Over the weekend, both Emirates Global Aluminum (EGA) – the largest aluminum producers in the Gulf – and Aluminium Bahrain (ALBA) reported drone attacks damaging smelting facilities after hits on Iranian steel infrastructure last week.

Neither company (at the time) confirmed whether supply will be impacted, but this morning the worst case appears to be confirmed with Reuters reporting that according to a Wednesday note by consultancy Wood Mackenzie “EGA’s Al Taweelah facility in the United Arab Emirates halted operations after an Iranian missile and drone attack on Saturday damaged a power plant.” A subsequent report from Bloomberg confirmed the report, writing that “Emirates Global Aluminium, the Middle East’s top producer of the metal, halted operations at its Al Taweelah smelter after the site was struck by Iranian missiles and drones over the weekend, according to a person familiar with the matter.“

At the same time, the smelter belonging to Aluminium Bahrain – Alba – which was also targeted on Saturday, “sustained significant damages and is expected to operate at an estimated utilisation of 30 percent”, Wood Mackenzie said.

“The ongoing Middle East conflict is triggering a critical supply crisis in the global aluminium market, with disruptions potentially removing 3 to 3.5 million tonnes of output in 2026,” Wood Mackenzie said. For context, the world produced just under 74 million tonnes of primary aluminum last year.

Wood Mackenzie’s press office said its information was sourced from the consultancy’s contacts in the Middle East, but declined to provide further details. 

As a reminder, the aluminum smelter in Al Taweelah, in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, has a capacity of roughly 1.5 million metric tonnes per year, and an alumina refinery. Alba’s capacity of 1.6 million tonnes per year in Bahrain makes it the world’s biggest single-site aluminium smelter. The Middle East as a whole produces about 9% of global supply, with EGA and others playing a key role in supplying manufacturers across Europe, Asia and the US. Even before the industry was directly targeted, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz had already left the region’s major producers short of critical inputs, with the sector anticipating a cascading wave of production cuts unless the strait reopens soon.

As Goldman commodity specialist James McGeoch writes, it’s “hard to think of a bigger metal supply shock: High degree of expectation this was where it was heading, but the initial reaction was to fade the uncertainty yesterday, that should be replaced by fresh length if history is a guide.”

This is how the Goldman trader does the math on lost output:

Lost ALBA 1mm + EGA 1.6mm + Qatalam 0.3mm  + Mozal 0.6mm = 3.5m on a 74mt mkt = 4.7% impact to supply, and 7.7% of ex china supply

Balance this with Oil price demand destruction ~1mm, assume China overproduce and ship 500k – need to price demand destruction to balance ~2mt (inventory we see at ~1.5mt but majority of that is China link).

McGeoch says that in light of the shut downs, some traders have been eyeballing a significant surge in the aluminum price to $4500 (15% premium to LME for China is a clear starting point).

• The Goldman trader also writes that if the report is accurate, the market will first draw LME stocks, which is hard as not everyone can take Russian units, both regionally and financially.
• Second, market needs to solve for the China export tax.
• Third, it will be important to see China ramp supply, which means you have to convince them its a good use of power allocations.  

Aluminum futures on the London Metal Exchange have surged since the strikes, with LME Aluminum trading up 50% from a year ago, and if production remains shuttered, it will likely move notably higher.

Summary

• UAE mulls becoming first Gulf country to directly joint US-Israeli war against Iran, lobbies for firm UNSC security resolution.

• Trump to Reuters: will be “out of Iran pretty quickly” and could return for “spot hits” if needed. Also says he’s open to exiting ‘paper tiger’ NATO after Iran war is over, angry over lack of help in Hormuz crisis.

• Oil tanker leased to QatarEnergy was struck by an Iranian cruise missile in Qatari waters Wednesday.

• IRGC has newly vowed to keep attacking with “full intensity and power” – suggesting this is far from over, as ceasefire talks remain theater lacking in much substance. Ayatollah praises Hezbollah in written statement.

*  *  *

Preparing American Public for an Exit?

President Trump has issued new words to Reuters on his highly anticipated speech tonight (9pm ET):

The United States will be “out of Iran pretty quickly” and could return for “spot hits” if needed, President Donald Trump tells Reuters, hours before he was scheduled to make a primetime address to the nation.

Trump also says he would state in the speech that he is considering withdrawing the US from the NATO alliance.

There’s expected to be heavy focus on chastising NATO. If this is indeed the Bush-style ‘mission accomplished’ moment, it may be that he’s ready to blame Western allies for the closure of the Hormuz Strait – a problem which didn’t exist before Operation Epic Fury.

Trump: Iran President has Asked for Ceasefire

President Trump on Truth Social has claimed the US has been directly asked for ceasefire; however, he coupled this with the typical threat of bombing Iran “back to the Stone Ages!!!” Here’s what he said:

Iran’s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE! We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!! President DJT

And yet the Hormuz question lingers, after just yesterday Trump strangely said the vital energy shipping waterway would “automatically open”. Oil prices initially dumped on the Trump message, and quickly rebounded – perhaps based on the latter part of Trump’s statement. A lot would have to happen – for one Washington is likely to require that Tehran giving up charging a some $2 million fee for tankers to make safe passage. Oil unimpressed…

First Gulf Country to Directly Join War?

The small but wealthy country of United Arab Emirates appears to be edging toward open confrontation, with Arab officials saying it is preparing to join the US and allied powers in forcibly reopening the Strait of Hormuz after absorbing Iranian strikes. If so, the move would mark the first time a Persian Gulf state formally enters the conflict as a combatant. Behind the scenes Abu Dhabi is reportedly pushing hard at the UN, lobbying for a Security Council resolution to legitimize military action, while simultaneously urging Washington and its European and Asian partners to assemble a coalition willing to act, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

At the same time, the UAE is quietly assessing what it can bring to the fight, from mine-clearing operations to broader logistical and naval support aimed at securing the vital shipping lane. But the ambitions don’t stop there, amid an opportunity to settle old grievances and a territory dispute. Gulf sources say the Emiratis are also floating a far more aggressive idea: that the US should seize key islands in the waterway, including Abu Musa – held by Iran for decades but claimed by the UAE.

However, the fine print is important here…

Headline: The UAE is “ready to join the fight” to open Strait of Hormuz!

Article text: The UAE would like to put American troops in harm’s way while Emiratis provide “support services.” https://t.co/loAwKtQGdm pic.twitter.com/WLy2OHClDp

— Eli Clifton (@EliClifton) April 1, 2026

Trump Mulls NATO Exit

In an interview with The Telegraph newspaper, the president described the alliance as “paper tiger” and, when asked if he would reconsider American membership in the bloc, Trump responded: “Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration.”

“I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way,” he said, in the remarks published Wednesday. He’s of course angry at refusal of allies to join a military campaign to force back open the Strait of Hormuz.

“Beyond not being there, it was actually hard to believe. And I didn’t do a big sale. I just said, ‘Hey’, you know, I didn’t insist too much. I just think it should be automatic,” he continued. “We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine. Ukraine wasn’t our problem. It was a test, and we were there for them, and we would always have been there for them. They weren’t there for us.”

And here’s what Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Al Jazeera on Monday: “If NATO is just about us defending Europe if they’re attacked but then denying us basing rights when we need them, that’s not a very good arrangement. That’s a hard one to stay engaged in and say this is good for the United States.  So all of that is going to have to be reexamined.”

Oil Tanker in Qatari Waters Struck; Kuwait Airport Hit Again

A tanker leased to QatarEnergy was struck by an Iranian cruise missile in Qatari waters on Wednesday, in another escalation spilling directly into critical energy corridors. According to Qatar’s defense ministry, three missiles were launched from Iran, with two intercepted but the third slamming into the Aqua 1 fuel oil tanker. While there were no casualties and damage remained above the waterline, the hit came just 17 nautical miles off Ras Laffan, home to the world’s largest gas facility, as Reuters has detailed. Bloomberg has noted, “Since the start of the war in Iran, UKMTO has reported 16 attacks on vessels operating in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman.”

Elsewhere, Kuwait reported a “large fire” at fuel tanks near its international airport following another Iranian strike. This marks the seventh time of the war that the international travel hub was hit, and the last time it took emergency crews well over two days to put out the fires.

The Pentagon continues moving thousands of Marines, Special Forces, and Airborne troops into the region. This is not enough for a full ground invasion force, but could be preparation for a campaign to cut Iran from its strategic islands, such as oil export hub Kharg Island…

As I said here during this term, whenever Trump builds up forces in a region, it leads to escalation despite whatever conflicting statements he makes. Right now, we’re seeing a buildup for ground ops targeting Iranian islands, and I still believe we’re moving in that direction. https://t.co/lzjb6aKBYk

— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) April 1, 2026

Meanwhile, diplomacy continues to look like theater. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he has “no faith” in talks with Washington, confirming that while messages have been exchanged – but that “no negotiations are under way.” On the battlefield, Iran’s IRGC claims its latest barrage – spanning more than 100 heavy missiles, attack drones, and roughly 200 smaller rockets – hit targets across Israel and US military positions in the Gulf. Installations in Bahrain and Kuwait have also been hit, the group said, claiming that US helicopter was destroyed. The IRGC has newly vowed to keep attacking with “full intensity and power” – suggesting this is far from over.

Ayatollah Breaks Silence with Message Praising Hezbollah

The new, younger Ayatollah Khamenei – who may have been wounded in the early days of US-Israeli strikes, hasn’t been seen in any public way, not even on TV, throughout the war. There have not so much as been any official recent images of him circulated.

But Mojtaba Khamenei has apparently been issuing some limited written statements, mainly encouraging foreign proxies in their joining the war against US and Israeli forces in the region. State media has indicated he’s not making public appearances given the ongoing relentless bombing campaign and the Islamic Republic’s wartime footing.

The 56-year old Khamenei has on Wednesday praised Hezbollah for joining the war against Israel. Hezbollah has been launching hundreds of rockets on northern and central Israel, amid an emerging ground campaign in southern Lebanon, also as Israel bombs Beirut from the air. In the new words carried by Iranian state media, he praised Hezbollah for its “perseverance, steadfastness and patience” against “the most ruthless enemies of the Islamic world.”

Crypto bros and those of you with ‘creative’ accountants, heads up – the IRS is beefing up its ability to flag accounts for audits. Not only is this the first year that major US-based custodial crypto brokers are reporting gross proceeds to the agency, the IRS is getting aggressive elsewhere. Last year they paid Palantir $1.8 million to identify cases for audits, collections, and potential criminal investigations with a high probability of success. The contract was the latest in over $200 million the IRS has paid Palantir since 2014. 

According to documents obtained by WIRED, the new tool – called the Selection and Analytic Platform (SNAP) – is designed to help IRS staff analyze unstructured data from the agency’s existing internal databases. The goal is to more efficiently identify “high-value” targets amid the IRS’s fragmented legacy systems, which include over 100 business systems and 700 case-selection methods built up over decades.

The pilot is currently focused on areas like Residential Clean Energy Credits, disaster-zone tax relief claims, and gift tax returns. It also helps extract key details from supporting documents, such as contracts, vendors, and related records, to flag potential fraud or underreporting more efficiently. Importantly, SNAP works only with the IRS’s existing internal data – it doesn’t (yet) pull in fresh external feeds like social media or third-party apps.

Those who may get SNAPped up for an audit include;

• People or businesses with big clean energy credit claims (especially if documentation is weak, inflated, or mismatched with other IRS records)
• Individuals who filed disaster relief deductions/credits that appear suspicious
• High-net-worth individuals making large gifts that may trigger gift tax issues

In broader terms, anyone whose filings show high potential recovery value (big underreported income, large credits/deductions, or patterns the IRS flags as risky) could be surfaced faster once SNAP is fully operational. The tool aims to replace inefficient, fragmented manual processes with smarter, data-driven selection.

So why should crypto holders care?

Wired casually mentions that the IRS has experimented in the past with “contracting with companies like Coinbase to analyze information about crypto transactions” as one of several methods to improve audit targeting.

And look at this; they’re looking at mining social media posts.

Neuman has studied other methods the IRS has experimented with to improve its case selection process, including contracting with companies like Coinbase to analyze information about crypto transactions, and mining public social media posts for clues that an individual or business may be underreporting their income. 

Meanwhile, Gemini, Kraken, Binance, Coinbase, Robinhood, Crypto.com, PayPal, and Cash App are all reporting 2025 gross proceeds to the IRS starting this year via 1099-DA. 

And while this isn’t tied to this Palantir/SNAP project – the broader picture is clear: the IRS is aggressively upgrading its ability to spot underreporting and fraud. Crypto remains a high-priority area for the agency. Between the new 1099-DA reporting forms that Coinbase and other platforms are already sending to the IRS, ongoing blockchain analytics tools, and now a deeper partnership with Palantir’s data-crunching tech, the net is getting tighter and more sophisticated.

Bottom line for crypto users:

• Accurate record-keeping and proper tax reporting have never been more important.
• “It’s on-chain so they’ll never find it” is not a strategy anymore.
• The IRS is investing serious money in tools designed to surface the biggest potential recoveries — and crypto has long been on their radar.

In other words, get your house in order.  If you’ve been sloppy with cost basis, mixing personal and business wallets, or treating crypto like the Wild West, the combination of better data analytics and old-fashioned enforcement could make for a very expensive wake-up call.

Authored by Tamuz Itai via The Epoch Times,

There’s a pattern quietly reshaping daily life, work, and society itself. Economists now call it the “barbell economy.” Value, growth, and opportunity concentrate at the two extremes—ultra-cheap utility on one end, premium experience and status on the other—while the broad, reasonable middle thins out. Once you start noticing it, you can’t unsee it. And the data show it isn’t a fleeting trend.

Start with something as ordinary as dinner. Fast-food drive-throughs, delivery apps, and value menus deliver speed and rock-bottom prices with almost no human interaction. At the opposite pole, tasting menus and farm-to-table experiences turn meals into curated stories worth premium prices. The casual sit-down restaurant is struggling or closing—that reliable neighborhood spot that was neither rock-bottom cheap nor luxurious.

The same appears in travel. Airlines sell ultra-low fares for tighter seats but tack on fees for seat selection, bags, and boarding, while business- and first-class cabins keep expanding, with more space, better food, and priority service. Premium-cabin bookings on U.S. domestic flights have grown nearly three times faster than economy seats since 2020. Hotels follow suit: luxury and upper-upscale properties posted stronger revenue growth per available room (RevPAR) in early 2025 than midscale or economy tiers, where occupancy often hovers in the mid-50 percent range and room rates struggle to keep pace with inflation.

Even cars illustrate the point. The average new-vehicle transaction price hit roughly $49,353 in February 2026—up 3.4 percent from the prior year and near all-time highs. For many families, that means heavy debt, stretched budgets, or leaving the new-car market altogether. Some trade down to older or used vehicles; others finance their way into premium models. A reliable new car without major financial strain is becoming rare.

The pattern repeats across many sectors. In education, elite universities grow more expensive and selective, free online resources explode at the low end, and middle-tier institutions face rising costs alongside skepticism about value.

In the workplace, highly skilled, high-pay roles in tech, finance, and specialized fields expand at one pole; gig and service work grow at the other. Stable mid-skill, mid-income jobs have been under pressure for decades. Their share of employment fell from about 59 percent in 1983 to 45 percent by 2012, with high- and low-skill roles filling the gap—a trend that recent analyses tie directly to the barbell shift. Retail mirrors it: ultra-cheap, high-volume platforms on one side, luxury brands on the other, and many traditional mid-tier department stores and general retailers struggling to hold ground. Everywhere, it seems, the middle ground of reliability, reasonable quality, and fair pricing is becoming the hardest place to sustain.

Why the Middle Gets Squeezed

Some of the forces behind include several reinforcing dynamics. Technology drives costs down at the low end—through automation, digitization, and global scale—while amplifying differentiation at the high end, enabling personalized experiences, strong brands, and ecosystems that command premium prices. Globalization intensifies the pressure: mid-tier businesses now compete with both lower-cost producers abroad and globally scaled luxury players, forcing them to slash costs dramatically or move upmarket.

Markets themselves reward extremes. Massive scale wins on price; strong differentiation wins on margins. Being “solid and reliable” without either advantage leaves you exposed. Consumer psychology gravitates toward either “the cheapest thing that works” or “what feels worth it and represents me.” Mid-tier operators also face rising fixed costs—rent, labor, regulation, supply chains—without the efficiencies of giants or the pricing power of luxury brands. The math is getting tighter.

Why the Middle Still Matters

Historically, the middle wasn’t just a pricing tier. It was a stabilizing feature of society. A large middle class with stable work, enough income to build a life, and independence from both the state and the elite acted as an anchor. These people invested in communities, cared about long-term stability, participated in institutions, and generally worked within the system because they had a genuine stake in it.

When the middle thins, shared experiences shrink. Different groups consume, travel, learn, and even perceive reality differently. Social mobility feels less realistic. Trust in institutions erodes as more people feel the system no longer includes or needs them. Ancient to modern political thinkers have warned that societies dominated by extremes tend to be less stable.

What makes the pattern subtle—and hard to reverse—is that almost every individual decision makes sense. Companies cut costs or differentiate to survive. Consumers hunt for deals or splurge on what feels special. Governments open trade for growth. Investors seek returns. But cumulatively, they push supply and demand toward the extremes. It’s a classic case of local optima creating a suboptimal system-level outcome.

The Fork in the Road

If the middle continues to thin, and societies nevertheless wish to re-stabilize it, three broad paths are visible.

• One is passive stability through distribution—ideas such as universal basic income. It could cushion immediate hardship but risks weakening the historical link between contribution, purpose, and livelihood. Also, large-scale central planning has a poor track record of sustaining broad prosperity (e.g., socialism).

• A second path is a controlled middle class, common in centralized systems. People can still live comfortably, but their position depends more heavily on alignment with the state or institutions. This often limits the autonomy that made the traditional middle class a genuine stabilizer. We can see that in China today, under the CCP, where the middle class is not fulfilling its traditional role.

• The third—and most hopeful—path is actively rebuilding a productive middle. This means reindustrialization, stronger domestic supply chains, infrastructure investment, technical education, and new pathways that don’t require elite credentials. The goal is restoring roles in which a broad group of people create real economic value.

Lessons From History—and Today

The old debate of “more free market” versus “more state” often misses how some countries actually succeeded. South Korea in the 1950s was poor and war-torn. Under President Park Chung-hee, the government didn’t simply let markets run free or impose permanent control. It provided guided support—directing credit to key industries, investing heavily in infrastructure and education, and pushing exports—but tied that support to performance. Companies that failed to compete internationally lost backing. As industries matured and became globally competitive, the state gradually stepped back, allowing more market autonomy. Success came from smart sequencing: early coordination to build capacity, followed by increasing competition within a strengthening institutional framework.

We see initiatives of a similar breed today in the United States, where recent policies have aimed to reshore manufacturing, support strategic sectors such as semiconductors and energy, and rebuild domestic capacity.

These efforts represent attempts to reform a system that long optimized purely for efficiency.

Rebuilding—or thoughtfully reshaping—the middle will require understanding the forces at work and making deliberate choices about the kind of society we want the economy to support.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Update (0845ET): Minutes after we prepared this post, President Trump posted on his social media feed that Iran has asked for a ceasefire:

“Iran’s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!”

Trump added that he will consider it if the Strait is opened… or else!

“We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!“

Presumably this will be a topic of tonight’s address to the nation, but once again it takes two (or three) to TACO and until the Strait is open, all bets are still off.

*  *  *

President Donald Trump is scheduled to address the nation on April 1 to give an update on the military operation in Iran, according to the White House.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X that the president will provide “an important update” about the ongoing war at 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

During a White House press conference on March 31, Trump indicated that the U.S. military may conclude its combat operations against Iran within weeks.

“I would say that within two weeks, maybe two weeks, maybe three. We’re hitting them very hard. Last night we knocked out tremendous amounts of missile-making facilities,” he told reporters.

“We’re finishing the job, and I think within, maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer, to do the job. But we want to knock out every single thing they have.”

As The Epoch Times’ Aldgra Fredly reports, Trump said while there is a possibility of reaching a deal with Iran to end the military operations for Tehran’s surrender of its nuclear weapons program, the operation could still be ended without any deal.

“If they come to the table, that’ll be good. But it doesn’t matter whether they come or not. We’ve set them back, it’ll take 15 to 20 years for them to rebuild what we’ve done to them,” the president said.

When asked about the impact of the war on gas prices, Trump said, “All I have to do is leave Iran, and we’ll be doing that very soon, and they’ll come tumbling down.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has denied engaging in direct negotiations with the United States. He told Al Jazeera on March 31, “We do not have any faith that negotiations with the U.S. will yield any results.”

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has been disrupted since the United States and Israel began military operations against Iran at the end of February. Tehran has retaliated by firing missiles and drones at Israel and U.S. military assets and targets across Gulf nations.

Oil prices have surged in recent weeks, with the U.S. national average retail price for a gallon of regular gasoline exceeding $4 on March 31 for the first time since August 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began.

At a Pentagon press briefing on March 31, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the previous 24 hours had marked the lowest number of Iranian missile and attack drone launches since the fighting began.

“The latest intel is clear … our strikes are damaging the morale of the Iranian military, leading to widespread desertions, key personnel shortages, and causing frustrations amongst senior leaders,” Hegseth said.

Since the start of the military campaign—dubbed Operation Epic Fury—U.S. forces have struck more than 11,000 targets, according to U.S. Central Command.

So what will President Trump say?

With the recent deployment of A-10s and Apaches (consistent with a military option that involves close-air support and/or attacks on Iranian fast boats and water drones) in mind, Larry Johnson lays out three possibilities:

Option 1 — Declare that negotiations with Iran via intermediaries (e.g., Pakistan) are progressing and that they United States is going to cease combat operations against Iran in order to support the negotiations and achieve a peaceful resolution.

Option 2 — Declare that victory has been achieved and that US forces will begin withdrawing from the region, leaving the status of the Strait of Hormuz in limbo.

Option 3 — Announce a massive air and ground operation to secure the freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

The deployment of the A-10s and the Apaches can only mean one of two things:

1. It is a show of force intended to pressure Iran to return to the negotiating table.

2. The US is going to launch a massive attack against Iranian assets in the Persian Gulf, especially those located in and around the Strait of Hormuz.

Since Monday, March 30, 2026, President Donald Trump has made several public comments on the ongoing US-led Operation Epic Fury against Iran, primarily via Truth Social posts, interviews (including with the New York Post), and remarks to reporters. His statements emphasize US military successes, threats of further escalation if demands are unmet, criticism of allies, and a potential near-term wind-down of direct US involvement.

On Monday, Trump described Iran as effectively “decimated” or “obliterated,” with its air force, navy, and many ships sunk or destroyed. He portrayed the campaign as highly successful and “way ahead of schedule” in prior context, but continued highlighting strikes on “long-sought-after targets.” He shared video footage on Truth Social of a massive explosion and secondary blasts in Isfahan (linked to strikes on uranium-related or military sites), without additional caption in one instance.

Trump also posted that the US was in “serious discussions with a new, and more reasonable, regime” to end operations. He warned that if the Strait of Hormuz is not “immediately ‘Open for Business’” and a deal is not reached shortly, the US would “completely obliterate” Iran’s electric generating plants, oil wells, Kharg Island, and possibly desalination plants. He framed this as concluding the US “lovely ‘stay’ in Iran.” In follow-up comments, he suggested the US could respond to Iranian actions “twenty times harder” with “Death, Fire, and Fury.”

Overall, Trump’s messaging since March 30 combines triumphalism about US achievements, escalatory warnings tied to the Strait of Hormuz and energy targets, frustration with allies, and signals of de-escalation with a short timeline for reduced US involvement. These comments have influenced market reactions (e.g., oil prices and equities) and drawn responses from Iranian officials and international observers.

Trump’s remarks since Monday have boosted the confidence of the folks on Wall Street and contributed to a significant surge in the stock market, with the Dow up 1,125 points. The price for BRENT oil dropped from 118 to 103 during Tuesday trading. This means the financial folks believe the war is going to end.

I think Trump is counting on Iran offering up some concessions in the face of the US buildup of additional air combat assets.

Netanyahu reportedly just said Iran no longer poses threat to Israel’s existence… A dramatic pivot if true.

However, over the last few hours, Israel and the US carried out a large wave of attacks across Iran.

They struck targets across several parts of Tehran, as well as in the cities of Karaj, Shahriar, Ahvaz, Shiraz, Abadeh, Isfahan, and Bandar Abbas. Iran will retaliate in force to these latest attacks.

In short, I believe Donald Trump will announce a major offensive to try to force Iran to release its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz… I believe that offensive will fail and that the war will escalate unless the US and Israel agree to two critical Iranian demands: the end of all sanctions and the removal of US military bases from the Persian Gulf arab countries.

Russia and China are two wild cards that could change the trajectory of the current war. If they engage and apply pressure on the diplomatic front — including ironclad security guarantees to Iran — Donald Trump may take the exit ramp.

Bank of America’s omniscient analysts forecast a very strong month for Retail Sales in February data (released today)…

The actual print was +0.6% MoM (better than the 0.5% consensus, but less than BofA’s forecast) comes after a revised higher 0.1% MoM decline in January (and December’s nothingburger)…

Source: Bloomberg

That is the highest MoM rise since June 2025, and sales rose 3.7% YoY…

Core Retail Sales (Ex Autos) rose 0.5% MoM (much better than expected) and Ex Autos and Gas also rose more than expected (+0.4% MoM).

Food and Beverage spending fell while Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers saw the biggest jump…

Most importantly, the ‘Control Group’ which plugs into the GDP calculation rose 0.5% MoM (also considerably better than expected).

Interestingly, ‘real’ retail sales (admittedly crudely adjusted via CPI) have rebounded from a negative print in December…

Of course, this data was before the war started and before gas prices really exploded (but then again April’s tax refunds may offset some of the pain).

LVMH, the owner of Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Fendi, Bvlgari, Moët & Chandon, and dozens of other luxury brands, just posted its worst quarter since the dot-com bust era, making it the worst-performing European luxury stock this year as demand for luxury handbags, shoes, watches, perfumes, and wines continues to soften amid an intensifying Middle East conflict.

LVMH shares in Paris tumbled 28% in the first quarter, exceeding quarterly declines seen during Covid and the 2008 financial crisis, but not surpassing the 41% third-quarter decline in 2001. Peers Richemont fell 20%, and Hermès slid 25% in the quarter.

“Elevated global uncertainty has generated significant investor anxiety, particularly among those who had been anticipating a long-awaited recovery in luxury demand this year. This has driven a sharp sector de-rating across luxury,” UBS analyst Zuzanna Pusz wrote in a note for clients on Tuesday. 

Pusz said geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East has largely driven de-rating across luxury stocks, leaving sector valuations roughly 15 percentage points below their long-term average relative to the broader market.

The selloff also reflects LVMH’s mounting problems: soft January guidance, greater exposure to more cash-strapped consumers, and continued weakness in its wines and spirits business, especially Hennessy. As a result, the stock now trades at a 20% discount to its peers.

Pusz noted that, despite the grim outlook for luxury, she has not yet seen clear evidence of a real demand slowdown, particularly in Asia, according to recent channel checks.

She added, “Against a backdrop of very negative market sentiment and depressed valuations, we think that even modest Q1 beats could be disproportionately rewarded. Fundamentally, we continue to expect sequential improvement for most companies, though selectivity remains critical. CFR and LVMH are our top picks.” 

The Goldman Sachs basket of European luxury stocks (GSXELUXG Index) appears to have found support at 2022 trading levels.

Meanwhile, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault’s fortune has plummeted by $55.4 billion over the past quarter, the largest drop among the world’s 500 richest people.

“LVMH has become more than a luxury stock, it’s now a barometer of global confidence,” John Plassard, head of investment strategy at Cité Gestion, said. “The issue is not the Middle East exposure itself, but what it signals: uncertainty, pressure on the wealth effect, and fear of a broader slowdown.”

Professional subscribers can read the full UBS “European Luxury” note here at our new Marketdesk.ai portal

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Cloaking a fake “market” with artifice to maintain its asymmetrical distribution of wealth and income also cloaks its detachment from the real world.

I often refer to the dynamics of self-correction and self-liquidation. Systems that use feedback to rebalance extremes are self-correcting: rather than accelerate as they approach a cliff, they slow down and reorganize to avoid runaway self-reinforcing feedback (i.e. positive feedback), a.k.a. run to failure.

Some things are self-liquidating by design. A mortgage, for example, is intended to be self-liquidating: the monthly payments reduce and eventually extinguish the debt.

Other systems become self-liquidating when artifice becomes the “solution” for those seeking to lock the system down to maintain their share of the spoils. This is the inevitable consequence when a culture veers into the black-hole spiral of moral decay, where integrity is dissolved by maximizing self-interest by any means available.

Responding to real-world feedback threatens to reduce insiders’ share of the spoils, and to make sure this doesn’t happen, insiders steer the system away from the real world, creating an artificial, synthetic representation of the system that relies not on real-world feedback but on signals and symbolism that can be engineered to serve the interests of those holding the levers of power and influence.

To those benefiting from a system, corrective feedback is anathema because it reduces their share of the spoils. The “solution” is various forms of artifice that maintain the illusion that the system is stable and responsive to the interests of all, when in fact it’s been locked in a configuration that benefits the few at the expense of the many.

Self-serving artifice comes in many forms: the gaming of statistics to put lipstick on the real-world pig, the TACO Trade–announce some fabrication as a pending agreement with magical powers, virtue-signaling legislation that changes nothing in how the spoils are being distributed, grandiose claims of technological innovations–innovations that just happen to be owned by a handful of corporations–that will benefit everyone, and so on.

This substitution of artifice for authenticity relies heavily on signals and symbolism. Rather than attempt to manipulate all the complexities of the real-world economy, the stock market is now the signal for the entire economy: if stocks are going up, the economy is good.

This elevation of the stock market as the one true indicator rests on an entire universe of symbolic meanings and mythologies. The stock market is the invisible hand, the magic mechanism of price discovery, the engine of growth that rewards innovation and ingenuity while enriching us all with fabulous new technologies, the perpetual-motion device that makes America the greatest generator of prosperity in history, and so on.

Like all good cons, there is some truth buried beneath the hype. An unmanipulated market does indeed have the potential to reward innovation and ingenuity and generate widespread prosperity.

But the whole point of these mythologies is to cloak a manipulated market in the finery of an authentic market. This bewitchment is akin to the Emperor’s New Clothes: a fabrication, a tale, that takes on a life of its own as a mass delusion.

Cloaking a fake “market” with artifice to maintain its asymmetrical distribution of wealth and income also cloaks its detachment from the real world. This is how systems veer into Model Collapse and self-liquidation: the artificial representations, the reliance on easily faked signals and euphoria-inducing mythologies collapse once they collide with reality.

Which brings us to the present, where the stock market has become the economy, the driver of wealth and prosperity as the top 10% who own the majority of stocks can spend freely enough to employ the bottom 90% and pay the taxes needed to fund an out-of-control state sector that lavishes subsidies on every class to stave off a reckoning.

Here is reality: all credit-asset bubbles are inherently unstable and so they pop. While the timing isn’t predictable, the collapse of what is intrinsically self-liquidating is entirely predictable.

Here is the Emperor’s New Clothing version of mass delusion: the Everything Bubble is permanent and will never pop, and if it does, some agency with god-like powers will rush to the rescue.

But self-liquidating systems are not permanent. Their internal dynamics guarantee the end-game is extinguishment. Here is a projection of the Everything Bubble based on bubble symmetry and scale invariance: what goes up will come down on a similar trajectory.

That the Emperor is buck-naked should not surprise us, but awakening from mass delusion is by its very nature a stunning surprise.

These dynamics are drawn from my Revolution Trilogy.

*  *  *

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Public interest in science fiction is rapidly rising in China, alongside the country’s push toward technological advancement.

A new report says revenues hit a record in 2025 while related online searches surged by over 200%, according to the South China Morning Post.

According to data released at the China Science Fiction Convention and reported by Xinhua, total industry revenue reached 126.1 billion yuan (US$18.2 billion), marking a 15.7% year-on-year increase.

The report also noted expanding global influence for Chinese sci-fi intellectual property.

Video games continue to dominate the sector, contributing more than 60% of total earnings.

Sci-fi titles alone brought in 77.91 billion yuan and performed well internationally.

As Wu Yan put it, “Overall, sci-fi games still account for the lion’s share of the market.”

He added that younger audiences favor immersive, interactive formats, where games still outpace other media in both popularity and scale.

The SCMP writes that other segments are also growing. Sci-fi derivatives jumped 179.4% to 7.07 billion yuan, driven largely by original IP and new formats like AI-powered designer toys. Film and TV revenues rose 21.6% to 8.16 billion yuan, while literature generated 5.19 billion yuan.

The industry’s rise builds on earlier breakthroughs in the 2010s, when Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem gained global recognition, followed by blockbuster adaptations like The Wandering Earth and its sequel.

Emerging trends include increased use of artificial intelligence in short- and mid-length video production, as well as growth in offline experiences. Wu noted, “Offline experience projects, such as sci-fi theme parks, have also been very attractive in recent years, similarly because of the first-hand experience [they provide].”

This momentum is reflected in sci-fi tourism, which grew 13.8% to 27.77 billion yuan, with theme parks remaining central. Meanwhile, a newly tracked segment—sci-fi technical equipment—generated 24.74 billion yuan in revenue.

Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com,

Republican Senators Bill Cassidy and Cynthia Lummis introduced legislation Monday aimed at reshaping the U.S. digital asset mining sector, tightening supply chains, and embedding bitcoin into federal reserve strategy.

The proposal, titled the “Mined in America Act,” would establish a federal certification program for domestic crypto mining operations while phasing out reliance on foreign-manufactured hardware.

It also seeks to codify Donald Trump’s executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, placing the policy on statutory footing, according to a release on the matter.

“Digital asset mining is a big part of our economy. We should be doing it here in America,” Cassidy said in a statement, framing the bill as a supply chain and manufacturing initiative.

Lummis tied the legislation to a broader push to position the United States as a global hub for digital assets.

“The Mined in America Act brings this industry home through forward-thinking initiatives to secure our financial future,” she said.

The bill directs the Department of Commerce to create a voluntary “Mined in America” certification for mining facilities and pools that meet security and sourcing standards. Certified operators would be required to transition away from hardware linked to foreign adversaries over a phased timeline, with the goal of full compliance by the end of the decade.

Lawmakers and industry advocates have pointed to a stark imbalance in the current mining ecosystem.

While the United States controls an estimated 38% of global bitcoin hash rate, roughly 97% of specialized mining hardware is produced by Chinese firms, including Bitmain and MicroBT.

JUST IN: US Senators introduce the “Mined in America” bill to promote Bitcoin mining and codify President Trump’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/0M478axSE3

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) March 30, 2026

Domestic mining security push

Supporters argue that dependence poses both economic and national security risks. The bill references prior incidents, including U.S. inspections of imported mining rigs and the discovery of vulnerabilities in firmware that raised concerns about remote access capabilities.

To address the imbalance, the legislation directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership to support the development of domestic mining hardware.

It stops short of authorizing new spending, instead integrating certified projects into existing federal energy and manufacturing programs.

The measure also positions bitcoin mining as a tool for grid management and energy development. 

By tapping into existing Department of Energy and U.S. Department of Agriculture programs, certified operators could access financing for projects that absorb excess renewable energy, stabilize grid demand, or capture methane emissions from landfills and oil fields.

Industry group Satoshi Action Fund endorsed the legislation, calling it a comprehensive framework that links energy policy, manufacturing, and digital asset strategy.

Strategic Bitcoin Reserve gets a formal nod

Beyond industrial policy, the bill’s most significant provision may be its formalization of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve within the Treasury Department. While the federal government already holds a large amount of bitcoin from law enforcement seizures, the reserve would establish a framework for long-term retention and accumulation.

The legislation outlines a “budget-neutral” pathway for expanding holdings. Revenue generated from staking rewards and airdrops tied to other seized digital assets would be funneled into bitcoin purchases. In addition, certified domestic miners could sell newly mined bitcoin directly to the government in exchange for a capital gains tax exemption, creating an incentive to supply the reserve at discounted prices.

If enacted, the Mined in America Act would mark one of the most expansive federal efforts to integrate bitcoin mining into U.S. industrial and energy policy. 

It arrives as policymakers weigh how to balance innovation, security, and competition in a sector that has become increasingly global.