So, does the aggression have an explanation? Could it all be down to money? In fact, could it just be down to the only part of the international rules-based order in which Donald Trump has any interest at all? Is this all about defending the dollar?
Trump has already taken out Venezuela, which has attempted to trade oil in a currency other than the dollar.
Iran was doing the same thing, not least with China.
The dollar’s hegemony as the world’s reserve currency has been both the strength and the weakness of the USA since 1945, massively over-inflating the dollar’s value relative to real US trade, which is why it runs perpetual trade deficits and has lost so many blue-collar and even white-collar jobs. At the same time, that overstated value has delivered power and the opportunity to intervene, which has gone to the heads of presidents stronger than Donald Trump.
That hegemony has, in no small part, been reinforced by the dollar’s use as the universal trading medium for oil, the literal fuel of the modern global economy. If that hegemony were broken, US power would be seriously undermined.
That oil is traded in $ is not even true, let alone important. We just see the generally quoted oil price as being in $. You can – and people do – buy or sell in any currency you like.
Conspirazoid nonsense – as if that’s new from this quarter.
It is possibly down to the fact that Iran has been saying for the last 47 years that it will wipe Israel off the map and threatening to attack the US (and the UK), and is credibly understood to be attempting to develop the weapons to do so.
47 years, eh? It’s like nuclear fusion power, then. Always just 40 years away.
There’s apparently a ‘countdown clock’ in Tehran showing the projected date for the destruction of Israel in 2040.
“as of January 27, 2026, the “Doomsday Clock” is set at 85 seconds to midnight, representing the closest the world has ever come to global catastrophe. Maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, this symbolic clock highlights existential threats …”
It’s bollocks too.
It doesn’t seem to occur to Murphy, possibly because of his own intellectual flexibility and innate purchasability, that sometimes people say what they mean and mean what they say.
I think the broader western failure to appreciate this in respect of religious nutjobs is a fatal flaw.
And the right’s attitude to the left. When the left says “fight” they do actually mean resorting to violence if their demands aren’t met. And have repeated demonstrated such. You can’t oppose that with kind words & candyfloss & expect to succeed.
It isn’t that hard to do a load of damage to the left, because they overwhelmingly depend on the state. You cut the state. Shut down most of the railways, fire the DEI people, cut university spending.
A lot of people on the “right” won’t even do that, though.
Ah, but now the rest of the world has to factor in What Will Trump Do?
It’s more than that; now the ROTW fully understands that not only does Trump not Always Chicken Out, he will actually go all in and totally fuck you up. And your mum.
TACO? FAFO
I wish people would grasp that this is just about trade having a lingua franca to it. If everyone works in the same currency, it’s easy to compare prices of oil from USA and Saudi when buying it.
Like wine merchants will quote prices by the case to each other, and no-one has to ask what a case is. UK shares are priced in pennies. US shares are priced in dollars. Everyone in racing talks about horse sizes in hands, and uses guineas for the price.
I missed something. Is defending the dollar bad?
If you want it replaced by the renminbi or the Euro, it is.
OTOH Murphy believes anything “Orange Man, bad” does is bad.
Well, yet again he demonstrates his meager experience of the real world. But what can you expect from a professional desk-jockey bean-counter?
OT but connected to Spud’s subject matter.
It’s regarding columnists having just read one. The gig is to produce a column. They have to fill those column inches with something. A lot of the time, they really shouldn’t bother. Since they’ve very little to add to the proceedings. But they have to produce something for the gig. They’re required to have opinions.
Likewise Spud. He has to write about events, even from his usual perspective of ignorance. You’re getting the result
Spud thinks that he has to write about events, because he knows that the world hangs on the utterings of the Sage from Ely.
With the newspaper columnists – Phil Space and his more woke sister Philomena – who get eviscerated here from time to time, it truly is a gig.
A wiser-than-average columnist told me that he never read the comments under his columns, just noted the total number….
Nah, he’s an income tart. He has to maintain his YouTube ratings and income. He’s a poxy little wage-slave to Google. If he’s on Instagram he’s a poxy little wage-slave to Zuckerberg, and on X a poxy little wage-slave to Musk. I bet that hurts.
Lorem ipsum.
Iran’s war on oil supplies sparks queues for petrol across West
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15609017/Iranian-general-warns-Tehran-burn-ship-Strait-Hormuz-push-price-oil-200-barrel.html
And now it’s in the Daily Wail it’ll get worse (no basic shortage yet, just panic shortage). Which is why I’ve been saying to stay topped up and to have had your jerry cans filled before hand.
Hmm, I’m pootling south on Friday. At least one refuel needed on route – let’s hope the French are more civilised. Or that prices by then have already doubled or something, that might help…
Garages run out of fuel because they are waiting for another delivery at a higher price. Their suppliers would be daft to sell stocks bought at last week’s price when they can wait for next week’s price.
Probably not. They surely sell at replacement price, not what they paid for it.
Ships still stacked up in Gulf of Oman. Trump et al say Iran navy kaput, but there is double-ought zero traffic in Strait of Hormuz.
Because there is double-ought zero war risk cover from the insurers.
On the topic of tin foil hats, ive already seen the extreme MAGAtards blame the lack of traffic on the “City of Londons lloyds control of the insurance market” & the British are doing it deliberately to disrupt the oik market.
[citation needed]
It was a Tom Luongo / Alex Krainer ??podcast.
A lot of it IS a result of Lloyd’s, but not for some of the reasons discussed.
Well done, Gamecock, your taxes are now providing war-risk cover to all gulf maritime trade by all shipping lines. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Lol.
https://x.com/JavierBlas/status/2028921437050826837
Turns out it only looks like there’s no traffic.
https://x.com/mercoglianos/status/2028805500083544125
Turn off your AIS and take a bet that the IRGC is busy burning.
The backup in Gulf of Oman appears to have halved. Though no specific ship in Strait right now.
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:57.2/centery:25.6/zoom:7
Imagine being too dumb to connect the dots from October 7th, to Gaza getting flattened, Hamas being dismantled, Hezbollah being exploded, and now the mullahs who supported, encouraged and funded this are dead.
The other “why” is because the Iranian regime looks more vulnerable than it has ever done since the revolution. Mossad has not only completely humiliated them in front of the Muslim world Iran has pretentions to lead, they’ve made everyone in the regime paranoid about where the next exploding pager or well timed air strike is coming from. The Iranian people have been courageously demonstrating, now is the time to give them a chance.
High risk, but high reward.
Iran has showed the world its arse. Like Venezuela (lol), they’ve demonstrated their own ineffectiveness against US military hardware. Not sure if Iran had deployed Chinese or Russian AD, but Israel and the US just dismantled their AD in a few hours. Also their missiles and drones are proving to be crap – most are easily shot down and the few sneaking through are mainly attacking soft civilian targets in the UAE and Israel.
This is a nightmare for Russia and China, one of their main allies is being taken apart and there’s nothing they can do about it. Consequential.
Ive seen reports that the accuracy of Israeli strikes is in part because Mossad had hacked all the Iranian traffic cams and had been monitoring patterns etc for years.
I was waiting for another Israeli smart to appear, and this is it. Cracking.
Was trying to work out why they felt the need to reveal information about effective intelligence gathering in an ongoing conflict, and quickly realised they weren’t . . .
They did release footage of security cameras inside Iranian military facilities as they went kaboom. Fair to assume anything connected to the internet in Iran is known about by Mossad.
Oh, I’ve no doubt Mossad had hacked the traffic cams*. But I don’t believe that was their primary source of info. Because why would you reveal it? It could still work now and in the future. It’s not like the self-revealing pager lark.
They’re covering for something else, probably human assets.
*we saw the Ukrainians calmly turn the hacked Novorossiysk port camera to view the detonation of the torpedo that was just arriving behind the submarine.
Methinks an internet rumour that all Khans spy cameras in London are directly feefing info to the Israelis / Mossad would be amusing once spread amongst the diversity
From Russia or China’s pov, the US seems to be able to waltz through contested airspace at will. So imagine how easily they might be able to take down Russian or Chinese long range radars very quickly in the process of a massive attack.
That’s the kind of scenario that used to get the Politburo paranoid.
Air power has never yet won a war on its own, but it does make life hell for people on the wrong end of air supremacy. The new B-21 raiders rolling off the production line can hit anywhere in the world with a few hours notice. Russia is stuck with upgrading relatively small numbers of 70’s vintage Su-27s. Their new stealth jet looks like a poor man’s papier mache F-35, and they’ve been promising to build a Mig-41 since the 90’s. They are not prepared to fight NATO air forces. But of course they’ll also believe this vindicates their paranoia over Ukraine and NATO.
China is a much more capable adversary. They’ve got multiple indigenous fifth generation fighter aircraft in development or service which we need to assume work. China has no difficulty mass manufacturing high spec aircraft. They’re also building the biggest navy in the world to extend their reach. But they’ll be thinking, if the US can wallop Iran and Venezuela like that, what might they be able to do to any Chinese invasion force massing against Taiwan?
Remember Michael Corleone decided to settle all the family business? It wasn’t just about revenge, but also about adjusting the expectations of how other people should treat the Family in future. Capeesh?
No one sells their best stuff to a foreign country. But Iran does have (or did have) Chinese radars.
And they didn’t work against American and Israeli aircraft and missiles. At all.
So at least the Chinese market for what they will sell, is somewhat smaller today.
And I suppose they know exactly how much better their best stuff is than the stuff they sold Iran. They’re likely having a good hard think right now.
The clown is completely unable to comprehend that the only thing Trump and Netanyahu are interested in is stopping the Iranian government being cunts. They don’t really give a fuck about what happens next – it’s not their problem – so long as Iran can’t get nukes or attack Israel, directly or indirectly. A civil war and its outcome is Iran’s problem. Trump ain’t nation-building.
. . . and not fund and supply others who terrorize worldwide.
Israel is NOT their only target, though their favorite.
The largest reason it’s the reserve currency is that it’s still the best game in town.
It’s the place that’s least likely to confiscate your money through all the many games that governments play.
And it’s also the currency that most strangers are most likely to take. Which does tend to be somewhat self-perpetuating of course.
The Saudis do oil deals in dollars because if they did them in riyals they’d still have to convert them to buy anything. Most things have prices in dollars though.
I’m buying oil in chip-fat options – fuck you spud!
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