It's Wednesday, March 9, 2022.

I'm Albert Moeller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

There are few, human activities, or endeavors that are more laden with moral consequence than

warfare, and even as we continue to watch as Ukraine is fighting against Russian

aggression and a Russian invasion the reality is that the pain may soon be

felt very close to home, particularly in energy prices. A very interesting

development, and the story behind the development also is incredibly interesting.

We start with the announcement made yesterday by the President of the United States,

said the United States would cut off all energy imports from Russia to the United States.

That's a bigger story than many Americans would understand, because Russia is a net exporter of energy and in a big way.

Much of Europe is absolutely dependent upon energy sources coming from Russia, and even in the United States

something like 8% of the petroleum is actually sourced back to Russia. That's going to

come to an end and Americans are going to see the result almost immediately

as they buy gasoline to put in their cars and as they pay for energy for their homes and businesses.

This is going to be a cost increase that will ricoche throughout the entire American

economy.

And that comes when the American economy is facing real challenges.

Just think about a vexing problem like inflation and you recognize that prices are now going to go up and those prices will go throughout the entire economy.

It's not just the price you pay for gasoline, but the price you eventually are going to pay for

cheerios and coffee because almost all of the commodities you buy in a

store at some point are running in a train or they are in a truck.

One way or another, they are using petroleum and in some cases a lot of it.

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