“The fine thing about pacts with the devil is that when you sign them you are well aware of their conditions. Otherwise, why would you be recompensed with hell?”
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
"I have this feeling in my stomach that I felt in other countries, much poorer countries, countries that were headed into really difficult economic situation. When there's a small group of people who got you into a disaster, and who were still powerful. Disaster even made them more powerful. The powerful people are the insiders. They're the people who run these banks. They're the people who pay themselves the massive bonuses at the end of the last year. Now, those bonuses are not the essence of the problem, but they are a symptom of an arrogance, and a feeling of invincibility, that tells you a lot about the culture of those organizations, and the attitudes of the people who lead them."
Simon Johnson, Interview with Bill Moyer's Journal, February, 2009
"There was a man, a landowner, who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. He leased it to tenant farmers and went away. When the grape harvest drew near, he sent his slaves to the farmers to collect his fruit. But the farmers took his slaves, beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Again, he sent other slaves, more than the first group, and they did the same to them. Finally, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
“But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance!’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?”
“He will completely destroy those terrible men,” they told Him, “and lease his vineyard to other farmers who will give him his produce at the harvest...”
Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing good fruit."
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they knew He was speaking about them. Although they were looking for a way to arrest Him, they feared the crowds, because they regarded Him as a prophet."
Matthew 21:33-46
"God has a way of standing before the nations with judgement, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America 'You are too arrogant! If you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power! And I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still, and know that I am God.'"
Martin Luther King, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam, 1967
The Congress cleared the fears of a shutdown with another continuing resolution.
And the Fed's Waller provided some context this morning about adjusting their Balance Sheet favoring more short term debt, presumably steepening the yield curve, and perhaps providing more short term liquidity.
And Wall Street took this suggested option to mean, 'Let's party!' Because the speculatariat feeds on short term cheap money.
Stocks took off north.
Gold and silver rallied very hard, with gold breaking out. Gold had its highest close ever, although lower than the intraday spike from a few months ago.
The VIX dropped.
Largely unnoticed in all this excitement was the warning by the US Defense Secretary of the coming of a war between NATO-Russia if Ukraine falters.
Just jawboning? Fever dreams?
Maybe. There seems to be a lot of that going around.
Even from the Fed. But their words seem to be more pleasing to our jaded ears.
Judgement is coming, and it could leave a mark, in more ways than one.
And that's Uncle Joe, he's a-moving kind of slow, at the junction.
Need little, want less, love more. For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.
Have a pleasant evening.
