When last we were with our antagonist, the world was on the verge of seeing whether Donald J. Trump was actually going to order a bombing that would qualify as a war crime, or worse, genocide. Certain Trump loyalists but war skeptics were predicting that nothing could be done to change his course until Mr. Trump could say he captured Iran’s uranium. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley was among them. On the April 13 broadcast of State of the Union, she not only agreed with that position, she advocated sending in special forces to accomplish the capture. But I have now put to paper my take on the latest serving of chaos for five straight days, only to have new developments, as I wove in lesson planning for the next day’s classes, render the analysis incomplete.

As of this writing, the war is getting worse. Gunfire, ship seizing, mining and minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz are wreaking havoc on the blood pressure of world leaders and on the market for crude oil – and on the prices of all that is transported by using that oil once it is refined. But the American president and his family can more than afford higher prices, as they appear to have made billions, collectively, behind the veil of chaos in which more intricate lace patterns continue to sprout up. But things are too uncertain and expensive for anyone, other than pesky reporters and Lefties, to place conflicts of interest at the top of their list of political and legal complaints. ,

It is easy to imagine the president thinking the MAGA faithful aren’t going to mind, because they didn’t in the first term, when he owned a hotel where foreign leaders stayed and paid him for the privilege of buying his favor. Gas prices were a lot more reasonable then. Now, the president’s people are getting hammered by the grift-imbued chaos. Little people of all stripes are becoming increasingly hammered by the economic fallout of war with a country that has a history of continuing the fight purely for the pleasure of wearing down Goliath. Remember Iran’s war with Iraq?

What happens to the little people of all stripes and persuasions while speculators, traders, and even U.S. military personnel, placing bets made wise by top secret information, make big money? Some may well be tempted to take what little they have for gas and groceries and jump on the bandwagon. Why not? Everyone else is doing it.

The lottery has always been the poor person’s tax. At least betting on political and military outcomes have fifty-fifty odds. With constant chaos, the number of situations on which one can bet with what appears to be a fifty percent chance of winning just keeps rising. So does the value of the companies that make the market. Those companies also happen to be part-owned by one Trump or another. It’s all enough to make one forget domestic political chaos, like the fact that the Justice Department isn’t even pretending to know what justice is anymore, and the president’s cabinet is a revolving door of one unqualified sycophant after another.

More on each of those two items on the other side of another school week. Best I put this to bed before something else develops in the Strait of Hormuz.