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.
Asia onshore inventory ex China . World total SPR not important . Who owns it ,that is what counts . Location as per my post .
https://x.com/HFI_Research/status/2048842161941332410/photo/1
The U.S. is mostly a net exporter of natural gas liquids .
https://x.com/aeberman12/status/2048966148272652351/photo/1
well certainly, as a large light oil and shale producer
Israel ordered the department of war to nuke Iran. It refused the order!!!!! We see in this that China has more control over the department of war then Israel. Thank God.
Who is Israel in this context?
Here’s a little-known analyst who gives infrequent but well-researched updates on oil topics. She only has 3 videos up over the last 4 years. Here she is on the recent oil shock:
“19% of global crude supply and **nearly 44% of global crude exports** were transiting the straight of Hormuz prior to the blockade”
Export Land Model concepts are in play
It’s really quite amazing how calm markets are when multiple analysts provide analysis like this. Semiconductor explode higher the last two weeks as the consequences of the war become clear. I’m not sure “labor shortages” adequately describes the situation if desalinization plants are hit or even if the power grids go down in the hot season which is now. Those mad max events aside the reality is that even if a peace agreement is made the security of the region will be uncertain and this will not encourage capx or labor. The labor in some of these nations is above 90 percent foreign not passport jolders. If I was working their I would be transporting myself home ASAP.The Gulf nation monarchs are political and religious adversaries to Iran. They may not choose to continue to reside in their nations with Iran established as a dominant force in the area. As noted they all own palace type residences in many western countries . Not to be rude but the floors gains and climate of these nations is not particularly desirable.As long as Iran remains a peer military demonstrating both ballistic missile and drone capabilities any capx ventured even repairs is at risk . Offsetting that perhaps will be high price until demand destruction. Monarchs may well take their billions and exit for the west. Another question is whether political stability internally will allow them to stay. And if they don’t want to invest capx in the repairs who will? This is why the monarchs are encouraging the war continue. They can’t stay if Iran wins. If they have nothing to lose. If Iran wins they leave. If Iran loses they stay. Either way they will be living a extremely luxurious life. IMO that is very questionable if capx will be available for repairs to the infrastructure and labor to do so. And that’s just as things stand with a magical peace somehow peace is achieved when two of the parties regard each other as existential threats. Worse than the 70s worse than 2008 if a peace agreement was brokered tomorrow. If war resumes it’s much worse than even that. But has it really stopped? Fighting continues in Lebanon. The true catastrophe would be all militaries opening up on the oil infrastructures. That would be something we have never seen before in modern history. Even now that’s true but it might not be face eating time. How the hell are you supposed to inform your family and friends about this? Oh by the way face eating time by 27.
Thanks Ivan. Her background is amazing. I pulled this entry from her X account in April 2024.
1. US production is much lower than stated
2. Russia production impacted by sanctions & war
3. Saudi production at risk from warfare breaking out around the Persian Gulf
4. 2nd largest field in Mexico is on fire
My guess is that few of the latest crop of financial journalists have ever seen any Road Runner cartoons, and so it doesn’t occur to them that what investors are “looking past” is a cliff.
P. S. If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed and stock markets remains aloft indefinitely, this will convince me that financial markets are now completely and permanently decoupled from physical reality. Does that seem like a plausible scenario?—– Kurt Cobb
https://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-iran-conflict-and-our-wile-e-coyote.html#more
Rehypothecation is one means for this being achieved. That, and I doubt anyone is doing any real audits of the big funds.
When the burning starts… it will be epic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM-yqtSU2zg
(( It will look sort of like this ))
Ecosystems frequently burn when conditions change so that the plants and animals are no longer as well adapted to the new situation. Burning clears the way for the growth of new life forms.
I found this image whose source was listed as Pinterest.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/wile-e-cayote-image-1.jpg
(I spelled coyote wrong in the title.)
AI is the ACME catalog in this metaphor.
I don’t think swap lines do very much. The amount of bank reserves in the system doesn’t matter. What matters is counterparty risk. An infinite amount of bank reserves isn’t going to change counterparty risk.
Eurodollar credits made by collateralized lending and bank reserves aren’t the same thing. One is real money that is accepted globally. The other is an interbank token.
The UAE doesn’t need bank reserves. They need collateral. Nobody uses bank reserves as collateral in the Eurodollar market.
All the Fed has is bank reserves.
People believe central banks have way more power than they actually do.
No of course that’s not a plausible scenario.
This is a 15 minute video that almost entirely features Jeffrey Sachs talking about his concerns about where this war could be headed. He literally wrote the book on the oil shocks of the 1970s. He has a number of concerns now:
One of them is the financial shock effect of the loss of oil, which could be greater than the 1970s. Both layoffs and high oil prices. Whole world could be in recession.
Another concern is that the situation in Iran could escalate. The US could bomb more sites in Iran, and Iran could take a whole lot of oil production infrastructure. This would mean that the Middle East oil and the fertilizer shut-down would be permanent. The UAE seems to already be aware of this issue; it is asking for a financial back stop from the US. If oil production stops, people will withdraw their money from UAE banks, causing a huge problem.
Another concern is that the US is not really in control of what it is doing. It should have figured out by Day 2 that its strategy was not working. It should has quit then.
Another concern is that the US keeps lighting fuses. There seems to be a number of ships from China headed toward Iran? What do they want? Will Trump make good choices?
Another concern is the major El Nino that seems to be headed this way this year. The biggest El Nino in the past was associated with crop losses in tropical and subtropical areas.
(I would note that it has been very dry in Georgia where I live, so far this year. This is why there are fires now. The forecast is for very few Atlantic Hurricanes. We usually depend on rain associated with these hurricanes for associated moisture. This could mean continued dry weather in the Southern US, including Georgia and Florida.)
Seems like the Polycrisis’ fuse has been lit….
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
But then, we see Japan STILL not going bankrupt after many years of it being right at that moment; and even today with fuel prices… it still isn’t happening.
I’m at 10% that all of this is just one big farce.
I am concerned about this issue, too.
Governments will continue to add more debt as long as people will believe that the promises of governments can be used to provide useful goods. The US is busy bailing out budget airlines, even though, without enough jet fuel, getting rid of them would help the stronger airlines succeed. This is in addition to the Iran war.
If there are huge number of banks going bankrupt, and the US tries to bail them all out, this could lead to hyperinflation and the end of the debt cycle.
Somehow, in the financial world, everything goes up, more or less together, until there is one big everywhere crash? This is when Christ comes again, according to believers in this scenario?
Or what is left of the world economy regroups around what the energy supply is left, and attempts to go forward, with a smaller population. More efficient techniques may be used in the future, which may allow some redevelopment of a few oil fields, especially if Middle East population is lower (so high taxes are not needed).
I couldnt see the link to that video Gail?
This is the link I gave.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugt9eDWL9_c
I will also write it with brackets around the edges.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugt9eDWL9_c]
I listened the the whole 2hr interview at work last week. It really is Sach’s BNS ‘masterpiece’ so far. Saved it for Tucker, the biggest platform. There’s a hilarious section about halfway through in which they are absolutely burying the Evangelical Zionists. Really rubbing their noses in their own Zionism. Sachs hitting them where it hurts in saying that nowhere in the Gospels is there support for any of this, only contradiction. Referred to two other parts of the Bible also because three is the magic number. Sachs is a secular Jew who’s heavily informed by progressive Catholic social teachings, and is even a long term close advisor to the Vatican. Here’s a picture of two Hand logisticians, Diesen and Sachs, at the Vatican last July where a third logistician lives.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1D2wKw5GGM/
Your perspectives are always interesting Reante.
Hey thanks dog. I was a little concerned you were signing off again in your comment below when you thanked Gail.
Always really respected Even more now that he is accepting the physical world a bit.. I do think he overestimates the ability for the organism to change.
You take a old brawler. His technique worked well in his youth. All of a sudden tit don’t work. Will he stop brawling? Iny experience probably not. It’s it’s part of his model. Will he go out and learn new technique probably not. You would think getting pepper sprayed and stomped would allow him to consider. And maybe for a bit it does but then whoops there it is.btrying to use the same old gig that worked so well in the past getting shown to be disastrous. All sorts of things that are stupid and he knows are stupid.
Clever not sophisticated.
Look at Sachs. The epitome of diplomacy
A very sophisticated and effective technique to avoid cessation.
Obviously he should be in a key position in the organism. Instead he is expelled by body organism as if he was harmful. And he is but not to the organism to the organisms operating system.
I thought it was interesting. El nino. Waters unique ability to hold energy. Ultimate power. Best pay attention to the physical.
The brawler goes back down to the bar. Somehow he. Still thinks he is 22. He constantly reinforces this with his words. I sure hope he goes home. He almost never does..everyone hopes he goes home. .at one point the bar was a bit fond of him.they get what he is. Now he is just a pain in the ass
Thanks Gail. For everything.
good video this guy is one of The Insiders who has been attending the secret meetings at build-a-burg for many years in the video he tells us what their plans are it is all over now guys you better stock up because the food will start disappearing off the shelves you heard what he said about the uraya without this ingredient fertilizer will not be able to be produced along with the gas facilities that were blown up.and what he actually saidthis is all permanentso there is no going back to the previous Worldthe dystopian world is now upon us.things will never be normal againbusinesses usual is finished
in a way you can see that the reason that Elders have allowed one of The Insiders to speak through Tucker Carlson is because they are supporting transparency to the people that are listening they are allowing for people that are listening to prepare when all this is done and dusted in a couple of years that will probably be only two billion people left and the world will continue think about it Norm you guessed that the world system would be taken out in the mid 2020s now this happens it is too much recoincidence don’t you think so.the video also clearly states that we have less than three weeks to go so don’t waste any time.
For sometime I have questioned whether endless war is possible in a world with finite energy. Endless war also implies no work is done the war itself is the desired outcome. As we see war technology is moving to techniques that use much less energy such as the drone revolution. Still a lot of energy is consumed. Jypersonic missile fuel doesn’t flow from springs. Biological weapons seem to struggle with selectivity requiring high tolerance for collateral damage. It appears to me since the crux of the matter is energy the rather simple technique being adopted is cessation of energy for the enemy. But how much energy does THAT take.
I don’t think the weapons expended in the Gulf will be replaced. That’s clearing out old stock. Ditto for Ukraine. Those could have provided more deterent closer to home.Iran was misjudged. Ke sera.
Old military technology is like that trans am in the garage. Impressive in it’s time. It just sucks too much guzoline. You end up in a Nebraska Walmart with a sign.
As Ravi kindly provided us with information. The food input alone for the fleet is unsustainable. It appears nothing much has changed. Conquering army’s still use local food sources. It’s just now they pay dollars for them. Problematic if food itself is in short supply. Marines are not shy eaters. The fleet is not a shy diesel consumer.
Mearshiemers conclusion is endless war best case scenario. A finite planet does not allow endless war with current military technology. Either something new arrived that uses little energy or a conclusion is reached. One conclusion would be cessation of war. IMO this we will keep Ukraine going until 39 is nonsense. We hit the wall now. Things will change. Either militarys introduce a energy efficient solution or peace breaks out simultaneously with famine.
Nuclear weapons are old stock too. That the probability they will be used as conventional weapons deplete can not be discounted. Obviously their use is preferable to peace breaking out.
What if we had a war and no energy came? Would that be good thing? It depends on how hungry you are.
The cheap asymmetric weapons cost disparity is the new Jevon’s Paradox. Drones are so cheap we can now “afford” to make millions of them and keep attacking each other’s energy supplies round the clock. Burn, baby, burn. Not Disco Inferno. I mean “fire, to destroy all you’ve done.”
Fire is often the way ecosystems bring about a change when conditions are no longer right for the species living in an area. I suppose it works for human systems too.
You make an interesting point.
There is a second area where reaching energy limits is a problem:
One concern people have is that we have many cooling ponds for uranium that has served its purpose in power plants. These cooling ponds require a continuous supply of electricity to remain cool. The assumption has always been made that even if the particular nuclear power plant is off line, electricity will always be available from outside. This assumption clearly is not true.
If electricity is permanently off in an area, keeping cooling ponds cool will no longer work. Then we could theoretically have explosions related to cooling pond problems.
“@MushtaqBilalPhD
Sci-Hub is an evil website that pirated 85M+ research papers and made them freely available
And now they’ve added AI to their database to make Sci-Bot.
It answers your questions using latest, full-text articles.
But DO NOT use it. We should all try to make billion-dollar academic publishers richer.
I’m putting the link below so you know how to avoid it.”
https://x.com/MushtaqBilalPhD/status/2048670788883280230?s=20
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https://sci-bot.ru/
If there is not enough jet fuel, it would seem to me that some of the budget airlines need to go out of business. Yet, in the US, the government is considering propping up a bunch of these airlines. The list of airlines that want government equity investment now includes Spirit, Frontier, and Avelo.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/battered-budget-airlines-ask-white-house-25-billion-lifeline
Battered Budget Airlines Ask White House For $2.5 Billion Lifeline
Budget airlines have requested a $2.5 billion relief package from the Trump administration following a meeting with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy early last week. This comes as elevated jet fuel prices squeeze operations, and after President Trump confirmed late last week that a possible U.S. takeover of bankrupt Spirit Airlines is under consideration.
Spirit Aviation Holdings, the airline’s parent company, has faced mounting headwinds, with rising jet fuel costs tied to the conflict in the Middle East, where Iran has shut the Strait of Hormuz, adding strain as it works to restructure after multiple bankruptcy filings. The carrier last turned a profit in 2019, according to Reuters, and has lost more than $2.5 billion since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the aviation industry.
Michigan-founded carrier faces cloudy future
Spirit got its start in Michigan, originally as a small charter company in the 1980s known as Charter One. It has grown to offer the second-most flights at Detroit Metro Airport, behind Delta Air Lines Inc., according to passenger data from the Wayne County Airport Authority.
Spirit’s passenger figures at Detroit Metro Airport rank fourth in its network, behind Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Orlando International Airport and Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, according to U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics data. The airline holds its largest market share in Fort Lauderdale at 26.6%, followed by Orlando at 11.5% and Detroit at 11.3%.
Lots of jobs lost and trickle effects of the economy, not good
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2026/04/26/spirit-airlines-detroit-metro-airport-dtw-proposed-bailout/89666099007/
Years ago, there were many more flights to small airports. But airlines have had a hard time making them economic.
This looks to me like what could put an end to US AI:
https://www.zerohedge.com/ai/not-normal-chinas-deepseek-cuts-new-ai-model-fees-again
“This Is Not Normal”: China’s DeepSeek Cuts New AI Model Fees, Again
DeepSeek senior researcher Victor Chen announced on X that the company’s newly released DeepSeek-V4-Pro model will be offered at a huge discount over the next week, a move that threatens to unleash an AI platform price war just as Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google are rolling out newer, more expensive models.
“Second price drop in two days! On top of the base 75% off, stack an extra 90% discount for cache hits. That brings it down to just 0.003625 USD/0.025 RMB per 1M input tokens with cache hit ~ 🎉💰 Go wild and have fun ~,” Chen wrote in a post on X late Sunday night.
He added, “Just a heads-up: the cache discount is permanent, while the base 75% off promo runs until May 5, so make the most of it while you can!”
The Roman Empire and the Western Empire: Collapsing Along Parallel Paths
https://senecaeffect.substack.com/p/the-roman-empire-and-the-western
Ugo Bardi talks about energy supply being the base of all civilizations, including the civilization of Rome.
In both cases, the crucial element is the energy supply. For the modern West, energy comes mainly from fossil fuels. In the Roman case, energy was generated indirectly from precious metal mining; silver, and gold. The mechanism worked by using silver to pay soldiers who would plunder neighboring regions, generating energy in the form of slaves. Slaves would then be used to mine more precious metals, and the process would feed on itself, generating an enhancing feedback. Gold went through the same cycle, although it was more an element of prestige among the elites.
The problem the Romans faced was that mineral precious metals were not infinite, and they progressively became scarcer and more expensive to mine.
Sounds like the problem we have now with fossil fuels.
I would say the Roman fuel was grain. Grain would fuel not only slaves but also ox-carts.
The book “Against the Grain,” by James C. Scott certainly would argue that the Roman fuel, and that of other civilizations, was grain. Areas that depended on tuberous plants for calories did not form cities. They could not store potatoes as well.
This was very good article and would like to provide additional footage to be included. Believe it or not, the Empire suffered a pandemic plague under Marcus Aurelius that was brought over from the wars with the Persian Empire under his Co- emperor ruler, Lucius Versus. Unlucky Lucius even died from it, much to the relief of Marcus.
Also, as we are doing, the Romans mined their soil of fertility and much tracks were abandoned because of it.
Not only foreign armed conflict sucked the Empire, but between rival generals vying to upstart to the Imperial throne. Civil wars were the norm and Diocletian attempt was not a success. No orderly succession was ever in place.
I read also that one Emperor, Caracalla, little boot gave every resident of the Empire Roman citizenship….just to expand the tax base….even though it did little to integrate foreign tribesmen in the fabric of society.
It got bad when one tribe was admitted and rebelled because of the harsh treatment with the battle of Andrianople, wiping out most of the Eastern army and killing Emperor Valens.
I could go on, but this comes to mind
I agree about the vaccines: if Israeli citizens were given the mRNA vaccine, then there’s no foul play.
Uncle Eddy is wrong on this one; the Epstein Nostra wouldn’t poison all their tribal flock.
The plandemic had other motives.
Perhaps the test in Israel was to cement the relationship between the US and Israel.
That is retarded thinking. TPTB aren’t religious.
I think Uncle Eddy was very right. There was only less drama than he expected. The world is heading towards less oil right? In 30 days, when the Chinese stocks are done. Consumer goods, spare parts and electronics will decline, food will get sparse because of ferilizer problems.
Is this meant to reduce population or is that an adaption to the growing cancer rates?
There are a few physicians who point to the cognitive effects of the spike, amoung them Michael Nehls. That might be an explanation for having less drama than expected.
Religions all over the world teach that their Gods have created humans as brothers. Followers understand this as God’s order to kill their brothers in the name of God. It also might be an effect of the Crown. It might be explained by less mental flexibility due to damage in the hippocampus, but I am no specialist.
Tanks rolling into the streets of Whales in the UK.
https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2048602283596750954
Armed soldiers now patrolling the streets of Toronto, Canada
https://x.com/Tablesalt13/status/2048050518669303952
I wonder if there is an energy lockdown they will need the military to enforce it. The reason is that covid was something brand new that sorta swept the world off its feet. And if they try another lockdown it may not be so easy.
A comment on the first one says:
““Tankies” themselves will tell you that the days of Tank Warfare is over.
A converted containership with 150 drones – from whichever rogue nation – could drop anchor in the Channel and disable the South East.”
A comment on the second one says:
“What a joke. Gee if only we had a government that actually had laws on the books that prosecuted criminals and kept them in jail or deported illegals back to the country they came from.”
Global strategic petroleum reserves plus commercial oil inventories total 8 billion barrels. This means it can cover 1,000 days of losses of 8 million barrels of crude oil per day. But it’s impossible for the strait to be blocked for three years, so will we be fine?
Honestly, I didn’t expect to have so many oil reserves. Even at half the current level, they could last for more than a year. This really makes me question those pessimistic views.
Ravi, Explain Like I’m 5
OK Echo , my best take .
1 . 8 billion who said that ? I don’t recall even the IEA saying anything like this . So speculation OR just to form a narrative that there is nothing to worry about . DJT has won the Iran war now 59 times and wheels have been falling off the Russian trucks since 2022 .
2 . We must differentiate between ” commercial inventory ” and ” SPR ” ? No agency has separate data . The refineries will keep drawing into the SPR first before they start with depleting their commercial inventory . Once the commercial inventory gets started drawing down it is party over . The pipelines are empty .
2 A . How much of the SPR is oil and how much is sludge ? Don’t know . What are the API grades in different SPR’s worldwide ? Don’t know . Refineries run on oil blends .
3 . Understanding refineries are a 24/7 business . They make lots of money at 95% operational capacity , 70-75 % break even and 60 % to be operational ( but lose money) . Below 60% they have to shutdown because there is no pressure in the pipeline to push the liquid thru . Currently according to the info I have the world is operating at 65- 67 % capacity so as to prolong the crude inventory they have .
4 . Location : China has an SPR of 1.3 billion barrels . Will they sell / share it with the EU ? No . Same with Japan . In time of shortages hoarding is the name of the game .
5 . All governments will latch on to a bit of positive news to keep the public from panicking . So expect a lot of disinformation from official channels until they come out in the open because the physical reality is too much to hide like it has happened with jet fuel .
6 . I have followed peak oil and gas for 20 years but I am caught with my pants down with Urea , Sulfur and Helium . I had no inkling about this .
The collapse is not like the sun which rises in the East and sets in the West . It is going to be patchy .
Hope this answers your questions .
Thanks
The source of the 8 billion may be an AI Hallucination.
I can now agree with Davidinaxxx’s point that BAU can indeed be maintained for a few more years. The day of civilization’s collapse will be the moment when oil production from the US, Saudi Arabia, and Russia simultaneously drops dramatically.
Where is Comrade Davidina, recently?
Very linear thinking
Global inventory . Hope this will help .
https://x.com/ericnuttall/status/2048760946886168859/photo/1
Nice chart!
Regarding refinery utilization. My impression is that refineries tend lose money at higher utilization rates than you suggest. The only time US refineries operate at slightly less than 80% of capacity is during major recessions. They normally operate at more than 90%.
ttps://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MOPUEUS2&f=A
What happens is that refineries that are no longer operating at a high enough percentage of capacity are shut down. The peak capacity of US refineries was in 2019. The US started shutting down refinery capacity in 2020, when utilization was a bit under 80%.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MOCLEUS2&f=A
Also, how much can actually be removed from these SPRs can actually be removed is not clear. My impression was that the US was trying to promise more oil than it actually had available. The hope might have been that the early oil that had been sold would be repaid with interest, so it could be lent out again.
I too am carefully watching this… it’s part of the game of chicken. If the U.S can keep oil prices low enough for long enough they can outlast Iran. Even if it is only perception. I just don’t know how they could come to an agreement at this point.
Asymmetric impact globally / regionally.
Ricocheting – cascading blowbacks in various (most) global supply chains.
vs.
In other words, this would be way less dramatic issue during the top of Cold War era in terms of structurally more autonomous econ/societies and domestic policy toolz available. Aka the impact: impoverished – starved 2.5-3rd world, reaction: hm ok. Less fuel for few years time in the primary civ centers: hm ok..
I am always skeptical about information provided by governments .
” I’m in Seoul right now, and the Korean and Japanese governments are losing their minds promoting how much crude supply they’ve secured. A lot of it is just pure political propaganda.
For instance, there’s a massive overlap between the supplies Korea and Japan claim to have locked down. UAE exports are down to ~2mb/d, yet both governments are bragging about securing volumes that, when added up far exceed that capacity.
Most of the oil they’re talking about is basically phantom barrels—it’s not even clear if those volumes actually exist or can be delivered. ”
If Japan has big reserves then why were all Japanese TV channels showing this clip of a tanker arriving in Tokyo carrying 900,000 barrels of crude from USA . Shipping time is 35 days .
https://x.com/JavierBlas/status/2048310496260948246
I think Korea and Taiwan at least outbid basically Amy other countries. Taiwan for example successfully bid for the only shadow fleet VLCC (2mb) making it out on the single day Hormuz was open. China is securing more oil then ever before too. It’s the poor Asian countries who get absolutely zero basically.
Europe hasn’t understood the system properly either and receives very little supplies concerning oil or jet fuel.
I’m not well informed about Japan. They do have the biggest storage apart from China however. China is playing refined oil products for geopolitical favours. There also exporting more than ever before…
So either you’re a rich country now willing to pay, or friends with Russia or China. That’s the deal.
I concur with both of you. I know nothing of Korea but Japan I know. The price they are paying, for Gulf crude which is the best or one of the best, is the real price of oil right now however. And it is probably closer to and higher than 150 dollars than whatever other number is bandied about (right now, prices will change). at last they do not have to scurry about looking for dollars, they want to thin their Treasury holdings and anyway some of it is not paid in dollars.
Of course SK, Taiwan and Japan are paying the premium price to get the oil . The problem is that because of the SoH closure and the bombing of the Russian facilities , USA is now the largest source of physical delivery of crude and refined products . Currently the buyer /seller ratio is out of whack .
“Japan received its first U.S. crude oil shipment since the Iran crisis disrupted Middle East supplies.
The tanker OTIS delivered about 910,000 barrels of Texas light crude to a refinery near Tokyo after a ~35-day via the Panama Canal—bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.
Japan normally gets ~90% of its oil from the Middle East.”
Read this thread to get a better picture .
https://x.com/clashreport/status/2048351051745480719
Two comments from the thread:
“One single oil tanker from America shows up and Japanese TV treats it like the Super Bowl finale. That is how short Asia is on crude right now the barrel basically just became a national celebrity.”
and
“Japanese broadcasters report that the tanker has arrived in Japan, but they do not report that it is only half a day’s worth for domestic use.”
Large scale attack of NATO backed ” jihadists ” in russia backed Mali . Minister of defense killed .
According to the Oracle Norman Pagett those are random attackers with no external backing , the arms and the starlink terminals just happpened to fall from the Sky .
Sorry for being a tin foil hat wearer , barnyard animals are smarters than me , I need to go back to watch bbccnn to see the truth AMEN
It looks like a group had to be involved with this attack. The attack occurred today.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/26/malis-defence-minister-sadio-camara-killed-amid-coordinated-attacks
Mali’s Defence Minister Sadio Camara killed during coordinated attacks
Death of key figure seen as big blow for Mali’s military government as fighting with armed groups continues.
Camara’s residence in the garrison town of Kati came under assault on Saturday during simultaneous attacks by an al-Qaeda affiliate and Tuareg rebels. . .
“He was one of the most influential figures within the ruling military leadership and had been seen by some as a possible future leader of Mali,” said Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque, who has reported extensively from Mali.
“His death is a major blow to the country’s armed forces.”
Haque said attackers carried out a suicide car bomb assault on Camara’s residence in Kati, a heavily fortified military town about 15km (9 miles) northwest of the capital, Bamako, where Interim President Assimi Goita also lives.
Camara’s second wife and two of his grandchildren were also killed in the attack on his home, the AFP news agency reported.
“Kati is considered one of the most secure locations in the country, yet fighters from the al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), along with Tuareg fighters from the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), were able to launch the attack”.
Smells like Emmanuel Maccarone Spirit
Eddy, you have your own website now, and yet you come back to harass Norm. How is NZ treating you? Or did you up and move? … I forgot.
Last I checked participation was rather sparse at his blog. Yes Eddy hows tricks? How’s Hoolio?
He (surprisingly?) gets a decent number of comments, but posts more frequently than Gail, so they get broken up between many posts.
Not really Fast Eddie.
Tribal Matrix et al
Well only FE worships FE, so give it a second thought.
Yes. FE self reinforcement is unique in its overtness. So if Gail is correct this is a imposter which is actually supported by the username some degree of effort has been exerted to mimic one of FE trademarks. As usual motive remains opaque.
reante also overtly self reinforces with the best of em. Going third-person is part of that because it reinforces the idea that god mode is an out of body experience lol.
Wasn’t Eddy referring to himself in the plural for a while re we and us? Cracked me up Some languages do that as respect markers. Only dogs and children are singular. Ki
eddy was amusing
but only in the sense that he was venting his own insecurities and inadequacies…
it is a common trait with people of that type…..from presidents down to the common herd…
With AIs penchant for emulating people could ” faux Eddy” be AI? Thousands and thousands of ai videos on you tube faking real humans.
if this is fast Eddy or just an imposter what country are you sitting at the moment on your holiday.
F.E . believes that Laser reflectors magically appeared on the moon!
Time, date and mission number!
Otherwise B/S!
At least he doesn’t believe in abiotic oil like a lot of the barnyard animals
Trump has started wars but hasn’t been assassinated. Same with George W Bush and several other presidents. Kennedy didn’t want to start any wars and got assassinated for it. Who was the last president to get assassinated for starting wars?
I gather you mean wars for the cabal and not wars against the cabal. Kennedy started a war against the cabal. The cabal won that war. Lincoln unwittingly started a war for the cabal and then a year later started one against the cabal. So he had two wars running simultaneously. Six days after the civil war ended, that he unwittingly started for the cabal, the cabal won its war against him, because timing is everything.
Please explain further.
Kennedy tried to get on top of the CIA and got killed for it. Lincoln started the civil war to prevent anti-industrial secession, which was in the interests of the industrial private bankers who wanted to industrialize the US. But during the war Lincoln the Union needed money and legislated his Lincoln Greenbacks into being which was a public currency. Big no no for the private bankers obviously. Bankers only do MPP. Akin to going off the petrodollar. And then at the end of the war he doubled down and wanted to expand Greenbacks post war. So as soon as the civil war was won, they had him killed. Once stablecoins are nationalized, they will be digital Greenbacks. Collapse MPP. Timing is everything.
AI:
“Yes, there is strong evidence and historical belief that Abraham Lincoln planned to keep the Greenbacks—debt-free, government-issued currency—in circulation after the Civil War to maintain national sovereignty over the money supply, rather than returning to a system dominated by private banks.
Key Points Regarding Lincoln’s Post-War Plans:
Support for Post-War Expansion: Lincoln, alongside his supporters, intended to expand the use of greenbacks after the war to keep the nation free from the grip of high-interest loans from private or foreign bankers.
The “Currency of Freedom”: Greenbacks were seen as “money by the people, for the people,” allowing the U.S. government to fund the war without accumulating massive, interest-bearing debt to private financial institutions.
Assassination and Reversal: Days after discussing plans to expand this system in 1865, Lincoln was assassinated. Shortly after his death, the policy was reversed, with government-issued greenbacks being systematically dismantled in favor of bank-controlled currency.
A “War Measure” Turned Permanent Goal: While initially passed by Congress as an emergency “war measure” (The Legal Tender Act of 1862), the successful stabilization of the economy led to support for making this government-issued money a permanent part of the American financial system.
Opposition to Private Debt: By using greenbacks, Lincoln bypassed private bankers who were offering loans at interest rates as high as 30% to fund the Union war effort.”
everything is tribal all the Presidents they got hit by another tribe who let’s call them the Illuminati they are secretly in charge of everything it does sound very far fetched doesn’t it but they are hidden in plain sights that is their modus operandi.they know about peak oil hubert’s curve they know that people cannot be trusted so deception is called for to usherin the next stage of human ingenuity.sometimes we need someone evil to get the job done.
don’t forget the Illuminati worship Lucifer.an important number in the Illuminati ideology is the number 11 Donald Trump 11 letters.
Thanks for the information!
Abraham Lincoln. US Civil War
William McKinley. US Spanish War
Allow me to explain something about military logistics which may shed some light on what is occurring here.⬇️
The US military doesn’t ship food from CONUS to deployed forces if at all possible. It issues contracts to third party vendors to supply food in bulk for pickup or even delivery to deployed forces. In principle this is identical to how it’s done in the military’s own logistical backend in the United States – the Army isn’t vertically integrated, it doesn’t own its own farms (lol).* The military contracts with commercial vendors for delivery to such and such a base at such and such a time and quantity with payment from whatever fraction of the base population’s BAS that hasn’t yet disappeared into an O&M slush fund in a totally non-corrupt way. This is why when you’re at a US Army facility in the Middle East you get weird Middle Eastern UHT milk boxes instead of familiar American ones. The more you know.
Anyways, right now the Navy is trying to sustain three carrier groups and one amphibious group in and around the Middle East. This comes out to around 30,000 sailors, which is an immense number of personnel to feed… in a region (particularly further south in the Arabian Sea) where bulk quantities of medically-acceptable rations cannot simply be magicked out of the air by waving a stack of US dollars around. Because, you see, those contractors we summoned with said stack of dollars then have to physically purchase said rations in bulk somewhere in the region and then deliver them to a US Navy replenishment ship docked somewhere else in the region and neither of those prospects is necessarily easy when you’re in a sea region bordered by Iran (the actual enemy), Oman (functional but sympathizes with Iran), Yemen (no), Pakistan (functional but also sympathizes with Iran and is in easy range of Iranian weapons), Djibouti (tiny and vulnerable to missile attack from Yemen), and Somalia (lol no).
So realistically your options are India, Saudi Arabia and Kenya to source a grocery run out of. And India and Saudi Arabia are both still vulnerable to interdiction (India via that horde of un-accounted for Iranian midget subs in the inshore littoral and Saudi via Iranian missiles and the Bab al-Mandeb run), which means that logically Kenya is where it’s safe to actually do this. Kenya is 3000km from the blockade station (a week’s steaming one-way) and USN fleet replenishment ships aren’t nearly as thick in the water as they used to be and moreover often need to remain close to the task force to resupply munitions and fuel for, y’know, the war rather than coming off-station to do a chow run because deployments got extended and pantries and freezers started looking really barren.
Connect the dots and it’s quite obvious how US Navy chow lines in the Arabian Sea have gotten very grim lately – even without outright corruption on the American side of the transaction.
* The Navy actually owns a live oak forest to get timber to repair the USS Constitution with, but I digress. Although considering Hegseth’s ongoing jihad against anything fun owned by the military I perhaps shouldn’t be mentioning this and should instead incur the wrath of know-it-alls in the comments for strategic reasons .
https://x.com/ArmchairW/status/2048257856051253557/photo/1
I am afraid this analysis is correct. The US is going to have a tough time providing enough food, of the kinds that soldiers expect to see, for an extended period.
prof John Mearshiemer and Glen Diesen are two of the nicest and cognizant people on the planet. In this conversation they reach a conclusion Prof Mearshiemer refers to as a “plastic moment” several times.
Best case case scenario. Endless mid intensity wars and severe standard of living decreases. Best case increasingly unlikely.
Now consider this. They reach that conclusion with only a peripheral understanding of energy physics paradigm.
https://youtu.be/8dUsurWcFdI?si=1bnpLN5xobs5xXCP
Thanks Ravi!.
Battles may be won on tactics, but wars are won on logistics.
Yep, logistics are the second layer of war that reveals the deeper truth of the war. Because the truth that reflects on the second, logistical layer of the war theater, always sits two layers deep. The truth is always two layers deep.
There are second layer physical logistics of hot wars and there are second layer metaphysical logistics of statecraft. Otherwise known as the controlled opposition. Here’s Larry Johnson, key conservative BNS operative in yet another Hawaiian shirt that psychologically wars against older male Evangelical MAGA Hawaiian shirt wearing culture; here he is supplying lines of logistical Statecraft for the Hand’s post- historical coup. Here he is stating that the assassination attempt was a hoax and nothing that JD Vance was whisked out first, implying that JD is the Palantir rent boy of the MIC and therefore nothing short of a coup will suffice for rooting out the Deep State once and for all, because impeachment will only hasten the goals of the Palantir MIC.
https://youtu.be/LNCTwcTsNMc
China’s export restrictions are worsening a desperate situation.
Hormuz closure + China export restrictions:
– Sulfuric acid: 48% blocked + 9% China restriction
– Urea: 35% blocked + 9% China restriction
– DAP/MAP phosphate: 25% blocked + 13% China restriction
– Jet fuel: 22% blocked + 6% China restriction
– Diesel: 15% blocked + 7% China restriction
– Gasoline: 13% blocked + 6% China restriction
https://x.com/ekwufinance/status/2048418628337312035/photo/1
In some cases, we are also losing supply from Russia. I am not sure whether it is crude oil, products, or both.
To add all here know that a financial and an economic collapse will take place before we resort to breaking each others heads .
Gail , this is a post in support of a post caught in moderation . Please check .
Monetary collapse. Banks are going to look at collateral and say no loan for you.
There is already a collateral shortage. Not enough T-bills believe it or not. Which is why we have rehypothecation of collateral. Same T-bills are posted as collateral in the Eurodollar market for as many as 20-30 different loans.
This all works great as long as economies are growing and expanding and oil is flowing freely.
There is really 20-30 times more money circulating through out the economy than there should be due to rehypothecation.
When the money starts disappearing you’ll see currency’s that aren’t the dollar devalue by a lot.
I am worried about a financial and economic collapse. Also, a collapse of governments, as they cannot withstand the collapsing debt bubbles (and can’t bail out everyone who needs bailing out).
Germany plans on building Europe’s strongest military by 2039
Strongest by 39?
See this one before..
In this 12 minute clip Douglas MacGregor shows why the US is in BIG trouble a result of its own making. China will replace the US as the #1 economy and financial center of the world as money will flow into China, not the US. He shows a chart of the debt levels that this war is costing the US and not China. Besides Trump being removed from Office, civil unrest will be a result in the US.
China’s share of the global economy in dollar terms has shrunk 4% in the last 5 years. Interest rates in China are low and going lower. Because there is no growth or inflation. Banks in China are loaded up with safety instead of leading into the economy.
China is very much a repeat of Japan’s lost decades. For all the same reasons Japan has had the so called lost decades. The credit bubble in China has popped. Financial repression and an extreme amount of extend and pretend is what is in store for China.
There will be no massive inflows into China.
None preforming banks loans = China.
China’s only saving grace which they rely on exclusively. Is exports. But China’s customers are about to take a massive hit and those exports are going to fall off.
So they are producing 10X the steel, 20X the ships, and 22X the concrete than the USA, and of course they are the only country whose electricity production is still increasing, but they are going down due to some obscure financial thing. yep.
Uh drb how embarrassing your handling of this situation is becoming. Is the great drb cracking under pressure? This is a limits to growth blog and TSHTF about a month ago. The limiting factor is some obscure financial thing called oil affordability.
yes, same as what I said. Banks do not matter, and China has the oil apparently, at least for next year. I assure you that Japan also had plenty of oil circa 1994, so I don’t see what either of you are saying.
Yes, but Drb could be correct in the point of CHN’s overcapacity being on completely another level.. hence they will try to compensate that lost trade of their clients ( low on oil from now on ) either by upped domestic industrial subsidies or helping some of the said biz partners in other countries ( prioritizing amongst them to their strategic liking ).
The idea of CHN just folding and closing shop is not realistic at the moment. Yes there could be some add. nasty surprises coming out pretty soon of HK/TW financial angle, but CHN can ~print+ a lot internally still..
If the big honchos in the West now predicting ugly ~8months ahead at the minimum
for the global economy then CHN can surely patch up some ~cunning plan for say 1-2yrs of some support laid around..
Right, because Collapse is a decision of whether to fold or not to fold to Collapse.
Because there is enough fat on the proverbial bone it’s not a collapse proper.. yet
PS as mentioned before some RoW could be now already in the finishing section of the route to it
There is no fat jak. There’s only energy throughput, and momentum is everything, and the civilization is in a massive deficit of throughput with no end currently in sight. You’re bargaining with the systems theory.
HHH brought up collateral again. The BNS is the opposite of the plandemic. The plandemic was drowning in oil by design of massive artificial demand destruction, and therefore drowning in enough collateral to buy the Machine another 5 years of inflationary catabolism. That was the genius of the plandemic. The BNS is starving for oil and thus collateral. Whole nother beast.
I’m afraid we are performing surgery on a frog.. and perhaps need sync more the concepts descriptive language used.
Reante, if you ask me in zoomed out ( decades ) fashion about this particular ~2020-2026~ time slot and its apparent disruption wobble pattern, yes I’d most likely agree that was the last prolonged quasi plateau ” of everything “. So, in some lingo it was a global collapse threshold reached indeed !
But in my definition, (ongoing-)collapse proper means that a pre-teenage boy shoots at you from dangerously powerful slingshot as you ride around on your last set of not worn bicycle tires, and curiously it’s not his oldest brother because that died few years back in some bank default skirmish, and it was his older brother neither, because that guy is now pimping their sister around..
Collapse is kitchen paper towel roll anymore, collapse is d/d or week to week serious food insecurity..
They are selling their products at a loss. It’s what happens when they way over produce. They are forced to dump their products at a loss.
Now as their customers pull back due to lack of flow of oil and other essentials. They will continue to over produce and have to dump products on a market that can’t absorb their output.
Their interest rates don’t lie. If everything was rosy in China. Interest rates wouldn’t be blow 2% across the board.
As this progresses those interest rates will likely go negative in China. Who exactly is going to be buying Chinese debt yielding nothing? Who’s going to jump in and buy real estate? Chinese stocks? Give me a break!
All China has is their exports which they over produce and sell at a loss. And a portion of the export will be drying up as the lack of flows through Hormuz continues.
[ Interest rates ] are not natural phenomena nor free market ” honest ” instrument to begin with, instead they are massaged complex form of imperial control masked as fin instrument out of the dens inside NY/London/..
PS meant also as others having to resort to such control by playing the game with their own int rate policy adjustments ( for now )..
Armchair quarterbacking interest rates with free market mythology, and in service of a red herring logical fallacy.
China receives energy backdoor bailouts and the world receives consumer backdoor bailouts. A manufacturing Red Queen Effect on steroids in a world of Red Queen Effects. Duh. China be the leading loss maker in manufacturing because it leads in manufacturing: the oil doesn’t pay for itself.
But Jr and drb don’t believe in the Chinese Manufacturing Bubble. Chinese had a million bridges to sell them, and they did sell.
China’s ( ~all sector ) bubble is very real. The issue are horses in [ glue factory ] again..
We simply part wayz on timing and profile, I still maintain we are not there yet. Yes could be ~30-60% bargaining mode on my part masked as attempted real guesstimate-analysis, lets continue to watch together.
[ ABZO ] for the win !
Always be zooming out – as in observing the larger picture through time in various PO/civ related metrics.
some sectors will do better than others. everything military of course. at some point there will be a building boom in the middle east ( i assure you the west will not be represented). of course china will suffer. Every party suffers in a war. the big question is who collapses first. China of course might decide to get involved in a war which would absorb a lot of production.
I think you and hhh are too involved in a financial description of the world. a war, specially a world war, works in different ways. japan lost its financial war of course, but they were not free, had no army, and no resource advantage. china is the complete opposite. yes, both populaces have slanted eyes. but that it about it.
Are we looking at the wrong vectors ? I am looking at food because that is the primary requirement of life . Dollar up/ down , who cares ? Interest rates up/ down who cares ? . Are the 800 million living in India on 5Kg of wheat/Rice per person/ per month of FREE rations really care ? Yes , China has supposedly 1.3 billion barrels of oil in SPR . OK , good for a few years maybe , but what if it runs out of food or the world runs out of food . Chinese are now buying what is called ” broken rice ” ( worst quality ) , wheat and anything that comes out of the ground . India’s trade deficit with China broke a record $ 170 billion . I have posted about the hunger crisis , urea crisis , water crisis , El Nino crisis that will hit this year . HHH is correct to the extent that Chinese are selling below cost — my brother is a big time importer of auto parts in India and he says no Chinese supplier has asked for a price increase in 5 years — yes they asked for patience for delayed shipments during COVID . As Norm says if oil input is not converted into a tangible commodity that the masses want it might as well be as good as the sands of Arabia .
The stone age did not end because we ran out of stones .— Sheikh Yamani for those who know him .
Civilization turns food into money just as it does everything else, so money is the primary driver. Remember that storable — and therefore lockable –food surpluses WERE the first monies. Money is why peak oil theory is ultimately an affordability metric. Money is what manages the complexity of structural surpluses.
you maybe ignore the surplus part….
with every energy source our species must consume a large proportion to stay alive and viable….
we can only use the leftover—the surplus—to create and advance anything like ”civilisation”…
this is why no civilisation, until very recently—could advance itself at a rate faster than a walking pace….
then 300 years ago a colossal new energy source became available to us–50-100 times more than we had ever had before….
this didnt ‘create’ money, but it allowed us to bring vastly more money into existence than at any other time in history—which is why most of us possess vastly more wealth than our g/parents—-
all due to the availability of energy surplus to our needs of basic survival……
money is a construct of surplus energy—it isnt possible to create energy from surplus money…..
China is clearly already having trouble finding buyers who can afford the products they are trying to export.
They would ask for higher prices, if they thought people could afford them. They want jobs for their people, more than anything else. Selling products below cost provides (low paying) jobs.
A colossal new energy source may well become available to us next Tuesday in politico-economic terms.
Spaced-based solar is a case in point. It could provide 50-100 times more than we’ve ever had up to now—available 24-7-365 and 1/4!
And some of that energy could be used to power an army of millions of Elon’s Optimus robots who will work tirelessly, diligently, and faithfully to do all kinds of things that human workers used to do grudgingly, clumsily, and expensively.
It could well happen. And the profits could well help boost Norman’s pension to beyond the dreams of avarice and send him into a brave new world of opulence.
We are on the cusp of something really big. That’s for sure. The big question is, are we going to be optimistic and enjoy it or pessimistic and ruin our potential happiness by continually looking on the dark side of life?
It’s a interesting question. One think about all the consumption you mention it requires a lot of materials and energy inputs. This is of course the Hallmark of a organism practicing maximum power principle. Consumption allows non cessation. Conservation does not.
IMO no one has done as much objective work in understanding how great power behave as Mearshiemer. People are surprised at their behavior but Mearshiemer is not. He chuckles not because the consequences are not significant but because the behavior always fits his model to a T.
Finite resources and energy are always the end of any organism practicing maximum power principle whether a sparrow or a great power. Until then the wolf that eats the most meat flourishes. When depletion does not occur it’s because other factors in the environment limit the ability to do so. There is a relatively circle like economy in the existence of the sun and this incredible biosphere we inhabit that is stark contrast to entropy while still having it as a absaloute rule. Organisms that deplete finite resources very quickly may have incredible success while the resources exist but perish when depletion occurs.
Conservation seems to be almost non existent in all species. The reason is simple. Species that practice it perish since they are in competition with other species that don’t for resources and energy. Species are hard wired for consumption through evolution. More sophisticated operating systems such as diplomacy are understood to provide longer intervals until depletion but the hard wiring is maximum power principle. The reason maximum power principle is always instituted in crisis is because evolution has made it ROM. It may be that it is like many genetic qualities it is something that served us better in the past but cessation occurs before evolution can redo the ROM. Evolution itself is far from perfect its primary constraint being time. In this case an operating principle has been emphasized and hardened as key to non cessation when ultimately it has great flaws.
As we witnessed these operating systems may lie dormant and we may believe other more sophisticated operating systems are predominant. These other more sophisticated operating systems may well resonate with other aspects of what we are. Those other aspects have truth and value too. Unfortunately it appears that when resource depletion occurs we are hard wired not to embrace those things but to fall back on our genetic programming. All sorts of excuses are created for our behavior that try to accommodate our resonance with other aspects of our existence but they are merely cover for genetic programming.
We live in a time where ideas such as free will will be severely tested. I know not the outcome of the test. As a student of human behavior I believe most will fall back on base operating systems and create all sorts of notions to support their behavior.
This is why I believe the epitomy of human societies was tribal. It incorporated certain sophisticated operating systems while also living within the boundaries of its evolutionary programming and environmental footprint. It’s also quite obvious to me I would neither enjoy or survive in such a society
Hopefully a new hybrid can occur. Hope springs eternal even if resources do not.
Wasn’t that somewhat the premise of Dune? That certain tribal qualities could be compatible with technology. Dune of course was fiction. Spice was infinite as long as the big worms roamed..
I love and practice technology. At this point we have obviously evolved to become dependent on technology. As such I have no idea where all of these various things that we witness will lead to in the aggregate in face of resource depletion. It is indeed quite interesting. My preference would be for more boredom. It’s been a good time to be alive.
” This is why I believe the epitome of human societies was tribal. ” — Bullseye .
That is why we have ” China Town ” ” Little India ” , Korea town , Gaza and Marrakesh ( Belgium) , Brampton( Canada ) , South-hall (London) and Bradfordistaan ( UK ) . Human beings are tribal , no arguments .
This is also why churches are popular in the quite a few countries. They give a chance for people to hang out with people of a similar demographic, who are not closely related. This gives a good opportunity for finding spouses, among other things.
They also tend to teach living by something that approximates the Maximum Power Principle.
Your view is the Western view. China can easily switch and do all of its business in the East when it becomes necessary. That’s why the New Silk Road was implemented and why the BRICS was created.
Who exactly is China going to be exporting to? Say trade with the US and Europe went to zero. WHO exactly is going to be buying all their shit?
The rest of Asia? No wait must be Africa or South America? Maybe Greenland and Canada?
Antarctica?
My world view is based in reality. The silk road isn’t going to save China.
Who exactly is China going to be exporting to? Say trade with the US and Europe went to zero. WHO exactly is going to be buying all their stuff?
The rest of Asia? No wait must be Africa or South America? Maybe Greenland and Canada?
Antarctica?
My world view is based in reality. The silk road isn’t going to save China.
It seems like all of this is strengthening the dollar in the short term. I don’t think anyone really knows or understands what happens in the longer term. As supplies run out they will have to let prices rise to curb demand. I think that is about to happen in 2 weeks. Then it seems like world wide depression followed by land grabs of other countries similar to the beginning of ww2 . I’m not sure how Europe can sustain itself at the current level and build out a large military without energy and resources they are in danger. Also I think this is really going to impact tourism around the world….. sorry boomers and Gen Z living in your parents basement so you can save up for travel 🫣
I am afraid that HHH is right about China going down the same road as Japan. Also, China is very much exposed to a lack of energy products it needs.
Good luck getting him “out of office”, the hoops that will be needed for this to occur are gut wrenching. I still remember to the Nixon fiasco and Watergate.
You do not want again.
Congress will approve of this military misadventure with token opposition, but it will pass…this Dunce will still want his ballroom and triumphal arch built and everything he can renamed TRUMP
MacGregor agrees that the Iran War is going very badly, but he thinks that China will come out well.
We know that even if governments collapse, very often smaller units within the governments continue. The Soviet Union collapsed, but the individual republics continued. Oil companies continued, and many other businesses continued. People continued to need doctors and hospitals.
I expect that we will be running into this kind of thing in many places. Central government have made far more promises than they can keep. They will have to default on these promises. But some lower levels of government may continue and may aggregate to form new units, with new currencies, and probably a lot fewer pension promises. Trade will tend to be a lot more restricted.
I expect that there will still be some businesses in the US and some in China. But whether or not the central government can continue as today is a different question.
Boy, this sucks
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida/2026/04/25/florida-trailer-park-closing/
It’s the latest Miami-Dade trailer park to shutter in the face of development. Last year, thousands of residents of the Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park in Sweetwater were ordered out, pushing some into homelessness. As in that case, many of Silver Court’s residents are about to lose one of the few vestiges of stable, deeply affordable housing in Miami-Dade. Most are unsure how they’ll navigate Miami’s expensive housing market.
When asked what it intends to do with the Silver Court property, 1989 Sunny Court LLC, the park’s owner, didn’t specify. But whatever comes next will “bring value” to South Florida, said the company, which is part of a California-based real estate firm, Marquis Property Company, that in 2021 bought Silver Court along with the Sunnyside/West Haven trailer park in West Miami for a combined $50 million.
Those who live there now have until September to leave. To encourage early departures, park ownership has offered $10,000 to those who leave by May 31. Anyone who stays through July 15 will get $5,000, and those leaving by the end of August can expect $2,500, all on top of some compensation provided by the state — between $1,375 and $6,000, depending on the size of the trailer and whether its owner decides to undertake the costly and logistically complicated process of relocating it.
Resident Joseph Madera, a math teacher, has become the semi-official leader of a group of mobile home owners looking to challenge the terms of their eviction.
“This is a social catastrophe,” Madera, 46, said at the meeting’s opening.
Suriel, 43, purchased her trailer two years ago for $45,000, then sank what remained of her savings, $20,000, into making it a home — new siding, a carport, interior repairs — for her three kids.
She had saved for seven years to buy the place, often driving 10-plus hours a day for Uber. “I thought I’d live here for the rest of my life,” she said.
Yeah, that’s why they call it the American Dream….
Madera?
Suriel?
American Dream?
The names speak for themselves
OK, Klummie, get off your high horse and back to where you came…maybe a name like Geronimo can throw darts…
Talk about an ethnocentric mindset…Kulmmie
“You have to be asleep to believe it.”
— George Carlin
Florida’s influx of rich residents is killing the middle class and housing market By Sydney Lake Associate Editor
April 26, 2026, 6:20 AM ET
https://fortune.com/2026/04/26/florida-influx-rich-residents-dissolving-middle-class/
the american dream depends on a single factor—–turning the planet into cash
….you just described what that means mike
Lots of useless, entitled, drug-addicted, dangerous trash in South Florida – I’ve met many of them 1st hand some years ago. Not that colonizing new-yawkers (habitually tailgaiting you in the rightmost lane, just out of some NY principle) are any better…
1 (or maybe 2 – to cover Tampa area too) reasonably sized thermonukes would be very therapeutic 🤝
Christ Martensen said it is all too late. The link below as given by Roadster has all the calculations inside.
https://peakprosperity.com/the-largest-energy-shock-on-record-is-worse-than-you-think/
1. Straits is still closed
2. No marine insurance
3. Shipowners dare not enter the Straits just in case the ship cannot come out (huge stranded assets)
4. Tankers at the wrong place and wrong time and need a lot of time to reroute
5. Reserves are already dropping and nothing on the sea from GCC, Iraq and Iran
6. Helium? LNG? Sulphur? Urea? No idea on its status.
So, June be it!! the deadline.
What is astonishing is Trump call make statements that are completely filled with falsehoods, and most people don’t realize what he is saying is 100% nonsense. Chris Martinson shows how false this statement of Trump is:
Trump: “We are right now producing more oil than Saudi Arabia and Russian COMBINED! In about a year from now, we’ll be doing about DOUBLE that level. We don’t have an oil shortage. We have ‘drill, baby drill.’”
I’d be more surprised if Trump told the truth—or if any politician did, for that matter.
This 2026 oil shock won’t be remembered for lines at the pump.
It’s going to hit much harder at the supermarket.
Some governments will almost certainly cap local fuel prices. All that does is choke local supply, because oil is a global commodity.
Unlike COVID, when fuel stayed available for trucks, local price caps will starve price-capped areas of oil.
Deliveries will slow or stop.
Supermarkets in those countries will run low, then empty.
41 days until ex-US SPRs run dry on June 13.
12M bpd outage since March 15.
This is a tsunami a mile out at sea.
The painful but sane way for economies to ride it out is to float over the coming oil price spike.
Governments that cap prices will drown their own economies.
If you are in a country whose government tends to impose oil price caps, don’t wait until the shelves are empty.
Morgan Downey —- I think he was at GS or JPM .
Fun fact: the window of opportunity for any ground operation by the US in Iran is closing fast as temperature is about to climb significantly in May.
The window will reopen in October, but by then the Oil Shock due to a shut SOH will be ravaging the global economy
https://x.com/DarioCpx/status/2048301017247432892/photo/1
Collateral damage .
” The Gulf states peg their currencies to the dollar, and that peg only holds because oil money never stops flowing.
Felix Prehn explains that once reserves start declining, speculators will move in for the kill, just like they broke the British pound.
“There is a very serious economic consequence to this that people don’t see on the top because everything is interconnected.”
Close the Strait, and the next domino is the U.S. stock market.
https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2048182769642271084
Which is why this is a must read for a time like this. ‘Dubai The Fall’
https://x.com/moazzamhusain/status/2048318077327319184/photo/1
A novel about when the currency stopped working in Dubai.
Presumably, governments will be smart enough to keep their citizens at home to save fuel.
Trying to impost price caps is a worthless exercise. The oil (or food) will simply go to where there are no caps. Local supplies will fall.
Atlanta didn’t talk about price caps a few years ago, a couple of different times when oil supplies were down, once because of a hurricane and once because of a pipeline that was broken and needed to be repaired. What Atlanta did was talk about “preventing price gouging.” Gas stations weren’t supposed to raise prices because of this effort.
Of course, what happened was long lines at Georgia pumps. Some people were not able to get gasoline at all. They ended up staying away from work.
If prices would have been higher, oil could have been brought in by truck and added to our supply. But without higher prices, we were simply left out.
In update to Foolish Fitz bellow, the Iranian diplomat is set to return to Pakistan today (Sunday) again.. after visiting Oman. https://aje.news/i9lisw?update=4523639
–
On another front, I assumed by taking the Litani river and bridges the campaign was over for now, heck now they continue to press even northward of the river..
Clearly the intent is to capture as much of this entire “lush” valley greater area in Lebanon as possible, for obvious settlement purposes vs other ~semi-desert remaining vectors of expansion at hand for them. https://aje.news/i9lisw?update=4523626
–
Capture of ships by US, Iran violates international law, shipping body says..
https://aje.news/i9lisw?update=4523528
“ All these people are doing is transporting trade. And really, we can’t have a situation where ships are being seized, ultimately for political ends, to prove a political point,” said Stawpert, whose organisation represents about 80 percent of the world’s merchant fleet.
“These are innocent (sea)farers, and they should be allowed to go about their jobs without fear of, essentially, imprisonment. ”
The plan is always more land for Israel, less for whoever they are attacking. Greater Israel.
The purpose is not Greater Israel. The purpose is that the Hand doesn’t want Islamism to pose a problem to oil flows during Phase 2.
Southern Lebanon vector ( non state vigilantes inside ) was not a threat to oil flows up to now, and likely won’t be in the future..
Sorry, it’s surely 99% about grabbing water and land there when getting is good and 1% perhaps about further enlarging the various sensors and ammo perimeter beyond these ~20mi of former Lebanon taken in recent weeks ( south of the river / valley – gorge )..
Saw this on X and thought of Kulm:
Эррол Хан
@ErrolTostigson
The English abandoning India was lack of will. India, with its socially isolated castes, had plenty of room for an English ruling caste to blend in and rule without issues. Their failure was in treating the local princes like white men and allowing their sons to study in England.
https://x.com/ErrolTostigson/status/2048077365813678132
I bet it was Chucky’s idea.
Thanks to Chucky the use of troops from India became necessary, giving more strength to local rulers
UK ruled India for about 150 years
But India now rules UK
They got a better deal with the bedouin ruling castes and all their oil in the persian gulf , easiest slavedogs in history with no threat of internal rebellion and plenty of capital to fund the counter jihad against Iran or any other power that tries to challenge the status quo
They got a better deal with the bedouin ruling castes and all their oil in the persian gulf , easiest slavedogs in history with no threat of internal rebellion and plenty of capital to fund the counter jihad against Iran or any other power that tries to challenge the status quo
”The Four Horsemen of the PolyCrisis: Sulphur, Naphtha, El Niño & Central Bank Amplification
The Petrochemical Stack Enables Global Agriculture , Shortages During What Could Strongest El Nino in Our Lifetimes Puts Famine in the Forecast for 2026-2027” ?
https://ctindale.substack.com/p/the-four-horsemen-of-the-polycrisis?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=5972726&post_id=195419249&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=nm2q&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Lots of detailed charts. He expects that governments will follow policies that will raise prices of commodities, when more commodities are not really available.
An interesting accident:
https://koktejl.azet.sk/clanok/qyNk3r5/tragedia-na-strednom-slovensku-zomrel-cyklista-auto-soferovala-policajtka-v-case-volna/
A cyclist died when he crashed into a car that was driven by a policewoman who was off duty at the time.
“She specified that the incident occurred on Route I/51 in the direction from Banská Belá to the village of Kozelník in the Banská Štiavnica district. According to preliminary information, for reasons that have not yet been determined, the cyclist crossed into oncoming traffic while navigating a curve. There, he collided with a passenger car. The spokesperson explained that the vehicle was being driven by a police officer who was off duty at the time.”
I can see a lot of risky behaviour of the people rushing on motorcycles through my village crossing the speed limit…
That is the norm in south korea
There seems to have been an attempted attack on Trump this evening. The WSJ has a story also. I am not sure if shooter is dead.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-evacuated-shots-fired-white-house-correspondents-dinner-shooter-dead
Shots were fired during the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD) at the Washington Hilton ballroom on Saturday evening, prompting the immediate evacuation of President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President, and other high-profile attendees by Secret Service. Guests were ordered to take cover under tables as heavily armed agents secured the venue.
Was it MG?
I am affraid that you are mistaking my brain with me as a person. It is a common misconception of naive people on the internet who read the texts and pictures on webpage as the complete representation of the reality.
do not worry MG. we understand that the stress of declining resources can get to people, specially those who grasp the reality. I think the policewoman herself got the cyclist while raging for being unable to get Trump.
Maybe she wanted to find a man, he was rushing to be with her.
I thought it was Norman until I saw that un-Norman like hair texture.
Crazy times. I wish things were more calm..
another hoax I bet. Trying to play the guilt card.
Israel has taught him well.
lol
Those are some of the comments on Zerohedge.
But probably true, no? Is there anyone who does not think now that Butler was a ketchup event?
How many times has such a large target been missed now. 3 or 4?
Anyway, it wouldn’t matter as he’s the self proclaimed Messiah, so will just rise from the dead when the ratings go up.
I’m guessing this one is cover for his negotiation team being called back after Abbas Araghchi left Islamabad without even looking their way. I don’t suppose anyone is pointing this out now, as superman has just dodged another bullet. Talking about Araghchi, he flew from Islamabad to Muscat, to continue the coordination with Oman(payments are clearing, so maybe he wanted to know if Oman would like Rial or Yuan).
Uh Fitz about three weeks ago Oman said no to Iran and made it clear that they have signed agreements regarding freedom of navigation. Let’s stay focused.
Reante, posted this several times already the legal situation is not as clear against / not in favor of Iran as you presented it ( based perhaps on msm recycled narratives .. ).
https://voelkerrechtsblog.org/irans-legal-strategy-in-hormuz/
It’s not very good is it. Goes on about UNCLOS continuously, after admitting Iran isn’t a signatory. It’s a “what if” fiction.
What he should have wrote was “Iran is not a signatory to UNCLOS so I won’t pretend it has any relevance, or keep mentioning it in an attempted to bamboozle people”.
Unfortunately he did exactly that. Don’t recommend that to anyone with more than half a dozen brain cells.
That’s a strawman analysis. It’s analysis does not address Iran’s controlling neutral, sovereign Omani waters under military threat. Under no international circumstances is that legal.
Peace is a two way street. The Hand must build some Iranian culpability into the BNS. The Strait will presumably become fully international waters, for all intents and purposes, as a result of the Global Peace Accords. And an international military patrol will presumably be guarding it. Smart. Can’t be fuckin around during Phase 2.
Do you have a link for your claimed words from Onam, or are you making shit up again?
No, your whole argument is the strawman.
You can’t pick and choose, so denounce the US for using this tactic over the whole world. Otherwise your just a hypocrite.
The only relevant law is Article 2, Section 4 of the UN Charter, because law, like most things has a hierarchy and the higher law always trumps lesser law.
Under Article 2, Section 4, the US and squatters are the only guilty parties(multiple times remember, even during negotiations, twice) and Iran is within its rights to shut any artery of illegal aggression. The fake gulf states made themselves co-belligerents(completely by choice) and have not a single leg to stand on.
If you weren’t so politically invested in this theatre, you would have seen the shift in narrative(started the same moment the ceasefire started), to move the morons onto idiotic talking points, that turn the aggressor into the victim and the victim into the aggressor.
It’s truly retarded.
Let’s talk about the illegal aggressor, that caused this situation and refuses to admit their crimes(after you provide the Omani link).
No more strawman victim blaming, or citing laws that neither party are signatories of(because that’s retarded, isn’t it?).
You’re funny Fitz. Every time you get backed into a corner you start engaging in a whole lot of projection. You saying that I’m being political is hilarious. You are the one stimming to the Hand’s LEGO propaganda, not me.
Your legal argument is a joke. You made the initial mistake of lionizing Oman only to find that Oman is a neutral country with sovereign rights. Period. You would disclaim all national sovereignty in service of your rabid Iran mythos that was only equalled by your former, failed rabid VZ mythos.
I try to work with you Fitz because I like your good side a whole lot, and we’ve been doing great lately. Your anti-imperialist politics is the problem. You can be anti imperialist without being political, but it requires connecting ALL the dots and becoming anti civilization.
And you’re not very good at searching for information either. If you were then you wouldn’t make the low-level mistake of strongly implying that I’m making shit up again. Here it is from the Omani foreign minister’s official website from earlier in the month. Non-interference of course refers to Iranian interference of Omani state sovereignty:
“He also called for a cooperative and responsible approach based on shared responsibility. He underlined the need to safeguard freedom of navigation and protect maritime interests. He reaffirmed Oman’s commitment to international law, including the law of the sea, respect for state sovereignty and non interference.”
https://www.fm.gov.om/en/41921/#:~:text=10%20April%202026,state%20sovereignty%20and%20non%20interference.
I didn’t search for it. The onus was on you and you have history.
You are deliberately misrepresenting when you say “Non-interference of course refers to Iranian interference of Omani state sovereignty”
He was talking about the aggressor and the bulk of what he said at The Indian Ocean Conference had nothing to do with Hormuz, because Hormuz isn’t in the Indian Ocean. Do you really not see that.
Let’s see what he said after talking with Araghchi yesterday
“Good discussion on the Strait of Hormuz with Iran’s Foreign Minister Dr. Araghchi,”
“As litoral states, we recognize our shared responsibility to the international community and the urgent humanitarian need to free the seafarers held for far too long. Much diplomacy is required and practical solutions to ensure lasting freedom of navigation,”
Badr AlBusaidi
So they have a shared responsibility to ensure “non interference” and at no point does he blame Iran for events, because their “shared responsibility” would place the blame equally on them. Your just making it up to suit your chosen fiction.
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/244014/Talks-with-Araghchi-on-Hormuz-were-good-Omani-FM
What’s this
https://www.wionews.com/world/iran-and-oman-assert-joint-control-over-strait-of-hormuz-to-end-dual-blockade-1777304113523
Not the best link, but I can’t be bothered to waste time on a window licking party.
Nothing said, or done backs your assertion, either by Iran or Oman. Stop believing corporate fantasy. Why don’t you read Omani media and you’ll soon realise that they are the opposite of what you claim.
Who started interfering and so set the whole chain of events in motion?
That’s who you need to point the finger at, no matter how much you try to avoid.
Article 2, Section 4, tell me about it, because it and it’s implications can’t be ignored in an honest discussion about legality?
Okay Fitz, because you don’t know how to neutrally interpret true old-fashioned diplomacy, which is the art of subtlety and grace — and because you are politically biased — we’re gonna have to agree to disagree. But I appreciate you detailing your interpretation.
My reading is that Oman is simultaneously not happy with Iran’s invasion of its sovereignty and understanding of Iran’s plight. Oman is both standing up for its own sovereignty and Iran’s sovereignty. Is that too complex for you?
You appear to know nothing of the region, its entwined history, ways of doing things, or use of language, but you attempt to to project that ignorance onto others, because you’ve read a couple of sentences out of years of dialogue.
Oman is doing very well and a lot of that is because of all the trade it is doing with heavily and illegally sanctioned nations(4x more with Russia alone*. Consider also the route used for that trade). The Omanis are aware of what happens to that trade and their economy if the aggressor gets its murderous way(always aware of how their words may be interpreted)
* https://timesofoman.com/article/171173-oman-russia-economic-ties-surge-as-trade-quadruples-and-exports-jump-tenfold
This latest attempt at victim blaming, is as farcical as all the others, but that never stops the nodding dogs all turning up at the same place, at the same time and eagerly spreading that shit about liberally. I wonder what next weeks narrative will be?
I’ll leave you with some real and relevant words from Qalibaf
“They brag about the cards. Let’s see: Supply Cards=Demand Cards”
SOH(partly played)+BEM(unplayed)+Pipelines(unplayed)= Inv Release (played)+Demand Destruction (partly played)+More Price Adj (to come),”
“Add summer vacation to the right unless they want to cancel it for the US!”
The complexity of Hormuz seems deeper. Firstly, lets recap and contrary to early Reante’s idea, the strait is NOT int. waters but littoral, especially near the geographic choke point. Iran could and now performs some limited very near coast trajectory navigation for some number of ( paying fee) tankers going through as we speak. Most likely, the proper full scale throughput for tankers needs the more distant route shared with Omanis though and that’s were most of the diplomatic action is centered upon.
And as we all have seen recently the repeated no hand shake circus of Omanis vs Emiratis, that’s related to their very different background profile. Emiratis are hip joined with the western fin centers, while Omanis way less so, perhaps ~fully diversified so for them the impetus to topple the entire post 1970s petrodollar ( and eurodollar ) system on this very occasion is way less painful road ahead. And Iran after being attacked obviously made the case it is about to play this long term game from now on.
update: traffic stalled now..
https://gcaptain.com/dual-hormuz-blockade-cuts-ship-transits-to-near-zero/
A tiny trickle of vessels, most with links to Iran, was observed in recent days. Traffic is generally steering clear after tensions in the waterway escalated last week as Iranian gunboats fired on ships, while US forces seized two oil tankers.
Three Iran-linked ships exited the Persian Gulf through the strait on Monday morning, vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show. No incoming vessels were observed.
Who starves sooner? Our troops depending on food brought to them, or the people in Iran?
They only talk about shipping that is insured by Lloyds of London. Those insured by non western bodies are not obligated to follow corporate rules and mostly don’t, so corporate trackers know nothing of their movements and business(to be fair, he did mention that).
Iran supplies around 85% of it’s own food. Given its borders and the North-South Trade Route(which Oman and Pakistan also use), it has no major problems with food.
Strangely, after destroying all those radar arrays surrounding them, the skies opened and they have had lots of rain, snow even in some areas. Lots of people are of course putting the two together, because of the near perfect timing of events.
This looks like a dubious publication, but it talks about the weather events and subsequent claims.
https://www.timesnownews.com/world/middle-east/iran-rain-waterfall-snowing-us-israel-uae-weather-control-us-radar-destroyed-article-154162428
As far as I know, the US navy would have to go to either Africa(Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and that’s a bit too close to Yemen(Sudan is also starting to go off script, so inadvisable to pile ships up there)), India(good luck with that), or Diego Garcia(that one wouldn’t last long). It’s a losing formula.
Ghalibaf knows and has posted regularly
https://x.com/mb_ghalibaf/status/2043425869570416802?s=20
He’s worth following, for those on social media(up until he gets assassinated). Smart man, excellent wit(so almost certainly targeted).
Jr the main Omani channel in the strait is effectively international waters as per Oman being an UNCLOS signatory, and Iran has historically treated it as international waters.
On objective ethical grounds it should be effectively international waters so that the Gulf states can engage in trade through it no different from African and European countries and everybody else transiting the Strait of Gibraltar for chrissakes.
Fitz just can’t bring himself to acknowledge that under his gullible belief in the political theater of this war, Iran is holding the civilian world hostage simply because the evil US is trying to kill it for no good reason. That is the equivalent of grabbing the nearest child and putting a gun to its head and saying to the US, “you shoot and the kid dies.” LOL.
Of course none of that theater is what’s actually going on at all but somehow according to Fitz I’m blaming the victim for pointing the gun at the kid. And I guess I am, HYPOTHETICALLY, on the level of critically reviewing the play from the peanut gallery. And I’m blaming the US. Fitz prefers his narratives black and white.
That over geopolitics cloud has been distilled into this hilarious-macabre action decades ago. The source of Iranian “resolve” and US “fury”..
So, now we are essentially into re-rerun or sequel, perhaps attempted retribution for past humiliation aspect aw well etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw#
The events in Isfahan have a similarity, but maybe they were just there to buy some rugs.
Now watch, some Democratic nobody somewhere will suggest it was a hoax. And on Monday Wolf Blitzer will interview Chuck Shumuer and he’ll rage “There is no place in this country for dangerous Conspiracy theories”
Norman, Norman, tell us please
We’d really like to know
Was this a proper assassination attempt?
Or was it just for show?
====
The hero/villain has been apprehended after an excellent attempt to get away by running through the Washington Hilton’s corridors at close to Carl Lewis speed.
No word yet whether the chap is a Democrat, an anti-Zionist, a member of the Southern Poverty Law Center, or a disaffected Roman Catholic.
Trump is spinning the hotel’s poor security as a reason why we need a new White House ballroom. So there’s a motive on Trump’s side for a fake hit and run.
On the other hand, Trump is not universally popular among Democrat and Deep State operatives, many of whom are currently sweating at the prospect they are more likely to be indicted for something than invited to anything by the current POTUS. There’s a motive there on the anti-Trump side for a real hit and run.
The same hotel where Reagan was shot in March, 1981.
he was a TV star too!
Reagan and Trump are Hollywood adjacent even though Hollywood would balk at the notion.
Whoa wild. From my limited limited information I’m thinking this was real. The guy tried a blitz and tried hard. Used surprise as a asset. Surprise being the ultimate flaw of all defense. That he didn’t catch some lead speaks to that. That run through the gate was wild. If it was Delta objectives would have been met.
Of course, it was “real”. Just like in Hollywood movies, they used to use real guns for scenes that required gunfire.
It certainly could be. But I submit if you call a guy Hitler enough In the MSM someone will take a shot. There are lots of people fundamentally unhappy with their lives willing to throw it away. They do it for crimes of passion every day over the most trivial things imaginable. Removing Hitler in a decapitation strikes has been the subject of enormous media fantasy. Tarantino created a entire movie around the premise. As the ultimate symbol of justified force any reference to Hitler in comparison to a individual implies force would be justified against them as the primary communication. As the OP mentioned this hotel was the place of a attempted Reagan assassination. I find that pretty strange but not exceptionally so. As Trump mentioned security is marginal there. POTUS participation is mandatory. Also as Trump mentioned events in the future will take place at the new ballroom fortress where techniques such as “I will run really fast past security” will have no chance of success. Actually the perimeter did its job here providing time to access and react it’s just amazing how effective the “run really fast” was against trained professionals. Training can only reduce response time not eliminate it especially when primarily you are dealing with important friendlies you really really don’t want to perforate. As we witnessed this individual remained unperforated. That is a function of response time pressures he created training paradigms or both. I actually don’t think this or Butler was staged. I certainly could be wrong and often am.
donnie should be so lucky…
hit ler had 42 assaination attempts…
they were all so useless that in the end he had to do it himself…
What is the world coming to?
When an influencer runs over another influencer while under the influence, I feel that surely we must be approaching the end!
Influencer, 32, dies after being ‘mowed down by X Factor finalist’ outside Soho nightclub
A social media influencer has died after allegedly being run over by a former X Factor finalist outside a nightclub in Soho.
Klaudia Zakrzewska, 32, from Essex, was struck by the car near the Inca venue on Argyll Street in central London in the early hours of Sunday, April 19.
She was taken to hospital but was sadly pronounced dead on Saturday.
Gabrielle Precious Carrington, 29, was charged with attempting to murder the Tiktok and Instagram personality, who was known online as Klaudiaglam.
The Metropolitan Police said on Saturday that charge had now been amended to murder following Ms Zakrzewska’s death.
As a teenager, Carrington, also known as RIELLEUK, made it through to the live finals of The X Factor in 2013.
She was part of girl group Miss Dynamix after impressing Gary Barlow and the other judges.
More recently, she has become an influencer, with some 362,000 followers on Instagram. ….
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15764967/BBL-influencer-32-mowed-car-outside-Soho-nightclub-dies.html
Influenza is very dangerous. You should never underestimate the risk of influenza. Always drink plenty of liquids and rest when a influenza is encountered.
“I had a little bird, its name was Enza, I opened the window and in-flu-enza”
– Spanish Flu nursey rhyme 1918
Gail is the only social media influencer I follow. I wonder how popular this blog is and how many followers visit. Resource depletion being an important topic I’m sure Gail has more followers than both of these other influencers.
Zakrewska from Essex?
Not from Krakow?
Yes, I noticed that too. The Daily Mirror reports she was born in Poland, but must other sources say she’s from Essex. I expect the media are hypersensitive to charges of racism if they point out that a person with a foreign-sounding name was not born in the UK.
Sounds made-up to me. Consider the source. The Daily Mail is known for being a tabloid news source. A lot of the news they report revolves around the alleged personal lives of celebrities. A lot of celebrity gossip distracts people from dealing with real world issues, issues in their own lives.
Your theory certainly has merit. The Daily Mail is many people’s go-to source of salacious tabloid gossip, regularly out-grossing the Mirror and the Sun these days.
However, this particular story is also being reported in the Times, the Telegraph and the Guardian, and on the BBC. So if it was made up, imagine how many people would have to be in on it?
Paget’s Law states that the more people required to be involved in a conspiracy theory, the less likely it is to be true. Isn’t that right, Norman?
This is why I’ve never taken seriously the theory that global leaders and prominent personalities (including the British Royal Family, US presidents, and celebrities) are not humans, but shape-shifting reptilian aliens controlling humanity from beneath places like the Denver International Airport.
Norman, my old mate, here’s one especially for you. Of course, everyone is welcome to join in.
The young lady (Heather McDonald) performing a stand-up comedy routine in this video takes the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ in vain for laughs, and a few seconds later drops down involuntarily and has what looks like an epileptic fit.
The audience initially believe its part of the act, but as the seconds go by, the begin to realize that something is amiss and some people rush onto the stage to help her.
What I want to know is, what the Dickens was unfolding on that stage? You are a man of logic, a man of science, and not a conspiracy loon by any description. Prey, tell us what was going on.
— Was it all part of her act? If so, she’s a damn good actress!
— Was it divine punishment for an act of profane blasphemy? We all know the Lord will not be mocked!
— Was it a delayed rare and unusual reaction to one or more of the injections she claimed to have received—double-COVID vaxxed and boosted, flu shot, and shingles shot?
— Was it a sudden attack of nerves or stage fright?
— Or was it just an amazing coincidence?
Moreover, what is a member of the audience to such a spectacle supposed to make of it?
And do you agree with my observation that whatever conjecture or conclusion a viewer may come to, there is ample scope for some know-it-all of your persuasion to call them a loon, a nutter, a moron, or a hard of some description?
Perhaps, let us say, it’s a random stroke of organized chaos of the cosmos, as seen by the recent death of the billionaire owner of the exploitive website, Only Fans, who was only 43 years old and died from cancer.
It happens all the time, fickle is the wheel of the Godess of Fate and Fortune.
The Ancients in the western world devoted many temples and worship.
You never know when life strikes at any time there, Tim.
Thanks, Mike.
No man, no woman knows
The hour that sorrow will come
Heather’s fall was, shall we say, immaculately timed. The gambler and logician in me tell me it was perhaps too immaculate. Consulting Occam’s razor, I not that the odds on her faking the fit at that precise time for comedic effect and to boost her fame are lower than the odds on her having a spontaneous fit immediately after announcing about her vaccines and the special treatment she gets from Jesus.
Fortunately, though, Heather is still very much alive and kicking and looking great for her age. She’s doing a tour at the moment, and her website is selling tickets.
https://www.heathermcdonaldtour.com
A new ribbon for injection survivors? Or is black already taken?
Fractured skull ain’t no joke.
Gravity. It’s not just for when you are able to institute emergency fall contingencies anymore. Maybe give helmets with the lollipop?
I had a good friend die in that time period on a road trip. Guy crossed into his lane. No survivors.
A colleague of mine and their family were killed in a crash nearly fifty years ago in the UK, when their car collided with another vehicle on a motorway. I never learned the details of how or why it happened.
Since COVID began, most of us have seen a lot of stories and seen some videos of people dropping down dead or collapsing while giving speeches or performing on stage. I’ve posted a few on OWF over the years.
At the same time, it has to be acknowledged that people have been collapsing live in front of cameras since well before COVID. I’ve been guilty of jumping to conclusions about certain incidents where I don’t have any evidence of the real cause of a collapse.
In the COVID era, among friends and acquaintances, the only incident of a blackout I’m aware of is when one of my work colleagues, a woman in her early 50s, got into her car one afternoon, turned on the ignition, and drove it straight into a utility pole. The incident happened a couple of weeks after her third COVID shot. She wasn’t injured, but the car was a write-off. She says she just lost consciousness for a few seconds and doesn’t remember a thing about the crash.
Apart from being serially jabbed, she was on a ketogenic diet where she only ate within a 6-hour window each day. I imagine that kind of diet could trigger ultra-low-blood-sugar episodes in some circumstances.