How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline

US Industrial Production Unexpectedly Drops In March (After Huge Upward Revision For Feb) At first glance the 0.5% MoM decline in US Industrial production (considerably worse than than the 0.1% MoM rise expected - and dragging YoY growth in IP down to +0.74%) is bad news... suggesting immediate impacts from the war are being felt and sparking headlines decrying President Trump's actions. Source: Bloomberg However, while we agree that the decline is notable, the fact that February's data was revised drastically higher, from +0.2% to +0.7% MoM, means that over the two...

Mind-Numbing Irony: US Asks Ukraine's Help To Shoot Down Iran's Shahed Drones In Gulf In the ultimate irony of ironies, Financial Times is reporting US officials are discussing the purchase of Ukrainian-made drone interceptors to counter Iranian drones, which some analysts say have proven harder to stop than expected. Patriot missile interceptors used by US allies cost more than $4 million each, while the Ukrainian systems are significantly cheaper and designed to defeat the same Shahed-type drones used by Russia. Image source: Come Back Alive Foundation Supplies are dwindling and costs are soaring, after approaching...

Ruthless Taxation And The Hyperstate: How Germany Profits From Crisis Submitted by Thomas Kolbe, The Hormuz crisis offers us a profound insight into the real power structures in Germany. Nothing seems able to convince the Berlin monolith to partially shield its citizens from the consequences at gas stations through tax cuts. It is now unavoidable that the Iran shock will translate into an inflation driver, working its way through economic value chains into consumer prices. These developments almost force a reduction of the tax burden on households and the middle class. It...