The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program | Guests: Rep. Chris Stewart & Carol Roth | 2/25/22
Episode Date: February 25, 2022Pat Gray joins Glenn and Stu to discuss the Left's sociopathic priorities. Rep. Chris Stewart joins to discuss Russia and the possibility of cyber warfare. Glenn talks with author Carol Roth about the... banking system SWIFT and how to prepare for a possible economic crash in the wake of the Ukrainian invasion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Welcome to the podcast.
On today's program,
we go over everything
that's going on
in Russia and Ukraine.
Yeah.
And we go through that,
including the real tragedy.
Mm.
The true...
Don't bring it up.
Let them hear it themselves.
They're going to...
It's, I know.
But I don't, I think you, you're going to have a shock.
Don't have it, don't have a double shock.
You're going to go into morning and then you'll hear the podcast and you'll go into morning again.
It is shocking, horrifying and the true, the true tragedy behind Ukraine.
We also have Chris Stewart is on the program today talking about the cyber threat.
We have Carol Roth on the economy.
Pat Gray is with us.
It's great show.
Don't miss it.
Go to blazetv.com slash Glenn.
The promo code is Glenn to save $10 bucks off.
for subscription to Blaze TV.
And this podcast's available every day, of course, rate and review it.
Five stars is the appropriate number of stars.
Stu Does America, also available five days a week.
Don't miss that as well.
And you have a new show today as well, Glenn?
Yeah, I have a new Friday exclusive going to go over the clips, kind of a leftover,
show all the clips we didn't get to this week, some really funny stuff.
Also, tomorrow's podcast, Mike Rowe, one-on-one.
You're listening to The Best of the Glenn Beck program.
We welcome Pat Gray.
Yay!
Hello, Pat.
Hello, Glenn.
Oh, my gosh.
Hey, did you?
Good to see you.
Yeah.
I've been weeping most of the morning, though.
Oh, no.
Oh, no, no.
You didn't hear.
I did.
Oh, my gosh.
We wept openly.
As men, we broke down and we wept openly.
All of us in the studio.
I had to put my car over.
Yeah.
I was listening.
I heard the news from you.
When I heard that the fourth year in a row,
Joy Behar may not be able to go to
Italy. It was too much. It was, you know, she's had a tough four years.
First of all, it was a pandemic. Yeah. And now, you know, if I don't get to Italy every third weekend or so.
Yeah. I get out of sorts. Yeah. So four straight years, can you imagine? I have to, play the audio,
the stunning, stunning, sad audio from Joy Behar yesterday. Well, I'm scared of what's going to happen in Western Europe, too.
Yeah. You know, you just, you plan a trip. You want to go there. I want to go to
for four years. I haven't been able to make it because of the pandemic. And now this, you know,
it's like, what's going to happen there? Yeah. It's a gut punch.
It is. Nobody calls her out on the set. They're all like, yeah. Wouldn't you, wouldn't you,
if you were having that conversation with somebody, wouldn't you go, are you drunk? Yeah.
I mean, did you just hear 50,000 people are going to be dead? And you worry about your vacation plans.
Yeah. And they do. To be fair, they know she's drunk. I mean,
Every day she's drunk.
Are you sober?
Are you sober?
Joy?
What is happening to you?
So embarrassing.
You know, these people are killers.
They really are.
No, no, no.
Joy?
I mean, she's a killer of joy, but.
Yeah.
No, no. Listen, I mean, generally speaking, the people who are this crazy.
John Kerry, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he,
really is concerned about this war because of how it will affect global warming.
Not his own private jet.
He's not concerned about that.
No, no.
We're not talking about people who see people and individuals.
He's willing, forget about those people.
What about global warming?
Forget about those people.
What about my vacation?
That's sociopathic behavior.
It is.
Carrie's defense, though,
he did bring up a great point
about northern Russia.
And the fact that 66%
of the soil is frozen
and now it's starting to thaw
and you don't want that
because you might be able to grow extra food.
And then somebody might poison
those food stocks.
No food.
Food stocks.
Since when is he?
it bad if the
soil thaws. I mean, would that be
a terrible thing? Would they care
in Russia? Oh, it's not frozen anymore.
Like, maybe you argue that it's going to get warmer
somewhere else and, but like, I don't think
Russia cares. I think they're
pretty excited about this idea of thawing
soil. Right.
As long as it doesn't
affect the average farmer's ability
to get to Italy. Right. Well, yes,
obviously. You know, that's the most
important thing. In a private chat.
Yeah.
We have to save the climate effects of this war so that we can make sure we continue to fly on our private jets to Italy.
And if we can only do that.
Can I ask you, has the world ever been this confusing ever?
I don't think so.
I mean, I don't understand anything that is going on.
We're buying oil from Russia.
We opt our order of oil by $600.
23,000 barrels of oil from Russia here to the United States last week.
We say we're going to put sanctions on Russia and really cripple them.
You want to cripple them.
You stop the ability of Russia being able to sell oil.
And at the same time, what are we doing?
We're making a deal with Iran so maybe Iranian oil can get out and,
and ease the suffering,
turn the oil pipeline on.
Start fracking.
What the hell is wrong with it?
I think,
I said yesterday,
I don't think we understand
Vladimir Putin's real motivation.
I don't think he's great.
Do you think he's crazy?
No.
Do you think he's crazy?
I mean,
no, no, I mean,
he's a psychopathic killer.
Right, yes.
He's Joey Behar.
He's logically getting to that goal, though.
Correct.
He's using logic and planning and a cold calculated nature to get himself to those goals.
It's not that Osama bin Laden was crazy.
We just didn't understand, nor can we think like him.
Okay.
That's Vladimir Putin.
And I don't understand his motivations.
And without understanding his motivations, you can't fight him.
Okay.
Honestly, what are the motivations?
Is Biden?
senile or does he have a different agenda?
Yes.
And yes.
Right?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, you can't be this wrong all the time.
It's been incredible. Every single time he's wrong. Yeah. And they still spin it as if it's great. They're doing the best job that's ever been done.
No mistakes have been made. Right.
remember Afghanistan. He couldn't even admit a mistake in Afghanistan. That's incredible.
And there's this, there's this kind of Jim Garrity wrote about this week, the concept of mirroring when you're talking about foreign affairs where like you just assume the person you're dealing with has the same sort of motivations generally speaking as we do.
And that's completely insane when you're dealing with Kim Jong-un or President Xi or Vladimir Putin.
Or Biden and the Biden administration.
I mean, honestly, guys, you cannot be this wrong all the time.
How is it?
We didn't say, let me play this.
Please play cut 13.
As we respond, my administration is using the tools, every tool that is supposed to protect American families and businesses from rising prices at the gas pump.
You know, we're taking active steps to bring down.
the cost and American oil and gas companies should not, should not exploit this moment to hike
their prices, to raise profits.
You know, in our sanctions package, we specifically designed to allow energy payments to
continue.
We are closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption.
Did you just hear what he said?
In our sanctions, we clearly made a path for, what did he say, the, uh,
Play it again. Listen, listen to what he says about the sanctions.
We're taking active steps to bring down the cost.
And American oil and gas companies should not, should not exploit this moment to hike their prices, to raise profits.
You know, in our sanctions package, we specifically designed to allow energy payments to continue.
Stop.
We allow energy payments to continue.
We are still writing checks for Russian oil.
in our sanctions, we made sure that we could continue to write checks to Russian oil.
So don't you dare American companies raise your prices on gas.
That's insane.
That's insane.
It is.
Nobody even noticed that.
I haven't heard anybody notice that.
Anybody comment on that.
Incredible.
Before Biden, I'm pretty sure we were getting zero.
oil from Russia.
We had eliminated imports from Russia and Venezuela and all the bad actors in the world.
We were energy independent.
And we were exporters for the first time in a really long time.
I mean, it's only been recently that we started exporting oil again.
I think it was the 50s the last time that that happened.
And it was because of Trump's policies.
He was oil friendly.
Let's use our own resources.
Did you see Mark Andreessen, what he said?
No.
Yesterday, Mark Andreessen came out and he said, we should be planning, I think he said, like 200 nuke facilities in the United States right now.
I think he said a thousand nuclear plants need to be built worldwide.
Yeah.
We should be building right now.
Yes.
And he's right.
But we should.
Yeah.
We won't.
We won't.
We won't.
Because of the environmentalists.
Why is it?
Why is it?
Everything has to be crippled here.
Why would we ever, ever make a deal with Iran so Iran could sell oil on the open market?
I mean, even if you believe that, you know, all of the fossil fuels have to stop right now, okay?
They have to stop.
You're the president of the United States of America.
we have the ability to be a mass exporter,
but you're willing to make a deal with a terrorist state
and you're willing to pay Putin for his oil.
Wait a minute, the oil is going to go out anyway.
The oil is going out.
It's going to be burnt.
We would rather do business with a terrorist state
and Vladimir Putin
then open the spicket up here in America.
How is that the president of the United States?
How is that a guy looking out for the average American,
for the American way of life?
You're putting more money into the hands of people
who are now saying to you,
yeah, Poland's next.
They're saying that to you.
And if not, they're saying,
we have to destroy the great Satan.
Incredible.
Especially on the heels of this,
where energy payments from Europe and us as well,
but largely Europe,
have funded a rainy day fund for Vladimir Putin
and all of his oligarchs to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars
so that our sanctions won't do anything in this moment.
So now we're going to create another regime
where we're going to fund billions and billions of dollars
and have all that money go to them
so that when they decide to start their next crisis,
they're shielded as well.
And may I just say,
I hope and pray I'm not inconvenienced further
by having to detour my plans to go to Taipei, Taiwan,
because China sees what's going on in Russia
and then takes that bold move to take back Taiwan.
But you have that time share there.
I have the time share, and if I can't use it this year,
I'm going to be very put out.
You haven't been able to use it since 2019.
Right.
That was the last time I was in Taipei.
Soon as it.
And you're still paying those maintenance fees.
Yes.
Every year.
Every year.
Every year.
The suffering.
Suffering.
Just continues.
It just doesn't stop.
Oh my gosh.
Well, thank you, Pat, for being here.
No, thank you.
You know.
Thank you for understanding my pain.
I know.
Well, I almost didn't come in today because of it.
I know.
I can imagine.
I was so worried about my Taipei trip.
And congratulations on the bravery that you showed this morning on Pat Gray on Leash when you
openly wept.
Thank you.
Not noticing that.
Many people might be embarrassed by something like that as a man.
There's not enough.
Not me.
There's not enough examples of weak and pathetic men in our society.
Isn't that the truth?
You know what I mean?
Right.
If we could just...
I'm a little offended by you calling me a man as a matter of fact.
Well, I understand that.
I thought you were to say you're offended for being called weak and pathetic.
No.
No.
It was a man part.
No.
It really bothered me.
Yeah.
It really did.
The binary thinking there really pissed me off.
Well, there's no salvaging you anyway because you're white.
That's true.
And an American.
That's true.
Anyway, thank you so much, Pat, for stopping by for some strange reason.
You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
We want to bring in Daniel Turner.
He is the founder and executive director of Power the Future.
We're going to talk a little bit about the things that maybe we should be doing right now.
Daniel, welcome to the program.
Oh, it's great to be on with you, Glenn.
Thanks for having me.
You're welcome.
I don't know if you saw Mark Andresen's tweet yesterday, but he said we should be building a thousand nuclear plants all around the world starting today.
We're not going to do it, but there's a lot of logical things that we should be doing today.
One of them is get off our dependence of Russian oil.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I mean, a lot of the problems that we're experiencing right now have begun 14 months ago with the Biden administration.
And I'm not putting the Ukraine invasion on him, but I am saying we've been tinkering.
This administration has been really punishing the America's energy industry, specifically the fossil fuel industry, for months and months.
And when oil hit $70 a barrel and $80 a barrel, the White House was silent.
Well, now it's at 100.
and Joe Biden saying he wants to do something.
So it's a little bit too late.
You know, energy is one of those issues that people don't want to pay attention to
until it starts to, they feel a pinch at the purse, right?
Yeah, exactly.
But, you know, we need serious energy policy and not Greta Thunberg, not John Kerry.
Right?
We need serious energy policy because it is national security as well.
I just, I keep hearing him say, we're going to tap into the strategic oil.
reserve. Hang on just a second. We, on one hand, people are talking about World War
three and the biggest conflict possibly since World War II. Oil was kind of important.
That's why we have the strategic oil reserve. And so he's telling the West we should release
more from our strategic oil reserve while we're facing this. No, open a freaking pipe.
pipeline. Yeah. Oil is so important to the world economy that even this administration has not
sanctioned Russian oil. Germany and Italy today brought more natural gas than they did yesterday
from Russia. In fact, Putin has increased the amount of natural gas exports because he knows
he has Europe on the hook. And he's using that to his leverage. And so, look, you know,
we have to stop being Plato. There is this ideal world. We all need to live up to it. And we all need to
be better. But the reality is our economy, our military, the world runs on fossil fuels right now.
And whether or not we want to change that as one conversation, but the reality is punishing fossil fuels now,
in the hopes of the better tomorrow, has made us weak now. And Vladimir Putin is taking advantage of that
weakness. This is, this is exactly what the Great Reset is about. The ESG scores, energy is the first,
thing. And we are, we're committing national suicide. And it's not just national. The entire
West is committing suicide. And I don't understand it. And is that an, is that a, is that hyperbole?
No, not, no, no whatsoever. And, and look, when this administration,
began and Joe Biden said, which I believe is a flat out falsehood, but when he said the generals tell him
climate change is our biggest national security threat. I'm sorry, if anyone really said that to you
in the military, that person should be fired today. And any politician, Republican or Democrat,
this is not a partisan issue. Many Republicans went to the Glasgow Climate Summit to learn how to tackle
climate change. We can have a conversation about the environment, but if you genuinely believe in your
heart of hearts, looking at the global stage, that climate change is the biggest threat,
then you do not deserve elected office. You are at danger because Russia is a threat,
China is a threat, Iran is a threat, North Korea. And these rogue regimes, unfortunately,
as the prices of oil have gone through the roof, have become richer. And what does Iran do
when they have more money? They launch attacks on Israel and they launch attacks on the UAE and they
fund their nuclear bombs program. And what does Russia do when they have more money? They build
their army. Right. So again, it's this fight against reality that you can have a conversation
about the environment, but there are real threats. And we need to put on our big boy pants and
face the real world we live in. Even if you believed that climate change was the was the
existential threat and the largest threat against all of humanity.
If you really truly believed that and you make the moves to stop American oil and everything else,
does that explain why we are not sanctioning the Russian oil?
We're increasing our imports of Russian oil.
And we seem to be making it easy for Iran to flood the market with.
their oil? I don't understand this. Why wouldn't you go to America and just say, hey, it's temporary,
but we're going to, we need you right now to relieve the pressure. I don't understand it.
You know, for the first time in nearly 40 years, America has been purchasing Iranian oil.
Very quietly, the administration clearly did not put out a press release, but you say,
why is America buying any oil from Russia? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Wait, wait, when did that happen?
I've not heard that.
Started in April of this year, and we've purchased about a million barrels of oil from Iran.
Now, there's going to be an argument, and they're going to say I'm playing fast and loose with the nuance,
because we purchase a lot of oil from the world, and we refine it, particularly in the Gulf.
We have the world's largest refining capabilities, also something China's come to compete with us on,
but that's another conversation.
But we are the world's largest refiner.
So this crude that comes out of the ground has to get refined.
So we buy Russian, we buy Venezuelan, but we don't need to buy any oil if we produced enough ourselves.
And we're not.
We're producing two million barrels fewer than we did just a few months ago before Biden became president.
And the reason why we're producing so much fewer oil is because this administration has made it impossible to produce.
You mentioned the ESG movement, every age.
agency is looking at climate change when it comes to permitting land access, permits in the
Gulf of Mexico, on federal land, fracking moratoriums, pipeline construction.
So all these cumulative actions have made production of oil domestically hard.
Of course, we have to get it from somewhere else.
So why not Russia?
Why not Iran?
Why not Venezuela?
Why not put a bullet to our head?
Because that's what we're doing by enriching our enemies.
Let me ask you, when Obama said that he was going to do.
going to stop the drilling.
I think it was in the Gulf, the deep sea drilling.
The concern was that if you stop that, you're not getting a lease on those deep
sea drills for another 20 years.
They're not coming back and you just don't make them overnight.
With the damage that has been done just to the economy and to the oil and gas industry,
are we doing permanent damage or are these things just?
going into mothballs and we can turn this around quickly?
We can turn it around, but I don't think quickly.
This is a very capital and labor-intensive industry.
And even if all the permitting is in place and the government is a friend of the industry,
which we want, like we saw under President Trump, it really took till the end of 2018,
the beginning of 19, for the industry to produce as much as it was.
And so it did take it two solid years of believing that the government wasn't going to punish you.
You look at something like Keystone, that was 10 years and a billion dollars in the making.
And then the rug was pulled out from under it, and all that money is lost.
So who's going to invest in the oil and gas industry right now if you think the government can shut it down?
And that's one of my pet peeves, Glenn, and you can hear my voice getting angry.
Oh, I know.
Gen Saki will say, well, you know, oil at $90 a barrel, you would think these rich fat cats would invest.
It's not that they don't want to invest.
It's that they know it's a risky investment because government is going to punish you.
Deb Holland, the Interior Secretary, is going to punish you.
The EPA administrator.
Biden is talking about Fed nominees who look at banking issues through the lens of climate change.
So if you need a $50 million loan from the bank to finance this industry,
get it. No, because the bank's not going to lend it to you because the Federal Reserve is going to
raise your base points and penalize you. So again, this administration is punishing the industry
from every angle. They better not raise prices to take advantage of this. Like it's our fault.
When Elizabeth Warren blamed big meat, remember that one? Yeah. She's all the meat industries
together. Yeah. I mean, it's offensive. I will tell you, I, I, I, I, I, I will tell you, I, I,
I don't understand what's happening to us unless the president and this administration and those on the left have an agenda that is clearly not in step with the traditional American.
They, I mean, this is, this is self-inflicted wounds and they're soon going to be mortal.
what are you thinking what are you thinking about the gas and oil prices and and what's coming with this
this war in it in Ukraine yeah it's down a little bit today which is good news but I think
overall if this continues and I don't think Putin is going to stop until he has everything he
wants in the Ukraine and maybe even more you could easily see gas at $150 a barrel like
it was in 2008. You mean, 125 by the end of March is very feasible. And that means $6 and $7 gallon
of gas. But you know, your audience knows there are millions, literally millions of products
that are made from fossil fuels. And so when the price of fertilizer goes up, when the price
of pesticides go up, everything goes up in price. And so when you go to the store and you buy
your chop meat and it's expensive, it's the cash.
the cow's diet, the transportation, the butcher, the slaughterhouse, the packaging, the plastic,
all of that stuff gets added onto your cost.
You're ultimately the one going to suffer.
And that's the frustration.
This administration, before Putin even launched his first incursion,
this administration was willing to let the American people suffer because they are so eager for this green revolution,
these renewables, that they had to punish fossil fuels.
They wanted fossil fuels to be the bad.
guy so that maybe you would go to the government and say, please, Mr. Biden, please give us a
green new deal. Please give us a bill back better. We can't afford this anymore. And that's the
really sad thing. They were willing to punish the American people for their agenda. And that's
not just an American, unpatriotic. Quite frankly, it's immoral and it's evil. I agree with you.
Daniel, thank you so much. The founder and executive director of Power of the Future, Daniel Turner.
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This is the best of a Glenn Beck program.
Carol Roth is joining us.
Carol, I have so many questions for you today.
How are you?
I do.
Well, some of them I'm not going to be able to answer because insanity, but we'll do our best to muddle our way through this.
Okay.
Can you at all give us a common understanding of what Swift is?
So the best way I can explain Swift is a clearing house for the messages.
about transactions through the international banking system.
To kind of dial it back to the U.S.,
if you send a wire transfer between banks and the U.S.,
you have a special code.
If you do it internationally, there is a swift code,
and that entity acts as that sort of clearinghouse between the banks
to say, oh, you need to send money from one place to another.
So basically cutting off Russia or anybody else
means that you don't get a sort of participate in the global banking system in a very rudimentary sort of exploitation.
Right. And that is important, again, take it down to the baby level. But that's important. The reason why you would wire transfer something is because if you write a check, it's going to have to sit there and be verified for funds and everything else. If you are doing big business, you're just moving things quickly because you need that transfer to kick in right away, correct?
Correct? True, except for internationally, it often can take a day or more to clear, but it is, again, that sort of middleman, that international clearinghouse is based in Belgium for all of the international financial movement, if that makes sense.
Okay. And Europe, according to Joe Biden, didn't want to take that step yet. So they didn't see. Yeah. Well, of course they didn't because, you know, they're getting, if it's your Germany, you're getting 40 percent.
of your oil from Russia. So they understand the precarious position therein. And I'm sure they put a lot
of pressure on Joe Biden and saying, listen, we can't afford it. And oh, by the way, geniuses,
you don't have via exports now now that you're no longer energy independent to be able to help us out
here. So what are we going to do? And I imagine those were the types of discussions happening
behind closed doors to have a very weak set of sanctions put out against Russia. So Joe Biden,
Biden says that the sanctions that he did put on are just mind-numbingly crippling for Putin and Russia.
How would you describe them?
Well, he actually had somebody within his administration, one of the members of the Economic Council,
that said they weren't meant to disrupt the flow of energy and basically completely contradicted that.
So they seemed kind of like everything the Biden administration has done much more for show than for any sort of actual impact.
If you wanted to have impact, you know, not only would you have put that pressure in terms of taking rush out from Swift, maybe putting sanctions on Putin themselves, disrupting energy, I mean, really getting serious.
And, you know, certainly none of that transpired.
So, I mean, to hit Putin where he lives and to really destroy.
Russia. The best thing to do is be an massive exporter of oil and drive the price of oil,
you know, at least below $80 a barrel because that's what it, that's, that's where they make money.
It's $70, $80 a barrel, anything over that. So drive the price of oil down, cripples him or cut him off.
If you don't do that, it's like, it would be like, we're going to sanction Glenn Beck.
He can make money in broadcasting, but no.
ballet dollars are coming his way.
Yeah, I would be like telling me, oh, I'm sorry, Carol, you can no longer eat the cauliflower.
Oh, I'm so, so sorry.
That's going to devastate me on my diet.
Yeah, I mean, the reality is if you look at the Russian economy, about 60% of their GDP
comes from the oil and gas exports.
So certainly anything that disrupts that, whether it's disrupting, getting payment for
that, driving down the price.
overall or just not allowing them to be able to export it.
All of those kinds of things would be devastating.
And we have seen brave people in Russia who were marching in the streets saying we don't want
any war.
If things are getting worse there economically, those voices are only going to get louder.
So that would put that feeling out to the world that Joe Biden was serious and that he wanted
to really take a stand and would make other countries potentially think twice.
about things they might want to do, like China invading Taiwan, unfortunately, we did not see that.
So what happened to the stock market yesterday? I mean, you listen to the president, and he is saying there's going to be real pain from the American people.
They're going to really have price increases, disruption of all kinds of things, maybe even a cyber attack, the biggest war, possibly since World War II.
And he's going to try to ease the pain.
And the stock market goes up.
Is that because, A, the people on Wall Street know this isn't, this is business as usual?
Or, B, the Fed just buying up more stocks and there's no reality anymore in the stock market.
As the meme says, Glenn, why not both?
It's a little bit of each of those.
I think there was an expectation that these sanctions were going to be somewhat worse
and that that may escalate conflict and or, you know, change the ability to get some of the key exports
and increase the prices of those.
And Russia has many of them, not only oil and gas, but aluminum, you know, wheat and other things.
So the fact that Joe Biden was weak, the Sacramento goes, oh, he's not really serious.
And so there's part of the rally on that.
The Fed piece of it is that there is this expectation for rate hike coming up in March in a couple of weeks.
And the prior to yesterday, the expectation was that there was going to be an increase of 50 basis points, which is half a percent.
And with the conflict, you know, potentially ongoing, stretching out, you know, that gives the Fed a little bit of cover to say, well, it's, you know, uncertain.
and we're not sure how it's going to play in, you know, yada, yada, yada.
And that maybe that means there's only going to be a 25 basis point or a quarter of a percent increase.
But whatever it is, it gives the Fed a little bit more cover, whether it's in March or for the rest of the year, to slow play, taking away their monetary support from the market, which the market loves.
So I think you have a little bit of both of those yesterday.
Jeez. This is, you know, I've, I've never understood more than now the Shakespeare line,
all the world is but a stage. I feel like every day, we're watching a show. He's telling the American
people, this is really going to hurt you, and we're going to pay a high price at the gas station,
and don't you oil producers charge extra and gouge people at this time? Why?
he's buying more oil this week from Russia than we bought the week before, and we're making it
easy for Iran and buying Iranian oil as well. This is, none of this is real. No, it's so frustrating.
I mean, Joe Biden has some levers he could pull to do a 180 on the economy, certainly
returning our energy independence, firing up those oil and gas leases, returning.
to the Keystone Pipeline, all of those kinds of things. He could do a 180 on and it would be
very well received. The average American would benefit from it. And, you know, just from a,
even if you're somebody who's climate change and, you know, I'm focused on green, the reality
is that that oil is getting produced anyway. So would you rather have Russia or Iran be the ones that
are producing it? Or would you rather have the technological leader of the United States do
in a manner where we know there's a focus on making it more clean and more green.
So it fundamentally doesn't make any sense other than some of the wonderful things that you've
presented in your book on The Great Reset that everybody should read about if they haven't already.
So, Carol, is all of this excuse of Ukraine, are we just being played on this with energy prices?
Are the energy costs going to go up because of what we're doing with ESG and cutting the financing of our own, slitting our own throat?
Or is this Ukraine thing actually playing a role?
So, I mean, this has been going on, as we've seen, for well over a year, a better part of almost two years now.
and the Ukrainian conflict is just several days old.
So despite the media's attempt to say, oh, this is the reason for it, obviously us bowing out
of production from some of the decisions the Biden administration made, the canceling of oil
and gas leases, the cancelling of the Keystone pipeline, whatnot, and also the ESG pressure
that made it so that many of the companies that were involved in,
oil exploration and whatnot and refinement not want to do as much of it over the last couple of
years. So there has been, you know, a lot of pressure outside, both through government and through
sort of this, you know, global ESG fascination that has depressed the U.S.'s position. And obviously
that's put some, some cricks in the, in the road here, as well as, you know, the OPEC.
oil cartel, obviously, they wanted to make up for some of the lost money that happened over the
pandemic. So, you know, they did not ramp up productions to the level to meet demand. So all of these
things factor in, as well as disruption in the supply chain. You know, it's harder and more expensive
to get the refined gasoline to the station. I mean, just so many things that all snowballed together.
So that has all created a big issue. And it's going to be an ongoing
issue whether or not this Russia-Ukraine conflict continues. That being said, if it escalates,
yes, it will have a further impact on top of what we're already seeing. Currently, you know, we have
oil that's over $90 a barrel. You know, it could go over $100 organically before they probably
start, you know, pushing out more oil. If this escalates from a Russia-Ukraine, you know,
Ukraine perspective, you could see $140 a barrel oil. So it's very, very meaningful in terms of that
incremental amount, but it's not like without it, we'd be at, you know, $70 or $60.
We see the price of fertilizer, 300% increase. That has something to do with natural gas.
We have the any oil products, even, you know, bug kills.
that you put on your crops.
Wheat is going through the roof today.
We are going to be facing some real problems at the supermarket in the next six to eight months.
Am I reading that right?
Certainly, I would say we are definitely going to be facing issues.
We have been facing issues.
Inflation is going to continue.
The question is, is it a problem?
problem or is it a mega problem. But either way, you should be prepared. You should be prepared every
day, but you should be prepared for this conflict to escalate. Nobody's ever been sad about
being overprepared. It usually happens in the other direction. So there are definitely steps that
you can take today just to make sure that you have your ducks in a row. And what are those steps?
So on the energy front, you know, simple things, you know, we don't know what's going to happen,
and not only with the price, but are there potentially escalating cyber attacks that end up
disrupting our own infrastructure?
I don't know if you remember way back in the early days of the Joe Biden presidency,
he gave Putin a list of here are the critical things that are off limits for cyber attacks.
So basically a roadmap of everything that they should attack should there be an issue.
So you as an individual should make sure, you know, with your cars that you keep your
gas tanks full, that if you have the ability to store extra gasoline, that you have some
extras just in case not only the price goes up, but we end up in a position where there's some
rationing. You don't want to be caught in that position. And as you and I've talked about,
Glenn before, for your house, have backup generators and other sources of energy in case there's
an issue. I know that I take propane. And I called yesterday, I just got a delivery, I don't know, a few
months ago. And I called them up and said, could you please come out and tap my tank off?
They said, sure, you're on a waiting list now. This was yesterday. They said, the phones are ringing
off the hook. You're heating oil, everything. You should get on a list now to get that full. So you're
paying, A, this price, and B, if something happens, you have a full tank.
100%. 100%. With other supply chain.
issues, same kinds of things, both from a price increase standpoint and to make sure you have
extras in case of disruptions, get the extra water, get something that can distill down your water
and take the yucky stuff out just in case there's an issue, stock up on things that are not
perishable in terms of food, stock up on medicine, have an emergency supply kit, all of those
things that should something, you know, kind of really go awry here, a big escalation that you're
prepared. And then on the financial standpoint, we were talking about the stock market and being
all over the place. This is the time when people who are not sophisticated investors tend to panic.
And I want to give a quote from Warren Buffett, whose politics I don't particularly like,
but boy, is he a great investor. And his famous quote was always that investors should be fearful
when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. So when you have the,
those days where the stock market is going down and companies that you like or the overall
stock market, you know, is in that bad position, that's the time when you slowly start putting
money to work and building up your positions or what we call dollar cost averaging into
stocks. Do not pull your money out of fear. Carol, thank you so much. God bless you. We will,
we'll talk to you again. Carol Roth, kind of our, our, our,
shows financial advice giver, if you will.
She watches all of this for us and helping the average person know what to do in these troubled times.
Carol Roth, The War on Small Business is the book.
