Send us Fan Mail

There is a deal on the table. The Strait of Hormuz has more traffic. Markets are moving. Crypto, gold, silver, and stocks all reacting the way they should for the first time in a while. And I want to be excited about it. I genuinely do. I just came back from the gym. I am wearing a SpongeBob outfit. I want to be pumped up.

But I cannot get past the terms. $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets unfrozen. $300 billion in US reconstruction aid. Full withdrawal of American forces from around Iran. Iran and Oman taking joint control of the Strait of Hormuz with a maritime services fee. And the one thing America gets to call a win is Iran reiterating a promise not to build nukes that they have already made before.

I also cannot get past the pickleball analogy that explains this entire war better than anything I have seen in a newspaper. You have a pickleball partner who keeps getting his kneecap destroyed right before your big tournaments. And you just found out that the guy playing in his place is the one who has been hitting him with the lead pipe all along. Just so he can keep playing. That is the situation.

I close with two things I am almost certain about regardless of how this deal plays out. A supply shock in oil is still coming because thousands of boats are stuck in the Persian Gulf and the Strait is still only moving a fraction of normal traffic. And food is going to get more expensive because 40% of the world's fertilizer supply came through that Strait and it has been choked off for over 100 days.

Plant a garden. Stack your savings. Cut the subscriptions. You know what to do.

Support the show