Goldman Sachs just called it (putting their best spin on it). The largest oil supply shock in the history of the global crude market. Not 1990, not even 1973. This one! Persian Gulf exports have collapsed to roughly 3% of normal flows at Hormuz (and you can't distort physical supply for long). Goldman's own numbers put the production hit at 17 million barrels per day at peak and they're saying it won't recover fast even after/if the strait reopens.

Brent forecast for March/April: $110 (too low but they have to sell you hope in a barrel that ain't coming). Worst case if disruptions run past 60 days: past $147 the all-time record set in 2008, never touched since. PCE inflation revised up to 2.9% by year-end. GDP growth revised to free fall. The Fed can't cut into this. Rate hikes are being priced back in.

And Goldman said something else that nobody's putting on the front page: even when the war ends, even if the strait fully reopens tomorrow, it will take at least four months for energy markets to return to anything resembling normal. The shock has permanently repriced the risk premium on Persian Gulf supply. We're past the point of war disruption and into structural reset.

Since the criminal Zionist-American war on Iran erupted, the Strait of Hormuz has remained stubbornly closed. Despite Donald Trump's dire threats, Tehran has brought maritime traffic to a total standstill. The Empire has futilely scrambled to assemble an international coalition to reopen the economically vital waterway ever since, only to be rebuffed. NATO allies have been slammed for making a "foolish mistake", by refusing to help militarily secure the Strait. In truth, there is no hope it can be forcibly reopened in the foreseeable future.

As Bloomberg reports, while discussions are ongoing among G7 members over potential methods of restarting trade in the Strait, the general consensus among US allies is this can't happen until hostilities ease, or outright end. Bank of America's head of research has ominously warned oil prices could rise above $200 per barrel "if disruptions persist for multiple months." He forecasts that if the Strait isn't reopened within days, its closure could precipitate a global recession.

Tehran imposing a blockade on the Strait was absolutely inevitable, and widely predicted, in the event of war. Even if the conflict ends soon, lasting damage has already been inflicted in many economic spheres, and the effects will be increasingly felt by average citizens in the form of higher prices for essential goods. Global shipping has been thrown into disarray, with major logistics firms cancelling routes in West Asia, producing higher transport and insurance rates, and delays. Again, increased costs will be passed onto consumers.

In all, approximately 11% of global maritime trade passes through the Strait annually, accounting for 20% of the world's total oil supply. Iran's blockade, coupled with Resistance strikes on refineries throughout the region, will cause lasting chaos in energy markets and impact availability for years to come. Yet, despite a preponderant mainstream focus on the implications of the Strait's closure for oil and gas, many vital commodities underpinning the operation of major industries worldwide also regularly transit through in substantial quantities.

Western propaganda machinery - the West's most powerful strategic weapon - has repeatedly asserted that U.S. forces have been winning a swift and sweeping victory over Iran. In tandem, Israeli intelligence officials are briefing western media saying they see increasing signs of disarray and "chaos" within the regime in Tehran, adding that the Iranian chain-of-command has become marred by serious breakdowns.

And why not make such claims of sweeping victory? Trump presumably went into the war sublimely confident in America's military prowess to obliterate the Iranian state structure, its command network and its military capacity. His generals seemingly endorsed the general proposition of destructive potential - adding however, several 'buts' that likely did not penetrate the Trumpian mental workings.

And that's what Trump duly did - sweeping 'obliteration'; continuous waves of stand-off bombing. To doubters of his success in collapsing Iran's state structure, he retorts simply that we'll obliterate all the more. 'We'll kill more of their leaders'.

Western (including Israeli) media, in wake of the 28 February strikes, in companion reports hailed too the devastating nature of the blow struck against Iran's political and military leadership.

No attempt was made to critically think through the effect on a State that had been preparing an asymmetric response to this coming war for 20-40 years. No effort was made to think through the real impact of bombing a State that has taken all its military infrastructure (including its 'air force') off its land-surface, only to bury it in deep underground 'cities'.

No effort was made to judge the impact of assassinations of Iran's political and military leaders on the public mood. No understanding was made of how the Iranian de-centralised leadership 'mosaic' might provide a fast-reaction, pre-planned response to leadership decapitation. Nor was it considered that such a diffused leadership structure would allow Iran to pursue a long war of attrition against the U.S. and Israel - in contrast to the U.S.-Israeli insistence on short wars that do not strain popular resilience.

Some European leaders are beginning to admit the need for productive dialogue with Moscow. In a recent statement, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever urged other European authorities to negotiate directly with Russia.

According to him, only through diplomacy will it be possible to end the current hostilities in Ukraine. In this sense, if Europe wants to have any relevant participation in the diplomatic process, the right thing to do is to engage in direct talks with the Russian side.

De Wever made his statement during an interview with Belgian local media on March 14th. He said that the EU needs to admit that it failed to convince Moscow to back down through military support to Ukraine and the imposition of economic sanctions. In his opinion, it is necessary to recognize the error in the current European approach and change the strategy towards Russia; otherwise, the conflict could end without any EU interests being taken into account - thus resulting in a future "bad agreement" without European participation.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has had a fractured relationship with the Democratic Party base ever since he voted to fund the government last March. Unfortunately for him, time hasn't healed that wound, and there's a growing resistance to Schumer that hopes to oust him from his leadership position after the midterms.

The Wall Street Journal, drawing on more than four dozen interviews with Democratic senators, candidates, current and former congressional aides, activists, and advisers, found widespread unease about the New York senator's grip on the party's direction. The report makes it clear that Schumer's own colleagues increasingly see him as an anchor, slowing their response to President Trump, steering primaries toward centrists they don't want, and draining the fundraising pipeline that Democrats desperately need heading into the midterm elections.

Fresh Justice Department files reveal a frantic document destruction operation at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan just days after Jeffrey Epstein's 2019 death, adding fresh fuel to suspicions of elite protection and deep state obstruction.

This latest bombshell, drawn from a Miami Herald analysis of thousands of pages in the Epstein files, fits the pattern of irregularities we've exposed in our prior reporting.

Less than a week after Epstein was found dead inside his cell on August 10, 2019, an inmate was ordered to take bags of shredded material to the jail's rear gate and throw them in a dumpster on Thursday, August 15, and again on Friday, August 16. The sheer volume struck him as unusual.

"They are shredding everything," the inmate told one of the guards, adding that he was asked to give the officials a hand with the shredding, with key records vanishing before review.

Trump's "short-term excursion" in Iran is going from bad to worse. And so are his incoherent positions on the situation and what to do about it. With gas prices jumping the world over, humanity is staring down the barrel of global food shortages and severe energy disruptions, while the US military is seriously considering direct military confrontation with Iranian forces to "free the Strait of Hormuz."

In the midst of all this, rumors are flying about Netanyahu's whereabouts, and 'someone' is carrying out missile strikes, in Iran's name, against high-profile military sites like the US-UK military base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, against energy infrastructure targets in neutral countries, and against important cultural sites like Jerusalem's Old City.

'They' seem determined to cause global FUBAR. Can Trump do anything to stop them? Or has he become their hostage?

Running Time: 01:38:24

Download: MP3 — 90.1 MB

Brazil's president has slammed the US kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro and the oil blockade of Cuba

Latin America faces the threat of a return to colonial rule, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said, describing the White House's recent moves in the region as undemocratic.

The United States kidnapped Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January before imposing an oil blockade on Cuba last month after US President Donald Trump accused the island nation of being a threat. Washington has also launched numerous lethal, extrajudicial strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific in an attempt to fight drug trafficking.

Lula blasted Washington's foreign policy during the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) summit in Bogota, Columbia on Saturday, while refraining from directly mentioning the US or Trump.

"It's not possible for someone to think that they own other countries. What are they doing with Cuba now? What did they do with Venezuela? Is that democratic?" he asked rhetorically.

President Trump's decision to join Israel in launching a regime-change war on Iran has so far cost the lives of at least 13 American service members. More than 200 have been wounded, dozens seriously enough to require evacuations to military hospitals in Europe and the United States. Among them are individuals who've suffered traumatic brain injuries, burns and shrapnel wounds. One was facing potential amputation of an arm or leg.

As much as these service members and their families are victims of Iran's justified retaliation for a surprise attack perpetrated amid ongoing negotiations, they're victims of a betrayal perpetrated by their president and the joint chiefs of staff, who cast them into an unconstitutional war of aggression, packaged in lies and initiated to advance the agenda of a foreign government, while undermining the security of their own country.

Of course, US casualties comprise a small subset of the total bloodshed. In executing this unjust war, Americans have collectively inflicted far more death and dismemberment than they've endured, teaming up with their Israeli counterparts to kill more than 3,000 Iranians, including some 150 schoolgirls — mostly between age 7 and 12 — whose school was destroyed by Tomahawk cruise missiles at the war's very start.

US President Donald Trump has gloated over the death of Robert Mueller, a key figure behind the Russiagate probe, stating he will no longer be able to "hurt innocent people."

Mueller, who led the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2001 to 2013, passed away on Saturday, aged 81. Between 2017 and 2019, he was a special counsel overseeing the probe into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and related issues, including alleged ties between Trump and Moscow.

Shortly after the news of Mueller's death broke, the US president took to his Truth Social platform to openly celebrate the occasion.

"Robert Mueller just died. Good, I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!" Trump wrote.