(The Economic Collapse Blog)—Can you imagine paying seven dollars for a gallon of gasoline? It could soon happen, because it appears that Israel is about to strike Iran, and that is likely to cause events in the Middle East to spiral completely out of control. Right now, approximately one-fifth of all oil used in the world goes through the Strait of Hormuz. An apocalyptic war in the region could potentially close the Strait of Hormuz until the conflict is resolved one way or the other.
In addition, oil infrastructure could be destroyed in Iran and other nations in the Middle East as the fighting rages, and that could substantially reduce global oil production for an extended period of time. Our way of life depends on cheap oil, and so if a major regional war in the Middle East causes the price of oil to go skyrocketing that is going to deeply affect all of us.
On Monday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States was just $3.63…
The average price for a gallon of regular gas in the U.S. was $3.63 as of Monday, according to AAA, up almost 4 cents from a week earlier and 22 cents from a month ago.
Even though the average price of a gallon of gasoline has risen more than 20 cents in a month, I would still consider it to be at a very low level, especially compared to what is eventually coming. One expert that was interviewed by MarketWatch is warning that the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. could hit $5.40 this summer…
Colas estimated that a spike in oil prices pushing U.S. gasoline to $5.40 a gallon this summer would make a recession later in 2024 “a genuine possibility.” U.S. gas prices averaged $3.634 a gallon at the pump on Monday, according to AAA, at last check.
And that same expert also warned that if the price of oil reaches $125 a barrel it could push the U.S. economy into a recession…
“Crude prices are our chief concern, but we are a long way” from $125 a barrel — a level of West Texas Intermediate oil that “would almost certainly cause a recession if sustained,” said Colas. “Gasoline prices are the transmission mechanism between Mideast conflict and the US economy: when pump prices increase quickly, consumers must cut back on other spending.”
Personally, I think that such a projection is wildly optimistic.
If Israel and Iran start lobbing thousands of missiles at one another, we could easily see the price of oil surpass $150 a barrel, and it is likely that the average price of gasoline in the U.S. would shoot past $7.00 a gallon.
And if nuclear weapons are used in the Middle East, there is no telling what might happen. Right now, the financial markets are waiting to see if Israel chooses to retaliate.
If the Israelis strike Iran, and oil infrastructure is targeted, that will definitely “send oil prices up”…
If Israel does retaliate, and it becomes a full-fledged conflict, that’s a different story. “And maybe Iran’s oil platforms, refineries are taken out,” he said. “That would send oil prices up.”
I think that is what is going to happen. At this moment, it is being reported that Israel is preparing to retaliate.
When that occurs, the price of oil will go nuts, and people all over the U.S. will blame Israel for the high price of gasoline.
But instead, they should blame Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. If they would have just left Israel alone, things could have turned out much differently.
Iran could have lived in peace. The Iranians are one of the largest producers of oil in the world, and during the Biden administration they have been able to dramatically increase oil exports…
Iran has steeply raised oil exports, its main source of revenue, during the Biden administration after they were severely reduced due to measures taken by the Trump administration.
The White House has argued it isn’t encouraging Iran to raise exports and is enforcing sanctions. Lower Iranian exports would lead to a further rise in oil prices and the cost of gasoline in the U.S., which would be a politically sensitive issue ahead of this fall’s presidential elections.
Instead of using their oil money to fund terror organizations, the Iranians could have lived in luxury.
To be honest, Iran could have been one of the most prosperous countries on the entire planet.
But instead they have foolishly chosen a much different path.
If an all-out war between Israel and Iran erupts, it is probably inevitable that the Strait of Hormuz will be closed, and that will be catastrophic for the entire global economy…
Potential impacts on the shipping transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about one-fifth of the world’s total oil consumption, will also factor into markets’ pricing.
The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s navy said on Tuesday that Iran could close the strait if deemed necessary, and earlier on Saturday Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said an IRGC helicopter boarded a vessel, the Portuguese-flagged MSC Aries, and took it into Iranian waters.
Just think about that.
One-fifth of all the oil the world uses goes through the Strait of Hormuz.
We are in uncharted territory, and we could soon see a level of panic in the financial marketplace that we haven’t seen in a very long time.
Meanwhile, economic conditions in the U.S. just continue to deteriorate. Earlier today, I was saddened to learn that even Tesla has decided that mass layoffs have become necessary…
Tesla has announced layoffs of “more than 10%” of its global workforce in an internal company-wide email. We exclusively reported yesterday that Tesla was prepping a massive layoff.
For the last few months, it has looked like Tesla might be preparing for a round of layoffs. Tesla told managers to identify critical team members, and paused some stock rewards while canceling some employees’ annual reviews. It also reduced production at Gigafactory Shanghai.
Things are definitely not good now, but they will get a whole lot worse if a major regional war does erupt in the Middle East.
It takes energy to make products, transport products and sell products.
The price of oil has an enormous impact on literally every sector of our entire economy.
If an apocalyptic war in the Middle East were to cause the price of oil to double, it would send us into a horrific economic tailspin.
So let’s hope for the best, but let’s also prepare for the worst.
Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
