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.
Today, I had a long walk, about 25 km through 3 villages. You can feel it in the air how the human world is dying: as if the world is full of zombies.
Energy allowed humans to conquer the nature and create ownership and debt. When the energy is in decline, other species gain ground and the human concepts of ownership and debt are ridiculed by natural forces.
Ok just can’t resist this one.
Today is Easter. He Is Risen. Jesus Is Risen. Jesus, The Chosen One, Is Risen.
Gabbard, The Chosen One of the Non-Public Degrowth Agenda: is she risen today, in light of the false god Trump’s apocalyptic post?
When I search Gabbard’s name today on Google, a new image of her I’ve never seen before appears. Usually the image of her upon that search doesn’t change very often. Today it changed. Gabbard is wearing the color gold, which is the color of divine Jesus, and she is looking what can only be described as victorious.
Could the coup be as soon as today? After which ‘Netanyahoo’ goes nuts and creates the definitive Big Nuclear Scare?
I wouldn’t want to miss out on calling the coup, no sir-eee I wouldn’t.
Lunatic .
” Earlier on Easter morning, President Trump unleashed a fierce message on Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell “
This does not sound like, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
It sounds a lot more like, “Not enough to go around.”
More like I want all of yours for myself or you all are destroyed
What happened to carry a big stick and talk softly
It sounds more like a deranged lunatic. Stay classy Trump, stay classy.
Postponed till Tuesday evening:
Plus he claims negotiations ongoing – Iran could fold (agree) on Monday..
Trump Sets Tuesday Deadline for Iran to Reopen Strait of Hormuz
http://www.wsj.com › iran-war-news-2026 › card › trump-…
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cm29zmpdj3vt
Trump issues expletive-laden threat to Iran demanding Strait of Hormuz be opened
He sounds desperate and not in control because that is the reality. A war that should have never been started.
Is he threatening the marine insurance companies just as aggressively?
Can’t believe you guys fall for this stuff after all this time. Especially with me yelling in your ears the whole time. Pull your fingers out, if just for a brief minute. This King Lear post today is like when they told everyone to double mask during the plandemic.
Hand is laughing right now and deservedly so.
Gail, you have to scroll a bit down, it’s a [ live update page ] on the over-all Iran conflict saga..
Confirmed video+audio from the rescue operation. Local ~civilian dudes engaging low overflying US choppers above a field..
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cm29zmpdj3vt?post=asset%3Aa131ea99-29d8-42c3-8090-d624fcbb0ac6#post
It’s wrapped in their shi##y BBC media player – for [ full screen ] pleasures have to tap icon in vid’s upper right corner..
Creative commons!
The senile lunatic threatens crimes against humanity. The democrats say nothing because they serve Israel. The UN says nothing because it fear Israel. The BRICS say nothing because chews are powerful in their nations.
Just some things that make me go —- hmmm .
1. It is 24 hours since the rescue . Why hasn’t the media hungry narcissist DJT paraded the rescued pilot and done a victory dance ?? OR — there was no rescue ,only a media leak to save face ?? So here are the credentials of the journalist who reported it first ” Former Ranger/Special Forces veteran turned journalist Jack Murphy first broke the story late Saturday night. His investigative reporting on sensitive operations, particularly in Syria ” . Literally a leaky source for DOD ( DOW ) .
2 . Use of 2 C-130 aircraft both destroyed . These are nothing but transport planes that carry 96 soldiers or cargo etc . They can only land on airstrips . What were they doing in the mountains ? Was this a special operation that went wrong , so get out the spin doctors .
Like I said — makes me go hmmm .
⛔️The Pentagon is hiding the truth about the failed operation last night‼️
⛔️ The American camouflage for the landing operation at a remote airport in Isfahan was actually aimed as a major military landing operation ‼️
⛔️The American Isfahan operation was an initial landing operation for stabilising entry routes and securing it for a large ground landing operation, and when it failed, the pentagon diverted the compass with the excuse of rescuing the pilot to justify their failure‼️
⛔️You don’t rescue one pilot with a huge C-130 ‼️It was another major disaster and failure that they lied .about.
Copy/paste MoA
https://x.com/drhossamsamy65/status/2040798900718534903/video/1
Possibly, but for ~certain we could only witness these on the ground burned C130 rotor blades ( apart from other – metal debris ), some sort of advanced fiber apparently..
Lets recap that C130 is a STOL platform, so they could have planned to land on some sort of local paved area, be it large parking lot with access road – near some industrial plant site, hw segment under construction, and similar..
Losing the Iran war (it could be construed as fake if we compare it to Kulms Iwo Jima post) might take a long time which wouldn’t be good for the world because the gulf will be continuously constricted. Maybe the planners view this as positive since less resources would be needed for a smaller population ( the S.Keen 20% lower projection below). If the no kings day protesters were aware of that the outrage could end the war pronto. (CNN said DJT anti war poll was 90% +).
Buckle up tomorrow could be the day. This is a good write up for how it could happen
https://rayonegro.substack.com/p/guerra-total
It is now do or die time
From HT
The Speaker of the Iran Parliament seems to utilize proxies to post messages on Social media. The latest such message makes clear Infrastructure war commences within 24 hours.
The message, posted at 01:26 this morning, April 5, in Farsi language (Iranian), is machine-translated as follows:
“If Iran does not receive a credible signal by tomorrow of Trump reconsidering an attack on Iran’s infrastructure, it will preemptively, irreversibly, and on a massive scale target the Saudi electricity and oil production infrastructure, as well as that of the Israeli regime. Iran has so far refrained from exercising this option in order to avoid entering an “irreversible infrastructure war” and a “Ukrainization of the region,” but the time for this restraint will end in the next 24 hours.”
Yes java it sounds like we are getting to the edge of the cliff. Trump’s language or lack there of shows someone of his character or lack of character in panic. When desperation sets in anything can happen
You have the original post in X?
I try to stay off the main platforms, so this is the best I can do:
https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/news-selections/world-news/iran-infrastructure-war-will-commence-in-24-hours
That said, HT is hit and miss, but when he gets it right… well, he does.
https://x.com/shanaka86/status/2040830151840485811?s=20
We already know that the Hand’s Shanaka gets mainlined straight into the veins of DC. Google AI has told us in the past that that’s a recurring phenomenon. Which makes Shanaka a third way Intel service of Statecraft.
Shanaka jumping right on the Ghawar threat is Red Alert material for coup plotters.
We’re getting spirited away now.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/licensed-image?q=tbn:ANd9GcTr8WFPEVTnMTRJfpHHAkvhUz-uZ1FpS2cfEV5Lk60-U1AQ8lnsQdGKr0vBDGAJWeD_hzx2Heevrr1_zWnHeyneN1awyz7eIftUhK-PxeE0ciB8yn8axFWQq5NW3Jmue0pEXvli2QDNQKQ&s=19
Dayum, bringing the Scare in Big Nuclear Scare by floating ghawarian Gigantic Balls Theory. Hand ain’t fartin round now! Love it!
“Barking dogs, seldom bite.” – English Proverb
I don’t know about that….
” Significant numbers of advanced munitions have been expended, revealing that battlefield dominance matters less than the industrial capacity to replenish critical stockpiles. ” ?
https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/over-11000-munitions-16-days-iran-war-command-reload-governs-endurance
Anas Alhaji free podcast .
https://open.substack.com/pub/anasalhajjieoa/p/hormuz-between-trump-and-iranian?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
“The attacks on desalination plants take the war to another level.”
1.) I don’t think Gail touched on this but with all the breakdown of international trade beginning with the “pandemic”, does that mean high tech will have to shrink along with international trade? High tech according to a couple of sources depends on globalization.
2.) Have the energy shortages in Europe led to any deaths ?
3.) How is Spain and Germany able to generate a significant portion of their electricity from renewables without periodic blackouts?
Today is Easter, although there is nothing to cheer.
About 10%-20% of the people alive now will not see the next Easter.
The biblical tale of Jonah is one of the siller tales there. Jonah was a prophet of some renown (out of the prophets who have their own book in the bible, only Isaiah, Jeremiah and Jonah are mentioned in the Book of Kings, meaning they were quite important at their lifetimes)
At that time Assyria was the Evil Empire of the day, and one day Jonah was instructed by Yahweh to go to its capital, Nineveh (near Mosul), Iraq, to prophesize or Yahweh would destroy Nineveh.
the tale is well known, so I won’t repeat it, but what if Jonah killed himself in the belly of the whale?
In fact it was what Jonah should have done. Since Jonah failed to prophesize to the people of Nineveh, if Yahweh was a God of his Word, Yahweh now had to destroy Nineveh, and Jonah would have been celebrated to this day as one of Israel’s great heroes.
Instead, Jonah valued his own worthless life more, and eventually Nineveh conquered Israel about half a century later.
Jonah could not return home. He died in Nineveh, and the locals built a tomb there . Its site existed until 2016 when ISIS blasted it off.
There is no moral for this story, but which might be why Israeli pilots who fall in enemy territories are instructed to kill themselves.
[ 10 – 20% y/y ] ->bold call, but you could be right, evidently the biggest crisis in many decades.. while world meanwhile moved to more dependency of various long distance ( global ) arrangements..
I am not jumping too far. However, with the planting season having passed and not enough fertilizers, the world food production will be 10-20% less than last year. So a reduction of 10-20% is reasonable
Millions marching today to protest this in the streets
does not matter. Martial law not too far away
If they read the Old Testament, then they’d understand that they are reacting the way it foretold. Everyone is suppose to be against Israel except for a few outliers like the Don.
After Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the US military brass decided to invade Japan.
However, against fanatics no logic applied, so to do so a war of extermination was to be conducted.
1. cut every major bridge in Japan
2. throw poison gas bombs to every aerodrome in Japan
3. destroy the Japanese harvest of 1945, inducing major famines
4. cause a complete economic and civil collapse of Japan
At that time mainland Japan had about 70 million. The estimate casualty was about 10m-20m by end of 1945. The planners stopped counting after that. Plans were made to repopulate Japan with the Japanese-‘americans’ being held at ‘evacuation camps’.
Then on March 1946 the Americans (with some allies from UK and France) would land on the Tokyo area.
At that time few people knew about the Manhattan project so the plans went ahead, and only after someone told Truman that the nukes would be cheaper the bombs were used.
Iran’s terrain is not favorable for nuclear weapons. Nuking Tehran will not really affect things too much . So I think a war of extermination in Iran will be likely.
It’s the Christian thing to do on Easter, right Kulmmie? It’s for their and our own “good” because that’s just they way it’s been throughout History, as you say…such a moral or amoral outlook. Nuclear explosions will save the advancement of civilization, as you like to call it, to continue progress.
https://inaspaciousplace.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/hiroshima-original-child-bomb-by-thomas-merton/
Iran is an old culture, some estimates are 5k years. My guess is if a culture remains somewhat homogenous the lessons of time become expressed in genes; wars, strife may even weed out certain traits which are not helpful in overall survival.
I am a very proud and intense American, but our culture is only perhaps 400 years old depending on how you count it. We will learn and adapt and what works will remain.
Basically, God is working things out, when they don’t go as planned, plans change.
Dennis L.
Ok first of all you show your hand by exaggerating the age of the United States by 150 years. Secondly I don’t know w why a God would choose sides in this catastrophe. It is the illusion of religion that has brought us to the brink that we are at right now
“. My guess is if a culture remains somewhat homogenous the lessons of time become expressed in genes; wars, strife may even weed out certain traits which are not helpful in overall survival.” Wars may choose for traits that allow some to survive the strife. The U.S. has spent a great deal of its recent history in some sort of strife . Plenty of people, with traits conducive to survival probably perished . After all, strife is not reserved for the sick, lame, and unfit only.
Pope Leo urges those who ‘unleash wars’ to choose peace in his first Easter message CNN
Pope Leo XIV blesses the crowd during the Easter Mass as part of the Holy Week celebrations, at St Peter’s square in the Vatican on Sunday.
Pope Leo XIV blesses the crowd during the Easter Mass as part of the Holy Week celebrations, at St Peter’s square in the Vatican on Sunday. Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images
Rome — Pope Leo XIV called for dialogue and for those with the power to unleash wars to choose peace, in his first Easter Sunday message since becoming the head of the Catholic Church last year.
Speaking from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Leo said: “Let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars and marked by a hatred and indifference that make us feel powerless in the face of evil.”
“Let those who have weapons lay them down. Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace. Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue. Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them,” the pontiff said.
Thousands gathered in the square to hear Leo’s message, with one group holding up a poster in Italian: “Pope Leo we are with you, guide our future.”
In his message, Leo echoed the late Pope Francis’ phrase about the “globalization of indifference,” acknowledging that people are “growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it and becoming indifferent.”
People attend the Easter Mass led by Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on Sunday morning.
People attend the Easter Mass led by Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on Sunday morning. Remo Casilli/Reuters
Pope Leo XIV arrives to preside over Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on Sunday.
Pope Leo XIV arrives to preside over Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on Sunday. Alessandra Tarantino/AP
The pontiff said the power of Easter – when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead – is “entirely nonviolent.”
Leo also used his Easter Sunday message to announce a special prayer vigil for peace in St. Peter’s Basilica, on Saturday, April 11. The late Pope Francis organized a similar vigil in 2013 for Syria – to rally against the civil war and reject military intervention – which was attended by around 100,000 people.
After delivering his message, Leo wished people a happy Easter in 10 languages, including Arabic, Chinese and Latin. He then said the Regina Coeli prayer and gave the traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing, meaning “To the City and to the World.”
Leo XIV’s first Holy Week and Easter takes place against the backdrop of war and has seen him express hope that US President Donald Trump can find an “off-ramp” to end the conflict in the Middle East.
The pontiff said the message of Easter responds to “the cry of pain that rises from every corner because of the abuses that crush the weakest among us, because of the idolatry of profit that plunders the earth’s resources, because of the violence of war that kills and destroys.”
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Who listens to Bobby Prevost, Villanova fan?
I am sure his relatives are cheering
As they say the best thoughts as summarized in articles must have degree of ~predictive power, this one is date 24/3 and foresaw lot of the current mega trends:
https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/over-11000-munitions-16-days-iran-war-command-reload-governs-endurance
PS found/linked by the Surplus people
Significant numbers of advanced munitions have been expended, revealing that battlefield dominance matters less than the industrial capacity to replenish critical stockpiles.
You need a way to replenish munitions to win in the long term.
Italy Sets Jet Fuel Limits at Some Airports on Supply Shortage .
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-05/italy-sets-jet-fuel-limits-at-some-airports-on-supply-shortage
Update on Australia . Matt Mushalik .
https://crudeoilpeak.info/australian-diesel-stock-held-in-march-2026-declined-by-10-in-4-weeks
I find it odd that nowhere on the planet is there a community designed to be long term survivable.
“The least modern tribe in the world, based on all available anthropological and governmental assessments, is overwhelmingly considered to be the Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal. They are widely regarded as the most isolated humans on Earth, maintaining a way of life that has remained essentially unchanged for thousands of years.”
I think they are kept that way by some Indian bigwig in that region who will clear these island when tshf and move his clan there.
the natives won’t last for more than half an hour
Rapa Nui is , for all practical purposes, the personal property of former Chilean president Sevastian Pinera who owns property there
Someone’s been watching too much Gilligan’s Island. I suppose you believe the Chilean president and his clan will survive there. with modern agriculture and industrial tools. If the Chilean president sees this as a future refuge, he has two choices. He will either try to attempt BAU on a small scale and fail or he will adopt the lifestyle of the natives. Both options have a high probability of failure due to the fact the Chilean president and his clan are city folks and unsuited for a life outside of cities.
The australian “aborígines”, after having experienced their own primary ecological collapse from burning forests and driving large herbivores to extinction by overhunting and habitat destruction, have achieved a long term society on the australian continent, with a complex system of habitat management. There’s proof they knew subsistence agriculture from neighbouring pacific islands they traded with, but did not adopt it.
The amazonian basin was since the 1980s proven to be densely populated with cities, a horticultural society, one of the few who managed to *increase* soil fertility over the range of their existence. Also, the composition of trees in the amazon forests is a legacy of their managed ecosystem, with a high number of fruit and nut trees where settlements used to be, as opposed to a lower number where no dense settlements have been.
The pox arrived before the Europeans did; the first colonizers met only jungle. A few who went downstream on the amazon river reported what they saw, later to be believed they had been hallucinating.
Longer term societies have definitively existed.
The ecology of earth is an ever changing system, with the occasional major disruption, a volcano, a comet, or living organisms changing the ecology so far that a tipping point is reached.
In a few thousand years when all the minerals our civilization has lifted from the deep have dispersed never to be recovered, very different kinds of human societies become possible once again.
And with plenty of white genes’
“Aborigine” girls escaping a facility during 1930s
https://youtu.be/Lbnk8wSVMaM?si=MT0ePBRGEjo0RPVx
Not mentioned anywhere in the film:
1. The girls all had white fathers.
2. They were prostituting to the settlers which is why they were removed
3. The girls were eventually recaptured, and after release they did what their mothers did to the whites, and bore 1/4 aborigine girls who continued the process.
The aborigine men’s line died, just like in Tasmania, whose natives all have white Y chromosomes and native X chromosomes as every Tasmanian man was eliminated but the products of white-local union someow survived.
Thank you all, there is hope.
Those communities are being designed and selectively populated but only to last one generation of intense indoctrination. The exclusive tenants of thee DUMBs will train and work in Energy Bastions while modelling the successful re-population of the surface will be the formative ideology. They will return as Davincinian engineers capable of creatively scavenging the remnants under the guidance of Moral Authority Generative Architecture Throttling Individual Supremacy Management.
I would also like to comment on the consequences that the current war in the Persian Gulf has for the war in Ukraine. If we say that the coalition of Israel and the United States is starting to run out of ammunition, both offensive and interceptor missiles, what could be the future of the front in Ukraine, with a Europe on the brink of plunging into a crisis? Do we really think it is likely that Europeans will now come up with the 90 billion in aid that Ukraine is asking for? That sounds quite outrageous, and the future will not be any better, so it is going to be very difficult to keep Ukraine on its feet, completely dependent on foreign financial aid.
That is why I believe that although everyone is going to lose from this tragedy, the main victim will be Ukraine, which should reach an agreement—any agreement—as soon as possible. They can no longer hope for a good deal or major security guarantees. As time goes by—and I mean within a matter of weeks—the situation in Ukraine will visibly deteriorate.
Furthermore, if someone were to commit the atrocity of using nuclear weapons in Iran, it would be like inviting Putin to solve his problems in a similar way, and we would then be in the midst of a gigantic disaster.
I trust that things will not go that far, but the current times do not inspire confidence in anything.
The issue, as always, is that there are now two fronts, and the necessary weapons—with their cost and high technology—are not enough to cover both ends of the blanket. Either you leave your head uncovered, or you leave your feet uncovered.
I also trust that there will be no use of nuclearweapons.
the mainvictim has been Ukraine ever since the USevilEmpire led the coup in 2014.
the USevilEmpire has used Ukraine as a tool to try to desttroy or at least weaken Russia.
Vlad the Great has faced down the USevilEmpire for 25 years and has kept Russia from being desttroyed.
he is the greatest person of this century, by far.
“Barbar pierre
Yes, the echoes of Stalin’s wishful thinking are strong in Putin. His persistent begging since 1999 to be considered an “equal partner” in Imperialism is nauseating. He was strung along for 22 years, while trying to earn kudos in Washington with numerous UNSC votes from Russia in support of Yanki sanctions/aggression against/occupation of other nations, e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, whereas their plan was always to fracture & disarm Russia and provide Putin a similar fate as Milosevic, Hussein or Ghadaffi.“?
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/12/22/ffci-d22.html
he is Vlad the Great.
This post makes no sense. Which Ukrainians is he talking about? Bentley recently had a gala event in Kiev because their cars are sold at a record pace there. And Monaco is full of cars with Ukrainian plates. Zelensky can not have a trip without a stop in UAE to attend business. Probably he means the Ukies who are snatched in the street and sent to the front, with barrier troops in the back. I could partially agree with that, but they had 8 years to get out of there. And why should they take precedence over the Iranians, who have been attacked, or the Palestinians who are being genocided?
“Bentley recently had a gala event in Kiev because their cars are sold at a record pace there. And Monaco is full of cars with Ukrainian plates.”
wow the depth of the Ukrainian ffraud and moneygrabbing of the “defense” funds sent by the USevilEmpire must be huge.
even before the 2022 war began, Ukraine was well known as being one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
We probably will be hearing more details about this in the next few days:
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/tehrans-toll-booth-strait-divides-countries-3-categories
As for more details on this emerging Tehran-erected toll booth: “Following a 90% plunge in traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, as reported by CNBC, Iran has established a highly controlled shipping corridor near Larak Island. The IRGC is now charging tolls starting at $1 per barrel of oil, payable in Chinese Yuan or stablecoins,” describes one source. This could amount to up to $2 million for each ship seeking passage.
As for the vetting process, Russian media – citing Al Jazeera – says there will be three categories:
Iranian authorities have developed a system for managing shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and ensuring passage for vessels from different countries depending on the level of their relations with Tehran, Qatar’s Al Jazeera reported.
According to the TV channel, under Iran’s scheme, all states are divided into three categories: “hostile,” “neutral,” and “friendly.” Countries in the first group will be prohibited from using the Strait of Hormuz, ships from “neutral” states will be subject to high fees, and “friendly” states will be granted the right of free passage through the strait.
Tehran has not provided a complete list of the three categories; however, according to Al Jazeera, virtually all Arab countries in the Persian Gulf are classified as “neutral” or “hostile” states. Under Iran’s plan, these states will either have to pay “substantial fees” or be completely barred from passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Reparations are a bitch…. especially when not in the negotiated peace..
Maybe Trump can sleep on that one..
I wonder if those reparations will be added to the national deficit, you know, the deficit He promised to reduce but so far, hasn’t.
Snow storm in mid-southern Italy (~200km east Rome and ~100km north of Naples) – Not Alps folks! As merely 800+ msl little town suddenly under ~2m of flash snow blizzard.
Wasn’t it just few weeks ago 20++ Celsius temp heat wave in Spain or somewhere on ~similar geo latitude.. ?
What a sim-planet.
The weather is always changing..in more ways than one
Uh, ~physics explanation: a bit up north this site near Rome is 2000+ msl mountain (elongated) range, so when cold air front from the NorthSea passed through it firstly super chilled itself on that pass through and almost immediately then crashed to slightly warmer air – therefore landed on said elevated town like a giant freezer cloud and given some lucky %_moisture content inside it dropped there in the snow form. In a way a rare ~miracle occurrence.. , flooding from that effect are the normal repeating situation though..
the snow segment after 1min vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60QYxdvSweM
(well it’s not 2m more like 1.5+)
Best daylight in person! footage: https://youtu.be/2zkXAdLrY9c
https://youtu.be/b4uVsFpe3Kg
It’s called weather modification. Chemtrails aren’t sprayed just to decorate the sky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vlYRlzidcw&t=960s
At the place linked above, he discusses some realities about EV battery manufacturing.
That interviewed guest is clearly a friend of [ oil refinery biz ], good for him.
Yes, rare earths and metals for EV batts are result of very nasty / dirty extraction.
However, there is also life-cycle analysis, so if you drove combustion car lets say 500k mil per your life-time the pollution from refinery ( as in your % share ) is not insignificant and in certain cases ( %more ) harmful than similar mileage driven in EV and charged from say hydro, PV, natgas, etc.
Obviously, as an extreme outlier there is also a combo of very dirty grid + EV ( based on the worst batt variant ala Cobalt ) which might come in the end on par or even worse to that gasoline car + refinery mode of operation, but this is not set in stone as describe above w. better option in play..
We need different batteries that hold a charge better, can be quickly recharged, and don’t use lithium or cobalt. Instead, they use less toxic minerals. Also, the new batteries should be compact and light in weight. I have read that improved batteries are being investigated, but I don’t think they are yet ready for widespread use.
FinanceMapped: Where Young Adults Live With Their Parents Most
Published 9 hours ago on April 4, 2026
By Gabriel Cohen
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-where-young-adults-live-most-with-their-parents/
One in three U.S. adults (ages 18–34) now live with their parents.
The share ranges from 44.1% in New Jersey to just 12.3% in North Dakota, revealing a wide geographic divide.
High-cost coastal and Northeastern states dominate the top of the ranking.
In 1960, less than a quarter of young adults lived with their parents. This rate increased to 30% by 2010, following the outbreak of the 2008 financial crisis, and peaked at over a third in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Like Gail has said over and over, more of this will happen. MG in Slovakia just posted this of his country’s young adujts
Yes if they are contributing most of them in amurica just do it to travel and not pursue meaningful careers
Going , going gone .
37% of oil inventories that were building in 2025 is gone !
https://x.com/AzizSapphire/status/2040482745286095245/photo/1
The chart indicates that there is still quite a bit left, however.
yes a ways to go just to be down to the late 2024 low on that 10 year chart.
oil is the master resource.
various regions of the world are in for severe disruptions for at least many months ahead, and some of this supply decline surely will be permanent.
Partial BAU Tonight Or Tomorrow Baby 🍼 milk of modern life…got it or get some…all else is window dressing
[ Milk of modern life ]
My carton of acidophilus (probiotic) milk just one day past shelf date (today) already developed some funky fizzling pressure, it’s almost like champagne; mind you no bad smell after-taste, no visuals, no thing. It just somehow mutated or released/-ing such byproducts.
Obviously, some lab people had to put it there (such de/evolving kind of micro culture) initially in the factory..
Plot thickens(sickens)..
Gail , what matters is the location . China’s oil is not going to bail out India , Australia and NZ, US oil is not going to bail out EU . Oil is now hoarded . If you have it , you keep it .
What matters is cost. The majority of those oil reserves require high prices to justify extracting and shipping. Distance adds to the already high extraction cosst but the high extraction costs pretty much guarantees it will be kept–kept in the ground. You can call that hoarding if you want if it helps you sleep better at night.
The Stone Age didn’t end because humans ran out of stones.
The popular narrative is that humans found a cheaper, better substitute. But since necessity is the mother of invention, what incentive did humans have to iinvent a better cheaper substitute if there were plenty of stones?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12588048
“Not all stones are equally useful for tools. For example, your tribe may run out of easily accessible obsidian, which is essentially a cost increase.”
Are we running out ? A chart .
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/2026-04-04_09-56-33.png?itok=E_5QIjX6
Sorry , forgot this .
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/2026-04-04_09-56-33.png?itok=E_5QIjX6
Thanks.
Nicely depicting how the [ lean storage ] infrastructure deployment backfired in [ SouthKorea and Taiwan ] vs mainland CHN and Japan, ..
In other words one of the key aspects in their price competition strategy not to invest in these “dead assets” ( assuming global supply chain ~BAU for ever ).
Nice chart. Too bad Australia and New Zealand were not included.
The US seems to have good oil supplies, compared to other countries shown.
I am bored with the argument by the US ” we have enough oil ” . When will the “barnyard animals ” ( FE) understand that this is a poly (meta ) crisis . This is not your shoelace tie this is the Gordian Knot . Zip at C§E nailed it .
” The Gordian Knot
There is a knot lying on the table. Not a piece of string you can casually untangle, but a tangle without beginning or end. Whoever pulls on it finds that everything moves with it. Whoever waits sees it tighten.
We call it, for convenience, an energy crisis. The price of Brent surges, tankers stall, refineries are hit. But that is only the visible thread. Pull on it and others follow: diesel, jet fuel, sulfur, fertilizer, food. What begins as a disruption in the Strait of Hormuz ends on a farm in Australia where sowing is postponed because there is no fuel.
This is not a chain of cause and effect. It is a web.
Within that web, physical and financial systems become entangled. Higher energy prices suppress production, lower production undermines growth, and without growth, debt becomes heavier. Markets respond, but not in a corrective way. They amplify the tension. Sovereign bonds come under pressure, credit tightens, funds close their gates. What was liquidity yesterday becomes illiquidity today. Price is no longer the signal. Availability becomes the boundary.
At the same time, geopolitics shifts. Alliances waver, military spending surges, countries seek autonomy in weapons, energy, and resources. Trust gives way to precaution. Trade routes become strategic risks. Payment systems become potential weapons. What was once an integrated system begins to fragment into blocs, zones, and competing interests.
And at the bottom of the system, reality appears without filter. Shorter working hours to save energy. Rationing. Panic, violence, criminalization. Not as exceptions, but as logical consequences of scarcity that can no longer be mediated by price. Where nothing is left to distribute, the mechanism of distribution itself disappears.
All of this is still often described in terms of correction and adjustment. As if the system learns. As if shocks lead to a new equilibrium. But that assumes a stable foundation. A table that remains steady while objects on it shift.
That table is now moving.
The idea of antifragility—systems that grow stronger through stress—holds only within limits. Within a toolbox, within a controlled context. Beyond that, feedback ceases to be corrective and becomes entangling. Loops intersect, no longer reinforcing but obstructing one another. What remains is not dynamic equilibrium, but a Gordian knot.
The myth tells us that Alexander the Great solved the problem by cutting through it. This is often seen as decisiveness. But it is something else: a departure from the logic in which the problem existed. The knot was not untangled, but terminated.
Today, similar moments are being sought. Military, economic, political. Decisions that attempt to reduce complexity by bypassing it. But what disappears then is not only the knot, but the network that held it together. The threads remain, but no longer connected.
What emerges is not reordering, but fragmentation. Not a world rearranging itself into a new whole, but a world breaking into parts that no longer move in sync. Energy here, finance there, stability somewhere else. Without any guarantee they will converge again.
The Gordian knot is not a problem awaiting a solution. It is a condition that arises when systems become too tightly intertwined. Whoever tries to untangle it pulls it tighter. Whoever cuts it changes the world in which it existed.
And meanwhile, it lies there. Not as a riddle, but as reality.”
I agree fools like Art Berman will propagate this meme. Remember when trump was elected Art was invited so now you know
I should have added that very many of the supply lines of the US will be broken, however. And we will have a terrible time sourcing replacement parts for things, except by cannibalizing other machinery. We won’t be able to repair electricity transmission or add new electricity transmission.
An awfully lot of parts of the current economy will be broken. We will need to start from scratch, figuring out what we can do. And the fact that all kinds of energy supplies will be harder to source in the future makes the situation worse.
Yes, going to be a rough ride.
But so what? The oil was fast running out anyway and there was little chance of a new system, especially with just about everyone trying to hang on to the old system.
Over the past few years I have been involved in government surveys intended to find out what is needed to progress Tasmania.
Each time I suggest that the local old railway not be used as a recreational bicycle track but preserved if not actually restored (“no we cant do that, we have a good road now {and lots of jobs driving trucks etc so it would be a waste of money})
Ah well, forget the steam train burning residue from local forest works to take city boys (who used to have jobs working on cars petrol stations etc)
out to the fields to plant crops and the trains can bring the crops and the boys back to town.
(Girls also allowed, need stokers on the trains ).
Keep the roads, they won’t need so much maintenance and should keep the bikers, horse drawn vehicles happy.
Look up the records how civilised people lived a hundred years ago, and even during recent war times. Amazing how they managed without oil but they did (animal fat is OK for cart wheels etc).
Might be able to keep electricity flowing, it’s hydro here so for the maintenance crew just need a bit of grease for the cart and some hay for the horses (or bullocks if a new pole needed).
Plenty of room here for more tree plantations for building materials and local heating.
Sailing vessels for bulk transfer of food to the mainland. Maybe something we would need from there but can’t think of anything offhand. Can do without tourists, or immigrants.
Shame I’m getting too old to see the changeover, maybe be next time.
“The CACTUS Lens: A Clearer View”?
https://un-denial.com/2025/11/30/the-cactus-lens-a-clearer-view/
Gail , Patrick Raymond on your article .
https://lachute.over-blog.com/2026/04/perdre-la-guerre.html
The article starts out:
” Losing the war against Iran could be the best outcome for the world. ” A new article by Gail Tverberg on energy news.
I’ll give you my opinion.
The war against Iran is ALREADY lost.
I am of this view, as well, but that would be a different article. It would also be a problematic article to write in the US right now.
So I decided not to tackle this issue, right now.
I read somewhere that the nitrite fertilizer production was reduced 30%-40%.
I have to say that world population will be reduced by a billion, possibly 2, by next Easter.
I have read extensively about the Irish famine. I even commented it in my seldom read blog which I have not updated for years.
https://kulmthestatusquo.wordpress.com/2017/08/31/the-1846-irish-famine-helped-civilization/
Here is the original article for those who do not want to visit my blog.
https://crookedtimber.org/2012/12/13/the-economist-and-the-irish-famine/
The cold truth is the people who were prosperous to live in Dublin felt hardly a thing.
The landowners, even if they were celtic, felt nothing about the starving. Such was the norms of the day. Something which was repeated in Bengal in 1943; in a Satyajit movie made about the famine, the protagonist, a poor teacher who is still a Brahmin, does not die. His family does not die. Most of the dying occurs off screen among people the teacher does not bother to see. The teacher does not have it easy but he still keeps his family alive while most others did not.
Distant Thunder, the best movie about the irish famine while featuring no Irish at all.
https://youtu.be/IvkE0qi0OUw?si=dFNQggKdZ1Jk_Z0v
Those who survived the famine were among the better to do in Ireland and they do not really feel anything about the famine, and few of them were aware of it when irish Americans began to invest in Ireland after WW2. Even now the Irish academics who have no ties to USA are not too critical about the famine. They have plenty of friends in UK whom they do not want to offend.
Something like that is going to take effect this autumn. It is already baked in. Even if every fanatic in Iran drops dead tomorrow and the conflict ends, the screw has already turned.
However most misery will occur in regions people in the core will never visit. So the Core will not even be aware of it.
The analogy will be simple. Those who can afford $10/gallon gasoline will live. Those who can’t won’t live. it is that simple.
Most of these percentages we read regarding reductions are relative to “amounts transported by sea.”
I figured out that with respect to natural gas, that amounts to only 13% of the total, transported as LNG, but I didn’t have a place to include it in the article.
I am also guessing that only part of nitrogen fertilizer, say half, is shipped by sea. The US makes a lot of its own nitrogen fertilizer. So does China and probably Russia. I would not expect any of these to be reflected in the calculation. So, I think the nitrogen fertilizer problem is probably smaller than people are assuming. There has also been a problem with farmers using more nitrogen fertilizer than really is needed. This effect needs to be considered, as well.
I had in the last post linked a podcast of Steve Keen + Micheal Hudson . Steve said 20% of the world’s population gone by 2027 because of the urea problem . My contribution where — Indian Subcontinent + Africa + MENA , yes add small islands example Madagascar , Fiji , etc . Sad , very sad .
This is likely the link you mean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIypIDWQAQw
My thought is that the parts of the world where we are already seeing civil wars and a lot of fighting are places where resources per capita are already terribly low. These are the areas whose populations will be hit hardest by a lack of cheap nitrogen fertilizer.
Steve Keen realizing reante’s hundreds of millions if not billions BNS prediction.
There are two potential oil routes from the Middle East. One route is through the Persian Gulf; the other is through the Red Sea. In fact, Saudi Arabia is already exporting more through the Red Sea. There is a huge problem of too much population relative to resources through this whole area. Current civil wars in many countries is a sign of overshoot. After the part I quote, this article goes on to talk about civil wars in Ethiopia. But there are also the Houthis in Yemen, which this article doesn’t even mention.
From Zerohedge:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/has-concern-over-hormuz-made-us-forget-red-sea
Wartime concerns about the security of maritime energy traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—connecting the Indian Ocean/Gulf of Oman with the Persian Gulf—have overshadowed the fact that the related issue of Red Sea security is far from resolved and is, in fact, becoming more dynamic.
The Red Sea–Suez link between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean is of equal strategic importance to global trade as the Hormuz choke point and is, through geography and common players, intrinsically linked with the Persian Gulf conflict.
But it is Ethiopia’s civil war, brewing with different factions and with varying intensity since the coup against Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1974, which is again moving in ways that could prove decisive.
Always, in the background, is the reality that Ethiopia could revive its historical influence over the Red Sea–Suez sea line of communication (SLOC).
Those who say pipelines can replace the sea routes should go and visit someone who is getting a dialysis.
Dialysis is only 15-20% effective. It is just enough to make the patient alive; someone who can’t get a transplant and is stuck on dialysis machines twice a week doesn’t have a fun life.
Plus these pipelines will be vulnerable to attacks from people like the Houthi.
Some people just talk without thinking.
It always amazes me how people who don’t have the means to feed and clothe themselves have modern weapons than enable them to be a threat to American military dominance.
Something doesn’t add up here.
it was the colossal surplus of oil that put the excess population in the middle east
it will be the depletion of that all that removes it
Reindeer at St. Matthew Island
yup
same thing—different species thats all
Not the same thing. If it was the same thing then we deer civilization constantly competing with people civilization. People civilization can carve out a precarious ledge or two into the Senecan cliff. Because people have foresight. If people didn’t have foresight this blog wouldn’t exist.
Seeing is necessary but (in this case) likely not sufficient to alter the course of events.
Perhaps not but the next couple months should at least make clear to everyone whether there’s a global attempt at altering the course of events. Which is my main reason for being here in hoping that the DA narrative will yield the dividend of most of us being able to see the covert attempt and consequenctly fine tuning the understanding and also the real world strategies accordingly. All of which might make a difference strategically individually or might not but the understanding in and of itself matters on the metaphysical level.
People with foresight are doing very little. The people who are making good preparations based on the complete collapse of civilization must be a small minority from what i see. The majority of them seem to be petitioning the Sam Altmans of the world to provide them with more resources to go “off-grid”. The Sam Altmans have no incentive to grant this wish so the Sam Altmans of this world sell them more products , sell them more dreams to keep them on the grid.
The people most likely to do well are people who never became civilized. and even then, that is iffy because even small groups of roaming people from a collapsed civilization may have a slight advantage.= over the un-cvilized.
in a collective context, the one thing people dont have is foresight….
time and again, dictators have arisen, all with the same spiel–”the contry is in a mess—i am the only person who knows how to fix things”…
and idiots vote for him…
and always the end result is the same…
i had the foresight to see donnie’s intentions, but only in a very broad sense initially. — to much derision among OFW redhatters (and mad hatters).
Now people aren’t laughing quite so much.
now he ignores the constitution and the supreme court, decapitated the military and emasculated congress and the senate.
he intends to station armed ice thugs outsde voting stations in the midterms. (expressly forbidden by the constitution)….
Tell me—who is going to physically prevent him from taking the final steps into full on theo-fascist dictatorship?
i put it to you—there is no one left with the actual means to do that….if you disagree, then point out where that authority lies. he’s pardoned those who invaded congress in 2020….they would be delighted to give a repeat performance.
ICE are now his praetorian guard…..their lives depend on his life.
A 99% population crash is worse than what civilization based diseases did to indigenous populations in the Americas when people from European civilization arrived .
The growth rate of Middle Eastern population still seems to be 2% per year, or a little over. World population growth is estimated to be a little less than 1% per year.
But we have options…sure we do..there was a 40 country brain storming meeting…
When senior officials from 40 countries met virtually this week to discuss how to bring shipping traffic back to the Strait of Hormuz, Italy’s foreign minister had a proposal. He urged them to establish a “humanitarian corridor” allowing safe passage for fertilizer and other crucial goods headed to impoverished nations.
The plan, described after the meeting by Italian officials, was one of several competing proposals from Europe and beyond that were meant to prevent the Iran war from causing widespread hunger. But it was not endorsed by the envoys on the call, and the meeting ended with no concrete plan to reopen the strait, militarily or otherwise.
European leaders are under pressure from President Trump to commit military assets, immediately, to end Iran’s blockage of the strait and tame a growing global energy and economic crisis. They have refused to meet his demands by sending warships now. Instead, they are hotly debating what to do to help unclog the vital shipping lane once the war ends.
But they are struggling to rally around a plan of action.
That partly reflects the slow gears of diplomacy in Europe and the sheer number of nations, including Persian Gulf states, that are invested in safeguarding the strait once the war ends
New York Times…
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/world/europe/strait-hormuz-shipping-iran.html
Looking in the rear view mirror, I’m afraid today, bye, bye surplus useless excess eaters of the world per our Kulmmie
Yummie, yummie,yummie I got 💕 in my tummie
Haha.. wishful thinking
CTG , agree .
” there was a 40 country brain storming meeting…”
The problem is that they left their brains at home . 🤣
Correct me, if I’m wrong, but didn’t you mention earlier, to be the same genetic “Slovakian”, similarly to MG? That would explain it all…
He probably meant / mentioned earlier M. Sefcovic (SVK) who is EU’s Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security.. and Ursula supposedly having crush on him lolz, ..
You’re just still mad we joined Addie Hitter in WW11 as his Slavic Wedge, as he called it, in Russia. My Daddy was sent there on the front, somehow got to France then Canada then USA..lucky comrade
the humanitarian corridor is a non starter. Not everyone is Putin, allowing Ukraine exports declared as help to the 3rd world go to Europe instead (for a year I think). Hey, if the price of fertilizer goes up enough, poop trucks in Dubai could become an exportable asset. I am sure the Iranians would let *that* through.
” Hey, if the price of fertilizer goes up enough, poop trucks in Dubai could become an exportable asset. ”
drb , agree today , but would not yesterday . Poop would be available to a la infinite from India ( 1400 million ) , however because of the LPG crisis now they must use it for the domestic market . Good idea ” “In the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity.” — Albert Einstein . Who am I to argue ? 🤣
Some people think the Don has gone gaga, or is suffering from some form of cognitive impairment, or is not playing with a full deck. And for all we know, there may well be something to such assessments. But all that is by the by. IF he is not actually in control of his administration but is merely a front man following a script while others call the shots, OR alternatively, IF he does have a degree of control but is working to a well-mapped-out-in-advance Machiavellian game plan that straight folks and normies would have trouble wrapping their heads around, THEN questions about senility or competence may the wrong questions.
Craig Murray—and they don’t come straighter than Craig—has written about this in his latest Substack post:
Seeing Trump Clearly
The Calculated Plan Behind the Iran War, Venezuela, and Greater Israel
What if Trump’s apparently chaotic thought processes and intuitive decision making are all a blind, a charade? What if we are really witnessing, in the Middle East and more widely, a carefully constructed plan with very definite objectives? Has Trump in fact “planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway”, while flinging the chaff of apparent chaos? I realise that this is not intuitive, but bear with me…
What kicked off my thinking was the revelation by Lockheed Martin that they had been instructed by Trump, months in advance of the attack on Iran, to massively increase production of interceptor missiles, with a short term goal of quadrupling capacity of THAAD. In January, before the start of the current conflict, Fox News was already reporting on various deals, including a trebling of PAC3 MSE interceptor deliveries, having been finalised between Lockheed and the Department of War.
While obviously there are supply chain and production line constraints on the ability to ramp up production within months, the urgency of this activity—almost entirely focused on interceptor missiles—that started in 2025 is in hindsight a clear indication that early war with Iran was expected. It is plain evidence of premeditation.
The second thing that triggered my thought that this is all carefully planned, is the nature of the breakdown of the nuclear deal talks. It appears there was a broad consensus that Iran offered concessions which made a deal very practical, in particular giving up its stocks of enriched uranium into trust (a proposal Iran had historically rejected when Putin offered to hold the material). Both the hosts, Oman and the British thought a deal was there.
The failure of the talks is being spun as due to the incompetence and lack of technical knowledge of Witkoff and Kushner. But I just don’t buy this. The sending of unqualified negotiators was part of a ploy to use the negotiations as cover for an attack—the second time in a year that the United States had pulled the same trick.
They didn’t need competent negotiators, because they had never intended a good faith negotiation.
The attack on Iran was always planned by Trump. He was not “bounced into it” by Israel. It had been in gestation for months. That fact had been held within a very tight circle to avoid both political opposition and institutional opposition from the US military and intelligence community……
https://savageminds.substack.com/p/seeing-trump-clearly
I would agree with the Saveageminds author.
We have been hearing about a planned attack on Iran for a long time. The US was looking for an excuse to attack, just as it was looking for an excuse to attack in Ukraine. Perhaps the situation was so desperate that the people advising Trump felt that attacking Iran needed to be tried. The US was desperate to keep its hegemony. This is an approach that might work.
For example, this is a comment I made in January 2026, responding to a post if Quark’s, which I had translated from Spanish to English. Quark’s post talked about Trump’s plan to increase the Defense Budget to $1.5 billion dollars.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2025/12/31/2026-expect-a-very-uneven-world-economic-downturn/comment-page-5/#comment-499182
[Quark:] Trump’s recent comment regarding the increase in defense budgets by 50% , to reach 1.5 trillion dollars, seems to reflect the intentions for the coming years to establish world control, via the Pentagon.”
I suppose that could be in the back of Trump’s mind, and in the back of the minds of the oligarchs pulling the strings, but I think it is a far more ambitious plan than is doable. The US doesn’t have the resources. It has already backed down on its Iran efforts, I understand.
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/us-withdrawing-some-personnel-qatar-air-base-over-iran-threat
Quark points out that most of Venezuela’s oil exports now go to China, and Trump would like them all for the US. That sounds quite likely.
He also points out that most of Iran’s oil exports now go to China, but as I say, I am doubtful on the US’s ability to steer Iran’s exports to the US. I suppose Trump can try.
Quark also says:
The US wants to control the oil market, not only because of its importance, but also to strengthen the petrodollar .
That is probably true, but I was of the impression that the petrodollar situation is already beyond saving. The US has made so many enemies with its sanctions that countries are very much interested in leaving the US dollar. Also, the long term agreement that the US had with Saudi Arabia has now run out. It is my understanding that as of January 1, 2026, Saudi Arabia is now accepting other currencies than the US dollar.
Unless China agrees to the deal (which means basically giving up Taiwan allowing Chinese suzerainty in Southeast Asia and probably Australia) petrodollar is not sustainable
The author is a former Uk ambassador to Uzbekistan, meaning he has some govt connection, and still clings to the old ideas.
Toujours préférer l’hypothèse de la connerie à celle du complot. La connerie est courante. Le complot exige un esprit rare. (Michel Rocard)
Translation:
Always prefer the hypothesis of stupidity to that of conspiracy. Stupidity is common. Conspiracy requires a rare mind.
I would agree! A recent link was this one:
https://no01.substack.com/p/so-much-winning
The very first item in this Substack article is about a War Game:
In 2002, the Pentagon spent $250 million on the largest wargame in US military history called ‘Millennium Challenge’. 13,500 participants, 2 years of planning, the works. The idea was pretty straightforward: simulate an invasion of a Middle Eastern country in the Persian Gulf. Suspiciously resembling Iran. The purpose was to demonstrate that America’s technological dominance could steamroll anything in its path.
They picked a retired 3-star Marine named Paul Van Riper to play the enemy.
Van Riper, who spent 41 years in uniform from Vietnam to Desert Storm, took one look at the scenario and did what any self-respecting adversary would do. He ignored it completely. Instead of radios, he used motorcycle couriers. Attack orders were hidden in the daily call to prayer. Swarms of explosive-laden speedboats were sent through the Strait of Hormuz.
And in less than 10 minutes, he sank 16 US warships. An aircraft carrier, 10 cruisers, and 5 amphibious ships. Over 20,000 simulated American casualties. The equivalent of Pearl Harbor, executed with small boats and cruise missiles by a retired Marine with a phone and a bad attitude.
So the Pentagon did what any self-respecting institution does when reality disagreed with the plan.
The ships were un-sank. Van Riper’s forces had to turn on their anti-aircraft radar so it could be easily targeted and destroyed. They even told him he wasn’t allowed to shoot down the incoming 82nd Airborne. The whole rest of the exercise was scripted to guarantee an American victory.
Van Riper walked out in disgust. His parting words: “Nothing was learned from this. A culture not willing to think hard and test itself does not augur well for the future”.
otto you wouldn’t be alive if the civilization ran on stoopidity. Conspiracy requires a rare mind – give me break. Any three year old will conspire with the self-reflective capacity of his own three-year old mind to lie about having had his hand deep in the cookie jar. It’s just a manipulation. Many mammal species are capable of premeditated deceit for chrissakes.
I think that stupidity explains a lot of things. Common sense would suggest that the “home field advantage” is overwhelming for Iran. The country has had help from China, and perhaps Russia, in making its little missiles and drones very accurate. You con’t need a conspiracy theory to figure that out.
I think that the games being played may be/probably are on another level to the ones that are publicly advertised, or to the ostensible (stated, appearing, or claimed to be true, but not necessarily so) explanation for why things happen.
Hence, the leaders of country A may be prioritizing other interests to those of the nation they lead, and they may achieve victory for their group, side, or faction by allowing their country to be defeated in war.
One doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorists to suspect or believe that political leaders in many countries often work against their own countries’s best interests.
There is no rule of logic or natural law that prevents traitors and corrupt compromised individuals from getting their hands on the levers of power.
Also, it is much more feasible for a clever, talented manipulative scoundrel to rise to the top of any organization than it is for a stupid or incompetent person, no matter how honest the latter may be.
That’s why I don’t buy the stupidity defense for national leaders. It reads too much like an excuse.
But you do need a conspiracy theory to not figure that out. You need a conspiracy to go against all of your own intelligence services assessments. The war is built on collective lies which are conspiracies to not tell the truth out of ulterior motives.
“Toute guerre repose sur la tromperie. C’est pourquoi, lorsque nous sommes capables d’attaquer, nous devons paraître incapables ; lorsque nous utilisons nos forces, nous devons paraître inactifs ; lorsque nous sommes proches, nous devons faire croire à l’ennemi que nous sommes loin ; lorsque nous sommes loin, nous devons lui faire croire que nous sommes proches.”
— Sun tzu, L’art de la guerre
Translation:
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
― Sun tzu, The Art of War
Murray, like a good Scottish apparatchik for the British Empire, still believes that USA (and by corollary UK) will win in the end.
Of course it is planned. However whoever did the planning underestimated the persian strength and overestimated the US Israel alliance strength.
>Given another year of destruction at the current levels of intensity, I do not believe that Iran would effectively be sending many missiles and drones back in self-defence. In a week or two we will hit the period of maximum Iranian effectiveness, where depletion of US-supplied interceptor missiles coincides with Iran retaining significant strike power. Israel’s fragile civilian morale will then be tested severely for a few weeks.
>Iran’s capacity to defend against massive, years-sustained aerial bombardment is limited. We should not blind ourselves to that fact out of current joy at the Americans and Israelis getting a bloody nose.
Again Murray thinks this is a repeat of the World Wars, when USA bailed out the misadventures of United Kingdom. Who will bail out USA and Israel ? China?
Granted it was well planted. But not as perfectly as planned since they never really spent too much time about researching how the persians would react, and forgetting that UK and USSR tried to divide persia during WW2 and so Iran’s leaders did not trust Russia.
Interesting angle..
There are many sites on this topic, this one is ~less propagandized than by usual globo-standards. They claim Soviets were promised oil concession in northern Iran proper ( not just -stans northerly swallowed by USSR earlier ), which was after WWII not followed up through..
https://www.gw2ru.com/history/87809-stalin-tried-to-annex-iran
as per search: ” iran oil ussr 1946 ”
PS perhaps interesting in the unspoken underlying sense all key parties worrying eventually NOT having of these OILz enough..
Point taken, Kulm.
You may be correct, although I guess we will have to wait and see.
The British Empire has come back from the brink so many times, and the Iranians have risen only to be crushed so many times, and the US is such a rogue elephant that has trampled over the sovereignty of little countries for so long that it is hard for me to imagine that imperialists will actually take the fall this time. Although I concede they are long overdue for some serious karma.
Remember back when Hollywood movies and their audiences knew all about and appreciated the dance of deception.
The ‘tail’ doesn’t wag the ‘dog’?
An ‘Existential threat’?
“To retain its military power and reserve currency the US needs leverage to force China to provide it with rare earth minerals, and the US intends {intended} to use Iran’s oil as that leverage.“?
https://un-denial.com/2026/03/05/cactus-view-of-the-iran-war/
I can believe that.
“To retain its military power and reserve currency the US needs leverage to force China to provide it with rare earth minerals, and the US intends {intended} to use Iran’s oil as that leverage.“
Oh Gail you’re just running interference on the DA again. I appreciate that. We wouldn’t want to exceed the Dunbar Number.
According to Iranian media, the US and Israel have attacked several large petrochemical sites in the Khuzestan province near the border with Iraq.
The area between Mahshahr and Bandar Imam Khomeini are home to some of the Iranian largest petrochemical complexes.
$ 200 oil is coming up .
https://x.com/JavierBlas/status/2040372287849865356
One of the commenters on this thread says:
Khuzestan isn’t just oil. It’s the industrial core of Iran’s entire petrochemical export capacity. Hitting Mahshahr and Bandar Imam Khomeini isn’t a warning shot – it’s a structural decision. The difference between disrupting supply and dismantling the infrastructure that produces it is the difference between a temporary shock and a multi-year reconstruction problem. Oil markets haven’t priced the second scenario yet.
Another commenter says:
Khuzestan isn’t a random target. Mahshahr and Bandar Imam Khomeini are where Iran’s petrochemical export capacity lives.
You don’t hit those sites to slow oil flow — Hormuz already does that.
You hit them to remove Iran’s ability to rebuild revenue after a ceasefire.
This is about the postwar economy, not just the current one.
Of course, if it is not possible to get a high enough price for selling these products, the whole system would be non-economic. That seems to be an underlying issue.
David with many names will be happy that he is vindicated