Diesel fuel and overall inflation

 

Ed D'Agostino points out that skyrocketing diesel prices will impact our entire economy.  It's not the President's fault, nor the Republican Party - it's conditioned by many events all around the world - but it's going to affect all of us.

Unless you own a trucking company, run a farm, operate heavy equipment, or drive a really big pickup truck, you may not have noticed how expensive diesel has become.

On September 15, AAA’s national average diesel price was $6.27 a gallon, compared with about $3.69 a year ago— a roughly 70% increase ... a 70% increase in a single year is an enormous shock to the economy.

Even if diesel prices were to fall from here, the shock will be working its way into grocery bills, freight charges, construction costs and home heating bills for many months.

. . .

What is unique about diesel, and why is its price outpacing oil and gasoline?

EIA expects U.S. distillate inventories (the category that includes diesel and heating oil) to fall below 100 million barrels in October, for the first time since 2003, and remain below the five-year range through the first quarter of 2027.

At the same time, refiners were already running at about 98% of capacity in late August, the highest utilization rate since 2018. In one sense that’s good news: refineries are responding to high prices by making more fuel.

The problem is they are already running near full capacity. That leaves less room to offset another supply disruption: an outage, a hurricane, a refinery accident or a further escalation of conflicts in the Middle East and Russia/Ukraine.

There may not be much relief coming. Several refiners have delayed planned maintenance to keep their refineries operating. At some point, they have to do the maintenance or risk an unplanned failure. Industry executives warn that diesel and heating-oil markets could remain tight well into next year, even if the Iran conflict ends.

. . .

For millions of households, winter means heating oil bills. Heating oil and diesel come from the same distillate pool. The differences are minimal, coming down to dyes for color and additives to help with either engine combustion or tank storage. You can run a diesel engine on heating oil, and you can fire your oil furnace with diesel.

. . .

Last winter, I relied primarily on oil to heat my New England home. It was a cold winter. On many days the electric heat pump did not make economic sense. Oil was the cheaper option.  A typical monthly oil delivery was about 150 gallons and cost around $550.

A 60% increase would put a delivery to my home at roughly $900. Ouch!  Thankfully, I can pay it.  It won’t change my lifestyle.  But for many, it will force hard decisions and uncomfortable compromises.  If you are on a fixed income or living paycheck-to-paycheck, an increase like that is a serious problem. 

For them, from their very real perspective, inflation will be sky high.

There's more at the link.

I'm worried that many voters will blame the Republican Party and President Trump for this, and punish them at the polls this fall.  Sure, some of the blame is undoubtedly theirs, but a great deal also belongs to the Democratic Party and his predecessor, who "kicked the can down the road" for four years before his inauguration and did little or nothing to stop Iran's adventurism (particularly using Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis as proxies in their ongoing war with Israel).  If President Trump was right about the threat Iran made to him concerning nuclear weapons, he had no choice but to act right away, without delay.  A nuclear threat from intransigent religious fanatics can't be dealt with in any other way.  However, people with hurting bank balances and empty wallets won't stop to consider that - they'll vote their pain, not something they can't directly and immediately feel for themselves.

I think we're in for a rocky ride until the elections . . .

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 329

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

The Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal claims yet more victims

 

Thanks to the damage wrought to its finances, the Fresno Diocese of the Catholic Church has just told its pensioners that they're screwed - financially, this time.

Retired Fresno Diocese employees will no longer receive retirement benefits starting next year.

Hundreds of former employees are now left scrambling over what to do with their financial future now up in the air.

In a letter to retirees last month, the diocese said the retirement plan was frozen at the end of June.

The church says they contributed the agreed-upon amount negotiated in employee contracts,

But the diocese says Christian Brothers Services, the company responsible for managing the money, is the reason there isn’t enough to continue payments.

The diocese says it explored legal options to transfer the money into a retirement plan of their own. But said that plan would not be possible with the church filing for bankruptcy.

The church is facing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit involving more than 150 claims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy.

There's more at the link.

I don't have to tell you how sick to my stomach this news makes me feel.  I've written extensively about how I experienced the clergy sex abuse scandal, and how it's almost destroyed the faith of countless good people (see the partial list of my articles on that subject in the sidebar, particularly this one).  This is just the latest episode in a very sordid story.  However, the fact that the Fresno diocese is willing to throw their pensioners to the wolves - people who devoted years of their lives, if not their entire working career. to the service of the Church - is the clearest possible indication that many of the hierarchy are still protecting their own backside(s) (collectively and individually).  They don't appear to really, truly care who else suffers, just as long as their positions are protected.  The Fresno diocese's attitude - and remember, actions speak louder than words - appears to be, "Are our retirees going to starve, or be unable to pay their medical bills, because we've stopped paying their pensions?  Well, let them!  We have more important uses for that money!"

Analyzing the overall situation, the National Catholic Reporter didn't mince its words.

The legal processes accomplish what they are designed to do, exact a bit of retribution on behalf of victims. They do not, however, restore or transform survivors. They don't erase haunting, debilitating memories. And they do little to address the most searing questions for which the faithful still await an answer: How did this happen? How could the chief shepherds allow the most vulnerable in the flock to be preyed upon?

As Charles Nadeau, a court-appointed representative of survivors, explained: "Bankruptcy is not inherently unjust ... But when applied to clergy sexual abuse, it risks becoming something else — a substitute for moral accountability."

The San Francisco Archdiocese, faced with a $359 million settlement to hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by clergy, explained that its distribution of financial pain among its parishes was essential to "enabling our local church to emerge from bankruptcy and move beyond this difficult chapter in our history."

The wish to "move beyond this difficult chapter," entirely dependent on heavily taxing those who had nothing to do with creating the problem, is a telling sentiment.

. . .

... it wasn't "the church collectively" that did this. It was the clerical/hierarchical culture. That culture has yet to collectively square up with the reality that the abuse crisis in the church was a betrayal of the community at a sacramental level. It is a level of betrayal that can't occur in any other circumstance.

. . .

The cold reality is that the laity are left to foot the bill, financially and otherwise, for the depraved behavior of their bishops. They are left with struggling parishes, diminished resources for ministry, and the church's loss of credibility in the wider culture.

We know now that the coverup was not the work of an isolated bishop; it was not the province of liberals or conservatives. It was the result of a hierarchical culture that had developed in a way that allowed its members to think they were above reproach or accountability for even the most egregious behavior.

. . .

The bishops need ... a full-on, uncompromising, unadorned examination of the sinful and criminal activity of their predecessors, of the culture they've inherited that allowed such sin and crime to fester for so long.

Again, more at the link.

I get very angry when I hear anyone claiming to speak with or from the "moral authority of the Church".  Christ has all the moral authority there is, in this world and the next.  However, his Church on earth has, through the actions (and inactions) of its leaders, effectively so betrayed his moral authority, been so derelict in its duty to the people of God, that for many of the faithful, it has abrogated any claim to represent him.  Millions (literally) have left the Church over this crisis, and millions more will doubtless follow suit, unless and until its leaders "clean house".  So far, they've signally failed to do so.

May Almighty God have mercy on all our souls . . .

Peter

A new book from someone you already know well

 

My wife Dorothy has published several books as "Dorothy Grant".  They've been well received by her reading audience (which, of course, includes most of you . . . right?)

She's decided to tackle some books that are more adult-oriented than most of our previous output.  However, she doesn't want to put off those who are used to her previous style of writing.  They might object to the new, more "robust" tone of this book, so she's publishing it under a pseudonym, Summer Grayling.  There'll probably be more to follow under that pen-name.

Her first novel under this pseudonym, "True Colours", has just been published.  I think of it as a magical-fantasy tactically-correct quasi-romance, and I really like it!

The blurb reads:

Jan Van Der Vaart is a legend. The focus of his magical Talent is pain, and he's spent years in the military, then as a mercenary, making terrorists, cartels, and governments fear him. Finally, he carved out a safe haven for other Talents, and tried to retire... until one last job, cracking a black lab snatching Talents off the streets, went sideways. He's left staggering down a rainy coastal highway, thumb out and hoping he'll catch a lift before the kill team realizes they missed...

Aurelia Brinati is on the run. Having escaped five years of hell as an unwilling lab rat, she has a stolen car and a plan to hide from pursuers by taking passage on a cargo ship headed anywhere else in the world. When she picks up a stray sailor headed the same way, she rapidly discovers she's out of her depths... and safe in the heart of the storm.

The entire world fears him... except her. Powers are gathering to recapture Aurelia, but they'd best beware. Jan and his friends will do whatever it takes to keep her safe... whether it's murder, mayhem, or last-minute shopping runs to find something called cream of tartar for her snickerdoodle cookies.

I happen to think my wife is a better writer than I am.  I've really enjoyed all her books, and I'm very proud of her for achieving such success.  She was, I think, a bit nervous that I might be offended by some of the so-called "adult" bits in this book, but no, not at all.  She handles them with what I might call "enthusiastic restraint";  nothing excessively anatomical, if you will, but nevertheless real.  I'm already re-reading "True Colours" for the second time, and enjoying it all over again.

I hope you'll give this book a try.  I think you'll like it.  There are more coming from her in similar vein, so watch this space for details!

Peter

(P.S.:  Yes, I know she's chosen the name of a fish for her pseudonym.  It made us both giggle!  It's highly appropriate for this book, being set so much at sea.)

Yet another reason to update your emergency supplies

 

Yesterday the Dutch railway network was brought to its knees by coordinated sabotage attacks across the country.

There have been no trains at all across swathes of the northern and central Netherlands after objects were attached to the rails in at least 30 known locations. Remarkably, the national railway operator says that in some places where the obstacles had been cleared, new ones were quickly placed in the same location again once engineers and police had left the scene.

The nationwide coordinated sabotage campaign has used the railway’s own safety systems against it, with metal objects “deliberately placed” across the two tracks. Modern railways use electrical circuits between the two rails to detect where trains are and are not, the presence of a train’s wheels and axle spanning the two tracks closes the circuit and alerts the signalling system to its location.

By manually shorting the circuit, the saboteurs were able to trick the automatic system into turning the signals across the network red to prevent phantom trains from crashing into each other, which in turn forced the real trains to halt as well.

. . .

Because of the nature of the sabotage, which introduced phantom trains to the network, in several locations, level crossings were automatically activated to protect drivers from approaching trains that didn’t exist, spreading the network chaos onto the roads too.

. . .

As well as railway networks, climate extremists have targeted power infrastructure. The decentralised nature of both networks and the widespread disruption possible makes them apparently attractive targets for would-be extremists and left-wing terrorists, given that the widely spread infrastructure is difficult to closely watch, harden, or fortify.

In at least one case, European railways have been sabotaged by state actors, with Russia blamed for a bombing of a Polish railway in a “false flag” attack last year.

Germany’s power networks have also been repeatedly sabotaged by the hard left in recent months. Just last week, it is believed an extremist used dozens of homemade rockets to knock out high-voltage power substations to sabotage coal power plants nationwide, and Berlin’s power network is sometimes subjected to acts of arson with considerable knock-on effects.

There's more at the link.

Americans tend to forget (or ignore) the fact that we've had precisely the same sort of sabotage in this country for a long time now.  That may be because the US is so much bigger than most other countries that we don't notice (or take notice of) what's happening in areas other than our own.  The methods may differ, but the results are the same - disruption of vital infrastructure.  For example:

• Attacks on the US electrical grid;
• Cyberattacks on water systems;
• Vulnerability of US mass transport and passenger rail systems;
• Terrorist threat to U.S. highway system.

Follow those links for more information.  There's no need to mention the vulnerability of airline transport, so close to the anniversary of 9/11.  Things have improved since then, but they're far from foolproof.

The thing is, so far we've experienced relatively uncoordinated attacks against the infrastructure on which our entire society and economy depend.  Electricity may be cut in one area, water in another, rail traffic in a third, but until now they've been relative pinpricks from the perspective of the nation as a whole.  That won't necessarily remain the case;  in fact, it's very unlikely to stay that way.  Terrorist nations such as Iran and enemies such as North Korea have had all the time in the world to infiltrate operatives across our southern border, and I've no doubt that several thousand such people are already here.  If they were "activated" or "mobilized" by their source nations, they could do immense damage to our society by striking in a coordinated fashion across multiple critical systems.

• How could a fire department rush to extinguish a blaze caused by a terrorist bomb when the traffic management system has been disrupted, and the rail system sabotaged to cause all level crossings to shut down, and the water supply to a city to be interrupted by a cyberattack on the main pumping stations?
• How could emergency services cope with such a rash of issues all arising at once, particularly if the roads were further disrupted by spreading caltrops (which can easily be produced in mass quantities at negligible cost, using backyard garages and workshops) in strategic locations on the city's road network, disabling enough vehicles to block the road almost completely?  They can be dumped out of the back of pickups or rented vans using buckets.

We don't know whether the attacks on Holland's railways were state-sponsored (probably by Russian agents trying to disrupt support for Ukraine) or arose from domestic political terrorism, but it doesn't really matter to those affected by them.  Much of the country was brought to a halt at once, without warning.

That could happen to any major city in this country, and even to whole states, if enough people struck at enough critical infrastructure nodes.  It would take weeks, if not months, to restore everything to normal operations.  During that period, if you rely on critical supplies such as medication, special foods for kids or invalids, or enough gasoline or diesel to get from a remote location (e.g. a farm) to the nearest source of supply, you'd be S.O.L.  That's why I make sure that my wife and myself maintain a year's supply of all critical prescription medication, including basic antibiotics in case they should be needed.  That practice has come in very useful in the past, for ourselves (being able to take an antibiotic for repeated infections) and to supply friends with medication (for example, during the COVID emergency).  Oh - and don't forget critical OTC supplies like painkillers and allergy medications.  How miserable would you be if an emergency arose that forced you to spend many hours outside, or without air conditioning or filtration, during peak allergy season?  Since both my wife and I have allergy problems, you can bet we stash enough of those meds to see us through a couple of months.

For that matter, it's worth keeping at least one month's worth of food and water on hand, in case of an emergency.  Forget the commercial "72-hour" kits (like these, for example);  they're better than nothing, but don't hold all you'll need, even for so short a period.  They're designed to make you feel like you're prepared, while enriching those who make and supply them.  Get the foods you normally eat, particularly canned or dry foods, and put an extra supply away for a rainy day.  Also, keep on hand a way to prepare that food if your electric or gas stove suddenly stops working;  and have a way to dispose of garbage and human waste.  (Yes, that does mean a reserve supply of toilet paper and paper towels, plus a spade to bury everything critical, because it's unlikely regular garbage collection will happen.)  Think of all the little things we take for granted in our everyday lives, and ask yourself:  "What would I do if I could no longer get this?  What would I no longer be able to do?  Can I live with that?  What about alternatives or substitutes?"

I want to re-emphasize the importance of water supply.  We've just seen, in recent weeks, multiple attempted cyberattacks on water supply systems in several states.  I'm sure we'll see more.  Plan on needing at least two gallons per person per day for all purposes (double the "official" recommendation, which is a minimum to preserve life, and doesn't include luxuries such as washing yourself, laundry, etc.).  Unless using sealed containers, empty and refill your water supply every six months or so.  Water containers are freely available;  some (such as two-liter soda bottles) are free, once you've used up their original contents and cleaned them thoroughly.  A very economical solution is to buy 5-gallon buckets with lids (preferably made from food-grade plastic) and reserve them for water storage only.  They're not ideal, but they'll do the job.  (A full bucket of water weighs over 40 pounds, so if lifting heavy weights is a problem, buy 2-gallon or 3.5-gallon buckets instead.)  Finally (and particularly if you can't keep more than a few days' worth of water on hand), have a good-quality water filtration system in case purified water runs out.  They range from a few dollars to several hundred.  Buy the best your budget can afford, and then buy another one (or a less expensive backup system), because you simply cannot afford to be without drinking water.  For almost all of us, it's our single most critical emergency resource - and one of the most neglected.

It's not just natural disasters we have to worry about:  it's all the others that can catch us unawares.  The Netherlands is finding that out right now.

Peter