We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
📝 Lomez on X:
"Zoomers are the first cohort to be fully immersed in the reality of generational downward mobility. While millenials will also earn less than their parents, they were formed under the expectations of America ascending to a kind of Post-History stasis where at worst their status and wealth was permanently locked in.
Zoomers have none of these illusions and rightfully reject the obsolete and facile narratives they’re expected to swallow and obey to make sense of their lives and ambitions. Those are dead narratives. They do not reflect reality at all. They do not reflect the deranged cultural and political circumstances they’re expected to navigate from a position of negative expected value for pretty much any career path outside of genius tech outlier.
Scolding them is a stupid and pointless exercise that will only drive them further into despair and resentment.
Yes. Don’t be resentful. Don’t give in to despair. Be resourceful and lay a claim on your own life. But it’s also going to require offering Zoomers much better and updated narratives and opportunities for how to accrue status and wealth and the basic conditions for living a dignified life for the average guy who is not an outlier tech genius.
There are short, medium, and long term fixes for this. Some straightforwardly political. Some more complex cultural questions. But the implicit promise of boomer America, even Gen X America, is no longer viable, and that broken promise has absolutely nothing to do with Zoomers themselves."
📎 Lomez
Intellectual masking is the deliberate regulation of how much of your knowledge, reasoning, and analytical ability you reveal so that others form a controlled (and often incomplete) assessment of your capabilities.
Its purpose is to manage perception, reduce unnecessary attention, encourage others to reveal more information, and preserve strategic advantage until demonstrating full competence serves your objective.
🛢 We Are 'Still' Going Full Speed Into The Wall
Product storage is about to get tighter unless China steps in and lifts the product export ban. If it does, expect a meaningful reversal in crude.
WTI is barely hanging on to $70 for its dear life, but please remember that consumers use petroleum products like gasoline and diesel; they don’t use crude oil. Refineries do, and this is why it was always important for us to pay attention to crack spreads along with crude timespreads.
Note: Please divide it by 3.
The fever in the market today is that crude is oversupplied, but products are undersupplied. How can this be possible?
Well, China’s June crude import data so far is -4.7 million b/d y-o-y, and teapot refineries are operating at 50% utilization. Compared to US refineries operating at 95% and PADD 2 refineries operating over 100%, you can see where the disconnect is.
But here’s the thing. If end-user demand isn’t down and you still have a production shut-in of ~8 million...
🇮🇷🚫🚢 Here's my analysis of the Strait of Hormuz situation for the last 24 hours.
As I noted yesterday, I was seeing a lot of vessels using the Oman route to exit. This was following the announcement by Oman and IMO. The IRGC retaliated today on a vessel, but even after the attack, I am still seeing transits. It's a lot less, but there are vessels willing to take the risk.
On the inbound front, the flow is still heavily restricted. Whatever outflow we are seeing today is unsustainable as there are not enough non-Iranian tankers going in. In particular, we need empty VLCCs going in to load up crude. This is just a trickle so far.
In my view, the traffic in the Oman lane will lead to more escalation by IRGC. Without throttling flows entirely in the Southern lane, IRGC will lose control of its leverage over the Strait. If they act, then it's a question of what the US does after.
I think this is only the beginning.
🔗 @HFI_Research
