Record high crack spreads. Serious economic ramifications.
Diesel Crack Spread Definition
The diesel crack spread is the pricing difference between a barrel of crude oil and the ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) refined from it.
It represents the profit margin a refinery makes on producing diesel.
The term “crack” comes from cracking, the chemical refining process that uses heat and catalysts to break heavy, complex crude oil molecules into lighter, higher-value middle distillates like diesel and jet fuel.
Because diesel powers global commercial trucking, cargo ships, trains, and agricultural equipment, the diesel crack spread serves as a vital leading indicator for industrial economic activity, supply chain health, and looming transportation inflation.
US Diesel Crack Surpasses $100 a Barrel
Reuters reports US Diesel Crack Surpasses $100 a Barrel
The U.S. diesel crack, a key measure of refining profitability, hit an all-time high of $102.20 a barrel on Monday as global supply disruptions from the wars in Iran and Ukraine run into peak agricultural consumption season.
Measured as the premium of U.S. diesel futures over U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures , the U.S. diesel crack was trading at $99.82 a barrel, up 2.4% from Friday, as of 11:56 a.m. ET. The crack has hit new intraday record highs in five of the last six sessions, reflecting growing concerns about fuel availability as fresh attacks on Middle Eastern refineries added to existing supply disruptions.Global refinery crude throughput averaged 80.9 million barrels per day in July, down about 5 million bpd from a year ago, the International Energy Agency said in a monthly report last week.
The most immediate hit from surging diesel cracks is to farmers who need the fuel to power tractors, harvesters and other equipment, during the ongoing harvest season in the Northern Hemisphere and the planting season in the Southern Hemisphere. Longer-term, it could hit most other sectors of the global economy as the fuel has wide-ranging uses from manufacturing to heavy transportation and power generation in parts of the world.
Economic Hit to Farmers and Truckers
The surging diesel crack spread hits both sectors hard, but it attacks their business models differently. For truckers, it is an immediate, floating operational cost passed through supply chains. For farmers, it is a rigid, cyclical gamble that can wipe out an entire year’s profit margin.
For the transportation sector, diesel is usually the single largest operating expense.
- The Mechanism: Truckers buy fuel daily at retail pumps. When the crack spread spikes, retail diesel prices skyrocket almost instantly.
- The Cushion (Large Fleets): Large trucking carriers protect themselves using fuel surcharges. They pass the higher costs directly to the shippers (and ultimately, consumers), which fuels broader economic inflation.
- The Victims (Independent Owner-Operators): Small fleets and independent drivers get crushed. They often operate on fixed-rate spot market contracts. If they cannot negotiate a surcharge quickly enough, the high fuel cost eats their entire margin, forcing many to park their rigs or face bankruptcy.
The Hit to Farmers: Inflexible Timelines & Squeezed Margins
For agriculture, diesel is a massive upfront capital investment with zero flexibility. You cannot park a tractor when fields need to be planted or harvested.
- The Mechanism: Farmers consume massive amounts of diesel in highly concentrated windows (spring planting and autumn harvest). They also use it for transport and running irrigation pumps.
- The Trap (No Surcharges): Unlike truckers, farmers are price-takers, not price-makers. A corn or soybean farmer cannot call up the grain elevator and demand a “fuel surcharge” because diesel went up. They must accept the global market price for their crops.
- The Long-Term Bet: Because farmers often buy fuel in bulk months in advance, a spike during peak seasons locks in massive input costs. If crop prices drop by the time they harvest, they are stuck with high production costs and low revenue.
Quick Comparison: Truckers vs. Farmers
| Feature | 🚛 Truckers | 🚜 Farmers |
|---|---|---|
| Demand Style | Continuous (Daily consumption) | Highly cyclical (Spring/Autumn spikes) |
| Cost Passing | Yes (Via fuel surcharges to consumers) | No (Must absorb costs entirely) |
| Primary Risk | Immediate cash flow failure for small fleets | Wiping out seasonal margins or entire annual profits |
| Economic Echo | Raises the cost of moving all goods | Raises the foundational cost of producing food |
Crack Spread Surge
The Historic Breakout to $101.85The economic reality of global supply disruptions has officially shown up in refined petroleum margins. Looking at the latest daily spot data, the U.S. diesel crack spread—measured as the premium of U.S. ultra-low sulfur diesel over domestic WTI crude—has officially smashed through the $100-per-barrel threshold.
On August 5, the crack spread was a more manageable $80.47 per barrel. By Friday, August 14, surging diesel prices vaulted the spread to $101.17.
On August 17, the premium expanded even further to $101.85 per barrel, driven by a widening disconnect between landlocked crude costs ($85.01) and the soaring wholesale cost of refined diesel ($4.449 per gallon, or $186.86 per barrel).
Why the Surge?
The diesel crack spread has exploded past $101 per barrel because the global energy market is experiencing a massive shortage of refining capacity rather than just a simple shortage of raw crude oil. Under normal conditions, crack spreads hover in the teens or low twenties, but a “perfect storm” of geopolitical destruction, structural bottlenecks, and seasonal demand has completely broken the downstream supply chain.
Physical Destruction of Refining Capacity
The core driver is that the wars in Iran and Ukraine have physically knocked out critical processing infrastructure.
- The Middle East Crisis: Airstrikes and counter-attacks have damaged major refineries throughout the Persian Gulf. Combined with the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, roughly 13 million barrels per day of crude and refined products have been shut in or logistically trapped.
- The Russian Drone Campaign: Concurrently, Ukrainian drone strikes have systematically taken out Russian refinery hubs. Experts estimate that nearly 40% of Russia’s domestic refining capacity is offline. Because Russia was a primary exporter of diesel—previously shipping over 1 million barrels daily—their sudden export halt forced the U.S. and Europe to frantically cover global demand.
The Crude vs. Product Disconnect (Refinery Bottleneck)
This capacity crunch creates a unique economic divergence: raw crude oil cannot be automatically poured into a tractor or cargo ship; it must pass through a refinery.
- Because so many global refineries are offline or damaged, crude oil is artificially cheap relative to the fuel it makes. Refiners simply do not have the physical capacity to process all the crude available, keeping raw crude prices somewhat anchored.
- Conversely, the finished products (like diesel) are incredibly scarce. Buyers are willing to pay an astronomical premium for fuel that is already refined, blowing the “crack spread” out to record widths.
Evaporating Inventories Meant “No Cushion”
The war in Iran broke out at a time when the world was already running historically low middle-distillate stockpiles.
- During the initial phase of the conflict, the market stabilized by aggressively drawing down commercial storage and tankers, draining roughly 5 million barrels per day from global inventories to mask the missing flows.
- Those emergency cushions are now completely exhausted. In the U.S., diesel inventories have plummeted to 10% below multi-year averages, leaving zero room for error.
Double Squeeze Synopsis
Here are the true drivers behind the historic divergence between raw crude and finished fuel:
- The Geopolitical Blockade: The war in Iran and the resulting closure of the Strait of Hormuz have effectively trapped or shut in roughly 13 million barrels per day of global energy flows. The market is not functioning normally because physical oil cannot move freely to where it is needed.
- The Downstream Refining Bottleneck: Raw crude is useless until it is processed. With a massive portion of international refining capacity physically knocked offline by geopolitical conflicts, operational refineries are choked. They cannot process raw crude fast enough to meet demand, leaving raw crude inventories artificially stranded in certain regions while the finished diesel coming out of the other end of the pipe commands an astronomical scarcity premium.
- The Illusion of “Plenty”: Raw crude prices look deceptively anchored only because the U.S. has aggressively cannibalized its insurance policy, drawing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) down past a 40-year low to just 298.7 million barrels. This desperate drain has masked the structural crude shortfall, but the emergency runway is rapidly running out.
Price of Diesel vs Price of Crude
The Retail Reality
According to the latest AAA Fuel Prices data, the national average for retail diesel surged to $5.445 per gallon on August 17.
The all-time national record high for retail diesel stands at $5.816, set during the peak supply shocks of June 2022.
The country is now less than 40 cents away from breaking that record. Unlike 2022, however, the current spike is happening with a depleted Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
And there is nothing anyone can do about a global shortage in refining capacity.
Macro Verdict
The economic reality of this double-squeeze—a tight maritime blockade compounded by crippled global refining capacity—means the U.S. is rapidly running out of economic runways. The ongoing depletion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a 40-year low reveals the true structural deficit.
With diesel inventories sitting at a 12% seasonal deficit right as the agricultural harvest begins, independent truckers and price-taking farmers are left to entirely absorb the blow of a $101.85 crack spread.
The downstream supply chain is broken, and the inflationary consequences are locked in.
Not a Small Price
In yet another huge political gaffe, on August 14, Trump proclaimed “I’ll Never Apologize, You’re Just Paying a Tiny Bit More”
Tell that to independent truckers operating on razor-thin spot margins.
Tell that to America’s price-taking farmers locking in massive input costs ahead of a critical harvest.
It isn’t a “tiny little bit more”. It is an inflationary tax that will ripple through every consumer household in the country.
And the bond market is watching too.
For discussion, please see Rising Bond Yields Are a Warning to the US Treasury and the Fed
The Fed is not in a good spot.
Iran is mocking Trump now, saying that he is begging them for a deal. Trump is now insisting there are no discussions with Iran. Iran is using Trump psychology on Trump!
Iran is playing Trump. This is why he needs to get busy inghem another beating.
why do you use a theme which sets the comment color to light gray with::
#wpdcom .wpd-comment-text {
color: #777777;
}
This makes the comment so hard to read on my screen that usually I don’t bother. When I really, really want to read them I click “Inspect” and overide it.
IIRC you’re an ex-developer, shoved out by age discrimination.
You should be able to fix this.
I use a browser extension in Chrome called Colorfy to change to black text on a white backround.
I can fix this = Just ask.
Why? No idea
And we’ll keep dipping into that reserve until at least midterms. Trump can’t lose them so he’ll do anything and I mean anything to keep the pumps limping along. More freedom gas station scams for all!
So you are stating that the Republicans WILL hold onto Congress?
Switch to EV powered vehicles. Can’t afford to do so? Then maybe you shouldn’t be in business.
Also, look into switching to indoor vertical farms. Very little diesel needed.
Well im all for evs. You plug in to a system that burns nat gas. You have huge demands from data centers driving up cost. Also nat gas is relativly cheap right now because the ability to export is maxed out. Once the new terminal opens expect prices to rise.
If your business doesn’t allow you to survive market ups and downs that others are surviving, then perhaps you should be in another business, or in no business at all. Go work for someone who can handle marketplace swings.
Dear truckers find another job and blame Trump if you can’t afford his “tiny” price hike.
When I was trucking as an owner operator, during fuel price spikes our surcharge was calculated at an average 6.0 MPG. We averaged 8.3 pretty consistently and the surcharge pretty much paid for all our fuel, the higher the price, the better.
This won’t be a concern for much longer:
You may be trying to be antagonistic, as you oftentimes are here. Bur your post reads as if it came straight from a libertarian playbook.
Should unionized school employees expect tenure and lifetime pensions? Should farmers expect guaranteed crop prices?
So why should independent truckers expect non-volatile input diesel prices?
So I was surprised by the response you received. But maybe libertarianism has changed since I studied it.
Is the price of oil right now due to libertarian policy, or to mindless war mongering?
How will does libertarianism work when only self proclaimed libertarians practice it, but the people in power practice fascism or whatever the fuck it is trump is doing?
Yes, Trump started an unnecessary war. So did Bush. And Biden promoted EVs and Obama instituted a national subsidized health insurance policy. All affected individual Americans either positively or negatively vs. none of these policies being instituted.
That’s called real life in a political America and it’s far from perfect. But I thought libertarian ideas in this real life were being discussed.
“So I was surprised by the response you received”
The almost universal thumbs down for Jojo’s comments are less about the content and more because Jojo is a misanthrope who delights in the suffering and misery of others
No, I am just honest.
This USED to be a Libertarian blog but now it’s littered with bleeding-heart libs. SAD!
From years back when I covered this, and related, space I recall what a raw deal the Independent Truckers get. They get whored out to the cheapest, leanest, among the worst contract rates and are essentially:
The first to get cuts
The last to get offers
Often seeing below market “price taker” rates. (For less than more solid longer term operators
So it;s VERY tough on them to “buy” their own rig. Typically just them and the bank. And the bank has to price the loan and terms cognizant of the short stick deal the operator gets.
A very thankless profession. And when fuel gets high the manufacturers contracting the shipping often don’t have to pay these independents properly (aka: fairly) for the higher fuel costs. So the trucker often gets some ‘cherry picked” rate.
Hats off to them for the tough job they do and have.
They need bargaining power and we all know the best way for them to get it.
If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. So, trade associations, lobbying, and in the Trump era, (perhaps more directly and efficiently) funneling funny money through dodgy sh!tcoins to the family.
By lowering the supply of drivers.
Forming a union? Good luck in a nation this openly corrupt.
Trucker’s have been unionized before…
They should have stayed in school.
Prelude to an election day surprise. There’s going to be no election and a cyberattack to go with it.
To me, that is the biggest failure of this admin (not that the previous was working towards an opposite result…). When you first create a good situation with much effort, and then you mess it up deliberately through yet another war, that’s astounding. But there’s another bad side effect: if the socialists get their “green new deal”, their starting point will not be $39, but $100. Which means that criticism against economically destructive green agendas can only go so far in the future…
I am wiling to pay extra so my climate will not collapse. Already I’m paying it in catastrophe insurance premiums, where obtainable at all.
So you mean you have no problem with the current energy spike? Farmers should be happy for being forced to consume less, thus protecting the climate?
Or is it that “energy prices spikes under democrats are ok, but not ok under Trump”.
You have to ask yourself whether you are talking about policy or about being juvenile fanboys of one part or the other.
Ukraine by piecemeal is destroying Russia’s refining capacity and Iran’s is offline and nobody cares. Just the price of doing business. Refiners love it because of better margins. Nevertheless they are increasing th purchase of heavy crude from Canada and Venezuela because the heavy stuff makes more diesel than the light variety. Companies adjust.
Ukraine literally has to pick their battles. So WISELY they intentionally pick asymetric warfare. Damn strategically smart of them to do so. B/e in a regular slog it out in the trencches war they are WAY out gunned and out spent. So they attack MAJOR value targets, that also are easier to hit sittign ducks.
And they are alsoefficient about it to. Their basic drone is ~1/5th the cost of a US drone, and carries almost 5 X’s the size of our equivalent drone.
Their new Flamingo cruse missle uses junked and dumped old jet engines (irronically some ARE actually formerlt Russian!) that cost very little to get and spruse up for brief flights.
Read and see, they what they are doing and why. And really shows just how pathetic the US Defense Industry is in delivering ANY KIND OF VALUE TO THE COUNTRY AND TAXPAYERS.
https://firepoint.technology/en/blogs/new-warheads-and-in-house-engine-production-for-flamingo-and-other-highlights-from-the-fire-point-press-conference/
They target wisely and are not inhibited by the US and the other countries as to their targets. Russian refineries being destroyed does not worry anyone.
There are a lot of down voters on the blog that still expect Russia to overwhelm Ukraine any day now, despite the war having ground into a stalemate.
Great post!
Ukraine does not do anything other than supply warm live bodies. Everything is done by NATO.
Some people might say that the living human beings are the most important part.
Demand destruction is the next logical step.
Well yeah, economics is a field of make believe unless carefully tied to logistics, which is not. If there’s physically no fuel to go around, pricing doesn’t matter, there will be no fuel in someone’s tank soon. Not a good tiding for the holidays.
The fuel is still there, it’s just too expensive.
Stores lengthen the time between deliveries – customers see shelves empty longer.
OR:
They have fewer but bigger shipments and stuff their back rooms to the rafters and have the rest spill out onto the floor
No? The fuel is physically not still there or it wouldn’t be expensive. This is very basic supply and demand. Supply went down due to war, demand is the same, oil will have to stretch thinner as a result. Do people read the article above and think there’s magic wells of diesel coming from thin air somewhere to make up the gaps?
It’s only “expensive” to those without enough money.
Yes, and capitalism will end up rationing by price. Some getting priced out of consumption until it adjusts in the aggregate demand.
1/ Sour stocks in the SPR are extremely low and are what needs to be watched.
2/ Sour coming from Venezuela is subject to distruption by drone
3/ Boo f’ing hoo for farmers and truckers, all of whom voted not once but twice for the Orange dolt.
One suspects war-induced fertilizer shortage will impact food prices in early 2027. (I’m reasoning it didn’t affect N. American spring planting.)
Wasn’t supposed to happen this year?
It is happening this year, but so far mostly in production areas other than North America where most fertilizer was purchased before Iran bombings – until Autumn fertilizer season starts.
Other countries are getting hammered:
https://www.ifpri.org/blog/iran-war-from-fertilizer-to-food-crisis/
There are some signs of actual concrete shortages but nothing widespread yet. Price increases yes and emptier shelves but no famines. Fertilizer prices are off their high and supplies have increased but not enough to be back to pre-war levels but enough to stave off the worst. I do remember that many people were saying it would happen with last spring’s planting. Now they put it off a year.
Yes, farming is different time-wise than diesel fuel production. Most fertilizers need to be shipped from a few global production points and used during/before planting season (which is at different times in different parts of the world), which also requires significant time for plants to grow and then be harvested. That’s on a much longer time-frame then refining oil.
So real food shortages take longer time for consequences to arise than diesel shortages. But a six-month war with Iran (and the Hormuz) is going to make that happen on a global scale.
I provided a source with data to back that up. Where did you get your opinions that food issues aren’t too bad?
The clock will always be right twice a day, Just be patient.
It’s a small price to pay to keep the Epstein files secret.
/s
Crack spreads are going up because I recently sold off all my downstream shares.
I am the culprit.
I know, right? I’m thinking about crashing the stock market by getting back in!
meanwhile: China’s plan to dominate global food supply chainsBeijing’s 15th five-year plan will marshal all levers of state power towards one end
https://archive.is/20260818131732/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/08/18/china-aiming-for-global-dominance-of-mass-food-production/#selection-2247.4-2251.91
Technology. Amazing. This has enabled the world not to worry about food even though the topic is brought up all the time. LOL Price of grains have pretty much inflation resistance for the past 20 years. They are pretty much the same price ove r 20 years. What else besides Nat Gas has seen no inflation. People are making a lot more money but the price of raw food has pretty much been stable.
Currently families avg 9% of their income to purchase food. Prior to 1950, it ranged between 20 to 25%. By 1970s it was 13%.
I read Africa is an untapped source of potential farmland.
These bible thumpers, of all people, should be familiar with the concept of “your reap what you sow” so the only question to ask the farmers is “how you like them diesel prices?” Lol. These are top notch suckers and losers. Double lol
And you guys aren’t even half-way through this clown’s term. Triple lol.
Do worry, Trump, Walrus, GOP, and democrats will find a way to make things even worse.™
Excellent post. 3-star Mishelin award granted.
“your reap what you sow”
That’s only for other people, silly!
Have no fear, the Bible-thumpers will be bailed out by this criminal administration stealing from your wallet and mine.
They’re free to vote their minds in Iowa and Nebraska in two months if it hurts so much. Or they can let the beatings continue and naïvely hope someone bails them out.
Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Oman. Etc.
Didn’t Trump screw the farmers on soybeans too, and then bail them out, on our credit card? All the costs trickle down to you-know-who.
“In yet another huge political gaffe, on August 14, Trump proclaimed “I’ll Never Apologize, You’re Just Paying a Tiny Bit More”
Tell that to independent truckers operating on razor-thin spot margins.
Tell that to America’s price-taking farmers locking in massive input costs ahead of a critical harvest.
It isn’t a “tiny little bit more”. It is an inflationary tax that will ripple through every consumer household in the country.”
Trump doesn’t give a shit about Americans, and he doesn’t mind telling them so.
“If there is no bread, then let them eat cake!“
Trump is an Israel First politician, one of many. This military campaign is for the advancement of the Greater Israel project. Its cost to the US voter and to the rest of the world is unimportant to him.
GFY!
Looks like Oleg hit a nerve when he spoke the truth!
It’s just a tiny bit more to keep the Epstein files secret.
“Trump doesn’t give a shit about Americans”
Americans don’t give a shit about Americans. Why should their President?
Great article Mish!
Farmer are going to have to quit an annoying and needless habit. Recreational tillage..
“Because Russia was a primary exporter of diesel—previously shipping over 1 million barrels daily—their sudden export halt forced the U.S. and Europe to frantically cover global demand.”
Replace “frantically” with “happily.”
Cha-ching, TrumpCO Day trading desk.
Don’t like seeing AI slop in these posts
Then bugger off.
Do you expect better from the usual suspects? It’s either ask grok or call their grandson up.
Another relatively small but important US loss of diesel refining capacity is from conversion of about 6 refineries from petroleum feedstock to biomass. Estimated decrease in available diesel fuel is 300 to 400 thousand barrels per day (estimate from Copilot). An acquaintance tells me the output declines about 70% to 80% following the conversion. I cannot imagine the economic motive for the conversion so there must have been some sort of coercion (political benefit?) impacting the decision.
The Iowa caucuses
Crack kills.
Diesel is in the price of everything since everything moves by diesel. Most farmers I know hedge a large chunk of their fuel cost so it’s mostly about the length of time it remains outrageously expensive. So anyone that was waiting for relief but short of fuel is really feeling the bite. I just paid 5.299 and it was 5.599 at most stations locally. Thankfully I’m not a large user but with the SPR needing to be replenished and this having dragged on for 6 months so far, things not trending in the disinflation camp in the near future. Warsh is gonna wish he was somewhere else.
meanwhile: Source: Pentagon concedes no military plan can secure Strait of Hormuz as Trump seeks scapegoats
https://www.presstv.co.uk/Detail/2026/08/17/774554/pentagon-concedes-no-military-plan-secure-strait-hormuz-trump-seeks-scapegoats-source
But but but JoJo said that a ground invasion would surely do the trick!
Surely The Oracle Of The Western World, The Great Dumbass Himself, cannot be wrong?!?
Who would that anonymous source be? I bet it is an Iranian IRGC member since PressTV is an Iranian propaganda source.
“Crack spread” is VERY appropriate terminology considering what Trump & Netanyahu are doing to everyone around the world. Hopefully the crack spread on bootylube doesn’t make that particular petroleum product unaffordable for our HARD poundings by Trump & Bibi.
Fabulous article Mish! A 5 star Mishelin award!
I have been mentioning this issue in the comments section in small snippets since cracks hit $60 a month ago. But your article did it the justice it deserves.
I will add a couple of details to your excellent article:
In addition to ME and Russian refinery shutdowns; When the war began, China stopped their refinery exports for several months and just recently allowed them again. This resulted in a 1 mbpd shortage of refined product which contributed to the current shortfall. And it reduced China’s oil imports by 1 Mbpd which was part of their massive 4-5 mbpd cut in oil imports.
The Trump administration likes to take credit for oil prices below $100, through SPR releases and jawboning. And that is partially true. However, the biggest reason is a shortage of working refineries globally to take that oil and produce the products the world needs to keep operating. This is resulting in high diesel prices because of a lack of supply. Which is more important than the oil price itself. $85 oil. $185 diesel.
We are running down the oil storage reserves as well now. When the tanks are empty, oil will shoot up in price as well due to lack of supply.
It will be interesting to watch diesel prices over the next few months. If the shortage continues, prices will rise higher yet.
At the margin, another factor is the decrease in US refining capacity over the last few years. It is amazing to me that no completely new refineries have been built in the US in 50 years. There are a number of factors responsible, including regulations. Normally this marginal decrease wouldn’t have been enough to have any effect on crack spreads (it didn’t before the war), but on top of the ME and Russia factors, the decline in US refining capacity becomes important too.
The big refiners did make massive investments in their refineries over those years though. They converted from refining light sweet Texas crude to Heavy Sour crudes from Canada, Venezuela and the ME. Unfortunately, they set themselves up to be big importers of foreign oil.
They had to. US oil production dropped from 10 mbpd in the 1970s to 5 mbpd by 2008. The easiest and closest available oil was from Canada and Venezuela and it was much heavier.
The higher they go the higher my profits. Remember, sell calls on rallies and buy them back when Trump jawbones the market. Rinse, repeat, get rich.
I know that Ethanol (corn mostly in the US) is added to gas to lower the amount of oil required to make gas. I also know they can make Biodiesel from it as well.
I’m surprised that more Biodiesel isn’t being made to lower the price of diesel in the same way it’s being made to lower the price of gas (currently 15% of gas is now allowed to be ethanol up from the normal 10% which is usually lower than that in the summer). Or do you think politically it’s all being devoted to gas to keep the price under 4/gallon?
Wrong! Iran can dramatically worsen that shortage of refining capacity if it so desires.
Yes. Ditto.
If they do, I expect it will be ‘every country for themselves’ in that Trump will declare an emergency and stop any exporting of Diesel under the guise of that emergency. Other countries will do the same.
I thought only someone like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders would do something like that?
Is Trump now a socialist instead of a capitalist?
How so? The Iranian Regime is blocked from shipping anything out through the Persian Gulf.
They’re not blocked from “shipping” missiles onto oil-juicy targets in the region. Sure, maybe they would be committing suicide to do so, but if they suspect Israel is about to nuke them, why not go for broke?
Long bond rates surging. Price of everything is about to reflect the costs of all the bad choices and BS that have been thrown at us.
Yes, but Israel does not care, and if Israel does not care, then trump does not care.
It’s amazing how a small country of just 10 million people, including women and children, that has existed for only a bit under 80 years, has such power and can exert such control over the world and events!
Not to speak of how it has dug into your mind to the degree that you can’t seem to think of anything else based on your posts.
Israel is on the minds of a lot of people, for many of the same reasons that Nazi Germany was on the minds of people in the 1930s
Astute observations and yes, you will get crushed by inflation but the real pain is still a few years away, right now is play time.
Great Article! Many farmers, tradesmen turned in their diesel powered SMALLER trucks. Farmers have kept older tractors, not requiring DEF, all the corrosive problems associated with it. Play games with the people producing your food and with those who haul food to you, you may not find the things you like to eat; you may go hungry!
“YOU” may go hungry. I won’t.
You think your old ass can hold back the hungry people seeking to rob you Jojo? We’ve seen how great your tactical predictions go so far, I’d love to see you bet your life on the strait being open next week.
Americans have not yet felt 1% of the economic pain they are entitled to.
Everything the Western Europeans have done will come back to them too this winter. The more drones they send into Russian refineries, the more effed-in-the-ay they’re going to be in January.
Do you mean to say “…pain that they DESERVE.”
I live in Europe half of the time, and Europeans are just as vulnerable IF NOT MORE SO due to many more Diesel Auto’s running down the road.
Will that pain at the pump tell us that Europeans are getting the pain that they are “entitled to” (DESERVE)?
“Will that pain at the pump tell us that Europeans are getting the pain that they are “entitled to” (DESERVE)?”
Yes, europeans deserve every bad thing they get and more.
As do Americans.
I think Americans deserve a little more IMHO. Actually much more.
Europeans are buying Chinese EV cars all thanks to Trump.
https://gfmag.com/capital-raising-corporate-finance/byd-ev-growth-european-banks/
Trump drives the world into the arms of China.
I expect European protectionism to intercede here shortly.
This is an especially sensitive issue for Germany and their auto sector.
Volkswagon has had 25 years to engineer and produce a solid, low-cost EV and never really cared enough to try. They’re a management and shareholder failure and should go the way of the horse-drawn carriage. The Europeans should simply require the Chinese to produce their cars in Europe for the European market. As should Americans for the American market.
That’s the rub. The Chinese need to keep THEIR people working too so they want to manufacture in China.
Once you build those Chinese EV’s here or in Europe the cost jumps a lot due to labor prices so you no longer get a low cost EV.
It’s not really a question of where the cars are produced but the software that underpins the car, which collects beaucoup data that “may” be shipped back to China and “may” have the capability to remotely brick the car by a command from China.
All depends on how you look at it.
Trump will say that if the Europeans had helped him initially with Iran this would all be over by now so of course they are entitled to pain they deserve for not helping when asked.
But adding in the Europeans wouldn’t have changed anything, and everybody knows it.
FFS
Then he should have advised the Europeans of his plans, outlined his rationale, and requested their assistance
Not bluster in, fuck up totally and then demand he be bailed out of his self-imposed mess
Just switch the gas station signs to $ per liter.
No one in America would know what that meant – LOL
Are you THE “cambeiu” from Reddit or have you just taken his name?