To The Eagle:

A recent contributor has suggested that “Biden’s war on oil production, radical green energy agenda and his overspending initiatives has caused the historic spike of inflation, not the pandemic or Putin.”

Claiming that Biden’s administration is solely responsible for ongoing price inflation, or that the “widgets of economy 101" can explain our complex hybrid fiat economy, is both naive and inaccurate. Republican tax policies concentrating wealth in the investor class have deformed our economy.

If private equity giant Cerberus is allowed its $24.6 billion merger of Albertsons and Kroger grocery chains, the investor class will enjoy billions in immediate profits, and your grocery bill is going to escalate yet again, to finance their dividends.

Available facts refute any claim of a “war on oil production” by the Biden administration, which has pumped more petroleum and issued more drilling licenses than the previous federal administration. Scarcity of select fuels is due almost entirely to the fossil fuel industry’s self-admitted refusal to increase refinery capacities and production in order to maximize profits.

Petroleum is indeed required for millions of essential products like lubricants and chemicals. Nonetheless, accelerating the transition to “greener energy” alternatives for transportation and industry is essential in order to forestall the relentless global warming that is threatening to permanently flood our coastal ports, industries and railroads.

When Putin sneezes, Wall Street wipes its nose. It is foolish to deny that present Russian aggression, and the Covid pandemic’s reverberating worldwide economic effects, are drivers of both economic instability and recent inflation.

JB Bouchard

Puget Island