th<\/sup>, is Barack Hussein Obama Day. Everyone alive and decent back then has a good memory. Mine was of him singing \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d at the church in South Carolina where a racist gun nut killed a dozen people, including Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, State Senator and pastor at that church. Very moving, and I\u2019m not even religious.<\/p>\nPeople who hate Obama are welcome to express their thoughts, as well. We can laugh at you, and let\u2019s face it; smearing Obama is a hell of a lot easier these days than praising Trump.<\/p>\n
The Orange Shitstain turns 80 tomorrow, and of course he\u2019s celebrating with all the class and dignity of a Dogpatch Kickapoo Joy Juice festival. (Oh, look it up; it\u2019s the sort of Boomer shit the Internet was born to immortalize).<\/p>\n
Fresh off his triumph at The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, Trump announced that a peace deal with Iran would be signed tomorrow. That, or he would deploy the ultimate weapon against them. It was quite vague, which with Trump is a bit of an improvement.<\/p>\n
I was puzzled at first. Usually Trump announces a peace deal in order to manipulate the markets for a bit of insider trading. But the markets are closed Sunday. Then it hit me: right. His big 8-0. He wants a big \u201cpeace is at hand, inflation is done, and it\u2019s all Biden\u2019s fault\u201d speech for his White House Cage Match. Yes, \u201cWhite House Cage Match.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trouble is, Iran holds the whip hand. They control the Strait of Hormuz. Even if Trump\u2019s recent unfounded claim that the US was able to sneak 40 million barrels of oil through (even assuming tankers can tip-toe, 40m\/bbl is about a month supply for California alone) was true, Iran\u2019s control is pretty much absolute. The regime is very firmly in control, since opposition dropped out of sight. (That tends to happen in countries where you try to influence them by bombing them. Ask any Londoner). And major financial dislocation is expected to really hit in August. That\u2019s when the last of the tankers that sailed through the Strait in late February arrive at the more distant ports\u2014including Long Beach or Galveston or, well, you get the idea.<\/p>\n
Trump doesn\u2019t want massive economic dislocation six weeks before the midterms. So if he\u2019s desperate enough, he might just accede to Iran\u2019s demands, which include control of the Strait, $300 billion in war damage reparations, release of another $35 billion or so in frozen assets, and an agreement to reestablish the nuclear proliferation agreement that Obama negotiated and which Trump unilaterally tore up.<\/p>\n
Yes, I\u2019m sure they included that last as a deliberate insult to Trump, but why not? Assuming they don\u2019t really want to build nuclear weapons\u2014and the fact that they haven\u2019t in the past 45 years that they could have is suggestive\u2014the agreement costs them little and helps ensure stability in the region.<\/p>\n
Of course, Trump is almost certainly lying. Isn\u2019t this the fortieth \u201cpeace is at hand\u201d declaration he\u2019s made since it became obvious he wasn\u2019t going to get a quick-and-dirty win like he did in Venezuela? So whatever he says at tomorrow\u2019s trash-fest, don\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n
Suppose we all get a giant surprise tomorrow and Iran announces that a deal has been reached? That the Strait of Hormuz is now open for business, with Iran getting $10 million per supertanker and all the rest of it. Trump will strut and dance like a lobotomized Robin Williams on Quaaludes, Republican congressmen will drop to their knees if not already there and sing hosannas, and on Monday the markets will explode, making \u201cirrational exuberance\u201d look like mildly amused.<\/p>\n
Only…well there\u2019s a fly in the ointment. Remember what I said about the last ships to clear the Strait in late February arriving in August? There\u2019s about 2,000 ships awaiting passage. The Strait in normal times can handle 100 ships a day, so there\u2019s a three week backlog just to clear the existing traffic. So normal shipping wouldn\u2019t resume until early July. Now factor in what I call \u201ctransit latency\u201d \u2013 the amount of time needed for ships to reach their destination ports. While two months is average, some destinations lie five months away.<\/p>\n
So trade won\u2019t even begin to reach normal levels until…hmm…September. Careful calculation reveals that that comes after August, the point where things start to come apart in earnest.<\/p>\n
So even if the crows of an agreement being signed tomorrow actually are more than the usual Trump duck-and-weave bullshit, it\u2019s too late. Trump probably doesn\u2019t have the brights to understand any of that, but his handlers certainly do, and after a brief pause for the sell-short guys to weigh in, the markets will, as well. An actual market crash in June is possible. Then the fun begins in earnest. Come August, we\u2019re screwed.<\/p>\n
It comes at a time when we already face: A screwworm invasion, a massive disruption in medical supplies, a super El Ni\u00f1<\/span>o that may start making significant disruptions by September\u2014including, yes, shipping lanes\u2014and several financial bubbles\u2014housing, AI, and derivatives\u2014all nearing the point of the inevitable implosion. And it comes at a time when the government is crippled by the self-serving malice of the Trump crime syndicate and the sheer libertarian foolishness of the tech bros headed by trillionaire Elon Musk.<\/span><\/p>\nI used to joke that I didn\u2019t write summer solstice pieces because if the message in the winter solstice piece was that the sun was coming back so there is hope, a summer solstice theme would have to be \u201cit\u2019s all downhill from here.\u201d My winter solstice piece preceded a planned two-month hiatus that extended to six months because I\u2019m a lazy bastard, but here we are approaching a summer solstice, and here I am, with a message.<\/p>\n
And that message is: \u201cCheer up. Most of us will get through this.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bryan Zepp Jamieson June 13th, 2026 Tomorrow, June 14th, is Barack Hussein Obama Day. Everyone alive and decent back then has a good memory. Mine was of him singing \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d at the church in South Carolina where a racist gun nut killed a dozen people, including Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, State Senator and pastor … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Birthday of the Strait Man You can make a street walker think, but you can\u2019t make a Hormuz”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,577,2330,10,5,2165],"tags":[70,240,2506,68,2507,2509,2508,408,351,243,2505],"class_list":["post-1922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-psyche","category-climate-change","category-corruption","category-economics","category-foreign-affairs","category-trump-second-term","tag-bombing","tag-iran","tag-jfk-center-for-the-performing-arts","tag-obama","tag-peace-deal","tag-reparations","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-trade","tag-trump","tag-war","tag-white-house-cage-match"],"yoast_head":"\nBirthday of the Strait Man You can make a street walker think, but you can\u2019t make a Hormuz · Zepp's Commentaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=1922\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Birthday of the Strait Man You can make a street walker think, but you can\u2019t make a Hormuz · Zepp's Commentaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bryan Zepp Jamieson June 13th, 2026 Tomorrow, June 14th, is Barack Hussein Obama Day. 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