Yeah so if the Chinese are needing to sell something to get USD to pay for Crude, my guess is the last thing they'd sell would be gold. Heck they first need to spend their massive monthly trade balance, why would they use that to pay for crude
are they though? perhaps want is correct, but they still need them whether they want them or not. there's no place else to borrow and no other currency to borrow in effectively.
well I guess we'll see how this turns out and who cries uncle first. my nickel is that the Iranians won't give in, because they have done better than many of them might have thought and they know this is existential: defeat or giving in means becoming another Syria or Libya, or Gaza. For all the US's lofty words the Iranians aren't facing Eisenhower and George Marshall where a dignified peace is possible, it isn't democracy that the modern Americans are bringing to the world (though Al Jolani does look good in a suit when he comes to meet Trump or King Charles). My advice, negotiate a withdrawal from most of your bases in the middle east, drop your military expenditure from $916B (or Trump's suggested $1.5T) to maybe $325B to match China and Russia's combined and spend the saved 600-1200B on actually Making America Great Again: Remember "About 130 million U.S. adults (54% of those aged 16–74) read below a sixth-grade level, according to modeled estimates" https://www.nu.edu/blog/49-adult-literacy-statistics-and-facts/ - investing in getting most Americans to be able to read and understand The Constitution or the Federalist Papers will do more for America than trying to bomb Iran back to the stone age.
Oh so true. Without looking up the link Iran is at 91/92%. The more striking part is the development. At the times of the Shah regime that figure was around 30%. Teheran and other University cities excelled but the rural areas were way behind. The rate today of female graduates from Mint studies is 56%. I doubt there's any other country on this planet, matching this.
Make no mistake, I detest the Mullah regime to the max. But you need a lot of colours and shades to paint a realistic picture of this ancient society.
sorry, this is not a money $ expense issue .... it's a problem that money doesn't fix. , its cultural issue. money was spent, people used it elsewhere and folks (aggregate) decided they did not need to learn to read . . "About 130 million U.S. adults (54% of those aged 16–74) read below a sixth-grade level, according to modeled estimates" https://www.nu.edu/blog/49-adult-literacy-statistics-and-facts/ -"
recently folks have realized, and studies/commentaries published on how the NE has squandered billions and have terrible results.
I agree with you. This is a broader cultural problem that money won't fix. I guess my point above was maybe we (The US) can jamb a square peg into a round hole, but maybe it's worth stepping back and thinking more broadly about what we are trying to achieve (and for whom), and maybe we should be doing something different. We've gotten off on the wrong foot with this conflict with a lot of foolish narratives about why we went to war, but in a whole host of ways this is not America's finest moment. As I mentioned in a comment to JJ's https://jj745.substack.com/p/bittersweet - though I was born in Canada, both my parents were born in the states (and my sister lives there now), so I have a lot of fond memories about a lot of great things about the US that the Average American Citizen used to be able to enjoy. I want the best for the US (which generally means the average citizen), so it pains me for her to do things as foolish as the prosecution of this conflict; no good has or will come from this (for the average citizen) regardless of the outcome - and the money could be much better spent elsewhere
The "terms" offered by the USG were capitulation. Just short of unconditional surrender.
Will the USN really fire on Chinese ships? Will they board Indian ships? Iran can sink USN ships up to about 300 KM from any point in Iran (not just from the Gulf). How close in will the Navy dare to go? Your red line is a fantasy - Iran can easily sink any boat in that area. How many tankers can they catch and what will they do with them once they catch them. Will they sink them? Will they put them into a great marine corral? Will they escort them to the USA so the USG can just steal the oil? How will they know which tankers are heading for the Gulf and which to the Bab el Mandeb to fill up from the EW pipeline? Honor system? Will they gift stolen tankers to the Europeans? What about Ansar Allah? The whole piracy idea seems to be as iffy and confused as the foggy reasons to start the war in the first place. And it is very different from what Iran is currently doing. Iran is not committing piracy. Piracy is very different than a blockade. I stop now. Many questions.
I can still remember 27 Feb 2026, when the Strait was open to all. If only just...
My thought over the last 24 hours was how the blocade works from an International view. "Furthermore, Trump is acting solidly within U.S. sanctions law and wartime authority to interdict ships carrying Iranian crude."
What happens when we board/turnback a Chinesse or Indian tanker, or any other countries for that matter? I thought you're 3/12 essay was spot on but this question lingures for me.
Thanks for the well written essay ….so bottom line will it might elevate costs shipping oil west through the pipeline out of the Red Sea at least for Saudi Arabia this can short term replace using the Persian Gulf? And holding off th Houthis trying to close the passage on the southern end of the Red Sea is easier than the Hormuz straights? That still leaves the other shippers and still leaves the fertilizer and helium etc etc etc bottled up though
Randoms. KSA pumps 7 MB/d since at least two weeks. The Pipes via Iraq and (more important) Syria are well underway. Putting a Terrorist with a bait of 10 million USD in suit, groom his beard and call him a statesman has been the decisive action to make pipes to the Mediterranean happen.
The idea that Iran won't counter this move appears strange to me. As their arrival rate of missiles and drones has dramatically improved there will be serious effects.
At the same time (the whole time) US has moved more forces into the Arena which gives Iran good reason to mistrust the intentions.
ChinArb a Substack with lots of thinking out of the Box just started a 5 piece serious on this. His basic mental model (HT Doomy) frames it as WW 3 based on the plethora of actions/reactions of countries around the world. It's not just the 5/6 war parties it's so many more that have to involve themself and through various means. Not outright Military nature but severe and serious. He sees Islamabad as a negotiations table with no outcome while the tables and chairs ww become rearranged.
The Admin would do well to read your "how to open the strait ..." essay more carefully (than they have) because Pres. Trump's tweets so far state that the blockade applies only to ships transporting oil thru the Iranian "toll gate".
How can one establish whether a "toll" has been paid, or not, to the Iranians for passage of any particular ship transit creates a fundamental complication which, most importantly, is not necessary.
Your thesis to take all Iranian oil carried on any ship and re-sell the oil if Iran blocks safe passage thru the Strait is a more "elegant" approach IMO because the trip is whether the ship is carrying Iranian oil or not, a condition which is easily provable.
BTW Stephen Innes remarked that your approach (how to open the strait....") to today's trouble was implemented successfully by the British Navy in WWI, so there is this precedent as well.
Yeah so if the Chinese are needing to sell something to get USD to pay for Crude, my guess is the last thing they'd sell would be gold. Heck they first need to spend their massive monthly trade balance, why would they use that to pay for crude
Just adds another bid to the dollar that’s already short … maybe as short as treasuries…
Yeah nah, in the long run, the world is long a lot more USD than they want.
are they though? perhaps want is correct, but they still need them whether they want them or not. there's no place else to borrow and no other currency to borrow in effectively.
if anything, treasuries seem the first things to go
100% and they've been trying to reduce their exposure as well!
Def.
well I guess we'll see how this turns out and who cries uncle first. my nickel is that the Iranians won't give in, because they have done better than many of them might have thought and they know this is existential: defeat or giving in means becoming another Syria or Libya, or Gaza. For all the US's lofty words the Iranians aren't facing Eisenhower and George Marshall where a dignified peace is possible, it isn't democracy that the modern Americans are bringing to the world (though Al Jolani does look good in a suit when he comes to meet Trump or King Charles). My advice, negotiate a withdrawal from most of your bases in the middle east, drop your military expenditure from $916B (or Trump's suggested $1.5T) to maybe $325B to match China and Russia's combined and spend the saved 600-1200B on actually Making America Great Again: Remember "About 130 million U.S. adults (54% of those aged 16–74) read below a sixth-grade level, according to modeled estimates" https://www.nu.edu/blog/49-adult-literacy-statistics-and-facts/ - investing in getting most Americans to be able to read and understand The Constitution or the Federalist Papers will do more for America than trying to bomb Iran back to the stone age.
Oh so true. Without looking up the link Iran is at 91/92%. The more striking part is the development. At the times of the Shah regime that figure was around 30%. Teheran and other University cities excelled but the rural areas were way behind. The rate today of female graduates from Mint studies is 56%. I doubt there's any other country on this planet, matching this.
Make no mistake, I detest the Mullah regime to the max. But you need a lot of colours and shades to paint a realistic picture of this ancient society.
sorry, this is not a money $ expense issue .... it's a problem that money doesn't fix. , its cultural issue. money was spent, people used it elsewhere and folks (aggregate) decided they did not need to learn to read . . "About 130 million U.S. adults (54% of those aged 16–74) read below a sixth-grade level, according to modeled estimates" https://www.nu.edu/blog/49-adult-literacy-statistics-and-facts/ -"
recently folks have realized, and studies/commentaries published on how the NE has squandered billions and have terrible results.
I agree with you. This is a broader cultural problem that money won't fix. I guess my point above was maybe we (The US) can jamb a square peg into a round hole, but maybe it's worth stepping back and thinking more broadly about what we are trying to achieve (and for whom), and maybe we should be doing something different. We've gotten off on the wrong foot with this conflict with a lot of foolish narratives about why we went to war, but in a whole host of ways this is not America's finest moment. As I mentioned in a comment to JJ's https://jj745.substack.com/p/bittersweet - though I was born in Canada, both my parents were born in the states (and my sister lives there now), so I have a lot of fond memories about a lot of great things about the US that the Average American Citizen used to be able to enjoy. I want the best for the US (which generally means the average citizen), so it pains me for her to do things as foolish as the prosecution of this conflict; no good has or will come from this (for the average citizen) regardless of the outcome - and the money could be much better spent elsewhere
The "terms" offered by the USG were capitulation. Just short of unconditional surrender.
Will the USN really fire on Chinese ships? Will they board Indian ships? Iran can sink USN ships up to about 300 KM from any point in Iran (not just from the Gulf). How close in will the Navy dare to go? Your red line is a fantasy - Iran can easily sink any boat in that area. How many tankers can they catch and what will they do with them once they catch them. Will they sink them? Will they put them into a great marine corral? Will they escort them to the USA so the USG can just steal the oil? How will they know which tankers are heading for the Gulf and which to the Bab el Mandeb to fill up from the EW pipeline? Honor system? Will they gift stolen tankers to the Europeans? What about Ansar Allah? The whole piracy idea seems to be as iffy and confused as the foggy reasons to start the war in the first place. And it is very different from what Iran is currently doing. Iran is not committing piracy. Piracy is very different than a blockade. I stop now. Many questions.
I can still remember 27 Feb 2026, when the Strait was open to all. If only just...
Congrats to your long memory Sir 🤓
TY JJ.
My thought over the last 24 hours was how the blocade works from an International view. "Furthermore, Trump is acting solidly within U.S. sanctions law and wartime authority to interdict ships carrying Iranian crude."
What happens when we board/turnback a Chinesse or Indian tanker, or any other countries for that matter? I thought you're 3/12 essay was spot on but this question lingures for me.
Cherers.
Your assessment sounded about right to me.
Poor Polonius. "Neither a work-around nor a screw-up be"
I think you have a secret admirer in the Department of the Treasury, sir.
Thanks for the well written essay ….so bottom line will it might elevate costs shipping oil west through the pipeline out of the Red Sea at least for Saudi Arabia this can short term replace using the Persian Gulf? And holding off th Houthis trying to close the passage on the southern end of the Red Sea is easier than the Hormuz straights? That still leaves the other shippers and still leaves the fertilizer and helium etc etc etc bottled up though
From here the new world starts to grow up
Entirely off Topic. Eventually helpful for any US home owner amongst the readers:
https://substack.com/@lyonslogic/note/c-242309049?r=3rt1cr
You called this move, sir. Insightful.
It appears we are very close to checkmate!
Randoms. KSA pumps 7 MB/d since at least two weeks. The Pipes via Iraq and (more important) Syria are well underway. Putting a Terrorist with a bait of 10 million USD in suit, groom his beard and call him a statesman has been the decisive action to make pipes to the Mediterranean happen.
The idea that Iran won't counter this move appears strange to me. As their arrival rate of missiles and drones has dramatically improved there will be serious effects.
At the same time (the whole time) US has moved more forces into the Arena which gives Iran good reason to mistrust the intentions.
"Yeah, there is one thing: my own morality, my own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me. I don't need international law." - 45-47
What if the other straight is blocked as well?
ChinArb a Substack with lots of thinking out of the Box just started a 5 piece serious on this. His basic mental model (HT Doomy) frames it as WW 3 based on the plethora of actions/reactions of countries around the world. It's not just the 5/6 war parties it's so many more that have to involve themself and through various means. Not outright Military nature but severe and serious. He sees Islamabad as a negotiations table with no outcome while the tables and chairs ww become rearranged.
would be an interesting time for China to Blockade Taiwan...
The Admin would do well to read your "how to open the strait ..." essay more carefully (than they have) because Pres. Trump's tweets so far state that the blockade applies only to ships transporting oil thru the Iranian "toll gate".
How can one establish whether a "toll" has been paid, or not, to the Iranians for passage of any particular ship transit creates a fundamental complication which, most importantly, is not necessary.
Your thesis to take all Iranian oil carried on any ship and re-sell the oil if Iran blocks safe passage thru the Strait is a more "elegant" approach IMO because the trip is whether the ship is carrying Iranian oil or not, a condition which is easily provable.
BTW Stephen Innes remarked that your approach (how to open the strait....") to today's trouble was implemented successfully by the British Navy in WWI, so there is this precedent as well.