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.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
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!
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
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.
It sure is Richard…
https://substack.com/@markashryock/p-196912511
That forecast is right
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
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.
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!”