Free Trade & Quitters: Two Bets That Are Freaking Me Out
If there is one thing that I hope you know after 10+ months of us being together it is that I am an open book. We have shared many victories together at SSG by accurately predicting the political future with nothing but our shared genius. Honestly I feel bad for all the leprechauns on the planet due to the fact that we have stolen 99 percent of the pots of gold on earth just by creating this blog. But part of being an open book is admitting when I get absolutely destroyed. And even though no one has taken my money yet, I am beginning to get nervous about two of my trades. Here they are — what do you think?
Will Congress pass the USMCA this year?
When I think about Democracy, I think about tradition. And one of Democracy’s great traditions is for Congress to get completely jammed-up from August until October when the new budget is due and/or whenever it is time to increase the debt ceiling. However, this year the Godfather aka Mitch McConnell teamed-up with Nancy Pelosi to suppress this classic ritual of freedom. Unfortunately, they passed a two-year budget and debt ceiling deal which means that Christmas in September is canceled until 2021.
This is the #1 reason why I think it is a bunch of hooey whenever people say that Mitch McConnell is an institutionalist. Now that Cocaine Mitch has canceled the annual budget/debt ceiling party, Congress is just going to be sitting around bored from Labor Day until Christmas, which makes me extremely uncomfortable.
I obviously don’t need to tell you how dangerous Congress can be when it gets bored. That is when Committee Chairmen start getting hopped-up on the office coffee and start yapping to the White House and/or Fake News Media about how they are going to move some serious bicameral weight from the Capitol to the Oval Office. The obvious choices for bigtime bills this fall are the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Free Trade agreement and prescription drug reform, and even though I am positive that Nancy Pelosi does not want to give Trump a W on either of these issues, she might run out of excuses to ignore them and/or just get so incredibly bored that she enacts these bills to pass the time.
Maybe I am a beta but I’ve sold a solid chunk of my NO position in the “Will Congress pass the USMCA in 2019?” market. I would rate this market as being much closer to 60/40 than 75-25.
How many Dems will drop out by August 31?
Last week I said that the answer is four or fewer, but this play is 49 percent gambling and 51 percent facts. And the fact that Gov. John Hickenlooper could be bouncing to run for Senate freaks me out, due to the fact that this could trigger the same situation that happens every time I host my St. Patrick Swayze’s Day party and run out of beer.
Obviously, I am talking about what happens when one person leaves and then everyone else (Bill de Blasio, Wayne Messam, etc.) runs for the door. The one thing that makes me feel better about this is the fact that Gov. John Hickenlooper, who is a geologist by training, has never been cool enough in his life to roll up to a party with friends. So there is a decent chance that when he pulls an Irish Goodbye from the POTUS party, no one will notice or even give a shit. There is also the fact that he has a great reason to leave that no else other than YouTube Star Beto O’Rourke has: to run for Senate. But it still worries me that there are literally dozens of Dems in this race who are getting smoked and would probably love to run for the door as soon as soon as someone else opens it.
I just hope that happens in before the October debate and not the September one.
What do you think? Hit me up in the comments or in my DMs. I promise to respond.
KEENDAWG
