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SGT Ruben Lozada
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Good afternoon LTC Eugene Chu. Excellent post. Thank You for sharing this. Sir.
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
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LTC Eugene Chu About Bloody Time! Then Again the "Conservatives" "Republicans" will never Note that Fact.
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MSG Stan Hutchison
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Some conservatives refuse to understand that COVID was the major contributor to the economic problem, with some job loses plus the supply chain interruptions. Of course all the greedy over adjusting of prices did not help.
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MSG Stan Hutchison
MSG Stan Hutchison
10 mo
SFC Casey O'Mally - Also, do you think the oil companies taking record-breaking profits with their high gas prices had any impact?
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SFC Casey O'Mally
SFC Casey O'Mally
10 mo
MSG Stan Hutchison Of the 4.54T spent on COVID by the federal government about 484B went to HHS.

https://www.usaspending.gov/disaster/covid-19?publicLaw=all

That's just over 10%.

Now, obviously SOME of the money that went to other agencies went to fighting COVID. Conversely, we can safely assume that not all of the money that went to HHS actually went to fighting COVID.

The overwhelming majority of COVID spending had nothing to do with COVID, and everything to do with how our government botched the COVID response.


And if you really need evidence to understand that throwing 6T new dollars into the economy by simply printing more money causes inflation, then I can't help you. That is HS level economics, not even a remotely advanced concept.

As for the robber barons, yes they did their part. But a large part of why they were ABLE to charge such high prices is because they had cover. Biden put a HUGE dent in supply and oil prices shot up. That gave the oil folks cover to jack prices even higher. And the government printing money like it was going out of style - including covering high costs of fuel - meant that consumers had the money to pay for it. Not happily, but they did.

Supply and demand. Supply was low, demand went up. So did prices. As prices got TOO high, demand went down. At the same time, Biden started releasing oil from the strategic reserve, increasing supply. And, lo and behold, prices went down. At least where I live, they are still about 20% higher than when Biden took office, but that is far better than it was. And considering the rampant inflation, prices are really right about where they were when he took office, at least in 2021 dollars.

Luckily, I work for the government, so I have gotten multiple Cost of Living raises. My paycheck has kept pace with inflation (and due to promotion, has even outpaced it a bit!). Most folks are not so lucky.
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MSG Stan Hutchison
MSG Stan Hutchison
10 mo
SFC Casey O'Mally -1. " throwing 6T new dollars into the economy by simply printing more money causes inflation"
What 6T?
2. " Biden put a HUGE dent in supply "
Not true. It may have been a small dent, but not all that much. Keystone oil was not going to US supply.




https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/01/18/ [login to see] /the-movement-to-stick-inflation-blame-on-biden
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SFC Casey O'Mally
SFC Casey O'Mally
10 mo
MSG Stan Hutchison
1. The 4.5T in "COVID" spending that I already provided the link for, plus the 1.5T for the "inflation reduction" act

https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/inflation_reduction_act_one_page_summary.pdf

2. "In 2022, global crude oil production increased by a record 5.4% rate, much above its 2021 growth... Most of the increase in global oil production occurred in the Middle East (+13%), especially in Saudi Arabia (+16%), the United Arab Emirates (+15%), Kuwait (+8.1%) and Iran (+5.9% despite sanctions). It also increased in North America (+6.5% in the US."

China had weak recovery and Africa actually LOST production, plus Trudeau hurt Canadian production even more than Biden hurt American production, which dragged the world average down. So the US outpaced the global average. But we were below the median and greatly outpaced by the middle east who had none of Biden's restrictions. IRAN, despite their massive sanctions, increased production nearly as much as we did.

https://yearbook.enerdata.net/crude-oil/world-production-statistics.html

US oil production plummeted to almost zero and then SLOWLY recovered, and STILL has not reach pre-pandemic levels, whereas the middle east has surpassed pre-pandemic levels.

THAT is denting supply. It is also making us more beholden to foreign oil czars and their whims.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS2&f=M
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