optimism or pessimism, now realism.

It is neither a question

of optimism or pessimism,

but of realism.

As the US Fed warned yesterday, it cannot on its own stem a depression. And the reasons given are political and medical.

Put bluntly,unless the US government can get its act together to control the spread of Covid-19, whatever credit easing by the Fed and helicopter money of the government may distribute will be of no avail. And unless there is a vaccine soon, the global crisis will spread, disrupting trade and supply chains. On top of disruption by a mentally disturbed president.

There is as yet no US recovery, and it is certainly not running out of steam. It is running out of options as the US government and Congress, the states and cities, and a loony chief who is fomenting civil disturbance to stave off election defeat are at loggerheads.

It is, in short, because, in the words of that superb American statesman Abe Lincoln, a House Divided Cannot Stand. Is there a rumble in the Lincoln Memorial?