2. Let’s hypothesize the US gov’t or allies did pre-release this info to traders as a policy tool, inviting them to sell oil profitably, shaping the later price action . In a practical sense they may have brought more speculators to the short side than otherwise would have been there; is that scenario really beyond the pale?
3. News of war and sovereign relations on an international stage necessarily will test the boundaries of traditional law of confidentiality and fair practices.
You will see, that anything else other than a ground invasion, is guaranteed to give Iran a war victory.
America always goes to war with the handicap that 1 American life is worth hundreds of enemy lives. This handicap is why one gets the impression (illusion) that countries like Iran are able to hold their own against the great mighty USA. But if America stops playing as cautiously as it does, it turns into a very different war machine.
Woodrow Wilson only joined WW1 once the Lusitania was sunk, which caused American deaths. FDR only joined WW2 once Pearl Harbor was attacked. Reagan got away with Grenada because it was a quick and dirty operation. Same with GHWB and First Gulf War. The younger Bush could justify the Afghan invasion only because of WTC, yet even as more Intel dropped on the identity of the terrorists and the lack of progress in locating Bin Laden, domestic support fell.
> But if America stops playing as cautiously as it does, it turns into a very different war machine.
Good luck trying to convince average Americans to do that. On the other hand, the US and Israel have managed to convince the same for the Iranians. They literally rained bombs on the upper class neighborhoods of Teheran, the places where moderates and regime opposition actually lived.
The war should not be won. it should be ended before everyone loses.
* Korea: Stalemate, which is still a problem now 70
years later
* Vietnam: Loss
* Gulf War: Victory
* Afganistan: Loss, after 20 years of fighting
* Iraq: Mixed results after 8 years: Saddam Hussein threat
eliminated, Iran and ISIS made significant gains
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
Iran is far more capable militarily than Iraq and Afghanistan and, particulary, their military may be world's the leading experts on assymetric warfare; they train everyone else - Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc. Their proxies held off the US military and allies in Iraq, a neighboring country, where Iran had far less motivation than to defend their own homes from a US invasion.
The US could win given unlimited political will and time, but it would be very costly and anyway, the US couldn't sustain that will for much easier situations in the prior two wars. Nobody is crazy enough to launch a ground invasion of Iran, I hope.
My analysis and my comment I linked to agrees. And that is a strategic victory for Iran, Russia, China and a defeat for Israel, and the US. The worst will be the Gulf States hostages of their dueling stock pile of defense missiles running out...to which they will have to queue for, with US DOD at the front of the queue.
No one ever really wins in war, except those not participating.
The US is an oil exporting country and the people pulling the puppet strings of the dominant party in power directly benefit from high oil prices.
Further, oligarchical political-economic structures also benefit from "chaos is a ladder" scenarios where their privileged knowledge and access to decision makers gives them the ability to benefit from every new conflagration. The insider trading examples are only the trip of the iceberg.
The "war" will wind down after they've made their profits and redistributed the wealth and control as they set out to do.
Gone are the days where ruling elites benefited from international commercial stability. Those with power right now want chaos, and they will continue to create it until they are held to account.
Note that all of above applies just as well to the rulers of Iran as it does to the United States. It is the people who suffer, not the elites.
If you step back, in 1979 Iran launched a revolution that had an avowed goal of “death to America”. If the Iranians play the kinetic scenario to the bitter end, they simply are demonstrating this was not mere poetry and there never was any other off-ramp, just tactically deciding at what relative strength these two systems will collide.
So Iran loses by demonstrating irrational resolve in antisocial tactics, like firing missiles randomly at neutral neighbors, which is the same precondition you take as gating victory. Conflicts are played out in the real world specifically to resolve inconsistent modeling like this held by different sides, and all parties would be well served by finding a better way to resolve the conflicting modeling here, because the most likely scenario currently is that everyone loses.
On the other hand an inadvertant success, like Venezuela, could accelerate those plans.
All conflicts, with the exception of genocidal or total war style conflicts - end with some kind of settlement, in which each side makes concessions, and then tries to sell it as a victory to their domestic audience.
This will be no different, which is why people are already lining up to spin everything and argue about who is the real winner or loser. That they have no problem expoliting the conflict for domestic political gain makes it clear that no one takes this war very seriously.
If there was a real winner or loser, no one would need to argue about it, it would be clear to everyone, since the loser would be under occupation, and that's not going to happen here, neither to the US, nor to Iran. This entire war is two sides shooting missiles and bombs at each other from a safe distance.
.. per [John] on Krugman's substack.
Trump war goal are to destroy Iranian nuclear capabilities, and to change the Iranian government.
If he succeed, victory. Otherwise, defeat.
If only Muad'dib were here. He could find a way through.
So can the US leaving Iran without means for existence. Right now Iran can export own oil but denies Arab countries form exporting their oil, I don't think such arrangement could last indefinitely.
Not saying it's a great plan but I think Trump may be thinking that way.
2. They definitely did. There's evidence from prediction markets too, and the timing is within 15 minutes of the press conference. It's beyond the pale because this was a quid pro quo action, where Trump toyed with people's lives so that his campaign donors could profit off his otherwise pointless war.
3. Not true. It is unusual for militaries to preannounce their battle plans to wall street speculators so that those speculators can make a quick buck.
i imagine both sides are actually in the same game.
why do u think trump allow iran to sell oil still -_-. there was a lovely post earlier today on HN laying it all out pretty eloquently.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47499822
i personally think the people who do _business_ on both sides will find their way to profit out of this. as they always do.
if u look at the timing of statements u can see its just a game.
- Pakistan has a defense treaty with Saudi Arabia.
- Saudi Arabia has been attacked.
- Witkoff claims to negotiate with Iranians in Pakistan and Iran denies it. Witkoff has a horrible track record in that either the negotiations fail or are a precursor to attacks.
- What better way to spend time in Pakistan than to recruit a proxy and promise US money to the cash-strapped government?
The thing is - insider trading is illegal but it's poorly defined.
Martha Stewart wasn't convicted of insider trading - she was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to a federal investigator.
Mark Cuban wasn't convicted of insider trading either. He wasn't convicted at all. He kept his mouth shut and the jury found him not guilty of insider trading.
Her blunder was thinking she was too special (or too rich?... she wasn't really that rich) to have to deal with the laws, so she tried to scheme her way around the punishment.
As I recall, her insider trade only made or saved her something like $64k. That's laughably small, and the final punishment to her would have been little more than a slap on the wrist had she not blown it up by lying and cheating to avoid the original punishment.
It's not some innocent mom who accidentally listened to some advice, she really should have known better.
In terms of how this impacts prices, the headline number is usually Brent crude, but there are a number of different "flavors" with various geopolitical factors that influence price[1]. For example, the US market is going to respond differently then the Indian market. The former is a net exporter halfway across the globe from the conflict area, the later gets a substantial portion of their oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
If the conflict carries on for a while things will probably normalize across markets as production and shipping adjust to the new reality. But in the short term you are going to have some folks mildly inconvenienced by slightly higher prices, while other folks might not even be able to fill their tanks.
Who cares what the real price is, right? - especially when you've never pumped you own gas into your car, and you are so out of touch with normal life that you think life insurance costs $15 or $20 (I believe those were the numbers he threw out a few years ago on an interview.)
It can blow up a few high ROI targets, but that ROI isn't from the cost of rebuilding - it's from the opportunity cost of not having them.
Wait. I've heard this story before. Let's ask any of the recently "liberated" countries how that worked out for them...
And the US will clearly have failed to protect allies and project force in the Gulf. If the bulk of OPEC moves to a basket currency trade to ally more with PRC, India, and Russia that will be an astonishing failure.
I wouldn't have thought even Trump and this Republican administration was incompetent enough to break the petrodollar, but here we are, just one year in.
Also, don't look at fracking production curves. Bakken and Eagle Ford are foreshadowing the Permian.
Don't elect a geriatric compromise candidate. The current administration's excesses create a massive opportunity for a pendulum swing. It's really not that hard. Hold yourself, your neighbors, your family and your friends accountable for who they vote for. And as tempting as it is, don't give into cynicism. It will take work but change for the better is always possible, and really in America, is far less out of reach than it would often seem.
You're also up against a large population which has been brainwashed, and even if someone deprogrammed is still not intellectually capable of reasoning beyond their own immediate interests. In other words, a democracy where ignorant people can vote is ultimately doomed to look quite like what we have now.
> the same powerful interests who chose to put a lunatic in charge.
I don't think this is accurate as a fact of recent history. As I recall, said interests wanted a repeat of Bush v Clinton. While they may have fallen in line since, I think this picture you are painting misses a lot of nuance. The current president was considered a joke up until the votes started coming in. So I think you are painting with an overly broad brush.
Secondly, at a certain point this starts to read like little more than cynicism. What is a suggestion you have, that isn't merely one in the negative? I genuinely sympathize with your perspective, but I'm curious what the subsequent step is then meant to be.
Thirdly, preventing egregious wrongs is pretty important. I don't believe rule of law is permanently out of reach. If your basis for this is the broad brush you painted earlier well then I don't think that actually computes. And I don't think preventing egregious wrongs should be minimized, even if structural issues are a barrier to "righting wrongs" as I believe you correctly put it. Solving those structural issues is a longer discussion, and one predicated on the requirement that there is no longer a "lunatic in charge".
That in of itself, is important. Let's also remember they could have brought the cases earlier. Your comment doesn't really address that, unless you are essentially claiming someone paid off Garland to dither away for 3 years. I gather that is not your claim? Therefore I think you're being overly cynical. As I said, in many ways it's not that complicated.
Impossible. Democratic Party power is concentrated into a gerontocracy mostly interested in preserving their own wealth/power. Appeasement and encouragement of status quo will be the result of any Democrat victory.
Of course all this Trump shit is good precedent for them to use similar tactics to line their pockets next time.
It's not like you see better behaviour from 41 year old Zuckerberg or other younger founders.
At least with old people, you eventually have a slim chance to be one of the old bastards in charge.
Does everyone still believe this will be possible/happen/allowed by the current regime?
Why don't you work on lobbying your grandparents and their vote because I seriously doubt you are equipped for whatever armed conflict you are imagining. Have some dignity. If Americans are so called upon to defend the constitution then so be it, there is no need to prematurely soil your pants about it.
> Does everyone still believe this will be possible/happen/allowed by the current regime?
Note the previous riot was unsuccessful. And probably he'll try something similar this time so the relevant services know what to expect.
People with strong political beliefs are going to turn their head to keep their side in power rather than put someone in power that will push policies they are fundamentally against.
Blagojevich was not replaced by a Republican.
At this point presidential elections are won by getting members of the other side to stay home. So encourage young people to get out and vote if you want a Democrat. Don’t waste your breath telling someone who cares about gun rights to vote for a Democrat.
Your comment reads like you are arguing with yourself. I never suggested anything to the contrary of much of what you write, so frankly I have no idea what point you are trying to make. I suggest you re-read my comment in full as I think we are predominantly in agreement.
There was an AskHistorians post about the French revolution a few years ago that really stuck with me:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/w18qt5/what_...
> Stability had hardly been a hallmark of the Revolution til that point, and really what we have seen is a revolving door of men rising to the summit of power, only to realize that once your head is above the rest it's a prime target for the guillotine. Of the early years of the Revolution, virtually any man who had been considered a leader was either dead or in exile. The King was executed in January of 1793. The Girondin, formerly indistinguishable from the 'left,' went en masse to the guillotine in October 1793. Danton & friends (dubbed by Robespierre 'the indulgents'), the literal authors of the Insurrection of August 10th which overthrew the King and declared the Republic, the 'giant of the Revolution,' had been executed in April 1794. Interspersed with these prominent deaths were hundreds of individuals who had been important players in the Revolution, whether in national or local politics, and who had now paid the price for their notoriety
In times of crisis and scarcity, the usual outcome is that anyone whose ego is big enough to think that he can lead or profit finds that they become a target for elimination. The folks who survive are the ones who focus on, well, surviving. We're headed for one of those times of crisis now, though most people don't want to admit it, and a lot of the people who are profiting off ill-gotten gains now may find that they don't live to enjoy it simply because it gives them a taste for profiteering that eventually makes them take stupid risks.
Seems like it'd be pretty easy to diversify into inflation-protected assets after taking big profits.
But I also don't see the dollar collapsing any time soon. The dollar's strength is built on the US economy, and the US economy is still one of the strongest in the world, with high productivity per person. We'll see some inflation, sure, but nothing that the rich insider traders can't hedge against.
I do not expect that there will be any real justice here. They're not gutting the average American -- they're bleeding us, extracting a small enough amount of value that they can get away with it. And we don't live in a just world.
Even if the central bank might does a bad job and make a mess of the economy, the activity of 350 million people is hard to ignore.
Is it enough to _fully_ sustain the US dollar?
Who knows, but at least there is a floor, even if everybody stopped using US dollars for international trade.
Assets are yours only as long as there's a government to enforce your ownership rights over those assets for you. In case of government or societal collapse, your physical assets then are free for the taking to the ones with the most men with the most guns, and your paper assets are worthless.
They believe, rightly or not that they can withdraw from the world with their wealth more or less in one piece to some kind of safe zone.
sorry but this is such a coping mechanism, or doomsday talking. Neither is dollar collapsing nor US government is collapsing, as there has been no evidence whatsoever of any of that even moving towards happening, at least on any meaningfully predictable timescale (i.e. 3-5 years? while even that's rich for predictions). Anything past that is just broken clock being correct.. at some point in time.
What would it take for dollar to "collapse"? What are the exact mechanisms that would be required to start that process?
What is the evidence of US government being "toppled" with layers and layers and layers of diverse (financial, legal, military, political, social, you name it) protections in place? It's the kind of thing preppers like to dream of but it's not happpening in our lifetimes.
When things of that scale happen you see it YEARS in advance in true poverty (as in people starving), in anger (as in people getting increasingly violent) at scale, in mass mobilization of masses actually looking to topple the government. Nobody is working right now to overthrow US government, there were never any organized attempts at that, not even demonstrations of a vector that can once lead there, as in it's simply not happening (sorry you can't in all seriousness put Jan 6 there as that was shocking for US political PR, but shockingly irrelevant for any country that has gone through real upheaval). US is extraordinarily rich even in it's poor version, everyone has everything to lose and nothing meaningful to gain from any "revolution".
I mean.
Do you read the news?
these protections are not working very well these days. the administration is getting away with _so much_ criminality in plain view.
I’d say it’s 50/50 the US as it currently exists and exerts military and financial might around the world doesn’t by 2029
Idk, I don't have any loyalty towards any of these political parties so it shouldn't bother me but part of me gets defensive when I hear them described this way today. (Hell, I remember being the weirdo anti-interventionist in my circles and it was always the tea party ass hats that were uncomfortably enthusiastic about offing people they didn't like).
I believe the Constitution and related artefacts should be stored in the British Museum with other historical documents. Civic religion needs to be done away with.
No wait
And what does that new framework look like to you?
1. Massively increase the size of congress. Modern technology makes this feasible in a way that it wasn't when the size was capped. More congress critters means it's harder to buy off a majority of them.
2. Re-write the first amendment to significantly limit political speech. The specifics of this are obviously very thorny, but reversing Citizens United and drastically limiting the amount of money that is spent on elections is necessary to have _any_ chance of saving the country.
No, it is mostly just the one party.
Hacks were found in the US that distribute free money, and that was communicated to millions of people.
People showed up for said free money.
If it’s the hedge funds or institutional money, you can absolutely be sure this will come to a head. People don’t like being taken for a ride, and if they are repeatedly taken for a ride and they are organized market participants they will come around and make sure there is a comeuppance as a collective
Record and wait. Justice is slow but has the power of the nation state. Once the leadership of this current government is gone and nobody is around to protect the offenders then its time to swoop in with the records and the justice system.
This is why its risky to join corrupt political movements led by old men, because they will use you to break the law, then die and you'll be on the hook. Much like the people who worked for the Soviets in the Baltics post war as young staffers, who administered the forced deportations and were eventually prosecuted ~50 years later for genocide or crimes against humanity.
i.e. everyone working for ICE today should be agitating for a pardon, given how racial profiling and warrentless raids are probably rather illegal in the long run.
this is pretty much how things will unfold in USA. Everything that has to happen will happen but very slowly. There is all the evidence supporting that.
Also something to keep in mind in the future: Old people have no reason to fear prison, they will die before they can get convicted.
The odds are too low of anybody getting meaningfully punished while they get to openly setup their entire family for generations using means and information not available to any normal citizen.
And while not guaranteed they are statistically more likely to suffer age related cognitive decline while still in office.
It's nice and clear, has obvious motivation and obvious sourcing.
Also obvious incentives: e.g. after your political career you will live with the system you helped build.
And then to compensate they should be paid more in terms of salary, even if that salary seems absurdly large it would be less than most of them gain from the insider info they use to make deals.
Take the median income, multiply it by 5-10 and thats their salary.
I don't think that this is a particular form of exceptionalism, beyond the US having a longer tradition of widespread, retail-owned shares, and law-making around that fact.
But sometimes I wonder when people are criticising the US as a culture, they're often choosing as the baseline that should be respected standards that were also defined in a US cultural context. What this sometimes means is that in internal US culture these points are seen as something that is heavily discussed, because there was a point where it was democratically decided and therefore could be undecided in the same way, like corporate personhood, or money-as-speech. In the case of the criminalization "insider trading", there is lively debate about whether this is actually a "good thing". That can sound horrific externally, because of course insider trading is a bad thing. But someone decided to make that a bad thing, and -- for historical accident reasons -- the edges of that debate was largely defined within the US.
(This is mostly just barely-informed speculation: sometimes issues like this emerge in international fora, or start in another culture and quickly spread. But the cultural and financial dominance of the US in the last century or so really makes these things often a point of debate in American terms, and a fixed point elsewhere. I speak here as an immigrant to the US and also someone who is dipped in global policy work, rather than someone who is stating this as a good or a bad thing.)
Elect people who will make justice a priority.
There will never be an investigation while Trump is president, but, it's entirely feasible to force some action in the time being to enable a case later.
FYI it may not be technically illegal it depends on all sorts of things.
If trade were made public it could be very damaging.
And realistically we don't want that. Similar with Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, better to sit on things until Trump is out of office, so there can be no pardon.
Americans have been a democracy for 200 years and have no healthcare, no public transit, a crippling drug and homeless problem, a crippling gun violence problem... The list goes on. Democracy doesn't seem to be having the desired affect there.
Why should that suddenly change? Where's this hope coming from?
Unfortunately with 90% of broadcast television soon to be owned by a single family, overturning this corrupt power may be even more difficult.
I think it’s time for society as a whole to reconsider the social contract legitimizing the wealth of these oligarchs.
At least the USA is only 4% of the world’s population so the world economy will just find other financial hubs and currencies, no big loss.
That said, it's hard to reconcile that with the fact that Democrats continue to be the opposition party, and failed to even imprison Trump over four years for the things he'd done. And even in the best case scenario, we wouldn't expect Trump himself to live long enough to face much justice.
The optimism left in me hopes that this era can serve as an enduring cautionary tale for future societies.
I'd like to point out it was NOT the Democrats who failed us, it was Republicans in congress who failed us. I'm really not sure how you can suggest Democrats failed us, when they had 2 successful impeachments against trump, but it was Senate Republicans that voted to not remove him when 60 votes were required in a Senate split 50/50. Every single Republican Senator except Mitt Romney in the first impeachment failed us. The second impeachment for insurrection got closer at 57 votes in the senate, but Republicans failed us again.
Democrats absolutely did not fail us, they were the ones trying to hold a criminal accountable. It was and always is Republicans who fail us.
My phrasing that Dems "failed us" reduces politics to a "my team versus enemy team" framing, and I'd add more nuance if I were to express it in longer form. But I don't want to get in the habit of writing purely about politics here.
I disagree with this, I think things which are worse are worse. This is orders of magnitude worse, and it is impacting my life more..
To keep things focused on the tech industry, a lot of our security is ultimately built on trust (Google and Apple won't ship malicious apps, CAs, etc) and this corruption erodes that trust.
For 90% of her tenure, her investments produced lower returns than an S&P500 ETF. The other 10% were all driven by NVDIA.
If she's the bar for one of the best stock traders ever, I must be a Buffet-level genius.
---
Why do people keep repeating this lie?
Without being able to compare future liabilities to future income, we're lacking critical context. It's like they wrote half an article; kinda frustrating.
What is in discussion, are the multiple, very feasible, and very realistic scenarios, where an increase in interest rates, and a run from the dollar...Will force the US government to spend over 80% of the tax revenue, JUST TO SERVICE the debt interest....
I love how people pretend this established some new kind of precedent.
Y'all keep forgetting Nixon.
"Now, Therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974."
This is the new normal.
I want people to really think about what’s going on here. $1-2 billion of taxpayer money is being spent every day to literally kill people for stock and futures trades.
And nobody will be punished for this. Anyone who gets a whiff of legal trouble will just buy a person.
At some point this is going to destroy even the appearance of market integrity.
1) direct increase and profit for weapon companies, military contractors and oil people
2) show the world who the boss is and everyone should stay under the wing
3) propagate fear globally and keep people aligned
And this time another one is added
4) shorting and gambling of active politicians having insider knowledge
I wouldn’t be surprised if they “let” it happen by optimizing for double clickthrough engagement produced by the inevitable “grok is this true?” at the top of every thread.
The worst part is that the only way to develop immunity to, and pattern recognition for, these parody accounts is to subject yourself to them repeatedly. So the people who can recognize the fake tweets the quickest are also the people who read them the most. And there are plenty who never develop the pattern recognition…
It’s definitely some form of social infection.
I thought people knew not to believe anything they read online?
this war will most certainly still be going on by the end of 2026
and at that point will have cost half a trillion dollars
US oil producers are THRILLED at these prices (as well as Russia)
he can't just end the war, not only his call anymore
if US leaves the strait no oil will ever get through
and there are 150 tankers currently waiting, maybe forever
So the Trump administration is passing on information for others to profit from in exchange for something else. Totally legal. Right?
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/us-secs-ex-enforcem...
https://charliesykes.substack.com/p/a-vivid-snapshot-of-trum...
Some highlights include a $580 million dollar bet on oil futures 15 minutes before Trump made the announcement of talks with Iran, which the Iranian government denied actually happened.
Naturally, political appointments at the SEC are preventing investigation.
FOX Business' Maria Bartiromo spoke with Trump shortly after the post, and Trump stressed, "Iran wants to make a deal badly."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-orders-war-dept-postp...
If i can find a link to the interview i'll come back and edit this post with a link and where it fits in the wsj timeline.
p.s. @dang doesn't work - I only saw this randomly. For reliable (if sometimes delayed!) message delivery use hn@ycombinator.com.
Honestly? It’s all pretty boring.
There's such a thing as degrees of influence. A fool who is strictly against anything Israel suggests is just as manipulable as a narcissistic moron.
After Afghanistan it went to Ukraine, and after Ukraine it has to be something else. This is the unstoppable flow of the defense industry moving to a new outlet.
We gave Ukraine a lot of old stuff from our stockpiles and bought new stuff for ourselves.
It's generally not called a "subsidy". It's called "foreign aid".
