Global affairs arguably reached a new height of hysteria this past week. The Indians and Pakis are now at war. Or not. All Europe has imposed a ceasefire ultimatum on Vlad the Invader – set to expire tomorrow. We have a new Bishop of Rome – about which I have little to contribute other than a brief anecdote shared below.
Newark Airport is now designated the most dangerous spot on the planet. But it doesn’t matter much, because the State of New Jersey failed so signally to prepare to process those swell new Real IDs we all need to board the plane, no one there can fly anyway.
We cut a trade deal with the U.K. – one down and > eight dozen left to go.
But just as we held out hope that – for now at any rate – matters could not be rendered more bizarre – comes the German Election. Which failed to yield a consensus outcome but which, after a couple of ballots, produced a coalition government headed by an individual who, in Germany, operates under the handle of Friedrich Merz.
He is fooling no one. Not that he did much to hide it, but we all can see through the ruse and discern that he is none other than the well-known American Fred Mertz: husband of Ethel, friend/landlord of Lucy and Rickey, and, most importantly, still the world’s record holder for highest waste band on a human torso. For the uninitiated, he broke his own unmatched threshold here on October 17, 1953, when the uppermost portion of his pants rose above his nipples.
Fred has lain low for quite awhile, but as is proven by the following photos, he is back:
Perhaps he has, in the ensuing decades, huffed a bit of Ozempic. The shirt looks new, and the jacket and tie are nice touches. But again, he’s not fooling anyone. Welcome back Fred. And good luck.
Because now he must ‘splain – to his country and the world – how he plans to manage the affairs of The Fatherland, with its diminished economic might, immigration problems of its own, and that pain-in-the- ass AfD party – many of them unapologetic Nazis – breathing down his neck.
I’d be less concerned if he was the only one out there with ‘splainin obligations. After all, Germany is still sooooo 1945. Which was 80 years ago.
Our guy, for instance, might want to ‘splain why renamed last Thursday (May 8th) “Victory Day” – in celebration of ALL our WWII successes. In doing so, he reminded the world that the United States alone won that bloodiest of all conflicts.
He may, for instance, wish to address the reality that the Japanese didn’t surrender until August 15th of that year. Or, for that matter, that > 80% of the fighting done by the ultimately conquered Nazis was against the Soviets.
But ‘splainin does not appear to be prominent in the Trumpian toolkit. To the best of my knowledge, he has yet to enlighten us as to what his International Trade strategy actually entails, or why it features ruinous ingress levies for foreign ships entering our ports. Published reports indicate that for the first time since the lockdowns, there are exactly zero ships en route from China – to the ports of Los Angeles, San Francisco or even Long Beach.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter, because maybe we just didn’t need any of the stuff they were sending our way anyway.
The Earnings cycle – ‘cept for the always tardy NVDA – is in the books, and, on balance, a gratifying interval. Adding to the pleasant vibe was the amusing dance executed by big corporate chieftains – splainin how they, on a going-forward basis, are planning to deal with matters such as tariffs and the caprices of Artificial Intelligence.
In Washington, the contours of the BBBB (Big Beautiful Budget Bill) are becoming ever so slightly discernible. Its sponsors may want to ‘splain, though, such improbably Easter Eggs as the absence of entitlement reform and proposed taxes on high earners.
And meantime, there are all those trade deals to negotiate. The Administration is self-reporting magnificent progress with the Chinese, so, maybe there’s good news from those realms. I suspect, though, that we must deal with other nations first, and, this past week, Big Orange sat down with new Canadian Prime Minister Carney to ‘splain to the latter, yet again: a) why his enormous country (the third largest jurisdictional land mass on the planet, after Russia and – I bet you didn’t know this – Antarctica) should dissolve itself into another star on our flag; and that b) whether he likes it or not, said dissolution is coming.
I find this highly annoying, believing that while each side whines incessantly, ourpartnership with our neighbors to the North has been one of the great blessings of our system, which cannot be improved upon by an all-out merger. The livelihoods of hundreds of thousands if not millions are at stake, so, while I believe a little harmless taunting, ala the following is OK:
The rest is decidedly unhelpful.
On the other side of the political spectrum, we witness the re-gathering of a party still feeling the reverberations of having been – for now – vanquished by their opposite numbers — as led by their absolute nemesis. Leading their attempted resurgence are a fat billionaire trustafarian currently running the most poorly managed state of the 50 (whose sister is the latest in a string of misanthropic souls attempting to guide the country’s oldest and heretofore most prestigious institute of higher learning out of its seemingly unending PR nightmare), a multimillionaire octogenarian socialist, and a fetching young Latina Congressperson who has neglected to visit her district in months.
The Private Jet airmiles travelled by this trio would make even the Davos crowd blush.
The consensus, even among the faithful is that they have failed to ‘splain their gameplan for leading us out of our darkness and back into snowflake Nirvana.
In the markets, as we enter the back half of Q2, scheduled data flows slow to a trickle, but the action should continue to be vigorous, as the fate of the International Trade Complex and the nation’s Budget and Tax profile resolve into clarity.
My sense is that there is a greater likelihood for some visible vibing than there is for buzzkill. Which, of course, is welcome – among other reasons than because happy outcomes require considerably less splainin than gloomy ones.
And, working towards my conclusion, I revert to some splainin of my own. I’m not Catholic, but I always get a little goose from that smoky conclave in Vatican City. Perhaps this is because – on my immortal soul – I had premonition of the death of John Paul I, — not the fabulous, prematurely canonized John Paul II, but his immediate predecessor, who held the seat of St. Peter for all of 33 days before turning toes up.
As a non-believer, this was rather unsettling.
There are, to this day, unresolved theories that poor JPI was taken out by some insiders with close ties to the Chicago Outfit, which, at the time, was certainly awfully cozy with the finance guys at the Vatican HQ.
Well, now we got a Chicago guy running the whole show. So, what could go wrong?
Overall, I am thus optimistic. As I write this, it’s Mother’s Day. And, even as I miss my own moms – departed now for 8.5 years – I can only take my leave by noting the following. There’s mothers and then there’s mothers.
And one mother, kind, sweet, beautiful and brilliant, is the love of my life. I wish her nothing but all she deserves – today and all days to come.
I don’t feel that this requires any additional splainin.
So, I reckon I’ll leave it at that.
TIMSHEL