This is, of course, election day. We’re still trying to sort out whether to vote, but the “Yes, let’s do this thing” is winning. For the moment. But that doesn’t mean we are please with any of the candidates.
The motivator for us is the promise (by one) to put people we admire to work “fixing America.” Elon Musk cofounded PayPal, Starlink, Tesla, Space-X and…well, you get the picture: He’s an idea man. We’re just guessing America could use a new national agenda (since abortion rights and war-starting are, um, how you say? Getting old after sixty years?
Sadly, Musk was not born in America – thus failing the “naturally born” test. Even more depressing is that the two on the ballot today have been engaged in a slugfest of “dueling character assassinations”.
Our point? Simply that I don’t know one democrat who is voting for their candidate on the basis of accomplishment, skill, leadership, and innovation. They are mainly voting because of hate of all things orange, and sleazy interpretations of facts. The orange feller, on the other hand, hasn’t been highly specific – and has also been steered into the “anti-vote or you’ll get what you fear” (true, or not) line of marketing.
As several readers have attested in recent days, though, the real hero of this Election Cycle may be Joe Rogan. The “un-appearance” of one candidate there ought to have been more than enough of a “competence clue” for most people to figure things out. Or the machine’s “anointing” rather than a conventional convention process. Unsurprisingly, Joe Rogan gives backing to Donald Trump in US election.
Already now, the D.C. rumor circuit is that as soon as the winner of today’s mud wrestling is announced, Slow Joe is sure to go. He wants to resign before the U.S. does bunker-busting in Iran in our current “close approach” orbit to World War III. Pardon Hunter, exit stage left.
Raining like hell outside down here. Yet our local County still has a “Burn Ban” in effect. Which is a perfect metaphor for how government works, here lately. The “We the People” want something done, it happens. But God help you once a government decree is issued. You’ll pay hell trying to get it undone. Why, even rising floodwaters seem unlikely to do it. Because Bureaucracy loves its Power such that burn bans even while the Ark was being floated are less fiction than fact. Oh, and they’re not on the ballot, either.
From a distance (overseas) it’s too early to call: Election day kicks off in US as Harris, Trump tie in iconic midnight vote. But that doesn’t mean the orange feller won’t claim victory before it’s actual. Trump is widely expected to prematurely declare victory regardless of the vote count.
Our (sage or sanguine) advice is to treat the Election like we do the Super Bowl when it gets down to the final two minutes of the game. Where a time warp occurs and you have time for a sandwich, beer, and go for a walk before the final play of the game. While there may be an early call tonight, our fear is that law-fare will break out and a Supreme Court decision will be needed – next week? – to straighten out the mess.
In the meantime, there’s still no Big Shiny American Agenda for a New Way Forward. “Punctuated Equilibrium” for now. You have time for breakfast.
Markets – Fed Fears
The banker outfit – misnamed as the Federal Reserve – will be meeting Wednesday with a rate announcement on Thursday. For now, most of the media mavens aren’t drawing a link between the Fed and the Election, offering misdirection. Federal Reserve set to cut rates again is OK, but references to a “hazy post-election” outlook are bothersome.
The way we figure it, if Harris wins, the Fed might not lower more – yet – in order to set up “friendly timing” for a Harris regime. The idea is that any new president wants to get any economic slowdown out of the way in their first year of power in order to a) blame the predecessor and b) have time to fix things before the next showdown at the polls. A Trump win might support a cut in order to push back an economic reckoning to late 2025 or 2026. Would do more damage that way, see it?
Markets Remain Skeptical
Early futures were (predictably) up because the real close Monday was down. No one seems to know which way this is going to break. Except, our charts reveal that a couple of key trend channels have been broken and in our view, a rerun of the 2018 Slaughter of the Elves over Christmas could be coming.
Three trend channels are visible here: The yellow trend, upper right, is already broken. So is the pink channel. And since we’ve hit the “down button” expect that in short-order we will slam into the white trend channel bottom. Bounce a bit, and then down for Santa. Now, look for the yellow arrow here and I will let you in on a secret:
Secret? Yellow arrow? There’s a faint red trace here called the 85-day moving average. And to our old eyes, looks like it may be rolling over. This isn’t to say “it will!” but it could. The 85-DMA of our Aggregate has – in the past, which is no predictor of future blah blah – been a reasonable place for the “slow money account” to position long or short by.
Worth a read: Intel on the outs: Intel Was Just Dropped From the Dow. History Says This Is What Will Happens Next. Spoiler: who knows?
As you can see, but super-especially if the Fed cuts Thursday, then a market decline to perhaps 4,000 on the S&P early in the new year would make sense. After the old lady (the cleaner) from the Black List cleans up all the elf mess from the holiday slaughter we can almost see coming…
Not sure how it all rolls out. China taking Taiwan in December and a terror attack in Phoenix late this are top modeling possibilities for now. China will want to cripple our chips before taking Taiwan thinking it will hold the US on a leash. Thinking like a 2,500 year-old country.
We will just have check-in after the Election results become clear. The “pre-spew” is all over the board, partisan, and as useful as lightning/static crashes when you’re trying to have a roundtable discussion on the winter ham bands.
Need a Statistical Fix?
Will some trade figures help? Gotcha!
The nation’s international trade deficit in goods and services increased to $84.4 billion in September from $70.8 billion in August (revised), as exports decreased and imports increased.
Tomorrow the Fed meeting starts. Tomorrow is a likely day off around here and productivity and the rate deally will be along Thursday with U.I. filing and all that…
Real News?
Want some blow?
Should past southwest of Nawlin’s by Sunday mid-day. We’re not holding our breath on the burn ban coming off, though. That would involve being able to forecast and since when…oh, forget it. Our Houston Bureau reports:
“We’re getting torrential rain here as I type this. So far we have power, but for how long? CenterPoint is going to have a real mess on its hands today, especially if outages are widespread and roads are submerged due to flooding. Given that it’s election day, what’s “Plan B” and voters can’t cast their ballots because power is out, roads are flooded, etc.?
BTW, Rafael is now a TS – it will likely become a hurricane later today. There is still no definitive projected pathway once it enters the Gulf, but it appears for now TX is not in the crosshairs.”
Middle East war is ready to expand into Iran, as soon as the polls close – a little bonus from the War Party? Lebanon Death Toll Surpasses 3,000 13 Months Into Israel-Hezbollah Conflict. But the real deal is what are the B-52s and all the mini-AWACs doing over there?
One in-house theory: The U.S. might deliver the conventional bunker-busters on Iran rather than share the technology. Nice way to roll into WW III, huh? Local betting pool says – based on B-52 bombers arrive in Middle East, destroyer USS The Sullivans deploys after more US forces ordered to the region – odds are about 3:1 on a U.S. led raid (after air crews get some rest and un-lag a bit) before the end of the coming weekend. Or when polls close for the War Party.
Meanwhile in the “soft war” on Russia: Virginia company, senior executives charged with exporting U.S. technology to Russia – UPI.com
One other “when the polls close”: We figure that Ukraine’s Zylensky will go “off-leash” and start hitting all kinds of soft-spots inside Russia. Especially if it looks like the War Party will be “out” January 20th. Pentagon weighs in on North Korean troop deployment to aid Russia against Ukraine | AP News. Putin is playing us for fools (not that hard, is it?) by keeping the NorKs inside his borders so that if anyone uses these troops as a pretext for heightening the dust-up, Putin/Medvedev can play the “an internal Russian affair and NOYFB.”
At the Ranch: A PKD-like Dream
PKD is, you ought to figure, Phillip K. Dick, who wrote MIT High Castle, the Adjustment Bureau and such. And you already know I live two lives – one of them here in the waking-state on Earth and the other in occasional “blow-your-socks-off iMAX like dreams.
Fascinating concept came through from going off-rock overnight.
The character was a married man and he and his family had been forced into the waters of a large lake, perhaps 6-7 miles east of a big city. There were guards everywhere around the shoreline. And the people in the water knew they were all about to be sacrificed with a shockwave from a small nuclear device that was to be detonated under water.
So, this husband guy escapes and swims into the muddy brush along the shore and soon, even having lost his wallet and ID, is able to get a ride with a nice Black fellow in a green shirt, who gets him to the strange city with an hour to run before the planned mass/ritual killing at the lake-to-be-nuked underwater.
He then goes along through a series of big – mostly concrete and heavily industrial looking, but he’e pretty sure he’ll be OK because of a slight hill between the (ritual sacrifice lake) and the (downtown along a river) city.
He goes through all kinds of service tunnels that attend a subway system and he’s trying to work his way north to another city when the bright pink flash and there goes the nuke in the distance.
Grieving, he continues his movement north along rails, industrial looking buildings, but some with food and beverage and one was under condition and construction materials were coming down into a green dumpster.
And then? He wakes up.
Back on Earth, in bed and wondering WTF was that ritual sacrifice part all about. And this is where that voice who guides in my head explains a real jaw-dropper.
“You really still don’t get it? Off-world travel is not something the GATU (grand architect of the Universe) is going to let fall into the hand of only elites. So we get set up “the worlds” of Ure school, so you can appreciate our egalitarian nature.”
“But what about the nuclear Death Scene and mass sacrifice?” I insisted
“Look around. You are on Earth. A school. A life is like a clock-hour in her ed terms. And…oh, you’ll get to it…”
“Get to what?”
“Death is how we travel between worlds. But there are memory effects after every jump.”
Write when you get rich,
Read the full article here
