I keep crude on the front page only because it is the largest commodity market in the world. That said, the world’s largest commodity market has been doing little but jacking off for more than a year, demonstrating that the main purpose of global markets is…to jack off.  What a joke!  This would be an embarrassment to all humanity, but for the fact that nothing could embarrass a civilization in which a hit single with the title ‘Wet-Assed Pussy’ could briefly  become the most listened-to pop ‘song’ in the world of so-called music. The woman responsible for it, Cardi B, probably regards the poobahs at Disney, the SEC and on Capitol Hill as peers — and not without good reason, since they are all American success stories of one sort or another. The foregoing aside, crude prices cannot be suppressed indefinitely in a geopolitical world that lives, from one day to the next, under a deep purple storm cloud.  The traders who have been doing the jacking off in both directions must be close to spent by now, so don’t be surprised if the intrepid dirtballs who control this monster spring a nasty trap on scalpers who can’t wait to short yet another rinse-and-repeat peak in the low $80s.