"The EU has delivered on its threat to ban the import of crude oil from Iran, in response to its nuclear programme. The latest round of sanctions prohibits any new oil contracts, while allowing for existing deals to run until July. But Tehran is apparently finding ways to keep business pumping. Reports say Iran will keep supplying one of its biggest customers − India − but will get payment in gold instead of dollars." – RT

Dominant Social Theme: The world is in a downward spiral. So many things going wrong at once. Bad luck!

Free-Market Analysis: We've waited a bit to comment once more on what may be an upcoming Iranian war, but that's only because we wanted to see if a pattern was emerging that we could make sense of.

The power elite, as we see it, is increasingly threatened by what we call the Internet Reformation. To counteract it, the elites have turned to the same playbook they used to try to counteract the first big information revolution that occurred after the discovery of mechanical printing (the Gutenberg Press).

It was only after the advent of the Gutenberg Press that "copyright" was brought into force – a legal maneuver that was admittedly and frankly intended to stop the propagation and dissemination of material that the state found undermining to its authority.

Wars and revolutions were fomented by the powers-that-be as well, to try further retard the impact of the information that was being purveyed by mechanical presses.