Only the best for our government.
That was then. Now, under pressure to ignore a range of ethics rules, a large number of Department of Justice attorneys have quit, opting to lose their jobs but save their careers. Between these departures and a purge of legal staff members seen as insufficiently loyal to the presidentâs agenda, the department has lost thousands of lawyers. It shows: Briefs are riddled with errors. Attorneys come to court grossly unprepared. Worst, court orders stand violated â in some cases, it seems, because there werenât enough lawyers available to ensure they were carried out.
To fill those empty seats, the department has launched an increasingly desperate effort to recruit new hires. (âDonât be scared off by the transcript requirement,â a conservative law school reportedly told its students. âG.P.A. is not a strong factor.â) Even so, it seems too few lawyers are willing to take the chance. So the Trump administration last week offered up a different solution: a proposed rule that aims to shield Department of Justice lawyers from independent ethics investigations.
Another grift is in the works.
Typically, when the government releases oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), it means they sell it. The oil in the SPR originally cost about $50 per barrel, but today itâs worth about $100 per barrel.
So if the government sold 100 barrels today, they would get $10,000. Later, if oil prices dropped to $60, they could buy the same 100 barrels back for $6,000. That means the government (taxpayers) would make $4,000 profit.
Instead, the plan is to lend the oil to U.S. refiners. The refiners sell the oil at $100, keep the money, and later return the oil when prices are lower. So the refiners get the profit instead of the government. This plan is being carried out during a WAR.
Trump did say that the US profits from high oil prices but the âweâ in his earlier statement must have meant the oil companies not the American public.
Trump: âWhen oil prices go up, we make a lot of moneyâ
"the United States has arranged to more than replace these strategic reserves with approximately 200 million barrels within the next yearâ20% more barrels than will be drawn downâand at no cost to the taxpayer. "
That doesnât sound too grifty
I assume futures have a lower price later this year and there is profit to be made by hedging the exposure. This seems like a backdoor way for the government directly playing in the futures market.
I hope you are right. But whit this admin I always assume the worst, and they still usually exceed my expectations in grift and incompetence.
âMarkets do not like when governments interveneâ in market pricing, Terry Duffy, chief executive officer of CME Group Inc.,
The Trump admin trying to censor the news.
And another grift
When you treat this as a swap you are in effect moving the risk to the future. The oil companies get profits up front (good for them), while the taxpayer is on the hook for any potential losses down the line.
Its a way of kicking the proverbial can down the road so to speak.
But this misses the point. What generates inflation are the 2nd and 3rd order effects on the supply chain due to oil supply restrictions happening over the next few months. These will last many months (possibly even years for things like fertiliser, urea, sulphur, helium etc).
So having a $75/barrel oil price right now for futures is pretty meaningless as it doesnât factor in the effects of the supply chain disruption.
From what? The chance that the oil company may not meet its obligation? They are exchange 1 barrel of current oil for 1.2 barrels of future oil. There is no taxpayer loss, and the government was otherwise not going to use that barrel of oil in the interim.
In a world where we have plenty of things to complain about regarding Trump, this does not seem like one of them.
Why would you structure it in this way vs previous releases of the reserve?
The main difference is you are shifting the risk to the US taxpayer.
Why?
I have not heard of a legitimate reason to do this.
I think this is part of the problem.
He has flooded the zone with so much corruption and grift, that this sort of thing just gets ignored.
I agree there is risk âThe chance that the oil company may not meet its obligationâ.
I am still not sure this is even a bad thing for the taxpayer, if we get more oil put back in later this year than is taken out.
The loser here seems to be out in the futures market, as in whoever bet on oil prices coming down later this year will now see a higher demand as that oil is replaced. Which is what the CME group was complaining about.
MICHELLE GOLDBERG
I Went to Florida to See the 31-Year-Old Candidate Thrilling Gen Z. Weâre in Trouble.
When you fire / force most of your staff to quit, hiring competent replacements is hard.