"Hubris is the addiction to wealth and power, an arrogant over-reaching that involves injury to others. By impoverishing economies it destroys the source of profits, interest, capital gains, and even recovery of the original savings and debt principal. This abusive character of wealth and power is not what mainstream economic models describe. That is why economic theory is broken. The concept of diminishing marginal utility implies that the rich will become more satiated as they become wealthier, and hence less addicted to power. This idea of progressive satiation returns gets the direction of change wrong, denying the basic thrust of the past ten thousand years of human technology and civilization."
Michael Hudson, Reality Economics, December 19, 2012
“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.”
Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom
"Since the earliest stages of human history, of course, there have been bazaars, rialtos, and trading posts—all markets. But The Market was never God, because there were other centers of value and meaning, other 'gods.' The Market operated within a plethora of other institutions that restrained it. As Karl Polanyi has demonstrated in his classic work The Great Transformation, only in the past two centuries has The Market risen above these demigods and chthonic spirits to become today's First Cause. The Market is not omnipotent—yet. But the process is under way and it is gaining momentum."
Harvey Cox, The Market As God, The Atlantic, March 1999
"Then the Devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him the kingdoms of the world in all their greatness. And he said to him 'All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me.'”
Matthew 4:8-9
"The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything."
Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory, or one of unthinkable horror.”
C. S. Lewis
“In an earlier era, conflicts between aristocrats and ordinary people would be decided in favor of the aristocrats no matter what; judges who were themselves aristocrats took it for granted that people of their own class must prevail. Some of the developments that we have sketched suggest that we may be returning to such a system.”
Pam Martens, Everything That's Dangerous About US Banks Today, January 17, 2024
Stocks were wobbly again today, finishing lower.
The Dollar chopped sideways.
VIX edged higher.
Gold and silver were hit with selling again.
Another big chunk of physical gold left the Comex registered warehouses in Hong Kong.
There will be a stock option expiration on Friday.
Stop fomenting war and the murder of innocents in the pursuit of ever more money and more power.
Have a pleasant evening.
