Wars and Rumors of Wars

Satellite Data Shows Iran Moving Crude Through Hormuz Chokepoint, Putting Kharg Island In Focus Ten days into the U.S.-Israeli Operation Epic Fury against Iran, which has forced shut-ins at major Gulf oil and gas facilities, disrupted production at key oil fields, sent stockpiles soaring, sparked a global energy crisis (Brent crude hit $119/bbl highs overnight) and severely disrupted commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most critical energy chokepoint, new satellite imagery data from TankerTrackers, first cited by Bloomberg, suggests Tehran has recently moved substantial volumes of crude...

Tesla And SpaceX To Build Massive "Terafab" Chip Factory In Austin Elon Musk announced that his proposed “Terafab” chip factory will be built in Austin and operated jointly by Tesla and SpaceX, according to Yahoo Finance and Bloomberg. The plan is to start with a smaller, highly advanced fabrication facility capable of producing and testing a wide range of chips, before expanding to a larger operation. Musk argues the semiconductor industry isn’t scaling fast enough to meet his companies’ growing demand for AI and robotics, so he sees building his own supply...

What Causes Stagflation? Authored by Frank Shostak via The Mises Institute, In the late 1960’s Edmund Phelps and Milton Friedman challenged the popular view that there can be a sustainable trade-off between inflation and unemployment. In fact, over time, according to Friedman, expansionary central bank policies set the platform for lower economic growth and a higher rate of inflation (i.e., stagflation). A famous case of stagflation occurred during the 1974-75 period. In March 1975, industrial production fell by nearly 13 percent year-on-year while the yearly growth rate of the consumer price index (CPI) jumped to...