Whatever else maybe transpiring, ‘tis, from my perspective, a season of comings and goings, of demise and resurrection – several of which events compel my comment.
So, let’s get to it, shall, we?
Though I’m not over-proud of this, I am most joyful about a departure. After 25 years of historically erroneous commentary, pompous virtue peddling, and other misdemeanors, New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman is about to Peace. He has annoyed me for most of my adult life — so much so that when, in the troubled Autumn of 2008, with the financial world collapsing, the Nobel Committee awarded him its coveted prize, given in happier times to world-changing geniuses like Hayek, Friedman, Stigler, Miller, Markowitz and Sharpe, it sent me into a months-long depression.
Not only has Krugman been wrong about so many things for so long, he has done so with criminal arrogance. In 1998, for example, he famously instructed the world that within less than a decade, the Internet would be no more impactful than the fax machine. His interventionist bona fides have impelled him to proclaim, with maddening certainty, dire consequences for any and all free market enhancing policies, and Economic Eden associated with any command-and-control actions taken by our betters (including him). Preferring, instead, infinite taxation, deficit spending, redistribution and government control.
He may be the only individual on the planet that believes that the government has not borrowed enough, spent enough or taxed enough in recent years – on its way to our current >$36T deficit.
In summary, he has, with petulance and certainty, proclaimed that only an elite ruling class is capable of making sound decisions and that anyone who doesn’t understand this is ignorant, vain, and border-line evil.
All of which renders (as an aside) the morally ossified New York Times (which, several years ago, proclaimed that it would abandon factual reporting in favor of the pursuit of “more righteous” ends) his perfect venue. Well, we’re still stuck with the Times, but at least Krugman is gone. Hosannah!
Also gone is that whacky, loveable Bashar al-Assad, who managed to get his ass out of Syria and (presumably) into a Turkish Palace before the victorious rebels blew it into the Land of the 72 Virgins. What follows in Damascus and surrounding environs remains to be seen, but it’s hard to be over- optimistic.
On a more righteous note, I am thrilled beyond words at the resurrection of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It burned down before the lockdowns, and even then, they said it could not be rebuilt. But it opens again this weekend, and the pictures are breathtaking.
It hath risen! And I think it bears emphasizing that the approaching €1 Billion it took to finish the job all derived from private donations – a feat running in deep conflict with Progressive principals, many of whom proclaimed it was gone forever. I’m sure Krugman has an opinion here – some combination of the impossibility and/or evil intent of such largesse. But he’s gone, and the newly refurbished Notre Dame Cathedral has re-emerged in all its magnificence, in the 5th Arrondisemont, on the banks of the Seine.
Moreover, a Friday Wall Street Journal article proclaimed the return of the Nehru Jacket – a drive-by fashion statement whose viability was limited to a few months in 1968. The Beatles were photographed wearing them, and everyone else then had to have one:
56 years later, and with a starting price take of $4 Large, its current versions are less of a proclamation of hip countercultural sensibilities than it is a statement of personal opulence. So be it.
I will cop to mixed feelings about this. First time ‘round, I forced my parents to buy me a Nehru, and then, as is the case with all my peers, paid for this with wages of embarrassment.
By the time Woodstock rolled around, nobody with an ounce of self-awareness would be caught dead in a Nehru.
And I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge that all this is transpiring precisely 44 years after that horrible night that Lennon was assassinated. He’s now been dead for a span covering >110% of his short but magnificent life. He had more music in him, to be sure. And, were he alive today, I believe he’d be rocking a new Nehru like a boss.
Meantime, the market persists in its euphoria, much of it presumably owing to the political resurrection of ‘Ol 45. For some, this divine intervention cannot arrive too soon, but the reality is that it won’t transpire for another 6 weeks. There is a justified worry as to what incremental mischief the Krugmanized outgoing administration can unleash, and, not gonna lie – the late Thanksgiving Weekend news drop of the sweeping Hunter pardon was a rather disturbing indicator. This, of course, was inevitable, but I could’ve done without his casting it as a heroic gesture in the name of sound jurisprudence and good governance. The truth, I suspect, is that they knew that HB was not gonna go to prison quietly, was perfectly capable of taking down his whole Shakedown family.
I don’t blame him for this though, and I suggest to those who are outraged that if they wish to pardon their relatives, they get busy running for President, and, when elected, pardon away.
The markets have, as indicated above, taken these comings and goings in stride – perhaps appropriately so, as there’s not much visible to me overly likely between now and year-end to throw this rally off its stride. Inflation numbers drop this week, and I suppose we should keep a lazy eye in those quarters.
And one concerning aspect of this is the alarming rise in Coffee Prices, which much of the Western World, including me, cannot abide:
More broadly in terms of Inflation pressures, we may wanna pay attention to the reality that 80% of the dollars floating around the planet today were created after the lockdown:
But that, I submit, is a problem for another day. In this season of departures and resurrections, I prefer to focus my attentions more acutely on ethereal matters. Like the return of the Nehru Jacket. Which was very quickly replaced in our sartorial affections by Bell Bottoms. Which had a good run, but ultimately disappeared, and have not, unlike the case with the Nehru, re-emerged.
Thus, in closing, while we all gotta go, whether we are resurrected, by contrast, is out of our hands – partly in those of God but also as dictated by the caprices of human sentiment. With respect to the former, I can pray at Notre Dame Cathedral. As for the latter, I’d ask Krugman, but, alas…
TIMSHEL