CNN is the latest to suffer from the utter humiliation of prophesying Armageddon-level economic catastrophe as a result of President Donald Trump’s military strikes on Iran, only to have their predictions collapse faster than Biden on the steps of Air Force One.
CNN writer Auzinea Bacon was adamant June 22 that “America’s economy” would face “a new war shock: Surging oil prices,” after Trump's historic B-2 bomber attack to devastate Iran’s nuclear capabilities. “The American economy faces the unwelcome prospect of reignited inflation after the United States launched strikes on three nuclear facilities in Iran,” Bacon screeched. “High oil and gas prices are a near certainty, experts say. The big question now: How long will the fossil fuels price spike last?” “Near certainty,” eh Bacon? Yikes! talk about opening yourself up for a devastating reality check.
Two days later, on June 24, CNN reporters Anna Cooban, John Liu and John Towfighi released a story that nuked their colleague’s entire pearl-clutching spin to smithereens: “Oil is falling so much it’s now cheaper than it was before the Iran-Israel conflict.” In fact, the reporters noted that “Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, fell 6.1% to $67.14 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate crude, the US oil benchmark, fell 6% to $64.37 a barrel.”
Further data reveal why CNN should just delete Bacon’s piece at this point.
Bacon doom-mongered that “Oil prices are expected to rise by about $5 per barrel when markets open Sunday night, according to experts.” Here’s the problem: On Monday afternoon, June 23, following Iran’s weak-sauce retaliatory strikes against U.S. bases in Qatar, oil prices in fact went “down more than seven percent, with WTI crude falling below $70 per barrel,” according to OilPrice.com.
Oh, but it gets funnier.
Bacon theorized that the direction of oil prices would likely be determined by whether the Iranian parliament moves to block the Strait of Hormuz, which she wrote “accounts for about 20% of the world’s crude oil.” Despite Politico coming out with another piece published at virtually the same time as Bacon’s affirming that Iran’s parliament had indeed voted to attempt to close the Strait, the news wasn’t enough to rattle markets like the End of Days had arrived. Rather, not only did the market consider Iran’s inconsequential attacks on U.S. bases a “perfunctory” display. The “Strait of Hormuz remains open and oil is still flowing—including from Iran’s Kharg Island,” OilPrice.com concluded.
Bacon was sure to argue that “American consumers may soon feel a price shock at the pump.” As of today, following Trump’s announcement that the U.S. had reached a negotiated peace between Israel and Iran and three days since her piece went live, gas prices now stand at $3.23 on average, which is around 24 cents less than it was a year ago ($3.47), according to AAA.
So where’s the bacon, Bacon?
The CNN writer concluded her drivel by whipping out an already exhausted talking point that “Many mainstream economists argue that the low inflation of the spring represents a calm before the summer storm, when they expect prices to rise because of Trump’s tariffs.”
Bacon and her colleagues sure are just itching for some kind of disaster to unfold so they could just whip Trump with it, even if it means just mindlessly throwing spaghetti at the wall and making themselves look like idiots while doing it.
MRC Business just finished calling out Bacon's counterpart at The New York Times — economics policy reporter Tony Romm — yesterday for propagating the same oil price spike fear porn that she did. What was hilarious is that Romm’s piece concocting the specter of spiking oil prices was plastered onto the front page of the business section of The Times’s June 24 print edition … while prices were already tumbling! In effect, Romm’s analysis was already rendered useless before the newspaper chose to put it in print.
