Fox News just flipped the script
Just before announcing that gas prices are falling, Fox News co-anchor John Roberts told his audience that he’d just come back from a lacrosse tournament over the weekend. Co-anchor Sandra Smith grabbed that lacrosse ball out of the air and ran with it, telling the same audience why the news of falling gas prices is suddenly a bad thing. Turns out it’s bad news for small, independent “mom and pop” gas stations. Gas prices are falling too fast, you see, and the independents are losing money because they have to sell yesterday’s gas at today’s prices, you see.
In other words, it would be great news that gas prices are falling if only they were falling for the right reasons and at the right rate, you see. Or if a Republican president were in office, you see. The truth of the matter is that these millionaire lacrosse aficionados and brand new friends of the little guy aren’t happy that gas prices are coming down just 120 days before the midterms. They know perfectly well that, high or low, the current price of gas has nothing to do with Joe Biden. But they don’t want their viewers to know that.
Of course, the reason for the retail gas decline was the sudden, steep fall in the wholesale price. Like all bubbles, the price had to go down again. In fact, the decline hasn’t happened as dramatically yet from where I write this (England) because retailers are slower here at passing on their savings to consumers. But it will.
It’s all part of the global economy. When you point this little fact out to a MAGA Republican they still insist it’s Biden’s fault because “everything is tied to the dollar.” This nonsense is brought to you by the overweening Republican need to blame all things bad in the American (and world) economy on Joe Biden. But if you want to blame someone you can blame Donald Trump, and it all tracks back to his appalling handling of the worldwide pandemic.
Had Trump taken the pandemic seriously and set the tone for the rest of the world, the pandemic might not have been as bad in America and, consequently, elsewhere. But because it was as bad as it was, thanks to Trump, the United States government had to print an unprecedented amount of money to pay for everything. So did everyone else in the world. And everybody knows that it’s economics 101 that when you print money you get inflation.
What we may be seeing right now is the slow, grinding to a halt of the inflation caused by the worldwide money-printing orgy. True, the war in Ukraine isn’t helping. But when it comes to worldwide inflation you can always round up the usual suspects. Nine times out of ten the main reason behind inflation is money printing, and these days are no exception. But once the impact of the extra money printing has passed its peak the inflation will slowly come to an end, just like it always does.
Fox doesn’t want you to know any of this. They want to blame Biden so they can use that bit of propaganda to scare the crap out of voters, and motivate them to vote Republican in November. But the fact of the matter is, if gas prices continue to fall and Republicans continue to screw up, November just might be a very, very good month for Democrats. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.