Selling His Seoul

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A couple of days, I did a post in which I mused about “One Possible Path“, which included this critical element that would precede a market tumble:

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Well, maybe we’ve already got our “something”.

Now look, I’m not so naive as to think that some sabre-rattling from the chubby monster in North Korea is necessarily meaningful. Threats from North Korea are about as game-changing as peace talks in the Middle East………..I’ve heard of them both for decades, and nothing ever, ever changes. Not even a little.

And yet this time seems a little different, at least for the moment, and the US dollar is getting a bit freaked out:

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In particular, North Korea isn’t just tossing around their unusual nonsense about the mongrel bastards of the United States, but is very specifically stating it is getting prepared for a possible attack on Guam, of all places.

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An interesting little thought occurred to your favorite blogger, however. It’s quite cynical, but let me lay it out……….

Trump probably realizes deep down how unpopular he is among a big chunk of the public. He’s also shrewd enough to know that the way to popularity is war. Look no farther than the first President Bush. Just after the Gulf War, his approval rating was way above 90%. Can you imagine that? Honestly – – think about it –  that means that almost every person who voted for Hillary in 2016 also APPROVED of George Bush back in 1990! (Assuming they were adults in both cases). That’s really saying something.

Now, the whole North Korea thing is impossible to solve if you want to avoid death. There simply is no way to create a regime change without a lot of dead bodies.

But……..what if those dead bodies aren’t ‘Mericuhn? How about, instead, if they were, oh, say……..from this lovely city:

That is – Seoul, Korea.

So we a situation something like this:

(a) Trump launches a small, targeted military attack at North Korea’s regime, fully accepting that someone close by is going to get the shit blown out of them;

(b) North Korea retaliates with a vicious, deadly assault on Seoul, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths;

(c) The United States then opens up the gates of hell and blows North Korea into the dark ages, as revenge;

(d) When all the dust has settled, the world is glad Kim is gone, but is mad at hell at the United States and demands the U.S. basically pay for the mess it just created (what’s another few trillion in debt, eh?)

Thus, Trump does not one but TWO impossible things: (a) he eliminates the Kim regime, which no one else could do (b) he becomes, for a while at least, much, much more popular than he is now in the United States, while at the same time scaring the holy hell out of the entire world, since he obviously means what he says.

Of course, the above scenario is pretty damned far-fetched, but………so was Trump winning the election in 2016.