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Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

The excessive fiscal burden on fuels has driven gasoline prices in Germany higher since the start of the Iran crisis. Yet it seems unlikely that German policymakers will ease the burden on commuters or businesses. Apart from a task force, nothing has been planned. Other regions are proving more resilient.

The Iran conflict has entered its second week, and with it, concerns are growing over the consequences of the slowly but steadily building energy crisis for the global economy.

In Germany, the rise in oil prices was quickly reflected at the pumps. Prices jumped from around €1.65 per liter to over €2 – a roughly 25 percent increase in a very short period (Apollo News reported).

At the same time, suspicions arise that oil companies are securing quick profits by selling already invoiced and refined petroleum as well as existing gasoline stocks at the now significantly higher retail price, realizing excess profits.

However, this is a temporary effect, likely to be balanced quickly by market dynamics. The internationally high increase in German gasoline prices is almost entirely due to the fact that the state, through its tax policies, accounts for roughly 65 percent of the retail price. A silent profiteer in the crisis, while commuters face growing problems.

Whether CO2 levies, fuel taxes, or VAT – the government should now act with fiscal restraint and provide significant relief to both commuters and businesses. So far, this is not the case. German politics stares like a rabbit at the snake in the Iran conflict. Slowly, it becomes clear that decades of ideologically driven energy policy were nothing more than a trillion-euro, subsidized fantasy – now turning into a nightmare.

USA Operate Autarkically 

Across the Atlantic, the situation is very different. Gas prices in the United States rose by about five to ten percent. Eight months before the crucial midterm elections, this will be decisive for President Donald Trump to uphold his campaign promises and keep inflation under control.

A quick end to the Iran war is now imperative. Washington is weighing the geopolitical effects, control of global oil markets, and domestic inflation risks.

Since 2018, the United States has been the world’s largest oil producer with a daily output of 18 million barrels and is also an exporter of “black gold.” Its dominant position makes it relatively insulated from major oil price shocks while giving it significant market influence.

If the crisis persists, the global energy market risks fragmentation. Massive price hikes threaten import-dependent states, such as many European countries, while energy-autarkic nations retain pricing power and are largely shielded from extreme increases.

South Korea as a Special Case 

Looking to Asia, South Korea is highly energy-dependent like Europe but boasts substantial refining capacity. Companies such as SK Energy, GS Caltex, or S-Oil typically operate on long-term supply contracts and fixed prices, while holding significant crude inventories that can be drawn down during a supply disruption.

The South Korean economy is temporarily insulated from a Hormuz blockade. Gas prices rose about 13 percent since the outbreak of the war, from €1.11 to €1.25 per liter – markedly less than in Germany.

Taxes and levies account for only around 40 percent of the retail gasoline price in South Korea, providing an advantage compared with Germany’s steadily rising mobility and energy taxes.

It may take up to three weeks for an oil shock to reach Korean gas stations. During this time, firms hedge currency and price risks on futures markets, operating largely in isolation. Refineries and storage practices act as an additional strategic oil reserve directly integrated into the processing of the economy’s key resource.

Politically, the government remains on alert. Seoul has so far refrained from temporary fuel tax cuts, a measure historically used to support the economy. Most recently, this occurred during the lockdown phase. This suggests that Korean authorities do not expect a prolonged conflict – and certainly not a ground invasion by U.S. or Israeli troops. Such a scenario would inevitably escalate, including on global commodity markets.

Crystal Ball Outlook 

It is currently almost impossible to predict how the conflict will evolve. Regime change in Tehran appears to be neither a U.S. nor Israeli objective. Likewise, ground troop interventions remain highly unlikely, especially given the approaching midterms in the U.S.

This makes a short conflict duration likely. Strategic oil reserves in most EU countries cover roughly three months and have not yet been tapped. Despite rapid price increases, no acute supply shortages currently exist.

To relieve pressure at the pumps, fuel taxes would need to be cut. Yet it is unlikely that Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil will forgo the additional revenues generated by the temporary energy price spike.

Politically, the focus remains on optics: a gasoline price task force has been convened – a media maneuver during election season, a political chimera drawn reflexively from the government’s toolkit.

Structural solutions to Europe’s dangerous energy dependence would require a geopolitical reset, including a peace settlement with Russia, exploitation of domestic resources such as the continent’s immense gas reserves, and potentially a return to nuclear power in Germany.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

The shutdown of key gas export facilities in the Middle East is tightening global liquefied natural gas supplies, raising the risk of a deficit and pushing cargoes toward Asia as buyers compete for limited shipments, according to Bloomberg.

Ras Laffan in Qatar — the world’s largest LNG export complex — has halted production, while shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has also been disrupted. Bloomberg calculations based on 2025 output suggest that roughly three Qatari LNG cargoes are effectively removed from the market for every day the disruption continues. A smaller export facility in Abu Dhabi is also unable to ship, leaving about 20% of global LNG supply offline.

The tightening market is already reshaping trade flows. Ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show that at least nine LNG cargoes originally bound for Europe have diverted to Asia since the fighting began, with the pace increasing in recent days as spare supply in the market rapidly dwindles.

“If this situation were to persist for multiple months, dragging well into the summer, there aren’t enough alternative LNG sources to sufficiently supply the global market,” said Mathieu Utting, an analyst at Rystad Energy. “The two other major LNG suppliers, the US and Australia, are already operating at full capacity with little room to increase utilization.”

The squeeze comes at a critical moment for both regions. Europe needs additional LNG to rebuild storage depleted during winter, while hotter-than-normal weather in parts of Asia is expected to boost air-conditioning demand in the coming months. Prices in both regions have surged over the past week, raising concerns about inflation and economic impacts.

“Asian buyers will need to supplement their term supply with spot cargoes,” said James O’Brien, head of LNG at D.Trading, a unit of Ukraine’s private energy company DTEK. “This will inevitably pull more Atlantic molecules east.”

Bloomberg writes that buyers in India, Bangladesh and Thailand have already turned to the spot market for additional supply, though some recent tenders for March delivery — including ones from India — failed to attract sellers because of limited availability and high prices.

52% of VG float is short, indirectly a short also on LNG. Good luck https://t.co/zC5o8OVOAZ pic.twitter.com/UHsamIacTt

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 6, 2026

New LNG supply from the US is unlikely to arrive quickly. While projects including Golden Pass in Texas and expansions at Corpus Christi and Plaquemines are progressing, additional capacity will come online only gradually.

Analysts say the disruption is also reducing the chances of a widely expected LNG glut this year. Morgan Stanley said any extension of the Qatar outage beyond a month “quickly brings a deficit,” after the bank had previously forecast 6 to 8 million tons of oversupply.

Rabobank strategist Florence Schmit estimates that each week of lost Qatari production cuts the expected surplus by about 1.5 million tons, leaving only a few weeks before the market tips into deficit.

“Markets are now facing a supply deficit even with higher US flows,” Schmit said. “The LNG glut has been delayed by a year.”

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Italian weeks in Brussels: Just days after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced a hardline migration policy, openly defying Brussels’ globalist open-border agenda, she delivered a second shock.

At the start of the week, Italy’s Industry Minister Adolfo Urso called for the suspension of EU-wide CO2 trading—or at least a profound reform. Rome calls it a hidden tax and laments the growing displacement of Italian industrial companies to non-European locations. A conclusion that will sound all too familiar in Germany.

EU climate policy is artificially driving costs ever higher across the board. Companies able to operate flexibly are losing patience with this fanatical clientelist politics. Investments are redirected elsewhere, jobs relocated—while the taxes politicians desire are collected abroad. Yet even this argument seems to fall on deaf ears in European politics, as the European taxpayer remains a convenient source of revenue. Unlike mobile capital, citizens can’t easily move their wealth and property out of reach.

It is high time European leaders confront the European Commission and its grotesque degrowth fantasies. The so-called green transformation is under evident legitimacy pressure, now that it is clear that the “green Hesperia”—a realm where economic rules and logic are suspended—will never exist. Brussels’ attempt to build a power base with its own “green” industrial sector as an economic foundation increasingly looks like a project of power-obsessed dreamers, hung around the private sector’s neck like a millstone.

While Italy is drawing a clear line and trying to distance itself from Brussels’ industrial pillage, few in German politics seem seriously concerned that the CO2 credit system channels real capital from productive sectors into an unproductive green patronage economy, while feeding the moral self-assurance of climate-policy snake-oil merchants.

What is sold as “transformation” is in truth a large-scale impoverishment program, eroding both the middle class and its civic values. Prosperity comes from commitment to achievement, individual sovereignty, and freedom. Only a civilization already damaged allows an unqualified political elite to centralize power.

The European carbon market is a centralized redistribution scheme, which next year will extend to transport and heating sectors. Brussels is pushing its reach ever deeper into European citizens’ daily lives. Costs will rise—this much is certain. And no Strait of Hormuz energy blockade is required; Europeans can achieve this on their own.

Even Friedrich Merz proved in February, on the Welt podcast with Robin Alexander and Dagmar Rosenfeld, that he belongs to the group of green statists. There, he defended the European CO2 mechanism as an indispensable pillar of transformation policy, a great achievement of European convergence. Riding together into summer’s decline, together into insolvency—was that Merz’s real meaning? Is the Chancellor a romantic of decay?

Just days before, he sounded entirely different. At an employers’ meeting in Antwerp, Merz—almost toxically masculine, in line with Italy’s government—called for radical reform of the climate-policy carbon plunder. The contrast between the two appearances could hardly have been starker.

Yet after nearly a year observing the Chancellor’s public appearances, one knows: Merz’s shifts and volte-faces are no exception—they are part of his political camouflage. Performative acts, distraction techniques aimed squarely at stabilizing polling. In this respect, he is a classic politician, whose speech stream generates emotional connectivity—or: form trumps substance.

His green-moral compass, however, functions reliably. Regulatory reform will not come with this man in Germany—nor will a rollback of the green transformation mechanism. Loyal voters can be certain: the Chancellor will deliver this as surely as he performs his recurring obeisance to the Social Democratic junior partner.

More than two points underscore the political importance of carbon trading.

First, it provides Brussels’ central body with its own steadily growing revenue stream, disguised from open taxation. Brussels thus gains autonomy and additional leverage in struggles with centrifugal forces in the Union—such as Viktor Orbán’s Hungary or Giorgia Meloni’s Italy.

Second, it creates the green art-economy: a reliable voter base for the established party cartel. It funds the NGO complex and ensures the future growth of the bureaucratic apparatus.

It is therefore logical that the true initiators of the green transformation—found mainly in German politics—will cling to this tool until sufficient domestic pressure forces a reversal. Such pressure can ultimately come only from civil society and the economy itself.

The question is: when will Germany join an alliance for regulatory reform?

The answer may lie in the accounts, stock portfolios, real estate, and cash reserves of the German middle class. Here, politics has hidden the activatable sedative of its welfare state—a calming agent gradually fed into the redistribution mechanism to buy social peace on the road to the green ideal society.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Nothing like supply and demand and good ole' price as a rationing mechanism...

Greek shipping billionaire George Procopiou quickly moved to capitalize on the surge in tanker demand when war broke out, dispatching at least five vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, according to The Chosun Daily. 

His move was driven by two key calculations: the massive freight rates oil-importing countries would pay to secure transport, and the lucrative fees oil producers offer to store crude at sea when onshore storage fills up.

Greek shipowners control the world’s largest fleet of oil tankers. Most are leased to energy companies to transport crude globally, though in tighter markets the vessels can also function as floating storage.

To reduce the risk of Iranian attacks while transiting the strait, Procopiou’s ships reportedly switched off their transponders and deployed armed guards on deck. According to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, however, the tankers would likely sink quickly if struck by a missile or drone. Crews undertaking the voyages are said to be receiving unusually high pay.

The report quotes industry sources that said Procopiou’s companies offered charter rates as high as $440,000 per day — roughly four times pre-war levels.

Procopiou controls several shipping firms, including Dynacom Tankers Management, Sea Traders (C Traders) and Dynagas. Dynacom alone operates about 70 vessels. Forbes estimates his net worth at around $4.7 billion. Shipping tycoons such as Procopiou wield significant influence in the global oil trade and maintain political connections in Washington.

The report also identified a potential beneficiary in Sinokor Merchant Marine. The company recently bought dozens of crude tankers and sent several to the Gulf before the conflict began. Sources said Sinokor leased some vessels to Abu Dhabi National Oil Company for offshore storage, earning freight rates of up to $500,000 per day. 

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Another day, another layer peeled back from the rotten core of establishment cronyism, as Keir Starmer faces a torrent of revelations about his handling of Peter Mandelson’s Epstein ties. With payoffs, lies, and deep state cover-ups on full display, this saga underscores how globalist insiders protect their networks at the expense of transparency and justice.

From appointing a known Epstein associate to ambassador, to doling out taxpayer cash after the fallout, Starmer’s judgment reeks of the same elite impunity we’ve seen across the Atlantic. As freedom-loving Brits demand accountability, the PM’s crew scrambles to spin this as “process followed”—but the facts paint a picture of betrayal.

The storm hit new heights today with the release of vetting papers showing Lord Mandelson received a £75,000 payoff after being sacked as UK ambassador to the US over his enduring friendship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

‘Where does this leave the tattered reputation of our Prime Minister?’@MartinDaubney discusses the first tranche of the Mandelson files revealing that Sir Keir Starmer was warned that the former ambassador, Lord Mandelson, brought a ‘reputational risk’. pic.twitter.com/84vWC3jmhe

— GB News (@GBNEWS) March 11, 2026

Documents detail how Mandelson demanded over half a million pounds in compensation for losing his £161,000-a-year role. Foreign Office permanent secretary Olly Robbins justified the smaller package, writing: “This represents good value for money.” 

Chief Secretary to the Treasury James Murray signed off on it, stating he was “happy” to approve the payment, which included £34,000 in severance and cash in lieu of notice.

The papers confirm Starmer knew about Mandelson’s ongoing ties to Epstein when appointing him in December 2024. This comes amid a massive dump of Epstein’s emails by US authorities, exposing years of Mandelson’s communications with the financier.

?? Wow.

The Mandelson files are up.

They prove Starmer WAS advised and warned about Mandelson’s appalling friendship with Epstein.

Starmer appointed him anyway.

Starmer lied.

Starmer must resign. pic.twitter.com/1yjYioVJhK

— Zia Yusuf (@ZiaYusufUK) March 11, 2026

Starmer only released the material after a Labour MP revolt forced his hand. Today, his chief minister Darren Jones handled the Commons statement, dodging a direct grilling for the PM.

The timeline of Mandelson’s Epstein links stretches back decades, riddled with leaked secrets and personal favors. In 2002, Mandelson attended a party at Epstein’s Manhattan home with other elite figures.

Mandelson files rock Starmer: Labour grandee was handed £75,000 payoff after being sacked as US ambassador - and PM DID know he stayed friends with Epstein https://t.co/JKafime6Y5

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) March 11, 2026

By 2003, Mandelson called Epstein his “best pal” in a message. Bank statements suggest Epstein paid £54,750 into accounts linked to Mandelson that year.

In 2006, as Florida police eyed Epstein for charges involving minors, Mandelson emailed: “I am here whenever you need.”

Even after Epstein’s 2008 conviction, Mandelson urged him to “fight for early release” via email. In 2009, while Epstein was jailed, Mandelson reportedly stayed at his Manhattan apartment.

Ex-UK ambassador to US Peter Mandelson pictured standing in his underpants in Epstein files dump https://t.co/T5wMhbYz9p pic.twitter.com/PjLCy8uHR2

— New York Post (@nypost) February 1, 2026

Post-release, Epstein sent Mandelson’s husband Reinaldo Avila da Silva £10,000. Mandelson allegedly leaked a sensitive No10 document on £20 billion asset sales and Labour’s tax plans on June 13, 2009.

In 2010, he forwarded minutes from a meeting between Chancellor Alistair Darling and US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers just five minutes after receiving them, and tipped Epstein on a €500 billion EU bailout.

Contacts persisted until at least 2016, with Mandelson visiting Epstein’s New York mansion as late as 2013.

Starmer has since apologized for believing Mandelson’s “lies” about the relationship’s extent. He pledged “urgency and transparency” in disclosures.

Former No10 aide Nick Butler, whose memos Mandelson shared with Epstein, lamented: “I’m very sorry there’s been no note of contrition from Peter Mandelson to the people whose trust he broke.” He added: “For the system I think it will make people just wonder what people are doing with the information that they pass round.”

Mandelson was arrested February 23 on suspicion of misconduct in public office for passing sensitive info to Epstein while business secretary. He’s denied wrongdoing and remains under investigation.

This scandal echoes the ongoing Epstein probes we’ve covered, like police swarming his Zorro Ranch in search of strangled girls’ bodies, highlighting the grim underbelly of elite networks.

It also links to royal fallout, as King Charles reacted to brother Andrew’s arrest in the Epstein scandal, showing how these ties involve elite figures across borders.

The Mandelson files strip away the facade of accountability in Labour’s ranks, exposing how insiders like Starmer prioritize loyalty over integrity. As more documents drop, expect the web of deceit to unravel further.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Authored by David Youngberg via TheDailyEconomy.org,

Last month, Congress sparred with the president over a partial budget, but with few real cuts, America’s slow march toward an epic debt crisis went on undeterred. With over $38 trillion in debt and interest payments exceeding defense or Medicare spending, one would expect lawmakers to confront reality and do the difficult work needed to restore fiscal sanity. But why would they? Cutting entitlements and increasing middle-class taxes rarely make for winning campaign slogans.

It’s no surprise, then, that some prefer to pin their hopes on AI as America’s fiscal savior. Vanguard’s chief economist Joe Davis argued there’s as high as a 50 percent chance AI will prevent a debt-driven economic malaise. Elon Musk voiced a similar conclusion late last year, claiming AI and robotics are “the only thing that’s going to solve the US debt crisis.”

The argument goes like this: an AI boom drives explosive economic growth and tax revenue, while, at the same time, productivity gains impressively offset any upward pressure on interest rates. The deficit becomes a surplus and the overall debt shrinks, possibly disappearing entirely.

If that sounds less like a policy plan and more like a retirement strategy built around winning the lottery, you’re not wrong. The entire scenario hinges on a massive if: that AI generates extraordinary revenue and does it quickly enough to outrun rising interest costs.

But even if the government hits the tax revenue jackpot before Congress drives us off a fiscal cliff, it would be naïve to assume lawmakers would pay down the debt. 

The More the Government Gets, the More the Government Spends

For the sake of argument, suppose the tech optimists are right, and the federal government enjoys a massive AI-driven revenue windfall. Understanding what happens next requires understanding the incentives of politicians and their voters.

This is where public choice shines. Rather than assuming politicians and voters act in everyone’s best interest, this branch of economics recognizes that people don’t become angels once they interface with the government. Incentives matter, especially for politicians.

Incentives are why we have a deficit in the first place. The public isn’t particularly interested in financial restraint because high spending and low taxes benefit them now, and the resulting debt is some future generation’s problem. Politicians surely see the crisis brewing, but solving it is a sure way to get voted out of office. And so the incentive is to run constant deficits and grow the debt year after year, decade after decade.

Without changing incentives, it will be hard to avoid spending new revenue. Ballooning coffers mean voters will demand that the government dole out more goodies (especially if AI displaces workers along the way). Washington already excels at entertaining expensive ideas: healthcare subsidies for well-off families, a universal basic income, generous tax cuts, a fifty-percent increase in military spending, all despite the pushback the current deficit’s able to muster. Imagine the wish list after it drops even a little.

Expecting Congress to use a jolt of revenue to pay down debt is like expecting a compulsive gambler to save his winnings for retirement. There’s a reason nearly a third of lottery winners file for bankruptcy within five years of getting their windfall. Winners tend to be the ones who bought a lot of tickets, and people who buy a lot of tickets tend to be reckless with their money.

Not all lottery winners are reckless, and not all lawmakers are more interested in buying votes than paying off debts. The question is whether Congress is more likely to emulate the prudent winner or the reckless one.

This Has All Happened Before…

Public choice theory suggests we already know the answer, but maybe there’s some crucial detail we’re missing. Or maybe American politics is just different in some way. The good (or, depending on your position, bad) news is that we have a ready example from the last time a tech revolution balanced the government budget: the internet boom of the late 1990s.

Right before investors realized you couldn’t slap a ‘dot-com’ onto any English word and make a billion dollars selling pet food over what we laughingly called the information superhighway, a surge of investment handed the Treasury Department the biggest budget surplus since World War II demilitarization. It also arrived in time for a presidential election.

The 2000 election pitted Vice President Al Gore against Texas Governor George W. Bush, and the question of what to do with the surplus was a major campaign issue. Gore proposed using some of it to pay down the debt. Bush preferred spending it on tax cuts, Social Security, and “important projects.” Yes, the Democrat was more of a fiscal conservative than the Republican. Those were wild times.

Bush would go on to win that election.

It was incredibly close, and Gore could’ve easily won. And if not for something called a butterfly ballot, he would’ve won.

But he didn’t win, and all we knew at the time was that it was very, very close. It was so close that if Gore had promised some “important projects” in Florida instead of paying down a bill that wouldn’t have come due until some distant decade, the White House would’ve been his.

Losing by a hair’s breadth is every campaign’s nightmare. Mere oversights become colossal blunders, and every ill-fated gamble becomes a decisive mistake. The 2000 election made something crystal clear to anyone who hadn’t already gotten the memo: prudence is for losers.

The surplus proved to be transient anyway, vaporized in the aftermath of 9/11 and the bursting of the dot-com bubble. The US returned to familiar deficit territory two years later, and we never looked back.

…And It Will Happen Again.

The optimists might say that this time will be different. The looming deficit crisis is so bad that politicians will use any AI windfall to pay down the debt rather than spend it. This time they’ll do the responsible thing.

Be serious.

It’s of course possible that the political stars align and lawmakers will pay down the deficit instead of playing another round of “someone else’s problem.” It’s possible that the prudent thing will be done without a financial crisis to jar the public out of their “the future is never” fantasy.

But let’s get real. Though public concern about the debt is high, there’s so much disagreement about how to address the problem that politicians can safely ignore it. When President Trump threw his own eye-watering increase onto the debt last year, his approval rating didn’t budge. Voters say they care about the debt but they clearly care more about the things that have created it. The political incentives are the same as they ever were: if the government wins the AI lottery, lawmakers will behave as they always have. This time won’t be different.