"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.'
When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."
Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Joshua Speed, 1855
"Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever."
Thomas Jefferson
"When he says peace, he means war, and when he blasphemously uses the name of the Almighty, he means the power of evil, the fallen angel, Satan. His mouth is the foul maw of Hell, and his power is at bottom accursed. True, we must conduct a struggle against the Nazi terrorist state with rational means; but whoever today still doubts the reality, the existence of demonic powers, has failed by a wide margin to understand the metaphysical background of this struggle."
The White Rose, Fourth Leaflet, Munich 1942
Hysteria, like drugs and alcohol, is a way to escape the pain of thought. Extremism and hatred have their attractions, as they carry the heady scent of power, especially in times of change and trouble.
And for some simple and innocent ones who may fall prey to sick and unscrupulous people, that attraction may prove to be fatally irresistible. Because all too often, the attraction is to follow them into the abyss.
Gold and silver gave back a little of their gains from last week in lethargic trade.
There was very little delivery activity at The Bucket Shop.
Nova Scotia delivered 4,300 ounces of gold from their house account to the house of JP Morgan. This brings the monthly gold total to an underwhelming 9,100 ounces.
A pittance of silver was tossed about.
The dollar gained back a little more of what it lost last week.
Let's see if gold and silver can do something more interesting than just roll over in the face of synthetic paper selling amongst the punters in London and New York.
Next week will be much more interesting with the FOMC meeting followed by the December stock option expiration.
I think the Fed is going to raise 50 basis points in two steps and then wait to see how the real economic numbers are coming in next year.
Have a pleasant evening.
