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

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

#371
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 dont understand why the hardliners are bad they were right. the war waged against them was threatened to be nuclear "an entire civilization will die tonight". the country threatening iran unjustly is indeed the great satan. no justification except for being egged on by our hyper aggressive expansionist apartheid proxy israel. we should pay reparations.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has boasted that they 'ended Persian culture/civilization'.

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

#373
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…

Losing wars is surprisingly often not that bad an outcome for countries in the longer run.

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

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The saving grace is that China (well modern living CCP members) have never had an armed conflict. China's military ranks are people who got there by playing politics and bending exercises to their benefit rather than showing battlefield competence. There are no war vets or experienced players. So while they might have incredible man power and manufacturing capability, everyone in that first battle will be seeing batt…

China is even worse than Russia on that matter. Before the invasion to Ukraine, Russia was heavily involved in Syria, Chechnia and other conflicts and with that experience it failed miserably. China, with all its posturing, military wise is even worse than Russia. That's why all it can do is propaganda war on social media to weaken American society.

> China, [...] military wise is even worse than Russia.

Define "military" first. China's infantry is less experienced than Russia's, but so is America's infantry by-and-large. Neither country envies Russia's army, or the war they chose to fight. Arguably China got the best of both worlds by sending a limited quantity of mercenaries to study the way the conflict was fought.

The war China wants to fight is in the first island chain. They don't need their infantry to swim to Taiwan to occupy it, they need their navy and air force to deny America A2/AD while their Marines fight onshore. Their army is almost purely a defensive force in this conflict, and it's unlikely that they'll be deployed en-masse if the US manages to disrupt their logistics. The pressure will be on China's missile forces and naval assets, both of which are very credible for the war they want to fight. On the other hand, America's Arleigh Burkes will be running with half their VLSes empty because the US needed to launch decapitation strikes against Iranian kindergartens.

Military-wise, China has almost every advantage they could want. They'll be fighting an overextended opponent that has limited support from their Pacific ocean assets, a miniature international coalition, and a depleted magazine depth with no esclatory strategic advantage. None of those are worth giving up to bloody your troops, especially if those troops are mostly just going to watch the war unfold on their smartphone.

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

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The driver of real wages is the economic level of the whole country, which moves at a pretty slow pace (if at all) for an advanced economy. Many jobs today pay around the same as they did 30 years ago, because dollars (currency) aren't a measure of true value, and lots if not most jobs produce the same relative value today as they did 30 years ago.

To put that more plainly, lower class, middle class, and upper class defining jobs pretty much stay the same.

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

#376
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…

Losing wars is surprisingly often not that bad an outcome for countries in the longer run.

Who are you talking about here? Iran?

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

#377
post #263
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Besides inflation, American has other problems like running out of missiles and bombs. This war is about attrition, and American weapons are being attrited faster than Iranian ones. The war is not over, but I would not count out the Iranians going for another strategic goal not mentioned in the GP post: make is so that the American president that attacked Iran loses the midterm big time.

> Besides inflation, American has other problems like running out of missiles and bombs. This war is about attrition, and American weapons are being attrited faster than Iranian ones.

The US doesn't need to fire more missiles, it just needs to blockade the strait and force Iran to cap its wells.

> The war is not over, but I would not count out the Iranians going for another strategic goal not mentioned in the GP post: make is so that the American president that attacked Iran loses the midterm big time.

I think Trump has already conceded the midterms. He's a lame duck president anyways so it's not his mess to clean up

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

#378
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Iran can absorb more pain than the US, but even that has a deadline. It doesn't. This is the western mentality, thinking you are dealing with sane people. I'm from Iran (now living in the West), there's a famous Shia motto: "Every day is Ashura, every land is Karbala". Around 30% of the population are die hard IRGC supporters, another 10% are neutral and the rest don't like the regime. The problem is that, the war…

> It doesn't. This is the western mentality, thinking you are dealing with sane people. I'm not talking about sanity. I understand that the IRGC is greater than the sum of the parts and that no individual life matters. I'm talking about the oil wells. The IRGC may not care about human life, but you need money to stay in power. Money that will disappear the longer you can't sell your oil and the more oils you have to…

> I don't believe you

The Trump admin has pretty low approval ratings. If some very hostile country bombed the US, is your default assumption that the folks who despise Trump would somehow support the bombing?

You could probably find a few crazies that would, but wouldn't you assume people would prioritize their hate towards the people blowing up their friends, family, and property?

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

#379
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'm sure you've at least heard what the United States' leaders have to say. To paraphrase Trump, "stopping nuclear proliferation to a group of lunatics that support terrorism". And also (still paraphrasing Trump), "the US doesn't need this as much as the rest of the world." So, perhaps this doesn't put the US ahead relative to other countries, but it puts them ahead of the counterfactual nuclear wasteland they could…

> Whether or not you believe the United States' leaders, whether or not you think there was a better way for them to achieve their goals (something something Obama deal) is up for debate. But it's very facetious to say you "can't think of a single way in which the United States came out ahead in the war," when the United States' leaders have been publicly announcing it for nearly a year.

This comment doesn't make sense to me; if one doesn't agree with the US leaders then one can perfectly well say that one can't think of a single way in which the US has come out ahead. In fact that's just another way of saying that one doesn't agree with US leaders; there's no contradiction here.

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

#380
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet Russia somehow managed to get a puppet in the White House so...

The puppet couldn't even get Ukraine to surrender so idk how effective that's been

Removing sanctions on Russian oil, destroying America's standing in the world, humiliating Zelensky in the White House, holding a summit with Putin in Alaska, discrediting the interference in US elections, etc., etc.

But you're probably right, an actual puppet wouldn't be so blatantly obvious about working for Putin.

Edit: I know you'll be surprised but the current administration still hasn't spent the $400M allocated for Ukraine![0]

[0]https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mlo3hus2eg26

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