Rachel Blevins, 3/9/26
"Larry Johnson: Iran War Will Trigger Global Economic Collapse,
US Military Lying About Casualties"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Tuesday, March 10, 2026
"Growing Doubts by US and Israel About the War with Iran"
"Growing Doubts by US and Israel
About the War with Iran"
by Larry C. Johnson
"Despite bold claims from Donald Trump and his Secretary of War that Iran has lost the war and is on the cusp of surrendering, Iran has not got the memo and continues an unrelenting wave of a drone and missile attacks on US targets in the Persian Gulf and on targets throughout Israel. During an interview with CBS News, Donald Trump stated that the “military operation” against Iran is actually completed. He said: "I think the war, by and large, is over. They [the Iranian side] have no fleet, no communications, no aviation left."
In private, however, Trump’s advisers have urged him privately to look for an exit plan from the Iran war amid spiking oil prices and concerns that a prolonged conflict could spark political backlash, according to WSJ. Officials close to the president are urging him to start outlining an exit strategy from the conflict while portraying the military campaign as having largely achieved its goals. Discussions in Washington are increasingly focused on declaring success and shifting toward a controlled withdrawal before the economic and political costs rise further.
I think this explains why President Trump called Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin has provided a readout of a recent phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that occurred on March 9, 2026 (Monday) and lasted about one hour. It was described by Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov as “frank,” “businesslike,” “constructive,” and “serious.” The conversation was initiated by Trump. The primary focus of the call was the US and Israeli war with Iran, with Putin sharing proposals for a “quick political and diplomatic settlement.” This included references to his prior contacts with Gulf state leaders, Iran’s president, and others.
This does not mean that President Putin is going to pull the rug out from under Iran. I believe that Putin has two goals: 1) Keep the war from spreading, and 2) Secure an agreement that will remove economic sanctions from Iran and guarantee it will not face future attacks from the US and Israel.
Trump and his national security advisors are laboring under the false belief that Iran is running out of missiles. While the US military is celebrating the destruction of missile launchers, Iran is relying on buried launchers that fire their more advanced missiles from hidden tunnels. I believe that Iran will adopt a tough unyielding stance when it comes to negotiations… Demand an end to all economic sanctions and the withdrawal of US military forces from the Persian Gulf. While the US is likely to reject those demands - at least for now - Iran is prepared to continue its attacks and is likely to introduce a new, more sophisticated missile to the fray in the coming days.
Trump is not alone with the growing doubts about the possible success of US and Israeli strikes on Iran. Israel’s confidence is fading. According to David Ignatius, writing in the Washington Post: "A few senior officials in Israel are starting to voice concern about the escalating, open-ended attack on Iran - and suggesting possible exit ramps that might halt the war before it further damages the region and the global economy..."
What concerns this official and others I’ve spoken with the past few days is that the cost of the war continues to rise - for gulf states pounded by Iranian missiles, for a global economy that’s facing steep increases in oil and natural gas prices that could trigger a worldwide economic crisis, and for Trump himself, who took the United States to war without a popular base of support for the conflict. “I’m not sure it’s in our interest to fight until the regime is toppled,” said the Israeli official. “Nobody wants a never-ending story.”
Oil futures spiked early on Monday - reaching a priceof $120 - and then fell back to around $100 following remarks from Trump that led traders to believe the shutdown of oil flowing from the Persian Gulf could be short-lived. I think there is a lot of denial on Wall Street and among Trump’s most rabid supporters… They believe that Iran’s missile inventory is rapidly depleting and that there are cracks among the Iranian political and military leaders. I believe they are grossly misreading the situation. Iran is not close to depleting its supply of powerful, sophisticated ballistic missiles. Most Americans fail to understand that Iran’s outrage over the 28 February surprise attack is comparable to the fury that seized the United States in the wake of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the 9-11 attacks in 2001. Iran will continue to attack US and Israeli targets and will not stop until the security of Iran - both economic and military - is secured. Judge Napolitano and I discussed the latest developments in the war with Iran:
"Alert! We're Being Lied To About Iran War, It's Much Worse And Trump is Full Of It"
Full screen recommended.
Prepper News, 3/9/26
"Alert! We're Being Lied To About Iran War,
It's Much Worse And Trump is Full Of It"
Comments here:
"Scott Ritter, “This Is Worse Than You Think” – The Iran War Reality"
Global War Analysis, 3/9/26
"Scott Ritter, “This Is Worse Than You Think”
– The Iran War Reality"
Comments here:
Monday, March 9, 2026
Jeremiah Babe, "Markets Down 1000… Then Up 200?! What Is Really Going On?! Mass Market Manipulation"
Jeremiah Babe, 3/9/26
"Markets Down 1000… Then Up 200?!
What Is Really Going On?! Mass Market Manipulation"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Endless Horizon"
Full screen recommended.
Deuter, "Endless Horizon"
○
"I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colors and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, not any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.
That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense.
For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue."
- William Wordsworth,
"Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"
"An Astonishing Look to the Heavens"
Full screen recommended.
"Jaw-Dropping First Images from the 3.2 Trillion Pixel Camera
At The Vera C. Rubin Observatory"
"Explore the universe's first images from the Vera Rubin Observatory's 3.2 trillion-pixel camera. Witness breathtaking views of galaxies, nebulae, and even asteroids, all captured in unprecedented detail. The video delves into the camera's unique capabilities and reveals its groundbreaking data collection process."
Comments here:
"Against All Odds..."
"There's a little animal in all of us and maybe that's something to celebrate. Our animal instinct is what makes us seek comfort, warmth, a pack to run with. We may feel caged, we may feel trapped, but still as humans we can find ways to feel free. We are each other's keepers, we are the guardians of our own humanity and even though there's a beast inside all of us, what sets us apart from the animals is that we can think, feel, dream and love. And against all odds, against all instinct, we evolve."
- "Grey's Anatomy"
"Iran Just Hit a Gulf Oil Refinery - The Energy War Has Begun"
Full screen recommended.
Money Over History, 3/9/26
"Iran Just Hit a Gulf Oil Refinery -
The Energy War Has Begun"
"A major escalation has just hit the global energy system. Iran has reportedly targeted a Gulf oil refinery, triggering massive fires and forcing energy infrastructure offline. As Gulf refineries, LNG plants, and oil facilities come under pressure, global oil prices are surging and markets are reacting across Asia, Europe, and the United States. Brent crude has already surged dramatically, global stock markets have lost trillions in value, and analysts warn the world could be entering a new phase of an energy war that could push oil toward $150–$200 per barrel. This conflict is no longer just regional - it is now impacting global energy, markets, and supply chains."
Comments here:
"We're In Trouble, Gas/Diesel Prices Skyrocketing"
Adventures With Danno, 3/9/26
"We're In Trouble, Gas/Diesel Prices Skyrocketing"
Comments here:
"Alert! Oil War Ramps Up, US Attacks Iran Oil Tankers, Trump Panics!"
Full screen recommended.
Prepper News, 3/9/26
"Alert! Oil War Ramps Up, US Attacks
Iran Oil Tankers, Trump Panics!"
Comments here:
"The Cloak of The Past..."
“The cloak of the past is cut from patches of feeling, and sewn with rebus threads. Most of the time, the best we can do is wrap it around ourselves for comfort or drag it behind us as we struggle to go on. But everything has its cause and its meaning. Every life, every love, every action and feeling and thought has its reason and significance: its beginning, and the part it plays in the end. Sometimes, we do see. Sometimes, we see the past so clearly, and read the legend of its parts with such acuity, that every stitch of time reveals its purpose, and a kind of message is enfolded in it. Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny, precious wisdom that they give to us, even those dread and hated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be.”
- Gregory David Roberts, “Shantaram”
"The Slow Unwinding of Our Primate Troops"
"The Slow Unwinding of Our Primate Troops"
by Paul Rosenberg
"The primary organizational model of humanity is the primate troop. That may seem degrading, and in a way it is, but it’s also the truth. I spent many pages detailing this in "Post-Primate Society," and won’t go through it all here, but the few ruling over the many and status hierarchies are very definitely primate models. Humans hybridize them, of course, and justify them far more intricately, but the central model of human organization is the primate troop, writ as large as possible. Whether or not this is comfortable or flattering are separate issues; the facts are quite clear enough for those who wish to see them. The good news is that we’re growing out of the primate model, and rather more quickly of late.
“Primate ways” are rooted in primate chemistry, and it’s a chemistry that we humans have inherited. Our hormones, among other things, are primate hormones, and while we’ve come a long, long way from baboons and chimps, primate chemicals do have their effects in us. Here, just to establish primate style, is a passage from "The Primate Origins of Human Nature," by Carol P. Van Schaik: Animals in groups can often be ranked in a dominance hierarchy, based upon who can displace or attack whom and who must flee or acknowledge subordinate status. And so the dominance hierarchy rules primate living."
And as noted above, it remains the primary organizing principle of human groups, even in our technological age. Nation-states, to be blunt about it, are little more than elaborate primate troops: "Primate life involves layers of status and privilege, with big animals at the top, punishing those who fail to obey. Human life involves layers of status and privilege, with rulers at the top, punishing those who fail to obey.
This model has remained intact through monarchies, democracies, communist regimes, theocratic regimes, and indeed every variant of the few ruling over the many. Justifications for this primate model – everything from the divine right of kings to the assertions of Rousseau and Hobbes – change nothing: The fundamental operating statement of every “few” ruling over every “many” has been identical: Do what we say or we’ll hurt you."
Whether or not they’ve ever examined it, people understand that there’s not just a troop-not troop line, but borders between each level of the social hierarchy. And there are hormonal barriers between the levels. Imagine standing at a cocktail party with rich, educated, high-status types. Then imagine one of them turning upon you and loudly criticizing you for some comment you made. Then imagine the rest of them turning toward you with disgust in their faces. The gut feeling you would get from this is the hormonal enforcement of status. And it’s very effective.
There’s much more to be said about this (and it’s said in the book), but let’s move on to the important part of this: "We’ve been moving away from dominance hierarchies and into decentralized arrangements which treat humans as primary entities rather than secondary entities.
A great number of us have grasped that we shouldn’t live as auto-reaction machines, selecting from pre-scripted reactions and narrowly-defined choices. We’ve seen businesses trying to “flatten” and reengineer, the Internet blasting through information bottlenecks, Bitcoin’s radical decentralization, Abraham Maslow’s findings that human health is inverse to control, Marshall Rosenberg’s non-violent communication, free-market economics, the repeating failures of command economies, and even historians slowly turning their eyes from the potentates at the tops of hierarchies to the people who grew, built and invented everything."
These and a dozen others are recognitions that decentralized interactions are far more central to human thriving than their hierarchical alternatives. Still more important, even crucial, is this fact: Decentralized society rests upon human virtues. Hierarchical society rests upon human weaknesses. You might want to think about those two lines a bit. Hierarchical, primate-modeled society requires frightened, confused and compliant subjects; it couldn’t function otherwise. Decentralized, post-primate societies require individual will, action, passion and endurance; otherwise they couldn’t exist.
An Epoch of Adjustment: From the moment proto-humans were gifted with their prefrontal cortex, a long period of adaptation – a period of confusion – was inevitable. Mixing the operations of the new model brain with primate chemistry really couldn’t produce anything else. But we’re already a very long way down that road, and it has brought us to a surprising place. Consider this, please: Over this epoch of adjustment, good has triumphed over evil in the human species.
This is not to say evil has vanished, but among the vast majority of humans, evil is unable to win an open confrontation with goodness. You cannot simply walk down the street, find a random passer-by and get them to do a few murders with you, no matter that they might get some goodies out of it; almost no human will choose to be overtly evil. Large numbers of humans have indeed supported evil, but they had to be tricked into doing so. Before they were used for evil, they had to be convinced that their actions were servicing the good in one way or another.
This is huge… and true. Regardless of continuing and successful abuse, our goodness-producing core stands, and once our abuse is recognized as abuse, its power will drain away. And this unwinding of primate ways resounds throughout history. However little-understood it may be, another crucial development has been a movement away from collective religions and into individual religions. (You can find more here.) The oldest religions were formed to collectivize people: to make rulership more effective and more scalable.
By this model, the gods treated the populace of a city as a single entity… as a collective entity. If the god was displeased in some way, he or she took it out on the city as a unit. The inhabitants of the town, then, were trained to see themselves collectively. We see precisely this from Sumerian records, as well as others. And there are secondary effects from this: Once people see themselves as a collective, being punished or rewarded as a single unit, they police themselves, punishing anyone who strays from their model.
This model was changed by the ancient Hebrews. What they did – and the importance of this is immense – was to turn the collective religion of the Sumerians into a personal religion. This Hebrew heresy was an earthquake in human organization that reverberates to this day... and is resented to this day. (Lots of info here.)
The religions of the empires, all the way through Rome, were collective religions. Under the Hebrew model, only the individual who behaved badly would suffer for it, and that hobbled rulership. (There are a few Bible passages that imply a collective model, but they are few, old and widely ignored. The belief that resounds is that we’re responsible for our own actions.)
This revolutionary sentiment continued in the Christian gospels. The God of the Hebrews – the God of Judaism and Christianity – reached down to the humble and turned his back on the mighty. And even if modern Christians and Jews would rather not see themselves as wild radicals, they are. Not surprisingly, history shows the effects of this radicalism:
The Hebrews moved consistently toward monotheism, a merciful God and meaningful stories. The Hebrews had no king from their beginnings until about 1000 BC. And even then, their prophet Samuel warned that it was a fundamental error. The Hebrews had no priests from their origins until they were established in Canaan, then abandoned that priesthood as they left. Judaism turned the Hebrew model into a portable religion once territory was no longer available to them. Christianity adopted the Jewish model almost entirely.
More or less every time a Christian group breaks away from another, they major on scriptural passages that define and support the decentralized model. There’s a great deal more to be said about this, but all of these were steps away from primate-mindedness and into individualistic, decentralized models of life and thought… into Post-Primate models of life and thought.
We can see an analogous move in Greece, as the ancient model broke down at 1200 BC and formed into a decentralized model. The Greeks borrowed their gods from the Babylonians, but the Greeks worked them into stories which addressed men’s souls. Greek myths can help you to understand and develop yourself. In the Greek stories, men were not small, insignificant and powerless before the gods. In fact they sometimes challenged the gods and even won. Still more importantly, Greek heroes defeated the gods, not through strength or speed, but by innovative thinking. Again this created a more personal, decentralized model, in which Greek minds could open and expand. It also made it very hard for a ruler to find a place. In the ancient era kings were universal; in the Greek world they were rare.
I’ll jump forward more quickly now, but another important movement away from the primate troop began in northern Italy, as an open commercial model took hold. This model, featuring reliable currency, clear descriptions, literacy and a moral populace massively increased the ability of people to engage in commerce. And as in the other cases we’re noting, this empowered a decentralized and personal model of life. This, of course, was the beginning of the modern commercial model which has flooded the earth with a prosperity the ancients could only dream of. (See here for more.)
It’s Only A Matter Of Time: As I write this, the primate troop model is being forcibly maintained across the planet, at least at the large scales. In our family lives, however, it is recognized as “dysfunctional,” and for good reason. We also reject it for individual-level activities like Little Leagues; in those areas of life we insist upon personal cooperation.
The intermediate areas of life are where the primate model is succumbing these days, with the enforcing upper layers beginning to crack as well. And so the primate model that tries so hard to impose itself is in some distress. And like the Pharaohs and Caesars of history, it will eventually fade into obscurity. If this happens isn’t in question, only when. In its place we’ll expand upon our existing decentralized structures, improving faster and farther than we expect. This also is a question of when rather than if. Some generation is going to grasp this, and some body of people will enter into it."
"This Difficult Thing of Being Human"
"This Difficult Thing of Being Human"
by Bodhipaksa
"It's always good to remember that life isn't easy. I don't mean to say that life is always hard in the sense of it always being painful. Clearly there are times when we're happy, when things are going well, when we feel that our life is headed in the right direction and that even greater fulfillment is just ahead of us, etc. What I mean is that even when we have times in our life that are good, that doesn't last. In fact, often the things we're so excited and happy about later turn out to be things that also cause us suffering.
For example, you start a brand new relationship and you're in love and it's exciting and fulfilling. And then you find yourself butting heads with your partner, and you hurt each others feelings. Maybe you even split up. Does that sound familiar?
For example, the new job that you're thrilled about turns out to contain stresses you hadn't imagined. Has that ever happened? For example, the house you're so pleased to have bought inevitably ends up requiring maintenance. Or perhaps the house value plummets. Or perhaps your circumstances change and you find it a struggle to meet the mortgage. Maybe you've been lucky, or maybe you've been there.
Happiness has a way of evaporating. Unhappiness has a way of sneaking up on us and sucker-punching us in the gut. On a deep level, none of us really understand happiness and unhappiness. If we truly understood the dynamics of these things, we'd be happy all the time and would never be miserable. We'd be enlightened. But pre-enlightenment, we're all stumbling in the dark, and sometimes colliding painfully with life as we do so.
This being human is not easy. We're doing a difficult thing in living a human life. It's good to accept all this, because life is so much harder when we think it should be easy. When we think life should be straightforward, and that we think we have it all sorted out, then unhappiness becomes a sign that we've failed. And that makes being in pain even more painful. We haven't failed when we're unhappy; we're just being human. We're simply experiencing the tender truth of what it is to live a human life.
So when you're unhappy, don't beat yourself up about it. Don't fight it. Accept that this is how things are right now. Often when you do that, you'll very quickly - sometimes instantly - start to feel better. By accepting our suffering, we start to move through it. And as you look around you, realize that everyone else is doing this difficult thing of being human too. They're all struggling. We're all struggling. We all want happiness and find happiness elusive. We all want to avoid suffering and yet keep stumbling into it, over and over.
Many of the things that bother you about other people are their attempts to deal with this difficult existential situation, in which we desire happiness, and don't experience as much of it as we want, and desire to be free from suffering, and yet keep becoming trapped in it. Their moods, their clinging, their anger - all of these are the results of human beings struggling to find happiness, and having trouble doing so.
If we can recognize that this human life is not easy - if we can empathize with that very basic existential fact - then perhaps we can be just a little kinder to ourselves and others. And that would help make this human life just a little easier to navigate."
Gas Stations Could Run Empty As Fuel Prices Skyrocket In The Coming Weeks"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 3/9/26
"Gas Stations Could Run Empty As
Fuel Prices Skyrocket In The Coming Weeks"
"Gas prices are surging across the country, and for a lot of families, this is hitting at the worst possible time. In this video, we're looking at what's really going on with fuel costs right now, why prices jumped so fast overnight, and what it could mean for your wallet in the weeks and months ahead. From panic buying at gas stations to the global oil supply disruptions tied to the conflict with Iran, there's a lot unfolding right now and most people weren't prepared for how quickly things would move.
We're reacting to real videos from real people sharing what they're seeing at the pump in their cities. Some folks in Oklahoma saw prices jump 60 cents overnight. People in Nashville are spending close to $600 a month just on gas. Drivers in Houston are watching prices climb by the hour. These aren't hypotheticals or projections from some report. This is what everyday Americans are dealing with right now, and it's only getting more expensive as the days go on.
What makes this situation even more concerning is the ripple effect. Gas doesn't just power your car. It powers the trucks that deliver your groceries, the ships that carry goods into the country, and the systems that keep your utilities running. When oil prices spike, the cost of nearly everything follows. And with inflation already squeezing household budgets, another wave of price increases could push a lot of families past their breaking point.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a major factor in all of this. About 20 percent of the world's oil supply flows through that narrow passage, and with that route now disrupted, global markets are reacting fast. Oil futures have surged past levels we haven't seen in over a year, and analysts are warning that prices could climb even further depending on how the situation between the U.S. and Iran develops.\
In this video, we talk through what you can do right now to be smart about fuel costs without adding to the panic. We also look at the bigger picture and what rising energy prices could mean for jobs, inflation, and the overall cost of living heading into the rest of 2026. Whether gas is $2.99 or $4.90 where you live, the pressure is real and it's worth talking about honestly.
If you're feeling the weight of all this, you're not the only one. Drop a comment and let us know what gas prices look like in your area and how you're adjusting. And if this video helped you understand what's going on, consider sharing it with someone who might need to hear it too.
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "Everything Is Breaking at Once"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 3/9/26
"Everything Is Breaking at Once"
"Everything is breaking at once in the American economy. In this video, Dan from i Allegedly breaks down the growing signs of economic stress across multiple industries, including massive recalls at Ford, restaurants shutting down across cities like San Diego, major pizza chains filing for bankruptcy, and long-standing local businesses disappearing. From rising operating costs and labor regulations to food inflation and collapsing consumer spending, businesses are struggling to survive in an economy where the math simply no longer works.
The warning signs don’t stop there. The United States Postal Service is warning it could run out of money, while social breakdown is showing up in shocking stories like families dining and dashing at restaurants. Across America, businesses, institutions, and consumers are all under pressure at the same time. In this episode of i Allegedly, Dan connects the dots between corporate recalls, failing restaurants, government financial problems, and a struggling consumer economy that is affecting communities nationwide."
Comments here:
How It Really Is"
"Gen Z Shockingly Admits They Don’t Know How
To Change A Lightbulb In Startling New Poll"
by Asia Grace
"Well, they’re not the brightest bulbs in the box - and their cluelessness comes at a high cost. The adult babies of Gen Z can cry about strict workplace mores and whine over the anxiety-inducing stress of making a phone call. But they can’t even change a lightbulb, per new data on the youngsters’ incapacity to tackle everyday, do-it-yourself duties. “The ability to do basic, practical tasks is being lost amongst younger generations,” warned Andy Turbefield of Halfords, a UK-based motoring and cycling retailer.
Yamalis Diaz, an NYU Langone psychologist, tells The Post that their deficiencies are likely due to the digital age. “They simply haven’t really had to [do things for themselves],” said Diaz of Gen Z, real-world newbies ranging in age from 18 to 27. “So much of their (and all of our) lives are automated, convenient and outsourced, which today’s generation of young people have benefited from way more than past generations,” she added. “So, it makes complete sense that Gen Z simply doesn’t know how to do as much with regard to non-tech or independent tasks.” And the proof is in their helpless pudding.
Researchers for Halfords surveyed 2,000 grown-ups, including Zoomers, as well as millennials, guys and gals ages 28 to 44; Gen Xers, folks 45 to 60; and baby boomers, silver foxes over age 60, to determine each demographic’s level of self-sufficiency. The investigators found that nearly 25% of Gen Zers had no idea how to change a lightbulb in a ceiling lamp, with many claiming that climbing a ladder is “too dangerous.” One in five also worry that the bulb might be “too hot.” So, instead of risking their lives to complete the common DIY, the Z’s would rather GOTDIT - Get Others To Do It, according to the report.
The enlightening revelation comes as the latest layer to top the “Gen Z is lazy” cake, a not-so-sweet campaign that has somewhat soured society’s taste for the 20-somethings. But rather than acquiescing to the “lazy” stereotype - shade that Gen Zs in NYC have staunchly rebuffed - the whippersnappers would, instead, prefer paying service people major money to handle their minor inconveniences.
In addition to not knowing how to change a lightbulb, the majority of team-Zers aren’t confident in their abilities to clean a car. In fact, a faction of respondents said they’d rather have their parents do the dirty work for them. Less than half of the younglings don’t know how to add air to a car tire, and even fewer know how to fit a windshield wiper blade. And a shocking 30% of the group could not identify a flathead screwdriver, while 21% couldn’t recognize a wrench. One in 10 Gen Zers admitted they’d call a pro to hang a picture on a wall, too. “Motoring knowledge, in particular, appears to be on the decline,” said Turbefield, in part, “with many reluctant to take on even the most basic tasks.”
"Iran's Move Just Broke the Oil Market, Your Gas Bill Will Suffer"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 3/9/26
"Iran's Move Just Broke the Oil Market,
Your Gas Bill Will Suffer"
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "Advice For Malign Crackpots"
"Advice For Malign Crackpots"
by Bill Bonner
Youghal, Ireland - "At the end of the week came disheartening news. Associated Press: "Oil and gas prices rapidly rise as Iran war shows no signs of letting up. The price of oil surged higher and showed no signs of halting its rapid climb a week after the U.S. and Israel launched major attacks on Iran that escalated into a war in the Middle East. Oil prices surpassed $90 a barrel Friday, with American crude settling at $90.90, up 36% from a week ago…"
And more from Associated Press: "Friday’s employment report showed job losses of 92,000 in February. The January and December figures were revised downward, with December swinging to a loss of 17,000 jobs...Without the health care sector, the economy would have shed roughly 202,000 jobs since Trump became president in January 2025."
The economic outlook is worsening. But who can worry about employment and gas prices when we’re in a shooting war? Besides, won’t the war get things moving again?
Alas, one of the oldest and most durable delusions in economics is what Frederic Bastiat called ‘the broken window fallacy.’ It claims that bad things are good things because they animate the economy. Somebody sells a new piece of glass. Somebody puts it in place. Everyone gets paid and the economy booms. Even today, many people believe WWII spending is what ended the Great Depression...and that wars are ‘good for the economy.’
It’s called a ‘fallacy’ because it’s not true. If bad things made a good economy, Iran would now be getting rich. The US and Israel are now breaking a lot of windows. And spending a lot on weapons to do it. In Iran, huge amounts of money and energy will be needed to bury the dead, fix the broken windows, and rebuild bombed out hospitals. And in America, resources that would otherwise be used for normal living expenses are being diverted to paying for bombs, missiles, and aviation fuel. In both countries, capital and labor - earmarked for other things by other people - are shanghaied by the feds and put to a use that only a few malign crackpots want.
The costs pile up with the bodies. Maryland senator, Chris Van Hollen: "Trump is already spending $1 BILLION PER DAY on his illegal regime change war of choice in Iran. Now, he’s going to ask Congress to give him up to $50 BILLION MORE. My vote: hell NO."
But all of this disgraceful brouhaha - the teen-aged corpses...the flattened buildings...the smoke...the planes...the explosions - these ‘costs’ are just the obvious and inevitable wages of war. ‘Second order’ and ‘third order’ effects come later; less predictable and, for the aggressor, often much less welcome.
And they have a way of sneaking up on you. All very well, says Senator John Kennedy, to celebrate America’s great military victories...but… ‘The American people want us to focus on making their life better and making their life more affordable; not getting involved in another endless war in the Middle East that is going to end in failure...This administration somehow found the resources, has found billions of dollars for bombs, but can’t find any money to actually bring down the high cost of living here in the United States of America.’
Marjory Taylor Green adds: ‘Most American taxpayers will never receive a Social Security check because it will be bankrupt by 2033. Most Americans can’t afford health insurance policies because they are so expensive. Most American families cannot financially survive on a single income, and both parents have to work like slaves in order to feed their children and keep a roof over their heads. But the Trump administration has decided that these American taxpayers have to spend $1 billion a day to murder people and their children in a foreign country that none of us have ever met and know nothing about. Incredible MAGA priorities.’
While the ‘gain’ from war may be delusional the costs must still be paid. In the US, they are paid in dollars. So, as the economy shifts to supply war material, it ends up with more dollars...and fewer things people actually want to buy. Prices rise. They are already moving up. Wolf Richter: "Manufacturers reported that the costs of health insurance for employees shot up by 14.2% on average; service firms reported an average increase of 12.9%, according to a report by the New York Fed based on a survey of companies in the New York-Northern New Jersey region.
Manufacturers and service firms both reported that the costs of utilities jumped by about 8.5% on average. About one-fifth of the companies reported increases of 20% or more. “Indeed, sharply rising utilities costs in some areas have been tied to the explosive growth of AI-related data centers,” the report said. The report also showed business insurance costs up by 7.4%...raw materials up 8%...and the average annual for an employee-sponsored family health insurance plan rose to $27,000."
Service firms and manufacturing companies saw similar cost increases. Both had suffered 5% increases in 2024. Then, the service companies overall costs rose 7% in 2025; 8.5% for the manufacturers. Wages, meanwhile, rose only by 3.4%.
Even before the war began, Americans were getting poorer. As expected, Donald Trump is not changing direction...he is just speeding up. But, the first order effects...or even just the second or third order economic effects are merely an unfinished sentence. There are also fourth and fifth order stains...the kind that you can’t wash away in a tide of paper money. Tune in tomorrow."
"Jiang Xueqin: New World Order - Iran War Ends U.S. Empire"
Glenn Diesen, 3/9/26
"Jiang Xueqin: New World Order -
Iran War Ends U.S. Empire"
"Prof. Xueqin Jiang discusses the wider consequences of the war against Iran: The US empire commits suicide, Israel increasingly becomes a theocracy, Iran rebuilds as a regional power, instability spreads to East Asia, Europe's relevance continues to collapse as it fails to adjust to the new world, Russia will escalate in a big way, and China will fail to preserve the rules of the old world order that made it so prosperous. Prof. Jiang is the host of the popular educational channel Predictive History."
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"The Rhizome Analogy"
"The Rhizome Analogy"
by williambanzai7
"The Islamic Republic of Iran's post-1979 theocracy has proven extraordinarily durable - surviving mass protests, economic crises, sanctions, assassinations, and even recent decapitation strikes that eliminated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and top IRGC commanders in early 2026. This resilience stems from a unique blend of deliberate institutional design and adaptive responses to crises, creating a system that's neither purely hierarchical nor easily uprooted by internal revolt or external pressure.
At its core, the regime operates like a rhizome - the philosophical concept from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus (1980). Unlike tree-like (arborescent) structures with a single central root or trunk that, once severed, causes collapse, a rhizome grows horizontally underground: decentralized, with nodes connecting freely in any direction. Damage to one part doesn't kill the whole; severed sections regenerate, sprout new links, and continue spreading. Key traits include multiplicity (no fixed unity), heterogeneous connections (mixing diverse elements), asignifying rupture (breaks lead to regeneration, not destruction), and perpetual "in-the-middle" adaptability. Iran's system embodies these qualities through intentional safeguards and emergent strengths.
Deliberate Design: Built-in Redundancies and Parallel Power Centers. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his allies crafted the 1979 constitution to entrench clerical rule while incorporating republican elements as controlled outlets. The doctrine of velayat-e faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) placed an unelected Supreme Leader as ultimate arbiter, but surrounded this symbolic "root" with overlapping institutions to prevent single-point failure: Clerical oversight bodies like the Guardian Council (which vets laws and candidates for Islamic compliance) and Assembly of Experts (which selects the Supreme Leader) act as firewalls against reformist or secular takeover.
Parallel military structures: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), founded in 1979 as a revolutionary counterweight to the regular army (Artesh), evolved into a multifaceted powerhouse controlling missiles, intelligence, internal security, and vast economic sectors. Its Basij militia provides neighborhood-level repression, making widespread uprisings risky without triggering civil war.
Economic patronage networks: Massive bonyads (foundations) and IRGC-linked conglomerates control oil, construction, and trade, distributing wealth to loyalists and creating vested interests in regime survival. These layers mix theocratic absolutism with limited elections, channeling dissent into intra-systemic competition rather than outright revolution. Power circulates through heterogeneous nodes—clerical, military, economic, ideological - rather than flowing strictly top-down.
Emergent Resilience: Crises as Reinforcements While core elements were designed, external shocks and internal dynamics unexpectedly hardened the system: The 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War rallied national support around the regime as defender of sovereignty, entrenching the IRGC and justifying repression. Decades of sanctions fostered a "resistance economy" narrative, blaming hardships on imperialism and promoting self-reliance among hardliners. Proxy conflicts and recent military setbacks frame external interference as existential threats, boosting nationalist cohesion and portraying domestic unrest as foreign-backed treason. Reformist movements (e.g., under Khatami or Rouhani) have been co-opted or contained, demystifying change without dismantling the theocracy. Even after the 2026 decapitation strikes, the regime persists in "headless" mode: mid-level IRGC commanders activate decentralized protocols for retaliatory operations, collective bodies step in for governance, and patronage sustains loyalty. The system regenerates connections horizontally, adapting without a vital center.
Why It's Hard to Topple" Internal revolts falter against the IRGC's unified coercive apparatus, lack of unified opposition leadership, and the regime's ability to absorb shocks through repression and ideological framing. External interference often backfires, rallying core supporters and deepening the "axis of resistance" identity. Unlike fragile personalist dictatorships, Iran's rhizomatic architecture - deliberately redundant and crisis-hardened -prioritizes endurance over reform. This structure has outlasted typical authoritarian lifespans, but deepening generational disillusionment, economic collapse, and potential elite fractures could still create unstoppable ruptures. Until then, the Islamic Republic endures as a sprawling, adaptive network: damaged yet regenerating, connecting nodes to maintain control amid perpetual crisis. In an age of targeted strikes and popular uprisings, the rhizome reminds us that some systems aren't defeated by removing visible heads - they simply keep growing from everywhere else."
"The Economic Impact Of This Horrifying War With Iran Is Not Going To Be Pretty"
"The Economic Impact Of This Horrifying War
With Iran Is Not Going To Be Pretty"
by Michael Snyder
"There is no way to get around it. We are facing a major global economic disruption, and the longer this war goes on the worse it will get. As I have reminded my readers on numerous occasions, our entire way of life is predicated on cheap energy, and the Middle East is the most important energy producing region in the entire world. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has been paralyzed, and energy infrastructure has been under attack by both sides. In fact, this morning Tehran was “covered in thick black clouds of smoke” after a refinery and multiple oil depots were destroyed…
Even if traffic through the Strait of Hormuz was restored tomorrow, and that is not going to happen, the damage that has been done to energy infrastructure throughout the Middle East would take many months to repair. It would be difficult for me to overstate the severity of the disruption that we are currently witnessing.
In neighboring Iraq, oil production has already fallen by 70 percent since the start of the war…Oil production in Iraq has fallen by 70% since the war broke out, according to Reuters. The country is producing about 1.3 million barrels per day now, down from about 4.3 million before the war. Kuwait, another oil-rich Gulf state, has also slashed its oil production. Unfortunately, production is also way down in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other nations in the region.
Most people living in the western world have no idea what this is going to mean. The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States has soared over the past 10 days, but this is just the beginning… According to AAA, the average price for regular unleaded fuel in Maryland on Saturday was $3.46 per gallon. This time last week, the price was $2.94. The price of fuel in Maryland was above the national average. The country’s average on Saturday was $3.41 per gallon of regular gas. Maryland ranked 10th out of the 50 states and Washington D.C., for the most expensive regular fuel prices. California has the highest prices, with its average being $5.07 per gallon.
Of course the price of gasoline affects the price of so many other things that we regularly purchase. We have already been experiencing a seemingly endless cost of living crisis, but now we could see prices escalate to an entirely new level.
The energy minister of Qatar, Saad al-Kaabi, is warning that the war in the Middle East “will bring down the economies of the world”… “This will bring down the economies of the world,” Saad al-Kaabi, Qatar’s energy minister and CEO of its state-owned energy company, told the Financial Times on Friday. “If this war continues for a few weeks, GDP growth around the world will be impacted. Everybody’s energy price is going to go higher.”
Qatar, like all of the major oil and gas exporters along the Persian Gulf, has had to almost entirely halt shipments over the past week. Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz that links the Gulf to the rest of the world has been at a standstill as operators fear attacks and insurance companies cancel war coverage.
We are in far more trouble than most people realize. Even before this war with Iran erupted, the employment numbers in the U.S. were moving in a very troubling direction. In fact, the BLS is telling us that the U.S. economy actually lost 92,000 jobs during the month of February…"The U.S. economy lost jobs in February, a month marred by severe winter weather and a strike at a major health-care provider, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Nonfarm payrolls fell by 92,000 for the month, compared with the estimate for 50,000 and below the downwardly revised January total of 126,000. February marked the third time in the past five months that payrolls declined, following a sharp revision showing a drop of 17,000 in December."
Read the last sentence of that quote again. The U.S. has now lost jobs in three of the past five months. We haven’t experienced a stretch like this since the early days of the pandemic. And every day even more major companies announce new layoffs. For example, Capital One has decided to give the axe to 1,139 employees in Illinois…"Capital One has announced major layoffs that will affect 1,139 employees in an office in Riverwoods, Illinois, according to multiple reports." Perhaps if Capital One wasn’t spending so much money bombarding us with obnoxious commercials they wouldn’t have to let so many workers go.
We are also being told that Oracle is “gearing up to cut thousands of jobs”…"Oracle is reportedly gearing up to cut thousands of jobs in order to fund AI data centers. According to a widely cited report in Bloomberg, the tech giant is facing a cash crunch as it looks to massively expand its AI data center operations." Oracle was supposed to be one of the big winners of the “AI boom”. Sadly, the “AI boom” is rapidly turning into the “AI bust”, and that is going to have enormous implications for all of us.
As the cost of living rises and the employment market gets tighter and tighter, ordinary Americans have less money to spend. According to CNN, U.S. retail sales unexpectedly fell in January…"That comes as spending itself is already hitting a rough patch: Retail sales declined 0.2% in January from the prior month, the Commerce Department said Friday, the biggest decline since May. January’s reading came in below expectations of 0%, according to a poll of economists by data firm FactSet. The figures are adjusted for seasonal swings but not inflation. The report was delayed a few weeks because of last year’s government shutdown."
This is such a tough time to be in the retail business. Thousands of stores have been closing all over the nation, and most of our once thriving shopping malls are either dead or dying…"A ‘dead’ mall in the Bay Area has taken its next victim – and customers are heartbroken. Barnes & Noble announced it will close its branch in the Shops at Tanforan – a mall that just last year was slammed with the closure of another staple, JCPenney. In fact, only a few stores remain open at the Shops at Tanforan, including a jeweler, a bridal shop and a cell phone store. There’s still a Target and Starbucks at the mall, as well as a Chipotle in the food court."
Now that we are engaged in a major war in the Middle East that is massively disrupting global trade, economic numbers all over the world are likely to deteriorate dramatically in the months ahead. In addition to potentially facing the worst energy crisis in more than 50 years, we are also potentially facing a historic fertilizer crisis. Normally, one-fourth of all nitrogen fertilizer that is traded globally goes through the Strait of Hormuz. If this war does not end quickly, we could soon see a worldwide food price shock that will hit impoverished countries extremely hard. So let us hope for the best, but let us also get prepared for the worst."
o
Full screen recommended.
FinCrafter, 3/9/26
"Strait of Hormuz Blocked - Oil Hits $120,
Europe's Energy Lifeline Just Snapped"
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"Believe Anything; Believe Nothing"
"Believe Anything; Believe Nothing"
by Todd Hayen
"What compels us to believe something is true? In an age where photographs can be fabricated, film can be manipulated, and speeches are crafted to deceive, our traditional markers of truth have lost their footing. So, the question becomes: what do you look to as your measure of what is real?
I recently came across a post claiming that the newly released Epstein files prove Donald Trump is a pedophile. It presented what appeared to be a detailed set of documents, emails, perhaps, describing an encounter between Trump and a thirteen-year-old girl allegedly brought to his hotel by Jeffrey Epstein himself. I’ll admit I only skimmed it. Reading anything on Facebook demands serious vetting, at least for me. But as I scrolled through, I couldn’t help thinking of the Trump haters who would devour it without a second thought, because when it comes to belief, bias often does the heavy lifting.
And I’m not exempt from that. I catch myself gravitating toward reports that frame certain Trump decisions as sound or even shrewd—not necessarily out of admiration for the man, but out of something more like desperate optimism. Call it hopium, if you must. I simply want something, anything, to be going right out there. So, when a report suggests that a particular move was intelligent or calculated, I feel a wave of relief, and I tend to believe it. Though not always. I do make a habit of looking for corroborating sources before I fully buy in.
What can we actually believe? Am I dismissing the pedophile story simply because believing it would force me to despise Trump? And am I accepting the more flattering accounts of his decision-making for reasons that are purely emotional, dressed up as logic? Or is it genuine common sense telling me one story is implausible and the other more grounded? The trouble is, I’m fairly certain the people who believe the pedophile story, the Trump haters, are equally convinced they’re applying common sense. So, whose common sense is more reliable, and by what measure? Nobody can answer that clearly.
And this is where we find ourselves in an AI-infested world: our old tools for sorting truth from fiction have been quietly retired. There was a time when the information we encountered came from sources that had earned at least a baseline of trust. Journalism once operated by a strict code, no story ran without multiple corroborating sources, on-record confirmation, editorial oversight, and a clear chain of verification. Photographs were considered credible. Film was considered ironclad, nearly impossible to fabricate in any convincing way. Those days are gone.
Mainstream news has largely squandered whatever credibility it once held. And AI has finished off the rest. Any image of any person, doing or saying anything imaginable, can now be generated on demand. Which brings me to something else I recently came across: a photograph of Bill Clinton in a dress and tiara, bent over a table, surrounded by people doing things I won’t describe in detail lest I am accused of pornography. Real? A few years ago I would have said almost certainly not. Now, genuinely, I’m not sure. And that uncertainty is the point, because there are people who looked at that same image and said, “obviously true, it fits everything I know about him,” while an equal number said, “absurd, I refuse to believe that about Bill Clinton.” Both camps decided instantly, and neither questioned themselves for a moment. That is a deeply troubling place for a society to be.
So, then, what actually makes something believable? Is it purely bias, a narrative we’ve already committed to, which determines in advance what “the impossible” looks like? Or is there still a role for common sense, the instinct that rejects certain conclusions simply because the world, however dark, cannot be quite that broken?
I also recently watched a clip of Bill Maher doing something rather remarkable - walking back his long-held mockery of QAnon’s claims about elite-level child trafficking and pedophilia. Maher, who spent years dismissing those claims as paranoid fantasy, acknowledged that the evidence of systemic child sexual abuse among powerful people is real enough that he can no longer laugh it off. He has come, reluctantly, to believe it. And yet, in nearly the same breath, he drew a firm line at cannibalism. Eating children, drinking their blood? No. That’s where Bill gets off the train.
But here’s what I find genuinely fascinating about that distinction: what, exactly, is the difference? If you’ve already accepted that powerful, celebrated, presumably sane individuals are systematically sexually abusing children—why does adding cannibalism to the picture suddenly strain credulity? At what point on that spectrum of depravity does the brain say, “too far”? And what does it tell us about the nature of belief itself that the line exists at all?
And that, perhaps, is the most honest answer any of us can offer. Belief has a ceiling, a point beyond which even the most committed mind refuses to go. That ceiling is different for every person, shaped by upbringing, experience, temperament, and yes, politics. What one person considers an obvious truth, another considers unhinged fantasy. And in an AI-manipulated world, nobody - not you, not me, not Bill Maher - has a reliable map anymore.
There is a concept worth mentioning here: confirmation bias. It isn’t new, and it isn’t unique to any particular tribe. The human brain is wired to seek out information that reinforces what it already suspects to be true, and to unconsciously discount what challenges it. We have always done this. But there was a time when the sheer scarcity of fabricated information acted as a natural brake on the process. You couldn’t just manufacture a convincing photograph, a credible document, or a realistic film clip. The effort required was enormous, and the sources producing information were finite enough to be monitored and challenged.
That brake no longer exists. The floodgates are open, and what pours through is an undifferentiated torrent of the real, the doctored, the partially true, the completely invented, and the strategically misleading, all formatted to look identical. Your Facebook feed does not distinguish between a Reuters dispatch and a basement fabrication. Your eyes cannot tell a genuine photograph from a generated one. And your gut, that old faithful compass, has been so thoroughly manipulated by years of targeted content that it may now be pointing in whatever direction an algorithm has decided is best for your engagement metrics.
So where does that leave us? It leaves us, I think, with only a handful of tools worth trusting, and none of them are passive. The first is ruthless sourcing, not just checking where a story comes from, but asking who benefits from you believing it, and why it is appearing in front of you right now. The second is a tolerance for uncertainty, which is the willingness to say “I don’t know yet” rather than filling the gap with whatever feels satisfying. The third, and perhaps the hardest, is self-suspicion. The moment a story feels deeply gratifying, the moment it perfectly confirms your worst fears about your political enemies or your most hopeful fantasies about your allies, that is precisely the moment to slow down.
I started this with a simple question: what compels us to believe something is true? I don’t have a clean answer. Nobody does anymore. But I do know this: the people most confidently certain of what is real right now are almost certainly the most lost. The rest of us, stumbling through the fog with our skepticism intact and our certainty appropriately rattled, may be the closest thing left to clear-eyed. Believe carefully. That’s the best any of us can do."
Adventures With Danno, "Shocking Prices at Sam's Club"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 3/9/26
"Shocking Prices at Sam's Club"
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