The Gods Laugh

Hope you are correct but I remain unconvinced. This is not about what I personally think of him. I see some rough waters ahead in politics because of this and ultimately the market may react. What truly worries me is if there is a bad day of news (ie Yellowstone erupts) That will coincide with some great positive news from OPK. I have seen it several times before and then it's like our good news never happened. Also I don't think most people see where this stuff could be going. We are now in the land of no pardons and flipity do dah....it's called the SDNY. Or it could be a collateral attack against his kids. And it doesn't resemble W. Va in any way.  I may be wrong I sure hope so.....  because I am having a great day stock wise. In fact, since HE became Pres. I have made some nice profits.... I just think his foes are relentless and they are slowly acquiring ammunition.  Best, Miami

Stckis 100% correct. The market is the best discounting mechanism in history (sort of oxymoronic when you think about it.....discounting refers to the future while history alludes to the past....but I digress). And the market, right now, today, basically doesn’t care. However, it is late August, and traders are in France, the Hamptons, Patagonia, wherever. We are about to enter the seasonally weak months of September and October. As new juicy info comes to light, or is composed by Cohen, and relayed to us as the tablets from Mt Sinai by Rachel Maddow, Don Lemon, and the rest of the sore losers, market reaction could change. S&P is up 7% ytd, but only 2% since Q1 earnings, while earnings are up close to 20% over that time. So, the market MAY already be pricing in ECONOMIC storm clouds...like a hawkish Fed already into the raising rate cycle and hell bent to hike more, a potentially tapped out consumer, onerous student loan debt, a 20 trillion national debt bill, all the unfunded municipal and state pensions, Medicare and Social Security black holes, to name a few. Also, there’s the flat yield curve perhaps portending a recession. The market will tell us what’s ok and what’s not, in due time. Right now, it’s saying things are ok; and any worry has to do with GDP and the economy, not some potential theatrics from vengeful hypocrites in DC. 

Families at home in Iowa are likely praying for the soul of Molly Tibbetts, whose murder can perhaps be seen as the result of political decisions. They KNOW that the shenanigans in DC are the work of fools with sinecures. Alan Dershowitz, no fan of Trump, states unequivocally that there was NO CRIME by Trump in this tawdry licentiousness. I’m no lawyer, but I’ll accept his argument over the orgasmic proclamations of vindictive victory over the red headed menace from the CNN/MSNBC crowd.

Yes, the market went up, a whole lot, while Obama was president. Sadly, the typical Obama zealot is either too uninformed or so obsessed with knighting and canonizing a guy who never had a job outside academia to realize one small thing. Namely, the market move from 2009 had NOTHING to do with the policies of Obama, Lew, Rice, Rhodes, and Furman. And EVERYTHING to do with ZIRP, the zero interest rate policy of the Fed, put in place because of mortgage fraud encouraged by the policies of Barney Frank, and abetted by the criminals on mortgage backed securities desks, the gangsters on Wall Street, the likes of whom I’ve known, by the dozens, during my years in the investment industry. When the Fed cuts rates to zero, money looks for return; it flowed to risk assets....equities. Obama and his bozo crew had zippo to do with this. But they did weaponize the IRS, and look askance when the panthers were hangin’ outside polling places.

Meanwhile, amid RISING interest rates and a nonstop effort by DC elites to undo the election result, the market has again gone up. A lot. Under Trump, who : 1) cut regulation, 2) lowered taxes, 3) told the NATO crowd to pay up 4) warned all of our trading partners that we won’t tolerate their tariffs, non-tariff barriers, and intellectual property theft.

So the market has responded, unemployment is near all time lows, labor participation is up, wages are starting to rise, more jobs than qualified candidates, shall I continue? Oh, Mexico and Canada have seen the light (aka, blinked) and a new NAFTA is nearly done. It’s BETTER FOR THE USA, and we didn’t even need to go on an apology tour, or wheel out James Taylor to create a safe space for our north/south neighbors during the negotiations. 

The families in Iowa, and the market, know that Schumer, Waters, Pelosi and, for that matter, Ryan, McConnell, and the rest are a bunch of clowns and often do more harm than good. Heaven please grant us term limits.

A friend sent me this note a great read.

Perspective of the right on the actions of the left once Trump was elected.

To all the people who let this election break up families and friends let this sink in I think the last civil conversations we had occurred just days before November 8, 2016. You were supremely confident Hillary Clinton would win the presidential election; you voted for her with glee. As a lifelong Republican, I bit down hard and cast my vote for Donald Trump. Then the unimaginable happened. He won.
And you lost your freaking minds.

I knew you would take the loss hard—and personally—since all of you were super jacked-up to elect the first woman president. But I did not imagine you would become totally deranged, attacking anyone who voted for Trump or supported his presidency as a racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic Nazi-sympathizer.

The weirdness started on social media late on Election Night, as it became clear Hillary was going to lose. A few of you actually admitted that you were cradling your sleeping children, weeping, wondering what to tell your kindergartner the next morning about Trump’s victory. It continued over the next several days. Some of you seriously expressed fear about modern-day concentration camps. Despite living a privileged lifestyle, you were suddenly a casualty of the white patriarchy. Your daughters were future victims; your sons were predators-in-waiting. You threatened to leave Facebook because you could no longer enjoy the family photos or vacation posts from people who, once friends, became Literal Hitlers to you on November 8 because they voted for Donald Trump.

I admit I was a little hurt at first. The attacks against us Trump voters were so personal and so vicious that I did not think it could be sustained. I thought maybe you would regain your sanity after some turkey and egg nog.

But you did not. You got worse. And I went from sad to angry to where I am today: Amused.
As the whole charade you have been suckered into over the last 18 months starts to fall apart—that Trump would not survive his presidency; he would be betrayed by his own staff, family, and/or political party; he would destroy the Republican Party; he would be declared mentally ill and removed from office; he would be handcuffed and dragged out of the White House by Robert Mueller for “colluding” with Russia—let me remind you what complete fools you have made of yourselves. Not to mention how you’ve been fooled by the media, the Democratic Party, and your new heroes on the NeverTrump Right.

On November 9, you awoke from a self-induced, eight-year-long political coma to find that White House press secretaries shade the truth and top presidential advisors run political cover for their boss. You were shocked to discover that presidents exaggerate, even lie, on occasion. You became interested for the first time about the travel accommodations, office expenses, and lobbyist pals of administration officials. You started counting how many rounds of golf the president played. You suddenly thought it was fine to mock the first lady now that she wasn’t Michelle Obama. Once you removed your pussy hat after attending the Women’s March, you made fun of Kellyanne Conway’s hair, Sarah Sanders’ weight, Melania Trump’s shoes, Hope Hicks’ death stare; you helped fuel a rumor started by a bottom-feeding author that U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley slept with Donald Trump. You thought it was A-OK that Betsy DeVos was nearly physically assaulted and routinely heckled. You glorified a woman who has sex on camera for a paycheck.

You have learned all kinds of new things that those of us who didn’t willfully ignore politics for the past eight years already knew. For example, we already knew that illegal immigrants were being deported and families were being separated.

Some of your behavior has been kinda cute. It was endearing to watch you become experts on the Logan Act, the Hatch Act, the Second Amendment, the 25th Amendment, and the Emoluments Clause. You developed a new crush on Mitt Romney after calling him a “sexist” for having “binders full of women.” You longed for a redux of the presidency of George W. Bush, a man you once wanted imprisoned for war crimes. Ditto for John McCain. You embraced people like Bill Kristol and David Frum without knowing anything about their histories of shotgunning the Iraq War.

Classified emails shared by Hillary Clinton? Who cares! Devin Nunes wanting to declassify crucial information of the public interest? Traitor!
But your newfound admiration and fealty to law enforcement really has been a fascinating transformation. Wasn’t it just last fall that I saw you loudly supporting professional athletes who were protesting police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem? Remember how you fanboyed a mediocre quarterback for wearing socks that depicted cops as pigs?

But now you sound like paid spokesmen for the Fraternal Order of Police. You insist that any legitimate criticism of the misconduct and possibile criminality that occured at the Justice Department and FBI is an “attack on law enforcement.” While you once opposed the Patriot Act because it might have allowed the federal government to spy on terrorists who were using the local library to learn how to make suitcase bombs, you now fully support the unchecked power of a secret court to look into the phone calls, text messages and emails of an American citizen because he volunteered for the Trump campaign for a few months.
Spying on terrorists, circa 2002: Bad. Spying on Carter Page, circa 2017: The highest form of patriotism.

And that white, male patriarchy that you were convinced would strip away basic rights and silence any opposition after Trump won? That fear has apparently been washed away as you hang on every word uttered by James Comey, John Brennan, and James Clapper. This triumvirate is exhibit “A” of the old-boy network, and represents how the insularity, arrogance, and cover-your-tracks mentality of the white-male power structure still prevails. Yet, instead of rising up against it, you are buying their books, retweeting their Twitter rants and blasting anyone who dares to question their testicular authority. Your pussy hat must be very sad.

But your daily meltdowns about Trump-Russia election collusion have been the most entertaining to observe. After Robert Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel, you were absolutely convinced it would result in Trump’s arrest and/or impeachment. Some of you insisted that Trump wouldn’t last beyond 2017. You quickly swallowed any chum tossed at you by the Trump-hating media on MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post about who was going down next, or who would flip on the president.

For the past year, I have watched you obsess over a rotating cast of characters: Paul Manafort, Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner, Carter Page, Reince Priebus, Jeff Sessions, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Sam Nunberg, and Hope Hicks are just a few of the people you thought would turn on Trump or hasten his political demise. But when those fantasies didn’t come true, you turned to Michael Avenatti and Stormy Daniels for hope and inspiration. It will always be your low point.
Well, I think it will be. Each time I believe you’ve hit bottom, you come up with a new baseline. Perhaps defending the unprecedented use of federal power to spy on political foes then lie about it will the next nail in your credibility coffin.

The next several weeks will be tough for you. I think Americans will learn some very hard truths about what happened in the previous administration and how we purposely have been misled by powerful leaders and the news media. I wish I could see you as a victim here, but you are not. I know you are smart; you chose to support this insurgency with your eyes wide open.

Now, I shall sit back and enjoy your pain.