Best Of

Price Watch: Travelled from south Devon to York, then Leeds then on to Lincs yesterday.

Cheapest diesel was Aldi in Leeds at 165.9p. Most expensive was one of the motorway service stations at 198.9p

Mostly c.175p

Maybe Trump can take out motorway service stations.

Greedy buggers.

I thought that Reeves' response to this economic shock was to talk about Truss (again) and then claim she was going after profit gougers (as if the increase in costs were not real and the problem she should be looking to address)?

She needs to temporarily reduce fuel duty, paid for by the additional VAT, to stop the country grinding to a halt. And if that causes Ed to resign that should be regarded as a bonus by all sane people.

We’ve been repeatedly told by PBers that fuel use is inelastic; so why would cutting fuel duty have an effect on consumption? And what taxes would you raise to make up for it?

The kind of short-sighted policy is why we have an enormous debt and why firms and households haven’t shifted away from fossil fuels, leaving us incredibly vulnerable to this kind of disaster.

If we’re going to cut any taxes it should be VAT on business/industrial electricity. Drop it from 20% to 5%.

It’s inelastic in the short and medium term - that means it is *relatively* slow to change as price changes.

People will drive to work and to the supermarket, even if prices rise. Until they can’t.

Equally, if the fuel price drops, few people will take a trip from John O’Groats to Landsend and back for LOLs.

A few journeys on the margins will or won’t be taken.

The issue for some people is exactly the inelasticity - they can’t just decide not to drive and they can’t afford to switch to an EV yet.

I basically agree with all that but it really needs to be stressed to consumers that this kind of shock is part and parcel of depending on a resource that is entirely at the whim of lunatics like Trump, the IRGC and Putin.

Fuel duty is a fixed duty in pence terms and is now much smaller, as a proportion, of the cost than it was before this crisis. It’s also been cut by some 40% in the last 15 years. We can’t keep coddling our economy every time something goes wrong.

Reward those firms and households that have assessed the risks and protected themselves. Not the freebie junkies.

Badenoch going hard on North Sea oil. A good idea but yet again going on energy bills when the issue is TAX REVENUE

It isn't really. These are marginal investments. Tax revenue will be minimal.

But it doesn't help energy bills either.

.

The grifting, the illegal appointments, the abuse of the Constitution and the law, the absurdly inept prosecutions of Comey and James, the threats to Canada and Greenland, the abuse and gratuitous insults of allies, the abandonment of Ukraine, we were not exactly short of reasons to hold Trump in contempt before this but the bombing of Iran is a whole other level of bad. This is going to destroy his Presidency. It serves him right but the price we are all paying for it is severe and is going to get worse.

Not sure that Trump is a loser here.

A possible prognosis is that Iranians will flood the border with Türkiye and onto Europe. Another immigration crisis. At the same time, the oil price will stay very high with all the economic effects that will have worldwide. Oil companies and Middle Eastern potentates will be rolling in even more money (as well as those consulting/investing for them).

Then there are the vulture capitalists who will make a ton of money either by buying distressed assets or taking strategic positions in companies. I mentioned a year of so ago that Berkshire Hathaway stored up €350bn in cash when Trump won. Perhaps they knew bargains would be plentiful early on in this presidency.

He most certainly is the loser. Firstly, if he is to get the Straits open again he is going to have to accept some humiliating terms. The Iranians are talking about reparations. Alternatively, he can throw the US into an unwinnable war (see Brett Devereaux, it doesn't require 7500 words of the blindingly obvious). The US (and the rest of the world) is going to suffer a major economic shock. The GOP is going to be slaughtered in the Mid Terms which may result in his possible impeachment. Yes, there is plenty of pain to spread around, some of it is coming our way, but Trump is going to be destroyed by this.

It is a winnable war but it requires ground troops to bring about regime change. Only a small window to do it though, as you say if the Democrats take Congress in November they will almost certainly try and impeach Trump again

Good morning

It is not a winnable war by anyone

It is a tragedy beyond belief that has sent an earthquake through relationships with countries throughout the west and middle east with no known outcomes and will take decades to resolve

For the homosexuals and regime opponents hanged and tortured and the women oppressed and the Iranians in exile removing the regime would certainly not be a tragedy

This war has entrenched the regime and enabled it to blackmail ship movements through the Strait of Hormuz which on Marine Traffic is showing no ships in transit

It has created instability across the middle east and plunged the world into recession verging on depression

And left the regime stronger with all the horrors for those you describe worse

This is the key point - the regime is stronger than ever. Yes, a generation of leaders were killed. But they already knew that was a possibility and created an organisational structure which cannot be decapitated.

Here and now it looks like Iran has won. America cannot defeat it without engaging in a war which will cripple the regional economy and with it create an international energy crisis which makes the 70s look like a holiday.

The USA defeats the Iranian regime by ensuring shipping can move through Hormuz.

Achieve that and what can the Iranian regime do then apart from make powerless threats and fire a few drones at UAE and Kuwait.

And how does America do that? Specifically.

By escorting shipping through Hormuz.

The method which has been used for centuries to protect shipping.

Any Iranian attacks are defended against and responded to.

Operation Earnest Will (24 July 1987 – 26 September 1988) was an American military protection of Kuwaiti-owned tankers from Iranian attacks in 1987 and 1988, three years into the Tanker War phase of the Iran–Iraq War. It was the largest naval convoy operation since World War II, and flowed from Resolution 598 which had been adopted three days earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Earnest_Will

Operation Prime Chance (August 1987 – June 1989) was a United States Special Operations Command operation intended to protect U.S.-flagged oil tankers from Iranian attack during the Iran–Iraq War. The operation took place roughly at the same time as Operation Earnest Will (July 1987 – September 1988), the largely naval effort to escort the tankers through the Persian Gulf. The operation was begun after the mining of the U.S.-flagged Kuwaiti oil tanker Bridgeton.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Prime_Chance

Operation Nimble Archer was the 19 October 1987 attack on two Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf by United States Navy forces. The attack was a response to Iran's missile attack on MV Sea Isle City, a reflagged Kuwaiti oil tanker at anchor off Kuwait, which had occurred three days earlier. The action occurred during Operation Earnest Will, the effort to protect Kuwaiti shipping amid the Iran–Iraq War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Nimble_Archer

Operation Praying Mantis was the 18 April 1988 attack by the United States on Iranian naval targets in the Persian Gulf in retaliation for the mining of a U.S. warship four days earlier. It took place during the US presidency of Ronald Reagan and the rule of Supreme Leader of Iran Ruhollah Khomeini.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis

That worked well when ships were used to attack over ships, it doesn’t work so well now when it’s going to be masses of cheap drones fired to over power defences knowing that only 1-5 of the 500 you send need to get through

Sure. One was to be willing to tolerate casualties. That's a feature of warfare. That's a good reason to think long and hard about going to war (and thinking is not what this administration does), but once you fight, you have to go all in.

So what do you do when all your Naval vessels have been put out of action?
Why do you think the massive orange idiot wants everyone but the US to do the escorting?

The piece linked to earlier considers this and concludes that the only way to guarantee traffic through the strait would be ground troops occupying the Iranian coast.

Well, I would not start from here, but simply conceding that the entirety of the Persian Gulf is now Iranian territorial waters, seems a much worse outcome than fighting to keep the Straits open.

Right now it seems we have two choices:

1) Concede that Iran controls access to the Gulf & gets to extract a passage tax on every vessel through the Straits of Hormuz if they so choose.

2) A ground invasion of a country of 90million people in some of the most difficult terrain in the world, because that’s what it’s going to take to prevent Iran controlling the Straits.

The US is currently spending ~billion $ / day on this war. How much do you think a full invasion half the world away is going to cost? That’s without considering the impact on the rest of the world when Iran decides that wiping out the entire gulf oil industry seems like a fair exchange.

Iran can lose, big time & the rest of us can all end up much, much worse off. Or we can buy off the Iranians, who the US should never have attacked in the first place because this was always going to be the end point & that’s precisely why everyone involved has put attacking Iran in the “not worth it” box for decades.

Choose 2), and all you do is teach the Iranians to do it again. If we accept that Iran has de facto, a veto over the functioning of the world's economy, they will exercise it over and over again.

I presume you mean Choose 1)?

Perhaps the US government should have thought of that before backing Iran into a corner & forcing them to fight to the death?

Sometimes you get to choose from a menu of bad choices, each of which comes with consequences you don’t like. The fact that you don’t like the choices doesn’t magically make a choice you do like appear out of the blue.

It is of course still possible for the US to win a short glorious war with Iran. Past experience suggests that this outcome is not the most likely one, but in the hope that they can manifest it the US government will “escalate to de-escalate” until it becomes politically impossible to escalate any further.

.

The grifting, the illegal appointments, the abuse of the Constitution and the law, the absurdly inept prosecutions of Comey and James, the threats to Canada and Greenland, the abuse and gratuitous insults of allies, the abandonment of Ukraine, we were not exactly short of reasons to hold Trump in contempt before this but the bombing of Iran is a whole other level of bad. This is going to destroy his Presidency. It serves him right but the price we are all paying for it is severe and is going to get worse.

Not sure that Trump is a loser here.

A possible prognosis is that Iranians will flood the border with Türkiye and onto Europe. Another immigration crisis. At the same time, the oil price will stay very high with all the economic effects that will have worldwide. Oil companies and Middle Eastern potentates will be rolling in even more money (as well as those consulting/investing for them).

Then there are the vulture capitalists who will make a ton of money either by buying distressed assets or taking strategic positions in companies. I mentioned a year of so ago that Berkshire Hathaway stored up €350bn in cash when Trump won. Perhaps they knew bargains would be plentiful early on in this presidency.

He most certainly is the loser. Firstly, if he is to get the Straits open again he is going to have to accept some humiliating terms. The Iranians are talking about reparations. Alternatively, he can throw the US into an unwinnable war (see Brett Devereaux, it doesn't require 7500 words of the blindingly obvious). The US (and the rest of the world) is going to suffer a major economic shock. The GOP is going to be slaughtered in the Mid Terms which may result in his possible impeachment. Yes, there is plenty of pain to spread around, some of it is coming our way, but Trump is going to be destroyed by this.

It is a winnable war but it requires ground troops to bring about regime change. Only a small window to do it though, as you say if the Democrats take Congress in November they will almost certainly try and impeach Trump again

Good morning

It is not a winnable war by anyone

It is a tragedy beyond belief that has sent an earthquake through relationships with countries throughout the west and middle east with no known outcomes and will take decades to resolve

For the homosexuals and regime opponents hanged and tortured and the women oppressed and the Iranians in exile removing the regime would certainly not be a tragedy

This war has entrenched the regime and enabled it to blackmail ship movements through the Strait of Hormuz which on Marine Traffic is showing no ships in transit

It has created instability across the middle east and plunged the world into recession verging on depression

And left the regime stronger with all the horrors for those you describe worse

This is the key point - the regime is stronger than ever. Yes, a generation of leaders were killed. But they already knew that was a possibility and created an organisational structure which cannot be decapitated.

Here and now it looks like Iran has won. America cannot defeat it without engaging in a war which will cripple the regional economy and with it create an international energy crisis which makes the 70s look like a holiday.

The USA defeats the Iranian regime by ensuring shipping can move through Hormuz.

Achieve that and what can the Iranian regime do then apart from make powerless threats and fire a few drones at UAE and Kuwait.

And how does America do that? Specifically.

By escorting shipping through Hormuz.

The method which has been used for centuries to protect shipping.

Any Iranian attacks are defended against and responded to.

Operation Earnest Will (24 July 1987 – 26 September 1988) was an American military protection of Kuwaiti-owned tankers from Iranian attacks in 1987 and 1988, three years into the Tanker War phase of the Iran–Iraq War. It was the largest naval convoy operation since World War II, and flowed from Resolution 598 which had been adopted three days earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Earnest_Will

Operation Prime Chance (August 1987 – June 1989) was a United States Special Operations Command operation intended to protect U.S.-flagged oil tankers from Iranian attack during the Iran–Iraq War. The operation took place roughly at the same time as Operation Earnest Will (July 1987 – September 1988), the largely naval effort to escort the tankers through the Persian Gulf. The operation was begun after the mining of the U.S.-flagged Kuwaiti oil tanker Bridgeton.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Prime_Chance

Operation Nimble Archer was the 19 October 1987 attack on two Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf by United States Navy forces. The attack was a response to Iran's missile attack on MV Sea Isle City, a reflagged Kuwaiti oil tanker at anchor off Kuwait, which had occurred three days earlier. The action occurred during Operation Earnest Will, the effort to protect Kuwaiti shipping amid the Iran–Iraq War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Nimble_Archer

Operation Praying Mantis was the 18 April 1988 attack by the United States on Iranian naval targets in the Persian Gulf in retaliation for the mining of a U.S. warship four days earlier. It took place during the US presidency of Ronald Reagan and the rule of Supreme Leader of Iran Ruhollah Khomeini.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis

That worked well when ships were used to attack over ships, it doesn’t work so well now when it’s going to be masses of cheap drones fired to over power defences knowing that only 1-5 of the 500 you send need to get through

Sure. One was to be willing to tolerate casualties. That's a feature of warfare. That's a good reason to think long and hard about going to war (and thinking is not what this administration does), but once you fight, you have to go all in.

So what do you do when all your Naval vessels have been put out of action?
Why do you think the massive orange idiot wants everyone but the US to do the escorting?

The piece linked to earlier considers this and concludes that the only way to guarantee traffic through the strait would be ground troops occupying the Iranian coast.

Well, I would not start from here, but simply conceding that the entirety of the Persian Gulf is now Iranian territorial waters, seems a much worse outcome than fighting to keep the Straits open.

Right now it seems we have two choices:

1) Concede that Iran controls access to the Gulf & gets to extract a passage tax on every vessel through the Straits of Hormuz if they so choose.

2) A ground invasion of a country of 90million people in some of the most difficult terrain in the world, because that’s what it’s going to take to prevent Iran controlling the Straits.

The US is currently spending ~billion $ / day on this war. How much do you think a full invasion half the world away is going to cost? That’s without considering the impact on the rest of the world when Iran decides that wiping out the entire gulf oil industry seems like a fair exchange.

Iran can lose, big time & the rest of us can all end up much, much worse off. Or we can buy off the Iranians, who the US should never have attacked in the first place because this was always going to be the end point & that’s precisely why everyone involved has put attacking Iran in the “not worth it” box for decades.

So what's to stop the Gulf states blocking Hormuz from the southern side and taking their cut ?

Get some competition going. Iran and other Gulf states setting their charges and let both compete.