There’s talk of Iran at last prepared to discuss peace. Presumably, the logic goes that it would be foolish of the electorate to disenfranchise Trump’s Republicans just when he’s on the point of ending the war. Consequently, the immediate panic in the bond market has subsided:
Together with the oil price declining this is a source of relief for financial markets.
And with gold and silver down sharply, the debasement trade has been blown out of the water:
There is one big problem: it is market manipulation by propaganda. For instance, Iran is said to be ready to negotiate. They have always been ready to negotiate, which Trump actually signed for in the Memorandum of Understanding back in June. It’s just that Trump couldn’t compromise, and anyway has no control over Israel, which was not a party to it.
The most egregious example of propaganda is over oil shipments, with the Wall Street Journal and CNBC claiming that more oil was coming out of the Persian Gulf than before the war. Not true. Before the war, some 20mbpd were coming out of the Gulf, which had dropped to about 17mbpb for various reasons just before the war. This line is being bought by the entire western media. Other sources beg to differ. Here are the independent IMF’s figures:
