I write today in immediate advance of a personal, crushing yartzeit – the details upon which I will not elaborate. Those who know of this, know. As to the others, well, I’ll spare you.
Meantime, Sunday marked 70 years since the passing of that always grouchy, often petulant but somehow lovable old bear — Josef Stalin. He founded the Pravda newspaper (sort of a USSR version of The Onion) took over Supreme Leadership of the Soviet Union in the immediate aftermath of the demise of his jocular predecessor – V.I. Lenin — and held the post until his death in March 1953.
In his three decades of dictatorship, he occupied himself with countless purges, the military modernization of Mother Russia and the winning of World War II. If you doubt the last of these, read up on the topic. The best estimates suggest that >80% of all WWII casualties on all fronts occurred in the battle between the Nazis and the Bolsheviks. He named a town after himself, the scene of the most important of that global conflict’s battles – the War’s military equivalent of the Battle of Gettysburg. Like Lee following Pickett’s Charge, after losing the Battle of Stalingrad, Hitler never again seized the effective military initiative, and before you knew it, Stalin’s troops were linking up with Eisenhower’s Americans on the banks of the Elbe River, and daintily waltzing into Berlin.
Having thus vanquished the Germans, he set about establishing the Cold War (with a little help from the West), building the Iron Curtain and compiling what for decades was the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world.
As I was culling the herd of my scrap books, I came upon this old photo of my pal Jo – one I don’t even remember taking. I think the glassy eyes derive from a few shots of vodka we had just downed in a cozy little tavern near Minsk.
Joe didn’t like random pictures taken of him, and his responses could be, let’s just say, rather disproportionate. I’m surprised I got this one off, to say nothing of smuggling it past the Secret Police of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Others can feel free to assume a different view, but I think he takes a nice snapshot.
And it must be admitted that for an assistant cobbler’s son, he amassed quite a resume. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union – some half dozen or so Supreme Leaders later, there was a movement to erase Ol’ Jo from the history books. His legacy met with even a worse fate than that of Teddy Roosevelt, who only suffered the indignity of having his statue carted off from in front of the New York Museum of Natural History to some spot in North Dakota. Stalin lost a whole city. What was once Stalingrad is now Volgograd. Many dozens of streets named in his honor have been retitled; mustachioed statues melted. He was, in short, roundly banished by his former subjects.
However, now, as was perhaps inevitable, his rep is experiencing a renaissance. He polls favorably at nearly 50% in Russia, and, if that nation actually held legitimate elections, could arguably give Vlad the Invader a run for his money.
While JS could hardly be described as being Woke, there are certain elements of the modern vibe which he probably would have carried out to new extremes. Invade the Ukraine? Please. He’d have bombed the place into oblivion by now, perhaps have taken Poland and the Balkans, and set his sights on poor old Finland. He would not be over-prone to coddling filthy capitalists and their despicable lust for profits. He would’ve lined them up and shot them. He would not have cast aspersions on religious faith and its protocols, he would have eliminated religion altogether.
All of which, inevitably, impels me to ask – where have you gone Jo Stalin? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
But the best we can do, apparently, is to roll with our own Joe – Joe (Bag of Doughnuts) Biden. Not many similarities except that of nomenclature are present here. One was stumpy and dark; the other tall and fair. One imposed scorched earth on any territory he occupied militarily. The other loads up aircraft for retreat, leaving billions of dollars of cash and equipment behind, and somehow, declares victory. One ruthlessly eliminated anyone he felt impeded his absolute rule. The other kowtows to the enablers that launched him to his present lofty position.
But times is indeed different, and perhaps it is heaven above that ordains each generation the Jo(e) that it deserves. Stalin was a ruthless autocrat who destroyed whole generations of humanity. But Americans owe him a debt of gratitude. Magnificent as we were in WWII, I’m not sure even our best units were in a position to lock horns with the Nazis on the Eastern Front. There are, of course, mixed views on Biden. My own is that he is a something of a hypocrite, with little to recommend him but an outsize allotment of glib affability, and never could have gotten elected save his paymasters’ hatred of Trump and fear of Bernie.
I don’t think he’s calling the shots in Washington, and that’s probably a good thing. I’m not sure who is, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a plan beyond simply strategizing for optimal outcomes in the next election cycle. So, they send our Joe to Kyiv, where Stalin once ruled, for photo ops — and completely ignore (the presumed to be politically dispensable) East Palatine.
But I don’t want to get off on a tangent here.
They’s not much good news in the markets to report. Mortgage rates climbed yet again above 7%. The Sagacious Nouriel Roubini is predicting a wicked bout of stagflation. The construction of Amazon’s much battled-over second Corporate HQ – associated tax breaks having already presumably been harvested — has been put on hiatus.
On a happier note, Lori Lightfoot did go down in Chicago, so there’s that.
But God Oh Mighty, it’s a tough tape to trade.
All market and idiosyncratic factors appear to be moving in lock step with spitball conjecture on Inflation, Interest Rates and Recession. The next FOMC meeting is still > 2 weeks away; Inflation data streams in over the next fortnight.
As for Recession, we’ll have to wait awhile on that one, as even if it forms, it cannot be deemed as such for at least a couple of quarters.
By Friday, at any rate, we will obtain a glimpse of the prevailing economic picture, with the release of the February Jobs Report. And then, next week, CPI/PPI; FOMC brings interest rate tidings a week hence.
I doubt if any of this will offer much clarity, though.
With asset classes, sectors and individual financial instruments annoyingly correlated, each in anticipation of greater clarity about the state of the macro environment, and with such clarity, deferred, elusive and difficult to interpret, I foresee a cycle of diminished but dangerous volatility. Not much is likely to move in dramatic fashion, but what does move is more likely to bite than feed portfolio returns.
As in all matters, we must wait. Lenin gave way to Stalin, who passed the torch to Khrushchev. Then came Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and, ultimately, Gorbachev. Who shut the whole show down.
And then, at last, Putin, seeking to re-Stalinize the whole joint.
On our side of the ledger, it’s Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and, finally, Biden. Who may not be Stalinizing the States, but perhaps not failing for not trying.
We can take comfort in this at least – our guys’ names are easier to spell.
Not much to do in the markets but to be extremely careful while so not doing.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll have myself a good cry.
TIMSHEL