That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen

G-7 Leaders Reject SPR Release Plan, But 'Stand Ready' After Initial Jawbone Efforts Fade Update (1055ET): G-7 finance ministers used headlines in Asia, including calls for a meeting to discuss an SPR release, as a purely performative attempt to calm chaotic energy markets. Now that the emergency meeting is over, the group of leaders failed to agree on releasing crude supplies. Those headlines briefly hit Brent down from around $119/bbl to near $100, but once again, it appears to have been little more than a circus act as world leaders stare directly...

Damon Wilson, the head of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), was interrupted by a member of Congress during a House oversight hearing on February 24 after revealing that his agency “began supporting the deployment [and] operation of about 200 Starlinks early on” amid the violence which swept through Iran last month. Before he could […]

Regime Change Will Not Be Easy: Tehran's Goal Is To Survive By Any Means Necessary By Molly Schwartz, cross-asset macro strategist at Rabobank My Circus! My Monkeys! Europe was hit with the first strike to its energy supply chain after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and had to start diversifying its inflows from elsewhere. Now that Middle Eastern LNG is losing reliability, Europe might have to get involved just to keep the lights on. While the EU and UK would probably be more than happy to spectate from the proverbial “monitoring chair,” they...