One of Joe Biden’s first acts as president was to kill construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. This is a pipeline that would bring oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to the Midwest United States. From there, it would be moved through other pipelines or refined and distributed to gas stations and industrial users in North America.
Far-reaching effects of halting Keystone XL construction
Biden’s decision was destructive for a long list of reasons. The immediate impact was to kill about 10,000 high-paying union jobs with benefits in construction, transportation, and expert services. The ripple effects were even greater.
Once a pipe delivery operation is killed, the trucking company and pipe manufacturer lay off more personnel, and those workers stop spending at local restaurants, and so on. The decision to end the pipeline is pointless because the oil still moves out of Alberta. In the absence of a pipeline, the oil moves by railroad tanker cars on rail lines owned by Warren Buffett. It’s just that the railroad uses more energy and has higher CO2 emissions than a pipeline.
If you cared about the environment, you’d favour a pipeline over railroads. But opponents don’t really care about the environment; they just want to shut down the oil and gas industries completely. Shutting the pipeline is a step in that direction. Claims about local environmental damage and crossing Native American tribal areas were just feel-good red herrings. The goal was always just to kill the pipeline. Mission accomplished.
Pipeline backers call it quits
Now, according to this article, the Biden administration may have done more damage than thought at first. Construction on the pipeline had been halted in the past by the Obama administration, only to be started up again by President Trump. The worksites and equipment were mothballed until the green light was turned on again. Not this time.
The primary company backing the pipeline has announced they are throwing in the towel and terminating the project for good. Americans can expect not only lost jobs but also higher prices for gasoline and heating oil. The name for this combination of weak growth and higher prices is ‘stagflation’ — the worst of both worlds.
Biden delivered on his promise to kill the pipeline. Americans will pay the price at the pump. Despite Biden’s destructive moves, oil and natural gas are not going away. Investing in out-of-favour energy companies is a good way to profit from Biden’s economic blunders.
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Meanwhile…
Fauci is a phony
Outside of totalitarian states, it’s difficult to think of any public official in history who has perpetrated more lies over a longer period than Anthony Fauci. Technically, Dr Fauci is the Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Yet, during the pandemic, he was first a key player on Trump’s anti-virus task force and later Biden’s chief scientific advisor. This is in keeping with Fauci’s ability to play both sides of the fence and to elevate bureaucratic survival over good science and public health.
In early 2020, Fauci said the virus would be confined to China. He was wrong. He then said the economy should be locked down to stop the spread of the virus. He was wrong again since lockdowns don’t work. That has been known at least since 2006 when Dr DA Henderson, the man who led the effort to eradicate smallpox and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, published a paper that explained why lockdowns don’t work.
Fauci then said everyone should wear a mask. That was another lie; masks don’t work, they’re just for show. Fauci was opposed to the free availability of a treatment for COVID despite ample evidence that it’s highly effective in reducing acute symptoms and death. Fauci owns patents on certain inputs to the Moderna COVID vaccine (which is not really a vaccine; it’s an experimental gene modification treatment using humans as guinea pigs). That might explain why Fauci opposes simple inexpensive treatments like hydroxychloroquine since he wants to enrich himself via Big Pharma.
Evidence that the virus came from a lab is rock-solid
Recently a new round of Fauci lies have been exposed through the release of his emails under a Freedom of Information Act request. Fauci was fully aware that he was using US taxpayer money to fund dangerous gain-of-function research in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.
He also received information that clearly indicated the virus leaked from the lab he was funding. Still, Fauci joined with the Communist Party of China to promote a ‘wet market’ theory that said the virus jumped from pangolins to humans despite the absence of any evidence.
At last, Fauci’s lies are being exposed to the light of day. This article lays out a highly expert and technically-proficient explanation of why the virus had to come from the laboratory Fauci funded. Genetic engineering techniques leave small footprints that experts can decipher to show that the engineering actually took place.
Fauci is a corrupt and morally-bankrupt bureaucrat. He should have been fired by Trump. Instead, he was promoted by Biden. That tells you something about how Washington is an organised cesspool working full-time against the public interest.
Until next week,
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Jim Rickards,
Strategist, The Daily Reckoning Australia
PS: This content was originally published by Jim Rickards’ Strategic Intelligence Australia, a financial advisory newsletter designed to help you protect your wealth and potentially profit from unseen world events. Learn more here.