Lots going in the market today, none of it good. There is the Space X IPO where they are basically blackmailing the NASDAQ to rewrite the rules. This is a bad look, and screams “we need to force passive index investors to buy our stock.” Continuous chatter about data center spending, financing meant to hide debt, and public backlash about them. And now signs are pointing to interest rate hikes, not drops. Makes you wonder if the music is about to stop.
(That was an excellent movie by the way)
Personally my IRA is near a 60/40 split, reasonably high foreign exposure, and 23% cash. I’m seeing storm clouds.
It is most certainly a weird day. Gold and Bitcoin are getting hammered too -3%+ and -5%+ respectively.
Considering how fast and high the the market has run in the past two weeks, this may be little more than profit-taking; but that does not explain gold and Bitcoin, the later which is -40% YOY.
Bitcoin has now underperformed the S&P500 over the last five years.
We are not hearing it directly because the oil reserves running down to unuseable levels are in the EU first. In the next ten days or less, Europe is going to plunge. Assuming the oil shock takes hold. I do not know why not.
We have until July 4 before our strategic oil reserve has to be closed to civilian use. The people against war with Iran will be swept aside. Aside from Blame? Iran owns this. The regime can blame Israel or Trump but the regime owns this. The rest is grasping at straws.
Trump is not serious about any deal. He will avoid any possible deal. And tell us the opposite. You do not want a deal because we won’t get out of this by making a deal. The regime will line up excuses to close the strait and exact economic revenge on us.
So Iran did not close down the strait? It is illegal to control this sort of international waterway.
Unless you want a nuclear Iran. Kiss your family goodbye later.
This war had to happen. The US and Iran are on a collision course. We have sanctioned them for decades. The regime has killed over a million people in the ME.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are arch enemies. We were bound to protect their oil. If you do not think SA is behind a good sized dose of this you have not been following things.
You can add this up in other ways. All of it leads to war.
No matter how evil it is, we have not prosecuted top dogs in this country for centuries. Dating back to the slaveholders who got reparations when the slaves went free after the war. It is nothing new. We heard most of the Epstain, his name is not allowed, stuff, and nothing changed. The dog is the dog, the war goes on.
There are plenty of ways out for the regime. The regime wants economic revenge on you. Me as well. When the butter is not on your bread it will matter.
No, it did not. The Obama plan was working. Tearing up that agreement because Trump could not handle what a black man did was a CHOICE. Not making another treaty to replace it was a CHOICE, and a failure. Let’s face it, this was done because we are being blackmailed due to a honey pot operation run by a tiny country in the Middle East who has way too much influence on my country. That needs to stop.
When this mess in the entire world is over in 2028, what do we do? Point and say Obama and Biden had it all straightened out? That has to be a nonstarter.
We need policy decisions in the aftermath. We can not just point back ten years and not deal any cards.
It worries me. If the Dems do not take solid positions when they want to do something, they have not prepared the public and have no support.
We have been talking past each other. I supported what Obama did. But regardless of the craphead that got rid of it, what now? That is why I say this war has to happen.
But it’s not going to. Whether you say it has to or not.
The U.S. public is not going to support Iraq 2.0. We’re not going to send a large number of ground troops into Iran (a country twice the size of Iraq). Because the U.S. public is not going to support it, the Administration would not be able to get the funding they would need for it out of Congress. So it won’t happen.
Does this mean Iran might develop a nuclear weapon? It might indeed. They never took the final sprint to go from highly enriched uranium to an actual bomb before. But now, they might. It would be darkly ironic if the Administration’s efforts to keep Iran from getting a nuke ended up providing them the impetus to actually go out and get it. But that very much might happen.
Just because we find it unacceptable doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Or that we’ll do anything to stop it. Because we would find it just as unacceptable to launch another full-on ground troop invasion of another middle eastern country to deprive them of WMD’s. It’s not going to happen. As much as we might not like it, it is entirely possible (and IMHO likely) that the Administration has gotten us into a situation that can’t be fixed. And pointing out how unpalatable the situation is doesn’t mean that a solution will present itself.
It seems to me the real solution is too go all in on buying or building as much battery capacity as possible as quickly as possible to cause oil to be less of an issue, with a much lower price, and leave the Middle East to sort themselves out. Ten years of maximum effort should be enough. Solar plus battery is already cheaper than other tip s for energy, and has the added advantage of reducing cash flow to the Middle East and other bad actors. Plus, it’s better for the environment.
The American and global public opinions are going to leave your beliefs in the dust.
The oil shock should start to ramp up soon in the EU and not be far off in the US. It is not just oil. Entire assembly lines and supply chains will drop out. There will be an inflation shock.
Those who do not care right now will be all in for war. Most people do not care right now. Most people do not care most of the time, but you’d never know it if you turn on the news. Most people do not turn on the news.
To pick a nit, Iran is almost four times the size of Iraq. That’s a lot of geography. (Yes, it’s twice the size in population, but it’s more geographically spread out, making it even hard to “conquer” than its smaller neighbor.)
You say the most ridiculous things. Nobody is going to support a war against Iran. Nobody does now except Bibi. Not the Gulf states (they don’t like it, but they are not going to go to war against it), not Asia, not the US public, not the European public. Who is left? Argentina?
Boots on the ground is vastly costly in both blood and treasure. That’s why Obama made a treaty instead of foolishly stomping in the way Bush Jr did with Iraq. I have little doubt that Iran will now pursue a nuke, because even not pursuing one has turned out to be destructive thanks to the stupidity of our government.
You are naive. The oil hasn’t flowed for quite a while now. The Iranians have bombed them.
You are sitting pretty out of harm’s way until the oil shock hits.
The country has fought for far less. The Vietnam protesters made things conflictual at home, but the war ended because it went on so long. You can kid yourself your opinions matter.
They’re not going to be all in for war. They’re going to be all in for cutting a deal with Iran. Which is why that will happen, rather than a ground invasion.
There are lots of reasons. One main reason is that we can’t stop Iran from destroying virtually all of the energy infrastructure in the region if we decide to invade. All the refineries, all the loading facilities, all the gas liquification plants. All the vulnerable infrastructure that they started bombing in late March after some Israeli strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure, and which led forthwith to the ceasefire once we realized that they had that card in their deck. So instead of getting virtually no oil or gas out of the Gulf for however long this folly continues, you get virtually no oil or gas out of the Gulf for three to five years.
American public opinion won’t shift in favor of a war that will cause whatever terrible energy crisis exists at the time will just make it worse. It will shift in favor of accepting an agreement to end the war in exchange for the strait reopening.
You are being naive, Iran will break that deal or we will break that deal. The Strait will be repeatedly closed. Business can not be done this way.
If that were so Carter would not have been voted out for a stronger handed Reagan. RR won in a landslide. The public barely knew about the dealings. The regime did not want to go to war. This time they do. They are at war. So are we.
