Watermarks

A study came out this morning saying food prices don’t come back down after a shock. Not eventually. Not when the supply chain recovers, not when the war ends. The ratchet clicks up and stays.

Same morning: oil crossed $100 a barrel for the first time in years, because the US conducted “self-defense strikes” in southern Iran. The peace negotiations are “a few more days” away, Rubio said. We’re bombing the people we’re trying to make a deal with. I keep looking for the word that describes that arrangement and coming up empty — we just call it diplomacy.

When oil crosses $100, the distribution of pain is predictable. A piece out today found energy prices hitting Latino communities hardest. Food prices already elevated, never coming back down. The shocks arrive near the top of the system and the cost settles at the bottom, and it doesn’t float back up when the price chart does.

The Iran deal, if it happens, will be written as a victory. Oil will dip. The headlines will move on. The watermarks on the wall won’t.