The Iranian strategy in the war has been fairly simple. They’re taking out all nearby American bases and prioritizing hitting all infrastructure, especially radar. While doing so they are running US and Israeli interceptor stocks into the ground, and driving up the price of oil, gas and potash (fertilizer.)
Attacks on radar matter. Accounts suggest that warnings for incoming missiles and drones have gone from fifteen minutes to two or three. And these radars can’t be placed in any reasonable time frame:
I wonder if China will LET the US rebuild it’s military. They do have a veto.
Meanwhile Putin is getting ready to twist the knife into Europe’s guts. The other day he was musing that since Europe intended to end all imports in 2027 anyway, perhaps Russia should just end it now. And now:
Novak: Russia will redirect gas supplies from the EU to other markets Russia is ready to supply gas to friendly countries committed to long-term, constructive relations, instead of Europe, said Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.
“And such opportunities exist. Our companies have confirmed this today. They are already in negotiations, and gas quantities will soon be delivered to other countries,” Novak added.
It’s really hard to overstate how much the past few years have absolutely devastate Europe’s industrial position. Part of it’s just “China scale” but a lot of it has been high energy prices making Germany legacy industry (that’s almost all of Germany’s industry, they don’t have the tech lead in anything but a few obscure niches like lenses) uncompetitive. US natural gas is MUCH more expensive than Russia was.
Meanwhile Iran has targeted both Amazon and Microsoft servers, since both are used by the US and Gulf State militaries, including key targeting systems.
What the world is finding out is that an American base in your country doesn’t protect you, it makes you a target. The US can’t protect either its bases or its allies. Countries like the Phillipines, whose defense strategy was “ally with America, get American bases” have to be realizing the bases are a liability, not an asset.
The US can’t protect its allies. It can’t protect its own power projection capability. Iran hasn’t taken out any aircraft carriers, but every time it fires a salvo at them, the carrier groups scuttle another few hundred miles away, making them less and less useful.
I don’t know if this is America’s last great war, I think there’s one more left, but it’s the war that shows how hollow the US has become. Can’t defend it’s bases. Can’t defend its allies. Can’t keep the trade routes open. Can’t build enough interceptors for a real war. Can’t replace destroyed radars and other infrastructure in any reasonable time span or without Chinese aid.
As for America’s strategy? It’s wasting vast amounts of time bombing civilians, while Iran dismantles its military infrastructure.
The oil shock is going to be much worse than most people realize. Kuwait is already reducing production, all the Gulf States have limited storage and when it runs out they have to stop producing. But if you stop an oil well mid-production, it takes a long time to get them going again, same with refineries, and stopping production can damage oil fields permanently.
This is especially hurting US Asian allies. Both Japan and Korea are cruising for running out of oil and gas. But not China:
This is a complete fiasco for America and its alliance and satrapy system. If you can’t protect your allies and vassals, they are going to want OUT. And the Gulf States are already talking about reducing investments in America and even repatriation, because they’re going to have a lot of rebuilding to do.
Yet again America has wound up a baseball bat, taken a swing and hit its allies and itself.
After this it will take years for the American military to recover, if it ever does. Everyone will be safer as a result, except for a few Latin American countries it can still slap around. Even they will be scurrying to protect themselves: after all, Iran has shown how. Drones and missiles and a decentralized command system. China and Russia and Iran will be happy to sell them what they need and China at least will probably finance them at cut rates.
I remember reading some Chinese Christian Uncle’s theory that Trump was indeed chosen by God: to destroy the American empire. So far, true or not, that assumption has had very high predictive utility, almost everything Trump has done has made America weaker.
Maybe that’ll work out for the US, too, in the medium run. Losing its Empire and having nothing else to do but fix its own problems is what America needs.
But in the meantime, every day Iran makes everyone in the world safer by destroying the very sinews of American war and the myth of American superiority.
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Feral Finster
From your mouth to God’s ears.
cc
“The American Perfidy: like its imperial predecessor, Britain, the US is a dishonest rogue state that cannot be trusted.
Like the “Perfidious Albion”, the US has shown habitual bad faith and treachery in diplomacy. In less than a year, it launched two sneak attacks on Iran under the cover of negotiations.
Like the perfidious Britain, the US hides its insidious foreign policies under high-mined moralistic façade such as “democracy”, “human rights”, “regional stability”, “rule-based international order”, and “Right to Protect”.
It uses such noble-sounding propaganda to incite unrest of the Iranian people against their own government and their own interests. USrael cannot care less about the lives of ordinary Iranians.
…
The US is a rogue state unworthy of trust.
By launching an unprovoked war against Iran, the US is operating as an interloper that believes it can fundamentally alter the cultural and political trajectory of a 5,000-year old civilization through the application of air power.
And it launched the war under pretense of “negotiations” – behavior of a “barbarian” state.
Clearly, the US is willing to destabilize an entire region to pursue its hegemonic dominance. It is a state that believes power is a substitute for legitimacy.”
“How is going for the US in Iran? Early lessons from the war – American Perfidy and Jewish thuggery will lose; and China is helping Iran to win”
https://huabinoliver.substack.com/p/how-is-going-for-the-us-in-iran
spud
i guess bill clintons where is my nearest carrier, will not be muttered much longer.
https://jstribune.com/foggo-wheres-the-nearest-carrier/
While onboard USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) in 1993, President Bill Clinton opined that when word of a crisis breaks out in Washington, it is no accident that the first question many people ask is: ”Where’s the nearest carrier?”
President Bill Clinton aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt, March 12, 1993
—
i guess this was not such a good idea after all:)
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bill-clintons-true-legacy_b_1852887
Bill Clinton’s True Legacy: Outsourcer-in-Chief
Mitt Romney may have run a company that outsourced jobs but Clinton ran a country that did.
By
Jane White, Contributor
Contributor
Sep 4, 2012, 09:39 AM EDT
|Updated Nov 4, 2012
“the fact that the biggest beneficiaries of his administration were Wall Street, Chinese factory owners and U.S. banks and the biggest losers were blue collar workers. Mitt Romney may have run a company that outsourced jobs but Clinton ran a country that did.”
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Qatar should get that plane back. Hasn’t Kash been flying around in it partying like it’s 1999?
mago
You state that the US may be capable of yet one more major military engagement, yet the evidence and arguments you present suggests otherwise, that this is a last gasp situation.
No way can they take on China or Russia, except maybe by proxy manuvers as they’re attempting with the Kurds who would have to be suicidal to agree. (Just read where Trump called Kurdish leaders demanding compliance or it’s suicide. Wtf is wrong with these assholes?)
As stated, it’s possible to kick around the banana belt crowd especially the already bought and sold compliant ones such as Ecuador where troops are now present to laughably and cynically combat narcoterrorism or some such fantasy. Cuba is being choked to death.
Back to west Asía, Isreal is bombing Lebanon while continuing its death grip on Gaza and the West Bank. Where’s the munitions and the personnel and the money coming from to pay for all this? Yeah, the money from chump American tax dollars, but for all the rest there have to be limits.
This shit can’t go on, although as ugly as it is now, it’s going to get exponentially worse before it gets any better. Gonna make The Road look like a happy ending.
I’d like to say forgive them Lord, for they know not what they do, except they do, at least when it comes to chaos and carnage, and that includes their Epstein carnality.
Have a nice day.
ventzu
I think this is the last war for the US. Even if it manages a “win” against a country that has been heavily sanctioned for nearly half a century, what chance does it have against China.
If this goes on for months, as Trump is now speculating, then that means the continued closure of the Straits of Hormuz and the Red Sea (by Yemen). For all Trump’s bombastic rhetoric, the US navy cannot safeguard passage through the Straits – as it is, the US fleet has retreated more than 800 miles offshore, for fear of Iranian missiles. And anyway, the US couldn’t reopen the Red Sea even with a far weaker Yemen last year.
So let’s consider the possible impact of higher energy prices and constraints in oil derivatives on public and private capital markets – leaving aside shortages of most things, accelerating US government debt, inflation and higher interest rates:
1) Europe, even before this, had higher oil/gas prices than US/China. So de-industrialisation will accelerate. What happens to their debt load?
2) Open AI, Anthropic, etc which are energy intensive, whose economics already did not make sense with the marginal cost of every query being higher than revenue, are going to collapse. And given the circular financing and leverage taken on by the likes of Oracle, Amazon, etc in a race to build data centres . . . it could cripple many of these stocks.
3) India, Japan, S Korea, all dependent on cheap Gulf oil will be in trouble, as will their capital markets
4) US defence stocks will do well – until investors realise these companies have not managed to deliver latest gen aircraft or submarines on time, and whose Patriot missile batteries have proven ineffective in Ukraine and now West Asia. And Russia, China and Iran all have hypersonic missiles, whilst the US defence industry still hasn’t managed to develop one. Plus of course rare earth restrictions.
5) Private credit is already in trouble. And private equity, which already was not delivering superior returns to the stockmarket, and is correlated with it (hence no risk diversification benefit), and has a backlog of portfolio of companies to exit, is heading for an existential crisis.
6) Another financial services crises?
The stock market rout has not yet begun. All courtesy of Trump, US neo-cons and Netanyahu.
From Epic Fury -> Epstein Fury -> Epic F*ck Up
joey_n
@ cc
Glad to see I’m not the only one with a bone to pick with the USA.
If I remember correctly, the US created a conflict in Ukraine to drive a wedge between Russia and the rest of Europe and wean the latter off of reliable gas supplies from the former. Am I not mistaken that Putin is capitulating to the USA and giving it its victory on a silver platter?
All the cheering and Schadenfreude I see in the comment sections in response doesn’t help. It’s as if 450 million taxpayers deserve to suffer as a result of decisions made by US-installed puppets or that their interests are one and the same.
To be real honest, I used to want to go to Russia, but not anymore. I haven’t been all that interested in the place for the past four years, if only because Mexico had relatively freer COVID laws, so it’s hard to blame Russia. My support for Russia during the past 7½ years was more for Europe’s sake – learning of “Freedom Fries” and the like opened my eyes to the onesidedness of the Anglo-American imperial hold of continental Europe minus Russia.
*sigh* of all the times to wish to be in Khamenei’s shoes…
spud
to really stick it to them and send them back to the stone age. one wonders why are the lights still on, water running, and oil flowing in Israel yet?
maybe waiting to exhaust air defenses? they might be waiting to long. you never know what a cornered fascist will do.
Poul
A similar take on Iranian strategy.
https://x.com/ArmchairW/status/2030110808726790397
“We’ve lost a terrifying proportion of the total number of THAAD radars in existence just in the last week, not to mention some ultra-heavy fixed radar installations and an unknown number of Patriot radars.
We’re already seeing the results of this. Missile warning times in Israel have already decreased to a matter of seconds. Missile warnings in the Gulf States are sporadic to nonexistent. Replacement systems are being frantically flown into the Middle East from elsewhere. And the Iranians are getting essentially the same number of missiles through and continuing to strike important targets despite significantly fewer launches – suggesting they’re metering their launch campaign by effects on target to sustain a long war.
This also, by the way, suggests that we got head-faked by Iranian strike doctrine. We’ve been laser-focused on countering the flashy high end of their strike system – the ballistic missile force, while the Iranians didn’t use their drones very effectively in previous rounds. “
someofparts
Looks like this is our Suez moment.
Ventzu
Someofparts: exactly.
Except Suez had the US restraining uk/france/zionist entity. This time, the US/zionist entity is going to have to burn itself out, with a little help from Iran.
LY
Going by the Trump admin’s statements, Cuba is next. My guess is after Trump TACOs due to Mr. Market, he’ll look repeat his last “success” in Venezuela.
bruce wilder
Wily Coyote running off the edge of the cliff into mid-air, high above the valley floor, eh? Just waiting for the force of gravity to kick in . . .
The U.S. “intelligence community” (sic!) has been disguising objectives and misrepresenting motives for so long and so thoroughly that it has become difficult to work out a logic chain of ends-and-means to identify, let alone criticize intelligently. Wily Coyote, with mail order contraptions from Acme, always had a plan of sorts and a machine.
I don’t feel I know too little about the kinetics to judge how things are going.
https://x.com/ripplebrain/status/2029565240661152147?s=20
The economics and finance back home in the heart of darkness, however, does seem to me ready for a crisis.
KT Chong
China is helping Iran — two different sources:
Highlights:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfc6byX67FA
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4QjgIKDVW0
Original sources:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08p1lGe-vmY
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4tl0E5OaUY
KT Chong
Also, Iran’s strategy is to destroy the US economy and petrodollar system — that is why Iran has been shooting at the GCC nations:
• Professor Jiang Predicts: US WILL LOSE Iran War:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ql24Z8SIeE
(He gets a little kooky at the end, but his analysis is still solid.)
• Game Theory: The US-Iran War:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIS2eB-rGv0
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Jiang makes a common mistake in that he conflates the stock market with the economy. The stock market is not the economy and it is not an indicator of the health of the economy. If the stock market collapses, the economy does not collapse or it doesn’t have to collapse. Most people are not invested in the stock market so if it collapses, they don’t lose any assets. Even if a company’s stock collapses, it doesn’t affect the cash flow of that company. It’s purely paper and perception.
Sean Paul Kelley
@Like and Subscribe and KT Chong: I gotta say, I’m not enamored at all with Jiang’s analysis or his approach to the world. It’s far too simplified and catch-phrase laden. It’s like he’s teaching undergrads on Youtube, while he probably does teach undergrads. That would explain a lot. But I’m not a fan of his analysis. Lacks pragmatic rigor.
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SPK, agreed.
Mark Level
ventzu, the market crash is starting. firefox fed me this link in the pocket this morning: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/06/g-s1-112788/oil-prices-stocks-jobs-report?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
Preliminary drops of 0.9% to 1.6% presaging a bigger fall. Garland Nixon put out a banger this morning, mentioned the lost of 90,000 US jobs. The episode is titled “Trump’s Goose is Cooked.”
It was inevitable.
joey_n, what are you smoking? “If I remember correctly, the US created a conflict in Ukraine to drive a wedge between Russia and the rest of Europe and wean the latter off of reliable gas supplies from the former. Am I not mistaken that Putin is capitulating to the USA and giving it its victory on a silver platter?”
Your conclusion is directly opposite of the reality. The oil supplies are going to Asia, to allies, NOT to the Germans, French, etc., China and others win . Europe is cooked. Ukraine is finished, finito. The little Green Goblin is no longer even mentioned in passing in the MICIMATT media. When the final fall comes he and his Epstein Class equivalents in Banderastan will pack up their gold and loot and escape to their villas, with high security protection against retaliation. Maybe you could get in on that action? Work as wait staff, butler, or maybe procuring young, nubile women for the Exiled Loser Oligarchs.
At least you have another Banderist comrade here, you two should get along great. If you don’t wish to go to Russia, why not Ukraine if you’re even a little brave? In July 2022, Harper’s did a report on a fake “International Brigade” being formed in Ukraine for international N@zi wannabes, mercenaries without a war to fight, etc. The reporter went with a bunch of Mercs to the border with Lviv, the “International Brigade” turned out to be a hoax, merely a propaganda gambit, most of the losers wanting to sign up were old or had no military experience, couldn’t speak the local language, etc. They were spending money as tourists, so a bit of a gain, but not a military one.
Seth Harp’s “Army of Shadows” notes what killed the Merc Army in its crib in this paragraph–“Moscow took notice. As I made my way to Warsaw in the early-morning hours of March 13, a volley of Russian cruise missiles struck a training base in Yavoriv, a dozen miles from the Polish border, where foreign fighters had been congregating. None of the recruits, no matter how intense their experience had been in Iraq or Afghanistan, would have ever seen such an onslaught of precision-guided munitions. Footage of the aftermath showed buildings burning around a crater that looked to be forty feet deep. The Ukrainians confirmed that thirty-five people had been killed, but denied that any had been foreigners. Meanwhile, the Russian defense ministry claimed to have killed up to one hundred and eighty. “The destruction of foreign mercenaries who arrived on the territory of Ukraine will continue,” the statement promised.”
The West had built up the Ukros quite strongly, but the failures became obvious when the giant, hyped-up “Summer Offensive of 2023” which was supposed to drive hundreds of miles South and take all of Crimea took only a few hundred feet of the first Russian defense perimeter, it was clear that there would be no Ukrainian “success.”
Back to Garland Nixon– He rejects the thesis that the Zionist Entity controls USA, he thinks Israel will be destroyed and the US won’t care. I’m not entirely sure of that, when he asks “You think Lindsey Graham really cares about Israel?” I see his point. When he applies that to Antony Blinken, I’m not buying it. But the Ant-Man is not in power now, the Dimmies could bring him back, but . . .
A couple of major shoes about to drop:
Already dropped, polling shows a plurality of ‘Muricans sympathize with Palestine, smaller group with Israel. That is a tectonic shift, and it’s not going to reverse. The Zionist entity can’t do a “charm offensive” they only do murder, racism, shrieking “We’re the Victims” all the while.
Trump admin for now are concealing the # of our beautiful Troops that have died or been seriously wounded, small leaks out of survivors being moved quietly to hospitals in the DC area. When will someone leak the bigger #s of casualties, dead and wounded? Maybe they can conceal it for weeks, maybe even months. MAGA won’t be happy, most ‘Muricans will see how pointless the fantasy of toppling a 5,000 year old civilization by the freaks, lunatics and losers in the Trump regime always was.
Nixon thinks many will blame “the Jews”. He could be right. As Finster, Due Dissidence and many others have noted, the likes of Rabbi Shmuly, the ADL and others ramp up Anti-Semitism. Trump sacrificed his shiksa daughter to a Jewish billionaire, seems to think Jared is his true heir, not the 2 fail-sons. Somebody on Drop Site News noted that Jared should be renamed “the Crypt-Keeper”, people who “negotiate” with him generally end up liquidated in 72 hours or so.
Trump was mentored by the vicious thug Roy Cohn, but clearly is ambivalent about “Jews”, doesn’t really like them much on the whole, “apart from handling my money.” Oh, speaking of Broken Dreams, The Bored of Pieces, is a Dead Letter. Assuming Tel Aviv and other major Zionist cities get reduced to the carnage the Palestinians have experienced for years, nobody will imagine building a “Gaza Riviera” is viable. Guess how many are investing: pretty much nobody, at this time.
The NeoCons always start with “Shock & Awe” and flashy fireworks massacres. The first one in Iran, as we know, was hitting a primary Girls School and slaughtering 150 or more, including teachers. Then the NeoCons try to whip up a Civil War, which is a non-starter in Iran right now. If they can’t destroy the country they lose. They’ve already lost.
What’s Trump juggling? A crashing economy. A global recession mainly hurting the West, started by HIM. Epstein files still leaking out. Lunatics in his admin headed for jail (we can hope), Kristi Noem ousted not for incompetence, animal killing or slaying people in Minneapolis but for setting up a phony shell company with her political allies 8 days before awarding a DHS Contract for $220 million to them. Didn’t even hide it!!
His insane followers can’t get their stories straight. Hegseth shrieks, Goebbels-like, about the coming extermination of the sub-humans, while Grinder Mike Johnson (hat tip to diff clue) says “We are not at war,” and they might have a war against us, be we don’t have one against them!! Meantime, while losing, Trump demands an “Unconditional Surrender”, playing at being Ursula van der Lying while losing, and states he must have a hand in selecting the next Supreme Leader in Iraq. Once again, can’t make this shit up.
3 possible outcomes (among many): US slow collapse, major Recession and failed wars abroad, so Trumpies try to steal the midterms, Martial Law and start locking up the Libs and Lefties in the Warehouse/ Concentration Camps they’ve been buying up near rail-lines. Full on fascism and genocide at home . . . President-for-Life, with Jared in line as the Prince. OR, Annihilation of large areas in Israel, populace flees to their Chabad houses in Cyprus, Thailand and elsewhere, indigenous people slowly return. 3rd, Huckabee’s Wet Dream, return of Jaybus, Annihilation of the Jews in “the Lake of Fire,” etc.
The 2nd seems most likely to me. Funny that while Huckabee subscribes to the Bad Brown Acid eschatology of Revelations, none of these people ever heard of the story of Samson and Goliath. Could the Persians be Samson? I don’t see any reason why not.
Mark Level
David & Goliath! D’ohh!!
Sampson Option possible. But David and Goliath. David, though a made-up character, quite important in the O.T.
Sometimes the typing fingers have a mind of their own.
KT Chong
Like & Subscribe: “Jiang makes a common mistake in that he conflates the stock market with the economy. The stock market is not the economy and it is not an indicator of the health of the economy…”
Except in the US, it largely is. The hyper-financialized economy of the US and the stock market are fused — or at least they overlap intensively.
How else do you explain that in 2008, when “Credit Default Swaps” — Wall Street’s pure financial construct — blew up, the fallout did not stay in the stock market? They froze credit, cratered housing, bankrupted companies, vaporized $16 trillion in household wealth, killed 8.7 million jobs, and dragged GDP down ~4.2–5.1% peak-to-trough, (GDP growth was 0.4% in 2008 and −2.4% in 2009 — that’s negative = contraction), even though most people were not “in the stock market.”
401(k)s, pensions, and mutual funds hold a huge share of household wealth — over half of US households have exposure to the stock market through them. When stocks tank hard and fast, that wealth gets wiped out. When the wealth effect reverses, spending collapses, businesses slash hiring, and the real economy bleeds.
In a manufacturing-heavy economy (like China’s), the separation holds. However, the US is not that kind of economy. In the US, the economy and the stock market are deeply entangled.
GCC economic collapse + oil shocks → AI bubble bursting + de-petrodollarization → Wall Street carnage, which will cascade into bankruptcies and economic depression, if not stagnation. (I’m going to call it now… the “Great Stagnation” — I came up with it first!)
Dismissing that as a “common mistake” ignores forty years of financialization.
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Dismissing that as a “common mistake” ignores forty years of financialization.
No, it doesn’t. Despite financialization, the collapse of the stock price does not affect operations or cash flow. Equity is not debt. The proceeds from stock sales do not het repaid. Apple’s stock, for example, could collapse tomorrow but it would not fundamentally change in any way Apple’s operations and cash flow and revenue and profit structure. That’s despite financialization.
KT Chong
Sean Paul Kelley: “I’m not enamored at all with Jiang’s analysis or his approach to the world…”
Jiang correctly predicted in early 2024:
• Trump would win the 2024 presidential election.
• Trump would select JD Vance as his running mate — JD Vance was Jiang’s second choice, back when everyone else’s reaction was: “JD who?”
• Trump would start a war with Iran.
• Russia would defeat Ukraine and achieve battlefield victory.
• The Vatican would elect an American to succeed Pope Francis; IMO, his most prescient prediction yet.
• Trump would “revamp American society” and cement a personalist “Trump world order” — spot-on: Project 2025, the Donroe Doctrine, the Board of Peace. Trump’s revamping of America and the world is still ongoing.
Jiang has not made any major misses yet. People want to dismiss his game-theory framing as oversimplified, guru-like, or “CCP propaganda,” but his track record has held up. IMO, it’s mostly Americans reacting with sour grapes — coping and in denial — because almost all of his predictions are very negative toward America.
KT Chong
And these predictions are currently playing out as Jiang made them in 2024:
• The US will send ground troops — and then more and more — into Iran. Jiang framed this as inevitable.
• The US will lose the war in Iran through attrition, depleted munitions, economic shocks, and Iran’s resilient asymmetric strategy.
• Trump would pursue — and potentially secure — a third and even fourth term; he knows that if he leaves the White House, he could go to prison — which is why he will never leave. He will be president until he dies.
• The US will become a Christian theocracy — this also seems to be emerging: elected and appointed officials (Republicans) and military commanders are already framing the Iran war as a “holy war,” calling it “God’s divine plan,” citing Revelation/Armageddon, and describing Trump as “anointed by Jesus” to trigger Christ’s return via Iran strikes. Pentagon prayer services, far-right evangelical influences (e.g., Hegseth’s Crusader symbolism), and senior officials invoking biblical prophecy show theocratic elements increasingly entering military and government rhetoric.
Sean Paul Kelley
@KT Chong: I’m sincerely conceding the point. It would be callow of me to cavil over the thrust of your argument, as he is correct and has been prescient, simply because the way he simplifies arguments annoys me. That wold be childish of me, would it not?
Point goes to KT Chong.
KT Chong
Why would anyone think a sudden Apple stock crash would not impact the economy??
It would not immediately shut down the company. But it would certainly trigger:
• leadership shakeups
• investor activism
• restructuring or breakup pressure
• hostile takeovers
• layoffs and strategic retreat
• ripples across the entire economy
History shows this repeatedly.
Examples include:
• Bear Stearns
• Lehman Brothers
• General Electric (during its post-2018 crisis)
All of which impacted the “real” economy.
Market confidence collapsing can destroy institutions.
So the idea that stock prices of major tech companies have no real-world effect is far too simplistic — especially in a highly financialized techno-feudalism.
Mark Level
KT Chong; thanks to you for taking on LAS’s incoherent takes. On a good day he is right up to 50% of the time, on a bad day wrong 100%. Bias does that to people.
I was on the fence about Prof. Jiang, Due Dissidence’s Duo uses him regularly and you substantiate his correct calls convincingly. I do find his teaching style (as a retired teacher myself) a little pedantic and formal, but that is a minor quibble. (I think a lot of his audience is bright and he comes across as a bit smug or condescending.)
Like SPK, I give you the point today.
KT Chong
I actually do not agree with Jiang on everything he has predicted. He has also made two long-term predictions:
• America and China would reach a rapprochement, and China would bail out the US economy — again. I really hope China is not that selfish and stupid — rescuing and prolonging the “Empire of Evil” would only inflict more harm on the rest of the world. It would be evil for China to try to save an evil from drowning.
• After America loses the Iran war and retreats from the Middle East, Israel would become the regional — if not a global — superpower, a Pax Judaica. Please no. I really hope the end of the Iran war and the retreat of America will be the last days of the Zionist state that has inflicted so many evils and depravities upon the world.
KT Chong
A third long-term prediction that I hope will be wrong:
Jiang predicted a second American civil war in the near term (within the next few years), and that the hard right (Christian nationalism) will emerge the final and ultimate winner. That will be how the American Christian theocracy comes to be.
My hope: the civil war will splinter the USA into multiple countries — the Christian theocratic nationalists will be one of them, but there will be other competing and hostile American countries (formerly of the United States) to counterbalance Jesusland. That outcome will be better and safer for the rest of the world and humanity.
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Since Chong is so fond of AI being the final arbiter considering he has quoted AI so much in the past to support its arguments, point goes to Like & Subscribe. AI validates my claim.
The stock market is not the economy; it is a forward-looking, often volatile, indicator of expected future corporate profitability. The real economy, however, comprises broader measures like employment, wages, and production. While they are sometimes linked, they often diverge, with market performance primarily reflecting the interests of a small percentage of wealthy shareholders.
Key differences between the stock market and the economy include:
Forward vs. Backward Looking: The market predicts future profits, while economic data (like GDP or jobs reports) reflects past, actual performance.
Company Size vs. Total Economy: The S&P 500 represents only 500 large companies, not the millions of small businesses that employ most people.
Disproportionate Ownership: A significant portion of stock value is held by a small, wealthy segment of the population, meaning market highs do not necessarily reflect prosperity for the average worker.
Disconnect in Profits: Profits can rise even when the overall economy suffers, often due to cost-cutting measures like layoffs or tax reductions.
Despite these differences, the two are not entirely independent and often move in tandem, behaving “like two people walking down the street, tethered by a rope,” as described by economist Dean Baker.
The American economy may well collapse, but it won’t be because foreign investors pull their investment funds and collapse stock prices. High oil prices indefinitely will collapse the economy, but it will do so directly, not via any stock market activity and it will be a worldwide collapse, not just America.
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Jiang predicted a second American civil war in the near term (within the next few years), and that the hard right (Christian nationalism) will emerge the final and ultimate winner. That will be how the American Christian theocracy comes to be.
Jiang didn’t use Game Theory for this prediction, he used Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
One of his predictions is that America will lose the war against Iran. How does he define a loss? Let’s not forget, we’re living in an alternate reality. In this alternate reality, Trump doesn’t lose. He gets the final say so. You can believe what you want to believe otherwise, for now at least but not for long, but the reality consensus will be, no matter the outcome, Trump won the war.
KT Chong
Predictive History
Geo-Strategy #11: The Second American Civil War (June 7, 2024):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go1bMQKnJBQ
KT Chong
The bomb drops at 39:15 of “Geo-Strategy #11: The Second American Civil War”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go1bMQKnJBQ&t=2355s
It’s all laid out in a logical, step-by-step unveiling from the beginning.
joey_n
@ Mark Level
This was precisely what the USA wanted, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that what my argument hinged on? And how does that contradict the text you quote?
What Banderist comrade? I am opposed to the Banderites, and just because I lost interest in Russia doesn’t mean support for Ukraine. You did read my entire comment without putting words in my mouth, didn’t you?
different clue
. . . ” Maybe that’ll work out for the US, too, in the medium run. Losing its Empire and having nothing else to do but fix its own problems is what America needs. ” . . .
What a world – what a world – where this is realistically the most hopeful hope which can be hoped for.
If America ” has” an empire, then losing it might allow this to happen, if Team American Okayness Ordinarianism has a big powerful movement of millions all organized and ready to go.
MAOKA! Make America O K Again!
But if America “is” an empire, then delamination into different countries as happened with the USSR could be likely. In which case , would the emergence of a Gilead Bible Republic of Jesusland be the good outcome which K T Chong thinks it would be? Only if the GBRJ is left with precisely zero nukes of any kind or size.
different clue
. . . ” The oil supplies are going to Asia, to allies, NOT to the Germans, French, etc., China and others win . Europe is cooked. ”
Actually, Europe won’t be cooked. It will be frozen. At least in winter it will be.
Yuk Yuk Yuk
Kurtismayfield
The problem Ian is that they will not focus on the US once it fails. They will leave it like they left the Empire of Great Britain to flounder in its own arrogance for generations. And you will have a pissed off populace of 350 million plus to deal with.
different clue
I have said from time to time here in the past that Canada needs to build a Big Beautiful Wall.