Strategic Pantry Reserve (SPR)

Oil’s Not Well in the U.S.

But there's a critical difference between housing and oil that makes the impact of higher oil prices much worse. The housing bust is due to a slowdown in the demand for housing, not in the supply of a critical commodity, such as oil.

This means that many of the resources that had previously gone into the housing industry, such as labor and materials, can now be released to other sectors of the economy. In contrast, rising oil prices are an outright cost that does not release other resources into the economy.

The lumber can now be used to make toilet paper (or not). Construction workers can bring their highly specialized job skills to government projects and/or unemployment lines. Real estate agents can bring their people skills to the world of debt collecting. Yeah, things are lookin' real good.

If oil prices continue to rise, I recommend that the government release some oil from its strategic reserve and perhaps raise the margin requirements on oil future markets to reduce speculation. I certainly do not blame speculators for the surge of oil prices, as I believe there are many fundamental forces at work raising energy prices. Nevertheless, such moves could break the inflationary psychology and warn speculators that the price of oil can go down as well as up.

Why stop there? If "some" release is somewhat good, then an entire release must be entirely good. Release it all. That'll show them.

Similarly, I am releasing all the rice from my Strategic Pantry Reserve today. Ah, that feels much better. Times are really good again. I just hope it was a smart thing to...

This is a test of the Emergency Pantry Reserve System. This is only a test. Had this been an actual emergency...