If the Us keeps attacking its allies economically and militarily the petrodollar will crumble and those trillions of dollars of debt will start to be a heavy burden
The real problem is that some of the most important fertilizers are synthesized basically from methane. And about 25% of natural gas is exported via the Hormuz strait. This is something solar energy currently cannot tackle.
You can run the numbers the cost isn't that bad to do it that way.
I think South Africa gets most of its diesel from the Fischer–Tropsch process. You could use electrolytic hydrogen as an input for that. About 40% of the energy in gasoline is from hydrogen burning.
It's not great but it would allow you to run current vehicles off about 40% solar energy.
why US wouldn't block those tankers? Is there 5-dimensional chess somewhere here that i don't see? One can also wonder what money and through which banks Iran is getting for that oil - i'd find it hard to believe that Iran would accept Chinese currency and store it in Chinese banks.
Saw a funny remark about 9d chess and with what's happening nowadays, I have the feeling that I'm not even smart enough to understand a game of coin flip.
Why wouldn't Iran accept Yuan? Without doing anything special, China is becoming the most reliable trade partner in the world.
Some oil deals between Russia and China already run on yuan (RMB). I suppose the yuans are promptly reinvested into Chinese goods, often the dual-use kind.
The US dollar is the standard currency for international trade, but the US government of course has great influence over its use. For example, they sanction anyone who does business with Iran.
This tactic, used against Russia, Iran, and others, has turned them to seeking other, safer currencies. The Euro is risky; EU members are American allies, generally speaking, and also may act against Iran, etc. for their own reasons. The most widely used currency and most stable economy (an unstable economy causes and unstable currency) is the Chinese yuan or renminbi.
The u.s. removed sanctions on Iranian oil so that Iran can buy more weapons from china to attack the u.s. it makes no sense but that's what's going on.
The price at the pump affects not only a voter's commuter car, but also every truck that delivers goods across the US. This may have a much larger knock-on effect.
OTOH the US is the largest oil producer in the world [1]. Theoretically the US could keep domestic prices in check, but that would require rather drastic administrative pressure, likely only legal at wartime.
As Trump said, "we're not desperate for a deal, they're the ones who are desperate". Meaning, Trump realizes he sent his military, lead by the genius Hegseth, into a mess, and he is now desperate to get out, since Iran has the power to inflict more pain on the world and have him be the one to be blamed...
Netanyahu will let the whole world burn in a trash fire before getting to the point where he will need to face his corruption charges. He's a narcissistic and genocidal former furniture salesman. Human life is extremely cheap for him. There are really not enough arrest warrants on his disgusting person.
It's hard to see this as anything but an own goal from the Trump administration. Thoguh ironically they likely have an interest in Iran continuing to export oil to stop the prices rising even higher.
I still think the timing is justified because if they had waited another 6 - 12 months Iran would have built up such a missile stockpile it would have been even more painful to attack them, and an untouchable Iran would absolutely destabilize the ME even worse then it was/is doing already.
The timing is the dumbest. Either you attacked during the protest+insurection to try to divide Iran, or you waited for Komenei to die of his cancer and the election of another priest as the supreme leader. The guardians of the revolution part of the army would have been loyal to komenei's clan, so the choice would have been to let go the power or to start internal struggles.
Now they got to switch from a theocracy to an effective monarchy, for free.
So, are you a Trump-sympathizer, trying to justify your support for him by trying to find the silver lining from the acrid cloud of burning oil? Asking out of curiosity as to why you'd write this.
If only someone didn't rip up a deal a particular president with a Kenyan father did, Iran might've been more contained...
Why does it always have to come down to being 'pro-Trump' or 'anti-Trump' instead of 'pro-policy' or 'anti-policy' no matter who is behind the wheel? In other words why do you - and by that I mean mostly those with TDS but also the smaller contingent who think the man can do no wrong - treat everything around him and his administration as black or white with nothing in between? Anecdotally in the times of Reagan he and his main opponent Tip O'Neill went out for drinks after fighting it out in Congress so it can not be written down to the 2-party system. Is it the 'net? Is it the dumbed-down heavily ideologically biased educational system? Is it the Ivy League revolutionary training camps? The polarised us-vs-them media?
You've answered your own question - there is no policy with Trump. He certainly knows how to hone in on issues that get people riled up, but as far as solutions the only things he has are echoes of plans decades out of date, performative vice signalling, and bluster. In normal times department bureaucrats would keep the policies halfway sane, but he's made sure to replace them with yes-men that just go along with his chaos. You either see this, regardless of your political inclination, and thus you're "anti-Trump". Or you remain transfixed by the cult of personality thinking there must be some grand genius plan waiting behind the scenes (ie the real "TDS" that the term is meant to obscure).
[re-repost] Nonsense. There's no evidence whatsoever that Iran were planning to attack neighbouring countries nor is it in their interest. This is all Israel-fabricated bullshit which goes back about four decades.
Repost because of the clear strategic downvoting of my other comment.
I repeat: provide some evidence. I suppose I should worry about Mossad and AIPAC crowd now as well.
[repost] Nonsense. There's no evidence whatsoever that Iran were planning to attack neighbouring countries nor is it in their interest. This is all Israel-fabricated bullshit which goes back about four decades.
Repost because of the clear strategic downvoting of my other comment.
[repost, response to the strategically flagged comment about mountains of evidence about Iran's imminent violence to its neighbours]
There is not any otherwise you would present it. The only destabilising force in the ME is Israel. And there's plenty of evidence to prove as much. E.g. the minimum of seven wars started by Israel over just the last ten years.
Nonsense. There's no evidence whatsoever that Iran were planning to attack neighbouring countries nor is it in their interest. This is all Israel-fabricated bullshit which goes back about four decades.
There is not any otherwise you would present it. The only destabilising force in the ME is Israel. And there's plenty of evidence to prove as much. E.g. the minimum of seven wars started by Israel over just the last ten years.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
This doesn't tell us anything new (we've already had many stories explaining that oil prices have been elevated for almost a month now; the revenue is a natural and entirely expected consequence) and really only serves to give another place for people to shop around their preferred theories about the politics behind this, and to complain about whichever political figures they prefer complaining about.
Taiwan, Korea, and other Asian countries are running out of fuel and natural gas for electricity. Computer components are already about 2x their price a year ago.
Tanker from Russia arrived here in Philippines, and it seems we will be getting oil from Russia now. Major geopolitical failure by the US.
Art of the Deal
> Major geopolitical failure by the US.
Nah, soft power is out. Bluntly, if the Philippines strays too far from US interests, they can be strangled, first economically, then militarily.
If the Us keeps attacking its allies economically and militarily the petrodollar will crumble and those trillions of dollars of debt will start to be a heavy burden
So it's all going to plan then?
Of course, that’s what US will do to its old allies.
Or coup from Trump helping his friend Putin.
Just like after he stopped all US support to Ukraine a year ago.
A good time to be reminded - solar and wind doesn’t need to be exported out of Hormuz :-)
The real problem is that some of the most important fertilizers are synthesized basically from methane. And about 25% of natural gas is exported via the Hormuz strait. This is something solar energy currently cannot tackle.
You can do solar -> hydrolysis -> hydrogen -> ammonia-> fertilizer, rather than methane -> steam reforming -> hydrogen -> ammonia -> fertilizer.
So it's technically feasible. Not quite there in terms of cost and scale but if the alternative is a blockade then probably worth investing in.
Ironically some of the best locations for production are in the middle east.
You can run the numbers the cost isn't that bad to do it that way.
I think South Africa gets most of its diesel from the Fischer–Tropsch process. You could use electrolytic hydrogen as an input for that. About 40% of the energy in gasoline is from hydrogen burning.
It's not great but it would allow you to run current vehicles off about 40% solar energy.
So it's either checkmate or MAD. Crazy times indeed.
why US wouldn't block those tankers? Is there 5-dimensional chess somewhere here that i don't see? One can also wonder what money and through which banks Iran is getting for that oil - i'd find it hard to believe that Iran would accept Chinese currency and store it in Chinese banks.
Saw a funny remark about 9d chess and with what's happening nowadays, I have the feeling that I'm not even smart enough to understand a game of coin flip.
Why wouldn't Iran accept Yuan? Without doing anything special, China is becoming the most reliable trade partner in the world.
Some oil deals between Russia and China already run on yuan (RMB). I suppose the yuans are promptly reinvested into Chinese goods, often the dual-use kind.
The US dollar is the standard currency for international trade, but the US government of course has great influence over its use. For example, they sanction anyone who does business with Iran.
This tactic, used against Russia, Iran, and others, has turned them to seeking other, safer currencies. The Euro is risky; EU members are American allies, generally speaking, and also may act against Iran, etc. for their own reasons. The most widely used currency and most stable economy (an unstable economy causes and unstable currency) is the Chinese yuan or renminbi.
They get Chinese currency and trade it to Afghanistan/Pakistan/Turkmenistan (and probably India and China) to buy food and weapons.
The u.s. removed sanctions on Iranian oil so that Iran can buy more weapons from china to attack the u.s. it makes no sense but that's what's going on.
Blocking them would further increase the global oil price which is probably contrary to the administration's wishes.
Because the average voter cannot see past the price at the pump. People are remarkably uninformed about how the world works.
It's not only that. Oil prices also greatly increase the price of logistics, mining, metallurgy and fertilisers.
The price at the pump affects not only a voter's commuter car, but also every truck that delivers goods across the US. This may have a much larger knock-on effect.
OTOH the US is the largest oil producer in the world [1]. Theoretically the US could keep domestic prices in check, but that would require rather drastic administrative pressure, likely only legal at wartime.
[1]: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545
What they have to see in this case in your opinion?
that brings the question - given the amount of media and propaganda, is it a failure or a result of that media and propaganda.
As Trump said, "we're not desperate for a deal, they're the ones who are desperate". Meaning, Trump realizes he sent his military, lead by the genius Hegseth, into a mess, and he is now desperate to get out, since Iran has the power to inflict more pain on the world and have him be the one to be blamed...
Netanyahu will let the whole world burn in a trash fire before getting to the point where he will need to face his corruption charges. He's a narcissistic and genocidal former furniture salesman. Human life is extremely cheap for him. There are really not enough arrest warrants on his disgusting person.
[flagged]
It's hard to see this as anything but an own goal from the Trump administration. Thoguh ironically they likely have an interest in Iran continuing to export oil to stop the prices rising even higher.
I still think the timing is justified because if they had waited another 6 - 12 months Iran would have built up such a missile stockpile it would have been even more painful to attack them, and an untouchable Iran would absolutely destabilize the ME even worse then it was/is doing already.
Yeah, like they attacked Syria, or Lebanon, or Tunis, or Iraq, or Libya.
The timing is the dumbest. Either you attacked during the protest+insurection to try to divide Iran, or you waited for Komenei to die of his cancer and the election of another priest as the supreme leader. The guardians of the revolution part of the army would have been loyal to komenei's clan, so the choice would have been to let go the power or to start internal struggles.
Now they got to switch from a theocracy to an effective monarchy, for free.
So, are you a Trump-sympathizer, trying to justify your support for him by trying to find the silver lining from the acrid cloud of burning oil? Asking out of curiosity as to why you'd write this.
If only someone didn't rip up a deal a particular president with a Kenyan father did, Iran might've been more contained...
Why does it always have to come down to being 'pro-Trump' or 'anti-Trump' instead of 'pro-policy' or 'anti-policy' no matter who is behind the wheel? In other words why do you - and by that I mean mostly those with TDS but also the smaller contingent who think the man can do no wrong - treat everything around him and his administration as black or white with nothing in between? Anecdotally in the times of Reagan he and his main opponent Tip O'Neill went out for drinks after fighting it out in Congress so it can not be written down to the 2-party system. Is it the 'net? Is it the dumbed-down heavily ideologically biased educational system? Is it the Ivy League revolutionary training camps? The polarised us-vs-them media?
You've answered your own question - there is no policy with Trump. He certainly knows how to hone in on issues that get people riled up, but as far as solutions the only things he has are echoes of plans decades out of date, performative vice signalling, and bluster. In normal times department bureaucrats would keep the policies halfway sane, but he's made sure to replace them with yes-men that just go along with his chaos. You either see this, regardless of your political inclination, and thus you're "anti-Trump". Or you remain transfixed by the cult of personality thinking there must be some grand genius plan waiting behind the scenes (ie the real "TDS" that the term is meant to obscure).
[re-repost] Nonsense. There's no evidence whatsoever that Iran were planning to attack neighbouring countries nor is it in their interest. This is all Israel-fabricated bullshit which goes back about four decades. Repost because of the clear strategic downvoting of my other comment.
I repeat: provide some evidence. I suppose I should worry about Mossad and AIPAC crowd now as well.
[repost] Nonsense. There's no evidence whatsoever that Iran were planning to attack neighbouring countries nor is it in their interest. This is all Israel-fabricated bullshit which goes back about four decades.
Repost because of the clear strategic downvoting of my other comment.
I repeat: provide some evidence.
[repost, response to the strategically flagged comment about mountains of evidence about Iran's imminent violence to its neighbours]
There is not any otherwise you would present it. The only destabilising force in the ME is Israel. And there's plenty of evidence to prove as much. E.g. the minimum of seven wars started by Israel over just the last ten years.
Nonsense. There's no evidence whatsoever that Iran were planning to attack neighbouring countries nor is it in their interest. This is all Israel-fabricated bullshit which goes back about four decades.
[flagged]
There is not any otherwise you would present it. The only destabilising force in the ME is Israel. And there's plenty of evidence to prove as much. E.g. the minimum of seven wars started by Israel over just the last ten years.
Where is this "mountain of evidence" that an attack from Iran was imminent?
Help me make up my mind, could you link said mountain?
"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tehran and east, west, south and north somewhat." [1] - Donald Trumpsfeld
1: https://www.azquotes.com/quote/597820
I can't tell if that was posted as a joke or is serious. The Rumsfeld who also swore that Iraq had WMDs.
It's a joke.
With Trump and his supporters, the stupid never stops. Just today, JD Vance warned of nuclear suicide vests. [1]
Somebody, please, tell me that I'm the idiot, and that I've fallen for an AI video.
1: https://xcancel.com/greatbong/status/2037275054472622381
[dead]
[flagged]
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
This doesn't tell us anything new (we've already had many stories explaining that oil prices have been elevated for almost a month now; the revenue is a natural and entirely expected consequence) and really only serves to give another place for people to shop around their preferred theories about the politics behind this, and to complain about whichever political figures they prefer complaining about.
Taiwan, Korea, and other Asian countries are running out of fuel and natural gas for electricity. Computer components are already about 2x their price a year ago.
Yes, and again this has already been repeatedly discussed in multiple recent submissions.
Some of us don't live here 24h/day.
[dead]