It is at heart a question of 'what does it mean to be human?' Not so much what can I do, but what ought I to do? And how do I define or describe ought? And how ought I treat others? Or is it better to define myself by the limits of my own will? Is that what it means to be truly human?
In a society that worships the self, power is the coin of the realm, where power is to be found in asserting one's own will over others. And beyond all doubt, kindness and tolerance are to be despised as undermining, weakening the will to power. In power is to be found the definition of all truth, for it dictates all, and does not bend a knee to any other reality but its own interpretation. 'Might makes right' is written large on the tableau of empire.
It is like the white collar criminal who thinks themselves morally justified and blameless because they use the pen and the bribe and perversion of justice to steal, rather than the knife or the club. We are all capable of enormous hypocrisies and evil, especially if we think ourselves to be perfect and without fault because we are more than the ordinary human with respect to our superior nature, rising in our own esteem by knocking others flat.
When it is not just a pathological sickness, this is the most deadly of errors, the first fault of pride, and from it flows a cornucopia of all other injustice and abuses. In rationalizing ourselves by dehumanizing others, we can therein comfortably become monsters. And some do."
Jesse, 9 January 2015
"Dallas Fed President, Robert Kaplan, wasn’t just trading like an aggressive hedge fund kingpin in 2020, he’s been doing the same thing for five years at the Dallas Fed while simultaneously having access to non-public, market moving information from the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate setting FOMC meetings and other confidential communications."
Martens, Trading Like a Hedge Fund Kingpin for Five Years while President of the Dallas Fed; a Dozen Legal Safeguards Failed to Stop Him
"At first, the love of money, and then that of power began to prevail, and these became, as it were, the sources of every evil. For avarice subverted honesty, integrity and other honorable principles and, in their stead, inculcated pride, inhumanity, contempt of religion and general venality.
Ambition prompted many to become deceitful; to keep one thing concealed in the breast and another ready on the tongue; to estimate friendships and enmities, not by their worth, but according to interest; and to carry rather a specious countenance than an honest heart.
These vices first advanced but slowly, and were sometimes restrained by correction; but afterward, when their infection had spread like a pestilence, the state was entirely changed, and the government, from being the most equitable and praiseworthy, became the most rapacious and insupportable."
Sallust, Conspiracy of Cataline
Those who would make gods of themselves are the very stuff of devils.
Stocks took a dive today as the endless wash and rinse continues.
Gold and silver fell and the Dollar rallied.
The VIX bounced off its recent low that I pointed out last week.
Just another episode in the three card monte game of the Fed's manipulation of interest rates and market sentiment in partnership with the Wall Street wiseguys.
"The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery." Jesse, May 2009
Have a pleasant evening.
