"The problem with movies and books is they make evil look glamorous, exciting, when it's no such thing. It's boring and it's depressing and it's stupid. Criminals are all after cheap thrills and easy money, and when they get them, all they want is more of the same, over and over.
They're shallow, empty, boring people who couldn't give you five minutes of interesting conversation if you had the poor luck to be at a party full of them. Maybe some can be monkey-clever, some of the time, but they aren't hardly ever smart."
Dean Koontz
"The secret of great returns which are difficult to explain is a crime that has not yet been discovered because it has been carefully executed."
Honoré de Balzac, Pere Goriot
"At worst perhaps it was malevolent mediocrity."
John Ralson Saul, The Unconscious Civilization
"The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. vOne of the most alarming, says a chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government - a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF's staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation; recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform."
Simon Johnson, Quiet Coup, The Atlantic Monthly, May 2009
Dollar moved lower.
VIX fell back down to the start of this latest wash-rinse cycle.
Gold and silver took a hit.
Stocks swung up and then fell down, bouncing off the lows.
Option expiration on Friday.
Big wheel keep on churning, main street keep on burning.
Have a pleasant evening.
