Ep. 1842 - Gas Prices Are Out Of Control. Here's What No One Is Telling You.

Matt Walsh (0:00)

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Tax relief advocates, real solutions for real people. Conventional wisdom is that high gas prices are the result of the war in Iran, that they're going to result in heavy losses for the Republicans in the midterms, and that the cost of living is going to remain high for the foreseeable future. But this consensus view, while not entirely wrong, is actually a simplistic and very optimistic version of events. The truth is actually worse than what conventional wisdom says. The truth is that we're now careening towards a potentially historic energy crisis, and solving it won't be easy because it's a physics problem, not simply an economic one. There are a lot of theories about where this potential energy crisis is coming from. We just spoke to a White House official off the record who posited one theory, which we'll talk about in just a moment. But before we get to that, we need to establish that as hysterical as it may sound, and as depressing as it is maybe to hear on a Monday, it is indeed the case that a full-blown catastrophic energy crisis could be on the horizon. In fact, that is actually becoming something of a mainstream opinion if you know where to look. According to analysts at major financial institutions, including JP Morgan, we could soon realistically hit the operational floor for the global energy system, which in the worst-case scenario could lead to the point where pipelines lose pressure, refineries have to shut down to protect their equipment, and gas stations run out of fuel to sell. Now, nobody really talks about this, but as it turns out, fuel infrastructure requires a certain minimum amount of fuel to function. So think of it like your body requires a certain amount of blood running through the veins or else it will shut down completely. When it comes to our oil infrastructure, that buffer is now in danger of failing, and it's not entirely because of the war in Iran, which becomes clear when you realize that the vast majority of oil exports from the Middle East are sent to Asia, not the Americas. But there is a supply shock, and we need to talk about it because the magnitude of the risk can't be overstated. Every civilization requires energy to function. Without energy, we go back to the Stone Age. Look what's happening right now in Europe. It was just a few years ago that Germany, the biggest economy in Europe, got rid of all of their nuclear power plants. They shut them all down in favor of renewables, and they laughed at anybody, including Donald Trump, who said that they were making a fatal mistake, even though they obviously were. And around the same time, Germany ran out of firewood completely. The price went up 100%, and then nobody could buy it anymore. Loggers put GPS trackers on their firewood because theft became so rampant, people began using wood chips in desperation. In neighboring Poland, instead of lining up outside the Apple Store for the latest iPhone, people were queuing for days outside of coal mines, hoping for some fuel.

Now this statistic sounds too insane to be true, but it is true. Every year in Europe, more than 360,000 people die from cold-related excess mortality, otherwise known as cold temperatures. And that includes many elderly people living in their homes, which don't have adequate heating and other causes. Now that's more than eight times the number of Europeans who die from heat-related causes, which is pretty inconvenient if you're a big believer in global warming. Turns out the problem is maybe the opposite. In the United States, by contrast, we only have around 1,000 hypothermia deaths per year, mostly drunk people who get lost in the woods during the winter, homeless, drug addicts and that sort of thing. But even by the most liberal estimates, only around 40,000 Americans die annually for a reason that can be linked in some tangential way to cold temperatures. So here's another way to measure the distinction, to put it into perspective. In America, around 44,000 people die from so-called gun violence every year. That includes mass shootings and suicides. That's a whopping 12 percent of the total number of people who die in Europe every year from cold weather. So anytime you hear Europeans claim that America is dangerous because of all the quote unquote gun violence, tell them that Europe is dangerous because people freeze to death all the time.