The Keystone Cops was a hilarious silent-film era (yes before I was born) about cops and robbers running around in circles, never quite sure which direction they were going.
FreepikSo it seems to be with both politics and geopolitics these days, and that’s disturbing. As for S&P, it’s just a phase in correction.
As to the ‘helter-skelter’ aspects of current economic, monetary and strategic ‘circles’, it’s unfortunately all-too-reminiscent of the 1930’s pre-war European entreaties to try to broker peace, retain stability and not go off the rails. In that case it was ‘Herr Hitler’ and ‘Joseph Stalin’ (both of them) that followed earlier forays by Spain’s Franco and Italy’s Mussolini, that set-up the ‘pre-quil’ wars. In the Asian theater, it was Japan’s invasion of China that presaged attacking us and Britain (Pearl Harbor and Singapore) in 1941.
The world today is so intertwined that China can’t afford to lose markets world over, and the U.S. can’t be as isolationist as many populists would like (sort of too late, hence why I called for ‘some globalism as good, too much as bad’) at least for 40 years. Obviously I was distraught at Washington’s constant failure to protect American workers and ensure retention of industry in this Country. I make a point now, because it’s easier said than done for the U.S. to extricate itself from the Middle East challenge, or from Eastern Europe, without inviting catastrophe. In the 1930’s we helped China resist Japan’s aggression, we’d loaned destroyers to Churchill, but we never entered the war until attacked. In the current situation, it’s a variation of ‘circumstances’ that can precede war.
Market X-Ray: Choppy with ideally a bit more upside (intraweek rally).There is a bearish case looming, it’s just not resolved by any magic potion, such as with crypto, which actually becomes more boring if the U.S. actually regulates it. More By This Author:Market Briefing For Monday, January 8
Market Briefing For Thursday, January 4
Market Briefing For Wednesday, January 3
