It’s a 20% reduction in supply if the straights remain blocked, which will affect prices significantly, but it’s not a 90% reduction in supply. Pricing mechanisms will then kick in and things in higher demand will be shipped first. So likely more solar panels and fewer plastic toys and the like.
War with...Iran?
- Thread starter Technarch
- Start date
Trump is hobbling the United States. He and his people are still locked in the petroleum mindset since that's where a lot of their money came from and what they know. It undoubtedly informed their decisions on embarking in conflict with Iran.
More astute leaders are moving away from petroleum in part precisely due to conflicts like this. As you state, renewables are already widely deployed in other nations, a trend that's only accelerating. China—who has little in the way of domestic petroleum resources—is a leader in the field. The end result will be greater energy independence and less reliance on commodities that a few like the US control. Not to mention the benefits of decarbonization, to boot.
With less demand, commodity prices in this field are bound to drop, giving petroleum producers less leverage. In this light, it appears that the Trump Administration—locked in the past—has overplayed their hand.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...0897699fdb9f18#block-6a1852cf8f0897699fdb9f18
Apparently there is a peace agreement draft that’s being shared with various countries and there seems to be significant buy in. Markets seem to have reacted positively to this news as well.
But we have seen this before, especially close to the weekend. So who knows what will happen?
Hope to see sense prevail. Petrol prices here in India have jumped from ~ INR 110/litre to INR 120/litre in just 12 days or so. The government was holding prices down for a while due to elections in some states but that ship has sailed. So if the prices increase further then one can expect goods to increase pricing or do shrinkflation.
Apparently there is a peace agreement draft that’s being shared with various countries and there seems to be significant buy in. Markets seem to have reacted positively to this news as well.
But we have seen this before, especially close to the weekend. So who knows what will happen?
Hope to see sense prevail. Petrol prices here in India have jumped from ~ INR 110/litre to INR 120/litre in just 12 days or so. The government was holding prices down for a while due to elections in some states but that ship has sailed. So if the prices increase further then one can expect goods to increase pricing or do shrinkflation.
The title is:
Donald Trump shares draft Iran peace agreement with Israel and other allies
The note doesn't say anything about buy-in from Iran, though? Of course US allies will react positively to a US draft...
Lots of chatter on Fox and the socials about Iran and Trump having come to some kind of MOU to extend the ceasefire and open the Strait for 60 days, but Trump hasn't signed it yet and I haven't seen any details. Markets like it though.
I'm hoping this goes through and they open the strait, but once this finalized that leaves trump free to go messing in another another countries politics which he will do, which could cause more problems for the US.
Kudos to Trump for exactly one thing: having the most honest foreign policy in ages.
Do what the imperial heartland wants or die.
Anyone here please correct me if mistaken, but did some Google Maps satellite views of Tehran last night, and didn't see any golf courses pop up. Perhaps there's an easy solution to the problem—Tehran signs an MOU to build a Trump National Course with attached hotel—and Trump gets a cut. Win-win.
And I mean this in a half-serious sense.
And I mean this in a half-serious sense.
For bonus points they could write it in Farsi as زمین گلف یادبود اپستینِ آن مرد عجیبِ مو نارنجیِ کودکآزار in biggly golden letters, and Trump would be none the wiser ;-)
The Epstein Memorial Golf Course of the strange orange-haired child molester
(machine translation all the way through, I only ever learned a few essential* Farsi phrases which this one definitely isn't one!)
* the most essential ones for me were about taroof, and whether the price advertised is in "toman or rial", a ten times difference.
It appears that Iran has won a 60-day actual ceasefire for real negotiations
US and Iran reach tentative deal to extend ceasefire, US sources say (BBC News)
US and Iran reach tentative deal to extend ceasefire, US sources say (BBC News)
Special Military Operation with Trumpian characteristics indeed...
And now there are reports of Iranian missile launches at ships in the strait. What the fuck is even going on
I mean, Iran and the US both traded multiple strikes against each other today. Sure sounds like a ceasefire to me! I forget where I posted it but I made a comment somewhere about mass media constantly grabbing at every ceasefire claim as truth... this is like the boy who cried wolf 112 times, and they're still reporting on the wolf sightings.
1. The US administration lies about something.
2. The press reports the lie as an actuality, without looking at the lie much.
3. We get an on-again off-again pretend ceasefire where everyone bombs something and civilians die.
oh and there's the bets/market manipulation too.wedged in between point 1 and 2
Just in case you needed a good hard facepalm to wake you up this morning: US consumers have already paid $59B in increased fuel costs due to the war.
That's more than the estimated $32B operational cost of actually doing all the war stuff.
It's not all doom and gloom though. Shell are on for a $7B windfall profit. Capitalism triumphs again, hurrah!
That's more than the estimated $32B operational cost of actually doing all the war stuff.
It's not all doom and gloom though. Shell are on for a $7B windfall profit. Capitalism triumphs again, hurrah!
Figure I heard is approximately $450 per household in additional costs for fuel. Maybe it was also other inflated goods and services, for gasoline alone sounds like a lot for maybe 4 months?
I'm probably at around $450 extra for just gas. I drive a giant truck, but I don't have a commute. I can easily see people who have to drive daily to work or school reaching $450.
Anything you buy, that was delivered for any meaningful part of it's journey by road, is also you paying increased fuel costs since that extra cost gets folded into whatever you bought's price.
You don't have to be the one directly using the fuel to have paid the increase, across everything you buy potentially. If you include all of the extra fuel costs you're actually paying directly and indirectly, it would easily top that figure for most people in my opinion.
You don't have to be the one directly using the fuel to have paid the increase, across everything you buy potentially. If you include all of the extra fuel costs you're actually paying directly and indirectly, it would easily top that figure for most people in my opinion.
Planet Labs may be keeping their imagery under lock to keep the US government happy, but there are plenty of other commercial imaging satellite companies.
Iran attacks damage 20 US military sites since start of war, satellite images show (BBC News)
Iran attacks damage 20 US military sites since start of war, satellite images show (BBC News)
And in case anyone thinks this is just Iran getting lucky through weight of numbers:
Speaking of Iranian strikes...
US says it struck Iranian radar sites as Kuwait reports missile and drone attacks (BBC News)
US says it struck Iranian radar sites as Kuwait reports missile and drone attacks (BBC News)
I guess Trump's strategy of "keep making the same demands regardless of what the negotiators agree to" isn't working so well
It took 20 months for Obama and his State Department to negotiate the JCPOA. Trump's trying to do it by August on Truth Social with missiles flying, tankers trapped, and Bibi doing his damnedest to sabotage the proceedings. And Trump deleted the State Department in his first term.
chateauarusi
Ars Praetorian
My Persian wife has friends in Dubai, Bahrain, and (I think) Jordan. They tell us that the American bases they know about have been largely or entirely abandoned due to the amount of damage and the ongoing risk to personnel, and they wonder why this isn't being discussed more extensively in Western media. If their reports are accurate, then one must question how the Trump Admin plans to manage force projection when it no longer has places from which they can, y'know, project force.
BBC Reports that Iran attacks damage 20 US military sites since start of war, satellite images show.
Some rather expensive highlights include:
That's going to hurt some share prices.
So I'm completely unsurprised that the USA and it's captive media are trying to keep this as quiet as possible.
Some rather expensive highlights include:
That's going to hurt some share prices.
So I'm completely unsurprised that the USA and it's captive media are trying to keep this as quiet as possible.
Hurt share prices? That looks like a rush replenishment order at high margins to me.
So is there a US blockade of the strait or not? Not surprisingly, the administration and the military seem confused on the issue. Some reporting from TWZ here with snippets below:
But wait, there's more. An update issued by the US commanders appears to contradict Trump:
Blockade or no blockade??? Yeah, they've really got a clear coherent idea of what they're doing.
The article also mentions similar confusion with Trump saying the Iranians are promising to abandon their nuclear program while the Iranians are insisting that's completely false.
This isn't so much the fog of war as a cloud of stupidity.
But wait, there's more. An update issued by the US commanders appears to contradict Trump:
Blockade or no blockade??? Yeah, they've really got a clear coherent idea of what they're doing.
The article also mentions similar confusion with Trump saying the Iranians are promising to abandon their nuclear program while the Iranians are insisting that's completely false.
This isn't so much the fog of war as a cloud of stupidity.
The problem is Trump. It's clear that he has no idea what is actually going on with the Iranian war, and wouldn't care even if he did know what was going on. The result is his usual toddler tantrums on the regular, and those have never been tethered to any sort of reality.
But that also leads to a bunch of very uncomfortable questions, like who is actually running the negotiations? Kushner? Trump needing to summon people to the White House to consider whatever Iranian offer there may have been suggests that Trump isn't involved in the day-to-day. Which makes for a real problem since that means whoever is running negotiations doesn't actually have the authority to make a deal.
I suspect the military angle is suffering from the same problem. Trump isn't running anything and Hegseth isn't capable of running anything. So who is? And do they have any authority to make decisions?
But that also leads to a bunch of very uncomfortable questions, like who is actually running the negotiations? Kushner? Trump needing to summon people to the White House to consider whatever Iranian offer there may have been suggests that Trump isn't involved in the day-to-day. Which makes for a real problem since that means whoever is running negotiations doesn't actually have the authority to make a deal.
I suspect the military angle is suffering from the same problem. Trump isn't running anything and Hegseth isn't capable of running anything. So who is? And do they have any authority to make decisions?
chateauarusi
Ars Praetorian
I wouldn't trust Trump with the authority to shit in his own hand, but the universe has not lately shown great inclination to ask my opinion on much of anything.
He has the same problem all authoritarians do: he is surrounded by idiots who lie.
He likely doesn't know exactly what is happening because the people around him are incompetent and constantly lie telling him what he wants to hear. And his immediate underlings have the same problem. And so do their underlings.
The US can't have a coherent strategy because the principle decision makers are both misinformed and constantly lying.
An authoritarian who had a fully functioning brain would at least be able to sort out the lies and spin, but Trump can't do that any more.
That news media have published "peace deal any day now!" for over a month really hammers home both their cowardice and incompetence.
This is easily a defeat many times worse than the withdraw from Afghanistan but its being covered like an imminent victory by the media. When the US withdrew cable news had this 24/7 parade of generals explaining how they TOTALLY won the war and its just a mystery how things turned out how they did and it must have been a Biden fuck up, despite it being a deal signed by Trump. But now with Iran pulling out of negotiations the media is still willingly republishing "victory any day now!".
They've learned nothing from 2003.
I no longer accept that trump is just lying, he's so fully gone that he no longer has a descent grasp on reality. I highly doubt any negotiations with Iran are actually even happening. And the gang puppeteering Trump in the seat are deathly afraid of contradicting anything Trump says in the media because it would show the puppet show happening for what it is.
Well, if there were any talks with Iran, there's aren't anymore. And I fully agree, while I'm sure Trump's minions are lying to him, he has no capability to understand that or any other aspect of reality. He's senile and has spent his life in his own personal bubble, and none of his morons want to get shown the exit, so they just go along with whatever rant he's on today.
Of equal concern, "Being the Best you can be" only goes so far when your leaders will end your career/promotion/honours for DEI reasons, give illegal orders, and insult the military while taking all the credit, both real and imaginary.
And the illegal orders bit will come back to bite the US in many ways.
At his core, Trump is a salesman. Self-promotion is one of his superpowers. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work too well in international relations—cognitive decline or no. A trap marketers can often fall into is believing their own hype. The end result of that is rarely good.
Of course they learned. They’re owned by billionaires explicitly selling Republicans to the American public, and they’ve learned they can get away with it again, and again, and again completely heedless of material reality. Why? Because Americans, like all nationalists, are always willing to buy pride.
Bullies rarely stop, they just start punching new people, and the crowd always goes wild.
From CNBC when I checked to see how bad oil is doing today:
The 4th of July is going to be the last "normal" feeling holiday in the US for quite some time, I suspect.
So, how close is that deal again? I assume the deal will get closer once WTI goes over $100 again. It's clear that the oil execs are talking about $150/barrel by mid-July to kick the admin into gear. These are execs that have a history of basically only ever lavishing this admin with praise, so to be even communicating that prices are likely go to way up, that's a pretty big deal.
The 4th of July is going to be the last "normal" feeling holiday in the US for quite some time, I suspect.