As I will explain, the outcome that looks like losing may actually be the best path forward for the world’s remaining economies.
The fighting today is with respect to which parts of the world will get which energy resources, and at what prices. Even before the current conflict, there was a shortage of jet fuel and diesel. The only reasonable outcome I can think of is that the US will only be able to tap its own energy resources, plus those of its nearby neighbors (Figure 1). Consequently, the economy will gradually reorganize in ways that use fuels more sparingly.
The outcome outlined in Figure 1 implies that Donald Trump and the US-Israel coalition will lose the war against Iran. It appears that the physics of the situation (or perhaps the Higher Power behind the physics of the situation) has chosen the flawed personality of Donald Trump to accomplish the required result. This is a situation where what seems to be the US losing in its conflict against Iran is actually winning for the overall world economy. If oil can be used more sparingly in the future by servicing people closer to where end products are made, the available energy resources will provide greater benefit to society as a whole.
In the remainder of this article, I will try to explain the situation more fully.
[1] Background
In physics terms, an economy is a dissipative structure. In order to stay away from a dead state (collapse), it needs to “dissipate” energy of the right kinds. A human is also a dissipative structure. We dissipate food to stay away from a dead state.
From a physics point of view, fossil fuels are as essential to economies as food is to humans. Without fossil fuels, economies tend to collapse and die. With an adequate supply of easily extractable and transportable fossil fuels, economies are able to grow. However, when these fuels become less available due to the exhaustion of nearby resources, or for other reasons, economies are forced to shrink. Rising population can also be a factor because every person in the world needs food and at least minimal transportation. The war is about future standards of living in countries around the world.
An underlying problem is that the world now has too many people for the available resources, such as fresh water. One chart showing data through the end of 2023 indicates that the Middle East is home to 4,863 desalination plants, or about 42% of the world’s total. This region is acutely stressed for fresh water. The Middle East cannot grow much of its own food; it must depend on imports, which are grown and transported using oil.
Previous analyses (here and here) have shown that diesel and jet fuel supplies have been in increasingly short supply since long before the Iran War.
Critical minerals, used in electrification, are also in very short supply. In a finite world, the easy-to-extract minerals are extracted first, leaving the high-cost-to extract minerals for the future.
In today’s fossil fuel economy, oil is the largest component. Oil is usually the highest-priced of the fossil fuels because it is energy-dense and easy to transport and store. If oil supply fails, an economy is likely to collapse. Coal and natural gas are the other fossil fuels. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas that is super-chilled and shipped long-distance by boat. Similarly to oil, its price is under pressure today.
[2] The world’s fossil fuel economy already seems to be at a turning point in its economic cycle.
It is well known that economies exhibit cyclical behavior. Researchers Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov analyzed eight economies that collapsed and published their findings in their book Secular Cycles. They found that populations that discovered new resources were able to grow for a period of time until they came close to the carrying capacity of the resources available. After approaching the carrying capacity, economies reached a period of stagflation, characterized by slower growth, inflation, and spiking prices as shown on Figure 3.
At this point, the fossil fuel system has been growing for over 200 years. It has undergone stagflation since the early 1970s. It is now ready to begin the downswing of the Crisis Years.
Now, the Iran War seems to mark the beginning of a fairly long Crisis Period. The Stagflation Period was expected to last 50 to 60 years. The year 2026 is 56 years after the time US crude oil production stopped growing, so the timing is roughly in line with expectations. However, we don’t know whether the Crisis Period will really last between 20 and 50 years, since the situation is now quite different compared to cycles before fossil fuels were added to the economy. But it does look like the world economy is headed for reorganization based on the limited fuel supply.
[3] In order for an economy to “work,” oil prices need to be both low enough for consumers, buying end products such as food made possible by the use of oil, and high enough for oil producers.
This issue is not one most people think much about. There are really two different oil price levels that are important:
(a) The price level affordable by consumers. If consumers cannot afford food or basic transportation, this quickly becomes a problem that leads to unhappiness with elected officials. This is the reason why elected officials often try to hold down oil prices.
(b) The price that oil producers require in order to make an adequate profit and allow investment in new wells to offset depletion in existing wells. In the case of oil exporters, oil prices may need to be very high to permit high taxes on oil exports to support food subsidies and other government programs.
I believe that a major problem we have reached today is that countries that are primarily oil exporters, such as Russia and countries in the Middle East, need far higher oil prices than consumers are able to pay. Even if the wars in Ukraine and Iran stopped tomorrow, the world would still have this underlying issue.
[4] Since 2014, oil prices have been too low for countries that use taxes on oil exports as a major source of tax revenue.
Figure 4. Oil prices in 2025 US$, with ovals marking three different oil price periods. Oil prices are based on oil data from the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, published by the Energy Institute, adjusted by the US CPI Urban increase to 2025 levels. The 2025 average Brent oil price is from EIA data.
Figure 4 shows average world oil prices on an inflation-adjusted basis, to 2025 price levels. As such, prices for earlier dates appear much higher on the graph than past observers would have seen them.
The low oil prices from 1948 until early 1973 were good for economies around the world, including the US. In the early days of oil extraction, oil was easy to extract and close to where it was to be used. The cost of extraction and transport was low. Consumers started seeing many more products become available. Many families in the US could afford a car for the first time. Also, the US was able to support the recovery of European economies from the impact of World War II at a cost that was not excessive.
In recent years, costs have risen. This is especially the case for the price needed by oil exporters. Part of the problem is that the size of the population requiring subsidy keeps growing, while oil production has been close to flat.
A second part of the problem is that economies of oil exporters often have few other sources of taxable revenue. Oil exporters are trying to change this by adding downstream manufacturing that uses the oil and gas they produce. A third part of the problem is that, as population grows, the higher population tends to use more of the available oil supply, leaving less for export.
Figure 6 shows that, in the 2011-2013 period, oil prices seemed to be high enough for most OPEC members (except Iran). Fiscal break-even prices indicate how high oil prices need to be, including the amount of tax revenue needed to balance budgets.
The notation in yellow on Figure 6 shows that the expected fiscal breakeven break-even for the period under analysis for all OPEC members combined was $105. EIA data shows that the average Brent oil prices during this period were $111 in the year 2011, $112 in the year 2012, and $109 in 2013. Thus, prices were high enough for most producers. Iran was an outlier on the high side, with a range for the 2013-2014 period of $110 to $172. (A more recent forecast for Iran shows a 2025 fiscal breakeven price of $124, which remains far above the pre-Iran war oil price.)
Figure 4 shows that oil prices began to fall in 2014. At these lower levels, it became increasingly difficult for oil exporters to obtain enough tax revenue to significantly help their local populations. They started needing to use more debt to fund their local economies. As a result, they gradually became increasingly unhappy. Figure 4 shows that the average price 2025 for Brent oil was only $65.
To make matters worse for oil exporting countries requiring high prices, oil price forecasts by the EIA and IEA for the year 2026 were even lower because of an expected oversupply of oil. Countries with growing oil production included Argentina, Brazil, China, and Guyana. In addition, some counties on the coast of Africa are hoping to add oil production. Unless world demand is growing rapidly, more oil supply tends to lead to lower prices and a worse situation for oil exporters trying to balance their budgets with taxes on exported oil.
[5] Without the war, LNG prices would also have been too low for LNG exporters.
LNG is a “modern” way of shipping natural gas. Only about 13% of natural gas is transported as LNG. It tends to be an expensive method of transport. Recent reports indicate that a huge amount of future LNG supply is planned for the next few years.
Adding a huge amount of LNG would probably cause prices to drop significantly. This would be great from the point of view of consumers, but it would likely leave prices too low for producers. As I see the situation, Middle Eastern producers are likely to need prices in the $15 to $20 range per million metric tons of LNG, while India is not willing to pay more than $10 per unit, and those wanting to replace coal are unwilling to pay more than $5 per unit. Thus, without the war, LNG would have had a similar problem to that of oil, with prices far too low for exporters.
[6] From Iran’s point of view, I see the war as similar to a suicide, when a farmer can no longer support his family.
With Iran’s fiscal breakeven price at $124 per barrel and the pre-war Brent price at only $65, Iran was already in an impossible position. In fact, Iran could see that all of the Middle East infrastructure would be close to worthless, at expected 2026 oil and LNG prices. So why not take it down as well?
If nothing else, a war might help raise prices, at least a bit. Notice that on Figure 4, oil prices bounced up a little from their very low level in 2022, the year when the Ukraine conflict started.
[7] Losing any significant share of energy supply is likely to significantly reduce world GDP.
If the energy supply were to be lost, the world would be dealing with the losing something equivalent to its food supply. If the world economy loses even 10% of its oil and LNG, it is not difficult to imagine world GDP falling by 10%. At this point, we don’t know precisely how much energy supply, of which kind, will be lost, or for how long. The amount lost could be far higher than 10%. Also, the outage could last for years.
There are many issues involved. Supply lines are breaking down forcing businesses to find closer sources for both energy products and products made using cheap local energy products, such as fertilizer and aluminum. The war, as it is taking place today, is leading to major damage to energy-related structures in the Middle East. Destroyed LNG structures are estimated to take at least five years to replace. Damage elsewhere is also immense. Rebuilding the oil infrastructure will also likely take at least five years.
[8] The US understands the importance of Middle Eastern oil and gas. It uses its strong relationship with Israel to further its military presence in the Middle East.
Israel is a very high-level ally. In fact, a 2025 US Department of State Fact Sheet says that the US is committed to helping Israel in the case of an attack:
Steadfast support for Israel’s security has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for every U.S. Administration since the presidency of Harry S. Truman. . . Israel is the leading global recipient of Title 22 U.S. security assistance under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program. . .Israel has been designated as a U.S. Major Non-NATO Ally under U.S. law. This status provides foreign partners with certain benefits in the areas of defense trade and security cooperation and is a powerful symbol of their close relationship with the United States. Consistent with statutory requirements, it is the policy of the United States to help Israel preserve its QME, or its ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damages and casualties.
However, if we look to see where US military bases are located, they are not in Israel. Instead, a map shows that the “persistent” US military bases are all located around the Persian Gulf (Figure 8).
These bases were clearly intended to protect oil transiting through the Persian Gulf. At this point, all of the persistent bases have been severely damaged by missiles from Iran.
The major interest of the US has been the availability of oil and natural gas from the Middle East. No one ever considered the idea that low prices might be the force that would bring down Middle Eastern oil and natural gas exports.
Friendship with Israel provides the US a convenient close by ally. It also pleases both Jewish Americans who support Israel and those evangelical Christians who hold a religious view that Israel is needed for the second coming of Christ. Some of the latter may even believe that a war in the Middle East could perhaps hasten this event.
[9] Trump realizes that winning the war against Iran is absolutely essential if the US is to retain global hegemony.
The US has been the holder of the world’s reserve currency since immediately after World War II. It was chosen for this role because it was the most trusted and dominant country in the world. International trade took place almost exclusively in US dollars, creating a high demand for US government debt. This allowed the US to import more goods and services than it exported, year after year. This advantage tended to raise the standard of living of US residents.
At one time, Saudi Arabia insisted that all oil purchases be made in US dollars. This requirement has recently expired, but, as a practical matter, the majority of purchases have continued to be through trades in US dollars.
One of the main ways that the US has maintained its hegemony is by building military bases around the world. With these bases, the US can claim to protect countries against aggressors. However, recent events have shown that Iran is able to take down the radar systems at these bases. Without radar, the bases are virtually useless. If the US is to maintain the illusion that it is truly at the top of the pecking order with its sophisticated weaponry, it must show that, together with Israel, it can prevail against Iran.
A disadvantage of the role of being the chief hegemon is ever-rising US government debt and the need to pay interest on that debt. This growing debt and the interest on the debt has become an increasing burden.
If the US should lose its hegemony role, the advantage the US has had over other countries in trade is likely to disappear. Repaying debt with interest is likely to become an even worse problem. If this should happen, Trump will no longer be able to think about making America great again.
[10] Conclusion
The world is now facing a problem that most people never considered possible: Oil and LNG prices can fall so low that production becomes unprofitable for major oil and LNG exporters. Until now, the trend among world leaders, including President Trump, has been to try to hold prices down for consumers, so that food and fuel for vehicles would remain affordable. However, this has created a problem in that prices have become too low for countries whose primary industry is being an oil exporter.
At this point, the world economy needs to make a major transition in order to deal with the inadequate level of fuels available for long-distance transportation. These same fuels are heavily used for farming and for many for commercial endeavors, such as building homes and roads. It is therefore necessary to find ways to use these fuels more sparingly. One way to achieve this is by reducing the length of most supply lines, as shown on Figure 1. Shorter supply lines will also be needed elsewhere in the world.
It is ironic that the world economy cannot make a change such as this without a war to focus our attention in this direction. Other changes will also be needed. Governments will probably have to become smaller and provide fewer services. Vacation travel will become the exception rather than the rule. “Working from home” will become the norm, whenever possible. I expect that the world’s population will need to fall, albeit in a fairly subtle way. I expect this will mostly be the result of shorter life expectancies.
We are fortunate that economies are self-organizing. If resources are available, even after a major schism such as the loss of the war against Iran, the self-organizing nature of the economic system will try to knit together pieces that can productively provide goods and services. This cannot happen instantly, but this feature means that there are likely to be some jobs and some goods and services available. Past cycles of the type illustrated in Figure 3 have eventually led to new beginnings.
If the US and Israel lose the current war against Iran, I expect President Trump to be blamed for this loss. However, I believe that this outcome would be best for the world as a whole.
I think I have a post in moderation because I added various links.
Thanks Gail for unblocking it.
All the best!
China’s digital currency isn’t popular:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/great-retreat-beijings-digital-currency-ambitions-are-faltering
For years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has positioned the digital yuan (e-CNY) as the ultimate weapon of financial totalitarianism. It was intended to be the crowning achievement of the surveillance state. With a programmable, traceable digital currency, Beijing thought it would finally break the back of private payment giants like Alipay and WeChat Pay.
Yet, despite having total control over the levers of the domestic economy, Beijing’s digital dream is showing signs of terminal fatigue.
Since its debut at the 2022 Winter Olympics, the e-CNY has gone from an aggressive, potential retail juggernaut to a low-public-appeal tool for state administration.
In short, nobody really wants it.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) didn’t launch the digital yuan to make life easier for the average citizen in Shanghai or Shenzhen. It was an aggressive move against the autonomy of the private sector and an offensive tactic to undermine individual privacy.
This guy was the first to expose the circular financing in the AI industry . Now his thoughts on the ceasfire .
“If I am right and Iran continues its game of chicken with the US, which has already figured out how they are in no position to accept all the conditions Iran asked, as early as tomorrow, Iran is going to announce they will pull out from the ceasefire talks in Pakistan. This is going to be a MASSIVE problem for the oil futures market, which at that point will be about one week away from the May to June contract rollover. Why? Because not only will the May 26 contracts resume running higher when shorts are in the process of rolling their positions into June, but traders will be forced to price in the supply tightness in the June contract that can potentially even start trading in contango if the conflict escalates further and its end is then projected later in the future. ”
https://x.com/DarioCpx/status/2042189689273319505/photo/1
I am not a financial expert .
‘” Western Mafia had been cornered in #GOLD, #Silver and now #OIL where there is descent disconnect between futures contracts and reality, huge bear raids to keep them under fake control and a fake media to help out.
In the long run, all these commodities will be priced in Shanghai or Singapore… in the short run, remember that these prices are fake, as fake as #Bloomberg, #NYTimes or #Axios…
Everytime they try these games, u use it against them. We saw how beautiful it worked with gold and silver until I warned you to stay out as I realized that they utilized their Twitter slvts to move the market up to be able to get a flush crash in Silver.
We are not there yet with OIL… I believe even $120 is cheap for June delivery now…. if their fake cease fire ends, then we are looking at $150..”
https://x.com/Bogachan_1971/status/2042047083558191332/photo/1
A person would think that the supply crisis would have to start affecting futures contracts sometime soon.
For the uninitiated, the moment total oil inventories fall below 7.8 billion bbls, that’s when panic will start.
If you are being generous, 18 days
https://x.com/HFI_Research/status/2041908526956835113
Total Oil Exports by country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_exports
It is wikipedia, so it is as good as any
Saudi Arabia 6.05million barrels for day
Russia 4.524
USA 4.109
Canada 3.568
Iraq 3.364
UAE 2.717
(Iran’s exports are estimated to be 1.5m-2m barrels per day – not listed because it does not report its numbers)
Brazil 1.7
Norway 1.69
Nigeria 1.52
Kazakhstan 1.425 (how the landlocked country exports the oil, I simply have no idea)
Kuwait 1.175
Angola 1.042
Libya 1.002
Oman 0.887
Mexico 0.847
The rest are too small to matter
Sum of these amount to be about 37 mil barrels/ day
Countries dependent upon Hormuz to export the oil
KSA + Iraq + USA + Iran + Kuwait 15
Or about 40% of the total exported oil.
And, the amounts for Russia and Kazakhstan are misleading since their about 6m barrels/day, about 16%, all go to their friends.
So there are only 44% remaining to play around.
Jan thinks we lost 50% of the oil and gas from the Gulf. I assume 75%.
Europe has to do with only the Norwegian, British , Libyan and some African oils.
The oil in the Americas won’t leave the continent, some to Europe with a very heavy premium, nothing for the rest of the world except maybe Japan.
The rest of the world will have to do without.
How are the USA’s oil exports dependent on the Strait of Hormuz? How much of US oil exports go to the Middle East?
This is a list of countries that the US exports Crude Oil and Products to.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_expc_a_EP00_EEX_mbblpd_a.htm
I could change this list to show “Crude Oil only” exports.
But even on a combined basis, I don’t see Middle Eastern countries listed to any extent.
When I look at US Crude oil imports by country, this is what I see:
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_epc0_im0_mbblpd_a.htm
In million barrels per day, annual imports were as follows for 2025:
Total 6.2 million bpd
Canada 3.9
Persian Gulf 0.6
Trump’s Taco Tuesday is comparable to the decision the German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg to suspend the submarine war against UK.
At that time the submarine war against UK was going well, but after Lusitania, B-H used it as an excuse to stop the submarine war, giving UK a huge respite.
If he did not do that and actually strengthened the sub war, UK would have fallen into open rebellion by 1916, a lesson not lost to the planners of WW2 but ignored by the guy with a funny mustache who did not understand the Navy.
B-H resigned in 1917 and was allowed to disappear into obscurity. No one knows how much bribe he received from the City of London since he left little records.
I have said many times that it would have been better for the Entente to lose the Great War since that would have kept the colonial empires intact to this day (Germany had little power to project to the colonies lost to UK and France and would have accepted it as fait accompli, giving a small fiefdom in Tanzania for Lettow-Vorbeck).
So the British Raj , French Indochina, Dutch East Indies, etc still continues today.
Trump eliminating Iran as a functioning country would have shown the world a big lesson and would have made others getting uppity to think twice.
Instead, Trump retreated, and countries not happy with US rule will get more uppity.
Fritz Drumpf tried to return to Germany in 1910s but they refused to accept a draft dodger, and the man known as Fred Trump would have been fighting for the German Empire’s Bavarian forces during the Great War Drumpf had been allowed to return.
Trump is making the same mistake the German Empire made in 1915, which will facilitate the side who are completely irrelevant for advancing civilizatio nto win.
Gas stations are “running out of gas” in Ireland.
https://x.com/IamTom1975/status/2042185122586165496
Ireland sending the Army to break up protestors now.
Maybe the Royal Palace Guards can ve called in to help.
What are friends for? Boy, reliving the 1970s was always on my bucket list, thanks Donald Trump, oh, ,mean Donnie, sorry Norman dont want you to get into trouble
https://no01.substack.com/p/pick-a-side
Thanks, that was a needed pick me up with my cup of Joe.
Speaking of which, I do miss Sleepy Joe, hope he’s have a nice nap
This article seems to be about a long essay, claiming the Iran War is really a conflict to choose which is stronger: China or America. The Substack author says, “Neither. Each has major weaknesses.”
But both sides are weakening.
China’s demographics are dire. America’s finances are dire.
China can’t generate enough young workers. America can’t generate enough Treasury buyers.
Different diseases, same prognosis.
There is no danger window. There are two declining powers, each with structural problems the other can’t solve and neither can fix. The race isn’t to close vulnerabilities. The race is to see who can stay standing longest while the floor tilts.
in our current mode of living, global economy can only function with everybody buying and selling to everybody else.
to do this, 0verall output must rise year on year…ie–energy output itself must rise year on year….
not just energy output, but surplus energy output…
what we are seeing now, is that surplus declining, relative to overallnumbers of us…
that is increasing the difficulty of buying and selling to each other, because vast swathes of us are not receiving sufficient wages to facilitate that–ie we can’t afford the lifestyle we have become used to…or think we are entitled to….
we also have a top heavy economy, where old gits like me refuse to die and make room for younger worker bees.
if you want a singlr word
its greed….
and that applies to akll of us—just a matter of scale
If we assume that 50% of the production of oil and gas from the Middle East is lost, then this corresponds to about 7% of the global primary energy supply. Assuming a linear relationship between energy and economic growth, global GDP would fall by 7%, resulting in negative growth of 5.5%. Since oil from the Middle East supplies mainly Asia and Asia has higher growth rates, there would be different effects. We could estimate: Asia 9% decline, Europe 2.5% decline, USA 1.5% decline. This would lead to the following adjusted growth expectations: Asia -4.24% (severe recession), Europe -1.25% (recession), USA +0.95% (significantly weakened).
If the slump is around 50%, which is an arbitrary rather very high value, and remains at this level permanently, then the growth rates would recover at a lower level, which would be consistent with the theories of systems theory.
This could lead to slightly positive long-term growth rates of -2.5% for Asia, -1.5% for Europe and the USA/Russia. Such a decline would be more comparable to the financial crisis from 2008 onwards than to the crash of 1929.
But one could then also consider whether the declining phase of the described cycle has not already begun in 2008, so we are already in decline for 18 years of the predicted 50 years?
Im pretty sure the actual economic slump will be bigger. We need quite a lot of energy just for keeping the system running without producing anything – e.g. transporting the oil. So a 7% loss will rather be 10% slump on anything produced, because we now run things at lower efficiency, e.g refineries will fare much worse and transport gets less efficient.
Also we lose about double on exported energy which means if this is permanent I up my prediction to 20%. Over time a bit can be adjusted but this will be harder vs growing.
Also we very likely will not use smart decisions about distribution – e.g. less oil= less copper and less coal – but heating and cooling houses and transport may be kept up. So the actual energy available to produce goods will suffer much more.
Yes, on top of that the decline of supply is bigger than 7%. But there is the problem of redirecting tankers, which is already happening at a high rate. There is the problem of less heavy crude available for mixing with shale. And economic decline is an afterthought when you have nothing to eat. The economy redistributes resources. I think it is highly probable for example that airlines are seeing close to a 20% drop in supplies which are going to tractors.
IMF’s Strait of Hormuz Port Watch:
https://portwatch.imf.org/pages/cb5856222a5b4105adc6ee7e880a1730
can you tell me what this showed? it took forever to load and then showed me some place in south america. there were lots of containers.
Just move to the strait and watch out for green dots. Another monitor listed 5 ships for the last 24h or 1,5% of the usual. This seems to be for both directions, so I wonder, how the Monarchies import, by plane? It is possible vessels deactivate their AIS-transponders and cannot be seen.
?Perhaps it doesn’t work on your PC / phone?
It’s an interactive archive – statistics depicting the traffic in Hormuz through time ( up to April 5th ) – it has been even braked out to all the specific kind of cargo: bulk cargo, tanker, shipping containers, carz, .. ; average trend, ..
“Hideaway: Drill Steel – One of many Iran war CACTUS triggers” ?
https://un-denial.com/2026/04/03/by-hideaway-drill-steel-one-of-many-iran-war-cactus-triggers/
https://un-denial.com/2026/03/16/the-goal-leads-to-cactus/
Probably the whole Middle Eastern infrastructure being destroyed is also high end steel.
It is the exportable oil which does count
https://www.worldstopexports.com/worlds-top-oil-exports-country/
Iran is not included since it does not report its numbers
The gulf consists 33.5% of the world’s exportable oil
Jan , everybody is getting it wrong . The lack of oil production has a multiplier effect . No oil production –no Sulphuric acid = no copper . No bitumen = no asphalt= no roads , no LPG =no cooked food . The relationship between oil production and GDP growth is not linear . Once the pipes are empty the music stops playing — all the chairs from the game of musical chairs are withdrawen .
” Loading Up and Resting, looking forward to its next Conquest. This is not the language of peace. This is the language of a military that views the ceasefire as an operational pause between campaigns, not a resolution. The word conquest does not appear in diplomatic frameworks. It appears in the vocabulary of expansion. Trump is telling every audience simultaneously: domestic supporters hear strength, Iranian negotiators hear threat, Chinese observers hear unpredictability, and Gulf allies hear commitment.” ?
https://x.com/shanaka86/status/2042093257145119067?s=20
How are they exactly reloading? Buying the whole ACME catalog, ruining Wiley’s chances once and for all?
Why Australia could face fuel rationing within DAYS – and the ‘bidding war’ threatening to explode
“Australia now has fuel reserves equivalent to 39 days’ worth of petrol, 29 days’ worth of diesel and 30 days’ worth of jet fuel, with over 50 fuel shipments due to arrive in the next month. If the fuel supply situation does deteriorate, rationing could come quickly, experts warn.
‘We’re not talking about months, we’re talking about a few days,’ Sydney University Professor Ben Fahimnia told 9News.
‘We’re already seeing the early symptoms of rationing, it’s just not officially declared
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15714097/Why-Australia-face-fuel-rationing-DAYS-bidding-war-threatening-explode.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=social-twitter_mailonline
Last week as I listened to the pundit explaining to the NPR host expressing feined interest with the usual noises what the strait of Hormuz was I couldn’t help but reflect that OFW was discussing that topic many many years ago. But neither the pundit or the host really got it.just another interesting topic like fleas found on petrified coyote or something. We have been very privileged to have been exposed to Gail’s work. While current events are certainly disturbing I can’t say I am surprised. Hormuz always was a prime possibility as the stick that got pulled of the disapitive structure
.I will say I find people’s new found discovery of Hormuz amusing in the extreme. They don’t seem to understand the consequences of what they are discussing. What can you say? Absolutely nothing. Or perhaps “you don’t say” . I imagine the humor of the situation is many times greater for Gail. Perhaps even more humorous is Mr Disapprovals words as he alternately proclaims Hormuz does not matter then within hours dire threats regarding the lack of passage through it. It is truly a great time to have the privilege of understanding Gail’s work has allowed.
Unfortunately I’m afraid the humor of the situation will be lost as the consequences of 20 percent of the worlds oil removed from world consumption manifest. How sad that Gail’s work never got a the tiniest percentage of the attention it deserved. This day was always going to come one way or another but I had hoped that humanity might have some skill that allowed the quality we know as compassion instead of the bizarre lack of skill we witness. This lack of skill is so profound I can’t help but wonder if our framework of understanding about events is fundamentally incorrect. No matter. Such philosophical musings will be as devoid of value as any other as the realities of post peak oil manifest. Never the less I am profoundly grateful to have the understanding Gail’s work has allowed as we enter this period for understanding reality as best one can allows the possibility of correct behavior and actions.
I listened to David Sanger being interviewed on NPR this afternoon on my way back from a firewood delivery, and I had similar thoughts, along with thinking how Jeffrey Sachs said recently about how Sanger won’t return his Iran-related emails.
The frameworks of deeper understanding and shallow understanding alike see that refineries are being destroyed and not wellheads. Whether we’re able to see that as deeper understanding in action or just a long string of coincidences, structurally that dynamic represents an all-important battle against the worst-case Export Land Model of (political)Collapse. Circles and squares alike can take heart in that trend.
Sinc we lived in a virtual reality all our life, this is normal.
Yep. Some spotty, teenage, alien kid is running our AI simulation on his home workstation.
Gotta hope the oil supply is OK in his area, so the workstation doesn’t shut down for want of power!
kids? the guys who control the press create reality for us and they are not kids. I doubt that my father could see, through the press he was limited to reading, what were the global issues and what was done to his country or family.
That was Italy. I can tell you that americans in the 1980s, 1990s, and after that could not either figure out what was going on. But obviously the Palestinians or Iranians, as well as a number of others in the 3rd world, could. I myself started changing under the influence of some of my African students.
Strait of Nordstream. Mr Disapproval will not be outdone by Mr Dementia. Hard acts to follow but I have faith someone even more spectacular is in store. The trend is your friend.
The trend is our only friend with regard to gold. From the materialistic fool’s gold of Trump Tower to the metaphysical gold that is the spirituality and enlightenment of female purity. Which is to say that the Non-Public Degrowth Agenda has an epochal leadership trend reversal in store.
The mysterious explosions, by all accounts, on the two Iranian islands’ oil infrastructure that torpedoed the Challah Bread Ceasefire, is now the leading candidate for the Hand’s goosing of the Big Nuclear Scare with the positron beam DEW. Which would mean that the Hand both needed the Challah in order to crash oil prices yet also needed to maintain BNS momentum because the world can only withstand the BNS for a couple months total.
“The identity of the party that struck Lavan and Sirri determines whether Iran’s Gulf launches were retaliatory or aggressive — and that distinction is load-bearing for the April 10 Islamabad bilateral between Vance and Ghalibaf.
If the US struck Lavan and Sirri after the ceasefire it brokered, Iran’s “violation” framing holds and the Gulf retaliations become — in Iran’s legal argument — a proportional response under Article 51 self-defense. But Hegseth’s Pentagon briefing claimed the war was already won. A post-ceasefire US strike on secondary oil infrastructure would undercut the “decisive victory” narrative that Hegseth and Caine spent the briefing constructing.
If Israel struck the facilities despite Lt. Col. Shoshani’s denial, the ceasefire’s architecture collapses along a different fault line. A senior Israeli official confirmed the US had “coordinated the ceasefire with Israel in advance.” A post-ceasefire Israeli strike would mean either that coordination failed or that Israel was not bound by terms it helped negotiate — a distinction that would consume the first hours of any Islamabad session before substantive issues could be raised.
A third possibility — internal sabotage or accidental explosion — is supported by the divergence within Iran’s own reporting. Nour News, the IRGC’s media arm, reported Sirri’s explosions as having an “unknown cause.” Turkish outlet Yeni Safak used the phrase “mysterious blasts.” If the IRGC cannot internally confirm an external attack, the retaliatory Gulf launches become harder to justify even under Iran’s own doctrinal framework. The Supreme National Security Council’s pre-ceasefire statement that “negotiations are continuation of battlefield” had already laid the doctrinal foundation for continuing operations regardless of attribution, as WANA reported on April 7.
Saudi Arabia, already excluded from the Islamabad bilateral, faces its own attribution trap. The ICIJ’s October 2025 reporting documented Arab states’ military coordination with Israel through CENTCOM’s “Regional Security Construct,” including shared air-defense radar data and meetings “held in confidence.” Any Saudi statement disputing Iran’s attribution of the Lavan strikes would raise the question of what CENTCOM-shared sensor networks detected — and when. Silence is the only position that does not expose the coordination geometry.”
https://houseofsaud.com/lavan-ceasefire-attribution/
On again, off again, on again, off again….
BREAKING! US STRIKES Iran! Iran CLOSES Strait Of Hormuz!
“It’s like déjà vu all over again!”
The US has a powerful military BUT it has a political class that refuses to use it. The US political class is devoted to *aping and worse little children.
At least that is better than Chucky and his 200/400 Worcester shirts, who caused way far more fmdamage than these pedos
The US military is run by deluded incompetents and is clearly obsolete in terms of taking on peer, or near peer opponents, as opposed to bashing on hapless third worlders.
Ref the books and podcasts by Martyanov.
The war continues. US restocking of Israel so it can continue to destroy Muslims to strengthen greater Israel. There is a video out proposing blowing the two dams overlooking Tehran to drown the 16 million humans in Tehran. A good sacrifice to Baal on the founding of Greater Israel. It appears no one can oppose Trump.
Or, a necessary move to save the West
In this 19min video, Prof Robert Pape lays out how the US just suffered a worse military than in Vietnam. He goes on to say that the 10 point ceasefire proposal were all in favor of Iran and Iran gets to keep its enriched uranium!
They have according to Professor Pape become the 4th largest world power. When you control the flow of traffic thru the Strait of Hormuz, you are a world power and Tucker Carlson mentioned this in a recent video.
Lets’ come back in a month and see who is winning.
They will for a number of factors, the same as why the Addie Hitter Nannies lost in the Soviet Union. It’s the numbers, and they hold a royal flush, praise Allah.
The US just showed it’s an Old Man blundering fool
Israel did not agree to the ten points.
The nuclear missile fields of the US northwest ( a small 10%) are ready to end Iran when it is time in terms of showmanship.
runaway, Pleasure. That MOA claim is baloney imo. I suppose it’s possible that someone or some few high rollers paid that much for a shipment but that wouldn’t take the composite market assessment up to $200. Funnily enough ZH included a limited fair use dated brent chart yesterday in one of its articles. Obviously people who pay for the Platts weekly intellectual property can make up their own charts after the fact. As I recall the last data point on that chart was for April 2nd at the $140 number which is what everyone’s going on. I think we should get the updated number tomorrow.
AI:
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Looks like the dated brent update came in yesterday at $144.
“Oil price benchmark publisher S&P Global Energy Platts assessed the price of dated Brent on April 7 at $144.42, surpassing the previous record high of $144.22 reached in 2008, a Platts spokesperson said. Using the Platts dated Brent figure would put the price of Forties, and many other physical cargoes, well above $150.”
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/physical-oil-prices-hit-record-highs-near-150-barrel-hormuz-crisis-worsens-2026-04-07/#:~:text=The%20price%20of%20Forties%20and,physical%20cargoes%2C%20well%20above%20$150.
I continue . The pipeline is empty .
” As the last tankers that loaded in the Gulf before the war reach their destination, onshore crude stocks are plummeting.
First it was crude on the water that plunged by ~175MMb since March 1 (or 4.55MMb/d over an extended period of 36 days).
Now onshore crude stocks are retracing their earlier gains, dropping by >50MMb worldwide from their end-March peak.
Predictably, China and the rest of Asia-Pacific, the main outlets for Gulf crude oil, are driving the draws.
Chinese stocks alone plunged by an estimated 30 MMb in the six days to April 6 (5 MMb/d).
Other Asia-Pacific is following suit, down ~12 MMb (2MMb/d) over that same period.
MENA dipped by ~5 MMb (830kb/d).
This is just the beginning.
https://x.com/antoine_halff/status/2041599359121310097/photo/1
Thank you, Ravi Uppal, you’re such a tease…the beginning ???
What beginning choices are there for me?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSydfOuQgck
We’ve only just begun by the Carpenters
Sharing horizons that are new to us
Watching the signs along the way
Talkin’ it over, just the two of us
Workin’ together day to day, together
And when the evening comes, we smile
So much of life ahead
We’ll find a place where there’s room to grow
And yes, we’ve just begun
Fun Fact
Williams and Nichols wrote the song in a single afternoon, matching the warmth and optimism Riney wanted. The resulting ad – set to wedding visuals and Williams’ heartfelt vocal – intentionally left out direct references to the bank, making the message universal.[4][5] The commercial was an immediate hit: it resonated with younger customers, boosted brand recognition, and even led to a surge in requests to use the song for weddings and graduations. The unique approach of focusing on storytelling and customer experience, rather than bank products, helped set a new standard for advertising in the industry.[4] However, the campaign ultimately attracted mostly young adults who did not yet have sufficient collateral for loans, which was not the bank’s primary target demographic. As a result, Crocker-Citizens National Bank discontinued the commercial despite its popularity, though its impact on advertising and music endured.[4][5]
It’s always about the money
I expect the world will be having problems for a long time.
The world has had problems for a very long time and will continue to do so, mainly ‘cos it’s run by Satanic psychopaths that feed off the chaos and despair.
Still, whatever, chill and enjoy the show.