Banking today is like playing Russian roulette— with someone else’s head. With rewards often far outweighing the risks, the sense of responsibility has vanished. There is a system that pushes you to take risks and a culture that shames anyone who admits errors or weakness. Nobody ever challenges the front office. You become part of the fabric of the place. Then they dispose of you.
Joris Luyendijk, Swimming with Sharks, 2015
"When a society fails to restrain the worst behaviours of those who prey on others through the abuse of power or money, their example brings out the worst in a much larger subset of the population. Bad behaviour breeds bad behaviour, and those who profit by it find ways to justify this through self-serving social and political theories. People who have this weakness in their character are naturally attracted to high profile positions of power. Psychopaths breed and nurture sociopaths, imitators who are able to extinguish their own empathy and remorse through ideology and excess."
Jesse, Without Empathy or Remorse, 13 August 2016
"The barbarian will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being.
We sit by and watch the barbarian. 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, This and That and the Other, 1912
“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”
Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, 1971
Soft corruption is growing ever brazen, and pervades the corridors of power in the US.
Ignoring these things gives rise to vocal groups who will use it as an excuse for almost anything, any crime, betrayals, greed, cowardice, and eventually murder, in those public figures that flatter them and fatten their wallet.
The events of this young century confirm this. History suggests that is the way to national madness.
I am not sure where we're going, but we're on our way.
Stocks were hammered again today.
The VIX has climbed back up out of the doldrums.
Silver did a moon shot rally, and although beaten back from the highs, still managed to pull out a decent bounce back.
Gold struggled again although some of the miners were showing some life. Hedges still on.
The Dollar chopped sideways for a slight loss. How about that?
I hear there will be a stock index option expiration tomorrow.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
The Kansas City Fed will be hosting their annual soirée in Jackson Hole on August 24th.
I wonder if they will have a Sports Book in addition to a bucket shop stock board and big screen ticker?
We are coming up on the 60th anniversary of the political assassinations in the 1960s and the advent of endless war that changed the course of American history.
And the band played on.
Have a pleasant evening.
