Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, spoke to National Public Radio on June 15 about the White House’s plans to tackle inflation and high gas prices.
Among the many gems about gas, Deese told NPR, “The president is saying [oil companies] should invest. And they have signaled, some of them, that they are prepared to do so. And that’s what’s necessary right now.” The “We have been engaging with these companies for months. Some of them have indicated good faith efforts to try to increase production. We’re encouraging all of them to do so … the president is certainly prepared to use the tools at the federal government level …. To be very clear, the president has signaled that all tools are on the table, and he is prepared to use those tools as necessary … and he’s signaling that he is prepared to use other tools at the federal government level if they are necessary. But at the end of the day, if the companies say that they don’t need anything, then what we need to see from them is action.”
If that nothing sauce burger from a government official doesn’t fill you with confidence about the economy, it’s because words matter.
Elected official may say great things and have some good ideas, but when put into the hands of high-level bureaucrats, the “corporate-speak” gobbledygook that makes dumb CEOs in boardrooms sound “more smarter” translates into word salads that means nothing to the rest of us.
Deese took the English language behind the tool shed and beat it to death with a hose, saying nothing of substance, but wasting about five minutes of airtime.
Administrators of both parties do this, so let’s not pretend it’s partisan. The “D” or “R” after an official’s name just indicates which side of the government-corporate ruling class machine they solicit donations from come election time.
So, keep cashing them guv’ment checks, Brian, you’re moving the needle toward best practices … or some nonsense.
Aside from putting about a million barrels a day of oil on to the U.S. market from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, helping a smidge to offset the 19.78 million barrels Americans consume per day, the administration hasn’t done much but talk. There really isn’t much to do. Using the Defense Production Act might turn up production, maybe. Oil markets aren’t traded like other physical commodities and barrels are traded hundreds of times between oil well and gas pump.
In any event, it’s not easy to lower gas prices nor to reduce inflation. The only upside for the Sedona area might be that the gas price is high there are slightly fewer tourists clogging the roads, but on the flip side, those who are coming forward are willing to pay the higher gas prices or are the folks deciding to come here rather than Canyon de Chelly and London Bridge in Bullhead City, a California beach and Sedona — i.e., fewer summer trips. For many Americans, Sedona is a bucket list vacation that just can’t be omitted.
Economies are difficult to negotiate, translate and predict, hence the reason there are so many different schools of economics and economic theories, each of which have their own weight if looked at in the right angle.
Yet most can agree that simply cutting checks to the public and pouring hundreds of billions of dollars in an economy would lead to inflation. By creating of money that didn’t exist before, we in the public should not be shocked that we have inflation. If you jump into a pool, don’t be shocked that you get wet.
Democratic strategist James Carville famously said in 1992 “It’s the economy, stupid.” So while the lost of abortion protections or the investigation of events on Jan. 6, 2021, or love or hate of the former president might influence the midterms, economic woes affect voters daily, and most Americans vote based on how officials will address these issues.
But simply being angry at the party in charge when a ship got hit by a hurricane and mutinying against the drunk captain doesn’t alleviate the problem. If candidates don’t have actual economic plans to affect the economy, replacing one drunk captain with another drunk captain doesn’t save the ship.
At the end of the day, leveraging low-hanging fruit with lots of moving parts as a game changer of mission-critical magic-bullet best practices to get buy-in from change agents and viral influencers by empowering crowd-sourced paradigm shifts could move the needle or pivot strategic partnerships but merely circles back to table the conversation because nothing gets said and nothing gets done.
Ask: How will this incumbent or this challenger actually affect, repair, salvage or improve the economy if elected? Vote accordingly.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
