"The ideological and physical hold of American imperial power, buttressed by the utopian ideology of neoliberalism and global capitalism, is unraveling. Most, including many of those at the heart of the American empire, recognize that every promise made by the proponents of neoliberalism is a lie. Global wealth, rather than being spread equitably, as neoliberal proponents promised, has been funneled upward into the hands of a rapacious, oligarchic elite, creating vast economic inequality.
The working poor, whose unions and rights have been taken from them and whose wages have stagnated or declined over the past 40 years, have been thrust into chronic poverty and underemployment, making their lives one long, stress-ridden emergency. The middle class is evaporating. Cities that once manufactured products and offered factory jobs are boarded up-wastelands. Prisons are overflowing. Corporations have orchestrated the destruction of trade barriers, allowing them to stash $2.1 trillion in profits in overseas banks to avoid paying taxes. And the neoliberal order, despite its promise to build and spread democracy, has hollowed out democratic systems to turn them into corporate leviathans."
Chris Hedges, The Great Unraveling
US stocks came in a bit shaky this morning, but managed to rally back up close to unchanged during the day.
Alas, it was not to be, and stocks sold off in the afternoon, going out on the close at or near to their lows.
This is the 50% retracement area here from the recent big decline last Monday.
Stocks need to own this level, and start climbing back up to at least retest the prior big support area that had formed the bottom of the longer trading range.
If we get too sharp a rally higher that fails, let's say around a Fed rate hike in September or October, then it might be Katy-Bar-The-Door time, because a rally that fails after a steep decline in a long trend rally to these kinds of lofty heights is, in the words of classic technical analysis, 'bad news.'
But lots of things can happen between now and the end of the year.
I would feel better if I thought that the powers-that-be were doing anything close to some real solutions for the economy, and not just playing extend and pretend with an unsustainable quiet riot of upper crust looting and malfeasance.
But that is not in the cards it seems. And most things tend to fill one with concern.
But nevertheless, let's see what happens.
