Final Word from Wednesday, February 5, 2020

You gotta admit it, Donald Trump knows how to put on a show. As the Democrats were struggling to announce the results of the Iowa caucuses and were also preparing for today's impeachment vote in the Senate, Trump produced a State of the Union address last night that revealed no sign of strain or surrender. "The economy is the best it has ever been," he said. "Since my election, U.S. stock markets have soared 70 percent, adding more than $12 trillion to our nation's wealth, transcending anything anyone believed was possible. This is a record. It is something that every country in the world is looking up to. They admire." (An amazing number of people believe this entirely false measurement of the health of an economy.) Buried in the numbers Trump mentioned are also U.S. stock purchases of tens of billions of dollars by the Czech National Bank. In a small but very real way, the devaluation of the Czech crown in 2013 is helping Trump get reelected in 2020. [ Czech Republic United States of American exchange shares ]