shoal

“It’s clear that he has navigated the fraught shoals of the bureaucratic politics of the administration effectively. He hasn’t ticked off anybody who matters, and that’s a lot by itself.”

This was one of the main shipping routes between the eastern and western Mediterranean, and it was also an extremely dangerous body of water, filled with shoals, sandbars, and suddenly shifting currents.

Zoom out, though, and it does an impressive job of steering investors away from dangerous shoals.

And in August, a Chinese navy vessel collided with one from its own coast guard while chasing a Philippine patrol boat near the same shoal.

Put it all together, and the U.S. economy is in dire straits, possibly heading toward a shoal.