lol I mean you engaged. But sure change the subject when you’ve lost the ability to back up your opinion.

Nope, you changed the subject from what it is titled, I’m trying to get it back, but nice try in rearranging the facts. I made my point, and backed it up with the greatest investor ever to walk the planet. Go find the crypto thread - good luck with your gambling career.

Getting the thread back on track…

https://carnegieendowment.org/russia...tilizer-export

WTF?! I know I changed the subject. I’m saying once I changed the subject you then engaged in my subject and then only tried to bring it back once I owned you in rational thought.

also why would you think Warren’s buffet it the greatest investor ever to walk the earth. I’d say the Rothschilds would eat his lunch. Also, do a deep dive into his performance history once they changed the insider investor rules.

I’ll make it clear though since you can’t comprehend things very easily. I DONT THINK WARREN BUFFET IS A BAD INVESTOR so don’t come back telling me I’m stupid and said Warren buffet is terrible because I said the Rothschild are better. Two things can be true at once. But i also fail to fathom why you think bitcoin is gambling but stocks aren’t. Do you invest in stocks? Ever seen them go to zero? How is that not gambling?All investing is essentially gambling. But please please please check out buffets performance after they changed the insider trading rules. He never beat the market average again.

Dude give it a rest.

Kind of like how threatening tariffs on Canadian potash caused their potash companies to sell to China and India, increasing the cost of potash for our farmers. Our farmers can get away without fertilizer for a year, but it's going to come back to bite us after that.

One is for fun and one has long term value.

Nobody knows which is which.

Pull my finger vs. buy my tulip bulb.

Well let's see, so far we are accomplishing the following financial transfers as a result of this "expedition":

-- Significantly more money coming out of consumers' pockets and going directly to Russia and Iran. Whether you're filling your tank, buying an airline ticket, or buying anything that has to get shipped anywhere (which is everything, unless you're buying from your next door neighbor)... more of your hard earned money is now supporting Russian and Iranian power.

- Much of those funds are also going to oil companies across the globe. Given the US corporate tax rates, very little of those excess profits will be returned back to the average taxpayer in the form of any kind of beneficial government spending).

- While we continue to add to our national debt at a frankly horrifying rate, we simply push the can down the road. Thereby making our own economic future even dimmer. (And yes, I agree, *both* parties are to blame for this.) But simply compare the amount of debt added under the last few presidents (start with Reagan and go through Trump 47) and ask yourself: really, which party has been worse for the national debt?

-- And as the article above mentions, the SoH controls much more than just the flow of 20 pct of the world's oil. I had no idea that so much of the world's fertilizer depends on that waterway being open. The implications for food costs -- not today, not tomorrow, but months from now -- are staggering.

As Americans, we really have become a soft nation. We have become so used to an incredible standard of living and all the conveniences of the modern age. We've spent much of the last three decades as the world's only superpower, ever since the collapse of the USSR. We're so used to all this prosperity that we absolutely take for granted our pre-eminent status in the world, our standard of living, our position of leadership in science, medicine, technology, and so on.

But now it would appear that we think we can do whatever we like -- threaten allies, back out of deals, start actual.shooting wars, and it will all be just fine, because things have gone mostly our way for the last 8 decades. Those of us who are old enough to remember when we weren't a superpower, are mostly in the next world now.

However, actions have consequences. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You can only break so many things inside a house before the house comes crashing down on you. This war will affect FAR more than just the price of gas you pay at the pump...but few supporters of the war are willing to realize or admit that.

If this war drags on for a significant period of time, I think even the most hardcore supporters of this war, and of everything else we're doing to try and blow up the world order that has existed since 1945 and allowed us to become the great nation that we are...well, I have to think that at least some of these folks will realize that 'move fast and break things" might have worked as a company motto at Facebook. But it is never the motto of a great nation.

Excellent post. Thank you.

I fear Turbonista is correct, but I hope Vax is right and makes us all look like drama queens.

America derives its wealth, power and influence on being a known entity on the world stage. The last year has been the most flagrant “let’s shake it up!” example of us, for some reason, taking a wrecking ball to that position. Like, why? We’ve been running the earth since the end of WWII. This also isn’t going to be an “oopsie, that didn’t work out, sorry everyone let’s go back to how it was a decade ago.” Situation. Bridges are burned. The world is going to be fundamentally different going forward.

Americans by and large have taken the last 80 years for granted. Elections don’t matter to us aside from being a sporting event for your side to win, even if they do the exact opposite of what they said they would.

Probably not. Is the US/IDF holding gulf traffic hostage? Routinely lighting off rogue rocket assaults, attacking festival crowds, vest bombing marathons? No. That’s Iran’s stock in trade. Pop a tac on their enrichment cellar and let Germany sort it out. Next:)

https://www.twz.com/air/images-purpo...iranian-strike

Chalk up the loss of one E-3 as part of the economic cost. I’m no AGS guy but that looks seriously beyond economical repair.

Wow, nobody ever apologized to me here? If I recall correctly, you questioned the wisdom behind unleashing dogs of war on top of mounting tariff cost, CBP raid ops, budget impasse, intractable currency devaluation and of course ongoing legislative/judicial branch deadlock. To which I replied, good question.

Yes I would definitely put that in the "loss" column. #winning

We have 16 15 remaining.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HEi9CeRb...g&name=900x900https://i.ibb.co/dwBmVYyL/image.png

So way more than 0?

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2...-checkout=true

Are we winning yet?

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2...ure-oil-shock/



Yikes

You're late to the party man.

Gets even better, Russia is no longer exporting gas, this is turning into a worldwide problem for which everyone is blaming us.

Russia announces gasoline export ban as Ukrainian strikes hammer oil infrastructure

I wish we could go back a month and argue over who's team was the dumber one, and not real issues like significant energy shortages that outright threaten our livelihoods.

What an absolute shame, these things are awesome. Why would they have something like this parked within striking range?

Because decisions are being made by a cabal of clowns who fired a good number of qualified leaders.

apparently, these things cost $300 million. That’s a lot of money for an old plane like that.

I wish there was a way to see our “points” total. I’m doing my best to win whatever game we’re playing.

Yeah I mean questioning the mods here lately is so edgy.

Based on the attempt at Diego Garcia striking range for their missiles is about 4000 km.

alt=""https://i.ibb.co/PsDXfpc3/679-AE9-B8...2785231-FC.jpg

That pretty well takes in the whole Middle East, most of Europe, half of Africa, etc.

Replacements coming:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i0F0eYE_krg

But they aren’t cheap either.

lol

Imagine the disappointment when they found out their upgrade from their 707 was....a 737

What’s the actual acquisition timeline though? I don’t keep up anymore, but haven’t we seen it get pushed back several times (probably due to the cost). Is it even in the FYDP?

Last I heard, USAF was attempting to dump it, citing new capes that have yet to be fielded. Brilliant. Our ability to field weapons systems and adapt to new threats has got to be one of our biggest weaknesses.

Weapons procurement has become nothing more than a giant teat for contractors. Boeing and Lockheed could literally care less if the products they sell taxpayers are actually effective and useful. Their executives continue to get their bonuses and pat each other on the back for doing nothing other than effectively screwing the American taxpayer.

Can you imagine how absolutely forked we’d be if we were fighting the Taiwan conflict right now against an enemy with far better resources and tech than the Iranians? Holyforkingsheetballs we need to start getting our ****e together.

That's always been the risk for the US of being involved in a major contingency operation (regardless whether you chose the conflict, or it chose you)... the usual suspects on the other side of world might decide to take advantage of the situation while you're distracted.

Yes we plan for that as well. Immediately post cold war, the force structure plan was to be able to fight two such conflicts at once.

After enough drawdown, the philosophy shifted to "Fight One, Hold One". Idea being fight one conflict to a suitable resolution while preventing the other enemy from winning. Then shift forces from the first conflict to the second. Sounds challenging, and yes it is.

But in this case China is *very* deliberate about how they proceed.

1. They *really* like to watch, learn and take notes when we engage in major operations. As opposed to going off half-cocked on their end.

2. They like to do things on their own timeline, and they think long-term.

So I don't think they're going to start a war just because something else popped off on our end.

Now that's not absolutely saying that they might not have a plan ready, and their Go Criteria *requires* us to be involved elsewhere. Or even hypothetically that they arrange for the distraction to go down. But no sign of that in this case, I suspect this was probably instigated by IL one way or another.

funny l, other allied countries have been flying it for years. The hold up is unnecessary AF requirements like MLS for example, that no one uses, but some General likes. It makes the plane impossible to build.

the Air Force is making it expensive. Not Boeing.

Ahahahahahah it’s always Westerners producing the the hard, creative, and time consuming intellectual property. Much easier to cherry pick and plagiarize. This is nothing new, it’s in their culture.

See also:

Boeing and Bombardier: Comac
Porsche:Great Wall Motor Manufacturing
Rolex and Louis Vuitton: some piece of crap some clown on Canal street reverse engineered.

Yes, for many years now.

What's in their culture (more the totalitarian political aspect) is severe hierarchy and reluctance to stick one's neck out. Hence a reluctance to innovate.

The PRC, unlike many other similar governments, at least recognizes their own limitation and makes the effort to plagiarize. Rather than believing their own propaganda that their way is better, and finding out the hard way that it's not.

That gets them into the near-peer category.

But what I was referring to is that they sit up straight and pay attention when *we* get into a conflict, because they want to observe how we do, and also how the opposition does.

Gulf-I was a *huge* wake-up call for PRC, when the largest army in the world, with soviet doctrine and hardware and eight years recent war experience got rolled up by the US in a matter of hours. Of course China had the same soviet hardware and doctrine. That kicked off the PRC's Revolution in Military Affairs, which is still progress today.

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/ai...modifications/
An excerpt:

Granted, military procurement thoroughly sucks, and considering all the cr@p and delays that went on in the KC-46 program, it won’t be on time or on budget, but considering it’s already flying in export versions, they may actually not be too late.

The Australians are allegedly supplying one or more of their Wedgetail to the gulf effort.

https://www.airforce.gov.au/aircraft/e-7a-wedgetail

Well aware of the 2 major war strategy. It finally got phased out shortly after I was commissioned as we came to terms with post Cold War budget realities. I think there has been a major sea change WRT the “military industrial complex” over the last 2 decades or so. It used to be that companies like Boeing would spend as much time looking at threats and requirements as their uniformed planner counterparts. Hell, the KC-135 was designed and prototyped well before DoD put out a request for proposals. Defense companies at least publicly acknowledged that it was part of their charge to help defend the nation, even if General Eisenhower’s thoughts on the industry were beginning to prove prescient. Today, they don’t even pretend. Oh, you wanted the cameras on the KC-46 to actually work in all lighting conditions? That’ll be another billion please. Meanwhile, we are rapidly entering an era where our enemies can rapidly adapt and cheaply and quickly produce weapons that take full advantages of our weaknesses. If the Iranians have managed to get inside our OODA loop, you can bet your speedjeans that the Chinese are way out in front of them. Whether or not the Chinese choose to act when we’re bogged down somewhere else, it has become readily apparent that we are no where near ready for future conflicts. And I’ve heard very little from any politician or candidate of any stripe about how we’re going to go about fixing that. Just like GWOT, spending billions on the operational costs of war while wearing out people and equipment, all the while neglecting real modernization or focusing on developing tactics of the future, is going to come back to bite us.

Superb post.
Concise and to the point.

Interesting read by United CEO saying "some airlines may not survive" (with caveats) with where oil prices are headed.

Demand is still strong though.

Budget airlines face headwinds.

https://www.independent.co.uk/us/tra...-b2947727.html

That bonehead is always yapping about other airlines going out of business. What a buffoon.

Could be.

But it depends. Mil procurement is inherently wasteful, but with congress throwing a trillion $ per year at it the uniformed leaders (if they have some competence) should be able to distill *some* quality goods and services out of the inherently wasteful process. I don't really expect a three star to fix a process that existed before he was born, involves congress, the industrial complex, and the revolving door. But I do expect him to ensure that his stovepipe equities are functional, despite the system. For example, several uniformed leaders pushed back against boeing on the KC-46, and they pushed hard.

WRT to PRC, I think the trick is to not exhaust and deplete capabilities and munitions inventory below a certain point on other adventures... so as to not tempt the PRC too much. Of course that's up to the administration, and this one seems to like his adventures.

Also unlike some talking heads, I'm not convinced that PRC will actually attempt to seize (or blockade) TW, even if the conditions seem more favorable than usual...

1. Invasion of TW is a *very* hard thing to accomplish (too many reasons to list here).

2. Blockade probably only works if the US lets it happen. The entire PLA navy wouldn't be enough to blockade TW while they're getting hunted by numerous US SSN's. Surface warships normally evade subs by staying very mobile... but that's not how blockades work.

3. PRC has observed the global allergic reaction to RU's UA excursion... the backlash was worse than they had hoped (worse than many even in the west had expected).

They have also observed RU's military flail miserably for years against an opponent that they were expected to roll up in a few weeks. They have then watched us demonstrate that we still know how to exert multi-domain combat power on the other side of our world.