It’s The Debt, Stupid!

Risk-On!

Apparently, the Turkish Lira crisis is all fixed after the country’s banking authority last night took a leaf from Washington’s bailout book and suspended mark-to-market accounting on bank loans. Presto, insolvent Turkish banks were given leave to live for another day, thereby enabling the plunging Lira  (TRY) to rally by 5% and, in turn, causing U.S. stock futures traders to sound the all-clear and launch another round of dip-buying.

After all, they insisted, what’s to worry about a tiny backwater economy whose $820 billion GDP is only 4% of US output and just 1% of global GDP. And, yes, Erdogan, is an economic populist madman, but so what?

We’ve got Trump, and also the best stock market ever. And, yes, Trump just slapped an unheard of 50% tariff on steel imports from Turkey—apparently because its crashing currency made this key NATO member a national security threat to the US!