In the 1980s, SPY, a New York-based satirical magazine, routinely referred to Donald Trump as a “short-fingered vulgarian.” Subject line here is a shout-out to the Eighties.
Anyway, where was I? Yes, so, John Podhoretz has a theory of Trump: that his rise (and Bernie Sanders’s rise on the left) is a delayed reaction to the economic meltdown of 2007-08. Excerpt:
The nuances of foreign policy do not feature heavily in the ongoing presidential campaign. Every candidate intends to “destroy” the Islamic State; each has concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korea, and China; every one of them will defend Israel; and no one wants to talk much about anything else—except, in the case of the Republicans, who rattle their sabers against Iran.
Donald Trump, the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party?
How could a non-conservative become the nominee of the conservative party when he clearly is not one at all? The uncomfortable fact is that conservative intellectuals and leaders have been working for years to make the term become meaningless, so some charlatan was inevitable.
As expected, Marco Rubio quit the presidential race after losing Florida by a wide margin. I talked about what comes next here:
Thanks to Rubio’s withdrawal, Kasich should be able to challenge Trump more effectively in blue-state primaries beginning with the Wisconsin primary on April 5.
Last week it was all about the ECB, which disappointed on hopes of further rate cuts (leading to the Thursday selloff) but delivered on the delayed realization that the ECB is now greenlighting a tsunami in buybacks (leading to the Friday market surge). This week it is once again all about central banks, only this time instead of stimulus, the risk is to the downside, with the BOJ expected to do nothing at all after the January NIRP fiasco, while the "data dependent" Fed will - if anything - hint at further hawkishness now that the S&P is back over 2,000.