Schrödinger's Strait - Trump Thread #162A

[Spandauer]

The Strait of Schrödinger remains open and closed, safe and dangerous, insurable and uninsurable, blockaded and free.

"You put your tanker in, you put your tanker out
In, out, in, out, you sail it all about
You do the Straits of Hormuz and you turn around
That’s what it’s all about!"

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

Got overwhelmed by the 🍊💩's idiot fuckery last time and missed out thread #161 so have designated this one as fake #162...A

Trump’s Final Term Ends in: - Countdown Timer
Thanks for link @CaveMum

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5516057-he-has-no-deal-he-has-no-dice-trump-thread-162

I have been inculcated that Chinese society and culture has evolved to think in terms of decades rather than weeks.

Compare and contrast with the (unsurprisingly now defunct) UK industrial behemoth I once worked for who panicked over week ends at times, let alone year ends.

I also worked for a Dutch-owned company who owned Calor Gas. They had an alien idea to investment that - get this - you may have to wait years to see the results.

Quick quiz question: Can you guess what bought about the state of affairs in italics ?

Using this analogy, which bit is Britain and which bit France and its allies? I don't think it's that straight forward anymore and would throw into the mix, that a pragmatic country can be allied with one for a particular reason and also allied with that first country's enemy for a different reason.

Geopolitics, self-interest and the interconnectiveness of a shrinking world complicate things to the extent that I can see the importance for the race to be the first in military or economic might.
Predictions on economic dominance will not have gone unnoticed in the US, but the cost of this war will have major longer term impacts on the US economy.
Jokes on Trump running the US like one of his asset stripping businesses where he walk off unscathed with $$$$$ might not be far off the mark.

Daily PersiaBoi Lego video. This time Baghdad Barbie!

https://x.com/HemmatMahdi/status/2046654231042826668?s=20

Yeah. They plan so well that state owned real estate companies are offering unfinished apartments to settle bills with suppliers. That the country is estimated to have more apts than buyers, and they are still chucking them up because they have no alternative to replace construction as a % of their GDP.

Re calor gas. No idea. But my guess is that if it was bought by a Chinese company, it will be run into the ground, ask for a guv bailout, shut down, and voila, calor gas will be replaced in the market by sinagas or whatever.

Is that not what happened to Rover cars ? Big promise's on investment, then shut down and asset stripped ? Probably part of BYD now.

It might be stretched as an analogy.

However the entire reason for the British Empire is most certainly not - and never was - a big army that goes around wiping out opposition.

No, the reason for the British Empire was the eventual strategic realisation that everything on earth depends on moving shit around. And if you can decide whose shit goes where, then - over time - they will be forced into a beneficial accommodation with you.

How many people would have started their game of Risk devoting resources to having a big willy army ? Or think of the world in those terms.

Baghdad Barbie

Lovin' it !

I am no fan of the Iranian regime. But I so want to give the Iranian people a very unMNetty hug.

Oh there were a lot of murky dealings around "the Rover".

China is just doing what Britain did, as an Imperial power. In fact - gasp - it's pretty much one of the key characteristics of an Empire. With the entire basket-case-Britain narrative beginning when 99% of Britons cottoned on that whilst the Empire was great and glorious and worthy of erection-inducing pride, 99% of participants (willing and unwilling) were seeing 0.fuckall% of the benefits. The greedy scum at the top didn't even try to reach Prados principle.

And we have been there ever since.

British steel is another one fresh in the memory. " We will invest billions" became "The UK guv need buy us a new 1 billion quid furnace" then " we will shut it down and you can buy Chinese made steel".

And it will be the same in the Gulf if it gets in. And that is a massive potential prize that is worth a bit of hardship for.

It's just economic aikido.

Anglophone soccer managers are a faascinating insight into the "we need results by day end or there's no point" mentality that world the get-rich-quick western businesses inhabit.

So how do we think this will end? Can the Strait remain shut for months? Will Iran cave in? Will Trump throw a tantrum and start bombing again?

Sometimes we can have nice things

The PRC are really poor at mens football. And no matter what they plan or however many billions they pump in, they just get worse at it. They keep arresting the Federation bosses too. For corruption. All a bit of a pain when Uncle Xi is football mad and wants to win the world cup by 2050.

A Japanese manager they had laid it out straight. No grass roots. No school leagues or such. No kids kicking a ball between jumpers in the park. Well, there are not them sort of parks. But get this. The plan they formulated was for every schoolkid ( I am not 100% on every ) was issued a ball. and every day they had to do keepie up as homework. And at school there was to be competitions where the winners would be separated somehow. The result of that was tens of millions of kids bedrooms with an unused football. And because it's an "official party thing", the balls can't be stuffed away. They just become a pain when mopping the floor :-)

So that never worked, so now its big local leagues. Sort of like UK Sunday stuff, but they play in Olympic soccer stadiums. But it's still party run. It has to be party run, because non Party clubs are effectively illegal.

And the men's team are even worse than before.

But the women are pretty good.

Re planning. International football can't he hidden. But for every plan that works, the dozens of plans that don't work can be hidden. Not with footie.

Except for the PRC v Indonesia world cup qualifier last year. China won that. The day after a new China financed high speed rail line for Jakarta was announced.

You need to define terms first.

If we take the widest meaning of "shut" then as long as shipping perceives the risk of passing to be unacceptable, then even without a shot being fired, it's "shut".

Really, what Trump needs to be doing is chasing all ships out of the gulf at gunpoint to force them to pass the straits as "open". He can't. They won't. And that is that.

Notice how Iran wasn't mentioned once in the above. And if you didn't, plenty have.

Trump is the obvious problem; if someone can find a way to contain him it would help negotiations no end. However, according to Frank Gardner this morning, no-one knows any more who's actually in charge of Iran - educated and cultured leaders or the IRCG; if it's the latter, it's anyone's guess.

I find it crazy, that a few religious nutters with guns in speedboats can fuck up the entire global economy. Why isn't the US taking them out?

Really? The US (this administration) are religious nutters with guns, or often just nutters with guns. And really don't give a stuff about the global economy.
Um...have you been away (like Mars) for a wee while (like ten years)?

No need to be so condescending FFS. Not all of us are hooked on 24 hr news.

Yes. The US are religious nutters as well but with superior fire power.

You don't care that millions of poor around the world will likely suffer or even die because of the Iran war??? Ffs

The speedboats are just theatrics for propaganda. The strait is closed cos Iran says it is closed. Be a brave crew to see if they have any missiles left.

What makes you sure the IRCG are not educated and cultured ?

Gotta be careful I reckon, not to fall for the de-humanizing propaganda.

Time to ban men from running countries. They've had enough practice for many centuries and totally fucked up.

Not sure at all, just quoting Frank G.

Oh come on now. Do I need to post a picture of a lettuce :-)

Anyway, this is really all Thatcher's fault.

The US certainly doesn't. If you've read these threads, you might notice that we're pretty horrified by events and the outcome. You might also have noticed that we're not on Iran's side and make that clear very regularly but we understand their reactions to having their leader and 130 schoolgirls murdered and are in awe of their wit and social media presence.

The US has expensive weapons. BTW. Iran out numbers them in sheer quantity and rapid replaceability.

I'm talking about testosterone included violence and the need for power. Trump, Putin, Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam, Gaddafi, Mugabe, etc etc. The list is endless.

I hardly think Thatcher and Truss can be included in those categories.

Well Trump certainly didn't.
He opened a whoop ass can of worms that didn't need opening.
The Iranian protesters hung out to dry by Trump promising the earth,moon and the stars and giving them ..erm the sum of fuck all.