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
"Democracy is held captive, not just by money, but by ideas — the ideas that money buys."
William Greider
"How did we get into this mess in the first place? As in the 1920s, the current 'disturbance' started with a 'mania.' But manias always have a cause. If you investigate individually the manias that the market has so dubbed over the years, in every case, it was expansive monetary policy that generated the boom in an asset.
The particular asset varied from one boom to another. But the basic underlying propagator was too-easy monetary policy and too-low interest rates.
And then of course if monetary policy tightens, the boom collapses."
Brian M Carney, Bernanke Is Fighting the Last War, Oct. 18, 2008
"It is difficult to explain moral hazard to tenured professors or the pampered princes of bureaucracy, who beat the drum with their silver spoons in support of shifting the risk of loss to the public every time that Wall Street falls into one of its own schemes— and blows itself up.
Unfortunately there is a small but powerful oligopoly of privilege that believes they are immune to ordinary consequence, and have become addicted to the notion that 'others must pay' for their failures. Moral hazard comes from rewarding bad behaviour in markets with wristslaps and bailouts. It is a danger to the economy and to the public."
Jesse, Moral Hazard, 22 March 2008
Stocks limped into the open today, and gyrated around during the day.
Same old, same old, same old.
VIX was up along with the Dollar which grabbed the 113 handle back.
Gold and silver pressed lower, giving the coup de grace to those who hung on through the Non Farm Payrolls.
Some big inflation data coming out later this week.
We picked up some in-laws from Ohio from their cruise at the Brooklyn Terminal this Saturday. And to make a long story short, they brought back Covid from this. Apparently this cruise line has eliminated the usual mandatory pre-testing and safeguards. With passengers from all over the country. Nicely done.
The young man has a 102 fever and is fairly laid out in bed, as is my brother-in-law, who is now back in Ohio. But the variants booster from three weeks ago seems to be serving this old man well so far. If I didn't know he had tested positive I would just think I was just a bit tired. But let's see what happens.
Forewarned is forearmed.
Have a pleasant evening.
