![]() The last time the Fed cut rates all the way to the bottom was during the global financial crisis just over a decade ago. The central bank slashed rates to close to zero at an emergency meeting, and said it would purchase another $700 billion worth of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities. S&P 500 futures slumped 4.8%, while Nasdaq futures shed 4.5%.įed fears: Investors ditched stocks despite a massive intervention by the US Federal Reserve on Sunday. ![]() ![]() Dow futures were last down 1,041 points, or about 4.5%. US markets are poised to suffer heavy losses. (UKX) fell more than 6% in early trading, while France’s CAC 40 The latest: Markets were battered across Asia, with Australia’s benchmark index crashing nearly 10% in its worst day on record. In fact, it seems to have made matters worse. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here.ĭramatic action from the US Federal Reserve to cushion the blow from the coronavirus pandemic isn’t helping to calm global markets on Monday. As Trump accepted Kelly’s demand that his buddy Scaramucci be dismissed, he demonstrated he is willing to give the general what he wants, including respect – and, perhaps the obedience of his own children, in exchange for his leadership.A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. As Kelly takes charge, he doesn’t need to show up in a uniform bedecked with medals to keep the President’s admiration and support. Before he was finished, Trump was marching down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, sun glistening off the brass of his uniform, at the head of the corps marching in the Columbus Day parade.Īlthough young Trump escaped serving through a series of academic and medical deferments, the President was so enamored of the military style that 50 years later, he would speak lovingly to me of Brasso polish and spit-shined shoes. As Dobias once recalled for me, Trump was “the most manipulative” boy he ever encountered and through his wheedling and pleasing, got everything he wanted. (As he told me, it was the kind of place where the grown men in uniforms “smacked you around.”) At the academy, Trump adopted a barking World War II veteran named Theodore Dobias as a substitute father. George “Blood and Guts” Patton as if he were a perfect hero and not the troublesome brute whom Eisenhower called a “problem child.” However, the President’s fascination with strong military men goes back much further and is far more primal.Īs an unruly boy, Trump was suddenly sent away by his father to attend a military school renowned for its harsh discipline. The President’s affection for military men was noted during the 2016 campaign, when he talked about Gen. Then, as the smoke cleared, the world could see the figure of John Kelly, the new chief of staff. The dismissal of the preening Scaramucci, on the other hand, came with the power of a lightning strike. Spicer and Priebus were easy prey because the dramatist (read President) had introduced them to us as characters who would inevitably be killed off.Īs Priebus and Spicer were humiliated and driven away, you could almost hear the snickers in the audience. In Italian theater, a scaramuccia is a menacing court jester who inevitably falls from grace and Trump’s jester fit the archetype perfectly, ousting Sean Spicer and Reince Priebus before – in a stunning bit of political theater, “The Mooch” and his profane, on-the-record tirade became a bigger laughingstock than the men at whom he had aimed his blade. The first sign that Trump was in panic mode last week came as he brought Anthony Scaramucci onto the stage, naming him White House communications chief. In the 1990s, for example, he became a quieter, less braggadocious Trump when his casinos went bankrupt and his airline business failed. When pressed to the edge of panic, Trump will modify his behavior. It all points to a President/performer who knows he is losing his audience and can’t figure out how to give them what they want. Last week stands apart: sexual innuendo in a speech to Boy Scouts, urging police to rough up suspects, suddenly barring military service for transgender Americans, revolving-door turmoil in the West Wing. With so much dissonance, one bizarre week in the Trump presidency can blend into another and eventually they all seem the same. Trump can seem like a human sound system with the volume set so high every note just sounds like noise. Given his limited public persona, on the other hand – which consists of little more than brags, insults and crude observations – Donald Trump’s true moods and motives can be difficult to discern.
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