“There is no force on earth that can stand up effectively, year after year, against the thousands of individuals and hundreds of millions of dollars in the Washington swamp aimed at influencing the legislative and electoral process. The central issue is we’re developing into a plutocracy. We’ve got an enormous number of enormously rich people that have convinced themselves that they’re rich because they’re smart and constructive."
Paul Volcker, Keeping At It, October 2018
"The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was well executed."
Honoré de Balzac, Le Père Goriot, 1835
”Nothing is so unworthy of a nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes— crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure— reach the light of day?”
Die Weiße Rose, First Leaflet, Munich 1942
"Decades after Depression-era reforms, Wall Street fought successfully to deregulate the financial system, paving the way for the 2008 financial crash that caused millions to lose their homes and livelihoods. And the ultra-rich and big corporations have also managed to dominate our campaign finance system, making it easier for them to buy off politicians who commit to rigging the rules against the poor and the environment, and to suppress voting rights, making it harder for the poor to fight back.
Key to these rollbacks: controlling the narrative about who is poor in America and the world. It is in the interest of the greedy and the powerful to perpetuate myths of deservedness—that they deserve their wealth and power because they are smarter and work harder, while the poor deserve to be poor because they are lazy and intellectually inferior. It’s also in their interest to perpetuate the myth that the poverty problem has largely been solved and so we needn’t worry about the rich getting richer—even while our real social safety net is full of gaping holes."
William Barber II, The Real Epidemic is Poverty, March 30, 2020
“The mob believes everything it is told, provided only that it be repeated over and over. Provided too that its passions, hatreds, fears are catered to. The grosser, the bigger, the cruder the lie, the more readily is it believed and followed. The mob has no memory; needless to pretend to any truth: the mob is radically incapable of perceiving it: the mob can never comprehend that its own interests are what is at stake.”
Alexandre Koyré, Réflexions sur le Mensonge, March 1943
A bit of an odd day in the US markets.
Gold and silver were down a bit.
The Dollar was down.
Stocks were largely unchanged.
The VIX held steady at a recently lower level.
The US has given its foreign policy over to bribing and naked bullying.
Wars, tariffs, erosion of liberty, the lack of integrity in the financial system, and threats to the law from the impulsiveness of narcissists and a lawless few.
It's almost as if the markets are waiting to see what happens next.
Well, more information about all this is clearly on its way.
It looks to be a rough time ahead, and optimism is difficult to maintain.
And that is where hope and faith in providence comes in.
Have a pleasant evening.
