Release of Oil From Strategic Reserves by Dementia Biden

[Whig]

So, Biden's handlers, when not working diligently to keep him in clean diapers, have had him declare that the government will be releasing 1 million barrels of oil A DAY from our emergency strategic reserves. The US uses 20 million barrel a day, so, this MAY lower the price of gasoline by around 50 cents a gallon. Now, it has been released that this will be done for 6 months! Six months, 180 days, 180 million barrels from our emergency reserves of which the US has around 750 million barrels now. That's 25% of our emergency reserves that we will consume, not for any emergency, as President Trump declared it should be used for exclusively, but, here it goes, long enough to attempt to keep prices at the pump lower BEFORE THE NOVEMBER ELECTIONS!

Any surprise? Biden's handlers (Obama, Soros, who knows?) don't care about keeping America strong. They only care about winning elections.

Anyone voting for democrats this year? I would like to see all of them, both parties, wiped out. Get rid of all career politicians and we might have a small chance at surviving. Still doubtful since most politicians are controlled by big money and big business.

Trump refilled the strategic reserves when he was president at much lower oil prices to keep America prepared and strong. Oh, well. The NEW World Order is just around the corner!

Keep your (Krag .30-40) powder dry!

[Doubly Reincarnated]

The oil is just for show. If you want to see short-sightedness, take a look at their water policies. We're in a drought in the western US, at least anywhere south of the Columbia River. Serious students of climatology tell us this could last for years. Biden's handlers decide to give 20 % of the already-oversubscribed Colorado River water to the Indians. The Navajo and the Pueblo bands will put the water to good use, but some of the smaller groups will run the water into the desert and let it evaporate. Who gets shorted? The folks who use irrigation water to grow veggies.

We're going to get rid of coal and oil and no more wood stoves and we'll cut way back on natural gas because all that nasty CO2 is responsible for climate change. Instead, we'll all use wind & solar. Everything will be electric and the world will be saved. But there are approved & funded plans to remove 5 functioning, non-polluting, hydroelectric dams in CA and OR to allow fish (coho salmon, steelhead trout) to use the rivers. But the fish aren't endangered. You can buy them at Costco. What about the 150,000 people who got their electricity from the dams? They need to be hooked up to the Grid!

Water is diverted from these 5 dams & is used to grow wheat, potatoes, and hay that feeds dairy cows through the winter. Combine that with drought and we're looking at potentially serious food shortages. But let's welcome all those immigrants and refugees. Some of them might get jobs picking veggies, but no veggies means no jobs. But what the hell, there's welfare and food stamps for everybody.

Just run the printing presses and print more money. But money is paper and that means we'll have to cut down more trees. Not to worry, we'll give everybody credit cards, made of recycled plastic.

[FredC]

Serious students of climatology tell us this could last for years.

I clipped the attached article from an old newspaper. You may find it interesting. The area involved in the mega droughts listed were in the southwest and Mexico. Whether the same droughts affected the areas you mention are not certain.
Climate change may be real but I think the effects a given region are hard to understand. Could climate change make a drought better or worse is beyond me. We had an offer from a solar company here. They needed 1000 acres to make the farm. It would have taken almost all of my place plus contributions from larger acreage neighbors. The deal fell through. With the current war in Ukraine I am seeing huge shortfalls in wheat for several years. Can only imagine the famines that may come as productive farm land is eaten up by solar farms. Even if it was not solar farms the aging of current farmers has to be hurting overall food production in this country, I doubt if the previous blind squirrel or the current one has this on their radar. It is in the interests of whoever is in power to keep food prices so low that people will have more money for gadgets that farming has gotten to be such a losing proposition.

[Whig]

Drought, aging farmers, climate change, solar energy fields...Remember what Michael Bloomberg said when he was running for president:

Bloomberg can be heard saying: “I could teach anybody — even people in this room, no offense intended — to be a farmer. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn.”

We have nothing to worry about. Anyone can be a farmer and grow crops!

[FredC]

If it were only that simple, I could even do it.
Funny that one seed was mentioned. My neighbor when planting seedless watermelons buys seeds by the count not weight. I forgot what the exact price was, but I remember it being something like $.50 cents per seed. Two different varieties are planted to get the seedless hybrid, the ratio of seeds is something like 5 to 1. So in the same field you get 5 plants with seedless and one that will be seeded. The melons do not look that different to me, but the crews that pick them have to be good to separate them. Gets pricey real fast when you plant 300 acres of them.

A couple of years ago we did an Airlife landing in a watermelon field. The ambulance crew was giving the fellow CPR when we got there. The kid was about 17 years old and just gotten off a snack break when he collapsed (10:30 in the morning). The Airlife medic and EMT tried to get ahold of family so they could stop CPR, but could not as his parents were in Mexico. So they were still giving him CPR as they flew off.

Good things to know when you buy a seedless watermelon and think the price is awfully high. They are not easy or cheap to grow.

[Whig]

Never knew that about the seedless watermelons. But, even the "seedless" watermelons I've seen have little thin black seeds!

[Doubly Reincarnated]

Fred, thanks for your drought posting. The Palmer Index is still used, maps still tell us we're in trouble. Tree-ring counts and Carbon 14 dates from the logs used as support timbers in those abandoned cliff dwellings, Mesa Verde & such, stretch the duration of known droughts even longer than the Mexican cypress, and all the data point in the same direction, nothing contradicting.

We have some young farmers here in Humboldt County, CA, and some of them grow veggies instead of marijuana. One guy I know does everything with oxen. Lots of dairy operations around here. If a young person wants to try oxen, all he/she has to do is ask one of the dairy folks for a couple of bull calves. The guy who uses oxen has 3 teams, told me he's never had to pay for a bull calf. The dairy folks would rather see the bull calves go to work than be sold for veal.

Milk prices here are so low that everybody had to get big or go to organic dairying (really tough on cows). Dairy folks tell me that it takes 550 milkers to make any money. The labor has always been immigrant; first Danes & Italian Swiss, then Portuguese from the Azores, now Mexicans.

[FredC]

Yeah, agriculture is such a losing proposition for so many reasons. Seems that each commodity's pricing comes from the lowest price anyone can stand to sell for. Everyone else that is not quite as efficient loses or almost breaks even. When i got some well info from the water district they showed me on a map where a neighbor's well was. Turns out he was raising squash for the local San Antonio market. This was in the mid sixties, then he quit when the prices got so low he could not afford to farm anymore. My 2 neighbors are the only ones in it anymore. One owns the regional peanut processing plant, the other is so big he can make it with subsidies. No one else can. Having a day job or oil production is the only way to have a retirement plan.

With a 20% global shortfall because of lost russian and Ukrainian wheat production and reluctance of the powers (commodity markets) that be to raise wheat futures things look grim for the near future. Then there is that drought thing. Sheesh!

[Doubly Reincarnated]

How is it that we all manage to eat? I'm 81. What will I eat when I'm 95? Does America produce enough food to feed ourselves? If it takes a 550 milkers to break even, and a lot of farmers have day jobs just to break even, and the kids don't want to farm, where will the food come from?

My father-in-law came to America from Denmark in 1920, age 14, when they sent all the teenage kids to America because they couldn't feed them. He worked hard as a farm hand, married, bought a marginal farm. FDR & the New Deal confiscated the farm as one of the Resettlement projects, sent my f-i-l to trade school to become an industrial electrician. The same deal sent his wife to school to become a cook (industrial scale). They got New Deal jobs, saved their $ and bought a better farm. Grew strawberries, asparagus, grapes for jam, potatoes & onions. They always said they made enough from the new farm to pay all the taxes (income & property), but if they wanted anything else (groceries, car, vacation, medical, retirement), the $ came from their day jobs. Retired in 1979, when they were 73, sold the farm to developers. There are probably 20 million stories just like that. For each one, we have a little less to eat.

[FredC]

DR,
That was my point. People pay so little for groceries they have money for gadgets galore, vacations and new imported cars. Seems like the powers that be like it that way so they can get re-elected. Farmers suffer though, anyone growing food for thousands of people ought to be paid well enough he could get along doing that without having a day job. No clue what next year will bring, I have read things about wheat that are scary.