MARKET PERSPECTIVE

By J Mulraj

Nov 23-29, 2024

A leader with dementia pressing the wrong button!

The above, AI generated graphic, visualizes the crazy way in which Biden can start WW 3, which has the high risk of becoming a nuclear war. Biden is less than 2 months away from demitting  office to Donald Trump. The American voters gave Trump a clear mandate, delivering a trifecta, or control over the Presidency, the House of Representatives and the Senate.

As a lame duck President Biden cannot, and should not, make significant policy changes. Yet, by giving Ukraine permission to strike Russian territory with ATACMS missiles supplied by USA, he is mindlessly poking the Russian bear. Russia has stated that if weapons supplied to its enemy by a nuclear country are used against it, Russia has the right to hit back at both, with conventional or nuclear weapons.

In poking the Russian bear, (for a lost cause; it will NOT help Ukraine defeat Russia. If ATACMS, in use since 1991, could have helped Ukraine win, why didn’t USA supply them to Ukraine ab initio?) Biden is merely trying to make life tough for Donald Trump, on the idiotic assumption that Vladimir Putin is bluffing when he threatens a nuclear WW3. One that could wipe out humanity. Putin is not bluffing!

If poking a bear as a test of his ability to retaliate is the intention, maybe Biden should go to Alaska and poke a grizzly! That way, he will get the answer without impelling the human race!

The question arises – why are the party elders in the Democratic Party not intervening to stop a leader with dementia from embarking on a global suicide mission?

Did they not stop him when they felt him to be incapable of winning an election on a Democratic ticket? Did they not, at the last moment, push forward Kamala Harris as their candidate, knowing that she could not even win in the first round of the primaries?

If party elders could stop Biden to try and save an election, why do they not stop him and try to save the world?

What about the Democratic voters? Does their distaste for Trump exceed their self preservation instinct for themselves and their families? It is beyond belief that they keep mum!

The only possible explanation for such nuclear harakiri is that the Military-Industrial-Complex (MIC) benefits greatly from wars that it seeks to continue them, unmindful of, perhaps even disdainfully contemptuous of, the opponents ability and willingness to hit back. In Biden they have found a leader who would do their bidding.

The insanity goes even further, if such were possible! There are reports that he may provide nuclear weapons to Ukraine! This beggars belief?

The hold of MIC over policy making, especially in promoting jingoistic rhetoric, needs to be stopped. US policy makers are trying to pass a law to ban legislators from investing in stocks.  Former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi made 20X her salary in just one trade .

Here’s a line of thought which occurred to this columnist at an IPO analyst meet of an Indian Government owned defense manufacturer, Bharat Dynamics, making its first public issue. As a citizen, I am supportive of any effort to build and supply our Defense needs, so as not to be at the mercy of others during a critical period of war. However, as an investor, I’m not. This is because any investor wants the business of the company he’s invested in to grow. But that means that as an investor I’d want more wars, but as a human I wouldn’t! How, then, can indigenous weapons manufacturers get funding?

In medieval Europe wars were financed by a few wealthy wealthy families, like the Medicis in Italy, the Fuggers in Germany, and, later later, the Rothschilds, Ashkenazi Jewish family from Germany.  Maybe one can conceptualize a system of a restricted bunch of investors like qualified family offices to fund unlisted defense companies? Or some other structure. One that does not permit legislators to profit from war to such an extent that they seek to perpetuate wars.

It’s also baffling how Biden has, simultaneously, managed to get Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire, kudos to him, on the one hand whilst seeking to perpetuate the Ukraine conflict, on the other.

We can only hope that the lunacy of perpetuating conflicts ends, before it is too late.

Even as the US is squandering financial and human resources on senseless wars and create problems for mankind, China is using its financial and human resources on technology and innovation  to solve problems for mankind. It has made a significant advance in developing nuclear fusion which provides inexhaustible, clean and virtually free energy.

Sadly, however, the people of Ukraine, over 30% of them, have no electricity, even as the temperature hits 0 degrees celsius. This is because, in retaliation to attacks by Ukraine using American supplied ATACMS missiles, Russia has destroyed a chunk of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

In India the news of indictment of Gautam Adani, his nephew and two others, in a US court, on charges of bribery of government officials in 5 states, to deceptively boost future profits, undisclosed to American investors who were approached for an offshore bond issue, led to a collapse of 15-20% in stock prices of the group.

The response was that the indictment didn’t include proofs (it claims to have got notings in the nephews records) and stated that evidence obtained illegally, through wiretaps, was inadvisable. Some of the stocks rose.

The criminally atrocious air quality across India, most noticeably in Delhi,  is a telling indictment of the inability of our polity to control air pollution. Well expressed by a wag who said ‘it’s healthier to smoke in Goa than to do yoga in Delhi’. This happens every year, post harvest, when farmers in Punjab burn stubble (instead of spending time and money chopping it) the smoke from which travels to neighboring states. The same political party, AAP, rules in Punjab and in Delhi.

If India’s political class cannot manage to deliver to its people breathable air, edible, not rotten, food, a primary education system comparable to others, and access to affordable healthcare, then it has no right to describe India as Viksit Bharat. Its focus should be more on human growth than on financial growth.

Last week the BSE Sensex gained 685 points to close at 79802.

If Biden is right, and Putin is bluffing about using nuclear weapons, stockmarkets will rally.

If Biden is wrong, and Putin isn’t, we are all dead!

Come to think of it, it’s the best time to invest, almost a heads I win, tails you lose kinda bet!

Biden is willing to fire the last bullet in a crazy bout of Russian roulette.

Are you?

Image created by Bing

Comments may be sent to jmulraj@asiaconverge.com