For the past six weeks, as this US-Israeli war with Iran has played out, the economic impact of the conflict has gotten a lot of attention. And rightfully so.

As anyone who’s consumed any news about this war knows well by now, the Strait of Hormuz is a major energy chokepoint, the Iranian government did exactly what they said they were going to do if Trump and Netanyahu ordered this attack and started blocking ships tied in any way to the government’s attacking them from passing through the Strait, and the US, Israeli, or really any other government have not been able to do anything about it.

However, throughout all of this, most of the discourse about the economic impacts of the war has focused on the rising prices drivers are facing at the gas pump. That isn’t surprising, as gas prices are an early cost that impact consumers directly.

But the emphasis on pain at the pump threatens to badly understate the economic damage of this war. And it helps feed the false impression that, if this new attempt at a ceasefire holds and the war ends somewhat quickly, gas prices will fall back down as fast as they rose, and then all the global economic turmoil the world’s been worrying about will be avoided.

It won’t. A lot of economic pain has already been locked in by this war. But to really understand it, it’s necessary to keep a few important economic truths at the front of our minds.

First is the fact that the entire purpose of the economy is to produce goods and services that consumers value enough to pay for. All of the production happening anywhere in the economy is geared towards that end.

That’s relatively straightforward with the production of consumer goods. A commercial brewer, for example, chooses to produce specific beers because they think consumers will value those beers enough to pay more money than the brewer spent producing them, making it a profitable production.

But it’s also true for all the production that is not directly tied to a finished consumer good—which is, in fact, most of the production happening in the economy. Businesses produce capital goods like industrial stainless-steel mixing tanks, rubber tractor tires, plastic packaging, or the ingredients of fertilizer because there’s demand for those goods from other businesses that produce later-stage goods and, ultimately, consumer goods.

So, returning to the brewing example, all the production that results in that finished bottle of beer doesn’t begin with the brewer. It requires grain that is planted, grown, harvested, and transported to the brewery. It also requires fermenters, Brite tanks, mash tuns, and canning or bottling systems—all of which need to be produced with other capital goods like stainless steel, which itself requires other capital goods like iron ore.

Every consumer good can be viewed as the end of a long chain of production stretching all the way back to the cultivation of raw materials like iron or timber, or the creation of basic components like resins or plastics. Economists call those basic capital goods at the beginning of the chain higher order goods.

And what’s important to remember about higher order goods is that, first, almost all of them are used in many different lines of production. Iron ore is not exclusively used to help eventually produce beer, it’s used to make a lot of goods that are themselves used to make a lot of other goods. It’s what’s called a non-specific factor of production. Any change in the production of iron ore has widespread consequences across the economy. 

And second, production takes time. That’s true for the production of any given good, but it’s especially true if we look across that entire chain of production. The higher order goods that are currently being produced won’t help bring about finished consumer products until months or even years down the road.

All of this is important to understand and keep in mind because the war with Iran is, so far, primarily impacting the production of higher order goods. And it goes far beyond oil.

About 8 percent of the world’s aluminum travels through the Strait. And aluminum is used across many sectors, including construction, manufacturing, and technology. Nearly a third of the world’s helium supply comes from Qatar, which is an important component in semiconductor production as well as MRI systems.

Polyethylene and other kinds of plastics and resins are also greatly affected. More than 40 percent of the world’s polyethylene is exported from the Middle East. And these are used in all stages of production in all sorts of industries—packaging, auto parts, medical equipment, consumer containers, industrial components, electronics, and much, much more.

And there are other often-neglected but extremely important hydrocarbon products being held up, such as petroleum naphtha, which is critical for refining gasoline and producing solvents for cleaning agents and paints. Natural gas condensate is another liquid hydrocarbon used in refining and to dilute other denser hydrocarbons to make them easier to transport. There’s also liquified petroleum gas, or LPG, which is mostly composed of propane and butane. These components are also important for refining as well as residential cooking and heating in many parts of the world. Much of the world’s supply of all these products is produced in the Middle East and exported through the Strait of Hormuz.

Another often-neglected yet critical higher-order good is sulfur. About half the world’s seaborne sulfur trade moves through the Strait. It’s important for refining petroleum and minerals like copper, nickel, and zinc, which are widely used in everything from electronics to medicine.

But the other major use of sulfur is as an ingredient in fertilizer. The sulfur supply shock—along with adjacent shocks in the supply of ammonia and urea, other key fertilizer components primarily exported through the Strait of Hormuz—has created a time bomb in global food markets.

Which brings us to another economic concept that is extremely important to understand if we want to fully comprehend the situation we’re now in. The problem is not merely a rise in prices but, specifically, the destruction of supply. The strikes on production facilities and the severing of supply lines mean there is now not enough supply of the components I laid out above available to meet current levels of demand. And because, again, these higher order goods are demanded for the production of lower order and consumer goods, that means, eventually, fewer consumer goods. The rising prices are a symptom of the fact that there is now less stuff available for everyone who wants it than there was before.

The fertilizer shortage provides a good example. The fact that producers cannot get their hands on the supply of ingredients like sulfuric acid, ammonia, and urea they need to meet demand means they are forced to produce less fertilizer than their customers need. Which, in turn, means those customers—industrial and family farmers—have less fertilizer to use during this year’s spring planting season. Which means they produce fewer crops. This leads to less animal feed for livestock and produce overall, resulting in an unavoidable drop in the food supply.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to live in developed countries above the poverty line will primarily experience the shortage as higher food prices. But for the millions of people who are already struggling to secure the food they need, this drop in supply may force them to go without.

That is not a choice forced on all of us by some greedy companies, it is an unavoidable consequence of the economic destruction brought about by this war.

And that same basic process is at play with all the other commodities and higher order goods I mentioned, as can be seen in the dramatic price increases. Aluminum prices have already surged by 10 percent. Import prices for helium have jumped 50 percent. Polyethylene prices are up 37 percent. Polypropylene is up 38 percent. And the price of petroleum naphtha has tripled since February.

Remember, these price increases are not the whole story. They are the symptom of supply shortages that will work their way through all relevant lines of production and result in fewer consumer goods down the road—all from production disruption that will be slow to start back up again, even when the war is fully over.

That means fewer containers available for goods like nail polish and, yes, beer. It means fewer medical supplies, like IV bags, syringes, and sterile packaging, all of which rely on petrochemical plastics. Also, delays in construction projects as it becomes harder to source asphalt, plastics, and aluminum inputs. And dangerous health issues going undetected because of limited MRI machine availability, and much more.

And that’s not to mention, of course, the oil and LNG shortages that people are already sufficiently focused on. These commodities power nearly all stages of all lines of production and help produce the diesel and jet fuel used to physically move everything in the economy to where it needs to be.

Unlike gas prices, these effects will take some time to develop—especially in the US, where our supply chain is momentarily protected from the initial impacts. And they won’t be as clearly tied to the war in the minds of most people. But the costs of all this economic destruction are real, they are substantial, and they are already locked in.

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

The post The Economic Destruction of Trump’s War Goes Far Beyond High Gas Prices appeared first on Activist Post.

The United States and Israel are systematically targeting hospitals in Iran. In one month of bombing, the two countries have hit at least 307 health centers across the country, according to reports from the Iranian Red Crescent. The carefully planned destruction of the Islamic Republic’s medical infrastructure fits into a long history of deliberate U.S. attacks on hospitals. Since the end of World War Two, Washington has targeted medical centers in at least 16 countries, and the 307 Iranian sites hit does not even come close to the record for the number of hospitals in any country destroyed by American bombs and missiles.

Iranian Destruction

There was no warning. U.S. and Israeli airstrikes hit Gandhi Hotel Hospital in northern Tehran on March 1, and again on March 2. Locals were fasting for Ramadan as missiles tore into the building, shattering glass and wrecking its neo-natal unit and ICU. Completed in 2009 and described as “beacon” of Iranian medicine and one of the most advanced medical centers in West Asia, the 17-storey building was among the country’s most important hospitals. Images of the aftermath show a once proud building in ruins, with floor after floor devastated. Gandhi Hotel Hospital is one of more than 300 medical centers that have been hit by U.S. and Israeli strikes. Nine days afterward, on March 11, the Persian Gulf Martyrs Educational and Medical Center in Bushehr on Iran’s southern coast was targeted and severely damaged.

Missile explosions destroyed much of the hospital’s medical equipment. Even as the glass was still falling, authorities made the decision to rush patients to the nearby Nuclear Scientists Martyrs Hospital, despite the fear of a double-tap strike, like the ones often seen in Israeli attacks on Palestine. On March 21, the Imam Ali Hospital in Andimeshk, Khuzestan Province, was targeted. Video footage from the aftermath of the attack shows wards, waiting rooms, and corridors completely devastated, with both walls and roofs collapsing under the strain of U.S./Israeli bombardment.

The Imam Ali is Andimeshk’s only hospital, and patients were forced to be bussed to healthcare facilities in other cities, according to Hossein Kermanpour, head of public relations for the Iranian Ministry of Health. I wish [Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu] understood that this is a crime against humanity,” he said.

Other medical infrastructure, including a first responders’ center, an Iranian Red Crescent office, and the Pasteur Institute, a medical research laboratory, have also been hit. “What message does attacking hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and the Pasteur Institute as a medical research center in Iran convey?” asked Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian; “As a specialist physician, I urge WHO, the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and physicians worldwide to respond to this crime against humanity.”

The attacks have been largely ignored by Western media. Few newspapers or TV news reports have even mentioned the damage to the country’s healthcare system, let alone centered it as a major news story.

The U.S.’ Long History of Bombing Hospitals

President Trump has a history of targeting medical facilities. Last year, U.S. forces carried out 14 separate airstrikes on the Al Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Hospital in Saada, Yemen, the centerpiece of the country’s healthcare network. For a full investigation into the attack, and the U.S.’ long history of targeting civilian medical infrastructure around the world, see the MintPress News report:

“With Yemen Attack, U.S. Continues Long History of Deliberately Bombing Hospitals.” Repeated attacks against hospitals is more of a pattern than an aberration for Trump. In 2017, the U.S. carried out 20 strikes against a hospital in Raqqa, Syria, using white phosphorous munitions to do so, killing at least 30 civilians in the process.

Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, was not less fond of targeting healthcare facilities. In 2015, his administration ordered a bombing campaign against a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The building was one of the largest and most recognizable in the city, and an internal inquiry found that the airmen aboard the gunship pushed back against the order, citing its illegality. They were overruled and forced to carry out the strike, killing at least 42 people. Obama’s attack on Doctors Without Borders marked the only time in history that one Nobel Peace Prize winner has attacked another one. During his time in office, Obama bombed seven countries, including Libya, where U.S. planes struck a hospital in Zliten, leveling it completely. At least 11 people were killed in the operation.

Perhaps no nation on Earth has felt the impact of American power in the 21st century as badly as Iraq. Successive administrations attacked critical infrastructure there, including in 2003, when President Bush bombed the Red Crescent Maternity Hospital in Baghdad. While many were killed in the strike, the real death toll, as UNICEF noted, was far higher, as with no medical care, maternal mortality spiked after the attack. The 1990s is often remembered in the West as a time of peace. Yet President Clinton used the period to target medical infrastructure in three separate countries. In Yugoslavia, U.S. planes bombed a number of hospitals, including dropping now-banned cluster munitions on a facility in Niš, killing at least 15 people.

In Somalia in 1993, U.S. soldiers carried out a mortar attack against the Digfer Hospital in Mogadishu, destroying the building’s main reception area. They then proceeded to bomb the journalists attempting to cover the incident. Meanwhile, in Sudan, Clinton ordered a hit on the Al-Shifa medicine factory in Sudan. Fourteen cruise missiles pounded the plant, turning what had been the largest producer of medicine in the country into a pile of twisted metal. The German Ambassador to Sudan estimated that, without the antibiotics, antimalarials, and other drugs it produced, the true death toll of the strike was in the “tens of thousands.” Few Americans know about this incident. The 1980s were a dangerous time to be a doctor in a country designated for regime change.

The U.S. invaded Grenada in 1983, in order to put an end to the socialist revolution on the Caribbean island. In the process, it bombed the Richmond Hill Mental Hospital, killing dozens. In El Salvador, U.S.-backed death squads flying in American aircraft stormed a hospital in San Ildefonso, killing five people. Paratroopers also kidnapped, raped, and tortured the staff, including French nurse Madeleine Lagadec, causing a major diplomatic incident. Between 1981 and 1984, at least 63 health centers in Nicaragua were forced to close, due to attacks from U.S.-backed and trained “Contra” death squads, whom President Reagan labeled “the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.”

The violence meted out on Asia by the U.S., however, was on another level entirely. Bombing hospitals was official (if unstated) policy. “The bigger the hospital, the better it was,” said  former Army intelligence specialist Allan Stevenson, explaining the U.S. military’s position on Vietnam.

The most well-documented case of U.S. attacks on Vietnamese medical infrastructure occurred in December 1972, when American planes dropped over 100 bombs on the giant Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi, killing at least 28 staff and an unconfirmed number of patients. During a Congressional hearing on clandestine activities in Laos and Cambodia, lawmakers were told that bombing of hospitals in those countries was “routine.”

To this day, Laos remains the most bombed country in history. North Korea, however, suffered the brunt of American attacks. In the course of the Korean War, the U.S. military destroyed an estimated 1,000 hospitals through bombing, as entire cities were leveled. Professor Bruce Cummings, America’s foremost expert on Korea, estimates that the U.S. killed around 25% of the entire North Korean population between 1950 and 1953.

Israeli Crimes and American Dreams

Israel, of course, is no stranger to bombing hospitals, either. Virtually every health center in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed. Israeli Defense Forces snipers have targeted healthcare workers inside hospitals, and have kidnapped, and tortured doctors. A particularly noteworthy example is that of Adnan Al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at al-Shifa Hospital. In December 2023, al-Bursh was arrested and detained for months, and was likely raped to death by IDF troops.

Israel is now systematically targeting Lebanon’s health system, as it did with Palestine, shelling hospitals deep inside the country. As a result, at least 57 Lebanese healthcare workers have died. The U.S. attacks on Iranian infrastructure are part of a wider regime change operation aimed at overthrowing the Islamic Republic and installing a U.S.-compliant administration. In recent times, Washington has assassinated the country’s supreme leader, carried out protracted economic warfare that has seriously harmed Iran, and fomented protests aimed at destabilizing and dislodging the government.

Trump also confirmed that his administration smuggled arms to Kurdish groups and to protestors leading the recent anti-government demonstrations – a key wanfactor in the violence that erupted. Thus, while systematic U.S./Israeli attacks on Iranian hospitals are shocking acts, they fit into a clear pattern stretching back over 80 years. As cataloged here, the United States has bombed healthcare infrastructure in at least 16 countries since the end of World War Two. Hitting hospitals may be a war crime, but it is as American as apple pie.

The post US & Israel Bomb 307+ Medical Facilities in Iran Carrying on Long Tradition of Targeting Medical Workers appeared first on Activist Post.

Iran is still holding traffic through the Strait of Hormuz hostage, and the entire world is going to suffer. Before the war, commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz flowed freely, and the global economy functioned normally. But even though there is a temporary ceasefire, Iran continues to maintain a stranglehold on the waterway, and they are insisting that this will continue to be the case when a permanent deal to end the war is reached. In other words, the Iranians are making it clear that this is how things are going to operate from now on, and they know that the U.S. and Europe are not eager to do what it would take militarily to reopen the Strait. Of course even if there is a military operation to reopen the Strait, it will take an extended period of time before it is safe for commercial traffic to pass through the waterway once again. Any way that you look at it, the truth is that this is going to be a complete and utter disaster for the global economy.

The Iranians were supposed to temporarily reopen the Strait of Hormuz as part of the ceasefire deal.

But that has not happened.

In fact, the CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company has ominously declared that “the Strait of Hormuz is not open”…

The Strait of Hormuz has not opened to ship traffic after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire, said the CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., or ADNOC, on Thursday.

“This moment requires clarity,” said Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber in a social media post. “So let’s be clear: the Strait of Hormuz is not open. Access is being restricted, conditioned and controlled.”

Iran has made clear that ships must obtain its permission to pass through the strait, Al Jaber said. “That is not freedom of navigation. That is coercion,” the ADNOC chief said.

Only a handful of ships are getting through right now.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Iranians are only going to allow about a dozen ships to pass through the Strait each day…

Iran told mediators it will limit the number of ships crossing the strait to around a dozen a day, and the Iranian Navy warned ships anchored near the strait that they would need Tehran’s permission to cross.

Before the war, about 10 times as many vessels were traveling through the Strait of Hormuz on a daily basis.

The Iranians are telling us that any vessels that attempt to pass through without authorization “will be destroyed”…

On Wednesday, Iran warned that oil tankers will be destroyed if they try to travel along the strait without permission, as it seeks to retain control over the passage during the ceasefire.

A radio message was broadcast yesterday by the regime to all oil ships in the vital waterway, saying: ‘If any vessels try to transit without permission, [they] will be destroyed.’

This is going to starve the global economy of desperately needed oil, natural gas, petrochemicals and fertilizer, and Iran fully understands this.

Any ships that Iran authorizes to pass through the Strait must “sail through Iranian waters around Larak ​Island to avoid the risk of naval mines”…

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have told vessels to sail through Iranian waters around Larak ​Island to avoid the risk of naval mines in the usual lanes through the strait, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Thursday.

Vessels are to enter the strait north of Larak Island and exit just south of it until further notice in coordination with the IRGC’s navy, Tasnim quoted the IRGC as saying.

Iran has essentially admitted that they have mined the Strait of Hormuz.

Even if the war ended immediately, it would take a long time to make sure that all the mines were gone.

The Iranians are forcing commercial ships to enter their own territorial waters so that they can charge a toll of up to 2 million dollars per vessel…

Iran is charging tolls of up to $2 million per ship to pass through the strait, a maneuver dubbed the “Tehran Toll Booth” in shipping circles.

When asked about what Iran is doing, the White House said that it is “completely unacceptable”…

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the alleged closure of the strait, based on reports from Iranian state media, is “completely unacceptable.”

And President Trump is pledging that once a permanent peace agreement is reached the Strait of Hormuz will be “OPEN & SAFE”…

There is just one huge problem.

The Iranians are insisting on control of the Strait of Hormuz as part of any peace deal.

So Trump is going to be faced with a decision.

Either he will give the Iranians what they want, or he will start the war back up again.

But let’s be wildly optimistic for a moment.

Let’s assume that the Iranians totally give in and allow commercial traffic to flow freely through the Strait of Hormuz.

Even if that were to happen, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would not return to normal levels for a very long time to come.

We know that this is true, because traffic through the Red Sea has still not returned to normal even though there has been a ceasefire with the Houthis for quite some time…

Analysts told CNBC that the Houthis in Yemen disrupting the Red Sea last year provides a reference point to how quickly traffic could recover following a potential ceasefire.

“In the Red Sea with the Houthis, the ceasefire agreement was last January and traffic has not returned,” Nikos Petrakakos, managing director at maritime investment manager Tufton, told CNBC in an interview. “As long as there’s a threat of an attack, that’s enough. You don’t actually need the attack.”

The bottom line is that the crisis in the Middle East is going to continue to massively disrupt the global economy for an extended period no matter what happens next.

The last tankers that departed prior to the war are arriving at their destinations, and we are already starting to see rationing and shortages all over the globe.

In fact, Madagascar just declared a nationwide energy emergency…

Madagascar has declared a two‑week nationwide state of energy emergency amid severe fuel shortages caused by the US and Israel’s war in Iran.

The presidency said the decision was taken following Tuesday’s cabinet meeting over fears the situation could lead to public disorder.

The “severe fuel shortages” that they are now experiencing will not be alleviated any time soon.

In Myanmar, a “rationing system for private vehicles” has just been imposed…

Amid fuel shortages, Myanmar’s military government has implemented a rationing system for private vehicles. Under the singular scheme, vehicles with even-numbered licence plates are only allowed to drive on even dates while those with odd-numbered plates can only drive on odd dates.

This is just the beginning.

Supplies of oil and natural gas are starting to get really tight in Europe, and European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde has warned that what the continent is facing is “probably beyond what we can imagine at the moment”…

For the European Union, the short-term consequences of Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — steeply rising gasoline and diesel prices, and a severe jet fuel shortage putting foreign travel at risk — could be dwarfed by the long-term implications of a prolonged closure. An industrial crash, higher manufacturing prices passed on to consumers in the form of damaging inflation, fertilizer shortages and resulting spikes in food prices, and higher household utility bills all have the potential to upend European politics.

What is already being called “the biggest global energy crisis in history” could have still more drastic consequences, and the EU is particularly exposed, with most of its major economies significantly more dependent on fossil fuel imports than the UK. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde last month described the long-term effects for Europe as “probably beyond what we can imagine at the moment”.

Little wonder, then, that the EU has convened the dreaded European “working group”. EU Energy and Housing Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said on Friday that the bloc is exploring “all possibilities” to deal with a “long-lasting” shock, in which “energy prices will be higher for a very long time.” Jørgensen mentioned fuel rationing and releasing emergency oil reserves as potential steps to mitigate the crisis; fuel rationing has already been introduced in Slovenia, while fuel restrictions have been issued at four Italian airports.

And the International Monetary Fund is publicly admitting that there will be shortages of diesel and jet fuel “for some time”…

The world will experience diesel and jet fuel shortages “for some time” because of the war in Iran, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The halting of normal flows through the Iran-controlled Strait of Hormuz – the vital oil and gas shipping route – “will for some time continue to have ripple effects”, said the organisation’s managing director Kristalina Georgieva.

She specifically mentioned shortages in refined oil products, diesel and jet fuel.

This is really happening.

Even if Iran surrenders, fully opens the Strait of Hormuz immediately and starts feverishly removing the mines, the world will still experience enormous supply disruptions throughout the remainder of 2026.

Of course the truth is that Iran does not intend to give in on anything.

The Iranians believe that they have won, and they are going to stick to the list of 10 demands that they have been relentlessly sharing with the world on social media.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration plans to stick to the list of 15 demands that it is making.

There is no way that those two lists are compatible.

So it appears that more fighting is probably inevitable, and that will just make economic conditions even worse.

The post This Is Going To Be A Complete And Utter Disaster For The Global Economy appeared first on Activist Post.

The Fed is likely thinking bailout or backstop for private credit, while banks look to monetize its demise.

I’ve been saying this for months: despite “experts” just sounding the alarm moments ago: the private credit unwind that started months ago and has now spiraled into a very real liability for the economy wasn’t some unknowable tail risk lurking in the shadows.

It couldn’t have been clearer if it was a fucking neon sign blinking THIS ENDS BADLY hanging outside of the 4 train station on Wall Street so industry workers were forced to see it on their way into work every morning.

Not only did I call the private credit collapse, I also argued that it would experience a sharp downturn before the Fed stepped in to bail it out or provide a backstop, despite, once again, the widespread misconduct of mismarking positions and carrying opaque, low-quality assets on the books of the companies managing these funds.

And here we are, right on schedule, watching that script unfold with all the subtlety of Eric Swalwell on a date after 9 whiskey cocktails.

In the last two days alone, Bloomberg reports that the Federal Reserve has gone from politely observing to actively interrogating. Not in a press-release, “we’re monitoring conditions” sort of way, but boots-on-the-ground examiners asking major banks to cough up details about their exposure to private credit.

Translation: they’re not trying to understand the industry, they’re trying to figure out how bad the damage could get and who’s going to be holding the bag when it does.

And what are they likely finding? Exactly what anyone paying attention already knew. Private credit funds didn’t just lend money, they borrowed it, too. Because in good times, leverage makes returns look smooth and irresistible. It turns middling loans into “high-yield opportunities.” It creates the illusion of stability. But in bad times? That same leverage becomes a transmission mechanism, turning localized stress into systemic risk. It’s not a bug, it’s the design.

Meanwhile, the Treasury is now poking around insurers, because of course this nuclear dogshit being peddled as a financial opportunity didn’t stay neatly contained in some alternative-assets sandbox. It likely spread. Into insurance portfolios, retirement products, retail funds…basically anywhere someone was desperate enough for yield to believe the pitch. The industry ballooned to roughly $1.8 trillion (and depending on how you count it, more), all built on the comforting fiction that because it wasn’t traditional banking, it somehow wasn’t subject to traditional banking problems.

Just like we’re seeing with “magically” successful subprime lenders like Carvana, of course they’re still subject to reality. The better question is how they can avoid the assumption they have to face reality at some point. I think we know how Carvana has been doing it: fucking with the numbers. And private credit is doing the same. Just with worse transparency.

And now suddenly regulators are “assessing spillover risk,” which is the bureaucratic equivalent of checking where the fire exits are while the building is already filling with smoke.

Let’s not pretend we don’t know where this goes. When the Fed starts mapping exposures like this, it’s not because they’re writing a research paper. It’s because they’re quietly preparing the intervention. Maybe it’s a backstop. Maybe it’s liquidity support. Maybe it’s some creatively named facility that sounds temporary but lingers for years (something like the “Assessment of Systemic Stress by Head Office Liquidity & Economic Support” plan, or A.S.S.H.O.L.E.S. for short).

Whatever form it takes, the direction is obvious: if this thing threatens the broader system, it will be contained and we will print our way out of it. Which is to say, the everyday worker, already suffering from inflation and unable to buy a box of Triscuits or a Domino’s Pizza, will now be responsible for bailing out private credit with their purchasing power.

And right on cue—this is where the story stops being predictable and starts being grotesque. Because while regulators are measuring the crater, Wall Street is building a gift shop next to it.

The Wall Street Journal wrote yesterday that banks like JPMorgan Chase, working with S&P Global, are rolling out a brand-new shiny instrument: a credit-default swap index tied to private credit exposure. A clean, tradable, scalable way to bet against the very ecosystem they spent the last decade inflating. They’re packaging up the risk, labeling it, and selling access to its failure.

You really have to admire the efficiency, right?

The index pulls in names like Apollo Global Management, Ares Management, and Blackstone, the giants of the space, the architects and beneficiaries of the private credit boom. As sentiment turns and defaults rise, the index goes up. In other words, the worse things get for the underlying system, the better things get for anyone positioned against it.

If this is giving you déjà vu, congratulations, you were alive in 2008.

Back then, the game was subprime mortgages. Banks originated garbage, distributed it widely, then quietly built instruments to short it when the cracks appeared. Today, it’s private credit wearing a slightly more sophisticated suit, but the choreography is identical. Manufacture the asset. Scale it. Normalize it. Then monetize its collapse from every conceivable angle.

And of course, the official justification is “risk management.” Banks say they need these tools to hedge exposure, to protect themselves from potential losses tied to private credit funds. Which, sure, fine. But let’s not insult anyone’s intelligence. This isn’t just about hedging. This is about creating a liquid, standardized market for betting on distress. It’s about turning systemic fragility into a profit center.

Hedge funds are already circling, because until now, shorting private credit was messy. You had to pick off individual securities, make indirect bets, deal with illiquidity. It was cumbersome. Inefficient. Now? They get a big, convenient index…a one-click way to express the view that the whole structure is wobbling.

So step back and look at the full picture, because it’s almost too on-the-nose to be real.

Wall Street spends years constructing a massive, opaque, leveraged lending machine and sells it as safe, stable income. It pulls in institutions, then pensions, then retail investors. always expanding the circle of exposure. Stress builds quietly, then not-so-quietly. Defaults tick up. Liquidity tightens. Investors panic. Douchebags in bowties warn about it after it is too late.

Regulators step in…not to dismantle the system that created the risk, but to understand how big the rescue might need to be. And at the exact same moment, the financial industry engineers new ways to bet against the collapse it set in motion.

This is moral hazard elevated to an art form. The downside is cushioned, implicitly or explicitly, by the expectation of intervention. The upside is captured privately, twice: once on the way up through fees and leverage, and again on the way down through shorts and derivatives. It’s not just asymmetric anymore, it’s circular. A closed loop of profit extracted from creation, expansion, and destruction alike.

And the most absurd part is how little effort is made to hide it. The Fed’s questions aren’t secret. The new derivatives aren’t backroom deals. This is all happening out in the open, narrated in real time by headlines that read like satire but aren’t.

And don’t be fooled. None of this bullshit is innovation. Not resilience. Not sophisticated risk transfer, or any other fancy sounding term they give it.

Nah. It’s just a deeply, structurally, almost impressively sick and psychotic ecosystem, where the same people who built the toxic dump of deals are now lining up to profit from its collapse, all while the adults in the room quietly prepare to make sure the fallout doesn’t inconvenience them too much.

And the everyman, honest hardworking plumber or mailman who can’t afford a box of cereal or a cup of coffee anymore because his purchasing power has been decimated by the same money printing that’ll inevitably be coming? Oh, well, fuck that guy. He has had his boot on the neck of Wall Street for just too damn long.

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author.

This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. I may or may not own names I write about and are watching. Sometimes I’m bullish without owning things, sometimes I’m bearish and do own things. Just assume my positions could be exactly the opposite of what you think they are just in case. If I’m long I could quickly be short and vice versa. I won’t update my positions. All positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice and at any point I can be long, short or neutral on any position. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. If you see numbers and calculations of any sort, assume they are wrong and double check them. I failed Algebra in 8th grade and topped off my high school math accolades by getting a D- in remedial Calculus my senior year, before becoming an English major in college so I could bullshit my way through things easier.

The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

The post Sick Behavior From Financial Psychopaths appeared first on Activist Post.

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The world’s most powerful predators are back behind closed doors at the ultra-secretive Bilderberg conference. With no press, no minutes and no accountability. Just bankers, billionaires, warlords, tech tyrants, and media gatekeepers deciding your future while you’re not invited.

In this video Dan Dicks of Press For Truth goes over the “official” participants list and the agenda for this year in detail!

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The post The SHADOW RULERS Meet Again – BILDERBERG 2026 PARTICIPANTS And AGENDA REVEALED!!! appeared first on Activist Post.

The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, rose 0.4% in February alone and is now running at 2.8% annually, while core inflation, which strips out food and energy, is still sitting at 3.0%. That is not progress. That is stagnation well above the Fed’s 2% target, and it is taking place before the energy crisis fully feeds through the system.

The key point here is that inflation is no longer being driven by a single factor, it is embedded across multiple categories, and that is what makes it dangerous. When you break down where prices are rising, you begin to see the real story. Housing, which remains the largest component of inflation, is still increasing at roughly 3% annually, showing that rent and ownership costs are not coming down in any meaningful way. Medical care costs are up around 3.4%, indicating that healthcare costs continue to rise regardless of economic conditions. Household furnishings and operations are increasing by nearly 3.9%, reflecting ongoing cost pressures on goods tied to supply chains. Personal care is running even hotter at roughly 4.5%, which shows inflation is filtering into everyday essentials.

Even the so-called “cooling” areas are misleading. Recreation is still rising above 2%, and services inflation remains persistent because wages and labor costs have not declined. When you look at transportation, airline fares rose 1.4% in February alone, and that is before jet fuel prices fully reflect the disruption in the Middle East. Healthcare services increased 0.5% in a single month, and hotel prices jumped 1.1%, showing that service inflation is not easing in any meaningful way.

Food is another category where the public is feeling the pressure directly. Meat prices are up significantly, with beef and veal rising over 14% year-over-year, while fruits and vegetables are also climbing. Gasoline already rose 0.8% in February and has surged sharply since the war began, which means the next inflation print will look dramatically different. This is the key point that the mainstream refuses to address: the February data does not yet reflect the energy shock that is now unfolding.

Personal income actually declined by 0.1% in February, while spending increased by 0.5%, which means consumers are now relying on savings or debt to maintain their lifestyle. That is not sustainable. It is the classic late-stage cycle behavior where inflation erodes purchasing power while consumption is artificially maintained.

Energy sits at the base of the entire economy, and with the disruption in global oil flows, every category you are already seeing rise will be pushed higher. Transportation costs feed into food. Energy feeds into manufacturing. Shipping feeds into goods. Once energy rises, everything rises.

The Federal Reserve is trapped in this environment because inflation is not collapsing fast enough to justify rate cuts, yet the economy is showing signs of weakness. Growth has already been revised lower, and the economy is running on an increasingly fragile footing. This is the classic setup for stagflation, where inflation remains elevated while economic growth slows.

The real issue is that people are looking at the 3.0% core inflation number and assuming the situation is stabilizing, when in reality, that number is backward-looking. It reflects conditions before the geopolitical shock, before energy prices surged, and before supply chains were disrupted again. The next phase of inflation has already been set in motion, it just has not fully arrived in the data yet.

This is exactly how these cycles unfold. First, inflation appears to stabilize. Then a new external shock emerges, in this case energy. That shock feeds into the system with a lag. By the time it becomes visible in the data, it is already too late to respond effectively.

The bottom line is that inflation is not going away. It is shifting, spreading across categories, and preparing to accelerate again as energy flows through the system. The February report was not a sign of relief. It was the calm before the next wave.

The post Inflation Was Already Rising Before the War – Now the Real Surge Begins appeared first on Activist Post.

Story at-a-glance

• U.S. health care spending reached $5.3 trillion, making it the largest industry and directly influencing your insurance costs, wages and access to care
• Rising spending is driven primarily by increased use of medical services, which means your daily health choices influence how often you rely on the system
• Per-person spending continues to rise faster than inflation, explaining why health expenses feel relentless even when overall prices stabilize
• Administrative and non-medical costs account for a significant share of total spending, showing that system complexity — not just treatment — affects what you pay
• Improving metabolic health, building cellular energy, and preventing chronic disease reduces your need for medical services, giving you greater control over long-term health costs

America spent $5.3 trillion on health care in 2024.¹ That’s not a typo, and it’s not someone else’s problem — it directly affects what you pay, what care you receive, and how the system around you operates. Health care now consumes roughly $18 out of every $100 spent in the U.S., making it the largest industry by both total spending and employment.²

Your health choices don’t exist in a vacuum — they exist inside a massive economic engine that shapes your workplace benefits, your insurance premiums, and your take-home pay. That scale raises a direct question to consider: what exactly drives this spending surge, and why does it keep accelerating? The answer isn’t what many people assume.

Record Spending Reveals What Drives the System

Where does all that money go? A detailed analysis of federal spending data — published by ZeroHedge — breaks down what’s actually driving the expansion, and the answer challenges the assumption that prices alone are to blame.³ Instead of focusing only on price inflation, the report looks at total spending patterns, who pays, and which parts of the system grow fastest.

This matters because you experience the consequences directly through premiums, wages, taxes, and access to care. The analysis centers on national spending flows rather than individual medical treatments, which shifts the conversation from personal bills to structural drivers.

•Spending growth reflects system use more than price spikes — A central takeaway is that overall demand for medical services stands as the largest contributor to spending increases, not price growth alone. Prices rose 2.5% in 2024, below overall inflation at 2.9%, meaning the system grew because more medical care occurred — more visits, more procedures, more long-term management — rather than dramatic price surges.

•Per-person spending growth explains why costs feel relentless — Per-capita spending reached $15,474 and has increased every year since 2000, rising 77% faster than inflation over that period. This statistic translates into a practical reality: even when general inflation slows, your health expenses continue to climb faster than most other household costs.

The pattern reflects structural expansion — population aging, chronic disease management, technology adoption — which steadily increases how much care each person consumes.

•Health care dominates national spending categories — Another key detail shows health care spending exceeds spending on housing, groceries, national defense, and vehicles. That comparison clarifies scale in everyday terms. When the largest slice of national spending flows into one sector, it shapes labor markets, policy decisions, and employer compensation. You experience that indirectly when wages shift toward benefits or when insurance design changes to manage rising costs.

•Non-medical costs expand total spending — The report identifies $768 billion spent on non-medical health expenses, representing about 15% of total health care spending. Non-medical costs include administration, logistics, and system overhead — meaning money that doesn’t go directly to treatment still drives overall spending growth.

This helps explain why system complexity matters to your wallet. More layers, more coordination, and more administrative processes increase total cost even without additional clinical care.

What This Means for You and Your Wallet

Policy debates focus on who controls spending decisions. The analysis describes competing approaches: proposals that give consumers more direct control through funded health savings accounts versus strategies that rely on regulation and subsidies to manage costs. Decision control influences how you shop for care, compare prices, and manage long-term expenses. When responsibility shifts toward consumers, financial literacy and decision tools become more important.

•Funding flows reveal why the system feels complicated — Most health care funding originates from individuals through out-of-pocket payments, insurance premiums, taxes, and employer contributions that substitute for wages. Yet that money moves through multiple intermediaries — government programs, insurers, and employers — before reaching providers.

You pay, but the path between payment and care passes through many hands, which increases complexity and reduces transparency.

•Consumer anxiety reflects structural cost pressure — Polling cited in the report shows 66% of Americans worry about affording insurance premiums and medical bills, and 55% report rising health costs in the past year. Health expenses rank as a greater concern than utilities, food, housing, and gasoline, which highlights how strongly spending trends affect daily life. This emotional dimension matters because financial stress influences health behavior, care delays, and preventive choices.

•The findings translate into actionable awareness for you — Understanding that demand — not only price — drives spending growth changes how you evaluate prevention, lifestyle decisions, and long-term health strategy. When more care equals more spending, reducing disease burden becomes financially meaningful, not only medically important. Your daily choices influence how often you rely on the system.

Take Control of Your Health Spending Through Daily Choices

Here’s the good news — you’re not powerless in this. Health care spending rises because people rely on the system more often, not only because prices increase. If demand is the driver — and the data shows clearly that it is — then your daily health decisions directly shape how often you enter that system. That is power you already have. You just need to use it deliberately.

1.Build cellular energy as your first priority — Your mitochondria — the parts of your cells that generate energy — sit upstream of nearly every disease pathway. Think of mitochondria as your body’s power grid. When the grid weakens, every system that depends on electricity — your immune cells, your repair crews, your inflammation regulators — starts running on brownout mode.

When mitochondrial function declines, everything downstream suffers, and chronic symptoms that once would have resolved on their own become permanent fixtures.

So, how do you support them? Start with daily sunlight exposure — not through a window, but direct outdoor light, ideally in the morning. This sets your circadian rhythm, which governs mitochondrial efficiency. It’s important to avoid intense, direct sunlight during peak hours (typically 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in most regions), however, until you’ve eliminated seed oils from your diet for at least six months.

This is because stored linoleic acid (LA) — the polyunsaturated fat found in seed oils — in your skin increases your risk of sunburn. Also prioritize consistent sleep timing, because irregular sleep disrupts the very cycles your cells depend on to repair and regenerate. Aim for the same bedtime and wake time within a 30-minute window, seven days a week.

And make sure you’re eating enough healthy carbohydrates — around 250 grams daily for most adults, and more if you’re physically active — because glucose is the preferred fuel for clean adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production, the energy currency your cells depend on to power every function in your body. Glucose generates energy with fewer damaging byproducts (reactive oxygen species) compared to burning excessive amounts of fat, especially the LA found in seed oils.

When cellular energy improves, many people are able to reduce their reliance on medications, cut back on doctor visits, and resolve symptoms they had been managing for years. That’s real spending reduction, starting at the cellular level.

2.Reduce the drivers of chronic disease — Chronic disease is the main reason people use the health care system repeatedly. It’s not acute injuries or infections driving the spending numbers you just read — it’s the slow accumulation of metabolic dysfunction that turns into diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune conditions, and cognitive decline.

Every one of those conditions requires ongoing management, medications, specialist visits, and procedures. That is where much of the demand comes from.

It’s important to identify the biggest contributors in your own life. Ultraprocessed foods top the list — they damage your gut lining, spike insulin, and create systemic inflammation. Seed oils like soybean, canola, corn, and sunflower oil are found in nearly every packaged and restaurant food, and they’re high in LA, which embeds in your cell membranes and fat stores where it promotes oxidative damage long after you’ve eaten it. Replace them with stable, traditional fats: tallow, ghee, or grass fed butter.

Beyond diet, look at your movement and sleep. Sedentary behavior accelerates metabolic decline faster than many people realize. Walk every day, ideally for one hour — not as exercise, but as a baseline for human function. Build muscle through resistance training, because muscle is your largest metabolic organ and acts as a glucose sink that protects against insulin resistance.

Track simple, inexpensive markers like your resting heart rate (lower is generally better), and HOMA-IR, which tells you how insulin-resistant you’re becoming. These numbers reveal your trajectory before disease shows up on a scan.

3.Strengthen metabolic resilience to reduce your reliance on the health care system — If you find yourself frequently sick, persistently fatigued, or dependent on a growing list of prescriptions, metabolic resilience is the lever that changes your relationship with the health care system. Resilience means your body handles stress, recovers from illness, and maintains stable energy without constant medical intervention.

Protein intake is foundational here. I recommend about 0.8 grams per pound of ideal body weight, or 1.76 grams per kilogram — with one-third from collagen-rich sources like bone broth, slow-cooked meats with connective tissue, or a quality collagen supplement. Collagen provides glycine and proline, amino acids that many people are deficient in, which support gut integrity, joint health, and liver detoxification.

The remaining two-thirds should come from complete protein sources like pastured eggs, grass fed beef and dairy. When it comes to carbohydrates, if you’ve been low-carb for a long time and your metabolic markers have stalled or worsened, consider restoring carbohydrate tolerance gradually. Start with whole fruit and white rice.

As your tolerance improves, you can expand into well-cooked root vegetables, then non-starchy vegetables, starchy vegetables like sweet potatoes or squash, beans, legumes and, finally, minimally processed whole grains. Stable metabolism means fewer doctor visits, fewer medication adjustments, fewer emergency situations, and fewer long-term interventions. That is how you personally reduce the demand side of the spending equation.

4.Question the default path before it becomes your spending pattern — The health care system isn’t designed to ask whether you need less of it. It’s designed to deliver more. More referrals, more follow-ups, more imaging, more prescriptions — each one reasonable in isolation, but collectively they become a spending pattern that is very difficult to reverse once it starts.

I’m not telling you to avoid doctors or ignore symptoms. What I am telling you is to become a more deliberate participant in your own care. Before accepting a new medication, ask what the plan is for getting off of it or if nondrug alternatives exist. Before agreeing to a recurring appointment, ask what markers would indicate you no longer need it.

Before filling a prescription for a symptom that appeared after you started another prescription, pause and consider whether you’re treating a side effect with another drug — because that cascade is one of the most common ways people end up deeply embedded in the system.

This is where your own knowledge becomes your greatest asset. When you understand how your body works — what drives inflammation, what supports recovery, what your labs actually mean — you stop being a passive recipient of care and start making informed decisions about when the system serves you and when it simply generates more utilization.

That shift in mindset is worth more than any single intervention, because it changes your relationship with the largest industry in the U.S. from one of dependency to one of selective, strategic engagement.

5.Lead a healthy lifestyle that lowers demand for medical services — This is the most powerful solution, and it’s the one that directly addresses the central finding of the research: service demand is the primary driver of health care spending. Every improvement you make in your daily habits reduces how often you need care, and that’s what bends the cost curve — not for the system in the abstract, but for you personally.

Move your body every single day. Eat whole foods that your great-grandparents would recognize. Support your gut health by eating enough to maintain your metabolic rate — and be cautious about loading up on fiber before your digestion can handle it, because undigested fiber feeds bacterial overgrowth and worsens the problems you’re trying to fix.

Avoid alcohol, which damages your gut lining, disrupts sleep architecture, and burdens your liver with a toxin it has to prioritize over everything else. Maintain and build muscle mass throughout your life, because sarcopenia — the age-related loss of muscle — is one of the strongest predictors of frailty, hospitalization, and long-term care dependence.

Every one of these choices reduces your interaction with the system that just hit $5.3 trillion. You can’t control what happens at the policy level, but you can control the single biggest variable in your own health care costs: how resilient and metabolically healthy you are. That’s not a small thing. In an industry built on utilization, the most radical act is needing less of it.

FAQs About Health Care Spending

Q: Why is health care the largest industry in the U.S.?

A: Health care is the largest industry because total spending reached $5.3 trillion and continues to grow due to increased use of medical services, an aging population, and long-term management of chronic disease. More visits, prescriptions, and procedures expand the system even when price increases remain moderate.

Q: What’s the main reason health care spending keeps rising?

A: The primary driver is demand for services rather than price inflation. People live longer, manage more chronic conditions, and rely on ongoing treatment, which increases how often the system is used and expands overall spending.

Q: How does rising health care spending affect my personal finances?

A: Higher spending influences insurance premiums, deductibles, wages, and taxes. Employer health costs often replace salary growth, while out-of-pocket expenses and insurance complexity increase the financial burden on individuals and families.

Q: What does “reducing demand for care” actually mean for my health?

A: Reducing demand means improving metabolic health, strengthening cellular energy, and preventing chronic disease so you need fewer medications, appointments, and procedures. Fewer symptoms and better resilience translate into less reliance on the health system.

Q: What daily actions help lower your long-term health care costs?

A: Consistent movement, adequate protein intake with collagen, sufficient carbohydrates for cellular energy, avoidance of ultraprocessed foods and seed oils, quality sleep, sunlight exposure, and maintaining muscle mass all reduce chronic disease risk and decrease how often you need medical care.

The post Health Care Is the Largest Industry in the US by Total Spending and Employment appeared first on Activist Post.

Despite the publicly espoused hubris of the Trump administration, its war of aggression against Iran has been a costly embarrassment, replete with failures. Yet its continuation is still being actively encouraged by Israel. This is because the Israeli goals remain unfulfilled, while Washington’s strategic interests are not a consideration in Tel Aviv.

When US President Donald Trump declared via Truth Social that a two-week ceasefire was being implemented to allow negotiations with Iran, the typical bravado that has characterized the administration’s attitudes toward the war prevailed. Both US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Trump claimed “victory.”

In reality, none of the war’s goals—as published by an official White House release—have been fulfilled. For example, Donald Trump is quoted in that release as saying:

“Our objectives are clear. First, we’re destroying Iran’s missile capabilities… and their capacity to produce brand new ones — pretty good ones they make. Second, we’re annihilating their navy… Third, we’re ensuring that the world’s number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon… And finally, we’re ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.”

Other US officials, who appear to note different objectives, were also directly quoted in the White House release. These include the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, who stated:

“The Operation was again launched with clear military objectives designed to dismantle Iran’s ability to project power outside of its borders, both today and in the future. First, we are targeting and eliminating Iran’s ballistic missile systems to prevent them from threatening the U.S. forces, partners, and interests in the region. Second, we are destroying the Iranian navy, degrading its capacity capability and ability to conduct operations… Third, we’re ensuring Iran cannot rapidly rebuild or reconstitute its combat capability.”

Operation Epic Fail?

While the above-quoted US objectives are far from the only reasons cited by Trump administration officials (including the President himself), they are the most consistently mentioned ones.

The reasoning behind the motivations for the war has also shifted repeatedly. One of the most prominent has been the alleged killing of tens of thousands of Iranian protesters back in January. Just prior to the war, Trump claimed that 32,000 Iranian protesters were killed. In early March he began claiming the number was really 35,000, before continuing to increase that number up to 45,000. After each contradictory number, the President has consistently insisted that the death toll was “perhaps much more,” leading some MAGA influencers to begin claiming the number was “over 100,000.”

As for the imminent threat allegedly posed by Iran that allegedly triggered a surprise attack, there is not even a clearly defined narrative. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed that the reason for the US attack was that Israel had said it was going to strike Iran, so the United States had decided it had to join in because it or its regional assets were perhaps going to come under fire.

Ruling out the imminent threat—especially since Iran had just offered the US precisely what it wanted during Omani-mediated negotiations—the American-Israeli coalition decided to carry out a surprise attack under the cover of diplomacy. This underhanded tactic is one that has been employed many times over the years by both the US and Israeli governments. 

Overall, the war was said to have cost an average of $1 billion per day, which would amount to just over $40 billion in only 40 some days. This figure, however, is a huge undercount, as various other costs are not included. For example, on February 28, an Iranian Shahed drone destroyed a US AN/FPS-132 early warning radar system at the Al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar, worth $1.1 billion alone.

In the space of less than three days, Iran shot down an F-15E fighter jet worth $100 million; the US lost two A-10 Warthogs costing around $20 million; four MH-6 Little Bird helicopters costing around $4.5 million each; two C-130 transport aircraft worth approximately $100 million each; and two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were damaged, with each costing between $20 million to $80 million depending on the version. A total of 24 MQ-9 Reaper drones and several MQ-4 Global Hawk UAVs were also downed by Iran, costing over $3 billion.

This is not to mention the currently unspecified losses of air defense systems. According to reports, three THAAD missile systems were destroyed or badly damaged. Each THAAD system can cost up to $2.8 billion, while the interceptor missiles for that system alone cost over $12 million per munition.

Although Trump and Hegseth claim to have “destroyed Iran’s air defenses,” this is clearly false. As for the navy, it reportedly remains largely intact, with most of its assets strategically hidden underground. The regional alliances that the US accuses of “sponsoring terrorist organizations” are still intact. Iran’s capacity to produce and fire missiles is also evidently still intact, as shown by its continued daily launches across the region.

As for projection of its power, Iran has increased dramatically. The Strait of Hormuz is currently under Iran’s direct control, forcing all nations around the world to coordinate with Tehran if they wish to transit the Persian Gulf. In this sense, the war has transformed Tehran into a major international player with far more leverage than it held before the conflict began.

While officials in Washington pretend that they have already achieved a regime change and that Iran had been militarily defeated, a truly battered and defeated Tehran would not be worth negotiating with in the first place. Instead, the pressure of the oil market and creeping inflation were becoming a huge burden. The US even began lifting some sanctions on Iranian oil to help stabilize the market and temporarily lifted sanctions on Russia—two significant retreats.

It also appears that the NATO alliance had been greatly impacted by the conflict, while Washington wasted strategic weapons en-masse to support an Israeli war effort. This has left the US more vulnerable in arenas where the other two major world powers continue to challenge it.

Nevertheless, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted right after the two-week cessation of hostilities was declared that “the war is not over,” arguing that this is simply a pause while other war fronts present themselves. Tel Aviv immediately sought to escalate tensions in neighboring Lebanon, killing over 300 people in a single wave of strikes that lasted around 10 minutes, before bombing Gaza once again.

Although over a dozen US bases have been destroyed by Iranian strikes, America’s Persian Gulf allies have taken serious blows, and the economic repercussions continue to unfold. What is clear is that neither Iran nor Israel has been dealt a decisive blow. If anything, Netanyahu has been emboldened by the war so far, while the Iranians have gained immense confidence after proving they could fend off an all-out aerial offensive from the world’s top military superpower.

This leaves two main options going forward: either some kind of temporary ceasefire is reached—in which case we simply wait for the next Israeli offensive—or the war will rage on for many more months.

The post The Iran War Has Been A Catastrophe For The US — But Israel Wants More appeared first on Activist Post.

War is the most unrestrained expression of humanity’s destructive capacity, a setting where order disintegrates, moral boundaries are tested, and life is reduced to its most vulnerable state. Medicine, by contrast, stands as a deliberate act of resistance against that collapse, a disciplined and unwavering commitment to preserve life even when surrounded by death. Despite these opposing identities, war and medicine have remained deeply intertwined across history, not by design, but by inevitability.

Again and again, the battlefield has served as medicine’s most unforgiving classroom, stripping away theory and exposing only what truly works under pressure. In that environment, progress is not driven by curiosity or careful planning but by urgency, necessity, and the relentless demand to save lives hanging by a thread. It is in these moments of chaos and human suffering that medicine evolves most rapidly, forced forward not because it is prepared, but because failure is measured in lives lost and there is no option but to improve.

From the fields of Waterloo to the trenches of World War I, and from the mechanized devastation of World War II to the asymmetric conflicts of the modern era, war has shaped the trajectory of medical progress in both extraordinary and deeply troubling ways. Notably, some of the most significant advances in medicine have arisen during periods marked by profound human failure. However, war not only drives medical advancement but also exposes how easily medicine can lose its ethical direction. This narrative examines both the lessons gained and the critical principles that must be preserved.

The Good: Innovation Forged in Crisis

Modern medicine owes much of its development to wartime innovation. The concept of organized trauma care, now standard in emergency departments worldwide, originated amid the chaos of conflict. During the Napoleonic Wars, Dominique Jean Larrey, surgeon to Napoleon Bonaparte, introduced the revolutionary principle that wounded soldiers should be treated according to the severity of their injuries rather than their rank or status.¹

This concept, now universally recognized as triage, represented a radical departure from the hierarchical norms of the time. It was not only a logistical innovation; it was a moral one. Larrey’s approach emphasized the intrinsic value of human life over social or military position, laying the foundation for modern emergency medicine.²

Larrey’s contributions extended beyond triage. His early implementation of rapid evacuation systems, known as “flying ambulances,” and his observations on environmental exposure and resuscitative physiology anticipated concepts that would only be fully recognized centuries later.³ Subsequent analyses, including recent scholarship, have demonstrated how Larrey’s insights align with principles now seen in therapeutic hypothermia and prehospital care systems.⁴

The 19th and early 20th centuries saw further transformation. During World War I, physicians faced injuries that had no precedent: massive blast trauma, chemical burns, and overwhelming infection in an era before antibiotics. The scale of suffering forced rapid advances in surgical technique, wound management, and infection control.⁵

The development of blood transfusion systems during this period, particularly the introduction of blood typing and storage, represented a turning point in the management of hemorrhagic shock.⁶ For the first time, physicians could meaningfully intervene in one of the leading causes of battlefield death.

World War II accelerated this progress dramatically. The widespread use of penicillin, the refinement of surgical debridement techniques, and the development of forward surgical units significantly improved survival rates.⁷ The concept of rapid evacuation—getting the wounded away from the battlefield and into definitive care as quickly as possible became a central principle of military medicine.

By the time of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, these ideas had evolved into fully integrated systems of care. Helicopter evacuation, mobile army surgical hospitals (MASH units), and coordinated trauma care. These advances extended beyond the battlefield, forming the foundation of civilian trauma care and influencing the development of emergency medical services and intensive care unit design. War compelled medicine to address a fundamental question: how to sustain life in cases previously deemed unsalvageable. Repeatedly, medical innovation provided solutions. Who should be dead? And, time and again, medicine found an answer.

The Bad: Progress at a Moral Cost

However, the history of medicine in war is not solely characterized by progress. Alongside innovation exists a darker narrative in which physicians, rather than opposing the brutality of war, became complicit in its execution. The most infamous example remains the medical atrocities committed during World War II under the Nazi regime. Physicians participated in inhumane experiments on prisoners, often without anesthesia, consent, or any scientific justification.⁹ These acts were not aberrations committed by a few individuals. They were systematic, organized, and sanctioned by the state. The aftermath of these crimes led to the Nuremberg Trials and the establishment of the Nuremberg Code, which articulated fundamental principles of medical ethics, including the requirement for voluntary informed consent.¹⁰

Yet it would be a mistake to view these failures as confined to a single regime or moment in history. In the United States, for example, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study conducted between 1932 and 1972 revealed a similarly disturbing willingness to sacrifice ethical principles in the name of research.¹¹ African-American men with syphilis were deliberately left untreated, even after effective therapy became available, in order to study the natural progression of the disease.

These examples underscore that ethical failures in medicine are not confined to wartime or to foreign contexts. Such failures occur whenever physicians permit external pressures—political, ideological, or institutional—to supersede their primary duty to patients. War does not generate these failures; rather, it reveals them.

The Ugly: When Medicine Becomes a Tool of Power

While the ‘bad’ in wartime medicine reflects ethical failure, the ‘ugly’ represents the transformation of medicine into an instrument of power. Historically, physicians have often been expected to serve state objectives rather than patient welfare. This has included direct participation in acts of harm, withholding care, prioritizing certain populations, or redefining eligibility for treatment. At this point, medicine loses its essential character.

The physician’s duty is not conditional. It does not depend on nationality, ideology, or allegiance. The wounded soldier on one side of the battlefield is no less deserving of care than the wounded soldier on the other. This principle is reflected in the foundational documents of humanitarian medicine, including the Geneva Conventions, which emphasize the impartial treatment of the wounded and sick.¹² It is embodied in the work of organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, which operates under the principle of neutrality. And it is deeply rooted in the ethical traditions of medicine itself.

Maimonides, the medieval Jewish physician and philosopher, wrote: “The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it.” This perspective transcends time, culture, and circumstance. It reminds us that medicine is, at its core, a human endeavor, one that must remain grounded in compassion, even in the face of conflict.

The Forgotten Lesson

A central paradox exists within wartime medicine. War compels the development of life-saving techniques under extreme conditions, driving innovation, refining clinical judgment, and necessitating systems capable of addressing overwhelming needs. However, it also poses the risk of imparting misguided lessons.

During the chaos of war, there is a tendency to categorize patients as members of groups rather than as individuals, viewing them as assets, liabilities, or adversaries rather than as human beings. This shift is perilous, as adopting the logic of war causes medicine to lose its foundational identity.

Physicians are not soldiers, hospitals are not battlefields, and patients are not adversaries. These distinctions must remain clear, particularly during periods of societal division.

Modern Parallels: When the Battlefield Comes Home

Although the context of war may appear remote to many contemporary physicians, similar dynamics persist. In recent years, medicine has become increasingly politicized, mirroring pressures observed in wartime settings. Physicians have been encouraged, both explicitly and implicitly, to conform to prevailing narratives, suppress dissenting perspectives, and prioritize institutional or political objectives over individualized patient care. While this is not traditional warfare, it shares a critical characteristic: the erosion of medical neutrality. 

For example, during the Covid-19 pandemic, healthcare providers worldwide reported pressure to follow government directives or institutional messaging that sometimes conflicted with evolving clinical evidence or patient-centered care. Similarly, in ongoing conflict zones such as Ukraine and Syria, attacks on medical facilities and personnel have highlighted the vulnerability of medical neutrality, as physicians have been targeted or coerced based on political alignment. When physicians take sides based on external pressures rather than clinical evidence, they risk repeating historical errors.

Holding the Line

War is likely to persist, reflecting humanity’s enduring tragedy. Medicine, however, must remain steadfast, anchored in principles that transcend conflict, ideology, and time. It should not become a weapon, a tool of power, or an instrument of politics, but must remain a profession dedicated to the care of each individual, regardless of circumstance. The wounded do not choose the side on which they fall, and neither should those who provide care.

References 

1. Larrey DJ. Mémoires de chirurgie militaire et campagnes. Paris: Smith; 1812. 
2. Richardson RG. Larrey: surgeon to Napoleon’s Imperial Guard. J Med Biogr. 2004;12(4):204–208. 
3. Soto-Ruiz KM, Varon J. George W. Crile: a visionary mind in resuscitation. Resuscitation. 2009;80(1):6–8. 
4. Jasqui-Remba S, Rivera A, Varon J, Sternbach GL. Dominique Jean Larrey: the effects of therapeutic hypothermia and the first ambulance. Resuscitation. 2010;81:268–271. 
5. Wangensteen OH, Wangensteen SD. Military surgeons and surgery, old and new. Bull N Y Acad Med. 1971;47(10):1265–1290. 
6. Starr D. Blood: an epic history of medicine and commerce. New York: Knopf; 1998. 
7. Hardaway RM. Wound shock: a history of its study and treatment. Am Surg. 2000;66(8):720–728. 
8. Bellamy RF. The evolution of battlefield trauma care. Mil Med. 1987;152(12):617–620. 
9. Lifton RJ. The Nazi doctors: medical killing and the psychology of genocide. New York: Basic Books; 1986. 
10. Shuster E. Fifty years later: the significance of the Nuremberg Code. N Engl J Med. 1997;337(20):1436–1440. 
11. Brandt AM. Racism and research: the case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Hastings Cent Rep. 1978;8(6):21–29. 
12. Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field. 1949.

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WLFI fell to a record low after it was revealed that the project used billions of its own tokens as collateral to borrow $75 million in stablecoins.

WLFI, the native token of the Donald Trump–backed World Liberty Financial platform, sank to an all-time low on Saturday as crypto users expressed concerns after revelations that the project used a large amount of its own tokens to take out loans.

The token hit a new low of around $0.07714 on Saturday, down 83% from its peak of $0.46 reached last September, according to data from CoinMarketCap. WLFI is currently at $0.07879, down by 4.66% over the past day.

The downturn came after it was revealed that wallets linked to World Liberty Financial deployed substantial WLFI holdings as collateral on Dolomite, a decentralized lending platform co-founded by the project’s chief technology officer, Corey Caplan.

Onchain data from Arkham shows that a wallet linked to World Liberty Financial deposited around 5 billion WLFI tokens on Dolomite. The wallet then used the tokens as collateral to borrow $75 million in USD1 and USDC 

USDC$1 stablecoins, later transferring more than $40 million to Coinbase Prime.

Related: CFTC unveils innovation task force members in crypto clarity push

WLFI-backed loan position sparks concerns

The large collateral position has raised concerns among DeFi analysts, who warn it could create risks for lenders on Dolomite if WLFI’s price falls and approaches liquidation levels.

“WLFI has almost a $10 billion FDV, but it is not an extremely liquid asset,” one user wrote on X. “So imagine what would happen if 5% of WLFI’s total supply would suddenly need to be sold to liquidate the position,” he added.

Another X user argued that the setup resembles creating artificial “chips” and borrowing against them. “It’s the financial equivalent of printing casino chips, borrowing cash against them, and telling everyone else not to panic because the house still believes in the chips,” they claimed.

Dolomite has a relatively small footprint in decentralized finance, ranking 19th among lending platforms by total value locked, according to DefiLlama.

Related: White House warns staff as Iran bets add to growing insider trading concerns

World Liberty defends WLFI lending

World Liberty Financial acknowledged the lending activity on social media, but sought to calm markets, stating that its positions remain well above liquidation thresholds. The project described itself as an “anchor borrower” for WLFI and argued that the strategy helps generate yield.

“Everyday users are earning outsized stablecoin yields right now — at a time when traditional markets are offering very little. That’s the whole point,” the project wrote on X.

On Friday, World Liberty said it will soon introduce a governance proposal to create a phased unlock schedule for WLFI tokens held by early retail buyers, replacing immediate access with a long-term vesting plan subject to community vote.

Magazine: Bitcoin may take 7 years to upgrade to post-quantum — BIP-360 co-author

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