"Mega banks on Wall Street and other bad actors are particularly hostile to the fact that the CFPB [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] allows consumers who have been victimized by financial firms, even where small amounts of money are involved, to file a complaint with the CFPB, who then demands a timely written explanation from the alleged wrongdoer. Bad actors dislike the fact that these complaints go into a permanent database at the CFPB, which can be mined by the public, reporters, class-action attorneys and prosecutors looking for patterns of fraud.
The hatred of the CFPB is so strong by predatory financial actors that another front group, American Action Network, launched a $500,000 ad campaign during the November 10, 2015 Republican presidential debate, comparing the advocate for the little guy to a communist organization. The advertisement was a masterpiece of misinformation, overtly suggesting that the job of the CFPB is to deny car loans and mortgages to regular folks seeking credit. The agency, in fact, has absolutely nothing to do with approving credit applications. Its job is to root out and punish financial institutions that are ripping off customers."
Wall Street on Parade, Kochs Push To Smother Agency that Protects the Little Guy, 28 September 2023
'What is truth?' Sometimes people ask this question because they wish to do nothing. Generic cynicism makes us feel hip and alternative even as we slip along with our fellow citizens into a morass of indifference. It is your ability to discern facts that makes you an individual, and our collective trust in common knowledge that makes us a society. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.
To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights. You submit to tyranny when you renounce the difference between what you want to hear and what is actually the case.”
Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny
Stocks managed to pull themsevles together for a bounce today.
VIX declined.
Gold and silver were hit hard again today as an after-effect of the recent expiration, but especially for the end of quarter tape painting by the big metals shorts.
The Dollar dropped sharply giving up its gains from yesterday.
Wash-rinse-repeat.
Lawlessness is becoming fashionable among those who have hardened their hearts, playing heedlessly with the darkness.
The potential shutdown of the Federal government continues to draw near.
There is no way to have a rational discussion with those who have given themselves over to the irrational impulse of the anti-human.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Have a pleasant evening.
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity...
And what rough beast, its hour come 'round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.
W. B. Yeats
