If the US population were capable of learning, Republicans wouldn't be elected. Alas, that's not the world we live in. Republican administrations are worse by basically every recordable metric. From job creation to deficit reduction to foreign policy. Every 4-8 years the Democratic party has to be the only adults in the room and clean up the shit Republicans create. Only for it to be turned around and handed back to the shit spreaders.
In the real world, the American resident is suffering deeply.
The fact that things are so bad for the average American when the economy is growing (thanks largely to healthcare and AI investment), makes me shudder at what may happen if those tailwinds slow down, or the existing headwinds (like the impact of the war) strengthen.
"Based on the simulations of our global macroeconomic model, oil prices would only need to average close to $125 per barrel in the second quarter of this year for a recession to ensue soon thereafter, all else equal. And it is not difficult to envisage oil prices increasing to $125 per barrel. It only requires that the conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz last a few weeks longer, say through July 4, or even much sooner, if the combatants increasingly target the region's energy-producing infrastructure."
If Wood Mackenzie is not your cup of tea, lots of other resources with a search of “recession strait of Hormuz” keywords. The only reason we’re not in a global recession yet was because China paused oil imports, due to their >1B barrel strategic reserves.
That forecasts a global recession if "the Strait remains largely closed through the end of 2026."
Even under that scenario, which would emerge after the Strait had been closed for over ten months, the forecaster only sees "US GDP growth" falling "below 1%," i.e. not a recession. (I'm ignoring the fact that the Strait has already been closed for more than 2 months.)
> Oil and gas traffic via the Strait of Hormuz may never go back to pre-war levels if Iran cements its hold over the chokepoint. The warnings come from several unrelated sources as the war continues to drag on, with some recovery in traffic but nowhere near pre-February 28 levels. Meanwhile, Big Oil is warning that the looming supply shortage is about to hit global markets in weeks.
> “No matter what happens, the Iranians will control the Strait of Hormuz for the foreseeable future,” Amos Hochstein, senior national security and energy advisor to President Biden, told CNBC last week. “It doesn’t even matter what the deal says. Everybody in the region believes that.”
> While the negotiations drag on, expectations that Iran will remain in de facto charge of the Strait of Hormuz appear to be strengthening. “Any end to the conflict that leaves Iran exercising operational control and influence over the Strait will result in appreciably lower flows through the waterway in our view,” RBC Capital Markets’ Helima Croft said in a recent note, as quoted by CNBC.
I agree the US goes full recession as soon as the confidence falls out from under the AI bubble and all of this investment leading to GDP growth ends, but I also don’t believe the US economy (even assuming reduced GDP to energy correlation over the last two decades) can sustain growth and will lead to contraction with oil prices at or above the $150-$200/barrel price band if persistent. The below prediction predicts a near term (July) recession call at less than $100/barrel.
One side is responsible for the "pax Americana" (but everyone here was born into the time period and so doesn't realize how exceptionally peaceful it is)
One side is responsible for at least 20.000 but more likely 60.000 Iranian deaths, just this year (and everybody seems to be worried about the other side's "warcrimes")
Not having big issues to figure out between these 2 who is the good guy ...
The U.S. will almost certainly be responsible for an order of magnitude more deaths with the incredible costs that they’ve placed on the whole world just through the higher cost of oil.
And we haven’t even gotten to the impacts of fertilizer shortages during growing season.
And either way, how is replacing the leader of a terrible regime, with his even more hardline son, help with the killing in any ways?
The pro Democracy forces in Iran have been completely discredited and the one best opportunity they would have had to reclaim their country, during what was likely to be a contested transfer of power if the 80+ year old Ayatollah had passed naturally, has been lost. Instead the U.S. allowed the Iranian regime to transfer power without any challenges, transfer power to a guy who is the son of the old Ayatollah and even more close aligned with the IRGC, and has destroyed the pro-Democracy bases in Iran while strengthening the orthodoxy because the U.S. has been blowing up cities, where the anti-regime forces live, while the rural areas, where the regime’s supporters live, have been largely untouched.
You seem to be implying that the Israeli strike targeted or harmed dissident prisoners, rather than regime targets. The article doesn't say that. It says there was some "panic" about a damaged ceiling, "although they did not report any injuries". It also mentions some hearsay about "injuries to several men", with no further details like who said that or who the men were.
It seems pretty clear that Israel struck regime targets, and at worst there was relatively minor collateral damage (still unclear), which is a risk with just about any strike.
"When you are in prison, it becomes your home. When I heard this morning that Evin prison was bombed, I felt a sharp pain in my heart. When I was released, I left a piece of my heart there."
Oh, I’ve read it. Including this gem:
"When you are in prison, it becomes your home. When I heard this morning that Evin prison was bombed, I felt a sharp pain in my heart. When I was released, I left a piece of my heart there."
Racism really makes people dumb.
For those playing along at home, this is a quote from someone who was thankfully released prior to the bombing (in 2022), who is worried for the people still in there. I'm sure you missed this sentence which was hidden literally right above it?
> Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman who was imprisoned for years at Evin, told the BBC she felt "sick" with concern following the strike.
> One side is responsible for the "pax Americana" (but everyone here was born into the time period and so doesn't realize how exceptionally peaceful it is)
The Pax Americana is great, but given America was one of the countries to start this war, I don't know how much credit they can get for something they just ended.
I'm not making this up to make excuses for the US' behavior. Pax Britannica and Pax Romana weren't entirely peaceful either. Pax Romana had an unusual absence of civil war, but near-constant conflict at the edges of the empire. Pax Britannica refers to the absence of wars between great powers, but did have some brutal colonial conflict - the Opium wars, scramble for Africa, etc. Pax Americana has been very peaceful compared to WW1 and 2.
> Iran wasn't exactly peaceful before February and attacked shipping regularly before then too. Oh and they attacked their own people, foreign nationals, Iranians abroad, and committed terror attacks abroad.
None of the nations involved in this fight have been peaceful. That's why I'm talking about just this specific war.
> I find declaring the Pax Americana dead somewhat premature.
If America wins, then yeah, probably it'll limp on. If America loses, and Iran gets to dictate terms in the Strait of Hormuz, then I'm not sure how long it will last before other nations follow suit.
> None of the nations involved in this fight have been peaceful. That's why I'm talking about just this specific war.
Only if you take the 5 year old's definition of peaceful (ie. "not attacking")
Any reasonable moral position will of course mean that doing nothing, even if that means not attacking, is not necessarily a peaceful position. Nor is an attack necessarily not peaceful. For example, how Europe treated Ukraine before and during the war with Russia can easily be argued is not peaceful, it's helping the war criminal and it obviously did not lead to peace. The most generous interpretation you can make is that Europe was funding war. Only an idiot would call that a peaceful attitude. And for another example, what you wrote.
> ... then I'm not sure how long it will last before other nations follow suit.
Strange how you say the US is not peaceful, immediately followed by an argument why US's attack not only leads to peace, but the "non-attacking" nation must be defeated for peace. Which I'm sure we'll agree requires more violence. In fact your argument that Iran "defending itself" leads directly to a bigger war is accurate, I think.
Iran is basically fighting for a resumption of most parts, especially the bad parts, of colonialism (one definition of colonialism would be "taxing foreign nations" after all. I like that definition because a US audience will immediately realize why that leads to war)
That's the moral difficulty here: If the US wins, the west will be at peace with Iran. If Iran wins, war may very well be inevitable. In fact, war with a great many countries may be inevitable (Indonesia has already announced they want to tax the Malacca strait, and China has responded exactly the way you'd expect)
But yes at this point you have the ridiculous soundbite: "war is peace". The irony of that slogan, of course, is that it comes from 1984, as an example of "doublethink" which was George Orwell criticizing communism and totalitarianism. But the slogan is always used to defend totalitarian states, usually ones on the warpath.
> Only if you take the 5 year old's definition of peaceful (ie. "not attacking")
I'm not sure what definition of "peaceful" you're going with here, if it includes any of the US, Iran, or Israel, prior to the start of this war. I guess I'm not as sophisticated as you.
> Strange how you say the US is not peaceful, immediately followed by an argument why US's attack not only leads to peace, but the "non-attacking" nation must be defeated for peace. Which I'm sure we'll agree requires more violence. In fact your argument that Iran "defending itself" leads directly to a bigger war is accurate, I think.
I'm not sure why you think that's strange. There was a status quo: Iran lets ships through the Strait of Hormuz. It works well enough. Then the US attacked, and that status quo is gone. If the US ends this war without re-establishing the status quo, then the world will be worse for everyone, and other nations bordering critical shipping lanes will be encouraged to follow suit.
So it's better for everybody if the US wins. But the US doesn't have much leverage to do so, and so the situation is: the US started a war that it didn't need to start, but can't easily win. The foreign policies that built the Pax Americana have been abandoned.
> I'm not sure why you think that's strange. There was a status quo: Iran lets ships through the Strait of Hormuz. It works well enough. Then the US attacked, and that status quo is gone. If the US ends this war without re-establishing the status quo, then the world will be worse for everyone, and other nations bordering critical shipping lanes will be encouraged to follow suit.
There was no status quo, there's just people looking (now, after the fact) for an obvious party to blame for the bucket flowing over. Status quo is just a war that's on pause rather than resolved.
The Iran war is a case of "the drop that overflowed the bucket". There was "peace" because Iran believed it could not win, while Iran's army was strengthening and becoming more extreme constantly. The water level in the bucket was rising, in other words, because of what Iran did. Now I can agree that Trump added a big fucking drop into that bucket (unless he wins, in which case he dropped the water level by A LOT. So to some small extent the jury's still out)
If you look at Iran's economy (which is all that matters), even before the war, the only option for Iran is a big external cash injection, and they are in total desperation since at least April 2025. That's what the IRGC is fighting for. That's the only way to end this war (because without that cash injection the Iranian population will keep attacking the IRGC. They have no choice but to continue attacking).
Oh, and oil is on it's way out, so this will not be the last war in the middle east. China refused the very obvious and cheap fix to their oil problems Putin was offering. They don't think they will still need oil soon.
And yes, people are desperate to look moral, and specifically to make doing nothing look moral. So we all blame the US and Trump. Great, and I don't like Trump either, but that's the sum total of the depth of that argument.
> There was no status quo, there's just people looking (now, after the fact) for an obvious party to blame for the bucket flowing over. Status quo is just a war that's on pause rather than resolved.
Status quo is a shipping lane that's been open since the 1980s.
> So we all blame the US and Trump. Great, and I don't like Trump either, but that's the sum total of the depth of that argument.
You think the only argument against starting a war you're not ready to prosecute, doing it badly, disrupting the oil market for months, and potentially encouraging nations all over the world to start tolling international trade... is "Trump Bad"? I guess you were right, I really am the idiot in this conversation.
> Status quo is a shipping lane that's been open since the 1980s.
Yes, people are incredibly bad at recognizing that something that must change, will change, and instead simply refuse to accept reality. Also see Climate Change. Also see your comment.
It is at this point a certainty that the AMOC (includes the Gulfstream) will shut down, effectively in about 20 years. Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and others WILL be uninhabitable by the turn of the century, plus equatorial countries, for the reverse reason. This has happened, as in this is in the past, even though most of the actual cooling is only starting. Maybe it's just me, but are you seeing anyone reacting?
There are other massive events that are at this point in the past. The Ganges valley (including the entirety of Bangladesh) has dried up, in addition to water level rise that will drown the major cities. So Bangladesh and quite a bit of India is fucked in both ways: it'll both dry up and flood. At almost the same time. Are they, or anyone, adapting?
> You think the only argument against starting a war you're not ready to prosecute, doing it badly,
Given that those consequences were unavoidable at some point, I see the logic of picking the best time to strike and striking, yes. As I said, the only solution for Iran's economy at the moment is a very large cash injection (ie. large amounts of goods from outside the country that aren't paid for). Either that happens, or it'll collapse to the point it cannot feed Iranians anymore. The timing of this war was determined by sanctions (and thus mostly by Europeans), not by the US attack.
> One side is responsible for at least 20.000 but more likely 60.000 Iranian deaths, just this year (and everybody seems to be worried about the other side's "warcrimes")
We could be glib: when actually reading through that page, it's pretty obvious that the Iranian revolution was a leftist revolution (and Moscow was supporting a side, the side that "won"). But was anyone really expecting leftists to take responsibility for the consequences of what they did?
Oh and it was Britain that was supporting the Shah. The US was involved, mostly to counter the KGB, but not much at all. I totally don't understand why Britain gets a free pass.
And you'd think communists would stop supporting the mullahs, especially after the killings. You'd be wrong:
Sometimes one gets the impression the left now is reduced to ... well. Iran's government massacres protestors, tortures women, represses it's own people, has committed genocides and tries actively to commit more genocides, attacks and murders innocent people outside of Iran and makes weapons for Moscow.
Leftists, at least the ones on online fora, care about exactly 1 of those things.
The world wasn't exactly a kind place before Pax Americana. If you check the stats, the American era does pretty well for peace and prosperity, and it's not realistic to expect the Americans would oversee a conflict-free utopia.
So in other words, while America is starting the most wars, it somehow gets credit for the hypothetical wars that weren't started? The assumption being that the natural state of the world is to have a world war every few years?
The norm of human history is constant wars, extreme repression, and genocide, yes.
Oh, and levels of taxation even Karl Marx would immediately agree are theft. In fact, ending the pre-pax-Americana period is what the manifesto is about. (the period stupidly referred to as "modern times", where the rich aren't fighting over who gets to mars first, but massacring poor people to gain a few square kilometers of land, which ironically Soviets know all about)
I get that that's hard to see for anyone born far enough away from the beginning of the pax Americana, ie. let's say 5-10 years after world war 2 but that's really how things work.
And that means that you just won't believe the consequences of any real victory against the US either: a return to the norm. If Iran wins, immediately, 50 genocides will start. Not just in Iran. Global trade will freeze 90%, not just oil. Inequality will explode worldwide. And that's just the start. In a way, that's what Iran is fighting for.
It's interesting to see the kind of nonsensical, evidence-free ideological statements that some people use to hand wave away decades of horrifying US perpetrated atrocities.
Ignore the genocide the US is engaged in right now, if it loses the war it started with Iran there will be 50 hypothetical genocides that I made up! Why stop at 50? Maybe there will be 500 or 5,000 genocides! If not for the benevolence of the US, we'd be having another world war every 2-3 years. It just stands to reason I suppose.
Since you've successfully moved into the blatantly absurd, how about I just let Captain Darling and General Melchett explain how the period before the Pax Americana worked. First, WHAT the rich were fighting over:
My grandfather explained this in much harsher terms to me (he's dead now, even though he got past 100 years), with explicit mention of which of 2 options is the better one: killing 100 people in your own city or returning to this situation again. He was a baby at the end of WW1 and lived through (with kids of his own) WW2.
(but even that beats how Iran's islamic government treats it's own citizens. Did you know primary school children make excellent demining equipment, and on top of that make very cheap poison gas detectors? The islamic mullahs sure do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_key_to_paradise )
Ah yeah the US would never demand young volunteers to be fed to the meat grinder
They would compel them, by law, to be fed to the meat grinder. And not to defend their homeland, but to murder civilians in another hemisphere, and apparently i must remind you, TO THE TUNE OF 4,500,000 DEAD CIVILIANS IN KOREA AND VIETNAM ALONE.
I've a friend up the coast, nearly 100 now, a ham operator who used to relay space shuttle calls, former operator in PNG, British soldier during the Mau-Mau uprising.
Back in the day, during WWII, he was defusing bombs and mines while a young boy scout.
I'm fine with Pax Americana, even if you call it American imperialism, but this whole involvement with Israel and its problems is not in our interest. It's abundantly clear that we have traitors in our government working for another country. Sure Iran has a terrible regime, not supposed to be our problem though.
Not the first time I've seen this absurd "I'm fine with American imperialism" take on here. You must realize that if Iran is such as it is now, it's purely a reaction to the authoritarian regime of the Shah previously used to further American interests, and then to the sanctions imposed on the nation. Those 30K protesters that were murdered are a direct consequence of American imperialism. It's like suffocating someone for decades and then criticizing how they breath. And same goes for Cuba, Venezuela, etc.
The situation can't improve while the USA are doing everything they can to antagonize these places, isolate them, alienate them from their neighbors. Seeing ruthless authoritarians prevail there is completely expected.
Was Reza Shah any better? He was overthrown by WW2 Allies, mainly UK and USSR. Anyway I wouldn't put it past the US to have messed up Iran during the coup against the PM, but in that case it's the Israeli control I was complaining about. Anything we do in that region is probably not in our own interest.
But Cuba and Venezuela govts deserved what they got, and it was plenty of our business being in our backyard.
This sounds so incredible ... do you seriously believe that?
"it's purely a reaction to the authoritarian regime of the Shah previously used to further American interests"
Seriously? THAT is what you think Khomeini wanted and his grandson or whoever wants now?
"And same goes for Cuba, Venezuela, etc."
Oh, you're a "communism really only ever wanted good things for it's people, and it's America's fault they started shooting their own citizens" ... got it.
people are missing the 3rd actor in this trifecta/shit sandwich - Israel. Its the intentional bad faith actor who'll do whatever it takes to sink any peace talks - including genocide/invading Lebanon etc etc etc.
Lesson learnt? I don't think so. The ones responsible are the most insulated from the consequences of their actions, which is why they're doing all of this in the first place. It's the rest of us who're paying the price.
In the meantime, it’s a bonanza for American energy and defence interests.
It will have to be in orde to finance your new integration of the IDF as a 'Permanent pillar of U. S. military modernization' as per section 224 of the 2027 NDAA.
I'm worried that war being "a bonanza for American energy and defence interests" is the thing people learned and a direct cause of this current war starting and it not cleanly ending.
The constant vaccilating between peace deal being done and being non-existent could just be put down to having a sociopathic liar with no guardrails in charge, but it could also be the same sociopath and his family activley profiting from the war via "insider trading" on the 180 degree turns in the reporting.
I believe that there are powerful elements in the USA that are happy with the Strait being closed. This is rewarding oil producers and processors in red states while hurting blue California proportionally more.
Also, it appears that Trump enjoys any actions that hurt allies more than they hurt him. He's waiting for someone who cares more about the Strait to devote their resources to sorting this out.
All noise to the contrary is lip-service and market manipulation.
"He's out of line, but he's right": while Iran are an extremely bad actor, before Trump the situation was stable. And the start of conventional hostilities was clearly from the US+Israel side.
(open question as to how much the October 2023 attack is the fault of Iran, specifically?)
There were negotiations before it all started and people seem to have missed or forgotten the claim that Iran mentioned having material to create 11 nukes during this. When this first came out all the news reported there was no evidence Iran had that, but now their refined uranium isn't really in question.
Also during this one of their missiles hit a target 4000 kilometers away, much further than they were claiming they had. That's far enough to hit Europe if it had gone in the other direction.
To me it's looking like the stability was an illusion.
It was also reported that all US intelligence agencies denied that Iran was making a nuke.
It was also reported that during negotiations before this war, Iran had offered 100% of all nuclear material to be surrendered to the USA, to prevent a war.
Also, Marco Rubio said directly that Israel was going to strike anyway, and that we had to respond. He later “clarified” that it was. 100% Trumps call.
So - if the stability was an illusion, it’s because Trump and Israel are unstable, right?
Israel was successfully defanging Iran's terror programs. That's in fact the entire reason this war exists. It was Israel's plan. This is all their retaliation for Oct 7th.
So why the hell are we there? We didn't build a coalition. We didn't really justify our involvement. Trump and Trump supporters insisted on isolationism, pulling back from being the world police, ignoring even heinous invasions like Ukraine to save a few pennies, but suddenly Iran has insulted us through its existence for far too long?
Bullshit.
Keep in mind, Iran was likely to evolve in some way in the next few decades as a result of their impending water crisis. Waiting for a better opportunity would have been the smart choice.
"Most people", meaning "most people in your social circles" presumably - because that's certainly not the case where I am, and I'd like to see some polling data before considering that it's the case globally. I seriously doubt it.
Maybe the point of the Iran war was to boost the US economy, relative to East Asia, which is dependent on Middle Eastern oil and gas, while the US is an exporter.
I mean look who benefits from this, arms companies and oil/gas companies are having a bonanza.
The point was to stop oil trades of "petro non-dollars", just like Venezuela.
If countries start getting away with selling oil in other currencies, then they wouldn't funnel back all these vasts amounts of dollars into the S&P 500 and the American economy would collapse.
And the Russian sanctions that pushed nearly all Russian oil into yuan, or the current US president telling India to trade with Russia in direct currency contracts?
Iran hasn’t been dollar denominated for decades at this point, they wish they could be! It would make their oil more valuable.
Well Iran is letting ships through if they trade in petro-non-dollars (mostly yuan) and pay a fee, and the American blockade also lets those through if they're not coming from Iran itself. At this point the cheapest oil is the oil bought in yuan. Massive own goal there.
OMG. I'm 77 years old, I finally read it three years ago and was astounded: it's incomprehensibly great — unimaginable that a human could have written it. Side-splittingly funny, deeply original, insightful and instructive. Written/published in 1871/1872; if it appeared today it would rocket to the top of the bestseller list.
Guernica shocked the world. It was the start of aerial bombardment of civilians, something which we have sadly normalised since WW2. but which I regard as terrorism.
Picasso also painted another great work titled "Korea" in the same vein.
War is an abomination, something we should all fight against.
There was this new theory at the dawn of air warfare called "Strategic Bombing", one of its main advocates was Giulio Dohet. The idea was that aircrafts could get behind the frontlines and bomb vital centers (civilians and production) freely. Hypothetically the morale would collapse, and lead quickly to surrendering. He even calculated that 300 tons of bombs per city over the most important cities would be enough to end a war in less than a month.
This theory couldn't be tested until late 1930's, when everyone was trying variations on the "technique", adding things like explosives, incendiary, gas... and escalating the amount of bombs needed to cause the mythical collapse. I think the record was 5 million tons of bombs over Vietnam (170 kg of bombs per capita), still the collapse didn't happen.
England and US carries the crown of the barbarism on this subject. And now the state of Israel. Check for names Frederick Lindemann, Arthur "Bomber" Harris and
Sir Hugh Trenchard
London, Bristol, Southampton, Coventry and various other English cities were heavily bombed by Germany before the UK's major bomber offensive on Germany.
> I think the record was 5 million tons of bombs over Vietnam (170 kg of bombs per capita), still the collapse didn't happen.
Unsure about the tonnage, but the parallels to current events [1] and the illusion that a bombing campaign will suffice to end a war in a matter of weeks is rather eerie to me.
I am spanish and I know the details better than you I presume.
Guernica was in many ways something both the british and republicans made stand out for propaganda.
There have been far worse things in the spanish civil wars.
For example Cabra was bombed in a day of market with the intention of killing and without being any kind of strategic strategic objective, way further than Guernica from other objectives and with more dead civilians actually.
>with the intention of killing and without being any kind of strategic strategic objective
Wikipedia says "The airstrike was carried out in the mistaken belief that Italian mechanized troops were stationed in the village. Once over the target, the pilots mistook the market's awnings for military tents." (Carlos Saiz Cidoncha, 2006)
> It was the start of aerial bombardment of civilians
It had already started way before, right when armed forces started using planes, in WW1. (I was thinking even earlier, in Libya during the Italo-Turkish war of 1911, but I haven't found confirmation in a quick search)
It was wrong, and yes would likely be seen as genocidal in the current day, rightly so. You can't just randomly kill innocent civilians, no matter what. It didn't even meaningfully accelerate the end of the war.
Was it wrong though? How many US troops should we sacrifice to save one enemy civilian? In other words, if you were President Roosevelt or Truman then how do you morally justify not doing everything possible to shorten the war by even one day? How do you tell a US family that their son had to die so that the US government could avoid randomly killing innocent civilians?
It's cheap and easy to pretend to be morally superior when you're not the one forced to make hard choices based on limited information, and then deal with the consequences.
The original Pentiums (socket 4, 60 or 66 MHz) had the infamous floating point division bug, had underwhelming perf for anything not FP bound (most things), ran hot, and were too expensive for what you got. A DX/4 100 was nearly always a more rational choice.
Second gen Pentiums, starting with the 75 MHz, were great.
I had a P60 that had the F0 0F bug; Windows would crash for weird reasons on it, but Linux ran like a champ because it actually had a workaround. Luckily my chip was already recalled for the FDIV bug so it wasn't a total boat anchor. Loved that machine. I had BeOS, QNX, and one time I made Linux look like Solaris with all the Open Look stuff - really enjoyed that aesthetic.
Now we have these amazing displays and graphics cards and there's literally no way to make my Mac have different window titlebars or anything. So boring
Actually the first generation Socket 4 Pentiums (60 and 66 MHz) had the FOOF bug (and yes, they were bad processors — but overall system architecture with the very first PCI bus implementation with ISA legacy rather than ISA and a single VESA Local Bud expansion) was a huge step forward compared to the 486.
The FOOF bug was actually discovered on the first step of the later 90 MHz Pentium (which was released with the 100 MHz Pentium, which also suffered from the bug). However this was corrected with a hardware stepping. The 75 MHz Pentium was actually released as part of this later stepping, and it was a binned 90/100 MHz part. There were no first step 75 MHz Pentiums.
We had a 90 overclocked to 100Mhz that served as the family computer, I inherited from it when the family computer was upgraded to a K6 II and it chugged along as my personal computer until ~2001 thanks to Linux whike the Ghz barrier had been broken for a while already in the Intel world.
I think my next computer came with an AMD Duron 900Mhz, an entry level at the time but the jump from the pentium 100Mhz was such a huge gap it still felt like a formula 1.
To be more exact, I think the first great Pentium was the 133, but the 75 is the first that was a real, proper jump in performance from a fast 486 and represented decent price/performance.
It didn't help that the earliest P5 Pentiums ran on a 5V rail. Newer revisions starting with the P54 core used 3.3V and helped with keeping the chips cool.
I think from the price people also expect a similar performance boost as going from 386 to 486. What made Pentium also confusing is that during this time Intel introduced PCI.
From a 486 with VLB to a Pentium with PCI everything became a lot nicer.
They ran on 5V supplies and it was only later that the whole architecture was changed to 3.3 V with the 90 and 100 MHz Pentiums (which were then discovered to have the infamous FOOF division bug).
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