"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, September 2021
"It's a small group with a lot of power. A lot of wealth. They don't necessarily - they're not necessarily always the names, the household names that spring to mind, in this kind of context. But they are the people who could pull the strings. Who have the influence. Who call the shots.
The oligarchs are flush with victory, and feel that they are firmly in control, able to subvert and direct any popular movement to the support of their own fascist ends and unslakable will to power. This is the contempt in which they hold the majority of American people and the political process: the common people are easily led fools, and everyone else who is smart enough to know better has their price. And they would beggar every middle class voter in the US before they will voluntarily give up one dime of their ill gotten gains."
Simon Johnson
“The euphoric episode is protected and sustained by the will of those who are involved, in order to justify the circumstances that are making them rich. And it is equally protected by the will to ignore, exorcise, or condemn those who express doubts.”
John Kenneth Galbraith, A Short History of Financial Euphoria, 1990
Stocks plunged again. Oh my.
But voila, they finished up the day unchanged.
Just another stock index options expiration three card monte game.
The Dollar fell.
Gold and silver finished up all right at the end of the day.
Silver actually managed to close out the week unchanged after another wild ride.
The spokesmodels continue to babble in a fast, breathless patter of nonsense.
Groupthink will be descending on Jackson Hole next week as the Fed gathers for the annual conference hosted by the venerable Kansas City Fed.
Besides being mired in a legendary self-inflicted scandal of insider trading, the Fed has managed to engineer another financial asset bubble and soon to follow bust, the third such economic frankenstein since 2000.
I have heard there will be a FOMC walk of atonement into the conference hall with a rhythmically chiming gong, and a following crowd from the mid-western banks intoning, 'shame, shame.'
I'd say you can't make this stuff up, but they do. More and more every day.
"What we give to the poor for Christ's sake, is what we carry with us when we die."
Peter Maurin
People blind themselves with distractions and embellishments to what they are becoming.
And it's a long lingering sickness of the spirit, unto death.
Hi ho.
Have a pleasant weekend.
