Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Oil Page 1 of 8

Israel’s Support Is Eroding In the US

By

On June 19, 2026

14 Comments

A friend pointed out to me that Israel’s support is eroding hard. The elite consensus is shifting. Point in case:

The hard core Zionists will keep opposing this deal, of course, but there are two groups that are shiftable. The first is the one that Tapper belongs to: he’s an authority follower. He’s been hardcore pro-Israel and loathes Muslims, but his first instinct is to follow the leader. Trump’s made a clear turn, and Jake is following.

The second group are those who need administrative favor. Their livelihood or plans depend on the levers the President controls favoring them. They were for Iraq, for Ukraine, etc… but they have no strong ideological commitment, only self-interest.

Trump made a mistake letting hard core Zionists roll up media and social media, but there’s still enough run by self-interested or follow the leader types that if Trump stays solid, the American elite zeitgeist will shift towards his stance. Israel is an ideological commitment, it’s not, for most elites and courtiers, all that involved with making lots of money or being part of the in-group. If the window shifts, they’ll shift with it.

At a fundamental level what happened is that America got itself involved in a war which it couldn’t just walk away from. Losing in Vietnam was embarrassing but really, who cares? Just walk away. Losing in Afghanistan, likewise.

But the Iranians have the West’s balls in a vise and the vise was slowly tightening. Key reserves were way down. Oil at Cushing OK is near historic lows. Distillates are getting scarce. Market manipulation of the price of oil was very successful, but actual physical shortages were on the way, starting in a month or so. (Ironically, price manipulation meant that oil reserves drew down faster than if actual price discovery had been allowed.)

There is a real world, and a real economy and Iran had control of it. The econo-morons talking about how the effect of this has been less than the oil shocks are right when looking at market numbers, but it wasn’t going to stay less and even Trump figured that out.

So the neocons and the hard Zionists will attack, but if Trump had the least concern for the actual economy, he had to make a choice.

Meanwhile Israel is still fighting in Lebanon and the first real battle of the Lebanese invasion is taking place.

Both Hezbollah and Israel are concerned there’ll be a new, actually real ceasefire and Israel is seeking to create facts on the ground. Ali Taher hill is an important strategic objective, giving whoever controls it sight lines for miles around. This is the first large engagement I’m aware of in this invasion where Hezbollah has chosen to stand and fight, instead hitting and fading. (That’s not a criticism. Guerilla warfare makes sense for them.)

And so far they’re doing well, because the Israeli ground forces are actually crap.

The Iranians have not gone to Geneva for the signing or negotiations. They are holding firm on Lebanon. And that means Trump can either rein in the Israelis or the vise starts tightening around America’s balls again.

America cannot win this war. It is impossible. Even using nukes probably wouldn’t work fast enough. That’s why they agreed to a deal that is very pro-Iranian.

That has not changed. They can rein in Israel or cut it loose now, or they can do it in two months when the US is in much more pain, or in 4 months when there are food riots.

There’s a real world. America lost a war that matters. There’s going to be a price for that. If America is smart and not completely controlled by Israel, they’ll pay that price now and if necessary cut Israel lose, because the price will go up every day if the MOU fails.

What I write here is for the benefit of everyone, but alas, I live in capitalism and I, and the site, take money to keep running. If you value the writing here and can, please subscribe or donate.

 

America Exports Record 6.4 Million Barrels of Crude

By

On May 5, 2026

8 Comments

Today’s headline news chronicles our triumphant, record-breaking petroleum exports: 6.4 million barrels a day. The highest weekly figure ever recorded. On the surface, it appears America may just make up in exports what the closure of the Straits of Hormuz prevents.

On the surface.

The reality of our domestic petroleum situation is more dire. The same week America exported record amounts of crude it quietly drew down its strategic reserve to the tune of 7.1 million barrels a day same week ending April 24. This represents the largest drawdown since 2022.

Let’s do some simmple arithmetic: drawdown strategic reserves by 7.1 mln and export 6.4 mln. Subtract and you get a net loss of 700,000 barrels a week. That’s the burn rate of crude oil. Not slack. Vanishing.

Adding insult to injury, Morgan Stanley reports that gasoline inventories are at their lowest level since well, ever. Yes, ever. By August gasoline reserves will freefall to 198 million barrels. 

In reality, America is facing an unsustainable crude oil burn rate coupled with a completely unsustainable draw down in gasoline reserves. These drawdowns are occurring in the face of perilously high petroleum prices, including gasoline.

But domestic petroleum production, and refining capacity will make up the difference!

What part of unsustainable did you not understand?

For example, the oil refinery on Corpus Christi Bay here in South Texas is effectively off-line because it has no water source. Lake Corpus Christi is dry. No water, no refinery, no gasoline.

To make matters worse, domestic crude production is trending flat to down, even as WTI spot prices are in the $102 range.

Permian Basin rig counts, a leading indicator of what future crude production will look like, are down 15.33% YoY. Oklahoma rig counts are down from 55 last April to 43 today. That’s a -21% decline YoY. New Mexico dropped 3 rigs and Wyoming dumped 1. What about Eagle Ford shale oil you ask? At $102 a barrel shale has to be profitable. True, but there hasn’t been a drilling permit issued in the Eagle Ford basin in three years. None have been filed with the state since the crisis with Iran began. There’s a reason for this. WTI spot prices are $102 a barrel, as I previously noted. Those are spot prices for oil deliverable right this minute. If you go 12 months out on the contract curve to May 2027, the price of WTI Falls to $73 a barrel. At that price shale oil isn’t in the sweet spot. 

Moreover, what the prices in May 2027 are telling policy makers, factory owners, grocery store managers, freight shippers and the like in bright red flashing lights are that a deflationary spiral is a very real possibility.

Here’s where the rubber hits the road: the petroleum and gasoline burn rate will force the Fed’s hand and compel a rate increase to prevent a massive inflationary spike.

But what is the Fed to do six months to a year from now when the looming credit crisis, and housing collapse reach critical mass and unravel, popping the AI bubble the blowoff?

We’re literally exporting our seed corn.

You can’t reap what you don’t sow.

Shockwaves From The Second Iranian American War

By

On March 24, 2026

30 Comments

Some of the issues from the Iranian war are obvious: everyone’s talking about oil and natural gas, for example. Many have mentioned fertilizer. But I think it’s worth going into in a bit more depth.

First is that in addition to gasoline, oil is used to make bunker fuel (98% of freighters and tankers), jet fuel, and diesel (heavy machinery, large trucks.) The prices for all three are rising faster than gasoline prices and there will be a worldwide shortage. Production of semiconductors, phones and so on will shut down some time after that, depending on how the small reserves available are shared out. Taiwan is particularly vulnerable and production can be expected shut down in a couple weeks.

The chart below is from six days ago:

Don’t take the above chart too seriously, I’ve heard different numbers from different sources, and the type of oil in reserve matters a LOT.

This will, of course, hit the AI Bros hard. They have significant stockpiles of some of what they need, but not everything. Worried about that data center coming to where you live? If you’re lucky, Iran has just saved you from an AI driven spike in your energy prices, but not an oil shortage spike!

Airlines are already reducing flights. Expect prices for travel to spike significantly. If you don’t already have tickets for a trip get them now. Even so, it wouldn’t surprise me if many already booked flights are cancelled without recourse, citing forece majeur. Diesel and bunker oil shortages will mean supply line disruptions, and primary processing disruptions. Fertilizer shortages are already changing planting decisions, farmers in Australia are planning on planting much less wheat, for example.

Oil goes into a lot of things. Here are a couple of graphics showing some of them:

And,

To oversimplify, pretty much everything has some oil in it. For example I’m stocking up on NSAIDs and Tylenol 2s (legal in Canada.) I saw one person saying they went out and bought about a year’s supply of pretty much everything which can be stored. One side benefit may be that insane levels of plastic packaging might, at least, be reduced.

China’s bunkering up. No refined oil products are being allowed for export. Fortunately for China, they, unlike apparently almost every other nation in the world, are not run by retards, so they have massive petroleum reserves and they bought about 50% of the world’s grain production for the last four years and stored much of it. But this goes far beyond petrochem: they produce, for example, almost all of the world’s tungsten, and no more exports of that.

Stockpiles in the the West are essentially at zero, right now, and yes, most advanced weapons cannot be made without Tungsten.

There’s been a crash in silver prices recently. You may have read about it. But here’s the thing, there’s an actual physical shortage of it because it’s used in essentially all electronics, including semiconductors and even more importantly, solar panels. Everyone’s going to want solar panels now.

China, not being fools, are no longer allowing export of silver because they know it’s the physical shortage that matters, not the paper price on paper exchanges where delivery isn’t expected to happen.

I spent years railing that just-in-time logistics was sheer fucking insanity and should be outlawed. In addition every country who isn’t a net producer should have at least year’s stockpile of fuel and even net producers should have three years of food stored (because things like droughts and fertilizer shortages happen.) Medication and key medical goods should also be stockpiled. A lot of people are going to suffer and die when key drugs hit shortage and many cancer drugs, for example, are produced in India and on top of the factories not being able to operate without energy, many drugs use petrochemical derivatives directly.

This war should never have happened. Even if it ended now there would be serious shortages for about four to five months, and it would be three to four years before full production could be resumed, if it can be. (Shutting down oil and gas well production often damages the underlying fields.)

Oh, and which major nations will suffer the least? Russia and China. It is to laugh.

I know this is the second article on this subject in a few days, but the impacts of the war are important for you to understand.

Everyone reads these article for free, but the site and Ian take money to run. If you value the writing here and can, please subscribe or donate.

America’s Economic Future: Imminent Pain and Dislocation Not Seen Since the ’30s

By

On March 23, 2026

20 Comments

~by Sean Paul Kelley

The end of this credit cycle is going to include the following macro events: a credit crisis, a housing crisis, an energy shock, with the potential for massive failed deliveries necessary to third world nations creating famine on a biblical scale, at least one Too Big To Fail failing, as Lehman Bros and AIG did in 2008, and the AI bubble bust. All of these will happen. Locked in. Fixed. No way out.

In a previous post I outlined the order in which the financial catastrophe barreling down on us like oncoming freight will occur. I’ve simply included one new variable: the energy shock.

Here’s how it’ll go down.

First, there is an expansion. Stocks rise. At some point the rise becomes divorced from realistic earnings expectations. This is when intense speculation drives equities into bubble territory. After all, Nvidia’s market cap is just shy of ($4.2trillion) the annual GDP of India ($4.4trillion) as of Monday March 23, 2026. Simultaneously, US Treasury buyers, ‘prudent’ investors, qualified investors (people with more than $5 million in net worth), pension funds, insurance and re-insurance companies and good old orphans and widows, as they always do, got a bit jealous and so reached for yield. They wanted safety with high returns. But in this world you can have safe or you can have high returns. You’re a fool to think you can get both at the same time; alas we have a superabundance of fools these days.

So just like in 2007-08, the shadow banking system, ie. the issuers of supposedly safe and high yielding assets, called subprime loans, experienced serious losses, that lead to the unwinding phase of the financial crisis. The 2008 fin crisis started on a lovely summer day in NYC, June 22 2007—I think the Yankees won that day—when two Bear Stearns subprime hedge funs went belly up. This was 2008’s canary in the coal mine.

This time around it isn’t subprime that has precipitated the unwind but the dominance of private equity/private credit shadow banks, such as Blue Owl, Blackstone, Blackrock, and others.

As previously noted, the current crisis’ canary in the coal mine was Blue Owl. Their very rude wake up call arrived in the form of $1.4 bn in redemption demands, which forced Blue Owl to sell assets to meet redemption needs. It was a catastrophe for Blue Owl, in every way a fire sale in which every Wall Street trader exacted his pound of flesh. It also led to a very ugly unravelling of contracts with Oracle. Oracle’ stock plummeted.

Many others have followed in the weeks since Blue Owl burped up a massive fur ball. The specifics can be found in this post and are beyond the scope of this discussion. They are pertinent, but listing them would make this a Tolstoyian endeavor. The upshot is this: normally, an enormous amount of credit destruction (read, debt) has to happen until we get to phase three of the credit cycle. One counterintuitive effect: a stronger dollar. We’re already seeing this versus the other major fiat currencies.

Moving on to one of the other developments I outlined in the first paragraph: a housing crisis. Home building has long been the foundation of the American economy. It’s in serious stress right now. As I mentioned before, last month saw a full -17.6% collapse in the purchase of new homes. In the Northeast it was an epic cow patty catastrophe: -44%. In my hometown, sellers outstrip buyers buy a full 114%. This in the heart of the ‘Texas miracle.’ I honestly don’t know how a collapse in homebuilding will effect this economy coupled with the headwinds it’s facing. I know it won’t be salutary and will exacerbate already dangerous liquidity and solvency issues caused by the private credit/private debt unwind. What else? “Cannot say. Saying, I would know. Do not know, so cannot say.” Five bucks to whoever gets that reference.

Will the Fed be able to contain both? FuckifIknow?

Adding to fierce headwinds, Trump’s war against Iran has had a similar effect on the global economy as Odysseus ill-timed opening of Aeolus’s wind bag: it’s blown us on a completely fucktarded vector, beyond any rational goal, that will take five years-at a minimum-to recover from if we stop now. Plenty of us predicted this but we’re just dipshits sitting in the basement wearing our jammies. If the Israeli’s continue their wanton destruction of everything, there is no telling how Iran will respond. And I’m not even pondering nukes here.

The effects the closure of the Straits of Hormuz are and will continue to have on the global economy, rather the effects faced by the Rules Based Order the West imposed on much of the globe will be make the European energy crisis look like a night out with Sidney Sweeney.

One effect: potential famine in those third world countries-on a biblical scale-unable to import desperately needed fertilizer from the Persian Gulf at reasonable prices.

Second, no helium. Helium is a gas essential to modern industrial life, everywhere.

Third, my best friend in Denmark joked, “hell, we might soon be back on bikes eating only porridge for dinner.” He also rued the demise of Nordstream and said, unequivocally that Danish renewables won’t be enough. This from the one European nation with the largest sector of renewables. Imagine the second order effects cascading out across the globe?

And what about the cost of transport? Not just everywhere, but especially here in the US? Anyone given any thought to just how super human stupid just in time delivery looks now? I’ve always warned about this. You know: chickens, roosting; shit like that.

Fuck it. I’ve got more than ten years of Wall Street experience so what the hell do I know?

Well, I know this as I know the sun rises in the East and sets in the West: the exogenous shock waves rippling towards the US economy are bad. Vewwy, vewwy bad. And there is no double-slilt experiement available to cancel out the oncoming waves.

What next?

Oh yeah: Too Big To Fail. Nope. Stress test? Are you Dave Chapelle?

Just ask Lehman Bros or AIG. This time around one of the Too Big To Fail institutions will fail. Maybe more than one. If I had my choice it would be Goldman, but if I am being realistic I’d put odds on Wells Fargo and/or Citigroup. Why? Well, Wells Fargo has a history of laundering tons of cartel cash, so no real culture of compliance/risk management. Citigroup has brazenly challenged the SEC to regulate them on multiple occasions. Those would be my two choices.

Finally, I’ll recap phase three of the credit cycle: the Ponzi unwind. As I wrote here,

“Crypto will be the first big Ponzi unwind. And it will take a lot of suckers with it. Plus, a damn lot of fools who worked for investment, commercial banks and private credit/equity shops. Crypto is bullshit, wrapped in dead fish skin that’s been perfumed by Chanel. No matter how good it smells, it’s rotten to the core. Crypto is to this financial crisis as CDOs and synthetic CDOs were to 2008.”

Moroever,

“The AI-hyperscalers will suffer as well, during the Ponzi unwind. Why? They are in essence engaging in a similar sort of vendor financing like CISCO and Juniper Networks did in the dot-com bubble. Nvidia is giving chips to AI-hyperscalers as collateral for loans. Never mind the chips will depreciate long before the earnings are solid enough for the AI-hyperscalers to payback the “loans.”

It’s accounting legerdemain in extremis.

So, to be clear: multiple endogenous-domestic-headwinds coupled with very ugly exogenous-international-shocks, real and potential, increase the odds, hourly, that we’re nearing financial armageddon.

To recount what to expect: a housing crisis, a credit crisis, an energy-shock, fertilizer shortages leading to potential famine, one or two Too Big To Fail, failing and the AI bubble bursting. All at the same time. Same time. Boom. Boom. Boom.

This ain’t gonna resemble your daddy’s financial crisis. In the words of Grunge’s greatest lyricist, Chris Cornell, “I’m feeling California, but looking Minnesota.”

The Credit Cycle: Phase Two Accelerating

By

On March 19, 2026

18 Comments

~by Sean Paul Kelley

Here are today’s Phase Two developments. Many are ominous. Things not looky so goody.

The smartest guys in the room, i.e., Goldman Sachs had this to say about AI: “Massive investment in AI contributed basically zero to US economic growth last year.” What will they predict next? An oil price spike if we go to war with Iran? Oh wait. 

Dario notes that the liquidity crisis is going global: “Middle East liquidity crisis in the financial system is surfacing.”

He cites Rashid ben Saeed who elaborates: “Citi and Standard Chartered literally evacuated their offices this week. Told staff go home, work remote. HSBC closed their Qatar branches. Hedge funds are in “contingency mode.” That’s a polite way of saying they’re bricking it. Analysts are saying customers could pull out $307 BILLION if this goes on another month.” 

First Squawk writes that both JP Morgan and Goldman are offering Hedge Funds ways to short private credit. That’s just weird.

Ripplebrain conveys just how devastating the attack on QatarEnergy’s LNG production is: “17% of QatarEnergy’s production is 3.4% of the world’s LNG production.” Ending ominously saying, that it’s “gone in the blink of an eye, perhaps for years.”

The irrepressible Matt Stoller highlights a video that highlights “straightforward market manipulation.” He also points our attention to the #2 story at the Wall Street Journal: “U.S. Regulators Propose More Lenient Capital Rules for Big Banks.” This kind of proposal is in direct contravention to the ‘stress test’ rules put in place after the 2008 Financial Crisis. It also clearly foreshadows liquidity and/or solvency issues that the commericial banks will soon face. 

In another clear phase two clusterfuck is this story from the WSJ, cited by Unicus Research. The upshot: “Stone Ridge’s LENDX fund just told investors it would honor only 11% of redemption requests.” The post on X also includes what kind of garbage is in the fund. Go take a look. It’ll engender a ton of schadenfruede. Enjoy! 

As pending crises morph into full blown disasters investment banks often prepare by enacting the following policies. First, they raise production quotas for their employees while simultaneously cutting their commission payouts. It’s a cut-throat business. Payout cuts are painful. I’ve lived it. And they always cut payouts right before or during bear markets. I endured this twice at Morgan Stanley. Guess what: Goldman has begun that process, as First Squawk reports: “Goldman plans performance-based job cuts in late April.” This we can infer two important factoids from this: Goldman is worried about cash-flow. You don’t plan to run employees off if you’re flush with cash. Two: timing, Goldman clearly sees this credit cycle accelerating rapidly with an April inflection point.

Shashank Joshi catches an excellent highlight from the Economist: “Average prices of petrol and diesel have reached $3.88 and $5.09 a gallon, compared with $3.11 and $3.72 at Mr Trump’s inauguration. Republican support for the war is strong, but softening.”

More Perfect Union informs us “the cost of vegetables jumped 49% last month as inflation hit hard and companies raised prices.” Its source is BLS data. Now I know, some will dispute how the CPI is computed. I thinks it full of balderdash and male bovine excrement. So does Ian. So I post and you decide. 

Sohrab Ahmari notes, unconfirmed but entirely plausible, that “force majeur [has been declared] on Qatari LNG contracts for up to five years.” Five years? That’s going to pile Pelion atop the already messa Ossa of the energy markets globaly. 

CORRECTION: according to EarlyGray the video below does not say anything about Japan buying Russian oil. Mea culpa. I regret the error. SPK

Richard posts a video and apparently translates it. If true, it’s a bombshell: “Japan is now openly buying Russian oil with the yuan.” Why not with JPY? I would imagine that China has already set up a Yuan based transaction system for buying and selling oil to steadily chip, chip, chip away at dollar hegemony. Yeah, Japan has said it publically and officialy. That’s pretty much like pissing on the petrodollar. Our closest North East Asian Ally. That’s fuckery on an hitherto unseen level. 

Meanwhile, to Japan’s northwest, South Korea is considering resuming imports of Russian oil.

And I make the observation, in utterly obscene Russian fashion that “with these high oil prices the Russian Treasury has certainly Как бога за яйца поймал.” Translated idiomatically: Russia is in the catbird seat. Translated directly:they got God by the balls.

Rory Johnston notes just how high Dubai crude prices have risen: “Cash Dubai crude (balance of the month) just broke above $170 per barrel.”

Here’s what I’ve previously written on this credit cycle. I stand by it all. The only comment I’ll add at present is this: if the exogenous shocks to the US economy continue and the energy shock intensifies, all bets are off on the proximate cause of the end of dollar hegemony.

 

Personal Consequences Of The Iran War

By

On March 18, 2026

19 Comments

I’ll keep this one short. Israel just hit a major Iranian oilfield. Iran has said it will now hit Gulf oilfields in retaliation. Ali Larijani, probably the last person in the Iranian administration who could have negotiated an off-ramp, has been assassinated.

This war is about to enter the economic devastation phase.

Unless you live in China (bought half the world’s grain production for the last 4 years and massively increased its fuel stockpiles) you’d better start preparing. Stock up on food. Check your local power grid to see how reliant it is on natural gas and oil turbines (Europeans, this is you.) Buy medicine. Acetaminophen, for example, is basically 100% a petroleum product. Figure out how to stay warm or cool and how to cook — can you still get some solar power and batteries. India mostly relies on gas for cooking, and it’s going to run out soon.

Australia’s got maybe 3 weeks of petroleum left. The Gulf States aren’t going to be able to run air conditioning soon. Everyone’s going to start putting export bans on key supply chain items soon. The Chinese have already banned export of natural gas and oil, but this will spread to food, key medicines, etc, etc… if the war goes on much longer.

Don’t assume this is all going to work out, even in most countries which can keep the power on and enough food, there will be price increases. A lot of the world economy is based around oil, gas and… fertilizers. About a third of the world’s fertilizers come from the Gulf, thru the Strait. Even if the war ends in a couple weeks, there will be aftershocks, and, of course, companies like supermarkets will jack up prices then keep them up even after the shock, just like they did during Covid.

But over the next few months expect shortages and increased prices and in some parts of the world straight up energy brown outs.

Unless you’re Chinese or Russian, don’t expect your government to do anything competent to protect you. Even if it can, it won’t, unless you’re part of the 1% at least.

Prepare. Perhaps we’ll be lucky, but don’t be count on it.

Everyone reads these article for free, but the site and Ian take money to run. If you value the writing here and can, please subscribe or donate.

Saturday Morning Grab Bag Of Baddies and Goodies

By

On March 7, 2026

24 Comments

~by Sean Paul Kelley

I’ll begin, as usual, with the economy. JP Morgan lays odds for a global recession at 60% now. Causes? According to JPMorgan it’s threefold: the conflict in Iran, the tariffs and AI. But JP Morgan is forgetting another huge variable, the private credit/shadow credit unwind happening in real time. Blackrock halted redemptions from its flagship debt fund to the tune of $1.2bn. Blackrock to investors: fuck off. Blackrock’s fuckery marks the third private credit shop in the last three months to shut investor redemptions down: first Blue Owl, then Blackstone and now Blackrock. 

As Dario intones ruefully, “Mark my words, the damage to the financial system the private credit space will cause will be greater by many orders of magnitude than the one subprime caused in 2008.” I’m pretty well convinced he’s right. That said, the political will to backstop another financial crisis has not eroded totally, so the emerging credit crunch will be the last one backstopped by the Fed and/or Congress. 

Another variable JP Morgan doesn’t address is the most recent (un)employment numbers. If the first reported, non-revised numbers of a -92,000 jobs is any indication, once the numbers are revised, February’s numbers are likely to resemble a catastrophe. 

On the ugly, catastrophe side of things, Dubai has only ten days of fresh food remaining if the Straits remain closed. I suppose they can eat dates, no? 

Also of note, The Reptile, aka Peter Thiel (yes, it’s a real anagram, google it if you donnae believe me!), dumped 2 million shares of Palantir. It’s a bright flashing red light, a semaphore both unmistakable and of serious consequence, when top execs dump shares of the corps they run. They are cashing out, leaving the equity collapse in the hands of suckers, ermm, retail investors, widows and orphans-like. 

If you want a fuller understanding of the logic logic behind Iran’s attacks on the region’s infrastructure, read here. Speaking of oil, one can’t fix stupid. Shorting oil in this kind of risk environment is nucking futs.

Maintaining our focus on petroleum for a bit longer, I have to note, if oil breaks bad to the north, past say $120, the resulting global recession will have deleterious effects on commodities, especially gold and silver. But more gold than silver, as the silver supply-demand equation has been so structurally out of whack for so long, the recession would have to be almost depression-like to impose enough demand destruction for the price to sink below the mid $70s.

Sticking with petrol it appears the Euros might come a begging to Czar Pootie-poot for gas and oil the longer the Straits remain inaccesible. Apparently Czar Vladimir has already hinted the Euros can, in Russian, “пошел нахуй.” I’m sure you can suss the meaning out of that one. If true, this volte face by the Euros is staggering in its hyprocrisy and implications. But it is far from surprising. Anyone with a halfway decent brain on their head could have seen this ugly denouement coming a mile away. Wait, a kilometer and some change. Yeah, ‘Muricans can do metric!

In genuinely good news, Indonesia has enacted a total and complete ban on the riding of elephants. When I traveled in South East Asia I refused to ride any elephants, they are too sensitive emotionally and very much deserving of my respect. As I note on X: 

This is supremely welcome humane news. The limbic system in elephants is so extensive and well developed it creates “profound emotional intelligence, long-term memory, and social bonds [in elephants.] [Their] brain structure allows for intense empathy, mourning, [and] social cohesion,” making them closer to humans in social development than any other class of animals than primates and ceteceans.

Check out the photo of an elephant getting frisky with me. Suprised me to no end, you can see it in my face. This news makes me smile and happy. Somewhere somebody is doing something right. Faith in humanity remains unrestored, but a credit has been added to the depleted account of faith, nonetheless. One of my finest memories is seeing a herd of wild elephants emerging out of the bush about sixty miles south of Mysore, India in 2009. Wild effing elephants. How cool is that? Portions of my life have been truly charmed and I’m grateful.

Speaking of memories, I was only five years old when Nadia Comaneci stuck 7 perfecf tens at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, but even then I knew I was witnessing something very special. My view hasn’t changed in 50 years. And her performance is as elegant and perfect as it was then.

How about some music on this fine March Saturday morning? I’ll note in brief the quiet but powerful resurgence of political and human vitality to American music. As I post regarding Tyler Childers:

Tyler Childers’ song, “White House Road”, written in 2017, paints a generalized portrait of American misfortune and hardship, but uses the patois of the Appalachian South in particular to stoke the emotions of the listener. And it’s why Childer’s imagery works no matter where you live in the US-hell, it’s almost Dickensian and could be anywhere. The tune’s poignance is just that brutally authentic and powerfully magnetic.

Don’t, for a second, confuse this with C&W. It ain’t that. This is threadbare roots Americana. If this doesn’t stir your heart, you don’t have one. 

The raw explosive emotion of Childer’s lyricism propels a simple 3-chord song (E-D-A) across the ragged, tragic and increasingly impoverished tableau of a decomposing America. Childers tells an old rural story, but ‘makes it new’ as Ezra Pound frequently exhorted young writers and poets. Indeed, there is a touch of Chris Whitley’s muse to this song.
 
Childers voice is a beacon of distress, masquerading as joy, “a damn good feeling to run these roads.” He sings.”Get me drinkin’ that moonshine/Get me higher than the grocery bill/Take my troubles to the highwall/Throw’em in the river and get your fill.”

His distress is amplified by his vocal register; and his range acts like the kinetic tension in an unsprung faucet, Schrodinger-like: at once blowing in a soft mountain drawl, only to tornado-up into a raspy hard emotional sucker punch landing on your solar-plexus and leaving you breathless. 
 
Tyler is proof that there are only two types of music: good music and bad music.
 
I dare you to listen and not stomp your feet.

More to the point, Jack White has single-handedly reinvented and fused Delta blues, Chicago blues and rock music right back into political and cultural relevance. One example is the global adoption of his anthemic Seven Nation Army.

His appearance on SNL in 2020 is another solid proof of concept.

Honorable mention goes to the Stone Foxes and their fantastic and criminally underrated retelling of the death of Delta Blues legend Robert Johnson, “I killed Robert Johnson.” The song is 15 years old. So what, it’s aged well.

While you’re at it, this lovely morning, check out this music here and rock out to this and this. The last two are representitive of a new breed of American rock bands. You won’t hear ’em on the radio, but rock is alive. And that’s a good thing, like this cover of Dancing in the Street, by the Struts.

Who ever talks about modern dance, or takes an interest in it ought give this video a solid once over: the choreogrpahy on display is a stuning blend of traditonal renaissance era galliard or volta, early Appalachian line dancing and urban American break dance, yeah, break dancing, for a tune straight out of my Scotch-Irish heritage

While you’re at it, check out this Ryan Adams cover of the Iron Maiden classic, Wasted Years.

Last one, I promise, this Band of Heathens song, “Hanging Tree,” eeriely echoes old-timey Protestant hymns sung by a choir, except it’s about infideltiy and damn near a murder ballad. It’s about 15 years old, as well, but it has aged like a fine Irish whiskey. Lastly, I have rarely in life coveted anything. And I use the word ‘covet’ purposefully. But that Dobro he’s playing in the video: me want one something fierce. But I’m left handed and those cost upwards of $1500. Ouch!

More if it happens. Maybe.

Nota bene: Apparently Kuwait Oil has declared force majeure on oil sales. That’s not confirmed, but plausible and bad news if true. As one commenter in the X thread linked wryly noted, “You know shit has hit the fan when you have to start using French terms.”

LMFAO.

There Is Stupid and Then There Is Superhuman Stupid

By

On March 3, 2026

18 Comments

~by Sean Paul Kelley

How about we review Cipollla’s Five Rules of Human Stupidity? 

One: Everyone always and inevitably underestimates the number of stupid people in circulation.

Two: The probability that a person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

Three: A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or group of people when he or she does not benefit and may even suffer losses.

Four: Non-stupid people always underestimate the destructive power of stupid individuals.

Five: A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

Rumors persist on Wall Street for a second day, natch, for a day and a bit cause it’s early yet. But the rumors are several institutional investors, read hedge funds or investment banks like Morgan or Goldman, are desperate to unload large naked shorts on oil futures.

WTI has risen from $58 to $77 in less than 30 days. Brent has spiked in a similar fashion. Urals Crude is trading between $57-$65, higher than just a few weeks ago when it traded between $45-$50.

Today is the day I cease underestimating just how stupid, stupid can get. It’s like “killing the chicken to scare the monkeys” levels of stupid have taken over. 

 

Page 1 of 8

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén