In some places, like the Philippines, gas/fuel prices are up 70-100% since the start of the Special Four Day Operation in Iran. It's easy to say "who cares doesn't affect me", which sounds nice. But the Philippines is a major manufacturing hub of stuff that keeps life artificially cheap in the west. The rest of SE Asia is undergoing similar rapid price increases. Thailand, Malaysia, etc make lots of electronic components which will be facing a huge squeeze very soon.
The reason for those price increases is those countries don't have massive fuel stockpiles. The west does have big stockpiles, and they're artificially suppressing the price of fuel by releasing those stockpiles and hoping the special operation is over before their stockpiles run out. Because if prices shoot up now, people will realize just how truly disastrous it all is and actual consequences for various governments may be had, so the only option is to kick the can down the road and hope it somehow resolves itself.
Asia is in a particularly bad situation, because even for countries that do have stockpiles, they get basically all of their oil from Iran, the UAE, east coast of Saudi Arabia, etc. Now they have no oil. America can pretend it's a 4D chess move and now those countries will buy American oil and make their economy great again. But the thing is America isn't selling any additional oil to Asia. But America is 100% dependent on cheap things made in Asia, things that are built with plastic made from middle eastern oil and powered by electricity generated from middle eastern oil and shipped on boats running on middle eastern oil. All these things take months to show any effects to Americans and Europeans, so until then, it's just a game of burying heads in the sand until the situation suddenly explodes.
alt Hacker News
In some places, like the Philippines, gas/fuel prices are up 70-100% since the start of the Special Four Day Operation in Iran. It's easy to say "who cares doesn't affect me", which sounds nice. But the Philippines is a major manufacturing hub of stuff that keeps life artificially cheap in the west. The rest of SE Asia is undergoing similar rapid price increases. Thailand, Malaysia, etc make lots of electronic components which will be facing a huge squeeze very soon.
The reason for those price increases is those countries don't have massive fuel stockpiles. The west does have big stockpiles, and they're artificially suppressing the price of fuel by releasing those stockpiles and hoping the special operation is over before their stockpiles run out. Because if prices shoot up now, people will realize just how truly disastrous it all is and actual consequences for various governments may be had, so the only option is to kick the can down the road and hope it somehow resolves itself.
Asia is in a particularly bad situation, because even for countries that do have stockpiles, they get basically all of their oil from Iran, the UAE, east coast of Saudi Arabia, etc. Now they have no oil. America can pretend it's a 4D chess move and now those countries will buy American oil and make their economy great again. But the thing is America isn't selling any additional oil to Asia. But America is 100% dependent on cheap things made in Asia, things that are built with plastic made from middle eastern oil and powered by electricity generated from middle eastern oil and shipped on boats running on middle eastern oil. All these things take months to show any effects to Americans and Europeans, so until then, it's just a game of burying heads in the sand until the situation suddenly explodes.