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The week's question
In December 2024, in the thread "Re: BRK: Why Not XOM?", BreckHutHigh asked the members: "What about the long road trips with kids?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
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Personal Finance / Macroeconomic Trends & Risks
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Author: ajm101   😊 😞
Number: of 4460 
Subject: Re: Waiting game
Date: 05/29/26 1:52 PM
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I mean, it is obvious to everyone, right: The US lost this the moment the Iran strike happened.

PRC is involved in Iran, they are involved in Pakistan, they are a top 3 holder of US debt. They are the ones driving this. Just look at Wicker and Cruz *loudly* criticizing the proposed settlement.

The US administration is as firmly over a barrel as anything I've ever seen. They are also poor at predicting future events and planning strategically accordingly. They see oil => high gasoline prices => midterm losses and that's it. They don't see past that, to long term US strategic objectives in the region. We still haven't entirely heard what happened in the PRC summit. We did here poor message discipline in US statements about Taiwan recently, after decades high discipline. Would the current president sell out a multi-decade US ally and strategic regional/global ally in order to get himself out of a bad midterm situation? I think the answer is obvious at this point.

I mean, he literally threatened one of our oldest allies in the world, Oman (back to a Treaty of Amity in 1833) with military attack for reasons that are still unclear. Just because he is working from a framework of his own interests superseding those of the country.

The worst part is the Iran and PRC hold literally all the cards. We should be *adding the SPR now* not drawing it down for "bread and circuses" reasons, but here we are.

US debt is up $5T in the last 2 years. How many countries are left that we haven't threatened militarily or levied tariffs against that would buy our increasing debt load, so we don't have to print money to do so and monetize the debt? This will end badly, it could scarcely be going worse if someone was designing a path to weaken the US globally. Invest accordingly, so help us all.
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