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comment by b_b
b_b  ·  725 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: "Lael Brainard’s speech marks the start of a sea change in monetary policy."

I'm not educated enough to go toe-to-toe with her, but I find it strange that she mentions several times that more green energy investment would be a good inflation hedge. The reason that US/Canada inflation has moderated while EU/GB has not is because they have no fossil fuel buffer against the Russia problem. Their over zealous pursuit of a green energy transition has caused them to spend a lot of money for so so results and left them completely reliant on Russian gas to make up for what they can no longer produce domestically. This isn't to say there aren't other good reasons to invest in clean energy sources, but it certainly doesn't appear to be a good short or probably even medium term hedge against spiking energy prices.





kleinbl00  ·  725 days ago  ·  link  ·  

strategic petroleum reserves of selected European countries

- Spain: 144m barrels

- Germany: 70m barrels

- France: 65m barrels

- Finland: 62m barrels

- Czech Republic: 20m barrels

- Denmark: 10m barrels (at 7.4 barrels per ton)

- UK: working on it

- USA: 200m fewer than we started 2022 with

The US made a policy decision after the OPEC crisis to never put up with that shit again and the result is that Biden can open the tap if it looks like a war in europe is gonna fuck with the midterms. It also allows us to make Saudi Arabia and Russia fight for scraps if we're in the mood, or starve out Venezuela. Our fossil fuel buffer is very much a geopolitical weapon, not an economic fact, and while it definitely allows us to ignore certain geopolitical realities, it also necessarily centers warfare and geopolitics around petrostates.