“Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps fear of a loss of power?”
John Steinbeick, The Short Reign of Pippin IV, 1957
"Most of those who consciously want war and accept it, and so help to create its 'inevitability,' want it in order to shift the locus of their problems."
C. Wright Mills, The Causes of World War III, 1960
"All governments suffer a recurring problem: power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."
Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune, March 1985
"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege."
Thomas Clement Douglas, Canadian MP
“It could be argued that we are now in the midst of a coup d’état in slow motion. Democracy is weakening; few people would disagree. Corporatism is strengthening; you only have to look around you. Yet none of us has chosen this route for our society, in spite of which our elites quite happily continue down it. Certainly corporatism is creating a conformist society. It is a modern form of feudalism.”
John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization, 1995
"This elite-generated social control maintains the status quo because the status quo benefits and validates those who created and sit atop it. People rise to prominence when they parrot the orthodoxy rather than critically analyze it. Real change in politics or society cannot occur under the orthodoxy because if it did, it would threaten the legitimacy of the professional class and all of the systems that helped them achieve their status.
Kristine Mattis, The Cult of the Professional Class, April 4, 2016
VIX is now in the very complacent range as noted in the chart below.
Santa Claus staged a little equity rally today.
The Dollar dumped.
Gold and silver soared higher.
Impressive performance for the year.
Silver is a beta monsters.
There will be a gold futures option expiration for the January contract tomorrow.
We'll get some economic data tomorrow.
But this should be a fairly quiet week, barring some exogenous event.
The markets will be closed for Christmas on Thursday.
The young man is in China with his bride.
Daisy and I abide.
Have a pleasant evening.
