The Gang Solves the Gas Crisis
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
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It’s going to turn out that he is waiving the federal gas tax for some buddies and a cut.
I gotta say, I thought the economy was way more fragile and would have no chance to withstand this concerted effort to bring it down. I mean it will 💯 go down in biblical flames, I'm just amazed it took so long!
I think the people who are trying to make it happen are surprised to. Doesn't matter to them because they will end up owning the planet anyway, but still!
You gotta remember that since the invention of the 401(k), the US economy has been propped up by the life savings of...well, pretty much everybody, at this point. Lots of institutional money, legally required to be invested in certain places, gives a lot of cushion for slashing and burning.
For now.
Ai bubble came out of nowhere
My first thought at first headline was "now I'm outright paying for these motherfuckers' gas too?"
Best thing you can do right now is learn to live without a car and vote people who support anything about public transportation especially if that includes trains and trolleys and building more
Only 11% of Americans live in walkable cities… That ain’t realistic.
I mean same but gas/cars do not look sustainable
I live in a state where it’s almost impossible to be without a vehicle. I’ve always wanted to move to a more walkable city with public transit.
Okay I'll just walk 25 miles to my job every day til they get those trains put in.
I'm in the same situation but it doesn't change the fact this is not sustainable and this not going to become easier anytime soon for any of us
55 miles for my husband :(
He's draining our reserves. God we're fucked.
I think we all know by now collapse is inevitable
Ok here's my supposition:
The summary is: wealthy donor(s) are covering the loss so Trump doesn't lose the midterms.
The longer version is: most fuel consumed in the US is produced domestically. There no "shortage" because of the Iran situation, but prices increase because there's no alternative putting downward pressure on prices.
Suppose some domestic producer decided that the cost to them of trump being impeached is greater than the profit foregone by selling fuel at less than market rates.
Or, suppose Trump said to local producers, if you keep me in office we will keep this Iran thing going indefinitely, so process are down when he needs them to be but can go back up after an election.
No matter how you slice it, seems like a recipe for hyper wealth concentration.
US is a net exporter of refined fuels (what you put in your car), but the US doesn't produce the heavy crude that its refineries are all set up to convert into that fuel.
It's like saying you produce more cakes than you consume. That doesn't really mean shit when you run out of sugar, bomb the supermarket, mine the roads between you and the supermarket, and burn all the bridges between you and your neighbors. Can't exactly "borrow a cup of sugar" your way out of this one.
Whataa beautiful analogy!
News story about the oil being watered down to the point you get extremely low mileage in 3... 2... 1...
Imagine if you were someone with no moral scruples and a lust for making more money than you ever need, and you somehow become the US president. How can you make lots of money off the position without being so blatantly corrupt that you actually end up in jail?
Well, you have the power to make decisions, decisions which drastically affect things like the oil price. You could monetise this small time by making bets on prediction markets, or maybe buying futures low and selling high, but that's a higher risk strategy after you lose the presidency and has limits to how much you can make.
To think bigger, you could leverage the retail petrol industry. Normal participants buy wholesale and sell quickly at retail prices aligned to the replacement cost of what they are selling. They don't usually stockpile large amounts, because they have no insight into what oil prices will do, and don't want to take the risk. But if you are the president, you can influence that price, so you have a a strategy no one else has to profit big: drive the prices down through government actions, build up a large reserve wholesale while the prices are low, and when your reserve is full, drive up oil prices (antagonising another country into disrupting oil transport will do, for example). Your competitors put up their prices, and you undercut them and sell your reserves at a price significantly higher than what you paid, but less than your competitors are paying to replace their reserves.
You keep the level of your reserves, and your next move secret (refill reserves at the current higher price and try to drive prices even higher, or drain reserves, then lower prices with a fig leaf deal to the country you antagonised, refill reserves, and then drive higher again). This way, competitors can't copy your strategy and reduce your profits, and they lose while you get richer.
Of course, all this is net destroying value for the world and your country as a whole - you are shrinking the pie, but none of that matters because you yourself get a much larger slice, and who cares about anyone else?
I guess if you keep it up long enough you can drive your competitors out of business then buy up their businesses on the cheap. Which if things are heading for a make America great again depression then that strategy ends up accumulating cash to then buy up assets for pennies on the dollar.
If you see one of these stations:
BUY THE GAS
They are selling well under market value, it’s a loss, they aren’t making money off it, it isn’t taxpayer subsidized.
This is the equivalent of someone making a toll free number to report rainbow painted sidewalks, everyone needs to call in and run up the phone bill with fake reports.
Make them piss away their money.
That’s like saying: everyone buy from Amazon, they’re undercutting everyone and taking a loss. Buy while the getting’s good.
Then when the competition suffers and options are reduced, prices will creep up and they’ve established themselves as a moderately successful brand. That’s just standard playbook stuff.
Start a business at a loss by offering a deal too good to be true, ex: Disney+ for $1 a month, then pull consumers away and build your name, then price creep.
Plus as others have mentioned it’s either stolen, or diluted. No way they’re offering fuel at the same quality (detergent gasoline) as you’d get at like Shell, Mobile, or Chevron.
They are moving in and taking over the economy wholesale, it is clear as day, and we are letting them do precisely that.
It is a bona fide rape of modern civilization and democracy. We are looking at centuries of the dark ages coming at us full speed, if we can even survive that long.
They will use up everything they can. And when they lose blame everything on Democrats.
If they win, they don't care about people complaining.
Come join the anticommunist Republican party. They've got:
- Price controls
- Closed markets
- State-owned industry
Edit adding a 4th
- The living-or-dead status of party members as closely guarded state secrets
- State approved media
Oh yeah thats a good one
All my libertarian friends hate it, but somehow keep voting for it.
Libertarianism is not a real ideology. Its just three raccoons in a trench coat. Anarcho-capitalism is a contradiction in terms.
Libertarians are just conservatives + weed - religion. They claim to not be cons but still vote 100% in that direction
Libertarians are just insanely stupid people who wish to appear intelligent. Because they think those views make them seem intelligent, lol
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@cannedtuna Let me get this straight...
City-run grocery stores selling at-cost: Communist Bread Lines
Gas stations with government-controlled gas prices: Freedom Fuel Network
Trump Freedom Fuel now with more high fructose syrup.
It's got what plants crave.
When the (Venezuelan) oil is stolen and the wars are paid for by the taxpayers, everything is profit.
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