Judging Freedom - Biden threatens Big Oil

Episode Date: June 15, 2022

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, June 15, 2022. It's about five after two in the this morning to the heads of the of the United States major uh oil importing and producing companies basically saying you guys are the cause of inflation all right the war's got a little bit to do with it uh but you guys are the real reason that gasoline prices are so high and you better do something about it. You better start making more gas available. So more product available to the consumer will reduce the price of the product. That's about the only thing he said that made economic sense. And that's economics 101. Same amount of cash, more product available, it's going to cost less. But that, of course, is not what we have here. We have too much cash in the monetary supply chasing the same amount of goods, and that's why the cost goes up. That's the opposite of the scenario I had earlier explained. Why do we have too much cash

in the money supply? Because the federal government can't restrain its voracious appetite for spending, and it can't get away with raising taxes much higher than they already are. So they, as what they used to say in the old days, print money. They don't actually print it anymore. They basically just have the Fed, the Federal Reserve, which, by the way, just raised interest rates by three quarters of a point. Fed should have nothing to do with interest rates. They should float. Interest is the rent you pay to borrow money. Fed doesn't set rents for real estate. It shouldn't set rents for borrowed money.

It should be what the borrower is willing to pay and what the lender is willing to accept. Another story for another time. But the reason we have this tremendous inflation is because one of the tools the federal government uses is the Federal Reserve, to which all the banks in the country are beholden, the constitutionality of which has never been challenged before the Supreme Court. And when it adds zeros to the accounts of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, et cetera, the large banks, they just start spending money. So they've created money out of thin air. That causes the price of everything to go up. Joe Biden has been a part of

this for 47 years, Republicans as well as Democrats. The last president to balance the budget was Bill Clinton, his first year in office when he raised taxes retroactively. That is the last time the budget has been balanced. That is, the government did not spend more than it took in at any time since World War II. This is not a Democratic problem, although the Democrats are worse at it than Republicans. It's a government problem. So what does Joe do? He focuses on the oil companies. It's your fault you're making so much money. It's not their fault. They are raising their prices because the cost to them has gone up. Uncle Joe, the cost of everything has gone up.

Because you guys, under Trump, under Obama, under both Bushes, going all the way back to Nixon, back to FDR, back to Harry Truman, always spent more money than you take in and you made up for it by borrowing. And that causes the price of everything to go up. So yesterday, Joe Biden, who would have flunked Economics 101, certainly a free market version of Economics 101, sent a letter to the presidents of major oil companies saying, if you don't lower the prices, we're going to get involved. What's the federal government going to do?

Well, he has already, Uncle Joe, has already released millions and millions of barrels of oil that the feds own and have been storing for either a rainy day or a crisis. This is not a rainy day, but it's a crisis. That's been released. Didn't lower the price of gas at all, nor did it retard the rise in the price. He says he's going to use the Defense Production Act. Well, the Defense Production Act, which is a Korean War era, was written so that Harry Truman could compel industry to produce what the government needed

for a war. Are we fighting a war? Well, legally, we're not fighting a war. Yeah, it's a proxy war going on in Ukraine. You all know my opinion about that. We just wasted 56 billion on Ukrainians who are doomed to lose, but there's no declared war. So in my opinion, there is no legal basis for the Defense Production Act. Ah, President Trump used the Defense Production Act to have companies make masks and then to make vaccines. President Biden's going to use the Defense Production Act to force the oil companies to import more oil, pump more oil, and sell more oil. All he's doing is looking for a scapegoat. Look, the government's not going to change its ways overnight unless the Congress is filled with people like Thomas Massey and Ron Paul.

They're just going to keep spending and spending and spending. So I don't think this is going to get any better. And old Joe can do what he wants with his threats on the oil company. Until the government stops spending more than it takes in, inflation will be with us. Inflation has only one cause, government. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.