Landing at Auckland yesterday evening, the arrival hall is quiet. It is crammed with people, don’t get me wrong, someone had the fancy idea to land three A380’s at the same time, but it’s hushed. We are all looking at our phones. The NZX50 has closed down 4 percent (largest one-day drop since 2008) and the circuit breakers have just been triggered on the US futures market, at 5% down, and trading is halted. Trump has been announced President-Elect. As I shuffle to declare the two bottles of Sriracha sauce I bought in Wal Mart, (take inner left lane only all other lanes crap and slow), I think, oh GOD, not again.
I have a sleepless night. I’m trip over-tired and the election result isn’t what I expected. But neither can I say I am totally surprised. I wake up to a 1000 point swing in the Dow – from intraday lows to new all-time highs, the exact opposite of what all the talking head experts were SO CONFIDENT would happen. What in sweet tap dancing hell is going on?
I decide that this is better than an another enormous plunge, but sharemarkets that behave with such bulimic vacillations aren’t good for us, (or me personally quite frankly) and I worry about what we are in for. Not the first few days, but after 12 months or two years. I worry about race riots, for the women already assaulted under the banner of Trump’s tacit agreement. Whether or not he backs down to moderation after the hate performance of his life just to win a contest might not make any difference. Something festering has been ripped open in America with his campaigning belligerence, and it is ugly.
But fretting is one of my bad habits, and I know from experience it makes me sad and depressed, so I allow myself a good hour of wallowing about how the whole damned world is screwed beyond all rational thought, and then I get on with the day.
And it’s a good day in small town Napier, New Zealand, consisting of lunching on plants, sending off of invoices and choosing of dresses for wine auction events, where I shall play entertainer-ess. I consider myself insanity level lucky. Each gal makes her own fortune, of course, the multiverse won’t have it any other way, but I do feel hugely grateful all the same.
Auntie Carrie 