Many of them were evil men. Many others were just as good men as were some of these same barons; but they were as utterly unable as any medieval castle-owner to understand what the public interest really was. There have been aristocracies which have played a great and beneficent part at stages in the growth of mankind; but we had come to the stage where for our people what was needed was a real democracy; and of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy."
Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography, 1913
“Though you be proud and wise and beautiful, yet will death
wipe you from the face of the earth like the mice underground; and your posterity, your history,
and the immortality of your men of genius will be as frozen slag, burnt down together with the
terrestrial globe.
You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty. So I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I don’t want to understand you."
Anton Chekhov, The Bet, January 14, 1889
"What is truth? You submit to tyranny when you renounce the difference between what you want to hear and what is actually the case. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights. Authoritarianism begins when we can no longer tell the difference between the true and the appealing. At the same time, the cynic who decides that there is no truth at all is the citizen who welcomes the tyrant.
Sometimes people ask this question because they wish to do nothing. Generic cynicism makes us feel hip and alternative even as we slip along with our fellow citizens into a morass of indifference. It is your ability to discern facts that makes you an individual, and our collective trust in common knowledge that makes us a society.
Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.
Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.
No major war or act of mass killing in the twentieth century began without the aggressors or perpetrators first claiming innocence and victimhood.”
Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, February 2017
Gold and silver rallied sharply, but the prices were steadily pushed lower into the close.
Stocks struggled with a large decline, but gained back some ground in the afternoon.
See a trend here?
VIX wallows.
The Dollar gave up on chopping and declined steadily.
The inventory of physical gold bullion in Hong Kong has fallen to a low that I cannot remember seeing in all the years I have been following this.
It is running a fine line on a failure to deliver. It appears that the customers are willing to work with them on their limitations to supply demand at these prices, for now.
Stock option expiration on Friday.
Comex expiration next week.
Will Wall Street be hoisted on its own pétard?
Have a pleasant evening.
