Economic Buffoonery, Oil & FL Election Integrity – Top 3 Takeaways

Economic Buffoonery, Oil & FL Election Integrity - Top 3 Takeaways – May 9th, 2022 

1. Economic buffoonery. It’d be a borderline miracle for the economy to experience 41-year high inflation, the Federal Reserve aggressively raising rates to combat it, a bear market for stocks, mortgage rates doubling to reach 13-year highs and yet somehow expect everything to come out sunshine and lollipops. I mean seriously, you don’t need to be an economist to make that deduction, do you (which only makes it that much more confounding that most economists aren’t)? The late week selloff for stocks which exacerbated the bear market for tech stocks was mostly about one thing. Reality. The clueless economic buffoons (known as most economists), which continue to make a living by mostly being wrong somehow, have been mostly singing the same song as the Federal Reserve over the past year. That means most still say a recession isn’t happening and that opening scenario I offered up is the most likely outcome here. That’s about as boneheaded as thinking the federal government creating trillions of dollars out of thin air, throwing it around to Americans like its candy and not expecting inflation problems is plausible. Which is precisely how we got here. That’s because there’s no such thing as free Biden bucks and free puppies and free candy or anything from the federal government. That’s because it quite literally doesn’t have anything it doesn’t take from you first. And if it hasn’t yet taken it from you, as was the case with the debt spending from the “American Rescue Plan” (which has proven to be as about as appropriately named as the Affordable Care Act), you’re going to have to pay it back with interest. And that interest rate is now rapidly rising making it even more expensive for you to pay that “free” stuff back as a taxpayer – let alone the price you pay every day for insane inflation. In the grand scheme of economic buffoonery, we've experienced it all over the past year. But while the economic buffoons continue to suggest that we’re going to be able to expect a blindfolded person whose turned around several times to throw a bullseye on the dart board, more investors are waking up to reality which is driving what you’re seeing in the financial markets. It’s super important to prioritize paying down all variable rate debt ASAP and being prepared for an outcome that’s not exactly sunshine and lollipops. And speaking of bad economic policy, what has the first week of Biden’s strategic oil reserve releases brought us...? 
2. Higher oil prices. You may have noticed the narrative and the stories regarding Biden’s release of the strategic oil reserves are gone. And that’s even as we have our first weeks' worth of data about what they’ve actually done. You may have forgotten, but when Biden announced he’d be releasing record amounts of oil from the strategic oil reserve in late March, the effective date of the program to release a million barrels per day wasn’t set to start until May 1st. And what did I say about that announced release at the time? In my story entitled: Oil releases Have No Impact on Today’s Prices & Why They Don’t Work, I said this... I could give you a detailed historical perspective of how this policy has failed previously, however you need look no further than the most recent one which will illustrate the point with an example that’s fresh in your brain. On November 24th President Biden announced the release of 50 million barrels of oil from the Reserve to attempt to achieve lower prices. The price of US crude was $72 at the time he released the oil on December 16th. The 50 million barrels represents the equivalent of 50 days' worth of releases under the policy which starts next month. 50 days from the release in December was February 3rd. The price of oil on February 3rd was $90. A 25% price increase in 50 days with 50 million barrels of oil being released from the Reserve by the Biden administration. I’ll spare you any additional macro-economic discussion by leaving it there. That example speaks for itself. The bottom line is Biden is doubling down on bad policy that’s already failed under his administration. As long the US is importing millions of barrels of oil per day from often hostile foreign actors, we’ll remain at the mercy of their actions – at least as much as our own. The price of a barrel of oil was $102.50 the moment Biden made the announcement of the release on March 31st. What was the price at the end of the first full week of strategic releases? $109.77. That’s right, oil prices are 7% higher today with a week of the actual policy in place than they were when he announced it – which literally at the moment it happened I stated on-air prices would go higher. As you'll occasionally hear me say. I’ve not made a career out of being wrong. Remarkably, so many economists/leftists have.  
3. And just like that Florida’s election integrity law is back. On Friday, a federal appeals court reinstated Florida’s 2021 election integrity law. A preliminary hearing by three judges determined the state had a good chance of winning the case on appeal of Judge Mark Walker’s ruling striking down most of it recently. This matters for multiple reasons, most of which are obvious. But the most effectual aspect for now is timing. The law has been restored in time for the 2022 election cycle. We’re little more than three months away from our primary elections and under six months away from Election Day. Remember all of those victory laps being taken by the left and their allies in news media after the ever partisan-Walker made his ruling? It was so pervasive that the AP headline read: Federal Judge Strikes Down Portion of Racist Florida Election Law. Well, that’s fun. I’ll not hold my breath for the retractions and apologies. This story isn’t over, but it also clearly isn’t as it was reported on back of Walker’s ruling either.