"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes."
Andrew Jackson, On the Second Bank of the United States
"Jim, lad, there be consequences an' then there be consequences. Devil take 'em all, says I, and pass aft the rum."
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
“Financial operations do not lend themselves to innovation. What is recurrently so described and celebrated is, without exception, a small variation on an established design. The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version.”
John Kenneth Galbraith, A Short History of Financial Euphoria
"It is no exaggeration to say that since the 1980s, much of the global financial sector has become criminalised, creating an industry culture that tolerates or even encourages systematic fraud. The behaviour that caused the mortgage bubble and financial crisis of 2008 was a natural outcome and continuation of this pattern, rather than some kind of economic accident.
This behaviour is criminal. We are talking about deliberate concealment of financial transactions that aided terrorism, nuclear weapons proliferation and large-scale tax evasion; assisting in major financial frauds and in concealment of criminal assets; and committing frauds that substantially worsened the worst financial bubbles and crises since the Depression. And yet none of this conduct has been punished in any significant way.
Charles H. Ferguson, Wall Street's Role in the Financial Crisis, The Guardian, 20 May 2012
"The asset bubbles since the turn of the 21st century have been enabled by four basic instruments of monetary policy error: Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, and Powell."
Jesse, Malice Domestic and Endless Foreign Wars, 31 July 2018
Gold and silver gave us some clean breakouts today, and went out near the highs.
The dollar chopped sideways again, finishing marginally higher.
VIX fell.
The major indices gave back a little of yesterday's meteoric rally.
"Great designs have linear consequences. Bad designs have exponential consequences."
The coming dislocation from illusion may prove jarring, and as always, inexplicable and unanticipated.
Some large entities may not make it, at least in their current forms.
They are sliding peacefully into the abyss.
Have a pleasant weekend.
