This is John Batcher, a conversation with my colleague Joseph Sternberg.

He's in London, he writes political economics for the Wall Street Journal editorial page,

entertaining the October surprise that hasn't happened. Three possibilities Joe raises.

Financial crisis in the United States, collapse of the Chinese economy. My favorite would be instability in Europe given the tussle right

now over immigration, over the vote by said to be extreme right wings, parties, rising.

However, Joe gives us a bigger perspective

about what might happen and when.

Here's Joseph Sternberg on the known unknowns and what he calls the quasi unknowns

needing a timeline. More of this tonight.

Well, I think that the real problem in Europe is that Europe has an economic growth problem and they have a lot of fiscal problems.

And this is happening at a time where China, their

traditional export market is also faltering, so they have a China problem.

They have an energy price problem, and now they have all of these political crises around the

continent. So we've got unusual instability in Germany where the ruling coalition of Chancellor Olav Schultz is on the ropes because

it has performed so terribly in these state elections.

You have a form of chaos unfolding in France where they barely have a prime minister after

Emmanuel Macron's botched legislative elections earlier in the summer.

You have a lot of uncertainty in the UK and understand that these are all crucial economic

partners for the US and strategic allies for the US. And this is also the place where we have the biggest land war in Europe is continuing to rage in Ukraine, you know, the biggest

consequential land war in 80 years.

And so I think that there are a lot of elements to be worried about here and a lot of potential

tender that could spark an October surprise of some sort in the U.S. political cycle.

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