bring back shame

Huh.

Add universities to this list.

Just as Satoshi wanted: a very much centralized currency that will have enormous price swings based on the whims of a single individual

the UAE's threat wasn't subtle (give us swap lines or we're going to Beijing) but hassett is dodging here ("should that be necessary") and between this and the Abdulkhaleq post the other day I have to wonder if there was a massive rupture between the US and UAE at the end of last week

A Retrospective on Bidenomics - The American Prospect Joe Biden listened to the left on full employment. But the lasting effects were wanting, and the politics were brutal.

Remember Joe Biden? The guy who didn't rip civilization to shreds?
Anyway he had a pretty good economic program of full employment and industrial rebuilding. But he tore down America's best-ever welfare state at a time of high inflation. And it cost him.
@ryanlcooper.com has a retrospective:

Hello, Gaius Cassius Longinus here. I have a favor to ask you. Julius Caesar has DECLARED himself DICTATOR FOR LIFE! I need you to send a denarius to Save The Republic PAC RIGHT NOW so we can stop Caesar from making himself a king.

The next domino to fall in the Strait of Hormuz could be… helium? And it might spell trouble for chipmakers. The closure of the strait could lead to a dearth of helium, a key component of chip manufacturing that comes largely from the Middle East....

The closure of the strait could lead to a dearth of helium, a key component of chip manufacturing that comes largely from the Middle East.
sherwood.news/tech/shutdown-strait-of-...

For comparison's sake, the entire National Park Service costs $3 billion - a year.

<Back> to Return Previous Next Send Actions Translate News: News Story 101) *PENTAGON OFFICIALS MET WITH LAWMAKERS ON IRAN ON TUESDAY: NYT BFW 16:35 102) *NYT CITES 3 PEOPLE FAMILIAR WITH CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFING ON IRAN BFW 16:33 103) *PENTAGON SAYS IRAN WAR COST MORE THAN $11B IN FIRST WEEK: NYT BFW 16:33 03/11/2026 16:31:40[NYT]  Billion By Catie Edmondson (New York Times) -- In a Capitol Hill briefing, officials gave their most comprehensive assessment of the cost of the first six days of the war, but the number omitted several aspects of the operation. Pentagon officials told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that they estimated the cost of the war against Iran had exceeded $11.3 billion in the first six days alone, according to three people familiar with the briefing. The estimate did not include many of the costs associated with the operation, such as the buildup of military hardware and personnel ahead of the first strikes. For that reason, lawmakers expect the number to grow considerably as the Pentagon continues to calculate the costs that accumulated just in the first week. Still, it appeared to be the most comprehensive assessment Congress had received so far amid mounting questions about the objectives, scope and time frame for the war. The New York Times and The Washington Post reported earlier that defense officials had said in recent congressional briefings that the military used up $5.6 billion of munitions in the first two days of the war. That is a far larger amount and munitions burn rate than had been publicly disclosed. The Center for Strategic and International Studies had estimated that the first 100 hours of the operation cost $3.7 billion, or $891.4 million each day. The first wave of the bombardment used weapons including the AGM-154 glide bomb, which can cost from $578,000 to $836,000. The Navy …

$2bn/day, with $2.8bn/day in munitions alone over the first two days. I tend to think of myself as a Large Number Scale Understander but this is just mind-boggling amounts of money.

this is wrong. Markets immediately responded to 24th January 2020 China lockdown news.
Commodity markets are HIGHLY attentive to anything in the world economy that disrupts demand & supply.
Equity markets did not as they thought pandemic would be contained to China & only freaked out in Feb-Mar 20

You cannot tell voters (accurately) this is a fascist regime that is hell bent on destroying us - let alone rely on it (as Dems are) as your GOTV while also voting yourselves to enable the regime.

UN warns of widening crisis as Israeli attacks displace 816,000 in Lebanon UN humanitarian chief says mass displacement accelerating as Lebanon's shelters are already overcrowded, lack resources.

One war can hide another
www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/...

It's not some tactical maneuver, it's not secret negotiations to extract concessions, it's not because they conclude some nominee is actually pretty reasonable and qualified. They do it because they literally don't care and aren't even paying attention, and have been taught this is thing you do.

64/ Yes, losing Gulf Kings now a risk. “They can hardly believe US impotence at protecting oil installations & shipping, & the US inability..to rapidly refresh their dwindling stocks of interceptors. There's a profound sense that US military bases have become a source of threat rather than security"

51/ Listening to US & Israel hawks paraded on CNN etc saying this if you read between lines

" If Iran hits back we must escalate bc they're strong. If Iran doesn't hit back, we must finish the job bc they're weak. The only constant is more bombs,more killing,more $ on their forever war"- Ben Rhodes

Threading some stuff about oil & oil markets, just basic but hope it helps:
1/ oil markets are what you call “finely balanced”. Supply is usually very very close to demand/consumption. Demand is hard to shift *quickly* in response to supply hiccups.
So even small supply changes = big price effects

the 1970s oil embargo & resulting stagflation was felt to discredit the left on economics for two generations

& this is a million times stupider & more avoidable than that

47/ US military experts have been studying this question for decades. Read Prof Talmadge assessment of how difficult it would be to force open Hormuz as a military matter given Iranian capbilities.
Paper www.caitlintalmadge.com/uploads/8/5/...
Thread
bsky.app/profile/prof...

This is the largest oil supply shock in history in mb/d
The enemy gets a vote. Iran is now delivering pain to Trump via multiple paths
(1) Gulf Kings
(2) Financial meltdown
(3) AI tech oligarchs
(4) Fuel, fertilizer, food disruptions
Read our Polycrisis Dispatch:
buttondown.com/polycrisisdi...

You think about what a science fiction report on AI did to software stocks, and here we have an actual energy crisis and people are largely shrugging at it.

Gasoline futures now up 90c/gallon YTD, if that all flows through to retail and prices stay here it’s a $120 billion/year drag for US consumers:

Numbers don't lie. The public is overwhelmingly against Trump's illegal war to enact another regime change in the Middle East.

At least Tony Blair and Bush worked hard to fabricate an excuse for invading Iraq

bsky.app/profile/waja...

oh look, it's possible to not be a European war monger

bsky.app/profile/fare...

I know it's hard to get timings right but:

1. Starmer chose escalation on day 1, when he refused to condemn, like Spain did, an illegal, unilateral attack and instead 'warned' Iran.
2. The attack on the Cyprus base came AFTER Starmer escalated again, allowing US access

bsky.app/profile/chri...

Closing the straights, has happened before, if it stays closed for weeks or months oil will go up to the nineties maybe a hundred. But bombing large quantities of Middle East oil production infrastructure is situation we have never seen before really and oil will go way further.

"We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically,& we knew that international law applied with varied rigor, depending on the identity of the accused or the victim"

"It's really telling how much more a nonsense MAGA fantasy about Greenland spooked elites in the West than the actual wielding of U.S. hard power in ways that are unprovoked, probably illegal and rule-breaking" -- @ishaantharoor.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/mcop...