"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social

Ancient & military historian specializing in the Roman economy and military. PhD from UNC History. More impressive credential is that I have beaten both Dark Souls and Elden Ring.

Blogs at acoup.blog

Hideous and un-American, I look forward to seeing its half-built skeleton demolished by the next administration.
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"But Bret, we also have legitimate and expensive security concerns that need substantial funding."

True! Another great reason to do less War in Iran.

Also, neat fact, some of our legitimate security concerns relate to Space Stuff.
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Space stuff is cool.

We should do somewhat less war stuff and somewhat more space stuff.

Artemis II is $4bn per launch, roughly the cost of 2-4 days of War in Iran.

What if we did not do War in Iran, but instead did cool space stuff?
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Reposted by "Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux
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Usili (Talia) 🏳️‍⚧️ @usili.bsky.social
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"Integrity, Houston, loud and clear!"
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Obviously a made up number but exciting implications for WTI and Brent front-month if true!
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Though the real people that need to learn the lesson really are the median voters: THIS is why you do not put unserious fools in charge of the government.

THIS is why 'he talks like me' (= he tells it 'like it is') is not a good qualification for president.
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We're watching a bunch of guys convinced that everyone who had their jobs before them were just stupid slowly discovering - without learning a damn thing - that there were in fact very good reasons why no one did the 'obvious' thing before them.

This is why.
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As an aside, everything this administration does re: Iran ends up in the "THIS is why you don't do that" bucket.

*This* situation - is why you don't declare a ceasefire and victory unilaterally, because what if Iran screws you on it?

And this whole war is "THIS is why you don't just attack Iran."
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And ceasefire or no, every day that Iran keeps the strait basically throttled at 10% normal traffic is adding several days - possibly as much as a week - to the time it'll take for energy markets to normalize.

And they might be throttling traffic for months! Or forever!
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Now that's just my 'guy who can do basic math' numbers, I am sure the folks who deal in actual physical barrels are doing much more sophisticated analysis that works through a lot more of the complexities.

But the upshot here is the hangover from this is likely to be long.
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So if production resumes at pre-war levels, like, *today,* prices should normalize in ::checks notes:: December. Late December.

And production is not going to snap back to pre-war levels immediately, that is going to take months.
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That's run for 41 days already, so that's ~490m bbls that have essentially been destroyed - they weren't loaded, weren't drilled, weren't refined, they didn't happen, they're basically gone.

Pre-war the global 'glut' was, I understand, estimated at ~2m bbl per day.
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In terms of prices actually normalizing, just some back-of-envelope math, 20m barrels moved through Hormuz normally; maybe 5m can redirect via pipelines. The remaining 15 is down 90%.

So that's a ~13.5m bbl reduction. Let's be conservative, say 12m.
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Functionally no oil is moving through the strait right now. Functionally no oil is going to move tomorrow. Iran's current plan amounts to a 90% reduction in traffic even when the strait is 'open' (through the tollbooth).

Even if traffic opens immediately, weeks before new supply reaches anyone.
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Ok, this contrast between the Goldman Sachs projections for oil flows and the actual oil flows out of Hormuz are hilarious.

But also it really is remarkable how disconnected the current futures markets remain from, like, the actual 1-2 month future.
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Reposted by "Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux
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Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social
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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com
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Happy Surrender and Freedom Day! On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Potomac. home.nps.gov/apco/planyourvisit/annual-commemoration-of-surrender-and-freedom-day.htm
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Reposted by "Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux
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Nathan Goldwag @goldwagnathan.bsky.social
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Fun fact, maintaining the naval blockade through the armistice until the final peace treaty was signed was also what the Allies did to Germany after WWI, so there's real precedent for.
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It seems to be a lot of folks' first Middle East ceasefire.

I could be wrong, but I do not see the Strait reopening to more than token traffic in the immediate future.
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Oh look, Brent & WTI beginning to creep upwards after-hours (in the USA) because evidently markets in Asia can tell a ceasefire where no one ceases firing is worthless.

I look forward to prices dropping again when New York wakes up and screams TACO at maximum volume into their Bloomberg terminals.
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Reposted by "Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux
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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social
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In a country that took the humanities seriously, way more of the medievalists you’re seeking out to explain Avignon would have actual academic jobs.
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B. A. Friedman @bafriedman.bsky.social
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I hate to break it to people but a post-US led world order doesn’t look like global socialism. It looks like the Warring States Period but the states have nukes.
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In any case, telling the man that a billion Catholics believe is the divinely ordained representative of God on Earth that he needs to get in line because of the military power of a country of mere mortals?

Hubris.
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"I am super cool and amazing" - pride, arrogance even, but not hubris.

"You are lesser than me" (said to an equal to humiliate them) - hubris.

These Trump guys, insecure narcissists, looooove doing real hubris to try to fill the bottomless pit in their souls.
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I feel the need to note, hubris is *really commonly* misused in English.-

Hubris (ὕβρις) is not just arrogance or pride, but rather it is an *action* (there's a verb, ῠ̔βρῐ́ζω) - an insult or affront to an equal or superior designed to humiliate them which is born out of excessive arrogance or pride.
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Oh, so you are saying that just before we embarked upon a war that turned out badly for us, our leaders engaged in some all-star hubris towards the representative of a deity?

Really getting pretty classical in here.
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