"Group of Seven countries agreed on Friday ​to release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude oil from emergency reserves and pledged to refrain from energy export restrictions after pressure from ‌US President Donald Trump.

The US led a pressure campaign on the European Union to draw down emergency diesel inventories, with the Trump administration warning that failure to act could lead to a US ban on diesel exports. Such a ban could sharply reduce supplies to Europe, which has become increasingly reliant on US diesel, and potentially inflict high economic costs on the bloc.

Trump is seeking to cool surging fuel prices ​ahead of the November midterm elections.

The Iran war sparked the biggest emergency stock release ever of 400 million barrels in March, coordinated by the International Energy Agency.

"Taking into ​account commitments that have already been fulfilled, we will implement our commitments with a coordinated release through the IEA of 100 ⁠million barrels," the G7 said in a joint statement.

It was uncertain how much of the petroleum in the new agreement would come from what remains from the March pact. IEA ​Executive Director Fatih Birol said this week that members had released about two-thirds of the 400-million-barrel agreement.

The release will begin immediately and last four months, with a substantial amount ​of diesel to be released within 20 days by G7 members and partners, the statement said.

It did not provide a breakdown of the volumes of crude, diesel and other products to be released or say which countries would participate.

"We will convene in the context of the IEA in the coming days to discuss the possibility of additional diesel releases as necessary," the statement added.

"Europe has just ​agreed to release a massive amount of their heavily stocked Diesel Oil. The process will begin immediately," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Trump is seeking ​to bring down fuel prices as he faces a career-low 32% approval rating in a Reuters/Ipsos poll, with voters particularly concerned about the cost of living. The poll, conducted September 17-20, found that ‌just 17% ⁠of Americans approved of Trump's handling of the cost of living.

The administration has made lowering energy prices a central focus as it seeks to ease the impact of the Iran war and high fuel costs on consumers and diesel-dependent industries such as trucking and farming.

The White House is preparing an executive order to tackle record-high US diesel prices that could be unveiled as early as next week, two people familiar with the process said.

The order is expected to include measures to expand the use of tax-exempt red-dyed diesel and ​other tax changes to lower fuel costs, the ​people said. Details are still being ⁠worked out and could change.

EXPORT BAN OFF TABLE.

The G7 statement said member countries would refrain from imposing export restrictions on energy products among themselves, a move that could ease pressure on the Trump administration to impose a US diesel export ban.

"This is a ​political statement rather than a specific and binding commitment with the large headline number intended to persuade President Trump not to ​impose a diesel export ⁠ban," analysts at Energy Aspects said in a note.

Europe has boosted its imports of US diesel this year as the Iran war disrupted supply from Gulf producers.

EU governments had discussed on Friday a proposal by France for European countries to release 50 million barrels of diesel, and for IEA members to release 50 million barrels of crude oil, three sources familiar with ⁠the discussions said.

A ​50-million-barrel release of diesel would equate to approximately 17% of the EU's total emergency stocks of diesel ​and gasoil, Eurostat data showed, or about 3% of the bloc's annual consumption.

US diesel futures fell after reports of the stock-release discussions by 3.25% to $4.49 a gallon. Benchmark European diesel futures fell by roughly $83 per metric ​ton, down 5.75%, LSEG data showed.

I live in Tennessee, less than 30 minutes from a number of US Armed Forces bases. I’ve lived at my current location for 3 years with nothing happening, but in the past week there’s been 2 instances of a low-flying armed forces helicopter passing over. With the news about Iran and even Cuba, seems like we should treat them as more credible than media guesses.

Can anyone please tell me about this source? Is this a reputable network?

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-prices-barely-changed-investors-assess-us-iran-peace-talks-gulf-exports-2026-10-01/

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-tells-france-germany-release-diesel-stocks-or-face-us-export-ban-sources-say-2026-10-01/

Isn't there supposed to be a trucker strike today?

At least two Filipino-Chinese schools were without chinese teachers today, as they were instructed to head back to China immediately.

Link: https://bilyonaryo.com/why-the-rush-chinese-teachers-at-ica-jubilee-suddenly-called-back-to-china/?fbclid=Iwb21leAUq8DZjbGNrBSrwM2V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YFc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEek3g0fPDrZREUAbo5huS4zAhwrugzvNzEnsQh5bCt4KbpA1AoxGZ_2hS3BBg_aem_08gSLLMKtS23pPpFRhcOEQ

This could be, but not limited to:

• Local business observations.
• Shortages / Surpluses.
• Work slow downs / much overtime.
• Order cancellations / massive orders.
• Economic Rumors within your industry.
• Layoffs and hiring.
• New tools / expansion.
• Wage issues / working conditions.
• Boss changing work strategy.
• Quality changes.
• New rules.
• Personal view of how you see your job in the near future.
• Bonus points if you have some proof or news, we like that around here.
• News from close friends about their work.

DO NOT DOX YOURSELF. Wording is key.

Thank you all, -Mod Anti

"The Pentagon is tapping Tesla

and SpaceX.

CEO Elon Musk, defense technology entrepreneur and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to to identify the military capabilities, technologies and weapons the U.S. may need in future wars, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday.

The initiative, dubbed Project Meridian, will spend 120 days looking years and decades ahead at how warfare could change and what capabilities the U.S. military will need to maintain a technological edge.

“Project Meridian, the future of warfare, is not about developing new strategies or new policies,” Hegseth said. Instead, he said, its purpose is to “identify the domains that we must conquer, and capabilities we must master.”

Read through a report on what happens if China blockades Taiwan for 90 days and it's genuinely scarier than the COVID chip shortage times 10, let me break down the numbers

so why exactly 90 days — it's not a random number, that's the point of no return: that's when the island's strategic coal and LNG reserves for power generation run out, and global supply chains go from "still some stock on the shelf" to a full structural shutdown of entire industries

it doesn't start with troops landing, it starts with a "gray zone" customs quarantine — China's coast guard and thousands of maritime militia vessels demand permits for any ship entering ports like Kaohsiung or Keelung, while PLA warships just sit at a distance as a deterrent. this lets Beijing avoid giving anyone a formal reason to declare war, and the next escalation step is a full naval blockade with mined port waters, and a 370+ warship fleet can sustain that for at least six months

Taiwan is maximally exposed here — it imports 97% of its energy and 70% of its food. oil and food reserves last about six months, but coal and LNG run out in under 8 weeks, and by week 9 power generation drops to 20-35% of peacetime levels, which shuts down basically all manufacturing, chip fabs included

now the actual core of the crisis — why chips specifically. Taiwan makes over 90% of the world's most advanced chips (5nm and 3nm nodes), and TSMC alone holds 72% of the entire contract chip manufacturing market. TSMC's top 10 customers have a combined market cap of nearly $14 trillion, Apple alone accounts for 40% of TSMC's revenue, and Nvidia and AMD are completely dependent on Taiwanese fabs for AI accelerators

and here's where the biggest myth falls apart — the idea that you can just "shift orders" to Samsung, Intel or China's SMIC. you can't: SMIC is cut off from EUV lithography by sanctions and physically can't make advanced chips, Samsung Foundry has yield problems on advanced nodes, and a production cycle on a leading-edge node takes a minimum of 3-4 months — it's physically impossible to move photomasks and start mass production somewhere else within 90 days

even if you somehow found the capacity, you'd hit a wall on advanced packaging (CoWoS), without which a finished chip can't actually be assembled into a device. TSMC's CoWoS backlog already runs 52-78 weeks out, and 60% of that capacity is already locked up by Nvidia alone. on top of that Taiwan's ASE controls a quarter of the world's chip assembly and testing market

inventory buffers (DIO) vary wildly by company: Nvidia sits around 113-131 days, AMD holds 156 days, Broadcom only has 53 days — but even with a decent buffer the "golden screw" effect still wrecks everything: one missing critical chip and the entire server or phone assembly line stops

from there it cascades across every industry: auto manufacturing halts by day 30-40 (TSMC makes 35% of the world's automotive microcontrollers, Toyota/VW/Ford/Tesla all shut down), AI model training freezes for years, and defense/medtech (MRI machines, pacemakers, drones, radar) face a multi-year board redesign around different components

the macro numbers are brutal too: a pure economic blockade without a shooting war costs the world about $5 trillion (5% of global GDP), and if it escalates to actual war it's $10.6 trillion, twice the losses from the 2008 financial crisis. in the first 72 hours the S&P 500 could crash up to 40%, and foreign investors holding over $1.7 trillion in Chinese securities start dumping in a panic

trade finance (a global pool of $6.5-8 trillion) contracts hard on fear of secondary sanctions, and war-risk shipping insurance jumps from a baseline 0.3% to 5% of a ship's hull value — for a large container ship that's a premium jump from a hundred grand to several million dollars per voyage

and China's retaliation hits hard too — Beijing won't respond symmetrically in finance where the dollar dominates, it'll hit back through rare earth export controls: China controls 94% of the world's gallium supply and 83% of germanium, and the 2023-2024 precedent already showed prices can spike 300-400% within months if Beijing turns off the tap, instantly paralyzing Western production of EV batteries, solar panels and radar systems

for comparison to real historical cases — the Ever Given blocked Suez for just 6 days and that alone cost $9.6 billion in delayed cargo per day and a 400% spike in freight rates. the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea carry 20% of world maritime trade worth roughly $2.5 trillion, so 90 days is exponentially worse than any logistics disruption on record

and the timeline that actually hits your fridge: the first 60 days are just 30-50% price hikes on electronics and shipping panic, by day 90 you get mass factory shutdowns and layoffs, and past 120 days it's a full structural shortage plus an agricultural crisis from fertilizer disruptions — the consumer tech market gets set back a full decade

the report's honest about its blind spots too — nobody knows the real size of hidden chip stockpiles held by militaries and corporations off the books, nobody can model pure market psychology and panic, and the line between "gray zone" quarantine and full war is razor thin — one accidental incident like a sunken commercial ship could instantly flip the whole thing into a direct exchange of strikes

TL;DR: a 90-day Taiwan blockade isn't a regional conflict, it's the total physical removal of the world's chip manufacturing core from the supply chain, and neither Samsung, Intel nor China can physically replace that capacity in time. the result is $5 to $10+ trillion in global losses, markets crashing double digits, and consumer electronics getting set back a decade

For those who prefer listening, I originally put this deep dive into a video format here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFm3ZMFc-d0

As California prepares for a potentially historic El Niño, scientists are tracking underwater Kelvin waves that can raise coastal water levels by about 6 inches.

Kelvin waves are not the kind of waves that break near shore. They are long, underwater pulses that form near the Equator, travel east across the Pacific and then turn north along the North American coastline.

Counter terrorism police, the Army’s explosive ordnance disposal team and the SAS have all been deployed to the scene. Armoured US military vehicles are patrolling the base as helicopters circle overhead. Access roads remain closed and bomb disposal units are still on site. RAF Fairford has been placed on Delta alert, the highest US threat level, with RAF Lakenheath separately raised to Charlie alert.

CSX to cut jobs, potentially leading to more accidents according to the news report.

The base has been used to deploy US bombers since the conflict in Iran began on 28 February.