{"id":94753,"date":"2026-08-09T08:11:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T07:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=94753"},"modified":"2026-08-09T08:11:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T07:11:34","slug":"we-will-bear-the-cost-of-this-folly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/08\/09\/we-will-bear-the-cost-of-this-folly\/","title":{"rendered":"We will bear the cost of this folly"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Brent crude price chart per barrel, expressed in dollars, is always interesting, and this was the view from the FT last night:<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The recent right-hand end of the chart is what you need to look at.<\/p>\n

As I noted a week or two ago, the dollar price per barrel recently hit $100<\/a>, and then it fell because, as ever, Trump claimed there was a deal with Iran at hand.<\/p>\n

As ever, this was nonsense. As the New York Times<\/a> reported yesterday:<\/p>\n

\n

A top Iranian national security official delivered a sweeping set of demands on Saturday that he said the United States must meet before the Strait of Hormuz can reopen to maritime traffic, throwing the fate of the critical trade waterway into question.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

They added:<\/p>\n

Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the secretary of Iran\u2019s Supreme National Security Council, issued a\u00a0statement\u00a0carried by state media laying out multiple requirements for reopening the strait. He called for the United States to lift its naval blockade and sanctions on Iran, withdraw the U.S. military from around Iran, pay war reparations and release frozen Iranian assets, as well as end attacks on Iran\u2019s allies in the region and threats against the country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The US has not agreed to their terms.<\/p>\n

Nor does any deal Iran might conclude with Oman include them.<\/p>\n

So, why note all this? The reason is to suggest, as I have been forced to do many times over the last few months, that the market volatility around oil prices appears deliberate, even though the fundamental facts have not changed since 28 February.<\/p>\n

The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Whether by the choice of Iran, the USA, or Israel does not matter. Nothing indicates it will open again any time soon.<\/p>\n

The game of \u201cwill they, won\u2019t they\u201d is being played by both parties, but the reality is that, whilst Iran holds the upper hand, as it clearly does, whatever our opinions on its regime might be, any announcements made by Donald Trump on this issue are largely meaningless, except to the extent that they create oil price volatility and the opportunity for traders in that commodity to profit.<\/p>\n

The fundamentals remain the same. Whatever is said, oil is not going to flow out of the Gulf any time soon. Late last week, fewer than 10 vessels a day passed through the Strait of Hormuz. Before the conflict, the average was around 130 ships a day. The market is pretending that this figure will be restored. This, though, is nothing more than an illusion created to suggest that economic foreboding is unnecessary and that the stock market boom might continue.<\/p>\n

There is just one problem with this claim that is being played out by both the US administration, or regime as it is properly called, and the financial markets, which is that the longer they keep up this game, the harder the crash will be.<\/p>\n

We will bear the cost of this folly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Brent crude price chart per barrel, expressed in dollars, is always interesting, and this was the view from the FT last night: The recent
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,204,35,16,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-economic-justice","category-economics","category-ethics","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94753"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94762,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94753\/revisions\/94762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}