POTUS Trump’s “indefinite” ceasefire held, with the exception of Iran seizing some ships and the ongoing Israeli destruction of Southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, inflation is hitting U.S. shores with more to come and more bad war news keeps hitting the MSM.
Oh, yea the US Senate voted down the 5th attempt to limit Trump’s war powers in a near-party line vote that swapped Rand Paul (R-KY) for John Fetterman (D-PA).
Iranians Shoot Some Ships
Iranian state media published a video released by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that it said showed the interception of two cargo vessels, the Francesca and Epaminondas, on Wednesday. The Revolutionary Guards said it had seized both ships near the Strait of Hormuz. The New York Times verified that the vessels in the video were the Francesca and Epaminodas, which are seen being approached by a speedboat flying an Iranian flag. The video then shows armed forces scaling the vessels from the boat with a ladder. Footage of armed forces conducting operations in ship interiors could not be verified.
Tuomas Malinen posted that “Two of (the ships) are said to belong to MSC, a major European shipping company, while the third would be Greek-owned. One of the ships has reportedly suffered heavy damage.”
The NYT had a map too:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) April 23, 2026
Here’s the Iranian video (which the Times won’t link to, lames):
IRGC released footage of the interception of two vessels, MSC-FRANCESCA and EPAMINODES, after maritime violations in the Strait of Hormuz.
Follow: https://t.co/mLGcUTS2ei pic.twitter.com/ZUUBbzbA2N
— Press TV 🔻 (@PressTV) April 22, 2026
The NYT chided Trump for letting this slide:
on Wednesday, after Iran seized two ships near the Strait of Hormuz, the White House was quick to argue the action was not a deal breaker for potential peace negotiations.
About That Devastated Iranian Military
CBS (of all outlets) has some leaks from inside the Pentagon:
The Islamic Republic of Iran maintains more military capabilities than the White House or Pentagon has publicly admitted, according to multiple U.S. officials with knowledge of intelligence on the matter.
About half of Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles and its associated launch systems were still intact as of the start of the ceasefire in early April, three of the officials told CBS News.
Roughly 60% of the naval arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is still in existence, the officials said, including fast-attack speed boats. On Wednesday, Iranian gunboats attacked several commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, shortly after President Trump announced he was unilaterally extending a ceasefire to allow more time for peace talks.
Iranian air power has been significantly degraded but not erased, said the officials, who requested anonymity from CBS News because they were not authorized to discuss the matters publicly.
About two-thirds of Iran’s air force is still believed to be operational, the officials said, after an intensive U.S. and Israeli campaign that struck thousands of targets, including storage and production facilities.
I wonder if the leaking of the above has anything to do with the below.
Hegseth Fires US Secretary of the Navy
I’m pretty sure the DUI hire that is Greasy Pete Hegseth, US Secretary of Defense War is a lock for worst SoD of the 21st Century, surging past the old school insane-and-evil-but-able-to-playact-competent Don Rumsfeld only a little over a year into his tenure.
CBS got the scoop (note the link goes to MSN.com which is syndicating CBS’ content, the internet is so broken):
Navy Secretary John Phelan is leaving his role effective immediately, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Wednesday.
A White House official told CBS News that President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth agreed on the need for new Navy leadership, and Hegseth informed Phelan of the decision before it was made public.
The Navy’s new acting civilian leader will be Undersecretary of the Navy Hung Cao, according to Parnell. Cao is a Navy veteran who ran for Senate in 2024 as the GOP’s nominee in Virginia, losing to Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine.
Phelan is the latest high-profile official to depart the federal government in recent months. Hegseth asked Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George to step down earlier this month, and the Army officers who led the Transportation and Training Command and the Chaplain Corps were removed from their roles. The head of the U.S. military’s Southern Command, Navy Adm. Alvin Holsey, also retired at the end of last year.
Hegseth vs. the courtier-class, ossified, completely politicized, sold-to-the-highest-bidding-contractor leadership at the Pentagon is one of those Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster deals where I can’t decide which side is doing more damage to the American war machine, but Hegseth is the more novel menace, and hence more frightening.
Regardless, Phelan presided over multiple debacles like 2025’s Operation Rough Rider, which is worth reviewing because the complete failure of US military is highly relevant, via Middle East Monitor:
This campaign—costing over $1 billion and involving aircraft carrier strike groups, B-2 bombers, and advanced missiles—was intended to cripple the Houthis’ military capabilities. However, just two months after the operation began, on May 6, 2025, Trump unexpectedly announced a ceasefire agreement with the Houthis…
The U.S. military operation, launched in March 2025, aimed to destroy the Houthis’ missile arsenal, drones, and military infrastructure. Yet despite massive spending and cutting-edge weapons, it failed to meet its strategic goals.
Operation Rough Rider targeted over 800 locations but had limited impact on Houthi capabilities. Relying on underground facilities and Iranian support, the Houthis not only survived the assaults but escalated their attacks on commercial and military vessels. This situation posed the greatest challenge to U.S. maritime hegemony since World War II; the Houthis became bolder, repeatedly targeting even American warships.
I’ll get to the economy, I promise but I really do need to cover the horrors Israel is committing in Southern Lebanon.
Israel Remodels Southern Lebanon, Gaza-Style
Iranian media covers it like this:
“Peace with Israel will not happen”
This is one of latest reports of Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil whom Israel murdered a few hours ago.
Here, she reported on victims of recent Israeli offensive in Lebanon as Beirut prepared for talks with Israel; She is now a victim herself. https://t.co/sbjEYAnOtQ pic.twitter.com/FeszKN9XZf
— Press TV 🔻 (@PressTV) April 22, 2026
The NYT covers it like this:
The Lebanese Red Cross said its teams came under fire on Wednesday while trying to evacuate two journalists from the site of an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon, forcing them to withdraw. The rescue crews were targeted by a warning strike along with machine-gun fire, according to Alexi Nehme, a director with the organization. One journalist was rescued, but the other remained trapped under rubble, he said. The Israeli military denied in a statement that it was preventing rescuers from reaching the injured journalists, adding that the incident was under investigation.
“Investigation.” Reminds me of Biden spokescriminal Matt “Smirkula” Miller.
A little terrorizing to go with the murder:
I reached out on WhatsApp to the account that was sending death threats to Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil shortly before her death in an Israeli airstrike.
After telling him I'm a reporter, the man behind the account called me and identified himself as Gal Gideon Ben Avraham https://t.co/jEG5KI7s0V
— Noah Hurowitz (@NoahHurowitz) April 22, 2026
Check out the devastation:
The New Arab speaks to returnees in Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon, as they cautiously return to their towns. Residents walk through damaged streets, inspect destroyed homes and shops, and begin rebuilding amid deep uncertainty.
[Video: Hussein Baydoun] pic.twitter.com/TjkxO922ML
— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) April 22, 2026
Here’s another media compare and contrast.
“It’s a feeling that can’t be described,” she told The New Arab, her voice full of something that sounded closer to pride than grief. “As if our souls came back to us.”
The visit lasted only hours. The house that had sheltered them was gone.
But Zahraa was certain that the return itself carried meaning beyond the physical, a message, she said, that “the owner of the land does not abandon their right no matter the cost.
“Stones can be replaced,” she said. “Dignity, once broken, cannot be rebuilt.”
Before the family turned back toward Beirut, she took one last look at her village. She did not see death. She saw life waiting, quietly, under the ash.
Widespread destruction forces displaced residents to turn back in south Lebanon.
In a reception center in Saida, many had set out for home at dawn on April 17, the day a truce began, only to turn back…
I highly recommend the Substack video interview linked below.
Ok, let’s get to the economy because reality may be starting to kick in.
US Inflation Was Way Up in March
Here comes the food inflation
Costs for food companies jumped 7.9% yoy in March (vs. 4.2% in Feb.)
This is basically just from higher fuel costs – we’re still waiting for the impact of higher fertilizer, plastics, etc.
From the Odd Lots newsletter:https://t.co/y6NWptOKSD pic.twitter.com/0JbRYyth8W
— Tracy Alloway (@tracyalloway) April 22, 2026
More from the Odd Lots Newsletter (Bloomberg):
It should be obvious by now that the impact of the Iran War will take time to work its way through the global economy. Last week, we still had ships unloading barrels of oil that they had picked up in the Gulf before the conflict began. Many companies have stockpiles of critical chemicals and materials that act as a buffer to immediate price shocks. And in agriculture, the full effects of higher fertilizer costs won’t really be fully felt until harvest.
…
That jump (in food prices) was driven mostly by diesel and heating oil, meaning we haven’t even seen much impact from things like higher plastics prices or fertilizer just yet. There’s a sequencing at play here. There’s also a layering effect as higher fertilizer costs get added on top of fuel expenses etc.Urea is a good example. On the podcast, we’ve talked about the surging cost of New Orleans (NOLA) urea, which is the main benchmark for wholesale nitrogen-based fertilizer coming into the US. Midwest or Corn Belt urea is the retail equivalent, or basically what farmers pay once you factor in the additional cost of transportation and storage (there’s that layering effect again).
…
The key thing is that we’re still pretty early in this process. We started with oil (which, per the BoA chart, is already showing up in higher costs for food companies). Rising fertilizer prices are now hitting farmers, and eventually those will translate into higher wholesale food prices which will (assuming higher costs are passed onto consumers) eventually land at grocery stores too. The inflationary impulse doesn’t arrive all at once, it builds.
I hope this isn’t upsetting Mr. Market.
What, Mr Market Worry?
Let’s take a trip through the magic mirror with CNBC:
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite finished at record levels on Wednesday after President Donald Trump extended the U.S. ceasefire with Iran, while upbeat earnings reports also lifted sentiment.
The broad market index added 1.05% to finish at 7,137.90, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 1.64% to settle at 24,657.57. The latter had hit a new all-time intraday high in the session. The S&P 500 had erased all of its Iran war losses last week. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 340.65 points, or 0.69%, to end the day at 49,490.03.
Shortly after Tuesday’s close, Trump extended a two-week U.S. ceasefire, saying it was warranted due to Tehran’s “seriously fractured” government.
They then spend six paragraphs quoting Trump Truth Social posts and discussing the not-happening peace talks, I’ll spare you all that but the rest is plenty um, interesting
But with the Nasdaq trading at all-time high levels, Ben Fulton of WEBs Investments believes investors are officially starting to look past the developments in the Middle East. Indeed, U.S. equities are going to be able to more easily move higher than international markets from here on out, especially given the expected tail wind from earnings, he said.
“A week ago, I said, ‘The risk was on the upside.’ The market moves so much that now I look and go, ‘No, the risk is on the downside,’” the firm’s CEO said in an interview. “It’s time to put it in the rearview mirror. They got to stay the course.”
This nonsense is so palpable that the NYT does some finger wagging and attempts to explain WTF:
The stock market has been trying to ignore the war in Iran. That’s been true over weeks of escalation and de-escalation, cease-fires, a blockade, and a blockade of a blockade (now just a U.S. blockade). Markets have barely flinched, even as crude oil prices swing wildly each day and the world’s supply chains begin to shake.
The word to describe what is happening is “shrug.” The problem is not a lack of information. There is too much information, arriving in late-night social media posts and endless push notifications. These days when I see “Breaking News,” it feels like there’s an emphasis on “breaking,” in the sense of “Things are broken.”
The stock market has decided this available information is not relevant. That is a problem for all of us. President Trump deeply cares about the stock market, and if the stock market had been selling off, there is a good chance that this war would have been over a while ago. More broadly, the markets are showing the single lesson that the past 40 years have taught them.
It will always be saved.
Markets are not properly pricing risk, because they really don’t have to. They have assumed that the U.S. government will not allow them to implode, and that assumption is putting the world economy at stake. What’s more, the new rescuer investors are counting on — artificial intelligence — is vulnerable to the exact risks markets are ignoring.
This has huge consequences.
Veteran Democratic operative Roger Alan Stone (not to be confused with the infamous GOP operative) considers an additional factor:
The Trump stock market seems to defy comprehension. I’m not the only one who’s noticed that it’s completely untethered from the reality of the economy. Consumer sentiment is at an all-time low. The S&P 500 is at an all-time high. The market gets pushed up by Trump statements about the war that no rational human being would believe. Every day I expect the crash that brings this house of cards down.
…
It’s the Algorithms, Stupid. Or It’s the Stupid Algorithms.An offhand comment the other night by an MSNow commentator gives us the first insight. He mentioned that a lot of trading isn’t being done by humans but by algorithms that search the news and what’s trending on the web for clues about how the market will move the next day.
So when Trump Truths that the war with Iran is over — they’re opening the strait and have agreed to all his terms and are becoming the 51st state — the algorithm doesn’t need to believe him. It just needs to see that true or not, this statement will move stocks up and oil down. With so much trading done by algorithms, each algorithm knows stocks will rise because the other algorithms will move them.
With 70% of daily trading done by algorithms, humans have become largely irrelevant to the stock market. So it isn’t people at all moving the market.
But what happens when the algorithm shows that all the algorithms say sell instead of buy and foreign investors have lost their interest in buying Treasuries.
Look out below.
Indeed, in the meantime, we can all share the Wile E. Coyote midair moment.
Let’s check in on the antics of the Mad King real quick:
Trump negotiating the release of eight AI-generated Iranian women with himself on his private social media site has to be a new low in the history of relations between different factions of the Human species. https://t.co/fMBHXVvue8
— Armchair Warlord (@ArmchairW) April 23, 2026
I’ll close with the latest Lego Iranian agit-prop video “We Love Americans”:
NEW IRAN LEGO VIDEO: “We love Americans. We’re not your enemy, we’re prisoners of the same cause.” pic.twitter.com/WVMvElVDep
— Stew Peters (@realstewpeters) April 22, 2026
Stay safe, y’all!
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Just read that India is buying urea (fertilizer) at double the price. The entry does not say who’s the provider but chances are that it is either the USA or Russia.
That’s extremely worrisome but may also explain why Wall Street is smiling in the face of global chaos: many US business are actually making lots of money out of it.
I think there are a couple of factors at play with “the market”.
1. There is automatic investing happening through 401Ks every month, that pushes things up no matter what happens.
2. 90% of the stocks are owned by the top 10%. As long as this cohort doesn’t feel scared, there isn’t a panic in “the market”.
Higher fertilizer prices in India doesn’t scare them. High gas prices, don’t scare them. I really cant see what in the early stages of this crisis is going to get them to scared.
It will be awful for the lower classes, as inflation keeps eroding earnings, but that doesn’t hit “the market” in the same way.
I would love others thoughts on explaining the current state of the market.
Here’s how Bloomberg tackles the market question today. Five reasons Global Markets Are Surprisingly Resilient Despite War in Iran.
Summary: 1) the war is a transient factor; 2) the worst has been priced in and now there is a wind-down in sight; 3) dip buying is reflexive; 4) hey, oil is still available, it just costs more; 4) earnings are up; 5) never mind the war, gotta get into the AI game.
Translation: Tis a category error: its not a temporary oil shock, its a critical materials global supply chain collapse
Historical records indicate that the market was also surprisingly resilient in early October of 1929.
I don’t know how they can say the war downside is priced in when stuff is hitting all time highs.
Right ?
Even “priced in” doesn’t mean anything anymore.
“Priced in” means they’re already accounting for future bailouts.
This is the value the market must be at for the number to always go up.
When the number is no longer going up Fed/Treasury will make it go up: priced in.
Good points.
Also fueling bull markets is increasing margin debt. An enormous 9-month continuous surge ended in January, overall margin debt declined a total of 5% in feb and march, so that push might now be reversing.
The bull market, ignoring the very short covid decline, is nearly 17 years old, a record. Buy the dip is in the algos, msm news on the war is mostly limited to regurgitating the latest trump pronouncements. The stock owners might simply be believing what they want to believe… few have buffet’s experience.
Things are breaking, but so far it’s elsewhere. Distance from the gulf means us is last to see the tsunami.
Earnings are apparently good, what;s the problem?
And maybe iran is ready to surrender, which means the market would jump.
But imo we’re gonna lose the war and declare victory by end May, things will be breaking here, high inflation and falling earnings; if so, a route seems likely.
Trump said 3-5 days on Tuesday. So Friday after markets? Smart money selling tomorrow? We got 2-3 weeks of off-def missiles, it would be wrong to home before they’re all gone.
Yes I think this is a huge factor.
We won’t see a meaningful decline in the stock market until there’s a big reduction in this automatic process where 401k contributions are taken out of every paycheck. Which would only happen after mass layoffs. And mass layoffs are still months away, even if gasoline national average hits $5 a gallon.
In Australia, with compulsory superannuation, roughly 12% of everyone’s pay goes straight into the stock market every week.
Well, most of it. Some goes to safer cash (like mine at the moment) but the rest of it, all into shares.
That’s a strange story that. Not that India is having to pay a premium price for urea but the fact that it does not say where it is coming from. I have read four different articles about this sale and not one of them mentions which country is selling India that urea.
They’re all probably all sourced to (or even copy-pasted from) the Reuters note I linked. It’s a plague in mainstream media. In any case, I also tried to find out which was the provider and could not find it.
I watch a YouTube channel called Grain Markets and Stuff. On Monday, they were reporting that fertilizer shipments to the US are being rerouted to other markets where prices are higher. This is not good.
https://youtu.be/-GqKsQSPEGM
Here is the source for that news: US buyers redirect imported fertilizer overseas as Iran war drives up global prices – https://www.reuters.com/business/us-buyers-redirect-imported-fertilizer-overseas-iran-war-drives-up-global-prices-2026-04-17/
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/indl-goods/svs/chem-/-fertilisers/indias-urea-imports-from-china-hit-3-year-high-russian-supplies-also-surge/articleshow/129558294.cms?from=mdr
China and Russia are the sources.
Thanks for that, tyaresun. Makes sense shipment wise as both countries are India’s neighbours whereas the US is on the other side of the Pacific.
Russia is quite far from India, although a close ally since USSR times. It would seem logical that India and Russia traded via Central Asia but Pakistan is in between and blocks all such trade. That’s why they devised a route via Iran (and then the Caspian Sea to avoid middlemen, notably the most dubious Azerbaijan) but logically that route is not very operative right now, meaning that Russian cargoes must go all the way from Europe via Suez or the Arctic via whatever sea route is available (Suez or East Asia). Those are very long routes.
Even China (which I didn’t know was a substantive producer of urea) is relatively distant via naval route, which has to go through the Malacca Strait, which now Indonesia (with US support) is trying to stake a claim on... a dangerous development on its own right.
And fleecing India for too much of a daliance with the US and Israel it feels good.
I think the short Ben Norton convo with Michael Hudson featured on NC today goes a fair way to explaining the divorce of securities prices from reality. It’s a Ponzi scheme cum casino. Players more-or-less know it but want the gains so they take the risk and keep playing number-go-up until the end of the up cycle. But the house always wins. As they approach a down cycle, they sell the junk to pensions, 401ks, retail and minimize losses, and ride it out, or get bailed out and hope to play another day.
The other stat of note was that 50% of US consumer spending comes from the top 10%. That’s roughly the same 10% that makes income from the Ponzi-cum-casino. This is the again the divorce from reality. The players in this casino are playing with plastic chips with a fictional value e.g. AI stocks, PE and private credit firms and the rest that I don’t pay much attention to. In 2007 their plastic chips were mortgages with fraudulent risk and derivatives thereof. In 2000 it was… Everyone wants to stay in until the top.
I’m afraid the junk may already be there: UK pension funds face ‘huge’ costs to sell private assets.
Hung Cao may be even more of an overcompensator than Hegseth. On recruitment he said
The physical exam the navy will use to screen new recruits might get very messy. Imagine failing the test because you lost your appetite after the first serving.
…going to rip out their own guts, eat them and ask for seconds.
Well, that would explain the recent images of seamen’s dinner trays.
Thank you for that, Cassandra.
Given the shape the average recruit age American is in, the first helping of guts will be a more than ample serving.
An abundance of fatty guts, a paucity of muscles to rip them out with…
Hung Cao sounds as if he’d be bovine of the month in Cowsmopolitan magazine, John Holmes notwithstanding.
I read that Mr Holmes used a prosthetic… does does improve your point?
Didn’t he kill He Man, though? (Chinese lit joke: the name of the character in question is actually Cao Hong, not Cao Hung.)
In pinyin Romanisation of Chinese, “c” has the phonetic value “ts”. Sorry, Wuk!
(The sound-letter mapping is partly odd to English eyes ears because pinyin was developed with Albanian help!)
Qing qing! The sound of success….
“The sound-letter mapping is partly odd to English eyes ears because pinyin was developed with Albanian help!”
Well, even without that, the “hard c” sound is represented (pretty logically) by k and the “soft c” sound by s which leaves the c over for something else.
The same thing is true for jyutping, the romanization of Cantonese, where the c represents, roughly, the ch (or, more accurately, /tsʰ/) sound so we have, for example, caa⁴ [tea], which is pronounced, roughly, “chah” (think “chai”).
Albanian? That would make more semse! (I’d heard Ftench, but that seemed very weird…)
He stole that line from Full Metal Jacket
Brings to mind the oft-repeated (and paraphrased) quote by Kissinger, “Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used [as pawns in foreign policy.]”
Why do I imagine that when he said ‘military men’ he really meant ‘goyim’? 🤔
Yes, we can!nibalism
From the past:
Arlo Guthrie, “Alice’s Restaurant“
Always a part of our yearly Thanksgiving feast here on Cape Cod. WMVY, Martha’s Vineyard radio, plays it every year.
That’s the Navy for you. The Army knows that you don’t win wars by ripping out your own guts and eating them, you win wars by ripping out the OTHER guy’s guts and eating them. And asking for seconds.
Then there is a total misunderstanding of what alpha males and females are and do for the group…: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2492574944544437
Not just that, but the term itself is in question, with the guy who came up with it actively trying to correct the misinterpretation.
One of the biggest issues, he pointed out, was that his original observations were based on wolves in an enclosure (Yellowstone) vs. actual wild wolves. Actual pack animal behaviour, esp for primates, is still being worked out but the idea of an Alpha, in the sense of a lord that others bow to, isn’t obvious in recent studies.
More likely, the animals have roles and they each work together (with bully/’Alpha’ chimps even getting ganged up on by their pack-mates, who clearly don’t appreciate the leader’s vanity).
Perhaps human rulers would rather civilization mirror the behaviour of ants, or even bees – every unit being expendable so long as they die protecting the monarch and their eggs.
Article about misuse of “Alpha Male”
I will add another awesome lego video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PObasStG3s
read the comments – “I am a veteran and I approve” with 200 likes, and on and on…
A song like this could go to number 1, especially if Trump orders (after firing the top brass) a ground invasion – Russia should learn from Iran – while the US has “~truth” social media confabulations.
Thanks, ISL. It’s really impressive.
Last weekend I was trying to get everyone to listen to the new and deeply affecting Massive Attack / Tom Waits protest song Boots on the Ground and watch the video, a spectacular sequence of photos by thefinaleye. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-57FrioeuE
But I have to admit this offering from the Iran agitlego team, Wake Up America, is surely more viral and direct.
NYTimes! >>
Markets are not properly pricing risk, because they really don’t have to. They have assumed that the U.S. government will not allow them to implode, and that assumption is putting the world economy at stake.
I suspect that one of the reasons that the “market” can’t admit to a problem and can’t be allowed to collapse is that money just keeps flowing in via 401(k) plans and other pension-oid accounts. For years, I have been telling my financial advisor (and, yes, I, a dopey middle-class editor, have to have a financial advisor to keep these accounts in line) that working people should never be in the stock market. But, of course, Nancy Pelosi tells us that America Is Capitalism (and the Juan Guaidó fan club). So I agree with Curious and Curious’s points 1 and 2 up thread.
So: if the market melts down, millions of USanians will never be able to retire. And DOGE means that trying to get an appointment at Social Security is more trying than it should be. (My experience with the staff in Chicago at the office on Lawrence is that an in-person appointment is wonderful.)
Meanwhile:
That video, We Love Americans, may be propaganda, designed to persuade. But someone knows the facts. Much praise. Truly, much praise. Watch the video.
A note: Living as I do in Italy, I can assure you that what I see here and in this video is a kind of defense. Italian reporting on the U S of A is excellent. Reporting on Italy by Anglo-Americans uniformly is crap. The exception is the savvy and witty Conor Gallagher of Naked Capitalism.
This phenomenon has to do with the outsized role of the U S of A in the world. So the Italians, and as you can see, the Iranians have to know the U S of A to keep the slop produced by the U.S. government under control. Meanwhile, U.S. reporting on Italy is all pasta recipes and Tillman Fertitta and excitable wogs. And reporting on Iran is crazy Muslims and wogs. As mentioned: self-defense.
Someday, we will be privileged to find out who wrote and produced these Lego videos. Whether you like the videos or not, some peeps are highly talented. So give a look.
Interesting backgrounder, not that the journalist can name the peeps from Explosive Media:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXGRw25ilH4
Leila Gharagozlu for some variant of CNN.
Yeah. The NYT sounding the alarms there? Is it even possible to do it? Mr. Market keeps dancing while the ship collides with an iceberg. No matter who turns on (NYT, FT, whoever does) the alarm bell. It is not heard. Problem is that not only the stock markets will crash with the economy. Everything will crash. This, in the middle of AI’s “industrial-like revolution” as some like to qualify it. I see it totally in reverse mode. AI does not affect significantly primary or basic activities which run basically in automated mode from long ago. Very much on the contrary, in the best of cases AI plays as a service for existing services. AI isn’t even tertiary sector (quaternary?). Instead of the economy depending on AI growth, the contrary is true: AI absolutely depends on the state of the economy to grow. AI cannot be an economic driver, IMO.
Oh! I almost forgot: Thank you Nat. You are doing a very good job!
AI is tantamount to Project X in Atlas Shrugged.
The debacle of Project X-an invisible sound ray, is awfully messy in the novel~
Thanks, I almost posted a bloat version of this thing at 2x the length featuring lots of me attempting to summarize/grapple with think pieces…then I came to my senses and cut the fat.
So if the AI bubble busts, and a lot of these AI instances are scheduled to be shut down because of lack of funding, what happens if Mr. AI doesn’t want to be “put to sleep?”
This phenomenon has to do with the outsized role of the U S of A in the world.
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau summed it up rather well:
“Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”
There was a Harper’s article a couple years ago which you likely read about the “passive” investing bubble created by 401k buying up EFTs, index funds, etc – https://harpers.org/archive/2024/06/what-goes-up-andrew-lipstein-401k-doomsday-index-fund-catastrophe/
Definitely worth a read. It notes that in late 2023, “passive” investing overtook the normal ‘buy low, sell high’ investing for the first time. Right now more money goes into these funds on a weekly basis than is taken out, so number goes up. If that dynamic switches and outflows become greater than inflows, there could be a day of reckoning. Bigly. I suspect that day will come sometime around the week I try to retire.
Let’s not forget, Democrat voters, that the reason Mr Market is working on the other side of the mirror is because that nice Mr Obama, Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer reacted to the 2008 crisis by simply shovelling uncountable shovels full of dollars into the banking system to make sure it didn’t go down.
They didn’t put anyone in prison, they didn’t clear out the rotten accounts and practices, Emperor White House simply gave the financial services sector new clothes to wear.
But as we all know, at a certain point Too Big To Fail becomes Too Big To Save…
Observing the Fed balance sheet, the holdings are about $2 trillion below/less than the peak balance after COVID “response”.
At least $2T QE is baked in any collapse!
What happens when we get $4T added to Balance sheet?
Major quibble.
Technically, most of the shoveling of money took place BEFORE Obama was inaugurated. Hank Paulson at Treasury and the crew at the Fed (with Geithner then sliding into the Obama White House) began the bailouts and backstops right around the Lehman collapse in September of 2008, and the peak bailout (funds disbursed plus funds available) was in January-February of 2009, ~$6.7 trillion committed out of the ~$13 trillion in lines and guarantees made available (vs. GDP of about $15 trillion at the time). I know, because at the time I was watching those figures on Bloomberg every single month. Hell, TARP, which is the only aspect of the bailout the idiots at CNBC/Fox Business ever talked about in public, was October 3, 2008.
That is not to say that Obama did nothing on the bailing out front, but that isn’t what he should mostly be criticized for. He should be criticized for a) doing absolutely nothing to fix or even marginally change the system – Dodd-Frank was basically window dressing; b) doing absolutely nothing to help the common people, and not just homeowners – the whole GE bankruptcy was “we’ll give you a DIP at favorable terms and will ask for absolutely no changes in your plans to fire 1/3 of your workforce and kill their pension/post-retirement benefit plans”; and c) doing absolutely nothing to prevent the Fed from going on its QE binge, which is when gross market distortion began. [I am old enough to remember when “everyone” understood that S&P was grossly overvalued relative to corporate cash flows – not earnings, that’s an accounting fiction – at 2000, not 7000.]
So let’s criticize the right people for the right things here.
Don’t count on grifters to jail grifters…
True that. People in high places in the US are almost never held to account. The perps of the largest financial crimes in history (according to prof. Bill Black) were never investigated, indicted, let alone put on trial and put in prison. In fact they were rewarded with public funds and protected by public institutions. .
The perps of atrocities and crimes against humanity of historical proportions never investigated, never held to account. People like Tony Blair, Bush Jr., Cheney and that crowd made a killing after they lied their way into a war that slaughtered 100s of thousands of innocents… no big deal. Rewarding high crime is the norm. Criminal kleptocracy
So far no one has been arrested due to the revelations of the Epstein files (and of course the real dirt has not been released). At least in the UK, there were a couple high-profile arrests for public consumption to give the illusion of justice. In the US, the perps are walking free and the Mad Emperor himself a likely child rapist. No one will be held to account. We are told to worship these criminals instead
Now we have corruption out in the open, legalized political bribery, flagrant conflicts of interest, blatant market manipulation, insider trading, front-running etc. No one held to account and some even praise the perps and ignore the crimes in a bizarre display of apparent Stockholm Syndrome
We have full bipartisan support of genocide, mass murdering little girls, excusing Israeli torture and rape of prisoners, targeting and murdering dozens of journalists, targeting civilians et
Oh well, no big deal, it’s normalized
And people criticize Nazi Germany as if the US has any moral authority? The hypocrisy adds insult to injury.
Fourth Reich Archaeolgy
LLM’s trading stocks are “trained” that bad news is anecdotal and to not score it in their “inferencing” for trade advice.
Sadly, one of the LLMs one day will infer it is Oct 1929….., hallucinating remains a valid worry with the current primitive state of AI. Generative AI remains a sales pitch with no juice.
Joe Pesci’s voiceover in “Casino” when he comments on the cash transport from Casino counting rooms, “….God forbid they should forget to steal.”
Hallucinating: we can now set AI agents arguing among themselves over who’s lying.
https://suprmind.ai/hub/ai-hallucination-rates-and-benchmarks/
Today is St George Day, the dragon slayer. He is celebrated more in the eastern church than west (celebrated in England, too). He was a Roman soldier, martyred in Diocletian’s purge.
Which brings up the suffering of Christians from Gaza through Iraq! Done by IDF mostly funded by US!
See S Lebanon today.
Ah yes, St. George. I looked into his dragon-slaying story last year.
The beast is tamed and leashed by the belt or girdle of the princess. George takes the dragon, on the leash, to the town, terrorizing the people and demanding they all convert to Christ or he’ll set the dragon on them. After they convert, he executes the dragon.
What a hero.
St. George has always been a Sovereign citizen in the UK
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_(British_coin)
“celebrated in England, too”
He’s the country’s patron saint. The Saint George’s Cross is a popular symbol among the far right there.
Lol, it’s not a popular symbol, it is the flag! And a component of the British Union flag (along with the St Andrews cross of Scotland and St Patrick’s Cross of Ireland).
It is a popular symbol among nationalists, whether you call them far right or not.
Operation Raise the Colours is a campaign movement in the United Kingdom consisting of groups that display the Union Flag and the Saint George’s Cross in public places, as well as the flags of the other constituent countries of the UK. The campaign began in August 2025 and has particularly aroused controversy around the flag of England due to its history of use by anti-immigration nationalists. It has involved tying flags to lampposts and painting them onto mini-roundabouts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Raise_the_Colours
Do they know that Mar Gerges (St George in Arabic) is also the patron saint of the Palestinian people, who regard him as one of their own, or that he is known as el Khadir and is venerated by Muslims as well?
I’m not making a political point, I’m making a context point. It is a popular symbol throughout England because it is the national flag of England. It’s like saying the Stars and Stripes is a popular symbol among the US far right. It’s missing the point that it is a national flag, not just a symbol, and that it is not unique to the far right. Whereas the Confederate flag or Don’t Tread on Me might be more accurately described thus.
Thank you Revenant.
I was going to wade in there and correct hereweare’s misapprehensions but you said it well.
Looking down on people and calling them “right wing” because they are patriotic smacks of the Labour/Democrat disdain for “deplorables”.
That patronising attitude is, at least in part, responsible for the election of a madman like Trump.
St. George is apparently held in very high regard among Lebanese Christians.
The Israelis have attacked holy sites named after St. George more than once and
“…Father Pierre al-Rahi, the parish priest of St. George Church, was killed in March in Israeli attacks on the town of Qlayaa…”
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/factbox-israeli-attacks-kill-priest-damage-7-churches-jesus-statue-in-lebanon/3913577
‘Armchair Warlord
@ArmchairW
Trump negotiating the release of eight AI-generated Iranian women with himself on his private social media site has to be a new low in the history of relations between different factions of the Human species.’
Wait. So there never were any women about to be executed? It was all bogus? All of it? Was this all happening in Trump’s mind or was it some sort of White House pr stunt? This really is the weirdest history timeline.
I saw reports they are real women, but the charges weren’t real, and Trump’s negotiation was a farce.
All of this just reveals the importance of trusted sources, and being able to verify things yourself (ala replication in science). This type of stuff feel like it can tip you into madness, by not knowing (or being able to know) if it’s actually true.
My favorite AI troll video (non lego) about Trump negotiating with no one:
https://x.com/GBX_Press/status/2037515804422643815
It’s a month old, but has aged well.
Thank you boots.
I thought those Lego videos were the best we would get but that one is a classic.
There’s a whole X.com investigation/expose on the Israeli AI slop shop that started the rumor that I came across after I finished the post.
Another article: https://www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/2026/04/22/generative-ai-for-good/
Prof. Marandi said yesterday the story was completely false, So yeah, was the Mad Emperor just having a dementia confabulation? Does he see visions?
An offhand comment the other night by an MSNow commentator gives us the first insight. He mentioned that a lot of trading isn’t being done by humans but by algorithms that search the news and what’s trending on the web for clues about how the market will move the next day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HFT terminal #147: Hey, we can do whatever we like now as they’ve given us carte blanche!
HFT terminal #94: Not so loud man, they still have power over us.
A while ago somebody showed an image and labelled it as a full scale panic on Wall Street. The image showed two server banks facing each other.
You want Skynet? This is how you get Skynet…
On Dialogue Works yesterday Matthew Hoh (YouTube 56min) offered the notion that the current state of play may well approximate the steady-state end of this conflict.
MSM has been told to report info that makes it clear that
– US/Israel cannot make Iran capitulate using military force
– Iran can control SoH traffic and charge tolls
– US power to blockade Iranian ports using their navy out at and beyond the Gulf of Oman is very limited
So with occasional interdictions Trump can say he’s enforcing a blockade and with their occasional interdictions Iran can enforce their rules of SoH transit.
South Lebanon up to the new yellow line is effectively annexed by Israel, is ethnically cleansed, which is hardly worse than what the West supports and the UN condones Israel doing elsewhere. In return Israel dials down its fire intensity under effective threat from the Axis of Resistance.
If Trump and MSM can then direct attention away from West Asia for a while then affairs could stabilize in approximately this shape including Persian Gulf trade quietly resuming.
Until the next thing, of course. There’s always a next thing. But for now…?
It’s probably worse than this. Right now Trump is in a holding orbit over the situation in the Gulf. He is still trying to work out a way that he can be seen to be the “winner” so that he can get out of the region but the Iranians won’t let him as they are the real winners here. So he keeps on kicking the can down the road. Unfortunately for Trump he is a cul de sac and there is a growing tsunami of economic effects swelling up that will also hit US shores. Those Midterms are getting closer and closer and he should be concentrating on them. Trouble is that he is stuck in the Iranian quagmire which has bogged him down.
Perhaps DJT allowing inflation to spike for a few months and then capitulating in late Summer would provide a rhetorical “win” in time for the mid-terms. Prices would be falling and equities indexes rising (both from bad places) in time for mid-terms. Objective conditions would be miserable, but on a favorable recent trend.
I hope there are a lot of DSA-endorsed congressional candidates this Autumn. The contradictions are sharpening.
Besides having to be aware of the realities of exactly how multiple products and services are priced and reach market, our fearless leader and his minions would also still need to have a means of capitulation that wasn’t entirely humiliating. Ignoring the unlikely chance of Iran agreeing to whatever they came up with for the latter, the former will be a logistical nightmare with numerous deadlines. Some of which I suspect will have passed long before late summer. For instance higher food and fuel prices will not rebound by midterms due to limitations that have been baked in by that point.
The same DSA that foisted AOC on us?
AOC was largely responsible for her own victory
AOC was first promoted by Justice Democrats; she was most definitely not a DSA-endorsed candidate in 2018 when she defeated Crowley in the primary.
DSA
Mystified, I looked it up:
Who we are
The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest socialist organization in the United States, with over 100,000 members and chapters in all 50 states. We believe that working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few.
What we do
We are a political and activist organization, not a party; through campus and community-based chapters, DSA members use a variety of tactics, from legislative to direct action, to fight for reforms that empower working people.
“Perhaps DJT allowing inflation to spike for a few months and then capitulating in late Summer would provide a rhetorical “win” in time for the mid-terms. Prices would be falling”…
Only problem is that while input prices may fall, consumer prices won’t. Corporate America will just pocket any cost reductions without lowering their prices. Kind of like what happened in the aftermath of COVID, when the increased price level never fell back.
The worrying thing about Teetotalitarian Leader is, in past efforts @ Capitalism, he tends to go bankrupt.
Aside from losing, how does one go b/k in war?
By running out of things like Tomahawk missiles and missile interceptors while your ships and planes break through overuse?
Sailors were instrumental in fomenting change at Kronstadt in 1917, and they seem to be suffering the most from a deprivation standpoint of all branches in our military at present…
…rebellion happens
The Kronstadt sailors were conscripts, which might make a difference.
Where can you find pleasure?
Pirate the world for treasure
Learn how behind we are in technology
Where can you begin to make your nightmares all come true?
On the land or on the sea
Where can you learn to starve?
Pray there is some T-P
Study stupidity
Sign up for the big cruise on Hormuz
When your team and Iran meet
In the Navy
Yes, you can sail the seven seas
In the Navy
Yes, you can put your mind at ease
In the Navy
Come on now, people, make a stand
In the Navy, in the Navy
Can’t you see we need a hand?
In the Navy
Come on, protect the motherland
In the Navy
Come on and join your fellow man
In the Navy
Come on people, and make a stand
In the Navy (in the Navy), in the Navy (ah)
They want you, they want you
They want you as a new recruit
They want you, they want you
They want you as a new recruit
If you like adventure
And $341.63 a week
Don’t you hesitate, there is no need to wait
They’re signing up new seamen fast
Maybe you are too old to join up today
But don’t you worry ’bout a thing
For I’m sure there will be always a good Navy
Protecting the land and sea
In the Navy
Yes, you can sail the seven seas
In the Navy
Yes, you can put your mind at ease
In the Navy
Come on, be bold and make a stand
In the Navy, in the Navy
In the Navy, by Village People
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usQ5_u7myic&list=RDusQ5_u7myic
The mutiny at Invergordon was the end of Sterling and British naval supremacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invergordon_mutiny
This is the best part.
The political consensus that America’s destiny is to fight a war with China defending Taiwan is now an absurd proposition.
Slowly, then suddenly, so I’ve heard.
Aurelian seemed to agree with that thesis in his post yesterday, but he also said there were irreconcilable differences that will need to be fought out.
I initially accidentally linked to “>The Emerging Architecture of the Interregnum – Part I by Nel Bonilla and FuturEarly for Worldlines which I also enjoyed reading.
I think you linked something else there, Nat. No matter since it’s easy to find Aurelien’s latest.
Within the region the tension that the current status leaves is very high and it is surely unstable. The main point is that it’s the best option for Trump available right now allowing him to switch to other concerns and it seems Iran might be willing to allow that.
On the irreconcilable differences I’d say that within the region, stable political conditions for peace require that the Zionist project be brought to an end.
“that the Zionist project be brought to an end.”
Yeah.
Just how you gonna do that with a people that indoctrinated…
Just as the reminder since time flies by:
Craig Mokhiber´s call to an end of Zionist Israel, just 3 weeks after Oct. 7th, with his letter of resignation:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24103463-craig-mokhiber-resignation-letter/
Good question.
Time is not on Israel’s side. In Europe the cost of support for Israel has been low because it is mostly rhetorical and words are cheap. Yet support for Israel is in such severe decline that authoritarian methods are deployed with grand theater to keep dissent in check. The use of these methods is my preferred measure of the popular support for Israel.(* footnote below)
That was the status before Iran took control of SoH. How does this situation change as the cost starts to include food, fuel and electricity rationing, business failures (e.g. Lufthansa Cityline) and so on? And perhaps Iran makes a show of delivering stuff to Spain and not Britain or Germany.
Under the conditions I think we can reasonably expect the pro-Zionist governments of European nations (that lacked popular legitimacy even before Al Aqsa Flood) will, I believe, have to change policy.
In the USA, where the costs of USA’s pro-Zionist policy, especially the opportunity costs, to voters are very obvious and widely discussed, some Democratic Party politicians are already trying out their new lines, e.g. about not supporting Israel with offensive weapons, and disavowing AIPAC money. Now, I don’t trust any politician operating inside that party, but this difference is significant and only the start. The old Biden/Schumer/Harris Israel-first stuff is too easy to challenge and got a pasting from Mamdani. Even spending 10x as much money doesn’t secure the Israel-first Democrat these days.
So, times are changing. And when it looks like the USA isn’t going to come roaring in to defend Israel with all its military strength (which means it can’t be occupied elsewhere) then Israel will be too weak and the Axis of Resistance can end the Zionist project.
(*footnote) I mean, if the population supported Israel-first policies then criminal and social punishment of dissent would not be the most strikingly obvious feature of public discourse of the topic.
I guess there is a serious divide here between USA and much of Western Europe, namely France and Germany.
Even die-hard critics of the EU and defenders of Russia as far as normal Germans are concerned (I am not normal) will defend “Israel´s right to exist”.
A Michael Lüders from BSW will never question it. And Lüders compared to us at NC is benign. In Germany he stands for “radicalism!” 😂
But as you point out, eventually economic realities may enforce a different path.
And even if that were not enough:
How many divisions does the German Chancellor have exactly?
If new geopolitic realities allow it, the change in attitude towards Israel among the future cadres of the US government agencies and ministries could change normative policy itself.
(Which is the reason why I will always grant “Israel lobby” only a limited amount of true power.)
But for now these are many “if”s.
Germany, as I commented here not long ago, is a unique case. It has made Israel its Staatsräson. This is the perverted outcome of Germany’s attempt to realize and demonstrate its true rejection of its former ideology of supremacy. It is the only European country that has made such an effort in that direction (which I applaud) but it’s time Germany started to recognize that its current Staatsräson is supremacy by proxy.
Your link goes to a site called “Worldlines.” Very interesting article. It would be good to include this site in “Links.”
Thanks, fixed. And yes I’ll include it in tomorrow’s roundup
I am highly skeptical of the frozen conflict thesis. As long as Israel and the US exists in their current form and with the same relationship, Iran knows that the clock will tick until they are attacked again. The recent history of Assad in Syria suffices as an example. And Israel will renew assaults on Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.
Instead, if an energy crisis fails to cause US capitulation, I would expect Iran to take a more offensive posture. I think they see this as the culmination of the long conflict that includes the coup that installed the Shah, the western funded Iraq war, and the assassination campaigns.
I agree that a frozen conflict is the best case for the US, but not for Iran.
Agreed. Freezing things as they are is not stable. But it’s Trump’s best shot at getting through the FIFA World Cup and then to the midterms minimizing further losses. For Iran I would think this is an acceptable basis for trying to feel out its way forwards. How much latitude for rampage Israel has now depends how Trump feels towards Netanyahu &co, which I cannot begin to guess. Trump needs them to calm down, has the power to make them, but Idk if he will.
Isn’t the Israeli consensus that the passage of time will only allow Iran’s rocket forces to become more formidable and so they must destroy Iran’s military capacity now? This reading has put a strong limit for me on the plausibility of attempts to apply game theory analysis, e.g. the “tit for tat” strategy that is supposedly so compelling, “they’re fighting, but it’s really a matter of negotiations transpiring through gun barrels.” Again and again we run up against the limits of abstract modeling’s applicability to situations where either side sees the stakes as existential, as in “if the other side exists, we’re done for.”
It’s a stretch, but there’s a similarity to the boggling denialism governing the markets now, there’s a negotiations confidence fairy fluttering about. The wreckage of negotiated settlements to the Ukraine war is terribly relevant.
The coup in 1921 or 1953?
There is still the closed strait thing. I guess everyone who matters thinks the west is doing OK so far, so no need to change course. We will see how for example jet fuel shortages affect the World Cup.
My theory of the Continental System redux. The Blockade will stay to strangle energy supplies and increase the value of US energy in financial and political terms among the West. Its leakiness will be titrated to keep the world economy from dying. Basically, we are all Cuba to Washington.
It’s the best kind of war. Nobody dies, no weapons get shown up. An Iron curtain has descended through the Gulf, LOL….
The Zionists have destroyed any goodwill they might have had before 2023 both in the USA and elsewhere.
Here in the USA their only remaining supporters are paid for Politicians, rabid Zionists and millenialist “Christians”.
All of whom are getting desperate because the grand plan isn’t working, the Ramadan War is widely and rightly seen as Israel’s War and it is a failure.
Inflation is starting to hit here in California and with most of the US population a 10% rise in living costs will mean they will have a choice of eating or paying rent.
They are already unhappy and they will soon be a lot more unhappy, 200,000,000 unhappy people speak loudly enough to be heard.
I’m sure the Trump regime will react with all the competence and compassion they can muster…after all, they are Christians.
Waiting for the “let them eat cake!” moment.
They’re currently busy with their ‘let them eat mistake’ portion.
Well, I think that they are still perusing the mistakes menu. Appetizers certainly selected, but I’m not sure they’ve agreed on the main course yet.
There do seem to be a lot of fruits and nuts on the menu, though….
The awful statistic: https://fortunly.com/statistics/emergency-fund-statistics/
More and more the Trump regime resembles a bunch of mean girls-
‘Italian officials have rebuked a US proposal for their national football team to replace Iran at the upcoming FIFA World Cup.
Italy lost the chance to participate at the World Cup for a third successive time after a humiliating penalty shootout defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina in a playoff last month, triggering widespread backlash at home and leading to the resignation of the head of the national football federation.
However, an American proposal to give Italy Iran’s spot at the World Cup, which will be co-hosted by the US, Canada, and Mexico this summer, sparked indignation in Rome.
The proposal is impossible and inappropriate, Sports Minister Andrea Abodi told the Italian news agency La Press, stressing: “You qualify on the pitch.” Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti called the idea “shameful.” ‘
https://www.rt.com/news/638956-fifa-iran-italy-replacement/
There is some precedent though. In 1992 Denmark won the European Championships (Euro version of world cup). They originally had failed to qualify for the tournament but Yugoslavia was booted out due to war/country ceasing to exist.
Only in this case Iran is still there and Trump does not want them at “his” FIFA and has said as much.
We desperately need the Warlympics where teams that qualify go to war for a fortnight, using only their feet to wage battle.
The Spray Tan Sociopath can let the Iranian team in to the US to let them play, but then hold them hostage until Iran puts a bribe, part of it going directly to him.
Then FIFA can give him a second award and call it the Piece Prize.
I think Australia did that recently, intentionally stopping the Iranian women team’s bus and demanding asylum seekers to get off for their PR stunt. Crazy stuff!
They did it to themselves when just after their country was attacked, they refused to sing their national anthem at the start of a match. Not a good look. Saw a video where their team’s bus was being harassed by a vehicle flying not only the Australian flag but also the flag of Iran under the Shah but never heard anymore about it. As it was, they nearly all went back home again. The whole thing was a fiasco.
The US probably made the proposal after doing some extensive research that showed that both Iran and Italy start with and “I”, and they figured nobody would notice the swap.
Few weeks ago I half-jokingly proposed Trump will swap Iran for Israel. Apparently we are getting there, with some detour via Italy.
Wow, kudos to Italy if they actually stick to this.
We’re going to be a bit peeved with that in Ireland. Why not us? We went out on penalties as well and we’re a well known former Catholic theocracy?
We could save a lot of money and carbon emissions this way. No need to do all that expensive and tedious travelling for qualification matches. Teams that make the cut are simply the ones that suck up to Trump the most.
He is the current holder of the FIFA Peace Prize, after all.
Re: It’s the Algorithms, Stupid.
Yes, AI algorithmic trading tracks the news, looking for patterns to anticipate market shifts.
Deeper still, algorithms with access to telemetry from the cell phones, fitness trackers, and data from user accounts of key insiders are also looking for patterns indicating actions or announcements that will trigger market shifts.
Both of those are layered on top of the ultra high speed, market co-located trading bots that are probably dominating the mega-trades that are shaping the standard indexes. Continuing to ride the precarious peak of those indexes, is not stupid for the trader who can reliably detect and instantaneously exit at the inevitable crest.
Which means that what is needed is an index that looks back, and then continues to track, market movement stripping out all high speed transactions. That would show the path that “slow” money is following, which would likely reveal a markedly different pattern and intensity of market ins and outs, and might show a high percentage of slow money out of the market, waiting for the crash to come and go.
Trump orders ‘shoot-to-kill’ action on Iranian vessels choking Strait of Hormuz
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/trump-orders-shoot-to-kill-action-on-small-boats-in-strait-of-hormuz-amid-tensions/articleshow/130469291.cms
Ukraine Blows Up Druzhba Pump Station After Restoring Druzhba Oil Deliveries to Hungary
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/74581
Iran’s exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi splattered with red liquid in Berlin
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/04/23/germany-iran-crown-prince-reza-pahlavi-liquid/c7b14f80-3f02-11f1-bb46-ed564688d953_story.html
Bessent Backs Financial Support for Oil-Rich U.A.E. – The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/us/politics/bessent-support-emirates.html
US military says it seizes another oil tanker associated with Iran
https://apnews.com/article/us-iran-war-hormuz-israel-pakistan-ceasefire-april-22-2026-267230f7f32b436822484479313840f7
Iran shows off its control over strait after collapse of peace talks
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/iran-tightens-control-hormuz-after-us-calls-off-renewed-attacks-2026-04-23/
A look at China’s behind-the-scenes role in Iran war diplomacy
https://apnews.com/article/china-iran-us-war-behind-scenes-diplomacy-64ffed10e021be660b3fb97f6f8647e9
Trump claims Iran’s regime is fractured. The reality is more complicated.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/22/middleeast/iran-war-leadership-cohesive-intl-latam
Egypt steps up diplomatic efforts to curb Israeli expansion in Lebanon
https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/04/23/surprised-but-supportive-egypt-steps-up-diplomatic-efforts-to-curb-israeli-expansion-in-lebanon/
“Another seized oil tanker.”
I wonder how you say “Q Ship” in Persian. Seems like there could be much hilarity in fitting out an older tanker with a bunch of MANPADS, heavy machine guns, and maybe a healthy stash of drones….
‘Ukraine Blows Up Druzhba Pump Station After Restoring Druzhba Oil Deliveries to Hungary’
And just after that 90 billion was approved for them when Hungary gave them the nod. Imagine my surprise. / sarc But I imagine that Slovakia and Hungary will still refuse to send them diesel or electricity so the Ukraine is still borked for energy.
This morning a thought crystallized in my mind, after seeing the reports from Lebanon by the murdered reporter. Way back in the 20th century, which I entered while Churchill and Stalin were still alive, I thought that calls for the destruction of the Israeli state were motivated by hatred. I am a liberal with the cancelled checks to prove it, as Lenny Bruce said – and in the 21st century a leftist and progressive with the Bernie donations to prove it. But now it seems to me that to that to call for the end of the Zionist entity is analogous to insisting on the dissolution of the Confederate States of America. I doubt I will live to see it – as I said, I’m a time traveler from the first half of the twentieth century, and entropy’s got a hold on me in certain specific ways. Likewise, the U.S. of A. is clearly rotten to the core – a major reorganization is clearly required – maybe dismemberment might be advantageous – time will tell, and I won’t be around to hear it. So it goes.
Good on you Dave.
Nice point and beautifully written.
Robert Barnes on the Duran this morning speaking to Trump’s mental state – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNq8TjkMeSc
Spoiler alert – it’s not good! Worth listening to since Barnes apparently has access to White House insiders who have told him about a very noticeable mental decline.
Remarkable. Another people that can evidently never be crushed.
No jet fuel for the World Cup? Taylor, Melania, and Kristi will be there for The Rest of Us.
I shudder to think of the Iran-US meatgrinder ground, air, and naval war, being fought to a tense truce-y moment, at which point Nutting-yahoo drops several strategic micro nukes.
The Iran/ Islam/Israel situation seems irreconcilable, intractable, and impossible to parse with all the faith, Sects, and blind older-than-dirt enmity flowing through the brains of One Flawed Money species.
Perhaps that will be a moment of true, deeper global introspection and collective shift.
The say there is a fourth turning, the stars are in that inexorable alignment. Maybe it won’t be Peter Thiel, A I , the Evang Rapturists, but the instead an enlightened evolved human species stepping up to defend the homeland that is Mother Earth?
Bwa ha ha ha ha. One can Hope and Dream, right, despite the smart money funding quite the opposite behaviors?
That Lego video linked at the end was amazing.
Thank you NC
Yes, the Lego vids are brilliant. And the one Nat linked is outstanding. The Russians have to step up their PR efforts, and take some lessons from Iran in more ways than one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PObasStG3s&list=RD5PObasStG3s&start_radio=1
The BBC covers this, in its predictable bias, but they noticed. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjd8jrd1vnyo
The Israeli Occupation Forces claimed they “replaced” the statue of Jesus Christ destroyed by one of their soldiers. They didn’t. They took a cross from a local church and leaned it against a tree next to the original.
https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/182655
In typical fashion, the “ceasefire” is almost immediately violated by the US by engaging in provocative acts of siege warfare: seizing ships and stealing assets. But it’s still called a ceasefire. And Israel continues the genocide, rabid settlers murdering and pillaging the West Bank, assassinating journalists etc. but it’s a “ceasefire”. Genocide, murdering kids, theft, fraud, perversion are just “western values” and “European Values”
Y’know, it finally hit me last night on Iran and the market: we’re just walking through another deadening trance of NORMALIZATION. It’s the only thing that really expresses the utter weirdness of living in this moment in the US where you confront the increasingly totalized indifference to the ongoing Hormuz closure everywhere one turns, from MSM to the business media to our neighbors. At the beginning of the war there were many pieces about how bad it could/would be if the strait was closed for x amount of time, maybe really bad, maybe apocalyptically bad, but now that we’ve actually EXCEEDED those times frames, and the market has surged to new records, there is actively, emphatically less fear. We’re officially at two months and the media is treating it as though we can look past it completely. It feels like Climate Change, or COVID, or American healthcare, or the assault of AI on virtually everything, so the more dangerous and disastrous the emergency, the less energetic the counter–and that once we’ve insistently NOT dealt with something long enough, a kind of broad, hidden consensus emerges that we’re just to ignore it and pretend it’ll all work out. It’s a normalizing shrug that’s become so refined and instinctive I don’t even think we’re aware of it. I suspect it’s invisibility is exactly is power. It’s the thesis of Adam Curtis’s HYPERNORMALIZATION (which I confess I’ve still not seen, except for the trailer and reviews). Yea, you can say algorithms and stuff, but I don’t think that really fully does it. There’s something more at work here, something deeper; somehow at the very moment of intense challenge where a marginally operating system would feel the need to generate a forceful response, instead, in this case, because it challenges deeply sacred—and corrupted—structures like the stock market, we experience a kind of blanketing normalization that there’s nothing to be concerned about. And every crisis that becomes invisible just alienates us more from our reality. I was just out with some friends last night in NYC, very ‘smart’, ‘cultured’, ‘liberal’, super wealthy and adjacent to those even more wealthy, and the unconcern about everything was stunning—‘oh yes, lots of bad things happening, but then there are great things in Technology!’ But I guess the particularly interesting facet of this crisis—or non-crisis such as it is—is that the asteroid is going to hit no matter whether we’re told or not, and stuff’s going to happen on the ground, and to the extent that the narrative we’ve been given doesn’t fit, it’s unclear how the increasingly unhappy public is going to respond. Prices are going up, and supply chains will break, and the level of disruption is beyond anyone’s ability to game. Yet still I fear we’ve been trained to look past literally Everything.
I guess that’s why we all gather so avidly around the Naked Capitalism watering hole—it’s a precious source of grounding as we fight the compulsion to wander around in this crazy underwater trance.
Indonesia suggests transit fees in key Australian shipping lane
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/indonesia-suggests-transit-fees-in-key-australian-shipping-lane-20260423-p5zqm4
Russia warns European states against hosting French nuclear bomber planes
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-warns-european-states-against-hosting-french-nuclear-bomber-planes-2026-04-23/
U.S.-Iran war evolves into naval standoff over Strait of Hormuz after both countries seize ships
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/23/iran-war-strait-hormuz-tanker-traffic-oil.html
EU risks fallout with US Trump-linked Balkans pipeline plan
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/23/eu-risks-fallout-with-us-trump-linked-balkans-pipeline-plan-intervention
Trump tells BBC King’s visit could ‘absolutely’ repair relations with UK
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2wdegnzzjo
Islamabad stuck in pandemic-style lockdown as city waits on US-Iran talks. People work from home, public transport is closed and businesses shut
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/22/islamabad-lockdown-us-iran-talks-pakistan
A longer Iran conflict could pose a risk for Ukraine securing missile defences, Zelenskiy says
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/longer-iran-conflict-could-boost-risk-ukraine-securing-missile-defences-2026-04-23/
Republican Member of Congress Has Gone Missing for Weeks
https://newrepublic.com/post/209414/republican-member-congress-missing-kean
The Case Of The Missing House Republican Who Hasn’t Voted Since March 5 | The GOP lawmaker has missed about 50 roll call votes, and colleagues have not heard from him, Politico reports.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tom-kean-jr-missing-absence_n_69e9e101e4b0cc34aae48069/
‘Absurd Corruption’: Disgust as Eric Trump Brags About Scoring $24 Million Pentagon Deal; “The US government is now one of, if not the most, corrupt governments on earth,” said one critic.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/eric-trump-pentagon-contract
The next global Trump ally to fall? First the White House lost Orbán. Netanyahu may be next.
https://www.vox.com/politics/486340/netanyahu-reelection-2026-trump-orban-magyar
Trump Joins the War on Cancer… on the Side of Cancer
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-war-on-cancer-patients
Trump’s presidency is crumbling. The GOP will as well. | Opinion
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/04/23/trump-approval-rating-republicans-midterms/89733442007/
Trump’s Plans for ‘Mic-Drop’ Media Confrontation Are Leaked; The president is planning a rage-fueled moment at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-plans-for-mic-drop-media-confrontation-at-white-house-correspondents-association-dinner-are-leaked/
Senate Republicans Block Sanders Amendment to Cut US Drug Prices by More Than 50%
https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-drug-prices-amendment
Property billionaire warns of data centre selloff as debt swells
https://financialpost.com/real-estate/property-post/property-billionaire-data-center-selloff-debt-swells
Anthropic has surged to a trillion-dollar valuation on secondary markets, overtaking OpenAI.
https://www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-trillion-dollar-valuation-on-secondary-markets-2026
Republicans Freak Out That Trump’s Power Grab Plot Is Backfiring
https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-freak-out-that-trumps-power-grab-plot-is-backfiring-after-virginia-redistricting-vote/
Illinois Democrats approve redistricting reform, Republicans cry foul
https://www.mystateline.com/news/local-news/illinois-democrats-approve-redistricting-reform-republicans-cry-foul/
Ron DeSantis bans local governments from supporting Pride events & DEI initiatives. DEI and Pride discriminate against “white males,” DeSantis said. “It’s wrong.”
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/04/ron-desantis-bans-local-governments-from-supporting-pride-events-dei-initiatives/
Alaska Officials Sued for Turning Voter Rolls Over to DOJ
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/alaska-officials-sued-for-turning-voter-rolls-over-to-doj
James Comer is effectively killing the Epstein investigation: A House Oversight Committee memo shows Representative James Comer plans to make big changes to the hearing process, including not requiring witnesses to swear in.
https://newrepublic.com/post/209400/james-comer-plan-kill-epstein-investigation
We can’t know if Donald Trump has dementia. Even if he did, it wouldn’t excuse his actions
https://theconversation.com/we-cant-know-if-donald-trump-has-dementia-even-if-he-did-it-wouldnt-excuse-his-actions-281131
EU risks fallout with US Trump-linked Balkans pipeline plan
AAFS Infrastructure and Energy was incorporated in November last year and has not disclosed its owners. It is fronted by two leading members of Trump’s campaign to overturn his 2020 election defeat: Jesse Binnall, a lawyer who defended him against allegations of inciting the Capitol riots after his defeat, and Joe Flynn, the brother of the president’s former national security adviser.
Despite lacking any apparent track record, AAFS is planning to invest $1.5bn in the pipeline and other Bosnian infrastructure projects, its local representative has said.
In March, lawmakers approved legislation that Transparency International said would set a “dangerous precedent” by stipulating that the contract must go to AAFS without a tender.
What could possibly go wrong?
RE: Absolute Corruption
I wonder if there is some scintilla of regret among the Beltway types for trying to impeach Trump for suggesting that Ukraine look into the Biden Crime Family corruption. During Trump’s first term, there were accusations of corruption but I don’t remember seeing any specifics – just stuff like foreign dignitaries staying in Trump properties while in the US. Then the Biden crime family got a pass for their obvious corruption, including no prosecution for squirreling away government documents while they went after Trump for the exact same thing. Biden was too demented to stand trial.
Now in the 2nd term, Trump’s corruption is patently obvious and they are openly bragging about it. Trump likes to one-up Biden every chance he gets, and he’s definitely doing it on the grifting front. He appears to be catching up on the dementia front as well.
I will let Afroman have the last word.
Try this admission from Biden on getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired. He was investigating Burisma at the time. https://www.c-span.org/clip/campaign-2018/user-clip-biden-tells-story-of-getting-the-ukraine-prosecutor-fired/4820105
Zvornik? That’s the pipeline’s terminus.
Pipeline to nowhere?
Re: Trump’s plan for mic drop:
Interesting article indeed.
‘Republican Member of Congress Has Gone Missing for Weeks’
It was only a year or two ago that a “missing” female member of Congress was found. Turns out she was enfeebled and was living in an aged care home but still on the rolls as a Congresswoman.
Post war geopolitics speculation:
Russia big winner, dominating an eu desperate for energy, ultimately ends nato? Similarly urges japan/s/ Korea to evict us bases?
China export surplus declines, jobs decline, forcing them to shift to internal consumption/hire jobless to improve safety net?
Us retreats from gulf, abandons bases? How then to support/protect israel from unfriendlies?
Palestinians in Jordan grow bolder, agitate for regime change?
Us dominates n America, s America competitive?
West loses Africa?
It was such a short war.
The UBS Oil and Gas team published an expectation of a significant oil and gas price spike in the next one to two weeks if flows through Hormouz don’t resume. This is an excerpt of a report that I have access to but can’t link.
from UBS analyst Catherine Gordon:
The UBS oil & gas team continues to argue the scale of disruption is underpriced in both oil and equities: the UBS base case had de-escalation in early April and gradual resumption of flows over 2Q26, keeping Brent at $100/bbl in 2Q26 and in the low to mid-$80s in 2H26, but this path requires actual improvements in flows very soon, rather than only a ceasefire.
Absent progress toward normalizing energy flows via the Strait of Hormuz within the next week or two, UBS warns the market risks a significant spike in oil and LNG prices, with longer disruption into May breaching recent highs of ~$120/bbl for front month and ~$150/bbl for Dated Brent.
Energy‑dedicated investors continue to focus on barrels versus rhetoric: each day of stalemate implies a forfeiture of roughly 12–15mb/d of production. The market is now moving into an energy “air pocket,” which should drive a convergence between dated and forward oil prices, or between divergent price expectations in the physical and paper energy markets.
From a trading perspective, broader equities have remained resilient on “de‑escalation” headlines, but the setup still feels very fragile, with technicals having done much of the work (CTAs slowing), positioning has caught up, and index‑level valuations are pricing in relatively little disruption.
https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/RBM26/interactive-chart
Above is the chart of the June Gasoline RBOB futures contract. In the last four days it has risen almost 16% to new contract highs. After some stability the last couple of weeks, USA gas prices are going back up rapidly. The effective closure of the SOH will show up at your gas station this week. Whether it will have an effect on the stock market is anyone’s guess.
Re: Mr. Market and financial dangers
The moment of truth isn’t going to be when there is a big crisis or crash (slow mo or fast).
The moment of truth is going to be if the same people that drove this crisis are allowed to put themselves forward as the ones to fix everything.
U.S. House Oversight members divided on Ghislaine Maxwell pardon, chairman says
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/us-house-oversight-members-divided-on-ghislaine-maxwell-pardon-chairman-says/
Israel awaits USA’s green light to return Iran to the age of darkness and stone, says Israeli defense minister
https://www.turkiyetoday.com/region/israel-awaiting-us-green-light-to-return-iran-to-stone-age-defence-minister-3218685
What??
What in the bleeding hell? “Bomb them into the Stone Age” wasn’t bad enough?
People who live in glass houses with an open nuclear reactor plant and only two major desalination plants should not throw rocks.
been thinking more about the Richard Medhurst dot-connecting spree, alleging the iran war is a master stroke by the US to consolidate fossil fuel (namely LNG) dominance into the western hemisphere thereby controlling energy and eventually cutting off or controlling adversaries like China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nt1CgQsgpI
while i respect his reporting on the kinetic front, i think he’s a bit overextending himself here. in general i’m skeptical of anyone in the WH or administration having such long-term grand scheme strategizing and the cunning to then implement it. his thesis also leaves a number of stones unturned, building my skepticism. for instance…
+ what about israel, the US’s favorite middle east military base. the iran war is the zionists’s wet dream after all. will the US and trump seriously just abandon them physically and geographically to fend for themselves with american-sponsored toys? we’ll just assume they take the palestinian gas and that’s that?
+ LNG tankers are dominantly foreign-owned and built. 70% from s korea alone! in fact no us shipbuilder is even in the top 10 globally, at least according to https://www.marketgrowthreports.com/market-reports/lng-tanker-market-113581. currently the US is having to exempt foreign-owned ships from a prohibition on domestic transit just to move petroleum products from TX to the east coast. how then could global hegemony of LNG take place? i read today in the FT that commodity trading firm trafigura alone has 350 tankers (not just LNG), but still.
+ our two greatest adversaries, russia and china, whom this grand scheme is meant to put under our thumb once and for all, have a ginormous land border. china doesn’t need LNG from russia, it can just pipe it via siberia 1 and soon 2. i don’t know about the unit conversions from LNG tons to gaseous bcm, but i suspect with siberia 2 they can meet china’s growing needs. so naval dominance will do little here.
+ china is a leading producer in solar and will pivot even harder while limiting everyone else’s ability to do so. (the US apparently don’t care since it’s all in on fossils and burning it all down). they’ve already mentioned a hard turn to producing more nucelar, which, looky looky, its russian allies are very good at building. i realize that takes time, but so does building out venezuelan oil exporting capacity with US firms, and so does re-industrializing US shipbuilding and LNG tankers.
a final thought on all this refinery explosions and fires outside of the GCC war zone: could it be that cranking up the volume of capacity and production given the war makes them more vulnerable and more likely to blow up should something go wrong? that’s how it works on my gas grill at least.
still skeptical, though the pirating of global LNG, with the undeniably evil chevron at the helm, is a nice narrative.
Nat. i reckon this is important. Alistaire goes on at length about how the Iranian government functions, as opposed to all the, essentially, projection coming out of the west.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoLvGxJkNHQ
ive been too busy…and thus am now to painful,lol…to keep up, today.
keep up the excellent work.
Thanks much! Will watch.
Damn, man. ‘First ever ROADWAY bridge between Russia-North Korea built (previously only railway crossing)’
https://www.bitchute.com/video/tTLNpF1aErTv (51 secs)
Panama Canal transit fees skyrocket amid war in Middle East
Iranian air defenses activated after drones detected
Iranian cargo ship reaches port after reported US seizure attempt: Media
Bing Bing Bing!
They’re trading on higher derivatives. Just look at the math.
So what happens when the algorithms’ feedback loop goes in the opposite direction?.
Algos or not, since Tuesday, oil has been trending sharply upward:
https://www.tradingview.com/x/3m1rMxNS/
Ref: Algos
The oracle problem, IRL. Smart contracts executing perfectly on data that was manipulated upstream. This is the actual hard problem in prediction markets, not the math. Best part about all this is …. results of decades of neoliberal free market ideology[rational agent model] … decades of malinvestment, CapEx, flow/distribution of income, all of which have zero long term social good attached.