Biden's Saigon Moment Raises Political Risks for Markets
After the Afghan debacle, the president looks like a Ford or a Carter. A rise in political uncertainty could return the economy to crisis.
Getting that Ford/Carter look.
Photographer: APU GOMES/AFP/Getty Images
To get John Authers' newsletter delivered directly to your inbox, sign up here.
It has been 20 years. Like most of us who were in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, I find it difficult not to think of that day's events at the best of times. The focus on the 9/11 terrorist attacks over the 20th anniversary this weekend was close to intolerable. However, the topic can’t be avoided, even for people who are primarily interested in finance. And it has gained greater urgency with the landmark coming just as the U.S. had pulled out of Afghanistan, ending the war it started as a direct consequence of 9/11. That withdrawal, appallingly handled, was accompanied by images painfully reminiscent both of the fall of Saigon in 1975 and (when young Afghans attempted to grip the side of an American transporter and fell to their deaths) of the figures who threw themselves from the towers 20 years ago.