The Colonial Pipeline, which moves gasoline and other fuel through ten states between Texas and New Jersey is partially shut down at the moment because of a cyber security hack. This will compound the impending summer fuel shortage that the news media is reporting on. I am not sure to what degree the media’s reporting of a potential fuel shortage will actually drive us into a shortage, but the shutdown of the pipeline will inevitably drive supply gaps.
The threat of cyber criminals to our nation’s infrastructure is real, perhaps the biggest threat to our nation as a whole. None of the major news medias highlight this as a top story this morning. CNN finds that the feud within the GOP party is more worthy of the top headline than the Colonial Pipeline. Meanwhile, our nation’s leaders are busy focusing their time on election rules. Essentially, they are focused on how to keep their posh livelihoods instead of working together to protect our nation.
On a local front, there is a tiger loose in the city of Houston. The story exemplifies misinformation in the media. Headlines leave one to believe that a wild tiger is arbitrarily roaming the streets. The tiger was in fact loose. It appears to live in a home near where it was discovered. The headlines alone do not articulate the fact that someone took the tiger in captivity (actually loading it into their jeep), and the tiger, in all likelihood, is no longer roaming loose on the streets. It is illegal to keep a tiger in a Houston residence, so officers are still trying to locate the tiger. That is the definition of “missing” in the headlines, but that does not make for as interesting of a headline as the idea that a tiger is roaming the streets, does it?
Interestingly, the top story on my Fidelity news feed, where I trade my stocks, is about the Colonial Pipeline. A fuel shortage is not only a threat to our way of life and pocket books at the gas pump, it can have a broad impact on our nation’s economy as a whole. I always find financial news so much more useful because it is facts, not rhetoric. I wish our nation’s major news outlets still upheld journalistic standards.
We are no doubt living in interesting times.