"As a country becomes industrialized, its governance and corruption challenges do not disappear. They simply morph and become more sophisticated: transfer of a briefcase stashed with cash is less frequent.
Instead, subtler forms of capture and 'legal corruption' exist: an expectation of a future job for a regulator in a lobbying firm, or a campaign contribution with strings attached. In many countries this may be legal, even if unethical. In industrialized nations undue influence is often legally exercised by powerful private interests, which in turn influence the nation's regulations, policies and laws."
Daniel Kaufmann, Corruption And The Global Financial Crisis, Forbes, 27 January 2009
"America is caught in a confidence or credibility trap, in which the changes, investigations, and reforms necessary to restore trust to an economy or market are rendered unlikely because doing so would expose a pervasive corruption that the principals fear would destroy the careers of politicians and business people who may have permitted and even appeared to facilitate the control fraud that caused the financial crisis in the first place."
Jesse, America Trapped in a Massive Coverup of Control Fraud and Corruption, 22 January 2011
"As many as a dozen members of Congress and their aides took part in insider trading based on foreknowledge of market moving information on Capitol Hill, disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff told CNBC in an interview. Legal analysts say that Wall Street insider trading laws do not apply to Congress. As an open and public institution, the legal assumption has long been that any member of the public can have access to information about how Congress works. In practice, though, that's simply not true, as powerful members of Congress come into contact daily with market-moving tidbits. That gap between the law and the reality has made Capitol Hill a virtual free-fire zone for insider trading."
Eamon Javers, Congress Members Took Part in Insider Trading, 11 Nov 2011
"But it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it."
Upton Sinclair, The Moneychangers
"The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread to the law courts. And then to the army, and finally the Republic was subjected to the rule of emperors."
Plutarch, The Roman Republic
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is providing testimony this week to the US Congress.
Today he made the markets cringe by reasserting that the Fed is seriously about reducing inflation.
Gold and silver were smashed early in the morning, but gained quite a bit of that as the day wore on.
VIX declined.
Markets remain wobbly and will be sensitive to a negative exogenous event.
Have a pleasant evening.
