What You Get Is Not Necessarily What You See

Kunstler.com ^ | 16 Mar, 2026 | James Howard Kunstler

[MtnClimber]

"I can tell the entire internet has doomer fatigue." — Catturd on X.

The mysterious financial repo markets — which practically no one outside of banking understands (and even some banking insiders don’t) — are going wonky again like they did in September 2019, just before You-Know-What sucker-punched the world with lockdowns, stolen elections, and fake vaccines. Half of America still hasn’t got its head straight. . . and here we go again.

The private equity outfits, like giant BlackRock, are wobbling so hard that they had to “gate redemptions” — meaning, investors can’t pull their money out of funds going dark with dubious collateral. It’s exactly what sparks panics. Money can only stand so much unreality. The Rube Goldberg machine of finance — a scaffold of insane complexity designed to bamboozle the rubes — is threatening to fly apart. The world only needs so many pre-owned yachts.

Plus, there’s a war on, which has disrupted the regular flow of the world’s primary resource: oil. That’s the really-real side of the picture. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. You’ve got to wonder how much additional pounding the lunatic state of Iran can take. It’s not clear who is even in charge there. Iran’s supposed foreign minister, one Aras Araghchi, is suddenly offering to give up those 440 kilos of 60-percent enriched uranium that are at the heart of this quarrel. Sounds a little surrender-ish, though he made the offer with a certain defiant bluster. Let’s see where that goes. Maybe the war will be over sooner than you thought.

[Video at source]

Watch and listen starting at 13:00-minute Mark

With all this in motion, things slip-sliding all over the place, the week ahead may be one in which nobody can think straight or get a straight answer. Here’s something to chew on: do you think Great Britain is our dear friend because we speak the same language? Great Britain has been allowing Iran’s ruling Revolutionary Guard to park its money in London for half a century while Lloyd’s offers jacked-up insurance rates to all those tankers faring through the Strait of Hormuz.

This dynamic has made world oil up to 15-percent more expensive since the 1970s, and Britain’s banks have been creaming off the premium all the while. Trillions. Mr. Trump is putting an end to that racket while he also terminates Iran’s ability to export Jihad thuggery throughout the Middle East. That’s the meaning behind the Abraham Accords and the new Board of Peace set up to figure out Gaza — and probably to replace the broken United Nations as a mediating force in the region’s long-running conflicts.

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TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: finance; jhk; kunstler

[MtnClimber]

James Howard Kunstler ping

[Macoozie]

Venezuala Oil just got fancy.

We can sell our top grades for yuuuge bucks.
Cuz we got the tech, we can process all the Oil Sands crapola.
We got yuuug Nat Gas.

Gonna be all kinds of good things coming up if we can keep the ChiComs from buying up America and Birth Touring Baby Mommas making new ChiCom voters in US elections.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

From the article: "Great Britain has been allowing Iran's ruling Revolutionary Guard to park its money in London for half a century while Lloyd's offers jacked-up insurance rates to all those tankers faring through the Strait of Hormuz."

On clear sentence to capture the picture. Bankers for the "Revolutionary Guard."

And the newest, for today:

Europe's own regulatory architecture turned off Europe's own energy supply. And America. . . on the other side of the Atlantic with a full tank of gas, watched it happen.” —Jeff Childers

The op-ed observes: "This month, the US leaped to create a maritime insurance alternative to Lloyds of London, meaning the UK banks can no longer impose a 20-percent cost premium on Persian Gulf oil, which thunders through the global system and affects everyone."

And Then the World Changed Kunstler, 20 March 2026

Surely seems as if the actual ruling power in the UK is having their "behind the scenes" well and duly exposed. And, like the Democrats and their Democrat-adjacent RINOs, "the totalizing bad faith of the Democratic Party in its naked racketeering and power-seeking?" Seems to apply to those Brits as supposed "aliies" in the "five eyes" arrangement.

[Frank Drebin]

Indeed. There is far more going on with these recent moves than we have been led to believe.

[Track9]

Heres to “..with a vengeance.”

[aquila48]

Here’s the bottom line...

*Meanwhile, the US will continue pounding Iran until it can’t launch so much as a distress flare. They will have no nukes, no navy or air force, no more missiles and drones and payloads, and no ability to manufacture anymore of them. AND if they try, we will blow them up again. That’s real politics, not performative diplomatic jive. Sooner or later, the Revolutionary Guard regime will disintegrate and someone else will have to step up. The Iranian people deserve a chance to live in the sunlight after what they’ve been through for a half century. But it’s really up to them to make it happen. It’s pretty obvious that the American President and his people understand that. “

[kaktuskid]

The crude oil price rise is due to speculation by the gits in London.