"The Federal Reserve printed $4 trillion to buy up the banks’ bad debt while permitting ten million homeowners to be foreclosed. Student loan debt prevents university graduates from forming independent households. Mortgage and credit card debt prevents households from having discretionary income with which to drive retail sales."
Paul Craig Roberts
"Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country.
When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin!
Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out."
Andrew Jackson, in a meeting with the Bankers, February 1834
"The truth is, there are not two kinds of people. There’s only one: the kind that loves to divide up into gangs who hate each other’s guts. Both conservatives and liberals agree among themselves, on their respective message boards, in uncannily identical language, that their opponents lack any self-awareness or empathy, the ability to see the other side of an argument or to laugh at themselves. Which would seem to suggest that they’re both correct...
Let me propose that if your beliefs or convictions matter more to you than people—if they require you to act as though you were a worse person than you are—you may have lost perspective.”
Tim Kreider, We Learn Nothing
Stocks were on another wild ride today, plunging lower than the lows from yesterday, which were erased by a 'timely' boost in buying.
But alas, it was not to be today, as this fresh draft of fear swept over the halls of the mighty, the financial engineers and giants.
Although some short covering and late day buying in the futures managed to take stocks back up to some levels with more 'comfortable' losses.
If stocks cannot shake this off and manage to close the week out in a decent position on some support, we could see a fresh wave of more serious selling next week. Or sooner.
But never fear. Things will soon be looking up. The Trump Administration is going to reduce poverty in America— by redefining it.
Just another glorious day in the Empire. Are you not entertained?
Gold and silver continued higher. The chicanery assoaciated with the recent 'FOMC and Non-Farm Payrolls' slam dunk is over, at least for now.
But gold needs to lead the way and break out cleanly above the very obvious and tempting overhead resistance.
I have been watching the UEFA Championship Semi-Final game between Liverpool and Barcelona this afternoon.
Postscript: And Liverpool wins in an historic upset.
From our oasis to yours, have a pleasant eveening.
