The government is dumb. This has been a pure short term political play to win favor for midterms; from the article:

> And the DOE will eventually have to replenish the SPR by the same amount that it drew this year, increasing future oil demand.

>A DOE spokesperson said replenishment won’t likely occur until September 2023.

Pick your talking point. It’s either “sleepy Brandon” if the administration does nothing or some craven scheme to win elections if something is done.

Maybe they’re just doing their job? Seems to me that every time the heat gets turned up on the former guy’s criminality or more is learned about the attempted insurrection/coup, nutty orgs like the WSJ Editorial Board roll out some nonsense.

It’s not either, it’s both. Brandon is not in charge. Take for example the statements he made in 60mins about sending US troops to Taiwan & the pandemic ending, both of these are walked back by “the whitehouse” (handlers). Brandon is not even allowed to talk to the press outside of carefully controlled, scripted scenarios and even those he screws up.

They’re desperate to maintain power across all branches of government and this being an obvious political move to taper gas prices, as that was hurting polling stats. That’s the only thing that prompts action.

> Take for example the statements he made in 60mins about sending US troops to Taiwan & the pandemic ending, both of these are walked back by “the whitehouse” (handlers). Brandon is not even allowed to talk to the press outside of carefully controlled, scripted scenarios and even those he screws up.

Or maybe that's all planned because the Taiwanese people need to hear we'll definitively support them while we maintain our official ambiguous position. Point is you don't really know. Are you there in the White House?

It's hard to take you seriously on this topic when you don't seem to recognize a deliberate, consistent, implementation of strategic ambiguity.

"They"

Seek help.

Don't worry, Bush can't actually hurt you. I know you're scared of a kindly old man but it'll be ok.

Cue music: "Hundreds of thousands of deaths later..."

The government sold oil at the absolute peak and will buy it back at a significant discount. And you’re saying they’re dumb?!?

Then why don’t they articulate this to us? Seems more like they are finding any way possible to mask the economic pain we are facing. Print money, fire-sale our assets, borrow more. Anything to push out the day of reckoning and ensure that the music stops under someone else’s watch.

Because the median voter's eyes will glaze over as soon as you say "oil futures term structure", and is more likely to say what you just did than to entertain the idea that there may be a second order game in play.

The people who need to know, know. Everyone else can pretend that there are children in charge.

So would your preferred solution be to endure maximum pain now?

Even the Trump team, to their credit, understood that the economy imploding due to the COVID actions was a bad thing - so they rushed capital into the market to keep things moving. That caused inflation, but inflation is a better outcome than the alternative.

We don’t live in a video game, and there’s no cheat code to make problems go poof.

Yeah I don't get what the parent comment is proposing.

People say this or that will happen in the long term, but there are so many impossible to predict variables that the best you can really do is try to keep the economy robust enough to absorb shocks.

Economy slowing because of COVID? Deal with that.

Inflation happening because of constrained supply chains? Use the oil reserve to reduce the price.

These are pretty reasonable policies that both side of politics would do when in power because they make sense.

My preferred solution would be that we resolve the Ukraine crisis by negotiating peace, lift sanctions, and unblock the Russian-European energy market which is, I assume, the source of this pressure. Tell Ukraine they have to make peace, and if they aren't reasonable at the negotiating table there is no more NATO support. Offer Russia the chance to save face while they are doing badly, and throw in the promise of no NATO in Ukraine for 20 years.

Peace only happens when Russia fully leave Ukraine (including Crimea), returns all kidnapped Ukrainians and the responsible Russians faces punishment for the rape and genocide of Ukrainians.

Ukraine also needs to receive security guarantees from a country that is military strong enough that they could push back Russia in a small amount of time.

Any less is capitulating to Russia and shouldn’t happen.

No, peace happens when all participants agree there should be peace. That could be in a "Russia completely repelled" situation, it could also be in a situation like the present, where Ukraine has had remarkable success on the field and decides to ask for peace at a time where Russia might want to cut their losses. As I mentioned, the US could enhance the peace offer by adding in a NATO moratorium for Ukraine. Of course, peace could come in a situation that was more favorable to Russia too. If their mobilization works better than expected, and their army starts to get their act together, or they unleash tactical nuclear weapons, or they wait till the dead of winter and level Ukrainian power, or who knows what?

The US and Europe never committed to a suicide pact to ensure the sovereignty and integrity of every nation in Eastern Europe. We should not be acting like we have signed this pact. We do not need to risk World War III over who controls a few territories in Eastern Ukraine.

> If their mobilization works better than expected, and their army starts to get their act together, or they unleash tactical nuclear weapons, or they wait till the dead of winter and level Ukrainian power, or who knows what?

I doubt that there mobilisation will produce any results outside of more dead Russians. I mean there professional army has been destroyed so baldy that they need mobilise and you think random citizens will make better soldiers?.

US has made it clear that any use of tactical nuke in Ukraine is a real line in the sand.

It would likely result in US direct involvement in the war in a conventional matter. But that’s easily enough considering just how bad the Russian army has been shown to perform.

> he US and Europe never committed to a suicide pact to ensure the sovereignty and integrity of every nation in Eastern Europe. We should not be acting like we have signed this pact. We do not need to risk World War III over who controls a few territories in Eastern Ukraine.

I’m sure you’d care more if it was your children being raped, if it was your children being tortured, if it was your people having genocide committed against them.

It’s always interesting to watch the pro Russian people bang on about nukes whenever Russia starts losing.

It’s so transparent, they rattle the nuclear sabre because they won’t even think of using actual nukes.

I do think the Russian army has been performing poorly and perhaps it will continue to. On the other hand, perhaps it won't. Or, perhaps the poorly performing Russian army will resort to measures, like nuclear weapons, that we would sincerely prefer them not to use.

I think direct US involvement in a conventional war against Russia is a very, very bad outcome. That's a large part of why I oppose continuing the war and think it would be a good idea for there to be peace.

It doesn't make me pro-Russia to prefer peace to war and want a settlement. That just makes me pro-peace. Killing more Russians will not restore life to the dead or undo the tortures that were inflicted on the living. The reasoning that, because the Russians have done bad things we must prolong the war leads to needless additional suffering.

How many hundreds of thousands of people should die to determine which flag waves in Donbas, Luhansk, or Crimea? How many billions will we put at risk by increasing the odds of nuclear war?

> perhaps the poorly performing Russian army will resort to measures, like nuclear weapons, that we would sincerely prefer them not to use.

I think that this is the poorest decision that Russia could make, and I actually think Russia knows that too, which is why they posture about nuclear strikes without actually doing anything.

> I think direct US involvement in a conventional war against Russia is a very, very bad outcome. That's a large part of why I oppose continuing the war and think it would be a good idea for there to be peace.

I think ending this war as quick as possible if a nuke is used is a very good outcome and that involves overwhelming conventional force at this point.

> It doesn't make me pro-Russia to prefer peace to war and want a settlement.

being pro-peace is great, but it should be peace on Ukraines terms, not on the aggressors terms.

> That just makes me pro-peace. Killing more Russians will not restore life to the dead or undo the tortures that were inflicted on the living. The reasoning that, because the Russians have done bad things we must prolong the war leads to needless additional suffering.

The Russians are the ones who every day choose to prolong the war, they are the only ones who can choose to end it.

> How many hundreds of thousands of people should die to determine which flag waves in Donbas, Luhansk, or Crimea?.

Ask the Russians they are the only ones who are prolonging this war by staying in Ukraine and containing their genocide of the Ukrainian people.

> How many billions will we put at risk by increasing the odds of nuclear war?

I don't think this has increased the odds of nuclear war at all, there hasn't been a reported change at all in Russias nuclear posture and to be quite frank the Russian nuclear sabre rattling got old months ago.

They announced it.

https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-announces-long-term-buyb...

The only aspect of it that people actually care about is how much gas costs at the pump, the rest of it is just media froth, so I can see why the government isn't working very hard to repeatedly communicate that they are participating in the market in an attempt to smooth out supply and demand.

That they are selling and buying into the global market is a lot better than trying to fix prices or mandate production or rationing.

How is selling oil at a high point a “fire sale”?

Isn’t a fire sale usually selling at a… low price?

> Then why don’t they articulate this to us?

They do. At multiple levels of detail & complexity, depending on the specific audience (industry, general public, academics, etc.).

In general, I've found that when I ask "why doesn't the government just say that?" the answer is typically "they did, I just didn't hear it"

Replace oil with interet rates and this could have been wrote by Ben Bernanke. Government price manipulation leads to problems and repeatedly fails. Typically governments become more authoritarian when the price and economy manipulation is failing.