Diesel isn't just transport fuel; it's the primary input cost for agriculture, mining, and heavy freight. When diesel spikes, the compounding freight surcharges hit every layer of the supply chain before landing squarely on end-consumer grocery bills. That makes sticky inflation nearly impossible to cool down through monetary policy alone
It's going to be a shitshow in New England this winter for buyers and sellers of heating oil..
Obviously, buyers are about to have the most expensive heating season of all time and the oil-delivery companies are going to have to make some tough choices on cutting off long time customers who can't pay.
Going by what I've seen in Minnesota (and what I've allegedly done once, maybe twice), people will just turn on their stove burners and oven with the door open to create at least some heat. And yeah, that sounds about as safe as you think it does.
That is only because they have NOT got the memo from 1970’s that fuel oil is expensive and dirty while in 2026 solar and batteries are not.
Ok, at NO time in the last 50YEARS has the money and government rebates been available . . . “DRILL BABE, DRILL” to replace the oil berner in the basement! Congratulations on a very “conservative viewpoint”, just like “fiscal conservative”!
It takes about a year for a barrel of oil to work through the economy. So as we come around to a year of the Iran "special operation" that's finally happening. You'll be buying groceries grown with expensive fertilizer, packed in plastic made from expensive oil, trucked to your grocery store with very expensive diesel, picked up in a car filled with very expensive gasoline. By next year the tires on that car will have been made from very expensive oil, parked in the driveway of a house heated with extremely expensive energy. The impact will be crushing as it seeps through the economy. And as usual it will hit lower incomes hardest. I can afford to add more solar panels to my house, upgrade to an EV, and put in a heat pump, but many can't.
I see a lot of farmers in my area haven’t been working their fields as much this season. I’ve never seen so many weeds in fields with crops before. I’m wondering how this is going to affect the harvest season. Surely if everyone’s harvest is lower all over the country because they didn’t spray for weeds or fertilize as much to cut their fuel bill this will also have an impact.
China is the number one importer of energy in the world. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Yes they subsidized electric car companies, you still have to charge up those batteries.
China imports tons of oil mainly for transport usage and petrochemicals. Their electrical grid uses no oil and only a tiny amount of LNG. They are working on getting the transport oil demand down fast and are working on alternatives to the petrochemical part, so their oil demand will just continue to drop.
China produced about 4.3 million barrels/day of crude oil in 2024, while consuming roughly 16.3 million barrels/day of petroleum and other liquids. It imported approximately 11.1 million barrels/day of crude. It’s all used for transportation vehicles.
You’re correct it doesn’t use crude for power. But this also obliterates your or someone’s original comment that they have electric vehicles so they don’t need crude. They’re the most dependent in the world on crude oil.
>They’re the most dependent in the world on crude oil.
And they're also doing their most in the world to get rid of that dependency, 2026 will be their 3rd straight year of oil consumption decrease. Not to mention that China a major refined fuel exporter, a lot of that imported crude oil is just imported to get processed into jet fuel or diesel and exported out to the rest of Asia.
>But this also obliterates your or someone’s original comment that they have electric vehicles so they don’t need crude.
Transport is 60% of global oil use. Chinese EV sales only really started to surge in 2022, and by 2024 they already use their transport sector use of gasoline peak. It took 2 years of 20% EV sales for gasoline usage to decrease, imagine what that looks like in a decade when EVs are 90% of the fleet instead of the 20% it is today. And electric trucks sales only started to take off last year, we will see their impact by next year.
They’re aggressively importing because they also have the world’s largest oil reserve. This is intentional so they are prepared for oil shortages or conflicts in the future.
China’s unofficial crude oil stockpile:
Total volume: Estimated near 1.4 billion barrels
Import coverage: Equal to roughly 120 to 130 days of imports
Global standing: Believed to be the largest emergency stockpile worldwide
Over 60% of China's total power generation capacity comes from renewable and clean sources. So yeah, they are very much ahead in terms of decoupling from oil dependency compared to most countries.
In Europe, Amazon is deploying 200 electric semi tractors. Where I live in the usa all the local Amazon delivery trucks are electric. You get to charge over night at off peak rates while you load/unload the truck.
>Electric trucks and buses crossed the half-million-units mark globally in 2025, with sales up 86% year-on-year
>China accounted for nearly 90% of global electric truck and bus sales, with sales in medium and heavy truck segments more than quintupling over two years.
>In China, almost 30 per cent of all new registrations in the heavy truck segment last year were fully electric.
This is for short and medium haul trucking, and it's still a tiny percentage of the overall truck fleet, and there's still a huge use of diesel for agriculture, mining and shipping so there's still a lot of work to be done, but every electric truck is a a few tens of thousands of liters of diesel saved a year. If sales continue at this rate, China will have 40% electric truck fleet by 2030.
And you can expect increased sales of other electric equipment too in the coming years, electric tractors, electric heavy construction equipment, solar+battery instead of diesel generators. I would say that everything other than ships and planes can go electric within the next decade.
Eventually these sectors will electrify too. Electric motors are extremely well suited for exactly these kinds of uses who happen to require a lot of torque. The only issue today is energy density but I guess unlike consumer vehicles, battery swapping on tractors and heavy construction equipment is much more likely to catch on. Assuming we don't let proprietary standards make it yet another field for rentseeking and fall behind.
I don't see how we avoid it causing a recession, frankly. It's going to amp up inflation and depress consumer spending, which is already fragile and heavily dependent on debt. At that point the vicious cycle of reduced corporate earnings, layoffs, bankruptcies, etc. starts.
They will just increase the deficit to 10 percent of GDP then. You think anyone in charge is thinking long term? You think any of these fools thinks past the next election cycle?
We live in a circus and the ringmaster has been replaced by bozo the clown
I'm fact, they intentionally love leaving a mess for the next administration to clean up. They can blame the Democrats for all the need and con their voters into believing that only the Republicans can fix this mess. Their voters never remember or understand that it was Republican policy that caused the problem in the first place.
The silver lining is that there's a lot of head room for prices to increase. Americans spend very little on energy relative to other developed countries. We use more than pretty much anyone per capita and our relatively low spending provides a good bit more altitude to figure out how we're going to land. Consumer spending still hasn't responded much.
I'm not sure how much headroom there is, realistically. It's true we spend less on energy than people in other countries, but as a result our system isn't optimized for efficiency the way theirs are. For example, we are much more dependent on our private vehicle fleet for transportation and it's composed of highly fuel inefficient vehicles compared to those of other countries. Fuel prices can go up to European or Japanese levels quickly but that doesn't mean our energy efficiency will quickly follow suit.
Exactly. Other countries, like for example European countries have adequate public transport, whereas the US has practically almost none. So how are the Europeans consuming more energy than the US?
> So how are the Europeans consuming more energy than the US?
They're not (per person); theirs is just more expensive, and salaries are lower, so it makes up a greater portion of their income/spending despite the lower volume.
> as a result our system isn't optimized for efficiency the way theirs are
Right, so there's a lot of room for improvement, meaning even more potential headroom. It's not hard to swap an 18 MPG Bronco for a Rivian R2. Or even a gas heater for a heat pump, in many cases. If we were already maxed out on efficiency, we'd have a much harder time, but as you correctly point out, we're not.
It's not quick or painless to make those switches though, particularly when the economy is in bad shape. Buying a new car costs a lot of money. Replacing a home heating system costs a lot of money. When inflation is high and the job market is tenuous people are not generally willing or able to spend a lot of money.
This is extremely valid but trying to do these things when everyone else is trying to do the same simultaneously due to a crisis is a surefire way to pay a heavy premium.
I'm willing to bet that the schedule of heat pump installers is already full for the rest of the year and will become even more crowded as time drags on without a solution on the horizon.
I live in Germany. During the ‘heat wave’ we couldn’t even buy a desk fan at the local store. Amazon stock was totally sold out. None on eBay. Stores who did have stock jacked the prices.
I can’t imagine buying a heat pump in an energy crisis being any better. And that’s assuming you’re lucky enough to be able to afford one.
Yes, only until the lender says, no more money. You have so much debt, that now I am beginning to fear you may not be able to pay it back. Return some of my money.
Americans use twice as much energy as a person in Western Europe. The fact that energy is cheaper in the US is a different issue. When the costs go up, the situation becomes relative. Companies clamp down on spending and start getting rid of people, even though they may still be able to take the hit from the rising costs. So it is a matter of time before diesel starts impacting everything.
We also have a transportation system built nearly 100% on less efficient highways and roads. This would take decades to change. The country is also massive. These two combine to make energy price increases hit us worse then most developed countries
True, but that energy abundance is part of the reason America is much more productive than other developed countries (and why China is so much further ahead). What a sad way to squander that advantage.
You may be correct, but we are not there yet. They just raised rates and you don’t do that in a recessionary environment.
Demand for airlines is still extremely strong
Just saying, that we aren’t there yet, but we are getting close to rate cuts if this situation is prolonged
I agree we're not there yet, and I wouldn't pretend to know when we'll get there. I'm just looking at it from the perspective of basic economic inputs.
The two economic inputs to watch that may or may not crater would be unemployment and the jobs report.
When unemployment starts to skyrocket and the jobs report starts to decline and go negative then we’ve got a real major problem. If inflation is still high at that point due to higher oil prices, we’re gonna have a stagflation environment.
I think those are more lagging indicators, honestly. Unemployment rising is an indication that problems that have been in the pipeline for a while are coming home to roost. I work in the supply chain side of the economy so I'm looking at upstream stuff - purchase orders and the like. Not trending down yet but there are worrying signs because there's not much room to absorb an inflationary shock.
Exactly, Rates are going to be raised right now even as recession indicators mount. In the 1970's when this happened, it was stagflation that globalization and deficit spending was able to pull the economy out of. We're still early on for this crisis, we haven't felt the food supply shock yet.
Unemployment is a month-to-month indicator so not sure how much of a lager it could be. It’s pretty on par with what’s happening. And when it blows look out below.
It's month-to-month but by the time layoffs and hiring slowdowns show up in the data problems will have been ongoing for awhile. Businesses don't generally make those kind of cutback decisions until they've had at least a quarter's worth of bad financial numbers coming in, and the once they do there's a reporting delay as well.
Turnover is extremely expensive. Laying people off too soon just to hire new people back isn't a great business practice. Once it becomes obvious business is tanking, then you dump everyone.
This is unlikely to help when the issue is availability and not just price. Price responds to reduced availability and subsidizing it, while a noble goal, don't magically produce new diesel.
And with already rising voices for a diesel export ban from populists who don't understand the mechanics of the oil markets, even importing might come across counter-bans as other countries react to try and protect their own supply.
Rail is far more efficient than trucks (yes, are less convenient). There should not be cross country semi traffic. The problem is, in my opinion, that how we load and unload trains is not efficient. They should work like a distribution system with almost no freight getting stacked off to the side.
92 million people didn’t bother to vote for POTUS. They were warned repeatedly about gas, trade, wars and other illegal/unconstitutional actions Trump would do in a 2nd term. Nothing could persuade them, not even past actions.
I can at least understand the 77 million racist morons that voted for this. They bought into the lies and didn’t expect any of his policies to hurt them.
75 million Americans knew right from wrong, knew that republicans and Trump would screw us over and we did the right thing. We understood the risks and the assignment. Now we, along with the others, are being punished.
The problem is the media environment. There's so much misinformation floating around that most people are ill informed. We need to refine the first amendment so that blatent and willful lying isn't considered protected speech.
I agree with your problem statement. However, lies are not protected speech. That’s what fraud, libel and slander laws are for. Opinions aren’t lies. “News” organizations are promoting opinion as fact.
The fix is restoring the fairness doctrine Reagan eliminated and making news non-profit. When broadcast licenses were originally issued across “public” airwaves, a portion of that license required non-profit activity for educating the public (communications act of 1934). That’s where news and “the more you know” stuff came from.
I agree with you my only concern is that the media environment changed a lot since the 1930s with the advent of social and alternative media and I'm concerned about how effective the same regulation for broadcasting would work for that.
This is where blatent/willful is difficult to assess. My thought is they really need to make community notes more formalized and if you are constantly hit with communities notes you would have to address it or it dings your credibility. I don't understand how people can lie through their teeth and still have an audience.
It’s hard to know for sure obviously. But various polling shows the non voters having the same proportion of preferences as those who did vote. Ie a slight trump majority. It’s sort of comforting to believe there is a silent lazy majority Harris vote that just didn’t turn out, but there’s little reason to believe that to be the case. America just (sadly and stupidly) preferred trump
You take away people’s ability to participate in democracy don’t be shocked when they don’t participate in democracy. There was no primary and perhaps the least charismatic person was chosen to frontline a party. On Election Day, what was the most googled question? “Why isn’t Biden running.” Blame the DNC. Thank your local progressives for running them out of town. We’re taking over the party which knows they could be more popular but they want their sweet donors dollars so this is what we get. Disenfranchised voters who see both parties as corrupt that are willing to yo-yo back and forth every election because their lives aren’t getting better.
Probably because both sides main job is to pick social issues to rile up their base and do little to no governing. Also Trump was nowhere near this bad the first term and for most Americans very little changes no matter who is in office
Ehh what you thought 10 years ago is probably a different than today and I've had people do deep dives to try to hurt me when I have commented about personal trauma
AVA sucked for a lot of people. It more than doubled the cost of health care and I had to go without insurance for 5 years. I went from $600 a month for a good plan with a $2500/$5000 deductable to a $1400 bronze plan with a $5000/$10,000 deductable. I couldn't afford that so then I got to pay a no insurance penalty. It's a good thing my ex was a veteran or we would have gone bankrupt when she got breast cancer
I don’t see the numbers for cost, but we go through about 2,000 metric tons of diesel per month. So all that Chinese junk in the stores will probably get a little more expensive (ship on a Pacific route).
Nobody is talking about how this will affect student transportation. Millions of children rely on buses for transportation and a large percentage of fleets are run on diesel.
Right, so schools have a limited budget every year. There's going to be no money for teacher's raises or any of that other frivolous stuff! It's not like they have to support their entire family on that single wage or anything...
The cascading effect of this particular thing is going to hit the right harder than they realize. Schools will make sure kids can get to school day to day, no matter what, they have to do it. But everything else? That will certainly get cuts. That means extracurriculars, of which there are many. How are republicans in Texas going to react when football teams cancel away games because the district can’t afford diesel for the busses? How about the ones in Kansas who have to cancel basketball games because of the same thing? This is going to go after the one part of the education system the right actually gives a shit about. Sadly school districts won’t actually point the finger where it needs to because they have to appear impartial, so I’m sure local politicians will spin it as Dems fault. But it’s gonna get harder to believe that every day when Dems have no power to do that kind of thing.
Individual_Limit_701 | 12 hours ago
Diesel isn't just transport fuel; it's the primary input cost for agriculture, mining, and heavy freight. When diesel spikes, the compounding freight surcharges hit every layer of the supply chain before landing squarely on end-consumer grocery bills. That makes sticky inflation nearly impossible to cool down through monetary policy alone
snoogins355 | 10 hours ago
Also heating oil fuel. In MA 400k homes use it as the primary heat source in winter.
A-Bone | 9 hours ago
It's going to be a shitshow in New England this winter for buyers and sellers of heating oil..
Obviously, buyers are about to have the most expensive heating season of all time and the oil-delivery companies are going to have to make some tough choices on cutting off long time customers who can't pay.
Maxpowr9 | 8 hours ago
You can legally cannot shutoff someone's gas in MA between certain dates. Course when that window is closed, a lot of people will be without gas.
A-Bone | 7 hours ago
> You legally cannot shutoff someone's [natural] gas in MA between certain dates.
That is true for natural gas which is delivered via underground pipeline and treated as a regulated utility..
Heating oil and propane are not regulated as utilities and need to be delivered via truck.
Companies are not required to deliver oil or propane to non-paying customers, so for non-paying customers; when they are out, they are out.
It's going to be a rough winter for lots of people up here in the north east.
Kataphractoi | 5 hours ago
Going by what I've seen in Minnesota (and what I've allegedly done once, maybe twice), people will just turn on their stove burners and oven with the door open to create at least some heat. And yeah, that sounds about as safe as you think it does.
badhabitfml | 4 hours ago
Yup. Going to be a busy winter for the fire department when people turn to wood fires and space heaters to keep their houses warm.
gwarster | an hour ago
On the other hand, Super El Niño. They’ll likely be using much less fuel.
Peripatetictyl | 7 hours ago
I’m in the region, and I fill my tank every August. Up 40% year over year, and 30% since I filled up.
RepresentativeNo2187 | 4 hours ago
Found an invoice from 2019 when it was under $3.00/gallon.
mediandude | 2 hours ago
Homes are stationary and should be among the first to be switched to alternative heating systems and extra insulation.
David_ungerer | 3 hours ago
That is only because they have NOT got the memo from 1970’s that fuel oil is expensive and dirty while in 2026 solar and batteries are not.
Ok, at NO time in the last 50YEARS has the money and government rebates been available . . . “DRILL BABE, DRILL” to replace the oil berner in the basement! Congratulations on a very “conservative viewpoint”, just like “fiscal conservative”!
CertainCertainties | 11 hours ago
Yep, diesel (and fertiliser) price increases have a multiplier effect that can seriously damage an economy.
Remarkable_Scallion | 7 hours ago
It takes about a year for a barrel of oil to work through the economy. So as we come around to a year of the Iran "special operation" that's finally happening. You'll be buying groceries grown with expensive fertilizer, packed in plastic made from expensive oil, trucked to your grocery store with very expensive diesel, picked up in a car filled with very expensive gasoline. By next year the tires on that car will have been made from very expensive oil, parked in the driveway of a house heated with extremely expensive energy. The impact will be crushing as it seeps through the economy. And as usual it will hit lower incomes hardest. I can afford to add more solar panels to my house, upgrade to an EV, and put in a heat pump, but many can't.
growerdan | 6 hours ago
I see a lot of farmers in my area haven’t been working their fields as much this season. I’ve never seen so many weeds in fields with crops before. I’m wondering how this is going to affect the harvest season. Surely if everyone’s harvest is lower all over the country because they didn’t spray for weeds or fertilize as much to cut their fuel bill this will also have an impact.
Mayafoe | 8 hours ago
In China this is increasingly not true. The rest of the world will follow suit soon
jasoncbus | 8 hours ago
Can you elaborate? Serious question. Has China figured out a way to disconnect fuel cost increases from end-result product prices?
TheAmorphous | 8 hours ago
They're building fleets of electric trucks and bring more solar capacity online each year than the rest of the world combined.
nephilim52 | 7 hours ago
China is the number one importer of energy in the world. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Yes they subsidized electric car companies, you still have to charge up those batteries.
mutherhrg | 7 hours ago
China imports tons of oil mainly for transport usage and petrochemicals. Their electrical grid uses no oil and only a tiny amount of LNG. They are working on getting the transport oil demand down fast and are working on alternatives to the petrochemical part, so their oil demand will just continue to drop.
nephilim52 | 7 hours ago
China produced about 4.3 million barrels/day of crude oil in 2024, while consuming roughly 16.3 million barrels/day of petroleum and other liquids. It imported approximately 11.1 million barrels/day of crude. It’s all used for transportation vehicles.
You’re correct it doesn’t use crude for power. But this also obliterates your or someone’s original comment that they have electric vehicles so they don’t need crude. They’re the most dependent in the world on crude oil.
mutherhrg | 7 hours ago
>They’re the most dependent in the world on crude oil.
And they're also doing their most in the world to get rid of that dependency, 2026 will be their 3rd straight year of oil consumption decrease. Not to mention that China a major refined fuel exporter, a lot of that imported crude oil is just imported to get processed into jet fuel or diesel and exported out to the rest of Asia.
>But this also obliterates your or someone’s original comment that they have electric vehicles so they don’t need crude.
Transport is 60% of global oil use. Chinese EV sales only really started to surge in 2022, and by 2024 they already use their transport sector use of gasoline peak. It took 2 years of 20% EV sales for gasoline usage to decrease, imagine what that looks like in a decade when EVs are 90% of the fleet instead of the 20% it is today. And electric trucks sales only started to take off last year, we will see their impact by next year.
Koss424 | 5 hours ago
good - they are the world's biggest polluters.
Worth-Lead-5944 | 5 hours ago
Not on a per capita basis which is the only basis that matters because nations don't pollute, people do.
erath_droid | 5 hours ago
China has significantly decreased its oil imports since the start of the war with Iran.
How long they can keep that up for...? Who knows?
sleepygardener | 6 hours ago
They’re aggressively importing because they also have the world’s largest oil reserve. This is intentional so they are prepared for oil shortages or conflicts in the future.
China’s unofficial crude oil stockpile:
Total volume: Estimated near 1.4 billion barrels
Import coverage: Equal to roughly 120 to 130 days of imports
Global standing: Believed to be the largest emergency stockpile worldwide
Over 60% of China's total power generation capacity comes from renewable and clean sources. So yeah, they are very much ahead in terms of decoupling from oil dependency compared to most countries.
rtt445 | 5 hours ago
Capacity is not energy. They get 58% of their electricity from coal but it's dropping.
Koss424 | 5 hours ago
China is also responsible for about 35% of the global CO2 production annually.
ruralcricket | 7 hours ago
In Europe, Amazon is deploying 200 electric semi tractors. Where I live in the usa all the local Amazon delivery trucks are electric. You get to charge over night at off peak rates while you load/unload the truck.
mutherhrg | 7 hours ago
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-drove-global-electric-truck-bus-sales-above-half-million-2025-2026-08-19/
https://www.electrive.com/2026/08/20/icct-report-china-pulls-ahead-in-battery-electric-truck-and-bus-sales/
>Electric trucks and buses crossed the half-million-units mark globally in 2025, with sales up 86% year-on-year
>China accounted for nearly 90% of global electric truck and bus sales, with sales in medium and heavy truck segments more than quintupling over two years.
>In China, almost 30 per cent of all new registrations in the heavy truck segment last year were fully electric.
This is for short and medium haul trucking, and it's still a tiny percentage of the overall truck fleet, and there's still a huge use of diesel for agriculture, mining and shipping so there's still a lot of work to be done, but every electric truck is a a few tens of thousands of liters of diesel saved a year. If sales continue at this rate, China will have 40% electric truck fleet by 2030.
And you can expect increased sales of other electric equipment too in the coming years, electric tractors, electric heavy construction equipment, solar+battery instead of diesel generators. I would say that everything other than ships and planes can go electric within the next decade.
WeirdKittens | 3 hours ago
Eventually these sectors will electrify too. Electric motors are extremely well suited for exactly these kinds of uses who happen to require a lot of torque. The only issue today is energy density but I guess unlike consumer vehicles, battery swapping on tractors and heavy construction equipment is much more likely to catch on. Assuming we don't let proprietary standards make it yet another field for rentseeking and fall behind.
Bubbaman78 | 9 hours ago
It is a major expense, but it is not the primary which is labor cost.
Emotional_Goal9525 | 9 hours ago
Which goes up as well to compensate rising cost of living.
DodgsonKaputnik | 58 minutes ago
Fish will be going up in price, too. The fishing fleet burns a lot of diesel
Xeynon | 10 hours ago
I don't see how we avoid it causing a recession, frankly. It's going to amp up inflation and depress consumer spending, which is already fragile and heavily dependent on debt. At that point the vicious cycle of reduced corporate earnings, layoffs, bankruptcies, etc. starts.
Zestyclose_Nature_13 | 9 hours ago
They will just increase the deficit to 10 percent of GDP then. You think anyone in charge is thinking long term? You think any of these fools thinks past the next election cycle?
We live in a circus and the ringmaster has been replaced by bozo the clown
missinlnk | 9 hours ago
I'm fact, they intentionally love leaving a mess for the next administration to clean up. They can blame the Democrats for all the need and con their voters into believing that only the Republicans can fix this mess. Their voters never remember or understand that it was Republican policy that caused the problem in the first place.
Zestyclose_Nature_13 | 9 hours ago
We get the government we deserve.
Maleficent-Bug7998 | 6 hours ago
The people responsible for these problems are not my people. Every level headed person needs to reconcile this reality.
HyperbenCharities | 4 hours ago
Are 'we' Capital? or are 'we' labor?
The trillion $$$ Question
roamingandy | 6 hours ago
> next administration
yeah, about that...
KookaburraNick | 8 hours ago
Apparently the price of bonds have increased as well. Financing the debt will be exorbitant.
Xeynon | 6 hours ago
The bond market is basically saying "the hell they will" though.
Phugasity | 9 hours ago
The silver lining is that there's a lot of head room for prices to increase. Americans spend very little on energy relative to other developed countries. We use more than pretty much anyone per capita and our relatively low spending provides a good bit more altitude to figure out how we're going to land. Consumer spending still hasn't responded much.
Xeynon | 9 hours ago
I'm not sure how much headroom there is, realistically. It's true we spend less on energy than people in other countries, but as a result our system isn't optimized for efficiency the way theirs are. For example, we are much more dependent on our private vehicle fleet for transportation and it's composed of highly fuel inefficient vehicles compared to those of other countries. Fuel prices can go up to European or Japanese levels quickly but that doesn't mean our energy efficiency will quickly follow suit.
Adventurous_Bath3999 | 8 hours ago
Exactly. Other countries, like for example European countries have adequate public transport, whereas the US has practically almost none. So how are the Europeans consuming more energy than the US?
hutacars | 5 hours ago
> So how are the Europeans consuming more energy than the US?
They're not (per person); theirs is just more expensive, and salaries are lower, so it makes up a greater portion of their income/spending despite the lower volume.
hutacars | 5 hours ago
> as a result our system isn't optimized for efficiency the way theirs are
Right, so there's a lot of room for improvement, meaning even more potential headroom. It's not hard to swap an 18 MPG Bronco for a Rivian R2. Or even a gas heater for a heat pump, in many cases. If we were already maxed out on efficiency, we'd have a much harder time, but as you correctly point out, we're not.
Xeynon | 5 hours ago
It's not quick or painless to make those switches though, particularly when the economy is in bad shape. Buying a new car costs a lot of money. Replacing a home heating system costs a lot of money. When inflation is high and the job market is tenuous people are not generally willing or able to spend a lot of money.
WeirdKittens | 3 hours ago
This is extremely valid but trying to do these things when everyone else is trying to do the same simultaneously due to a crisis is a surefire way to pay a heavy premium.
I'm willing to bet that the schedule of heat pump installers is already full for the rest of the year and will become even more crowded as time drags on without a solution on the horizon.
fail_better_ | an hour ago
Nailed it.
I live in Germany. During the ‘heat wave’ we couldn’t even buy a desk fan at the local store. Amazon stock was totally sold out. None on eBay. Stores who did have stock jacked the prices.
I can’t imagine buying a heat pump in an energy crisis being any better. And that’s assuming you’re lucky enough to be able to afford one.
ooooogirlshedonealre | 9 hours ago
Americans are also willing to go into serious funancial debt by way of credit to continue consuming.
Xeynon | 9 hours ago
Which works until it doesn't, and gets ugly quickly when it stops working.
Adventurous_Bath3999 | 5 hours ago
Yes, only until the lender says, no more money. You have so much debt, that now I am beginning to fear you may not be able to pay it back. Return some of my money.
Adventurous_Bath3999 | 7 hours ago
Americans use twice as much energy as a person in Western Europe. The fact that energy is cheaper in the US is a different issue. When the costs go up, the situation becomes relative. Companies clamp down on spending and start getting rid of people, even though they may still be able to take the hit from the rising costs. So it is a matter of time before diesel starts impacting everything.
TenderfootGungi | 6 hours ago
We also have a transportation system built nearly 100% on less efficient highways and roads. This would take decades to change. The country is also massive. These two combine to make energy price increases hit us worse then most developed countries
hornswoggled111 | 2 hours ago
Even American trains are diesel unlike the bulk of their counterparts overseas.
growaway9172 | 3 hours ago
True, but that energy abundance is part of the reason America is much more productive than other developed countries (and why China is so much further ahead). What a sad way to squander that advantage.
Resident_Window_9369 | 9 hours ago
You may be correct, but we are not there yet. They just raised rates and you don’t do that in a recessionary environment.
Demand for airlines is still extremely strong
Just saying, that we aren’t there yet, but we are getting close to rate cuts if this situation is prolonged
Xeynon | 9 hours ago
I agree we're not there yet, and I wouldn't pretend to know when we'll get there. I'm just looking at it from the perspective of basic economic inputs.
Resident_Window_9369 | 9 hours ago
The two economic inputs to watch that may or may not crater would be unemployment and the jobs report.
When unemployment starts to skyrocket and the jobs report starts to decline and go negative then we’ve got a real major problem. If inflation is still high at that point due to higher oil prices, we’re gonna have a stagflation environment.
Xeynon | 9 hours ago
I think those are more lagging indicators, honestly. Unemployment rising is an indication that problems that have been in the pipeline for a while are coming home to roost. I work in the supply chain side of the economy so I'm looking at upstream stuff - purchase orders and the like. Not trending down yet but there are worrying signs because there's not much room to absorb an inflationary shock.
1776FreeAmerica | 6 hours ago
Exactly, Rates are going to be raised right now even as recession indicators mount. In the 1970's when this happened, it was stagflation that globalization and deficit spending was able to pull the economy out of. We're still early on for this crisis, we haven't felt the food supply shock yet.
Resident_Window_9369 | 8 hours ago
Unemployment is a month-to-month indicator so not sure how much of a lager it could be. It’s pretty on par with what’s happening. And when it blows look out below.
Xeynon | 7 hours ago
It's month-to-month but by the time layoffs and hiring slowdowns show up in the data problems will have been ongoing for awhile. Businesses don't generally make those kind of cutback decisions until they've had at least a quarter's worth of bad financial numbers coming in, and the once they do there's a reporting delay as well.
Long9696 | an hour ago
Turnover is extremely expensive. Laying people off too soon just to hire new people back isn't a great business practice. Once it becomes obvious business is tanking, then you dump everyone.
Tha_Dude_Abidez | 7 hours ago
The government will have to allot some type of heating program to offset prices. That's the only way to avoid a recession.
WeirdKittens | 3 hours ago
This is unlikely to help when the issue is availability and not just price. Price responds to reduced availability and subsidizing it, while a noble goal, don't magically produce new diesel.
And with already rising voices for a diesel export ban from populists who don't understand the mechanics of the oil markets, even importing might come across counter-bans as other countries react to try and protect their own supply.
TenderfootGungi | 6 hours ago
Rail is far more efficient than trucks (yes, are less convenient). There should not be cross country semi traffic. The problem is, in my opinion, that how we load and unload trains is not efficient. They should work like a distribution system with almost no freight getting stacked off to the side.
USAFGeekboy | 7 hours ago
92 million people didn’t bother to vote for POTUS. They were warned repeatedly about gas, trade, wars and other illegal/unconstitutional actions Trump would do in a 2nd term. Nothing could persuade them, not even past actions.
I can at least understand the 77 million racist morons that voted for this. They bought into the lies and didn’t expect any of his policies to hurt them.
75 million Americans knew right from wrong, knew that republicans and Trump would screw us over and we did the right thing. We understood the risks and the assignment. Now we, along with the others, are being punished.
You get what you didn’t bother to vote for.
hutacars | 5 hours ago
> You get what you didn’t bother to vote for.
I voted-- against this, even-- but am stuck with it just the same. I wish everyone got exactly what they voted for.
growaway9172 | 3 hours ago
I vote for my exact age, race, locality, to recieve zero taxes and free government handouts. What a silly way to think.
hutacars | 44 minutes ago
Okay? Voting isn’t make-a-wish; obviously there are practical constraints. I didn’t think I needed to call that out.
growaway9172 | 14 minutes ago
You literally said you wish everyone got exactly what they voted for
kkawabat | 6 hours ago
The problem is the media environment. There's so much misinformation floating around that most people are ill informed. We need to refine the first amendment so that blatent and willful lying isn't considered protected speech.
Cultural-Trouble-343 | 4 hours ago
I agree with your problem statement. However, lies are not protected speech. That’s what fraud, libel and slander laws are for. Opinions aren’t lies. “News” organizations are promoting opinion as fact.
The fix is restoring the fairness doctrine Reagan eliminated and making news non-profit. When broadcast licenses were originally issued across “public” airwaves, a portion of that license required non-profit activity for educating the public (communications act of 1934). That’s where news and “the more you know” stuff came from.
Cable dropped that.
kkawabat | 4 hours ago
I agree with you my only concern is that the media environment changed a lot since the 1930s with the advent of social and alternative media and I'm concerned about how effective the same regulation for broadcasting would work for that.
This is where blatent/willful is difficult to assess. My thought is they really need to make community notes more formalized and if you are constantly hit with communities notes you would have to address it or it dings your credibility. I don't understand how people can lie through their teeth and still have an audience.
dalyons | 6 hours ago
There’s very little reason to think those that didn’t vote would have had different preferences than those who did. Trump would have still won
USAFGeekboy | 6 hours ago
Is that your opinion or fact? There is little reason to believe they would have voted for Trump. Harris would have won.
railbeast | 5 hours ago
If they didn't bother to vote, they were fine with Trump. Think about that.
~~Everyone that voted against Trump was not fine with Trump.~~
EDIT for clarity: Everyone that was not fine with trump voted against him.
dalyons | 6 hours ago
It’s hard to know for sure obviously. But various polling shows the non voters having the same proportion of preferences as those who did vote. Ie a slight trump majority. It’s sort of comforting to believe there is a silent lazy majority Harris vote that just didn’t turn out, but there’s little reason to believe that to be the case. America just (sadly and stupidly) preferred trump
ItGradAws | 2 hours ago
You take away people’s ability to participate in democracy don’t be shocked when they don’t participate in democracy. There was no primary and perhaps the least charismatic person was chosen to frontline a party. On Election Day, what was the most googled question? “Why isn’t Biden running.” Blame the DNC. Thank your local progressives for running them out of town. We’re taking over the party which knows they could be more popular but they want their sweet donors dollars so this is what we get. Disenfranchised voters who see both parties as corrupt that are willing to yo-yo back and forth every election because their lives aren’t getting better.
Momoselfie | an hour ago
People think that if you're not in a swing state there's no point in voting. The idiots don't realize the ballot is more than just POTUS.
Pierre-Gringoire | 32 minutes ago
What makes you think the vote would have turned out differently had everyone voted?
nixed9 | 2 hours ago
Kamala Harris repeatedly stated that the biggest threat to America was IRAN.
Sorry to burst Reddit’s bubble. She was also a warmonger that serves a foreign interest over America. That aspect of US government is bipartisan.
Regenclan | 5 hours ago
Probably because both sides main job is to pick social issues to rile up their base and do little to no governing. Also Trump was nowhere near this bad the first term and for most Americans very little changes no matter who is in office
railbeast | 5 hours ago
Dunno what you're talking about, Obama and Biden did historical things for America. ACA, Transportation and IRA/CHIPS.
repooper | 4 hours ago
Don't bother trying, the "person" you're responding to has a hidden history.
Regenclan | an hour ago
Ehh what you thought 10 years ago is probably a different than today and I've had people do deep dives to try to hurt me when I have commented about personal trauma
Regenclan | 2 hours ago
AVA sucked for a lot of people. It more than doubled the cost of health care and I had to go without insurance for 5 years. I went from $600 a month for a good plan with a $2500/$5000 deductable to a $1400 bronze plan with a $5000/$10,000 deductable. I couldn't afford that so then I got to pay a no insurance penalty. It's a good thing my ex was a veteran or we would have gone bankrupt when she got breast cancer
teachthisdognewtrick | 8 hours ago
I don’t see the numbers for cost, but we go through about 2,000 metric tons of diesel per month. So all that Chinese junk in the stores will probably get a little more expensive (ship on a Pacific route).
handcraftedcandy | 5 hours ago
Nobody is talking about how this will affect student transportation. Millions of children rely on buses for transportation and a large percentage of fleets are run on diesel.
growaway9172 | 3 hours ago
I mean, students are pretty insulated from this no? That comes from a school budget which comes from taxes?
handcraftedcandy | 3 hours ago
Right, so schools have a limited budget every year. There's going to be no money for teacher's raises or any of that other frivolous stuff! It's not like they have to support their entire family on that single wage or anything...
growaway9172 | 3 hours ago
True, I guess it comes down to how much buffer they have to manage non-fixed expenditures, which I imagine are far and few for a school.
handcraftedcandy | 3 hours ago
Yeah, funds are pretty lean right now, all I can do is remind drivers to not idle their buses.
BeraldGevins | 2 hours ago
The cascading effect of this particular thing is going to hit the right harder than they realize. Schools will make sure kids can get to school day to day, no matter what, they have to do it. But everything else? That will certainly get cuts. That means extracurriculars, of which there are many. How are republicans in Texas going to react when football teams cancel away games because the district can’t afford diesel for the busses? How about the ones in Kansas who have to cancel basketball games because of the same thing? This is going to go after the one part of the education system the right actually gives a shit about. Sadly school districts won’t actually point the finger where it needs to because they have to appear impartial, so I’m sure local politicians will spin it as Dems fault. But it’s gonna get harder to believe that every day when Dems have no power to do that kind of thing.