"With the tools of democracy, democracy was murdered and lawlessness made ‘legal.’ Raw power ruled, and its only real goal was to destroy all other powers besides itself.”
Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, April 2010
“It was not curiosity that killed the goose who laid the golden egg, but an insatiable greed that devoured common sense.”
E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
"We didn't truly know the dangers of the market, because it was a dark market," says Brooksley Born, the head of an obscure federal regulatory agency — the Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC] — who not only warned of the potential for economic meltdown in the late 1990s, but also tried to convince the country's key economic powerbrokers to take actions that could have helped avert the crisis. 'They were totally opposed to it,' Born says. 'That puzzled me. What was it that was in this market that had to be hidden?'"
PBS Frontline, The Warning, October 2009
“When pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with disgrace comes humility, and with humility comes wisdom. The humility of the righteous will guide them, but the deceitfulness of the proud will destroy them."
Proverbs 11:2-3
"You made this monster, and as long as things were going well you gave him whatever he wanted. You turned Germany over to this arch-criminal, you swore allegiance to him by every incredible oath he chose to put before you— you, officers of the Crown, all of you. And so you made yourselves into the Mamelukes of a man who carries on his head responsibility for a hundred thousand murders, and who is the cause of the sorrow and the object of the curses of the whole of the world."
Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, Diary of a Man in Despair, 1947
“The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned—
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!”
Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus, 1604
A relatively small minority of insiders and elites are bringing several nations to the brink.
Their pride and sense of entitlement, their worship of privilege and power, is drawing them and their enablers into the abyss.
And many innocents along with them.
Smells like teen spirit.
Stocks took a deep dive today, as September brings the long-anticipated rinse.
Gold and silver were hit hard, but managed to take back a little as the day wore on.
VIX spiked higher.
The Dollar chopped around, finishing with a minor gain.
Even though stocks rebounded a bit off their deep bottom, prices failed to regain any significant support level.
Risks remain shockingly underweighted.
Geopolitical events continue to loom, but ignored to an almost shocking degree.
How do you know that a Wall Street spokesperson is lying? Their lips are moving.
How does a Wall Street spokesperson know when they are lying? They don't care.
They share the same shameless dedication to duplicity as their counterparts in Washington.
Have a pleasant evening.
