hey that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind.

– Hosea, 8-7

PARIS – We drove back into Paris last night…France is still in a state of emergency. A police blockade near Dreux stopped cars headed out of the city.There were about 20 gendarmes manning the barrier, some armed with machine guns.Police shined flashlights into passing cars, pulling over those they wanted to inspect more closely.

A City on Edge

This morning, in our favorite café at the foot of Rue Poussin, in the 16th arrondissement, everyone drinks his coffee and eats his croissant while watching the big TV screen in the corner.

"A kamikaze woman has been killed," is the headline story.

"Assault still going on…" says a subhead.

"Explosions rock St. Denis," adds another.

St. Denis, a northern suburb of Paris, has been shut down. People who work in the area are told not to go to their jobs. Buses aren't running. The streets are blocked by hundreds of police.

"Two terrorists killed," says the latest headline…

Paris is on edge. Since France began bombing Islamic State (ISIS) strongholds in Syria, the group has targeted the city for special treatment, say the papers.

About 700 French citizens or residents have joined ISIS to fight in Syria – the largest number of any European country. That means "Daesh" (pronounced "dash" – the new… and apparently derogatory… name that political leaders are using for ISIS) has the potential manpower to carry out attacks.

Nothing but Trouble

Our beat is economics… money… and finance. Not politics. But they intertwine, like poison ivy around a grapevine. One produces edible fruit; the other makes you itch.

We have wondered, for example, why the Fed would continue with policies that seem to benefit only a slim part of the population while being harmful to everyone else.

Is it politics? Or economics?

We might wonder the same thing about foreign policy: Why would the U.S. undertake an expensive program of sowing gusts all over the windblown Middle East?

After the U.S. helped al-Qaeda get off the ground, many analysts hold the country responsible for creating ISIS. And for bestowing on the group – by criminal incompetence, if not knowledgeable forethought – its leadership and almost all its serious weapons.

Why would it do such a thing?

The typical American or Frenchman stands to gain nothing but trouble from these policies – meddling in the economy and in the Middle East.

There is no evidence of any positive outcome – neither in the past nor the future. But they continue.

Why? Could it be that they are not just mistakes? Could it be that they are actually intended to create the grotesqueries we see today?

We'll come back to this question in a minute. First, we note that there was almost no movement in the major stock market indexes yesterday.

The World Is Slowing

The news continued to reinforce our view: The world economy is slowing.

Industrial output in the U.S. continues to creep upward. But the rate of growth has slowed 8 out of 10 months this year.

India's exports were down for 11 months in a row in October… following China and Brazil on the path to a slump.

And the price of steel has fallen 55% since its 2011 high.