OPEC blows Brandon a big fat raspberry

“Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” – Michael Ledeen, advisor to presidents and American thought leader That quote succinctly summarizes American hubris as experienced by much of the rest of the world over the past 150 years. To the surprise of nobody except the Americans, the rest of the world has noticed. That’s why Mr. Biden has had no luck convincing America’s “friends and allies” among oil producers to increase production. He’s facing mid-terms imminently, and the American electorate get right grumpy about $6/gallon gas no matter how many crappy little countries their military has thrown against the wall lately. The Saudis can’t help. The Mexicans can’t help. The UAE can’t help, even after that beauty peace deal young Kushner gifted them with Israel. The Venezuelans aren’t interested, even with the promise of sanctions relief. Maybe they recall how hard the Americans worked to throw them against the wall. In fact, pretty much the only country willing to ship more gas to the US is Canada, and we’re coming to the rescue as fast as we can. Just a few more decades to sort out those pesky Indigenous land claims, and then a few more to build the infrastructure, and we’ll be there with bells on! All of this because America convinced its EU allies to destroy the Russian economy by boycotting Russian oil. Less oil on the market – prices go up! Who knew? Until yesterday the Americans imagined they had enough clout with OPEC to coerce a production increase. Instead, the vile ingrates did the opposite of what Biden requested, scaling back production by 2 million bbls per day. Meanwhile, how is that Russian economic collapse shaping up? It’s starting to look like Russia may have more friends in the world than we imagined, and it’s the Americans who are increasingly isolated.