Richard Howard

@ajcdeane voracious reading is the easiest path to an enlightened mind

The absolute king of this, BTW, was Bill Clinton. Not far behind - Margaret Thatcher, John Howard, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating. Just to emphasise that this isn’t a point skewed by political position.

Last month @Dannythefink wrote a column about the PM I thought to be very insightful & I’ve been occasionally mulling upon it since. Drawing upon @patrickkmaguire & @Gabriel_Pogrund’s book - which was presumably closely analysed by Labour Together, of course - Daniel made the point that the PM doesn’t say much - in public, or in meetings. As a result, he leaves subordinates uncertain about the position he’d take, or even if he’d take one, on a given issue. On reflection, I note that one characteristic shared by leaders across the political spectrum is that they’re constantly talking. Some people dislike this. But the point as it applies here is that all of - to give an almost random, Brit-weighted selection - Farage, Macron, Meloni, Trump, Carney, Badenoch, Polanski, Rutte are always setting out views, saying what they think, so that their staff know their instincts, their line to take, the “default setting” - with the result that the administration / party / organisation they lead can effectively execute their will even in sessions when they’re not there. Starmer’s “passive premiership” [(c) Maguire & Pogrund] simply doesn’t feature this. It’s the kind of point that lands quietly & one moves on - then returns to, reading how profound it is, and, in this case, what damage that does to the operation of a government, albeit in an understated & easily unnoticed way.

Iran is not stronger than before - its missiles and drones are not deterrents. It remainns vulnerable to future strikes. It is the straits that remain the key leverage, as it was 20 years ago. Now the region is massively incentivized to develop work arounds that reduce the importance of the straits as a conduit.

IMO we are no closer to a permanent deal. The two sides are still very far apart on what happens to the existing HEU stockpile and further nuke ambitions. However in the mean time the US gets the straits open and the fall out is limited.

This ceasefire really is a Rorschach test on your view of Trump. That will be lens through which you view it. 48hrs ago we were assured the Iranians wanted the straits closed and that Trump wouldn't get what he wanted.

It is a huge failure of operation Epic Fury, planners should have anticipated the need to leave a single Iranian F-14 intact so that the downed crew could have exfiltrated themselves.

This was the time to announce the taking of Kharg - they ain't doing it it seems

Main takeaway - no troops

@PeteWargent the irony is - if no oil and refined products actually get delivered to our shores, we can skip the rising oil price impact...

ah yes forgot about gold! Could be some interesting months ahead given massive moves in the commodities space

@realKunalAShah Ascribing him too much strategy

@realKunalAShah *IRAN'S TASNIM: THERE HAVE BEEN NO TALKS, THERE ARE NO TALKS, TRUMP HAS ONLY TALKED TO CNBC

This is not a TACO as being characterised by many. It’s Irans leadership not willing to accept further risk

@Musicalmindz @pineconemacro being able to keep the straits closed is not the same as escalation dominance.

@macrokangaroo @pineconemacro If you disagree then you must think we'll open the Strait at some point because we have escalation dominance right?

I know this is obvious for most folks but for the 4D Chess Statecrafters in the back - Iran can/will just hit power plants all over the Gulf and in Israel if this happens. Or they can hit a couple more LNG trains in Qatar. Or both. Or close the Red Sea. You get the point - big threats when the other guy has escalation dominance does not really work...

@RyanWhite1975 @pineconemacro Pain threshold is certainly higher for casualties, but the iran/iraq war was nothing like the destruction currently being visited upon Tehran and the regime's infrastructure. Escalation dominance is not merely a function of pain tolerance - it is also capacity to execute

@macrokangaroo @pineconemacro They had a 8 year war within memory where half a million people died. This is nothing.

@RyanWhite1975 @pineconemacro That pre-supposes that equal pain is being inflicted. It is not. The pain is very much one sided. I don't disagree that the US has limited political appetite for total war but this conflict is only existential for Iranian regime, it's just another operation for the US.

@macrokangaroo @pineconemacro They have a higher pain threshold. This country wilted having to social distance. Iran has escalation dominance.

@Johnson72638291 @Scutty They are different but not very much so, both feed into downstream cost and rising inflation expectations which is the most durable sign of consistent future inflation. We saw this after COVID - supply shocks can create demand expectations and are likely to in expansions.

@macrokangaroo @Scutty Supply constraint inflation and demand driven inflation are very different

Sarah should stay in her lane.

@Scutty She's one of those that thinks counter cyclical policy only works in one direction

@Scutty Sarah doesn't understand that inflation doesn't just go away by itself - its why we need to be more diligent in guarding against it in the first place. Wiping it out is painful.

What a stunning indictment of the faculty quality at UoC. Sky is red, Baghdad Bob levels of delusion.

@Scutty agreed - i just don't think so from before the split decision

@macrokangaroo From where we were before she said it

Every RBA member saw a need to hike rates, only question was timing. That's hawkish.