A woman walks through the rain on Wall Street in New York, August 16, 2011. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Wall Street breathed a huge sigh of relief when, on Tuesday night, April 7, U.S. President Donald Trump and the Iranian regime agreed to a two-week ceasefire. Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform, had threatened to destroy "a whole civilization" with Iran — a comment that drew vehement condemnation not only from Democrats, but also, from Never Trump conservatives and even some MAGA Republicans, including former Fox New host Tucker Carlson, Infowars' Alex Jones and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia).
But even though the ceasefire calmed down Wall Street investors — at least for the time being — the i Paper's Hamish McRae stresses that the Iran war will continue to be a source of economic upheaval in his April 9 column.
The British economic journalist/author, now 82, lays out "five ways in which, in economic terms, the world will be different for all of us."
"You can measure the relief which met news of a ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran by looking at the markets," McRae explains. "The oil price has come down, shares have soared and, very importantly for all of us, the cost of borrowing for the government has come down. But we are not back to normal, or what passed for normal before the attack on Iran. You can't get the toothpaste back into the tube."
The five changes, according to McRae, are: (1) "we will all be poorer," (2) " inflation will not come down," (3) "governments will face even more financial pressure," (4) homes "will be less effective as an investment," and (5) "new technologies" will "make our lives better."
"In a funny way," the i Paper column argues, "this war is turning out very much as the markets predicted. Their initial muted response was based on the premise that it would not last very long and that, eventually, some sort of settlement would be reached…. But as argued above, there will be lasting consequences that damage the world economy. This is part of a continuing story, and the overriding question is how well the corporations at the core of global economics adapt to very different circumstances from those of, say, five years ago."
