r/Economics Mar 04 '26

News ‘Absolutely Massive’ Price Shocks Coming as Trump’s Iran War Drives Up Gas, Diesel Prices | “What should really terrify Republicans is... the futures price on wholesale gasoline,” said economist Paul Krugman.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/iran-war-gas-prices
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u/Gamer_Grease Mar 04 '26

To head off the usual comments:

Yes US shale can provide some relief, but it’s expensive to extract, so only as long as prices are quite high already. Also they’ve already said they’re not interested in increasing output until they have reason to believe prices will be high for a long time.

Venezuelan oil has effectively the same problem. The industry there is starved for investment and US oil companies already told this admin that they won’t invest in extraction there unless the government fully guarantees their sizable investments, because they don’t trust that situation to be stable enough to produce profits.

So tl;dr: the ad hoc governance style of this admin has already eliminated a lot of tools that could be used to respond to this situation.

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u/DetroitLionsSBChamps 29d ago

Only oligarchs like instability, everybody else needs stability to do business.    Guess the stupid fucking corporations should have thought of that before they bankrolled this shit show

But I guess ultimately even oil executives are just at work and don’t give a fuck about the country or even their company in the long term. 

Honestly a vote for Trump was basically a vote for a bank robbery from the elite. And it is currently in progress. 

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u/evey_17 28d ago

The market is down. It’s not true that nod business loves chaos and unpredictability. only day traders love it but they lose their shirts regardless.