The Iran Economic Crash Just Started what you must know

Believe it or not, the next economic shock has already started and the news isn't telling you the full story. I'm talking about the Iran war and the economic chain reaction it's already triggering. Because even if the situation appears to be calming down, the real financial consequences haven't hit the average person yet. This is going to hit your finances hard and most people won't see it coming until it's too late. That's why today I thought it was important to explain what's break down the direct impacts on you and give you my thoughts on how you can protect yourself from the storm. I'm prioritising getting this video out fast so don't expect the editing to be as slick as usual. It's far more important for you to hear all this information sooner rather than later so you can take action quickly. Trust me, if you watch one video today, make it this one. Right, so I've identified six main impacts the Iran war will have on your finances but for those to make sense we need to talk about. Have you ever noticed that every headline right now seems to contradict the last one? It's almost like the mainstream media is purposely trying to keep everyone confused so that we don't connect all the information that actually matters. That's why I'm going to give you a rundown of everything you need to know about the Iran war in the shortest time possible before we get into the direct impacts on you and your finances. So on February the 28th the US and Israel launched a coordinated strike on Iran codenamed Operation Epic Fury firing nearly 900 strikes in just 12 hours targeting military sites, nuclear facilities and senior leadership. And as you can probably imagine Iran didn't just sit there and take it, they fired back immediately sending missiles and drones at Israel, US bases and allies across the Middle East. But the move that really shook the global economy came on March the 2nd when Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. Now if you don't know what the Strait of Hormuz is, picture it like this. Imagine there's a single stretch of motorway that 20% of the world's oil has to travel through every single day with no alternative and someone just parked a lorry sideways across it. Well in this analogy Iran is the lorry and the effects on everyday people have been much bigger than most people realize. Within weeks oil went from around $61 a barrel at the start of the year to over $118 by the end of March, that's nearly double in just three months and the biggest rise in nearly 40 years. And then just as everyone started to panic Trump announced a two-week ceasefire, oil prices dropped, markets rallied and people breathed a huge sigh of relief. It felt like the reset button had finally been pressed except nobody can agree if it actually was because even now the situation stays murky. Both sides have declared the Strait open but they can't even agree on what open means, who is really in control or how long it lasts and even the US Navy is still warning vessels to avoid the waterway entirely because the sea mine threat is not fully understood. So is it open? Technically maybe but practically the world isn't sure and that uncertainty alone is enough to keep the damage going because no matter what happens next the shockwave is already on its way. The damage has been done and that's what I want to talk to you about today, not the politics or the military tactics, I'm really not interested in that. What I'm interested in is what this actually means for your money, your job and your day-to-day life over the next six to twelve months because there are six impacts unfolding right now that I think every single person needs to understand. Let's get into them. The biggest lie people are being told right now is that the situation is cooling off when financially it's just getting started. Yes the fighting might be calming down but that doesn't mean your energy bill, food prices and transport costs will also go down, that's not how this kind of shock works. Think of it like food poisoning, the moment you stop eating a dodgy prawn it doesn't mean you suddenly feel fine, the poison is already in your system and it takes time to work its way through before you feel the full effects. That's exactly what's happening to prices right now. But Mark aren't you being a bit over the top, this is just about oil prices right? Well yes it's about oil prices but no I'm not being over the top because oil affects so much more than you first think, it's the invisible ingredient in almost everything you buy. Think about your last grocery shop, every single item on those shelves was grown, processed, packaged and driven to that supermarket and every step of that process costs money and the moment oil gets more expensive the steps get more expensive too until it finally lands on your receipt. Energy prices have already risen double digits this year and I'm genuinely concerned it could go a lot higher over the next three to six months as a shock works its way through the system. That means higher energy bills, more expensive food and pricier transport costs for everyday people. So what can you actually do about it? Well the most important thing to do right now is be very careful about making big financial commitments based on the assumption that things are about to get cheaper because realistically your monthly expenses are probably going to keep going up before they come down. If you're thinking about signing a new lease, taking on debt or making a big purchase just pause for a moment and save a bit of extra money to give yourself some breathing room. That's also why it's essential to stay informed because a lot of what's happening right now is complex, fast-moving and easy to misunderstand which means most people will go through it blindly. The ones who take the time to understand it will definitely make better decisions with their money and that's exactly why I started a new YouTube channel recently called Mark Tilbury Economics where I break down the biggest things happening in the economy and explain what they actually mean for you and your money. So definitely consider subscribing if you want to stay up to date with the stuff that actually matters. I'll leave a link in the description for those that are serious about growing their wealth. I actually think this is more important than ever which is exactly why the second impact worries me so much because it hits your paycheck. If you're not where you want to be financially this next part is going to be hard to hear because your income might not be as secure as you think. You see when your bills go up and spending goes down naturally something in the economy has to give which could result in you losing your job right at the worst possible moment and if you think your job is secure let me tell you why it might not be as safe as you think. You see when energy prices spike like they have businesses get hit from two directions at once. On one side their costs go up like transport, manufacturing, electricity, things like that and on the other side people start spending less because their bills are going up too. It's like a sandwich being squeezed from both sides at the same time and when this happens businesses have to make decisions fast. It usually starts small like cutting overtime and freezing hiring but as the crisis continues it'll almost certainly lead to layoffs. And look I'm not saying this to scare you I'm saying this because the warning signs were already there before the oil shock even hit. Job growth has been slowing down, companies have been quietly pulling back and the last time the hiring rate was sustained at this level was during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. If you have a job right now you're probably safe at least for the meantime but my concern is that when you layer an energy shock like this on top of an already struggling market everything accelerates. Historically when something like this happens energy spikes, businesses get squeezed, hiring slows and people get fired. It's like a chain reaction. It's pretty worrying stuff but luckily there are a few things you can do to protect yourself. First don't assume your income is guaranteed. Even if your job feels solid right now this is the kind of environment where things can change quickly. Second if you're employed focus on becoming harder to replace. That could mean picking up extra responsibility, improving your skill set or just making sure you're someone your company needs not just someone they have. Third start an online side hustle that has the potential to make you at least $10,000 per month. I know this might sound like quite a hard task especially if you're working a full-time job however you can learn an online skill in 20 hours of focused work and be better than 90% of people at that specific thing. I'm running a free online live event very soon where I talk you through what skills to master, how to package it as a service and sell it to businesses so you can make $10,000 a month. If you want to join me I'll leave a link in the description so you can sign up. And fourth don't sit around waiting for the government to step in which leads me to the third impact. If you don't want to be like everyone else then you've got to stop assuming someone or something is going to fix this for you. You see if you've been through a financial crisis before whether it was 2008 or the pandemic you probably remember thinking at some point okay this is bad but surely the government are going to do something and they did. Interest rates got cut, money was printed, stimulus checks got sent and things stabilized fairly quickly. It wasn't pretty but there was a safety net and most importantly it held strong. But this time around I'm worried that that safety net has a massive hole in it. You see in a normal crisis the first thing central banks usually do is cut interest rates. If you don't know what that means a simple way to think about it is the price of borrowing money. When rates are low borrowing becomes cheaper so businesses take out loans to invest and grow, people apply for mortgages, money flows from left to right and the economy keeps going. So when something goes wrong central banks cut rates to make money cheaper to borrow which gets the economy moving again. It's actually the most common tool they use and it normally works a treat. But the problem right now is you can't exactly cut rates when inflation is rising because cutting rates pumps more money into the economy and more money chasing the same amount of goods pushes prices up even further. And because oil just had its biggest spike in nearly 40 years inflation is rising so if you can't cut rates why not just print more money like we did in the pandemic. Well the US is currently sitting on 39 trillion dollars in national debt and the interest payments alone come to about 88 billion dollars a month. That's roughly a trillion dollars a year just in interest, not funding hospitals, schools or infrastructure, just interest. To put that into context because I know throwing around trillions and billions can feel a bit alien but every dollar the government collects in taxes 19 cents of it now goes straight to paying interest on debt. Think of it like someone who's maxed out every credit card they own and is already struggling to make the minimum payments every month. Would you tell that person to just borrow more? Of course you wouldn't and that's the position the US is in right now. Every option they have to fix the crisis could cause a domino effect somewhere else. So what does this mean for you? Well I'd suggest not waiting around for the government to make things easier. This isn't 2008 or the pandemic and the playbook has completely changed. To clarify I'm not saying it's impossible for the government to step in and help but the usual interventions just don't make as much sense as they used to. Now when you put all three of these impacts together, rising prices, a weakening job market and a government with limited tools you start to get a scenario that economists actually have a name for and that leads me to Imagine it's a random Tuesday morning and you've just found out that your job is at risk. Then on the same day an energy bill comes through your door and it's gone up by 30%. That's not just bad luck that's stagflation and it's one of the nastiest economic situations a country can find itself in when prices are high but the economy is weak because the tools that fix one problem directly make the other one worse. Most people have heard the word stagflation being thrown around but I don't think many fully understand what it means so let's break it down. This might get a bit complicated but I promise it'll all make sense soon so just stick with me. In a normal recession which has happened loads of times in the past the economy shrinks, people lose jobs and spending drops but at the same time prices tend to come down too as a result of the decrease in spending. Stagflation on the other hand is like the evil twin, the economy slows down and prices keep rising at the same time so your income is under threat but the cost of living just keeps climbing. Now the tools that fix inflation which is typically raising interest rates make the recession worse and the tools that fix a recession typically cutting rates and printing money make inflation worse. It's kind of like being stuck in quicksand the more you struggle the deeper you sink. It's pretty crazy right but let me bring it back to you watching this right now. US inflation just jumped to 3.3% up from 2.4% the month before and Goldman Sachs has cut their GDP growth forecast down to 2.1% so put simply prices are rising while the economy is slowing which is a textbook setup for stagflation territory. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying this will definitely happen but there's some interesting data I keep coming back to that I'd like to share with you. There's a company called Moody's and they've built an AI model that's been tested against 80 years of economic data to predict recessions. Every single time this model has crossed the 50% probability threshold a recession has followed within 12 months, not just a few times every single time and right now that model is sitting at 49% one percentage point away from a threshold that's never been wrong and the worst part that 49% reading was calculated before the Iran war even started. The last time the world dealt with proper stagflation was the 1970s and it lasted an entire decade. That's 10 years of high prices, weak growth and shrinking standards of living for everyday people. So how do you position yourself here? Well the key thing to understand is that during stagflation cash loses value because inflation is eating away at it but risky growth investments can also fall because the economy is shrinking. The people who survived the 1970s best were the ones who owned things that held their value when prices rose, basically real assets that people need regardless of what the economy is doing. I'm not saying to go out and buy a farm or a barrel of oil but if your entire financial life is sitting in cash savings or growth stocks this might be the moment to think about diversification rather than just riding it out. Now one of the ways governments typically try to escape stagflation is by weakening their own currency and that brings us to an impact that could affect every single one of us in a very real way. Right now every dollar in your bank account, every pension payment you're expecting and every investment you own is only as strong as the system holding it up and as things stand some very large players are starting to question that system. The US dollar is what's known as the world's reserve currency which sounds complicated but all it basically means is when countries around the world trade with each other they mostly use dollars and when governments want to safely store wealth they do it in dollars. Think of USD like the language of global finance, every country speaks their own language at home but when they need to do business with each other they all speak the same language and that language is the dollar which is incredibly powerful for America but also very important for the rest of the world and due to the war in Iran plus the state of the economy the US is trapped between three options and none of them are good for the dollar. Option one is to keep raising interest rates to control inflation which would eventually bring prices down but in the process likely crash the stock market, make borrowing more expensive and push the economy into a deep recession. Option two is to print money to keep things afloat but printing money into an already inflating economy could send inflation into double digits which would eat away at working class people's savings. Option three is to declare the ceasefire a win and step back from the Iran situation but if the US can't reopen a critical global shipping lane that the world's oil depends on other countries will start asking a very uncomfortable question, is the US as strong as it used to be and do we even need the dollar anymore and that question is already being asked. You see countries don't just hold piles of cash and instead they store a lot of their money in something called US treasuries. If you've never heard that word before think of it like this it's basically a country putting its savings into a special American bank account and the US government then uses that money and pays some interest on it. For decades it's been seen as one of the safest places in the world to store money but that seems like it might be changing because some countries have started pulling their savings out. Foreign central bank holdings of US treasuries just hit their lowest level since 2012 and instead of putting the money back in they're moving it somewhere else, gold. And this is where it gets quite interesting because gold now makes up 24% of central bank reserves worldwide while US treasuries only make up 21%. That's a complete reversal of what we were seeing in 2015 when treasuries were 33% and gold was just 9%. Now I'm not saying the dollar is going to collapse tomorrow but it is worth asking if the smartest and most powerful money managers in the world are reducing their dollar exposure should you at least be thinking about doing the same. I'm not talking about panic selling or making any dramatic moves but just asking whether your savings and investments are too concentrated in one currency or one type of asset because every single one of those three options available to the US weakens the dollar in one way or another and a weaker dollar means your money buys less wherever you are in the world which is why people often use the term when America sneezes the world catches a cold and that brings me on to the final impact. Let me ask you something, when your grocery bill went up recently how did it feel? For some people watching this it was annoying, maybe a bit jarring but overall just something you noticed and absorbed and for others it raised questions like can we still take the kids out this weekend? That gap between annoying and life-changing is exactly what I want to talk about because an economic crisis doesn't land the same way for everyone in fact it's not even close. I want to be up front here this isn't a political point and I'm not approaching this from any particular ideological angle I just want to walk you through the numbers because the story they tell is quite damning. If you're on a lower income energy and food don't just take up a bigger chunk of your budget they completely dominate it. Research shows that low-income households spend almost 33% of their income on food alone compared to about 13% for middle-income households. So when oil doubles and food prices jump someone earning a high salary notices it's short but someone on a lower income feels it in a way that changes their daily life. It's the difference between checking the price of petrol out of interest and wondering if you can afford to drive to work. Now the obvious response is that governments should step in with subsidies and price caps to protect people but here's what actually happens when they do that. During the Ukraine energy crisis 95 of the world's biggest food and energy corporations made $306 billion in unexpected profits in a single year and 84% of that went straight to shareholders. Think about what's actually happening there. The government takes money from taxes and uses it to cap what people pay for energy. Meanwhile the energy companies keep charging full price to the government and pocketing the difference. The money meant to protect ordinary people ends up flowing to the people who already own the energy. It's like filling a bucket with a massive hole in the bottom. You're pouring as much in as you can but the water's going somewhere you never intended it to. It's the same pattern over and over. During the recovery of the 2008 financial meltdown the top 1% of U.S. earners captured 95% of all income gains during that period. The reality is the middle class are being squeezed out of existence and nobody is coming to save you. That's why you need to take responsibility for your own income especially in times like this. So please take advantage of all the videos I've got on my channel because those that level up their skill sets and financial knowledge will come out of this storm stronger and richer than ever before. If you want to know why I'm changing how I invest my money because of AI then I'm going to leave that video right up there but don't click on it just yet. Make sure to subscribe if you want to grow your wealth. Okay I'll see you over there.