Michael Tae Sweeney: — Subium • Bluesky web client

Michael Tae Sweeney @mtsw.bsky.social · 1 mo

I'm not even joking bsky.app/profile/chri...

Joe Biden pulled off perhaps the greatest oil trade of all time and in the process broke OPEC's grip and basically no one knows about it. We did a long segment on it last night and it's fascinating and worth your time. www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch...

How Joe Biden 'broke OPEC' and rewrote the rules for oil tradingwww.msnbc.com The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, has had massive influence over American politics for six decades. President Biden’s "incredible" oil market trading has broken this infl...

Good for Biden, but goddamn, I cannot wait until EVs take over and break the stupid fucking stranglehold gas prices have over our politics once and for all

I'm really hoping that the broad disinterest in cars from gen Z, and the fast uptake of e-bikes and scooters drives even broader changes. Breaking the gas price hold on our national elections, car dealership owners hold on local elections, and driving general demand for non-car infrastructure.

couldn't agree more. want to hire me??

I have a friend who, in 2016 said things like, “we need artificial scarcity to drive gas to $12/gallon so people will have an incentive to take climate change seriously.” Now, in 2024, he says things like, “people are rational to be upset with Biden, things like gas prices are ruining their lives.”

Utility prices will fuck this up

My electric utility has not been covering itself in glory when it comes to price stability

Consumer electricity prices are certainly going up but it's still *so* much less volatile than gasoline

It becomes more of a local problem, and my market only allows two changes per year, but this is almost the same as the swings in gas price

Out with gas prices, in with groceries and fast food prices.

I am once again angry at how terrible his PR team must be that this is not being trumpeted from the rooftops

I want to see these guard rail prices implemented for way more stuff

Strategic Ground Beef Reserve

They laid out this plan before they did it. It worked exactly how they said it was going to work. They somehow found another win-win-win with a level of strategic planning & implementation Trumps team could only imagine.

That is a great piece by Hayes

It's so good I'm considering (shudder) reading the Atlantic piece.

Given how much oil the US produces and that it’s priced in USD I have long wondered why we didn’t run an oil price stabilization scheme

Good news- it's actually The Economist. www.economist.com/finance-and-...

Joe Biden, master oil traderwww.economist.com The president has turned volatility into profit

Huh

is there a text version of this?

Why are dems SO BAD at bringing focus to their wins

Kinda weird seeing commodities trading being used for US consumers and not against them, saves me a couple of bucks.

For real

so true! hire me

same, ya boy needs w2 income

who doesn't love filing 1099-NECs year after year when you went to state school for an engineering degree and moved back in with the 'rents! bidden boommmmm baby!!!!

well that sounds fuckin miserable

Truly think we might get some up tick on consumer feeling with summer price drops (even if they're largely fanciful and deceitful) that fast food and places like target are doing. lots of sale signs

Target putting "new low price!!" banners on products being sold at 2021 prices. Not complaining, just think it's funny.

That’s what I’m saying. Makes people feel better though!

Biden administration doesn't miss. OPEC fucked around and found out!

yoooooo hire me!!!

irrespective of the current inflation/economy discourse, Americans' obsession with marginal differences in gas prices has always been deeply bizarre to me

Also that the shift in marginal differences never seems to drive change in consumer behavior "I'm paying over $100 to fill up my F150!" Buddy, why tf are you using an 8 cylinder truck as a commuter vehicle. Like what are you doing

We could have learned this lesson in the late 70s but nooo

I said to my therapist a couple weeks ago that if you gave most Americans a choice between saving Democracy and potentially saving $100/month on their grocery bill, most would choose the latter.

common-sense redistributive policy has been so sharply occluded from US political discourse that any candidate proposing we simply give people cash for groceries would be perceived as dangerously progressive/radical by our political media

with the result that there is this weird lane by which bog-standard reactionaries can try to out-flank mainstream Dems by appealing to ‘everyday’ economic interests: prices of gas, food, and other staple commodities

True, but a lot of Americans see it as "gas/grocery prices go up, Biden's fault, Biden bad, I vote Trump." If Biden offered them $100/month he's a dangerous socialist. If Trump's policies save them $100/month he's a good capitalist (nevermind that his policies won't ever do that)

Yes absolutely and this rests on a folk myth of the economy that seems to have really deep roots in the US - the President is the executive of the economy, responsible in the last instance for our shared economic success. Which is a very undemocratic way for a nation to be thinking.

It’s the media reporting on a phenomenon that they themselves are creating

the thing I'm commenting on has been happening forever, though! People talk about gas from X being expensive when it's, like, $2 more per tank than the place down the street. A combination of general carbrain and gas prices being constantly broadcast to the third decimal, I think.

… so gas prices for whatever reason have become a ‘safe’ way for media to cover economic hardship, especially in the absence of actual analysis or news reporting. and so the gas prices discourse is really warped, almost entirely disconnected from economic reality.

I was shocked gas went from broaching $5 dollars to $4.50 like overnight here in LA.

$2.77/g at HEB today!

sick!!! want to hire me?

it’s so funny that the president does in fact control gas prices

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