I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. So hungry, in fact, that I am taking the extreme step of embracing a culinary theme for this missive.
I feel further justified in this literary license in the wake of two developments in the Land of Grub – neither earthshaking, but both of which bear some personal significance for me.
First, I read with interest that the Campbell’s Soup Corporation is moving to eliminate “Soup” from its corporate handle, fixin’ instead to operate under the simpler moniker of the Campbell Corporation. OK; fair enough. It’s their company, and, if Facebook can be Meta, if Google can be Alphabet, then I reckon Campbell’s Soup can be Campbell. Plus, in fairness, them folks in Camden, NJ do offer some non-soup products, including the iffy Goldfish snack crackers and Prego Tomato Sauce. But please. Nobody eats that shit. And, by contrast, the amount of Campbell’s Chicken and Stars alone that is consumed each month by folks within 50 kms of me is sufficient to float a battleship.
So, I’m a bit sorry that they are eschewing their core product in their corporate documents and correspondence, and I’d take it up with the family, who: a) still runs the show; and with a scion of which b) I had a partnership of sorts. But he hurt my feelings a few years ago. So much so that I took, with admitted glibness, to calling him the Soup Nazi (I know), but never to his One way or another, I figure there’s no point now in feeding him my beefs.
Besides, who am I to spit out advice to the custodians of a stock market juggernaut:
The other signal event was the closing of the doors, the shutting of the ovens, of La Grenouille Restaurant, on 52nd Street in Manhattan. I wasn’t a regular there – too rich, both from a digestive and financial perspective – for my blood. But I did go there once. In 1994 – shortly after I returned to New York, never again to depart. It was a milestone celebration of sorts, so we put on the dog (or the frog, which is what a grenouille is) and headed over. We were unable to finish all we ordered (a rarity for me at the time), and, upon settling the bill, asked for a doggie bag.
Whereupon we were informed that such a conveyance was against restaurant policy. Which was a first for us. But we took it in good stride, never forgot the experience, and never returned to the frog.
Now, I don’t know if they ever changed their tune or if this rather stingy protocol contributed to the demise of the establishment. But it probably didn’t help.
Now there’s no soup for Campbell Corporation, and no doggie bags issuing from La Grenouille.
I will largely resist the temptation of transitioning to either offering any specific allusions to the disputed topic of the dietary habits of foreign nationals who have migrated to Western Ohio or a general discussion of the recent debate. I will only share that having decided against watching what was certain to be a pig circus, I caved and tuned into the show at the precise moment when the Trumpster made his irregular carnivorous claim. At which point I switched it off.
In time-honored fashion, the markets shrugged off broth nomenclature issues and the demise of iconic French restaurants to by and large recapture all the ground it lost the preceding putrid week. It absorbed some yawner inflation and dismal Confidence data, and now turns its focus to this week’s Fed meeting.
I don’t wanna take too much credit here, but the markets have certainly warmed to my prognostication of a half percent rate cut, which is now, improbably, a precise coin flip:
Not gonna lie – all this piling on makes me a bit nervous. But I’ll stick to my call. The Fed will cut 50. Why? Because it can. Plus, while they will feel the full, immediate consequences of having wielded their axes too parsimoniously, nobody is likely to point their fingers here at them for over-aggressive hacks, for months or years (if at all).
And aside from more cynical considerations, a larger cut is inarguably the more patriotic move, particularly considering recent revelations that: a) annual Federal interest expense for the first time ever exceeded $1 Trillion; and b) the deficit surged in August to an astonishing $380B
And this in a month where most of the government cash hoovers are on vacation.
There are other troubling signs on the horizon. For example, and though not widely reported, bank investment portfolios are bleeding out losses like a punctured porcine:
And, perhaps owing to all the above, Gold is surging from one all-time high to the next:
In addition, and in keeping with this gilded theme, I unearthed this little nugget from the WSJ:
I reckon the good news here is that we’ve still aways to traverse until we hit those magic Great Financial Crisis levels, but the trend is not encouraging.
Moreover, absent some Newtonian counterforce, it’s hard to envision this trend reversing itself.
Such as a jolting rate cut. Which is another reason why I am fairly sure that the Fed will go big and go quick with its rate reducing ways.
And if all this weren’t enough to kill our buzz, I read with disgust about those two aging stars of hybrid supergroup Jane’s Addiction: Perry Ferrell (ne Peretz Bernstein) and Dave Navarro, who got into a throwdown in Boston on Friday night – prematurely ending the show and perhaps ingloriously capping off a nearly forty-year (with interruptions) run of a pretty good band.
C’mon, fellas! We’re better than this.
So, to summarize, we’ve got a wonky economic condition, as headlined by a looming credit crisis, awaiting succor from the Fed. There’s an election coming up, with sucky candidates on both sides. The broth makers in Camden, perhaps not denying us soup, are, at any rate, de-emphasizing it. Not only can you not get a Doggie Bag at La Grenouille, you can’t even order a meal of any kind. One of America’s best-preserved bands cannot get through a set without bigging up on each other.
And the market rallies all the while.
All the above not only dampens my appetite a bit, but kind of pisses me off to boot.
I guess it’d be fair to say that I’m hangry, and don’t know what to do about it.
And no, choking down a heated bowl of Prego with Goldfish sprinkled atop just ain’t gonna cut it.
TIMSHEL