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Five Oil Refiner Investments to Buy as ‘Golden Age’ Starts Amid War

Five oil refiner investments to buy provide a gusher of opportunities as the sector embarks upon what BofA Global Securities calls a new “golden age,”…

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Five oil refiner investments to buy provide a gusher of opportunities as the sector embarks upon what BofA Global Securities calls a new “golden age,” despite Russia’s President Vladimir Putin’s invasion and continued devastation of Ukraine and its people.

The five oil refiner investments to buy feature three stocks and two broad commodity funds that offer a chance to benefit from multiple catalysts. U.S. oil refiners hold structural cost advantages compared to international peers and should benefit from an expected post-COVID recovery in demand and refinery closings that reduce supply and lift margins.

BofA Global Securities recently released a research report that declared a new regional ‘Golden Age’ for U.S. refining. The basis for that view is valuation aided by sustainable free cash flow (FCF) that measures the cash left after a company pays its operating expenses and capital expenditures.

Free cash flow yields are at their highest levels in a decade to help shift momentum toward oil refiners, BofA reported. Recent geopolitical events, such as Putin’s unrelenting attack of Ukraine, underscore the consequences of underinvestment in production, the investment firm wrote.

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Five Oil Refiner Investments to Buy Aided by Economic Sanctions 

The shelling of hospitals, schools, residential areas, churches, nuclear power plants, oil refineries and a theater used as a shelter became a precursor to brutal rapes, torture and outright executions of Ukrainian civilians that caused many countries to put economic sanctions on Russia. Among those sanctions is severing ties with Russia as a provider of oil or natural gas, or significantly slashing such trade.

Russia’s losses due directly to Putin’s policies are leading to potential gains for Western oil refiners that are trying to fill the void for European customers seeking to wean themselves away buying energy from Russia that Putin is using to fund his invasion of Ukraine. As the old adage goes, there always is a bull market somewhere and one of the latest is in the oil patch.

One of the biggest large-cap energy companies in the market is Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), a recent addition to the recommendations in the Fast Money Alert trading service led by seasoned stock pickers Mark Skousen, PhD, and Jim Woods. The integrated oil and gas company explores for, produces and refines oil around the world.

Mark Skousen, a descendant of Benjamin Franklin, talks to Paul Dykewicz. Skousen leads the Forecasts & Strategies newsletter, along with the Five Star Trader, Home Run Trader, TNT Trader and Fast Money Alert services.

Exxon Mobil Leads the Five Oil Refiner Investments to Buy

Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil produced an average of 2.3 million barrels of liquids and 8.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day in 2021. At the end of 2021, its reserves totaled 18.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent, including 66% from liquids. The company is the world’s largest refiner with a total global refining capacity of 4.6 million barrels of oil per day to rank as one of the world’s largest manufacturers of commodity and specialty chemicals.

“Size does matter when you are talking about oil and gas companies,” Skousen and Woods wrote to their Fast Money Alert subscribers. “What also matters is that oil prices have soared due to a combination of robust demand dynamics and constricted supply caused in part by Russia waging war against Ukraine.”

Paul Dykewicz meets with Jim Woods, who leads the Successful Investing and Intelligence Report investment newsletters, as well as the Bullseye Stock Trader, High Velocity Options and Fast Money Alert trading services.

With no end for Putin’s war in sight, the “smart money” is betting on higher energy prices, and the even smarter money is buying XOM, Skousen and Woods wrote. The proof comes from a 7.17% rise in the last week, a 45.56% jump so far this year and a 55.88% surge in the past 12 months.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

Another investment professional who recommends Exxon Mobil is Bryan Perry, head of the Cash Machine investment newsletter, as well as the Premium Income, Quick Income Trader, Hi-Tech Trader and Breakout Options Alert advisory services. Perry, who has a track record for profitably recommending dividend-paying oil and natural gas companies, also is known for finding high-income investments.

Bryan Perry heads the Cash Machine newsletter.

Exxon Mobil offers a current dividend yield of 4%. BofA has placed a $120 price target on the stock.

Money Manager Picks One of Five Oil Refiner Investments to Buy

A third investment professional who is recommending Exxon Mobil is Michelle Connell, a former portfolio manager who now serves as president of Dallas-based Portia Capital Management. Connell also told me she likes Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO), of San Antonio, Texas, offering a current dividend yield of 3.4%.

Valero is San Antonio’s largest publicly traded company and among the world’s largest independent petroleum refiners. It also claims to be North America’s largest producer of renewable fuels, as well as the world’s second-largest producer of sustainable diesel.

Michelle Connell, CEO, Portia Capital Management

Connell said her reasons for recommending Valero include:

  • Its status as the second-largest refiner in the United States.
  • U.S. refiners wield cost advantages compared to foreign competitors in the European Union and elsewhere.
  • The company’s natural gas for refining oil is the cheapest in the United States.
  • Analysts recently boosted VLO earnings estimates and price targets.
  • Its potential 12-month upside: 15-20%. BofA set a $140 price target.
  • A dividend yield of 3.4%.

“The fundamentals that drove strong results in the first quarter, particularly in March, continue to provide a positive backdrop for refining margins,” said Valero’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Joe Gorder, when the company reported its latest financial results.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

BofA Recommends Two of the Five Oil Refiner Investments to Buy

BofA also recommends VLO but cautions downside risks to its price objective include the company’s heavy weighting toward “sour crude.” As light-heavy crude differentials narrow, the benefits of a more complex refinery may dim and delay return on investment, BofA continued.

Plus, the company is vulnerable to a dip in refining margin, BofA opined. If demand for refined products is weaker than expected, or if oil prices remain robust, margins could be pressured.

Other risks include potential increases in operating expenditures, capital expenditures and taxes. Another risk remains due to the uncertainty of whether tax reform will be passed.

Potential outperformance of the price target for VLO could come from higher-than-expected spreads and stronger-than-forecast gasoline demand, according to BofA.

PBF Energy Earns Spot Among Five Oil Refiner Investments to Buy

PBF Energy Inc., (NYSE: PBF), of Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey, is one of the largest independent petroleum refiners and suppliers of unbranded transportation fuels, heating oil and petrochemicals. 

BofA gave PBF a $35 price objective, based on an assessed discounted cash flow (DCF) value that treats the assets as annuities after deducting maintenance capital. The investment firm used a long-term Gulf Coast 321 crack spread in its benchmark assumptions of $11.50/bbl., a long-term crude differential of $3.5, a weighted average cost of capital (WACC) of 9.3%, a zero terminal growth rate and a 22% corporate tax rate.

Potential for PBF to outperform PBF’s price objective could include crude spreads and crack spreads remaining above BofA’s expectations, higher-than-expected earnings and improved valuation. Downside risks to meeting BofA’s price objective could occur if margins and crude spreads compress faster than forecast, hurting earnings and share price.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

Pension Fund Chief Picks Two of Five Oil Refiner Investments to Buy

Beware of overbought oil stocks due to the surge in their prices so far this year,” said Bob Carlson, chairman of the Board of Trustees of Virginia’s Fairfax County Employees’ Retirement System with more than $4 billion in assets. Investors are worried that monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve and slower growth in China due to surging COVID-19 cases will reduce global growth and therefore weaken demand for energy.

“My top pick remains the ETF Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE),” said Carlson, who also leads the Retirement Watch investment newsletter. “It tracks the S&P 500 energy sector, which is the top-performing sector in the S&P 500 in 2022 after years of underperforming the rest of the index.”

The ETF holds 21 stocks and three other types of investments. About 76% of the fund is in its 10 largest positions. Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) was almost 23% of the fund, and Chevron (NYSE: CHX) was just over 21% of the fund. Other major holdings include EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG), Schlumberger NV (NYSE: SLB) and Conoco Phillips (NYSE: COP).

The diversified energy fund holds a portfolio of refiners, exploration and production (E&P) stocks, as well as companies engaged in two or more activities. XLE is up 61.60% in the last 12 months, 38.83% for the year to date, 12.50% in the past three months and 3.62% in last week. The gain in the past week shows the fund remains on the rise.

“As long as economic growth remains solid, demand will exceed supply and support high prices for energy products,” Carlson said.

Even though companies are working to increase production, it takes a “long time” to do so with new sources or to restore old ones that have been shut down, Carlson said.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

MLOAX Joins Five Oil Retailer Investments to Buy 

A fairly aggressive fund is Cohen & Steers MLP & Energy Opportunity (MLOAX), Carlson said. It looks for companies in exploration, production, gathering, transportation, processing, storage, refining, distribution, or marketing of oil, natural gas and other energy sources.

The fund’s largest holding is Enbridge Inc. (NYSE: ENB), which has an extensive pipeline network that transports natural gas and other energy products. The fund’s second-largest holding is Cheniere Energy Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN: LNG), which exports liquefied natural gas (LNG). Other top holdings are the Williams Companies (NYSE: WMB), TC Energy (NYSE: TRP) and Energy Transfer LP (NYSE: ET).

The fund has 56 positions, with 55% of the fund in the 10 largest positions. MLOAX is up 33.64% in the past 12 months and 20.73% for the year to date. It also has climbed 11.75% for the past three months and 2.41% in the last week.

As an open-ended mutual fund with several share classes, investors should determine which share class has the lowest cost by inquiring with their brokers.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

COVID-19 Infects More than Half the People in America

COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have risen about 10% in the last week. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also has reported more than half the people in America, including most children, have been infected with the coronavirus.

In China, lockdowns have affected at least 373 million people, including roughly 40% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). A key effect is continued disruption of the world’s supply chain for many products, including oil.

Most of Shanghai’s 25 million residents remain in lockdown, as the Chinese military and additional health workers have been sent there to aid in the response. Shanghai, home to the world’s largest port, has strained to unload cargo due to strict regulations that have caused shipping containers to stack up. Some frustrated Shanghai residents have taken videos that went viral to show people screaming from high-rise buildings about needing food, but the government is trying to crack down on the posting of such expressions of frustration.

Also in China, young children with COVID-19 have been separated forcibly from their parents, fueling public discord, as Chinese leaders seek to stop the spread of a new, contagious subvariant of Omicron, BA.2. The variant also is causing a new wave of infections in European nations that include Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

U.S. COVID Booster Shots Top 1 Million and Deaths Near 1 Million 

COVID-19 deaths worldwide exceeded 6.24 million to total 6,240,888 on May 3, according to Johns Hopkins University. Cases across the globe have jumped to 514,913,818.

U.S. COVID-19 cases, as of May 3, hit 81,506,075, with deaths rising to 994,744. America has the dubious distinction as the nation with the most COVID-19 cases and deaths.

Also as of May 3, 257,823,699 people, or 77.7% of the U.S. population, have obtained at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the CDC reported. Fully vaccinated people total 219,849,502 or 66.2% of the U.S. population, according to the CDC. America also has topped a key milestone by giving a COVID-19 booster vaccine to 100.8 million people.

The five oil refiner investments to buy offer another niche of energy stocks and funds that show signs of further gains ahead. Investors willing to buy after the assets have risen significantly in value could be rewarded by additional gains ahead, even if the easy money has gone to others.

Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an accomplished, award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce, Seeking Alpha, Guru Focus and other publications and websites. Paul, who can be followed on Twitter @PaulDykewicz, is the editor of StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com, a writer for both websites and a columnist. He further is editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C., where he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free e-letters and other investment reports. Paul previously served as business editor of Baltimore’s Daily Record newspaper. Paul also is the author of an inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz. The book is great as a gift and is endorsed by Joe Montana, Joe Theismann, Ara Parseghian, “Rocket” Ismail, Reggie Brooks, Dick Vitale and many others. Call 202-677-4457 for multiple-book pricing.

The post Five Oil Refiner Investments to Buy as ‘Golden Age’ Starts Amid War appeared first on Stock Investor.

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International

This is the biggest money mistake you’re making during travel

A retail expert talks of some common money mistakes travelers make on their trips.

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Travel is expensive. Despite the explosion of travel demand in the two years since the world opened up from the pandemic, survey after survey shows that financial reasons are the biggest factor keeping some from taking their desired trips.

Airfare, accommodation as well as food and entertainment during the trip have all outpaced inflation over the last four years.

Related: This is why we're still spending an insane amount of money on travel

But while there are multiple tricks and “travel hacks” for finding cheaper plane tickets and accommodation, the biggest financial mistake that leads to blown travel budgets is much smaller and more insidious.

A traveler watches a plane takeoff at an airport gate.

Jeshoots on Unsplash

This is what you should (and shouldn’t) spend your money on while abroad

“When it comes to traveling, it's hard to resist buying items so you can have a piece of that memory at home,” Kristen Gall, a retail expert who heads the financial planning section at points-back platform Rakuten, told Travel + Leisure in an interview. “However, it's important to remember that you don't need every souvenir that catches your eye.”

More Travel:

According to Gall, souvenirs not only have a tendency to add up in price but also weight which can in turn require one to pay for extra weight or even another suitcase at the airport — over the last two months, airlines like Delta  (DAL) , American Airlines  (AAL)  and JetBlue Airways  (JBLU)  have all followed each other in increasing baggage prices to in some cases as much as $60 for a first bag and $100 for a second one.

While such extras may not seem like a lot compared to the thousands one might have spent on the hotel and ticket, they all have what is sometimes known as a “coffee” or “takeout effect” in which small expenses can lead one to overspend by a large amount.

‘Save up for one special thing rather than a bunch of trinkets…’

“When traveling abroad, I recommend only purchasing items that you can't get back at home, or that are small enough to not impact your luggage weight,” Gall said. “If you’re set on bringing home a souvenir, save up for one special thing, rather than wasting your money on a bunch of trinkets you may not think twice about once you return home.”

Along with the immediate costs, there is also the risk of purchasing things that go to waste when returning home from an international vacation. Alcohol is subject to airlines’ liquid rules while certain types of foods, particularly meat and other animal products, can be confiscated by customs. 

While one incident of losing an expensive bottle of liquor or cheese brought back from a country like France will often make travelers forever careful, those who travel internationally less frequently will often be unaware of specific rules and be forced to part with something they spent money on at the airport.

“It's important to keep in mind that you're going to have to travel back with everything you purchased,” Gall continued. “[…] Be careful when buying food or wine, as it may not make it through customs. Foods like chocolate are typically fine, but items like meat and produce are likely prohibited to come back into the country.

Related: Veteran fund manager picks favorite stocks for 2024

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Spread & Containment

As the pandemic turns four, here’s what we need to do for a healthier future

On the fourth anniversary of the pandemic, a public health researcher offers four principles for a healthier future.

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John Gomez/Shutterstock

Anniversaries are usually festive occasions, marked by celebration and joy. But there’ll be no popping of corks for this one.

March 11 2024 marks four years since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

Although no longer officially a public health emergency of international concern, the pandemic is still with us, and the virus is still causing serious harm.

Here are three priorities – three Cs – for a healthier future.

Clear guidance

Over the past four years, one of the biggest challenges people faced when trying to follow COVID rules was understanding them.

From a behavioural science perspective, one of the major themes of the last four years has been whether guidance was clear enough or whether people were receiving too many different and confusing messages – something colleagues and I called “alert fatigue”.

With colleagues, I conducted an evidence review of communication during COVID and found that the lack of clarity, as well as a lack of trust in those setting rules, were key barriers to adherence to measures like social distancing.

In future, whether it’s another COVID wave, or another virus or public health emergency, clear communication by trustworthy messengers is going to be key.

Combat complacency

As Maria van Kerkove, COVID technical lead for WHO, puts it there is no acceptable level of death from COVID. COVID complacency is setting in as we have moved out of the emergency phase of the pandemic. But is still much work to be done.

First, we still need to understand this virus better. Four years is not a long time to understand the longer-term effects of COVID. For example, evidence on how the virus affects the brain and cognitive functioning is in its infancy.

The extent, severity and possible treatment of long COVID is another priority that must not be forgotten – not least because it is still causing a lot of long-term sickness and absence.

Culture change

During the pandemic’s first few years, there was a question over how many of our new habits, from elbow bumping (remember that?) to remote working, were here to stay.

Turns out old habits die hard – and in most cases that’s not a bad thing – after all handshaking and hugging can be good for our health.

But there is some pandemic behaviour we could have kept, under certain conditions. I’m pretty sure most people don’t wear masks when they have respiratory symptoms, even though some health authorities, such as the NHS, recommend it.

Masks could still be thought of like umbrellas: we keep one handy for when we need it, for example, when visiting vulnerable people, especially during times when there’s a spike in COVID.

If masks hadn’t been so politicised as a symbol of conformity and oppression so early in the pandemic, then we might arguably have seen people in more countries adopting the behaviour in parts of east Asia, where people continue to wear masks or face coverings when they are sick to avoid spreading it to others.

Although the pandemic led to the growth of remote or hybrid working, presenteeism – going to work when sick – is still a major issue.

Encouraging parents to send children to school when they are unwell is unlikely to help public health, or attendance for that matter. For instance, although one child might recover quickly from a given virus, other children who might catch it from them might be ill for days.

Similarly, a culture of presenteeism that pressures workers to come in when ill is likely to backfire later on, helping infectious disease spread in workplaces.

At the most fundamental level, we need to do more to create a culture of equality. Some groups, especially the most economically deprived, fared much worse than others during the pandemic. Health inequalities have widened as a result. With ongoing pandemic impacts, for example, long COVID rates, also disproportionately affecting those from disadvantaged groups, health inequalities are likely to persist without significant action to address them.

Vaccine inequity is still a problem globally. At a national level, in some wealthier countries like the UK, those from more deprived backgrounds are going to be less able to afford private vaccines.

We may be out of the emergency phase of COVID, but the pandemic is not yet over. As we reflect on the past four years, working to provide clearer public health communication, avoiding COVID complacency and reducing health inequalities are all things that can help prepare for any future waves or, indeed, pandemics.

Simon Nicholas Williams has received funding from Senedd Cymru, Public Health Wales and the Wales Covid Evidence Centre for research on COVID-19, and has consulted for the World Health Organization. However, this article reflects the views of the author only, in his academic capacity at Swansea University, and no funding or organizational bodies were involved in the writing or content of this article.

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Government

The Grinch Who Stole Freedom

The Grinch Who Stole Freedom

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Before President Joe Biden’s State of the…

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The Grinch Who Stole Freedom

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Before President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, the pundit class was predicting that he would deliver a message of unity and calm, if only to attract undecided voters to his side.

President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on March 7, 2024. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

He did the opposite. The speech revealed a loud, cranky, angry, bitter side of the man that people don’t usually see. It seemed like the real Joe Biden I remember from the old days, full of venom, sarcasm, disdain, threats, and extreme partisanship.

The base might have loved it except that he made reference to an “illegal” alien, which is apparently a trigger word for the left. He failed their purity test.

The speech was stunning in its bile and bitterness. It’s beyond belief that he began with a pitch for more funds for the Ukraine war, which has killed 10,000 civilians and some 200,000 troops on both sides. It’s a bloody mess that could have been resolved early on but for U.S. tax funding of the conflict.

Despite the push from the higher ends of conservative commentary, average Republicans have turned hard against this war. The United States is in a fiscal crisis and every manner of domestic crisis, and the U.S. president opens his speech with a pitch to protect the border in Ukraine? It was completely bizarre, and lent some weight to the darkest conspiracies about why the Biden administration cares so much about this issue.

From there, he pivoted to wildly overblown rhetoric about the most hysterically exaggerated event of our times: the legendary Jan. 6 protests on Capitol Hill. Arrests for daring to protest the government on that day are growing.

The media and the Biden administration continue to describe it as the worst crisis since the War of the Roses, or something. It’s all a wild stretch, but it set the tone of the whole speech, complete with unrelenting attacks on former President Donald Trump. He would use the speech not to unite or make a pitch that he is president of the entire country but rather intensify his fundamental attack on everything America is supposed to be.

Hard to isolate the most alarming part, but one aspect really stood out to me. He glared directly at the Supreme Court Justices sitting there and threatened them with political power. He said that they were awful for getting rid of nationwide abortion rights and returning the issue to the states where it belongs, very obviously. But President Biden whipped up his base to exact some kind of retribution against the court.

Looking this up, we have a few historical examples of presidents criticizing the court but none to their faces in a State of the Union address. This comes two weeks after President Biden directly bragged about defying the Supreme Court over the issue of student loan forgiveness. The court said he could not do this on his own, but President Biden did it anyway.

Here we have an issue of civic decorum that you cannot legislate or legally codify. Essentially, under the U.S. system, the president has to agree to defer to the highest court in its rulings even if he doesn’t like them. President Biden is now aggressively defying the court and adding direct threats on top of that. In other words, this president is plunging us straight into lawlessness and dictatorship.

In the background here, you must understand, is the most important free speech case in U.S. history. The Supreme Court on March 18 will hear arguments over an injunction against President Biden’s administrative agencies as issued by the Fifth Circuit. The injunction would forbid government agencies from imposing themselves on media and social media companies to curate content and censor contrary opinions, either directly or indirectly through so-called “switchboarding.”

A ruling for the plaintiffs in the case would force the dismantling of a growing and massive industry that has come to be called the censorship-industrial complex. It involves dozens or even more than 100 government agencies, including quasi-intelligence agencies such as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which was set up only in 2018 but managed information flow, labor force designations, and absentee voting during the COVID-19 response.

A good ruling here will protect free speech or at least intend to. But, of course, the Biden administration could directly defy it. That seems to be where this administration is headed. It’s extremely dangerous.

A ruling for the defense and against the injunction would be a catastrophe. It would invite every government agency to exercise direct control over all media and social media in the country, effectively abolishing the First Amendment.

Close watchers of the court have no clear idea of how this will turn out. But watching President Biden glare at court members at the address, one does wonder. Did they sense the threats he was making against them? Will they stand up for the independence of the judicial branch?

Maybe his intimidation tactics will end up backfiring. After all, does the Supreme Court really think it is wise to license this administration with the power to control all information flows in the United States?

The deeper issue here is a pressing battle that is roiling American life today. It concerns the future and power of the administrative state versus the elected one. The Constitution contains no reference to a fourth branch of government, but that is what has been allowed to form and entrench itself, in complete violation of the Founders’ intentions. Only the Supreme Court can stop it, if they are brave enough to take it on.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, and surely you have, President Biden is nothing but a marionette of deep-state interests. He is there to pretend to be the people’s representative, but everything that he does is about entrenching the fourth branch of government, the permanent bureaucracy that goes on its merry way without any real civilian oversight.

We know this for a fact by virtue of one of his first acts as president, to repeal an executive order by President Trump that would have reclassified some (or many) federal employees as directly under the control of the elected president rather than have independent power. The elites in Washington absolutely panicked about President Trump’s executive order. They plotted to make sure that he didn’t get a second term, and quickly scratched that brilliant act by President Trump from the historical record.

This epic battle is the subtext behind nearly everything taking place in Washington today.

Aside from the vicious moment of directly attacking the Supreme Court, President Biden set himself up as some kind of economic central planner, promising to abolish hidden fees and bags of chips that weren’t full enough, as if he has the power to do this, which he does not. He was up there just muttering gibberish. If he is serious, he believes that the U.S. president has the power to dictate the prices of every candy bar and hotel room in the United States—an absolutely terrifying exercise of power that compares only to Stalin and Mao. And yet there he was promising to do just that.

Aside from demonizing the opposition, wildly exaggerating about Jan. 6, whipping up war frenzy, swearing to end climate change, which will make the “green energy” industry rich, threatening more taxes on business enterprise, promising to cure cancer (again!), and parading as the master of candy bar prices, what else did he do? Well, he took credit for the supposedly growing economy even as a vast number of Americans are deeply suffering from his awful policies.

It’s hard to imagine that this speech could be considered a success. The optics alone made him look like the Grinch who stole freedom, except the Grinch was far more articulate and clever. He’s a mean one, Mr. Biden.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/11/2024 - 12:00

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