October 23, 2008
It happened again. Another conservative pundit predicted that Barack Obama would likely become the 44th President of the United States. This time it was David Frum, appearing on The Colbert Report. Frum stated that the McCain-Palin ticket is unlikely to win the election, unless Obama-Biden loses it. With that in mind, Joe Biden has now begun wearing his Halloween costume. He will continue to do so through Halloween weekend for the supposed purpose of entering as many Halloween costume contests as possible. Halloween is on a Friday this year. Biden has been entered in contests through Sunday night. He will be wearing a ball gag in his mouth. He will be carrying a card with the following explanation:
This is my Halloween costume. I am the “ball gag guy” from Pulp Fiction.
After the Halloween costume contests, Biden will be able to remove the gag from his mouth during the wee hours of Monday morning. On Monday, he will begin eating soft pastas and work his way up to solid food. Tuesday won’t matter, since that will be Election Day.
Unfortunately, things look worse for Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. I am reminded of her fate by the constant appearance of Brooke Shields on TV. By now, most of the public might realize that Brooke is apparently suffering from Post-Stardom Depression (PSD). This condition has ostensibly caused her to appear in televised Volkswagen commercials. Poor Brooke! Her self-esteem must have gone through the floorboards! Isn’t there any medication that can help her with this? Did Tom Cruise dissuade her from taking it?
Meanwhile, Republican operatives have already announced that Sarah Palin’s campaign outfits will be given to charity after the election. At least Sarah managed to secure possession of “The Cards” (the cue cards from her appearance on Saturday Night Live). After the election, PSD could likely put Sarah into a world of hurt. Trig would be sitting in his playpen, crying … and Sarah would be sitting on the rec room floor, crying and hugging The Cards. All will be lost. She will be forced to return to her existence as the Governor of the State of Alaska. Her attention will be abruptly refocused from the world’s most monumental crises, to the humdrum issues involving meth labs and snow machines. She would, no doubt, do her best to cope with this malady. She might go so far as to seek compensation for this unexpected hardship. The Republican Party could hire experts to testify that PSD does not really exist. Governor Palin might be forced to hire experts to dispute those opinions and, in the process, eventually be compelled to disclose personal records concerning the consultations between those experts and herself. It could get really ugly. The would-be “poster woman” of the future “gender-inclusive” Republican Party might end up being portrayed by her former advisors as just another “claimant”, attempting to milk the “frivolous lawsuit” system for all it is worth.
Many of us began to suspect that Sarah would get “thrown under the bus” after the election. We became suspicious of this, once she was assigned to deliver the “cheap shots” against Obama in her stump speeches. MSNBC’s Chuck Todd has already expressed suspicion that John McCain might be harboring resentment toward Palin, out of concern that she could be the reason for his diminished standing in the polls. After all, most commentators believe her candidacy wasn’t McCain’s idea, anyway. At the Republican Convention, Newt Gingrich did a lot of bragging that the selection of Palin was his idea. Will this bragging continue after Election Day?
In the weeks ahead, the human tragedy could take its toll. Will Sarah Palin be left in the ditch with PSD? Will it be necessary for her to “eat crow” and capitulate to reliance on Barack Obama’s health care plan, to address PSD? Regardless of what the courts might do with such a claim, karmic justice would prevail.
The Home Stretch
October 27, 2008
We are entering the final week of the longest Presidential campaign in our nation’s history. At the same time, the world economy continues to flirt with chaos and our nation’s equities market indices are diving at a faster pace than Superman’s swooping down from the sky to save Lois Lane from a potential rapist. Some stockbrokers believe that an abrupt and decisive nosedive in the markets might have a cathartic effect and finally bring us to the long-awaited “bottom”, from which there would be only one place to go: up. Rock musician Tom Petty wrote a song about the death of his mother, called: Free Fallin’. That song has recently become the theme for America’s stock markets. The situation has become so bad that many fear it may be necessary for the feds to suspend equities trading until all of the nervous investors and frenzied hedge fund managers have a chance to gather their wits. Would the government really intervene and close the stock markets for a day or more?
There is one authority who earned quite a bit of “street cred” when our current economic crisis hit the fan. He is Nouriel Roubini, an economist at the Stern School of Business at New York University. He earned the nickname “Doctor Doom” when he spoke before the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on September 7, 2006 and described, in precise detail, exactly what would bring the financial world to its knees, two years later. As reported by Ben Sills and Emma Ross-Thomas in the October 24 edition of Bloomberg:
This week brings us more earnings reports and new housing starts that could send already skittish investors (as well as terrified hedge fund managers) on a “panic selling” binge. Could this trigger a market shutdown by the government as predicted by Dr. Roubini? If so, we may find the markets closed for the final days before the Presidential election. The Republicans and their media trumpet, Fox News, would likely seize upon such a development, characterizing it as validation of their claim that the investing public fears a “socialist” Obama Presidency. In reality, there would be no way to measure the impact of the election results on the equities markets under such circumstances. If the markets were kept closed until after the election, there would be quite a number of investors, chomping at the bit to dump their portfolios during the hiatus, ready to do so as soon as the markets re-opened. On the other hand, Stuart Schweitzer, global market strategist at JP Morgan Private Bank appeared on the October 24 broadcast of the PBS program, Nightly Business Report, and explained what to really expect about the impact of the Presidential election on the securities markets. Schweitzer believes that regardless of who is elected, once we get past Election Day, there will be a sense of certainty established as to who will be making economic policy going forward into the new Presidential term. This fact in itself, regardless of what that economic policy might become, will eliminate the element of uncertainty that breeds some degree of the fear in the hearts of investors.
If the stock markets really end up being closed during the final days before the election, we would likely see more havoc than calming. The timing would prove too irresistible for conspiracy theorists to ignore. Some would see it as a plot by the Republicans to conceal how bad the economy really is. Others might see it as a ploy by “Washington elites” (a term used by some in reference to Obama supporters) to conceal widespread fear of putting a “communist” in charge of our nation. The smartest course from here would be for the Federal Reserve Board’s FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) to undertake a responsible, public relations role when it meets on Tuesday. They should be ready to explain to the public what has really been happening in the markets: an unregulated species of investments called “hedge funds” has been causing mayhem on the trading floors. Many (if not most) of these hedge funds are going broke and they are attempting to secure a place in the line for Federal bailout money. They have caused equities trading to function more like eBay: the only market movement that matters over the course of any given day is what takes place during the final three minutes before the closing bell, when the hedge fund managers dump stocks. On eBay, the winning bid for an item is usually made during the minute before an auction ends. Unlike eBay, the stock market numbers can go up or down. These days, the index movement prior to the closing bell is usually seismic (in one direction or the other). It was never like this before. These trading patterns often trigger pre-established “stop loss orders” to sell stocks, usually established by individual investors upon purchase of those stocks. The result is an avalanche of “sell” orders at the end of the day. The FOMC needs to explain this disease to the public and let us know the Fed is working on a cure. Closing the markets in the final days before a Presidential election will not be a cure. Such a move will just create a scab that will quickly be picked away by an investing public that needs to ease up on the caffeine and go out for a walk.