Nothing to do with real estate but this has to be the dumbest news since that Jackass guy killed himself driving 140 MPH while drunk. At least the Jackass guy had an excuse.
The US Department of Energy just announced that they are going to release 30 MM barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to “alleviate Libyan supply disruptions”. WTF!?!?!?!? All the financial correspondents are just as incredulous about this move as I am, using terms like “crazy man” and “straight jacket”:
- There is no supply shortage. If there were why are prices down 17% since the peak in April?
- Why would you want to drive prices down when they are already falling?
- Since when is it the government’s role to control the price of oil?
- Is this what the strategic petroleum reserve is for?
- The price of oil will be driven up when the reserves are replenished.
- Oil producers will just cut back their production even more to keep the price up if they want to.
- Aren’t these the same politicians who are so concerned about America’s “dependence on foreign oil”? If prices were high wouldn’t that be the best cure for that dependence?
They just need to shut down Washington for a few weeks and make all those politicians take Econ 101.