Two comments in one FT email this morning gave us a good clue that all my predictions about the failure to end the war in the Gulf are unfolding as I have predicted.
The first is this:
Construction projects are stalling around the world as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz disrupts the supply of crucial materials and drives up prices for oil-derived products such as paint and insulation.
The second is this:
Low-cost air travel may be a thing of the past as rising fuel prices tip carriers into another crisis that could bring a wave of consolidation, bankruptcies and faster retirement of old aircraft.
The collapse is underway; Trump has no inclination to do anything about it, and a meltdown is going to happen.
This is where we are.
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The worrying and bizarre thing is that all of this is being ignored by the mainstream media. Also following on from your previous post about Starmer remaining in office, he seems (as do the alternatives in Labour), oblivious to the danger. Not only does he think he has the policies to solve the countries problems (which he doesn’t), he apparently thinks that somehow magically the Strait of Hormuz will reopen and trade will continue as before. This complacency and stupidity is unsurprising but what does the government think will happen when supplies dry up? It won’t be the inability to fly off for a holiday but more pressing issues like lack of fuel for vehicles to transport goods and the lack of various goods which will bite home. Oh and without fertiliser food production will drop dramatically. Its a case of being in the centre of a maelstrom with no way out!
Agreed but more worrying is the the UK is not self-sufficient in food, we import over 60% of food and food ingredients, and if these cannot be delivered we’re heading for food shortages and possible starvation for many, especially the poor in our society, many of whom are already on the brink! The fact that the government is not talking about this is truly incompetent.
Agreed
Poor people starving and malnourished won’t even be noticed within the Westminster bubble. A sharp uptick in the cost of their subsidised food and booze, on the other hand…
This is hugely important to Councils like mine who are trying to build new affordable homes. They are watching this closely – it is beginning to bite, but it is the potential price rises for the 2027/28 schemes we are really concerned about.
The Housing Revenue Accounts (HRA) up and down the country of councils which fund local authority (LA) building are their own money. They are not topped up by central government anymore. The Homes & Communities Agency (HCA) gives out grant, but the grant per unit is less than £50K each outside of London. I can see Councils having to go for more s.106 (where developers have to offer us their private units as affordable units at around half market value). But as supply chains suffer under this aggression, that ‘half price’ will of course get more expensive.
Interest rates are also not helping as alluded to here. I have heard of a part HCA funded shared ownership (SO) scheme that because of higher interest rates, a housing association pulled out of. So it is sitting their unused. The LA concerned put in an offer to use the scheme as affordable rent. But no, the HCA who want to deliver SO targets over just ‘more homes’ stuck inflexibly to their guns and would not consider their use for affordable rent!! They wanted the LA to run the SO scheme, which they do not have the capacity to do. So the LA has to seek a s.106 payment from the developer/eventual buyer instead and add that to their development budget.
That is like going from Leicester to Loughborough…….via Carlisle in my view. And shared ownership is widely accepted to be an expensive option anyway!
Thanks anbd much to agree with
…………….and then you look at the size of Central Bank Reserve Account, plus ‘interest’!!
Discussing this situation with friends, it seems there is a lot of denial, misunderstanding and ostrich-like behaviour out there. In particular, the scale and scope of what is about to hits us all is just not accepted; I’m seen as exaggerating. “O, we’ll recover”, “We’ll get back” seem to be common attitudes.
Is it just me, or have others met this?
The Trump Great Depression looms ever closer.
Talking to a visiting Australian farmer from Western Australia he said the fertiliser costs are on the up, and lack of supply with hamper next season’s yields.
I see that California imports a very large part of its refined gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel from Asia due to the cost of delivery from the east coast oilfields. Pressure is building there. Not that Trump is concerned about a blue state.
As both Richard and Steve Keen have been saying for weeks, if the closure continues for a few more weeks we are in for a global recession if not depression on a scale we’ve never experienced before – perhaps as bad as the 1930’s if not worse! This is truly frightening and as Steve has indicated only when white people begin to die of starvation will the politicians take notice, all far too late by then. Our politicians clearly had never and have no contingency plans, unlike China which has been stockpiling oil, grains and other products and are in a better position to protect their people – we aren’t.
Much to agree with
It sure is Richard…
https://substack.com/@markashryock/p-196912511
That forecast is right
OMG is wholly inadequate to express my horror at that Substack article, on top of the FT article identified by you Richard in this post. The Substack article is the boy crying wolf about the imminent demise of our economies and the world as we know it. I urge people to read it. Meanwhile “the village idiot in the White House is obsessed with a golden ballroom” and the UK is in free fall with another PM churn. What the hell … we must share this analysis as far and as wide as possible to start building greater awareness of what is upon us.
I’ve just been reading the referenced post and just a couple of the others posted by Mr Shyrock. In the past, the experiences he has described from his life, I would have just dismissed. But now, I have to wonder as his view of where we are headed seems highly likely. So I now must wonder ‘what if his views of everything else covered in his Substack are our reality?’
Thanks for providing the link – a lot of food for thought. What does anyone else think?
Thank you, Richard.
My parents and I have personal experience of the first comment, here and overseas.
We and other rellies have experience of the second comment due to bereavements this month.
My sympathies
Thank you.
The worlds village idiot is in charge in the good ole USA. Will we get any sense other than we are the greatest, I am the best and we’ve won? No. Only impeachment can save the lives of a couple of billion people, over and above the 2 billionish that are looking more likely to die from starvation as a result of the next couple of weeks. And yes I have been an avid watcher of Richard J M and Steve Keen, the predictions look appalling. This is I believe the beginning of the end the AMOC is decelerating, climate change is biting, El Nino is the biggest hottest ever seen……………….. I pray science can save the day, if it doesn’t see you on the other side.
Science can’t do anything unless politicians allow it. And there is little evidence that politicians are prepared to listen to scientists — rather the opposite, at the moment. It’s hard to find any cause for optimism.
“Only impeachment can save the lives of a couple of billion people”
In order for impeachment to happen, The Democrats mush take control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate by several seats in each chamber.
In my arrogant Yank opinion, JD Vance may be more dangerous as President in the long term. Letting Trump die a very slow death on the vine due to Democrats controlling the House of Representatives and the Senate is a better plan of action.
For any plan to “neuter” Trump, the Democrats must control the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Steve Keen has said clearly that with his stupid war on Iran, Trump is the canary showing us earlier than expected what is likely to happen when climate breakdown happens. I despair, I’m so fearful and utterly sad for my children and grandchildren.
In 1966, I saw a play at The Aldwych called US, about the Vietnam War. There was a speech given by Glenda Jackson. I found part of it this morning. Here it is. Sixty years ago. Sixty years ago.
“So you end the war in Vietnam. Whereʼs the next one? Thailand, Chile, Alabama? The things that will be needed are all ready in some carefully camouflaged quartermasterʼs store.
The wire, the rope, the gas, the cardboard boxes they use for coffins in emergencies. I WANT IT TO GET WORSE! I want it to come HERE! I want to see it in an English house, among the floral chintzes and the school blazers and the dog leads hanging in the hall. I would like us to be tested. I would like a fugitive to run to our doors and say hide me—and know if we hid him we might get shot and if we turned him away we would have to remember that forever. I would like to know which of my nice well-meaning acquaintances would collaborate, which would betray, which would talk first under torture—and which would become a torturer. I would like to smell the running bowels of fear, over the English Sunday morning smell of gin and the roasting joint, and hyacinth. I would like to see an English dog playing on an English lawn with part of a burned hand. I would like to see a gas grenade go off at an English flower show, and nice English ladies crawling in each othersʼ sick. And all this I would like to be photographed and filmed so that someone a long way off, safe in his chair, could watch us in our indignity!”
Yesterday my builder told me his supplier for (permeable) block paving had gone bust. He can’t as a small firm order direct from the maker, unless his order exceeds 6 tons.
Whether this is just another corporate failure or more a sign of the times, is unclear. We’ll see. (Project is a front porch to give us a downstairs loo, needed due to disability).
Politicians don’t seem interested in SMEs. Maybe they don’t make big enough donations…
I think the reality is that our political class is in the pocket of the large corporations as well as the billionaire class. SMEs cannot compete with that.
The construction point also possibly has an impact on the complex financial interactions between the big AI/tech companies (OpenAI, Microsoft, Oracle etc). Having pinned everything on AI, they need to build the data centres. This has just got more difficult and expensive and could therefore potentially be the tipping point. This recent post from Ed Zitron also implies that many data centre projects are already in trouble:
https://www.wheresyoured.at/where-are-all-the-data-centers/
As the environmental impacts of these data centres becomes more widely appreciated, there will potentially be more push back and planning decisions curtailing their construction, adding to the pressure that the AI bubble will burst sooner rather than later.
Thank you
On the construction front, every tender enquiry I sent out was priced by contractors. None turned them down. This hasn’t happened to me for a long time. Work is clearly slowing down and companies are worried about their order books. Agencies are contacting us more often too, even visiting Site. This is the economics of walking around, you can see the reality behind the economic model. Everyone in a big city, looks around. How many cranes do you see, is it less than usual?
Fascinating
I guess as Trump can’t figure a way to bluff himself out of this he’s just decided to forget about it and go on to the next thing, he’s also forgotten about being the leader of the reconstruction force in Gaza.. nothing is happening, those poor people still living with hardly any food, health care, safety amongst the rats. Its appalling. If anyone wants to grab some hope, it is reported that at his Mara Lago estate in Florida last week a larger than lifestyle golden statue of himself was hauled out and dedicated by religious supporters of the Evangelical brand….. maybe they think the help we need will come from above?
Do you have any reference source for the statue story? I’m interested and could use it.
I’m sure it’s OK when you are a billionaire, or even multi-billionaire, to manage a supplies crisis. No doubt Air Force One will be whizzing all over the globe with Trump and the other billionaire presidential aides on board pushing their weight about. The picture of the guilty party disembarking the plane in China the other day made me angry.
Like one other contributor here, I feel terrified for my children and grandchildren. }
I have a couple of acres here but no time to grow the food necessary even if I had the energy. And will I have to have the old, retired horse and his companion put down? I doubt there will be fodder to keep them going, or transport to get it here.
I am just ordering a portable gas heater for the house. Where I live there is no gas in rural areas. We all depend on oil for our heating. The more you think about it, the worse it sounds.
I am glad I lived with a mother who lived through and served in the Second World War. We were brought up in the shadow of rationing and taught to waste nothing, to keep hens, make bread, bottle fruit and veg etc.
It’s not fair or accurate to say the mainstream media is ignoring possible food shortages or economic crisis. I’m watching John Simpson’s Unspun World programme on the BBC right now, in which he speaks to different correspondents from around the world, and they are all talking about the threat to economies and supplies globally.
But it is nowhere near the mainstream news as yet
Christine Laguarde was saying the same thing in an interview with The Economist on a social media link I got today. She was saying no one seems to acknowledge what is going to happen and the interviewer agreed.
And we are all being so distracted. It has to be deliberately, surely?
Maybe. And it is very worrying
Ms Lagarde hasn’t got a clue what she’s doing in her current role other than raking in a massive paycheck…
Italian guy here, I’ve been following your blog for a while. I like your great comments and predictions!
I’d say it’s a well-worn “pump and dump” cycle, after all it’s been 17 years since the whole Lehman mess. It’s a pattern that’s driving a new geopolitical game between the US, Russia, and China, all based on their own interests. Everything else just has to be crushed and Europe is the most vulnerable player right now.