Emerging and Submerging world. I read between the lines. * All views are strictly my own
Surrey/UAE/Koya
Joined November 2014
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MacroKurd retweeted
Fuel unrest has erupted in Iran as furious drivers begin blocking highways over gasoline shortages.
On Friday night, residents reportedly parked their cars and blocked Rajaei Highway outside the Aftab Derakhshan gas station in Bandar Abbas after stations ran short of fuel.
Videos show crowds gathering and traffic brought to a halt. The unrest remains localized for now, but gasoline has triggered nationwide upheaval before.
In November 2019, a sudden fuel-price increase ignited protests across Iran within days. The Islamic Republic shut down the internet and opened fire on demonstrators. Amnesty International documented at least 304 deaths, while Reuters reported that approximately 1,500 people were killed.
That history explains why the regime is tightening access gradually instead of announcing one dramatic nationwide increase.
Emergency station cards are being withdrawn across multiple provinces, forcing drivers to depend on personal fuel cards. After the subsidized quotas are exhausted, additional gasoline costs 10,000 tomans per litre.
The regime calls this “demand management” and an effort to combat smuggling. In practice, it is transferring the cost of fuel shortages and financial collapse onto ordinary Iranians.
The contradiction is explosive: Iran possesses some of the world’s largest oil reserves, yet people in Hormozgan—a province containing major refineries—are struggling to obtain gasoline.
Fuel shortages affect nearly everyone. They prevent people from reaching work, operating taxis, transporting goods and earning a living. Local anger can therefore spread far faster than protests confined to one profession or social group.
The Bandar Abbas blockade does not yet constitute a national uprising. But the Islamic Republic knows that Iran’s largest protest waves have often begun with an economic grievance before rapidly becoming a political revolt against the entire system.
The first highway has been blocked.
In Iran, history shows how quickly a gasoline crisis can become something much larger.
Iraq, Iranian proxy, is suffering. US strategy is leading to internal rupture. This is interesting because whilst Iran is trying to put pain on the gulf, US allies, US is now doing the same to Iran's. And now Iran is going to have to decide if they are willing to sacrifice Iraq.
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MacroKurd retweeted
It is a difficult time to be Iraq. The challenges ahead are enormous, and Baghdad may soon find itself dealing with the consequences of a regional war it had little ability to influence.
Been long time I want to write about that… so here we go🧵
1. Get yourself to House of Koko (befriend a member)
2. Avoid Shard. Soho for restaurants.
3. Isabel for drinks, then find way into Nyx down the road after if u a partyer.
4. Ronnie's is class. Jazz Cafe Camden more fun.
5. Shoreditch if <35yrs, Mayfair/Marylebone if >35yrs.
Economic cycles is a symptom of a pendulum swing of leverage between public and private balance sheets.
We spent almost 2 decades (since GFC) shifting leverage from the private balance sheet to the public balance sheet.
We are now in the throes of swinging back the other way.
MacroKurd retweeted
A congresswoman just told Elon Musk "See you soon."
So let's compare résumés. Because that's really what this is about.
Elon Musk moved to North America at 17. He built Zip2, then PayPal, then put almost everything he had into two companies every expert said would die: a rocket company and an electric car company. In 2008 both nearly did. He went all in anyway.
Today SpaceX lands orbital boosters and flies them again like airliners, something NASA, Russia, Europe and China considered impossible or uneconomical for 60 years. It launches most of the mass sent to orbit by all of humanity combined. It's the reason America stopped renting seats on Russian rockets to reach its own space station. Starlink brings internet to Ukrainian trenches, Amazon villages and disaster zones. Tesla forced every carmaker on Earth to go electric. Neuralink is letting paralyzed people control computers with their minds.
And to the "billionaires don't pay their fair share" crowd: in 2021 he paid over $11 billion in taxes. Widely reported as the largest individual tax bill in American history. One man. One year.
His stated goal is to make life multiplanetary so that consciousness doesn't die on a single rock. You can think that's crazy. He has delivered on enough "crazy" that betting against him has become a bad habit.
Now Yassamin Ansari.
Stanford, international relations. Intern for Nancy Pelosi. Climate advisor at the UN. Phoenix City Council. Won her congressional primary by 39 votes. A whole career spent inside institutions that run on other people's money. Never built a product. Never had a customer. Never faced a market.
The day after her party won Congress, what's her top priority for day one? Cheaper housing? Energy? Competing with China?
No. Pause advanced AI. Ban "superintelligence."
The bill she backs freezes any model trained above 10^25 operations until a brand-new cabinet-level Department of AI gets staffed and writes its rules. Violators face up to 20 years in prison.
Let that sink in. The industry that, by one Oxford Economics estimate, drives about a third of recent US growth, frozen by people who have never trained a model, while waiting for a federal agency that doesn't exist yet. Beijing couldn't have written it better.
And yes, Elon has warned about AI risk for a decade. That's exactly the point. His answer to risk was to build, compete and put better systems in the arena. Hers is a committee, a freeze and prison terms. One looks at a hard problem and builds. The other looks at a hard problem and asks for a permit to stop everyone else.
Then the cherry on top: her reply to the man who built the rockets is "See you soon." Coming from someone whose only real power is the ability to stop others from building.
This is the real fault line of our time. Not left vs right. Builders vs administrators of envy. A system that selects people who have never created anything and gives them authority over the people who create everything. A political class that turns resentment into legislation and calls it "safety."
I'm French. I've watched this movie. Europe wrote the world's most ambitious AI rulebook. Now count how many of the world's top AI models are European.
I genuinely hope humanity grows out of this model. A civilization where its most mediocre managers summon its most extraordinary builders with a "see you soon" is a civilization working against itself.
"Brave New World" is right. Except the dystopia isn't the machine. It's the committee.
MacroKurd retweeted
Todo mundo discutindo QUEM vai ser o próximo ministro da Fazenda. Durigan fica? Vem o Alckmin? O Fonteles?
Samuel Pessôa cravou: vocês estão discutindo a pergunta errada.
Para ele, pouco importa o nome que vai sentar naquela cadeira. O que decide o juro não é o ministro. É a conta do gasto público.
O juro no Brasil é alto não porque o Banco Central erra. É alto porque o gasto primário cresce sistematicamente mais rápido que a economia, numa economia que já roda à plena carga.
Nos anos Lula, o gasto primário real cresceu, em média, 7,8% ao ano. A economia cresceu 4%. Quase o dobro. Quando o Estado avança sobre a economia nessa velocidade, ano após ano, a pressão inflacionária vira permanente. E o juro alto, também.
O problema, é que o presidente aparentemente não liga uma coisa à outra (não enxerga o gasto como causa do juro).
Dá pra aumentar imposto, cortar subsídio, melhorar o primário. Tudo isso ajuda na dívida e no risco-país. Mas, pra o juro real cair de verdade, só existe um caminho: o gasto parar de crescer mais que a economia.
Ou seja: a bola não está com a Fazenda. Está com o Planalto.
Perhaps Game Theory is underrated 2/2
If you are China+Iran, what would your optimal strategy be here?
Imo, you muddle through till day(s) before midterms elections.. then agree to deal.
This way you avoid conflict post midterms + not enough time for Trump admin to gain popularity for midterm elections.
Optimal!
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Perhaps Game Theory is underrated 1/2
Perhaps the Iranians are waiting for post Israel elections too in a week.
Sweet spot = between Israel elections and US midterms
teapawt.net/macrokurd/status/21077…
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MacroKurd retweeted
🇨🇳 🇮🇷 Beijing will soon send Middle East envoy Zhai Jun to Iran, Oman and Saudi Arabia to promote peace talks and de-escalation, China’s Foreign Ministry says.
I'm pretty sure this won't happen. And when it's not as bad as this, it's a sigh of relief.
And that's how these 'leaks' tend to be used.
Se isso aqui for levado à frente, a Bolsa colapsa em 30% e o Dólar vai para R$ 6,00/R$ 6,50 na largada.
Resumindo: juro baixado na canetada, queima de reservas cambiais para segurar artificialmente o Real.
O simples fato disso estar sendo avaliado já é o suficiente para implodir o mercado.
Em pouto tempo, o Brasil voltaria à década de 80, com hiperinflação e baixo crescimento crônico.
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It's all about China
Is China stepping in more assertively to advance US-Iran negotiations and help shape a more stable Middle Eastern regional order aligned with its own interests?
The simultaneous presence in Beijing of Oman's Sultan and Ali Bagheri Kani, deputy secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, is intriguing.
Chinese FM Wang Yi told Bagheri that Beijing supports Iran in defending its sovereignty and security, while emphasizing diplomacy as the path to resolving the conflict.
Al Mayadeen, a Lebanese outlet close to Hezbollah and the Iran-aligned regional camp, reports that a trilateral meeting in Beijing, coinciding with visits by Oman's Sultan and a senior Iranian security official, explored reviving Omani mediation between Tehran and Washington, backed by Chinese economic and security guarantees. These claims remain unconfirmed.
Yet such a framework could address a central obstacle to any agreement: Tehran's profound distrust that Washington will honor its commitments.
Chinese guarantees could help underpin a more durable settlement, while Beijing has its own compelling interest in preventing renewed conflict and securing energy imports from the Persian Gulf.
MacroKurd retweeted
Iraq: October crude/co supply recovered to ~ 4 MBPD (~ -300 KBPD pre-war) and exports are now > 3.0 MBPD. And its not all PG flows, it is also incremental Kirkuk loadings from Ceyhan. Another fascinating recovery like KSA and UAE, using a viable bypass.
MacroKurd retweeted
'I don't think employers are working people.'
@CamillaTominey grills Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Emma Reynolds MP, over whether Labour has breached its manifesto pledge in the Budget.
📺 Freeview 236, Sky 512, Virgin 604
MacroKurd retweeted
“Iran is the gas station of Xi Jinping.”
Richard Miniter just claimed that Trump’s war in Iran is actually “designed to prevent a war” between China and Taiwan.
And he told me that Chinese military documents argue for “war in Taiwan in 2027.”
“That’s next year.”
Iran, he says, provides China with “below market fuel, oil and natural gas.”
“And it needs that fuel to maintain its economy.”
“How would you prevent China from invading Taiwan and forcing the United States to fight across the vast and cold Pacific Ocean?”
“If you take out their source of oil and natural gas and other energy products from Iran, it’s not able to have this war over here in Taiwan.”
“You can prevent a war in the Far East by taking out a regime that deserves to go anyway, from the Trump perspective.”
“I don’t think the American public has been presented with the global benefits of the Trump strategy.”
There's an eery silence in Brazil from the Lula government. And it may well be they are concerned and worried about what comes next from the US after the midterm elections. The supreme court has been playing with fire.
I am going to write something below that should be seen as the musings of one who celebrated – and still celebrates – Lula’s victory over Bolsonaro Jr. Here it goes:
I cannot for the life of me justify why o why Brazil’s courts had to demand of Bolsonaro that he hands over his passport the moment he lost the election. That he disputed the veracity of the election result is a sign of a faulty character, evidence that he is a bad loser. BUT, he had every right to being a bad loser; to dispute, rightly or wrongly, any result.
As for the argument that he was being investigated for other misdemeanours or crimes, that doesn’t wash either: What would have happened if Bolsonaro had won the election? Would the judges also prevent him from travelling abroad, as President-elect? I very much doubt that – which means that the judges were conflating executive and judicial powers.
To those who tell me that the Bolsonaro clan is a fascistic, criminal family, my reply is: You and I may very well think that. Alas, the judiciary has no right to use its powers to indict and to pursue someone because – or immediately after – they lost an election. It is shameful, to be precise. And it is also dangerous for those of us on the left who know what it means to be banned and hounded by rogue judges and police commissioners.
But I also have a message to Bolsonaro supporters, or those sitting on the fence, who assume that Lula is somehow behind the judges. He is not! This is the same court that imprisoned, falsely, Lula himself. What we have in Brazil is a judiciary that overreaches and habitually crosses the line that ought to separate judicial from political power.
It is such a shame that a judge took it upon himself to go after Bolsonaro on the eve of his defeat and, in doing so, to sully Lula’s stupendous victory.
One last point that my comrades in Brazil should note: If Bolsonaro and Rubio wanted to mount a campaign against Lula and Brazilian democracy they could never have been aided better than by that judge’s reckless writ.