the fools in charge keep charging into a fog;

 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had a schizophrenic Thursday. Asked on CNBC why oil had jumped on the administration’s latest Iran threats, he professed bewilderment: “I’m not sure why oil has popped up on this.” In separate remarks the same day he went further — “We’ve got a spike in oil prices today that I don’t really understand” — and waved the move away as noise. Apparently he forgot that this was hours after he had announced that the United States would keep its naval blockade and impose what he called the toughest sanctions in history on Iran, adding, “This will work.” It was a day after Trump had promised the “MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY!“

The driver of the oil spike was obvious to everyone who wasn’t at the Treasury podium: Iran had pledged to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, and Washington was escalating, not winding down. A Fox co-host remarked that literally everyone else understood what was moving the price. What makes Bessent’s puzzlement worth dwelling on is that it was not confined to oil. In the very same week, a second market delivered the same verdict on the same policies — and it, too, is a market Bessent insists he can manage. The bond market was voting, and the world’s largest holders of US debt were heading, quietly, for the exits............more............