America is missing out on one of the greatest economic arbitrage opportunities of all time. And it’s all because of Joe Biden’s moronic war on American energy.
Take a look at the graph below from the WSJ. The price of natural gas in Western Europe surged to more than $100 per million BTUs this Summer - a more than twentyfold rise in price since 2019. The Euro price has fallen, but it now sits at about $65.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the price has hovered around $8 to $10 per million BTUs. So the price in Europe, according to the WSJ, is about “eight times higher than the U.S. equivalent.” Adding in the costs of liquifying the gas and shipping it to Europe might add to the price of U.S. oil by about $5. That STILL leaves a price to be fetched in Europe four times higher than here.
So why aren’t we becoming the Saudi America of natural gas? We have at least 300 years of natural gas thanks to the shale revolution. In some places like North Dakota, the drillers prefer oil and so they flare off the natural gas - in part because the pipelines and LNG terminals aren’t built out.
America became an energy powerhouse under Trump with ships leaving ports every day loaded with natural gas. Now in 20 months under Biden, we are an energy weakling.
This is costing the U.S. economy tens of billions of dollars a year and tens of thousands of jobs without ANY offsetting environmental benefit. (Because of the energy shortage Europe is moving to burning more coal and even firewood for heating.) Selling nat gas abroad would increase the economy and jobs, reduce the trade deficit, and make Europe LESS dependent on Putin for energy. It’s a no-brainer - which says a lot about the smarts of the Biden team.
2) More Evidence That Lockdowns Kill – Especially Young People
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released data last week showing that alcohol expenditures rose 15.9% in 2021. We don’t have good data on how much was spent on illegal drugs, but it’s a good bet that number was way up as well during the era of lockdowns.
Here’s some strong circumstantial evidence that lockdowns hurt the young the most. A report by the Society of actuaries - the life insurance industry- has found that death claims for adults aged 35 to 44 were 100 percent higher in the Summer of 2021 than in the average for 2017-2020. For those aged 34 and younger, there were more excess non-COVID deaths than those related to COVID.
It continues to amaze us that many politicians and health officials STILL defend the shutdown of our economy.
We know summer is wrapping up, but there's one more book to add to your reading list. Our good friend Arthur Laffer, historian Brian Domitrovic, and Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield are soon releasing Taxes Have Consequences, which gives readers the definitive history of the income tax and its effect on the economy.
“Taxes Have Consequences” walks through the major tax rate changes that occurred throughout American history, and what the economic results were. It is a true antidote to anyone who believes higher tax rates don’t matter -- we highly recommend you give it a read.
Here is a short excerpt on how taxes exacerbated and lengthened the Great Depression:
Never had the United States had a tariff like it had in 1930. Never had it had an income tax like it had in 1932. The combination proved impossible. The Great Depression was the result…The problem with the monetary interpretation of the Great Depression is that the tax history is so pronounced. Tax rates were raised so much, and at every level of government, they extended the economic crisis for a decade after 1929.
Last week Eliza Fletcher, a Memphis teacher and mother of two, was abducted and then killed during her morning jog. What happened? Cleotha Henderson, a 38-year-old ex-con arrested for killing her, had just been indicted for kidnapping and raping a second woman last year. But he was out on bail and apparently prowling for other victims. How often does this kind of tragedy have to happen?
Overall violent crime jumped 4.2 percent in the first half of this year. Atlanta saw a 20 percent jump in homicides. New Orleans had a 40 percent spike. Baltimore, Dallas, Phoenix, and Denver have also seen significantly higher murder rates. Robbery is up 12 percent nationwide.
The top 10 most unsafe cities in the country are listed below:
5) Canada’s New Conservative Leader Takes On Trudeau
Just a week after British conservatives elected tax-cutter Liz Truss as their new leader, 70% of Canadian Conservative party members elected as their leader Pierre Poilievre, whose platform is to make "Canada the freest country on Earth.” (Remember when that was America?) He adds that the “Government’s job should be to constantly find ways to remove itself from obstructing freedoms."
What a tremendous trade-up it would be if Canadians traded in the bumbling and statist Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for Poilievre. He is opposed to most lockdowns and vaccine mandates. He also wants to impose a two-term limit on the service of members of Parliament.
Best of all, he says he will defend Canadian sovereignty: “I will ban all my ministers from getting involved in the World Economic Forum, which is run by globalist Klaus Schwab (“The Great Reset.”). He bluntly said: “If any of my ministers want to go to that big, fancy conference of billionaires with the World Economic Forum in Davos… they better make it a one-way ticket because they won’t be back in the Cabinet.”
