Not Just ‘Death To America’, It’s ‘Death To Everyone’ When Fertilizer Supply Shock Hits
Santiago Capital’s Brent Johnson, known for his dollar milkshake theory, had an ominous warning at last evening’s ZH debate: Even if the war is settled (and there’s no guarantee of that), baked in supply shocks could be very bad for agriculture. This comes as just yesterday, Mises Institute’s Connor O’Keefe warned of “a time bomb in global food markets”.
… and Brent is the dollar bull.
Johnson joined Marc “Dr. Doom” Faber and Thoughtful Money’s Adam Taggart to debate what comes after the tenuous ceasefire that Trump has brokered with Iran. Major win for the U.S. and the dollar or simply relative mitigation of a pointless blunder?
Below were key points by Dr. Doom and the Milkshake man, though we highly recommend the full discussion for those with time:
Inflation for thee but not for me
Marc Faber’s argument centered on a disconnect between official inflation data and lived experience… something the war, even if concluded promptly, will only exacerbate. While the legendary “shadowstats” is no longer updated, it last had May ‘23 real inflation at 8% annually, double the government’s reported figure of 4%.
Faber rejects low headline figures:
“I don’t believe that anywhere in the world the rate of inflation was like around 2% (pre-war). This is complete nonsense. Open the invoices of your insurance company! Insurance premiums are going up by something like 10%… everywhere the prices are up.”
Average households cannot sustain such strain for long. In Faber’s view, a large share of the population is financially stretched: “around 70% of Americans… live paycheck to paycheck.” Income barely covers expenses, leaving little margin for shocks. “This is sort of like a modern slavery… people are… anxiously waiting for the salaries to pay their debts.”
Faber’s slavery analogy extends to the K-shaped economy, where wealthy asset owners see massive booms in their on-paper wealth while Joe six-pack (with no assets) just sees his gas and groceries go up:
“My outlook for the economy was already, before the war in Iran, was not favorable… the financial markets have gone into the sky and the real economy of people is flat on its back.”
— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) April 9, 2026
Fertilizer > Oil
Brent Johnson framed the debate around power as opposed to market forces: “If the United States is going to lose dominance, somebody else has to take it.” He pointed to the U.S.-Israeli assassination of Iran’s head of state and the lack of global pushback as evidence that U.S. global influence remains intact for now.
“Nobody has done anything to stop it.”
He does not claim the month-long U.S. operation will be a success. “That could very well be a huge miscalculation… [but] it might work.” Outcomes are not predetermined, and states still use force to pursue objectives, “countries do use military force to get what they want… I understand why they did it… and how it could possibly work.”
Largely a dollar bull, Johnson still sees pain on the horizon for all fiat holders. ”We are going to get at least a short-term inflationary impulse… a pretty severe [one]… it may hit the United States the least… it’s going to hurt the rest of the world more.”
“We’re just now going to be in the summer driving season here pretty soon and gasoline and energy prices are already up… that could dramatically negatively affect the US economy.”
Beyond energy, the underappreciated yet vital product that must flow through the Strait of Hormuz: fertilizers and chemicals.
“The bigger impact that I worry about is the fact that fertilizers and chemicals also get transited through the Strait of Hormuz. And the timing of this happening is impacting the planting season for both the summer season in the Northern Hemisphere and the winter planting season in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s my expectation that even if the strait fully opens tomorrow, which it won’t… There’s going to be a four to six week period where most ships don’t arrive…”
The result: civil unrest.
“That is going to have a material impact on food prices. Six to nine months down the road. Once you get food price rises and food shocks, then you get social shocks. Then you get people out in the streets chanting ‘death to everyone’ not just ‘death to America’.”
— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) April 9, 2026
Listen to their full remarks and learn which cigarettes Dr. Doom smokes in the full debate below. Watch on the ZeroHedge X feed, Taggart’s Thoughtful Money YouTube channel, or listen on the ZH Spotify.
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 9, 2026
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/10/2026 – 09:00
