A tumultuous week draws to an end with Wall Street in as much disarray as is the Gulf Coast of Northwest Florida. Trump deals with it by entertaining Kanye West, or should I say entertained by Kanye, and signing a ceremonial Music Modernization Act into law that would allow guys like Kanye and Kid Rock to reap even more profits off their music. Can't let all that good music be so easily listened to on Spotify and other on-line streaming services. How is Kanye going to justify his Yeezy brand without record sales?
Trump found time to assure us that what is going on with the markets is just a "correction." Nothing to worry about. The Dow lost 5 percent of its value over the last two days. This after seeing Apple and Amazon become the first trillion dollar companies just last week. Of course, this historic Bull run has to come to an end sometime. We had a forewarning in Spring, and now it tumbles once again after regaining its losses over the summer. It's not just the Dow, but stocks worldwide took a big hit the last two days.
For many this brings back memories of 2008 when leading economists kept telling us it was just a correction. Things will get better. I suppose in one sense they were right, we got a Democratic president who could better manage the economy than had his Republican predecessor, but it took him the better part of 8 years to get things under control.
If we're lucky, this market downturn might signal to voters to support Democratic candidates in the midterms and end the Republican rule in the House, which has stretched on long enough. These morons just passed a $3.8 trillion tax cut bill, to add to the $1.5 tril in tax cuts they approved last December. They will probably try to strap it onto budget reconciliation like they did last year so that the Senate can vote for it on simply majority. This would permanently hamstring any Democratic Congress from taking the necessary measures to ease the looming economic crisis, as it did in 2009 with the Recovery Act. If I didn't know better, I would think the Republicans are trying to bankrupt the country.
This means Northwest Florida will probably see little in the way of federal relief as there simply won't be the money to provide for it. FEMA is already stretched with Hurricane Florence, and we all know the sad fate of Puerto Rico. Who cares about the "Redneck Riviera?"
I do because I grew up along that coast and am very much familiar with Panama City Beach, Mexico Beach and Apalachicola. I would pass through those coastal communities on my way from Santa Rosa Beach to Gainesville and back when I was going to the University of Florida. Apalachicola was truly Old Florida, as hard as that is to imagine with all the palm tree and bikini-laden images we see on television of South Florida. It was in this little hamlet that the first air conditioner was invented before Carrier cribbed the idea. You can still visit the Gorrie House, where the good doctor came up with a primitive refrigeration system to ease the suffering of his yellow fever patients in the 1840s.
Hurricane Michael sure packed a wallop, with winds close to Category 5 level, fed by the unusually warm waters of the gulf. Like so many oceans, gulfs and seas around the world, the Gulf of Mexico is warmer than usual, which now prolongs the hurricane season well into October. But, sssssh, don't tell anyone it's global warming.
The chaos on Wall Street is indicative of the chaos throughout the country and indeed around the world these days. No one seems to know what the fuck is going on, especially when a Saudi journalist simply disappears after paying a visit to his own consulate in Istanbul. Fingers point to the maniacal crowned prince, who has assumed control of the oil sheikdom and is trying to rub out dissent in Saudi Arabia, even if it means extralegal activities like kidnapping a muckraking journalist for the Washington Post in Turkey and presumably feeding him to the crocodiles.
Trump says we don't need to overact here. The Saudis bought $110 billion worth of arms from us, and will buy more. You know how many jobs that is? It is as Prince Mohammed bin Salman says, he has Jared in his pocket, and in turn Donald. Mind you, Jared is the "hidden genius" Nikki Haley was telling us about, who is going to bring peace to the Middle East.
What we have now is a nexus of bad guys as nasty and mean-tempered as in any James Bond movie, stretching from Moscow to Beijing to Riyadh, who will do anything to gain control of the global markets and drive down the dollar so that they can introduce a new competitive currency. BRIC, an economic alliance of Brazil, Russia, India and China, has been courting Saudi Arabia for years, along with other countries like Turkey, Argentina and South Africa, with the expressed aim of building a global shared market that would compete directly with the US and EU. No one country is big enough on its own, but together they would easily rival the two largest economies in the world.
The idea behind the TPP was to create a trade partnership in the Pacific Rim that would counter China and eventually BRIC, should it ever come together on the scale Putin imagines. He's the Blofeld in this James Bond scenario, although Xi might beg to differ as China is the one with the cash behind this project. So, if you thought George Soros was the evil currency speculator able to topple governments, wait till you see the scale at which these guys operate!
Starting to stray, as one does when trying to make sense of this incredible political situation we are in. Not only is our President being manipulated by Moscow, it seems that ever since he touched the glowing orb of Riyadh he pledged fidelity to the House of Saud, as all Republican presidents have done for the last 40 years. This means the crowned prince can do whatever he damn well pleases with his $110 billion worth of American arms, including bombing Yemen back into the dark ages.
And, you wonder why our global markets are so volatile, and why the warm waters keep churning up massive hurricanes and typhoons? All this instability is a direct reflection of a world in chaos. One we could have easily avoided if we had just elected sane leaders to contend with it. Instead, we elected Trump, a man who feeds off chaos, relishes it and seems to become stronger for it, as no one seems to know quite how to respond to his antics.
The Congressional leaders will fold as they always do. This joint statement by 20 US Senators to the President to take action against Saudi Arabia will be tossed into the round file, as all such statements are. Trump has seen the dark side and he wants in, if for no other reason than to have a place to flee should Bob Mueller issue him the indictment we are all impatiently waiting for.
In the meantime, all our 401k's go up in smoke, little towns like Mexico Beach get wiped off the map, and musicians scrap for greater copyright protection. None of it really matters in the global picture. It is all about appeasing autocrats and hoping Rome, or in this case Washington, doesn't burn on your watch.
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