"The world needs a new generation of policymakers who don’t hobnob with billionaire speculators and who understand workers’ concerns. Unfortunately, the change will not come smoothly."
Andy Xie
"The oligarchs are flush with victory, and feel that they are firmly in control, able to subvert and direct any popular movement to the support of their own fascist ends and unslakable will to power.
But my model says that the oligarchs will continue to press their advantages, being flushed with victory, until they provoke a strong reaction that frightens everyone, like a wake up call, and the tide then turns to genuine reform."
Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, August 2010
"You who make wicked judgements, who write oppressive laws to deprive the needy of justice, and to rob the poor of their rights, that widows may be your victims, and that you may make the orphans your prey— what will you do on the day of reckoning, when the consequences come from afar? To whom will you run for protection, and where will you hide your riches?"
Isaiah 10:1-3
"In the painting, the woman clutches desperately at the knee of the statue, yearning up into its face, which stares down at her remorselessly. The statue holds out a bag of gold, but the woman ignores the money. She has moved beyond the love of money, to the love of Mammon himself. And so she has cut herself off from the love of God, embracing her own destruction."
Museum catalogue, Mammon the God of Worldliness
The reflexive and effusive outrage of those who give themselves over to every selfish impulse, having emptied their souls in service to Mammon, find their hearts to be weightless before the slightest indignation, naked to their insatiable inner child. There is a restless void in their being by which they are driven, vainly, to fill their emptiness with things, with sensations, with other people.
But having lost themselves, having lost the ability to love, they can find no peace, no joy, and no rest. They are broken vessels, lacking substance like that which they serve— dead things, compelled to remain always in motion to simulate life.
Stocks broke down today, but managed to finish off the lows of the day. The extra sugar being supplied by the European Central Bank thrilled stocks for a moment, but only for a moment.
Gold and silver were flattish as the Dollar gained some ground off the dovishness of the ECB.
Tomorrow will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report.
Have a pleasant evening.
