Trump is notorious for talking tough and making threats, taking impetuous actions, and then when he finds that he cannot carry out the threats or gets severe blowback, backtracking. Perhaps the most blatant example of this was with the tariffs which changed from day to day on his whim but he has also done that with things like saying he wants to take over Greenland, a bit of braggadocio that seems to have slipped into the memory hole when Denmark and other European countries presented a united front opposing the move. He does not even talks about it anymore.
As another example, take Trump’s threat to Iran on Saturday that if they did not open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours he would launch attacks on their oil infrastructure. This caused a sharp rise in oil prices and a massive drop in stock prices (one of the few things he cares about) and so he then said that thanks to Iran starting talks with the US, he was postponing the action.
Oil prices, which had been rising after Trump threatened over the weekend to strike Iranian infrastructure unless Iran opened the strait of Hormuz, dropped sharply. Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 10% to $101 a barrel. The UK month-ahead gas prices fell 6% to 142p a therm.
The US president said on his social media platform Truth Social that the US and Iran had “very good and productive conversations” over the past two days regarding “a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East”.
He said: “Based on the tenor and tone of these in-depth, detailed, and constructive conversations, which will continue throughout the week, I have instructed the Department of War to postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five-day period, subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions.”
This caused stock prices to bounce back yesterday. (One thing I do not understand is why investors react to the words of Trump. He is such a liar and so erratic that it would seem pointless to make decisions based on what he says he will do in the future. And yet it appears that many of them do.)
But Iran officials are denying the existence of any talks, with one senior official telling Drop Site News that no such talks are underway and that Trump’s comments about them were purely an invention in order to placate the markets.
On Monday, Iran forcefully denied claims by President Donald Trump that the U.S. and Iran are in the midst of negotiations to end the war, saying that no direct talks are occurring.
Trump claimed on Monday via Truth Social that “GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS” had taken place with Iranian officials over the past two days, backtracking from his Saturday threat to destroy Iranian energy infrastructure if Iran did not open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours.
Iran immediately dismissed his claims. “Fake news is intended to manipulate financial and oil markets and to escape the quagmire in which America and Israel are trapped,” wrote Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of Iran’s parliament, in a post on X.
A senior Iranian official confirmed to Drop Site that “no new developments have occurred” between Washington and Tehran. The official was not authorized to make public statements and spoke on condition of anonymity. The U.S. has continued to send messages through third countries, he said, but Iran has only reiterated its position and has not engaged in any back and forth.
This kind of reversal has happened so often that Trump has been given the epithet TACO for ‘Trump Always Chickens Out’. While this is accurate, and I enjoy taunting Trump as much as the next person and have used the taunt myself in the past, I now feel it may not be such a good idea The reason is that with Trump, we are dealing with someone who has the mentality of a child and we know that with them, it is always possible to goad them into doing something incredibly stupid by daring them to do it and taunting them with ‘chicken’ if they don’t.
It is entirely possible that Trump may announce some rash and dangerous action but then may be so stung by fear of another TACO taunt that he refrains from backing out just to show that he is not a chicken. With children, the harm that ensures from being goaded into rash actions is usually mostly to themselves but Trump’s actions can hurt many, many people.
Meanwhile, Jon Stewart at The Daily Show did a masterful forensic dissection of Trump’s words to show that all his talk of talks with Iran, plus his other claims about the war, are blatantly false.
The subsequent conversation he had with former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was also good. Sullivan tried to downplay the malevolent impact the US has long had under administrations prior to Trump but Stewart to his credit brought out all the old ugly history of US imperialism. Stewart also slams Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his culpability. There are suspicions this particular attack on Iran was instigated by Israel that has for long wanted to attack that country but was held in check by US concerns that things could go awry. But in Trump, the genocidal fanatic Netanyahu has found someone who could be manipulated to serve his goals.
There are suspicions this particular attack on Iran was instigated by Israel …
Reports also have it that Trump received -- and listened to -- multiple calls from Prince Mohammed Bone Saw and Rupert Murdoch urging him to attack Iran shortly before he, uh, attacked Iran. How could he ever have chosen otherwise?
In Japanese manga there is an odd kind of monster called a slime, basically a more transparent version of 1950’s horror entity ‘The Blob’.
DJT and his friends made me think of this for some reason. They leave the moral analog of a mucuous trail wherever they go.
Trump probably chickened out, because Iran threatened to bomb the desalination plants, which made the Gulf states yell obscenities at him.
Iran has learned that closing the Hormuz works. Earlier even thinking about that was out of bounds due to economic consequences, but now that Trump essentially made them do it, they have discovered a weapon that can be used again and again. Trump gave Iran a gift that keeps on giving. Even after Trump is gone.
The amount stocks are worth compared to the actual value of the companies that they represent does not match. Therefore, any investment in the stock market is a risk, and has been for years. The amount stocks are worth is currently much much much higher than the actual value of the companies that they represent. This is relatively recent, in that the current round of tax cuts to the wealthy was entirely unnecessary. There’s nothing to be done with their money, and a lot of them are just holding it. But of those that have lots of extra money, they now have fun-money.
Oh gosh oh golly they have so much money whatever shall they do?
There is a threshhold of cost vs value that is (largely imaginarily,because this *is* economics that we are talking about) considered bad. We are past it. The gamblers are going hard! Therefore any tiny thing is more likely to cause bank-run behavior than it might have in decades-past.
Some investors have to sell (for whatever reason) on a short time scale to meet some immediate need. If you need to sell it’s better to sell when things are high and if something bad is announced they are going to sell sooner. Some investors are institutional and need to plan for long-term. If the bad thing announced seems like it is a long-term thing, even if the person announced is a flibbertigibbet liar, they do have to consider, at least a little bit, if it might be true. Then they have to factor in what is the cost of ‘doing nothing’ if it turns out to be true, and if it is a lie.
Finally, Trump and his buddies, and congress, have demonstrated themselves to be scummy insider traders. They could be making money based on whatever idiot thing that they have induced him to loudly say.
Japanese Yen is approaching the 160/1 Yen/dollar treshold that previously has triggered intervention.
Japan holds 1,2 trillion $ in treasury bonds. If they start selling off, it may be a “problem”.
If the USA were talking with anyone in Iran who is not authorized by the Supreme Leader or their President or Foreign Minister, then the Iranians would rightly consider that to be treasonous, and they would not survive it being discovered. The talks are either authorized or suicidal, and every adult knows this. Yet Trump pretends that there is some independent power base that magically avoids the constraints of reality. Is Trump lying, or is he hallucinating?
Is Trump lying, or is he hallucinating?
Both.
The amount stocks are worth compared to the actual value of the companies that they represent does not match.
Every investor I have ever known has understood it as that investing in the US stock markets is investing in the future of the US Empire. And its markets look … pretty good in spite of short-term mistakes such as Trump. In fact, he appears to be manipulating the market to a limited degree, such as one would expect from the heavy-handed imbecile that he is. Huge fortunes are being made.
The solution is not to try to claw such things back through legalisms, but rather through blocking the goal. That is also problematic, of course.