Strategic Petroleum Reserves: The New Monetary Tool?

By EconMatters

Oil and commodities are rising with renewed talk of buying bonds in Europe and future stimulus from the Federal Reserve in the United States. The problem of course is that higher oil prices partially offsets some of the benefits of these Monetary Initiatives by leaders (It is debatable how effective these policies actually are in solving the real issues and problems).

One of Europe`s biggest problems is lack of actual growth in the Euro zone, and this means that they really cannot grow their way out of their vast debt troubles. It sure cannot help that much of Europe is paying $12 a gallon for gas. No wonder their economies are in trouble.

The way European economies are set up with regard to slow growth, mature countries with little innovation, high taxes, and even higher government spending commitments means the numbers just don`t add up. Europe could start from scratch with all debt forgiven and they would be right back where they are now in less than 10 years because the numbers just don`t add up. Until the numbers start to make sense all these monetary initiatives are just temporary stop gaps which actually make the numbers problem worse.

But since everything seems to be managed these days, and all markets are correlated globally with electronic trading and sophisticated trading algos, central governments might as well be in charge of the actual commodities they are juicing. Because in effect their policies are managing these commodities prices, from corn to gold, from gasoline futures to silver prices as it is all the same trade in the market`s perspective. (more)