C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 1945
"As you have willed it, so your house is now yours to command — but it is made desolate.’”
Matthew 23:38
"But, outside the realm of business, these men are stupid. They know only business. They do not know mankind nor society, and yet they set themselves up as arbiters of the fates of the hungry millions and all the other millions thrown in.
We well we know by bitter experience that no appeal for the right, for justice, for humanity, can ever touch you. I know nothing that I may say can influence you. You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. You are lick-spittles and panderers, the creatures of the plutocracy.” ”
Jack London, The Iron Heel, 1907
"We labor and labor and labor for stuff that never satisfies us. The market ideology is now the new form of imperial power and many of us, without any critical reflection, have signed onto that, and organized our lives in that way so we do not have any time, energy or capacity for the things that are rightly important to us, our humanness."
Walter Brueggemann, Truth To Power, 2013
"I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that they may not wish to come out of hell, but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self-abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved."
C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 1940
Fed rate decision next Wednesday afternoon.
The Dollar slumped down to the 97 handle as the rest of the world is selling hubris.
Gold and silver rocketed higher, with silver punching through $100 and closing above $102.
Gold is knocking on $5,000.
Stocks tried to extend their rally and then fell back to hold a modest gain.
It did not take much to get VIX wallowing near complacency again.
Donnie's done. He just doesn't know it yet. Slowly, and then all at once.
The dogfight that will take place afterwards could be interesting.
We are expecting a major snowstorm here in the northeast this weekend.
Daisy and I are ready. I washed all the blankets today.
Have a pleasant weekend.
