“When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false.
His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”
Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit, Princeton University, January 30, 2005
"It is not simply crude power that triumphs abroad, but its exultant justification. The world is being inundated by the brazen conviction that power can do anything, and justice nothing."
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Lecture for Literature, 1970
"I worry about the future of a nation that would refuse to acknowledge the true causes of the crisis. A historic opportunity was lost. America instead chose its poison as its cure, and the second 'Greatest Generation' would never be born.
Today I expect the U.S. government to attempt continuing an easy money policy into the next presidential term—past the meat of the foreclosure crisis, and past the corporate and public financing humps that are upcoming. Junk bonds, incredibly, again are at all-time highs. Quantitative easing seems to be working for now. But this is an invalid validation of what America is doing, a Pyrrhic gamble. As we continue to debase our currency, Bernanke says he is not printing money. Yet I receive an email every day from the Fed saying we just bought another $7 billion or $8 billion in treasuries, monetizing the debt. The scope and breadth of quantitative easing raise severe questions about the Treasury’s needs.
Government borrowing of money for the purpose of injecting cash into society, bailing out banks, brokers and consumers, is an easy decision for a population that has not yet learned that short-sighted easy strategies are the route to long-term ruin. We never quite achieved the catharsis necessary to stoke a deep reevaluation of our wants, needs and fears.
Importantly, the toxic twins—fiat currency and an activist Fed—remain even more firmly entrenched with the financial reforms of last year. The Federal Reserve, having acquired new powers of regulation, has insisted that nothing in the field of economics or finance was of any help in predicting the crisis—period, no more comments. It’s a worthless conclusion that guarantees we’ll make the same mistake again and again.
We need better leaders, but frankly this isn’t going to happen. A problem cannot be solved if it is never acknowledged. Taxes need to be raised, spending needs to be cut, and loopholes need to be shut if we are to have any hope of returning to a stable base. Home ownership should not be a policy of the U.S. government. The banking system needs substantial reform and bank breakups. Glass–Steagall needs a second run in a strong form. The list of things that won’t happen—but should happen—goes on and on."
Michael Burry, Missteps to Mayhem, Vanderbilt Magazine, September 1, 2011
“During the Eisenhower administration, the Dulles brothers would finally be given full license to exercise their power in the global arena. In the name of defending the free world from Communist tyranny, they would impose an American reign on the world enforced by nuclear terror and cloak-and-dagger brutality.”
David Talbot, The Devil's Chessboard: the Rise of America's Secret Government, 2015
"This is the legacy of Greenspan and his chairmanship at the Federal Reserve. Yes, the borrowers are also at fault, and 'no one made them borrow' as the Wall Streeters and their sock puppets like to say at bubble-bust times like these.
But let's not allow the spin to muddy the waters.
It was fraud. Fraud on a massive and premeditated scale. Not unprecedented unfortunately. It was aided and abetted by a host of enablers in the media and the universities. And at the heart of it all was the Wall Street Banks.
There is madness in crowds, but the genesis of the madness is in those who assemble the crowds, give them weapons, and walk among them whispering— madness.
Let there be no doubt. The housing bubble was a financially engineered Ponzi scheme with the Wall Street Banks at the center. And its not over yet. They will not, and probably cannot, stop on their own. The banks must be restrained."
Jesse, Housing Madness, 15 April 2008
"Why can you not understand me? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you live to serve your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not stand in the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks from his heart, for he is a liar and the father of lies."
John 8:43-44
I have lived through some interesting times, as have many of you, and our parents and grandparents.
I remember the cold war, vividly.
'We Will Bury You' posters of Khrushchev banging the UN podium with his shoe were familiar.
And with this the Red Scare, and the McCarthy era, and the assault on freedom of privacy and speech in the name of patriotism.
In particular I remember the fight against segregation and for equal rights.
And the protests against the war in Vietnam. And the 'troubles' in the UK.
And how lonely and wearing a struggle they all were.
Freedom of speech is under a terrible assault, again.
The great irony is that this time freedom of speech is being undermined with the reasons of the 'woke' culture of the left, who want to control speech for safety and comfort.
And it is being taken up by the hands of those with power, and the goal of suppressing ideas and movements that they do not like.
When you sacrifice principles to expediency and comfort, those things eventually turn against you.
Now we are facing the reality of an oligarchy, that has the money and the power and control of the media and the organizations of thought.
But it all seems like the same old thing.
There are those who are called to stand up, hold their ground, and resist.
And there are those who might support them, or just endure while retaining their humanity.
Even in small and simple ways, seemingly unnoticed, walk with the angels, for His sake and for your own. And in time, stand with the brightest lights, his heroes, his knights and saints.
But never let your own light go out. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world, but lose their soul?
Stocks did their usual wash and rinse today, after an initial plunge based off a hotter than expected inflation number.
Given these tariffs going into place, we haven't seen anything yet.
Gold did its usual bob and weave, but silver managed to rally and hold it.
VIX has fallen below its moving averages, once again.
People in the US are cheering the likelihood that foreign policy will change and the proxy in the Ukraine will be coming to an end, at least for them.
But the situation in the Mideast is reaching a rolling boil again. And murder en masse is in the air.
One thing I can tell you is that it is never really any different. The names and faces change, but the struggle remains the same.
Have a pleasant evening.
