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Miscellanea: The War in Iran

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Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#771

Post by mememememememo »

lmm wrote: post #752
cbsmith wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't exactly limit the impact of cutting off the supply. It's a global trade market. If China buys on the global market from other places instead of Iran because that oil isn't available, that still creates a shortage for everyone and that still pushes up the price of oil for everyone.

Sure. But the US has substantial domestic production. So China (and everyone else who has to import the majority of their oil) gets hurt more.

How to win friends and influence people.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#772

Post by zahlman »

zahlman wrote: post #608
ropable wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As evidence supporting the "bright side" outcome of this conflict, two separate people I know here is Australia have fast-tracked a decision to replace their ICE vehicles with an EV. It only took a week's sticker shock at the fuel bowser to take them from "Eh, sometime next year" and "comparing a hybrid with ICE" to "Buying a BYD car ASAP". I'd be curious to know if there has been any significant effect of the market…

> the fuel bowser The what? > "Buying a BYD car ASAP" A what kind of car?

I don't understand why I am downvoted. My questions are genuine. I legitimately have no idea what GP meant by either of those things, and legitimately don't understand why I supposedly should know.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#773

Post by zahlman »

zahlman wrote: post #589
scoofy wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is crazy that environmentalists were like, "hey look, free energy," and suddenly everyone started screaming "No, boo! We like the way things are!" I have a friend who has never used an induction range before that is dead set that he never wants one. I just don't get it.

...What does induction cooking have to do with renewable energy?

Seriously, people are going to downvote me for not automatically thinking of gas stoves, when I haven't even seen one in like over a decade?

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#774

Post by mememememememo »

yogthos wrote: post #580
credit_guy wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can view it like that, but most people don't. At least the people involved manning those tankers don't. And why should them? It appears that the Iranian armed forces started acted quite autonomously, by design. They know that communications are not secure, so local commanders have a very high latitude in what actions they deem correct to take. If such a commander deems that asking and collecting $2 MM per vessel…

I mean ships are going through right now, so clearly at least some people do view it like that.

People work on dangerous fishing trawlers because of the $. People can be found who risk their life for money.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#775

Post by mememememememo »

CMay wrote: post #720
johnohara wrote: post #72

The Straight of Hormuz is open to any country willing to pay $2M per voyage. Any country except the U.S. and Israel. The most important aspect of the "toll" is that Iran prefers payment in yuan, not dollars. If Iran succeeds in nationalizing the Straight and is successful in enforcing the toll, it represents a very serious threat to the dominance of the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency for trading energy.

USD dominance isn't going anywhere, because all of the critical metrics are still basically uncontested by any alternative. China and Russia are losing allies left and right. They're demonstrating that they support terrorism. Nobody is going to decide that their currencies are the new hot thing. China poses a huge threat, but some of their worst advantages aren't viable. We know things they have, so we tell them thin…

What about... Euro. Gold. Bitcoin. Currency baskets.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#776

Post by mememememememo »

Animats wrote: post #585

The war should be over by March 31st. Netanyahu has a deadline. He is facing a snap election. If the Knesset doesn't pass a budget by March 31st, Israel votes 90 days later, and Netanyahu is not expected to win. Worse for Netanyahu, he's on trial for corruption charges, and once he's out of office, he's probably headed for jail. The war was intended to give Netanyahu's popularity a boost, but that did not work out. […

Iran, got that? 31st March. Add it to your Google Calendar.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#777

Post by mememememememo »

andrewflnr wrote: post #728
throwaway85825 wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil is a fungible commodity.

It's not as fungible as you would hope. Funging refineries and transport capacity takes time.

I read on HN actually about different types of crude. Needing different refineries. Hence Venezuelan oil being atttactive.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#778

Post by mememememememo »

lokar wrote: post #529
williamdclt wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A war continuous until one side has caused the other more suffering than it can take. The article is in large parts about how that's not true. It makes the point that the very existence of the Iranian regime hinges on its opposition to the US, to capitulate would mean for the leaders to lose all support, be overthrown and likely die: so there's no level of suffering that it "can't take anymore". And similar in the…

The Iranian regime is unlikely to capitulate fully. They don't want to end up like Syria and Lebanon, where Israel can just bomb them at will. Trump has more flexibility. Really all he needs is an endpoint that FOX News is willing to describe as a US victory. He cares more about image and perception than reality. So, in that space, there is probably room for some negotiated outcome.

Can FOX bamboozle my local gas station too to drop 40% on the price?

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#779

Post by nicbou »

dredmorbius wrote: post #457
nicbou wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been thinking about this scene a lot recently: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hj_4KIKHRFY&t=60s America is isolating itself in so many ways. You could rewrite that scene and reach the same conclusion.

What specifically about that scene? Video won't load for many HN readers. Apparently it's "The Wind Rises: The Looming War", a Japanese anime film. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Rises >

Ah, it's a scene set in the late 1930s where a German stays at a mountain retreat in Japan, and bonds with the Japanese protagonist who also visited Germany (to learn how to make warplanes). It becomes clear that the German man is fleeing the Nazi government.

https://www.cornel1801.com/animated/Wind-Rises-2013/video-qu...

- It is a nice night. Hier ist Der Zauberberg.

- "The Magic Mountain" Thomas Mann.

- Yes. A good place for forgetting. Make a war in China. Forget it. Make a puppet state in Manchuria. Forget it. Quit the League of Nations. Forget it. Make the world your enemy. Forget it. Japan will blow up. Germany will blow up too.

This recklessness is a theme I keep seeing when reading about preludes to major war. There is always a side who wants diplomacy to fail and war to break out. It seems to me like the American administration is champing at the bit for a war of aggression.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#780

Post by don_esteban »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #527
Der_Einzige wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"History has practically zero examples of foreign-caused popular revolts" You should go take a look at what Lenin and many other communists was doing and where he was physically right before the October revolution... Also, Haiti slave revolt was heavily influenced by the French revolution. Also, uhh the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom?

> You should go take a look at what Lenin and many other communists was doing and where he was physically right before the October revolution To what effect? The only other successful Communist revolution prior to the conclusion of the October revolution was the one in Mongolia [1]. It built on decade-old revolutionary ground [2]. (Finland, meanwhile, was seceding from White Russia.) Trying to cause a revolution from…

Re: Trying to cause a revolution from abroad just doesn't work.

Are you just blindly ignoring all 'regime changes' supported/caused by US (i.e. from abroad) since WW2?

Some of them do not work (this one is especially botched). Many, many have succeeded (the initial change), with typically less successful outcomes over longer time frames.

And you are totally missing the point of the remark about Lenin and Germany's part (essentially sending him to destabilize Russia in order to help their WW1 efforts - succeeded wildly beyond expectations, to disastrous long term consequences)

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