A few days ago I looked at historical releases of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and concluded that they didn't have much effect on crude oil prices. So how's the latest announcement doing so far?
Everyone seems to have forgotten that President Biden first opened the SPR on March 1 after he and other leaders agreed to release 60 million barrels of crude from their national reserves. The US share of that was 30 million barrels.
As you can see, it had no effect at all. The price of Brent crude was going up when the announcement was made and it kept going up afterward.
The latest announcement was made on March 30. Prices went down slightly after that, but once again this is just part of an ongoing trend. It will be several weeks before we get a better idea of whether Biden's announcement had any effect.
Shipping strategic substance signifies solely symbolism? Sheesh...
To be significant, any moves must be a meaningful if not complete fraction of what is given in: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51618 for what Russia exports.
It's simply symbolism.
And ironically, it is in that category of symbolic acts that lead citizens to falsely believe that the President can strongly influence how the economy grows - which leads to either blaming or giving very unwarranted credit.
How long after the announcement of release does the oil actually hit the market? Can Kevin prove that the drop in price less than two weeks after the first announcement was not connected? Other factors will be affecting price in both directions. Determining the effect of one thing is not as simple as Kevin seems to think.
Nothing you can do about anything. Might as well just sit tight and do nothing. I know what I can do… I won’t drive my car today.
Now that the newspapers have Sarah Palin to kick around once more, I am sure she will have to say a lot about this.
i will be interested in hearing palin's insightful takes on putin, russia and ukraine since she can see ruskies from her back porch. or is it her front porch? i don't know, but i'm sure she'll be at least as insightful as she was on ACA back in the day.
The destruction of the Russian state and the immiseration of the entire Russian population is required. Neither Palin, Biden, nor Drum have the stomach for it. 20 years or more of collective punishment is required.
But hey… I’d let Alaska secede and join Russia again. That’s who they are.
Better yet, nuke the fuckers. The world isn’t worth saving.
Was there a crisis in early February, before Russia invaded Ukraine, and a barrel was priced at $90? Or is it only a crisis now, with ongoing war there and sanctions in force, and oil around $110 for several weeks now?
If we're to judge by oil futures prices, not that much has been going on. Gasoline costs more, but not nearly enough more to change most people's lives.
It's called speculation moron
In other, completely different news, the daily COVID-19 death rates based on Johns Hopkins data through April 2, 2022:
Rank Population (Millions) Country Deaths/Day/Million 7-dav Avg
1 51.23 Korea, South 6.51
2 10.47 Greece 5.55
3 11.51 Bolivia 5.07
4 1.91 Latvia 5.02
5 5.53 Finland 4.98
6 5.38 Norway 4.75
7 8.96 Austria 4.66
8 2.76 Lithuania 4.24
9 2.30 Botswana 4.15
10 5.77 Denmark 4.01
11 4.78 New Zealand 3.79
12 9.68 Hungary 3.72
13 5.46 Slovakia 3.69
14 1.33 Estonia 3.23
15 18.95 Chile 2.95
16 4.13 Croatia 2.87
17 25.20 Australia 2.78
18 7.00 Bulgaria 2.78
19 83.52 Germany 2.74
20 1.39 Trinidad and Tobago 2.56
21 10.69 Czechia 2.51
22 10.04 Sweden 2.51
23 329.06 US 2.44
24 10.23 Portugal 2.39
25 67.53 United Kingdom 2.37
26 60.55 Italy 2.28
27 512.50 EU w/o Brexit 2.28
28 145.87 Russia 2.27
29 444.97 EU 2.26
30 4.88 Ireland 2.22
31 37.89 Poland 1.97
32 11.69 Tunisia 1.93
33 2.08 Slovenia 1.86
34 65.13 France 1.85
35 11.54 Belgium 1.73
36 4.00 Georgia 1.68
37 2.08 North Macedonia 1.58
38 1.18 Cyprus 1.57
39 31.95 Malaysia 1.42
40 7.04 Paraguay 1.38
41 19.36 Romania 1.36
42 69.04 Thailand 1.27
43 8.77 Serbia 1.17
44 8.59 Switzerland 1.08
45 4.04 Moldova 1.06
46 17.10 Netherlands 0.99
47 37.41 Canada 0.96
48 8.52 Israel 0.96
49 211.05 Brazil 0.90
50 9.45 Belarus 0.88
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/03/will-western-leaders-cut-and-run-as-the-costs-of-the-ukraine-war-mount
How long will the western democracies maintain present levels of support for Ukraine? The war’s economic impact, already manifesting itself through spiralling inflation and living costs, could have seriously negative political consequences for elected leaders in the US, Germany, France and the UK. If public willingness to make difficult sacrifices diminishes in the months ahead and the conflict slips off the front pages, will they stay the course?
😂. Not past June.
Happy to keep after Somalia though… did they join NATO while you weren’t paying attention?
https://www.justsecurity.org/80921/still-at-war-the-united-states-in-somalia/
How about we just let the price rise as high as the Awl Bidness can squeeze it and give poor people money to offset the cost. EVERYbody would drive less then. By suspending the gas tax the government is subsidizing the folks driving 7 liter diesel truck with nuts dangling under the bumper. [Don't you wish you could see the drive shaft?]
Of course the March 1 release had no effect, everyone was still freaking out over the war because it had just started. Once people calmed down they looked at the release more reasonably and the price fell which happened a week later.
I sure don't see a downward trend at all for the new release but we will have to see. For all we know the new release has prevented a new spike or kept us for plateauing.
The release mar 1st was mostly stuff that was had to be released by federal statute at the exact same time as Biden announced he was releasing it and a small bit that was going to released earlier than the required under the statute. But all of it had to be released. So it was already priced into the market price. This new release is actually oil that wasn't inevitably going to be released anyways.
The release mar 1st was mostly stuff that had to be released by federal statute at the time as Biden announced he was releasing it and a small bit that was going to released earlier than the required under the statute. But we knew all of it was being released since last summer. So it was already priced into the market price. This new release is actually oil that wasn't inevitably going to be released anyways.