Trump throwing a lot of people under the bus because of stock markets?

[mids2019]

When you start a war you finish it in my opinion. There has been no other war that has been stopped because of a slide on the Dow Jones or an oil price spike. For Trump to now prematurely call an end to the war simply because of economics will simply mean IIrans drone terrorism has worked.

The people of Iran will be left with a job half done without the space needed for an uprising.

A new leader with good reason to ideological hate Israel and the US will realise the only method of future deterrence of Iran is through acquiring a nuclear weapon as their conventional weapons were obliterated. Iran will now do everything possible to acquire such a weapon.

This is a time for resolve Mr. President. There is still a chance to destroy this regime maybe with limited target ground troop assaults. The world actually will be safer if you continue.

This is the crux of it. People, including many on here are all for benefit cuts unless it affects them. If their pensions were means tested or they needed to pay for their NHS treatment or their taxes were increased considerably, most would be 100% against it. It's all very well wanting more defense spending but the system does not allow it without massive cuts in other areas. The only other possibilty is a massive increase in the deficit and a very large fall in the £, which is very tricky when you important most of your essentials. It would make everyone much poorer in real terms either way.

You think Fink is going to admit openly that the markets are likely to tank before long? It may not happen immediately but it will happen. He knows this. There have been well publicised problems within the shadow banking system already. This has been inevitable for a long time but is now starting to show up.

Very bad news. Israel are out of control and the US is talking of sending 10,000 troops.

I did see that Qatar has made an excellent statement the other day about wanting to live in peace with Iran. He struck a very wise tone imo.

These analysts are excellent (and others such as Alistair Crooke, Mearsheimer and Sachs) and have consistently been correct in their predictions, both in this situation and in Ukraine. I haven't seen the one you linked to- thank you. I'm struggling to find the time to keep up as much as I would like to.

One point I am curious on, is that presumably with oil prices now around $100 a barrel that the "Just Stop Oil" lobby and protesters are massively in favour of the US and Israeli action against Iran.

I mean pushing oil prices up to levels that cuts consumption across the world seems to be a much effective way to "Just Stop Oil" than super gluing your hands to a Pelican Crossing or such like.

New Zealand will run out of fuel in 45 days, Australia's farmers are worried about their next harvest because of fuel shortages - dam right Trump is throwing people under a bus.

That's a great example of a Non Sequitur right there!

Yes, a disaster all round. The only country that seems to have made excellent strategic plans wrt their oil is China, a country that is constantly criticised and looked down on by much of the Western world. I imagine that the equally smart strategists, the Russians, are laughing at the US stupidity too.

Smart strategists is not the first descriptor that springs to mind. Over a million russian lives lost in the last 4 years.

No one on here has said they are in favour of benefit cuts.

The opposite argument has been expressed- that it’s a question of priorities and things like the NHS & social welfare has always seemed a higher priority than spending on defence. We all may need the NHS regardless of age and in a civilised society all but the most right wing want to support the vulnerable. Whether that is the elderly, those with young children, those on low salaries, those who are temporarily unemployed or those unable to work. Speaking for myself, I have said that maintaining these safety nets have been a higher concern for me than the defence budget.

When you look at the state of our military now, however, it is easy to see that it has been under resourced for too many years (yes mainly under the Tories) and wars remind us that defence is important too. Which is a point Keir Starmer has made and is why he has committed to extra funding on defence, albeit a small increase this Parliament.

I don’t know where he will get the money from to fund this. But I doubt it will be popular whichever other budget Labour reduce to balance the books. It will be highly controversial if he reduces spending in other important areas that affect people more directly in day to day life. Which explains why successive governments have kept the defence budget low for so many years.

Yes he did talk about this so your assumption isn’t correct.

Yes agree with much of that.

The issue is really that the big benefit bills are in Pension, Working Benefits and Disabilities.

When Starmer tried to reduce Welfare by just 5 billion, the right wing press/media (& tory posters on here) were all saying "First Labour came for the Pensioners, then the Farmers and now the Disabled...." sort of stuff.

Labour got scared.

On defence, its mad (at this time) not to increase spend, it boosts manufacturing, increases opportunities for the young, helps with exports & higher paid jobs.

My local city, Plymouth, is doing very well off the back of Devonport and the increases in defence spend already coming through.

Do need to look at procurement though, too much waste, as with pretty much everything we try and build/make here.

It's just always going to be extremely unpopular with large swathes of the electorate because it makes a government look uncaring if they cut anything that affects people's lives.

The right wing press don't help by criticising everything Labour does.

But when Labour was in opposition, the left wing press was just as bad!

The press was critical of the last gov from partygate onwards anyway. It made them a lot of money from clicks.

As for spending people seem to post ‘invest in defence’ and ‘people over weapons’ which appears contradictory. And then some will vote for the Greens which signals lower spending on defence.

If people do want to invest in defence then it’ll cost, likely from other areas.

Humans are contradictory beings.

What many really want is for the government to spend lots of money on the NHS and welfare and also protect the farmers etc and also spend lots of money on defence and also offer low taxes 😉

If you acknowledge that there is not an endless pot of money, very hard decisions have to be made and that is going to upset people.

Yes thats true, its just that the right leaning media is far more widely available.

But the money for defence has to be found, its non negotiable, one thing Trump has done, regardless of who is POTUS, has made Europe realise that the USA can no longer be relied on.

Germany will soon have Europes largest military, with forces in Eastern Europe, unthinkable just a few years ago.

We need better defence procurement practices, tighter contracts and more money!!

Some will say ever higher taxes without recognising that impacts growth and therefore funding. As shown in last 20 months.

The heavy water thing below is interesting. Since reading Richard Rhodes book I remembered the part where taking out a heavy water plant was a crucial part of slowing German nuclear weapon advances.

I wondered if heavy water was often used for civilian nuclear so googled

No, heavy water is not necessary for civilian nuclear power. While heavy water is used in specific types of nuclear reactors, it is not required for the vast majority of civilian nuclear power plants worldwide.

Here is a breakdown of why heavy water is used, when it's not needed, and the differences:

1. Most Reactors Use Light Water (Not Heavy Water)

• Light Water Reactors (LWRs): The majority of the world's nuclear power plants (roughly 85%) use ordinary water for both cooling and moderating (slowing down) neutrons

A huge amount of gov spending goes on debt interest and waste, international economists have suggested that if we were as efficient as Switzerland in terms of gov spending then 300 billion a year could be saved.

The true figures are a fraction of that. The number of Ukrainian deaths have been suppressed, just as the US and Israeli deaths are being suppressed in the Iran war. Anyway, I don't want to distract from this topic. It was a passing comment, that's all.

Ah. So was it purely the AI bubble that he wasn't worried about? AI is very much in a bubble so it will pop at some stage.

Looks like the Houthis are now firing missiles at Israel.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cje4x38q8xqt

Wouldn't be the first time.

Yemen's internationally-recognised government has condemned what it describes as Iran's "frequent attempts to drag Yemen" and other countries in the Middle East into the conflict "through its terrorist militias".

In a statement, the Presidential Leadership Council says "the involvement of the Houthi militias in defending the Iranian regime" shows that Iran is "pushing its agents to open other fronts" in order to reduce political pressure on itself.

It warns that this would exacerbate poor "humanitarian and living conditions... in a country already suffering from one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world".

The Houthi rebels consider themselves part of the Iranian-led "axis of resistance" against Israel, the US and the wider West - along with armed groups such as Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cje4x38q8xqt

So it was predictable.

No, and they made shipping through the Bab-el-Mandeb almost impossible last time, which was bad enough, but now the S of H is effectively closed too. The closure of two waterways critical for global trade would be catastrophic.