It's Stability, Stupid

I’m sorry I never took up day-trading on the stock market. It looks like Vegas to me, or playing the horses, and I don’t have the emotional constitution for it. Even so, with all the twists and turns of this administration’s financial and trade policies, often communicated by tweet, the market has spent long periods in wild swings up and down, and it’s via these changes that sharp traders can really make money.

For most investors, though, it makes for a queasy stomach. They have enjoyed a decade of watching their 401(k)s and similar instruments grow, not without periodic setbacks, but the long-term trend has been upward. These days, however, the R word (for recession) is heard more and more frequently, and the media are trumpeting the indicators that point to it.

Clearly, bull markets don’t last forever. They really aren’t supposed to. The economy simply can’t grow at the same rate all the time. Big windfalls, a sudden killing on the market, or even the “sugar high” of tax breaks, aren’t enough to produce a real feeling of prosperity. That comes from a prolonged period of trust in the ability to weather the storms - the EGBOK thing, as the L.A. radio hosts used to say: Everything’s Gonna Be OK. That’s an elusive state of mind right now.

The President may enjoy keeping the international competition guessing. It may have worked in business for him as a negotiation tactic – though not always, apparently. But when it comes to the current trade wars and constant switching of direction, he’s playing with the house’s money - meaning ours. He seems incapable of thinking in any terms other than winning and losing.

The modern economy has enough pressures as it is. Climate change is one. Automation is another. Those are just two that are visible. The sea is rocky enough, we don’t need to be rocking the boat too.

Wars, military, economic and otherwise, are not usually the end of the story. More often, they end at negotiating tables, with the opposing parities forced by circumstances to make compromises. We eventually find we all can get along, because…well, we just have to.