The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

Releasing US strategic reserves does nothing for European refineries (where Libyan oil goes). So Obama and friends' reasons for releasing oil into an already over-supplied market seem spurious.

This is analogous to the Federal Reserve’s requiring all US money-center banks to accept an infusion of capital in 2008—whether it was needed or not—so as not to taint the weaker banks by singling them out. By participating in the IEA program, the US is allowing the European countries that really needed the help to say that this was a global program.