Diesel shortage
There are other things going on in the economy than the Federal Reserve. There is concern about diesel shortages in the US. Reports are flying that there are only a couple of weeks of diesel left in stock, and with winter the demand for diesel and heating oil will increase.
To cover this story, I read from a great article by Tsvetana Paraskova. She covers the shortage and the reasons behind it in detail.
In short, US refinery capacity is down due to some plants switching to making biofuels, and our imports from Russia are non-existent due to insane sanctions.
At the show we get derailed because I personally am not too worried about the diesel shortage. It will cause some pain, but the solution is through that pain. Higher prices will cause one of two things to happen – or both: higher prices will stimulate more production or higher prices will cause policy changes to allow higher production.
There is an almost universal fear of higher prices, and they are demonized as “inflation” every time. Of course, high prices are not bad if you are a producer. They are not bad in general either. The prices must be neutral and give you information about the economy. The only price changes that are net negative are those due to changes in the money supply. Since our current economic condition is not due to money printing, but instead to supply crises and bad government policies, the price increases are necessary to fix the problems today.
This is a guest post by Ansel Lindner. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.