While gas prices have risen a lot since the beginning of the year, they haven’t reached the apocalyptic heights many were originally predicting. That’s the way the market has been lately. At the end of last year, some analysts were worried oil prices would fall to $50 a barrel. That didn’t happen, either. What’s going on?
The answer to why the cost of a barrel of oil has stayed within a reasonable bound is China. For reasons only known to itself, the country has been quietly keeping the price of oil stable. This is at the same time that the country is exporting cars and trying to keep control of precious metals.
Another mystery involving China is why Volvo is allowed to build more cars here while Polestar is getting the boot. I’ve got a theory I’ve espoused in The Morning Dump before, and there’s now a little more evidence in that direction. There’s no conspiracy theory needed to explain Toyota’s success as it continues to benefit from a weak yen.
Car Week is nigh, and Lamborghini is celebrating the Miura in a big way. Or, well, celebrating in a way.
China As The Stabilizer Of Global Oil Prices
Above is a chart of Brent Crude Oil Last Day Financial Futures, which is a good enough measure for where prices are for global oil. Also, when I say the “you” in this post, I’m referring to a global “you” and not a specifically American one because this is a global story (a chart of WTI Crude shows a similar pattern, if you’re curious). An American is a little more sheltered whereas, say, an Australian is way more at risk from fluctuations in global oil prices.
I’m not an expert in the economics of petroleum, but I was born in the shadow of refineries and grew up in Houston, which is close enough for this discussion. Like many people, I assumed fuel prices were going to get a lot worse than they did after the coordinated US-Israeli strike on Iran and the subsequent closing of the Strait of Hormuz. This was after a long period where it seemed like fuel prices could only go down.
Early on, I listened to a podcast wherein commodity market expert Rory Johnston talked about how the price of oil could surge above $200 a barrel. That didn’t happen, and he came back later to describe where everyone went wrong in making that assumption (link here if the video doesn’t load for you):
Here’s what he said:
We always knew that China had huge stockpiles of oil, but we didn’t know how they were going to react to this crisis. And what we’ve seen through this crisis is that Chinese oil imports, crude oil imports into China, the world’s largest crude oil importer, fell by upwards of five million barrels a day between the three month average prior to the war through to June. Now we’re not quite done this month, but that’s roughly where we’re trending for June so far. That five million barrels a day was upwards of half of the total spot market supply hit to Asia, and that allowed a lot of those other Asian importers to basically not have the competition that they would have had for the barrels they were importing.
When prices of oil dropped in 2025, China did oil-producing countries a solid by stockpiling millions and millions of barrels of oil. When prices shot up, China basically stopped competing for oil on the open market and allowed more desperate countries with smaller stockpiles to catch up at a more reasonable prices.
This is weird! China is super competitive in so many ways, so what’s going on? I’m not an oil expert, but Philip Verleger is, so let’s ask him:
China likely reacted to maintain higher prices in 2025, preserve its export markets to oil-exporting countries, and maintain competition in the oil market. The latter countries purchased $320 billion in goods and services from China in 2023, the most recent data available. Chinese officials likely worried that their Middle East export market would suffer if oil prices declined precipitously. Buying oil for its strategic reserves helped keep prices up.
In 2026, China has cut its oil consumption sharply and drawn from its reserves to hold prices lower. The Chinese government understands that the country’s exports could fall if oil prices shot up and global activity decreased, as the IMF predicted in April 2026.
Many will challenge the idea of China acting as buffer stock manager in the oil market to further its economic interests. However, the evidence shows that China is consistently aggressive when it comes to boosting its economy, particularly regarding commodity markets.
It’s good to be friends with China, and hard to be competitor. As Verleger points out, China was happy to dump products on the rare earth market to make it harder for others to compete, especially the United States. China, though, seems to want its partners in the Middle East to stay in business and its consumers in the rest of the world to have the funds to import what it exports.
The minerals thing is interesting, as the Trump Administration hoped to stockpile about $300 million in lithium carbonate reserves for strategic defense reasons. After extending the deadline multiple times the Department of Defense canceled the contract. That’s kind of weird, right?
Volvo Will Make More XC60s In South Carolina
The United States effectively banned Polestar, the Chinese-owned automaker, from selling any cars after MY 2026. What it didn’t do, though, was ban Volvo, even though Volvo has essentially the same ownership structure and sells many of the same vehicles.
In fact, the new Volvo EX60 looks a lot like a Polestar 3, and there are similarities between various Geely, Polestar, Zeekr, and Polestar products. These cars do have some differences when it comes to telematics, infotainment, et cetera, and it seems like Volvo may have convinced regulators that the company’s American offerings were safe enough from the kind of surveillance and interference at the center of this whole issue.
So why couldn’t Polestar do the same? I had a theory, and it went like this:
Polestar makes a fraction of the cars that Volvo does. Given the difficulties Polestar has had in the market and other changes, it feels entirely possible that Geely could have made a deal at the top to fully utilize the South Carolina facility (thus pleasing the President and Republican politicians), resulting in a game of musical chairs where Polestar was left without a seat.
Oh, hey, here’s an update from Automotive News:
Production of the XC60, slated to begin in January, initially will boost output by more than two-thirds at the troubled Ridgeville assembly plant near Charleston.
“We are producing around 30,000 cars and [XC60] will bring at least another 20,000 to start with,” Volvo Cars Americas President Luis Rezende told Automotive News.
“It’s going to be at least a full shift, and it’s a fantastic preparation for what is coming next. Charleston will be very, very busy.”
The one thing that the Charleston plant has never been is very, very busy. It has been, per the article, operating at about 15% or so lately as it builds the Polestar 3 and Volvo Ex90. Making a bunch of XC60s there is sensible, as the model is a popular offering and has seen sales rise so far this year in the United States. Having more production in South Carolina will likely allow the company to take the XC60 and be more competitive on price.
However, the timing does feel like it supports my conspiracy theory that this is all a plan to save Volvo by bringing more jobs to South Carolina.
Toyota Is Banking On That Cheap Yen
In my article on currency last week, I said you could look at The Fast and the Furious as a movie about the strength of the US Dollar or, inversely, as a movie about the weakness of the Japanese yen.
Guess what? The yen is weak again, and this is good news for Toyota, as Nikkei Asia reports:
Toyota also raised its net revenue forecast by 3 trillion yen and its operating profit outlook by 400 billion yen. It now expects net revenue of 54 trillion yen, up 6.5% from the previous fiscal year, and operating profit of 3.4 trillion yen, down 9.7%.
[…]
Toyota cited revised foreign exchange assumptions in the current fiscal year as among factors contributing to the upward revision of 480 billion yen ($3 billion) to its operating profit forecast.
It amended its expectation for the Japanese currency in relation to the dollar to a rate of 160 yen per greenback from the previous 150 yen made at the start of the fiscal year. Regarding the euro, it now assumes a rate of 181 yen to the single currency from the previous 180 yen. For Toyota, a one-yen depreciation against the dollar lifts operating profit by 50 billion yen, while a similar weakening against the euro leads to an increase of 10 billion yen.
Not that everything is perfect at Toyota. There are still large fundamental issues with Chinese demand and supply issues related to the Middle East it has to work out. At the same time, the company is still recovering from a massive earthquake in Japan. Japan’s currency, though, is at least one factor breaking Toyota’s way.
What Do We Think Of The Lamborghini Revuelto Miura 60° Homage?
I truly adore the Lamborghini Miura and the 60th anniversary of the model’s debut is Lamborghini’s excuse to bring a bunch of them to Car Week next week. That’ll be incredible. I can’t wait.
While I haven’t driven the new Lamborghini Revuelto I’m sure it’s great, and people I know who have had the chance say great things about it. Lamborghini is taking the Revuelto and giving it a Miura-like tribute, which includes:
The exterior configuration of the Revuelto Miura 60° Homage features two dedicated liveries, inspired by classic styling characteristics found on many historic Miuras: lower body sections finished in a contrasting color to the main bodywork. Customers can choose between the Oro Elios livery paired with Altanero Shiny Gold wheels, or the Grigio Nimbus livery combined with Altanero Matt Titanium Diamond wheels. Both configurations celebrate color combinations that helped establish the Miura as an automotive icon.
The exterior design is completed by the dedicated Miura 60 logo, positioned above the Revuelto script on the side sill near the rear wheel arch, together with a gloss black Lamborghini rear logo, recalling one of the distinctive styling details of the original Miura. Complementing this color scheme, the Revuelto Miura 60° Homage features gloss black brake calipers and matte black exhaust tailpipes.
Neat, I guess? Is that enough to count as a tribute? Is there anything else the company could have done? I guess I’ll have to wait until I see it.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I’ve been listening to The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, and they made an interesting point in an episode recently about the “I’m on a Boat” song. They made the point that the joke works as a song, but once you see the video it’s just that much funnier. It’s true. You gotta see the shorts.
The Big Question
What’s the best tribute car? What’s the worst?
Top graphic images: DepositPhotos.com
If they ever make a spin-off show from the Yellowstone universe set in Houston, in the petroleum biz, there will be a character named Brent Crude. Mark my words.
Or he could be out in Midland-Odessa. With Beth Dutton, preferably. Although with her business acumen, Houston would make more sense.
they just need to bring back work from home for one or two days for office workers, and we’ll probably see oil prices drop like a rock.
Can’t have that.
Because the guys on your corporate board own oil stock – and at least one is also on the board of an oil company…
Is the Baja a tribute of the Brat? If so, that’s my vote for best
The Mazda Tribute is the worst tribute car.
This is not the greatest car in the world, no, this is just a Tribute.
Couldn’t remember the greatest car in world? Just the Tribute?
I see skies of blue, elections too!
Always Vote, but miffed my independent status can’t reduce the extremists.
We, and the commodities, and stock market have become unbelievably reactionary to tweets from idiots. The thing about oil futures that seems under considered, Demand change from alternatives takes way longer than expected. Percentage of on the road trucking is insignificant. Consumers buying EVs are increasing, but the percentage of total on road use is much lower than sales. Most homes and commercial buildings will be dependent on fossil fuels for decades.
The current regime has, by executive order, promoted Chaos here and abroad, dismantled consumer protections, USAID, and rid any department that could check unlawful actions of anyone that would. Paying Billions of our tax dollars to international companies to abandon nearly completed offshore wind farms without congressional approval, ( Congress constitutionally has The power of the purse) along with cancelling many solar projects. This is a drop in the bucket of totally indefensible Constitutional crimes committed.
The ironically – 1977 Mustang II Cobra tribute. Sad very very sad
The ’96 Corvette Grand Sport has always been one of my favorite tribute cars, even if the car it was a tribute to was extremely niche.
A quick reading of various recent articles, put out by the Wall Street Journal or similar publications, that take an in-depth look at the how and why will answer your question. China has always been sensitive to relying upon a globally traded, volatile substance to run its economy. Its recent strong strides into renewable energy give you a clue as to the independence and insulation they are trying to create. In the meantime, the massive oil reserve that it has built up, was done so as a buffer. Perhaps they saw Trump doing something stupid in the Middle East and wanted to be insulated against it. And a more troubling aspect is they’ve sat back and watched the effect of spiking oil prices upon our economy. I can assure you their strategies are taking notes on how to pressure us without firing a shot.
They probably have like 5 different ways already to pressure the U.S. without firing a shot, some they are already doing like foementing hate on social media.
They could stop exporting rare earth minerals,
Attack Taiwan and shatter the semiconductor trade.
Stop selling us medicine.
Bribe or blackmail some politicians into making laws that are bad for citizens.
Cyber attack.
I’m sure there is more.
It’s easy to forget oil has gotten into almost everything and China makes about everything. Plastic prices trippled or more earlier in the year in China. That effected almost every industry in China. The have oil much closer but might not have access to it. That’s also a leading theory what they are always doing in the south China sea.
Vietnam has huge proven and discovered off shore oil. South Vietnam parallels to Louisiana in so many ways. The issue is they are still messing around with the Russians. Western companies get in every once in a while but they never really know what the crazy communist will do. Likely whoever is paying the most well placed bribes.
China has lowered their demand to to burn oil for transportation but still need massive quantities of oil for their economy and need to be able to make and sell their goods. They have flipped the switch where they can export new energy products cheaply. But still see dependent on coal to produce electricity and currently in a massive nuclear plant building cycle. But they need stable oil prices to make everything and stay competitive and not shock their market.
Ford has done some good tribute cars. The GTs and Mustangs 05 +. Bronco and some of the two tone trucks also look decent. Mopar and the rest of the Italians always seem to mess it up. Just slap a badge on something and call it a tribute or half ass rework the body a bit but doesn’t really look like it.
Re: Revuelto… TBH, almost all Lambos look the same to me over the past 15-20 years or so. To be sure, there are slight differences as to where various scoops/vents/fins/trim are shaped and placed, but they release like a dozen variants of a single model, sometimes with just small power bumps and new paint colors. It’s boring (to me, I know some folks get all moist over every new Lambo). I didn’t/don’t even bother to enter the Lambo parking lot at the Galpin auto show… seen from across the street, it’s a couple dozen extremely similar looking, low slung cars in various colors. Yawn.
Disclaimer: this is JMHO of course. That’s what the comments section is for, right? Our comments.
I loved Lamborghini, but I had totally forgotten the name of the Revuelto until I saw this. Nothing since the end of the original V12 has interested me and the Murcielago barely makes it in largely because it still had that engine and was available with a manual. Not that I only liked the old V12s—I’d take a Urraco, Silhouette, or Jalpa over anything they make now—the demise just aligns with their turn that lost my interest.
The Revuelto looks like every other Lamborghini made in the last 20 years.
Yeah, gun to head I’m not sure I could identify anything post Diablo
Revolting then?
Mazda did an excellent tribute to the original Lotus Elan by making it reliable and affordable. Miata, baby!
Miata is Always The Answer.
GR86 seems to be a decent tribute to the AE86. I know nothing about either. But don’t 86 the GR86!
As a former two-time S30 Z owner who now has a GR86, I think it’s a better tribute to the original Z than Nissan’s current version.
I think Mazda made a Tribute to the Ford Escape or something like that.
It’s not the best car in the world, it was just a Tribute.
It couldn’t Escape the stigma of the original.
I think my old boss went by Y2Kev, any relation?
It looks half-assed at best, and barely related at worst.
Thats quarter assed, or possibly even eights assed
The worst tribute cars would be every themed Mopar “build” centered around a comic book hero or villain. I swear if I see one more Joker themed V6 Charger I’m going to gouge my eyes out.
Best tribute car? It’s gotta be the 2005 Ford GT right?
Yes. Worst then goes to the new beetle, even tough I sort of want one. In orange. A convertible
Do you know what came out before “I’m on a Boat’. maybe the inspiration??
Step Brother’s Prestige World Wide: Boats & Hoes video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzw7xHrZbak
Accidently sang that in the office the other day when my coworkers were trying to figure out Columbus’s 3rd boat name. Got a laugh from the interns.
I assume it’s false, but until I know otherwise for a fact, I’m going to believe, with all my heart, that those two ladies dancing behind Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly are actually their wives.
So sue me.
At some point the Peoples Liberation Army will start to get antsy about the depletion of reserves and insist that China start buying. Quite frankly, I expect that in late August or September.
I wonder about this too. All reserves are finite.
Also the US reserves are getting close to the level that could impact the structural integrity of the caves containing the strategic reserves.
Hopefully those in charge of the reserves are allowed to stop draining before the caves collapse, but either way, the US is going to to have to start buying oil again soon too.
There is a video on YouTube I saw a few days ago that discusses China’s reserves. The real number is of course a state secret so all numbers are guesstimates but based on the huge number of oil tanks seen on satellite photos (the roofs move up and down, giving an idea of the volume they contain) it is estimated China has a YEAR of reserves and that’s not even counting the subterranean reserves that are also likely to exist.
Of course that guesstimate can be based on false data, those oil tanks might be empty cardboard for all we know. But I think its more likely China is sitting on a f#ckton of oil they have been stockpiling from Russia.
I assume they’re only willing to use a certain percentage of it for economic stabilization though, and the rest is in case something happens to cut the Strait of Malacca off.
I guess a sort of silver lining to the whole Iran debacle is that it might indirectly delay their seizure of Taiwan while they rebuild some reserves, even though the US arms depletion would otherwise make it a good opportunity.
Probably August 2027, unless something unexpected happens.
China’s grown to the point where the stability of the world economy overall is valuable to them and they’ve also got the size and capacity to actually act to ensure it. That used to be us.
My bet on this is they’ll keep oil prices sufficiently high to continue to drive investment in renewables, because that’s where their actual long term bet is, but not so high as to cause a proper recession, because that’s bad for business and the CCP doesn’t like chaos. As a person, this is better for me than whatever the fuck the US gov’t is trying to do; as an American, boy, that’s pretty much the game wrapped up for us, isn’t it?
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. If China is the one stabilizing and tempering the world economy from the US and its shaved orangutan for a president, that’s a huge paradigm shift.
Actual orangutans seem smart, and almost nice (to me) at least among the larger primates. They don’t scare me like chimps do.
If you’re in the mood to see what life would be like without a face or genitals, get a chimp as a pet.
There’s a political joke in there but I’ll let it hang.
There are videos of a female orangutan driving a golf cart around some Middle Eastern zoo or something. I’ve never seen Dear Diaper drive. Seen him creepily holding his (then underage) daughter in a Diablo (sold a little while back with hardly any miles on it), but that’s as close as I’ve seen.
It’s angry because it’s shaved!
In nature most Orangs are known to mate non-consensually, so it unfortunately tracks
My bet on this is they’ll keep oil prices sufficiently high to continue to drive investment in renewables
I was actually thinking the opposite. If China’s long-term strategy is renewable energy and EVs, it seems like the better strategy would be to keep oil prices low to decrease incentives for the rest of the world to invest in renewables. Once China dominates renewables, they can then drive up oil prices and make money multiple ways.
Controlling the price of oil is good, but controlling renewables and the price of oil would be even better.
China actually publishes their five year plans, so their businesses know where bailouts will come when they build excess capacity. EVs are out, and coal to chemicals are in. China has always used much more oil to make stuff like consumer goods than to make cars go down the road, so their current plan is to substitute foreign oil for domestic coal to run their export business to keep selling plastic crap.
I wouldn’t consider five year plans to be long-term. To me, five years is short to intermediate term.
If China is thinking 20+ years into the future, keeping oil cheap while continuing to develop EVs and alternative energy makes a lot of sense (we should be doing the same thing here, but our unfortunate trend here is to decrease funding/grants for research). It makes sense for China to sell cheap plastic crap for the immediate future, but I’m sure they are thinking of the longer term as well.
I mean, I think they _did_ that part already. Want a solar panel, battery, wind turbine, or EV? It’s coming from China already. They’re past the “grow the industry” stage at this point – they’re already the only game in town for renewables.
Don’t they already dominate renewables to a fairly high degree? Their solar panel exports have started booming even before the war started, and now is the time where the Chinese EV market would really love to expand internationally.
In addition to worldwide economic stability, China might be choosing to use oil prices as leverage in future US negotiations.
The United States is not done by any means as a global superpower, nor will I ever really count it out due to its capacity for reinventing itself which is far stronger than most give it credit for.
That being said: The fact that Western countries have been playing the game on ‘easy mode’ for most of the 1990s and 2000s did make us kind of soft intellectually, and we are currently going though a (IMO demographics-related) thing that is particularly stunting our ability to make long-term strategically smart decisions.
We may find that ‘hard mode’ is much more unpleasant if we keep playing it dumb and stupid like we’re still on ‘easy mode’.
For real, never really thought I’d see the day that China was supplanting the US peacefully through soft power and commerce as the defacto world leader. And that at least a third of the US would be applauding the administration helping them do it (most of them staunch former anti-commie cold warriors too).
And to think the USA could’ve been an innovator and world leader on renewables, possibly bringing back jobs and some of the manufacturing sector in the process…
I wish I could say the same. I’ve expected the US to descend into fascism since I was an early teen about . . . we’ll just say “sometime before the millennium”. Maybe it’s the people I had the misfortune to know, but I’ve always seen the tendencies and I figured if it could happen in Germany, it could certainly happen in the US with its seemingly infinite supply of blustering stupidity and cowardice masquerading as toughness. The rate of change has surprised me, though. As for China, they tend to think long term and values the collective over the individual, which can make for better long term planning, especially over the chaotic idiocy where decision making power and competence are inversely related that we have. There again, though, the rate of change has surprised me.
Perhaps I was naive, and admittedly I grew up around conservatives, but while I’ve been skeptical of the right wing elements of our government for years the speed with which the right has completely given themselves over to a corrupt incompetent narcissist with authoritarian tendencies has surprised me.
I’ve had a lot of encounters with skin heads and the like when I was young and their language that wasn’t distinctly racist or sexist sounded too much like “regular” people for my comfort and that got my antenna up, plus I was always interested in WW2 and the conditions that gave rise to it and could read the signs as well as the general indicators of imperial decline.
The South Rose Again.
The dilemma of a victorious army: how conciliatory should you be to the defeated? Wiping everyone out is hard to justify without the future as evidence of necessity, makes martyrs of them and villains of you, and is plain difficult to accomplish, unlike the old days of city states. That said, we were far too easy on them, not necessarily in a violent aspect, but in allowing them into and compromising with them in government. Of course, that’s easy for me to type here in the distant future.
Worst: Nissan Rouge: Rogue One Edition
Runner Up: Hyundai Tucson: Walking Dead Edition
Second Runner Ups: Jeep Call of Duty Editions
Lol I saw a Walking Dead Edition and couldn’t believe it was actually a thing.
And at least the Rogue One Edition is kind of funny?
Reserves will only last for so long. If the shut down in the straight continues long enough, the oil prices will become “apocalyptic”. Another 6 months should do the trick. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the USA is already low. Get yourself an EV while you still can. For many, even an ebike will do. The availability of liquid fuels is not something that should be taken for granted when madman have been at the helm of world affairs for multiple generations.
Stockpiling food would also be a good idea to help offset the price increase we will be seeing soon, which will be the result of fewer crops planted this year due to fertilizer not reaching farmers in time due to the shuit down of the Straight of Hormuz. If things get truly apocalpyitic, there may not be any food to buy at any price. The Petrodollar has been on borrowed time after all, much like most of the world’s fiat currencies which have nothing backing them other than the faith that they have value.
The U.S. overproduces food, in part so there’s a buffer for things like this. Nobody is going to starve.
Plenty of working people going hungry in this country already, skipping meals out of financial necessity. Further, a large percentage of it is wasted(nevermind that most of the food here isn’t actually food). And even then, grocery stores lock their dumpsters to prevent the less fortunate or even just the frugal from getting anything for free.
I think it’s important to differentiate between a lack of affordability of food and lack of availability of food to be purchased. Food waste is very much a real thing in the US, but dumpsters being locked has several valid reasons, both for food safety/public health and for employee and customer safety. Many grocery stores and restaurants do have donation programs for unsellable but not unsafe to consume foods.
Walmart prices buying small bags not even in bulk:
Black Beans: $1.22 per pound
Pinto Bean: $0.95 per pound
Rice: $0.55 per pound
Corn Meal: $0.80 per pound
Flour: $0.48 per pound.
Food is incredibly cheap in the USA for those willing to cook
(Dried beans are equal to 3X the weight of cooked canned beans)
Wow apparently I’ve been going to the wrong store for dry beans
Those prices sound high to me but we buy staples in 25 or 50lb bags.
My grandmothers’ kitchens had completely drawers dedicated to dry goods. Made bread, biscuits, pancakes, etc from scratch.
That Costco/Sam’s Club/BJ’s discount is golden.
Yes, Costco is our preferred poison.
If so that should be your source for AP flour too. $8 for #25 is hard to beat.
I used Walmart because pretty much everyone in the USA is within driving distance of a Walmart. I used small packages because anytime someone mentions buying in bulk someone else will say that is a luxury only rich people can do.
However, you are correct. The price of a single combo meal at McDonalds will buy enough flour for 25 loaves of bread. (41,250 calories.)
Which coincidentally is the same number of calories as that single McD combo meal.
1/4 pounder meal has 1,110 calories with a regular coke. Half a day’s calories
Weird then how so many regular patrons of McD manage to gain so much weight.
They supersize of course. 🙂
Lol wow, well at least last I bought them at the bougie granol-ie grocery store near me they were like $3.99/pound which wasn’t really a deal. Sadly I don’t really have the storage space for 50 lb bags .
I hope she taught you to save that bacon and sausage grease!
Of course. Why would anyone buy oil or grease?
When I was a kid (I started cooking at about 8) I would fry a bit of sausage for breakfast and then use the leftover grease to cook some eggs to go with toast. That was breakfast most school days.
I prefer to make sausage gravy, fry the eggs in butter and serve it all inside and over a homemade biscuit, maybe with a bit of cheese in there too. Way better and way cheaper than a sausage McMuffin
That sounds a bit advanced for an 8 year old but tasty
It is. Also artery clogging and not great for the physique but it might be the only meal you need all day.
People sleep on Walmart for groceries. It is not the same place it was pre-covid. I still don’t like going there, much prefer Aldi.
There isn’t one close enough to me to really make it a viable option. And we don’t have Aldi here on the west coast, only Trader Joe’s which is a pretty good deal for some things.
Where on the west coast? We have Aldi in southern California.
Oh my bad I live in Seattle. I lived in Pasadena for a short spell in the aughts and didn’t remember Aldi being a thing in the LA area.
I love Trader Joes too, annoyingly though the closest one is about 40 minutes from me. Walmart is 7min, Aldi/Kroger is 13 min, Costco is 25min.
Not just willing to cook, but with the tools/utilities to do so. There’s lots of working homeless people out there who don’t have access to a kitchen.
I was able to cook while homeless, but I made my own stove, gathered biomass from the area to burn, and set up a fire inside an abandoned building, which wasn’t legal. But I was still able to cook my beans.
Might be a challenge if the straight continues to be blocked given a not insignificant amount of fertilizer used to grow crops passes through there. The majority comes from Canada who is actively shopping its wares anywhere
but the US.
A fun fact about the US strategic petroleum reserve is that if it dips below 250M barrels, we begin doing actual damage to the infrastructure that holds it.
I have seen estimates ranging from 70M to 300M barrels before the structural damage starts to happen.
The bottom line is that the SPR is a collection of salt caverns that have been operated as a market buffer for economic and political reasons instead of the “break in case of emergency” scenario it was designed for. We have been using the SPR outside of it’s design intent for decades and no one really knows what damage that has caused and when things start to fail.
I’m sure there are oil guys who are making plans on how to continue to extract oil once structural failure does happen. However, the withdrawal rate will be much slower if they figure something out.
It is underestimated how often the world is saved from disaster by clever engineers offsetting the damage done by shortsighted decisions. God help us on the day we run out of hacks.
Damage? Like, what kinda damage are we talking about here?
I doubt we get nationwide fuel shortages in the USA/Canada. The higher prices that are inevitable will reduce demand enough that we will be OK. I think we do run the risk of short-term, regional shortages because our refineries are running near their max capacity. One little hiccup (or Gulf of Mexico hurricane) that disrupts a refinery will have an immediate impact once we run our buffer inventories down to the minimum operational levels.
I’m inclined to think that demand for fuel will drop significantly in the US if the prices get up to $8/gallon or so, but then again the toilet paper hoarding during Covid might also indicate that people will absolutely lose their minds if $6/gallon happens, go out, and try to stockpile everything they can, driving the price up way higher and resulting in shortages.
The countries on the more developing end of the spectrum will probably react more rationally and lead to more stability, while people freaking out in the “most developed” economy might destabilize everything.
The more developing countries will snap up Chinese solar panels and lithium batteries. Those will be delivered on Chinese built ships crewed by Chinese citizens. Likely the bigger systems will be installed by Chinese engineers and laborers. Meanwhile the buyers are buying black boxes that can only be fixed by China. This is low-key brilliant for China because it keeps their exports going and gives employment for their citizens.
And plugging in their Chinese EVs… Seems the belt and road initiative is expanding to the everyone relies on us for everything initiative
Our moron GOP leadership has has both destroyed our international credibility, and actively handicapped our solar and EV production. China is just filling the void created by our failure.
I for one enjoyed seeing people filling up literal trash bags with gasoline and driving off with them in their trunks and/or passenger compartment.
Go long on property and auto insurance.
Lambo is less Miura than say a new Corvette to me. but I would still probably drive it.
TBQ: best? Hm. In terms of tape and stripe packages, the 30th anniversary Camaro SS with the white and orange always looked good. Going all in? ’05-’06 Ford GT.
Worst, at least on the going all in front, is probably the retro Thunderbird, but there’s probably way worse and more lazy when it comes to the paint/stripes.
I always did like those 30th Anniversary Camaros.
wait I thought we were fighting for energy independence
The problem with this of course is that China now holds the world economy hostage as much or more than Iran does. What they do with that leverage is uncertain but unlikely to be good.
Sinophobia is so normalized people just type this shit out and don’t think they look like a crazy person.
No one alive has been in a world where the US and Western Europe aren’t the main economic and cultural superpowers. It’s clear that China is emerging as the stable and strongest world superpower especially with current Western leadership.
Uncertainty is the root of fear. This fear is unfortunately going to get worse before it gets better
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering,”
Truer words spoken, never were.
I thought fear was the mind-killer? So many fears to choose from.
When the building in Manhattan had two columns start buckling, my mother-in-law almost, by reflex, blamed it on Chinese steel.
She is quite well educated but she has little knowledge on material properties, metallurgy, and structural engineering.
That said, a building from 1960 likely was not built with Chinese steel. (Source: we are familiar with the building but are not involved in the conversion.)
It shall be no surprise that she also, with zero evidence, blamed Chinese rebars shortly after the Surfside collapse.
Well, in your MiL’s defense, there are a zillion videos online showing China’s documented tofu-dreg construction. Even if just a fraction of those vids are genuine, your MiL can’t be entirely blamed for jumping to that conclusion (about the columns in the Manhattan building). If she’d thought about it for another minute, she’d have realized how unlikely it is that that building would have been made with Chinese steel.
Engineering Mechanics 101: based on press photos, the two columns failed due to buckling.
Elastic buckling depends on three factors: Elastic Modulus E (Young Modulus), radius of gyration r (closely related to moment of inertia I), and the length of the column L. Of note is that the elastic modulus of all steel grade is more or less constant.
The strength of steel, as one can see, is NOT part of the equation.
You can use the highest grade steel to make those two columns, but they will fail just the same.
This is also why construction grade structural steel tends to be on the low side of strength (33-36ksi at that time). Higher grades are just not necessary.
Did you gently explain that Chinese steel wasn’t routinely imported for American construction projects until relatively recently? A very brief skim would suggest it started in the 1990s, but gained popularity in the ’00s. So, any building put up earlier than that is very unlikely to have any Chinse steel in it at all.
In fact, our President specified Chinese steel and aluminum for some of his construction projects.
There are myriad valid reasons to be concerned, skeptical, and aware of the things the CCP is doing to gain influence on the world stage. It is not at all unfair to criticize China for it’s lax stance on Intellectual property, human rights, and the countries it chooses for allies such as Russia and North Korea, not to mention it’s territorial disputes with neighbor states and it’s encroachment on Taiwan’s sovereignty.
I will note that it is increasingly hard to take such blanket statements about China at face value. Given the past 18 months, other than that Taiwan and North Korea parts you might as well be describing the United States right now.
Yet at the same time people who talk about “sinophobia” have no problem criticizing the US for trying to exert control over other parts of the world. Why is criticizing China irrational and bigoted, but criticizing the US for taking the same actions is virtuous?
I presume China is keeping oil prices stable for its own benefit. Frankly, I wish our government would spend more time trying to do the same (at the moment most western governments appear to be flailing aimlessly with no coherent strategy or goals).
Is it really hard to believe China is looking out for its own self interest at the expense of others?
The same people who conflate criticism of the CCP with “sinophobia” would also balk at the idea that they are antisemitic for criticizing the government of Israel. It’s all hypocrisy all the way down.
Clicking ‘like’ on this wasn’t enough, hence my reply. It’s the governments doing these things… you can criticize the actions of governments without fearing/hating the citizens of a country.
At least, I pray that’s how it works when people from other nations regard America these last few years. 😉
“At least, I pray that’s how it works when people from other nations regard America these last few years.”
We do… unless you’re wearing a red cap 🙂
I wonder if people were shouted down for “Russiaphobia” during the Cold War?
Something not being pleasant to consider doesn’t make it any less true. Wishing we lived in a fairy tale where countries didn’t compete for power and influence on a global stage might be nice to tell to children, but that isn’t the real world.
Geopolitics 101: Every country acts in its own perceived interests. Especially so for superpowers. This seems fairly obvious, no?
The world we inhabit is a function of a particular design of a superpower in the post-WWII era. I’m happy to be on the winning side certainly, but I’m well aware of the why and for whose benefit this occurred.
If the decision-making at the top echelon of this global order is becoming more erratic, strategically positioning oneself as an alternative stable and rational operator (whether actual or perceived) in an increasingly non-Western world would seem to be a strategically wise decision.
I expect the People’s Republic of China is attempting to set up itself strategically going further into the 21st century.
Perhaps the Western world should heed the warning.
That would require short-term-thinking corporations to think further into the future than the next Earnings Call.
Or, become a Communist nation that controls the Economy.
WHO RUN BARTERTOWN?