Harbor cranes, needed to build and repair ships, are often made abroad, including in China. That means the US Nay would be hard pressed to build or repair ships upon encountering hostilities with China.
Wall Street Journal Thursday
A few world observations. It’s beginning to look a lot like 1939. Consider a then and now comparison.
Hitler invades the Sudetenland, Putin invades the Ukraine.
Hitler and Japan mount ambitious armaments program, China builds a blue water Navy.
U.S. stages the 1939 Louisiana War Games with wooden guns, U.S. Military has difficulty finding recruits.
British PM Chamberlain declares peace in our time, Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan but not a dollar of the trillion-dollar Inflation Bill includes any defense spending.
The lesson of Ukraine is that the defensive measures need to be installed before the fighting starts. This is not being done for Taiwan and China surely notices. The polarized Congress and Senate is hardly in the unified and determined state of FDR post Pearl Harbor. And what better time to strike than when the U.S. Government looks inward as the political rhetoric heats up?
The stock market bottomed in late June and has recorded the expected rally. Like a ball tossed in the air, the apogee (highest point) is at hand. ARKK is a fund of non-earning stocks. It briefly hit $51 and has already fallen back to the $45 area. Bitcoin has fallen from the $50,000 area to $21,000. The junk stocks go first in a bear market. Home sales are weaker given the 5%+ mortgage rates. As noted, the economies of Britain, Germany, and China sag. Inflation hit 10% in Britain this month.
Crude oil has been quite volatile dropping to the $90 area but so far refusing to drop under $86. Interestingly Mexico is doubling down on traditional oil and gas while not so much for solar and wind. Gasoline futures have dropped nearly a dollar and trade now around $3.
Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon realizing what turmoil would come from a prosecution of a former President. The current AG Garland does not seem to have such concern. Animosity towards Trump by the Administration is at least as high now as then. The left criticized Trump for attempting to influence then AG Bill Barr. No such problem exists with Garland investigating Trump. Should such an indictment, prosecution, whatever develop, the stage would be set for a repeat of the Watergate type 50% fall in the stock market 1973-74. Then the market peaked in January, fell into the summer and recovered most of that by fall (10/29/73). Then the long slow descent to DJIA 577 in December 1974 began. We are now at that same apogee of a rebound. Will mounting negative social mood take us to the spot Gerald Ford wisely avoided?
