Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
"One of the primary characteristics of narcissists is their exaggerated sense of entitlement. It's hardly surprising then that so many politicians somehow think they 'deserve' to game the system. After all, from their self-interested perspective, isn't that what the system is for? In their heavily self-biased opinion, if they want something, by rights it should be theirs. So, nothing if not opportunistic, they take from public and private coffers alike whatever they think they can get away with.
And given their grandiose sense of self, they're inclined to believe they can get away with most anything. Exploiting their privileged position in such a manner hardly leaves them plagued with guilt. In general, guilt isn't an emotion they're prone to. How could they be if they feel entitled to the objects of their desire? In their minds their very ability to attain something must certainly mean it was merited."
Leon F. Seltzer, Narcissism: Why It's Rampant in Politics
"There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.”
Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
"There is no clean way to make a hundred million bucks. Maybe the head man thinks his hands are clean,but somewhere along the line guys got pushed to the wall, nice little businesses got the ground cut from under them, decent people lost their jobs, stocks got rigged on the market, and the five per-centers and the big law firms got paid hundred-grand fees.
Big money is big power and big power gets used wrong. The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean."
Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
"The very banality and innocence of the first act only allowed the blow to fall afterwards with more awful effect.”
Robert W. Chambers, The King In Yellow
"Then the kings of the earth, their nobles and their commanders, the rich, the powerful, and every one of their willing slaves and free men, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us, and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne, and from the righteous anger of the Lamb.'"
Revelation 6:15-16
"At bottom, what should you do to avoid being an idiot or a swine? You should become resigned to the fact that you will seem ridiculous to a race of janitors and bureaucrats if you enter the service of Splendor.
Then you will know what it means to be the friend of God. Think of it. The Friend of God!"
Léon Bloy, The Secret of Léon Bloy, by Jacques Maritain, 1912
Most of the usual things do not matter much for the markets at this point.
We are on the cusp of another collapsing bubble, woven out of betrayal and corruption.
Larger events are weighing on the near term. The death and destruction that financiers have always sought to turn to their advantage have come to bear on events with an ominous and overwhelming inevitability.
As the principalities of the world have always come to find out, the madness serves none but itself.
"Fall on us, and hide from the righteous anger of the Lamb."Have a pleasant weekend.
