Nothing in the streets, looks any different to me

Peter Townsend

Careful watchers of this space are aware not only of my recently celebrated personal milestone, but also that I had used the same headline – STFU — two weeks in a row.

This was an oversight on my part. But being as how, though not retired, I am now officially of retirement age, a guy who is now officially a Senior Citizen, I’m gonna call it a Senior Moment.

But I cannot resist the siren’s call to write my own post-mortem on the just ended quadrennial election cycle. The good news is that if yas can stand another synopsis, I’ve got one for yas.

After which I promise to STFU.

It did not play out the way I anticipated, but few outside the faithful expected Team Orange to run the table in such dramatic fashion. Part of me is surprised they won at all, but all the sources at my disposal confirm that they did.

In the lead-up to the Big Day, two factors were apparent: 1) the outcome would be decided by turnout and independent tilt; and 2) beyond each party’s base, most of the votes would be cast not in enthusiasm for their preferred candidate, but by which of the two they disliked the least.

Especially with respect to 2), whichever side emerged as the losers would have only themselves to blame, because, given the substandard quality of each candidate top ticket candidate, their opposite numbers were running a race that it was theirs to lose.

Had that loser been Team Trump, I’d have an embarrassing abundance of material with which to castigate Republicans, who, for the fifth time in eight years, had staked their fortunes entirely on a petulant, undisciplined narcissist, given to forget generous friends while never losing his remembrance of anyone who he perceived to have slighted him. A guy who relishes tweaking his opponents, and, in doing so, often leads with his chin. A former president who did some good things in his term (his risky vaccine moonshot which the other side lied about and for which it took unmerited credit comes to mind), but whose performance in the period between his 2020 election loss and Biden’s inauguration, ranks, in my judgment, as perhaps the worst 10 weeks in Presidential History.

I don’t think he planned or led an insurrection (if you’re President of the United States and want to stage a coup d’etat, you don’t do it with a few dozen mostly unarmed civilians and one guy in a Viking hat), but his failure to act immediately to stop the outrage, his orders to his Vice President not to certify the result, and his unwillingness, to this day, to accept the outcome as legitimate – all diminished the office he held and gave enormous aid and comfort to his political enemies.

He is, in sum, a guy prone to infinite unforced errors, which, as president in today’s world, could play out on a massive, tragic scale.

No way a guy like that deserved a second term, but, nonetheless, here we are.

Migrating away from the counterfactual to the actual – Vice President Harris and the Democratic Party, my god, where to start? At 100,000 feet, the mantra over there, for ages, has been that they and they alone can discern right from wrong — on complex, two-sided issues (with said opinions, by the way, correlating ~100% with their political agenda) and that anyone disagreeing with them is misinformed, stupid, evil, or some combination thereof. They have made little effort to hide that a small cabal of elitists – top tier politicians, billionaires, celebrities, academics and bureaucrats — call all the shots for them, as exemplified in myriad ways.

The first that comes to mind is how they pick their candidates. Except for Obama’s astonishing rise in 2008, it’s been two decades since they allowed their party regulars decide who runs at the top. Before she lost to Trump in ’16, and had not the Party Elders stepped in, Hillary would’ve been defeated — by Bernie – FFS! — as would Biden have been in ’20. But, knowing Bernie would lose, they anointed Joe last time around, then, when he emerged victorious, co-opted his presidency from a policy perspective.

Nobody – particularly Democrats – wanted to see him run again, but he leveraged a surprisingly strong outcome in the ’22 Midterms (to which, ironically, he contributed very little) to cement himself into the ’24 contest. Feeling stuck, the party Puppet Masters blatantly, aggressively gave the lie to his decline into an incontinent, doddering Aqualung, who is probably incapable of managing his own minute affairs, much less run the largest and most important organization on the planet. In time-honored fashion, they excoriated anyone who dared to express a concern in this regard, and up to the very end, were emphatically insisting that not only was Old Joe up to the job, he was, in fact, at the top of his game.

Meantime, they not only did all in their power to ensure that he would match up against Trump, who they rightly considered the most beatable of all potential opponents but sought to further tip the scales through combinations of lawfare, attempts to remove him from the ballot, and other extra-democratic measures.

But the truth about their boy’s condition would out, and when it did, they simply shoved him aside, and, instead of canvassing party members as to their preferred replacement, promptly anointed the multiple box-checking (woman✓, minority✓, uber-woke✓) but politically pedestrian Harris.

As was perhaps inevitable, she initially surged. Raised $1B and somehow spent it all — leaving, improbably, a $20M hole when the dust settled. Busted out a chill vibe. Either obfuscated or adjusted her policy positions to poll-tested panderings. When the electorate became increasingly impatient with these joyful platitudes, she attacked her opponent as being a fascist.

But nobody (including me) can even accurately define fascism, and I suspect that a large portion of those who voted for Trump consulted their recollections of his first term and determined that there was little in our governance reminiscent of Hitler or Mussolini.

As a last refuge, they busted out our icons, Obama, Oprah, Bey, etc., who scolded organically friendly audiences that even considering anything but a vote for Kamala as an ill-conceived betrayal.

Yes, they were trying to tell everybody else how to properly think and feel, as the exclusive arbiters of such matters. But the voters rejected this, and the results are as we find them.

There was an eerie calm in Manhattan before and after Election Day, and it was hard to even locate the polling place. This stands in sharp contrast to 2020, when, even after I voted, poll watchers were trying to pull me into every other building on the Upper West Side, presumably, to vote again. Harris won 2/3rds of the NYC vote, but even after the results were tallied, nothing in the streets looked any different to me.

So, to the losers, our self-perceived betters, I say: stop telling us how to think. We can do nothing but aspire to your wisdom and erudition, but it is we (and not you) who must live with the consequences of our choices, which, if nothing else, in a just world, grants us the right to some agency.

The wages of your arrogant lecturings are embedded within the election results, the latter manifest, in no small part, in a rejection of your pomposity. And even if you’re right about a lot of stuff (which you may very well be), it is upon us to face the consequences. I think the voters understood and accepted this and decided accordingly. Even if it means a 4-year headache from listening to Trump’s bloviating.

In these early days, there are signs that both sides are tiring of their endless bickerings. The Harris concession speech, was, by modern standards at any rate, gracious and forward looking. Published reports suggest that the lame duck Justice Department is preparing to drop all pending actions against Trump, and that even the 34-conviction New York case may be dismissed. This would be wise on their part.

The other, victorious side has shown some elements of grace as well. I strongly suggest that y’all pay particular attention to their official pronouncement not seek to end the filibuster, the reality that: a) this would most certainly have happened if the results had been reversed; and b) to do so would greatly ease the enactment of their legislative agenda notwithstanding. This is a prime example of enlightened governance, and one which I believe will redound to the benefit of both party and nation.

I’d sure like to see more of this type of thing, and maybe it will happen. But I’m not overly optimistic.

The markets are nothing short of giddy at the outcome, and perhaps we should forgive it some temporary, light-hearted amusement. Certainly, and on balance, the incoming administration and legislative caucus offer a more appealing menu for investors than do their opposite numbers.

But I am hardly expecting a cake walk when the leaders of the new revolution take hold, as they will surely face the same types of legislative inertia that nearly always descends upon single-party sweepers. The tariff policies could be crippling. Trump will raise the temperature of an already boiling Middle East, and there are profound risks involved in this.

Both candidates ignored the expanding deficit, which throws off the following alarming trajectory:

This is now Trump’s problem (and, of course, ours). And it is unsustainable. Perhaps Elon will indeed ride in on a Space-X horse, fire everybody, and save us all a shit ton of money.

But I wouldn’t bank on it. Those getting fat at the Federal trough must have a cache of Polaroids. And unless we find some way to control our borrowing binge – in every form that it takes – dire outcomes are inevitable. I just don’t know when.

Meantime, yes, there’ll be a new(old) cast of characters. But we will face the same challenges and opportunities with the same human strengths and weaknesses with which to deal with them. It may work out, and I hope it does. Meanwhile, I reckon I’ll pick up my guitar and play. Just like yesterday.

Because the new boss is the same as the old boss, and, if we’re not careful, we will be fooled again…

TIMSHEL

Ride… …I’d like to ride again someday,
I think I still know how to play,
I play games now, but it’s not fun,
A cowboy’s work is never done

Sonny Bono

Somehow, when I woke up this morning and looked at the datebook, I found it to be my 65^th birthday.

Sixty. Fucking. Five. That pretty much says it all.

On the bright side, at least I woke up.

Yup, did that.

By the caprices of the calendar, I reach this milestone amid considerable chaos – most exemplified by tomorrow’s quadrennial election – the wildest such affair since… …well at least since that 2020 monkey circus.

So, everyone will be distracted, and as it happens, it appears I will spend most, if not all day riding solo. I think I can live with this, but as a special, once in every 6.5 decade treat to myself, I’m gonna pile more than the usual set of digressions into this note.

I have a few birthday wishes, if anyone cares to know of them. I wanna stop short of calling them my Bucket List. Because. I. Just. Can’t.

For one thing, I’d like to catch up with a few long forgotten, marginal players in my life’s history.

Like the guy from 4^th Grade who spent all day, all year, bouncing off the walls with two magic markers (the active ingredient of which, at the time was airplane glue) up his nose.

Or an old work colleague who – unfortunately it must be told – had accumulated enough DUIs to ensure his permanent loss of license on his next offense. Enterprising fellow that he was, he worked out a system under which, at the end of his daily homebound MTA commute, he’d bolt for the bar at the train station, chug down five shots of Makers Mark, sprint to his car and speed home in time to arrive within the seven- minute window he calculated it would take before the alcohol reached his bloodstream.

Or my college acquaintance, Pete, who after an especially energetic night of debauch, stumbled into his bed – only to find out that he had done so at the wrong house, causing its rightful owner considerable horror and Pete serious bodily injury.

I do wonder how them cats are doing.

I also would very much like, if only once more in my lifetime, to wander the main campus of Columbia University – where I both studied and taught, and whose quad I have stomped over for more than forty years. One needs a pass to enter the premises these days, and (having trekked up there on Friday) I find that even alumni/former faculty status will not avail you of ingress.

I’d like the Bears to beat the Packers. Just once.

I would also love for the surviving members of The Faces (Rod the Mod, Woody and Can Smasher Jones) to do a farewell tour – more than 50 years after their last engagement.

There’s a sizeable list of folks to whom I’d like to speak my mind, and it’s possible that I may do so with one or two of them. But only if: a) happenstance so specifies; and b) I can authentically convince myself that the cost (perhaps substantial) of doing so is likely to fall short of the elusive, uncertain benefit.

I reckon I’ll be watching the markets this week, but don’t expect any clarity. I won’t again reiterate the reasons behind my concern that the outcome will be disputed to the point of disruption (though they remain valid), but I’m even more certain that we won’t know the full outcome for days or weeks – particularly at the Congressional level.

I’m gonna further wish for a split government result, because I truly believe that a unified coalition accruing to either side will do little useful and inflict much damage.

I also, as I blow out my candles will hope that the incoming administration energetically supports Israel, realizing, in doing so (among other matters) that while that forlorn sliver of land is Ground Zero for now, the ultimate objective of the other side is the damage/destruction of the United States itself.

I hope the Fed keeps it tight and that elected officials resist the temptation to distribute mad bennies to those who rode with them through this crazy election. I am, however, not optimistic on that score, because whoever wins will be on the receiving end of an endless set of bills of fare for services rendered (real or perceived).

I hope y’all take a little pause before determining what it all means and deploying capital accordingly. As we won’t know whether and to what extent the investment winds blow fair or ill for some time to come.

And yes, I’d like to ride again someday. Because I think I still know how to play. And when I say that the games I am currently playing are not fun, I suspect I’m not alone in this settlement.

But like the man says, a cowboy’s worth is never done. So, while I won’t fault you for pausing to wish me happy returns of the day, I suggest that you subsequently saddle ‘em up without much delay.

Because my 66^th spin ‘round the sun promises to be a wild ride.

TIMSHEL

Following on last week’s GTFO opus, I migrate to another of my fave acronyms, as captured in our title.

But before doing so, I have an obligation to fullPhil. I must offer a few words about Phil.

His death, even at the ripe age of 84, came as something of a shock to me, and I suspect I’m not alone. But Phil is a bit elusive in my mind. Deadheads, of course, believe him to be a bottom thumping god, but this is the same crowd that feels (dubiously in my judgment) two drummers were essential to a band that, whatever else, may be said about them, was not particularly driven by can smashing beats.

I can’t tell but suspect that Phil was pretty handy with his bass, and certainly innovative in mapping each of the 5 (yes 5) strings to different sections of the Dead’s iconic-if-excessive 20-story Wall of Sound speaker system.

But I don’t think he was ever quite comfortable with it all. He was trained as a violinist and only converted to bass at Jerry’s request. He fit the sound like a glove, but never stood out. And never embraced the rock lifestyle. He was, for instance, married to the same woman for 5.5 decades.

He looked stupid with long hair:

That’s him on the right. Next to Jerry, who also looks kind of stupid in this picture, but can be forgiven because he was, well, you know, Jerry.

Whatever his interaction with drugs, they certainly ended long ago. In these ways, he kind of reminded me of an American, string-plucking version of Charlie Watts, who also perfectly but uncomfortably melded into a great band where others commanded the spotlight.

More than anything, he was on a mission. He recognized Jerry’s singular greatness and made it his business to do all in his power to help him realize it. In this he succeeded, and for this, we thank him.

And now it’s time for me to STFU about Phil.

Other than this. His death transpired during a highly chatty season, one that has me wishing everyone would STFU. I may be a little early on this one, however, because one can at least hope that by Wednesday week, the implied message will: a) be obvious; and b) generally complied with.

In fact, though, I fear quite the opposite, and this has me, as your risk manager, more than a bit worried. And it’s not so much the results of the voting tabulations that has rendered me jumpy, but rather what happens in the aftermath of the counts, when the nominal outcomes (you know – the ones where the candidate that has garnered the most votes is declared the victor?) are compiled.

I won’t prognosticate an outcome. Because I don’t know. I suspect it will be close, which will be problematic for reasons further explained below.

Perhaps more importantly, I have made the editorial decision to withhold endorsements, for the following reasons: 1) I dislike the choices on the ballot 2) what’s good enough for the Bezos Washington Post (which had endorsed every Democrat dating back to Ike) is good enough for me; and perhaps most importantly: 3) me stating my preference might very well be the deciding factor, and I simply don’t want the responsibility.

So, I’ve decided to STFU in terms of projected results and associated personal preferences.

But as the ghastly day approaches, I dread it will not be the be the end of our current national nightmare, but rather the beginning of a new one – for the obvious reason that Tuesday week’s outcome stands every possibility of being no outcome at all.

My logic is neither original nor especially nuanced. Specifically, if there is any possibility for nullifying results, particularly in closely contested races, it’s clear that resources are being marshalled to do just that.

Now, at the risk of overtly telegraphing my political pre-dispositions, I must state that it is the lawyers, who all tilt one way, that I fear the most. They’re out there in force. And ready to act – at the National, State, County, and Municipal levels. They’ve made no secret of their intent to do so, and I suggest, as is only consistent with sound risk management practice, that we take them at their word.

So, if Trump wins, they’re gonna sue. They’ll find judges friendly to their cause in every state with a narrow outcome, who in turn will issue injunctions blocking the certification of results. If they’ve got nothing else, they’ll bust out that old, tired riff about voter suppression (difficult to prove but impossible to completely refute). It won’t matter if they ultimately prevail; the objective here will be to delay. Meantime, and at their instance (or at minimum with their full sanction), the cities will burn.

And even if their candidate carries it off, they’ll use the same tactics to disrupt the sign-off on closely contested Senate, House, Gubernatorial, Mayoral and Aldermanic contests.

In sum, I highly doubt we will know specifically who’s running this here the show till at least Thanksgiving. And maybe not until Christmas. Or later.

Were this not bad enough, Trump is scheduled to be sentenced for the 34 felonies of which he stands convicted – for the unpardonable transgression of securing a loan that the bankers approved, and that he paid back on schedule– on November 26^th. And waddya think the Judge Juan (whose daughter is a seven- figure political consultant to the Democratic Party) is gonna do? Let him off on good behavior? No, he’s gonna hit him with all he’s got.

It is thus entirely possible that while the entire election cycle is in adjudication, the presumptive president-elect will have been sentenced to hard time at Rikers.

Moreover, even if we somehow survive this sequence and emerge unshattered in early January. Who is designated to certify the electors associated with a Trump victory? None other than Kamala Harris, who: a) will be mad as a wet hen; and b) will have precedent to impede the process, given what happened last time ‘round.

So, if this comes to pass, Daddy Orange will have no one to blame but himself. By refusing, with unmatched, trademark petulance, to accept the official results of the 2020 election – even to this day, he declared to the entire world, but mostly to his political enemies, that any and all tactics available to engineer a preferred political outcome are fair game.

It was one of the greatest unforced errors in electoral history, handing the weapons most favored by the opposition to them on a silver platter.

One can feel them licking their chops. They probably will not be unilaterally successful with this tactic, but they will have done enough to render governance as problematic as it was during the Trump 45 era.

And he will not have the ability to respond in kind if Harris wins (as well she might). First, he is likely to be fully occupied with the task of staying out of jail, as even his defeat is unlikely to stem the hot-blooded desire of those in a position to do so to incarcerate him. Beyond this, nobody – particularly, I suspect, Republicans, will want to listen to his bleating about being ripped off a second time. He’s already shot his wad in this respect. The gleeful, victorious Dems will dismiss him like the petulant child he is, and then focus on the more uplifting task of dividing up the spoils of their triumph. The Republicans, perhaps realizing under this scenario that while he did indeed draw an inside straight in 2016, he has captained them to four consecutive losses in the intervening years (’18, ’20, ’22 and ’24), will gladly try to forget him.

But until these matters are settled, there will be a significant lack of visibility in market realms, and, while I may be wrong, the election could go smoothly with the contours of the results plain and unambiguous, the risk of the whole thing devolving into a pig circus is, in my judgment, elevated, and I encourage my minions to take this into consideration as they contemplate their risk sizings.

Yeah, there’s other stuff going on. A decidedly “meh” earnings season is entering its most critical stage. Q3 GDP drops this week, with estimates in a spiffy 3% range. The Middle East caldron is simmering to a full boil. The October Jobs Report comes out on All Saints Day and is projected to be rather tepid.

But all of this is mere side show, because we’ve November 5^th and its aftermath with which to contend. I don’t know. but fear it will devolve in ways that will cause consequences which I shudder to fathom.

But now it’s time for me to STFU. The election of course, is a week from tomorrow, and I am unable to resist the temptation to conclude with yet another of my preferred acronyms.

So, I offer everyone a friendly C U Next Tuesday, with all well-earned love and respect.

TIMSHEL

I ask you: is there a more righteous acronym under heaven than our titular letter sequence?

Especially lately, and especially for me, as I have found over the last fortnight or so, that nearly everything my senses encounter evokes a GTFO reflex. Including the markets.

But, as always, we’ll get to that anon. The markets, I mean.

Meantime, a quick inventory of the upper reaches of my GTFO list is perhaps in order.

This past weekend featured the closing of the Super K, on U.S. Route 27, in Bridgehampton, NY. Improbably, it was the last fully stocked K-Mart in the Lower 48 – in Bridgehampton, FFS! And I say good riddance! Because Bridgehampton can make much better use of this primo real estate — by opening a few more hair/nail salons, bad restaurants and overpriced tchotchke boutiques, as, presumably, the Good Lord intended. So, says I, GTFO K-Mart! GTFO of Bridgehampton!

And GTFO Major League Baseball, whose seemingly endless season is coming to a nauseating close, but not soon enough. After yet another sequence of interminable, mind-numbing contests, the mighty engine of capitalism at last prevailed, with the three teams that feature by a wide margin the highest payrolls emerging as the only surviving participants. Two of them, the only two to have eclipsed the $300M salary threshold, are from New York. The third (and likely champion), used to play in Brooklyn but now operates in Los Angeles, and just paid some Japanese dude >$700M for his services.

One of the NY teams is owned by a former boss of mine, to whom I owe a lot. He’s one of the greatest investors of all-time, but never made a better trade than his purchase of the Mets – for which he obtains a full tax write-off, an antitrust exemption, and an asset that can only appreciate in an era of globalization and global telecommunications.

You can’t therefore blame him for “investing” in his payroll/roster, snapping up (and arguably overpaying), for the last three years, nearly every available top tier player. The message is clear – the way to win is to treat your franchise like an Investment Bank, or, worse yet, a hedge fund. OK; fair enough.
But let’s not try to pretend that he and his ilk are latter-day versions of Branch Rickey or Red Auerbach.

Embracing this reality in NY is particularly problematic, as their franchises have a maddening habit of throwing wads of cash at brand name athletes on the decline, and then congratulating themselves for so doing. In the case of the Yankees – newly crowned A.L. champs, much of this is funded by taxpayers, who spent $2B on a new stadium and then gifted the property to a Tampa-based ship-building concern, whose name is synonymous with the franchise. For these reasons and others, and though I have lived here for more than half my life, I can never root for New York teams. In fact, I say: GTFO New York teams!

The latest example of the NY money-whip has-been-trade is the Jets Aaron Rodgers saga, with whom, as a Bears fan, I have a legit lifelong beef. GTFO, Rodgers! He’s had a busy couple of weeks, first losing to the Vikings, then getting his coach fired, then losing to the Bills, then plucking his boy Davante Adams from the dubious environs of Vegas.

Lastly, they finally cut a deal with the holdout prima donna that they plucked away from the Eagles. Anything else we can do for you, Rodgers? After all, we’re all here to serve you.

On further reflection, just GTFO.

Moving on, GFTO Sinwar, the late leader of Hamas, who is most distinguished by: 1) having masterminded the 10/7/23 terrorist attacks, and 2) bearing perhaps the most aptly diabolic surname in history (Sin war). The Israelis did him on Thursday, and his last act was to throw a wooden stick at the IDF trainees and reservists who planted several bullets into him. He’s presumably now enjoying his 72 virgins, but my hope is that at least a few of those lovelies had previously yielded their maidenheads.

And of course, GTFO U.S. election. I’m so over it and I suspect that the rest of y’all are as well. There isn’t much I can add to the erudite analysis of this monkey show, though I do take note of published reports that Trump’s lopsided advantage in political exchanges such as Polymarket are in part the result of a handful of speculators cornering the Trump market. Kind of like Nelson Bunker Hunt did, unsuccessfully, in the Silver Market, a couple of generations ago. If true, it the spreads should normalize soon, as those who drove up the price artificially seek to unload their holdings at an inflated price, in classic “pump and dump” fashion, and giving rise to a new variant of same: the Trump pump and dump.

Or if you prefer, the Trump chump pump and dump.

Notably, the Polymarket exchange is a crypto-based platform — within which one must transact in digital currency USDC – a so-called stablecoin that is pegged 100% to the USD. And I am almost, but not quite, prepared to lob a GTFO to crypto.

Because, c’mon! We’re more than a decade into this thing, and I still don’t know what it’s all about. Billions and billions pour into it — all, so it seems, on a purely speculative basis. It rises and falls based upon such factors as interest rate differentials, geopolitical trends, risk appetite and others.

Great. Just what the world needs: another macro instrument that no one understands. Meantime, at least on these here shores, nobody seems to apply it to any practical purpose. As the crypto saga unfolded, I had become intrigued the blockchain technology upon which it is based. Blockchain can be described (albeit imperfectly) as a multi-user encrypted record transmission and repository system, where every participant accepts its content. It is therefore in a perpetual state of reconciliation – without impeding the record-keeping of individual users. The idea is simply too powerful not to ultimately take hold. But it hasn’t — at least yet. Nobody is using blockchain, or if they are, they’re sure keeping quiet about it.

Meantime, in a world of increasing uncertainty, benchmark crypto instruments are lurching back towards all-time highs. Somebody must know something, and, as such, I am unwilling to issue a broad-based GTFO to the asset class. But it should be forewarned: I’m watching. And my patience is growing thin.

Balancing matters out, it would be irrational, for now, to consider offering a GTFO to the capital or commercial economy, which remains a matter of miraculous wonder. One can, here as elsewhere, always complain, but considering all it has endured, it is mind-boggling to contemplate its resilience. Prices are indeed too high, but not escalating in Weimar Republic fashion, as well they might have.

Half of this country GTFOs the other half, and the other half GTFOs the half. And, as a major component of its branding/strategy, GFTO Group 1 has issued an all-out assault on fossil fuel production. But, under its governance, said production has reached a new all-time high:

Presumably, if fossil fuel-hating GTFO Group 1 prevails next month, these figures will drop dramatically, and at a time when geopolitical tensions in the most important region for energy production are as elevated as they have been in more than five decades.

But God Oh Mighty! Q3 GDP drops Wednesday week, and just look at where it projects:

I think it wise, though, to keep the economic GTFO gun loaded and at the ready, because so much of this vigor is fueled by borrowing from The Man, leaving so little in reserve for future adventures and emergencies:

Much of this may merit discussion at this week’s International Monetary Fund/World Bank conference in (where else?) Washington, where they may also discuss the reality that global sovereign debt will, for the first time, exceed $100T this year. Though space limitations preclude further articulation, I doubt there are two more ossified organizations under heaven than the IMF and World Bank — to whom I also say GTFO.

On balance, though, and temptation to do so notwithstanding, one can hardly bust out the GTFO to the equity markets – which, not only in the U.S. but globally, continue to gobble up new high ground. The benchmark Taiwan index is up >30%, including blowout performance last week by the country’s only valuable corporate asset – Taiwan Semi – and all as the Chinese (who will certainly take over its island neighbor sooner or later) conducted its largest ever flyover of military jets into the former’s airspace.

And Germany. Somebody explain how that country’s securities, whose banks are insolvent, whose economic footprint is rapidly disappearing, is experiencing new valuation elevations in its own markets.

Ravenous investors appear to have an insatiable appetite for risk assets, as well they might. Central Banks declared open bar > 15 years ago have yet to either stop serving or turn on the registers. Under such circumstances, who but the teetotaling and/or most effete among us is likely to push away from the table?

Instead, investors hurl GTFOs at risk factors including an unmanageable credit bubble, horrible governance everywhere with no remediation in sight, the powder keg of Mid-East violence, natural disasters and other manifestly unpleasant but transiently ignorable matters of concern. We’ve all got stocks to buy, after all. And crypto. So, for now at any rate, it’s begone with these hazards, and GTFO to their potential consequences.

All of which will run its course. Why? Because all things subject to downward acceleration at 9.8 meters/second² must. Just as it now seems as though nothing can arrest or even impede the market’s bid, there will come a time when it will seem as though such a thing as a bid never existed.

As we move towards the depressing spectacle of November 5^th, as we await the next sandal to drop in the Middle East, the earnings cycle will accelerate. That’s all a lot of fat to chew, and I would urge folks to step lightly with their risks.

Because as indicated above, whatever commands our obsessive focus will run its course. The K in Bridge is gone, the baseball season will soon conclude, Rodgers is fading, Sinwar is dead, and November 6^th is blessedly on the horizon. We’re probably stuck with the IMF/World Bank, but they can head up my new GFTO list, which should not be a problem to compile.

However, that’s for another day – perhaps one where I’ve better conquered the demons that plague me.

So, instead of issuing y’all a hearty GTFO, I will instead conclude with the time-honored, uplifting…

TIMSHEL

Let’s quickly dispense with our weekly croak list, shall we?

First, Ethel Skakel Kennedy, matron of the legacy Kennedy Clan, has left the building, and we can only wish her a pleasant journey. Orphaned at 28 by virtue of losing both her parents in a plane crash, she found succor in the arms of maybe the randiest politician in American history (yes, more so even, than her more famous brother-in-law), she bore witness to his murder (covered up even more flagrantly than that episode in Dallas, but that’s another story). Tragically lost two sons. One nephew flew his plane ineptly into the drink; another created a 30-year public scandal by murdering a neighbor.

Certainly, she was one tough broad. And I think she could have easily lived another couple of decades, to perhaps 120, if it not for the worst tragedy of her life: her eldest son, the bearer of her husband’s name, endorsing not only a Republican, but the evilest one of all, Donald J. Trump. No one could’ve expected her to survive that. And she didn’t.

I also want to offer a quick word about the inspiration of this week’s theme, Pitcher Luis Tiant, who was born in Cuba and died last week where all Cubans go to die – in Maine. Had a great career, but I don’t really have much to say about him. Other than this: the combination of his ethnicity and the force of his heater caused him to acquire the nickname Senor Smoke. Which is about the coolest handle of which I am aware in any sport.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

But now Smoke is gone. And where there’s no smoke, so the saying goes, there’s no fire. Perhaps this is owing in part to all the precipitation endured across the Eastern Seaboard over the past fortnight. But away from these soggy environs, one is also hard-pressed to find a single spark of heat-inducing light – particularly in the markets.

With what promised to be a raucous October now nearly half in the books, the Gallant 500 has sleep-walked through barely a 1% range. Treasuries have been covered by a wet blanket, with 10-year yields now, depressingly and again, above 4%. But that there game is in its early innings, its outcome highly uncertain.

Looking immediately ahead, I’d be tempted to predict that things are about to flame up. But they already should’ve, what, with data releases, geopolitical strife, domestic political psychodrama, two devastating hurricanes, potentially crippling job actions, and the like, and none of it seeming to move the valuation needle by perceptible amounts.

We nonetheless must proceed as though the fire is about to ignite, and whether it evokes smore-producing conditions or the need to bust out the axes and the hoses remains to be seen.

What we know thus far is as follows. Jobs and Inflation figures suggest robust economic activity. The earnings season commences against the backdrop of lowest analyst expectations in a year. The next shoe is certain to drop soon in the Middle East. Eastern Europe remains in an opaque quagmire.

There’s some shit going down in the Chinese markets, but I’ll be switched if I can begin to unpack any of that.

With respect to the election, the betting markets have shifted dramatically in Trump’s favor. Republicans are even more likely to recapture the Senate, due to: a) their having to defend less than half the seats of their opposite numbers; b) the retirement of Joe Manchin and the overwhelming likelihood of West Va. replacing him with a Republican; c) the equally high probability that Tester’s MT will flip. The House? Who knows?

I’m not inclined to place much credence in any of this. Looks like it will both be close and full of surprises at the national level. I am hoping for a split outcome, because I don’t think any organized and united government is capable of doing anything but harm.

We are compelled to invest and trade against this backdrop, and, as related last week, I am concerned about the aftermath of the election. There’s gonna be a lot of pissed off people, no matter what the outcome, and they’re gonna stay pissed off.  So much so that they may be inclined to disrupt the serenity of those of us who will at any rate strive to accept the results with equanimity.

If all this renders your toes cold, the warming reality is that while at the index/factor level, the embers are dark, there are sparks action aplenty popping for individual securities:

This implies what us market cheerleaders like to call a stock picker’s tape. And I wish all of you good fortune with respect to your selections.

Longer term, though, an explosion may indeed be on the horizon, with the Irresistible Force of economic vitality meeting the Immovable Object of broad-based insolvency and other financial transgressions. The resulting blast should be entertaining, if painful, to observe.

It’s all a helluva shame though, because if we weren’t all such self-righteous over-extended dillwoods, the prospects for future economic bliss are breathtaking to contemplate. Say what you will about technology, it continues to create miraculous increases in productivity. And not just in those dweeby realms as telecommunications and Artificial Intelligence.  Consider, if you will, the evolution of agriculture. Over the course of my (admittedly over-long) lifetime, the trajectory of corn yields per acre takes the following path:

I believe we can and will improve upon even this retrorocket ignition. It’s not difficult to imagine clairvoyant weather models adding significant precision, along with wonderous machines that can assess the yield potential of every square centimeter of acreage, the presence or approach of nasty boll weevils, the efficacy of various pesticides, etc.

One can easily extrapolate from there to other wonders, involving health science, transportation, manufacturing, etc.

The question is: can we get there before we drown ourselves in indebtedness?

These matters, are, of course imponderable in the short term; we must instead attend to what lies immediately ahead.

It still feels too damp for me to anticipate the warmth of crackling logs, with ill winds threatening from multiple directions. I wouldn’t be inclined, for the moment, to try to stoke up any blazes in my investment activities.

Perhaps better, for now, to chill. And I’d be inclined to light a cigar to put me in the proper mood.

But with no fire, as indicated above, there’s no smoke. That much, at any rate, is axiomatic.

As to what else is going on amid the current confusion, unfortunately my friends, I must leave it up to you to determine.

TIMSHEL

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 47^th 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

Much as I hate laying ultimatums on y’all, I feel I have no choice but to bring the hammer down — this one time.

I’m giving everyone until year end, at which time I am putting a permanent moratorium on the term “word salad”. And I insist on this deadline — irrespective of the outcome of the November election, which might very well see the person who is (somewhat justifiably) most associated with the term, emerge victorious.

Doesn’t matter if she wins. And we must endure, at minimum, four years of literary lettuce thrust upon us on a daily basis. The term W            S            will be banned from the vernacular.

Because, you see, having been accused many times of tossing verbiage in a bowl that also contains tomatoes and other garnishments, and combining them into expressions – often in this very space — this is one of the few areas of solidarity between the current Vice President and yours truly that exists.

And I think that both of us would agree: the term itself is little more than Word Salad.

None of which is to suggest that the issues we all confront, and/or articulation of same, is easy to deconstruct and communicate. But for me, the problem is more one of trying to figure out what in the hell is going on out there. Yes, my considerations are all scrambled up in a bowl but are more suitable to be pureed and boiled than they are for tossing.

Call it Word Salad (for now) if you will, but I am more prepared to deem it Thought Soup, and I feel particularly justified in doing so considering, as discussed in our September 16^th issue, the Campbell folks in Camden, NJ have removed the word Soup from their corporate branding.

So, we take up the mantel for those iconic purveyors of frothy delights encased in red and white metal cans. And appropriately so, because it is truly soupy out there, so soupy, in fact that a nearly forgotten but once beloved comedian of a brothy handle must be looking down on us with a big ol’ toothy grin:

I learn from my erudite research that Soupy Sales obtained his nick from the reality that he was born one Milton Supman, in the otherwise non-Semitic burg of Franklinton, NC.

He was a World War II vet. He lived to be nearly 90. His two sons played in bands with Todd and Bowie.

His humor is dated by modern standards. Most of us wouldn’t find him funny now. But I’m sure he’d find us to be hilarious.

And it can be cogently argued that we have hit (though God knows what happens in the future) peak
soupiness. And this comes at a rather inconvenient time, because, though we’ve tried to stave it off, October is upon us. And with it, all possible vagaries converge upon the investing populus. There are monthly and quarterly economic data points to parse, along with quarterly earnings.

The geo-political situation has hit a new elevation of temperature, with Israel’s aggressively masterful attacks on Hezbollah. Whatever one’s view of these tidings may be, this much is certain. The IDF is the baddest set of mofos anywhere. First, they blew the shorts off thousands of beeper bearing banditos, Since then, they’ve taken out three top layers of Hez leadership without breaking a sweat. By contrast, it took us a decade and a half to bag Saddam, and nearly 10 years to do Bin Laden – neither of whom had the infrastructure of the Mullah-backed terrorist organization headquartered in Lebanon.

Bibi went into the most hostile territory (for him) this side of the Reichstag (i.e. The U.N. General Assembly) last week, to announce to the world that he had no intention of stopping or slowing until the dogs call off the assaults (averaging ~30 a day since October 7th) on Northern Israel.

And all of this in the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah, this Wednesday, ushering in the year 5785. Due to the caprices of the calendar, Rosh transpires precisely one month prior to the quadrennial American election, a linkage which reminds me of the widely circulated axiom that much of American Judaism can be summed up as the Democratic Party Platform, with holidays added.

Our election itself is perhaps the soupiest part of the soup, and I won’t allow myself to fall too deeply into its deconstruction. More than anything else, it reminds me of a soup that a restaurant produces out of
yesterday’s otherwise-to be discarded ingredients.

The candidates deeply are both flawed, and the prospect of either one of them taking the reins is deeply depressing to me. But I do wonder why any Israeli-supporting Jew would consider voting Democratic, because the latter organization has, at minimum, backed itself into a rhetorical corner in terms of its associated support. They can only do so much, may do nothing at all. And this means that the mullahs will be given a free, no, make that subsidized, hand to wreak havoc – from the River to the Sea.

But what implications any but the most extreme electoral outcomes will have for the markets is entirely soupy to me.

And what I really think is this. By Halloween, or, at latest by Thanksgiving, the economic and financial condition of the markets, such as we can read them, will matter less than investor perceptions of same. Be it right or wrong, a consensus will form which will set the tone for year-end activity and beyond.

For now, investors continue to bid up risk assets, and, perhaps in ominous nod to those who, through lawfare, ballot eligibility manipulations and other tactics, are seeking to save democracy by attacking its protocols, have engineered what can only be described as an economically democratic rally this quarter:

Interestingly, investors are also incrementally embracing the highly democratic asset class of commodities:

I think this makes sense, in part because the portfolio mix includes beef, chicken, rice, eggs, corn and other staples commonly found in any variety of soup one cares to name. Perhaps also, with war beats rising to crescendo and with interest rates on a downward path, owning tangible stuff that is actually useful doesn’t strike me as the worst idea I’ve ever heard.

So, now it’s on to October, and the soggy, soupy state3 it is likely to feature. We’ll get the ball rolling with Friday’s Jobs Report, set to drop as me and my co-religionists emerge from our 5785 celebrations. Then I reckon earnings will begin to dribble in. The inflation figures come cruelly amid our day(s) of atonement. But we will be forced to wait until the eve of All Hallows Eve (10/30) to process (introductory and sure to be revised multiple times) Q3 GDP results.

We will be compelled, all the while, to keep a worrying, wearying eye on the tidings from the campaign trail and on the ominous doings abroad – from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, to the Far East.

None of it, I suspect, will amount to much with respect to asset valuation consensus.

Because we won’t know, save for a glance in the rear-view mirror, what form that new consensus, which surely must be slouching towards us, will assume. These are not conditions for portfolio heroics, and I urge caution on any and all who give a care for that which issues forth from my wandering wits.

Perhaps, much as I hate to ratchet down my consumption everything from Bullion to Bean with Bacon, I should stop this liquid diet nonsense. Because it’s beginning to go to my brain. And, from my brain to my keyboard. And from my keyboard to your screen(s).

I think that all the solid clarity I can muster for now is sufficient to warn everyone that it is not only soupy out there, but also risky.

So, in closing, I encourage everyone to mix in a salad – a word salad if you must. While you still can. And, in reading back the content of this note, I find that for nonce, I am taking my own advice.

TIMSHEL

Everybody’s smoking and no one’s getting high
Everybody’s flying and never touch the sky
There’s UFO’s over New York and I ain’t too surprised

Nobody told me there’d be days like these

John Winston Ono Lennon

Strange days have found us. Strange days have dragged us down.

James Douglas Morrison

In an environment dominated by exploding pagers and other such dainties, I find myself increasingly unable to recapture the thread, any thread, all of which I seem to have lost years ago.

A brief inventory of the doings that most mystify me is provided below.

First, Puff, about whom I have little to say. Other than this. He was born ten years to the day after me. Which is the sole reason that I, and nobody else, am allowed to call him Puff.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

I also read with interest that after more than a decade of it languishing on the market, MJ has finally received an accepted bid for his Highland Park, IL manse – complete, as it is, with a deluxe basketball court and cigar lounge — at a fraction of its original listing price. Sadly, I have neither the wallet nor the hops to have bought the place myself. Those who know me will, however, agree that I could’ve rocked that cigar bar.

It was never to be. I did, however, take the virtual tour, but is no longer accessible online. Which is a pity for you. Because it was a hella show.

Congrats are also owing to His Air-ness’s baseball squad – the Chicago White Sox, who, featuring common ownership with his roundball paymasters, are about to accomplish the near-impossible: losing 125 games in a 162-game season. Statistically, this is as nigh-improbable as the feat of the ‘95-’96 Chicago Bulls, who went 72-10 in the regular season, 15-3 in the playoffs, and settled the argument once and for all as to the best squad in NBA history.

And, of course, Washington, that epicenter of odd behavior, joined in the hijinks, as perhaps best exemplified by Old Joe, now rendered as irrelevant as any public figure in recent memory, having turned the gavel, in what might very well be his last-ever cabinet meeting (the one preceding took place in October of 2023) over to his better half. The First Lady. Dr. Jill.

Having performed a cursory check, I find that this is unprecedented in United States History. Mary Lincoln performed no séances in official conferences with Seward, Chase, Stanton, Blair and the rest. Didn’t happen when Edith Wilson took over all presidential duties as her husband Woodrow recovered from a stroke. Eleanor Roosevelt, she of the mammoth stones, and equipped, as she was, with enough dirt on her husband to hang him, never pulled it off. Heck, even Lucretia Garfield, her husband dying slowly from a bullet wound which doctors insisted on prodding with unwashed hands and poking with unsterilized probes, never presided over the latter’s cabinet.

I think we can all agree, though, that Dr. Jill is cut from a different cloth, and I will cop to digging her in her leathers.

But at overseeing a formal confab of Mayor Pete, Secretary Yell, General Gar and the rest, I draw the line.

However, the strongest evidence that Strange Days (indeed) prevail comes from the marble halls of The Fed, which, for nonce in a lifetime, made good on a prognostication of mine, by reducing overnight rates by a baller 50 bp.

And for this I am grateful.

Everyone is asking me, in the wake of this miracle, the same question: what happens now? Investors, not pausing for me to weigh in, have thus far responded to Central Bank largesse (that is, to all but those schmucks like yours truly that continue to maintain large portions of their wealth in Savings Accounts) with giddy appreciation. General Dow and the Gallant 500 now reside at proximate all-time highs.

I don’t reckon that this is either surprising or, per se, problematic. Whether it is sustainable is a different matter. Given the behavioral free for all unfolding before our eyes, nearly anything could happen between now and the end of the month. But the calendar is largely bereft of scheduled shenanigans.

Then we come to October, a month in which it’s all up for grabs. We can anticipate, must endure, monthly economic data, quarterly economic data, and quarterly earnings. The Middle East is on the brink of an expanded war footing.

Oh yeah. And the wind down of the presidential election, about which I am beginning to fret more with each passing day. I needn’t say much about the core of the Progressive agenda and its potential impact on the Capital Markets. It won’t prevail – even if they win – because of the patent disfunction of the process. However, it remains a matter of dire concern.

But – Not Gonna Lie – Trump is beginning to worry me. Even more than usual. As days go by, he moves further away from a free-market agenda and towards a control economy. Some of this is not new. Punitive, free-trade destroying tariffs for instance. But lately, as he bust outs more hair-brained ideas such as honeycombing the tax code to engineer carve outs for revenue sources such as Overtime Pay, as he utters platitudes about suicidal policies capping interest rates on debt, I begin to be squicked.

Every one of these constructs points toward redistribution of resources. Placing limits on interest rate on debt will do little beyond denying credit to many who rely upon it. Exempt overtime pay from taxable income, and watch millionaires and billionaires put themselves on hourly wage regimes, and claim the lion’s share of their comp as a deduction.

Meantime, the National Debt, now well above $35T, is growing by $200B a month.

And, of course, we are galaxies away from a stopgap measure to avoid breaching the debt ceiling.

Meantime, not only are these ideas as bad as the subsidizing of new homeowners and home builders, but they suggest to me a hint of panic down in Mar a Lago. It’s simply not an encouraging sign when, a month and a half prior to the election, a Republican candidate is energetically seeking to bribe large elements of the electorate. He’s now even talking about removing the SALT caps – a move which, as a resident of a high tax state, would accrue to my benefit. But c’mon. In the first instance, the main impact here will be to render the inexorable climb of state and local levies in high tax jurisdictions an easier task. Also, does our boy really think he has a prayer in New York? Or California? Or Massachusetts? Or Hawaii? Not. A. Chance. And somebody ought to remind him of this reality.

This much is certain. The whole election – including the down ballot contests – is likely to come down to the wire, and the markets are apt to be a bit jittery with each new sound bite. I don’t look forward to the action that awaits us as the fatal date approaches.

But I reckon we’ll just have to punch through. And it may not be too early to take a terrifying glimpse as to what awaits us, once these matters are settled, and 2025 beckons.

It’s hard for me not to be concerned about the markets next year. For one thing, the current action reminds me of 2021, when everyone in my range of encounter believed they had the game beat. Then came ’22, which was an absolute car wreck.

I also have difficulty identifying an electoral outcome that won’t be problematic for the Capital Markets. If Trump wins and takes Congress, he may move forward with some of his above-mentioned stupid ideas. In addition, those who believe him, somehow, to be the evilest person in human history (and there are many) will stop at nothing to visit terrible retribution on an electorate that dared to vote him in.

If it’s Harris, with a similar mandate, it might well be time for all of us to seek another profession altogether. I can’t bear to even contemplate the carnage associated with a reversion to a 28% Corporate Tax Rate, or, worse yet, a big fat levy on yet-to-be-realized capital gains.

I’ll be 65 in exactly 6 weeks and the thought of professional reinvention is beyond what I can contemplate.

But I reckon I may as well look on the bright side. Puff will be 55 on the same day, and it will probably be even harder for him to transform himself from music/cultural empresario into laundry folder at Rikers. Plus, as indicated above, the overwhelming likelihood, for which I fervently pray, is a split government which can do little other than jawbone their whacky ideas.

Shortly before he died, John Lennon sang of UFOs over New York, which failed to surprise him. They may be back. And soon, in Highland Park, some sweaty local lawyers and investment bankers may be huffing their way up and down a court that was once graced by MJ, Magic, Charles and even Isaiah.

There are still five games left in the 2024 baseball season, and perhaps even the White Sox could win two of them, sparing themselves the ignominy of that 125^th loss. I’m not optimistic about this, but given what I observe, it is not out of the question.

Strange days have found us, Morrison said. And he was right. He was born 37 years to the day before Lennon was murdered, but only made it through 27 of these. Shortly before he died, Lennon resurrected this sentiment. Perhaps in a nod to the Lizard King, he modified it a bit, and at least this week, I prefer his take:

Strange days indeed.

TIMSHEL

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 52^nd 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

Tis the threshold of Autumn, and as such, time to don the colors and cheer for Alma Mater. Given that the football season is underway, as are classes, it is perhaps natural that my mind turns towards leafy green quads and brick buildings graced by the names of ancient philosophers, but annoyingly bereft of anything that resembles carpeting.

What further focuses my attention is the release of a couple of academic ranking reports, an exercise, which, as is the case with mock NFL drafts, now seems to have extended into the infinite. Time was that these realms were dominated by “U.S. News and World Report” Magazine. But that era has long since passed. Now, everyone appears to have gotten into the act, and, if it might be fair to state that we are perhaps rendered no worse for this proliferation, we are most certainly none the better.

The one that really caught my eye was published, improbably, by the Wall Street Journal, whose ratings topped out, at 1 and 3, by perennials Princeton and Stanford, but which surprisingly sandwiched in tiny Babson College, nestled as it is in Wellesley, MA at number 2. I know a couple of Babson Beavers, to whom I extend my congratulations. Nice job, Beavs!

My issues, though, are fixated further down the trough. One must migrate to Page 4 to locate my University of Chicago Maroons, who clocked in at 75. My undergraduate alma mater can be found almost adjacently – at 77. These recipients of my hard-earned tuition dollars thus trail significantly behind such Academic Edens as Loyola Maryland (23), Towson College (40), and, for careful readers of this space, the Institution Formerly Known as Manhattan College (52).

I remind myself, by way of consolation, that Dartmouth College (which should be in the Top 15 simply for its having been the model for “Animal House”) rates by the Journal at 62.

All things considered, the other venerable ivies made a decent showing. Harvard ranks 7^th, and one can only envision their alums responding with condescending pity at this atrocious, uniformed, jealousy- driven judgmental folly. Columbia, their campus now an armed camp notwithstanding, is 14^th.

However, and as if to remind us that the world as we once knew it has not dissolved entirely, Harvard and Columbia continue to rank, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), at the bottom of the Free Speech tables. Harvard, to its infinite credit, received a rating of 0.0 – ironically equal to Flounder’s GPA in Animal House (to which Dean Wermer admonishes him: “fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son”).

But to add a little zip to the Columbia figures, its “sister” school Barnard College, across Broadway (and please take it from someone who knows – if one traverses to the west side of 116^th, it is best to keep a zipped lip there rather than risk offending any of the fair but perpetually triggered matriculating damsels, because them bitches will cut you), comes in 4^th from last.

The University of Chicago, perhaps the GOAT due to its instituting a free-speech manifesto called The Chicago Principals, has slipped a little, but still ranks at a spiffy 13^th from the top.

One can perhaps extrapolate the oddities in the longstanding college ranking protocol of the world’s leading financial industry daily to the confusions we are experiencing in the markets. Equity indices suffered their worst week in, well, in quite a while (OK; 18 months). And the punishment cruelly focused on some of my paying clients. I am not terribly sure what caused any of this, but the common pattern is one involving sated investors pushing away from the risk table. And one can hardly blame them on that score. Perhaps perversely, a putrid Friday session was catalyzed by an Employment report from the proven-to-be-perfidious Bureau of Labor Statistics, which not only missed on job creation estimates but also featured yet another downward revision to previous months.

And this in the near aftermath of the announcement of a rather alarming decrease in Jobs Openings:

As the labor picture weakens, there are further indications that the economy might indeed be rolling over. Crude Oil is in free fall, and speculative buyers are fleeing like rats from a sinking barge:

All of which is implies a pattern of diminished demand (as opposed to surging supply) which convinces me that when the FOMC meets Wednesday week, they will throw down a 50 bp cut, as catalyzed by the following motivations. They plainly wish to reduce rates, and apart from their no doubt laudable desire to do right by the economy, they have politics and their image to consider.

These factors induce them to go big. The totality of the data suggests that the economy would benefit from lower rates. If they wish to assist their political paymasters this November, .50 would provide significantly more succor than .25, and my read of the financial press suggests that their image now bears more risk to accusations of being too tardy, rather than too hasty, with the wielding of their axes. So, yes, I think they’ll lay down 4 bits, but it’s not in the bag. Yet. This week we must first endure, in addition to those annoying University of Michigan (22 on the WSJ Hit Parade) consumer surveys, and, of course, the latest Inflation data.

Upside surprises in these latter-mentioned realms could upset my whole hypothesis, but I don’t think it will. And anyway, even if Inflation ticks up, it can hardly hope to match that emanating from our institutions of higher learning, with respect to their time-honored currency of measuring the performance of their clients. The average GPA for a Harvard student, for instance, now stands at a gravity defying 3.8 – the result of decades of Grade Inflation. On the other hand, continued upside is mathematically challenging. They’ve already approached a ceiling here, because, unless they change the rules (which they very well might), this metric top ticks at 4.0.

I do believe that while the sober, somber timbre of the tape is somewhat justified, I also suspect that investors wish to offer the Fed the appearance of anemia, so as to further incentivize the latter to provide the full measure of rate relief which it is able to muster. Moreover, this dynamic traverses asset classes, as evidenced by the widely reported dis-inversion of the Treasury Curve, which, at maturities from 2 to 20 at any rate, has reverted to something recognizable by historical standards:

I never thought I’d live to a time when an upward sloping yield curve was not referred to as “normal”, but rather as “dis-inverted”, but that’s where we are. The Fed can help amend these perversities by further lowering overnight rates, and I them to give it the old college try. And this here note being about college, has, indeed, imbibed me with an extra dose of school spirit – so much so that I tried to follow the fortunes of the Babson (football) Beavers, only to learn that the school does not have a football team.

Neither for the years 1939 through 1968, did the University of Chicago. During which time it maintained a superior place in the U.S. News and World Report rankings – certainly many notches above Babson. In 2024, the WSJ has upset this order in dramatic fashion. It’s far too early to follow Babson and bail on football again – even if they did lose 24-0 to the Clairmont-Merced-Scripps Bobcats on Saturday. Next week, there’s another game; next year another WSJ rankings cycle, and, as ever, hope springs eternal.

TIMSHEL