JD Vance has said Americans should comfort themselves with the fact that allies are "suffering more than we are" from soaring gas and oil prices.

The worst and most stupid bit is this:

Speaking to crowds on Wednesday, vice president JD Vance said US allies are “suffering from this, frankly, more than we are.”

He claimed this was because they had “focused on a lot of green energy scams and they’re hurting a lot more than we are.”

Vance continued:"As much as we’ve got to focus on getting these gas prices down, the reality is overseas they’re feeling it far worse than we did because we’ve taken the steps to protect our energy economy.

  • 8oow3291d@feddit.dkEnglish
    16·
    21 hours ago

    Oil prices are pretty global. If you look at the prices for European oil (Brent crude) and US oil (West Texas Intermediate), then they are $14 apart. Which is not nothing, but WTI is still up by 63% from pre-war. That is still going to hurt the US economy, a lot.

    Also, in the US the oil price windfall is privatized, while the oil price pain is socialized. So the US will still feel almost the full pain.

    • humanspiral@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      16 hours ago

      There is some fuckery in US price. Asia is $60/bbl higher. Rumors of US export controls seemed contradicted by WH on Friday, and somehow prices went down in US by $1. Possibility of US treasury heavily shorting US futures (in secret or with secret financial allies) to manipulate price. With no export controls, US price should be $4 lower than Brent, and $8-$10 lower than Asia.

      • 8oow3291d@feddit.dkEnglish
        2·
        12 hours ago

        Asia is $60/bbl higher.

        Asia get their oil through the Hormuz straight. Of course their oil price is higher.

        There probably isn’t oil tankers enough in the world to equalize the supply between the US and Asia. Hence you should not expect the price to be perfectly equalized between the US and Asia.

        • humanspiral@lemmy.caEnglish
          1·
          8 hours ago

          when I said that $10 is a normal limit for Asia premium, it is based on the shipping cost ($10) to get WTI to Asia. Brent crude premium is also high. That there may not be enough shipping capacity to pick up from US, while theoretically possible, the spread is so incredibly profitable that it shouldn’t be $50 higher than normal profit, without every ship in the world lined up to make that profit.

          • 8oow3291d@feddit.dkEnglish
            1·
            8 hours ago

            You surely need a lot of oil tankers to sail oil across the Pacific Ocean - because each voyage takes so long. And there needs to be export oil terminals in the US towards Asia, which I assume there isn’t currently, because Asia was supplied by the Middle East.

            So a priory doesn’t seem too surprising to me, that there is a price spread.

            • humanspiral@lemmy.caEnglish
              1·
              7 hours ago

              You surely need a lot of oil tankers to sail oil across the Pacific Ocean - because each voyage takes so long.

              That is why the fair premium used to be $8 for asia (now $10) vs $4 for Europe. The entirety of the premium is to pay the shipping from one spot to the other.

              And there needs to be export oil terminals in the US towards Asia

              Everything is in TX and LA. There is not special Asian only valves or anything for shipping, and US has sold plenty of oil and LNG to Asia before.