"The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well. Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them.
Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Robbery, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."
Tacitus
"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."
Samuel Johnson
In our artificial economy real things do not matter so much, but politics and managing the perceptions of the public are of paramount importance.
And so the 'Goldilocks' Jobs Report, which is how the business TV channels described that lukewarm piece of dreck, did little to rally the markets except fleetingly intraday.
In the first chart below I take a look inside that 'average hourly earnings growth' number.
The headline includes ALL employees, but if you take out the top 15-20% of managers, the average hourly earning growth showed a pronounced downward divergence to a lower growth rate.
The BLS switched to this number including all employees a few years ago from the non-supervisory number.
As a rule of thumb, when someone shows you the 'average' number, find out the median number for the same sample. Especially in these days of historically high inequality.
Be that as it may, the markets overall were in a flight to safety as the financiers bowed to their fears of the upcoming presidential election, that something might happen that will upset their status quo.
Not the status quo— theirs.
Gold therefore rallied along with the Swiss franc, while the VIX climbed and stocks continued to extend their streak of weakness along with la douleur du monde.
The result that the market wants to see next week is a decisive win by Hillary, but with a Republican dominated Congress.
I think the reason that the financiers and their ruling elite would like to see this outcome is fairly obvious.
And the rest of the world, with a shudder, turns to find safe havens from this madness.
Chris Christie's minions were thrown to the wolves over Bridgegate, being found guilty today.
But despite their testimony implicating him, the governor is continuing to claim that he knew nothing of what his closest aides were doing in a signature act of petty political revenge that resulted in massive traffic snarls in a very key bridge carrying all the traffic of Interstate 80 between NJ and NY.
Well, at least NJ voters can move on and select a replacement in the next election in 2017. But alas, Christie has a top position with the Trump transition team.
Have a pleasant weekend.
