To be robbed of one’s grievance is the last and foulest wrong. A wrong under which the most enduring temper will at last yield and become soured. By which the strongest back will be broken.
Antony Trollope
Raindrops keep falling on my head,
But that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turning red,
Crying’s not for me,
‘Cos I’m never gonna stop the rain by complainin’,
Because I’m free… … nothing’s worrying me
Burt Bacharach and Hal David
I stumbled across our first quote in rereading a tasty literary morsel from perhaps my favorite author – Antony Trollope. And I believe what he conveys here is the stone-cold truth. Human beings can endure the loss of nearly anything – except their grievances. To which they will cling as to a bit of buoyant wood in the aftermath of a shipwreck. This is certainly true of me, as, I suspect, it is of you.
I believe we have something to work with here in terms of this week’s note, but, for better or for worse, I must first veer off course – to pay tribute to the magnificent Burt Bacharach, whose music had an enormous impact on my life.
I am impelled here to retell the story of having, in a chemically induced fit of madness back in the early ‘80s, led the collective emptying of the pockets of my entire posse, converting them to quarters, and then flooding a diner juke box with over a hundred repeat play versions of Bacharach’s “What’s New, Pussycat?”.
As intended, it drove the other patrons into a mad dash to the exit and sent my crew into an endless fit of mirth.
It was, in many ways, my finest hour(s).
But “Pussycat” doesn’t fit our motif. So, we’re stuck with “Raindrops”– a magnificent tune, theme song of a magnificent movie (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, you dolts), and more apropos to today’s theme. Telling, as it does, the story of a rare one who rises above his grievances and takes what’s coming to him with equanimity.
I on the other hand have held fast to my beefs (one in particular), which have increased in value over time.
Perhaps in sympathy at this point in the year, the physical beef market extends its extended rally:
Live Cattle Doggies Keep Rollin’:
I also hold a grievance with risk assets, which, my prognostications notwithstanding, paused their rallying ways this past week. Please do not misapprehend me – it’s not as though my hurt derives exclusively from the breaking of my career-long string of impeccably accurate pricing forecasts (though there is certainly that to consider). More to the point, we’re off to a great start to the year, and, I ask, would it be too much to just carry on as we have since New Year’s?
Apparently so. But it’s not like we’re in wicked selloff mode. We just kinda bleeded down a little.
Still and all it hurts.
But at least I’m not alone in my beefings. Reporting CEOs have lined up, on after the other, to utter pathetic whimperings. The President took to the ritualized, annualized podium to offer up a cornucopia of higher taxes/more restrictive regulations (none of which will be passed into law), and, to accuse his political opposite numbers of intending politically suicidal steps of eliminating Social Security and Medicare.
C’mon, Man. Who among the hat ring tossing class would even contemplate such a thing? And it doesn’t matter in the least that our government has no legitimate means to fund these entitlements. It cannot afford much of anything these days, and yet it continues to spend like Ponzi schemers with the Federales hot on their heels.
But Big Joe threw it out there, and the Republicans took the bait, responding with jeering and catcalls. This, presumably, was Biden and his handlers’ hoped-for response. They must’ve been delighted.
However, as for me, I prefer the simpler, more refined days of yore, when the Speaker of the House, during a State of the Union address of a president she deplored, spent much of the speech putting dainty little tears into the official copy presented to her, and, upon completion of the remarks, proceeded to rip the document into shreds.
Meantime, our grievances with China continue. We shot down that balloon a few days back, and I pondered using a few lines from “Up Up and Away” in this week’s note (“the world’s a nicer place in my beautiful balloon, it wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon”). But that song was written by the great Jimmy Webb. Who is still with us.
I have a minor beef that this is not a Bacharach composition. Because by everything that is holy, it should have been.
Meantime, we’re now shooting other Chinese aircraft out of the sky. And they’re fixing to shoot back at some sh!t in their airspace. What could go wrong there?
No doubt our grievance trajectory this coming week will be informed by the CPI and PPI releases scheduled therein. Both are expected to continue their descent. Here’s hoping they do, because if they resume their path towards the heavens, it could be that these valuation balloons come careening down like successful targets of an F-22 assault.
I also retain grievances that the by-now-misnamed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame sees fit to induct the likes of George Michael, while ignoring such sublime ensembles as Mott the Hoople, King Crimson, Jethro Tull and Little Feat. That the Minnesota North Stars moved to Dallas (that one dates back to ’93), that they shut down the Riverview Amusement Park in Chicago (closed in 1967), that no one went to jail for either the mortgage meltdown or the Libor scandal.
That the last employment bonus I ever received (around 2003) was about a quarter of what I feel it should have been.
And a bunch of other sh!t. I reckon I’ll hold fast to these, as, I suspect, you will to yours. It’s how the Good Lord made us.
But we are compelled, as investors, to routinely let go of our beefs. After a fashion that is. Feel free to cling to your sense of the unfairness of it all, but bear in mind that there are no f@cks given by the markets about them. We’d be well-advised to simply shrug these off and focus on the next tick.
Deeming ourselves to be free implies and understanding that we’re never gonna stop the rain – or the painful idiosyncrasies of the tape — by complaining. And a knowledge of the futility of even attempting to do so.
This is perhaps particularly true at present. I still believe there is a bid out there, but even if I’m right, it won’t last. And what removes it is likely to be something barely on our radar right now.
Ending on a more hopeful note, I remind everyone that Jimmy (Wichita Lineman) Webb is indeed still with us, flying up, up and away, in his beautiful balloon.
Until, that is, somebody decides to shoot it down.
TIMSHEL