“What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.”
Augustine of Hippo
As you most probably have heard the French elections settled on the 'base case' candidates, Le Pen and Marchon.
None of the old line, established parties made the cut.
Le Pen is the hard nationalist right and anti-EU. Macron appears to be a political noveau, and a kind of Obama like centrist figure with a very friendly disposition to the status quo.
And so there was celebration on Wall St, since Macron is expected to roundly defeat the radical right's Le Pen. And thereby the European Union will be preserved from the contagion of Brexit.
Gold and silver were smashed overnight. Interestingly enough silver gained all of its losses back to finish largely unchanged, with a toe in the gains column. There is a silver option expiry on the Comex tomorrow.
Gold gave up about 8 bucks.
Speaking of the buck, the DX index took a dive as happy speculators were piling back into the Euro on the apparent impending victory of the status quo over any kind of change.
Trump's first 100 days are at an end. And so it is a good time to make some general observations— he is almost incredibly ill-suited to be the President. That is not to say that he could change and surprise us by doing the right things for the broad swath of the public, and the people who voted him into office that are not of the plutocrat class. But that seems increasingly unlikely.
If you step back and listen with some objectivity, what the guy says is almost astonishing. Especially if you are not from the NYC area, and are not familiar with and accustomed to the finely honed craftmanship of the fast-talking bullshit artist, and one who traffics in real estate deals to boot.
And so it is understandable that people desperate for change could be taken in by his unrelenting flood of grandiose nonsense. And the Democrats, in their aloof arrogance, served up probably the only candidate that could have lost to him. Hillary was so caught up in her own soft entanglements with big money and corrupt politics that she could only go after him on softer issues and identity politics.
Once again the establishment politicians missed the message; it's the economy stupid. And for the average American is it not good.
But I suspect that those who voted for the guy will continue to defend him and pledge their support, even as he burns them to the ground. And I do believe, barring an impeachment or early resignation from office, that he will. The guy is a walking talking collection of conflicts of interest that rivals the Clinton foundation in everything except a cynical contempt and elegance.
But that is partisan politics; it makes people go mad in herds. After all, establishment Democrats have done no less for Hillary. And she is about as inappropriate a candidate for the times, despite or perhaps because of her long seasoning in the corrupted halls of power. Unless of course you just blame everything that went wrong for the DNC on the FBI, misogyny, and Russia.
Have a pleasant evening.
