“To put it baldly, there are two ways to become wealthy: to create wealth or to take wealth away from others. The former adds to society. The latter typically subtracts from it, for in the process of taking it away, wealth gets destroyed. A monopolist who overcharges for his product takes money from those whom he is overcharging and at the same time destroys value. To get his monopoly price, he has to restrict production.”
Joseph E. Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality
“I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.”
Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye
"Evil will sometimes seems good to a man whose mind a god is leading to destruction."
Sophocles, Antigone
After the bell 'Alphabet' posted some negative results, such as operating margin, which caused the stock to decline, despite much better than expected earnings.
Like patriotism and honor, earnings are often a very flexible concept in our current financial discourse and halls of political power.
Stocks rebounded this morning, and the metals were under pressure.
This despite the cratering in the newly opened Asian markets after their long lunar new year holiday.
In the interests of preventing panic, lies and associated looting appears to be the order of the day for our guardians of freedom.
But it would be poor form for Trumpolini to have to give his State of the Union as an impeached president with a cratering stock market.
This is going to end badly, make no mistake about that.
As the force of the economy continues to decline, the fraud of its representations and of most public speech will increase, shamelessly.
Have a pleasant evening.
