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1/10 The U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would cost Iran approximately $276M/day in lost exports and disrupt $159M/day in imports, a combined economic damage of ~$435M/day, or $13B/month.Over 90% of Iran's $109.7B in annual trade transits the Persian Gulf. Oil/gas accounts for 80% of government export earnings and 23.7% of GDP. Kharg Island alone generates ~$53B/year, or as I noted to @TIME, "$78 billion a year in energy

Inflation surged in March as consumer prices jumped amid the economic disruptions caused by the Iran war's impact on the energy market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday said that the consumer price index (CPI) – a broad measure of how much everyday goods like gasoline, groceries and rent cost – rose 0.9% from a month ago and is 3.3% higher than last year. The annual figure jumped from last month's 2.4% reading, while the monthly increase also rose markedly from last month's 0.3% reading Expectations vs. reality Both the 0.9% monthly increase and 3.3% annual rise were in...

RAINELLE, W.Va. (AP) — Every month, Rebecca Michalski takes a deep breath before opening her electric bill. She lives on a fixed income, and heating her small house this winter has been staggering: Her February charge was $940.08 — more than her check. It makes no sense. She turns the lights off during the day and only burns one lamp with an energy-efficient bulb in the living room at night, but she keeps falling further behind on payments. In desperation, she took out a loan after getting a cut-off notice during an extended arctic blast that kept the state’s heaters...

Based on the CPI, inflation is relatively cool. Don't be fooled. It's much higher than advertised, and you can see it clearly if you look at the right data. When talking heads on CNBC or Fox Business talk about inflation, they always reference the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This metric measures the price changes in a “basket of goods.” This gives a fair approximation of price inflation (although intentionally understated), but it doesn’t give us a good gauge on the trajectory of inflation as historically economically defined. Inflation isn’t just “rising prices.” Historically, inflation was defined as an increase in...

President Donald Trump is asking for an eye-popping $1.5 trillion to fund the Pentagon in the budget proposal the White House released Friday. With the war with Iran ongoing, Trump has pushed that more money is needing to fund the US military and less on social programs. 'We're fighting wars, we can't take care of daycare,' he muttered at Wednesday's Easter lunch, which was closed to press, but video was accidentally posted online.

Oil surged 10% Thursday as U.S. President Donald Trump warned of further military aggression against Iran in the next two to three weeks, dampening hopes for an imminent de-escalation in the conflict. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures for May were up 10% at $110.21 a barrel as of 8:13 a.m. ET. June futures for international benchmark Brent crude rose 8% to $109.25 per barrel. Trump in his speech attributed the increase in oil prices to the “Iranian regime launching deranged terror attacks against commercial oil tankers and neighboring countries that have nothing to do with the conflict.” He said...

Donald Trump said he was willing to end the Iran war without a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The US president, with no concrete signs of a diplomatic breakthrough, suggested that if negotiations collapsed, he would “obliterate” Iran’s energy and water facilities, but leave the vital waterway under Iranian control. He wrote on his Truth Social platform: “Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business’, we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by...

President Donald Trump dismissed concerns about rising gas prices, insisting they’ll be dropping “very soon” once the Iran war wraps up. Trump spoke to reporters at the White House on Tuesday after signing an executive order cracking down on mail-in voting, and when confronted about the sharp rise in gas prices since the strikes against Iran were launched, the president insisted the U.S. will be leaving Iran “very soon.” According to AAA, the national average for gas is around $4. One month ago, it was below $3. The country hasn’t faced a $4 average for gas since 2022, when Russia...

White House officials have privately discussed their concerns about recent internal and public polling on the economy and President Trump and have been trying to drum up new strategies to prevent GOP losses in the midterm elections, sources briefed on the conversations told CBS News. Senior aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles and deputy chief of staff James Blair, regularly brief the president on the latest polling on voter sentiment. A central focus is the dissatisfaction of independent voters, whose economic angst has risen since the president's tariffs triggered global economic uncertainty and gas prices began to spike as...

U.S. President Donald Trump told aides he’s willing to end the military campaign against Iran while leaving the Strait of Hormuz largely closed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday evening. Trump and his aides assessed that a mission to reopen Hormuz would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks, the WSJ reported, citing administration officials. Trump decided that the U.S. would wind down current hostilities with Iran after achieving its main goals of hobbling Iran’s navy and missile stocks. Washington will then pressure Tehran diplomatically to reopen the strait, failing which, it will press allies...

REMOVING BARRIERS TO BUILDING HOMES: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to eliminate unnecessary regulatory burdens that delay housing construction and increase housing costs for American families.The Order directs the EPA Administrator and the Secretary of the Army to review and revise stormwater, wetlands, and other water-related permitting requirements to reduce building and ownership costs, streamline Federal regulatory approvals, and increase home insurability.The Order also directs the Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary of Transportation, and the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to eliminate unduly burdensome rules and reform programs...

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — In a series of exchanges spanning over three days, Connecticut’s top Democratic leaders appeared divided over whether or not to move forward with Gov. Ned Lamont’s proposal for a one-month gas tax holiday to address rising costs triggered by the war with Iran.The Democratic House speaker and House majority leader both signaled on Wednesday that their 102-member caucus is not clamoring for a gas tax holiday. A reprieve from the 25-cent-per-gallon tax, they reason, will not deliver sufficiently targeted savings.

Heading into this midterm election year, the cost of health care tops the public’s economic anxieties and more than 4 in 10 voters say the issue will have a major impact on their vote, a new KFF Health Tracking poll finds. Voters, including independents, currently trust Democrats more than Republicans to address the cost of health care and most other health care issues, though neither party has an advantage on addressing the overall cost of living, the poll finds. A majority (56%) of the public expect health care costs for their family to become less affordable in the coming year....

So, who is Emily Gregory, and how did she win in Trump’s backyard? In a surprising result, Democrat Emily Gregory won a special election in Florida’s House District 87, flipping a seat long held by Republicans. The district notably includes Mar-a-Lago, the private residence of US President Donald Trump, making the victory symbolically significant in national politics. Running for public office for the first time, Gregory built her campaign around one central message: affordability. She addressed rising concerns among voters about housing costs, healthcare expenses, insurance premiums, and everyday necessities. Rather than making Trump the focal point of her campaign,...

Texas challenged the rule, arguing it threatened the availability of affordable housing. A federal court has struck down a Biden-era rule that imposed “green energy” requirements for new housing constructions, threatening the availability of affordable housing. The case, co-led with Utah, was argued by Attorney General Ken Paxton in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Tyler. “The Corrupt Biden Administration’s radical policies were reducing the availability of affordable homes and making it harder for Americans to achieve the dream of homeownership,” stated Paxton. “This ruling is a major victory for homebuyers, builders, and families and...

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., is facing online mockery after his Senate campaign’s election night watch party charged customers exorbitant prices for water, despite claiming to champion affordability issues. Krishnamoorthi, a five-term House lawmaker, narrowly lost to Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton in a bruising Democratic primary Tuesday night. Krishnamoorthi supporters had to pay nearly $13 for water and $22 for a glass of wine at an event at a Chicago hotel while watching the returns come in. Online observers noted the irony of the steep prices as Krishnamoorthi’s Senate campaign was one of the most prolific fundraisers in the country. The...

Wholesale prices rose sharply in February, providing another sign that inflation continues to percolate even aside from rising energy prices.The producer price index, a measure of pipeline costs that producers receive for their products, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.7% on the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, the so-called core PPI increased 0.5%.Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for increases of 0.3% for both measures.For the all-items index, prices rose faster than the 0.5% pace in January. However, the core increase was less than the 0.8% for the prior month.

ransomnote: Below are several of John A Konrad V's detailed posts. There are another 14 posts in this thread series at the link which I did not copy.Here's the source of the x.com thread posts below:DataRepublican (small r) repostedJohn Ʌ Konrad V@johnkonradLet's unpack this..What if the White House has no intention of reopening the Strait of Hormuz?What if this war is really about ships & tariffs?I had a long discussion with senior DOE official yesterday on background. I can’t share any details but it’s clear everyone’s Strait of Hormuz calculus is wrong.We need to go back to the drawing boards.That's...

President Trump said Thursday there is an upside to rising oil prices as a result of the war against Iran — the U.S. will make money as a major producer. Mr. Trump, posting on Truth Social, was responding to oil prices that flirted with $100 per barrel as Tehran clamped down on tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, where about 20% of the world’s oil supply transits. “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” Mr. Trump posted. Mr. Trump’s post on...

President Trump signaled on Wednesday that he plans to tap into the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to bring down rising gas prices. “I filled it up once, and I’ll fill it up again, but right now, we’ll reduce it a little bit, and that brings the prices down,” Trump said during an interview with Local 12 in Kentucky. The president shrugged off rising gas prices as a “matter of war” earlier in the day and expressed confidence the market would settle soon. I figured we’d be hit a little bit. We were hit less than I thought...