All the King's Men

We
Are young but getting old before our time
We'll leave the TV and the radio behind
Don't you wonder what we'll find
Steppin' out tonight
--Joe Jackson

Approximately eight years ago to the day, I was in NYC visiting my good friends at Minyanville. Early tremors were shaking markets as subprime derivatives were beginning to fall apart.

I remember thinking two things. One was that few people in The City seemed aware of the danger ahead. Real estate was flying. $1000 dinner tabs were common. Limos filled the streets.

The other was that the Bush administration and Republicans were going to have their hands full trying to keep the markets together ahead of the 2008 election. They couldn't, of course, as the SPX sank by about 50% over the next year.

Here we are eight years later and the shoe is now on the other foot. Early tremors are once again shaking markets--although with less effect so far as the markets have been heavily medicated. The Obama administration and Democrats are surely thinking about what they can do to prop prices up for the next year.

One problem that they face is that they have already moved heaven and earth to jam markets higher for the past few years. As bad as they were, the Bush people applied nowhere near the preemptive interventionary force currently being administered by the Obama group.

The question is whether this administration has any interventionary capacity remaining. What tricks the Obama administration might still be able to pull to keep those limos cruising the NYC streets in the months ahead?

position in SPX