Blogging time is restricted for a couple of days, but Arnold Kling’s TCS piece on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is quite good, as is his blog’s follow up piece. Arnold sums up his theory regarding the SPR as follows:

It should be the responsibility of the private sector, not the government, to obtain insurance against oil market disruptions. The SPR has introduced government into the oil market as a destabilizing speculator.

Arnold also provides an excellent explanation of the concept of backwardation in regard to the price of oil.