Author name: David Stockman

When you boil it down to the bare essence, the reality is that Wall Street traders and speculators are now—and have been for quite some time— running the Federal Reserve. And, apparently, the stock market averages are the new policy transmission channel through which the monetary politburo FOMC seeks to manage the main street economy.

Several months ago we ventured the opinion that the Donald’s March 1 dead-line for Chinese surrender in his Trade War was written in disappearing ink:

Is there any wonder that America managed to elect the very most economically illiterate President yet—-and there’s a long string of competition that came before the Donald?

The central banks have turned Wall Street into one hyperventilating hot mess, as we were reminded once again this AM. Otherwise, how do you explain the Dow ticking cheerfully higher by +330 points during the more than hour-long outburst of braggadocio, bile, bullying, delusion and petulance that was occurring on the White House lawn?

In August 2007 when Bear Stearns’ imploding securitized mortgage funds and the downfall of Countrywide Financial were puncturing a big crack in the housing bubble, Jim Cramer famously delivered a rant on CNBC that was heard by central bankers around the world. The jist of it was that the collapsing subprime mortgage bubble was going to take the stock

The estimable David Rosenberg summed it up well in his morning missive today: “We are on the precipice of an earnings recession and the market is soaring. Is there a chapter in the classic Security Analysis by Graham & Dodd that I missed on trade talks and border wall funding?

The chart monkeys were screeching noisily today as they finally scampered above the 200-DMA by a hair to close at 2744 on the S&P 500. But the ludicrous part of this pathetic. algo-driven sideshow is that the talking heads could not think of a single reason for the 372 Dow point gain. Well, except last night’s agreement among congressional leaders to keep the government

Sometimes they inadvertently let the cat out of the bag, as did former New York Fed President Bill Dudley (B-Dud) last week.

The chart monkeys slipped off the ledge today after their determined run to tag the 200-DMA on the S&P 500, thereby getting back to relative safety.

We attended our first of five State of the Union (SOTU) speeches as a young congressional aide beginning way back in 1971—followed by four more as a Congressman from Michigan, and then the opportunity to march into the hall as a member of Ronald Reagan’s cabinet five additional times. After that, came another 30 or so SOTUs—-these ones beaming from our