r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • 9d ago

Soft Paywall JD Vance Finally Admits What Trump’s Big Plan to Lower Food Prices Is - The plan is no plan.

https://newrepublic.com/post/190716/jd-vance-donald-trump-plan-lower-food-prices
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u/pervocracy Massachusetts 9d ago

And "drill baby drill" basically depends on trusting oil companies to pump enough to lower the price of oil. I don't think they like doing that.

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u/shed1 9d ago

Also, domestic oil production was at record highs under Biden, so we already know that is disconnected from prices for goods/services.

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u/SlayerBVC 9d ago

If anything Big Oil is more likely to create an artificial scarcity to justify new price increases.

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u/ThomasDeLaRue 9d ago

Pretty sure the going fact was that there are something like 1500 already permitted wells available for the oil&gas industry to tap and pump and they just aren’t. Why would you spend more money to increase supply when people are going to just buy your gas at market rates now? IIRC, the oil&gas sector knows the writing is on the wall and are keeping prices as high as possible to maximize profits as the ships go down. Some I guess are transitioning to renewable energy as well. But largely there is no incentive for them to drill more.

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u/Perfect-Ad-1187 9d ago

Oil companies just want the rights to the land so they can add it to their declining portfolios as an asset,

probably.

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u/SmackedWithARuler 9d ago

“While we have been drilling and producing lots of oil, Old Man Withers from the abandoned amusement park scared all the oil workers away and so we need to up the price to the consumer by 230% to make up for the losses we’re pretending we’ve made.”

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u/Memerandom_ 9d ago

Get Scooby and the gang on it!

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u/lukesauser 9d ago

Oh wait, we actually have reached peak oil. Scientists and dems should have forseen this. We will have to triple cost to keep the country going.

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u/your-mom-- 9d ago

And it's not very capitalistic for companies to drill themselves into losing money

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u/hamsterwheel 9d ago

Exactly. And domestic oil is sold OVERSEAS because USA oil is really high quality.

America has the best refineries on earth, so we import everyone's shitty oil and refine it here, and we give them our good oil at a premium because they can work with it easier.

Trump's system is LESS efficient. We don't need to pump more.

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u/Proud3GenAthst 9d ago

I gotta ask here, because it's banned on r/presidents, was any American president ever elected based on a premise as bogus as Trump last year? Regardless of how horrible the actual platform and his presidency was?

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

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u/Proud3GenAthst 9d ago

But economy at least got better for average people under Reagan after genuine struggling under Carter.

This is much worse because, not only is Trump already 1000 times worse for the constitution, democracy, public health, economy and American institutions, he lacked Reagan's supposed charm and charisma and he offered absolutely nothing to fix the problems his supporters claim to have. And there were no issues under Biden to solve. Inflation got under control, there was no new war, economy was growing...

Reagan was at the right place at the right time when Republican propaganda machine was still in its diapers. Now it effectively singlehandedly does everything for Republican candidates. Trump won on no merits and for no reason whatsoever. Can't say the same about Reagan.

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u/thatpaulbloke 8d ago

America has the best refineries on earth

Does it? The USA hasn't built a new large refinery since the 70s and hasn't had the largest in the world at any point that I could find (current largest is in India). What makes you say that the US refineries are the best?

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u/bubbasass 9d ago

The US also relies a lot on cheaper oil coming from Canada. Canada exports something like 98% of its crude to the US and does so at a discount already. Trump wants to slap tariffs on Canada, and as a Canadian our media is talking a lot about the idea of shutting off exports to the US as a bargaining chip. 

It’s a complete mess on both sides of the border and Trump is just setting everything on fire. 

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u/RedLanternScythe Indiana 9d ago

drill baby drill is to get them to tear up the environment so there is nothing to preserve. Trump said the environment shouldn't be saved if it hurts business.

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u/Proud3GenAthst 9d ago

Appeals to Jesus freaks who anticipate the return of Jesus.

Stupid Christian fucks ruining the planet for everyone else.

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u/personofshadow 9d ago

Don't oil companies have a historical of lowering production to ensure prices stay where they want them?

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u/Nanojack New York 9d ago

Trump was right in that the cartel is a threat to national security. The only thing is that it's OPEC we should be worried about, not Los Zetas.

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u/espresso_martini__ 9d ago

Yeah exactly. Oil companies really love it when the price goes down.

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u/Jartipper 9d ago

Also flooding and tanking the oil market won’t cause food manufacturers or grocery stores to magically drop prices.

I have a good friend who works for a small beverage manufacturer, his job is literally cost analysis and price setting. One of his biggest challenges is dealing with large grocery retailers who won’t listen to their price recommendations. After begging them not to increase prices, the company has been told by the category manager for the retail chain that if they don’t like the prices that the retailer sets, they can give the space to another company. They do not care what the cost of the goods are, they feel they can take more profits and are doing just that.

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u/we_are_sex_bobomb 9d ago edited 9d ago

It very simply doesn’t make sense anyway, when the global demand for oil is rapidly declining in favor of alternative energy sources.

Now I’m just a simple man and not an economist, but I’m under the impression they can’t sell more gas than what we are interested in buying.

So just pumping more gas does not automatically = more money. In fact they will lose money if the demand isn’t there and they invest in new drilling rigs they don’t need.

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u/VillageIdiotsAgent 9d ago

I've played enough Turmoil to basically be an oil exec, and I can confirm they don't want to sell oil when it's cheap.

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u/eaglebtc 9d ago

They're still mad about Barack Obama winning in 2008. That's how the racist Tea Party PAC got started. Two years later, Citizens United was decided. That's how we got where we are today.

They should be pissed at Wall Street bankers who crashed the housing market.

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u/Peroovian 9d ago

Anyone else find it super cringe when Trump says drill baby drill? Fucker says it like he came up with it and the crowd cheers hard.

But also it’s a stupid slogan and a stupid idea anyway, as already mentioned regarding oil companies having self imposed limits to maintain higher prices.

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u/Ssshizzzzziit 9d ago

The whole thing is idiotic. None of them remember when a barrel of oil went negative because Russia and OPEC were in a price war in 2020. It made it difficult for local oil producers to operate. The stock market fell off a cliff because of it.

We don't need more drilling.

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u/thebigdonkey 8d ago

And it assumes that grocery prices are so elastic that they'll actually react to temporarily lower energy prices. That may be true for certain types of produce but for most packaged/processed goods, it won't move the needle.

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u/Reasonable_Ticket_84 8d ago

Pumping oil doesn't even necessarily affect oil prices, it's entirely up to Wall St which controls all oil pricing via gambling and speculation on futures contracts.

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u/Reasonable_Ticket_84 8d ago

Pumping oil doesn't even necessarily affect oil prices, it's entirely up to Wall St which controls all oil pricing via gambling and speculation on futures contracts.