March, 19-21: God is a comedian
no01.substack.com
no01.substack.com
I try to look on the bright side. There’s a sudden interest in energy and supply chain sovereignty. Which is never a bad thing.
But what is really not funny is the scale of human suffering that is happening and will follow. Civilians killed in Iran, Lebanon - and what the hell, even in Israel, maybe they aren't in the 90% who support this war. Completely pointless material damage. All the people in Tehran who will get cancer from breathing in crude oil fumes - and according to Trump himself, 85% of Iranians oppose the regime. The damage to GCC economies, who didn't want this to happen. The damage to global economy from the spiking oil prices, unpredictability - and the very real poverty this will push people into. The weakening of arsenals against other adversaries, including Ukraine's defence against Russia. The boost to Russia's budget from spiking oil prices and indefinite-looking suspension of sanctions.
And all this assuming this doesn't turn into WWIII.
So on balance, not funny I think.
To expand on that - the southern hemisphere harvest is over, now it's edging into seeding time to get the next round of crops started.
More than one farm is struggling to secure the volume of fuel required to seed.
With significant refineries offline for ~ 5 years, impacted fertilizer (agriculture) and sulphar (mineral processing) production deeply impacted ... this "little excursion" is set to cast a long shadow across the entire globe for quite some time.
If Trump is truely insane and his plan "to bomb the living shit out of Iran's energy infrastructure" includes the Bushehr NPP, mainly operated by Russian nuclear scientists and engineers, the world will likely face even bigger problems than they are facing now.
Expensive petrol is one thing. What happens when a considerable portion of the world can't feed itself because of a lack of fertiliser?
The only vague silver lining is that the situation is such a disastrous blunder that maybe future presidents will think a bit harder before sending the military in to the middle east. Assuming that Iran doesn't survive, get nukes and set up an impenetrable missile deterrence that renders the question moot. If the Republicans don't disassociate from Trump ASAP it looks like it is going to be much worse for them than Bush was and the way he established a good decade of right-wing cultural irrelevance. The safest path that will hold together with hindsight is walking away but I doubt they're nimble enough to manage that.
This is only true if you ignore the role of America's greatest ally, in which case, the motivations become very obvious.
AFAIK, it was intended for presidents that use their position to pump-and-dump some cryptocoin or keep manipulating the stock market after their friends brought-in.
Destroying the country and starting WW3 for no reason is what treason laws are for.
This isn't true. Congress entered into de facto agreement the second that it struck down war powers measures against the Trump administration's power to wage war against Iran.
Doesn't all insurance policies exclude acts of war, and after 9/11 also acts of terrorism?
2) They're not going to pay => not answering the phone => fascinating noises.
3) Sarcasm in the article?
On these current events, the issue is a lot of people it's making money on losses. There are psychos that in the past would be killed in the spot for being too greedy even against their peers.
> As a Marxist, I feel compelled to point out that much of what passes for “Communism” today does not align very well with the recorded teachings of Marx.
Oh dear, where are all the true Scotsmen?