The Elliot Wave is a theory of investing that has been around for more than 50 years. Ralph Nelson Elliott developed the Elliott Wave Theory in the late 1920s. He postulated his "discovery" of the fact that stock markets behave in a non-linear, i.e. chaotic, fashion. From his perspective the business cycle was a result of market trades whose resulting cycles represented the emotions of investors waxing and waning. Elliott thought the upward and downward swings of the market always showed up in the same repetitive patterns. Personally I think this theory is a pile of crap, but I am much more interested in the current Elliot Wave. The political wave of one Eliot Spitzer, the soon-to-be former Governor of the Great State (self-titled) of New York. This wave has that unique blend of arrogance and stupidity that so often characterizes the political class in America and proves time and again the old adage that the wellspring of human folly never runs dry.
Waves are periodic phenomena so popular with scientists because they provide accurate models of many phenomena. While I am doubtful of their use in prudent investment strategies, I do think they aptly characterize the political class; that subset of humanity that makes their living at others expense. A parasite so to speak on the body politic. Politicians rise and fall time and time again. It is rare that a politico rises and then falls on the same sword that has been used to skewer others. Who can resist the savory taste of revenge?
The Governorship of the Empire State has long been a coveted plum for the appetite of the rising politician. Some of the worst Presidents in history have come from the aptly named Empire State. Franklin and Teddy, both Roosevelt’s both cut from elitist cloth were at one time Governors there. There were also a couple of near misses with the failing candidacies of Mario Cuomo (socialist) and Rudi Giuliani (fascisti). Rudi wasn’t actually the Governor, but in his shameless self-promotion since 9/11 he certainly acted like one.
For a politician on the rise, the New York Governorship is a springboard into the pool of public consciousness. This is all courtesy of the ubiquitous media presence there. Diligently cramming the conventional wisdom down the American populace’s throat from their exalted position in NYC.
This is where Hillary and Bill went after his flail in the oval office was over. They sure as hell weren’t going back to Arkansas. The ever popular Council on Foreign Relations are squatters there as well, enjoying pricey real estate, and tax-free perks courtesy of the IRS. They "serve" the American public, as a non-profit organization but remain on a short leash to their masters at the Morgan/Rockefeller banks. Sorry, my bad, I mean as cultural mavens in the nexus of Western Civilization.
Nonetheless, an up-and-coming bag man could certainly do worse for his career. Eliot Spitzer was Hahvaaard educated, a blue blood. He cut his teeth as a gutsy law and order prosecutor just like his mentor Combover Rudi. Unlike Rudi, who made his bones at the expense of the "Teflon Don" John Gotti, Eliot made his by picking on girls, I mean, women. He stalked and then bagged the first American woman in history to be a self-made billionaire: Martha Stewart. Never mind that the charges against her were ridiculous. They were also completely unintelligible from a constitutional perspective, the same constitution that Spitzer, as a federal prosecutor, is supposed to uphold. Eliot, like so many aggrandizing politicians before him, was never one to let the truth interfere with a good story, even if under oath.
Still Martha was never convicted! She plea bargained for a reduced sentence, that as a shrewd businesswoman, knew would be better for her and her stockholders capital in the long run than adhering to her principles and fighting to the end. As to why the activist feminist media did not crucify Spitzer for this cruel charade I’ll never understand.
The conviction of Martha Stewart was just the necessary and protracted media event that an opportunist like Spitzer can use to get their persona the publicity so essential to a national campaign. Eliot rode this wave right into the governorship. It was the crest of the wave, but no one could see it then, he was just getting started.
As many waves do, this one broke up on the rock of negative public opinion. Pride goeth before the fall. I do not think that Americans are a particularly moral or pious tribe in the modern world. Yet the self-appointed nannies of political correctness, ABC/NBC/CBS/FOX/CNN certainly reiterate this illusion through their distorting lens of disinformation. The demise of Eliot Spitzer is every bit the historical non-event as the impeachment proceedings of Bill Clinton.
The glaring hypocrisy of what really is nobody’s business, the consensual behavior between consenting adults is transformed by this charade into a mirror that illuminates the degraded hypocrisy that the media circus pontificating the conventional wisdom has become. Seventeen years, and hundreds of thousands of dead souls, whose only mistake was to be born in Mesopotamia in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, stare back at us, and we look away.
Still Americans self-righteously puff up our collective chests at this sinner who is guilty of the non-crime of indulging his basest appetites. The only person that had any interest in Eliot’s sordid behavior was his wife. Not only does she have to be humiliated by marriage to this buffoon, and then secondly to stand by his ignorant ass as he fesses up into the cycloptic eye of public opinion. The first time you spend $4000 on a hooker the Devil made you do it, after that you done it on your own.
The rise and fall of politicians have become a regular and sadly predictably periodic event in American history. They set the bar so low that you have to be careful not to trip over it. Despite the non-stop prattle of the mainstream media gushing effusively about the great joy that the political classes bestow on the whole world, we seem to continually elect dolts. Dolts that have an eye for the skirts and a taste for the sauce nonetheless. The vast majority of Americans would not trust most of these people to walk their dogs! Why do we let them run things (even when they time and again run them into the ground)?
If only we had actually adhered to the Founding Father’s principle of liberty and justice for all (that we trumpet loudly from sea to shining sea, while ignoring it perpetually) this would never have occurred. Martha would never have gone to jail, and Eliot Spitzer would be just another unknown political hack in a dead-end job.
This is just the start. There will be obligatory and expensive investigation (paid for by you and I) to get to the bottom of this. This is a field day for the network talking heads. The late night chins will be wagging over Elliot’s peccadilloes even as history relegates him to the dustbin, right beside Richard Nixon, Wilbur Mills and the intellectually flaccid Billy Buckley.
At the end of the day it was a cruel yet wonderful irony that this arrogant, moronic Hahvaaard man had his throne yanked out from under him just as he had ascended on it. He fell flat on his face in front of 300 million Americans because he wasn’t man enough to keep it in his pants and show a little of what we adults call self-control.
Few things are as sweet as revenge publicly inflicted on the deserving. I hope this trough of the Eliot Wave brings a smile to Martha Stewart’s face and a spring to her step. I know it sure did for mine.
