"Another cause of today’s instability is that we now have a society in America, Europe and much of the world which is totally dominated by the two elements of sovereignty that are not included in the state structure: control of credit and banking, and the corporation.
These are free of political controls and social responsibility and have largely monopolized power in Western Civilization and in American society. They are ruthlessly going forward to eliminate land, labor, entrepreneurial-managerial skills, and everything else the economists once told us were the chief elements of production.
The only element of production they are concerned with is the one they can control: capital."
Carroll Quigley, Oscar Iden Lecture Series 3, 1976
The equity markets are awash in liquidity, but it remains somewhat narrow, its success due to the 'lack of selling' moreso than a breadth of participation. In other words, well-heeled banks and hedge funds are gaming the system higher, using levered instruments like the SP 500 futures for example.
Conversely, the metals markets are being used like their personal ATM.
Let's see how long they can keep this up, before we see another 'wash and rinse' cycle.
As a reminder, Monday 18 February is a national holiday in the US.
