We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh.
But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.”
Hilaire Belloc, The Barbarians
“Pity the nation that raises not its voice, except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero and aims to rule the world with force and by torture."
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, New Poems, City Lights
"It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not remain stable.
For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupified by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance."
George Orwell, 1984
"Plunderers of the world, when nothing remains on the lands to which they have laid waste by wanton thievery, they search out across the seas. The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well.
Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Robbery, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."
Tacitus, Agricola
It looked like the revenge of the interest rate chicken-hawks this morning as stocks and the metals were plunging.
But tomorrow is a quad witch option expiration, so this was just another algo-driven, bankster smash and grab as part of the ongoing transfer of wealth from producers to the financiers.
Gold and silver set a fairly impressive low early on, which most likely had a harrowing effect on those option holders in the miners and metals.
Same with the major stock indices.
But voila, as the day wore on the rinse ran its cycle into a new wash with higher highs in equities, and a recovery in the metals, with a sharp decline in the Dollar, doulour du monde.
Wax on, wax off.
And so we shamble on into the quad option expiration tomorrow.
What will the wiseguys and pampered princes think of next.
Who cares?
Rejoice, for He is risen.
Have a pleasant evening.
