The Unrestrained Rule of the Will To Power and the Death of Justice

"What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.

Not contentment, but more power, not peace at all, but war; not virtue, but proficiency. The weak and poorly formed shall perish: first principle of our philanthropy. And one shall help them to do so. What is more harmful than any vice?  Active sympathy for poorly formed and the weak— Christianity."

Friedrich Nietzsche,  Der Antichrist, 1895


"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

Samuel Johnson

The Malicious Practices Act of 1933 was introduced to rid the German state of its ‘oppressors’ and ‘enemies’. In particular, the German state imposed new legislation that made it illegal to speak wrongly of, or criticise the regime and its leaders.

Coupled with the 1934 act against 'treachery,' a law sufficiently broad and vague, and carried out by a special set of courts with their own processes and procedures outside of the national court system, became a powerful tool for state fascism in the form of terrorism directed against their own people and any form of dissent, freedom of speech, of those guilty of social differences, no matter how fundamental or how trivial those differences might be.

Taibbi: Eric Holder, Wall Street's Double Agent

"Holder doubtless seriously believed at first that in a time of financial crisis, he was doing the right thing in constructing new forms of justice for banks, where nobody but the shareholders actually had to pay for crime. You've heard of victimless crimes; Holder created the victimless punishment.

But in the end, it was pretty convenient, wasn't it, that "the right thing" also happened to be the strategy that preserved Democratic Party relationships with big-dollar donors, kept the client base at Holder's old firm nice and fat, made the influential rich immeasurably richer and allowed Eric Holder himself to crash-land into a giant pile of money upon resignation.

What a coincidence! In any civilized country, it'd be a scandal. In America, though, he's just another guy selling whatever he can to get by. It was just too bad that what Holder had to sell was the criminal justice system."

Matt Taibbi, Eric Holder, Wall Street Double Agent, Comes In From the Cold

 

Holder was no rogue political appointee.  He was very much in the mainstream of the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party, founded by the Clintons.  Obama did nothing to reform it and added Big Healthcare and Big Pharma into the corporatist money mix.

 

And so these reformers, throwing their constituency under the bus, have become the facilitators of the deep capture of our regulatory and political system in a bipartisan effort to get rich.

 

This is not to say that these are malevolently evil people by nature.  Although a few are. Most are just people, being carried along by an unsustainable tide of cynicism and personal greed that has imprinted itself on the minds of our privileged elites.  

 

They choose to commit criminal acts through a wonderful power of rationalization, in a downward spiral of moral decline.   One day they wake up and see the monstrous things they may have done, not in one grand moment in the dramatic rejection of the good, but in a thousand small choices and personal exceptions of self-indulgence. 

 

The worldview of the self-appointed elite is that now that I have gone to the right schools, said the right words, protected the right people, taken the right jobs and done the right things, now I get to cash in and get in filthy rich on easy money and the looting of the real economy.  I am finally gettin' paid.  This perverse mindset, which used to be a denizen of rural enclaves and big city bosses is becoming pervasive in Washington and New York.

 

It has all the hallmarks of the kind of dual class system that is specifically prohibited by the framers of the Bill of Rights.  But who will watch the watchers when 'everyone is doing it.'

 

The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery.

 

The Will To Power in the Exceptional

"Christianity is called the religion of pity. Pity stands opposed to the powerful emotions which heighten our vitality; it has a depressing effect. We are deprived of strength when we feel pity...

What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in a man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome."

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist

 

 'What is truth?' asked the cynical bureaucrat Pilate, and then turned and washed his hands of it.

 

 

 

"Cultures that do not recognize that human life and the natural world have a sacred dimension, an intrinsic value beyond monetary value, cannibalize themselves until they die. They ruthlessly exploit the natural world and the members of their society in the name of progress until exhaustion or collapse, blind to the fury of their own self-destruction...

The corporations, and those who run them, consume, pollute, oppress and kill. The little Eichmanns who manage them reside in a parallel universe of staggering wealth, luxury and splendid isolation that rivals that of the closed court of Versailles. The elite, sheltered and enriched, continue to prosper even as the rest of us and the natural world start to die. They are numb. They will drain the last drop of profit from us until there is nothing left. And our business schools and elite universities churn out tens of thousands of these deaf, dumb and blind systems managers who are endowed with sophisticated skills of management and the incapacity for common sense, compassion or remorse. These technocrats mistake the art of manipulation with knowledge."

Chris Hedges

 

“All life has inestimable value even the weakest and most vulnerable, the sick, the old, the unborn and the poor, are masterpieces of God’s creation, made in his own image, destined to live forever, and deserving of the utmost reverence and respect...

All too often, as we know from experience, people do not choose life, they do not accept the Gospel of Life but let themselves be led by ideologies and ways of thinking that block life, that do not respect life, because they are dictated by selfishness, self-interest, profit, power and pleasure, and not by love, by concern for the good of others...

As a result, the living God is replaced by fleeting human idols which offer the intoxication of a flash of freedom, but in the end bring new forms of slavery and death...

Francis I

 

I have long felt that the basis of our economic and political discussions are a distraction, and by design.   They force us to operate from some fundamental policy assumptions that prevent a discussion of our current state of affairs in a necessarily frank and fundamental manner.

El Greco, Fábula of Boy Lighting Candle With a Fool and an Ape

With regard to economics and political systems, a 'practical person' may decide on whichever form of government serves their own private interests best.  

 

The amoral person chooses what is expedient, and in this they are little different from the worst, because they will go along with whatever serves their own power and self-interest above all.  They will rationalize themselves into a hell on earth, or hereafter.

 

A 'moral being' must choose what is just, as defined by some higher principle of justice for all.  And that choice must be made because it is inherent in being human.

 

Just as love is the touchstone in religion, justice is the touchstone in public policy. 

 

Exceptionalism is no virtue, no mark of the chosen, but merely the sin of pride, wearing the silks of rationalization and self-delusion.  And this is at the root of every fallen angel, every lost soul, and every failing nation.

 

I am not here making an appeal to the careless few based on either faith or reason.  Alas, I fear they are now beyond both morality and common sense, until a reckoning comes.

 

Rather, in this solemn season I am reminding the faithful and the many of a message they have probably heard, and forgotten, so often.  A man cannot serve two masters.  He will love the one, and hate the other.

 

The ultimate question is, 'whom do you serve?'  Choose as you will, but you will live with your choice, forever.  We do not choose all at once, but every day, and in all our actions, whether we are consciously aware of our choice or not.

Your carelessness and self-approval, your reputation and connections, your associations and positions, will be of no comfort and value to you then.  When exposed by the light your life of self-absorption and exceptional selfishness will be an ever stinging rebuke of burning regret and torment.  Not that you have betrayed and traded away so much that is good, but that you have done it for so little.

“A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death - the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, and murders that we are not going to be judged.”

Czesław Miłosz

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Justice For Some - Currency Wars - ECB Deposit Rates To -3%

Via Bloomberg, citing Handelsblatt:

Eurozone on road to deflation, and bonds remain [an] attractive asset because high demand meets scarce supply

ECB will reduce interest for cash deposits to minus 3% and the dollar [will] appreciate by 20%, reaching parity with euro in 2015.

This evening Zerohedge reports that there is speculation that the ECB will cut interest rates paid to MINUS THREE PERCENT, and that the intention is to bring the dollar 20% higher to dollar parity.  That should do wonders for The Recovery.™

 

Currency wars.   And your meager savings and wages will be the cannon fodder.

 

This is not official, but it makes a great headline and a vector of things to come.  Maybe JPM is trying to make us feel better about their plans for charging us a single percent to hold our cash, ex fees.  Or maybe they are just snorting the ketamine of their own moral hazard, and riding the buzz into a k-hole.

 

This is hard to believe. 

 

But it is also hard to believe that the Fed slipped a back door bailout in the trillions to the Banks.  Nothing is as stupid as the bureaucratic desperation of the pampered princes, when they see the long awaited day of reckoning coming across the horizon.  So I am keeping an open mind.

 

An interest rate on savings deposits of negative three percent is a euphemism for the confiscation of the middle class' remaining funds.  The one percent are parked in subsidized rentier assets and tax havens.

 

These jokers are jumping up and down on a land mine, just to see what happens.

 

Silver continues to be the more interesting story for now in March, with the delivery notices continuing, although the warehouse inventories are more than adequate.

 

Gold is inactive this month, at least in the Comex bucket shop precincts.  Asia is another story.

 

How interesting were the markets today?  I apparently have some Greek heritage on my paternal great grandmother's side, via Italy.  Bohemia and Austria, with Prussia on the maternal side, I knew about, but not the Greek.  Yo, Demetrios.

 

That was how interesting the markets were today. I spent the afternoon perusing the old census records and family papers. 

 

This market is t - h - i - n, and heavily gamed by the bots.

 

The Department of Justice report on law enforcement in Ferguson, Missouri was released today, and it was interesting.   The report shows that Ferguson systematically used its law enforcement responsibilities to turn a minority, African Americans, into an ongoing revenue stream.

 

When you read this damning report, keep in mind that this abusive use of the law may be where the financial system is heading in its relationship with the ninety nine percent, with rents, fees, penalties, usurious loans and student debts, rigged markets, and of course, an unequal system of justice for some.

 

Non-farm payrolls on Friday.  This is an inactive month for gold.

 

I am continuing to watch the Sprott Silver fund to see what they do about their cash situation for expenses.   They have several options.  I do not know all of them, or which one they may pursue.

  

Currency wars, bitchez. 

 

And almost no one is talking about it.   Or the corrosive role of the Banks.

 

In 1999, on signing Gramm-Leach-Bliley into law, Clinton said, “This is a day we can celebrate as an American day” and that ” the Glass-Steagall law is no longer appropriate for the economy in which we live” and “today what we are doing is modernizing the financial services industry, tearing down these antiquated laws and granting banks significant new authority” and “This is a very good day for the United States.”

Columbia Journalism Review, Bill Clinton on Deregulation

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Then Is Your Point, Mr. Potter?

"The more people rationalize cheating, the more it becomes a culture of dishonesty. And that can become a vicious, downward cycle. Because suddenly, if everyone else is cheating, you feel a need to cheat, too."

Stephen Covey, The Speed of Trust

"The greatest crimes of human history are made possible by the most colorless human beings. They are the careerists. The bureaucrats. The cynics. They do the little chores that make vast, complicated systems of exploitation and death a reality... And they do not ask questions."

Chris Hedges, The Careerists

 

If, as Jamie Galbraith has put it, economics is 'a disgraced profession,' what does it matter, when almost all the professions from medicine to law to finance have also given themselves over to the darkness of this world in high places?

 

Can they be so aloof that they do not see it, see what they are becoming?  See what they serve?

Are they such bystanders that they can no longer even see themselves and where they stand?

Can such a lack of self-awareness be attributed to the blindness of egoism? Or some more profound denial of conscience that rips the very fabric of their reality and its consequences?

Have we finally approached the tipping point of corrosive indifference in our leadership and the careless few, again?

Have the wages of supreme narcissism and exceptionalism finally come to be paid with a third financial crisis, and then another?  And finally the unleashing of madness?

 

It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for a stipend?

 

And when the hard winds of nemesis start howling across the land, where do they think it will end, and who and what do they think will remain standing?

 

Taibbi: A Whistleblower's Horror Story

"Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind."

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

"Flagrant evils cure themselves by being flagrant."

John Henry Newman

If a whistleblower reveals benign 'secrets' of government actions to a domestic reporter in the time honored tradition, they may be prosecuted as 'enemies of the state' under the abusive misuse of the Espionage Act.

 

It was Winston's contention that six week's after refusing to lie in his report to Moody's, Angelo Mozilo personally contacted Winston's supervisor and demanded his termination based on a personal website Winston maintained for his work as a motivational speaker and expert in leadership.

What I find particularly odious in the judgement is that not only will Winston NOT be able to obtain the reward from the jury verdict, which is a legal matter which I understand can be contended.  Although it seems that the appeals court took a fairly aggressive stance in this appeal, to the point of nullifying the jury not on the legal process but on their judgment about the evidence itself.  A copy of that first appeal is downloadable here.

 

The subsequent judgement against plaintiff to pay the costs filed by Bank of America seems excessive if not vindictive to say the least, given that the case itself was a 'close call' at worst.  And then there is the matter of his speaking to Frontline, and engaging in behavior in describing the ongoing frauds at Countrywide that were very embarrassing to Bank of America, and the DOJ itself.  It smells of vindictiveness.

I don't think it is this case alone that is so infuriating, but the context of Wall Street friendly judicial policy in the Obama Administration, and the hypocritical and harsh treatment of whistleblowers in general.   And Taibbi does a fairly good job of bringing these things forwards in his article linked below which I suggest that you read.

Deceit and theft by the privileged is excused and protected, while honesty and innocence are severely punished.    And the great mass of official journalists are silent, so we hear the news about this in a rock 'n roll magazine. 

 

Rolling Stone

A Whistleblower's Horror Story

By Matt Taibbi

18 February 2015

Two years ago this month, Winston was being celebrated in the news as a hero. He'd blown the whistle on Countrywide Financial, the bent mortgage lender that one could plausibly argue nearly blew up the global economy in the last decade with its reckless subprime lending practices.

He described Countrywide's crazy plan to give anyone who could breathe a mortgage in a memorable January, 2013 episode of Frontline called "The Untouchables," a show that caught the eyes of several influential politicians in Washington. The documentary inspired Senate hearings and even the crafting of new legislation to combat too-big-to-jail corruption in the financial world.

Winston was later featured in the New York Times as the man who "conquered Countrywide." David Dayen of Salon described Winston as "Wall Street's greatest enemy."

But today, Winston is tasting the sometimes-extreme downside of being a whistleblower in modern America.

He says he's spent over a million dollars fighting Countrywide (and the firm that acquired it, Bank of America) in court. At first, that fight proved a good gamble, as a jury granted him a multi-million-dollar award for retaliation and wrongful termination.

But after Winston won that case, an appellate judge not only wiped out that jury verdict, but allowed Bank of America to counterattack him with a vengeance.

Last summer, the bank vindictively put a lien on Winston's house (one he'd bought, ironically, with a Countrywide mortgage). The bank eventually beat him for nearly $98,000 in court costs.

That single transaction means a good guy in the crisis drama, Winston, had by the end of 2014 paid a larger individual penalty than virtually every wrongdoer connected with the financial collapse of 2008.

When Winston protested his preposterous punishment on the grounds that a trillion-dollar company recouping legal fees from an unemployed whistleblower was unreasonable and unnecessary, a California Superior Court judge denied his argument — get this — on the grounds that Winston failed to prove a disparity in resources between himself and Bank of America!

This is from the court's ruling:

Plaintiff argues that the disparity in the resources between the individual plaintiff and the defendant Bank of America make it unfair to place the cost of the premium on plaintiff. Plaintiff offered no evidence in support of this argument; it is rejected...

Read the entire story in Rolling Stone here.

Modern Economics: Austerity

"In Greek mythology Sisyphus (Greek: Σίσυφος) was the king of Ephyra. He was punished by the gods for his chronic deceitfulness by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a steep hill, only to watch it roll back down, over and over again."

In the modern mythology of bizarre economics, austerity can be described as 'the Reverse Sisyphus.'

The victims of systemic bank fraud and widespread cheating and manipulation of markets and laws are forced to pay the price, in an endless cycle of booms and busts, for the deceitfulness and injustice of the powerful financial interests and their privileged friends.

 

Related:  Bubblenomics

 

 

 

The NeoLiberal Colossus

"Keep, ancient lands, your human dignity!" cries she

With curling lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the weak, the homeless, the victims all to me,

And I will grind their bones, forevermore!"