MB Ghalibaf, Iranian Parliament Speaker and last Tweeter standing, posted a cryptic statement which we'll decrypt here. He said,

OQX26|USGG10YR|DOESSPR

Short harder, champ. Like your career depends on it (because it does). Or drain below the danger zone and watch your caverns collapse (along with your career). Or pray to the salt gods of Bryan Mound.

The world's already got its popcorn 😄

What he's saying, most simply, is that oil and treasury yields are going up, and the US oil reserves are going down. The Empire is either going to run out of oil, or face a run on the on the Treasury. Or both, which is worse. Either Bryan Mound (the weakest of the caverns) will collapse, or the bond market (weakest in Japan) will. Or both, which is again worse. Get your popcorn as we go deeper.

OQX26 | USGG10YR

If we look at the first two symbols – OQX26 as Oman crude and USGG10YR as the 10-Year Treasury yields – we can see that something weïrd is going on.

I have zoomed this graph out so you can see that the weirdness didn't start in 2026 (Iran) but in 2022 (Ukraine). These are both just battles in a World War III that's been raging since America Pearl Harbored itself in 2001. All riot on the West Asian front.

As you can see, oil and bonds were trending together, until they weren't. A delta opened up after the Ukraine War 'started' and was obviously forced open again with the Iran War started (2026). Oil being sanctioned and literally blown up should mean higher prices, but no. Something weird is going on.

You can see the playbook for market manipulation in the Ukraine War, what's happening in Iran is really a rerun.

In February 2022, Russia's special military action against Ukraine spiked oil prices immediately, along with America's special economic action against them (sanctions). Lower supply/higher demand, prices should go up, but they didn't. Because some invisible handiwork. We are in the realm of what Keynes called 'animal spirits', which the US Treasury seems to brewing into a witches broth. As Shakesepeare said (in Macbeth),

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poisoned entrails throw...
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

First they added toothless negotiations to calm the markets by their very discussion, though nothing happened. The war kept going. Some Russian oil entered the market sideways, but the basic problem was still there. But the markets just didn't care. Prices went down as though something else was replacing the supply (which it was).

We won't reveal what till the next graph, but the first graph contains a clue. Again, note oil prices and bond yields moving together (at least recently), until a Mississipi sized delta opened up betwixt the two. As the Bard said,

There hangs a vap’rous drop profound.
I’ll catch it ere it come to ground,
And that, distilled by magic sleights,
Shall raise such artificial sprites
As by the strength of their illusion
Shall draw him on to his confusion

What artificial sprites draws markets on to their confusion? Let's wade into the delta and have a look.

DOESSPR

The third data point Ghalibaf refers to is DOESSPR, or the Department of Energy's Strategic Petroleum Reserves. I reproduce it above, zoomed out even further.

The SPR was established in the late 1970s to prevent what they called the 1970s Oil Shock from every happening again, ie for this very situation with the Iranians. The oil reserves are a bunch of salt caverns that can't actually go below a certain minimum without structural problems. Historically (and politically) this minimum was set at 330-340 million barrels, since legislated down to 252m (see GAO-26-106918).

In the SPR graph – which looks like the drawing of a snake eating an elephant from The Petit Prince – you can see the Empire filling its belly with oil at the start of World War III and disgorging it violently since. You can see how the reserve is used for political purposes, the purpose here being market manipulation.

If I may repeat the initial graph, you can see the illusion briefly break in 2026, when the start of the Iran War immediately spiked oil prices. Oil prices tried to meet bond yields before they were manipulated down by the SPR.

'After' Iran, the US did its second biggest SPR release (so far), which opiated the oil markets once more. I think traders know that this is bullshit, but there's no reward for being right early, so while the government oil is flowing, let it burn. But they're burning the candle on both ends, and Iran knows it.

Short harder, champ

That's why Ghalibaf is telling US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent "short harder, champ." He is refering to the US government's active manipulation of both markets. I'll just use it as a metaphor because I don't take all this financial jiggery-pokery seriously. Shorting refers to 'borrowing' a stock from someone at a certain price (say $100) and betting that it will go down. If the stock goes down (say to $80), then you can pay them with that, and pocket the $20 difference.

So on one end, the US government is 'shorting' oil by borrowing it from their own reserves. If the oil price goes down, they would make a 'profit' on this when they refill. I put profit in quotes because the US government does not care about losing money, it's all profit to the oligarchs that actually run the place. The US government doesn't make money, they make money. The US government can just make up US dollars as long as everyone believes in their bullshit, but that's the problem.

Bond yields basically measure rich people's feelings (as stand-ins for capital). Bond yields tell you how much rich people believe the government's bullshit. If they think the government is 0% bullshitting and they'll accept 0% returns, it's a safe bet. However, if they think the government is 15% bullshitting, they want to be compensated accordingly. Note that what the government says doesn't have to be true, it just has to be plausible enough for other rich people to believe, and then they'll all herd in. The bullshit meter is itself bullshit.

The US government has been insolvent since it went of the gold standard in the 1970s, but nobody wants to kill the golden goose. There's is no reward for calling the bottom early, and every reward for pretending everything is cool. As Goldman Sachs's Jim Covello said in a report where he was calling AI a bubble, "One of the most important lessons I've learned over the past three decades is that bubbles can take a long time to burst. That’s why I recommend remaining invested in AI infrastructure providers." He's literally saying that AI is a bubble, but a growing bubble, so get in while the getting's good. That is the whole US economy, in more ways than one.

Again and again, this bullshit works as long as enough (rich) people believe in it, using the fake bullshit meter they call economics. The Empire has no clothes, but no one wants to be the first to call it because they're all furiously spinning invisible silk. But no one wants to be the last to call it either. And that day is coming soon.

This is the day Iran is daring to draw closer, and which the US Treasury is desperately trying to stave off. The problem, however, is that this desperation itself becomes a signal that something is terribly wrong.

Now the US Treasury is buying back its own bonds, which is not a good sign at all.

You could say they're shorting – introducing some temporary liquidity till demand improves – but sharting is more accurate. They're terrified of rates going above some psychological 5%, at which point the animal spirits start biting them in the naked ass. Interest payments (ie, payoffs to usurious oligarchs) are already going to be $1.1 trillion this year (ie, more than the war budget), and the $40 trillion budget is already ballooning. This number has always been bullshit but now it smells like bullshit, which makes rates go up, which makes the debt go even higher, which makes rates go up, and so on. It's a vicious cycle that has sunk every incarnation of White Empire before. What makes you think America is immune?

Iran does not and Ghalibaf does not, which is what they're trying to point out. They know the Empire can bleed, they have drawn blood, and they're offering them a chance to retreat with the rest of their empire intact. The funny thing is that all of Empire's supposed enemies (Iran, Russia, China) keep offering them a way out. Iran will open Hormuz if the Americans just go home. America could just allow Iranian oil into the market, sweep their manipulation under the Persian rug, and refill their reserves once more. But like a thief who has never actually shopped, they simply do not know how to checkout. Foreign trade with anyone but beaten vassals is literally a foreign concept. Smash and grab is all they know, even if it means crashing their own economy. And so it goes.

The reports I cite for reference:

The Physical Reserves

Now we'll get to the crumbling-ass salt caverns with data (and pics) proving what Ghalibaf refers to. That's for paying subscribers because this is already long. You can read more about the SPR in general in the Logistics War Part 1. Read on for cavern-nerdery and a bit of extra Macbeth.