Join Us at the 2023 World Economic Conference in Orlando, Florida!

? Dates: November 17, 18, and 19 ? Location: Orlando, Florida, USA (or tune in from home with our virtual ticket options)

Are you ready to unlock the future of economics and finance? Prepare for an unforgettable World Economic Conference experience in sunny Orlando, Florida! This premier event is your gateway to insights, networking, and valuable resources that will supercharge your understanding of the global economy.

?️ What’s Included for In-Person Attendees:

1. Event Admission: Enjoy reserved seating assigned based on the order of ticket sales, ensuring you have a prime view of every presentation.
2. Presentation Slides: Gain access to the presentation slides from all speakers, allowing you to delve deeper into the topics discussed.
3. Video Recording: Can’t make it to a session? No worries! You’ll receive access to video recordings of all conference presentations, so you can catch up at your convenience.
4. WEC Event App: Connect with the conference on a whole new level. Access presentation slides, bonus reports, recordings, and more via the official WEC Event App.
5. Bonus Conference Materials: Get a package of bonus conference-related materials, including exclusive bonus reports and videos (as provided by Martin Armstrong).
6. Morning Information Sessions: Don’t miss out on important morning information sessions, screened on-site in the meeting room on Saturday and Sunday.
7. Networking Opportunities: Exclusive access to the Event App Networking Feature allows you to connect with fellow attendees, both in-person and virtual, fostering valuable professional relationships.
8. Culinary Delights: Savor delicious breakfast and lunch on Saturday and Sunday, prepared to keep you energized throughout the day.
9. Cocktail Reception: Kick off the conference in style at our Friday evening cocktail reception. Meet and mingle with fellow attendees while enjoying refreshing drinks.
10. Swag Bag: As a token of our appreciation, each in-person attendee will receive a swag bag filled with goodies, including an Armstrong Economics notebook, pen, and an event collector’s mug!

Unable to travel? We also have two different ticket options for those wishing to attend virtually! 

Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of a global gathering of economic and financial minds. Secure your spot at the World Economic Conference in Orlando, Florida, and gain the knowledge, connections, and resources you need to thrive in the world of finance and economics.

Space is limited, so act now and reserve your seat! Visit our Events page to register and join us in sunny Orlando this November.

Now available at all major retailers!

The eBook will be available shortly.

The second edition of “The Plot to Seize Russia – The Untold History” is now available for purchase in paperback and hardcover on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The ebook will be available shortly.

Book description:

“Take care of Russia,” Boris Yeltsin said as he departed his presidency in August 1999. These words were directed at current Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Yeltsin specifically picked Putin as his predecessor to prevent the takeover of Russia.

So, who was Yeltsin warning against? Newly declassified documents from the Clinton Administration prove that there was a plot to rig the Russian election of 2000. These never-before-seen documents confirm numerous attempts to implement pro-Western policies using the Russian oligarchy headed by Boris Berezovsky.

On the other side were the communists who desired a return to the glory days of the Soviet Union. As one of the largest international hedge fund managers, author Martin Armstrong found himself in the middle of perhaps the greatest espionage, or attempt at a regime change for Russia, in modern history.

The Plot to Seize Russia pulls back the curtain to expose the most extraordinary attempt to seize power in modern history, but with the pen rather than armies. These declassified documents reveal a plot that has altered our thinking about the relations between the United States and Russia. The thirst for power comes seething through every line of these papers that alter our perception of reality, change the course of history, and now threaten us with World War III.

Europe is now removing any doubt about the seriousness of this crisis, because governments do not tell millions of people to stay home from work unless there is a genuine shortage forming beneath the surface. The European Union has begun urging citizens to work from home, drive less, reduce speed limits, and cut overall energy consumption as part of an emergency response to the shock created by the Iran war.

The language coming out of officials makes it clear that this is not temporary. European authorities are warning of a “very serious situation” with no immediate end in sight, and that is consistent with what we are seeing globally as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted one of the most critical energy arteries in the world. Roughly 20% of global oil and gas normally moves through that route, and Europe alone depends on it for a meaningful portion of its energy mix, including about 7% of its oil, 8.5% of LNG, and as much as 40% of jet fuel and diesel. When that flow is disrupted, there is no quick replacement.

What governments are doing now is trying to reduce demand because they cannot increase supply fast enough. The International Energy Agency has even outlined measures such as reducing highway speeds, limiting private car use, encouraging public transportation, and shifting work patterns to remote where possible. This is not environmental policy, this is rationing by another name. It is the same playbook we saw in the 1970s, only now it is being implemented through modern systems rather than overt fuel lines and shortages at the pump.

The push toward remote work is particularly telling because it highlights how deeply energy is embedded in the economy. Commuting, office buildings, transportation networks, all of these consume energy, and by reducing physical movement, governments are attempting to lower overall demand without explicitly declaring rationing. Some countries are even moving toward four-day workweeks and limiting travel to essential activities only, which again shows that the problem is not theoretical but already impacting how economies function on a daily basis.

This ties directly into the broader supply shock that has been described as the largest in modern history. The International Energy Agency has warned that this crisis is worse than the shocks of 1973, 1979, and even the recent energy disruptions combined, and that is because the current system is far more interconnected and dependent on continuous energy flows. Europe entered this crisis with already low gas storage levels, estimated around 30% capacity after a harsh winter, which has left it particularly vulnerable as prices have surged and supplies tightened.

What the public still does not fully grasp is that this is only the beginning phase. The oil and gas that were already in transit before the disruption are still working their way through the system, and that has delayed the full impact. Governments are trying to get ahead of that moment by cutting demand now, because once those flows diminish further, the gap between supply and consumption will become impossible to ignore. That is when rationing becomes unavoidable rather than advisory.

There is also a secondary effect that is already emerging, which is the impact on industry. Energy-intensive sectors across Europe, including chemicals and manufacturing, are facing rising costs and in some cases reducing output or adding surcharges of up to 30% just to stay operational. This is how an energy crisis turns into an economic crisis, because once production slows, prices rise, and growth begins to stall while inflation accelerates, creating the classic stagflation scenario.

The idea that economies can continue operating at full capacity while energy supply is constrained is simply not realistic. When energy becomes scarce, everything above it must contract, and that is exactly what we are seeing with reduced work schedules, remote work mandates, and transportation limits.

Governments are trying to manage the transition in a way that avoids panic, but the measures themselves reveal the severity of the situation. Once you begin telling entire populations to change how they work, travel, and consume energy, you have already crossed into crisis territory.

This will not resolve quickly. Officials are already warning that the shock will be long-lasting, and that suggests the current measures are just the first step. If the disruption to global energy flows continues, these temporary adjustments will evolve into more formalized restrictions, and what is now being presented as voluntary guidance will become mandatory policy.

Energy sits at the foundation of the entire economy, and once that foundation is disrupted, everything built on top of it begins to shift. Europe is now entering that phase, and the move toward remote work and reduced consumption is simply the first visible sign that the system is under strain.

When you strip away the propaganda, foreign aid is rarely about charity. It is about strategy, war, and buying influence. The latest long-run data show that from 1946 through 2024, more than $1 trillion in inflation-adjusted U.S. foreign aid went to just five recipients: Israel at $337.0 billion, Egypt at $198.9 billion, former South Vietnam at $193.8 billion, Afghanistan at $168.5 billion, and South Korea at $127.6 billion. Together, those five alone absorbed roughly 30% of all U.S. foreign aid since World War II. In fiscal 2024, overall U.S. foreign aid obligations were about $82.3 billion, covering 177 countries, and about two-thirds of that aid was classified as economic while roughly one-third was military. That is the first clue. Washington calls it aid, but the money consistently follows conflict zones, military alliances, and geopolitical choke points.

Israel sits at the top because it has long served as Washington’s anchor in the Middle East. The Council on Foreign Relations notes that Israel has received over $300 billion in total U.S. economic and military aid since its founding, and under the current memorandum of understanding the United States agreed to provide $3.8 billion per year through 2028, including $500 million annually for missile defense. Nearly all modern U.S. aid to Israel is military. That tells you exactly what this is. This is not a poverty program. This is a long-term military investment in maintaining a regional outpost that aligns with U.S. policy and projects power into one of the most unstable regions on earth.

Egypt comes second for a similar reason, but from the opposite side of the same equation. Cairo has for decades been paid to remain inside the American orbit and preserve the regional balance surrounding Israel and the Suez Canal. Reuters reported that the Biden administration granted Egypt its full $1.3 billion allocation in military aid in 2024, despite human rights concerns, because Washington considered Egypt vital to U.S. national security priorities, ceasefire negotiations, hostage talks, and humanitarian logistics linked to Gaza. In other words, Egypt is funded not because Washington admires its internal governance, but because it occupies critical real estate and performs a strategic function. If Israel is the spear point, Egypt is part of the containment framework around it.

Vietnam was pure Cold War spending disguised as nation-building. The National Archives notes that American assistance to Vietnam began before 1954 and continued after the Republic of Vietnam declared independence in the South, with U.S. backing sustaining the Diem government and then the wider anti-communist war effort. The Council on Foreign Relations summarizes it plainly: the United States poured money into South Vietnam to support the military and promote stability during the war, and when South Vietnam fell, the aid ended. That is the key point. If this had truly been development assistance, it would have continued after the war. It did not. The money was there to try to hold a strategic line against communist expansion in Southeast Asia. Once the line broke, so did the funding.

Afghanistan was Vietnam repeated in another century. According to SIGAR, by March 2021, U.S. appropriations for Afghanistan reconstruction alone had reached $144.4 billion, with the report warning that the investment was at serious risk of waste, fraud, abuse, or outright failure. SIGAR also found that more than $2.4 billion had been spent on capital assets that were unused, abandoned, misused, deteriorated, or destroyed. That was reconstruction money alone, before counting the much larger war costs. SIGAR cited a broader estimate of $2.26 trillion in total Afghanistan war costs, while even the Defense Department’s own estimate put cumulative obligations at $824.9 billion.

This is what Washington does. It invades, installs a model, funds the system to keep it alive, and then calls the expenditure foreign aid. Afghanistan ranked so high because it was not a normal aid recipient. It was a twenty-year attempt to subsidize an occupation, build a client state, and hold a strategic position in Central Asia.

South Korea is the one case on the list that Washington can point to as a relative success, but even there the motive was never altruism. Korea was funded because it sat on the front line of the Cold War, directly adjacent to communist North Korea and within range of China. Korean development archives state that foreign aid raised South Korea’s capital stock in education, health, roads, railways, power, water, sanitation, and industrial financing. A historical GAO review found that by the early 1970s the United States had provided South Korea with over $5.4 billion in grant military aid and significant economic assistance, while also bearing $9.8 billion in costs for maintaining U.S. forces in Korea from 1954 through 1972. Washington underwrote South Korea because it needed an anti-communist stronghold in Asia. The aid worked far better there than in Vietnam or Afghanistan, but the strategic intent was the same.

Once you line these five up side by side, the pattern is impossible to miss. Israel, Egypt, and South Korea were paid to anchor American influence in strategically vital regions. South Vietnam and Afghanistan were funded as war theaters and client-state experiments. None of this was random, and none of it was primarily humanitarian. The money followed military doctrine, containment strategy, logistics, and regime support. That is why foreign aid should always be analyzed as an extension of foreign policy, not as benevolence. Even the U.S. government’s own descriptions of assistance emphasize national security, influence, and regional stability.

The real lesson is that Washington does not hand out money because it has excess compassion. It deploys money where it wants control. That is why the same names keep appearing decade after decade. Aid is simply the cleaner word for financing alliances, subsidizing wars, and maintaining imperial reach. When the strategic value is there, the money flows.

The Russian police has launched a mass-campaign of pulling people over and checking their phones to see if they have “illegal VPNs” installed pic.twitter.com/m4oBBvE2dO

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 6, 2026

Russia has now begun implementing what can only be described as a street-level surveillance hunt, with police conducting mass traffic stops not for crime in the traditional sense, but to inspect citizens’ phones for so-called “illegal VPNs.” This marks a profound shift in the role of law enforcement, in which the objective is no longer simply to maintain public safety but to control access to information. Reports indicate that officers are stopping individuals at random, demanding access to their devices, and scanning for software designed to bypass state-imposed internet restrictions, illustrating how governments are moving from policing actions to policing access itself.

What is unfolding closely resembles the system already embedded in China, where authorities have taken surveillance to a far more invasive level. Since 2021, Chinese police have reportedly gone door-to-door requiring citizens to install state-backed “anti-fraud” applications that function as real-time monitoring tools. These applications are designed to scan devices continuously and immediately alert authorities if users attempt to install VPNs or access restricted platforms. The purpose extends well beyond fraud prevention, as it creates a mechanism to detect intent before action, allowing authorities to intervene at the earliest stage of non-compliance.

The emergence of this model is not accidental, and it ties directly into the broader shift toward integrating technology with state control. Governments are increasingly building systems that allow them to monitor behavior across multiple layers, including communication, financial transactions, and movement. Once these systems are operational, they become part of the infrastructure of governance, expanding in scope rather than contracting over time. China has already demonstrated how digital ID systems, payment networks, and surveillance tools can be combined into a unified framework that tracks and influences behavior on a national scale.

Russia’s adoption of similar tactics reflects the pressures facing governments dealing with sanctions, economic instability, and internal dissent. Restricting VPN usage effectively limits access to external information sources, confining the population within a controlled narrative environment. This becomes especially relevant when economic conditions weaken, because managing perception becomes as important as managing policy. Confidence plays a central role in any financial system, and when that confidence begins to falter, governments often respond by tightening control rather than loosening it.

A wider pattern is beginning to emerge when these developments are viewed together. This is not limited to Russia or China, but represents a broader direction in which governments are moving toward systems capable of monitoring and restricting both information and capital flows in real time. The same types of frameworks being discussed elsewhere under labels such as digital currencies, fraud prevention, or online safety can be adapted to enforce compliance when necessary. Once authorities gain the ability to observe behavior at scale, the incentive to regulate that behavior increases significantly.

Previous eras relied on physical measures to impose capital controls, such as restricting bank withdrawals or limiting cross-border transfers, but the modern approach embeds control directly into the technology people use daily. Smartphones, payment systems, and digital identity platforms can all be leveraged to enforce rules instantly, without the need for visible intervention until enforcement is triggered. Limiting VPN access fits into this structure by ensuring that information cannot move freely beyond state oversight, reinforcing the broader architecture of control.

It is a mistake to assume that such measures remain confined to specific regions. As global financial pressures intensify and sovereign debt concerns continue to build, the incentive to deploy tools that manage both perception and behavior will only increase. Once the capability exists to control both the flow of information and the flow of money, government has unprecedented control over the population.

Mindless sheep exist on both wings of the bird. I often criticize the Democrats for their far-left views, but we are now witnessing the dark side of blind party politics. The latest headlines surrounding Megyn Kelly state she would remain loyal to the Republican Party “even if Trump dropped a nuke on another country.” Independent thought is collapsing.

When you step back and look at the broader data, the American people themselves are not aligned with this type of blind loyalty. Poll after poll shows the opposite. A CNN poll found that 59% of Americans disapprove of military action against Iran. Reuters/Ipsos polling showed only 27% supported strikes, while far more opposed them. Another CNN survey shows just 34% approve of the war, with two-thirds believing there is no clear plan. Meanwhile, over 75% oppose sending ground troops, which is about as decisive as it gets in modern polling. Even more striking, a CBS poll found that 92% of Americans believe the war should end as quickly as possible.

So the people are not demanding war. The media, on the other hand, is fueled by partisan politics. Instead of thoughtful debate, we are seeing ideological entrenchment where individuals align themselves with a party to the point that they are unwilling to question anything that comes from their side. This is not confined to one party.

There are extreme Democrats who will support policies regardless of consequence simply because they oppose Republicans. There are extreme Republicans who will support actions regardless of consequence simply because they oppose Democrats. The middle ground, where independent thinking once existed, is being squeezed out. That is how societies break down.

When political identity replaces independent thought, you no longer have a functioning republic. You have factions. Each side becomes convinced that the other is so dangerous that anything is justified to stop them. That is precisely the mindset reflected in statements suggesting that even the destruction of another nation would not be enough to reconsider political allegiance. This is modern-day tribalism.

The Economic Confidence Model has always shown that political polarization rises sharply during periods of declining confidence in government. As trust erodes, people do not become more rational. They become more emotional and more extreme. They seek certainty in group identity rather than truth. That is what we are witnessing right now.

The irony is that while the political class continues to push conflict abroad, the population itself is clearly against it. The polls could not be more consistent. Americans do not want war. They do not want escalation. They do not want endless foreign entanglements. But leadership is no longer responding to the people.

When people stop questioning their own side and begin to justify anything simply because it aligns with their political identity, that is when a society becomes vulnerable to its own collapse. It no longer requires an external enemy. It begins to destroy itself from within.

This is why independent thinking is now more important than ever. Blind loyalty to any party is a detriment to society. It prevents accountability and reason. No one wants war. The data proves that. The real question is whether people are willing to think for themselves or continue to follow respective tribes wherever they are led.

I believe that Benjamin Netanyahu is a highly dangerous psychopath, which is defined as a person characterized by traits such as a lack of empathy, remorse, or guilt, and often engages in manipulative or antisocial behavior. From the outset of this war, Netanyahu was very bullish that his dream of destroying Iran would follow. His ruthless tactics of assassinations actually prevent negotiation because they fear that just attending a meeting gives him the opportunity to kill them.

The tone of the statement from his office, acknowledging the ceasefire, was far more muted than his boisterous announcement at the outset. The ceasefire was clearly a decision made by President Donald Trump, not Netanyahu. Compared to the triumphal statements from the US and Iran, both of which claimed major victories after five weeks of war, Netanyahu clearly was defeated in his clever manipulation of Trump. Netanyahu characterized the operation as a success, but said the ceasefire was NOT the end and that Israel had more goals to achieve, either by agreement or renewing the fighting.

Netanyahu accomplished nothing. From the outset, he said the “goal of the operation is to put an end to the threat from the Ayatollah regime in Iran” and that “this operation will continue as long as necessary.” Netanyahu promised Israelis that this campaign would lead to the end of the Islamic regime, that by cutting the head of the snake, this war would remove an existential threat from Israel. None of these goals was achieved. Iran’s governing clerical establishment remains in place, although Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior figures have been killed in US-Israeli strikes, Iran’s armed forces have still been fighting on. As far as Iran’s nuclear program and stockpile of enriched uranium has not changed. Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles may have been depleted to some extent. It is widely assumed behind the curtain that they only used up perhaps 50%. Iran has been able to launch barrages of them towards Israel throughout the war depleting Israel’s defense.

Netanyahu maintains that Lebanon was not part of a ceasefire. Israel carried out a wave of air strikes across Lebanon following the US-Iran ceasefire announcement
This is a stark conflict over whether the ceasefire deal covers Lebanon has also emerged, which is putting the entire ceasefire at risk. Likewise, Iran is free to attack Gulf States. Netanyahu referred to this ceasefire as a “suspension” of hostilities, but that he had NOT publicly accepted the war was over. Clearly, all the damage Israel has endured with not a single stated goal achieved, this failure to achieve even one of his stated objectives was not good for him politically, and that another issue is the fact that Trump has assumed the leadership role with Netanyahu not having much of a say.

Until now, there were public displays of unity between Netanyahu and Trump, but their goals are now at odds. A full end to the war, if it is based on the “10-point proposal from Iran” that Trump has referenced, will be widely seen as a strategic success for Tehran, given that is constitutes a list of demands by its leadership. The real sticky point is a guarantee that Iran will not be attacked again. That seems to stick in the throat of Netanyahu and it suggests that he will see to create some sort of false flag to argue that Iran has violated the agreement.

Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition in Israel, said there had “never been such a political disaster in our entire history” and that “Israel was not even at the table when decisions were made concerning the core of our national security.” The tone of of Lapid’s statements demonstrates the political crisis brewing inside Israel. He added: “The army did everything they asked of it, the public displayed incredible resilience, but Netanyahu failed politically, failed strategically, and did not meet any of the goals he himself set.”

It is an election year in Israel, meaning Netanyahu could potentially lose power within months. This may give him the incentive to create a false flag yo restore the war.

Egypt is now offering a real-time example of what happens when an energy crisis moves from theory into reality, and it is not unfolding in some distant or abstract way but directly in the daily life of one of the most populated nations in the Middle East. Cairo, a city historically known for its nightlife and constant activity, is now being forced into darkness as the government imposes strict measures to conserve energy following the fallout from the Iran war.

Businesses are being ordered to shut down early, public lighting has been reduced, and what was once a 24-hour economy is now being artificially curtailed to cope with soaring fuel costs and disrupted supply chains.

The scale of the shock is significant because Egypt is not a major oil producer capable of insulating itself from global disruptions, but rather a country heavily dependent on imported energy. The government has confirmed that its energy import bill has more than doubled since the war began, forcing authorities to raise fuel prices, increase transportation costs, and even slow state-backed projects to manage the financial strain. This is precisely how an energy crisis spreads through an economy, beginning with supply constraints and then rippling outward into inflation, reduced activity, and ultimately social pressure.

What is unfolding in Cairo is not just about dimmed streetlights or earlier closing times, it is a form of economic contraction imposed by necessity. Shops, cafes, and restaurants are now required to close as early as 9 p.m., cutting off peak business hours in a culture where much of economic and social life traditionally occurs late at night. This has immediate consequences as businesses lose revenue, workers lose hours, and entire sectors begin to slow down. The government has even introduced reduced working hours and remote work policies to limit energy consumption, which further highlights how deep the problem has become.

Egypt was already dealing with a weakened currency and inflation running above 13%, and now it is being hit with an external shock that it cannot control. This combination is extremely dangerous because it reduces the government’s ability to respond while increasing pressure on the population. Tourism, one of Egypt’s primary sources of foreign currency, is already showing signs of slowing, and if that continues, it will further strain an already fragile balance of payments.

Egypt is simply one of the first visible cracks in the system. Countries that rely on imported energy are all facing similar pressures, but Egypt’s scale and economic structure make the impact more immediate and more visible.

This is where the broader picture becomes clear. The energy crisis is not something that hits everywhere at once. It moves unevenly, affecting the most vulnerable economies first, particularly those dependent on imports and exposed to global price shocks. Egypt is now showing what that looks like in practice, where an external geopolitical conflict translates directly into domestic restrictions, economic slowdown, and rising costs of living.

The problem with an oil crisis is that the public never feels it all at once because oil does not move by magic. It moves by ship, and ships move slowly. That delay is precisely why people are still underestimating what lies ahead. Before this war shut the Strait of Hormuz, roughly 20.7 to 20.9 million barrels per day of crude, condensate, and petroleum products were moving through that chokepoint, including about 14.7 million barrels per day of crude and condensate and another 6.1 million barrels per day of petroleum products. The IEA now says the war has created “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market,” with flows through Hormuz plunging from around 20 million barrels per day to a trickle, Gulf producers cutting output by at least 10 million barrels per day, and nearly 20 million barrels per day of crude and product exports disrupted.

People keep looking at gasoline prices and assume the worst has already been discounted. It has not. What is cushioning the system right now is the oil that was already loaded before the crisis fully shut traffic down. Reuters reported that Iran alone exported about 13.7 million barrels of crude after the February 28 attacks, while Kpler estimated about 16.5 million barrels in the first eleven days of March, which means cargoes already on the water have been acting as a temporary buffer. The IEA also noted that observed global oil stocks were 8.21 billion barrels in January and that about 25% of that total was “oil on water,” or roughly 2.05 billion barrels floating in transit or storage at sea. That is the bridge the world has been living off, but bridges end.

The transportation lag is what masks reality. Tankers from the Persian Gulf do not teleport into refineries. Cargoes from the Gulf to Japan typically take about 20 to 30 days, and cargoes from the Gulf to Europe via the Suez Canal take about 19 days under normal conditions. If ships are forced around the Cape of Good Hope, the Persian Gulf to Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp route stretches to nearly 35 days. Even product cargoes from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Chiba, Japan face additional delays depending on whether they use Panama, Suez, or the Cape. In other words, there is always a lag between disruption at sea and pain on land, which is why the last normal shipments are still being burned through now.

The market has already started telling you this in the only language that matters, which is the price for prompt physical barrels. Reuters reported today that European and Asian refiners are paying near $150 a barrel for some immediate-delivery crude grades, with North Sea Forties hitting $146.09. Brent futures only tell part of the story because the real panic is in physical cargoes needed now. Dated Brent is trading almost $20 above June Brent futures, while European jet fuel has been near $226.40 a barrel and diesel around $203.59. That is what happens when refiners suddenly have to replace missing Gulf barrels with cargoes from the North Sea, West Africa, Brazil, or the United States. Everyone begins bidding for the same limited replacement supply.

This is where the public still does not grasp the supply chain. Energy sits beneath everything in the economy. It is not just the price at the pump. The Middle East exported more than $10 billion of kerosene tailored for aircraft engines last year, and Reuters Breakingviews noted that much of it is now inaccessible. Heavy Gulf crudes also yield different product slates than American barrels. A barrel of WTI produces significantly more heavy naphtha, while heavier Middle Eastern crude yields more asphalt and ship fuel. That means even if you find replacement crude, you do not necessarily replace the same downstream products. Trucking, aviation, manufacturing, farming, shipping, chemicals, plastics, packaging, fertilizer, all of it sits on top of energy and all of it feels the mismatch.

The shipping side is getting worse, not better. The EIA said March tanker rates for VLCCs from the Middle East to Asia reached their highest level since at least November 2005 after the Strait closed on March 2. It also said vessels that had already loaded crude and became confined in the Gulf reduced effective global tanker availability, pushing rates higher everywhere else. Reuters then showed the second-round effect: availability of VLCCs on the U.S. Gulf Coast halved to 10 from 20 in a month, net vessel availability there fell 41%, and freight for Suezmaxes and Aframaxes surged to as much as $300,000 a day from an average of about $60,000 over the previous five months. That is the hidden tax of an oil shock. When voyages take longer and insurance costs explode, you need more ships just to move the same amount of crude, and there are not enough ships to do it.

The IEA has been blunt that this is not some replay of 1973 in miniature. Fatih Birol said this oil and gas crisis is worse than 1973, 1979, and 2022 together, and Reuters reported his warning that April’s disruptions would be roughly double those of March. The agency already coordinated the release of 400 million barrels from emergency reserves last month, yet it is still warning that shortages of diesel and jet fuel are moving from Asia toward Europe in April and May. That is the key point. The crisis does not end when futures stop screaming. It progresses as inventories are drawn down, ships arrive late, and the last pre-war cargoes are consumed.

This is why I have always said energy is foundational. You can pretend inflation is under control, you can manipulate statistics, and you can lecture the public about temporary volatility, but none of that changes the physical chain. If roughly one-fifth of the world’s seaborne oil system is disrupted, then the entire globe is forced to compete for what remains. Once those final shipments are exhausted and the slower replacement routes fail to keep up, this energy crisis will move from headline risk to economic reality. That is when the public finally realizes that oil is not just another commodity. It is the base layer under the entire economy.

Poland represents a critical development in the evolving role of gold because it illustrates how quickly central bank strategy can shift from accumulation to utilization when geopolitical pressures intensify. Over recent years, Poland has been one of the most aggressive buyers of gold, adding more than 80 tonnes and increasing its total reserves to approximately 570 tonnes, positioning itself as a major holder within Europe as it sought to strengthen its financial security amid rising regional tensions.

Now, however, discussions have emerged about using gold profits to support defense spending, with the central bank governor suggesting that unrealized gains on gold, estimated at around 197 billion zloty or roughly $53.7 billion, could be tapped to finance military expenditures. There have also been proposals to monetize gold reserves in a way that could generate up to $13 billion, potentially through partial sales or financial instruments, with the option to rebuild reserves later.

This shift highlights a fundamental reality about gold that is often overlooked, which is that it is not simply a passive store of value but an active strategic asset that can be deployed when needed. Poland accumulated gold as a hedge against systemic risk, and now it is considering using that hedge as a financial resource in response to escalating security concerns.

Nations often build gold reserves during periods of relative stability and then draw upon them during times of crisis, whether for war financing or economic stabilization. Poland’s position underscores the broader theme that gold is not separate from the financial system but deeply embedded within it as a final layer of security that becomes increasingly important as geopolitical and economic pressures mount.

Trump’s constant threat of ending the Persian Civilization is just over the top. Why should Iran agree to anything when this is Netanyahu’s War who has refused to accept a ceasefire anyway and is intent on destroying the Iranian government? The Strait of Hormuz is the only card they have to play. For 40 years+, Netanyahu has preached the destruction of Iran.

In 2012,  Netanyahu stood before the United Nations trying to get a war going with Iran.  This has been his life’s mission.

Back in 2002, he used the same argument to invade Iraq. He swore Saddam head Weapons of Mass Destruction. The computer does not show this is ending. So buckle up. Trump has to back away from Netanyahu. I fear he will not.