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.
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GrimJim
What are your top 10 or 20 “buyer now and store it” products that are oil derived like NSAIDs?
Feral Finster
Yes, but Israel need only stretch out its hand and the Americans will fill it.
The Epstein Class will do just fine. Might even be a buying opportunity. Trump and cronies will insider trade like crazy.
Why should anyone care about the peons?
Mark Level
A simple, 2-part question:
Who will talk Trump down off the ledge, and how quickly?
Someone mistakenly posited that the DoD will sideline him, there is no evidence for that. Which finance/tech/Retail shot-callers will make him fold? And fast?
Forecasting Intelligence
Great article Ian.
I’m personally stocked up as far as I can and we have simplified our lifestyle as per John Greer’s maxim “collapse now and avoid the rush”. Well, guess what, lots of folks are about to face the rush.
I’ve blogged about this for years on my blog, check this one out – https://forecastingintelligence.org/2023/02/15/the-roller-coaster-decade/
different clue
I don’t mind you doing as many articles on the downstream effects of Iran War 2.0 as you consider necessary. I hope nobody else minds either.
China will be able to name its price for tungsten, silver and other things. That price may well be political. Access to the politically favored and politically obedient will be rationed. And of course the ChinaGov may decide that the only way for non-China to buy any silver and tungsten and etc. from China is to buy finished products containing those things from China.
The peons should care about the peons, even if no-one else does or will. If anyone wants to get on here and explain why we should not care about eachother, perhaps I will read it for gits and shiggles.
The Project 2025 Administration and the KlanMAGA Republicans made sure to put their own KlanMAGA Christianazian agents everywhere they could within and over the DOD. The only way DOD could bring relief is if an internal Coup by Constitutional Traditionalists ( if any with the ability to conspire silently with eachother) were to control and eliminate all the Christianazians within the DOD. That would require a very swift and vicious roundup and killoff. Maybe then they could coup the TrumpAdmin and announce some sort of National Emergency Contitutional Restoration Council. The irony would be so heavy that even I would smell it. But it would be worth it for a systematic and comprehensive defeat, with as much mass extermination as necessary, of all KlanMaga and Christianazian and ArmaRapture leaders, cadres and followers as necessary to restore control and achieve decontrumpination. ( The extermination might have to extend to all KlanMaga friendly police departments, ICE, etc as needed to lance every boil and drain out all Trump pus).
No one will talk Trump down off the ledge. He has millions of devoted worshippers and tens and tens of millions of cynical exploiters. Tens AND tens? Yes.
Several ten million Armageddonite Rapturaniacs who want to use Israel as their detonator to set off worldwide nuclear war as soon as possible to get Jesus to return as soon as possible. And several ten million Christianazians ( New Apostolic Reformationists, Seven Mountains Dominionists, Biblical Inerrancy Literalists, the Rushdoony crowd, etc.) who want to use the TrumpAdmin to establish their Gilead Bible Christianazianity Reigh of Righteousness for a Thousand Years here on this earth in this timeline, so that Christ will be well pleased and decide to return in a thousand years. That many tens AND tens of millions of “purpose driven people” are not going to let anyone talk Trump down off of any ledge. Can these tens AND tens of millions of people be defeated without comprehensive mass extermination and the Civil War needed to achieve it? It would be pretty to think so and “might” even be possible if the Constitutional Traditionalists with the Armed Forces are able to exterminate their own Christianazian oppenents and re-sanitize and disinfect the Military to use as an instrument against those tens AND tens of millions of people mentioned just above. ( And also wipe out any Kumbaya Liberal Peace-Cucks who get in the way).
The above scenario seems unlikely. So the tens AND tens of millions will get as far as they can, till either victory or inertial rundown. An internal civil war between the ArmaRapturists and the Christianazians over whether Christ comes First or the Thousand Year Reign of Righteousness comes First could be a possible outcome).
More thoughts on my next break.
Purple Library Guy
The bad thing is Trump started this war. But if roughly this war was going to be started by a US president, perhaps better it be Trump. Most US presidents believe in “credibility”–if they start something, they have to finish it, because “credibility”, and because they have some footing in reality. Trump doesn’t give much of a damn. He could negotiate a humiliating set of terms with Iran, and just pretend none of them ever happened and that he totally won. So his ability to end the war he moronically started may be greater than most US presidents’ ability to end a war.
Planter of Trees
Suppose nobody acts to sideline Trump and end the war? The state may well be comitted to this course of action regardless of the damage to civil society and the cost in lives. So far, the public objections of a handful of ‘reasonable’ figures remind me of the arguments made during the beginning of Iraq: technically sound, but without force.
Asset consolidation has gone so far within the U.S. economy that there’s little reason to expect the money people to act independently, either.
Glau
Seems like this war is also going to put paid to China’s export driven growth model. Who are they going to export to, Europe, India, and the US?
Seems like a similar sort of partial equilibrium thinking as the AI bros, where a consumer with money is just assumed even when the strategy is set to destroy them.
cc
In terms of fertilizer, Russia has temporarily suspended its ammonium nitrate exports (that account for 37% of global exports) for a month …
Mark Level, going by this article from Max Blumenthal,
https://www.unz.com/article/how-israel-and-the-fbi-manipulated-assassination-plots-to-goad-trump-into-iran-war/
It’s hard to see how anyone could get past their spell over Trump …
The phrase “Manchurian candidate” should really be updated and replaced by “Zionist candidate”. They’ve got such a hold over him that he’s essentially a golem for the Zionists. There’s probably no getting through to a golem.
Bob
Yeah, feel free to go on about Operation Epic Clusterfuck (h/t Tim Watkins https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2026/03/21/a-great-reset-of-sorts/) as much as you like.
I’m astonished to hear how many people are off on their Easter climate vandalism trips without apparently being concerned about the possibility of not being able to return whence they vacationed. A casual read of any mainstream media thingy will show that airlines are expressing concerns about whether or not they will fly somewhere amd discover there isn’t any kerosene at the destination to allow them to fly back again.
Maybe the average person is living in the “now” at an Eckhart Tolle level of dedication.
I am feeling weary of going anywhere from where I can’t return on foot. My other half is situated a mere 25 minutes away by motorcar but a day on foot.
All insights into this madness are welcome.
different clue
@Glau,
Perhaps China doesn’t really need to do any more growthing. Perhaps they are ready to Survive In Place if they have to.
mago
The Stable Genius and his fellow nihilistic Epstein buds might skate for a while as the proles suffer, but cause and effect bites everyone no matter one’s status, power and wealth. The only thing you take when you die is the result of your actions.
Trump and Netanyahu and all the rest care fuck all about anything or anyone beyond their myopic obsessions. Go die.
The stupid is staggering. The consequences are galactic.
So, yeah. Grow a garden, feed someone, love everyone and kiss your ass goodbye. We’re all gonna die. (Someday.)
Feral Finster
@ the other clue (the different one):
People should care about the peons, but they won’t, and the peons are too clueless and disorganized to do much for themselves.
Poul
One could add helium to the list (a by-product of LNG). Important in chip production. Qatar produces ca 30% of world supply.
https://fortune.com/2026/03/21/iran-war-helium-shortage-qatar-chip-supply-chains-ai-boom/
Dave
With friends like this …
Carborundum
I would be cautious about the sourcing for whoever is saying that the Chinese have purchased that much grain. They do absolutely have very, very large grain reserves, but there’s no way they have purchased 50% of global production over 4 years. Anyone purchases that much of total global production, there’s large scale famine over very noticeable chunks of the globe.
I think the denominator has to be something else – even 50% of total international trade seems off given recent market dynamics. Us and Oz are as I recall the dominant sources for China and their trade has been up and down a fair bit over the recent few seasons.
different clue
Here’s a minor-by-comparison ripple in the politisphere. ” Iran Gives Trump an Ultimatum on JD Vance ”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/iran-gives-trump-a-negotiation-ultimatum-on-jd-vance-sidelining-steve-witkoff-and-jared-kushner/
If something were to come of that, JD Vance would get some kind of credit which would set him up better for becoming President after Trump. Iran picking America’s
“Supreme Leader”. Oh the irony.
NGG
Well, the orange genius is going to take us all down with him. This war has been a total disaster. Cutting off resources required for agriculture, chips, diesel, gas, etc. The disaster facing us, has just begun. The effects will go on for at least 6 months, if not longer. Diesel fuels prices directly impact food transportation in the US – and these higher diesel prices will increase food prices. And many other goods, too many to mention. Meanwhile, the Palestinian genocide rolls on, and Israel bombing civilians and now going for land grabs . My heart aches to witness the destruction on all sides.
I can’t see Iran taking any recent peace proposal – good grief – they were negotiating, when they were attacked! Any proposal byTrump is NOT worth the ink to put it forth.
In any universe, the man can NOT be trusted!!
different clue
Video guy Tim Dillon is urging his fellow Americans to give the world a rest from themselves and just stop travelling.
“Americans Need To Stop Traveling Right Now”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nlAajhWfQY
Edmund
I’m also okay with all these articles. It’s easy to get complacent until the day of whichever trigger causes everything to disappear overnight, that “lockdown” moment. Apart from preparing for whatever the future brings, the other thing I’m doing is appreciating life in each moment, or in as many moments as I remember to. The future is uncertain and may bring much hardship, but today life is good.
Mark Level
Yeah Trump is deep in the doo-doo (as Bush Sr. put it), flailing around and getting deeper into it. Due Dissidence’s coverage yesterday showed him getting off a plane, looking like fat dotard shit, wobbling along unsteadily.
He can’t even fake “winning” at this point, can only do whining. mago called it. Thanks to Bob for the link also. I liked the point about delusional travelers not understanding the movement of time, many will be unable to return home (unless they pay 3 or more times extra).
Trump thought he was working for the Zionists, but his actions look more like someone who poses as a Fascist Strongman, while actually destroying the governments’ functioning the way an Anarcho-Nihilist would. No TSA at airports since they weren’t getting paid, now they’re deploying ICE to 8 or more airports (D. Dissidence also), some have been told they’re not allowed to mask, so they wander around the airport in clusters of 3-4 to do nothing, pretending to be friendly and nice.
DC’s belief that Trump is super-beloved has no basis in reality. His acceptance currently dropped to 36%, he’s been at 33-43% during the 2nd term, see the Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5798923-trump-approval-rating-drop/ And it can only sink lower as his unforced errors metastasize and spread.
And for someone with no clue who misses the point, Trump is just a front-man for certain interests, not JUST the Zio-Genocidal One (though it clearly has pride of place as the most powerful, with both Duopoly parties), his chain will be yanked, likely sooner not later.
My preliminary list was too short, here’s a more comprehensive listing of TPTB– the Military-Industrial/Big Pharma/ Insurance/Finance/Tech/Retail/Tourism/Real Estate/Hospital & “Health Not Care”/BitCoin/Data Center shot-callers. He’s flushing their grift right down the terlet, and making the USA openly a failed state. They can’t let it continue long. He is a dead man walking, on a level with Biden after they didn’t give him his speed shot and he incoherently burbled and drooled during the “debate” with Trump.
Lowest Presidential approval ever was the failed Haberdasher Harry S. Truman at 22%. He may not get there, may not survive long enough in office.
Mark Level
The smart rats, like Joe Kent, are bailing out.
Others will be ejected– likely Booze-‘Rhoid Rager Pete Hegseth first. https://www.inquisitr.com/pete-hegseth-first-to-be-fired-as-trump-reportedly-sets-departure-date
Drumpf’s circling the Wagons. A couple days ago he protected his closest Family Cronies, Gum Golem Jared and “developer” pal Witkoff, foreign agents openly, who actually made the call to start full-on war. But he blamed Pete in a press conference, said it was HIS decision. (Btw is Narcito, Li’l Narco Rubio somewhere in a bunker with Bibi, haven’t heard a thing about him in over a week.) Pete chose “the path”, Daddy says.
Thank you to cc, as usual, but yes, I follow Blumenthal closely, I know how CIA has engineered the 2 Assassination attempts, first the Incel kid who appeared in a BlackRock video, RIP, then the Ukraine/Bandersit fanatic, who is connected to “Iraq”, how? 100% Ukro-symp, but the CIA says black= white, etc.
Oh, does Trump have a scar on his ear or not? No way to know how real that shooting was.
Like & Subscribe
The approval numbers don’t mean jack, if they ever did. Those who matter, those who own the world or at least think they do, they still overwhelmingly approve. Otherwise, Trump would have gone, and will go, the way of JFK.
It amazes, no it doesn’t actually, how seemingly everyone wants to provide cover for Trump, be it wittingly or unwittingly. Trump has agency. He always has agency. Speaking of Truman, he famously said “the buck stops here”, or at least he had a sign on his desk that proclaimed as much.
The buck stops with Trump, so despite the panoply of grifters and war criminals whispering in his ear and nudging him this way and that, he is ultimately responsible, his administration too, for making the final decision on any and all matters. This is what it means to have agency.
So yeah,, sure, Israel is manipulating him but like ML says, so too are a litany of other malevolent interests. Just because malevolent grifters and war criminals are manipulating him, it doesn’t preclude him from being responsible for his decisions. This is the price you pay when you are, as Dubya once famously said, “the decider”.
Dementia isn’t an excuse either. He may very well be in the early to mid stages of dementia but once again, it’s not an excuse. He still must be held to account and let’s face it, if he was properly held to account along with his administration, held to account would be a sentence of death as it was for many a Nazi after Germany’s unconditional surrender and rightfully so.
spud
there is no doubt about it, that the shortages and war will be wild cards in what is a massive deflationary wage economy we are facing. we have wild inflation almost running out of control, and wage deflation at the same time. plus deflation is starting to creep into the fray on everyday items that are no longer needed, or can be afforded for survival.
so asset classes from last week that are iffy, can be the asset classes next week that look solid. so all is in flux.
but manipulated paper assets, and it looks that includes bitcoin will be saved at all costs. $70,000.00 looks to be the point that the leeches and parasites are fighting to keep on bitcoin, the amount poured into bitcoin everyday once it goes under $70,000.00. is impressive. must be a lot of fake collateral and gambling positions that could unravel, sending a cascade of defaults and barred redemptions.
so iran is doing a hell of a job beating back the teetering modern day version of the ottoman empire, almost completely embarrassing it.
but the oligarchs who rule the empire could care less. since 1993 on wards unleashed their insatiable lust and psychopathy, the only thing that will stop them is as Ian said, a defeat so devastating that the fear of god will finally kick in.
i do not think iran can push that far. it has to be a russian, chinese instigated type of devastation.
something that will cause the rich to panic and run. make the empire fall into complete chaos, ungovernable, and revenge can be taken out on the immune and the limited liability creatures.
till then it will be a hell of a ride, i am to old and frail to worry about farming my own food. so good chance i will not see the results of the collapse.
Feral Finster
@NGG
“Well, the orange genius is going to take us all down with him.”
Yes, but Israel is happy.
marku
An interesting aside, I rad a concern of famine in Tokyo B/C loss of plastic food packing. Almost all food there is plastic wrapped , was the theory, and feedstocks now unavailable
I suspect all sorts of odd shortages will appear, at odds times and places..
different clue
Why does food have to be plastic-wrapped? I remember a time before much food was plastic-wrapped; and when it was, it was in a primitive early plastic called “cellophane”. Of course, I also remember big heavy black-and-white TVs and vacuum tube radios and so forth. ( I remember when I was a small child the Stromberg-Carlson radio my parents had in their Master Bedroom. I loved looking at the pattern of glowing spots which the glowing vacuum tubes cast on the adjacent wall as the light shone out through the multi-perforated metal exterior side of that radio).So maybe I’m older than I realize.
( My parents’ Stromberg-Carlson radio looked kind of like this except squarer and blockier and darker-grayer and also way more perforations and the perforations were on the sides and were round and distributed in a hexagonal-close-packing pattern I think. And at least some of the knobs were bigger.)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/376536177315?_skw=%28stromberg%2C+carlson%29&hash=item57ab4e1aa3%3Ag%3AZ0EAAeSwtxlovwzN&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&campid=5338412710&customid=&toolid=10049
different clue
At his lowest, Nixon retained a worshipper-base of about 30%, till his death and even after. Or so I remember reading.
Let’s say there are 250,000,000 adult-age Americans. Ten percent of that would be 25 million. 20 percent of that would be 50 million ( if using an air-pencil on an air-piece-of-paper gets the right number).
So lets assume Trump’s worshipful support goes to 20 percent. That’s still 50 million people. 50 million people who would die for a chance to go bobbing for Trumples in the Golden Toilet that Trump . . . uhh . . . “goes to the bathroom” in. And so what if the number of Trump worshippers goes down to 10 percent or 5 percent? Add in the number of people who worship and work to achieve the ArmaRapture or the Gilead Bible Future they hope they can use their Trump to usher in will bring the number right back up to 20% and maybe higher.
They Live. And They Walk Among Us. And They Vote, if voting remains a thing.
You want reality-based? That’s pretty real. And its not real pretty.
StewartM
PLG
So his ability to end the war he moronically started may be greater than most US presidents’ ability to end a war.
Only Iran can end this war. And Iran wants (deservedly) to humiliate Trump and Bibi because they’re rightly learned that they can’t trust promises. They want the US to get out of their region (again, actually, for the bulk of the US populace a GOOD THING; for oil corps, not so much). And they want to teach Israel a lesson they won’t soon forget.
The only way I think Trump can salvage the situation would be not only to withdraw US forces, but to actually GIVE the Iranians nukes, and thus security, from future Israeli aggression. Maybe no the ideal solution, but it’s better than an unrestrained Israel. The only other way I can see an end is for the US to take out the real problem in the Middle East, which is Israel, and force a ‘regime change’ there. But that of course won’t happen.
I’m in Vietnam now, and I had already bought my return flight tickets (via EVA air). I can see the effects of the Operation Epic Clusterfuck (thanks, Bob!) here. I just hope that my flight isn’t cancelled and I have to buy pricier tickets for the trip back. I can also see my retirement accounts being pummeled by yet again another unforced error by the Orange Mussolini, though the mediasphere seems more focused on his holding the TSA and US travelers hostage due to his tantrum over not yet shutting down real elections in the US. (Though I’m wondering there, if they let people only with passports vote, wouldn’t that skew the electorate against him and the Rs? They’re not his favorite demographic of the low-information voter).
different clue
Here is a Belle of the Ranch video about the damage to US Middle-East bases called:
“Let’s talk about US bases being damaged and uninhabitable….”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtTLSEadEsM
She describes some second-tier shockwaves to come from this. She is neither weepy nor schadenfreudeful. Her tone seems dispassionate.