The monetary stimulus of the Fed and the Treasury to help the economy is similar to relief aid sent to a suffering Third World country. It is intercepted and seized by a despotic regime and allocated to its local warlords, with very little going to help the people.
Those who have taken a huge share of the last three bubbles would like to stop the bubble now, keep their gains, and return to a system of fiscal restraint with light taxation on their windfall of assets. So why does this not just simply happen? Because the political risks become enormous.
It is difficult to reduce a population of free men into debt slaves, without risking a significant reaction. Therefore, it seems most likely that the government and the Fed will try to 'muddle through' for the time being, and look for an exogenous event [such as a war] to break the stalemate."
Jesse, October 2009
Václav Havel, Letter to Alexander Dubček, August 1969
"Thus we see how the neoliberal utopia tends to embody itself in the reality of a kind of infernal machine, whose necessity imposes itself even upon the rulers. Like the Marxism of an earlier time, with which, in this regard, it has much in common, this utopia evokes powerful belief - the free trade faith - not only among those who live off it, such as financiers, the owners and managers of large corporations, etc., but also among those, such as high-level government officials and politicians, who derive their justification for existing from it.
For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality.
They want independent central banks. And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses."
Pierre Bourdieu, L’essence du néolibéralisme
“I think that when the lies are all told and forgot the truth will be there yet. It don't move about from place to place and it don't change from time to time. You cant corrupt it any more than you can salt salt.”
Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men
Stocks were in bounce mode today, risk on, the wash in the wash n' rinse cycle.
The Dollar, fueled by euro and yen weakness, moved higher on the DXY index to just under 103.
Gold and silver lost some further ground.
Some tech behemoths like 'Meta' reported after the bell.
Bully will try to defend their numbers as 'less worse than expected.'
The oligarchs think that they have the children of wrath firmly in hand.
Let's see what they're up to next.
Have a pleasant evening.
