Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Jun 29, 2008 Posts: 83 Location: San Luis Obispo, CA / San Jose, CA
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:59 am Post subject: First Post - War in Iran
Hey guys Ive been reading this boards for about 2 years now and I never decided to join but todays news really startled me and I wanted to get some opinions...
From CNN "The Bush administration has launched a "significant escalation" of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country's nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic's government, journalist Seymour Hersh told CNN on Sunday."
Do you guys feel there is imminent possibility to an Iran strike by US/Israel?
Where might this sent the futures markets as soon as tomorow (6-30)? IE- does this significantly change the "Risk Premium" on crude-oil?
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:09 am Post subject: Re: First Post - War in Iran
"Significantly change" not really - the US has been escalating the rethoric for years about Iran's nuclear ambitions and their "intended response" to it.
Will the US start a war with Iran? Bush(II) is on record saying he'll "address" the threat before he leaves office. Does that mean you can take it to the bank? It's anyone's guess - he's not exactly the most reliable promise keeper
ReducedToZero wrote:
Hey guys Ive been reading this boards for about 2 years now and I never decided to join but todays news really startled me and I wanted to get some opinions...
From CNN "The Bush administration has launched a "significant escalation" of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country's nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic's government, journalist Seymour Hersh told CNN on Sunday."
Do you guys feel there is imminent possibility to an Iran strike by US/Israel?
Where might this sent the futures markets as soon as tomorow (6-30)? IE- does this significantly change the "Risk Premium" on crude-oil?
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2750 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:22 am Post subject: Re: First Post - War in Iran
ReducedtoZero, Thanks for your post in the current news forum. This has piqued my interest in Iran again. I haven't been following what's happening there for a while. My preliminary assessment is that there is an escalation in "activity" against Iran, which has affected current oil prices. Since diplomacy has not worked very well, and direct military air strikes are out of the question, the best activity left is covet action.
Report: Bush boosts covert actions in Iran
Quote:
The Bush administration has significantly increased covert military operations inside Iran aimed at destabilising the country's government, according to a US report published yesterday.
The report, in the New Yorker magazine, quotes military, intelligence and congressional sources as saying that CIA and special forces operations were ordered by George Bush in a "presidential finding" in the past few months. It said Bush sought - and congressional leaders from both parties approved - $400m (£200m) for the secret war, which includes abductions and assassinations.
According to the report's author, Seymour Hersh, the operations inside Iran have been under way since last year but have recently been "significantly expanded".
However, Hersh - who broke several stories on the intelligence fiasco before the Iraq war- reported yesterday that there was considerable resistance from US generals and the defence secretary, Robert Gates, to White House pressure for an all-out attack.
The operations described by Hersh involve support for Baluchi and Arab separatist groups in Iran, "seizing members of al-Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of 'high-value targets' in the president's war on terror, who may be captured or killed".
There have been reports from Iran of assassinations of military officers, which Tehran has sometimes blamed on US and British operations. Both the US and Britain insist they are focused on diplomatic means to convince the Iranian government to suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing.
Earlier this month an international delegation to Tehran delivered a package of economic and diplomatic incentives for the government to comply with UN security council demands. Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said the package was being studied "carefully and strongly".
This is the most serious immediate threat that faces us. _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Aug 26, 2005 Posts: 446 Location: Windy City No Longer
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:57 am Post subject: Re: First Post - War in Iran
Normally, I dismiss all the 'War on Iran threads', but Seymour Hersch is an excellent, well-sourced writer on the Middle East. For him to say some of these things is alarming to me in a way that some of the other articles I've read are not. _________________ TANSTAAFL
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 6:35 am Post subject: Re: First Post - War in Iran
kokoda wrote:
The world is entering a deadly phase ... the last few months of the Bush administration. He might want to go out with a bang.
We have now passed apostosis, the top of the
Hubbert Gaussian Curve.
Power Laws kick in here with the J Curve formation-
called the fat tail. At the fat tail the Gaussian Curve
loses symmetry, meaning it goes Non Linear.
Non-Linear is announced by a Black Swan Event.
Attack on Iran would qualify as Black Swan as would
any number of events. Mexico cutting us off, comes to mind.
Undoubtedly we will see the greatest event in our lives
in the near future.
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:49 am Post subject: Re: First Post - War in Iran
mcgowanjm wrote:
Attack on Iran would qualify as Black Swan
Not really. A black swan is a "large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations." War with Iran is not only easy to predict, the media seems to treat it as virtually inevitable. _________________ The whole of human history is a refutation by experiment of the concept of "moral world order". - Friedrich Nietzsche
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:30 pm Post subject: Re: First Post - War in Iran
they're going to keep prodding & poking Iran until Iran hits back, and then they'll say, "hey ! Iran attacked us !" so they can sell it as a "defensive war".
i think we won't know who Obama really is till he gets into office. maybe his votes to finance the war are things he has to do to end up in the Oval Office.
if i was an Israeli hawk i'd attack Iran before Obama moves into the White House. _________________ http://www.LASIK-Flap.com/ ~ Health Warning about LASIK Eye Surgery
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:56 pm Post subject: Re: First Post - War in Iran
mcgowanjm wrote:
kokoda wrote:
The world is entering a deadly phase ... the last few months of the Bush administration. He might want to go out with a bang.
We have now passed apostosis, the top of the
Hubbert Gaussian Curve.
Power Laws kick in here with the J Curve formation-
called the fat tail. At the fat tail the Gaussian Curve
loses symmetry, meaning it goes Non Linear.
Non-Linear is announced by a Black Swan Event.
Attack on Iran would qualify as Black Swan as would
any number of events. Mexico cutting us off, comes to mind.
Undoubtedly we will see the greatest event in our lives
in the near future.
it's been awhile, so someone correct me if i am wrong, but i don't believe the gaussian function is linear to begin with. also, i don't recall 'symmetry' being any sort of test for linearity. again, my memeroy is far from perfect.
Joined: Jun 29, 2008 Posts: 83 Location: San Luis Obispo, CA / San Jose, CA
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 11:58 pm Post subject: Re: First Post - War in Iran
Can Iran be considered a "black swan" event if oil speculators and consequently oil prices take into account the risk factor (percentage based?) of going to war?
Joined: Dec 07, 2005 Posts: 2009 Location: Australia
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 1:38 am Post subject: Re: First Post - War in Iran
It could be considered a black swan in the sense the a war has NOT been priced into oil.
Even if the likelyhood of a war is increasing, we don't know when it will happen and we don't know the outcome of it. Risk premium has therefore not been built into the price and a price shock will happen once the first bomb is dropped. _________________ It's not a bailout, it's a buy-in" - Nancy Pelosi
Joined: Dec 07, 2005 Posts: 2009 Location: Australia
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 2:04 am Post subject: Re: First Post - War in Iran
Premium is added as the risk are known.
Insiders of course know certain things somewhat earlier than the rest, but you cannot add on a risk premium for the strait of Hormuz being closed off before the war even started.
So risk premium is always changing based on what is known and to some lesser extent what is expected.
Risk premium by the way is a somewhat abstract term.
Noone can say how much of price is based on risk of something as it is all just traders taking positions. But what happens is that if there is a sign that conflict is escalating, more traders are daring to go long on oil as there is a grater chance of supply interuptions.
But appreciating price is a sriver itself, so when price is going up, momentum players jump on board not becasue of the increasing risk, but becasue the price is going up.
But I dare to say, if Israel for instance invades Iran tomorrow, oil price will go up.
That to me suggest, the invasion therefore wasn't priced in.
Theoretically I could of course be wrong. Israel could invade and all traders go yawn as they are all long already. But I'll put a buck this isn't the case. _________________ It's not a bailout, it's a buy-in" - Nancy Pelosi
Joined: Dec 07, 2005 Posts: 2009 Location: Australia
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 2:16 am Post subject: Re: First Post - War in Iran
That becomes even more abstract.
Right now they are blaming "speculators".
Well a speculator is simply someone who takes a position based on where they think a price is heading.
Sometimes traders using technical or fundemental analsysis is however not being considered speculators as they take position based on analysis and speculators are those who just take a punt. Personally I think this is a bit silly definition.
Currently however "speculator" seems to be someone who makes proofit from rising energy costs without actually having a need for the actual resource. I.e. people who are in for the money only.
That is how it always is. If you don't want to be blamed yourself have to find another scapegoat and thje congress is good at that.
Usually it doesn't lead to anything except diverting attention away from the responsible. _________________ It's not a bailout, it's a buy-in" - Nancy Pelosi
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