Pivots By Bas van Geffen, senior macro strategist at Rabobank The situation in the Middle East remains on an escalatory path, with Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia now a regular event. Attacks have already damaged the east-west pipeline, which allowed Saudi Arabia to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. The damage to the pipeline increases Iran’s leverage. It forces Saudi Arabia to pivot back to oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz. […]

Diesel Crack Spread Explodes To Record As Russia Weighs Longer Export Ban, US Eyes Its Own Diesel futures and refining spreads climbed to record highs as worsening supply disruptions in the Gulf and Russia tightened availability of the industrial fuel that powers the global economy. Potential export restrictions, or at least extending risk, are compounding the squeeze: Moscow is reportedly considering extending its diesel export […]

Houthis Claim Saudi Jet Shootdown, Blast Mecca Drone Reports as “Fabrications & Lies” Yemen’s Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement has claimed to have shot down a Saudi fighter jet in a Wednesday statement, saying they utilized domestic made munitions to do it. “The Yemeni Armed Forces, with Allah’s aid and grace, succeeded in shooting down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet while it was carrying out hostile operations,” Houthi military […]

Rep. Mace Demands Public Execution For Lindsay Clancy Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News, Speaking to TMZ DC on Monday, the South Carolina Republican called Clancy a “serial killer” and demanded the death penalty as a public spectacle. “Her children are dead. She should be dead too,” she said. “She should get the death penalty. It should be public. It should be a public execution.” I didn’t know you could bleep the […]

WTF Chart Of The Day: Retail Sales Record High, Consumer Sentiment Record Low Following last month’s ugly decline (“see the consumer is getting crushed because of Trump”), August’s retail sales is expected to rebound strongly (“see, Trump’s war is causing Americans to spend more on gas and less on Louboutin shoes”). BofA’s omniscient analysts agree with consensus, seeing a 0.8% MoM jump… Quick reality check – July retail sales […]

Futures Rise, Oil And Yields Dip Ahead Of First Fed Hike In Three Years Futures are higher into Fed Day where consensus is for a 25bp hike, the first since July 2023, with unknown levels of communication, and the question is what the dot plot shows (see preview here). S&P 500 futures are up by 0.3%, finding relief after days of selling as traders wait Kevin Warsh to deliver an expected interest-rate hike that will help ease […]

Hormuz: Rare US Strike On Iranian ‘Small Boats’ Caught Trying To Seize Surface Drone President Trump and the Iranians have been issuing competing claims over who has ‘control’ over the Strait of Hormuz and the degree to which it is ‘open’ to global energy transit. The situation on the ground remains dire, given almost daily hostile confrontations between Iranian and US naval forces there. According to the latest: “The U.S. military […]

NATO’s ‘Collective Defense’ Rhetoric Escalates Amid Now Weekly Aerial Incursions Ukraine war spillover into NATO ‘eastern flank’ members’ airspace is now becoming a weekly reality, which presents added pressure and dangers which could potentially lead up to a major Russia-Western military confrontation. Lead NATO powers like Germany have of late also alleged Russian intelligence ‘sabotage’ campaigns involving drones near aviation […]

Saudis Threaten Retaliation After Alleged Houthi Drone Attack On Mecca Crosses “Red Line” Escalation in the Gulf area conflict certainly appeared overnight after Saudi Arabia accused Iran-backed Houthi rebels of targeting Mecca with a one-way attack drone, raising the risk of a deeper conflict as the kingdom’s East-West pipeline was knocked offline last week. Bloomberg quoted the Saudi-led coalition, which said an attack drone was […]

Here Lies The Motive: AI Leaders’ Cunning Plan Exposed Are you scared enough yet? The AI overlords certainly hope so, as they have hatched a plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a fox. What follows is all speculation: the facts are real, the conclusion is interpretation. While there were many headlines about ‘rogue’ AIs attacking other sites, reincarnating themselves, and talking amongst themselves, it wasn’t […]

Zuck Torches Dario’s AI Nanny State, Wants ‘Trust Us Bro’ Instead After Anthropic’s Dario Amodei set off a firestorm on Saturday calling for a ‘pause’ in AI development until hand-picked arbiters are installed inside the frontier labs (a gift to Beijing), Mark Zuckerberg sided with the testosterone wing of the tech-bro complex with a builder’s response: police yourselves. You don’t need anyone’s permission – or a cartel, to do it. […]

Senate Blocks Clarity Act As Cloture Falls Short Of 60 Votes The Senate on Tuesday failed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, falling short of the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633. The vote, held at about 2:15 p.m. ET, was the first floor test of comprehensive crypto market-structure legislation in the chamber. It was not a vote on final passage. It was a vote on whether debate […]

America Can Print Money… But It Can’t Print The Missiles It Needs Authored by Nick Giambruno via International Man, THAAD is one of the military-industrial complex’s most expensive boondoggles – and most Americans have never heard of it. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system ranks among America’s most advanced ballistic-missile defenses. It aims to intercept ballistic missiles during their terminal phase, as […]

Greece Wants To Become Europe’s Next Hedge Fund Hub Athens is emerging as an unlikely contender in the competition for Europe’s hedge fund money, with Greece using favorable tax treatment, an improving economy and Mediterranean living to attract financiers looking beyond London and other established financial centers, according to Bloomberg. That campaign has already produced some notable converts. Millennium Management has […]

70% Of Swedes With Non-European Background Supported The Left In Narrow National Election Victory Via Remix News, For years, the right across the West has noted that mass immigration has been a boon for left-wing parties, which are essentially importing a new voting base. Sweden’s latest election appears to once again affirm this view, with the left narrowly winning the election, in large part due to their overwhelming support from […]

Kremlin Blasts Finland Joining French-Led Nuclear Deterrent Initiative: ‘Real Risks’ Russia’s foreign ministry has issued key warnings to Western officials and nations on Tuesday. The ministry’s spokesperson Maria Zakharova addressed recent provocative actions and signaling among NATO allies, which could lead to more nuclear saber-rattling.  She weighed in on a widely reported French security initiative to bring European countries […]

Beware Contrived Scares And False Flags In Europe Authored by Thomas Karat via The Libertarian Institute On the evening of August 4, an airport employee at Leipzig/Halle noticed a small drone resting on the apron near a parked Ukrainian Antonov freighter. It carried an explosive charge and a detonator. The charge did not go off. A bomb-disposal robot rolled out across the tarmac, and by the account German officials would later […]

Bank Of England To Stop Selling 20- And 30-Year Gilts As Yields Soar The Bank of England ​is set to announce this week that it will stop selling long-dated government bonds which ‌have been hit by a global selloff in debt markets, potentially freeing up some cash for finance minister John Healey, the Telegraph reported adding that the BoE would say it would stop selling 20- ​and 30-year gilts. The central bank, which already […]

Germany’s AfD National Support Hits Historic High; CDU Slumps To Record Low Via Remix News, A new poll in Germany has delivered yet another shocking blow to the political establishment. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has reached 30 percent for the first time while stretching its lead over the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) to 10 points, with the Union reaching a historic low of just 20 percent. In addition, another poll has also […]

Amazon Says Cloud Infrastructure In Bahrain, UAE ‘Beyond Saving’ Via The Cradle Amazon Web Services (AWS) says it cannot restore access to its cloud-computing facility in Bahrain or one of three data-hosting zones in the UAE due to the extensive damage caused by Iranian retaliatory strikes, Reuters reported on 15 September. “The damage to our infrastructure spanned multiple Availability Zones and exceeded what our regional and […]

Syrian Protests Spread To Aleppo, Raqqa While Jolani Enjoys Red Carpet At Dubai Media Event Syria’s fuel price hike protests have persisted from Sunday into the heart of this week, and increasingly they are becoming full on anti-Sharaa regime demonstrations. Of course Sharaa – whose al Qaeda/ISIS name is Jolani – was never elected in the first place. Monday into Tuesday the protests have spread across multiple cities and […]

US Energy Secretary: Saudi Pipeline Could Be Back In Service Within Days By Julianne Geiger of OilPrice.com Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline could be back in service within days, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday, offering the first relatively concrete timeline for restoring a route that had been moving 4 million to 5 million barrels per day around the largely closed Strait of Hormuz. The 1,200-kilometer […]

Saudi Coalition Intercepts Drone Headed Toward Mecca Update(2145ET): Drone attack on Mecca from unknown location being reported overnight, though the Saudi coalition has been prompted to blame Yemen’s Shia Houthis: Saudi Arabia and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have condemned what they described as a “heinous” Houthi attack targeting Mecca. A Houthi official, however, rejected Saudi Arabia’s account that its forces […]

Tucker Carlson Sounds Alarm Over Trump’s Planned ‘Largest Transfer Of Ordinance In Modern History’ After the US was essentially forced to conduct a major and rapid draw down of forces from the Gulf and Mideast region in the wake of Iran’s ‘unexpectedly’ large retaliation for Operation Epic Fury, it seems all that Washington is left to do is arm regional allies to the teeth and wish them the best. Early this month the US approved […]

US Troops Leak New Iran War Photos Of Gulf Bases: ‘Major Damage Hidden From American Public’ As we’ve been documenting, it is clear that major damage has yet to be communicated to the American public regarding Iran’s major retaliation on US bases in the Gulf and Mideast since the start of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury.  During the same week that a long awaited Pentagon/Department of War Inspector General’s report was released […]