"In a community where the primary concern is making money, one of the necessary rules is to live and let live. To speak out against madness may be to ruin those who have succumbed to it. So the wise in Wall Street are nearly always silent. The foolish thus have the field to themselves."
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash of 1929
“Foolishness is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.
In conversation with them, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of them. They are under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in their very being.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Prisoner for God: Letters and Papers from Prison
"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
“When we trade the effort of doubt and debate for the ease of blind faith, we become gullible and exposed, passive and irresponsible observers of our own lives. Worse still, we leave ourselves wide open to those who profit by influencing our behavior, our thinking, and our choices. At that moment, our agency in our own lives is in jeopardy.”
Margaret Heffernan
Today was a general wash and rinse in the markets.
Wax on, wax off.
If you look at the charts you will see the deep plunges in the early trading hours in stocks and the metals, especially silver.
Simply put, it is called running the stops.
This is not 'the government' doing this.
These are the monstrous financial entities that we have allowed lax regulation and years of propagandizing to create, in the biggest Banks and hedge funds.
Most will run back to the familiar sources of their ideological addiction, the so-called 'news sites' that thrive on the internet and alternative radio funded by the oligarchs.
If you are one of those who cannot wait to run back to your familiar ideological watering hole to relieve the tension of thought, you might just be one of the willfully blind and lost.
Truth is more palatable to the sick at heart when it has been twisted out of shape.
The good news perhaps is that a cleaning out like this often proceeds a resumption of a move higher.
First they kick off the riff raff. Oh, certainly that does not include you, but those others, right?
Or not. It is not easy to think like a criminal when you are not privy to the same jealously guarded information and perverse perspective on life.
On the lighter side I have experienced no side effects from the first dose of the Coronavirus vaccine which I had the other day.
Let's see if the second shot has the same results.
The whole experience reminded me of 'Sabin Oral Sunday' back in 1960. I don't recall any anti-vaxxer or ideologically driven whack-a-doodlism back then, but I was too young to care. And polio shots were no fun. But it beat doing time in an iron lung.
And the band played on.
Have a pleasant evening.
