As The Worms Turn… Authored by James Howard Kunstler, “They’re holed up in a bank demanding three large pizzas, a helicopter, and a personal phone call from Sydney Sweeney…” – Greg Gutfeld on Iran’s negotiating position The Russians have a phrase for it: negotiation-incapable (ne peregovorosposobny). That is what the Iran delegation demonstrated during a long day of talks with the US team over the weekend in Islamabad. […]

The Strait Of Hormuz Crisis Exposes A Fatal Flaw In Economic Thinking Authored by Kurt Cobb via Resource Insights, Even a 4–5% loss in global energy supply could translate into a comparable drop in economic activity due to energy’s central role in all production. Disruptions in oil and LNG flows through the Strait of Hormuz are already removing a significant share of global energy, with cascading impacts across […]

Bank Lobby Fires Back At White House, Saying Stablecoin Study Ignores Community Bank Threat Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com, The American Bankers Association is warning that the White House’s latest stablecoin study is asking the wrong question and underestimating the threat to community banks. On April 8, the Council of Economic Advisers released a 21‑page paper modeling what happens if payment […]

As US Initiates Blockade Of Hormuz, Trump Warns Any Iranian Ships Coming Near Will Be ‘Eliminated’ Summary Iran’s military says the US blockade on Gulf ports, now in effect, is an “illegal” act tantamount to “piracy” as Trump is also weighing limited strikes on Iran. Trump warns Iranian fast boats to be ‘eliminated’. US military says it is enforcing the blockade in the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea, Reuters reports. No major […]

Navy’s Green Laundry Initiative Weakened A $15 Billion Carrier Authored by Mike Fredenburg via The Epoch Times, The $15 billion USS Ford was forced to cut short its deployment due to a 30-hour laundry fire that did millions of dollars in damage. And it has been revealed that even while it remained on station in the Gulf, Ford could not generate combat sorties for two days due to the raging 30-hour laundry fire that drove some 600 […]

Oil Tanker Going To China Forced To Reverse Course Before Crossing Hormuz Under US Blockade One day after a burst of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, when according to Bloomberg 19 ships crossed in either direction while Trump said that as many as 34 ships crossed the waterway on Sunday, shipping through Hormuz slumped back down again Monday, reversing Sunday’s jump, as caution mounted ahead of a US naval blockade. After 19 […]

Bernstein Says Bitcoin Market Already Priced In Quantum Risk Authored by Zoltan Vardai via CoinTelegraph.com, Bernstein said Monday that Bitcoin’s selloff has already priced in much of the market’s fear around quantum computing, arguing that the threat is real but still manageable rather than an immediate existential risk. Bitcoin’s (BTC) near 50% drawdown from its $126,198 all-time high in October 2025 is proof that the […]

US Property Taxes Rose 3 Percent On Average In 2025, Outpacing Inflation Authored by Rob Sabo via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Property taxes are rising across the United States and, on average, have outpaced inflation. Homeowners in 2025 paid a total of $396.8 billion in property taxes on more than 89.6 million single-family homes, a 3.7 percent increase from 2024, an April 9 report by real estate property data provider […]

Buried For 7 Years: Declassified Transcripts Blow Up Trump Impeachment Story In a long-awaited release that sent ripples through Washington on Monday, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) has declassified closed-door 2019 transcripts from briefings with then-Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Michael Atkinson. The documents, withheld from the public for over seven years, reveal critical details […]

Mapping The Hormuz Blockade: At Least 15 US Navy Ships Are In Place President Trump is once again engaged in a high risk bet in hopes that Iran will buckle to US demands after failed initial truce talks in Pakistan. The blockade now in effect as of Monday seeks to starve Iran of $200 million in daily oil revenues. The Wall Street Journal has newly detailed that more 15 American warships are now in place to support the operation, […]

Half Of US Data Centers Scheduled To Start In 2026, Will Be Canceled Or Delayed Just over two years ago, we first penned our views on “The Next AI Trade”, which looked beyond the hyperscalers and the data centers supporting the AI revolution, and instead focused on the energy and logistical needs that would be so very critical in allowing the US to dominate China in the existential race to first reach Artificial General Intelligence […]

Federal Court Strikes Down 158-Year-Old Home Distilling Ban Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), A federal appeals court on April 10 declared a nearly 158-year-old ban on home distilling to be unconstitutional, ruling that the ban was an unnecessary and improper means for Congress to exercise its power to tax. A judge’s gavel rests on top of a desk in a courtroom in Miami on Feb. 3, 2009. Joe Raedle/Getty […]

Taiwan Helium Imports Rapidly Shift From Qatar To U.S. As Global Energy Flows Are Rewired We’ve been tracking the global rewiring of energy flows from the start, including identifying who stands to emerge as the net beneficiary of the U.S.-Iran conflict and the resulting disruption across the Gulf theater. Early in the conflict, we cited energy research firm Criterion, which noted that Qatar had been dethroned as the “LNG king” as […]

US Allies Loudly Reject Trump’s Scheme To Blockade Hormuz: ‘Not Getting Dragged In’ The United Kingdom and several other countries rejected Washington’s plan to impose a blockade on Iranian ports and target ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, which has gone into effect Monday. Prime Minister Keir Starmer made clear his stance that “we are not supporting the blockade” in a fresh interview with BBC Radio. He emphasized that the UK […]

Key Events This Week: PPI, Industrial Production, Q1 Earnings, Iran War When it comes to the week ahead, clearly the Iran conflict will be the main focus, but there are a few other things to look out on the calendar. First, the Q1 earnings season will start to kick off, with this week’s releases including several US financials. DB’s equity strategists have a full preview, and they argue that the bottom up-analyst consensus for […]

Master And Commander-In-Chief By Benjamin Picton, senior market strategist at Rabobank April – 2026. The IRGC is master of the Strait of Hormuz. Only the American fleet stands before them. Oceans are now battlefields. Financial markets are back in a risk-off mood today following news over the weekend that US-Iran peace talks ended without agreement and a statement by CENTCOM that the United States will be initiating its own […]

Existing US Home Sales Plunged In March, Despite Falling Mortgage Rates Affordability-aiding lower mortgage rates battled a sentiment-sapping surge in geopolitical panic in March, with analysts expecting the latter to outweigh the former with a modest 0.7% MoM decline (after January’s plunged – weather? – and February’s modest rebound). The analysts under-estimated the fear from war-mongering as existing home sales plunged 3.6% MoM […]

Congress Returns From Recess – Here’s What’s On Its To-Do List Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times, Lawmakers will return to Capitol Hill this week with a long to-do list as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) remains in a partial shutdown. Ending that shutdown—which as of April 13 reached its 58th day—will be a top priority for lawmakers, even as they remain divided along party lines on how to move forward […]

Goldman Stock Slides After FICC Unexpectedly Misses Despite Highest Overall Profit In 5 Years Goldman Sachs reported its highest quarterly profit in five years, as the bank’s equities traders beat their own previous all-time quarterly high revenue by more than $1 billion thanks to a surge in market volatility due to the war in Iran; however this stellar performance in equities was offset by an unexpected drop in FICC revenues. Here […]

Gunfire Strikes Sam Altman’s San Francisco Home Days After Molotov Cocktail Attack Just two days after a Molotov cocktail was hurled at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s Russian Hill residence in San Francisco, another violent episode unfolded at the same address. Early Sunday morning, April 12, 2026, San Francisco police responded to reports of possible shots fired near Altman’s home. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home, as seen from Chestnut […]

Futures Slide But Off Session Lows As Oil Spikes Above $100 Ahead Of Trump’s 10am Hormuz Blockade Stock futures are lower, but off their worst levels of the session, as Brent crude surged 7% to over $102 after Trump ordered a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz to take place at 10am ET. The moves look relatively contained given the breakdown of US-Iran talks, with strategists saying this is a moment to buy the dip. Goldman Sachs is […]

Will Quantum-Safe Cryptography Slow Ethereum Down? The Performance Tradeoff Explained… Authored by Dilip Kumar Patairya via CoinTelegraph.com, The quantum threat: Real, but not immediate Ethereum relies on cryptographic systems that remain secure against classical computers. However, sufficiently advanced quantum machines could one day break these systems, potentially exposing private keys and putting billions of dollars in […]

Key Aluminum Spread In London Hits Biggest Backwardation Since 2007 Aluminum futures in London surged to a four-year high on Monday as President Trump’s Strait of Hormuz blockade, set to take effect this morning, threatened to deepen supply chain disruptions across the Gulf region. On top of that, the Gulf’s largest aluminum producer declared force majeure on parts of its contract book over the weekend. Aluminum climbed 1.4% to […]

Trump Reportedly Planning Mass Pardons Of Administration Officials Before Leaving Office Donald Trump has reportedly promised to pardon virtually his entire White House staff before leaving office, and the radius keeps growing. What started as a quip about anyone within 10 feet of the Oval Office has ballooned into something considerably more sweeping.  “I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval,” Trump […]

Trump Eyes Limited Iran Strikes, Hormuz Blockade After Peace Talks Collapse Summary Trump weighs limited strikes on Iran  CENTCOM confirms blockade to begin at 1000ET Monday morning and will only impact Iran-related vessels President Trump begins blockading the Strait of Hormuz, warns US military will “finish up the little that is left of Iran” Door for diplomacy remains open, WSJ reports: Regional countries are […]