🔮 "We are Already in World War III:" Internet Chicken who Predicted Mark Carney’s Upset Win

PLUS: Gold to $20k? Crypto mega pump, and Ukraine's sudden collapse

Doomberg is a pseudonymous team of former commodities executives who, under the iconic green chicken avatar, publish one of the most popular Substacks on energy, finance, and geopolitics. Speaking to The Oracle, Doomberg explained how understanding energy markets gives an edge in predicting geopolitical events, and why he believes we're already in World War III.

This interview has been edited for length. All answers are Doomberg's own.

How does your background in energy shape your forecasting?

Much of geopolitics begins and ends with energy. The oil and gas markets are very deep, very liquid, very sophisticated. You can see how they're behaving and say "the oil markets don't believe X is going to happen."

Take the 12-day war between Iran and Israel. Polymarket had the Strait of Hormuz closure trading at various levels. But I track two key pair trades: landed LNG in Europe versus Brent crude, and WTI versus Brent. If the markets truly believed Iran would close the strait, we'd have seen huge divergences in that spread.

But the pairs stayed tight, showing that the market was completely discounting escalation. With this knowledge, you could have easily shorted the Strait of Hormuz closure contract on Polymarket.

We're publishing a premium tier presentation today (Friday) called 'Lateral Thinking: An Inside Look at One of Our Most Important Tools of Analysis,' where we break down how we made calls like this, using energy markets to see through the propaganda."

You’ve said that we are already in World War III, that all of these ongoing geopolitical flashpoints are part of one larger conflict.

World War III is a fight over the dollar and the global financial system. It's an existential battle between the Western financial system and the BRICS countries over how international trade is settled.

For decades, US Treasuries were the dominant neutral reserve asset for settling trade. But starting in 2014 when Putin began selling US Treasuries and putting excess profits into gold, and China opened the Shanghai Gold Exchange, they created an alternative, settling international oil trade using gold instead of Treasuries.

They did this because the neutrality of US Treasuries was destroyed. First in 2014 after Crimea, when sanctions started rolling out against Russia and China. Then in 2022, Biden made what I consider a catastrophic decision: not just sanctioning Russia, but seizing Russian assets. When you seize property, you destroy trust in your system as a neutral place to park reserves.

The only viable neutral reserve asset left on the board is gold. It's no coincidence gold has been on a straight line up since 2014.

What does the energy lens say about WWIII and who is winning?

This isn't about energy itself. The US is an energy gigapower. It's more about how imbalances from the energy trade are settled. Russia was a dominant energy exporter that stopped using US Treasuries as reserve assets. That precedent is what the US couldn't tolerate.

Energy trade creates massive flows of capital that need to be parked somewhere. Historically, that's been US Treasuries, which is how the US grew its enormous debt and why US manufacturing had to be hollowed out. The dollar is artificially strong because of this demand for treasuries.

Who is winning? NATO is losing. The winner will be a new system with gold at its center. Ukraine is just one battle. It's no surprise Brazil, India, China, and Russia are targets of both hot wars and trade wars. They're all moving away from the dollar system.

When Ukraine falls, and wars of attrition tend to end suddenly, that will be the domino causing everything else to fall quickly. European governments would be at greater risk of collapse, and the whole EU's reason for existence goes away.

What about the “Mar-a-Lago accord?” I thought Trump was all about weakening the dollar.

It’s important to differentiate between the dollar’s strength as a currency and the role of US Treasuries, which Trump needs to preserve. Trump can't make America great again unless he radically devalues the US dollar. Not against other currencies, but against gold. I think the US might revalue its gold holdings from $42 an ounce to the current market price, or even as high as $20,000 an ounce. That would free up enormous breathing room for the Treasury.

The plan seems to be: close the deficit gap with tariffs, weaken the dollar, and bridge it with yield curve control. Very bullish for stocks, Bitcoin, and gold. But it represents a fundamental reshaping of the global financial order that has existed since the 1970s.

Trump threatened massive tariffs on China, as much as 200-300%, but then backed down. Is there some grand strategy here? Or just ad hoc deal making?

Trump regularly bluffs when he doesn't have escalation dominance. China showed escalation dominance with rare earths. Had Trump not backed down, the US auto sector would have shut down. China was willing to let that happen to prove their point.

The market on where China tariffs will be in November, 60% chance of being in the 25-40% range seems about right. Trump can set tariffs as an economic decision, but can't use them as a geopolitical weapon against countries where he lacks leverage, China, India, Brazil, Russia.

Another part of this is Trump’s pressure on the Fed to cut rates and his attempt to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook.

I think the market is just pricing timing issues. I can't imagine a world where the President fires you on Truth Social and that isn't eventually the outcome.

Powell is different. The Department of Justice is investigating him criminally over the Fed building refurbishment. This is lawfare. The whole point is to cut short-term rates and implement yield curve control. They won't call it that, but that's what Trump thinks is needed.

Speaking of lawfare, you have an axiom about arresting former presidents...

Once a country starts arresting former presidents, it's really hard to stop. The US started in 2023. If there is a threat of arrest, presidents won’t want to give up power unless it's to a trusted person.

Would I be bullish on charges against political figures? Adam Schiff, John Bolton, Obama? The genie is out of the bottle. There's a book called Three Felonies a Day. In the US legal system, most US professionals unknowingly commit multiple felonies daily. If any president wants to charge political opponents, they can always find a reason.

Let’s jump to Ukraine. You have been bearish about Ukraine’s position. How do you see it playing out?

Wars of attrition tend to end suddenly. If Russia triggers a political crisis and breakthrough by year-end, things could go quickly. I follow the frontlines using open-source intelligence and multiple different sources. But it would be misleading to think that Russian territorial gains are what it wants in all locations. It’s clear that Russia is keeping certain areas open as killing fields

One of these areas is Pokrovsk. If you read the Russian propaganda, they're keeping that cauldron open and allowing Ukraine to send its best brigades in there to ‘stabilize the line’ as a way to create a killing field, because it's a war of attrition.

But what I don’t think is fully priced in is what happens in Europe after Ukraine collapses. It will start to take down European governments with it. Look at these odds: Von der Leyen out at 9%, Mertz at 5%, these seem like flyers to me. Starmer out at 13% is shockingly low. His government is on the cusp of collapse. Britain itself is on the cusp of collapse.

Once the war is lost, the EU's reason for existence dissipates. Brussels is already at war with Hungary. There's a project to do regime change in Hungary, which is odd for an EU member state.

In Canada, you called Mark Carney defeating Poilievre when he was a massive underdog. How did you see that coming?

We wrote a piece in early December called "Alberta Clipper" where we laid out this whole thesis. The axiom was: Trump wanted Carney to win and would work with Canadian power brokers to do it. Carney is the "Nixon going to China" of Canadian climate policy. Only a climate purist can undo climate regulations with cover from "Orange Man Bad" and tariff threats.

When Trump dumped on the Conservative candidate who was then trading at 93%, we knew the fix was in. So the follow-up piece to Alberta Clipper was literally called "The Fix Is In." We put it all out there under our masthead. There's no escaping when we get it wrong, so we may as well take the lap when we get it right.

Ready for some rapid fire polymarkets?

• Venezuela military action by October (16%): I’d take the over. The cavalry of oil supermajors has assembled in Guyana, and Venezuela has the world's largest hydrocarbon resources.

• US Anti-cartel operations on foreign soil (19%): This is fairly priced. It'll be disguised as drug operations but really about oil and gas.

• Middle East Leaders Out of Power in 2025: Khamenei (19%) vs Netanyahu (11%). I would flip these. Israel is in a very precarious situation right now after they failed to quickly decapitate Iran. As soon as the 12 day war started, we immediately deduced that the war had to be over very soon, because if Iranian missiles were still getting through on day three and day four and day five, Israel has lost the war. On Khamenei, I wouldn’t short that. There are a lot of ways people can leave office, so I think shorting that is a fool's game. So I wouldn't short a 19% contract where I could have multiples of upside loss, but I'd be a buyer of ‘Netanyahu out’ at 11 cents.

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