Interesting article. The amazing thing I keep seeing over and over is this bizarre blind faith that it's all about to be over.
All the assumptions, all the planning seems to be constantly around the Strait reopening "in the next week or two" whether that was at the beginning of the war, or now.
All that's happening at the moment is we're deferring the worst of the price shocks based on a hope it'll all be avoided. Instead of the market prices moving higher to reduce demand and use, prices are being artificially kept down which is artificially preserving demand and speeding up the depletion of stocks. That's all based on a bizarre hope that it'll all be over before it comes back to bite us on the arse.
If prices had been allowed to go up, there would certainly be economic consequences. But it'd be more gradual than the now rapidly approaching scenario of a sudden precipice where we go from drawing down stocks to having no stocks left but with the same high level of demand to service. That's a scenario that causes a massive spike in prices and a sudden shutdown of economic activity.
This has been one hell of a gamble, and I don't think it's going to pay off.