The U.S.-Iran War Is Heating Up Again—and Wall Street Is About to Send the Bill to Everyone Else
I have noticed that wars are always described with clean, bloodless language when viewed through the tinted windows of the financial world. Markets “reprice risk.” Investors “seek safety.” Energy companies enjoy “improved pricing conditions.” Defense contractors benefit from “strong demand visibility.” It all sounds remarkably civilized. Nobody says that a family may cancel its summer trip because gasoline has become too expensive. Nobody says that a truck driver will pay hundreds of dollars more to finish the same route. Nobody says that a restaurant owner may stare at another food invoice and wonder which menu price can be raised without driving customers away. The financial vocabulary keeps everything tidy. Unfortunately, reality has never shown much respect for tidy vocabulary. As the war involving the United States and Iran intensifies again, the immediate concern is obviously human life. People are being killed, displaced, frightened, and pulled into decisions made far above thei...
