Nam Y. Huh / AP
A customer holds a credit card at the pay-at-the-pump gasoline pump in Rolling Meadow, Ill., Thursday, June 30, 2022.
Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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The law of intended consequences. And who is really to blame?
This election, if the pundits and polls are right — which is an iffy proposition — should be very close. So much so that anyone who tells you they know what will happen is just guessing at this point.
It is no secret that voters seem to be most concerned with inflation and the price of gas. That’s what people see every day and that’s all some people need to know to cast a vote.
Most people, however, are concerned with more substantive, longer-term issues like the survival of this 250-year old democracy we’ve been given by the Founding Fathers And the ability of fully 50 percent of Americans (every woman) to act and feel like first-class citizens, you know, like the male of the species. And our adherence to the rule of law, the idea that nobody is above the law — we are all equal in a courtroom — even former presidents and a huge part of the GOP leadership that aids and abets.
In short, this election is about the price of gas versus the cost of losing this precious democracy, this experiment that Benjamin Franklin dared us to try to keep.
So, in the spirit of helping those few who haven’t made up their minds or voted, let’s talk about the gas pump. Because it is the price of gas that is mostly responsible for the increased prices of practically everything else we consume.
What I mean is, let’s make sure we are blaming the right president for that which is ailing us right now.
First, we have to take the Ukraine War off the table. The only person at fault for that is Russian President Vladimir Putin. So be thankful you are not voting in a Russian election. You know, that’s the country with all the fraud and abuse, not the United States as much as the MAGA world would want us to believe is the case.
Second, we have to take the aftermath of COVID-19 and the supply chain disruption off the table. Both of these events were beyond our control.
To understand why gas prices are high, we have to go back to 2020 — March 6, 2020, in Vienna to be exact — when Donald Trump was the president and Joe Biden was not.
My dear friend and lawyer, Joe Alioto, pointed me to this story so he gets the credit for putting it together, not me. He is an antitrust lawyer who has had the players in this saga in his sights since the beginning of 2022 when he figured out what they did — to Americans.
So who are the culprits?
How about the oil companies? How about Russia’s Putin and Saudi Arabia? And how about Jared Kushner and the former president? Yep, that’s the group we can thank for the high price of gas, food and practically everything else we are paying more for today.
The story is far more complicated than I can explain so put simply, it goes like this.
Russia and Saudi Arabia got into an oil price war three years ago. As a result of the low prices that resulted, as well as then-President Trump’s boasting that America was the largest oil producer in the world (certainly not Russia), Putin got pissed and walked out of a meeting of the oil producers who meet regularly to fix the price of oil.
Putin didn’t like the fact that the Saudis and others were increasing production which, coupled with the lack of demand because of the pandemic when nobody was driving, drove the price of oil way, way down. Hence, there was happiness for Americans at the pump.
Putin wanted higher prices since his country depends on selling oil at the highest price possible. But once he walked out of the meeting, the Saudis responded.
They pumped more oil, further driving down prices.
American consumers were thrilled, but American oil producers were not — especially those in the shale oil fields who couldn’t make a living at low prices so they were shutting down operations. And they were complaining to anyone who would listen to their tales of woe.
Enter the former president and his sonny-in-law. They were the deal-makers so they made a deal. In fact, Trump told Jared to make a deal that would drive gas prices back up.
According to Kushner’s book, “Breaking History, A White House Memoir” here’s how that went down.
Jared was talking to an American oil producer who was complaining about the low price of oil. He told him:
“ You need to call the president directly … he likes cheap oil. And I can’t do anything on this unless he directs me to.”
According to Kushner, “Half an hour later, my phone rang again.”
“Jared, I never thought I’d be asking you to make a deal to raise oil prices,” said Trump. “This is getting really bad. Call the Saudis and the Russians and work with them to make a deal.”
From son-in-law Jared’s own mouth, he said it all.
To hell with the people who bought gas — that’s us — Trump was in the White House to help the people who sold that precious commodity, the oil companies.
According to Kushner this was the “largest oil production reduction deal in history.” He proudly took credit for screwing the American consumer!
The story is long, complicated and sordid, but the results are clear. Once Trump’s deal was done, the price of oil was destined to go up. That cake was baked!
Oh, did I mention that Trump’s deal behind the backs of the American people included letting the oil companies store millions of barrels of oil they didn’t want to sell at low prices at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The reserve is to be used in case of war or national emergencies and is not for private businesses to use for their own profit motives. But, oh well, we are talking about Trump, right?
The point is that what people are genuinely feeling at the pump and at the grocery store is the direct result of that “deal” Trump made with the Saudis and Russians just before he left office.
And he left the man who beat him — Joe Biden — to clean up his mess.
So if you are voting against President Biden and the Democrats because your gas price is too high, perhaps you should take your concern and your angst out on the people who actually made this expensive mess.
That would be the Republicans. They intended these consequences, which makes what they did to regular Americans so very much worse.
And, now, as Paul Harvey used to say, you know the rest of the story.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
