America's undoing is zero sum socioeconomic Darwinism taken to its asinine logical self-destruction. The corporate imperative to maximize profit at the expense of everything else has jumped the shark from MBA textbook into national ideology, under the asinine belief that everything in life is a competition. Unfortunately, you can't win life. The prize at the finish line is not that great...
U.S. stocks are the only global market still rallying. Within the U.S. market, Apple is the only large cap stock still making new highs. Corporate drones far and wide are about to learn the hard way that life isn't "winner take all":
The casino has gone nowhere for three weeks, but you wouldn't know it by the ubiquitous salesmen:
Social Mood is the real invisible hand. Straight up the ass of the Idiocracy, guiding their every thought and action...
Watch the narrative change on this next leg down:
"our wisdom, too, is a cheerful and a homely, not a noble and kingly wisdom; and this, observing the numerous misfortunes that attend all conditions, forbids us to grow insolent upon our present enjoyments" - Solon, by Plutarch
When Ayn Rand published her pulp fiction theories about "rational self-interest" she was somehow unaware that she had co-opted Third World ideology. The refugee from Russia had "invented" the values of a refugee camp. From there, her ideas soon got co-opted by the U.S. right in their bid to take over the world. Now we see the consequences - a planet laid to waste and a consumption-addicted society finding solace in the fentanyl solution. In other words, a Third World refugee camp, with a Third World dictator:
Under the calm surface of the imperturbable S&P 500, this has been one hell of a month and year. From insider-absconded tax cuts to EM implosion, trade wars, commodity implosion, currency crisis, volatility explosion, droughts, floods, wildfires, and hundred year storms every ten days. But none of that matters because the salesmen who have taken over society have decided this is all just one more buying opportunity. What else could it be?
Back at the top in 2007, Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince said that subprime is a non-issue, and "you have to dance while the music is playing".
JP Morgan was the only major U.S. bank that came out ahead after 2008 - using it as an opportunity to expand. Two weeks ago on the tenth anniversary of the Washington Mutual distressed takeover it was JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon ignoring global risks entirely.
He did however make one comment on Tech:
CNBC: "THE NASDAQ IS DOWN SHARPLY AGAIN TODAY. WHEN YOU SEE THOSE EARNINGS NUMBERS AND YOU SEE THE MARKET REACTION, DOES THAT TO YOU SUGGEST THE EQUITY MARKET PERHAPS PARTICULARLY THE TECH SECTOR IS LITTLE BIT OVERHEATED RIGHT NOW?"
DIMON: "NOT REALLY."
Likewise, we learned this week that due to stagnant unit sales, iPhone suppliers are no longer growing profit.
But how would we know?
Buffett said that he assiduously avoided Tech stocks during Y2K because he doesn't understand Technology
We now know that he has learned nothing since then, either.
It's amazing what can be ignored when this quarter's profits are the only thing that matter in life
