Bob Pittman

Obviously, you know, it's not just at the pump where we feel the increase of these prices.

This flows throughout the entire economy.

So talk to us a little bit about what you expect there.

Yeah, so consumers are going to feel this primarily through gasoline pump prices.

But the kind of stealthier way that this is going to continue to juice inflation is through diesel, is through jet fuel, is through these fuels that kind of these middle distillates, diesel and gasoline in particular, are effectively the fuels that drive the industrial economy.

These are the prices that unless you have like a diesel Hemi truck, you might not be paying for diesel at the pump, but you're going to start paying surcharges on Amazon deliveries.

You started to see flights that started charging surcharges on long haul flights.

All of these things are going to begin to be incorporated because otherwise corporate margins are going to get obliterated.

And I think the longer this goes on, the more this is going to go from special surcharges to just new high prices.

And that's the thing we saw through 2022 is the longer this goes on, that's when those inflationary expectations begin to mount.

And that's when you begin to see companies have more of this kind of space and kind of flexibility to raise prices, even if they would have hesitated historically.

That also, I think, bears on central banks and the fact that many central banks would have been wanting to be cutting interest rates during this period to kind of support the economy, which looks like it could be flagging in a couple different areas.

That, I think, is also now going to be on hold given the very recent experience in 2022 of runaway inflation and how unpopular that was for consumers.

All of this, of course, is just deeply, deeply bizarre and ironic coming from an administration that was brought into the White House to end inflation.

you know, forever wars in the Middle East and increase and kind of better the cost of living for American consumers.

And so far, we're going in the polar opposite direction.

Last question for you, Rory.

Our next segment is going to be about Asia.

There's been significant unrest in these Asian countries over their reliance here on Iranian oil.

The Korean president is openly feuding with the nation of Israel.