With global inventories being rapidly depleting and at least 60+ days of constrained shipment of crude not coming out of the Persian Gulf (and with tankers out of position in terms of logistics), guess what sort of energy and fuel shock is about the hit the global economy in the face? There is this huge inventory gap (current crude price versus the futures high) that has not been factored into this rigged stock market (a market which benefits the mostly well off or folks like myself that knew about this from decades ago, and just used that knowledge to our advantage).

Gas in SoCal and NorCal where I used to live averages around $5.50/gallon ($1.45/liter). In Honolulu, it’s around $5.60/gallon ($1.48/liter). Places like Costco and Sam’s Club are around $4.79/gallon ($1.27/liter). The U.S. west coast and Hawai’i will be easily over $6/gallon ($1.59/liter) as stockpiles become more constrained along with the dwindling global supply.

While the U.S. does produce a lot of oil (light/sweet crude from shale), the mostly older refineries in the U.S. mainly process heavy/sour crude sourced from Canada, Mexico, and the Middle East. It’s not trivial nor cheap to switch this configuration which is why the U.S. has to import that heavy crude in order to refine it for domestic consumption. The U.S. in general has been able to shield itself from even higher price spikes by drawing on that stockpile of reserves (but that is about to change where the real “pain at the pump” will be felt).

As far as aviation travel, the smaller carriers are feeling the pinch, requiring flight cancellations. The real chaos is several weeks out (probably closer to the peak summer travel periods).

In the meantime, POTUS and Republican’s are more concerned with getting that White House ballroom built (using taxpayer money now) versus prioritizing the global impact this war (again created by Israel and the U.S.) is having. Considering that the U.S. Supreme Court (in a 6-3 vote) decided to gut a key provision of the Voting Rights Act earlier today, the GOP is likely going to begin engaging in a full on assault of congressional maps in states that are not Republican controlled.

They are acting like their priorities will have no meaning in the midterms which means they will likely be pulling out all the stops to make sure they retain their majority in Congress (such as if they make it harder to vote, have ways to throw out votes, or to challenge congressional maps that favor non-Republican candidates/have more non-Republican voters).

Again, anyone watching this from the outside effectively has a “front row seat” to observing a failing empire/hegemony as the U.S. willfully drives itself off a cliff because the politicians (a non-functional Congress) in Washington D.C. are allowing this to happen (versus caring about the average citizen and caring about the fallout this will have globally).