Quote from: pooya87 on August 19, 2022, 06:46:49 AM

In a couple of days a lot of things could be clarified. The fate of US and EU economy depends on Iran's decision whether to remove the sanctions on the West or keep them there to increase the pressure. Removal could mean oil below $50 otherwise the $100+ is the price that the Western world has to get used to.

After 3 years the Chinese president Xi Jinping is traveling to West Asia and the results of the visit would determine a lot of things.
It's hard to predict the results too. What we know so far:
- Al-Saud is going to be given incentives to shift their sales to China and use CNY instead of USD which means US dollar is going to continue to dump more which means more inflation which means more inflation exports to Europe which means more inflation in EU.
- Some Russian sanctions were eased by Europe in a total media silence (exactly why I call the Western media a heavily censored one) which may be because they already predict the previous point and want to be able to replace the Saudi oil with Russian again
- China has been pulling out of US economy. At least $500 billion was pulled out of US stock market in the past couple of days alone. Both the Chinese government and the private sector are slowly pulling out.
- Finally we have Iran that would make the big difference. If JCPOA is signed and then Iran agrees to increase imports to the West the price would fall and all China did would be undone and their plans to invade Taiwan with decreased consequences would fall apart. But this is unlikely and the pressure on EU and US would most probably remain high. Meaning Iran would increase exports to China while not allowing Al-Saud to increase exports to EU either. The result of all the above means invasion of Taiwan in a couple of months and EU+US economy falling apart faster (US is already in a recession) then both Iran and Saudis would have the upper hand not to mention that higher energy prices that means a much bigger profit for all energy exporters.

So I'll wait to see what the result of this visit is going to be. It turns out sending Pelosi to Taiwan only ensured China that they can't take back Taiwan peacefully like they did Hong Kong.

Interesting summary overall, but I have my doubts that China would seriously consider invading Taiwan given that they are currently facing severe economic turmoil themselves. The whole strategy Xi Jinping set up for China is much more about global economic domination and first and foremost about economic growth. If growth slows down for China, their whole long-term strategy is threatened. When they now start a war with Taiwan and get involved into a costly, perhaps years-long conflict, that would significantly undermine their intentions to further stabilize and establish China as a global economic superpower. They have several projects running which are all about economic growth and a healthy economy. The war would lead China into an opposite direction. The opportunity costs are just very high when you also take into account that it is not entirely sure how the US will react. The most likely scenario is that the US won't just let it happen. A war would produce losers on all fronts.

Energy will remain the biggest topic of the near future. The worst about the whole energy issue is that countries are now forced to deviate from their climate goals. That is something that hardly can be reverted once we as a global society are forced to move into the wrong direction once more. There are hectic times ahead of us. Sad