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. None rebukes them."
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash of 1929
"As many as a dozen members of Congress and their aides took part in insider trading based on foreknowledge of market moving information on Capitol Hill, disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff told CNBC in an interview.
Legal analysts say that Wall Street insider trading laws do not apply to Congress. As an open and public institution, the legal assumption has long been that any member of the public can have access to information about how Congress works. In practice, though, that's simply not true, as powerful members of Congress come into contact daily with market-moving tidbits. That gap between the law and the reality has made Capitol Hill a virtual free-fire zone for insider trading. Over the years, academic studies have found that members of the House of Representatives beat the market by as much as six percent per year and members of the Senate do even better than that."
Eamon Javers, Congress Members Took Part in Insider Trading, 11 Nov 2011
"The period of financial distress is a gradual decline after the peak of a speculative bubble that precedes the final and massive panic and crash, driven by the insiders having exited but the sucker outsiders hanging on hoping for a revival, but finally giving up in the final collapse."
Charles Kindelberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises
"The system of corruption depends on another factor beyond secrecy, one that is perhaps even more important: impunity. Impunity means that the rich and powerful escape from punishment even when their malfeasance is in full view. Impunity is epidemic in America. The rich and powerful get away with their heists in broad daylight.
When a politician like Bernie Sanders calls out the corruption, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal double down with their mockery over such a foolish 'dreamer.' The Journal recently opposed the corruption sentence of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell for taking large gifts and bestowing official favors — because everybody does it.
Our major institutions, the ones that should know better, are often gross enablers of impunity."
Jeffrey Sachs, The Age of Impunity
The SP 500 managed to add another day of gains to its quest to make a new high.
The NDX and the big cap techs, not so much.
The VIX is back down to recent lows. Speculation is a bit frothy.
The Dollar moved lower.
Gold and silver both rallied and managed to hold on to a big piece of their gains.
Another huge tranche of physical gold went walkabout out of the Comex warehouses in Hong Kong.
Slowly, gradually, and then all at once.
And who could have seen it coming. Except the pampered princes of privilege.
Have a pleasant evening.
