Hurray Lower Gas Prices. Oh Darn, Lower Gas Prices

Back in the 1970’s there was a very popular graphic of a Lincoln US one cent coin. The original coin on the back has the words engraved “In God we Trust”. The coin had been altered to say, in Oil we trust.

At the time, that meme rang true as people were lining up at gas stations around the block and oil prices spiked.

The economic turmoil of those days was the result of the OPEC oil embargo. Global trade was disrupted and a new word was coined. The economists rule book was broken and we had simultaneous price inflation and economic contraction. The term stagflation was born and remains as a textbook condition which can happen whenever there is an artificial constraint on economic activity.

On Thursday, one day after President Trump’s liberation day, OPEC Plus came out with their production targets for the next few months. The timing is coincidental. No doubt it appears that President Trump is going to get his wish for lower oil prices. Oil prices have dropped by 10% in 2 days.

So now with the spectre of reciprocal tariffs, economic slowdown, and falling prices at the gasoline pump, some people are cheering that it will cost less to fill the tank in your car. But if you are a shale oil producer, you probably have a flashback to 2014 when OPEC killed the US Shale industry by dropping the world price of oil to below the economic break-even for shale oil production.

I believe that the spike in oil production at a time of declining demand is a deliberate move to crash prices and crater the US oil industry. This was not just an action aimed at Iraq. This is one of those times when it is difficult to make sense out of what is happening in global markets. Quite frankly, some of it makes no sense.

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