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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tankers crew aren't combatants. Would you be prepared to pilot a bulk LNG carrier (aka floating bomb) through the strait ?
Higher risk deserves higher rewards.
Increase the pay and you'll get a crew.
If necessary they can be supplemented by naval personnel.
Merchant shipping sailed in far more dangerous circumstances than this in previous wars.
It won't be 100% closure long term, or 100% open without the agreement of the Iranians. Right now it's 95%, effectively closed. You can probably force a percentage through without the agreement of the Iranians. As a reference about 40% of previously normal traffic goes through Bab el Mandeb at the southern end of the Red Sea because of Houthi activity.
Starmer could have got himself in trouble here. The claim that it’s far-fetched that it could have been known at the time of the theft that there might be a request for information doesn’t line up with the chronology of events.
Then I would have been first, and beaten you by 30 seconds.
True but I do try to write something vaguely related rather than first.
Just checked gas prices in the states and a gallon which was $3.10 a month ago is now $4.11. Last week it was $3.96 so another 3% increase... Now gas price was something Trump used against Biden in 2024, it's going to hurt when it's used against him in the midterms...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ?
Nothing except doing so would run contrary to the Gulf States most critical interest, which is keeping the Gulf open to traffic.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
More likely have to pay protection money to both!
Incidentally it is several hundred miles of coastal Iran to occupy, and presumably a fair bit of hinterland. All very mountanous and populated with hostile locals, even if no fans of the Mullahs no country welcomes indefinite occupation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ?
Nothing, except that it’s the gulf states who are hoping to make money by exporting their oil products. It’s a bit pointless to “take a cut” out of your own profits.
(I believe the Iranians have an oil terminal on the far side of the Straits - they don’t /have/ to use Kharg island.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This. It's not just that we (Americans really) need to choose from a set of bad options. They need to choose from options they have made orders of magnitude worse because of this dumb and unnecessary war.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
More likely have to pay protection money to both!
Incidentally it is several hundred miles of coastal Iran to occupy, and presumably a fair bit of hinterland. All very mountanous and populated with hostile locals, even if no fans of the Mullahs no country welcomes indefinite occupation.
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 to me is the biggest tragedy of all. Iran at grassroots was turning inexorably westwards. Probably still is. Targeted intervention against some regime goons and assets during the massacres earlier this year might even have helped the revolution and weakened the regime’s grip. But this Ill conceived balls-up of a war has not only buggered up the global economy, it’s put the IRGC in de facto power in Iran and cemented the misery of its population.
This sort of shit won't help.
Pete Hegseth, at today's Christian Prayer & Worship Service at the Pentagon, prays for Almighty God to "pour out your wrath" and "break the teeth of the ungodly." He begs the Almighty to sanction "overwhelming violence" against "those who deserve no mercy" https://x.com/mtracey/status/2036951986109641083
For someone who postures as a born again 'crusader' Hegseth is remarkably unwilling to accept risks and casualties.
Worth noting too that after the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem was established, it did not last long.
Europe will then have no choice but to sort their own affairs out and we can stop this ridiculous charade .
The problem being that Europe would not be willing to sort its own affairs out.
Now smaller groupings of European countries might be able to sort out their own affairs but Europe as a whole has too many and too varied intentions and requirements.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ?
Nothing, except that it’s the gulf states who are hoping to make money by exporting their oil products. It’s a bit pointless to “take a cut” out of your own profits.
(I believe the Iranians have an oil terminal on the far side of the Straits - they don’t /have/ to use Kharg island.)
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 to me is the biggest tragedy of all. Iran at grassroots was turning inexorably westwards. Probably still is. Targeted intervention against some regime goons and assets during the massacres earlier this year might even have helped the revolution and weakened the regime’s grip. But this Ill conceived balls-up of a war has not only buggered up the global economy, it’s put the IRGC in de facto power in Iran and cemented the misery of its population.
This sort of shit won't help.
Pete Hegseth, at today's Christian Prayer & Worship Service at the Pentagon, prays for Almighty God to "pour out your wrath" and "break the teeth of the ungodly." He begs the Almighty to sanction "overwhelming violence" against "those who deserve no mercy" https://x.com/mtracey/status/2036951986109641083
For someone who postures as a born again 'crusader' Hegseth is remarkably unwilling to accept risks and casualties.
Worth noting too that after the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem was established, it did not last long.
There was a lot of churn in that part of the world. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was not unique in being not terribly long-lived.
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.
The US will use European funding earmarked for Ukraine to restock its own inventories instead in light of the Iran war. NATO will have a difficult time getting allies to support the PURL initiative ahead.
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.
OEUK [Industry lobby group] wants the Energy Profits Levy (EPL), often dubbed the "windfall tax", to be replaced as soon as possible with the new tax measure that was outlined by the government at the Budget in November.
Corporation tax, which is levied on energy firms' profits at 40% in total, will remain. But the EPL, currently set at 38%, will be replaced with the Oil and Gas Price Mechanism (OGPM).
The OGPM will not apply to profits, but to sales revenues above a price threshold ($90 a barrel for oil or 90p per therm for gas if it were introduced this year).
As a result the tax rate paid by energy firms could vary over the price cycle, but the overall tax burden on energy companies would be lower, between 40% when energy prices were lower and 75% when prices were higher. That compares to the current overall tax rate of 78%.
OEUK claims the new approach on tax would unlock £50bn of new investment in UK oil and gas.
The aim is to have LESS tax revenue in exchange for more drilling.
The US will use European funding earmarked for Ukraine to restock its own inventories instead in light of the Iran war. NATO will have a difficult time getting allies to support the PURL initiative ahead.
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.
The Pentagon is “developing military options for a final blow in Iran that could include the use of ground forces and a massive bombing campaign”, Axios reports.
If their planning is as detailed and expert as their planning for the current situation, I'd be very nervous if I lived in Iraq right now.
They are in fact already bombing Iran-backed groups in Iraq right now. That's assuming the "AI" doesn't accidentally target a school, hospital, mosque etc.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tankers crew aren't combatants. Would you be prepared to pilot a bulk LNG carrier (aka floating bomb) through the strait ?
I prefer a quiet life. But, you will always get people who are prepared to perform dangerous occupations - if you pay them sufficiently well for it.
Not even paid well.
See the genre of videos showing steel works in India, with workers wearing safety flip flops. They aren’t earning much.
I've met him - he's a nice chap. Was on our local TV a lot during the pandemic. Just goes to show that even (supposedly) intelligent people can post utter tripe or get sucked into conspiracy theories.
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.
OEUK [Industry lobby group] wants the Energy Profits Levy (EPL), often dubbed the "windfall tax", to be replaced as soon as possible with the new tax measure that was outlined by the government at the Budget in November.
Corporation tax, which is levied on energy firms' profits at 40% in total, will remain. But the EPL, currently set at 38%, will be replaced with the Oil and Gas Price Mechanism (OGPM).
The OGPM will not apply to profits, but to sales revenues above a price threshold ($90 a barrel for oil or 90p per therm for gas if it were introduced this year).
As a result the tax rate paid by energy firms could vary over the price cycle, but the overall tax burden on energy companies would be lower, between 40% when energy prices were lower and 75% when prices were higher. That compares to the current overall tax rate of 78%.
OEUK claims the new approach on tax would unlock £50bn of new investment in UK oil and gas.
The aim is to have LESS tax revenue in exchange for more drilling.
I think the overall impact on revenues would be an additional £1.5 billion per year (massive tablespoon of salt given the source). Not nothing, but not the kind of cash that can protect us from this kind of crisis. Direct government support for fossil fuel consumption in 2022-23 was £50 billion.
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.
For a large chunk of the population, driving is as important as the water supply.
I get that they tend to be rural and so, for some, sympathy is hard.
But there’s a reason that fuel prices and recessions correlate.
How does Trump manage to make every disaster even more disastrous. A genuinely impressive skill.
He's extremely stupid. He's ignorant and utterly incurious. He thinks he knows everything already. He's extraordinarily dishonest. He's totally immoral. He surrounds himself with sycophants. He's only interested in personal gain, and almost physically incapable of considering what other actors, be they US citizens or foreign enemies, might need or want.
The US will use European funding earmarked for Ukraine to restock its own inventories instead in light of the Iran war. NATO will have a difficult time getting allies to support the PURL initiative ahead.
Yes, but what will the Europeans and Canada do about it? I know, nothing. In fact, they'll probably tip more money into PURL in the future.
The European/UK/Canadian governments almost deserve to lose the $750m for being stupid enough to do it in the first place. It was always likely that Trump would just trouser some or all of the money and tell them to get fucked.
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.
For a large chunk of the population, driving is as important as the water supply.
I get that they tend to be rural and so, for some, sympathy is hard.
But there’s a reason that fuel prices and recessions correlate.
Again, I don’t disagree. Do a £20 uplift to UC or an increase in the tax allowance if you’re worried about households - don’t direct the cash at richer households that haven’t switched to EVs or those rural households that haven’t moved away from heating oil.
How does Trump manage to make every disaster even more disastrous. A genuinely impressive skill.
He's extremely stupid. He's ignorant and utterly incurious. He thinks he knows everything already. He's extraordinarily dishonest. He's totally immoral. He surrounds himself with sycophants. He's only interested in personal gain, and almost physically incapable of considering what other actors, be they US citizens or foreign enemies, might need or want.
After reading that - I really think you should have listed some of the more negative qualities of Trump.
How does Trump manage to make every disaster even more disastrous. A genuinely impressive skill.
He's extremely stupid. He's ignorant and utterly incurious. He thinks he knows everything already. He's extraordinarily dishonest. He's totally immoral. He surrounds himself with sycophants. He's only interested in personal gain, and almost physically incapable of considering what other actors, be they US citizens or foreign enemies, might need or want.
The U.S. is preparing possible “final blow” options against Iran if talks fail like seizing key islands (e.g. Kharg, Abu Musa), blockading oil routes, or launching massive airstrikes (and potentially ground ops).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's a mess. The Straits are controlled by Iran because of geography. They were before the war started and they are now. No change there. The only difference is they are enforcing it with threats and disruption. If we define a 'victory' for the US (on this point) as achieving what wasn't previously the case only one thing fits the bill. That Iran, once this is over, no longer controls the Straits. But the geography won't have changed. An agreement with Iran that they'll stop the hostilities (ie stop enforcing their control) just restores the ante - a poor reward for the US's efforts. For the semblance of a victory Iran's control of this shipping lane must be terminated, which means changing the geography. Not the physical geography - which you can't change - but the political geography. Again only one thing fits the bill. The US has to seize control of the Straits from Iran, ie invade and occupy the territory needed to do that job. Then they have to stay there until - well that's another question. Donald Trump is in a bind. Really feel for the guy.
Starmer could have got himself in trouble here. The claim that it’s far-fetched that it could have been known at the time of the theft that there might be a request for information doesn’t line up with the chronology of events.
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.
For a large chunk of the population, driving is as important as the water supply.
I get that they tend to be rural and so, for some, sympathy is hard.
But there’s a reason that fuel prices and recessions correlate.
Again, I don’t disagree. Do a £20 uplift to UC or an increase in the tax allowance if you’re worried about households - don’t direct the cash at richer households that haven’t switched to EVs or those rural households that haven’t moved away from heating oil.
One thing that could be done is to eliminate VAT from petrol & diesel entirely whilst raising the duty on it to ooh I don't know, say 78p.
That'd raise revenue whilst acting as a price stabiliser for consumers when prices head north of £1.50.
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.
OEUK [Industry lobby group] wants the Energy Profits Levy (EPL), often dubbed the "windfall tax", to be replaced as soon as possible with the new tax measure that was outlined by the government at the Budget in November.
Corporation tax, which is levied on energy firms' profits at 40% in total, will remain. But the EPL, currently set at 38%, will be replaced with the Oil and Gas Price Mechanism (OGPM).
The OGPM will not apply to profits, but to sales revenues above a price threshold ($90 a barrel for oil or 90p per therm for gas if it were introduced this year).
As a result the tax rate paid by energy firms could vary over the price cycle, but the overall tax burden on energy companies would be lower, between 40% when energy prices were lower and 75% when prices were higher. That compares to the current overall tax rate of 78%.
OEUK claims the new approach on tax would unlock £50bn of new investment in UK oil and gas.
The aim is to have LESS tax revenue in exchange for more drilling.
I think the overall impact on revenues would be an additional £1.5 billion per year (massive tablespoon of salt given the source). Not nothing, but not the kind of cash that can protect us from this kind of crisis. Direct government support for fossil fuel consumption in 2022-23 was £50 billion.
So how does the govt hand out £50 billion to ‘fossil fuel’ consumption ?
The US will use European funding earmarked for Ukraine to restock its own inventories instead in light of the Iran war. NATO will have a difficult time getting allies to support the PURL initiative ahead.
Yes, but what will the Europeans and Canada do about it? I know, nothing. In fact, they'll probably tip more money into PURL in the future.
The European/UK/Canadian governments almost deserve to lose the $750m for being stupid enough to do it in the first place. It was always likely that Trump would just trouser some or all of the money and tell them to get fucked.
The scheme was set up to purchase US weapons for Ukraine. That wasn't stupid at all - though I understand your desire to paint every single effort against the "SMO" as deficient in some manner.
What's likely to happen, if it's confirmed that several hundred million has effectively been stolen from the scheme, is that efforts replace US systems with European ones will accelerate. That won't be overnight, obviously, but it will happen.
Europe is stuck between and rock and a hard place, as a result of previous complacency over reliance on the US, but it won't be stuck there forever.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's a mess. The Straits are controlled by Iran because of geography. They were before the war started and they are now. No change there. The only difference is they are enforcing it with threats and disruption. If we define a 'victory' for the US (on this point) as achieving what wasn't previously the case only one thing fits the bill. That Iran, once this is over, no longer controls the Straits. But the geography won't have changed. An agreement with Iran that they'll stop the hostilities (ie stop enforcing their control) just restores the ante - a poor reward for the US's efforts. For the semblance of a victory Iran's control of this shipping lane must be terminated, which means changing the geography. Not the physical geography - which you can't change - but the political geography. Again only one thing fits the bill. The US has to seize control of the Straits from Iran, ie invade and occupy the territory needed to do that job. Then they have to stay there until - well that's another question. Donald Trump is in a bind. Really feel for the guy.
The problem is self inflicted and I give him no sympathy.
Just a shame the whole world has to suffer because of his stupidity
I've met him - he's a nice chap. Was on our local TV a lot during the pandemic. Just goes to show that even (supposedly) intelligent people can post utter tripe or get sucked into conspiracy theories.
His Twitter feed is full of reposts from hard left and other such nonsense. Seeing that I’m not shocked at retweeting an anti semitic tweet.
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.
It’s not been cut by 40%.
Not raising something is not a cut.
Still, great news for everyone due to rocketing prices it’s a smaller proportion of the cost. A relief to all.
I've met him - he's a nice chap. Was on our local TV a lot during the pandemic. Just goes to show that even (supposedly) intelligent people can post utter tripe or get sucked into conspiracy theories.
His Twitter feed is full of reposts from hard left and other such nonsense. Seeing that I’m not shocked at retweeting an anti semitic tweet.
What about those who tweeted the arsonists were Iranian agents? A bit odd they are out on bail if so.
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.
It’s not been cut by 40%.
Not raising something is not a cut.
Still, great news for everyone due to rocketing prices it’s a smaller proportion of the cost. A relief to all.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's a mess. The Straits are controlled by Iran because of geography. They were before the war started and they are now. No change there. The only difference is they are enforcing it with threats and disruption. If we define a 'victory' for the US (on this point) as achieving what wasn't previously the case only one thing fits the bill. That Iran, once this is over, no longer controls the Straits. But the geography won't have changed. An agreement with Iran that they'll stop the hostilities (ie stop enforcing their control) just restores the ante - a poor reward for the US's efforts. For the semblance of a victory Iran's control of this shipping lane must be terminated, which means changing the geography. Not the physical geography - which you can't change - but the political geography. Again only one thing fits the bill. The US has to seize control of the Straits from Iran, ie invade and occupy the territory needed to do that job. Then they have to stay there until - well that's another question. Donald Trump is in a bind. Really feel for the guy.
The problem is self inflicted and I give him no sympathy.
Just a shame the whole world has to suffer because of his stupidity
Yup, and it looks like the U.K. will be worse effected when compared to our peers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's a real mess. The Straits are controlled by Iran because of geography. They were before the war started and they are now. No change there. The only difference is they are enforcing it with threats and disruption. If we define a 'victory' for the US (on this point) as achieving what wasn't previously the case only one thing fits the bill. That Iran, once this is over, no longer controls the Straits. But the geography won't have changed. An agreement with Iran that they'll stop the hostilities (ie stop enforcing their control) just restores the ante - a poor reward for the US's efforts. For the semblance of a victory Iran's control of this shipping lane must be terminated, which means changing the geography. Not the physical geography - which you can't change - but the political geography. Again only one thing fits the bill. The US has to seize control of the Straits from Iran, ie invade and occupy the territory needed to do that job. Then they have to stay there until - well that's another question. Donald Trump is in a bind. Really feel for the guy.
Trump seems to be psychologically incapable of coming to an agreement with Iran to reopen the Strait to shipping. If the military option was tried in the form of a ground invasion the US would find it extremely difficult to win the war, and until then the Strait would not reopen and in addition Iran would likely destroy many of the oil facilities in the Gulf states. There is no imminent sign of the crisis ending.
Yet the stock markets are only down by 4-5% so far. Are investors stupid?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's a real mess. The Straits are controlled by Iran because of geography. They were before the war started and they are now. No change there. The only difference is they are enforcing it with threats and disruption. If we define a 'victory' for the US (on this point) as achieving what wasn't previously the case only one thing fits the bill. That Iran, once this is over, no longer controls the Straits. But the geography won't have changed. An agreement with Iran that they'll stop the hostilities (ie stop enforcing their control) just restores the ante - a poor reward for the US's efforts. For the semblance of a victory Iran's control of this shipping lane must be terminated, which means changing the geography. Not the physical geography - which you can't change - but the political geography. Again only one thing fits the bill. The US has to seize control of the Straits from Iran, ie invade and occupy the territory needed to do that job. Then they have to stay there until - well that's another question. Donald Trump is in a bind. Really feel for the guy.
Trump seems to be psychologically incapable of coming to an agreement with Iran to reopen the Strait to shipping. If the military option was tried in the form of a ground invasion the US would find it extremely difficult to win the war, and until then the Strait would not reopen and in addition Iran would likely destroy many of the oil facilities in the Gulf states. There is no imminent sign of the crisis ending.
Yet the stock markets are only down by 4-5% so far. Are investors stupid?
No, they follow TACO. He will get bored, probably already is and move on at whatever cost to the US. It doesn't really matter what the cost is as the only verdict on success or failure his voters will have the slightest interest in is Trump's verdict.
So we are talking several weeks rather than several months/years imo, and in the opinion of the markets.
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.
It’s not been cut by 40%.
Not raising something is not a cut.
Still, great news for everyone due to rocketing prices it’s a smaller proportion of the cost. A relief to all.
It is a real terms cut.
That’s not what you claimed. You said it was a cut. It isn’t a cut. It has not been cut. It has remained the same. It may be lower in nominal terms and that is something we can all rejoice at.
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.
For a large chunk of the population, driving is as important as the water supply.
I get that they tend to be rural and so, for some, sympathy is hard.
But there’s a reason that fuel prices and recessions correlate.
Again, I don’t disagree. Do a £20 uplift to UC or an increase in the tax allowance if you’re worried about households - don’t direct the cash at richer households that haven’t switched to EVs or those rural households that haven’t moved away from heating oil.
I'm an interested person in the heating oil debate. As I've said, despite living (on the edge) in a small town, we are on oil. Gas didn't make it up our cul de sac. Two years ago we did a big extension and installed a new oil boiler. We did look at air-source/oil combinations but it wasn't that attractive at the time (really expensive up-front costs). The new part of our house is very well insulated, and we fitted new double glazing in the existing house as well as the new parts. We also had new insulation added to the upper story of the old part, but sadly the original house was built in the mid 70's and is poorly insulated for the main. Upstairs the wall were single skin with wood cladding. They now have some extra insulation between the walls and the new cladding. The loft space is well insulated.
So yes, we opted for a new, efficient oil boiler. We will use around 1200 litres of oil a year. Sorry. I was wary of switching because our old house is not well insulated. I suspect that when we do install the next heating system it will be air or ground source and will be combined with solar and battery. But it wasn't right for us yet. We have though done a lot to make our house better.
So I don't quite get why you are so down on rural users who are denied access to the gas network.
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.
It’s not been cut by 40%.
Not raising something is not a cut.
Still, great news for everyone due to rocketing prices it’s a smaller proportion of the cost. A relief to all.
It is a real terms cut.
That’s not what you claimed. You said it was a cut. It isn’t a cut. It has not been cut. It has remained the same. It may be lower in nominal terms and that is something we can all rejoice at.
So if you have a fixed mortgage rate and your salary goes up, does that mean the mortgage rate has been cut because the amount you pay is smaller in proportion to your income? Clearly not.
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.
For a large chunk of the population, driving is as important as the water supply.
I get that they tend to be rural and so, for some, sympathy is hard.
But there’s a reason that fuel prices and recessions correlate.
Again, I don’t disagree. Do a £20 uplift to UC or an increase in the tax allowance if you’re worried about households - don’t direct the cash at richer households that haven’t switched to EVs or those rural households that haven’t moved away from heating oil.
Its not as simple as that. Rising prices of fuel and fertiliser will mean rising food costs, something the government will want to avoid. It may be a few months away, but a 20%+ rise in fertiliser cost will need to be passed on to the end consumer, you cannot keep producing goods at a loss.
Plenty of households around here have taken advantage of solar and heat pumps schemes, all government funded if the boxes can be ticked, end cost to them, nothing. Not all houses can get away with an air source heat pump, larger, older houses are the ones which tend to rely on oil. Most are too remote for the gas main. Also problems for people if you are renting an oil fired property.
We had a big surge in biomass boilers 10 years ago, end result is the tariffs were cut so hard, it became unviable to put them in. An expensive outlay at the start, not offset by the savings.
For most with oil heating, they can absorb the increase, long term there will be pain for everyone. The Iranians are laughing at the stupidity of the Donald
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.
It’s not been cut by 40%.
Not raising something is not a cut.
Still, great news for everyone due to rocketing prices it’s a smaller proportion of the cost. A relief to all.
It is a real terms cut.
That’s not what you claimed. You said it was a cut. It isn’t a cut. It has not been cut. It has remained the same. It may be lower in nominal terms and that is something we can all rejoice at.
So if you have a fixed mortgage rate and your salary goes up, does that mean the mortgage rate has been cut because the amount you pay is smaller in proportion to your income? Clearly not.
Precisely. It’s just a claim from the Green lobby that is easily debunked. Just as their claims about subsidies for fossil fuel companies usually amount to tax reliefs that businesses can claim?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's a mess. The Straits are controlled by Iran because of geography. They were before the war started and they are now. No change there. The only difference is they are enforcing it with threats and disruption. If we define a 'victory' for the US (on this point) as achieving what wasn't previously the case only one thing fits the bill. That Iran, once this is over, no longer controls the Straits. But the geography won't have changed. An agreement with Iran that they'll stop the hostilities (ie stop enforcing their control) just restores the ante - a poor reward for the US's efforts. For the semblance of a victory Iran's control of this shipping lane must be terminated, which means changing the geography. Not the physical geography - which you can't change - but the political geography. Again only one thing fits the bill. The US has to seize control of the Straits from Iran, ie invade and occupy the territory needed to do that job. Then they have to stay there until - well that's another question. Donald Trump is in a bind. Really feel for the guy.
The problem is self inflicted and I give him no sympathy.
Just a shame the whole world has to suffer because of his stupidity
Yes, for the avoidance of any doubt whatsoever in the mind of any PBer I was being sardonic with my last line there.
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.
For a large chunk of the population, driving is as important as the water supply.
I get that they tend to be rural and so, for some, sympathy is hard.
But there’s a reason that fuel prices and recessions correlate.
Again, I don’t disagree. Do a £20 uplift to UC or an increase in the tax allowance if you’re worried about households - don’t direct the cash at richer households that haven’t switched to EVs or those rural households that haven’t moved away from heating oil.
Its not as simple as that. Rising prices of fuel and fertiliser will mean rising food costs, something the government will want to avoid. It may be a few months away, but a 20%+ rise in fertiliser cost will need to be passed on to the end consumer, you cannot keep producing goods at a loss.
Plenty of households around here have taken advantage of solar and heat pumps schemes, all government funded if the boxes can be ticked, end cost to them, nothing. Not all houses can get away with an air source heat pump, larger, older houses are the ones which tend to rely on oil. Most are too remote for the gas main. Also problems for people if you are renting an oil fired property.
We had a big surge in biomass boilers 10 years ago, end result is the tariffs were cut so hard, it became unviable to put them in. An expensive outlay at the start, not offset by the savings.
For most with oil heating, they can absorb the increase, long term there will be pain for everyone. The Iranians are laughing at the stupidity of the Donald
Let’s hope the banks don’t rise to this with inappropriate measures.
Do we really need higher interest rates in response to this ?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's a real mess. The Straits are controlled by Iran because of geography. They were before the war started and they are now. No change there. The only difference is they are enforcing it with threats and disruption. If we define a 'victory' for the US (on this point) as achieving what wasn't previously the case only one thing fits the bill. That Iran, once this is over, no longer controls the Straits. But the geography won't have changed. An agreement with Iran that they'll stop the hostilities (ie stop enforcing their control) just restores the ante - a poor reward for the US's efforts. For the semblance of a victory Iran's control of this shipping lane must be terminated, which means changing the geography. Not the physical geography - which you can't change - but the political geography. Again only one thing fits the bill. The US has to seize control of the Straits from Iran, ie invade and occupy the territory needed to do that job. Then they have to stay there until - well that's another question. Donald Trump is in a bind. Really feel for the guy.
Trump seems to be psychologically incapable of coming to an agreement with Iran to reopen the Strait to shipping. If the military option was tried in the form of a ground invasion the US would find it extremely difficult to win the war, and until then the Strait would not reopen and in addition Iran would likely destroy many of the oil facilities in the Gulf states. There is no imminent sign of the crisis ending.
Yet the stock markets are only down by 4-5% so far. Are investors stupid?
Not entirely. Trump wants a deal, and it's entirely possible that Iran's leadership might want one too,
What neither will accept is loss of face (in Trump's case pure ego; for Iran's dictators, it's possibly more existential, as it would affect their prospects of retaining power).
So they are engaged in a troll-off.
Who knows how that goes ? Iran seems to be better at it, as they are thicker skinned, but their fundamental position is rather weaker.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Iran doesn't have 500 drones to fire at a single ship, nor would 1 sink a ship.
One continuing feature of the past few years has been people overestimating Iran's military capabilities.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's a mess. The Straits are controlled by Iran because of geography. They were before the war started and they are now. No change there. The only difference is they are enforcing it with threats and disruption. If we define a 'victory' for the US (on this point) as achieving what wasn't previously the case only one thing fits the bill. That Iran, once this is over, no longer controls the Straits. But the geography won't have changed. An agreement with Iran that they'll stop the hostilities (ie stop enforcing their control) just restores the ante - a poor reward for the US's efforts. For the semblance of a victory Iran's control of this shipping lane must be terminated, which means changing the geography. Not the physical geography - which you can't change - but the political geography. Again only one thing fits the bill. The US has to seize control of the Straits from Iran, ie invade and occupy the territory needed to do that job. Then they have to stay there until - well that's another question. Donald Trump is in a bind. Really feel for the guy.
The problem is self inflicted and I give him no sympathy.
Just a shame the whole world has to suffer because of his stupidity
Yes, for the avoidance of any doubt whatsoever in the mind of any PBer I was being sardonic with that.
Speaking of sardines, at the weekend I threw out a few tins of sardines and mackerel fillets that were well past their use-by date, even though I was brought up on stories of tinned food lasting for decades. I'd not realised they were now worth more than gold.
Why doesn’t Trump just STFU and stop saying the Iranians are desperate for a deal .
Latest US polling shows even more people are against the war . If anything Trump is desperate for a deal and the Iranians know that so will exact a high price .
NATO is over but none of the Europeans seem, understandably, ready to acknowledge that or work out what comes next.
None ?
Yes, none. Which European is acknowledging the end of NATO and architecting a new continental security and defence structure. None of them, that's who.
I can see why they don't want to do it, but somebody will eventually. Probably after UvdL's term ends in 2029 and there is a new Commission President. I think France will push very hard for Séjourné beause they will want to be in a position of leadership as the EU takes on more mutual defence obligations.
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.
For a large chunk of the population, driving is as important as the water supply.
I get that they tend to be rural and so, for some, sympathy is hard.
But there’s a reason that fuel prices and recessions correlate.
Again, I don’t disagree. Do a £20 uplift to UC or an increase in the tax allowance if you’re worried about households - don’t direct the cash at richer households that haven’t switched to EVs or those rural households that haven’t moved away from heating oil.
I'm an interested person in the heating oil debate. As I've said, despite living (on the edge) in a small town, we are on oil. Gas didn't make it up our cul de sac. Two years ago we did a big extension and installed a new oil boiler. We did look at air-source/oil combinations but it wasn't that attractive at the time (really expensive up-front costs). The new part of our house is very well insulated, and we fitted new double glazing in the existing house as well as the new parts. We also had new insulation added to the upper story of the old part, but sadly the original house was built in the mid 70's and is poorly insulated for the main. Upstairs the wall were single skin with wood cladding. They now have some extra insulation between the walls and the new cladding. The loft space is well insulated.
So yes, we opted for a new, efficient oil boiler. We will use around 1200 litres of oil a year. Sorry. I was wary of switching because our old house is not well insulated. I suspect that when we do install the next heating system it will be air or ground source and will be combined with solar and battery. But it wasn't right for us yet. We have though done a lot to make our house better.
So I don't quite get why you are so down on rural users who are denied access to the gas network.
It comes down to money, how much is being offered to change fuel type or any tariff incentive. Around here, you couldn't move for companies offering heat pump installation a year or two back, the work is starting to dry up a little now. Your neighbour could be getting it all free but if working, you may not be so fortunate
I bought an oil boiler a few years back as the costs of biomass didn't add up (heat pumps were not as big a thing in 2017). Still cheaper to run in long term, summer is coming so kerosene use will drop. The increase is punishing rural users the most, but it would be silly to suggest all rural users should have already changed system
Trump: "The Iranian negotiators are very different and 'strange.' They are 'begging' us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only 'looking at our proposal.' WRONG!!! They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty! President DJT"
Trump: "The Iranian negotiators are very different and 'strange.' They are 'begging' us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only 'looking at our proposal.' WRONG!!! They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty! President DJT"
NATO is over but none of the Europeans seem, understandably, ready to acknowledge that or work out what comes next.
None ?
Yes, none. Which European is acknowledging the end of NATO and architecting a new continental security and defence structure. None of them, that's who.
I can see why they don't want to do it, but somebody will eventually. Probably after UvdL's term ends in 2029 and there is a new Commission President. I think France will push very hard for Séjourné beause they will want to be in a position of leadership as the EU takes on more mutual defence obligations.
The US will use European funding earmarked for Ukraine to restock its own inventories instead in light of the Iran war. NATO will have a difficult time getting allies to support the PURL initiative ahead.
Yes, but what will the Europeans and Canada do about it? I know, nothing. In fact, they'll probably tip more money into PURL in the future.
The European/UK/Canadian governments almost deserve to lose the $750m for being stupid enough to do it in the first place. It was always likely that Trump would just trouser some or all of the money and tell them to get fucked.
European and South Korean arms manufacturers couldn't have asked for more. Who would buy American now?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's a real mess. The Straits are controlled by Iran because of geography. They were before the war started and they are now. No change there. The only difference is they are enforcing it with threats and disruption. If we define a 'victory' for the US (on this point) as achieving what wasn't previously the case only one thing fits the bill. That Iran, once this is over, no longer controls the Straits. But the geography won't have changed. An agreement with Iran that they'll stop the hostilities (ie stop enforcing their control) just restores the ante - a poor reward for the US's efforts. For the semblance of a victory Iran's control of this shipping lane must be terminated, which means changing the geography. Not the physical geography - which you can't change - but the political geography. Again only one thing fits the bill. The US has to seize control of the Straits from Iran, ie invade and occupy the territory needed to do that job. Then they have to stay there until - well that's another question. Donald Trump is in a bind. Really feel for the guy.
Trump seems to be psychologically incapable of coming to an agreement with Iran to reopen the Strait to shipping. If the military option was tried in the form of a ground invasion the US would find it extremely difficult to win the war, and until then the Strait would not reopen and in addition Iran would likely destroy many of the oil facilities in the Gulf states. There is no imminent sign of the crisis ending.
Yet the stock markets are only down by 4-5% so far. Are investors stupid?
No, they follow TACO. He will get bored, probably already is and move on at whatever cost to the US. It doesn't really matter what the cost is as the only verdict on success or failure his voters will have the slightest interest in is Trump's verdict.
So we are talking several weeks rather than several months/years imo, and in the opinion of the markets.
That's my view but I'm not quite as confident as I was. I thought he'd have cut and run by now tbh. Probably the markets are the best guardrail. Ordinary Americans have a lot to lose there.
Trump: "The Iranian negotiators are very different and 'strange.' They are 'begging' us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only 'looking at our proposal.' WRONG!!! They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty! President DJT"
It does sound like someone is very desperate for a deal.
The five days is nearly up.
Guess at some point over the weekend we will be told by Trump that there has been "significant movement" by the Iranian side and as negotiations are looking like the "best in history EVER" then the deadline is being extended for two weeks.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's a mess. The Straits are controlled by Iran because of geography. They were before the war started and they are now. No change there. The only difference is they are enforcing it with threats and disruption. If we define a 'victory' for the US (on this point) as achieving what wasn't previously the case only one thing fits the bill. That Iran, once this is over, no longer controls the Straits. But the geography won't have changed. An agreement with Iran that they'll stop the hostilities (ie stop enforcing their control) just restores the ante - a poor reward for the US's efforts. For the semblance of a victory Iran's control of this shipping lane must be terminated, which means changing the geography. Not the physical geography - which you can't change - but the political geography. Again only one thing fits the bill. The US has to seize control of the Straits from Iran, ie invade and occupy the territory needed to do that job. Then they have to stay there until - well that's another question. Donald Trump is in a bind. Really feel for the guy.
The problem is self inflicted and I give him no sympathy.
Just a shame the whole world has to suffer because of his stupidity
Yes, for the avoidance of any doubt whatsoever in the mind of any PBer I was being sardonic with that.
Speaking of sardines, at the weekend I threw out a few tins of sardines and mackerel fillets that were well past their use-by date, even though I was brought up on stories of tinned food lasting for decades. I'd not realised they were now worth more than gold.
Starmer could have got himself in trouble here. The claim that it’s far-fetched that it could have been known at the time of the theft that there might be a request for information doesn’t line up with the chronology of events.
Not entirely. Trump wants a deal, and it's entirely possible that Iran's leadership might want one too,
What neither will accept is loss of face (in Trump's case pure ego; for Iran's dictators, it's possibly more existential, as it would affect their prospects of retaining power).
So they are engaged in a troll-off.
Who knows how that goes ? Iran seems to be better at it, as they are thicker skinned, but their fundamental position is rather weaker.
Their position is weaker, but I think they are willing to sacrifice a lot more than the US government seems to think they will.
Why doesn’t Trump just STFU and stop saying the Iranians are desperate for a deal .
Latest US polling shows even more people are against the war . If anything Trump is desperate for a deal and the Iranians know that so will exact a high price .
The GOP are going to be ... well there's only one word for it ... obliterated in the midterms at this rate.
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.
It’s not been cut by 40%.
Not raising something is not a cut.
Still, great news for everyone due to rocketing prices it’s a smaller proportion of the cost. A relief to all.
It is a real terms cut.
That’s not what you claimed. You said it was a cut. It isn’t a cut. It has not been cut. It has remained the same. It may be lower in nominal terms and that is something we can all rejoice at.
Not my claim, but it is a real terms cut, same as if your wages were the same over the same period.
Why doesn’t Trump just STFU and stop saying the Iranians are desperate for a deal .
Latest US polling shows even more people are against the war . If anything Trump is desperate for a deal and the Iranians know that so will exact a high price .
The GOP are going to be ... well there's only one word for it ... obliterated in the midterms at this rate.
Every cloud etc.
I'm not so sure. Six months yet. A lot could happen.
NATO is over but none of the Europeans seem, understandably, ready to acknowledge that or work out what comes next.
None ?
Yes, none. Which European is acknowledging the end of NATO and architecting a new continental security and defence structure. None of them, that's who.
I can see why they don't want to do it, but somebody will eventually. Probably after UvdL's term ends in 2029 and there is a new Commission President. I think France will push very hard for Séjourné beause they will want to be in a position of leadership as the EU takes on more mutual defence obligations.
How was Thirsk ?
Did you use those iffy plates ?
Fucking cold. Yes, used the "iffy" trade plates. I got followed by the OB at one point on the A1 so the urban myth that trade plates don't work on ANPR cameras is possibly verified.
Bought a gen 1 Cayenne GTS. It's a bit ratty but low-ish mileage and 4.8 V8/6 speed manual. Did nearly 80 quid in fuel driving it home. It's not fucking cheap motoring.
Rebel MPs who want Starmer removed are feeling tactically outmaneuvered.
If they are minded to launch a coup after potential Labour humiliation in 7 May elections, their ability to organise will be hugely constrained — because the Commons will not be sitting till the King reopens parliament on 13 May and announces Starmer’s new legislative programme.
Would any fury and desire for vengeance against the PM be sustained for more than four days, when MPs will be in their constituencies, rather than plotting and winding themselves up in the corridors of Westminster? And would any wannabe prime minister risk looking treacherous, just as Starmer is received the imprimatur of the monarch for putative national renewal?
“I honestly can’t see any route to replacing Keir,” said one MP who would like to see him go. For Rayner, Streeting and Burnham, the game has become a longer one
Why doesn’t Trump just STFU and stop saying the Iranians are desperate for a deal .
Latest US polling shows even more people are against the war . If anything Trump is desperate for a deal and the Iranians know that so will exact a high price .
The GOP are going to be ... well there's only one word for it ... obliterated in the midterms at this rate.
Every cloud etc.
I think Trump will lose the House despite the attempted fixing of the elections, but probably not the Senate.
I expect his autocratic tendencies will worsen, as executive rule with the Constitution ignored.
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.
For a large chunk of the population, driving is as important as the water supply.
I get that they tend to be rural and so, for some, sympathy is hard.
But there’s a reason that fuel prices and recessions correlate.
Again, I don’t disagree. Do a £20 uplift to UC or an increase in the tax allowance if you’re worried about households - don’t direct the cash at richer households that haven’t switched to EVs or those rural households that haven’t moved away from heating oil.
I'm an interested person in the heating oil debate. As I've said, despite living (on the edge) in a small town, we are on oil. Gas didn't make it up our cul de sac. Two years ago we did a big extension and installed a new oil boiler. We did look at air-source/oil combinations but it wasn't that attractive at the time (really expensive up-front costs). The new part of our house is very well insulated, and we fitted new double glazing in the existing house as well as the new parts. We also had new insulation added to the upper story of the old part, but sadly the original house was built in the mid 70's and is poorly insulated for the main. Upstairs the wall were single skin with wood cladding. They now have some extra insulation between the walls and the new cladding. The loft space is well insulated.
So yes, we opted for a new, efficient oil boiler. We will use around 1200 litres of oil a year. Sorry. I was wary of switching because our old house is not well insulated. I suspect that when we do install the next heating system it will be air or ground source and will be combined with solar and battery. But it wasn't right for us yet. We have though done a lot to make our house better.
So I don't quite get why you are so down on rural users who are denied access to the gas network.
It comes down to money, how much is being offered to change fuel type or any tariff incentive. Around here, you couldn't move for companies offering heat pump installation a year or two back, the work is starting to dry up a little now. Your neighbour could be getting it all free but if working, you may not be so fortunate
I bought an oil boiler a few years back as the costs of biomass didn't add up (heat pumps were not as big a thing in 2017). Still cheaper to run in long term, summer is coming so kerosene use will drop. The increase is punishing rural users the most, but it would be silly to suggest all rural users should have already changed system
And most oil users only buy every so often. For us its usually every 8 months. I can sit back over summer as we won't use much, other than to heat water.
Badenoch going hard on North Sea oil. A good idea but yet again going on energy bills when the issue is TAX REVENUE
TAX REVENUE that can be used to offset energy bills though.
Would that be the North Sea Oil of poor quality that her Government subsidised at huge cost.
The same North Sea Oil that's got to be sold on the global market.
Or is she planning a sneaky straw to suck it ashore in a glorified sucknit yourself scheme.
She has the IQ of a newt
I think you are the most relentless and biased (no issue with that, we all have our opinions) poster on PB. And there are lots of relentless posters on here.
Comments
https://x.com/skynews/status/2037064881040486482
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.
https://bsky.app/profile/chadbourn.bsky.social/post/3mhxge5jdyc2i
Incidentally it is several hundred miles of coastal Iran to occupy, and presumably a fair bit of hinterland. All very mountanous and populated with hostile locals, even if no fans of the Mullahs no country welcomes indefinite occupation.
(I believe the Iranians have an oil terminal on the far side of the Straits - they don’t /have/ to use Kharg island.)
Europe will then have no choice but to sort their own affairs out and we can stop this ridiculous charade .
NATO NATIONS HAVE DONE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO HELP WITH THE LUNATIC NATION..
But it doesn't help energy bills either.
Now smaller groupings of European countries might be able to sort out their own affairs but Europe as a whole has too many and too varied intentions and requirements.
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.
@annwieanna.bsky.social
The US will use European funding earmarked for Ukraine to restock its own inventories instead in light of the Iran war. NATO will have a difficult time getting allies to support the PURL initiative ahead.
https://bsky.app/profile/annwieanna.bsky.social/post/3mhxfoecthk2j
Will the party take any action.
They may ask him to do a bungee jump.
https://x.com/dailymail/status/2037101036205162828?s=61
Corporation tax, which is levied on energy firms' profits at 40% in total, will remain. But the EPL, currently set at 38%, will be replaced with the Oil and Gas Price Mechanism (OGPM).
The OGPM will not apply to profits, but to sales revenues above a price threshold ($90 a barrel for oil or 90p per therm for gas if it were introduced this year).
As a result the tax rate paid by energy firms could vary over the price cycle, but the overall tax burden on energy companies would be lower, between 40% when energy prices were lower and 75% when prices were higher. That compares to the current overall tax rate of 78%.
OEUK claims the new approach on tax would unlock £50bn of new investment in UK oil and gas.
The aim is to have LESS tax revenue in exchange for more drilling.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g8x7q4l8go
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.
See the genre of videos showing steel works in India, with workers wearing safety flip flops. They aren’t earning much.
I get that they tend to be rural and so, for some, sympathy is hard.
But there’s a reason that fuel prices and recessions correlate.
The European/UK/Canadian governments almost deserve to lose the $750m for being stupid enough to do it in the first place. It was always likely that Trump would just trouser some or all of the money and tell them to get fucked.
That’s close to sane washing him.
https://bsky.app/profile/lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com/post/3mhxhixveac26
That'd raise revenue whilst acting as a price stabiliser for consumers when prices head north of £1.50.
What's likely to happen, if it's confirmed that several hundred million has effectively been stolen from the scheme, is that efforts replace US systems with European ones will accelerate.
That won't be overnight, obviously, but it will happen.
Europe is stuck between and rock and a hard place, as a result of previous complacency over reliance on the US, but it won't be stuck there forever.
Just a shame the whole world has to suffer because of his stupidity
Not raising something is not a cut.
Still, great news for everyone due to rocketing prices it’s a smaller proportion of the cost. A relief to all.
Yet the stock markets are only down by 4-5% so far. Are investors stupid?
So we are talking several weeks rather than several months/years imo, and in the opinion of the markets.
So yes, we opted for a new, efficient oil boiler. We will use around 1200 litres of oil a year. Sorry. I was wary of switching because our old house is not well insulated. I suspect that when we do install the next heating system it will be air or ground source and will be combined with solar and battery. But it wasn't right for us yet. We have though done a lot to make our house better.
So I don't quite get why you are so down on rural users who are denied access to the gas network.
Plenty of households around here have taken advantage of solar and heat pumps schemes, all government funded if the boxes can be ticked, end cost to them, nothing. Not all houses can get away with an air source heat pump, larger, older houses are the ones which tend to rely on oil. Most are too remote for the gas main. Also problems for people if you are renting an oil fired property.
We had a big surge in biomass boilers 10 years ago, end result is the tariffs were cut so hard, it became unviable to put them in. An expensive outlay at the start, not offset by the savings.
For most with oil heating, they can absorb the increase, long term there will be pain for everyone. The Iranians are laughing at the stupidity of the Donald
Do we really need higher interest rates in response to this ?
Trump wants a deal, and it's entirely possible that Iran's leadership might want one too,
What neither will accept is loss of face (in Trump's case pure ego; for Iran's dictators, it's possibly more existential, as it would affect their prospects of retaining power).
So they are engaged in a troll-off.
Who knows how that goes ?
Iran seems to be better at it, as they are thicker skinned, but their fundamental position is rather weaker.
Latest US polling shows even more people are against the war . If anything Trump is desperate for a deal and the Iranians know that so will exact a high price .
I can see why they don't want to do it, but somebody will eventually. Probably after UvdL's term ends in 2029 and there is a new Commission President. I think France will push very hard for Séjourné beause they will want to be in a position of leadership as the EU takes on more mutual defence obligations.
I bought an oil boiler a few years back as the costs of biomass didn't add up (heat pumps were not as big a thing in 2017). Still cheaper to run in long term, summer is coming so kerosene use will drop. The increase is punishing rural users the most, but it would be silly to suggest all rural users should have already changed system
Aaron Rupar
@atrupar
Trump: "The Iranian negotiators are very different and 'strange.' They are 'begging' us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only 'looking at our proposal.' WRONG!!! They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty! President DJT"
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2037130067994697847
Did you use those iffy plates ?
Guess at some point over the weekend we will be told by Trump that there has been "significant movement" by the Iranian side and as negotiations are looking like the "best in history EVER" then the deadline is being extended for two weeks.
The FA have backed Sir Alf Ramsey for selecting Jeff Astle in the 1970 World Cup squad
Every cloud etc.
https://www.itv.com/watch/news/youtube-and-meta-found-liable-in-social-media-addiction-trial/6p3lfsq
The same North Sea Oil that's got to be sold on the global market.
Or is she planning a sneaky straw to suck it ashore in a glorified sucknit yourself scheme.
She has the IQ of a newt
It's the hope that kills you of course...
Bought a gen 1 Cayenne GTS. It's a bit ratty but low-ish mileage and 4.8 V8/6 speed manual. Did nearly 80 quid in fuel driving it home. It's not fucking cheap motoring.
Rebel MPs who want Starmer removed are feeling tactically outmaneuvered.
If they are minded to launch a coup after potential Labour humiliation in 7 May elections, their ability to organise will be hugely constrained — because the Commons will not be sitting till the King reopens parliament on 13 May and announces Starmer’s new legislative programme.
Would any fury and desire for vengeance against the PM be sustained for more than four days, when MPs will be in their constituencies, rather than plotting and winding themselves up in the corridors of Westminster? And would any wannabe prime minister risk looking treacherous, just as Starmer is received the imprimatur of the monarch for putative national renewal?
“I honestly can’t see any route to replacing Keir,” said one MP who would like to see him go. For Rayner, Streeting and Burnham, the game has become a longer one
I expect his autocratic tendencies will worsen, as executive rule with the Constitution ignored.
It's lovely and sunny here but there's a wind so sharp it's like being shanked by Augelmir, the Norse God of Ice and Snow
4 down in a week.
Massive underperformance in Scotland incoming imo
lauren
@lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com
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war_iran_final-blow_v1.pdf
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https://bsky.app/profile/lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com/post/3mhxhixveac26
You are Alan Titchmarsh and I claim my £5.