WATCH HORMUZ

“all of these countries are trying to diversify away from oil, and they're sort of sometimes they overlap on the same sectors at times. They have different visions for how to manage the oil wealth, which is important and that sometimes shows up in OPEC plus meetings.”

“I think the second thing, the defense spending will go up, one because they need to replenish on the defense systems that they've been using over the past six weeks. And second because they're realizing that the world is a far more dangerous place than it was six weeks ago.”

“An F-15, which is a very good fighter jet, was struck by Iranian fire in western Iran, and this set off an urgent rescue operation by US forces for the two crew members, a pilot and a weapons officer. One was rescued. We still don't know the fate of the other.”

“the direction is going to go down, and it's going to go down because you having the interruptions to oil exports, because that source of capital is that you export oil and gas. You get the income, you spend some of it domestically, and then the surplus you invest a broad”

“Iran had just basically two simple goals because they were completely cornered, which is basically survival of the system and the terrence so that they don't get attacked again in a few months. And they thought they could achieve this. So it's very very clear goals, very existential.”

“President Trump said on Truth Social that dozens of planes took part in the operation to save the airmen after his F-15 fighter jet was hit over western Iran on Friday. The plane's pilot was quickly rescued, but the weapons officer, an Air Force colonel, had to go into hiding. Trump wrote, quote, This brave warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran. US rescue aircraft came under fire, but managed to reach the airmen and fly him out of the country.”

“If you're Saudi, if you're the UAA and you have these alternative routs to Hormus, it's probably one of the better investments that you've made over the past few decades and it's paying off now.”

“The president and Secretary Hegseth's rhetoric about no mercy, no quarter, death from above, the bombing of the Stone Ages, this kind of rhetoric is really dangerous because the likelihood of having downed pilots or others who are captured in a war like this is very high. And if you send the message that there's no quarter for the folks on the other side, that really encourages them to mistreat our folks.”

“The US Embassy in Beirut says Iran may now target US universities in Lebanon. The American University of Beirut has shifted some classes online. The embassy has also upped its overall warning telling US citizens to leave Lebanon now.”

“The story exposed a federal directive to send pregnant migrant children to a single group home in South Texas beginning last July. Child welfare advocates say the move was intended to detain the pregnant girls in a state where abortion is illegal.”

“I think energy independence is going to be critical. And thankfully, for many countries in the world, there are alternatives. I mean, there are renewables that one can invest and develop even more. I mean, Sri Lanka with, you know, solar can do great. So energy independence, I think, is very doable for countries. The cost of doing it in terms of just the inputs that are required is cheaper, much cheaper than it used to be.”

“The uptick in attacks comes as part of a wider Ukrainian effort to limit Russia's financial windfall from the US and Israel's decision to attack Iran. That war has brought soaring global energy prices and new customers for Russian oil and gas at a moment when Russia's economy had been struggling due to Western sanctions.”

“So the risk is that the current incumbents have invested a large amount in their AI infrastructure, in data centers, in trillions of dollars, in the hope that they will be able to raise revenues that can explain, justify these level of investments that they're making. That is completely unclear because you could very easily have another competitor come in and produce the same product or pretty close to the same product, a fraction of the cost, given how the technology is evolving. Then the current incumbents can't really make the money they're expected to make to justify their investments.”

“So the mudurithinking about this, the Mudi thinking, you know, this is this is what wars do. They change a lot of things and a lot of perspectives on things, and that goes into corners that we didn't think about before, including architecture.”

“And if you look at 2025 and growth in 2025, basically, AI offset the drag that came from tariffs, right? Almost one to one. So that was the positive effect that came from AI. And what's interesting is you see that despite everything that's happened over the last 24 months or so, the US remains the part of the world where people want to hold equities. So if you look at the net capital inflows into the US in 2025, that was at a record high.”

“it seems that whatever happens in the short term with this particular conflict, that the region, the Gulf region and the Middle East has already been vastly, vastly changed.”

“I don't know if you saw the headlines today, that the UAE have decided to pull out of OPEC. That's just another contributor to volatility. I mean, on the plus side, you could see that it may prevent having a high price floor on oil. But one of the things that OPEC did was prevent a large amount of volatility in these prices. And if the UAE pulls out, you could have a lot more volatility.”

“And if it gets even worse, and we are looking at oil averaging $110 a barrel this year, and this is a much more disrupted situation with bigger hits to energy infrastructure, which means next year too, oil is going to stay very high and financial conditions get a whole lot worse. Then we're looking at the world economy growing at 2%, which again, those are extremely rare occurrences. So the risk seems squarely to the downside at this current point.”

“But as the longer story goes, Russia made some bad choices. Its decision to invade Ukraine has been tremendously costly. It has led to an allocation of resources to this war economy, and that's affected their productivity, that's affected the more critical investments that they need to make, and it's also affected the number of people who are staying in Russia and willing to work and contribute to the country. There's been this exodus of people out of Russia. So for all those reasons, you know, this is not going to end well.”

“Take the example of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was a country that went through a very bad crisis, was on the path of recovery. This kind of a shock is like a nightmare situation for a country like that, which is just trying to get out of the crisis that it had with fuel prices the way it is, with fertilizer prices going up. More generally, with jet fuel prices going up, which means travel is going to become much more expensive, which means tourism is affected in the region. Countries like that, Pakistan is another country that is in a fragile situation with everything that's going on.”

“The governor of Russia's northwestern Leningrad region said Ukrainian drones caused a fuel leak at the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk, the latest in a series of attacks that have slowed shipments of oil out of one of Russia's largest export hubs. Separately, authorities in the Nizhny Novgorod region to the east of Moscow reported Ukrainian drone strikes caused a massive fire at one of Russia's largest oil refineries.”

“Holy Week services are mixed with funerals and the sound of explosions. Israel's military says it's striking Hezbollah's infrastructure after killing a thousand of its members. Three United Nations peacekeepers have been wounded at their base in the south.”

“I learned recently that nylon and polyester come from petroleum products. So the price of thread has doubled in Bangladesh. We know that universities have been shut down in many countries in South and Southeast Asia. The Philippines declared a national energy emergency. Many airlines around the world, but many of them specifically in Asia, are cutting flights because jet fuel prices have doubled.”

“this is not the first time that the US security umbrella disappoints the Gulf. This is one episode out of several. There's this current one which is probably the biggest. There's an episode in twenty seventeen one cutter Face to blockade from its neighbors and didn't get the US protection that it wanted.”

“President Trump warned Iran today in a profane written post on social media that the US will attack key Iranian economic and infrastructure installations Tuesday. This, if no deal, is agreed to before then to keep open the key strait of Hormuz. On NBC's Meet the Press, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine criticized the president.”

“President Trump is again threatening Iran, saying on social media today, it has 48 hours left to open the Strait of Hormuz, or quote, all hell will rain down and glory be to God. He's already delayed that threat twice. This is the US and Israel continue to pound Iran.”