Ian Welsh

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

Author: Sean Paul Kelley Page 1 of 12

'89-'93 BA History, Houston
'95-'07 Morgan Stanley, Associate Vice President
'99-'02 MS International Relations and Economic Development, Saint Mary's University
'07-'13 International Software Sales Manager, Singapore
'13-'16 MA, History, Thesis on Ancient Silk Road City of Merv, UTSA
Kelley lives in San Antonio, Texas.

The Haters Guide To Post-Modernism

By

On May 15, 2026

6 Comments

To be read while listening to the Beastie Boys, Sabotage, at full tilt. Speakers, not earbuds you nit-wit.

In the beginning, circa 1989-93ish, post-modernism was out of step with mainstream academia. Derrida was a curiosity. Baudrillard was simply too dense to understand. (Confession: Baudrillard’s book, “The Gulf War Did Not Take Place,” is actually damned profound and prescient once you get past the kind of syntax that would make Yoda blush.) And Foucault, poor Michel (already dead by the time I attended university) was still dismissed as a fad—although of all the post-moderns Foucault’s work has aged the best and is worthy of respect. His discourses on the body, knowledge and the aggrandizement of power over all three by public institutions presaged neoliberalism. Credit where credit is due.

Sed tamen aberro . . .

Regardless, to the overworked and underpaid graduate students the post-moderns had the frisson of transgression. And nothing attracts the mediocre like a charlatan wrapped in the mantle of authenticity.

Eventually, those grad students became instructors, adjuncts and associate professors all over the country. Chipping away at the old ways by introducing Lyotard’s “incredulity towards meta-narratives” and Roland Barthes declaration that “the author was dead” both invalidating authorial intent and empowering the reader’s (usually baseless) interpretation, Derrida’s rejection of common sense and objective interpretations (known as ‘Deconstruction’) was the perfect mortar for the worst possible innovation.

It was probably Foucault, as his education included a substantial grounding in the history of science, who connected the dots leading from Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, aka the observer effect, and grafted the concept onto his own thinking on the fluid and relative nature between institutions and power.

Then, in 1975 he took LSD. The experience changed everything according to Foucault. He completely revamped his work on human sexuality and its was here that sex took on the aspect of a social construct, to be negotiated. Sex was no longer an issue of pleasure, but of truth. (And thus our sexual identity politics were born.) Foucault’s popular discourse took on a life of its own, especially after his premature death in 1984.

The post-moderns soon expropriated wholesale the ‘observer effect.’ Unfortunately they abandoned rigorous analysis at the same time and like the good mediocre minds they were, adopted a pose I call, “la pose de Sarte.”*

With a highly dubious interpretation of science in one hand and quasi-erotic mojo in another students flocked to their lectures in droves. The ladies showed up for you. The men showed up for the ladies. And everyone ate up the half-baked but dangerously sexy contrarian theories on race, gender, and the negotiation of sexual identity.

Sometime between 2002 and 2014 when I returned to academia the entire coterie of post-moderns had infected all the humanities. And the observer effect acted like leprosy rotting the academy from every which way at once.

But the classes were full. Administrators took note. Professors got grants.

“Whoa, this grift is working?” They thought.

“Nicely done, Waldo.”

Now they’re wearing Zegna shoes and hand-woven black woolen Irish turtlenecks. Undergrad coeds hop in and out of their beds like Mae West on meth.

Soon they get published in peer reviewed journals by overworked and underpaid peers who just don’t give two fucks because university administrators have proliferated while tenured jobs have declined in nominal and real terms.

Big time college sports gobble up what is left of the academic budget, so universities start hiring half-assed adjunct professors and pay them slave wages.

And still, the post-moderns strike le pose, claiming their bullshit truth is equally as true as 2+2=4, when in actuality said theory is the the square root of wildebeest horns multiplied by baboon asses, divided by the Pyramid of Giza plus the Sphinx.

Making any sense yet?

It should not. It should boggle the mind, as not one iota of the post-moderns nonsense theorizing is scientifically provable or falsifiable. It’s bunkum. A weak attempt to prove there is no such thing as objective reality to anyone but the observer.

While working on my second masters I signed up for a seminar on the history of human sexuality. This was 2015 and we deconstructed the biological focus of traditional theories of sexuality. Now there was a masterclass of freeway rubbernecking idiocy. After that nonesense, we discussed Foucault, Jameson and finally Deluze, who more than any other post-modern flagrantly conflated science and mathematics to justify nothingness and subjectivity’s role on the observer’s effect, especially on sexual identity.

Give you one guess what conclusion we arrived at: sex is a social construct.

To be fair, gender is a social construct. The Thai’s have three genders, masculine, feminine and khathoey, or ‘Lady Boy.’ Kathoey are fully integrated and accepted into mainstream Thai, Cambodian and Laotian society. But sex, sex is not a construct.

I can prove the objective reality of sex’s falsifiability as a social construct.

Question: can you have an orgasm? Answer: yes. Then you are male or female.

Answer: no. Well, I respect your commitment, snip-snip, but you are neither male nor female.

Why would the professor care about any of this? He has tenure and his agenda. Besides, he’s getting laid more than Hank Moody in Californication.

Meanwhile the students grow stupider yet simultaneously more arrogant as they adopt le pose.

A vicious cycles ensues and we now find ourselves in the present moment, slaves to time’s relentless arrow.

But as the close neared its end it was time to put up or shut up. Yes, I know how to be a good suck up of a student and get high marks!

So, I wrote my research paper on the Alexandrian Greek poet Constantine Cavafy and his catamite. I got an ‘A’ but the course, well, to be generous, it was a shit show of moral degeneracy and complete intellectual absurdity.

I’d have been better off in Amsterdam’s Red Light District. At least I’d have had more fun.

————————

*Sarte: French existentialist philosopher of high regard and mortal enemy of Foucault.

The Oreshnik

By

On May 13, 2026

14 Comments

~by Sean Paul Kelley

I’ve spoken to a handful of nuclear weapons and arms control analysts/experts and all pretty much agree that the Oreshnik, while a terrifying weapon, is actually a very positive development in regards to making nuclear weapons obsolete. Here’s why: prior to the successful deployment of the Oreshnik, there were only two weapon systems capable of bunker busting crucial enemy C3 nodes: thermobaric weapons, like the US MOAB fuel-air explosive bombs and the Russian Tosochka-2 and Tos-3 Drakon missiles. These weapons are useful for eliminating hardened C3 bunkers/nodes just behind the front lines but aren’t capable of striking hardened intermediate range targets. The only weapon capable of eliminating hardened C3 bunkers deep behind the lines are intermediate range city-busting nukes. Think a nuke that can take out Cheyenne Mt. or its Russian equivalent, or perhaps the NATO C3 bunker in Brussels.

Enter the Oreshnik.

The Oreshnik rarely carries an explosive load. It derives its destructive power from kinetics; physics; sir Isaac Newton’s laws at work. The Oreshnik moves so fast when it releases its MIRVed warheads that it is enveloped in plasma from friction with the air molecules.

Its warheads separate and move at such a stupendous speed that when they fall out of the sky it resembles a lighting strike. When they strike their target the speed and force is so immense they penetrate up to 150 meters. They leave no impact crater, but the reactive metal they are made of—a Russian state secret to be sure—for all intents and purposes becomes lava, shattering the bedrock, steel, liquifying concrete and discharges a shockwave that eviscerates everything within 300 meters or more.

After this cataclysmic ruination a molten material bubbles up through the point of entry, like a volcano bleeding liquids that were once solid. Such a scene was attested by onlookers in the Ukraine after a 2025 Oreshnik strike on a covert-NATO-Ukraine C3 bunker near Lviv.

It is the Oreshnik’s ability to accurately strike an intermediate range target—accurate to within 5 meters, +/- a small margin of error Mea culpa. The missile is accurate to within 100 meters. I regret the error.—that obviates the needs for city-busting nukes.

Why destroy an entire city to wreck a single C3 bunker when you can preserve the lives and assets of an entire city whilst destroying the C3 bunker with ease?

That’s not to say the Oreshnik is ushering in some new golden age of nuclear arms reduction.

That’s absurd.

But, it does eliminate a great deal of past risk.

And that’s not a bad thing, if you ask me.

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.

Iran For Dummies

By

On April 23, 2026

17 Comments

~by Sean Paul Kelley

On the road to Meshed, 2006.

Between 1,000-2,000 non-Iranian born Americans visit Iran every year. In 2006 I was one of those Americans that makes up a tiny, tiny minority of Americans that have actually visited our bête noire, boogeyman, and our archest of arch foes. I was there when Iran was a founding member of the Axis of Evil. For 21 days I experienced it all first hand. Iran is more than the sum of the good, the bad, the ugly and the sublime: it is a civilization masquerading as a nation-state in a Westphalian world and deeply aware of the precarious nature of that fact.

Now that I’ve established my bona fides—you know, that I’ve actually visited Iran and also wrote my masters thesis on the ancient Persian city and one time capital of Khorasan and the Abbasid Caliphate, Merv—this endows me with certain privileges when it comes to discussing Iran. One of those privileges is the legit use of what scholars and philosopher’s call ‘argumentum ab auctoritate,’ in ‘Murican that means “argument from authority.” (And yes, I was showing off my knowledge of Latin, sue me.)

So, take it as gospel, I’m not claiming infallibility here, only that I am an OG authority.

A confession is in order: before I visited Iran in 2006 I had extremely wide and deep preconceived notions about what I would see and experience in Iran. Said notions were damn near hard-wired.

For example, I wrote in a travel essay for the San Antonio Express-News that I was completely wigged out by the picture of the Ayatollah Khomeini above the immigration line upon arrival. I shuddered, as if looking upon Old Scratch himself and thought to myself, “have I just bet my life on two-pairs with a 10 high? Fuck, I’d have been safer in Papua New Guinea.”

But I persevered through my very palpable discomfort.

By 2006 I had about 55 previously visited countries under my belt, including almost all of the ‘Stans, excepting Pakistan and Afghanistan. I had also covered most of Turkey and much of Anatolia. Also had been to Oman, the UAE and Bahrain. Oh yeah, and Azerbaijan, Iran’s confessional Shi’a confreres.

So, I had ideas and notions galore.

Piling Pelion upon Ossa (IYKYK) was a lifetime of American propaganda about Iran. And a lifetime’s worth a propaganda is hard to escape, no matter how open-minded a person you are, or how supererogatory you aspire to be. Yet again, I persevered and walked through my fear.

I add these far too verbose prefatory remarks because they produced a multitude of preconceived notions about Iran. Frankly, I’m too embarrassed to describe what my expectations were. I’ll simply be charitable and go with juvenile.

Esfahan

Stucco Mihrab in the Friday Mosque, 2006

No country has ever so completely and comprehensively demolished my preconceived notions of place, people and government like the Islamic Republic of Iran did. Iran detonated an ignorance obliterating nuke in my brain that to this day is difficult to describe.

With that said, I am now going to address, in often harsh and sarcastic ways, the seven most common arguments made about why Iran is such a terrible, shitty, murderous country and why we should destroy them.

Argument the First: Iran is a poor backwards country, populated by uneducated religious fanatics.

A simple four word Google search ( e.g. iran higher education statistics ) demolishes such ignorant balderdash.

Let’s do a little compare and contrast, shall we?

In Iran 61% of college age adults are enrolled in a university. The country ranks in the top 10 of STEM graduates, with a very strong emphasis on engineering. Women outnumber men in higher education enrollment standing at 60%.

College age adults enrolled in university vary between 41 and 43% of the population in the Home of the Brave. The United States also, like Iran, ranks in the top 10 of STEM graduates. But there is a caveat: the large, but presently shrinking, presence of foreign students majoring in STEM attending American universities. Moreover, in the United States, women outnumber men on college campuses by a 10% margin (44% vs. 34% for men).

Iranians uneducated?

Not so much.

I found, without exception, the Iranians I engaged in conversation to be not only well-versed with contemporary history and issues—great at geography too, one happily recited the state capital of Missouri (how many of you know it? And be honest)—and equally well-versed in their own 3500 years of history.

But it wasn’t just the depth of knowledge they had of their own history, but the sophisticated knowledge of the philosophy undergirding the European Enlightenment right up to Post-Modernity and the deleterious nature of Neo-liberalism.

Ornament at Persepolis, 2006

I had a conversation with a Hojatoleslam (a clergyman one level below an Ayatollah) that meandered from John Locke, Adam Smith to Sarte, ibn Sina, al-Ghazali, back to Habermas, Schopenhauer and Godamer. We rounded off the conversation with a discussion of international relations, and he cited Hans Morganthau and Henry Kissinger’s PhD doctoral dissertation.

Here was no religious fanatic, clergy or not; no AK-47 waving, screaming zealot; this human was erudite, witty and, dare I say, quite urbane. Not an adjective many Americans would associate with a member of the Shi’a clergy, no?

The clergy of Iran are very well educated in all matters secular. They are so for a very good reason, too. And no, they don’t all attend meddressehs so as to memorize the Quran, although they are capable of delivering a masterclass of Quranic exegesis when called upon. And if you don’t know what the word exegesis means go stick your head in a Cuisinart. You simply don’t have the intellectual firepower to have this conversation.

Reason being for aforesaid education: these men are being groomed to lead a modern nation state. And let me stress the word modern. Iran as a nation is fully reconciled with all the varied and sundry accoutrements of modernity. Is it a reconciliation that would make Western Civilization happy? Most certainly not. But it ain’t our country. We profess, ad nauseum, to honor and protect self-rule and self-determination in theory. In fact: fuck no we don’t. But I digress . . .

Importantly, the revolution in 1979 is used as a constant cudgel and brickbat in Western media accounts as that which led Iran down the shit hole to backwardsdom, like Afghanistan, or Saudi Arabia. This is a seriously tragic misconception that I’ll address another time. Suffice it to say that the Iranian revolution was about reconciling Iran’s deep and rich past with modernity and all its complications, which is exactly what happened.

Argument the Second: but Iran is repressive country that imprisons so many . . .

. . . the next person who makes this wildly inaccurate assertion will have a nuke dropped in their crotch.

You want to talk repression, okay, let’s compare and contrast one more time.

Here, in the land of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness between 542-698 per 100,000 people are imprisoned, I won’t even bother addressing how racist our prison policies are. The number for Iran is half that. Yes, go google it before your pajamas rot. I repeat: half as many, 287-294 per 100,000 in prison.

Are some of them political prisoners? You bet they are, I carry no man’s water. But the reality of home is that there are American political prisoners also, although most that are persecuted escape to exile, eg. Ed Snowden.

And before you open your mouth and say some more stupid shit, let me offer you five words: Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

As Grandpa Bruce, a cowboy’s cowboy and brother of World Champion Toots Mansfield, used to yell at someone doing or saying something stupid, “stop milking the bull!”

Argument the Third: Iran treats women like crap; remember they killed that girl who was protesting!

This is such a childish argument it beggars belief. It also deprives the young woman we’re discussing of her second most precious resource: her agency. First being time, obviously.

I will now admonish the children in the room, children who should be seen and not heard.

The adults are talking so Daddy will now spank.

Mahsa Amini was protesting and her protesting tragically ended in her death.

How many of us will see such noble ends emerge phoenix-like from such sacrifice?

That she died for her beliefs is honorable and worthy of my respect and veneration. What is unworthy of the woman is using her to score propaganda points. And yes, I’m aware of the hypocrisy of what I just wrote. It’s my essay. Write your own in opposition if you must. But be damned sure you’ve been to Iran before you do.

I digress . . . again. Guan Yin!

But it was the effects of her death that were most profound—and I’d hazard that while unhappy she had to die, she might find some measure of solace in the climate of change her death created. Fact is, her death had and has had profound effects on Iran. Her death galvanized hundreds of thousands of Iranian women in a way the regime could no longer ignore. And her death led to significant change in Iran’s enforcement and public perception of hijab.

For example: since 2022 many women in larger cities go without a head scarf. There is no need for me to provide you with a link. All you have to do is Google it. Or Tik-Tok it. It’s there to be found. I guaran-damn-tee-it!

I value intellectual honesty so it’s important to note that it is still illegal for women to go without.

But ask yourself, what unjust American law have you, or are you, willing to break, risking fines, perhaps prison, because it’s an unjust law? That’s a tough ask, ain’t it?

If you’re unwilling to walk and chew gum at the same time, we’ll never agree on a damn thing. So, as I am nothing if not considerate, and have no interest in wasting your time, I advise you to stop reading this. It’s only going to get worse for you.

The second most beautiful mosque in the world.

Argument the Fourth: they mowed down so many protestors who wanted a new . . .

. . . I’m going to throw the next person who shouts this slogan in an industrial-sized microwave oven, set it on defrost, and thaw out their brain.

Protestors risk their lives in any and every country the protest in. Seriously, you read a history book lately? How many African-Americans were slaughtered during our Civil Rights Movement? How long did it take? Still ongoing in reality.

And what about those middle-class white kids gunned down at Kent State over Vietnam?

Protestors die. It happens. Any protestor unaware of the potential for death is a fool. Even successful revolutions eat their own children. So, please, check yourself and that moral high horse you’re on at the door—so sorry to mix metaphors—because a.) that fucker’s dead and b.) it smells very bad.

Argument the Fifth: but they are divided. So many Iranians hate the regime.

Hell’s half-acre, that’s about as dumb as asserting Jessica Simpson has a PhD in Astrophysics.

A query if I may: as a percentage of the population, what percent of Americans hate their ruling regime?

I’d wager it’s closing in on 45%. What say you?

Now, close your eyes and imagine the president is a female Democrat? What’s the percentage now?

Gotcha, didn’t I?

Second, let me guess: you think bombing the Iranians will divide them, shatter the state apparatus like we did in Iraq and let loose chaos, perhaps? Aside from your utter lack of any semblance of morality and/or ethics—the strategic stupidity on display is galactic in size.

The idea that our efforts will degrade support for the regime to such a degree that the people stab it with their steely knives and really kill the beast this time (apologies to Don Henley) is barely worthy of a first grader.

But I still gotta ask: we’re six weeks into the war. How’s that idea working out?

I’ll give you a hint. Actually, I’d rather slap you upside the head like Gibbs would Tony on NCIS but I can’t reach you through wi-fi. I’m just not able to spontaneously disembody myself and reembody at will.

Sublime.

So, the hint comes as a question.

What happens when you bomb elementary schools, killing hundreds of little kids?

Peeps in any nation be getting unified.

Why?

Well, anger towards an outsider—the other—is a universal, time-tested human unifier.

And Iranians are pissed and more unified than ever.

Argument the Sixth: but, but, Iran is an Islamic religious tyranny!

Attend: the constitution of the Islamic Republic mandates two seats in parliament be held by Christians.

Feeling dumb now, aren’t you?

This will make you feel superhumanly dumber: one seat is mandated for Persian Jews.

You read that right: JEWS.

If you don’t believe me, google it.

Final Argument: but you can’t drink alcohol!

Who gives a shit about alcohol when opium is everywhere. Trust me on this.

Russo-Ukraine War: Strategic Pause

By

On April 20, 2026

18 Comments

~by Sean Paul Kelley

Amidst the chaos, propaganda, and war porn that is our attack on Iran news of the Russo-Ukrainian war has been hard to come by. One thing is certainly clear after my deep dive into recent developments along the front is that there is a strategic pause on the part of Russia and to a lesser degree that with the Ukraine.

First, the lines have not moved much in the last few months. There are a few reasons for this. One is the Russians are having a tricky time consolidating some of their gains. The reasons for this are two fold: one is it it’s the mud season. It’s rainy and it’s thawing and that is not a good combination for an offensive mechanized or infantry. And two, when your opponent knows the lay of the land better than you do – they are after all fighting in the Ukraine – they take advantage of it. The Ukrainians have done just that.

There’s a bigger reason for the moderate successes that the Ukrainians are having. The Ukraine has ceased launching large offensives– mostly because they don’t have large scale units to launch large offensives with any longer, those units have been attrited by the Russians. The AFU underwent a serious reorganization on operational levels-there are now a handful of semiautonomous Corps running the war. No longer being micromanaged from Kiev makes for quicker decision making and faster counter-attacks.

Considering the Ukrainians know the lay of the land, their drone production has either apparently grown a bit, or it stayed steady because the drone wall has kept the Russians from concentrating their forces. If you can’t concentrate your forces, you can’t pursue a serious offensive. Then again it is the mud season so the Russians might just be consolidating their lines and waiting till things dry up to bring up reinforcements.

As History legends noted in his Q&A yesterday, Russian columns are identified sometimes 10 klicks from the front and the drones descend on them and wreak havoc. Moreover, the Russians had seen a great deal of success sending 6 to 8 men teams to assault Ukrainian positions, but this success has been transitory as of late as the Russians have been sending in teams of 3 to 5 men only to get obliterated by drones. The Ukrainians are making excellent use of first person, drones, and other drones as well.

This aids the Ukrainian small scale counter-attacks. This is smart from the point of view of the Ukrainians having less soldiers. And as I said before they know the lay of the land and they can use the geography to their advantage, mud thaw and all.

The Russians don’t yet have an answer to the wall of drones, but I have heard some rumors that the Russians have developed an FPV drone operated with a fiber optic cable that is automatically reeled out and reeled in like an open face fishing rod. I would certainly like to see one of those because that’s a pretty clever innovation. It would literally be like fishing. You just don’t want to get tangled up in brushes or trees on a tree line, which is where most of the individual soldiers are to be found.

The Russian army, smaller than official Russian claims, but larger by far than that of the Ukraine needs to find an answer to this. I’m extrapolating from some of Legends comments here but it seems to me the Russian answer to the drone wall, which for all intents and purposes equates to short range air superiority, is to find a way to dominate air space between the lines, No Man’s Land, which now stretches some 10 kilometers in places. But that’s a tech issue, not a man power issue, which Russia might be facing in the near future. It makes one wonder if a Russian version of the A-10 Warthog might accomplish under such circumstances? But I digress . . .

Russian official pronouncements say they are recruiting 25,00 to 30,000 soldiers a month. If they were doing that they would have an army of 700,000 men plus on the front lines in the Ukraine. With that many soldiers they could walk over the Ukrainians. But that isn’t the case.

Adjacent to Russian recruits are casualties. Russian KIAs are much less than the Ukraine claims. The most recent transfer of dead bodies between the Ukraine and Russia handled by the Red Cross was 1000 Ukrainian bodies to 41 Russians. That’s a KIA ratio of almost 25 to 1. This occurred on April 9. These numbers, if this ratio holds up, are absolutely surreal. How the Ukraine can continue to fight is a question for historians 100 years hence.

That said on January 29 of this year 1000 bodies were returned to the Ukraine and 38 were returned to Russia. Between December 19 and the 20th of 2055, 1003 bodies were returned to the Ukraine and 26 were returned to Russia. In June 2005 under the auspices of the Istanbul Deal up to 6000 bodies were returned to the Ukraine none were reported to have been returned to Russia.

I’m not accusing the Red Cross of accounting fraud, but the numbers for Russian KIAs have to be larger. If the 41 bodies transferred in January are the result of the capture of Pokrovsk then damn, that’s simply generalship on a galactic level. Alas, those numbers won’t hold up, but if they did that means we’re looking at a ratio of about 9000 Ukrainian KIA to 104 Russian KIA. My guess is it is more like the 12-1 range based on personal observations and conversations with Russians in Russia.

In reality, the Russians are doing a better job of collecting their dead and wounded (and those of their foes). Moreover, as Ian mentioned to me, “doing a better job of collecting dead implies control of the ground where the casualties happen.” That does not bode well for the Ukraine. I hate to make assumptions, but that’s my bet. And they’re using the Red Cross numbers to score propaganda points.

Regardless, I don’t expect to see much movement either way on the front lines– except for a few skirmishes here and there – until the mud season dries up and summer arrives. Then Russia will begin it’s assault on the big banana.

 

Did Gen. Caine Defy A Presidential Order Saturday Night and Deny Trump the Nuclear Codes?

By

On April 20, 2026

14 Comments

~by Sean Paul Kelley

Kerry Burgess on X is reporting this: “General Caine cited Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice on Saturday night, as he refused Trumps order to execute a nuclear strike on Iran.”

Gen. Caine is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and therefore not in the direct chain of command. Would Trump even know that? Probably not.

But this story is gaining traction, from Sky News, the Mirror, and the Daily Express.

I’m speechless.

Monday Morning Econ Blues

By

On April 6, 2026

7 Comments

~by Sean Paul Kelley

The looming financial crisis and the news that keeps emerging is getting so bad that it’s growing harder for me to set aside my rage and discuss it coherently.

But I’m going to try.

I’ll continue to use the framework of the credit cycle, as I hope y’all have been able to digest it. That said there are some events that are happening outside of a normal cycle, not unpredictable, but defintely wild cards and spoilers; chief among them would be the closure of the Straits of Hormuz and its cascading effects on the by-products from gasoline refining. This will lead to a commodity price spike everywhere.

I noted nearly two weeks ago, “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 . . . famine on a biblical scale [in the developing world], at least one Too Big To Fail failing, as Lehman Bros and AIG did in 2008, and the AI bubble bust.”

We are very deep into phase 2 of the credit cycle. We are closer to the end than we are the beginning.

By way of not so new but newly disclosed developments FDIC insured banks are exposed to private credit and/or equity to the tune of $1.4 trillion.

That makes up 11% of total FDIC insured bank lending. This is why I call private credit, shadow credit. And that shadow credit is money that you, dear taxpayer, are on the hook for when the excrement hits the fan.

Moreover, the private credit/equity crisis is much, much worse than I initially thought. I went full Alice down the rabbit hole this weekend. Never in my wildest dreams might I envision the inept deployment of so much capital in so many catastrophically stupid ways.

Here’s that canary, Blue Owl, I’ve been talking about. It’s getting worse for them. Much, much worse: there is a term for 41% redemption demands: a run on the mother-fucking bank. Blue Owl–as I have mentioned many times before–is linked at the hip with Oracle and its hyperscaling of datacenters. Oracle is trying to back door a Federal backstop, justifying it as a necessary AI upgrade to Fed databases, which is bullshit, but it might work.

Fun fact: all planned data-centers for 2026 are either delayed or cancelled. But we’ll get to that later.

The real problem right now is the dilemma, of which I already spoke, facing central bankers from the ECB, Japan and the Fed. I’ll spell it out again.

First, they are facing an inflationary energy shock. They are staring at commodity prices rising coupled with higher inflation expectations from consumers. Inflation is likely to jump. This places enormous pressure on central bankers to tighten credit by raising interest rates.

On the other side of the dilemma is the growing realization, at least I hope they are aware, of just how bad a credit crisis we’re waltzing into.

Housing is in free-fall, too.

The employment numbers are a joke. Sure, the BLS reported 178,000 non-farm payroll jobs added in March. Unemployment fell a bit as well. Except, the way the BLS calculates unemployment is a farce. Consider that 400,000 people exited the labor force during the same month. How does that translate into job growth? (Hint: it doesn’t.)

Unemployment is calculated using U3, meaning people who are actively seeking work and have done so in the past four weeks. A more meaningful, but politically inexpedient measure is U6. U6 “includes U-3, plus discouraged workers, those marginally attached to the workforce, and people working part-time who want full-time work.”

See where I’m going with this?

At the same time BLS was championing these great numbers, they issued an under-the-table revision of the February numbers downwards -133,000. Yup, you read that correctly. Add all the downward revisions over the last two years and employment numbers have cratered downwards to the tune of millions.

Millions.

All this data gives the Fed a bad case of whiplash: raise rates in fear of inflation or lower them, anticipating a credit crisis?

Should I stay or should I go?

Here’s the kicker that magnifies this dilemma: the signal WTI long-term futures (and treasuries and TIPS) are giving off. Take a look at this chart of WTI:

You can clearly see the near term spike. That’s the inflationary pressure central bankers are worrying about. Brent Crude is even uglier at $140. So, at present WTI is at $111 for April 2026 contracts. But take a look at the futures a year later. The chart doesn’t go that low, but the futures are priced at below $60 a barrel. That’s a $51 spread.

WTI long term futures are predicting serious oil demand destruction over the next 12-months and longer.

What, say you, is demand destruction?

Demand destruction happens when shrinking economic activity across the board globally reduces the need for energy. US Treasuries and TIPS are signaling identical developments.

Shorter version: less economic activity globally means less demand for oil. But my bet is that central bankers will raise rates at first, only to realize the trap they fell into.

Anyone want to take the over/under?

So what does this all mean? Well, EndGameMacro succinctly describes how bad it will probably get: “Unemployment rises roughly 5.5 points to a peak near 10%, equities fall roughly 55% to 58%, home prices drop about 30%, and commercial real estate takes a 39% to 40% hit.”

Personally, I think it’ll get worse. The size of the private equity/credit catastrophe has me questioning whether the Fed can really backstop a crisis this time around, especially when you add the massively irresponsible budget just proposed by Trump.

Finally, a quick word on AI: this post just confirmed my hunch that the AI craze is nothing more than a huge ponzi-scheme and will never truly amound to a hill of beans. Here is a taste of the post:

“So it is with great regret that I announce that the next person to talk about rolling out AI is going to receive a complimentary chiropractic adjustment in the style of Dr. Bourne, i.e, I am going to fucking break your neck. I am truly, deeply, sorry.“

Give it a read. You’ll enjoy it and learn a lot.

What’s it all mean?

Easy, our elites are strip-mining our economy while we’re too busy fucking around on Tik-Tok to care.

You Better Start Swimming, Because Drowning Is Bad For Your Health

By

On March 31, 2026

42 Comments

~by Sean Paul Kelley

Headwinds: “a headwind blows against the direction of travel of an object . . . decreases the object’s speed and increases the time required to reach its destination.”

Rip Tide: “A rip is a strong, localized, and narrow current of water that moves directly away from the shore, cutting through the lines of breaking waves, like a river flowing out to sea. The force of the current in a rip is strongest and fastest next to the surface of the water. . . Swimmers who are caught in a rip current and who do not understand what is happening, or who may not have the necessary water skills, may panic, or they may exhaust themselves by trying to swim directly against the flow of water.”

Last week I wrote this about our current credit cycle:

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.

Since then there, as is the way of the world, some things have changed. When facts change, I re-assess ideas and opinions.

First, the Fed, and the ECB, are caught between Scylla and Charybdis (I should not have to explain that reference to this readership, should I?): an imminent credit crisis necessitates monetary easing, whereas a looming energy shock necessitates rate hikes to forestall inflation. Right?

It’s the mother of all dilemmas for a Central Banker.

I think the Fed and ECB as per their dual remits—price stability— will hike rates fearing inflation more (and with some cogent reasons to do so, e.g., the ripple effects of skyrocketing diesel prices) and ignore the massive and imminent credit destruction—the notional value of all global private/shadow credit is about $4 trillion, yes, you read that right—that will force insurers and pensions funds into severe liquidity/solvency crisises that are both overexposed to the private credit shops and locked out of redemptions. That freeze in liquidity will cause morphine-necessary levels of pain on Wall Street, but Main Street won’t even get a Tylenol, granny won’t get her annuity payment and uncle Joe won’t get his county pension, auntie-Mae might even miss her teacher’s pension.

Meanwhile, diesel driven costs will surge through the real economy like a tsunami, destroying purchasing power more forcefully than we have ever seen. We could be looking at a real decline in economic order of 4-7% YoY.

BTW: doesn’t just in time delivery look like an idiot’s fucking fever dream right now?

Bond rates rolled over yesterday. Oil prices remain sticky. Repo fails are surging: $379 billion week as of March 18. Repos, repurchase agreements are the highest quality, safest corporate invetments in existence. Rising repo failures are a clear indicator that, although systemic liquidity exists, confidence is collapsing. Repo failures often have cascading effects on other corporate parties who cannot find the necessary funding for short-term obligations their cash flow is unable to support. Moreover, private credit redemption halts are increasing exponentially. Employment is cratering. Diesel prices are skyrocketing. Housing is in a nationwide free-fall. Systemic liquidity is perilously close to freezing up.

Folks, I hate to say it, but our economy isn’t facing headwinds, it’s facing riptides.

Headwinds are manageable. Riptides kill.

The domestic shocks are enough to call it plain: we’re in a recession. Of course, do not expect accurate or honest economic numbers from Trump’s government. The damage could be limited domestically except for the exogenous shocks resulting from Trump’s Iranian catastrophe.

The global effects are almost incomprehensible.

Consider the damage done to Gulf petrol infrastructure. When refineries get blown-up AVGAS, diesel, helium, urea and fertilizer become impossible to buy. Who cares if it can or cannot make it out of the Straits of Hormuz? If they don’t exist, whatcha going to do? These products are known as petroleum distillates. They are by-products of gasoline refining.

I can’t even begin to comprehend how deleterious and long-term this destruction will be and what kind of follow-on, cascading effects it will have. Consider that helium is essential in making chips. No one, and I mean not a single fucking Wall Street analyst I know of, is factoring in the loss of distillates from destroyed refineries yet. That it bodes very, very ill for the entire world economy is an understatement. It’s not hyperbole to say the economies of the Rules Based Order are in deep peril. Japan and South Korea are in deep kimchi too.

And India’s Green Revolution? Oh man, the carnage might be biblical in scale without access to Persian Gulf fertilizer. It could be like the impact of two failed monsoons. The human exodus? Of all that is holy, it makes me want to curl up in the fetal position.

Not a one of us–including myself–has any true inkling how dependent the modern industrialized and developing world is on petroleum and its by-products. Nor do we have any idea of the catastrophe unfolding in places like South East Asia in regards to food. For example, gas for cooking shortages have lead many people in South East Asia’s mega-cities to abandon the cities for rural home regions where cooking with biomass, primarily animal dung and wood, is practicable. Ponder that for a moment. Then consider the deforestation cascading consequences of those mega-populations reverting to 13th century feeding practices?

If you need it spelled out for you in brutal detail read this utterly demoralizing essay. We are well along the road to ruin.

I’m an historian and confess to a complete lack of a historical framework/reference to analyze and/or opine in any meaningful manner on how epic the shitstorm Trump’s war on Iran will turn out, except I know bone-deep that the Rules Based Order will collapse. The remainder of the world?

Gotterdammerung. Google it if you need explication. I’m too tired, too fucking sick with grief and too enraged to continue.

Page 1 of 12

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén