Matt Taibbi, Katie Halper, and Jimmy Dore: Why Is the Media So Bad

"Always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.”

Joseph Pulitzer, Retirement address


"Day by day the money-masters of America become more aware of their danger, they draw together, they grow more class-conscious, more aggressive.  The [first world] war has taught them the possibilities of propaganda; it has accustomed them to the idea of enormous campaigns which sway the minds of millions and make them pliable to any purpose.  American political corruption was the buying up of legislatures and assemblies to keep them from doing the people's will and protecting the people's interests; it was the exploiter entrenching himself in power, it was financial autocracy undermining and destroying political democracy."

Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check


"It’s not just political spin, however, that explains the rose-colored coverage [in the media]. Another explanation is that the media is plain stupid — quick to accept guidance from economists on Wall Street, for example, who have a vested interest in making everything wonderful."

John Crudele, Americans Have Not Gotten a Raise In 16 Years


"In 1983, 50 corporations controlled most of the American media, including magazines, books, music, news feeds, newspapers, movies, radio and television.  By 1992 that number had dropped by half.  By 2000, six corporations had ownership of most media, and today five dominate the industry: Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany and Viacom."

Independent Lens, Democracy on Deadline


"The elite want to keep us fighting left and right, so we don't pay attention to the top-down."

Jimmy Dore

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Wehret den Anfängen - Indicators Flashing Red

"To reduce a complex argument to its bare bones, since the Depression, the twin forces of managed democracy and Superpower have opened the way for something new under the sun: 'inverted totalitarianism,' a form every bit as totalistic as the classical version but one based on internalized co-optation, the appearance of freedom, political disengagement rather than mass mobilization, and relying more on “private media” than on public agencies to disseminate propaganda that reinforces the official version of events.

It is inverted because it does not require the use of coercion, police power and a messianic ideology as in the Nazi, Fascist and Stalinist versions (although note that the United States has the highest percentage of its citizens in prison — 751 per 100,000 people — of any nation on Earth). According to Wolin, inverted totalitarianism has 'emerged imperceptibly, unpremeditatedly, and in seeming unbroken continuity with the nation’s political traditions.'

The main objectives of managed democracy are to increase the profits of large corporations, dismantle the institutions of social democracy (Social Security, unions, welfare, public health services, public housing and so forth), and roll back the social and political ideals of the New Deal. Its primary tool is privatization [and deregulation].

Chalmers Johnson, Inverted Totalitarianism: A New Way of Understanding How the U.S. Is Controlled


“Be the person that your dog thinks you are.”

George Eliot aka Mary Ann Evans

This is what they call the 'dog days' of summer market trading.

Even the spokesmodels pom-poms were drooping today along with volumes, although they did manage a 'new highs' exclamation after the close.

And yes, stocks were marginally higher on light volumes.

Gold and silver were pretty much unchanged as the Dollar and Bonds moved a tad higher.

What is the old saying of Jesse Livermore? 'Never short a dull market.'

Citibank turned in lackluster results today, with profits based largely on one timers and cost cutting. The banking sector was a drag all day, although Citi managed to gain some ground finally. Go figure.

Gold continues to wind within a symmetrical triangle. Stocks continue to drift higher on lazy algo pumping.

The darkness continues to spread and gain force, as the unspeakable slowly becomes customary, and then finally acceptable.   If you to wish to never see that madness again, then wehret den anfängen, stop it in the beginning. 

I have included two charts immediately below that suggest that a global recession is on the horizon.

I was busy with people working here all day.  I really don't like to have anyone come over and do these things, but sometimes you just have to do it.

I had not expected them to come today, but they called early this morning and said they had a cancellation so would I like to have them come over.   It was ok with me.  I like to get these things done and over.

But besides directing traffic,  I did manage to keep busy with many little things that have been on my 'to do' list, now that most of the big things have been done.

But as you well know, when working outside in this kind of heat and humidity it does not take long before the thought of an ice cold glass of tonic water and lime on ice becomes an almost irresistible attraction.

Need little, want less, love more. For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

AC /on.

Have a cool and pleasant evening.

Why There Has Been No Recovery In One Simple Chart - A Harvest of Corruption

"The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy."

Will Rogers, Nov 26, 1932

“Trickle-down theory - the less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

"It is no exaggeration to say that since the 1980s, much of the global financial sector has become criminalised, creating an industry culture that tolerates or even encourages systematic fraud."

Charles H. Ferguson

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Upton Sinclair

"In regards to the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates as simple interest does, the rise of profit operates like compound interest. Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods.  They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits.  They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.”

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

"What we have are asset PRICES being whipped up as median real wages deflate."

Anthony Sanders, Whip It! Real Median Wages Down 3.4% Since Q1 2010

"The problem of the last three decades is not the 'vicissitudes of the marketplace,' but rather deliberate actions by the government to redistribute income from the rest of us to the one percent.   This pattern of government action shows up in all areas of government policy."

Dean Baker

If the people have no money, they may buy no goods, even essentials, without falling ever more deeply into debt.

That is not so difficult to understand.  Unless your paycheck demands that you not only cannot understand it,  but not even see it, or talk publicly about it. 

And so we have this sad spectacle of Our Great Reformer desperately trying to ram two trade deals through the Congress, without a real examination and debate, in the waning days of his office. 

And we see the continuing attempts by the Congress itself to thwart and undo financial reform under cover of rhetoric and canards, so that they too might get paid by the moneyed interests.

The harlots of finance and economics will say, 'You laymen simply do not understand the mysteries of our science.  Wages always lag in a recovery.'

Seven years is some lag.   Unfortunately economics these days has less in common with a natural science than it has with marketing.   And at its worst, it has become a carney sideshow.

But we might feel better about all this uncertainty if the corruption and distortion that have become embedded in our laws and economic theories, that preceded this and led to a long term secular stagnation in median incomes, had been changed in any meaningful way since the financial crisis. 

And they have not.    But yet we marvel that our condition seems intractable, unsolvable.

This is the root of our problem.  It is old as Babylon, and evil as sin.  If we sow greed to the worst of our desires, we will reap a harvest of corruption.