Stock Market and Middle East

January 9, 2020

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife America, and Renewable Fuels Association. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of a healthy farm economy and prosperous rural
America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary –

As we closed out a very volatile 2019 with some significant victories on trade, on cutting regulations, and on approving conservative new judges for our court system – I did not mention the huge gains in our stock market. The market jumped more than 20%. Some people might argue that only helped to enrich the already rich. It’s more than that. Workers in rural America and across the U.S. own some stocks and they are not all rich. Bigger than that would be the retirement funds that have been invested in stocks for our workers.

I remember on October 21, 2016 an article in Politico (a Washington, DC based news company) had this to say – “Wall Street is set up for a major crash if Donald Trump shocks the world on Election Day and wins the White House.” He did win, and the stock market didn’t crash. It shot up the next day and hasn’t stopped climbing.

Another subject – last week Iran got an explosive message from President Trump. Our deadly drone strike killed one of the Middle East’s most powerful terrorists, General Soleimani. He was Iran’s military commander and for years has targeted and killed 600 or more U.S. soldiers. His team had plans to launch many more attacks on our people and allies. Last year when Iran shot down one of our drones President Trump considered some retaliation but backed off. But when Soleimani’s terrorists attacked our U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, that crossed the red line. Iran has threatened to retaliate and has already fired missiles into some of our bases.

We shall see where we go from here. We don’t want to escalate the conflict, but at least Iran must realize that they have overplayed their hand. We are through turning the other cheek while they terrorize our allies and kill our citizens.

Having watched the conflicts and turmoil in the Middle East for 40 years, I would like to get out of there. We don’t need their oil. Until next week, this John Block reporting from Washington, D.C. If you would like to review my radio shows going back more than 20 years, just go on-line to www.johnblockreports.com.