Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 486 posts

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#331

Post by legitster »

toasty228 wrote: post #197
legitster wrote: post #104

BTW, the conflict is unlikely to resolve soon. The US has literally never honored a deal with Iran. Iran has no reason to negotiate with the US. The US either has to back down, put boots on the ground, or sit and wait. If the government survives, they had a quiet infrastructure investment from China they can activate to rebuild their damaged facilities.

> The US has literally never honored a deal with Iran. It'll be better now, they killed the dad/wife/son/etc. of their new leader, this will 100% make them eager to negociate in good terms

This is the story overall of strategic bombing campaigns. All they do is strengthen the resolve of the recipient country and rally people to the flag.

Before using the nuclear weapons on Japan, we literally firebombed every city in Japan BUT Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And arguably the only reason they surrendered when they did was because Russia was beginning a large scale invasion of their own.

People who call themselves "foreign policy experts" but advocate for regime change through bombing are not serious people, and the fact that we have treated them as such for so long is an indictment on our collective intelligence.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#332

Post by jaybrendansmith »

tencentshill wrote: post #79
khriss wrote: post #32

I can't think of a single way in which the United States came out ahead in the war. We have * Demonstrated that the US simply can't offer any meaningful security guarantee to it's middle east partners. * Permanently ceded de facto control over the straits of Hormuz to Iran * Significantly strengthened the hardliners in the Iranian regime and cleared the way for them to have absolute power by eliminating all moderates…

The US oil industry is making massive amount of money directly from the people of the US on the inflated prices, since their domestic supply and refineries are unaffected. It also perfectly matches the actions a foreign country trying to harm the US would take. There's so many terrible options to choose from!

None of the Trump administrations actions look objectively different than what a foreign adversary would do to destroy the United States of America. It's staring us all in the face every day. My children will pay for this their entire fucking lives.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#333

Post by triceratops »

dominotw wrote: post #250
triceratops wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has serious "the climate changes naturally" energy.

it doesnt if you care to look for many instances in data where local milk prices didnt reflect broader inflation trends. but you are more interested in making idiotic snarky comments and feel smug.

"My city got record snow therefore global warming is bogus"

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#334

Post by kccoder »

nisegami wrote: post #314
KptMarchewa wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are much easier ways of increasing the oil prices that don't have as much drawbacks as trump's war. Of course, for _some_ reason most people and countries prefer _lowering_ oil prices.

Higher oil prices makes renewables even more competitive, so this is another situation where the extreme left and extreme right may agree.

Renewables being a good thing is not an "extreme left" viewpoint, it's just reality. That being said, I'm going to guess that extreme left supports renewables near 100%.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#335

Post by thisisit »

mgfist wrote: post #162
khriss wrote: post #32

I can't think of a single way in which the United States came out ahead in the war. We have * Demonstrated that the US simply can't offer any meaningful security guarantee to it's middle east partners. * Permanently ceded de facto control over the straits of Hormuz to Iran * Significantly strengthened the hardliners in the Iranian regime and cleared the way for them to have absolute power by eliminating all moderates…

> I can't think of a single way in which the United States came out ahead in the war. I wouldn't jump to conclusions yet. The war is not over. I wouldn't even be so sure as to say Iran is in a good place right now. Iran can absorb more pain than the US, but even that has a deadline. For the US, the only pain is inflation, which is more a matter of political capital than anything tangible. Trump is a lame duck preside…

> For the US, the only pain is inflation, which is more a matter of political capital than anything tangible.

As others point out Iran had their own fair share of issues and there were protests but now they have a common enemy to fight. Most likely it keeps galvanizing people in the Middle East against US and then Americans wonder why people chant - Death to...But then again this shows average American has no clue about different cultures and the best analysis is - Iran is done, just like how Taliban was done right?

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#336

Post by pibaker »

lovich wrote: post #312
briansm wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, 'demand destruction', which in sounds positive in theory but in practice will likely mean poverty, famine and 'population reduction'.

The majority of demand for fossil fuels is for energy. Switching to alternative sources for energy is not “demand destruction” unless you zoom in your analysis so much that you’re missing the forest for the trees.

You cannot just switch an entire country's energy source on a finger snap nor do we have a viable alternative for making nitrogen based fertilizer. East Asia, which is heavily dependent on Middle East gas, is already bracing for energy shortages. What is likely to happen next is a fertilizer shortage in some poorer countries which will then lead to food shortages and social unrest.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#337

Post by csomar »

JeremyNT wrote: post #196
bparsons wrote: post #88

Frankly, it is a miracle that inflation is this low. Markets have not fully metabolized the impact from the closure of the Persian Gulf.

I keep thinking this but... line keep going up. I've seen reporting that energy prices won't return to pre-war levels this calendar year, even assuming an immediate return to the status quo basically right now (which seems unlikely). I find the whole thing really confusing. The facts I can see with my own eyes suggest high inflation and this surely means no substantial rate cuts (which... the market has expected) if…

> But the markets think everything is... fine? So... what are we missing here?

You are missing that the current governance is very ready to print money to bailout any situation. The market can go down in nominal value but still up in dollar's.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#338

Post by csomar »

twodave wrote: post #155
cyberlurker wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will just pay the toll.

It's possible, in the short term, but eventually the only oil flowing thru the Strait of Hormuz will be Iranian oil, and perhaps not even that. Give countries enough time and they'll rather invest in building a way around Iran than giving them money for passage thru international waters.

The toll will be just a bit under what it would cost to divert the supply.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#339

Post by b40d-48b2-979e »

WarmWash wrote: post #238
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will say, this past inflation spike has completely broken the assumptions I had from 1970s economics that employers would raise their 'cost of living' raises to keep pace with inflation. My employer seems to think 2.5% is fine, as they've done it multiple years in recent past with only one extraordinary year netting 4%. I am now very skeptical of any so called 'wage price spiral'

That's why macro economic data is based on nationally reported data from tens of thousands employers rather than just one company. We can look at the data and clearly see the inflection point where wages started rising faster once the pandemic began. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ECIWAG And looking at real wages, we can see that wages have actually outpaced inflation since ~2015 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/serie…

    wages have actually outpaced inflation since ~2015
Yeah.. just ignore the 30 years where it was basically stagnant.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#340

Post by thisisit »

billfor wrote: post #143
khriss wrote: post #32

I can't think of a single way in which the United States came out ahead in the war. We have * Demonstrated that the US simply can't offer any meaningful security guarantee to it's middle east partners. * Permanently ceded de facto control over the straits of Hormuz to Iran * Significantly strengthened the hardliners in the Iranian regime and cleared the way for them to have absolute power by eliminating all moderates…

[flagged]

> because if Iran gets to keep their approx 1000lbs all they have to do is make a simple gun-type device and sail it into New York City

You need to stop watching too many movies and/or conspiracy videos. Given how security has gotten tighter it is impossible to "sail it into New York City". The budgets for nearly every 3 letter agency is up. The only reason to make up such absurd points is to get more funding for the agencies or just continuing the war.

Post reply on HN