"The stupidity of the average man will permit the oligarch, whether economic or political, to hide his real purposes from the scrutiny of his fellows and to withdraw his activities from effective control...
The American business oligarchy is not as hereditary as European landed aristocracies, but is for that reason neither more virtuous nor less tenacious in clinging to its power and privilege."
Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society
Dico Tibi Verum, Libertas Optima Rerum Nunquam Servili Sub Nexu Vivito, Fili.
'I tell you the truth, my son, that the best of all things is freedom. Never live under the bondage of slavery'.
William Wallace Memorial
Markets continue to slough off the geopolitical drumbeat to war that Obama and his Merry Neo-cons are playing. Even a cheery beige book was unable to turn that market frown completely upside down.
Profit taking is underway in stocks. I suspect that this means that we are soon to see another wash and rinse ahead of the Alibaba IPO which is a bit more than twenty days away.
The big tickle for the metals will be the Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday. The whisper numbers are talking about a hot headline number. And the quiet whispers are saying, 'but what if wages do not show up? Will anyone care?'
The sentiment for precious metals is as bad as the sentiment for stocks is not bearish, with levels on stocks reaching lows of bearish sentiment not seen since before the big decline in 1987. HFT and portfolio insurance may turn out to be twins. And the Fed played on.
And the rest will play their outlawed tunes on outlawed pipes, thinking about their freedom, squandered, lost, or won.
Have a pleasant evening.
"Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."
John McCrae