What Wall Street Got Wrong About Iran

Ed Elson is joined by Brian Katulis to break down the latest attacks in the Iran War and how he thinks diplomacy will play out over the next several months. Then, Casey Mock joins the show to discuss what the Meta lawsuits mean for investors. Finally, Ed gives his take on Trump’s Iran strategy. Brian Katulis is a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute. Casey Mock is the Senior Policy Director for the Anxious Generation Movement. Subscribe to the Prof G Markets Youtube Channel Check out our latest Prof G Markets newsletter Read the Ramp paper Follow Prof G Markets on Instagram Follow Ed on Instagram, X and Substack Follow Scott on Instagram Send us your questions or comments by emailing [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Exchanges on the economic impact of AI. Exchanges on gold, energy and the commodity markets. For the sharpest analysis on finance, business and the economy. Count on Exchanges, the Goldman Sachs podcast. Listen now.

• 0:15Speaker 01

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• 0:45Speaker 02

  When it comes to AI, there is what we could do and what we should do. What will we decide? I'm Kimberly Nevela, host of the pondering AI podcast from SAS. Every episode I sit down with innovators, researchers and technologists to consider the questions that come after the AI breakthroughs. Questions that don't have easy answers, but need to be asked. If you're curious or concerned about AI, join me as we challenge assumptions and ponder the issues together. Find pondering AI wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:20Speaker 03

  Money markets. If money is evil, then that building is hell.

• 1:30Ed Elson?

  Welcome to Prof G Markets. I'm Ed Elson. It is July 9th. Let's check in on yesterday's market vitals.

• 1:38Ed Elson?

  The S and P and the Dow fell as military conflict flared up in Iran. More on that in a second. Meanwhile, chip stocks pulled the NASDAQ into the green. Brent crude climbed, the yield on 10 year treasuries rose as inflation fears returned. The odds of a rate hike before year end on calcio rose to 56%. And finally, SpaceX stock fell again, dropping below its IPO opening price of $150 a share.

• 2:08Ed Elson?

  Okay, what's happening? The fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran has collapsed. On Tuesday, Iran attacked three tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, according to US officials. In response, the US struck more than 80 targets along Iran's coast and revoked a sanctions waiver allowing for the sale of Iranian oil. Iran retaliated with strikes on US military bases in the region. It's been just 22 days since the memorandum of understanding was signed. Yesterday, President Trump said he believes the ceasefire is over and the US launched another round of strikes. Brent crude soared over 7% to nearly $80 a barrel, its highest level in over two weeks.

• 2:52Ed Elson?

  Joining us to discuss these developments in Iran, we are speaking with Brian Katulis, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. Brian, thanks for joining us on the show. I'd love to start with a clip of the president. This was kind of the moment where everyone realized, okay, maybe we're back to square one. Let's play this clip and see what you think.

• 3:15Speaker 05

  Mr. President, is the ceasefire over? Is the ceasefire done? Is the MOU dead?

• 3:22Speaker 06

  It's a very interesting question. To me, I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them anymore with this scum. You know what scum is? They're scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people and they're vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they'd use it. As far as I'm concerned, it's over.

• 3:43Ed Elson?

  What do those comments mean for the world, the global economy, the US economy, all of us?

• 3:49Speaker 07

  At least for the next eight to 12 hours, it means buckle up. But if you see Trump, President Trump's record over the last four or five months, it could be 180 degree opposite of what he said. And if you look at the public statements during the war, during this very fragile ceasefire, it's all over the map because President Trump engages not in traditional diplomacy, but what I call performative diplomacy. He actually doesn't do diplomacy that tries to get deals that build trust. He just uses what I call troll power to actually aggressively get what he wants. But he often comes up empty handed, as we see with Iran or with Russia and Ukraine.

• 4:33Ed Elson?

  So just looking at what's happened since that memorandum of understanding was signed, that was 22 days ago. What, what has happened? How did we get to this place?

• 4:43Speaker 07

  Essentially, the regime that still remains in place in Iran, though the top leaders were killed on the first day, the regime that's been in power since 1979, it has become even less predictable and perhaps even more extreme. So what's essentially happening is that they know that President Trump is desperate because of the economic pain that America and the world is facing, because his public opinion ratings have plummeted. And the Iranians watched this very closely. So they've got him cornered in a sense, and they keep on pressing what they think is their advantage. And in essence, you know, they engage in diplomacy to try to buy time.

• 5:26Speaker 07

  But the real problem here is that President Trump has never, since before the war began, articulated a clear endpoint that was realistic about what he was trying to achieve through military action. And that's why he's been all over the map. And essentially this test of wills has been playing out. This latest escalation is just part of that.

• 5:46Ed Elson?

  I assume you consider the memorandum of understanding to be an example of that performative diplomacy. Would that be the right characterization?

• 5:55Speaker 07

  Yeah, the problem and the reason I use that term is that there really wasn't the really quiet diplomacy that's needed to inform this. And the important missing piece have been the key stakeholders, including Gulf Arab countries that are directly affected by this. Except for Qatar, many of the key countries in the region that are our partners really have not been consulted in a serious, deep way. And because they live in the region and they're suffering the economic consequences, they're not only oil producers, they're investors globally. They're also, the fact that they've not been consulted means that we don't really have in this MOU, a sustainable, durable framework.

• 6:38Speaker 07

  And, and that's not even bringing in the Israelis to this discussion.

• 6:42Ed Elson?

  So I agree with you on everything you just said, but after that memorandum was signed, the price of oil went down and it went down to a place that was still higher than where we were before the conflict, but kind of in the same ballpark. Now we're up again. To be clear, we're not close to the highs that we saw in May of over 100. We're kind of approaching 80. The thing that I don't understand is why wasn't, why weren't these points priced in to oil? Why weren't traders acknowledging the fact 22 days ago that this is performative, that none of the key stakeholders are being recognized, but there was still huge potential for uncertainty

• 7:27Ed Elson?

  and risk, which had not been addressed, had not been nailed down. And what do you know? Here we are, we're back to square one. We're striking Iran again. I guess my question, I don't understand how investors, how markets aren't acknowledging all of the points that you're making. Maybe you have a view.

• 7:45Speaker 07

  I do, but Ed, you're the markets guy. Maybe they're, maybe they're not talking to people who actually know the region or geopolitics as much because this was evident, the vast majority of people who've closely tracked the Middle East, the fundamentals just weren't there. And there's a lot of hot air, but I think a lot of the markets these days run on hot air. I mean, to Alan Greenspan, I think said irrational exuberance. I think people get sort of, to use the technical term, high on their own supply. Their wishes and hopes of what might happen here are sort of best case scenario planning. But the reality is, is the structure of the Middle East right now, I wish it weren't this way. It's just not stable.

• 8:28Speaker 07

  And President Trump's approach, which is unpredictable at best, is meeting a region that's unpredictable as well. And when you don't have traditional diplomacy that's trying to quell the risks, which is what we don't have here, you, you have an enormous amount of geopolitical risk that I don't think is priced into the market.

• 8:47Ed Elson?

  If I had to sort of characterize what Mr. Market is thinking right now, and it's always kind of a fool's errand, but we're going to try it anyway. It's something along the lines of. You know, this situation is uncertain, but it's less uncertain than it was a month ago, or maybe a month and a half ago. Things were really bad in May, but now we've kind of reached a little bit of negotiations. We had this memorandum of understanding and likely the Strait of Hormuz is going to be resolved within the next few weeks, within maybe like, certainly won't be in the same place, I don't know, several months from now. If someone said that to you, what would be your response to that?

• 9:29Speaker 07

  I think they were deluding themselves because some basic questions about the war. What's the political end state that Trump is trying to drive for on the key variables? Who rules Iran? Who controls the Strait of Hormuz? What is the status of the nuclear program that was the driver for this military action in part? Those questions actually have not been fully answered. And it's sort of like me going to somebody who analyzes markets and said, have you been really looking at the balance sheets of these companies? Do you really see profit on the horizon here or not? And to me, again, I want the US to succeed and help stabilize the region with our partners. I just don't see a formula

• 10:13Speaker 07

  right now in the policy formulation. You see a lot of sort of actions and zigs and zags, and then a lot of rhetoric, but the actual policy does not lend itself to stability in the region right now.

• 10:26Ed Elson?

  What would be your prediction for how things play out over the next several months? I mean, no one knows, of course, but if you had to make an estimate, how do you think this will unfold at this point?

• 10:38Speaker 07

  It'll probably be this uncomfortable space we've been in essentially since April, when the ceasefire was declared. Neither full-blown regional war, that is a vortex that sucks a number of countries in, but neither a full-blown peace that President Trump was talking about, I don't know, like two, three weeks ago. It'll be in this uncomfortable space. Why? Because the Iranian regime needs some economic relief. And besides these military actions, the big move I think President Trump has made is to block Iran's ability to sell oil on the market. That was the big policy shift here. But there's pain on the US side and the global side as well. So this standoff is essentially in place. My guess is it's

• 11:19Speaker 07

  in this sort of unclear, vague, not full-blown war, not full-blown peace, and then a lot of unpredictability. The risk in all of this is that in any one of these moments, like what's happening this week in terms of tit-for-tat actions, any one of these incidents could actually spiral up into something that is much bigger than what we've even seen before.

• 11:39Ed Elson?

  Is there a world in which we remain in this kind of like uncomfortable conflict bordering on war area? I call it war, but we'll just call it that for now. Is there a world in which the Strait of Hormuz is open and the oil is flowing and we're in a conflict with Iran, but oil isn't a part of that equation? Or is it always going to be kind of the linchpin of the concern and the conflict?

• 12:07Speaker 07

  I think it's going to be the linchpin of the concern in the conflict for the next few years. I mean, for all of our aspirations of having renewable energies, and then also you see what Gulf states in their approach to actually adapt pretty quickly to this new environment to create new pipelines, new ways to get their product out. All of this won't fundamentally deal with the central issue, which is the Strait of Hormuz is a key choke point. On February 27th, it was pretty free and open. Now that's not been the case since February 28th, since the war began. And we're not likely to see that change. So the fundamentals won't change anytime soon, unless there's a major shift

• 12:48Speaker 07

  in how the US and other countries are trying to resolve this issue. Right now, we just have a series of military operations with diplomatic tactics that don't add up to any clear path towards success. So that's the uncertainty we'll have to deal with, whether the market or not realizes it. It's going to take a much different strategy shift on the part of US policy and then partners in the region to bring more clarity to that.

• 13:15Ed Elson?

  All right. Brian Kachalas is Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute. Brian, we appreciate your time.

• 13:20Speaker 07

  Great. Thanks for having me.

• 13:24Ed Elson?

  After the break, has Meta met its big tobacco moment? And for even more markets insights, you can subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Simply Put, at simplyput.profgmedia.com.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  When it comes to AI, there is what we could do and what we should do. What will we decide? I'm Kimberly Nevela, host of the Pondering AI Podcast from SAS. Every episode, I sit down with innovators, researchers, and technologists to consider the questions that come after the AI breakthroughs. Questions that don't have easy answers but need to be asked. If you're curious or concerned about AI, join me as we challenge assumptions and ponder the issues together. Find Pondering AI wherever you get your podcasts.

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• 16:26Ed Elson?

  We're back with Prof G Markets. Meta may be in the midst of its big tobacco moment. Four states are now suing the big tech giant, claiming that its social media platforms harmed teenage users' mental health, and they are seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties, which is more than 90% of Meta's entire market cap. Meta said that the demands are, quote, "untethered from reality," but momentum against the company is building. Nearly 30 states have sued Meta in federal court, and earlier this year, a court in New Mexico ordered the company to pay $375 million for failing to protect young users. Meanwhile,

• 17:08Ed Elson?

  more than 40 countries have banned or are moving to ban social media for children. So far this year, Meta's stock is down 8%, which begs an important question for investors, and that is, are the worst of Meta's legal troubles yet to come? Here to break down these lawsuits and what they mean for Meta's business, we're speaking with Casey Mock, Senior Policy Director for the Anxious Generation Movement. Casey, thanks so much for joining me on the show here. So Meta is being sued, and to be clear, these lawsuits already existed. But Meta comes out and counts up how much they're suing for, and the number is $1.4

• 17:50Ed Elson?

  trillion, which they say is untethered to reality. First, could you just walk us through what the lawsuits are, what they're claiming, and how we got here?

• 17:59Speaker 10

  Thanks so much for having me, Ed. So it's hard to track because there's a lot going on in this area. So there's not only the lawsuits that you're talking about here that are brought by state attorneys general, but there's also the individual plaintiffs who are suing. And we saw a verdict in one of those cases in Los Angeles in March. And then third, there's a group of school districts that are also suing social media companies, including Meta. Now, each of these have different legal theories behind them. Now, the attorneys general are suing on broad themes that the companies have violated sort of consumer protection laws and federal law called COPPA, which requires companies to treat children's data in a certain way. The Los Angeles verdict was about products liability,

• 18:43Speaker 10

  and the school districts are suing on public health nuisance grounds.

• 18:46Ed Elson?

  So when you look at what's happened here, I mean, we've been following the regulation of big tech for a while, and the way that I kind of see it is...

• 18:55Ed Elson?

  Don't hold your breath on anything actually happening. We have seen lawsuits against these companies before, investigations into these companies, but usually it ends up that nothing actually materializes. Do you think this is different? Is this more substantial than before?

• 19:11Speaker 10

  Absolutely, in a number of ways. I think it's a lot like the, you know, old adage about going bankrupt, you know, it happens slowly and then all of a sudden. And what we've been living in is that slowly moment. So I think a few points here. First, the companies themselves know that things are not looking good. They are beginning to settle cases that they picked themselves to go to trial. I mentioned the school districts, for example. The first of those bellwether cases, again, that means that the company selected it as the most optimal case for them to bring to trial, was in Kentucky, and they settled it just a few days before that trial was supposed to start. Just two weeks ago, YouTube settled another lawsuit in Florida. Again, this was one that

• 19:51Speaker 10

  they selected just before it went to trial. So the facts are not looking great. The, the fact that we have so many different whistleblowers and so many internal documents that are so damning that not only do they know what they were doing, but they intentionally kept doing it despite the harm to kids, is causing a huge amount of blowback with the American public, and it's not really a compelling case for juries.

• 20:15Ed Elson?

  When you look at that $1.4 trillion number, which Meta has said is untethered from reality, Meta's spokesperson has said that the, they are outlandish calculations, this is a quote, that have no basis in fact or law. I would assume that's probably them kind of talking their book, but at the same time, it's almost the value of the entire company. So I kind of see where they're coming from, maybe. What do you make of the number itself?

• 20:43Speaker 10

  Is that number going to come down? Almost certainly. Is it untethered from reality? I don't think so. And in fact, I would say that Meta's own math is probably untethered from reality. One of those internal documents that we have, that I alluded to before, said that Meta values a teen's life at roughly $270 per teen. So just let that sink in. For every parent out there, Meta values your teenager's life at $270. And so of course, the math that they do is going to be far lower than that $1 trillion number, but I would disagree that it's untethered from reality.

• 21:18Ed Elson?

  Do you think that ultimately we'll see settlements close to that number? I mean, this is kind of the big question for investors. If indeed it's $1.4 trillion, the company's toast. The markets don't seem to believe that because yes, Meta stock is down, but certainly not down as much as you'd think if that number actually materializes. I mean, what kind of level of settlement are we talking here? And is it something that should really be priced in on Wall Street, do you think?

• 21:46Speaker 10

  It should be priced in. Is it priced in now? I wouldn't think that it is. I think there's two selling points here. Number one is, for Meta in particular, a separate court case that was the same month as the LA verdict that did not make a lot of headlines, was that Meta's insurance company was relieved by a court in Delaware from having to defend them in court, because the court found that Meta's behavior was intentional rather than accidental. So Meta's losses in court are not going to be covered by insurance. They're going to be paying that out of pocket. But second, you know, what we're seeing happen now concurrently with these settlements outside of court to avoid a jury trial, right, to avoid setting any sort of precedent, is that Meta's working the refs. They're going to policymakers and trying to get special

• 22:31Speaker 10

  exceptions beyond those that they've already benefited from for their entire existence written into law, that will actually take away these wins in courts for families. So they're doing this both in Sacramento, as well as in DC. And it's telling that when the jury verdict came in in Los Angeles in March, one of the first meetings that Mark Zuckerberg took in DC was with Speaker Johnson. So Meta is working hard on policymakers because they know that they're losing, and they're going to try to get lawmakers to cave and carve out a further exception for them.

• 23:05Ed Elson?

  Why do you think this is all happening now? Because as you said, it's kind of been like, there's the slowly but suddenly, slowly and then suddenly, excuse me, dynamic. And it appears that this is the suddenly moment. Like, we had that $6 million verdict where it was determined by the jury and then the judge as well, that this woman who said that Instagram and Meta products had a role to play in her depression, and you can argue that or not, but that was the verdict, that yes, Meta had to pay $6 million. Kind of pennies for them, but could be a signal of something larger that's to come. I guess my question is like, why is this all happening now?

• 23:44Ed Elson?

  From a policy perspective, from a legal perspective, why are suddenly courts and judges and juries deciding, no, enough is enough?

• 23:53Speaker 10

  Well, we suddenly have a confluence of different lines of evidence that we didn't really have, that are all, we're all able to connect the dots now in a way that we couldn't maybe five years ago. So there's, you know, the whistleblower evidence that is becoming more of a steady drip, drip, drip than just like one every few years or so. You know, every three or four months, there's, you know, some amazing testimony in the US Congress that reveals some new tidbit about these companies' internal practices. We also have young people speaking out and understanding how these products are impacting them, because they can feel it happening to themselves. And then we finally have parents as well, leading the charge. Like, it started

• 24:33Speaker 10

  with phone-free school laws changing, and parents not only realizing that these technologies are having a negative impact on their kids' education and mental health, but also importantly, that they have agency in having a say in like a different world for their kids. You know, the success of phone-free school policies sweeping the nation, I think, has really taught a lot of people that, who were maybe cynical before, that nothing could be done in the face of these trillion-dollar companies, that actually, if they work together, we can reverse the tide.

• 25:03Ed Elson?

  I mean, it all reminds me, and I'm sure reminds everyone, of big tobacco and what happened to a lot of the large tobacco companies, where they were selling their products and advertising their products to young people in a lot of cases. And then you saw the largest civil settlement in American history in 1998, $26 billion, which was paid for by, or paid by, four tobacco companies over 25 years. It seems like this is that, that if this, if we play this out and, you know, try to model out where this is headed, seems like Meta is going to be paying

• 25:43Ed Elson?

  huge settlements due to its impacts on teenagers, mostly in teenage mental health. Is that the right comparison? Is this what we're about to see, do you think?

• 25:54Speaker 10

  I think you're absolutely right. And what's funny is that the companies themselves see the comparison. Some of the documents that came out in trial, that were internal documents, had company employees likening themselves to drug pushers and to big tobacco. So the companies themselves see the resemblance. And this is some of the most damning evidence that came out at trial. Now, I think, you know, one thing to note, though, is that to the extent that settlements are happening with attorneys general, these are political figures. And so again, this is where working the refs comes into play. The companies are almost certainly going to lobby attorneys general for more of a slap on the rest, which is why that $1.4 trillion amount is so significant. That means that that lobbying is yet to have an effect. Now, you know, investors

• 26:37Speaker 10

  may say that money usually wins in politics, and these companies have a lot of it. Meta in particular, I believe by one calculation, has one lobbyist for every six members of Congress. And, you know, you typically wouldn't want to bet on the underdog there, the underdog being the American people. But I think that elected officials, whether it's attorneys general or governors, see that, you know, this is an issue that polls at at least 80/20 across every demographic, the issue being holding these companies accountable. It doesn't matter if you were rich or poor, white, black, brown, gay, straight, whatever, this is an issue that's impacting every family in America at every kitchen table. And as a policymaker, as an elected official who has to run for office, you would be dumb to not take American family's

• 27:20Speaker 10

  side of this issue. So if I were an investor in the long term, I would bet on that rather than on the money.

• 27:25Ed Elson?

  All right. Casey Mark, Senior Policy Director for the Anxious Generation Movement. Casey, really appreciate your time. Thank you.

• 27:33Speaker 10

  Thanks for having me up.

• 27:38Ed Elson?

  As we end this episode, some quick reflections on what has happened in Iran. The news is that the deal is off, and that's why oil prices are surging once again. But if you've been following this show, well, then you know that we don't even really think of this as news because in our view, there never actually was a deal. The terms were never properly agreed upon. The language was so vague as to be meaningless. And of course, the strikes continued right after they said they were stopping the strike. So for Trump to say that this deal, this thing that never existed, no longer exists. Well, that is, of course, a redundant statement. It doesn't really make any sense.

• 28:22Ed Elson?

  Nevertheless, it was meaningful enough to move markets. Why? Because the markets decided to believe that we had a deal in the first place. And as we've said before, and repeatedly, that was a mistake. So now we're back to square one. We're still in a conflict with Iran. The Strait of Hormuz still remains blocked. And this war that was supposed to last four to five weeks, per the president's own comments, is now entering, wait for it, week 20. And what does this mean for the economy? What does this mean for inflation? Nothing good. According to the IMF, global output is now set to fall to 3% in 2026 because of this conflict.

• 29:07Ed Elson?

  And that's actually lower than their previous projection from April, when things looked really bad in Iran. Meanwhile, global inflation is now projected to rise to 4.7%. Having said that, America is more insulated from the wreckage that we cause overseas, but still not totally insulated. And as a result, prices will continue to rise. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York just released their inflation expectation survey, which showed prices rising another 3.7% over the next 12 months. That's the highest reading in several years. Do I think that will actually happen? Do I think inflation will continue to get worse? Yes, I do.

• 29:51Ed Elson?

  One of the only things working in our favor when it comes to inflation right now is the fact that oil traders continue to be incredibly optimistic about the situation in Iran. They're very quick to price in the good news and very slow to price in the bad news. But as soon as they start to reckon with just how unstable the situation in Iran really is, and just how far from ending this thing we really are, I'm not sure there'll be any room left for optimism. This was and continues to be a catastrophic failure on multiple dimensions. And it's going to take something really meaningful, not a press release, not a memorandum, to change my mind on that.

• 30:36Ed Elson?

  Until then, prices keep rising.

• 30:41Ed Elson?

  Okay, that's it for today. This episode was produced by Claire Miller and Alison Weiss and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our video editor is Brad Williams. Our research team is Dan Chalon, Kristin O'Donoghue, and Mia Silverio. And our social producer is Jake McPherson. Thank you for listening to Prof G Markets from Prof G Media. If you liked what you heard, give us a follow. I'm Ed Elson. Tune in tomorrow for our conversation with Sebastian Malaby.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  When it comes to AI, there is what we could do and what we should do. What will we decide? I'm Kimberly Neville, host of the Pondering AI Podcast from SAS. Every episode, I sit down with innovators, researchers, and technologists to consider the questions that come after the AI breakthroughs, questions that don't have easy answers but need to be asked. If you're curious or concerned about AI, join me as we challenge assumptions and ponder the issues together. Find Pondering AI wherever you get your podcasts.

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