A diesel shock is building. Why your brain won't warn you in time.
A possible US diesel export ban could spike fuel costs worldwide. Here's the behavioural reason you'll feel it before you plan for it.
The news in one sentence
BBC News reports that US President Donald Trump has said he would back a ban on US diesel exports, at a moment when diesel prices have already climbed to over $6.50 per gallon in the US, up nearly 70% year-on-year.
Why this lands on you
If you drive to clients, travel to retreats, or move stock to markets, fuel is not an abstract line in an economist’s spreadsheet. It is the cost of showing up.
BBC News reports that the price spike is tied to conflict with Iran, which has restricted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which one fifth of the world’s oil and gas usually flows. That is a global supply problem, not a local one.
BBC News also reports that significant volumes of US diesel exports head to European countries like France, the Netherlands, and the UK, and that Latin American nations including Mexico, Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador depend heavily on American shipments. David Fyfe, chief economist at Argus Media, told BBC News that cutting off American supply would likely cause international prices to skyrocket, “feeding inflation back into the global economy.”
So wherever you are based, this is already in your world. And the tricky part? Your brain is wired to ignore it until it hurts.
The behavioural idea: present bias
Present bias is the human tendency to give far more weight to costs and rewards that are happening right now, and to mentally shrink anything that is sitting a few weeks or months ahead.
It is not laziness. It is how we are all built. The future version of you feels a bit like a stranger, and your brain does not feel the same urgency to protect a stranger as it does to protect present-you.
So you see a news headline about a possible diesel ban, and you think: not confirmed yet, I’ll keep an eye on it. That thought feels responsible. Honestly, it feels like planning. But it is actually present bias doing its thing, because the discomfort of acting now is immediate, and the cost of not acting feels distant.
Then the price jump hits. Transport costs rise. The coach you hire for a retreat suddenly quotes you more. The platform you use to deliver products adds a fuel surcharge. And present-you absorbs a shock that future-you could have at least seen coming.
This is how financial shocks tend to work for self-employed people. Not one dramatic moment, but a slow tide that you notice only when your feet are already wet.
It compounds in interesting ways
Present bias has a close relative: the ostrich effect, identified by researchers Galai and Sade. That is the pull to avoid looking at information that might feel threatening or unpleasant. A rising fuel cost story is exactly the kind of thing the ostrich brain wants to scroll past.
And then there is what Thaler called mental accounting: we tend to keep our business costs and our living costs in separate mental pots. So a fuel price rise at the pump registers as a personal inconvenience, while the same price rise baked into a supplier’s invoice registers as a business problem. They are connected, but the brain treats them separately, which makes it harder to see the full picture at once.
One small action for this week
Pull up the last three months of your business outgoings and identify every cost that has any connection to fuel or transport: your own travel, delivery costs, supplier invoices, venue hire that involves logistics. Do not judge the numbers. Just name them and put them in one list.
That is it. You are not making decisions yet. You are just making the future cost visible to your present brain, which is the only way to reduce the gap that present bias creates.
When something is written down and in front of you, it stops being a distant stranger. It becomes a present fact. And present facts are the things your brain is actually wired to respond to.
What to do with what you find
I am a planner, not a financial adviser, so I am not going to tell you what to do with the numbers you find. For decisions about your specific costs, tax, or business structure, talk to a qualified accountant or financial adviser who knows your situation.
What I can help with is the part that happens before those conversations: understanding why you have been avoiding looking, what money beliefs are making it harder to act, and how to build habits that mean you see these things coming rather than absorbing them after the fact.
That is exactly what we work through in The Money Story Method, my 12-week one-to-one programme. If you want to start with something lighter, The Thursday Money Note covers ideas like this every week, for free. You can find both at Way of Wealth.
The shock is not fully here yet. That is actually the good moment to look.
Source: BBC News
Joel