goc retweeted
in the words of @Ksidiii
UPSIDE VOL IS STILL VOL
2%+ move higher is really bullish
for RV CALCS
goc retweeted
The “jokes” about Charlie Kirk are heinous for reasons that have nothing to do with the fact that I agree with his politics. There is just something especially callous and soulless about gloating over a brutal, bloody murder we all saw with our own eyes. He was a young man and father of young children. We saw him get shot in the neck. The blood pour out. The natural human reaction when seeing something so violent, bloody, and shocking is to be moved and shaken by it. If instead you’re gloating and joking, it shows that this human part of you is dead. You truly are a soulless goblin in a way that’s only vaguely distinguishable from the guy who actually committed the murder. That’s what makes your callousness so disturbing for those of us who still have souls. We’re human and you no longer are. And that makes you a monstrosity to us. We’re not “offended” so much as revolted by the sight of you. You’ve become the spiritual equivalent of a maggot eaten corpse. You are a grotesquery, a morally disfigured beast.
goc retweeted
Muslim men convicted of raping children in UK grooming cases get as little as 3 years, 4½ years, or even suspended sentences.
Russell Brand gets 10½ years today for one rape + three sexual assaults of adult women from 15–20 years ago.
Same country. Same offence. Strange...
goc retweeted
The country that stood around and watched 250,000 British girls get raped by Pakistani migrants draws the line at Russell Brand.
goc retweeted
100% of children want ice cream for dinner
goc retweeted
I want everyone in the White House to know that Susie is executing a systematic strategy to throw President Trump under the bus.
Below is Susie’s stenographer sharing her leaks that it was not in fact Susie who was captured by Ballard, but the President.
Brian Ballard said in writing he didn’t lobby Susie or White House staff on glyphosate. Since Ballard’a disclosure below said he personally lobbied the White House in the quarter of the EO’s release, he is either lying or throwing President Trump under the bus. Which one is it @BallardFirm
James Blair is angrily texting saying “my problem is obviously with President Trump” and sending quoted to media blaming him for the corporate capture in the first two years
Additionally, Ballard is running a public relations campaign to explicitly defend Susie Wiles and say that President Trump is the sole reason the administration has caved to the tobacco and pesticide industries.
What’s most demonic is that Susie and Ballard are taking aim at the foundational claim I’ve made that she and her cronies on K street didn’t prioritize corporate interests to a larger degree than Americans voted for. Ballard is actually making the argument with a straight face they didn’t materially coordinate with Susie to rig policies.
The Joe Rogan episode has caused cultural impact because everyone watching knows it’s true.
Susie - I’m not intimidated and you will not scare me. Again, please stop sending me emotional texts. This is not personal - this is civilizational.
If America doesn’t move on from the revolting version of politics you represent, our country will cease to exist. A lot of Americans feel that.
To current and former leaders in the admin - it is time to speak out. It is time to speak to the press about what you saw. The weapon we have is truth. Let’s identify the problem - so Stephen Miller and President Trump can solve it.
Whatever side of the aisle we are on, we should pray for Stephen Miller’s to exorcise Susie’s culture of corruption from the admin and get us on a posture advocating for voters, not Ballard.
Weekend play turning out decently:
🔴 /CLZ26 100 calls down
🟢 /ES 9NOV 7405 straddle well within breakevens
🟢 VXX outright shorts up as the underlying is down -1.5 points premarket
Overall that should be around a 0.70% gain on the book.
I sold the weekend straddle for $94. That's the biggest range the market has offered you in a long time, so you almost HAVE to take those odds.
But then you have to think: what could derail it?
There's more and more chatter of Iran escalation, and /CL upside was priced reasonably (not cheap, but not expensive either). So I bought a few /CLZ26 (17NOV expiry) calls that would provide a lot of convexity if that scenario were to materialize. /CL is slightly down and the calls have lost about half their value, but that's ok.
The VXX outright shorts are always part of the portfolio. These were in fact assigned from a short VXX straddle that expired last week, so I'm just warehousing the short shares and will look to buy them back when vol mean reverts.
I'm well aware that vol may still expand from here, which is why my short VXX position is sized small enough that even if VIX spikes to 50 (or more), my portfolio can take it. But on the other hand, to me the most likely catalyst for a continuation in vol expansion was Iran escalation, which is why I bought the /CL calls.
Structuring "heads I win, tails I win" positions is what it's about.
goc retweeted
"He advised against it while being paid by Pepsi" -- former HHS official Calley Means claims there's a "close-knit crew" in the White House around Susie Wiles who "explicitly catered to special interests against the will of the voters"
goc retweeted
I’m sure @LukeGromen knows I agree with everything he says in terms of the problems. 🤝
We really only differ in that I think the neomercantilist statecraft China embraces doesn’t care what form of money anyone uses. They aren’t changing systems whatever happens on that front.
If a neomercantilist (“stuff is power”) turns into an old-school mercantilist (“gold is power”) it still comes down to **who controls upstream to downstream supply chains and global chokepoints**.
They have the former.
So now the latter get choked.
All sadly predictable.
That, plus the U.S. *may* (and it was always a ‘may’ not a ‘will’) be able to use legacy Eurodollar power as financial Fartcraft to transform itself back to a neomercantilist model fit for a World of Warcraft.
At great cost.
Yes, there will be major consequences for markets in that for sure; past is prologue there.
There are also major consequences for not trying to do that.
In short, “stuff” happens!
I just saw this interview with @LukeGromen . In minute 28 ~32 the host introduces your vision to compare that with what Luke is saying.
As I appreciate both of your visions, am I right that Luke, believes in “because matkets” in his arguments.
youtu.be/VVL4sL2S5JQ?si=SGFA…
goc retweeted
If you take a look at the full picture, some of your observations are valid. But the regime is teetering on the brink of financial collapse.
Iran's oil-export revenue, previously worth approximately $45 billion annually, is being strangled. Oil accounts for roughly 40% of government revenue, and projections show that oil export income will fall to zero by mid-December.
Iran's economy is projected to contract by 5.4% this year, with inflation approaching 70%. Roughly 80% of Iranians oppose the Islamic Republic. And flooding the streets with imported Iraqi death squads to pacify peaceful opposition, while leading the country over the cliff of cataclysmic economic disaster, is not doing wonders for its popularity.
Iran's only effective weapon of retaliation is to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, its own most vital trade route. It is a desperate strategy that amounts to embargoing and laying siege to itself.
The regime has played all its cards. Meanwhile, the US, for admirable humanitarian reasons, has refrained from inflicting maximal damage on the regime to avoid harm to the civilian population. But it retains the ability to escalate dramatically at any time, including through the destruction of essential infrastructure, roads, bridges and electrical grids.
A cost assessment shows that the United States has incurred approximately $47 billion in military costs and 23 deaths, only 11 classified as resulting from hostile action. The projected cost of sustaining the operation is around $30 billion annually, less than half of one percent of federal spending, with no ground invasion or occupation. With US bases located within Iran's strike zone evacuated, casualties should be limited.
Global oil production is adapting. Gulf ports, pipelines and alternative export routes are expanding, and Middle East exports have recovered to more than three-quarters of pre-war levels.
Iran's ability to finance its network of foreign proxies is also coming under enormous pressure as its principal source of foreign currency disappears.
For perspective: Iran has a roughly $300 billion economy and is losing access to an oil-export stream worth $45 billion a year. The United States has a $33 trillion economy and can sustain an ongoing military operation, with no boots on the ground, for approximately $30 billion annually.
Who wins that war of attrition?
Name me one military conflict in the history of modern warfare, between advanced combatants, that has been more successful. The only contenders are the Six-Day War and Desert Storm, and both involved either higher death tolls, higher expenditure, or both.
goc retweeted
This was blatantly obvious to anyone with a 6th grade understanding of foreign policy.
Yet a giant swath of conservative influencers turned into Vietnam hippie retards overnight.
goc retweeted
I think a lot of people are completely wrong about what caused this midterm "blue tsunami."
I also believe that much of the hyperbolic, misguided analysis is coming from people who have hated Trump for a long time and who have been eagerly waiting with bated breath to declare the end of Trump and MAGA.
"It was obviously the Iran War. Trump didn't put America first. He betrayed America. It was gas prices. Only a fool would think otherwise."
Ok. Fair enough.
Allow me to present a hypothetical scenario. Let's pretend that Trump #2 never started the war with Iran.
Imagine if the price of gas was not around $4.00 a gallon but instead, let's say something low, assume $2.70 a gallon.
Pretend inflation was at a near perfect 2% for the year and GDP was cruising along at a 15 year high.
Assume wages were up and unemployment was at about a 50 year low.
No war. Great economy. That would have won Republicans the midterms right?
That would have prevented Democrats from flipping 41 House seats and 5 Governorships?
Those hypotheticals I listed above are what was happening in 2018 before the midterms. And yet, Democrats flipped 41 House seats and 7 Governorships during the midterms.
The Senate races turned out differently because Democrats were defending races all around the country in 2018. Republicans took back a couple red states. But the 2018 midterms were considered a massive blue wave for Democrats. No Iran War, economy booming, and still, that's how the midterms turned out.
Here's a fun fact. There were approximately 35.5 million Democrat votes during the 2014 midterms. There were approximately 61 million Democrat votes during the 2018 midterms.
25 million more Democrat votes during a booming economy. Do the current criticisms of Trump's second term explain that?
Trump went from 63 million votes in 2016, to 74 million in 2020, to 77 million in 2024. During each of his three midterms (2018, 2022, 2026), the Republican vote has increased substantially. But those increases do not compete with the additional 20 million Democrat vote bumps that happened in 2018, 2020, and 2026.
The question for Republicans becomes why do these gigantic Democrat vote bumps happen. How are they doing it? Is it because people hate Trump? They hate his policies? If those things were true, he would not continually gain support for himself and for the Republican Party.
Without even touching voter fraud, I believe that there is a clear, multi-faceted strategy that Democrats employed in 2018, 2020, and 2026 to drive insane amounts of people to polls, regardless of economic conditions. It's not difficult to identify, but Republicans don't talk about it and certainly don't have an answer for it. And Democrats can do it at will when needed.
Yes Trump won in 2024, but he was the only Republican that would have won and his win was helped by some unprecedented circumstances. Democrats were caught off guard. They did not make that mistake this time around.
Trump's second term has been far from perfect. Lots of mistakes and unforced errors. And once again, many terrible personnel choices by Trump.
That being said, I also believe that things could have been close to perfect right now and Republicans would have still gotten crushed during the midterms. Look at 2018.
Perception is everything. Republicans are not prepared or even willing to step on to the field with Democrats in this regard.
The Democrats are a cohesive, well oiled, united machine working in perfect harmony with the MSM. Together they can create and push any narrative they want to push. Republicans not only have no answer to this, they instead spend their time fighting each other.
Democrats don't argue about policy. They create mass hysteria and fear. It's all emotion. It's their entire platform. Most Americans don't like their policies. But they are playing a game in which policy and ideas and reality do not factor into the equation. And there are very clear strategies that they use to create this mass hysteria and to drive voter turnout.
Republicans are just going to keep helplessly watching this happen over and over again. They learned nothing from Trump's first term. The exact same lies, smears and hoaxes were used again, except this time around they replaced Russia with Epstein. Same game plan to the tee. For example, they created the same immigration hysteria that they did in 2018. Everything happened again.
Democrats were doing No Kings/Fight Fascism protests back in 2018 over immigration. People don't remember this but they were. I've posted videos about it. Bernie proudly declaring "No Kings." The immigration hysteria is especially effective at getting women riled up.
People don't remember Kamala Harris taking a ladder to climb a fence to break into an ICE facility in 2018 or Rachel Maddow fake crying on TV, AOC crying at the fence, or Oprah holding her book club at the border. Protesters literally glueing themselves to the ground in protest (over nothing). A Time Magazine cover with Trump menacingly towering of a crying migrant child. The audio recording of a baby crying that the MSM played on repeat for weeks before the midterms. The British PM Theresa May publicly condemning "kids in cages" (the same cages that Obama built and used).
Republicans just sat idly on their hands and watched it happen all again, making no attempt at rebuttal. Democrats are on TV every hour of every day. Republicans politicians can't even bring themselves to post on social media in defense of enforcing the law. No matter who the next Republican President is, if he or she attempts to enforce immigration laws, Democrats will turn it into a midterm win. Guaranteed. And that's just one weapon in their playbook.
Republicans don't even know how to deal with the sabotage coming from their own side, let alone unite in a perception war with the Democrat Party.
Before the 2022 midterms inflation had reached a 40 year high, gas was above $5.00 a gallon, more people died from Covid in 2021 than in 2020, the botched Afghanistan withdrawal happened, the border was wide open and Biden was struggling to walk and talk. Still, Democrats only lost a few House seats and even picked up a Senate seat.
With all that happening, why didn't 20 million more Republicans vote during the 2022 midterms than in 2018? If economy matters so much, why was there no red wave? Have an election "expert" answer that one.
People who are playing Monday morning quarterback and criticizing everything Trump has done this time around are so not prepared for or even aware of the war that is being waged. They most likely care. They are ok with losing and many just want to declare all things Trump dead and buried. Maybe next election they will decide to fight back against the incredible machine Democrats. Good luck with that.
The Republicans who are so joyfully celebrating the end of "Trumpism" are in for a rude awakening when he's gone. Trump has increased his support and Republican support in every Presidential and midterm election he has been involved in.
I'm going to lay out in another post some detailed thoughts on the strategies Democrats have used to turn out massive amounts of votes and what Republicans might consider doing in response. It's nothing genius but there is a clear, detailed method to the Democrat madness and nobody seems to be talking about it or even care about it.
Granted, I'm just a guy on X who doesn't know much, but it doesn't hurt to post my thoughts so I will.
Fixed strike vol changes in SPX for 20-Nov expiry..👀
About an hour ago the whole surface showed neg change in fixed strike vol, but looks like someone has started buying tiny delta short dated puts.
Data: @options_insight
Bang on
As an Iranian who has been closely following US politics from the outside over the past two years, let me tell you what was the reason behind the midterm election results in my opinion.
Many were blaming the Iran war.
The war in Iran was essentially a proxy war whose battlefield happened to be in Iran, but behind the scenes, a complex network of global powers was involved. China, Russia, Arab nations, the Democrats, and most importantly, the UK and European liberals were the lifelines and supporters of this regime, they had no intention of ever letting the Islamic regime in Iran go. The Islamic regime functioned as their tool, their financial cash cow, and their asset in the region, to entangle the US in the region and weaken it.
Trump confronted and stood against this entire network. He knew the regime was holding the Strait of Hormuz hostage, but he had the courage to step up, take the risk, and push forward. In response, they had no tools left except the narrative war.
A big sophisticated network started warmongering rhetoric and propaganda. Beyond the mainstream media, they even recruited right-wing podcasters like @TuckerCarlson , who suddenly flipped their positions and began spreading false narratives.
One of their primary tactics was stoking antisemitism and exploiting societal sensitivities, repeating lies until they were accepted as absolute fact. They kept claiming this was Israel’s war, which it simply wasn’t. I grew up in Iran and was forced to chant "Death to America" every morning at school, but I never once said "Death to Israel." This regime was obsessed with US, you are just so lucky you got Israeli intelligence in keeping you updated on the threat. Without Israel, you may had learned about it after a nuclear 9/11. This was America’s war, a fight against a system that was being weaponized to undermine the United States.
As for the necessity of this conflict, Trump had known for years (dating back to his first term) what needed to be done with this regime. Why this timing? Because the people of Iran rose up in January 2026. If you had paid attention, the military buildup started immediately afterward because any meaningful action had to tap into the energy and courage of the Iranian people.
No one in the media tells you that the Islamic regime massacred 75,000 people in Iran, and suddenly that horrific atrocity became a non-issue, completely brushed aside by those who are obsessed with Gaza.
The fearmongers constantly tried to claim that this is just another "forever war," when in reality, Trump was actively preventing a repeat of the Iraq and Afghanistan disasters. What happened back then was a sudden, uncalculated collapse with no plan for the aftermath, plunging those countries into chaos and trapping America in a quagmire. But this time, Trump was handling it in a very controlled manner, applying limited, gradual pressure to steadily weaken the regime so the people could take their country back themselves, without needing any American boots on the ground.
They knew full well that there were no boots on the ground in Iran and that their claims were baseless, yet they intentionally made mountains out of molehills to distort public opinion and hence bail out the regime.
But it changes nothing for @realDonaldTrump , he finishes what he starts, and this will become his lasting legacy. Sadly, by making these choices, Americans have deprived themselves of domestic progress Trump could have offered, and even worse, let the enemy within inside the Senate and the House.
I truly hope this serves as a wake-up call so that by 2028, these lies won’t work on you anymore.
goc retweeted
Last night is exactly why no President has dealt with Iran before now
We don't reward Presidents for acting in the best long-term interest of the country
We reward them for avoiding difficult decisions if it means we don't have to make any sacrifices during any given 2yr period
