WASHINGTON – It’s a New Year during which we face a questionable political situation, which includes an end to our democratic republic as we know it. True, Washington, D.C. is still our crumbling nation’s capital city. It’s also the beautiful, cosmopolitan city in and around which I’ve spent the majority of my increasingly long life. But after over 50 years in this area, it’s also become the major playground of a gang of grifters. They operate it for themselves and their friends and work against the best interests of the average American taxpayers who pay the bills. And the interest on the grifters’ ever soaring indebtedness as well. It’s become unbearable. Maybe it’s time for me to leave. But before I consider that, it’s time to opine on what’s really gone wrong here this week and why this will influence a few major 2021 stock trends.
It’s all about the moneybags
Washington’s main connection with the financial world whose capital city is New York is an integral part of what’s gone wrong in this onetime bastion of freedom. The connection? Washington is literally, legislatively and metaphorically where the government’s printing presses crank out more and more inflated dollars every single day.* The presses hum away to support the big, fat moneybags of Wall Street bankers, traders, hedge fund and high-speed trading operators.
Ditto their good buddies, the filthy-rich tech whiz kids who’ve become their good friends, not to mention the 21st century’s equivalent of those notorious early 20th century’s Robber Barons. In turn, the East and West Coast moneybags vet and support only politicians that march to their avaricious tunes. Unsurprisingly, most politicians are now regarded as their wholly owned subsidiaries. Which makes the Federal government an increasingly closed loop where entry is now denied to the average citizen responsible for paying the government’s bills.
Donald Trump was never in the Moneybags Club. Neither are you or I…
While Donald Trump was actually one of the minor New York moneybags, he was not of them. Hailing from the wrong side of town, he’d already earned a permanent blackball in this elite club from the day of his birth. But his laughable career change posed a real problem for the bi-coastal moneybag class when they smugly took their eyes off what was unfolding in Election 2016.
Unsurprisingly, they laughed their substantial posteriors off at even the possibility that this cartoonish playboy real estate magnate and TV personality named Trump –their opinion, not mine – might become the GOP nominee. A Republican who could actually beat their widely hated but reliable grifter-candidate in the presidential sweepstakes. They were lulled to sleep by the dulcet tones their wholly-owned cable and network media and their paid-for suppression polls subsidiaries. Unsurprisingly, those brainless media yes-persons and their friends, the fake pollster toadies, collectively bequeathed her Hillariness a 98% chance of completely obliterating Orange Man on election day 2016.
Also Read: 2021 Dogs of the Dow and other Dogs of the market. Who let the dogs out??
When the 98% solution falls flat, what can the grifters do?
But, like all the grandees who swell up with greed and hubris as they near the multiple finish lines of life, the moneybags and their wholly-owned (and fully dependent) subsidiaries were shocked to discover that the human cartoon had handily bested the Smartest Woman in the World in that 2016 election day shocker. They had suddenly lost control of the White House. They had gotten lazy, taken their eye off the ball, and believed their toady pollsters who cranked out what they wanted to see and hear. So they had lost control of the Washington money machines. But they needed them back. Pronto. This electoral outrage, this political situation could not stand. Americans had elected a president they didn’t control.
So, in the blink of an eye, they and their highly paid political puppets in Washington, D.C. set to work immediately to unhorse Donald J. Trump before he even took the oath of office. They were delighted to find that their puppets had already been doing their homework at least from the time Trump had announced his once comical candidacy while traveling down an escalator.
The real Washington Coup: 4 years of nonstop insubordination and sedition
In short, in the immortal term concocted by former President Bush II, the New York-Washington-Silicon Valley Injustice League had severely “misunderestimated” The Donald. Damaging information leaks, an out-of-control bureaucracy, the Democrat-Socialist Party (of course), and his own alleged allies in the GOP rapidly mounted the biggest, most extensive and most underhanded attempt to oust a sitting president in our history. It should have been an easy layup. The anti-Trump upper crusters in the Department of Justice, the FBI and the intelligence agencies set all manner of traps for Trump and his true allies to fall into. And many of those allies did just that.
But the wily Trump prevailed. Again and again. And he’d have continued to prevail for another four vigorous, America First years. But without missing a beat, the Uniparty team of Deep Staters spotted the perfect opportunity to wreck what Trump had built via a dubious gift from their Chinese Communist friends. The megawealthy and the grifters commandeered the coronavirus disaster and redirected it to destroy the vigorous economy Trump had rebuilt in less than three years. Death had become their ally.
A good political situation that was also a bad one for 2021 stock trends
In truth, the moneybags actually loved the economy that Trump built. But they could never control him, so he needed to go. Those who follow politics closely and peek beneath the tent by ignoring the endless faux-Marxist propaganda daily puked out by the usual media suspects while reading the real news provided by poorly-paid but excellent web sites and videos that provide the truth rather than Bolshevik fictions – these journalists and readers already know the rest of the story.
And we’re all viewing the conclusion of Act I this week, crowned by Wednesday’s Antifa-led agitprop invasion of Capitol Hill. It gave Congress an excuse to abandon any sense of objectivity when assessing the electoral slates of states whose final tallies of votes were clearly and even mathematically fraudulent. No matter. The death and destruction, more and more likely led by outside agitators effectively forced even Trump’s few Congressional allies to cancel the Trump presidency’s second term. They did so, quite simply, by accepting the electoral results obtained through the greatest election fraud ever committed in this country since the day of its founding. This will unquestionably have a major effect on at least 3 significant 2021 stock trends.
Faux socialists at last control Washington completely
President Trump likely exits Washington – as of now – just a bit later this month. That assumes, of course that Botox Nancy, Auntie Maxine and The Squad don’t try to impeach him again. In the meantime, an uncomprehending nation awaits the coming of the very first dementia-afflicted asterisk president in this once-promising century. What a ride this will be.
That’s particularly true since the institutionalized left, aided and abetted by a clearly corrupt Governor and Secretary of State of Georgia, gifted the Democrat-Socialists with the pair of Deep South. They needed these seats to win an effective Senate majority. But, when the weak Republican establishment allegedly running that state sat on its hands amidst spectacular voting fraud last November, it was clear that since the President went down in Georgia, the same fraudulent methods were free to duplicate the effort once again in the Senate runoff election. And surprise! The fraudsters won again.
Now Georgia’s Corruptocrats are free to give the people exactly what they thought they wanted for the next two years. And they’re going to give it to them good and hard. It’s a great political situation for the moneybags who funded this double steal. It’s not so good for the rest of us, Georgians and the rest of America included.
2021 Stock Trends: Some logical political predictions
Over the past four years, I’ve noted many times that stocks, bonds and commodities are now more directly driven by inside-Washington politics than by the traditional calculations, P&L statements, ratios, PE ratios and charts that once drove investment decisions in more rational times. Hence, this lengthy prelude to what’s actually a pretty short article.
To sum up: We finally can see the outlines of the illegal, one-party national government we’re stuck with for the next two years (at least). So we, as investors, can try to redirect our focus as far back toward economics and Mr Market as we can under the circumstances. That’s because, like you, this columnist and others like us want to make money, whatever the market conditions that prevail. If you need to make a profit to get ahead, which most of us do, you still need to take an objective and arguably amoral stance when adjusting your portfolio to thrive under current circumstances.
Fair or not, the Great Trump Rally is over. What follows may be a mystery, although for now, the Democrat left’s inflationary disregard for rational economic and monetary policy should benefit markets by initiating a much higher rate of inflation. Rapidly accelerating interest rates in January are already telling us this.
Moving ahead, we need to look at the likelihood of the following trends to determine where we put our money next as the national and monetary landscapes change. But before the inevitable Democrat-Socialist tax hikes alter the landscape yet again.
2021 Stock Trends: Inflation
*Inflation. Capitol Hill has never really partnered with the Treasury or the Federal Reserve to straighten out the 2008 fiscal disaster in a comprehensive way. Given the left’s never-ending quest to redistribute income rather than providing more jobs for those who don’t have them, we haven’t seen much real progress on righting our once productive economy. Except during Donald Trump’s highly productive presidential term. Look for the massive pump-priming to continue in 2021-22, as the Democrat-Socialist machine cranks up politically popular giveaways, imposes higher taxes on “the rich” (i.e.*, the dwindling middle class), kills off the military (as always), and sucks up to the Commies in Moscow and Beijing and the terrorists in Iran (as always).
The ultimate result: massive inflation: A heaping helping of what the government has been trying to do for the past 10-12 years. The govies failed to achieve velocity, however. The leftists continue sucking up to special interests. It remains their strategery (another Bushism) today. But it’s never been coherent. Until now.
The current plan: Run those printing presses. And in the process, generously pay off the moneybags who obliterated the democratic (small d) process in 2020. In short, it’s inflation city at last, though implemented in precisely the wrong way. Evidence? This is why, all of a sudden, we’re seeing oil prices achieve velocity. Interest rates are following, as they often do. 10-year interest rates just popped back above the 1% level after nearly going negative in 2019-2020. So look for inflation to surge some time later this year and beyond. Look for cyclical and resource stocks to surge along with them.
2021 Stock Trends: Oil prices, the price of fossil fuels and the open-ended cost of the Paris Accords
*Like those increasing oil prices?* Keep investing in the oil and gas patch. For now. Fossil-free energy is still a pipe dream. But the left will continue to throw mass quantities of money that way as they joyously re-join the so-called Paris Accords. Which no one but the American consumer will be forced to pay for. That’s because the moneybags have already made substantial investments in “carbon-free energ.” They damn well want their money back, and then some.
So fossil fuels will have to be vigorously cut back by law, just the way Obama waged war on this sector in the 8 wretched years he occupied the White House. New drilling permits and pipelines will be routinely denied, more coal plants will close, and fossil fuel prices will go up and up and up. Filling your car’s gas tank will once again become a heart-stopping ordeal. Ironically, in the short term, that means bigger profits for this Great Planet-Killing Satan of the Left. So right now, hated though they are (by those who oppose their very existence), fossil fuel oriented related could prove to be excellent investments in 2021. At least for a while. Until the climatistas take over again. God help us in 2022.
2021 Stock Trends: Wobbliness affects the Wonderful World of Tech
Look for weirdness in the Wonderful World of Tech. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not only the gutless and now-destroyed GOP that hates Silicon Valley’s tech Robber Barons. The Democrats hate them, too, for totally different reasons. (Except for their pro-Socialist PACs.)
Some time after fake President Biden ** gets most of his mostly far-left cabinet members in place, look for both halves of the Uniparty to go after the Robber Barons. Both halves of the Uniparty have quite a few bones to pick with these arrogant thieves who’ve given capitalism a terminally bad name.
As a result of this political animosity, we might even see some good old-fashioned Teddy Roosevelt-style Trust Busting. That’s because the Uniparty will likely achieve some level of compromise legislation that makes both sides partially happy while returning some semblance of Royal Power back to New York City. It’s there rather than in Washington or Silicon Valley where the Old Money figures it still belongs.
Though big tech and social networking companies are also under attack in Europe, tech in general likely remains an excellent investment for the next one or two years. Where else can investors find this level of growth. But we all need to become more selective about which tech firms we invest in. Because at least two of them – most likely Google (NASDAQ: GOOG and GOOGL) and Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) – will be the Uniparty’s first targets. Stay tuned.
We’re just starting to figure things out…
That’s it for today’s analysis of likely 2021 stock trends. But we’ll now need to redevelop our headline-sensitive investing tactics for 2022 and beyond. Right now, we simply need to see which way our new, illegitimate government wants to go. The tells? Which businesses do they favor? And which businesses and individuals might they destroy?
Stay tuned. It’s a Magical Mystery Tour, incoming. What kind of magic? Who knows?
*– Headline image: New York’s infamous Boss Tweed keeps an eye on those votes and who counts them. Cartoon by Thomas Nast, now in the public domain.*
** NOTE: There’s a branch in Ft. Worth, Texas, as well.*
*** NOTE: Given the Uniparty’s absolute disinterest in datamining the fraudulent Election of 2020, the average American may never see documentation and testimony that clearly proves it happened. This massive and systematic fraud handed Basement Joe his fake victory last November. So, similar to John Quincy Adams, James Buchanan and Rutherford B. Hayes, Biden becomes the fourth fake president in American history. This column will always place an asterisk after his name. And a gracious hat tip to Doonesbury cartoonist Gary Trudeau for that idea. It’s how he demeaned George W. Bush in his comic strip for Bush’s entire 8-year term. Fair is fair. Thanks, dude.*
