{"id":24951,"date":"2011-11-04T08:00:34","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T12:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/fx\/2011\/11\/04\/happy-guy-fawkes-day-thoughts-on-the-rise-of-the-tea-party-and-occupy-wall-street\/"},"modified":"2011-11-04T08:00:34","modified_gmt":"2011-11-04T12:00:34","slug":"happy-guy-fawkes-day-thoughts-on-the-rise-of-the-tea-party-and-occupy-wall-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/2011\/11\/04\/happy-guy-fawkes-day-thoughts-on-the-rise-of-the-tea-party-and-occupy-wall-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Guy Fawkes Day: Thoughts on the Rise of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

By The Sizemore Letter<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The last man to enter Parliament with good intentions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,<\/em>
\nThe Gunpowder Treason and Plot,<\/em>
\nI know of no reason<\/em>
\nWhy the Gunpowder Treason<\/em>
\nShould ever be forgot.<\/em>
\nGuy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, ’twas his intent<\/em>
\nTo blow up the King and Parli’ment.<\/em>
\nThree-score barrels of powder below<\/em>
\nTo prove old England’s overthrow;<\/em>
\nBy God’s mercy he was catch’d<\/em>
\nWith a dark lantern and burning match.<\/em>
\nHulloa boys, Hulloa boys, let the bells ring.<\/em>
\nHulloa boys, hulloa boys, God save the King!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

–Traditional English nursery rhyme<\/p>\n

It’s that time of year again, dear reader.\u00a0 Tomorrow, November 5, is Guy Fawkes Day, the day that the English remember one of their most notorious villains or most celebrated heroes, depending on their politics.<\/p>\n

On this day in 1605 Fawkes, a disgruntled English Catholic rebel, attempted to take down the entire English government\u2014king, ministers, parliament and all\u2014by blowing up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament.<\/p>\n

Fawkes was discovered and promptly executed, but he is remembered\u2014in typically dry English humor\u2014as the last man to enter parliament with good intentions.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Mr. Fawkes was a man ahead of his time.\u00a0 Though thankfully no domestic political group is advocating “blowing up” Washington D.C., anti-establishment sentiment is the highest it’s been since the 1970s.<\/p>\n

The Tea Party has firmly established itself as a political force to be reckoned with on the right by vowing to cut back the size and scope of the government and now plays the role of kingmaker in the Republican Party.\u00a0 Any Republican congressional candidate risks being bounced out of his or her seat in the primaries if they stray too far from the Tea Party line.\u00a0 Despite having an enormous campaign funding advantage and having the support of the party bigwigs, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney may well lose the Republican presidential nomination to an upstart like Herman Cain if he fails to convince the Tea Party of his conservative bona fides.<\/p>\n

On the left, the Occupy Wall Street<\/a><\/strong> movement is now attracting attention by demanding an end to the bailout culture that would appear to benefit the “top 1 percent” at the expense of the rest.\u00a0 Occupy Wall Street has yet to congeal into a coherent political movement\u2014and I’ve expressed my belief that it never will (see “Occupy Wall Street: What You Need to Know<\/a>“)\u2014yet even a loosely-organized movement could be able to tip a close primary election.\u00a0 Democrats in left-leaning districts ignore the movement at their own risk.<\/p>\n

That is enough about politics.\u00a0 What, if anything, are investors to take away from all of this?<\/p>\n

First, expect the regulator regime on the financial sector to get stiffer.\u00a0 Though they differ wildly on many important details, both populist movements–the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street–cite the bailout culture of Wall Street as a major grievance.\u00a0 The Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill has been criticized by both parties for being either too harsh or too lenient, depending on who you ask.\u00a0 I’ve criticized the Durbin Amendment to that bill, which gave the Federal Reserve the right to regulate debit card fees, for being punitive to banks while failing to give any real benefit to consumers (indeed, the end result of the Durbin Amendment was that banks levied new fees on debit cards of their customers, hurting the very people the amendment was drafted to protect).<\/p>\n

Still, additional regulation is almost guaranteed. One possibility is the Volcker Rule, named after former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker.\u00a0 The Rule, if implemented, would forbid banks from trading for their own accounts (so called “proprietary trading”).\u00a0 This would mean lower profits and (presumably) less risk being taken by American banks.\u00a0 It should also make banking stocks less interesting as investments.<\/p>\n

The other near-certainty is government gridlock.\u00a0 It was just a few months ago that a high-stakes game of chicken between the President and the House of Representatives came dangerously close to forcing the United States into default.\u00a0 It should be remembered that Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade the country’s credit rating was due primarily to this gridlock and not to America’s ability to pay its bills.<\/p>\n

Markets hate uncertainty, and the next round of budget or tax negotiations promise to bring us more volatility.\u00a0 As investors make their end-of-year financial plans–such as funding their IRAs or topping off their 401(k) plans–they might want to keep a little cash in reserve.\u00a0 While I am bullish for 2012, I believe the messy politics of an election year will provide plenty of great trading opportunities to buy on dips.<\/p>\n

If you liked this article by Sizemore Insights<\/em>, you\u2019d probably enjoy The Sizemore Investment Letter<\/em>, our premium members-only newsletter. Click here<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By The Sizemore Letter The last man to enter Parliament with good intentions. Remember, remember the Fifth of November, The Gunpowder Treason and Plot, I know of no reason Why the Gunpowder Treason Should ever be forgot. Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, ’twas his intent To blow up the King and Parli’ment. Three-score barrels of powder … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Happy Guy Fawkes Day: Thoughts on the Rise of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}