Skate where the puck is going. Disc: Not investment advice.
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After 6 months of getting hammered by the US navy, it's now clear that #Iran is waiting for just the right moment to show what their military is capable of!
Yemenis Hit Saudi Ship Over 1,000 km Away, Proving Iran Avoided Attacking the US Navy
The Houthis have successfully struck a Saudi ship roughly 1,000 kilometers away from their typical stronghold. Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group targeted the Saudi oil tanker Amzan off the coast of Yanbu, a major northern Red Sea oil port in Saudi Arabia.
The distance from Houthi-controlled northern Yemen to the waters off Yanbu is roughly 1,000 to 1,100 kilometers. This confirms what I wrote a short time ago about the Yemeni arsenal and its capability.
The use of a long-range ballistic missile was confirmed by the Houthis. However, maritime security analysts and Western intelligence agencies raise the hypothesis that the Houthi announcement of a ballistic missile is mere propaganda, and that they actually used an evolution of the Quds-4 cruise missile.
The thing is, unlike a ballistic missile that ascends into space, a cruise missile flies low, much like a small jet aircraft.
And why were some security analysts and agencies wrong? Because the projectile struck the upper main deck, triggering a fire on the surface area.
Cruise missiles, such as the Quds or Paveh families, fly low and horizontally, typically striking the side of the hull. An impact coming directly from above is the textbook signature of a ballistic missile re-entering the atmosphere at a near-vertical angle.
Furthermore, Western warships and air defense radars operating in the region recorded the thermal signature and parabolic trajectory of a ballistic missile launched from northern Yemen.
Why the shock? By launching precise, 1,000-kilometer strikes this far north, the Houthis are effectively demonstrating they can enforce their self-declared naval blockade against Saudi shipping along the entirety of the Red Sea.
And yes, the ship was moving when it was struck. The tracking of the vessel confirmed that the Amzan was sailing from Ain Sukhna, Egypt, to the Saudi port of Yanbu when the attack occurred.
The Houthis had already been using anti-ship ballistic missiles long before this attack. In fact, they went down in military history as the first organization in the world to use an anti-ship ballistic missile in actual combat, in late 2023.
Read more
global21.substack.com/p/yeme…
Yeah duh that's so obvious!!
They're waiting for their regime to collapse and their entire economy to get annihilated, to truly show what they're capable of!
The AI Boom Runs On Tungsten, But Global Supplies Are "Running On Empty" zerohedge.com/commodities/ai…
youtube.com/watch?v=wREGlEld…
@paulkrugman kind of supporting the idea that rate hikes are needed to combat inflation. But this is the opposite of what his views have been historically, according to @GeminiApp:
1. The "Oil Tax" Effect (The Double-Drain Problem)
Krugman frequently emphasizes that a supply-driven energy spike acts as an automatic, regressive tax on consumers.
The Mechanism:
When oil prices jump because of geopolitical supply cuts or shipping disruptions, money is transferred directly out of consumer pockets and into energy producers/exporters.
The Policy Danger:
Because households must keep buying gas and heating oil, their discretionary spending power elsewhere in the economy shrinks naturally. If a central bank hikes interest rates on top of this, it imposes a second financial squeeze on borrowing and investment.
The Outcome:
Combining an energy price shock with monetary tightening forces an unnecessary recession without doing anything to address the underlying energy scarcity.
2. Historical Proof: The ECB’s 2008 & 2011 Policy Errors
Krugman’s most frequent exhibit for what happens when central banks overreact to oil shocks is the European Central Bank (ECB) under Jean-Claude Trichet.
2008 & 2011 ECB Policy Failure
Oil Supply Shock ──► Headline Inflation Spikes
│
▼
ECB Hikes Rates
│
▼
Recession / Eurozone Debt Crisis Deepens
July 2008: As oil prices surged toward $147 per barrel, the ECB raised interest rates to combat rising headline inflation. The global economy was already slipping into a deep financial crisis. The rate hike worsened credit conditions right before the financial crash.
April & July 2011: As oil and commodity prices bounced back after the Great Recession, headline inflation in Europe ticked above 2.5%. The ECB hiked rates twice.
The Result: Core inflation had not moved, and the Eurozone economy was still fragile. The hikes slammed the brakes on southern European economies, tipping the region back into a double-dip recession and significantly amplifying the European Sovereign Debt Crisis.
Meanwhile, Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve looked through the exact same 2011 commodity spike, keeping rates near zero, and the US sustained its economic recovery.
3. Core Inflation vs. Headline Noise:
Krugman has consistently defended the practice of targeting Core CPI (which excludes volatile food and energy components) rather than Headline CPI for setting monetary policy:
Transitory Volatility:
Energy markets are notoriously volatile and mean-reverting. Price spikes driven by temporary disruptions often self-correct as new supply routes open or demand adjusts.
Signal vs. Noise:
Hiking rates takes 12–18 months to fully filter through the real economy. If a central bank hikes in response to a 6-month energy spike, by the time the higher rates actually hit the economy, the energy shock may have already resolved—leaving the central bank tightening into a cooling economy.
4. Decreasing Energy Intensity of GDP
Another key fact Krugman cites is that modern advanced economies are far less reliant on oil than they were during the 1970s. e off energy demand to match a restricted supply—a cure that is far more damaging to welfare than the initial price spike itself.
Because the intensity of energy inputs per unit of economic output has dropped drastically, a $20 or $30 jump in crude oil today does not carry the same systemic threat of long-term stagflation that it did fifty years ago.
5. Monetary Policy Cannot Produce Oil
At its core, Krugman’s argument relies on a basic physical reality: interest rate policy operates on aggregate demand, not physical supply.
Raising the benchmark interest rate does not drill new oil wells, clear trade chokepoints, or repair damaged refineries. Using interest rates to force down oil prices requires destroying enough domestic economic activity (causing layoffs and business slowdowns) to artificially choke off energy demand to match a restricted supply—a cure that is far more damaging to welfare than the initial price spike itself.@SecScottBessent @PressSec @larry_kudlow
