Jamal Mecklai: Goodbye Joe

MARKET MANIC

me gotta go, me oh my oh
me gotta go pole the pirogue
down the bayou...

The heartbreaking scenes out of New Orleans these past two weeks brought to mind the lyrics of Jambalaya, one of thousands of great songs that sprung out of the bayou mud of Southern Louisiana over the past few hundred years.

I know""I guess, knew would be a better word today""New Orleans, the Cajun country stretching across South Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast extremely well, having been taken to New Orleans on my first fall break in college""a wide-eyed 21-year-old graduate student (relatively) fresh off the boat from India. It was""to use a contemporary phrase""awesome.

Not only did we drink all night and whatever part of the day we were up""I particularly remember sitting on the sidewalk swigging Boone's Farm Apple wine (99 cents a bottle, I kid you not) ""but we danced on the streets, heard the finest music and I almost ended up married to a girl who was dancing naked on my table at a bar just off Bourbon Street one night.

And that was just the beginning. Over the next 15 years, I went to New Orleans maybe 20-30 times, each time getting in deeper and deeper. In a few years, I even had a table""the one on the left in the corner when you enter""permanently reserved for me at Napoleon House, a wonderful old bar in the French Quarter, on the corner of Chartres and St. Philip (I think).

We""and over the years, the composition of the "we" changed quite a bit""ate the finest Creole cuisine at Antoine's, breakfasted at Brennans, waited in line for late night omelettes at the Camelia Grill on the corner of Carrolton and St Charles, and lingered over beigneits, doused in powdered sugar, and chicory coffee at Cafe du Mond at 2, 3, 4, even 6 in the morning. And, of course, we ate oyster po-boys. Available all over the city, but the best by far were at Cassamento's uptown on Magazine Street.

And we danced all over the city. On the streets, of course, competing with the old drunks and little black kids tap dancing for quarters. At parties all around town. Jumping out of the car, when we were driving out to hear Zacharay Richard at the Zydeco festival, and doing a wild-ass Cajun shuffle right there on the highway. And, most memorably at a little wooden shack of a place a bit uptown off Tchopitoulas, which was the wildest blues bar I've ever been to.

And we became the music. Music was the air in New Orleans. Jazzfest. Mardi Gras. Preservation Hall, where the black guys playing were so old, you could hear the records scratch when they played. The Neville Brothers, Dr John at Tippitina's, Professor Longhair at Commander Cody's. And one-eyed Billy Wolf, our guide to the nightlife.

Ah, New Orleans! The Big Easy! Laissez le bon temps roullez""let the good times roll!
And now, Goodbye Joe.
Breaks my heart. Will we ever meet again?

But, in any case, God is great and, perhaps, the other result of Hurricane Katrina may be the end of the "zero tolerance, winner takes all, let's buy everything at Walmart" way of life.

The most interesting analysis I read of the horrible mess was in an article in the Financial Times, which pointed out that the tragedy of poor, black Americans suffering like people in Bangladesh or Africa was a direct result of the political belief""started by Ronald Reagan, and continued through all the Republican-dominated Congresses since then till it is the accepted wisdom today""that government is basically the problem; and the less government there is, the better.

Living here in India, we could be forgiven for feeling the same way, but, as the events of the past few weeks have graphically shown, this "tending-to-zero" government leads to trauma, tragedy and, yes, a failure of civilisation.

And that, too, in the richest country in the world, which is also these days globally famous for delivering lectures on "a civilised society".

Huge numbers of Americans, already fed up with their current government's misadventures, are horribly upset with what they have seen on TV. And while people's memories are notoriously short, I believe the Katrina reality show will influence US policy dramatically""perhaps, even turning it back towards a more interventionist government for decades to come.

So, what does this imply for financial markets, and, more specifically, the dollar? Well, a more interventionist US government means a higher budget deficit, greater protectionism and a weaker dollar.

Global growth may not suffer immediately, since the balancing force of Asian mercantilism may continue to keep interest rates low. But, at some point, US growth will have to slow down, and, then, unless Japan, China, and the rest of us have continued to really accelerate, look out ...

In the meanwhile, of course, the Sensex blew through 8,000 like a hurricane. Like the song goes

Jambalaya, crawfish pie and file gumbo
'cause tonight I'm gonna see my machez amio
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-oh
Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the bayou.