It's very clear the current U.S. administration cares more about the stock market than the actual economic impacts everyday Americans and the World are seeing as a result of this disastrous policy. There's a reason Trump has been saying meetings are being held right before the market opens on Monday as Iranians deny it.
The leaders of the Eurocolonial capitalist empire will not lose. The mass population in their countries is who loses.
What Russia and China and Iran are doing, can allow them to resist being subsumed under the control of the western oligarchs. But those oligarchs are consolidating their grip on, and ability to rape their own local victims.
The leaders of the Eurocolonial empire have already long began the consolidation of their empire into a walled garden. Cutting off energy supply from Russia, adding tarrifs on imports from China. Imposing GDP-linked tithes be paid to their weapons makers. And recently moves like a "free trade" agreement between the EU and Australia, and the European Commmision incredibly agreeing to accept 15% tarrifs on EU exports to the US....with zero tarrifs on US exports to the EU. Goons of "immigration" militia roaming the streets. Expressing opposition to government policy, or protesting it, now actually a crime - or even worse, can be punished in the EU without even having broken ANY law at all.
All of this is designed to lock the masses in these countries inside a walled garden and exploit and fleece them.
So the oligarchy of the empire never loses. The only question is who do they victimize.
That's the sort of thing I was hinting at myself. We should be more worried than we actually are, if we assume all of this was entirely intended consequences rather than a not-credible military blunder.
Well, if the Hormuz blockade and the just announced plan to cut off BABalMANDAB persist for much longer, the fruit in the garden will stop growing. The natives will become restless.
Two aspects of this article come to mind. One, the US military has deep problems of procurement as military necessities have been outsourced to private industries, which are motivated by profit. On the other hand, both China and Russia have military industries motivated by purpose. Another is that paying for the US military has been traditionally done by selling US bonds, ie, by selling debt, giving the US a "free lunch". Now, the globe is becoming less and less willing to pony up.
Two, I am reminded that when Cuba was cut off from Soviet era agricultural inputs, she successfully transitioned to traditional, organic methods, yielding almost as much and healthier food. Perhaps this oil shock will cause a similar global transition.
That is the traditional farmland mix. There is a fascinating story, THE FARMER OF FUKUOKA, of a Japanese civil servant who experienced Enlightenment and returned to his family farm to 'start over'. He developed innovative farming methods. One I remember is how right after the rice harvest, he set loose his flock of geese to eat the insects in the field and any spilled rice. Doing so, they also manured the field.
Jon I see from your profile that you were SDS and Draft Resistance. I was 'SDS-aligned' and a member of the Palo Alto Draft Resistance during the Vietnam War. Good for you to be on a farm!
I live on the very farm on which I grew up,and recently raise organic high bush blueberries for market at the health food sore and do some low level organic veggies for myself. I returned after 36 years on Oahu.
Yes it does. I watched a fascinating movie about a yuppie couple who bought an old, run-down farm and determined to restore it to organic sustainability with health soil. They spent ten years on their project and invested lots of money and much hard work, but succeeded. This, however, is the mandate for any chance for a healthy planet.
In the Netherlands, essentially the legislature mandated sustainable farms, but they did not invest in the project nor help the farmers during the transition.
But the Cubans had no choice and they succeeded to the extent they could.
The importance of sulphuric acid is much more than the writer realises. It is exported from the Gulf to Morocco where it is used to make the phosphates required by farmers.
Morocco exports 1/3 of the world's trade in phosphate fertilisers.
Great article ... Thanks Kit. It would also be good for a live spreadsheet of the cost of the war expeditures, loss of earnings and damages for everyone to see.....
It will be a good time for sanctions against the USA now.
China should, as it already has done gallium and other rare earth elements, batteries, steel.
Russia should stop supplying US with uranium, titanium and fertilizer.
That should be sufficient to crack the US, and not enough reason for them to drop the bomb.
A very interesting statistic I like is to look at the steel produced per country/region per capita ito infrastructure, weapons, reinforcement for concrete.
China is about 650kg per person per year
Russia about 500kg pp/y
EU is 250kg pp/y
USA also 250kg pp/y
It gives a clear indication of a manufacturing economy.
The issue is not whether the TRILLION DOLLAR ARMY will run out of steam but whether less well funded normal people will make it through.
Easy to break stuff, long to rebuild. It is an absolute disaster.
Kit, while this timely and valuable article provides a swathe of vital information on the implications of the disruption caused by this war that the corporate media seems very reluctant to cover, I must take issue with one of the article’s key assumptions—that Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz. This is clearly not the case. Iran is restricting which vessels it will allow to pass through the strait unhindered. Iran has stated the conditions under which vessels will be permitted to pass. Iranian oil is being exported through the strait, with a large part of that undoubtedly heading for China. But other countries are also receiving shipments through the strait—Bangladesh and India for starters, but there are certainly others too that have shunned publicity. The countries receiving shipments through the strait have negotiated with the government of Iran. They have met the conditions imposed by Iran for using the strait. Iran has stated that the US and its allies supporting the war against it will not be permitted to pass. Inevitably, more countries will become desperate for fuel, sulfur and urea supplies, and they will begin the process of negotiating terms with Iran. This may include some form of “toll”. But one other key factor is that ship insurers in the West have more or less declined to provide insurance cover under the current circumstances. This is probably the main impediment to ships wanting to access the strait. The US, Israel, the five GCC countries excluding Oman, along with all their customers are royally screwed until the US meets all of Iran’s overall demands—which is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Welcome to the largest supply chain shock in history.
"The prospect of Western sanctions on Russia - a major producer of fertilizer - being lifted to ameliorate the market bedlam"
If I were Russia I'd respond, "Eh boy? What's that you say? You see, I have a banana in my ear." Why should they come to the aid of mortal enemies? But they are such softies they probably will.
On second thought I'd consider supplying the fertilizer on condition that the West cease its support of Ukraine. However the West would just lie about it so maybe that isn't such a good idea.
The US empire is facing a major crisis of its own making in terms of the inability of its military industrial complex to cope with the demands of modern warfare. Reports from the South China Morning Post and Reuters suggest that the US is months or even weeks away from running out of vital rare earth metals which come exclusively from China such as yttrium and scandium needed for jet engines and semi conductor chips. Oilprice.com quoted CEO as saying:
"“You can’t fight a twenty-first-century war with twentieth-century supply chains,” said Lipi Sternheim, CEO of REalloys. “Modern weapons rely on materials that are difficult to source, difficult to process, and difficult to replace once inventories begin to tighten.”
The House of Saud site has an article which outlines the desperate situation facing the US and its allies which may well have a decisive bearing on the outcome of the present war against Iran:
"Somewhere in the vast inventory databases of the United States military, a number is shrinking that should terrify policymakers in Taipei, Kyiv, and every NATO capital east of Berlin. It is not a troop count, not a naval tonnage figure, not a nuclear warhead total. It is the number of missile interceptors available to defend the free world — and it is collapsing at a rate that no production line on Earth can match.
Twenty-four days into the Iran war, the United States has burned through roughly a quarter of its high-end interceptor stockpile. Saudi Arabia is intercepting dozens of Iranian-manufactured drones and ballistic missiles daily. Qatar faces Patriot interceptor depletion in four days. The UAE, in seven. Israel has informed Washington it is critically low on ballistic missile defense munitions. And a senior U.S. official, speaking with the weary candor that accompanies genuine alarm, offered perhaps the most consequential assessment of this conflict so far: “We have shot several years’ worth of production in the last few days.”
The main worry, is what the narcissistic Zionist psychopaths will DO - when it becomes clear that they've lost, in their conventional war against Iran.
Gangster Capitalism was always distributive which is why the settler colonial gang of five invented the security council but they forgot it would be profitable once the resistance figured out how to leverage their geography.
It's very clear the current U.S. administration cares more about the stock market than the actual economic impacts everyday Americans and the World are seeing as a result of this disastrous policy. There's a reason Trump has been saying meetings are being held right before the market opens on Monday as Iranians deny it.
I'm amazed that financial speculators believe anything that Mr. T says.
They benefit too. It's all make believe. Everything has been financialized. Why not war?
The leaders of the Eurocolonial capitalist empire will not lose. The mass population in their countries is who loses.
What Russia and China and Iran are doing, can allow them to resist being subsumed under the control of the western oligarchs. But those oligarchs are consolidating their grip on, and ability to rape their own local victims.
The leaders of the Eurocolonial empire have already long began the consolidation of their empire into a walled garden. Cutting off energy supply from Russia, adding tarrifs on imports from China. Imposing GDP-linked tithes be paid to their weapons makers. And recently moves like a "free trade" agreement between the EU and Australia, and the European Commmision incredibly agreeing to accept 15% tarrifs on EU exports to the US....with zero tarrifs on US exports to the EU. Goons of "immigration" militia roaming the streets. Expressing opposition to government policy, or protesting it, now actually a crime - or even worse, can be punished in the EU without even having broken ANY law at all.
All of this is designed to lock the masses in these countries inside a walled garden and exploit and fleece them.
So the oligarchy of the empire never loses. The only question is who do they victimize.
That's the sort of thing I was hinting at myself. We should be more worried than we actually are, if we assume all of this was entirely intended consequences rather than a not-credible military blunder.
Well, if the Hormuz blockade and the just announced plan to cut off BABalMANDAB persist for much longer, the fruit in the garden will stop growing. The natives will become restless.
Nope! "Like Pharoah's tribe, they'll be drownded in the tide and like Goliath, they'll be conquered" Dylan The Hour that the Ship comes in."
Two aspects of this article come to mind. One, the US military has deep problems of procurement as military necessities have been outsourced to private industries, which are motivated by profit. On the other hand, both China and Russia have military industries motivated by purpose. Another is that paying for the US military has been traditionally done by selling US bonds, ie, by selling debt, giving the US a "free lunch". Now, the globe is becoming less and less willing to pony up.
Two, I am reminded that when Cuba was cut off from Soviet era agricultural inputs, she successfully transitioned to traditional, organic methods, yielding almost as much and healthier food. Perhaps this oil shock will cause a similar global transition.
More cows, sheep, goats, chickens and turkeys--plenty of fertilizer then.
That is the traditional farmland mix. There is a fascinating story, THE FARMER OF FUKUOKA, of a Japanese civil servant who experienced Enlightenment and returned to his family farm to 'start over'. He developed innovative farming methods. One I remember is how right after the rice harvest, he set loose his flock of geese to eat the insects in the field and any spilled rice. Doing so, they also manured the field.
I speak from our family farm, so I understand from experieince.
Jon I see from your profile that you were SDS and Draft Resistance. I was 'SDS-aligned' and a member of the Palo Alto Draft Resistance during the Vietnam War. Good for you to be on a farm!
I live on the very farm on which I grew up,and recently raise organic high bush blueberries for market at the health food sore and do some low level organic veggies for myself. I returned after 36 years on Oahu.
It takes years to build up the soil again.
Yes it does. I watched a fascinating movie about a yuppie couple who bought an old, run-down farm and determined to restore it to organic sustainability with health soil. They spent ten years on their project and invested lots of money and much hard work, but succeeded. This, however, is the mandate for any chance for a healthy planet.
In the Netherlands, essentially the legislature mandated sustainable farms, but they did not invest in the project nor help the farmers during the transition.
But the Cubans had no choice and they succeeded to the extent they could.
"Strait Of Hormuz Closure Brings Empire To Brink."
Hopefully, it will be the end of the empire.
Nuking Iran much more likely.
And of course any problems for the US Defence industry inevitably leads to problems for the Zionist murder industry.
The importance of sulphuric acid is much more than the writer realises. It is exported from the Gulf to Morocco where it is used to make the phosphates required by farmers.
Morocco exports 1/3 of the world's trade in phosphate fertilisers.
I referenced this when I said "Sulfur is a core element of fertilizer production, and pre-war, the Strait provided up to 45% of the world’s supply."
Time to ramp us the cattle and bison volume to provide natural fertilizer, and oh yeah, stop culling the chickens over imaginary bird flu!
Sulphuric acid is also used in the manufacture of military explosives.
You are absolutely correct. Thank you.
Great article ... Thanks Kit. It would also be good for a live spreadsheet of the cost of the war expeditures, loss of earnings and damages for everyone to see.....
A net present value calculation would be a useful talking point.
As usual Kit goes into meticulous details delivering the most factual journalism possible .
God bless you for that, dear Abderaouf!
dear frien of truth Kit: on top of all you describe, today in the sell of the long terms bonds recieved
CERO OFFERS
Your Patagonian-Spanish follower
It will be a good time for sanctions against the USA now.
China should, as it already has done gallium and other rare earth elements, batteries, steel.
Russia should stop supplying US with uranium, titanium and fertilizer.
That should be sufficient to crack the US, and not enough reason for them to drop the bomb.
A very interesting statistic I like is to look at the steel produced per country/region per capita ito infrastructure, weapons, reinforcement for concrete.
China is about 650kg per person per year
Russia about 500kg pp/y
EU is 250kg pp/y
USA also 250kg pp/y
It gives a clear indication of a manufacturing economy.
The issue is not whether the TRILLION DOLLAR ARMY will run out of steam but whether less well funded normal people will make it through.
Easy to break stuff, long to rebuild. It is an absolute disaster.
Kit, while this timely and valuable article provides a swathe of vital information on the implications of the disruption caused by this war that the corporate media seems very reluctant to cover, I must take issue with one of the article’s key assumptions—that Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz. This is clearly not the case. Iran is restricting which vessels it will allow to pass through the strait unhindered. Iran has stated the conditions under which vessels will be permitted to pass. Iranian oil is being exported through the strait, with a large part of that undoubtedly heading for China. But other countries are also receiving shipments through the strait—Bangladesh and India for starters, but there are certainly others too that have shunned publicity. The countries receiving shipments through the strait have negotiated with the government of Iran. They have met the conditions imposed by Iran for using the strait. Iran has stated that the US and its allies supporting the war against it will not be permitted to pass. Inevitably, more countries will become desperate for fuel, sulfur and urea supplies, and they will begin the process of negotiating terms with Iran. This may include some form of “toll”. But one other key factor is that ship insurers in the West have more or less declined to provide insurance cover under the current circumstances. This is probably the main impediment to ships wanting to access the strait. The US, Israel, the five GCC countries excluding Oman, along with all their customers are royally screwed until the US meets all of Iran’s overall demands—which is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Welcome to the largest supply chain shock in history.
"The prospect of Western sanctions on Russia - a major producer of fertilizer - being lifted to ameliorate the market bedlam"
If I were Russia I'd respond, "Eh boy? What's that you say? You see, I have a banana in my ear." Why should they come to the aid of mortal enemies? But they are such softies they probably will.
On second thought I'd consider supplying the fertilizer on condition that the West cease its support of Ukraine. However the West would just lie about it so maybe that isn't such a good idea.
The US empire is facing a major crisis of its own making in terms of the inability of its military industrial complex to cope with the demands of modern warfare. Reports from the South China Morning Post and Reuters suggest that the US is months or even weeks away from running out of vital rare earth metals which come exclusively from China such as yttrium and scandium needed for jet engines and semi conductor chips. Oilprice.com quoted CEO as saying:
"“You can’t fight a twenty-first-century war with twentieth-century supply chains,” said Lipi Sternheim, CEO of REalloys. “Modern weapons rely on materials that are difficult to source, difficult to process, and difficult to replace once inventories begin to tighten.”
The House of Saud site has an article which outlines the desperate situation facing the US and its allies which may well have a decisive bearing on the outcome of the present war against Iran:
"Somewhere in the vast inventory databases of the United States military, a number is shrinking that should terrify policymakers in Taipei, Kyiv, and every NATO capital east of Berlin. It is not a troop count, not a naval tonnage figure, not a nuclear warhead total. It is the number of missile interceptors available to defend the free world — and it is collapsing at a rate that no production line on Earth can match.
Twenty-four days into the Iran war, the United States has burned through roughly a quarter of its high-end interceptor stockpile. Saudi Arabia is intercepting dozens of Iranian-manufactured drones and ballistic missiles daily. Qatar faces Patriot interceptor depletion in four days. The UAE, in seven. Israel has informed Washington it is critically low on ballistic missile defense munitions. And a senior U.S. official, speaking with the weary candor that accompanies genuine alarm, offered perhaps the most consequential assessment of this conflict so far: “We have shot several years’ worth of production in the last few days.”
US imperialism shooting itself in the arms.
Iran can use shipping fees in the Straits to rebuilt its economy.
The main worry, is what the narcissistic Zionist psychopaths will DO - when it becomes clear that they've lost, in their conventional war against Iran.
Gangster Capitalism was always distributive which is why the settler colonial gang of five invented the security council but they forgot it would be profitable once the resistance figured out how to leverage their geography.