Best of the Program | Guests: Rep. Chris Stewart & Carol Roth | 2/25/22

At Blinds.com, it's not just about window treatments.

It's about you, your style, your space, your way.

Whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of knowing it's done right.

From free expert design help to our 100% satisfaction guarantee, everything we do is made to fit your life and your windows.

Because at blinds.com, the only thing we treat better than windows is you.

Visit blinds.com now for up to 50% off with minimum purchase, plus a professional measure at no cost.

Rules and restrictions apply.

Welcome to the podcast.

On today's program, we go over everything that's going on in Russia and Ukraine.

Yeah.

And we go through that, including the real tragedy.

The true.

Don't bring it up.

Let them hear it themselves.

They're going to.

It's, I know, but I don't.

I think you're going to have a shock.

Don't have it.

Don't have a double shock.

You're going to go into mourning, and then you'll hear the podcast, and you'll go into mourning again.

It is shocking, horrifying, and the true, the true tragedy behind Ukraine.

We also have Chris Stewart is on the program today talking about the cyber threat.

We have Carol Roth on the economy.

Pat Gray is with us.

It's a great show.

Don't miss it.

Go to Blazetv.com/slash Glenn.

The promo code is Glenn to save 10 bucks off your subscription to Blaze TV.

And this podcast's available every day, of course.

Rate and review it.

Five stars is the appropriate number of stars.

Studios America, also available five days.

a week.

Don't miss that as well.

And you have a new show today as well, Glenn?

Yeah, I have a new Friday exclusive going to go over the clips, kind of a leftover show, all the clips we didn't get to this week, some really funny stuff.

Also, tomorrow's podcast, Mike Rowe One-on-One.

You're listening to

the best of the Blenbeck program.

We welcome Pat Gray.

Yay!

Yay!

Hello, Pat.

Hello, Glenn.

Oh, Stu.

Oh, my gosh.

Hey, Stu.

So good to see you.

Good to see you.

Yeah.

I've been weeping most of the morning, though.

Oh, no.

Oh, no, no, no.

You didn't hear.

I did.

Oh, my gosh.

We wept openly.

As men, we broke down and we wept openly, all of us in the studio.

I had a shower on our show.

Yeah.

I heard the news from you.

When I heard that the fourth year in a row,

Joy Behar may not be able to go to Italy.

It was too much.

It was, you know.

She's had a tough fourth year.

First of all, it was a pandemic.

Yeah.

And now, you know, if I don't get to Italy every third weekend or so,

I get out of sorts.

Yeah.

So four straight years, can you imagine?

I can imagine.

Play the audio, the stunning, stunning, sad audio from Joy Behar yesterday.

Well, I'm scared of what's going to happen in Western Europe, too.

Yeah.

You know, you just, you plan a trip.

You want to go there.

I want to go to Italy for four years.

I haven't been able to make it because of the pandemic.

And now Chris, you know, it's like, who's going to, what's going to happen there?

Yeah.

It's a gut touch.

It is a gun.

Nobody calls her out on the set.

They're all like, yeah.

Wouldn't you, if you were having that conversation with somebody, wouldn't you go,

Are you drunk?

Yeah.

I mean, did you just hear 50,000 people are going to be dead?

Are they worried about your vacation?

Yeah.

And they do, to be fair, they know she's drunk.

I mean,

every day she's going to be.

So they don't hit it.

Maybe they don't like.

Are you sober?

Are you sober, Joy?

What is happening to you?

So embarrassing.

You know, these people are killers.

They really are.

Well, wait.

No, no, no.

Joy?

I mean, she's a killer of joy, but yeah.

No, no.

Listen, I mean, generally speaking, the people who are this

crazy

John Kerry,

he really is concerned about

this war

because of how

it will affect global warming.

Not in his own private chat.

He's not concerned about that.

No, no.

We're not talking about people who see

people and individuals.

He's willing.

Forget about those people.

What about global warming?

Forget about those people.

What about my vacation?

That's sociopathic behavior.

It is.

Yeah.

Carrie's defense, though.

He did bring up a great point about northern Russia.

And the fact that 66% of the soil is frozen and now it's starting to thaw and you don't want that because you might be able to grow extra food.

And then somebody might poison those food stocks.

Those food stocks.

Foon stocks.

Since when is it bad if the soil thaws?

I mean, would that be a terrible thing?

Yeah, and like.

Would you care in Russia?

Oh, it's not frozen anymore.

Like, maybe you argue that it's going to get warmer somewhere else, but like, I don't think Russia cares.

Like,

they're pretty excited about this idea of thawing soil.

Right.

There's very little use of it.

As long as it doesn't affect the average farmer's ability to get to Italy.

Right.

Well, yes, obviously.

You know, that's the most important thing.

In a private jet.

Yeah.

We have to save the climate effects of this war so that we can make sure we continue to fly on our private jets to Italy.

If you can only do that.

Can I ask you,

has the world ever been this confusing ever?

I don't think so.

I mean, I don't understand

anything that is going on.

We're buying oil from Russia.

We upped our order of oil by 623,000 barrels of oil from Russia here to the United States last week.

We say we're going to put sanctions on Russia and really cripple them.

You want to cripple them?

You stop the ability of Russia being able to sell oil.

And at the same time, what are we doing?

We're making a deal with Iran so maybe Iranian oil can get out and ease the suffering.

Turn the oil pipeline on.

Start fracking.

What the hell is wrong with?

I think, I said yesterday, I don't think we understand Vladimir Putin's real motivation.

I don't think he's crazy.

Do you think he's crazy?

No.

Do you think he's crazy?

I mean, no, no, no.

I mean, he's a psychopathic killer.

Right, yes.

Okay.

He's Joy Bayhawk.

He's logically getting to that goal, though.

Correct.

He's using logic and planning and his old calculated nature to get himself to those goals.

It's not that Osama bin Laden was crazy.

We just didn't understand, nor can we think like him.

Okay.

That's Vladimir Putin.

And I don't understand his motivations.

And without understanding his motivations, you can't fight him.

Okay.

Honestly,

what are the motivations?

Is Biden senile

or does he have a different agenda?

Yes.

And yes.

Right?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

I mean,

you can't be this wrong all the time.

It's been every single time he's wrong.

Yeah.

And they still spin it as if

they're doing the best job that's ever been done.

No mistakes have been made.

Right.

Remember, Afghanistan.

He couldn't even admit a mistake in Afghanistan.

That's incredible.

And there's this, this is kind of Jim Garity wrote about this this week: the concept of mirroring when you're talking about foreign affairs, where like you just assume the person you're dealing with has the same sort of motivations, generally speaking, as we do.

And that's completely insane when you're dealing with Kim Jong-un or President Xi or Vladimir Putin or Biden and the Biden administration.

I mean, honestly, guys,

you cannot be this wrong all the time.

How is it we didn't say,

let me play this, please play Cut 13.

As we respond, my administration is using the tools, every tool at its disposal, to protect American families and businesses from rising prices at the gas pump.

You know, we're taking active steps to bring down the cost, and American oil and gas companies should not.

should not exploit this moment to hike their prices to raise profits.

You know, in our sanctions package, we specifically designed to allow energy payments to continue.

We are closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption.

Did you just hear what he said?

In our sanctions, we clearly made a path for, what did he say, the play it again.

Listen to what he says about the sanctions.

We're taking active steps to bring down the cost, and American oil and gas companies

should should not exploit this market

to hike their prices to raise profits.

You know, in our sanctions package,

specifically designed to allow energy payments to continue.

Stop.

We allow energy payments to continue.

We are still writing checks for Russian oil.

In our sanctions,

we made sure that we could continue to write checks to Russian oil.

So don't you dare American companies raise your prices on gas.

That's insane.

That's insane.

It is.

Nobody even noticed that.

I haven't heard anybody notice that.

Anybody comment on that?

Incredible.

Before Biden,

I'm pretty sure we were getting zero oil from Russia.

We had eliminated.

imports from Russia and Venezuela and all the bad actors in the world.

We were

energy independent and we were exporters for the first time in a really long time.

I mean, it's only been recently that we started exporting oil again.

I think it was the 50s the last time that that happened.

And it was because of Trump's policies.

He was oil-friendly.

Let's use our own research.

Did you see Mark Andreessen, what he said?

No.

Yesterday, Mark Andreessen came out and he said

we should be planning, I think he said, like 200 nuke facilities in the United States

right now.

I think he said a thousand nuclear plants need to be built worldwide.

Yeah.

We should be building right now.

Yes.

And we won't,

but we should.

Yeah, we won't.

We won't.

And why won't we?

Why won't we?

Because of the environmentalists.

Why is it?

Why is it everything has to be crippled here?

Why would we ever, ever make a deal with Iran so Iran could sell oil on the open market.

I mean, even if you believe that, you know, all of the fossil fuels have to stop right now, okay?

They have to stop.

You're the president of the United States of America.

We have the ability to be a mass exporter, but you're willing to make a deal with a terrorist state

and you're willing to pay Putin for his oil.

Wait a minute.

The oil is going to go out anyway.

The oil is going out.

It's going to be burnt.

We would rather do business with a terrorist state and Vladimir Putin

than open the spigot up here in America.

How is that the president of the United States?

How is that a guy looking out for the average American, for the American way of life?

You're putting more money into the hands of people who are now saying to you, yeah, Poland's next.

They're saying that to you.

And if not, they're saying, we have to destroy the great Satan.

Incredible.

Especially on the heels of this, where...

Energy payments from Europe and us as well, but largely Europe, have funded a rainy day fund for Vladimir Putin and all of his oligarchs to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars so that our sanctions won't do anything in this moment.

So now we're going to create another regime where we're going to fund billions and billions of dollars

and have all that money go to them so that when they decide to start their next crisis, they're shielded as well.

And may I just say, I hope and pray I'm not inconvenienced further by having to detour my plans to go to Taipei, Taiwan, because China sees what's going on in Russia and then takes that bold move to take back Taiwan.

You have the timeshare there.

I have the timeshare, and if I can't use it this year, I'm going to be

very put out.

You haven't been able to use it since 2019.

Right.

That was the last time I was in Taipei.

And you're still paying those maintenance fees.

Yes.

Every year.

Every year.

Every year.

The suffering.

Suffering.

Just continues.

It just doesn't stop.

It does not stop.

Well, thank you, Pat, for being here.

Thank you.

You know, thank you for understanding my pain.

I know.

I almost didn't come in today because of it.

I know, I cannot.

I was so worried about my Taipei trip.

And congratulations on the bravery that you showed this morning on Pat Gray Unleashed when you openly wept.

Thank you for noticing that.

Many people might be embarrassed by something like that.

There's a man.

There's not enough.

Not me.

There's not enough examples of weak and pathetic men in our society.

Isn't that the truth?

You know what I mean?

Right.

If we could just.

I'm a little offended by you calling me a man, as a matter of fact.

I thought you were going to say you were offended for being called weak and pathetic.

No, no, it was the man part.

It's a man part.

No.

It really bothered me.

Yeah, it really did.

The binary thinking there really pissed me off.

Well, there's no salvaging you anyway because you're white.

That's true.

So, and an American.

That's true.

Anyway, thank you so much, Pat.

Thank you.

Thank you for stopping by for some strange reason.

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

We want to bring in Daniel Turner.

He is the founder and executive director of Power the Future.

And we're going to talk a little bit about the things that maybe we should be doing right now.

Daniel, welcome to the program.

Oh, it's great to be on with you, Glenn.

Thanks for having me.

You're welcome.

I don't know if you saw Mark Andreessen's tweet yesterday, but he said we should be building 1,000 nuclear plants all around the world starting today.

We're not going to do it, but there's a lot of logical things that we should be doing today.

One of them is get off our dependence of Russian oil.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

I mean, a lot of the problems that we're experiencing right now

have begun 14 months ago with the Biden administration.

And I'm not pinning the Ukraine invasion on him, but I am saying we've been tinkering this administration has been really punishing the the America's energy industry

specifically the fossil fuel industry for months and months and when oil hit $70 a barrel and $80 a barrel the White House was silent well now it's at a hundred and Joe Biden saying he wants to do something so it's a little bit too late you know energy is one of those issues that people don't want to pay attention to until it starts to

basically pinch at the purse, right?

Yeah, exactly.

But, you know, we need serious energy policy and not Greta Thunberg, not John Kerry, right?

We need serious energy policy because it is national security as well.

I just, I keep hearing him say, we're going to tap into the strategic oil reserve.

Hang on just a second.

On one hand, people are talking about World War II three

and the biggest conflict possibly since World War II.

Oil was kind of important.

That's why we have the strategic oil reserve.

And so he's telling the West we should release more from our strategic oil reserve while we're facing this.

No, open a freaking pipeline.

Yeah.

Oil is so important to the world economy that even this administration has not sanctioned Russian oil.

Germany and Italy today bought more natural gas than they did yesterday from Russia.

In fact, Putin has increased the amount of natural gas exports because he knows he has Europe on the hook.

And he's using that to his leverage.

And so, look, you know, we have to stop being Plato.

There is this ideal world.

We all need to live up to it.

And we all need to be better.

But the reality is our economy, our military, the world runs on fossil fuels right now.

And whether or not we want to change that as one conversation, but the reality is punishing fossil fuels now in the hopes of a better tomorrow has made us weak now.

And Vladimir Putin is taking advantage of that weakness.

This is exactly what the Great Reset is about.

The ESG scores, energy

is the first thing.

And we are...

We're committing national suicide.

And it's not just national.

The entire West is committing suicide.

And I don't understand it.

And is that an is that a is that hyperbole?

No, no, no, not whatsoever.

And look, when this administration began and Joe Biden said,

which I believe is a flat-out falsehood, but when he said the generals tell him climate change is our biggest national security threat, I'm sorry, if anyone really said that to you in the military,

that person should be fired today.

And any politician, Republican or Democrat, this is not a partisan issue.

Many Republicans went to the Glasgow Climate Summit to learn how to tackle climate change.

We can have a conversation about the environment, but if you genuinely believe in your heart of hearts, looking at the global stage, that climate change is the biggest threat, then you do not deserve elected office.

You are a danger because Russia is a threat.

China is a threat.

Iran is a threat.

North Korea.

And these root regimes, unfortunately, as the prices of oil have gone through the roof, have become richer.

And what does Iran do when they have more money?

They launch attacks on Israel and they launch attacks on the UAE and they fund their nuclear bombs program.

And what does Russia do when they have more money?

They build their army, right?

So again, it's

this fight against reality that you can have a conversation about the environment, but there are real threats, and we need to put on our big boy pants and face the real world we live in.

Even if you believed that

climate change was the was the existential threat and the largest threat against all of humanity, if you really truly believed that,

and you make the moves to stop American oil and everything else,

does that explain why

we are

not sanctioning the Russian oil?

We're increasing our imports of Russian oil, and we seem to be making it easy for Iran to flood the market with their oil.

I don't understand this.

Why wouldn't you go to America and just say, hey, it's temporary, but we're going to, we need you right now to relieve the pressure?

I don't understand it.

Do you know for the first time in nearly 40 years, America has been purchasing Iranian oil.

Very quietly, the administration clearly did not put out a press release.

But you say, why is America buying any oil from Russia?

I mean Iran.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

When did that happen?

I've not heard that.

It started in April of this year, and we've purchased about a million barrels of oil from Iran.

Now, there's going to be an argument, and they're going to say I'm playing fast and loose with the nuance, because we purchase a lot of oil from the world, and we refine it, particularly in the Gulf.

We have the world's largest refining capabilities.

Also, something China's trying to compete with us on, but that's another conversation.

But we are the world's largest refiner.

So this crude that comes out of the ground has to get refined.

So we buy Russian, we buy Venezuelan, but we don't need to buy any oil if we produced enough ourselves.

And we're not.

We're producing 2 million barrels fewer.

than we did just a few months ago before Biden became president.

And the reason why we're producing so much fewer oil is because this administration has made it impossible to produce.

You mentioned the ESG movement, where every agency is looking at climate change when it comes to permitting land access,

permits in the Gulf of Mexico, on federal land, fracking moratoriums, pipeline construction.

So all these cumulative actions have made production of oil domestically hard.

Of course, we have to get it from somewhere else.

So why not Russia?

Why not Iran?

Why not Venezuela?

Why not put a bullet to our head?

Because that's what we're doing by enriching our enemies.

Let me ask you,

when Obama said that he was going to stop the drilling, I think it was in the Gulf, the deep sea drilling,

the concern was that if you stop that, you're not getting a lease on those deep-sea drills for another 20 years.

They're not coming back, and you just don't make them overnight.

With the damage that has been done just to the economy and to the oil and gas industry.

Are we doing permanent damage or are these things just going into mothballs and we can turn this around quickly?

We can turn it around, but I don't think quickly.

This is a very capital and labor intensive industry.

And even if all of the permitting is in place and the government is a friend of the industry, which we want, like we saw under President Trump, it really took till the end of 2018, the beginning of 19, for the industry to produce as much as it was.

And so it did take two solid years of

believing that the government wasn't going to punish you.

You know, you look at something like Keystone, that was 10 years and a billion dollars in the making, and then the rug was pulled out from under it, and all that money is lost.

So who's going to invest in the oil and gas industry right now if you think the government can shut it down?

And that's one of my pet peeves, Glenn.

And you can hear my voice getting angry.

Oh, I know.

know.

Gen Saki will say, well, you know, oil at $90 a barrel, you would think these rich fat cats would invest.

It's not that they don't want to invest, it's that they know it's a risky investment because the government is going to punish you.

Deb Holland, the Interior Secretary, is going to punish you.

The EPA administrator, Biden is talking about Fed nominees who look at banking issues through the lens of climate change.

So if you need a $50 million loan from the bank to finance this industry,

No, because the bank's not going to lend it to you because the Federal Reserve is going to raise your base points and penalize you.

So, again,

this administration is punishing the industry from every angle, and then they have the gall to say, well, they better not raise prices

to take advantage of this.

Like, it's our fault.

When Elizabeth Warren blamed big meat, remember that one?

Yeah.

She said all the meat industries together.

I mean, it's just offensive.

I will tell you,

I don't understand what's happening to us

unless the president and this administration and those on the left have an agenda that is clearly not in step with the traditional American.

I mean, this is this is

self-inflicted wounds, and they're soon going to be mortal.

Um, what do you what are you thinking?

What are you thinking about the gas and oil prices

and what's coming with

this war in Ukraine?

Yeah, it's down a little bit today, which is good news.

But I think overall, if this continues, and I don't think Putin is going to

stop until he has everything he wants in the Ukraine and maybe even more, you could easily see gas at $150 a barrel like it was in 2008.

You mean $125 by the end of March is very feasible.

And that means $6 and $7 gallon of gas.

But

you know, your audience knows there are millions, literally millions of products that are made from fossil fuels.

And so when the price of fertilizer goes up, when the price of pesticides go up, everything

goes up in price.

And so when you go to the store and you buy your chopped meat and it's expensive, it's the cow, the cow's diet, the transportation, the butcher, the slaughterhouse, the packaging, the plastic.

All of that stuff gets added onto your cost.

You're ultimately the one going to suffer.

And that's the frustration.

This administration, before Putin even launched his first incursion, this administration was willing to let the American people suffer because they are so eager for this green revolution, these renewables, that they had to punish fossil fuels.

They wanted fossil fuels to be the bad guy so that maybe you would go to the government and say, please, Mr.

Biden, please give us a Green New Deal.

Please give us a build-back better.

We can't afford this anymore.

And

that's the really sad thing.

They were willing to punish the American people for their agenda.

And that's not just un-American, unpatriotic.

Quite frankly, it's immoral and it's evil.

Yeah, I agree with you.

Daniel, thank you so much.

The founder and executive director of Power of the Future, Daniel Turner.

I am surrounded by a new family of people who have their life back because of Relief Factor.

I'm one of them.

I was

in pain and got to the point to where I just couldn't do it anymore.

Anybody else feel like, you know, I just I can't get up another day?

We have our life back because of Relief Factor.

It's not a television commercial.

It's

It's a group of real people with real results that had real pain.

Try it yourself.

Relief Factor.

This guy, when he started, completely bald.

Look at him now.

Doesn't do anything for your hair.

But it will help you.

Get out of pain.

Give it a shot.

Try the three-week quick start.

Doesn't work?

Move on.

But we're here to tell you, it works.

ReliefFactor.com.

This

is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

Carol Roth is joining us.

Carol, I have so many questions for you today.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

Some of them I'm not going to be able to answer because insanity, but we'll do our best to muddle our way through them.

Okay.

Can you at all give us a

common understanding of what SWIFT is?

So the best way I can explain SWIFT is a clearinghouse for the messages about transactions through the international banking system.

To kind of dial it back to the U.S., if you send a wired transfer between banks in the U.S., you have a special code.

If you do it internationally, there is a SWIFT code and that entity acts as that sort of clearinghouse between the banks to say, oh, you need to send money from one place to another.

So basically cutting off Russia or anybody else means that you don't get to sort of participate in in the global banking system in a very rudimentary sort of explanation.

Right.

And that is important.

Again, it will take it down to the baby level, but that's important.

The reason why you would wire transfer something is because if you write a check, it's going to have to sit there and be verified for funds and everything else.

If you are doing big business, you're just moving things quickly because you need that transfer to kick in right away, correct?

True, except for internationally, it often can take a day or more to clear, clear.

But it is, again, that sort of middleman, that international clearinghouse.

It's based in Belgium for all of the international financial movement, if that makes sense.

Okay.

And

Europe, according to Joe Biden, didn't want to take that step yet.

So they didn't.

Yeah.

Well, of course they didn't because, you know, they're getting, if it's your Germany, you're getting 40%

of your oil from Russia.

So they understand the precarious position they're in.

And I'm sure they put a lot of pressure on Joe Biden and saying, listen, you know, we can't afford it.

And oh, by the way, geniuses, you don't have the exports now now that you're no longer energy independent to be able to help us out here.

So what are we going to do?

And I imagine those were the types of discussions happening behind closed doors to have a very weak set of sanctions put out against Russia.

So Joe Biden says that the sanctions that he did put on

are just mind-numbingly crippling for Putin and Russia.

How would you describe them?

Well, he actually had somebody within his administration, one of the members of the Economic Council, that said they weren't meant to disrupt the flow of energy and basically completely contradicted that.

So they seemed kind of like everything the Biden administration has done, much more for show than for any sort of actual impact.

If you wanted to have impact,

not only would you have put that pressure in terms of taking Russia out from Swift, maybe putting sanctions on Putin themselves, disrupting energy, I mean, really getting serious.

And

certainly none of that transpired.

So, I mean, to hit...

Putin where he lives and to really destroy Russia, the best thing to do is be an massive exporter of oil

and drive the price of oil

at least below $80 a barrel because

that's where they make money is $70, $80 a barrel, anything over that.

So drive the price of oil down cripples him or cut him off.

If you don't do that,

it would be like, we're going to sanction Glenn Beck.

He can make money in broadcasting, but no ballet dollars are coming his way.

Yeah, it would be like telling me, oh, well, I'm sorry, Carol, you can no longer eat the cauliflower.

Oh,

I'm so, so sorry.

That's going to devastate me on my diet.

Yeah, I mean, the reality is if you look at the Russian economy, about 60% of their GDP comes from the oil and gas exports.

So certainly anything that disrupts that, whether it's disrupting getting payment for that, driving down the price overall, or just not allowing them to be able to export it, all of those.

kinds of things would be devastating.

And we have seen brave people in Russia who are marching in the streets saying we don't want any war.

If things are getting worse there economically, those voices are only going to get louder.

So that would

put that feeling out to the world that Joe Biden was serious and that he wanted to really take a stand and would make other countries potentially think twice about things they might want to do, like China invading Taiwan.

Unfortunately, we did not see that.

So what happened in the stock market yesterday?

I mean,

you hear, you listen to the president, and he is saying there's going to be real pain from the American people.

They're going to really have price increases, disruption of all kinds of things, maybe even a cyber attack, the biggest war possibly since World War II.

And he's going to try to ease the pain.

And the stock market goes up.

Is that because,

A,

the people on Wall Street know this isn't this is business as usual

or B

the Fed just buying up more stocks and there's no reality anymore in the stock market

As the meme says, Glenn, why not both?

It's a little bit of each of those.

I think there was an expectation that these sanctions were going to be somewhat worse and that that may escalate conflict and or you know change the ability to get some of the key exports and increase the prices of those and and Russia has many of them not only oil and gas but aluminum

you know wheat and and and other things so the fact that Joe Biden was weak the stock market goes oh he's not really serious and so that there's part of the rally on that the Fed piece of it is that there's this expectation for a rate hike coming up in March in a couple of weeks And prior to yesterday, the expectation was that there was going to be an increase of 50 basis points, which is half a percent.

And with the conflict, you know, potentially ongoing, stretching out, you know, that gives the Fed a little bit of cover to say, well, it's uncertain.

We're not sure how that's going to play in, you know, yada, yada, yada.

And that maybe that means there's only going to be a 25 basis point or a quarter of a percent increase.

But whatever it is, it gives the Fed a little bit more cover, whether it's in March or for the rest of the year, to slow play, taking away their monetary support from the market, which the market loves.

So I think you have a little bit of both of those.

Yeah, sure.

This is, you know,

I've never understood more than now the Shakespeare line, all the world is but a stage.

I feel like every day we're watching a show.

He's telling the American people, this is really going to hurt you,

and we're going to pay a high price

at the gas station.

And don't you oil producers charge extra and gouge people at this time while he's buying more oil this week from Russia than we bought the week before.

And we're making it easy for Iran and buying Iranian oil as well.

This is, none of this is real.

No, it's so frustrating.

I mean, Joe Biden has some levers he could pull to do a 180 on the economy, certainly returning our energy independence, firing up those oil and gas leases, returning to the Keystone pipeline, all of those kinds of things.

He could do a 180 on, and it would be very well received.

The average American would benefit from it.

And, you know, just from a, even if you're somebody who's climate change and, you know, I'm focused on green, the reality is that that oil is getting produced anyway.

So would you rather have Russia or Iran be the ones that are producing it?

Or would you rather have the technological leader of the United States do it in a manner where we know there's a focus on making it more clean and more green?

So it fundamentally doesn't make any sense other than some of the wonderful things that you've presented in your book, Glenn the Great Reset, that everybody should read about if they haven't already.

so

carol is all of this

this excuse of uh ukraine are you are we just being played on this with energy prices are the energy costs going to go up because of what we're doing

um you know with esg and cutting the financing of of our own uh

slitting our own throat

or is this ukraine thing actually playing a role

so i mean this has been going on, as we've seen, for well over a year,

better part of almost two years now.

And the Ukrainian conflict is just several days old.

So, despite the media's attempt to say, oh, this is the reason for it,

obviously, us bowing out of production

from some of the decisions the Biden administration made, the canceling of oil and gas leases, the canceling of the Keystone Pipeline, whatnot, and also the ESG pressure that made it so that many of the companies that were involved in oil exploration and whatnot

and refinement not want to do as much of it over the last couple of years.

So there has been a lot of pressure outside, both through government and through sort of this global ESG fascination that has depressed the US's position.

And obviously that's put some

cricks in the road here,

as well as the OPEC oil cartel.

Obviously, they wanted to make up for some of the lost money that happened over the pandemic.

So they did not ramp up productions to the level to meet demand.

So all of these things factor in, as well as disruption in the supply chain.

It's harder and more expensive to get the refined gasoline to the station.

I mean, just so many things that all snowball together.

So, that has all created a big issue, and it's going to be an ongoing issue whether or not this Russia-Ukraine conflict continues.

That being said,

if it escalates,

yes, it will have a further impact on top of what we're already seeing.

Currently, we have oil that's over $90 a barrel.

It could go over $100 organically before they probably start

pushing out more oil.

If this escalates from a Russia-Ukraine perspective, you could see $140 a barrel oil.

So it's very, very meaningful in terms of that incremental amount.

But it's not like without it, we'd be at $70 or $60.

We see the price of fertilizer 300% increase.

That has something to do with natural gas.

We have have

any oil products,

even

bug killers that you put on your crops.

Wheat is going through the roof today.

We are going to be facing some real problems at the supermarket in the next six to eight months.

Am I reading that right?

Certainly.

I would say we are definitely going to to be facing issues.

We have been facing issues.

Inflation is going to continue.

The question is, is it a problem or is it a mega problem?

But either way, you should be prepared.

You should be prepared every day, but you should be prepared for this conflict to escalate.

Nobody's ever been sad about being overprepared.

Usually happens in the other direction.

So there are definitely steps that you can take today just to make sure that you have your ducks in a row.

And what are those steps?

So, on the energy front, you know, simple things.

We don't know what's going to happen, not only with the price, but are there potentially escalating cyber attacks that end up disrupting our own infrastructure?

I don't know if you remember way back in the early days of the Joe Biden presidency, he gave Putin a list of here are the critical things that are off limits for cyber attacks.

Basically, a roadmap of everything that they should attack should there be an issue.

So you as an individual should make sure, you know, with your cars that you keep your gas tanks full, that if you have the ability to store extra gasoline, that you have some extras just in case not only the price goes up, but we end up in a position where there's some rationing.

You don't want to be caught in that position.

And as you and I've talked about, Glenn, before.

for your house, have backup generators and other sources of energy in case there's an issue.

I know that I take propane

And

I called yesterday.

I just got a delivery, I don't know, a few months ago.

And I called them up and said, could you please come out and tap my tank off?

They said, sure, you're on a waiting list now.

This was yesterday.

They said, the phones are ringing off the hook.

You're heating oil, everything.

You should get on a list now to get that full.

So you're paying A, this price and B,

if something happens, you have a full tank.

100%.

100%.

With other supply chain issues, same kinds of things, both from a price increase standpoint and to make sure you have extras in case of disruptions.

Get the extra water.

Get something that can distill down your water and take the yucky stuff out just in case there's an issue.

Stock up on

things that are not perishable in terms of food, stock up on medicine, have an emergency supply kit, all of those things that should something kind of really go awry here, a big escalation that you are prepared.

And then on the financial standpoint, we were talking about the stock market and being all over the place.

This is the time when people who are not sophisticated investors tend to panic.

And I want to give a quote from Warren Buffett, whose politics I don't particularly like, but boy, is he a great investor.

And his famous quote was always that investors should be fearful when others others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.

So, when you have those days where the stock market is going down and companies that you like or the overall stock market is in that bad position, that's the time when you slowly start putting money to work and building up your positions or what we call dollar cost averaging into stocks.

Do not pull your money out of fear.

Carol, thank you so much.

God bless you.

We will

talk to you again.

Carol Roth, kind of our show's financial advice giver, if you will.

She watches all of this for us and helping the average person know what to do in these troubled times.

Carol Roth, The War on Small Business is the book.