od morning! Before we hear from our residents of rural America, we share yet another perspective on student-loan forgiveness… 

“Help people with student-loan debt who have incomes below $50,000 per year; otherwise, no dice. People who earn more than that can find ways to pay off the debt that they knowingly incurred. Maybe some of the overpriced colleges can cover debts from their bloated endowments.” 

You and I both know that’ll never happen…. And now for some opinions on our topic yesterday, including diesel shortages, Russian sanctions, etc. 

“Secretary Granholm does not know how many barrels of oil we use per day or that oil is fungible,” says our first contributor. “Mess around with supply, put in price controls… A recipe for disaster.

“Fertilizer prices have impacted agriculture more than diesel,” he says, “and are a direct result of restricting the supply of natural gas. Green ammonia might replace chemical fertilizer SOMEDAY, but people have to eat today!” 

Our next reader notes: “Everything gets to us (and you) via diesel, and cities are generally one hour from each other – each large demographic having a Walmart or Target. We venture forth once every two weeks and fill up the tank then. 

“Last Tuesday, we got gas for $3.46 per gallon; I now tack on $12-14 to my grocery bill. With oil at $90-plus per gallon, I don't expect it to go back down to Trump prices.” 

Thanks for your insights, reader! We’ll share more in the coming days.

Send your opinions to, TheRundownFeedback@StPaulResearch.com

Your Rundown for Thursday, September 1, 2022...

The New OPEC

“Will a hot war happen?” Paradigm’s macro expert Jim Rickards proposed in January, more than a month before Russia invaded Ukraine. 

“If it does (and you can’t rule it out),” he said, “you think energy prices are high now? Natural gas prices will go through the roof. And then, of course, there’s some correlation between natural gas prices and oil prices.” 

Kudos to Jim for correctly reading the room. Now, nine months into 2022, we’re living in an upside-down world… Welcome to Life on Mars! 

“At the beginning of the War in Ukraine, I wrote that the sanctions would fail to deter Russia,” Jim says. 

“I went further and said sanctions would do more harm to the U.S. than to Russia, and that sanctions would actually help Russia by reducing the power of the oligarchs (Putin’s rivals) and increase the price of energy (Russia’s main source of hard currency).

“All those forecasts proved to be true… 

• “Russia is making over $21 billion per month from its energy exports, far more than they made before the war. 

• “The Russian ruble is stronger than it was before the war,” says Jim. “The head of the Central Bank of Russia recently cut interest rates because the ruble was too strong.

“Meanwhile the U.S. is in a recession, inflation is at 40-year highs, interest rates are rising and gas and food prices have doubled in the past year,” he adds. “In Europe, it’s worse with energy and food shortages looming in the months ahead.

“Now, a natural gas cartel is forming, which includes Russia, Iran as well as other countries. This new organization could function like OPEC, except that the strategic asset would be natural gas rather than oil,” Jim says. 

“Gas is widely seen as the optimal product in the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, so controlling as much of the global flow… will be the key to energy-based power over the next ten to twenty years,” a source within Iran’s Petroleum Ministry tells Oil Price.

Jim says: “Such a cartel would be able to strike exclusive deals with favored buyers like China, which would leave Europe out in the cold, literally and figuratively.

“U.S. sanctions were a blunder from the start,” he says. “Now the unforeseen consequences are emerging and they’re even worse than the critics imagined as Russia and Iran gain a lock on energy supplies that really matter – oil and gas.” 

Market Rundown for Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022

S&P 500 futures are down 0.75% after four-straight trading days of losses. 

WTI Crude oil has slipped 2%. 

Gold’s down 0.75%.

And Bitcoin is back just under the $20,000 mark, down 0.69% today. 

Send your comments and questions to, TheRundownFeedback@StPaulResearch.com