lower supply with higher demand.

Right now, someone is likely shouting, “Reopen those closed refineries, then!” But that’s not so easy.

The former PES refinery complex in Philadelphia is being demolished. The Shell refinery is slated to become an “alternative fuels complex,” and it’s a similar transition for the Tesoro refinery. The HollyFrontier refinery is already converted to processing biofuels, as is the Dakota Prairie refinery. (Certain environmentalists will denounce the greedy oil companies and praise the companies producing environmentally friendly biofuels, never stopping to check and realize that many of them are the same companies.)

Wait, I haven’t even gotten to the bad news: Chemical maker Lyondell Basell Industries announced in April that the company will permanently close its Houston crude-oil refinery by the end of 2023. That plant refines about 263,000 barrels of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel per day.

We almost never build oil refineries in the U.S. anymore. According to the EIA, the newest refinery in the United States is the Targa Resources Corporation’s site in Channelview, Texas, which began operating in 2019 and processes 35,000 barrels per day. Before that, the newest refinery with significant downstream unit capacity was Marathon’s facility in Garyville, La. That facility came online in 1977.

In short, successive administrations, consumers, and the cultural zeitgeist made it clear to the oil industry that their product did not have a future — and so oil companies reduced their investments at all stages of seeking out, drilling, obtaining, and refining their product.

Bloomberg News summarizes our problem succinctly: “The U.S. can’t make enough fuel and there’s no fix in sight.” The magazine goes on to declare that, “The longer-term transition away from fossil fuels dims the outlook for demand, making companies unwilling to put up the billions of dollars needed to build new plants. Even resurrecting idled plants can be prohibitively costly at a time when construction and labor costs in the U.S. are booming.”

That article also notes that, “Phillips 66, for example, would have to spend more than $1 billion to restart its Alliance refinery in Louisiana that was shut after damage from Hurricane Ida, Bloomberg Intelligence estimates.” There simply isn’t any quick, cheap, or easy way to expand refinery capacity, and the Biden administration and environmentalists don’t like oil refineries in general.

Clarity Bump! I forwarded this to this to every leftist kook relative I know.