“'The pressure on the Strait of Hormuz means that President Trump cannot simply declare victory and walk away, as that would not resolve the underlying issue,' said Will Todman, senior fellow in Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies."
“Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective." – Donald J. Trump, 2011.
There are very good reasons why no president has done this kind of thing before… Wars in the Middle East are easy to start but hard to end. And as energy and fertilizer stocks dwindle, now the entire world will pay the price.
Did you ever wonder what America would feel like if we had a perverted, corrupt, fascist dictator as our "leader". Well, check it out. We've arrived. The question we keep asking ourselves, "What are WE going to do about it?" becomes more pressing everyday. The world envisioned by Trump's brain and enabled by his cultist syncophants cannot be allowed to continue.
Another rise up election is coming in 3 days in Virginia. I doubt most voters - in Northern VA at least - will swallow the bait being cast by ex-Gov. Fleecevest about how unfair it would be if Virginia does for Democrats what FL, GA, TX + others are doing for Republicans.
He had jared and witkoff to bungle negotiations with Iran and putin. Neither of which had experience in dealing international affairs. It ain't like buying property - a bit more complicated.
Jared's track record buying properties and investing is miserable. The only reason he's still afloat is that he sold his soul to MBS (Mr. Bone Saw to his friends). He's a fail, just like the rest of the Trump Crime Family. And Witkoff is waaay out of his league. He can't buy these guys a round of drinks after golf and get a 5% discount, and that's the limits of his skills.
There was no negotiation in evidence. Netanyahu told Trump to attack Iran, so he did. Putin told Trump to stop supporting Ukraine, so he did. Unless Netanyahu and Putin disagree on a directive, Trump doesn't have to negotiate anything. If they do disagree, it appears that Trump flips a coin to pick a policy.
Trump thinks he’s a lot of things he isn’t. Witkoff & Kushner were in way over their heads both in Ukraine and Iran. They have no knowledge of diplomacy, nor does Trump. He prides
himself on his instincts that are primarily predatory. Bullying bankers,
the trades and underage girls is kindergarten level stuff.
So many sycophants are afraid of this tired, worthless bully. I guess the extended crime family must be Texas oil folk. But, it still doesn’t compute. In the meanwhile, grab a hoe and dig up your grass. We’ll all have to barter beans to carrots. If you have a cow or a goat, guard that sucker with your pellet gun.
The Sunni/Shi'a Divide has lasted 1700 years and still driving events in the Middle East. When Prophet Muhammad died in 632 A.D. there was a rift over who was the rightful successor. Many bloody clashes have occurred ever since.
Sunnis are the vast majority believing Shi'ites are apostates and heretics. Iran is a Shi'a nation living in a rough Sunni Arab neighborhood. Today they're lobbing missiles and drones at Sunni countries in a war they didn't start.
That is why we must not resort to violent confrontations in this Country to remove Trump. I know the destruction of our Government and therefore our whole Country is becoming so grave, but we don't want a civil war to finish the destruction!
In the US, according to AI, we own 40% of all the guns in the world. We will likely avoid a civil war, as that requires more organization than we have, but a disintegration to warlords is easy to imagine.
The Gestapo-like tactics being used against migrants are not only inhumane, but damaging the economy. If Trump and Stevie Miller actually believed Americans would fill those tough, dirty jobs, they're even dumber and more deluded than I thought. Miller and JD Vance should pitch in at a meat-packing plant and see how they like it.
"Operation Epic Fubar". Brilliant, Paul. My late father , who served in the Pacific in WWII, would have loved that sobriquet for our latest fiasco in the Middle East. Though his regular use of the word fubar was usually was based on more mundane events, such as not being able to start the lawnmower or hitting himself with a hammer - not world shaking events like blowing up the world's oil supply.
I was graduating from high school during this 70’s stagflation. The new phenomenon actually encouraged me to get an Econ degree.
Wages for job seekers NEVER fully recovered after this stagflation. It forced millions of graduates to begin their professional careers at severely suppressed wage levels.
The lifetime earnings of many (if not most of us) suffered during our careers; because our starting salaries were severely depressed by the oil shortages and the impact of rampant inflation on those wages.
Today’s job seekers will all soon be similarly affected. The additional impact of AI on employment even further exacerbates these effects.
Trump and Bibi are literally show biz beginners making global decisions. Fools rush in. Fools they are.
It takes years to get out of the holes Trump is digging for us. This is much like the Great Depression in which bad policies were stacked on top of each other. I’m thinking of Smoot-Hawley here. For more than 20 years after the Great Depression the GOP was the permanent minority party. Trump’s place in history might end up being next to Herbert Hoover, and Hoover will never be on Mt. Rushmore.
As Iran becomes more and more sticky with no viable exit, I would not be surprised to see Trump decide that nuking Tehran is the answer to his problem. (That it also accords with his stated wish to use a nuclear weapon SOMEWHERE is a bonus for his diseased mind.)
And as the U.S. economy staggers into stagflation, I can see Trump reaching into the Nixon toolkit and imposing wage-and-price controls. (Though I suspect that Trump would go extremely heavy on the wage-control part and be pretty lenient on the price-control part.)
That's my fear. I'm far more afraid of Trump's derangement than I am of Iran's leaders. Or of North Korea's either. They may be brutal dictators, cult of personality types... but Trump is a demented old man.
I think Trump is actually toying with a nuclear strike. A week ago I heard him make reference to a “big” strike that was coming to Iran. It didn’t happen then (maybe someone talked him out of it?) , but that doesn’t mean it’s not still churning in his diseased mind.
No matter what Trump does, it seems that US people loves to moan and bitch about Trump but noone would actually do something to remove Trump from power.
All Iran has to do to prevent the US from "winning" is to ensure that every cargo that passes through Hormuz is paid for in Yuan. Russia and China will help. For the rest of the world, paying in Yuan is preferable to sending troops to a killbox. So, although Iran cannot attack the US militarily directly, it can attack the reserve currency status that enables the US to build up the enormous debt that sustains the military.
Iran will never make up the human and economic suffering it has already endured (that is to say, Iran will never "win"), but adding more suffering won't make for a Trump win either as the world would perceive spread of the Yuan payment system due to the petroleum trade as a US loss.
It's definitely time to put some teeth in the War Powers Act, and to clarify what and when the military leaders/officers/rank and file have the duty to say "no" to illegal or insane orders from the commander-in-chief.
The problem (once again) is that previous presidents had respect for the superior knowledge and experience of those who advised them, whereas fat donny fubar trusts only his own rotting gut, and loves to operate on pure impulse.
The Trump Epstein War has now entered the unpredictable predictable stage where both sides are going to destroy each others oil and water infrastructure leading to long term economic and social chaos for everyone. So much winning for those not in the Trump Epstein class.
I missed the joke, though, unless that itself was the joke. Maybe it’ll rise to my consciousness while I’m doing the dishes. (Not complaining or nixing his sense of humor, just admitting my lack thereof, or something.) Absolutely swell musical CODA!
Hey, Freddie. I think Paul identified the joke as any assumption that there would be rational thinking going on. Good to hear from someone who still does dishes.
Dishwashing machines are a huge waste of water. Same with garbage disposals. But, it’s just me, so it’s an easy thing. Thanks for the explainer. I get it, now. I figured sardonic would be PK’s style, I just didn’t look in the right place. 🤓
Finally, I get it. When I read “respond intelligently and effectively,” I actually thought, “are you effing kidding me?!” To which PK immediately answered. 😅 I feel so much better now.
I’m also laughing about your crime scene tape. I went for the longest time—months—fearing that mold was probably growing in there and didn’t want to open it to find out. Finally I did. No mold. So that’s good.
If I am paying more for gas and groceries, car and home insurance, local taxes, that leaves less disposable income for discretionary purposes, outings, apparel, etc. My 7 year old Camry with 40k mileage is looking pretty good right now.
That 7 year old Camry with 40K will go another 20+ years. All of our cars are old Toyotas. They'll go 250 to 300K miles without a problem. We've put 4 kids through college on what we would have spent on new vehicles.
Also, the oil shock in the 70s (near as I recall) was not also a food shock. I don’t think there has been enough attention paid to the fertilizer issue. There will be hunger in addition to higher prices. The Arab Spring was at least partly attributable to hunger.
Food inflation was pretty bad during those years. I entered the years 1973-80 into this calculator, it fits with my memory. I wasn’t actually shopping myself, but I could do unit pricing quickly ( before it was required on shelf tags) so I was taken on shopping trips).
There’s only so much skimping a person can do with groceries, Its burdens are heaviest on those who have the least. Knowing that it’s the result of the war, which the poorest also pay the most for, compounds the pain. Not going to be good for the trumpers.
In the 1970s, there were even some cultural references that one can still see. For example, in an episode of "Good Times," there are rumors that a woman in their building is eating dog food. The Evans family invites her for dinner and she insists on bringing the main course--a meat loaf. It all comes out when JJ gives the blessing "the Lord is my German shepherd."
Food inflation was bad, but my guess is that we are going to see food scarcity. The Green Revolution that enabled the population explosion over the past fifty years is built on chemical fertilizer. As Apolia noted, the fertilizer shortfall will likely fall hardest on the global south. I don’t know to what extent US natural gas can be quickly diverted to fertilizer production (versus export) but if that occurs then our gas customers in Europe will be out of luck. Just spitballing, but I do think food availability will be a bigger problem than in the 70s. And, of course, the world population is WAY bigger now.
I have seen claims that the U.S. imports most of its fertilizer from Canada, which is supposedly cutting off the supply. I don't trust those reports very much, but it wouldn't surprise me to find that they're true.
Fortunately, a lot of produce can be purchased in bulk and stored for much later consumption. In principle we don't have to shop for at least one month with the produce we have stored in our basement. That's how we managed the Covid period and the inflation period that followed. This time it will be even worse, but mostly for those with a budget already stretched thin, people who struggle from paycheck to paycheck.
Great that you have a basement for this. Lots of people don’t have that, or much in the way of freezer, pantry, or gardening space. We are way too dependent on supply chains.
Well, since Putin's "green men" took over Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 we have steadily worked towards this solution. At the time it was also quite obvious that Trump and MAGA was going for the big win, so knowing both how Putin generally thinks and how Trump acts, it's not a surprise really in what direction the World was heading.
We didn't have a basement either back then but sold and moved to something more appropriate. It takes quite an effort and disciplin, but we are ready for almost anything now.
Exactly. If those gas installations are knocked out on a large scale, the southern hemisphere can kiss goodbye fertilizer at normal prices (if it will be available), since the production of fertilizer at this point is mainly for the markets of the southern hemisphere. Countries like Brazil and Argentina with huge crop exports are the first to feel the loss of fertilizer production.
As much as I have appreciated your economic insights (for decades now), I've come to be almost as impressed with your musical codas. Today's was especially good!
“U.S. employment growth is likely to face continued downward pressure as long as the ongoing declines in unauthorized immigrant worker flows continue.”, concludes this analysis from the FRBSF. Trump acolytes argued vociferously that mass deportations would increase the jobs available for us ‘real’ Americans. An academic study now reveals the sad reality that, in some local markets, and for vital industries like construction and housing, when your government terrorizes and persecutes one class of workers, they enshittify the productivity of that industry as a whole. The “collapse in overall job growth” Professor Krugman notes is perhaps the most frightening effect, especially when contrasted to the numbers during the Biden years.
I'm very, very worried about the Strait of Hormuz situation. Remember trmp never, ever finishes anything. I mean look around, what a mess! He's a toddler, once he knocks his blocks over, that's it he's on to to the next thing to destroy. I know the toddler analogy sounds silly but, it's not, bc this toddler is playing w/ adults that have very sophisticated weapons, and they want to strangle us by cutting off oil and yes they want to kill us. Moreover, this toddler is sick, old, crazier than a u know what and has a lot of secrets. What a mess!
Whatever label we use, the pressures building now are the predictable result of tariffs, labor shortages, and an oil shock hitting all at once.
You break it, you own it:
“'The pressure on the Strait of Hormuz means that President Trump cannot simply declare victory and walk away, as that would not resolve the underlying issue,' said Will Todman, senior fellow in Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies."
“Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective." – Donald J. Trump, 2011.
There are very good reasons why no president has done this kind of thing before… Wars in the Middle East are easy to start but hard to end. And as energy and fertilizer stocks dwindle, now the entire world will pay the price.
Trump thinks he’s a genius negotiator. What a joke!
Did you ever wonder what America would feel like if we had a perverted, corrupt, fascist dictator as our "leader". Well, check it out. We've arrived. The question we keep asking ourselves, "What are WE going to do about it?" becomes more pressing everyday. The world envisioned by Trump's brain and enabled by his cultist syncophants cannot be allowed to continue.
How we rise up to stop it is urgent.
And help independents to vote for Democrats too.
Another rise up election is coming in 3 days in Virginia. I doubt most voters - in Northern VA at least - will swallow the bait being cast by ex-Gov. Fleecevest about how unfair it would be if Virginia does for Democrats what FL, GA, TX + others are doing for Republicans.
If Democrats are the answer we need to ask better questions.
He had jared and witkoff to bungle negotiations with Iran and putin. Neither of which had experience in dealing international affairs. It ain't like buying property - a bit more complicated.
Jared's track record buying properties and investing is miserable. The only reason he's still afloat is that he sold his soul to MBS (Mr. Bone Saw to his friends). He's a fail, just like the rest of the Trump Crime Family. And Witkoff is waaay out of his league. He can't buy these guys a round of drinks after golf and get a 5% discount, and that's the limits of his skills.
Ya think?
There was no negotiation in evidence. Netanyahu told Trump to attack Iran, so he did. Putin told Trump to stop supporting Ukraine, so he did. Unless Netanyahu and Putin disagree on a directive, Trump doesn't have to negotiate anything. If they do disagree, it appears that Trump flips a coin to pick a policy.
True.
Trump thinks he’s a lot of things he isn’t. Witkoff & Kushner were in way over their heads both in Ukraine and Iran. They have no knowledge of diplomacy, nor does Trump. He prides
himself on his instincts that are primarily predatory. Bullying bankers,
the trades and underage girls is kindergarten level stuff.
Trump thinks he's a genius at everything and I sure wish it was a joke !
So many sycophants are afraid of this tired, worthless bully. I guess the extended crime family must be Texas oil folk. But, it still doesn’t compute. In the meanwhile, grab a hoe and dig up your grass. We’ll all have to barter beans to carrots. If you have a cow or a goat, guard that sucker with your pellet gun.
His "deals" are far far from ideal.
Agreed - but one can say ALL wars are hard to end - think about the Hatfields versus the McCoys - it took generations to end their "small fights>..
Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.
Niccolo Machiavelli
The Sunni/Shi'a Divide has lasted 1700 years and still driving events in the Middle East. When Prophet Muhammad died in 632 A.D. there was a rift over who was the rightful successor. Many bloody clashes have occurred ever since.
Sunnis are the vast majority believing Shi'ites are apostates and heretics. Iran is a Shi'a nation living in a rough Sunni Arab neighborhood. Today they're lobbing missiles and drones at Sunni countries in a war they didn't start.
Blood feuds. That's what an effective state can stop...unless it decides to make it's own.
That is why we must not resort to violent confrontations in this Country to remove Trump. I know the destruction of our Government and therefore our whole Country is becoming so grave, but we don't want a civil war to finish the destruction!
In the US, according to AI, we own 40% of all the guns in the world. We will likely avoid a civil war, as that requires more organization than we have, but a disintegration to warlords is easy to imagine.
Were you alive for the GW Bush administration?
Hell, I was alive for the Truman administration. I'm fond of saying "I was born in the reign of King George VI. In other words, not yesterday."
Yes,of course
So proud of my son! here is his take on the situation:
"Americans hate high gas prices almost as much as they hate having an intelligent President."
Electing Trump was taking "hating intelligent presidents" to suicidal extremes.
With all respect, your son might have said "intelligent, Black president with good morals."
The Gestapo-like tactics being used against migrants are not only inhumane, but damaging the economy. If Trump and Stevie Miller actually believed Americans would fill those tough, dirty jobs, they're even dumber and more deluded than I thought. Miller and JD Vance should pitch in at a meat-packing plant and see how they like it.
Profit.
A trifecta?
And wait until this years climate disasters.
Maybe we can call it a banana. (Shout out to those who remember that.)
"Operation Epic Fubar". Brilliant, Paul. My late father , who served in the Pacific in WWII, would have loved that sobriquet for our latest fiasco in the Middle East. Though his regular use of the word fubar was usually was based on more mundane events, such as not being able to start the lawnmower or hitting himself with a hammer - not world shaking events like blowing up the world's oil supply.
Some of us prefer the term Operation Epstein Fury.
Operation Epstein FUBAR
Hence the ‘’epic” FUBAR (vs regular FUBAR)
"Epstein FUBAR" covers it all...
I might use that "Operation Epic Fubar" on my No Kings poster on the 28th national day of protest.
I was graduating from high school during this 70’s stagflation. The new phenomenon actually encouraged me to get an Econ degree.
Wages for job seekers NEVER fully recovered after this stagflation. It forced millions of graduates to begin their professional careers at severely suppressed wage levels.
The lifetime earnings of many (if not most of us) suffered during our careers; because our starting salaries were severely depressed by the oil shortages and the impact of rampant inflation on those wages.
Today’s job seekers will all soon be similarly affected. The additional impact of AI on employment even further exacerbates these effects.
Trump and Bibi are literally show biz beginners making global decisions. Fools rush in. Fools they are.
It takes years to get out of the holes Trump is digging for us. This is much like the Great Depression in which bad policies were stacked on top of each other. I’m thinking of Smoot-Hawley here. For more than 20 years after the Great Depression the GOP was the permanent minority party. Trump’s place in history might end up being next to Herbert Hoover, and Hoover will never be on Mt. Rushmore.
I'm quite invested in putting Trump UNDER Mount Rushmore...
Deep enough under that he can feel the "flames of Hell"!
Nobody is going to be added to Rushmore. The remainder of the mountain is too unstable to support another carving.
As if that would stop him. He'd tear it down overnight and try to build a new one.
Sounds like a perfect place for a Trump ruin!!
As Iran becomes more and more sticky with no viable exit, I would not be surprised to see Trump decide that nuking Tehran is the answer to his problem. (That it also accords with his stated wish to use a nuclear weapon SOMEWHERE is a bonus for his diseased mind.)
And as the U.S. economy staggers into stagflation, I can see Trump reaching into the Nixon toolkit and imposing wage-and-price controls. (Though I suspect that Trump would go extremely heavy on the wage-control part and be pretty lenient on the price-control part.)
the peace president uses a nuke. Ohh, the irony.
I hate to agree with you on this. Every morning l keep waiting to hear the news that we dropped a "tactical nuke" overnight.
I've read that "tactical nukes" are about as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb.
They really need to keep "the football" away from him. Far away.
Nick Fuentes has predicted that Donnie Demento will use the bomb to enhance his legacy. He's a sick MFer.
That's my fear. I'm far more afraid of Trump's derangement than I am of Iran's leaders. Or of North Korea's either. They may be brutal dictators, cult of personality types... but Trump is a demented old man.
I think Trump is actually toying with a nuclear strike. A week ago I heard him make reference to a “big” strike that was coming to Iran. It didn’t happen then (maybe someone talked him out of it?) , but that doesn’t mean it’s not still churning in his diseased mind.
No matter what Trump does, it seems that US people loves to moan and bitch about Trump but noone would actually do something to remove Trump from power.
Most of us still believe in the rule of law. Troll.
Perhaps you do, but you certainly have some very flexible laws.
All Iran has to do to prevent the US from "winning" is to ensure that every cargo that passes through Hormuz is paid for in Yuan. Russia and China will help. For the rest of the world, paying in Yuan is preferable to sending troops to a killbox. So, although Iran cannot attack the US militarily directly, it can attack the reserve currency status that enables the US to build up the enormous debt that sustains the military.
Iran will never make up the human and economic suffering it has already endured (that is to say, Iran will never "win"), but adding more suffering won't make for a Trump win either as the world would perceive spread of the Yuan payment system due to the petroleum trade as a US loss.
He will do it "just for fun"
If Trump goes "nuclear" Los Angeles or Havana are as likely as Tehran. Perhaps more.
Nice music today, Paul.
It's time the joint chiefs did their constitutional duty and said no more to the madman's ideas.
It's definitely time to put some teeth in the War Powers Act, and to clarify what and when the military leaders/officers/rank and file have the duty to say "no" to illegal or insane orders from the commander-in-chief.
The problem (once again) is that previous presidents had respect for the superior knowledge and experience of those who advised them, whereas fat donny fubar trusts only his own rotting gut, and loves to operate on pure impulse.
And of course, he has no skin in the game.
Send Barron.
Send Barron? Trump wouldn’t care one iota, if he noticed…he is the waddling definition of “sub-human”
I don't think he'd care if Barron was there. He literally cares for no one but himself.
Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs was selected because he told Trump, “I will kill for you”. Not reassuring.
Trump is busy spending money disfiguring the White House while kids can’t find jobs. Fiddling while Rome burns.
"Fiddling while your children's "future burns".
Good summary of where we are.
The Trump Epstein War has now entered the unpredictable predictable stage where both sides are going to destroy each others oil and water infrastructure leading to long term economic and social chaos for everyone. So much winning for those not in the Trump Epstein class.
I come for the jokes and the music as I tighten my belt even more.
I missed the joke, though, unless that itself was the joke. Maybe it’ll rise to my consciousness while I’m doing the dishes. (Not complaining or nixing his sense of humor, just admitting my lack thereof, or something.) Absolutely swell musical CODA!
Hey, Freddie. I think Paul identified the joke as any assumption that there would be rational thinking going on. Good to hear from someone who still does dishes.
Dishwashing machines are a huge waste of water. Same with garbage disposals. But, it’s just me, so it’s an easy thing. Thanks for the explainer. I get it, now. I figured sardonic would be PK’s style, I just didn’t look in the right place. 🤓
Yes, Freddie. I actually have police tape across my dishwasher door.
Finally, I get it. When I read “respond intelligently and effectively,” I actually thought, “are you effing kidding me?!” To which PK immediately answered. 😅 I feel so much better now.
I’m also laughing about your crime scene tape. I went for the longest time—months—fearing that mold was probably growing in there and didn’t want to open it to find out. Finally I did. No mold. So that’s good.
If I am paying more for gas and groceries, car and home insurance, local taxes, that leaves less disposable income for discretionary purposes, outings, apparel, etc. My 7 year old Camry with 40k mileage is looking pretty good right now.
That 7 year old Camry with 40K will go another 20+ years. All of our cars are old Toyotas. They'll go 250 to 300K miles without a problem. We've put 4 kids through college on what we would have spent on new vehicles.
Good for you. The frame on my 2010 Tacoma rotted out within a few years. I'm driving a Nissan now. I expect it to outlive me.
Also, the oil shock in the 70s (near as I recall) was not also a food shock. I don’t think there has been enough attention paid to the fertilizer issue. There will be hunger in addition to higher prices. The Arab Spring was at least partly attributable to hunger.
I predict extreme unrest.
Food inflation was pretty bad during those years. I entered the years 1973-80 into this calculator, it fits with my memory. I wasn’t actually shopping myself, but I could do unit pricing quickly ( before it was required on shelf tags) so I was taken on shopping trips).
There’s only so much skimping a person can do with groceries, Its burdens are heaviest on those who have the least. Knowing that it’s the result of the war, which the poorest also pay the most for, compounds the pain. Not going to be good for the trumpers.
https://www.in2013dollars.com/Food/price-inflation/1973-to-1980?amount=20
In the 1970s, there were even some cultural references that one can still see. For example, in an episode of "Good Times," there are rumors that a woman in their building is eating dog food. The Evans family invites her for dinner and she insists on bringing the main course--a meat loaf. It all comes out when JJ gives the blessing "the Lord is my German shepherd."
Food inflation was bad, but my guess is that we are going to see food scarcity. The Green Revolution that enabled the population explosion over the past fifty years is built on chemical fertilizer. As Apolia noted, the fertilizer shortfall will likely fall hardest on the global south. I don’t know to what extent US natural gas can be quickly diverted to fertilizer production (versus export) but if that occurs then our gas customers in Europe will be out of luck. Just spitballing, but I do think food availability will be a bigger problem than in the 70s. And, of course, the world population is WAY bigger now.
It's remarkably larger. Like 3 billion to 8 or 9 billion.
I'd far rather see population decline from voluntary birth control than DJT's disastrous policies for personal wealth and glory.
I have seen claims that the U.S. imports most of its fertilizer from Canada, which is supposedly cutting off the supply. I don't trust those reports very much, but it wouldn't surprise me to find that they're true.
Fortunately, a lot of produce can be purchased in bulk and stored for much later consumption. In principle we don't have to shop for at least one month with the produce we have stored in our basement. That's how we managed the Covid period and the inflation period that followed. This time it will be even worse, but mostly for those with a budget already stretched thin, people who struggle from paycheck to paycheck.
Great that you have a basement for this. Lots of people don’t have that, or much in the way of freezer, pantry, or gardening space. We are way too dependent on supply chains.
Well, since Putin's "green men" took over Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 we have steadily worked towards this solution. At the time it was also quite obvious that Trump and MAGA was going for the big win, so knowing both how Putin generally thinks and how Trump acts, it's not a surprise really in what direction the World was heading.
We didn't have a basement either back then but sold and moved to something more appropriate. It takes quite an effort and disciplin, but we are ready for almost anything now.
I do not see the trumpers blaming trump for the higher prices. That would be admitting that they were wrong.
Exactly. If those gas installations are knocked out on a large scale, the southern hemisphere can kiss goodbye fertilizer at normal prices (if it will be available), since the production of fertilizer at this point is mainly for the markets of the southern hemisphere. Countries like Brazil and Argentina with huge crop exports are the first to feel the loss of fertilizer production.
And we're not even touching the latest news concerning the Epstein files.
As much as I have appreciated your economic insights (for decades now), I've come to be almost as impressed with your musical codas. Today's was especially good!
Thank you Paul.
“U.S. employment growth is likely to face continued downward pressure as long as the ongoing declines in unauthorized immigrant worker flows continue.”, concludes this analysis from the FRBSF. Trump acolytes argued vociferously that mass deportations would increase the jobs available for us ‘real’ Americans. An academic study now reveals the sad reality that, in some local markets, and for vital industries like construction and housing, when your government terrorizes and persecutes one class of workers, they enshittify the productivity of that industry as a whole. The “collapse in overall job growth” Professor Krugman notes is perhaps the most frightening effect, especially when contrasted to the numbers during the Biden years.
I'm very, very worried about the Strait of Hormuz situation. Remember trmp never, ever finishes anything. I mean look around, what a mess! He's a toddler, once he knocks his blocks over, that's it he's on to to the next thing to destroy. I know the toddler analogy sounds silly but, it's not, bc this toddler is playing w/ adults that have very sophisticated weapons, and they want to strangle us by cutting off oil and yes they want to kill us. Moreover, this toddler is sick, old, crazier than a u know what and has a lot of secrets. What a mess!
It's not silly at all. Trump is basically a 3-year-old with a slightly more developed brain.
No, he’s a 3-year-old with a dangerously undeveloped brain.