Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand with news the US-wished resumption of talks with Iran don't seem to be happening. The Strait of Homuz remains closed, and even if it was re-opened it is never going back to 'normal'. It seems Trump has effectively generated to global push necessary to transition away from fossil fuels. Oil company share prices are retreating. Big investors are trying to offload their coal assets. China's green-tech is in demand everywhere, including in the US. We are now in the age of electricity where demand is surging.
Update: And Trump has TACO'd again, extending his unilateral ceasefire indefinitely.
Meanwhile the Warsh confirmation hearings in the US are following the predictable partisan scripts.
But first, today's full dairy auction featured a low amount of product offered and sold. -10% less than for the same week a year ago. Overall prices were down almost -2.75% below the last full auction in USD, down -5.85% in NZD. Northern hemisphere seasonal volumes are rising so global supply is very adequate. The main weakness in today's auction were from butter (-7.9%), AMF (-9.6%) and mozzarella (-3.1%). But WMP basically held its own (-0.6%) and SMP rose (+3.2%). Demand out of China rose, offsetting the unsettled Middle East demand.
In the US, there was another strong indicator from the weekly ADP employment report, the second in a row.
And US retail sales came in better than expected for March, up +4.6% from a year ago, about twice the increase as for February. And that is their biggest rise in a year. But of course much of this will be inflation-related and much just came from the spike in retail petrol prices.
US pending home sales were up in March from February although the gain was less than in the prior month. That still leaves these residential real estate sales -1.1% lower than year ago levels.
Taiwanese export orders blew past all expectations yet again coming in at US$91.1 bln for March, up +67% from a year ago and up +18.5% above the prior stunning record high. Adjectives fail to adequately describe what is happening here.
The German ZEW sentiment survey fell much sharper than the expected fall in April.
In Australia, the ACCC's court case against supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths regarding deceptive pricing practices over 'specials' is capturing attention.
The UST 10yr yield is now just on 4.29%, up +4 bps from this time yesterday. The key 2-10 yield curve is now at +51 bps (-2 bps). Their 1-5 curve is at +23 bps (+2 bps) and the 3 mth-10yr curve is at +65 bps (+6 bps). The China 10 year bond rate is now at 1.75%, down -1 bp. The Japanese 10 year bond yield is unchanged at 2.39%. The Australian 10 year bond yield starts today at 4.95%, up +2 bps from yesterday. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate up +2 bps at 4.65%.
Wall Street has opened its Tuesday trade softer with the S&P500 down another -0.2%. Overnight, European markets were even softer, down between Paris's -1.1% and Frankfurt's -0.6%. But yesterday Tokyo closed up +0.9%, Hong Kong was up +0.5% and Shanghai also rose but only by +0.1%. Singapore ended +0.2% firmer. The ASX200 closed little-changed. The NZX50 rose a very modest +0.1% again.
And we should probably note that US private credit funds are about to report their March results and especially in the direct lending sector redemptions are expected to far exceed new investment. It is notable that big-money, wealthy investors are leading the retreat and probably leaving late-arriving retail investors with very damaged positions.
Interestingly, there are similar, although not as severe, pressures in China's private credit markets too.
The price of gold will start today down -US$92 at US$4715/oz. Silver is down -US$3.50 at US$76.50/oz.
American oil prices are up +50 USc at just over US$89.50/bbl, while the international Brent price is up +US$3, and now at US$98/bbl.
The Kiwi dollar is up +10 bps from yesterday at this time at 59 USc. Against the Aussie we are up +30 bps at 82.4 AUc. Against the euro we are up +20 bps at just on 50.2 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today also up +20 bps from yesterday at just on 62.4.
The bitcoin price starts today at US$75,782 and off a minor -0.2% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has remained modest also at just on +/- 1.2%.
[There will be no video version today.]
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101 Comments
Heres some spice to kick the morning off... Revelation 9:11:
“They had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer)."
Abaddon = A Bad Don ?
Donald Trump, 45-47 (9-11)
No Kings Protests
Trumps NYC penthouse ceiling is covered with murals of Apollo
Bottomless pit? Take a look at the 9-11 Ground Zero monument. It’s been built so that no matter where you stand, it’s impossible to see the bottom…
You mean in line with Chandler’s hapless blackjacked Marlowe - “a black pool opened at my feet, I dived in, it had no bottom.”
Trump unlocks energy funds | Otago Daily Times Online News
There's always someone swimming against the tide - but that IEA link, while interesting reading, avoids mentioning whether electricity can build out electricity? And I note - is it AI? - the gobbledygook: 'Meeting evolving system needs also requires modernised operational frameworks, including updated grid codes, refined reserve requirements and adaptive regulatory structures.'
Southland lignite to urea mentioned RNZ this a.m. Long term it is just another draw-down, but short term perhaps a way to slow-land NZ food production. The proposal is inevitably on an 'all else being equal' basis - assuming dairy as formatted, continues. That will not be the case in a world where we need to do the lignite thing in the first place, of course.
Not gobbledygook, those are changes to allow for greater penetration of intermittent generation. Nz just changed its grid code last year to allow for more residential solar.
Cheers for that.
:)
I wonder where oil prices will end up if the ceasefire expires and Iran bomb other Middle East oil assets. Could we see $6 a litre for 91 in NZ? Thats if there is any to buy.
While others here like to celebrate the housing market “crashing”, this is an event I think is worth celebrating. 🍿
Pity NZ didn’t become less dependent beforehand…
The politicians are too captured. For me the national resilience lesson was evident from COVID. The banks will be a part of that play keeping governments in check while they get richer and more powerful. This collapse was inevitable eventually unless something changed. I don't necessarily think it had to be now, but it was coming and most on this site tended to agree. The challenge now is, is it too late to reform our system as a country? I doubt we can save the world, but our geographic location does provide somewhat of a insulation to the physical effects of what is occurring elsewhere, plus we are small enough to have others not see us as a threat. Unless the threat is an idea.......
Our location is good but our oil dependence is a real problem. Need the government to step up now and go big on electrification, but I highly doubt they will as that would be woke or some crap. Easier to cross their fingers and hope the status quo returns - which it probably will but if it doesn’t…
Electric is only part of the problem. I suggest we also need to explore more around for our own supply of oil to fill part of the energy need, although not to the degree it is currently. We also need to dump our aversion to nuclear and look into the new technologies around that.
But we also need to look at constraining our population. Too many people on our relatively small land mass will make it uninhabitable all too quickly.
Yes more oil supply here if possible but I suspect it isn’t. Maybe a good time for government to build an oil refinery and charge a “levy” (not a tax) on petrol.
And yes not a good time to allow immigration.
But really the main priority is that people and freight can still move around if oil is too expensive. Electric buses, electrify the rail network, these are good investments regardless of what happens with the oil price, they need to kick this off right now. I imagine there is already a big back order for electric buses for example, other countries smarter than us, it will only get harder.
Last big oil crisis everyone went CNG, this time it needs to be electric.
Not if public service fifth column has anything to do with it! Electricity does not give you process heat or hydrocarbons for industry.
"Over the last ten years or so many applications have been made by small companies for prospecting licences which have been turned down by the ministry, so nobody nobody knows about them. Fifteen to my certain knowledge knowledge."
https://rcr.media/episodes/dave-bennett-oil-gas-exploration-veteran-exp…
"We also need to dump our aversion to nuclear and look into the new technologies around that. "
Time...how long do you think we can cope waiting?
Should've started years ago. But then that's probably true for everything. Thing nuclear are moving very quickly now. There are a number of small modular designs that appear robust and very safe as well as being throttleable, allowing for demand variation. The life of some of these appear to be hundreds of years. But yes we need to have the conversation now.
Too much talk though delays action and implementation. It was always cheaper yesterday, tomorrow it will be dearer. How long can we afford to put it off?
There are 2 operational SMRs that have taken decades to develop and the performance hasnt led to a proliferation of copies.
https://www.powermag.com/a-closer-look-at-two-operational-small-modular…
Seems you've been reading too much promotional material from radiation salesmen?
"Results reveal that water-, molten salt–, and sodium-cooled SMR designs will increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal by factors of 2 to 30."
Nuclear waste is not only a very minor problem (solvable with space equivalent to a warehouse or two), but it's one that is almost entirely solvable using tech like fast breeder reactors which make existing waste a resource rather than a liability.
Compare that to the legacies of electricity generated by fossil fuels.
The problem is not it's volume, it's the extreme toxicity to life! And No, I won't "compare it to legacies of electricity genenerated by fossil fuels" because the same brain dead planet killing ideologies drive both technologies!
The French built 56 reactors in 15 years. Time and resources aren't an issue - the globes idle ship building capacity could easily be transferred to reactors if the will was there. Current high temperature designs unlock process heat application like ammonia, hydrocarbons, direct steel making, thermochemical H2 etc. that traditional low temperature reactors can't give you.
The Xuwei project is the world's first to integrate a pressurized water reactor with a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, and the first commercial application of this fourth-generation reactor technology. It is also the first nuclear project globally built under an integrated EPC model for the entire plant. Designed primarily for industrial heat supply with electricity generation as a supplement, the project combines China's independently developed third-generation Hualong One nuclear technology, with fourth-generation high-temperature gas-cooled reactor technology to deliver both high-quality industrial steam and clean power.
Phase I includes two Hualong One units and one high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. Once in operation, it will supply 32.5 million tonnes of industrial steam annually and generate over 11.5 billion kWh of electricity at peak output, cutting standard coal use by 7.26 million tonnes and CO₂ emissions by 19.6 million tonnes each year. It will provide large-scale low-carbon steam to Lianyungang's trillion-yuan petrochemical industrial base and support the green transformation of the Yangtze River Delta.
https://en.cnnc.com.cn/2026-01/20/c_1157963.htm
https://www.powermag.com/chinas-advanced-nuclear-efforts-are-pushing-fr…
"The French built 56 reactors in 15 years."
Ah, your go to...60 years ago. What have they built since and how long are what they are building currently taking?
How many SMR projects have been abandoned in recent years?
When there is a proven and viable product available to the market with firm delivery ability it may become a consideration....meanwhile time is indeed an issue....not to mention the noted fact that electricity is only part of the energy conundrum
France is an net electricity exporter what is the incentive to build more, when they have also found it cheaper to extend the life of their existing reactors? What difference does it make if the reactors were built 40-50 years ago? The point is they can be built quickly if the will is there. Yes, nuclear can produce lots of products other than electricity, as mentioned in link above.
I didn't comment on SMR's but I see DOW is integrating four in one of its industrial sites in a land of dirt cheap gas.
France recorded a new export record in 2025 (+92.3 TWh, or 17% of its production), continuing the trend from the previous year. Exports reached 103.6 TWh, while imports stood at only 11.3 TWh. The value of these French electricity exports reached EUR5.4bn in 2025 (around EUR9bn when accounting for average prices in destination countries).
https://www.enerdata.net/publications/daily-energy-news/rte-reports-ann…
"The X-energy project proposes to develop four, 80-megawatt small modular reactor (SMR) units to supply Dow’s Seadrift site with safe, reliable, carbon-free electricity and industrial steam, replacing aging energy and steam infrastructure."
https://www.neimagazine.com/news/fluor-joins-seadrift-smr-project/
Has anyone built, or maintained, a nuclear facility ex fossil energy?
No.
Can they?
Never been asked (officially), never been answered (ditto).
But the answer is bigger - modernity can't.
With hydrocarbons so plentiful why would you want to? Nuclear is making them even more plentiful.
"Phase I includes two Hualong One units and one high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. Once in operation, it will cut standard coal use by 7.26 million tonnes each year."
"In France, the world’s largest nuclear operator, state-owned Électricité de France (EDF) started construction of the Flamanville-3 (FL3) Franco-German European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR) in 2007 with the promise of grid connection in 2012. In 2023, the French government feared EDF going bankrupt and decided to renationalize the company. Following numerous broken FL3 grid-connection promises over the years, it turned out that EDF was unable to provide a correct grid-connection forecast even 24 hours in advance. While FL3 was finally hooked up to the grid on 21 December 2024, it took until mid-January 2025 for it to generate more power than it consumes. The French Court of Accounts, on 14 January 2025, issued a scathing account and cost update for FL3 estimating the total at €₂₀₂₃23.7 billion, a sevenfold increase over the initial estimate of €3.3 billion."
https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/Fewer-Countries-Building-New-Reactors
"In July 2016, the EDF board approved the project,[6] and in September 2016 the UK government approved the project with some safeguards for the investment.[7] The project is financed by EDF Energy and China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN).[8] The final cost was to be £18 billion in 2015 prices.
When construction began in March 2017 completion was expected in 2025. Since then the project has been subject to several delays, including some caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,[9] and Brexit, and this has resulted in significant budget overruns. As of 2026, Unit 1 of the station is projected to come online in 2030, while the overall project cost is estimated at £35 billion in 2015 prices (c. £48 billion in 2026 prices), almost double the estimated cost when the project was approved.[10][11]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station
Hannah Richie goes into detail on this strawman. Full your boots.
"The data suggests that the world is not getting slower. Times vary a bit from decade to decade but average times are not slower than in the 1970s or 1980s.
What should also be clear is that nuclear energy as a technology is not inherently slow: we know we can build it quickly (and safely). That means it’s the political and economic context that matters most.1
One argument I find fairly convincing is that countries build quickly when they have to."
https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/nuclear-construction-time
End of the day it still takes a lot of mining and energy to get the radioactive fuel that they need to operate, and consider the energy used to mine these resources.
Fuel is so energy dense cost is minimal in running a nuclear plant - especially if you can produce high temperature process heat or use a fast breeder.
https://world-nuclear.org/images/articles/165a94d0-9061-4ed9-b927-e6c87…
You might sound more convincing if they could deliver...meanwhile were still waiting for the statements to be borne out by the reality
It is real world construction time data. Nothing more, nothing less. What are you asking to be delivered?
Is it?....dosnt seem to match WNA reporting
"In 2024 seven reactors were connected to the grid for the first time, including three reactors in China and one reactor each in France, India, United Arab Emirates and USA.
Construction times for these seven reactors differed widely. The mean construction time for all seven reactors was 114 months, with the fastest construction being the Zhangzhou 1 Hualong One in China, which was constructed in 61 months; and the slowest being the Flamanville 3 EPR in France, which took 204 months from first concrete to grid connection.
The construction time of Shidaowan Guohe One 1 is uncertain, as there has been no announcement of first concrete. The construction start date is based on satellite imagery. Nevertheless, the construction time of around 64 months is remarkable for a first-of-a-kind reactor design"
https://world-nuclear.org/our-association/publications/world-nuclear-pe…
You have chose one year - incl. the longest construction time in history - in your seven rector sample. Hannah's data is for decades. Try harder.
"dump our aversion to nuclear" - I agree, although I am not sure nuclear is a genuine option in NZ with a population of 5 mil and plenty of existing hydro.
Electricity is only 40% of our energy.
Just sayin
Then how come we don't do more? Some winters I get to chug up the Rhone in France and marvel at their hydro on hydro systems. All old and grand scale... and way more scale that a shaky nation with many cascading rivers would need or want.
If power is prioritised over nature, we could do 1,000 small scale, low risk hydro plants - might even generate a few jobs if we didn't contract out to somewhere further north?
We are on the same page there, with caveats (and the biggie is morphing the general obsession with money, to fit future reality).
I have long suggested that the owning of energy - privately, collectively or nationally - is money in the bank. PV, firewood and food are the obvious ones - local electrification is a no-brainer. So too is local food. Some are on the case:
What can I do in response to the Fuel Supply Crisis in Aotearoa New Zealand?
The odds are looking like being against a near-term 'return to BAU'. Too much damage-repair needing to compete with said BAU, for starters. I'm beginning to wonder if the trend is to a non-global USA, hence the efforts to annex Greenland/Venezuela/Canada. A multipolar re-formatting, in other words. Not sure how that fits with ME invasions though (although the Iraq's were arguably in the fully-global era). Maybe just a case of grumpiness going down? A last fling of the dying empire? Whatever, Carney was right - we need to look after ourselves now.
"our geographic location does provide somewhat of a insulation to the physical effects of what is occurring elsewhere"
Insulation? We've had 40 years of politicians, prodded on by lobbyists and their business masters, importing the "physical effects" from overseas deliberately, with a policy of population growth through mass immigration. I guess their goal is the ecological and social disaster zone that is the UK? 70 million on a land area the size of NZ and 60% local food production.
Look at my comments - i mentioned limiting population. But yes the politicians need to be an awful lot smarter.
But these are the exact politicians we vote for over and over again.
You may have noticed the revolving door of politicians from one role to another within the public sphere and lobbying....one of the few lifetime careers remaining.
I saw that Murray. Just adding my 10 cents worth. :-)
Mr. Easton's comments about mediocrity and paucity of choice in a small nation like Enzed are relevant here.
Tony Alexander thinks NZ could use a bit of good luck atm
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/tony-alexander-reserve-bank-has-lost-the…
We need a magician
You guys keep telling me that there is no "implied dual mandate" (as I have coined it), and that the RBNZ is only focussed on inflation. Yet:
In October, the Reserve Bank predicted that the country’s annual rate of inflation would be 2.3% by now. Instead, it is 3.1% (and that's without the impact of the Iran war).
The fact that the central bank under-predicted inflation by 0.8% is worrying, but the situation is, in fact, worse than it looks.
Not only did it cut the official cash rate from 3.5% to 2.25% during a period when reported inflation rose from 2.2% to 3%, but it also predicted that inflation would fall to about 2% and stay there as a result of economic growth accelerating from -1% to 3%.
And here we are, with inflation predictably out of band and highly unlikely to reduce any time soon, and their decision is to hold the OCR. Was that decision based solely on inflation? I suspect not...
Pretty sure I've consistently said that when removing the formal dual mandate, Willis has been explicit about RBNZ required to "...seek to avoid instability in...employment..."
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/-/media/project/sites/rbnz/files/monetary-poli…
I never knew that! So employment is a part of the RBNZ mandate, but a secondary role. Which sounds sensible to me.
Seems at odds in a system that is designed to rely on having a level of unemployment to keep wages down and spending down enough to keep inflation in a certain band. You can;t have your cake and eat it.
Speaking of "We are now in the age of electricity where demand is surging."
I read this this morning. Melbourne already experiencing capacity issues.
"First, Ms Slako noticed she could only use one hotplate at a time on her induction cooktop. Then she found the microwave would not heat food at dinnertime, but would burn everything at other times."
I wonder how robust our local grids are for surging electricity uptake.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-22/victoria-undervoltage-melbourne-…
That seems to be a local issue where lots of people in an area moved from gas to electricity and the lines company didn’t do the necessary upgrades. Just another case of lack of investment not that gas is better than electricity.
The trick is to flatten the peak (of demand). Grids have to be built to carry peak plus a margin - but mostly aren't. Local PV is a no-brainer, however the cards fall; takes the demand off the lakes, can be coerced into taking peak load off, and if it all turns to custard, can be used stand-alone privately/grouply.
Ideology put us back there (the coalition were backward-headers, not forward) for a short while - but bottom-up take up has been strong regardless. Smart folk can see where power 'prices' are going and a growing echelon understand the drivers.
This is where we disagree. The way to flatten demand is via price, and at the moment peak residential electricity use is massively subsidised by off peak use. If we were all billed at the wholesale rate, we would use less electricity at peak, and buying a battery would make much more financial sense.
Almost every time we have a problem, whether it is housing / electricity / oil / etc, the issue is not the free market, but regulation that prevents the free market. If the market is allowed to create supply (e.g. allowed to build houses), and allowed to charge the correct price (e.g. no subsidies), then we would be in a much better place. Not perfect, but better.
There are times for the government to step in when the markets won't or when the markets are causing harm, but only when it makes society better, not just to get votes or make shit cheaper.
This is a good debate. Why not just have all power generation and distribution come under the government? The price being set to be affordable. Long term investment being the government's responsibility. Electricity in the world today is a base infrastructure required by the economy. Why does it have to be a commodity?
I believe people were mining Bitcoin in Venezuela because government supplied electricity was cheap. Everyone else had brownouts.
Peak use can be flattened by making it more expensive, sure. That puts the load on the already-poor; the rest outbid them but that will be the way it goes if it goes.
But the current narrative is that we need 'cheap' power when we want it, on demand. That obviously has to change.
One of the problems is that folk switch genre - from electricity to energy to price. The rising energy cost of energy means that 'cheaper' is leaving us. And fossil energy still underwrites electricity - imagine an oil cessation, and ask how long we could maintain the grid thereafter? Months rather than years, is my guess.
And thinking further - if we're in that much of a pinch, peak might not be a thing so much (not so many coming home from work simultaneously).
"That puts the load on the already-poor" - isn't that just capitalism? Its the same way we limit the demand for rib eye steak and caviar.
Although in my experience it is the upper middle who are more price savey.
The bottleneck being the distribution system, not a lack of supply. The network couldn't handle the volume required.
Looks like Trump has TACO'd yet again!
US President Donald Trump says the United States is extending its ceasefire with Iran at Pakistan’s request as he waits for a unified proposal from the Islamic Republic.
The announcement came as last-minute ceasefire talks between the US and Iran looked uncertain and a two-week truce was set to expire on Thursday (NZ time).
The only logical conclusion is that he is making good money with each threat and each subsequent chicken out.
Iran is saying they don't want to negotiate or send anyone to Pakistan, yet the US is "holding our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal" after just saying they were going to drop bombs if there was no negotiation.
Big investors are trying to offload their coal assets
Why would that be a result of less oil being available ? If there is less oil available, I would have thought that we need more energy in any form.
Thanks for enlightening me
Politics
When the Aussie ones get cheap enough NZ energy generators should step in and buy some - Coal can be base load for the next 50 years
And Trump has TACO'd again, extending his unilateral ceasefire indefinitely.
A very clear show of weakness. Trump is totally screwed:
1) Iran won't negotiate with him
2) He can't win the war by bombing Iran
3) He can't afford a ground invasion
4) He doesn't want to give in to all of Iran's conditions and retreat with his tail between his legs
So, all he has left is to make hollow and meaningless threats, lie, change his mind constantly, and pretend to claim a false and hollow victory.
Rarely has there been such a clear defeat for the USA. Trump is single handedly ruining (or accelerating) the USA's hegemony.
Absolutely agree.
Carney was right, the old order is over. Past. Ain't coming back. The US is coming apart even ex Trump; entropy is getting them (and I keep saying, those who saw the US in GDP terms didn't see Trump#2 coming, those of us who saw it in terms of entropy - did).
Welcome to the global Limits to Growth - manifesting in a not entirely unpredicted way.
So get ready for the new global power China to make the rules and call the shots in future - doesnt sound all that attractive
To my comment above - NZ should buy a couple of Aussie coal mines now while we can
No - it should set itself up to be self-sufficient.
Which is quite a different thing.
And which ultimately doesn't include BAU - which is, unfortunately, where most folk come from before they start thinking.
"He can't win the war by bombing Iran" - surely you can financially cripple them for a very long time by bombing their power, water, etc? In a country based in a desert, couldn't you pretty much wipe them out just by bombing water assets?
Of course their retaliation would be much more desperate too.
Unlike the gulf they have natural water resources and yes the Iranian response would be mass death for the GCC should they destroy the desalination plants
According to AI:
Iran is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world and is currently in the grips of an unprecedented, multi-year drought. The country's hot and dry climate means that freshwater is scarce. However, many Iranian citizens also blame decades of government mismanagement for the present-day water shortages
You don't need AI.
The water-tables in the Middle East, like those everywhere, are being tapped at increasingly unsustainable rates. Then there's cross-border tensions - Afghanistan, Iraq... But Iran has been the basket-case.
Water-cutting is a driver - most ME oilfields do it. They did it with fresh because of corrosion, and obviously used aquifers. That is over - more and more water-cutting is sea-water. Ghawar, last I checked, put 2 million more barrels of sea water in, than it got oil out - but it has to separate the two post-extraction.
For the Middle East, but for time, goes us is we burn the last half.
Dammed if we do...
I watched a few youtube doco's on Iran, indicating that the govt gave water contracts to mass industry like steel production etc which was displacing locals for the last couple of years anyway and makin the drought worse wit emptying the aquifers faster. If there's one way to have mass upheaval, it is to remove access to water.
Similar situation in California
Agreed Yvil
"And Trump has TACO'd again extending his unilateral ceasefire indefinitely . . . A very clear show of weakness. Trump is totally screwed"
After all his bluster, Trump is now trying to play the long game by continuing the blockade of the Strait and Iranian ports. Unfortunately Iran with its authoritarian theocracy government is in a far better position to play and win the long game.
The current impasse is not going to end any time soon, and unfortunately it is not just Trump, but also us who are screwed.
Trump doesnt know how to play a long game - thats part of his issues and our problem - 28 days is about his limit
So whats next on his agenda
At least his power will go after the mid terms and he will get locked up eventually along with his family members (and Orban) ( thats my prediction for those betting )
Grat i had to laugh t this; " 28 days is about his limit" I suggest it's more like 28 minutes, and somedays 28 seconds.
He's his own, and our, own worst enemy, and he's just too stupid to realise it.
Haha, I thought exactly the same.
Murray
Trump doesn’t have a limited concentration span nor he is stupid.
While there may be an element of negotiating bluster, it also appears that it presents opportunities for insider trading which is indirectly linked to him, family and close associates. While possible insider trading on the equity market may be worth hundreds of millions, possible insider trading in oil futures is apparently in the billions.
I have no doubt that the invasion of Venezuela with its oil resources, was in anticipation of the current situation with Iran.
Consider why is family not a part of this administration as in the first, His family all seem rather heavily involved in making money (although Jared Kushner is part of the Iran negotiating team he is not employed in any role with the Administration nor the Government but is ideally placed to know what is happening.)
Don’t underestimate Trump.
P8. Many assume Trumps ignorance and often crudely uncultured language is evidence of a lack of intelligence. The same mistake was made about Hitler whom the elite regarded as a vulgar oaf because of his narrow vocabulary. It's a common conflation.
Hitler wasn't visibly mentally deteriorating, nor was he 80
Well he was in a way, just voluntarily with the concoction of drugs he was getting his personal physician to give him daily.
Hitler insane? Albert Speer believed so and said so, afterwards. Mind you megalomaniacs, not that I have met any so far, would undoubtedly have a quality of insanity all on its own. Hitler’s often overlooked great power was an absolutely stupendous memory for detail which he used very effectively to catch out and upstage his underlings and the top military brass . Unfortunately towards the end, that tended to get a bit cross wired which was compensated for by resorting to raging tirades. But yes the chances of any diagnosis of insanity of said individual, at least while he was alive and kicking, would be very hard to locate.
Linguistics, both of you.
I said 'visibly deteriorating'.
Hitler wasn't that until right at the end. Both were cranially unwell to start with - psychopaths are seldom balanced.
Bordering slightly on Heller there with his splendid self defeating definition of crazy. I mean you would have needed to be mad to have approached said leader at any stage of his career, with the line of - mein Fuhrer you are looking rather mad today.
FG. The same self serving Speer who through clever track covering, personal reinvention and charm was able to escape punishment for his part in horrific Nazi crimes. It suited his ends very well to depict Hitler as barking mad.
Yes that one. Working from memory here but he used his artistic and groomed academic upbringing to identify himself as refined, thereby establishing himself as the “good one.” He was cunning enough to be the only one at Nuremberg to admit culpability. He was then able to off load the large percentage of the inhuman activities onto his unfortunate deputy Sauckel, who , was quite the opposite of refined, and did meet the hangman.
The point was about his core intelligence not the extent of his mental decline.
I'd have said 120 IQ in his hey-day - forgetting the obvious narcissism/spectrum stuff. Maybe.
But it is how we use what we have, that counts more.
He is in trouble now - clearly bewildered but retaining arrogance; surrounded by one-wing-low fliers (Hegseth I've said before reminds me of McCarthy) and anybody with any get conscience has long gone.
The Iranian war is not going to end anytime soon, and as such, the repercussions for the entire global economy are going to be extremely serious. For NZ, this could be catastrophic.
Trump, clearly freshly emboldened and gung ho from his "success" in Venezuela, thought the overthrow of the Iranian leadership would be a 96-hour turn-key operation - one where they could basically take over Iran and its resources, whilst the population would simply roll over and surrender their national security and sovereignty to Washington and Wall Street.
Of course, this didn't happen, and predictably, Trump and his admin had no plan B because they were so drunk on their own hubris and propaganda.
Now he is desperate to find an off-ramp so that he can try to save face over the debacle that he orchestrated and so that he and both houses can try to survive the Midterms, and in doing so avoid impeachment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqWnPfoZkgM
Below is an opinion from Matt Hoh, former US Marine Corps Company Commander - also a former U.S. State Department official, and military veteran known for resigning in 2009 in protest of the U.S. war strategy in Afghanistan. He has also worked as a senior fellow at the Centre for International Policy, focusing on foreign policy and veterans' issues.
JudgeNap at ~22:00... "Who controls the Straits of Hormuz?"
CPT. Matt Hoh..."Well, the Iranians control it - as long as the Iranians can use their drones and missiles, as well as their other assets, their speed boats, their mines, etc - but as long as the Iranians have that control by fire, of the straits, which again is something else that's impossible for the Americans to destroy unless they choose to fully occupy Iran, then the Iranians control Hormuz - its that simple.
THE KEY POINT...The Iranians are always going to control the Straits of Hormuz - we can fight against them all we want, but that is the reality and the best thing the US and the RoW can do is to get into some agreement with the Iranians that respects their sovereignty, respects their control of the straits, and that doesn't allow for something like this to happen again.
Read somewhere, an old interview I think, that prior to his removal in 1979, even the Shah himself avowed Iran historically and in principle, had always been in control of the Straits. The situation today has made the Straits of course very famous but it has enlightened Iran, if it wasn’t already known, as to what a powerful tool they thus possess in terms of global influence and interests. As well they have had it confirmed, so long as their military remains intact and loyal to the regime, or is itself in reality the regime, they can say as they like, and do as they like, and if the two don’t agree, there is not much anyone else can do about it.
FG. Is the ability to blockade Hormus really all that powerful though for a country critically dependent upon it for its own economic sustenance?. It's a two edged sword that if deployed guarantees considerable self harm. Everyday the ceasefire lasts is a step closer to the next inflection point in this conflict - when Iran runs out of oil storage capacity. It suits the US to now sit tight for a while.
Regardless of what adverse economic , societal and industrial ramifications are involved it all boils down to how and what the Iranian hierarchy think they are doing and who exactly is going to hold them to account if they are mistaken. Think how bad Uganda and Cambodia got to be and how long it lasted, in that regard, before those dictatorships were finally toppled. As said before the IRGC pull the levers now and it looks to me like there is plenty of hardball still to come.
FG. Yes, tragically more suffering for the poor Iranian people ahead for sure. Re comparisons with Uganda and Cambodia, both were largely irrelevant to the big power players and thus mostly ignored, or at least in Cambodias case until neighbouring Vietnam finally lost patience and ended the Khmer Rouge madness. Iran is a very different scenario. It's a China containment exercise, building on the recent US Venezuela flex. The big teams are head to head and the IRGC will not be allowed to unilaterally call the shots. The various intel agencies will be hard at work internally nurturing and probably arming cells within Iran.
Well to be self centred about it all, given our forthcoming mutual need for peaceful scheduled and uninterrupted travel I am very receptive to be proven to have been overstating the duration of the current difficulties.
Hints of desperation not detected.
It's all about pain tolerance. The average American pulling up to the gas station to fill up the Dodge Ram will decide the path forward. Iranians on the other hand, have lived under Sharia law for 40 years and have no water.
They have a shared belief, a culture (the RAM set are not a culture anymore; they're dog-eat-dog) and a longer-held resentment of foreign resource-extractors (read; colonists).
We are in rare agreement. If the IRGC is able to convince the faithful that this is a holy war, their pain tolerance threshold will become enormous. On RAM people not being a culture anymore, I'm guessing you haven't been to the US in a while where it's still very much alive and kickin, doggone it.
Not just the RAMs, the Durangos, in the hands of the deadlier side of the species, were not far off being confronted by Zeus in his chariot.
Ha. Speaking of chariots, on my last trip there I spotted in a supermarket carpark a grotesquely huge black Ute fitted with long stainless tapered spikes instead of wheel nuts. Zeus would have nodded approvingly. Madness, imagine a close brush with a pedestrian.
Ah ha. Someone’s been to see Ben Hur. Stephen Boyd’s evil spinners versus Charlton Heston’s pure white steeds,
Patrick Henningsen weighs in at 1:27...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QbCLfHSins
"Unfortunately, Nima, it looks like our greatest fears have been realised - it was what I was saying when they declared this so-called ceasefire, or Islamabad talks. It just seemed to me that I didn't see any fundamental changes in the way the US was preparing for negotiations.
The types of people they were sending were not real diplomats. They sent two of the shadiest people imaginable, who are effectively Israeli assets, that's Steve Whitkoff and Jarrod Kushner. They were sent to make sure that nothing happens.
It is the same reason they were deployed by the Trump admin to Moscow, to preside over supposed talks between Russia and Ukraine - Whitkoff and Kushner are sent to make sure that nothing happens. They are there to make sure that there is no political settlement. That's why they are deployed. In this case, they are working on behalf of Israel.
J D Vance was sent to provide some level of legitimacy to the team, but also, if it went horribly wrong, then he could take the majority of the blame. So he is something of a cushion, if you will, for the Trump Admin - he himself has no agency at all - no autonomy - he probably doesn't understand the issues particularly well - he seemed to be unprepared and to be kind of making it up as he goes along - sort of winging it, if you will.
Based on that, I had no expectations that this was a serious negotiation - really, it's what I said at the time - they are buying time to reload and rearm, basically. And Israel needed this time to reposition itself.
And we need to understand that the game the US and Israel are playing with the world is to give the impression that they are two seperate actors - that somehow they are working independently and that the US is trying to restrain Israel and so forth. The reality is that they are working on joint strikes together, and I think it is pretty certain that the US and Israel are planning a joint strike on Iran, and it is going to be done in tandem, in addition to what Israel is doing in Lebanon.
And Israel did not honour the ceasefire in Lebanon....
.......................
The US is in permanent escalation mode - they are not able to de-escalate - they are caught in what International relations scholars, and John Mearsheimer might call, an escalation trap right now."
Hennington at 16:00...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QbCLfHSins
"What is the legal basis for the Straits of Hormuz right now? So from an international law point of view, who's territorial waters are we dealing with - well, we are dealing with Iran and Oman. And so what is the context of this? It is not normal. It is not peacetime.
This is wartime, and it is going to remain wartime and so Iran is within its rights under international law and precedent to secure or try to mitigate any direct threats to its security, because it is a victim of an unprovoked, undeclared war of aggression by the US and Israel.
So until that situation is resolved, there must be an interim accord, and then that would lead to a treaty. Until that is resolved, then Iran is within its rights under precedent and international law to manage their near abroad, in this case their territorial waterways and security interests as they see fit during a state of war. And so all the normal freedom of navigation norms are suspended. The US and Israel broke that situation, and we are in a state of war.
And so the question is, how do you get to an accord or a treaty? - you need a competent diplomacy team that is disciplined and patient, and a political willingness to be there to come to that final conclusion that both parties will credibly respect. The US is currently disqualified on both of those fronts, and Israel is not even in the picture.
And so Iran must maintain control of Hormuz for the indefinite future. I don't believe this President is capable of signing any treaty to end this war. It won't happen in two years. It would be a huge knock to Trump's galactic ego. I mean, he is like the planet Jupiter - he thinks he has such gravitational pull - he cannot accept any kind of accord or compromise, much less any kind of peace treaty - he just wouldn't be able to accept it.
I think this suits the US in its overall grand strategy to try to throttle global oil and gas, and then use that for strategic advantage to then sell product at the highest possible price, but also to determine who gets energy and who doesn't.
And also they are quite happy to throw the Arabs under the bus - the Gulf Monarchies, and they have just replaced them with an entirely new basin of petro and gas dollars which is Europe.
By nature of the fact that the supplies of Qatar's LNG to Europe's southern flank are now severely throttled, the US almost has a working monopoly over European gas, which is the most important for geopolitical and regional leverage - more so than oil, which can be almost ubiquitously sourced, almost globally.
If you look at the fact that the Russians have banned gasoline exports in order to protect the stability of their domestic market because their export facilities have been damaged so badly from successive Ukrainian drone attacks. And so the US is facilitating those attacks by supporting Ukraine under the Trump admin - its certainly not stopping them, and the European NATO allies, which Trump pretends to have an adversarial relationship with - I believe a lot of this is just theatre.
The US is very happy with NATO and itself backing Ukraine as a proxy to weaken Russia's ability to export oil and gas. The US destroyed the Nordstream Pipeline in 2022. In doing that, they set the stage for what we are seeing right now. And of course, throttling China's ability to get sufficient supplies is a by-product that's easy to sell to the US Congress and to all the warhawks there who think that China is the enemy.
And so seizing control of Venezuela's world-leading oil reserves is also part of the strategy and ramping up US production."
Prof John Mearsheimer explains Trump's rationale for invading Iran.
As one commenter put it...
"Mr Mearsheimer was harrassed by the Israel lobby for decades for exposing the truth, he was called an antisemite and conspiracy theorist - yet everything he wrote back in the day is turning out to be 100% accurate. A true hero, I wish men like John would be running the US instead of the orange wannabe dictator."
...end quote...
Trump reportedly went against the advice of his military chiefs and intelligence, and instead was sold a bill of goods by Israel - IOWs, that they would win a quick and decisive victory, and therefore they wouldn't have to worry about Iran closing the Straits of Hormuz.
And hence there is NO plan B...
19 Apr 2026: Trump posted a video of Frank Sinatra performing "My Way" on Truth Social. See here:
“And now, the end is near / And so I face the final curtain… Regrets, I’ve had a few / But then again, too few to mention… I did it my way.”
20 Jan 2021: Newsweek: Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ Serves as Musical Bookends for Trump’s Presidency. See here
Song originally written and sang by Claude François under the title "Comme d'habitude", then poached and translated by the Sinatra team a couple of years later.
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