The Iconic Key Bridge Collapse

The bridge to our past, our future ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ March 26, 2024 The Iconic Key Bridge Collapse “In every conceivable manner, the family is the link to our past, bridge to our future.” – Alex Haley [Special Reminder: In case you missed [our recent announcement]( The Essential Investor has merged with legacy contributors to Agora Financial. The new, larger, more inclusive project is called The Grey Swan Investment Fraternity. If you’re interested in the scope and benefits of our new endeavor, please see what prompted us to merge [here](. If you’ve been a member of The Essential Investor, please keep an eye out for your new benefits.] Dear [Reader], March 26, 2024 – A block from our house begins a bicycle and jogging path that traverses the Baltimore Arboretum on its way downtown to the Woodberry Mill complex, itself a model for contemporary urban renewal. Along the way, you pass TV Hill, so named because the towers for our local broadcast stations, NBC, CBS, and Fox transmit free airwaves to all corners of Maryland. We mostly watch local news for the weather and sports — and inevitably, the days’ crime statistics. Atop the NBC tower is a camera with a unique view above the city, the Inner Harbor, and in the distance, the Chesapeake Bay. From above the sturm and drang of daily life, the city is rather postcard-esque. Our affiliate, WBALTV, often depicts the sunrise over the Francis Scott Key Bridge, a massive mile and a half span across the mouth of the Patapsco River. Elegant in its design and iconic to the residents of the city, as of this morning, the bridge stands no more. The sun will never rise over the Key Bridge again. At 1:27am EST a Singapore-flagged container ship, Dali, bound for Colombo, Sri Lanka, was leaving the harbor at a rapid speed of eight knots. At about three-and-a-half American football fields length and another field-and-a-half wide, the container ship proved to be large enough to destroy. Moments before skirting below the bridge, as it had done only 2 days before on the way into port, the Dali lost power and careened into the center-bridge pylon. As iPhone footage shows, what took 5 years to build, crumpled into the river in seconds. The impact of the Key Bridge collapse will be felt for years. CONTINUED BELOW... >>ADVERTISEMENT<< Gold Is Headed Above $3,000 per Ounce (Here's How to Play It) With so many strange events happening across the economy (the longest bear market for bonds since the Civil War... unprecedented bank closures... and soaring prices), it's no wonder the richest investors are loading up on gold. But what you might not realize is there's a much better way to profit from rising gold prices – WITHOUT ever touching an ETF, mining stock, or even bullion. [Get the full details here »]( CONTINUED... The bridge itself was a masterpiece of steel and engineering; a 2-mile, four-lane expanse was one section in the 695 beltway that rings the city. Including the roads connecting to it, the complex extends for 11 miles. Even during the pandemic, annual traffic was logged as more than 12 million vehicles with an average daily volume of over 30,000. Fortunately, at that hour, there were only 7 cars on the bridge. Unfortunately, a state highway crew was engaged in nighttime maintenance at the time. The Port of Baltimore is closed. One of the largest and deepest on the East Coast of the United States, the port was first established in 1670 to ship tobacco from the Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia colonies. It is the raison d’etre for the city… the lifeblood of the local economy. The baseball stadium, Camden Yards, where the Orioles play, is so named because it was built on the site where the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) rail system connected with ships from all over the globe. Today, the port is the largest importer of sugar and gypsum for the U.S., the second largest exporter of coal, and the largest East Coast port for car and truck imports. The Baltimore Amazon robotics facility, which employs nearly 5,000 skilled workers, was recently opened near the bridge to take advantage of both the port facilities and the proximity of the interstate road system.  Symbolic of global commerce, the Dali had just returned to the United States after passing through the Panama Canal harboring in New York on March 19. The ship was built in 2015 by the South Korea-based Hyundai Heavy Industries. It was operated by the London-based Synergy Group, carrying cargo commissioned by the Danish shipping giant Maersk. In 2016, the crew ran the barge into a stone wall in the Belgian port of Antwerp.  The Francis Scott Key bridge itself is emblematic of the region and the U.S. national identity. The expanse of the Patapsco it traversed roughly marks the spot where the British prison ship was moored when Key himself watched the bombing of Fort McHenry on September 14, 1841, during the tail end of the War of 1812. On September 15, after the scruffy American contingent won the battle and saved the city from British occupation, Key was released, where among the revelers in a local pub he penned a poem recounting his experience. The revelers, for spite you can imagine, sang Keys’ words aloud in tune to a pub ditty popular with British sailors. One hundred years later, during the depths of the Great Depression, the U.S. Congress adopted The Star Spangled Banner as the national anthem. Governor Wes Moore of Maryland has declared a state of emergency. Divers are still searching for the occupants of the cars, as well as the highway workers that were on the bridge at the time of the accident. Aboard the Dali, 22 members of the crew are unhurt. For the residents of Baltimore, there will always be a before and after the time of the iconic Francis Scott Key Bridge. So it goes, Addison Wiggin, The Wiggin Sessions P.S. The metaphor of a key bridge collapsing in our city is not lost on us.  As correspondent Scott P. had written just this morning, “The key to the ‘collapse,’ or rather, preferably, ‘an awakening’ is trust. Once the tipping point of trust is breached, who knows what excitement is in store?” Scott was commenting on our essay from yesterday, “The Ghost of Debt Crises Present,” in which we described our nightmare during the wee hours yesterday morn. Like the Key bridge, the toppling of a central support is all it would take for the whole structure to come crashing down. The pylon supporting the U.S. dollar, itself the center beam for the global financial system since gold was removed in 1971, rests on, quite literally, “the full faith and credit” of the U.S. government. “The two most dangerous criminal gangs in the United States - the Republicans and the Democrats,” Scott writes, “are doing [perhaps unintentionally] everything they can to erode that trust, but still, the people are unphased. I'm taking that as a good sign - ‘an awakening’ instead of a violent collapse.” Please send your comments, reactions, opprobrium, vitriol and praise to: addison@greyswanfraternity.com. The Daily Missive from The Wiggin Sessions is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We do not rent or share your email address. By submitting your email address, you consent to The Wiggn Sessions delivering daily email issues and advertisements. 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