Trump is running a solipsist country, and all moves go through him. So, I was banned from comments here over a month ago. Sincere apologies. I will not comment again. The Krugman Substack is worthwhil, always insightful, often entirely a unique voice-important vital work. and my comments? not at all. Thanks for all you do. I am, by the way, not bought, not a bot, and quite thoroughly Liberal. bye. Silent reader. Sorry to have bothered you.
Several years ago, during King TOFU's (Trump Only F*CKS UP) initial reign I was banned for life from WAPO for calling a troll a troll. Banned for life. I immediately canceled my subscription but I missed Jennifer Rubin, Catherine Rampell, Josh Dawsey, Eugene Robinson, etc.
Thankfully they have all seen the light and migrated to Substack and other places like the Atlantic.
Now the WaPo has AI bots to pre check every comment before it goes on. My more-than-a-decade old WaPo subscription expired last year for good. No regreats here. Even going there once a day to check the breaking headlines doesnt deserve it. Tired of seeing things like "Trump is testing potetial legal vaccum..."
Had Amazon Prime from the inception of the program, cancelled two months ago. Not missing it as I've found other places to purchase what I need. It can be done.
Absolutely. Harder in rural areas though where Amazon rolled small local business during the pandemic. I’ve avoided Amazon, even blocked it on searches, for years. Working on getting others in my network to do the same.
My wife has (or had) a subscription to WAPO. My only choice in the matter was whether to read it or not. I choose not to. Similarly, my wife has a Prime subscription, which she uses frequently. I've found many alternatives to Amazon. My latest purchase that would've been through Amazon in the past went to Best Buy, for example.
I only had to pull the WaPo subscription under my name which left everyone else on their own. Yet they all agreed and left for other forums. Amazon was easier to leave for a local favorite but a hard habit for some in the family to put down. I went the Costco route because I like their online access, local delivery, and brick and mortar local store. Most of the family followed. But for household repairs I still need to go out of the local area for anything complex. Usually need a contractor too in absence of a spouse.
I do very much miss the Post Reports podcast - it was excellent and available without a subscription. Relieved to know that a lot of the WaPo people have found new outlets for their work. Now if I could just cure my Amazon Prime addiction….
You can cure it. Just think, every penny you spend on Amazon Prime goes into Bozo Bezos' pocket. Now imagine the smirk on his smug mug every time you spend on Amazon.
The majority of Amazon’s profits have little to do with its consumer facing business. The company makes the bulk of its money from AWS—cloud computing services. If you actually want to hurt the company financially, or at least send them a message, befriend a senior IT person in corporate America and bend their ear.
WaPo's AI now treats the word "shill" as a violation of community standards--they realize that it is referring to the new class of editorial writers. Also, it is a violation of community standards to use their own headline wording! As an example, they had an editorial using "useful idiots" in the headline:
I recently unsubscribed from The Bulwark after years. JVL has become too smug and arrogant for me to tolerate. But he is smart; just too full of himself.
Yes, for the most part I agree, but sometimes that’s when his arrogance surfaces. I love Sarah and Tim and everyone else. They deserve a lot of credit for building it from the ground up into a very worthwhile media force, and getting superlative journalists on board.
I've had many comments directly referencing text in articles with no "bad" words or insults rejected regularly. Both WaPo and yahoo love to shadow ban folks for violating the community standards they never really explain but that only seem to apply to Democratic and progressive voices, since both were rife with maga insults and derogatory terms like "libtard" and "Demonrats," but "Republicant" was a bridge too far.
And now corporate outlets appear to be censoring themselves to try to get around their own censor-bots.
Interesting David. I quit reading news stories and comments on AOL because they would censor left leaning commenters and not the right leaning ones. They wouldn't ban you, but they also wouldn't let you comment.
Thank you, Brian, for your humble valuable comments. I simply want to say that I also always find Paul Krugman's wisdom a welcome privilege to read and contemplate, and I must also remind us all that "All we have to fear is fear itself...united we stand, divided we fall" We will not fall. "We shall overcome!"
I looked up the word "solipsist"... very interesting addition to our vocabulary.
"A solipsistic person who believes or acts as if only their own mind and experiences are real, regarding the external world and other people as mere projections of their consciousness."
"Solipsistic" gets added to the top of all others that seem to flow from it like megalomaniac, malignant narcissist, psychopath and all the others. It's a great word. Thanks for looking up the definition (I tend to but not this morn and I would've missed a good word to use).
And all of this is exactly why this is a totally unpredictable situation. Not only is predicting Trump a persistent problem, but he is surrounded by equally unhinged idiots, sycophants, and/or arrogant, egotistical garbage people. No one with any real input is at all concerned with the consequences. They care not for the everyday of any regular folks. They only care about their own pocketbooks, the glee of wielding power, and, in Trump’s case, his unbelievably warped view of himself.
Read it and it was interesting. I am subscribing to him, so thanks. But:
-- FTD is a florist so it messes up the name of flowers (FTD is alive and well and doesn't have dementia).
-- At my age (>70), it could also be from the inhuman's vertebrae going into contortions especially due to his obesity. When I'm walking my still slim body, I have to remind myself to walk standing straighter and I may be mental sometimes but I don't have FTD :) .
I guess the founders didn't think we could have a mentally ill idiot killing off the world out of greed. They got close but not close enough. There's nothing I know of in the Constitution that says if two psychiatrists agree on the condition one has, that person could be committed to a sanitarium.
Honestly, in defense of solopsists, I find Trump to be more of a nihilist than solipsist. Like most, he just struggles with the fact that he apparently also exists, particularly in self awareness.
Say what you will about solipsism, it is at least an ethos.
Wow. I'm sorry that happened. I like your comment. Hope you can be unbanned.
Spouse and I left the WaPo in the dust years ago. I went there to look at one thing recently and briefly and it looked like garbage so I was out of it in under 5 secs. Grew up (elem school) with it in the DC burbs when it was a real paper and chucked it when it became a paper of bs. Wonder why they didn't ban me when I called repubicans murderers during covid?
Yup. However that would make more sense if one was able to change the underlying business fundamentals. That way, the stock price might actually go down.
The scale of US engagement is purely a function of hegemonic status. When Britain was top dog it did the same. China and Russia do the same right now as they vie with US. No US exceptionalism, neither for good nor ill.
I live in Australia. We have no local oil production and two aging refineries which can handle only 20% of imported crude. All the latter comes from the Middle East via Asia, where it is refined.
We already have many fuel stations in remote areas with no supply at all. It is highly likely that fuel rationing will have to kick in next month, like in 1979. It will take forever to get back to normal supply.
We didn’t ask for any of this. Our alleged “ally”, who slaps high tariffs on us despite a trade deficit with the US, and is rude and offensive repeatedly to our PM, is the solitary cause of this disaster.
Yet he is plain crazy and such behaviour is predictable. What is much harder to explain -and accept - is how so many allegedly sane people in Congress continue to allow the destruction of their own country, when they could have prevented all this hundreds of infractions ago.
Republican capitulation is a mystery to a lot of us Americans too. I think it’s fear based. Extortion ala Epstein/Russia? Oligarchy pressure? It’s something. Wish I knew or understood.
Adam Kitzinger has explained an additional reason -- Republicans in Congress don't speak out because to do so would jeopardize their future careers as Republican lobbyists.
This is certainly part of it. It’s also that things in our country are so skewed that many people are “safe” and don’t really have to care about the job they signed up for, the people and country they are supposed to serve. Many have their power and privilege, have grown comfortable in it. Others ran to be exactly what they are and do exactly this. All of these things come together in a continuous negative feedback loop that hurts the rest of us, not just here but all over the world.
Trump is interested in creating a lithium mine in North Carolina, the Masabi range in the U.S. still produces large quantities of iron, the administration is trying to get around the environmental objections to two large copper mines in the U.S., and there are 22 nickle mines in the U.S.. Trump is certainly ignorant of the fact that U.S. production of aluminum depends on supplies of imported bauxite (at least, it used to).
I have been reading 'I fucking Love Australia' posts on substack and he claims your leaders there sold out to big oil and are now paying the price....a good model to follow should be Norway where they give crumbs to big oil and keep the rest for their citizens sovereign wealth fund now sitting at about $360k for Norwegian
Yes it is true that the Australian governments poor energy management policies - oil and gas - are now coming back to haunt them. But none of this excuses the sheer inanity of the actions taken by the US president his war on Iran.
Prior to today, both the S&P 500 & Nasdaq had clawed back their Iran War losses and closed at record highs.
At the same time, the price for the actual physical delivery of oil has meaningfully diverged from the futures price, indicating stress in the physical market (remember, there are ~13mn b/d off the market), and real energy shortages rolling across Asia.
Last Tuesday (Apr 14), the IMF warned the war in Iran and continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz will cause global economic growth to slow, inflation to rise, and possibly push the world into a recession.
Rolling back the clock six years, despite concerning signals from China about a mystery virus, markets ignored the noise and performed pretty well in early February 2020. The S&P even hit a then-record high on February 19.
We all know what happened next.
The question must be asked: Are we in a February 2020 moment? Are markets overly complacent in the face of a pending disaster, ignoring signs of crisis to ride the "hopium" train on the promise this White House will figure things out?
A good combination is Prof Krugman's piece on the economy and Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago discussing his Escalation Trap theory with Wajahat Ali, where he explains clearly why we are stuck in this war for a while, why walking away would be the best we can do (he agrees with Paul on this), and why it is a GLOBAL CATASTROPHE!
Thanks Linda. I saw the approval numbers for Trump as of last week and they weren't pretty.
"Donald Trump's approval rating in Europe is quite low, with only about 14% of Britons, 10% of Germans, and 12% of Italians expressing a favorable opinion of him. Overall, 64% of Europeans have a negative view of Trump, reflecting a significant decline in confidence since his first term."
If lifelong Republican seniors weren't so tribal and admitted how terrible Trump is, his approval numbers would be even worse.
Why I feel the US needs to have election observers like Hungary did, but we don't have a team to come in. It would need to be 35 times the size of the Hungary team.
“Lifelong Republican seniors”. Is that really the diehard MAGA base? I’ve been wondering about the people who insist that the economy is fine and that Trump is doing a great job: mainly “low information voters” and White nationalists? Maybe time for Paul to have another chat with GEM; has the dust up with the Vatican moved the needle at all ?
Hence, the K shaped economy. But a poll last week showed his strongest support for the Iran War that Trump started in spite of every warning from, well, everyone with half a brain, is from the over 60 crowd and then it drops way off for the under 60's.
He did not even get to discussing the danger of radicalizing Suni Muslims around the world, but Malcolm Nance did in several of his shows. The US is not safe from attack.
Just wondering how they will do with the impending global catastrophe that will even hit the US, not just the rest of the world, although poor countries will be harder hit.
Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago discussing his "Escalation Trap" theory with Wajahat Ali, explains clearly why we are stuck in this war for a while, why walking away would be the best we can do.
Thanks, Patrick. Everything happens in the present, after the past, and before the future. My only firm expectation is that all things will continue to change continuously. It is, however, good to plan for the worst and hope for the best, or so I have heard...
That is if you have been following news reports on what Trump is willing to offer Iran, Iran announced it was reopening the Strait of Hormuz after Trump reportedly, as an opening offer, agreed to pay Iran $20,000,000,000 from the U.S. treasury in return for Iran basically re-entering the deal they made with Obama and that Trump in his first term broke. As the $20,000,000,000 was Trump's opening offer, the final amount Trump will agree to pay Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz will no doubt end up being much hire.
From Iran's point of view, this makes perfect sense as one of Iran's demands to end the war is for America to pay 'restitution" for all the death and destruction this unnecessary war of choice has caused Iran. From Republicans point of view, who still falsely cling to the lie that Obama gave Iran "loads of cash" for agreeing not to make an atomic bomb, well I just can't wait for the spin.
I mean Republicans still falsely cling to the lie that Obama gave Iran "loads of cash" when all Obama did, again in return for Iran agreeing not to make an atom bomb, was to permit Iran access to money Iran had in foreign banks before the 1979 revolution. That is all Obama gave up in his deal to keep Iran from having an atomic bomb was to allow Iran access to its own money most of which was not even held in American banks.
Trump on the other hand, to get Iran back into the Obama deal that Trump ripped up, is going to pay Iran from the U.S. treasury collected from everyday taxpayers many times the money that legally belonged to the legitimate government of Iran that Obama gave them access. But the biggest difference is that again Obama only gave Iran its own money, the $20,000,000,000 opening offer and whatever the final amount Trump agrees to pay Iran, will come directly from American taxpayers.
Changing the subject, I want to make a comment on another story; Kash Patel is suing the Atlantic for defamation and why Patel is going to lose his lawsuit.
The magazine's story, initially titled “Kash Patel's Erratic Behavior Could Cost Him His Job," cited more than two dozen anonymous sources expressing concern at Patel’s “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences” that “alarmed officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice.”
The article, which The Atlantic subsequently titled “The FBI Director Is MIA” in its online version, reported that during Patel’s tenure, the FBI had to reschedule early meetings “as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights” and that Patel “is often away or unreachable, delaying time-sensitive decisions needed to advance investigations.”
The reason Patel is going to lose his defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic for detailing Patel “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences" is:
TRUTH IS AN ABSOLUTE DEFENSE TO DEFAMATION CLAIMS.
Nothing more needs to be said about Kash Patel and his defamation suit against the Atlantic. However, much more needs to be said about Patel's unfitness for the job Trump appointed him.
The original title of the Atlantic article was, “Kash Patel's Erratic Behavior Could Cost Him His Job," to “The FBI Director Is MIA” is because in Trump's administration, Patel's behavior WILL NOT cost him his job.
YES, MY POINT EXACTLY ABOUT JUST OPENING THE STRIAT.
That is Iran has been under extreme pressure since the revolution and so far has not yielded any results or softening/change of Iran's foreign policy, which to the extent Trump's war is about anything, it is about Iran's foreign policy.
They can say it is about Iran having an atomic bomb, but again that is only a concern because of Iran's foreign policy.
So this war has failed and that Iran will not change its foreign policy. If anything, Trump's war has given Iran's leadership far more prestige by standing up to America.
That is what has happened is a war started by Trump to change Iran's foreign policy if not to change Iran's government has now devolved into a question of how much America pay Iran to open what was open before the war began and will contain no serious limitations on Iran building a bomb.
That is the real question is:
HOW MUCH OF TAXPAYER MONEY WILL TRUMP PAY IRAN FOR OPENING THE STRIAT OF HORMUZ AND HOW MUCH TOLL IN ADDITION TO USA TAXPAYER MONEY WILL IRAN BE CHARGING FOR SAFE PASSAGE AND TO WHAT EXTENT WILL IRAN CONTROL OF THE STAIT NOW BE RECOGNIZED BY AMERICA AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY.
The luxury of irresponsibility lives large in the Oval Office. When your ego is the highest stake in a negotiation, the costs of narcissism will be borne by that world.
That is the risk we are now running. The smartest, most sophisticated models cannot measure this variable.
And, amazingly, Trump’s alleged psychopathology continues to be minimized by the press. He is a uniquely dangerous individual to the country and the world. His clownish presentation does not make him less dangerous.
It's going the way the inhumane things want it to. Chaos, less educated, get rid of the surplus population in anyway possible, klll the markets (we're expecting our IRA to come crashing down and I'm debating about how much we can take out this year ... a new struggle and debate), and there's more but y'all know this anyway.
Please see this piece which really talks about a pattern of behavior which Trump is engaged in. Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago is discussing his Escalation Trap theory with Wajahat Ali, and explains clearly why we are stuck in this war for a while, why walking away would be the best we can do, and why it is a GLOBAL CATASTROPHE! (which we all know anyway, but will more deeply after this). It is an important discussion that I hope you take the time to listen to. https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/trump-escalates-the-iran-war-crisis?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Listening to Chump speak for, say, five minutes, would "destroy his credibility" with anyone with an IQ above room temp. Sad that apparently most of the owners of major American press outlets lack that IQ....
Trump made a point of saying the Strait needed to be open for everyone, and not just those cutting deals with Iran. Then he did exactly what Iran was doing, opening the Strait for anyone cutting deals with the US, but not Iran. What's that about the goose and the gander? The Strait has been closed by Trump's actions, and the world should be clear on that, and start sanctions against us... the USA. This is OUR fault.
He lies constantly and, in turn, I constantly move past his idiotic statements. The world seems to be pretty darn clear about what the xxxx is going on and it's in the news often.
Spare a thought for New Zealand at the end of a very long supply line for everything including manufactured solar panels and blades for our wind turbines. Although we have made great strides in solar power and produce our own hydro electricity, our current government has subsidised fossil fuels and backed us out of the Paris Accord to our great collective tragedy. We will be hitching up the horses to get our food distributed. Alas, we’ve not enough jet fuel or diesel to propel our kiwifruit and wine to America after the last fuel ship arrives tomorrow.
Sending wine by airplane seems to be wasteful. Transporting by ship instead would be a demand destruction that could happen without much loss for anybody.
In the short run you may get a recession - but in the long run you may benefit from learning a lesson about energy independence.
NZ dairy farmers produce highly efficient pasture fed dairy and beef at the expense of our environment. They are under pressure to reduce environmental degradation of our water and soils and high methane from cows. Our rivers are unsafe to swim from high levels of nitrate and run-off.. They have been given a pass due to the 20% export value which is not sustainable with our small population. The lack of diesel to run farm equipment and urea to grow grass will cause a serious rethink. We don’t have enough refrigeration to store all the live animals that would be exported this year and not enough feed to overwinter them. Difficult decisions ahead.
Yes. One farmer here couldn't pump water to pasture tanks (run on diesel engines) when the diesel delivery didn't show up. Research to produce feeds that produce lower methane output has been ongoing here, with some promising results. Nitrate is an issue, but fortunately there are testing requirements and collective political pressure to keep waters clean (Maori values for the win on that). Nitrate runoff is a MUCH bigger problem in US midwest (see Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Mississippi river discharge into the gulf), and they have the birth defects, miscarriages, cancer, etc. to prove it.
NZ needs to diversify it's economy, for sure, and policies are slowly evolving to do it, but for now the ag exports are holding up the economy.
Not a Trump card - please don't do that to yourself.
This was not an attempt to dis NZ. I love that country. Just pointing at a couple of things that might be done to make it even better - and more resilient.
Not many. Most are heading to Europe. New Zealand has cut science research funding, and lags far behind OECD peers. See yesterday's release from Save Science, titled "Underfunding Our Future". Over 700 jobs have been cut from crown institutes just this past year. Many were PhD scientists who were recruited from other countries, and they have now gone back (mostly Europeans). Chilean, German, Italian, French, and Swedish who lost research jobs in NZ are all profiled in the report.
A temporary problem caused by our current government which is about to be shown the door. With so many roles currently open in academia and government, the smart people are making their plans now. A lot of Kiwis are returning from overseas for our better lifestyle already.
I guess 35 million people will miss our beautiful food.
"It may be the first event that signalled the waning of U.S. hegemony came in September 1969 when Muammar al-Qaddafi and about a dozen officers seized power in Libya while King Idris was out of the country. The Nixon Administration declined to act and indeed informed on anti-Qaddafi plots as Qaddafi evicted the British and Americans from their bases. In early 1970, Qaddafi demanded a rise of forty-four cents in the price paid for oil even as world demand was slumping. Indeed, most oil-producing nations were begging to increase their production quotas. Libya did hold leverage over Occidental Petroleum, which was heavily invested in the country. When Occidental sought support from Exxon, that company would not move without antitrust relaxation from Nixon's Justice Department. The surrender to Tripoli was quickly followed by similar demands from Iran, Iraq, Algeria, and Kuwait. The American situation worsened as oil consumption grew rapidly in the U.S. from 1969 to 1973. Jack Anderson and James Boyd suggest that the overall policies of the Nixon Administration cost supply of about 9 million barrels a day, more than enough to weather the 1973 crisis. When Nixon was inaugurated, the U.S. imported 13 percent of its oil, two-thirds of which came from the Americas. In 1973, it imported 26 percent. Of that 42 percent came from the Americas, and 33 percent came from Muslim nations of the Mediterranean and Middle East. Well before the Yom Kippur War, the price of oil per barrel had risen from $1.40 to $5. By the time Nixon left office in August 1974, the price was $12 a barrel."
--From _Twilight's Last Gleaming_ (2013)
Nixon blocking the oil companies and supporting high oil prices was revealed in Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony, though these events seem to have been forgotten even by oil historians. Why did Nixon want high oil prices? Probably because the "Nixon Doctrine" required the Shah to buy a lot of USA weaponry to serve as regional peacekeeper.
So, is it good news or bad news that there's no way that the "gas bill being more than the mortgage" will be repeated? Given, I mean, that mortgages have skyrocketed far above the simple rate of inflation since '73. (Fun fact, in '73, my mother would have been paying $92/mo. on the mortgage she and my dad assumed in 1955 when they bought the house I grew up in for just under $15k.)
The gas bill I’m talking about was for natural gas heating, cooking and hot water only. He had a Fairlane, it wasn’t too bad for mpg, but we didn’t drive anywhere unneeded.
Been modeling this from the scarcity side for weeks. The part most forecasts still get wrong: within each commodity, the damage splits into a price component and a physical scarcity component, and the scarcity share grows over time. LNG is already 70% scarcity from day one, petrochemicals 60%, diesel crosses over in April-May. Price-only models miss half the GDP hit. And in longer scenarios the inflation channels stack instead of taking turns, so a 6-month shock is disproportionately worse than the 3-month one, not 2x. The IMF isn't just low, they're using the wrong framework.
Mapping the Damage from the Iran War I: The Timeline of the Supply Chain Shock
And plastic. There's already a plastic shortage starting. Medical supplies are already being hoarded in places like S. Korea where they can see this crisis coming. There's plastic in everything, so this should get interesting.
The price of plastic bags in Taiwan doubled overnight on the first day of the war and now they’re becoming harder to find.
I honestly have mixed feelings about this particular shortage. We really should be bringing our own bags to the traditional markets, fruit stands, mom and pop food stalls, and tea shops that habitually use disposable plastic bags for everything. But in the meantime, it’s a hardship for those small businesses.
Well, New Jersey banned disposable plastic bags a few years ago, so we've already adjusted there. The funny thing to me is that my mother used to wash and re-use the aluminum foil (it was very expensive in the '50s due to monopolies) and now my wife and I are washing and re-using plastic bags to keep them out of landfills.
Professor Krugman: i am conflicted between rejoicing at this impending destruction of world oil consumption (i am deeply worried about the climate crisis and biodiversity collapse) and being worried about this impending destruction of world oil consumption because it is how things -- food, medicines, fertilizers, people -- are moved around the planet. so a reduction in oil availability translates into fewer items that we rely on, and higher prices on those items we can actually find.
maybe this is the reason the locals around me are becoming more serious about gardening? not sure if the world situation and its threat to fresh food has motivated them to stay home for the summer and dig around in the dirt or if they are participating in local gardening group think?
So Trump is on track to leave us with a worse economy just like he did the first time around by failing to adopt rational policies to address COVID. Admittedly, there was not much then he could do to affect the impact of China's policies on the supply chain, but he not only did nothing, he made things worse through denial and refusal to follow the science. (The Pfizer vaccine was not made using his program, Moderna was.) Yes, the CDC wasn't always right, this was a novel virus, but they were right more than they were wrong.
Trump was on the way to just declaring victory and go away - but I guess there was so much graft and attention in this conflict that he couldn't. It's also a great distraction from the Epstein files so there is that. But eventually the gas price issue will force him to get out of the way so the world can fix the mess he created.
I live in the NE (of the US) and I heat my home with heating oil. I know I am a dinosaur, but there's no gas in this house. Etc. Looking into alternatives. That being said, I was paying my home heating oil provider $326.00 per month (level monthly billing) usually in summer, I owe them or they owe me. Last week, I got a letter saying that I had a balance of $1300.00. I called on Friday, balance was $997.00 due to monthly payment. I paid the balance, there will be one more delivery before summer and then the new plan amount will be announced in August. I am thinking it will be $500.00 per month for 11 months, with a balance due next summer. How are people going to afford this?
There's been a feud with Canada over electricity supplies in the NE U.S.. Our supplier cost jumped from about $.15/kwh to $.44/kwh a few months ago. It's still better than oil. The fuel cost isn't the only consideration, however. That heat pump may require a larger electrical service, which will be close to $1,000. And local regulations may require removal of the oil storage tank and any polluted soil around or under it.
While you've rightly noted that the world is a lot less dependent on oil than it was in the past, this is primarily the case for wealthier countries, with the majority of middle-income and poor countries still being very fossil-fuel heavy and forced in some cases to become more so. This dick-swinging contest by a superpower is pushing many already vulnerable countries to potential crises, which said superpower will do nothing to alleviate in this administration or the next.
Paul, your core argument is correct — this is not a price problem, it is a physical constraint problem.
But there is a missing layer.
Demand destruction is not an abstract economic adjustment. It is a forced redistribution of scarcity.
When supply contracts at that scale, the question is not only how much demand will fall — but whose demand will be eliminated first.
History suggests the answer is not neutral.
Higher-income economies will secure access. Lower-income regions will absorb the shock through inflation, reduced mobility, and, ultimately, reduced consumption of essential goods.
At that point, what we call “recession” is not merely a macroeconomic outcome.
It is the mechanism through which the system decides who continues to operate — and who stops.
For those of us that lived through the 70’s it was pretty awful, for a lot of reasons. What cannot be overstated is how quickly everything changed and the deep pessimism took over. While the wealthy did fine, everyone in the middle class and below was much worse off.
The important thing is that it wasn’t just the oil embargo, but rather several other factors: corruption, the Vietnam War, Nixon/Watergate, high interest rates, awful cars and a decline in manufacturing and the failure to take the rest of the world seriously. Reagan’s big appeal was tax cuts, trickle down economics, and deceiving the American people through story telling.
So look around, what is going well - a stock market based on AI speculation and expected healthcare costs. If it’s successful it will take a lot of jobs and consume a lot of energy. How does that benefit the average person?
Trump is running a solipsist country, and all moves go through him. So, I was banned from comments here over a month ago. Sincere apologies. I will not comment again. The Krugman Substack is worthwhil, always insightful, often entirely a unique voice-important vital work. and my comments? not at all. Thanks for all you do. I am, by the way, not bought, not a bot, and quite thoroughly Liberal. bye. Silent reader. Sorry to have bothered you.
Several years ago, during King TOFU's (Trump Only F*CKS UP) initial reign I was banned for life from WAPO for calling a troll a troll. Banned for life. I immediately canceled my subscription but I missed Jennifer Rubin, Catherine Rampell, Josh Dawsey, Eugene Robinson, etc.
Thankfully they have all seen the light and migrated to Substack and other places like the Atlantic.
At least Substack let you back on.
I too was banned for life from WaPo - funny how things work out.
Now the WaPo has AI bots to pre check every comment before it goes on. My more-than-a-decade old WaPo subscription expired last year for good. No regreats here. Even going there once a day to check the breaking headlines doesnt deserve it. Tired of seeing things like "Trump is testing potetial legal vaccum..."
My entire family and community of friends cut ties with WaPo after the editorial debacle. Working on less of Amazon next.
Had Amazon Prime from the inception of the program, cancelled two months ago. Not missing it as I've found other places to purchase what I need. It can be done.
Absolutely. Harder in rural areas though where Amazon rolled small local business during the pandemic. I’ve avoided Amazon, even blocked it on searches, for years. Working on getting others in my network to do the same.
The hardest part for us are the audio books. It seems like they have a monopoly.
My wife has (or had) a subscription to WAPO. My only choice in the matter was whether to read it or not. I choose not to. Similarly, my wife has a Prime subscription, which she uses frequently. I've found many alternatives to Amazon. My latest purchase that would've been through Amazon in the past went to Best Buy, for example.
I only had to pull the WaPo subscription under my name which left everyone else on their own. Yet they all agreed and left for other forums. Amazon was easier to leave for a local favorite but a hard habit for some in the family to put down. I went the Costco route because I like their online access, local delivery, and brick and mortar local store. Most of the family followed. But for household repairs I still need to go out of the local area for anything complex. Usually need a contractor too in absence of a spouse.
I do very much miss the Post Reports podcast - it was excellent and available without a subscription. Relieved to know that a lot of the WaPo people have found new outlets for their work. Now if I could just cure my Amazon Prime addiction….
You can cure it. Just think, every penny you spend on Amazon Prime goes into Bozo Bezos' pocket. Now imagine the smirk on his smug mug every time you spend on Amazon.
And the worst part is he pays little or no taxes on his billions and then has the gall to lay off hundreds of workers that live paycheck to paycheck.
The majority of Amazon’s profits have little to do with its consumer facing business. The company makes the bulk of its money from AWS—cloud computing services. If you actually want to hurt the company financially, or at least send them a message, befriend a senior IT person in corporate America and bend their ear.
Go ahead. You can do it. I cancelled my Amazon Prime over a year ago.
You will spend a lot less money.
Their delivery times have greatly slow. Now about a week.
WaPo's AI now treats the word "shill" as a violation of community standards--they realize that it is referring to the new class of editorial writers. Also, it is a violation of community standards to use their own headline wording! As an example, they had an editorial using "useful idiots" in the headline:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/03/23/cuba-convoy-blockade-communist-dupes/
I posted a comment to the effect that the true useful idiots were the WaPo editorial staff--violation of community standards!
Sad.
Catherine Rampell is now on The Bulwark Substack - can be read without subscription but need to subscribe to comment.
5 or even 10 paid subscriptions on substack is still better than a $40 annual WaPo subscription. I discovered Substack by following Jennifer Rubin.
I subscribed to the Bulwark because of her and their great podcasts.
I recently unsubscribed from The Bulwark after years. JVL has become too smug and arrogant for me to tolerate. But he is smart; just too full of himself.
I can see that, but he seems to be a good moderator(?).
Yes, for the most part I agree, but sometimes that’s when his arrogance surfaces. I love Sarah and Tim and everyone else. They deserve a lot of credit for building it from the ground up into a very worthwhile media force, and getting superlative journalists on board.
I've had many comments directly referencing text in articles with no "bad" words or insults rejected regularly. Both WaPo and yahoo love to shadow ban folks for violating the community standards they never really explain but that only seem to apply to Democratic and progressive voices, since both were rife with maga insults and derogatory terms like "libtard" and "Demonrats," but "Republicant" was a bridge too far.
And now corporate outlets appear to be censoring themselves to try to get around their own censor-bots.
Interesting David. I quit reading news stories and comments on AOL because they would censor left leaning commenters and not the right leaning ones. They wouldn't ban you, but they also wouldn't let you comment.
I am going to be puzzling all morning over how somone can miss both Jennifer Rubin AND Catherine Rampell.
😎
Thank you, Brian, for your humble valuable comments. I simply want to say that I also always find Paul Krugman's wisdom a welcome privilege to read and contemplate, and I must also remind us all that "All we have to fear is fear itself...united we stand, divided we fall" We will not fall. "We shall overcome!"
I looked up the word "solipsist"... very interesting addition to our vocabulary.
"A solipsistic person who believes or acts as if only their own mind and experiences are real, regarding the external world and other people as mere projections of their consciousness."
"Solipsistic" gets added to the top of all others that seem to flow from it like megalomaniac, malignant narcissist, psychopath and all the others. It's a great word. Thanks for looking up the definition (I tend to but not this morn and I would've missed a good word to use).
And all of this is exactly why this is a totally unpredictable situation. Not only is predicting Trump a persistent problem, but he is surrounded by equally unhinged idiots, sycophants, and/or arrogant, egotistical garbage people. No one with any real input is at all concerned with the consequences. They care not for the everyday of any regular folks. They only care about their own pocketbooks, the glee of wielding power, and, in Trump’s case, his unbelievably warped view of himself.
I do think this crisis won’t last too long. The US blockade will be a disaster for Iran.
Add fronto-temporal dementia. See "The gaslight report" by Frank George Ph.D., @frankgeorge8675309.
https://frankgeorge8675309.substack.com/p/dammit-its-not-alzheimers-heres-why-c9f?r=1tf0uq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Dr. Benjamin of The United Front agrees.
Read it and it was interesting. I am subscribing to him, so thanks. But:
-- FTD is a florist so it messes up the name of flowers (FTD is alive and well and doesn't have dementia).
-- At my age (>70), it could also be from the inhuman's vertebrae going into contortions especially due to his obesity. When I'm walking my still slim body, I have to remind myself to walk standing straighter and I may be mental sometimes but I don't have FTD :) .
I guess the founders didn't think we could have a mentally ill idiot killing off the world out of greed. They got close but not close enough. There's nothing I know of in the Constitution that says if two psychiatrists agree on the condition one has, that person could be committed to a sanitarium.
Honestly, in defense of solopsists, I find Trump to be more of a nihilist than solipsist. Like most, he just struggles with the fact that he apparently also exists, particularly in self awareness.
Say what you will about solipsism, it is at least an ethos.
"Cogito ergo sum." I don't know if you think, so...
Cogito ergo bibo.
You made me look this one up too - very funny!
LOL, just said to spouse, "Someone else looked up 'solipsist'!"
Definitely some Venn personality overlap here with the old term of sociopath.
I actually learned that word from a Star Trek novel. You never know where you can pick up a bit of knowledge.
What is it when you believe your own thoughts and experiences are real, but those of other people are likely to be deluded and confused?
Asking for a friend…
Wow. I'm sorry that happened. I like your comment. Hope you can be unbanned.
Spouse and I left the WaPo in the dust years ago. I went there to look at one thing recently and briefly and it looked like garbage so I was out of it in under 5 secs. Grew up (elem school) with it in the DC burbs when it was a real paper and chucked it when it became a paper of bs. Wonder why they didn't ban me when I called repubicans murderers during covid?
They really changed during the run-up to the last election. They canned all of the writers like Rubin and replaced them with Trumpies.
So many Pulitzer Prize winners left WAPO and Bezos could care less.
I am not bothered
Yup. However that would make more sense if one was able to change the underlying business fundamentals. That way, the stock price might actually go down.
Why were you banned?
He might get banned again if he tells you.
Possibly. But it seems so weird.
Smart move. We are a toxic people and you should be wary of us. But some interceding foreigners pose your own misdirection and we must be wary of you
The scale of US engagement is purely a function of hegemonic status. When Britain was top dog it did the same. China and Russia do the same right now as they vie with US. No US exceptionalism, neither for good nor ill.
What about? That does little to enlighten. Some would see that your comment illustrates that this bad behavior we learned from you
I live in Australia. We have no local oil production and two aging refineries which can handle only 20% of imported crude. All the latter comes from the Middle East via Asia, where it is refined.
We already have many fuel stations in remote areas with no supply at all. It is highly likely that fuel rationing will have to kick in next month, like in 1979. It will take forever to get back to normal supply.
We didn’t ask for any of this. Our alleged “ally”, who slaps high tariffs on us despite a trade deficit with the US, and is rude and offensive repeatedly to our PM, is the solitary cause of this disaster.
Yet he is plain crazy and such behaviour is predictable. What is much harder to explain -and accept - is how so many allegedly sane people in Congress continue to allow the destruction of their own country, when they could have prevented all this hundreds of infractions ago.
Republican capitulation is a mystery to a lot of us Americans too. I think it’s fear based. Extortion ala Epstein/Russia? Oligarchy pressure? It’s something. Wish I knew or understood.
Adam Kitzinger has explained an additional reason -- Republicans in Congress don't speak out because to do so would jeopardize their future careers as Republican lobbyists.
This is certainly part of it. It’s also that things in our country are so skewed that many people are “safe” and don’t really have to care about the job they signed up for, the people and country they are supposed to serve. Many have their power and privilege, have grown comfortable in it. Others ran to be exactly what they are and do exactly this. All of these things come together in a continuous negative feedback loop that hurts the rest of us, not just here but all over the world.
Follow the money.
Americans will soon learn that Australia needs diesel power to mine a lot of the world's lithium, iron, copper, aluminum, and nickel.
Trump is interested in creating a lithium mine in North Carolina, the Masabi range in the U.S. still produces large quantities of iron, the administration is trying to get around the environmental objections to two large copper mines in the U.S., and there are 22 nickle mines in the U.S.. Trump is certainly ignorant of the fact that U.S. production of aluminum depends on supplies of imported bauxite (at least, it used to).
Trump has treated most countries badly. Except Russia.
Canadians are so annoyed that visits to the US have dropped noticeably while boycotting American goods is common.
I have been reading 'I fucking Love Australia' posts on substack and he claims your leaders there sold out to big oil and are now paying the price....a good model to follow should be Norway where they give crumbs to big oil and keep the rest for their citizens sovereign wealth fund now sitting at about $360k for Norwegian
Yes it is true that the Australian governments poor energy management policies - oil and gas - are now coming back to haunt them. But none of this excuses the sheer inanity of the actions taken by the US president his war on Iran.
Indeed
Food for thought:
Prior to today, both the S&P 500 & Nasdaq had clawed back their Iran War losses and closed at record highs.
At the same time, the price for the actual physical delivery of oil has meaningfully diverged from the futures price, indicating stress in the physical market (remember, there are ~13mn b/d off the market), and real energy shortages rolling across Asia.
Last Tuesday (Apr 14), the IMF warned the war in Iran and continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz will cause global economic growth to slow, inflation to rise, and possibly push the world into a recession.
Rolling back the clock six years, despite concerning signals from China about a mystery virus, markets ignored the noise and performed pretty well in early February 2020. The S&P even hit a then-record high on February 19.
We all know what happened next.
The question must be asked: Are we in a February 2020 moment? Are markets overly complacent in the face of a pending disaster, ignoring signs of crisis to ride the "hopium" train on the promise this White House will figure things out?
A good combination is Prof Krugman's piece on the economy and Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago discussing his Escalation Trap theory with Wajahat Ali, where he explains clearly why we are stuck in this war for a while, why walking away would be the best we can do (he agrees with Paul on this), and why it is a GLOBAL CATASTROPHE!
It is an important discussion that I hope you take the time to listen too. https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/trump-escalates-the-iran-war-crisis?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Thanks Linda. I saw the approval numbers for Trump as of last week and they weren't pretty.
"Donald Trump's approval rating in Europe is quite low, with only about 14% of Britons, 10% of Germans, and 12% of Italians expressing a favorable opinion of him. Overall, 64% of Europeans have a negative view of Trump, reflecting a significant decline in confidence since his first term."
If lifelong Republican seniors weren't so tribal and admitted how terrible Trump is, his approval numbers would be even worse.
V Orban managed to stay in power for 16 years despite only 35% approval rating by Hungarian voters. MAGA having similar numbers keeps me up at night.
Why I feel the US needs to have election observers like Hungary did, but we don't have a team to come in. It would need to be 35 times the size of the Hungary team.
Thank you Sally. MAGA is interfering with my sleep as well.
“Lifelong Republican seniors”. Is that really the diehard MAGA base? I’ve been wondering about the people who insist that the economy is fine and that Trump is doing a great job: mainly “low information voters” and White nationalists? Maybe time for Paul to have another chat with GEM; has the dust up with the Vatican moved the needle at all ?
don't forget a lot of his base are in the top 10%, racist and have the money to ride out the chaos of the orange asshat
Hence, the K shaped economy. But a poll last week showed his strongest support for the Iran War that Trump started in spite of every warning from, well, everyone with half a brain, is from the over 60 crowd and then it drops way off for the under 60's.
Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago discussing his Escalation Trap theory with Wajahat Ali, explains clearly why we are stuck in this war for a while, why walking away would be the best we can do, and why it is a GLOBAL CATASTROPHE! https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/trump-escalates-the-iran-war-crisis?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
He did not even get to discussing the danger of radicalizing Suni Muslims around the world, but Malcolm Nance did in several of his shows. The US is not safe from attack.
Just wondering how they will do with the impending global catastrophe that will even hit the US, not just the rest of the world, although poor countries will be harder hit.
Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago discussing his "Escalation Trap" theory with Wajahat Ali, explains clearly why we are stuck in this war for a while, why walking away would be the best we can do.
https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/trump-escalates-the-iran-war-crisis?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
I see getting out the vote, getting off of fossil fuels in all ways we can, and protesting the war as the things to do right now.
Maybe those approval numbers serve as a reasonable proxy for the % of neo-Nazi, far right, white Nationalists in those countries?
Thanks, Patrick. Everything happens in the present, after the past, and before the future. My only firm expectation is that all things will continue to change continuously. It is, however, good to plan for the worst and hope for the best, or so I have heard...
I think the US blockade will cause Iran to negotiate. It’s going to really hurt them.
I think they'll get by with tolls on ships passing through the strait.
Yes, they definitely want that.
Negotiate for what????
That is if you have been following news reports on what Trump is willing to offer Iran, Iran announced it was reopening the Strait of Hormuz after Trump reportedly, as an opening offer, agreed to pay Iran $20,000,000,000 from the U.S. treasury in return for Iran basically re-entering the deal they made with Obama and that Trump in his first term broke. As the $20,000,000,000 was Trump's opening offer, the final amount Trump will agree to pay Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz will no doubt end up being much hire.
From Iran's point of view, this makes perfect sense as one of Iran's demands to end the war is for America to pay 'restitution" for all the death and destruction this unnecessary war of choice has caused Iran. From Republicans point of view, who still falsely cling to the lie that Obama gave Iran "loads of cash" for agreeing not to make an atomic bomb, well I just can't wait for the spin.
I mean Republicans still falsely cling to the lie that Obama gave Iran "loads of cash" when all Obama did, again in return for Iran agreeing not to make an atom bomb, was to permit Iran access to money Iran had in foreign banks before the 1979 revolution. That is all Obama gave up in his deal to keep Iran from having an atomic bomb was to allow Iran access to its own money most of which was not even held in American banks.
Trump on the other hand, to get Iran back into the Obama deal that Trump ripped up, is going to pay Iran from the U.S. treasury collected from everyday taxpayers many times the money that legally belonged to the legitimate government of Iran that Obama gave them access. But the biggest difference is that again Obama only gave Iran its own money, the $20,000,000,000 opening offer and whatever the final amount Trump agrees to pay Iran, will come directly from American taxpayers.
Changing the subject, I want to make a comment on another story; Kash Patel is suing the Atlantic for defamation and why Patel is going to lose his lawsuit.
The magazine's story, initially titled “Kash Patel's Erratic Behavior Could Cost Him His Job," cited more than two dozen anonymous sources expressing concern at Patel’s “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences” that “alarmed officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice.”
The article, which The Atlantic subsequently titled “The FBI Director Is MIA” in its online version, reported that during Patel’s tenure, the FBI had to reschedule early meetings “as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights” and that Patel “is often away or unreachable, delaying time-sensitive decisions needed to advance investigations.”
The reason Patel is going to lose his defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic for detailing Patel “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences" is:
TRUTH IS AN ABSOLUTE DEFENSE TO DEFAMATION CLAIMS.
Nothing more needs to be said about Kash Patel and his defamation suit against the Atlantic. However, much more needs to be said about Patel's unfitness for the job Trump appointed him.
The original title of the Atlantic article was, “Kash Patel's Erratic Behavior Could Cost Him His Job," to “The FBI Director Is MIA” is because in Trump's administration, Patel's behavior WILL NOT cost him his job.
I haven’t the Atlantic article yet, but I will.
As for Iran, I am quite familiar with your points. I was thinking of something simpler, just opening the Strait.
YES, MY POINT EXACTLY ABOUT JUST OPENING THE STRIAT.
That is Iran has been under extreme pressure since the revolution and so far has not yielded any results or softening/change of Iran's foreign policy, which to the extent Trump's war is about anything, it is about Iran's foreign policy.
They can say it is about Iran having an atomic bomb, but again that is only a concern because of Iran's foreign policy.
So this war has failed and that Iran will not change its foreign policy. If anything, Trump's war has given Iran's leadership far more prestige by standing up to America.
That is what has happened is a war started by Trump to change Iran's foreign policy if not to change Iran's government has now devolved into a question of how much America pay Iran to open what was open before the war began and will contain no serious limitations on Iran building a bomb.
That is the real question is:
HOW MUCH OF TAXPAYER MONEY WILL TRUMP PAY IRAN FOR OPENING THE STRIAT OF HORMUZ AND HOW MUCH TOLL IN ADDITION TO USA TAXPAYER MONEY WILL IRAN BE CHARGING FOR SAFE PASSAGE AND TO WHAT EXTENT WILL IRAN CONTROL OF THE STAIT NOW BE RECOGNIZED BY AMERICA AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY.
The luxury of irresponsibility lives large in the Oval Office. When your ego is the highest stake in a negotiation, the costs of narcissism will be borne by that world.
That is the risk we are now running. The smartest, most sophisticated models cannot measure this variable.
And, amazingly, Trump’s alleged psychopathology continues to be minimized by the press. He is a uniquely dangerous individual to the country and the world. His clownish presentation does not make him less dangerous.
About what “press” do you speak? At least domestically all that is left is Chamber of Commerce PR flaks.
Great analogy.
And, I think that "luxury of irresponsibility", or the "luxury of supporting Trump's lies" is going to come crashing down in the near future.
Because for all of his willful, wishful, extortionist thinking, the Law of Gravity EXISTS still and always will.
It's going the way the inhumane things want it to. Chaos, less educated, get rid of the surplus population in anyway possible, klll the markets (we're expecting our IRA to come crashing down and I'm debating about how much we can take out this year ... a new struggle and debate), and there's more but y'all know this anyway.
Please see this piece which really talks about a pattern of behavior which Trump is engaged in. Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago is discussing his Escalation Trap theory with Wajahat Ali, and explains clearly why we are stuck in this war for a while, why walking away would be the best we can do, and why it is a GLOBAL CATASTROPHE! (which we all know anyway, but will more deeply after this). It is an important discussion that I hope you take the time to listen to. https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/trump-escalates-the-iran-war-crisis?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Thank you. I have gone to the link and look forward to listening to it.
Trump's constant spew of grandiose falsehoods are undermining his credibility (already low) and slowly destroying the USA's brand globally.
Listening to Chump speak for, say, five minutes, would "destroy his credibility" with anyone with an IQ above room temp. Sad that apparently most of the owners of major American press outlets lack that IQ....
Spot on, Erik.
Trump made a point of saying the Strait needed to be open for everyone, and not just those cutting deals with Iran. Then he did exactly what Iran was doing, opening the Strait for anyone cutting deals with the US, but not Iran. What's that about the goose and the gander? The Strait has been closed by Trump's actions, and the world should be clear on that, and start sanctions against us... the USA. This is OUR fault.
He lies constantly and, in turn, I constantly move past his idiotic statements. The world seems to be pretty darn clear about what the xxxx is going on and it's in the news often.
The blockade is targeting only ships linked to Iran.
Spare a thought for New Zealand at the end of a very long supply line for everything including manufactured solar panels and blades for our wind turbines. Although we have made great strides in solar power and produce our own hydro electricity, our current government has subsidised fossil fuels and backed us out of the Paris Accord to our great collective tragedy. We will be hitching up the horses to get our food distributed. Alas, we’ve not enough jet fuel or diesel to propel our kiwifruit and wine to America after the last fuel ship arrives tomorrow.
Sending wine by airplane seems to be wasteful. Transporting by ship instead would be a demand destruction that could happen without much loss for anybody.
In the short run you may get a recession - but in the long run you may benefit from learning a lesson about energy independence.
Kiwis are the most resourceful and resilient people I've had the privilege to live amongst.
They know all about independence and how to live independently of the rest of the world due to their geographic location.
They've been doing it for hundreds of years.
New Zealand's trump card is the fact that it feeds itself, plus millions more.
NZ is the largest dairy producer in the southern hemisphere. 20 billion liters are produced and much exported, primarily tons of milk powder to China.
NZ dairy farmers produce highly efficient pasture fed dairy and beef at the expense of our environment. They are under pressure to reduce environmental degradation of our water and soils and high methane from cows. Our rivers are unsafe to swim from high levels of nitrate and run-off.. They have been given a pass due to the 20% export value which is not sustainable with our small population. The lack of diesel to run farm equipment and urea to grow grass will cause a serious rethink. We don’t have enough refrigeration to store all the live animals that would be exported this year and not enough feed to overwinter them. Difficult decisions ahead.
Yes. One farmer here couldn't pump water to pasture tanks (run on diesel engines) when the diesel delivery didn't show up. Research to produce feeds that produce lower methane output has been ongoing here, with some promising results. Nitrate is an issue, but fortunately there are testing requirements and collective political pressure to keep waters clean (Maori values for the win on that). Nitrate runoff is a MUCH bigger problem in US midwest (see Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Mississippi river discharge into the gulf), and they have the birth defects, miscarriages, cancer, etc. to prove it.
NZ needs to diversify it's economy, for sure, and policies are slowly evolving to do it, but for now the ag exports are holding up the economy.
Not a Trump card - please don't do that to yourself.
This was not an attempt to dis NZ. I love that country. Just pointing at a couple of things that might be done to make it even better - and more resilient.
Footnote: I rather doubt that America is attracting brilliant people from all over the world these days. They’re coming to New Zealand.
Not many. Most are heading to Europe. New Zealand has cut science research funding, and lags far behind OECD peers. See yesterday's release from Save Science, titled "Underfunding Our Future". Over 700 jobs have been cut from crown institutes just this past year. Many were PhD scientists who were recruited from other countries, and they have now gone back (mostly Europeans). Chilean, German, Italian, French, and Swedish who lost research jobs in NZ are all profiled in the report.
A temporary problem caused by our current government which is about to be shown the door. With so many roles currently open in academia and government, the smart people are making their plans now. A lot of Kiwis are returning from overseas for our better lifestyle already.
I guess 35 million people will miss our beautiful food.
I hope you are right!
Me too
Our current government is already rewriting our laws so that adherence to Maori values becomes “optional”.
So, does your license plate end with an even or odd number? (1973)
"It may be the first event that signalled the waning of U.S. hegemony came in September 1969 when Muammar al-Qaddafi and about a dozen officers seized power in Libya while King Idris was out of the country. The Nixon Administration declined to act and indeed informed on anti-Qaddafi plots as Qaddafi evicted the British and Americans from their bases. In early 1970, Qaddafi demanded a rise of forty-four cents in the price paid for oil even as world demand was slumping. Indeed, most oil-producing nations were begging to increase their production quotas. Libya did hold leverage over Occidental Petroleum, which was heavily invested in the country. When Occidental sought support from Exxon, that company would not move without antitrust relaxation from Nixon's Justice Department. The surrender to Tripoli was quickly followed by similar demands from Iran, Iraq, Algeria, and Kuwait. The American situation worsened as oil consumption grew rapidly in the U.S. from 1969 to 1973. Jack Anderson and James Boyd suggest that the overall policies of the Nixon Administration cost supply of about 9 million barrels a day, more than enough to weather the 1973 crisis. When Nixon was inaugurated, the U.S. imported 13 percent of its oil, two-thirds of which came from the Americas. In 1973, it imported 26 percent. Of that 42 percent came from the Americas, and 33 percent came from Muslim nations of the Mediterranean and Middle East. Well before the Yom Kippur War, the price of oil per barrel had risen from $1.40 to $5. By the time Nixon left office in August 1974, the price was $12 a barrel."
--From _Twilight's Last Gleaming_ (2013)
Nixon blocking the oil companies and supporting high oil prices was revealed in Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony, though these events seem to have been forgotten even by oil historians. Why did Nixon want high oil prices? Probably because the "Nixon Doctrine" required the Shah to buy a lot of USA weaponry to serve as regional peacekeeper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Doctrine
“Our gas bill is more than the mortgage”- my father (1973)
So, is it good news or bad news that there's no way that the "gas bill being more than the mortgage" will be repeated? Given, I mean, that mortgages have skyrocketed far above the simple rate of inflation since '73. (Fun fact, in '73, my mother would have been paying $92/mo. on the mortgage she and my dad assumed in 1955 when they bought the house I grew up in for just under $15k.)
I don’t know if it’s good or bad news. I do know that the effects of those price shocks have continued to reverberate throughout my life.
Ours might literally have been. I think my parents’ mortgage payment in 1973 was about $75, and our old Impala was lucky to get 8 miles a gallon. 😭
The gas bill I’m talking about was for natural gas heating, cooking and hot water only. He had a Fairlane, it wasn’t too bad for mpg, but we didn’t drive anywhere unneeded.
I had a '63 Fairlane. The best I ever got was 13 mpg.
And some are letters?
Been modeling this from the scarcity side for weeks. The part most forecasts still get wrong: within each commodity, the damage splits into a price component and a physical scarcity component, and the scarcity share grows over time. LNG is already 70% scarcity from day one, petrochemicals 60%, diesel crosses over in April-May. Price-only models miss half the GDP hit. And in longer scenarios the inflation channels stack instead of taking turns, so a 6-month shock is disproportionately worse than the 3-month one, not 2x. The IMF isn't just low, they're using the wrong framework.
Mapping the Damage from the Iran War I: The Timeline of the Supply Chain Shock
https://defytheodds88.substack.com/p/mapping-the-damage-from-the-iran
Mapping the Damage from the Iran War II: How Bad It Gets
https://defytheodds88.substack.com/p/mapping-the-damage-from-the-iran-997
Mapping the Damage from the Iran War III: The Last Ships Have Arrived
https://defytheodds88.substack.com/p/mapping-the-damage-from-the-iran-e77
This the oil, but how about the impact on food supply(from shortage of fertilizer) and semiconductors?
And plastic. There's already a plastic shortage starting. Medical supplies are already being hoarded in places like S. Korea where they can see this crisis coming. There's plastic in everything, so this should get interesting.
The price of plastic bags in Taiwan doubled overnight on the first day of the war and now they’re becoming harder to find.
I honestly have mixed feelings about this particular shortage. We really should be bringing our own bags to the traditional markets, fruit stands, mom and pop food stalls, and tea shops that habitually use disposable plastic bags for everything. But in the meantime, it’s a hardship for those small businesses.
Totally agree about plastic, and in fact all the rest of it. Trying to hide my schadenfreude about this whole crisis... 😉
Well, New Jersey banned disposable plastic bags a few years ago, so we've already adjusted there. The funny thing to me is that my mother used to wash and re-use the aluminum foil (it was very expensive in the '50s due to monopolies) and now my wife and I are washing and re-using plastic bags to keep them out of landfills.
Professor Krugman: i am conflicted between rejoicing at this impending destruction of world oil consumption (i am deeply worried about the climate crisis and biodiversity collapse) and being worried about this impending destruction of world oil consumption because it is how things -- food, medicines, fertilizers, people -- are moved around the planet. so a reduction in oil availability translates into fewer items that we rely on, and higher prices on those items we can actually find.
maybe this is the reason the locals around me are becoming more serious about gardening? not sure if the world situation and its threat to fresh food has motivated them to stay home for the summer and dig around in the dirt or if they are participating in local gardening group think?
Right there with you Grrl. May I add to your list of concerns; plastic and the mindless use for packaging and incorporation into disposable items.
if i'm not mistaken, plastic is made from oil.
So Trump is on track to leave us with a worse economy just like he did the first time around by failing to adopt rational policies to address COVID. Admittedly, there was not much then he could do to affect the impact of China's policies on the supply chain, but he not only did nothing, he made things worse through denial and refusal to follow the science. (The Pfizer vaccine was not made using his program, Moderna was.) Yes, the CDC wasn't always right, this was a novel virus, but they were right more than they were wrong.
Weeks before the first US Covid death, Xi told Trump the fatality rate and that it was spread through the air.
Sensible policies would probably have saved a half a million lives.
Trump was on the way to just declaring victory and go away - but I guess there was so much graft and attention in this conflict that he couldn't. It's also a great distraction from the Epstein files so there is that. But eventually the gas price issue will force him to get out of the way so the world can fix the mess he created.
I think he’s definitely looking for an exit ramp.
I live in the NE (of the US) and I heat my home with heating oil. I know I am a dinosaur, but there's no gas in this house. Etc. Looking into alternatives. That being said, I was paying my home heating oil provider $326.00 per month (level monthly billing) usually in summer, I owe them or they owe me. Last week, I got a letter saying that I had a balance of $1300.00. I called on Friday, balance was $997.00 due to monthly payment. I paid the balance, there will be one more delivery before summer and then the new plan amount will be announced in August. I am thinking it will be $500.00 per month for 11 months, with a balance due next summer. How are people going to afford this?
Get an air source heat pump to replace your oil boiler. Every kWh of electricity will give you 4kwh of power if it's properly installed.
There's been a feud with Canada over electricity supplies in the NE U.S.. Our supplier cost jumped from about $.15/kwh to $.44/kwh a few months ago. It's still better than oil. The fuel cost isn't the only consideration, however. That heat pump may require a larger electrical service, which will be close to $1,000. And local regulations may require removal of the oil storage tank and any polluted soil around or under it.
While you've rightly noted that the world is a lot less dependent on oil than it was in the past, this is primarily the case for wealthier countries, with the majority of middle-income and poor countries still being very fossil-fuel heavy and forced in some cases to become more so. This dick-swinging contest by a superpower is pushing many already vulnerable countries to potential crises, which said superpower will do nothing to alleviate in this administration or the next.
Paul, your core argument is correct — this is not a price problem, it is a physical constraint problem.
But there is a missing layer.
Demand destruction is not an abstract economic adjustment. It is a forced redistribution of scarcity.
When supply contracts at that scale, the question is not only how much demand will fall — but whose demand will be eliminated first.
History suggests the answer is not neutral.
Higher-income economies will secure access. Lower-income regions will absorb the shock through inflation, reduced mobility, and, ultimately, reduced consumption of essential goods.
At that point, what we call “recession” is not merely a macroeconomic outcome.
It is the mechanism through which the system decides who continues to operate — and who stops.
This is no longer just an economic adjustment.
It is a structural expression of power.
For those of us that lived through the 70’s it was pretty awful, for a lot of reasons. What cannot be overstated is how quickly everything changed and the deep pessimism took over. While the wealthy did fine, everyone in the middle class and below was much worse off.
The important thing is that it wasn’t just the oil embargo, but rather several other factors: corruption, the Vietnam War, Nixon/Watergate, high interest rates, awful cars and a decline in manufacturing and the failure to take the rest of the world seriously. Reagan’s big appeal was tax cuts, trickle down economics, and deceiving the American people through story telling.
So look around, what is going well - a stock market based on AI speculation and expected healthcare costs. If it’s successful it will take a lot of jobs and consume a lot of energy. How does that benefit the average person?