Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here and maybe how to head them off at the pass? That's On the Media's specialty.
Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts. navigating the pipelines of the global oil economy. Plus, let's squeeze in some winter sports before the season is done. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. From Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul, I'm Kimberly Adams in for Kai Risdahl. It's Thursday, March 12th. Good to have you along.
We're going to start today's program by looking at oil and the global economy right now. The president's war in the Middle East is restricting the supply of crude to the rest of the world. And Iran said today that it will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, so oil prices jumped. And Brent crude, which is the specific kind of oil that's no longer flowing out of the Mideast, topped $100 a barrel.
Even with more than 170 million barrels of oil being released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, some of the refineries that convert crude oil into the energy we consume just don't have access to the raw material they need. And as Marketplace's Justin Ho reports, the war could end up causing many refineries to shut down production.
The kind of oil that's getting cut off by this conflict mostly goes to Asia.
A lot of that crude goes to China. Malaysia, Singapore, India is very important also.
That's Anna Mikulska, head of analytics at CGCN Group. She says some Middle Eastern crude also heads to refineries in California.
So California has imported a lot of its crude from Iraq, for example. This is a lot of barrels that California will have a problem replacing.
Refineries there can't just switch to the heavier sulfur-rich oil that comes from Western Canada because they aren't set up to handle it.
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Chapter 2: What impact does the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have on crude oil supply?
We've got a herd down a third, and we really want to rebuild, but the conditions have to be really, you know, really right, right. So...
try to capitalize as much as we can out of the market but also we don't want to pay too much for our cattle and the markets fall out of it so been a lot of uncertainty in the market so that's kind of been slowing us down right now currently fertilizers skyrocketed diesel fuel has skyrocketed so when we go into the summer our contracts will be up and we're going to pay a little bit more money for amount of feed and already our markets are starting to fall off due to the
you know, due to war right now. So, you know, we've been over, which is also affecting, you know, what we're giving for the price of fuel, and it's created a whole other heck of a situation in our commodity markets. So prices of our cattle has been pretty good. You know, demand for this beef is high.
You know, it goes back to we are at the lowest number in history with cattle numbers for producers in the United States. So it does help stabilize these markets. But you have to really be on your P's and Q's when it comes to selling points because if you try to decide to go to a sale one day, you may short yourself $200 to $300 a head. That's how ball to it. It can be at times.
You know, being a small family farm or ranch, it feels good, you know, but I'll say it has its challenges because we all have to manage and maintain a decent living. And as... As it costs everything, inflation, land prices, equipment have went up so much over the years. It's making it really challenging for a person to have a next generation to get in this business.
You know, this year, we just want to focus on making the best out of everything we have. We don't want to spend no more money than we have to. And hopefully by doing that, we can create other opportunities with our money and invest it in and try to expand things like our deer processing facility.
Nate Bradford of G-Line Ranch in Bowley, Oklahoma. Despite a week of false spring weather in many parts of this country, over in Italy, the Winter Paralympic Games are in full swing, and an average of 1.4 million viewers watched the primetime coverage this past Saturday on NBC and Peacock.
Viewership for opening weekend was up 27 percent from the 2022 Beijing Paralympics, and more fans are following the Games and the athletes than ever. Here to talk all things Winter Paralympics is Amy Purdy, a three-time Paralympic medalist in snowboarding. Her book, Bounce Forward, comes out later this month. Welcome to the show, Amy.
Thank you so much for having me.
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Chapter 3: How are California refineries affected by the war in the Middle East?
And then I competed in South Korea. But I thoroughly enjoy being on this side where I can just cheer everybody on.
In addition to cheering everyone on, you've also been using your social media platforms to kind of raise awareness of some of the problems actually with the Paralympics. And you were recently talking about why the timing of the Paralympics is problematic.
Can you lay that out for us? Absolutely. I mean, one of the greatest challenges that the Paralympians face is conditions and the deteriorating conditions.
Because we compete in March, the snow would get so warm and so slushy and they either keep the snow really slushy and then you're literally snowboarding or skiing in just inches of slush that grabs your skis and you just can't perform at your best. Let alone, these athletes have prosthetic legs or a different type of disability and I have two prosthetic legs.
So as an athlete, of course we adapt and as Paralympians, that's what we do best, but it just makes it so much harder to show up at your best. And so moving the Paralympics to a time where it's optimal for the athletes, because you want to be able to watch the athletes perform at their best. And it's just hard to do that in spring conditions.
The coverage of the Paralympic Games is also getting a lot of attention on social media because NBC did more than 3,200 hours of coverage for the Winter Olympics. But when it comes to the Winter Paralympics, they've only announced that they're going to have more than 270 hours of coverage.
Plus, a lot of the folks who are trying to watch online are complaining that there's not a lot of commentary. It seems like there's quite a ways to go, even in just terms of coverage of the events, much less people being able to access them.
Absolutely. And from what I've seen is people want to watch them. You know, I'll get my audience on social media, I'll get people excited about it. You know, you got to watch the Paralympics. So exciting. The athletes are amazing. The stories are amazing. And then we turned it on the other day. We turned on downhill skiing and there was no commentary.
We had no idea who we were watching, nothing about their disability, nothing about their story. You know, I competed in 2014 and 2018, but I just thought by this point we would have way better coverage. And So somehow I do feel like there needs to be some changes with not just timing of the Paralympics, but of course, broadcasting.
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Chapter 4: What challenges do California refineries face in sourcing crude oil?
And if you think about Paralympians, we deal with adaptive equipment that's incredibly expensive. So I have two prosthetic legs. If I were to have to pay cash for these legs, they're $30,000. That's just for my walking legs, let alone if you want to snowboard and now you're paying for feet, specialized feet for snowboarding. I am seeing it grow and seeing it change, which is great.
But there's definitely a lot more support that's needed for both Olympians and Paralympians.
All right. So the Paralympics are ongoing. What are your recommendations for people who do want to watch? What should we be looking out for? What should we be watching?
Absolutely. So, I mean, para snowboard, I think it's just the most exciting Paralympic sport because I came from it, but it really is exciting. The other day there was side by side, which is called snowboard cross. That's the most exciting of all. Also, we still have hockey coming up. I mean, there's just some wonderful sports that are still being aired.
And so if you see something that you like, if you hear a story that you like, you know, share it on social media, let your friends know that you're watching it. Just let people know that it's going on. You know, all of that just kind of gets the buzz going around the Paralympics. And these athletes are still there competing hard, going after gold.
And so we want to make sure to show up and support them.
Paralympic medalist Amy Purdy, thank you so much. Looking forward to watching. Thank you so much.
Coming up... Some years you would make money when the snow was good. Some years you would not make very much money when the snow was bad.
Leaving it up to fate or climate change. But first, the numbers. Yeah, that was coming. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 739 points, 1.6%, to close at 46,677. The Nasdaq gave up 404 points, 1.8%, to finish at 22,311. And the S&P 500 fell 103 points, 1.5%, to end at 66.72. Gig workers are getting hit hard by the price of gas right now. which is up 22% nationwide over the past month.
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Chapter 5: How do refinery shutdowns affect the energy market?
When we zoom out, we can still see it's a very challenging affordability environment. And for builders on the supply side, she says things are expensive there too. You have, you know, labor issues, so skilled trade shortages and wage pressures, lots, so scarcity of lots, laws, so zoning constraints and permitting delays, lending, more about that in a second.
and lumber, but really just materials, construction materials more broadly. To cover these costs, Robert Dietz of the National Association of Home Builders says private single-family home developers typically get loans. He says builders say if they could get access to more financing at a lower cost, they could build more. And the cost of that financing, he says, is...
much more strongly connected to Federal Reserve policy and those short-term interest rates.
But trying to predict what the Fed will do is complicated. Now there's the conflict in Iran and the resulting jump in oil prices to consider, too, says Stephen Bushbaum at TREP.
All else equal, if prices go up, typically that means that our interest rates are going to go up to combat that inflation. But if the economy slows... That could mean that we have to cut interest rates to combat a weakening economy.
...by trying to stimulate growth. If the Fed rates saw a cut, construction loans could too. For his part, Robert Dietz at the National Association of Home Builders says for now, he's still expecting the Fed to cut rates twice this year, though he thinks those could happen later than initially forecast.
That would be an unambiguously positive development for the housing market.
Because, he says, lower Fed rates mean lower construction loan rates, which would potentially mean more supply and lower prices for buyers. I'm Carla Javier for Marketplace. We talked earlier about the Winter Paralympics, and even though it's March now, there is still a bit of the winter snow sports season left for those of us not quite ready for our Olympic or Paralympic debut.
But as the warm weather rolls in and the snowpack disappears, it's time for ski resorts to start closing the slopes and do some accounting to see how the season went for them. But in the last few decades, that end-of-year tally has been looking different for ski resorts that accept certain ski passes.
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