"The whole town and all its inhabitants are quite drowned in carnival din, masks and confetti. And on top of that the news of the Reichstag fire. Dancing on a volcano."
Alban Berg, Letter from Berlin, September 1, 1933
“Berlin. I used to love this old city. But that was before it had caught sight of its own reflection and taken to wearing corsets laced so tight that it could hardly breathe. I loved the easy, carefree philosophies, the cheap jazz, the vulgar cabarets and all of the other cultural excesses that characterized the Weimar years, and made Berlin seem like one of the most exciting cities in the world.”
Philip Kerr, Berlin Noir: March Violets
"Once more, let me remind you what fascism is. I need not wear a brown shirt or a green shirt. Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege."
Thomas Clement Douglas
The CPI numbers came in a little disjointed this morning, enabling a vigorous wash and rinse on Wall Street.
If you just look at the end result it appears to be a proper risk on day.
The major indices set new lows early on.
And then rocketed back in what looks more like a relief rally than a capitulation bottom.
Time will tell on that.
Gold and silver similarly fell down hard, but managed to find a footing and finish up fairly well on the day.
I took a ride up from the bottom, but exited those add-ons into the close.
This market still seems dangerously unbalanced.
The Dollar dropped as did the VIX.
Did all of this mean anything?
Only to reinforce the utterly cynical and shall underpinnings of the US financial markets.
We are all traders now.
I still like gold here, and to some extent silver which is less of a safe haven.
But this market is still one exogenous event away from a proper meltdown.
CPI is really not exogenous since it was probably leaked and spun all over the place.
It is just a means, as most things become in a cynically corrupt institution.
Have a pleasant evening.
