I’m all lost in the supermarket, can no longer shop happily,
Came here for a special offer, guaranteed personality,
I wasn’t born so much as I fell out, Nobody seemed to notice me
We had a hedge back home in the suburbs, Over which I never could see
I heard the people who lived on the ceiling, Scream and fight most scarily
Hearing that noise was my first ever feeling, That’s how it’s been all around me
Strummer/Jones
We’ve a lot of ground to cover, kids, so let’s get to it.
First, Kristofferson A true giant. Saw him twice: once solo and the other time at Farm Aid 1, in Urbana, IL, with the original Highwaymen plus Glen Campbell on lead guitar. It was a performance I’ll never forget. But all are dead now. Save Willie, who is giving Keith a run for his money with respect to indestructability. Meantime, there is almost no way to capture the authentic genius of K. Kris, who left his mark in ways about which the rest of us can only dream.
Next, Rose. Let him in the Hall, FFS! I have no doubt that he was a true putz, who one would have been well-advised to avoid in real life. That he bet extensively on baseball and lied repeatedly about it is not a matter of dispute. But he was the most accomplished player of his era, one of the all-time greats, and, perhaps more importantly, the MLB Hall of Fame features a plethora of criminal sociopaths (Ty Cobb comes to mind) whose deeds are sufficiently heinous to make Pete Rose look like Saint Peter.
On a happier note, rumors are rampant that the surviving members of The Clash (Mick Jones, Topper Headon and Paul Simonon) are considering some sort of reunion. Which is one of the reasons for this week’s theme. I am sufficiently enamored of The Clash that I stone cold pity anyone who has failed to appreciate their magnificence, so I’m all in on this one.
Their finest moment, for me, at any rate, was the release of their master double work: “London Calling”: a record so powerful that notwithstanding its 1979 release, Rolling Stone Magazine named it the best album of the 1980s. It was a wakeup call for my generation – a much-needed admonition to get off our dead asses – which, in the ensuing ~4.5 decades, we have largely ignored.
Well, The Clash warned us at any rate. And I thank them for it. Their own story is appropriately complicated and cannot be reviewed in this space. Suffice to state that the dream ended for good when the divine Joe Strummer succumbed to a lifelong heart ailment about which he knew nothing.
That was over 20 years ago, and now, Jones and Simonon are kicking around the idea of some Strummer- less shows. But it is unclear whether Top will join them, believing (as does fellow can smasher John Densmore about Jim Morrison) that performing without their principal voice would be, shall we say, a less than authentic exercise.
But we will always have the astonishing London Calling, which features, as one of its lesser tracks, our titular song. Joe was all lost in the supermarket, could no longer shop happily. And it would be fair to ask, nearly 22 years later: has the situation gotten better? Or worse?
However, the song itself probably fails to rise to the dignity of meriting an entire column, save for the following realities: 1) the investment world is indeed encountering a SUPERmarket; and 2) 1) makes me feel a bit lost.
The rally paused and then took in stride the Iranians and Israelis swapping of ballistic missiles (and here I’d be remiss if I failed to note that today is the one-year anniversary of the brutal terrorist attack that ignited these war flames. While one would hope this would lead to an interlude of sober remembrance, one is likely to be disappointed on that score). It surged in the wake of the most damaging hurricane in twenty years. Lit its retro rockets as the East Coast Longshoremen not only walked out but threatened by so doing, to “shut the entire country down”.
Though the issue has now been postponed, this job action sent me into a near-panic. Biden’s strong men, such as they are, copped them most of the raise they sought. They have also, tragicomically, striven to impose a moratorium on automation, which may work in the short-term but will be a costly failure in the end. Automation will ultimately win; always does. And it is we who will pay for the disruption; already have. Because anybody who knows anything about the East Coast docks is aware that they may be the most mobbed up locale in the entire universe. When the bosses show their displeasure, we are ill-advised to shrug it off. In result, I called my shrink and begged her for a special order of my meds, not only to calm my nerves but because all our happy pills arrive from China and pass through the iron, controlling hands of the local longshoreman.
Meantime, I managed to calm down and resume focus. Friday capped off a stable week with a superficially strong Jobs report, and investors are on a low budget shopping spree. As illustrated by the following graphs, long interest in equity index futures is at record levels. However, and paradoxically, investors are shunning the Mag 7, with associated ownership plunging in ominous fashion:
Metaphorically, investors have indeed arrived at the supermarket, armed with a full arsenal of coupons and discount codes. But they cannot seem to find their way to the lobster tails or two-inch thick ribeyes. Presumably, they have meandered over in Aisle 7, where the generic cereal and Hamburger Helper reside. But my question is: why?
I wish I had an authentic answer. Meantime, while we have survived the first week of a raucous October, there is a shopping cart (or two) full of risks to consider, ere we even think about checking out.
Earnings reports, delayed a titch, presumably in honor of Yom Kippur, begin this Friday. Analysts are cutting their estimates, but not by much. As a special treat, CPI and PPI are sandwiched around our day of atonement. Immediately before Halloween, Q3 GDP drops.
I don’t believe any of it will matter much.
To wit, we are presumably in the early innings of what history will certainly deem a full-scale war in the Middle East. The IDF has promised a response to last week’s attacks, and it behooves us to view this as other than saber rattling.
Because the IDF don’t saber rattle. Any more than, say, the Gambinos or Luccheses do if you come messing around with the Seaport or any of the other docks of entry they control.
The U.S. is completely handcuffed with respect to their influence on these proceedings, in part because somebody should have long ago sent the old man to bed, but didn’t, rendering us essentially leaderless. And partly because in the immediate lead up to the ’24 election, the current administration must thread a needle of appeasement of all those patriotic Islamic militants in Michigan, while not pushing the somnolent Jewry far enough to recognize how deeply we are being sold down the river (and sea).
And were this all not enough to merit that extra dose of meds for which I begged, I am becoming increasingly worried about what may happen in the ~10 weeks between the election and the inauguration of our 47th president.
If Harris wins, the markets must contemplate higher taxes, outrageously inappropriate and clearly unconstitutional levies on unrealized capital gains, unfathomable increases in regulation and redistribution, and other niceties best summed up in the attached read-em-and-weep economic plan:
https://kamalaharris.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Policy_Book_Economic-Opportunity.pdf
I defy anyone to put forward an argument as to how this is anything but dilutive to risk assets.
If, on the other hand, Trump wins, in addition to the many ill-advised elements of his economic platform, I truly fear the chaos that will ensue. For one thing, if there is any plausible framework to do so (and maybe even if there isn’t), the whole thing will be thrown into the courts. For another, we will still be compelled to endure 2.5 months with an addled prez, an outraged lame duck VP, and half the country prepared to burn the other half down, with the outgoing administration, if they choose not to encourage this, will certainly do nothing to stop it.
Meantime, a full-on war in the Middle East may be raging, our docks will remain under threat of a job action, and any number of unforeseen problems may rear their heads. I see market hazards coming from multiple directions, including from across a modern-day hedge, back home in the suburbs. Joe could never see over it back then, and, today, it is perhaps fair to say that it is the hedges themselves that have the obstructed view. So, yes, it is a SUPERmarket, but please take care; one wrong turn and we’re all lost.
But on this Indian Summer day, I’d prefer to focus on The Clash reunion, and of their indescribably brilliant London Calling, the magnificent title song of which tells of life by the Thames in the aftermath of a nuclear error.
And I conclude as Strummer so memorably did:
London Calling, and I was there too, You know what they said, Well, some of it was true,
London Calling at the top of the dial, And after all this, won’t you give me a smile?
Well, won’t you?
TIMSHEL