“This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.
It is from our disposition to admire, and consequently to imitate, the rich and the great, that they are enabled to set, or to lead what is called the fashion. Even their vices and follies are fashionable.
In many governments the candidates for the highest stations are above the law; and, if they can attain the object of their ambition, they have no fear of being called to account for the means by which they acquired it. They often endeavour, therefore, not only by fraud and falsehood, the ordinary and vulgar arts of intrigue and cabal; but sometimes by the perpetration of the most enormous crimes, by murder and assassination, by rebellion and civil war, to supplant and destroy those who oppose or stand in the way of their greatness.”
Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments
"The real collapse of our currency began when it became evident that certain industrial circles were more powerful than the government."
Adam Fergusson, When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse
"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 Fraud and Corruption, 22 January 2011
Unsustainable social and monetary arrangements are backed by force and fraud.
As the fraud loses its power over perception, force must increase, until it cannot.
Stocks gapped higher on the open, and then drifted back to their open during the day.
Gold and silver struggled to maintain their recent rally.
The Dollar gained some of its recent loss back.
This does smell like a setup for a thorough wash and rinse in equities, probably tied to some Fed and interest related rationale.
We'll have to wait and see.
Quarterly stock index option expiration next week.
Let's see what four witches have in store for us.
The air has cleared considerably up in the hills, and rains over the weekend may help the rest.
Have a pleasant weekend.
