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by montyanne 34 days ago
Refilling the SPR would’ve required finding money to actually buy some oil. Put simply the SPR is broke/in debt.

Over the last few years congress passed pieces of legislation (infrastructure bills, healthcare changes, BBB) and used future SPR oil sales as an "offsetting receipt". Basically they say the’ll sell off millions of barrels of SPR holdings, count the future revenue as negative spending on paper, and use that money to pay for entirely unrelated legislative projects to make bills look deficit-neutral.

Yet another source for deficit spending (to the tune of $20bn) that doesn’t even show up in the headline numbers. Borrowing from future generations yet again.

(Sorry this is the kind of thing that grinds my gears - setting up some organization that is intended to be revenue neutral and self sufficient, then plundering it when politically useful. Same thing is happening to the Presidio park in SF right now)
2 comments
Ifkaluva 34 days ago
Well whatever debt they took on to refill it would have been paid off quickly.

Buy at $60, start a war with Iran, sell at the new price, profit.

I guess the reason they didn’t do this is they thought Iran would fold quickly and oil would become even cheaper than $60

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epistasis 33 days ago
Nobody who was a decision maker on the war thought about any of this, at all, in any way.

There was no strategy, no thinking, no planning, nothing.

The US military has wargamed the Strait of Hormuz to hell, and all that was ignored, or dismissed, or not even considered to be relevant.

The full force of the US military is in the hands of a man who operates on whims based on what his reality TV instincts tell him will look good, and we are seeing the weakness of electing a reality TV star known for his capricious decision making and cruelty.

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smallmancontrov 33 days ago
The people with the money printer, who enjoy running the money printer, can find money if they want to.

Yeah, political posturing is dumb, but don't force yourself to accept a dumb premise put forward by someone who doesn't even believe in it themselves.

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