Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - When Truth Is an Enemy of the State - 'Pivot Party'

 

“Bizarrely, it’s precisely the jobs that shift money around – creating next to nothing of tangible value – that net the best salaries.  The Machiavellis are one step ahead.  They have the ultimate secret weapon to defeat their competition.  They’re shameless.”

Rutger Bregman, De Meeste Mensen Deugen, September 2019

"The light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil."

John 3:19

"The great banks and insurance houses where surplus wealth is kept among us.  That surplus wealth, produced by the cheap labor of 'peasants', must now be protected from the peasants by law and by military force.  We labor and labor and labor for stuff that never satisfies us.  The market ideology is now the new form of imperial power and many of us, without any critical reflection, have signed onto that, and organized our lives in that way so we do not have any time, energy or capacity for the things that are rightly important to us, our humanness."

Walter Brueggemann, Truth To Power, 2013

"America is caught in a confidence or credibility trap, in which the changes, investigations, and reforms necessary to restore trust to an economy or market are rendered unlikely because doing so would expose a pervasive corruption that the principals fear would destroy any remaining trust. It could also endanger the careers of politicians and business people who may have permitted and even appeared to facilitate the control fraud that caused the financial crisis in the first place. Personal risk trumps public stewardship. The fraudulent activity is covered up and therefore continues, crowding out most productive business investment and activity which cannot possibly hope to compete with the highly profitable fraudulent activity and asset bubbles under such opaque and uncertain circumstances."

Jesse, America Is Caught in a Credibility Trap, 22 January 2011

"The ultimate purpose of crime is to establish an endless empire. It seeks a state of complete insecurity and anarchy, founded upon the tainted ideals of a world thought doomed to annihilation. When humanity, subjugated by the terror of crime, has been driven mad by fear and horror, and when chaos has become the supreme law, then the time for the empire of lawlessness will have come."

Friedrich Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, 1933

 

There was an interesting divergence, almost schizoid in its magnitude, in the markets today.

The Non-Farm Payrolls report came in much more strongly than expected.

And because of this interest rates rose, the Dollar strengthened, and the precious metals were hit hard.

But at the same time risk assets like stocks rallied, after an initial plunge, and the VIX fell.

The trope being parroted among the spokesmodels was a 'pivot party.'   This is the expectations that the Fed will start cutting rates again sooner rather than later.

And those who would think themselves wise nod their heads knowingly.   The public obviously does not share in their gnosis, their financial enlightenment, as inferior beings.

Wealth is not created at the top, flowing down to the public.  Rather, the prosperity of the real economy is lured to the top, to be devoured.

These are not wealth creators.  They are deceivers and destroyers, wielding enormous influence and power.

The madness advances, slowly, but with a purpose.

The US chose to use its veto power at the Security Council today to block the call by the UN for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

The wash is nearly done. 

Nemesis awaits. 

But things are so confusing.  You say this, but look at that, and that, and what this one says.  

What is truth?

And so of course I send these things to my friends and children, just so they can be informed.  

You know exactly what to do, explicitly.  But you choose as you will.  And you close your ears and willfully harden your hearts, and refuse to serve.

"The Lord requires you to act justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

Micah 6:8

If you make this your guiding light, your measure of what is good, you will not fall away.

But if you choose to serve what you love the most, the darkness in yourself, then you will find that you may be free, and that your house is now yours, but is made desolate.  And in misery you wallow among swine.

Time to come home.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Agents of Fortune - Financial Dreadnoughts

 

"The financial system is once again over-leveraged, over-concentrated, fraught with interconnected counterparty risk, and fragile.   This is because of the policy failure of the Treasury and the Fed which could be characterized as extend and pretend, without engaging in significant reforms and law enforcement in the aftermath of what might be best described as a control fraud.

I postulated years ago (2002) that when push came to shove, the Fed would gather around itself a few 'friendly banks' which would act on its behalf in private to enforce certain policy decisions in markets in which the Fed and Treasury do not wish to openly operate.  It is hard to think of any other somewhat moral reason for the government to babysit and subsidize these very expensive and dangerous TBTF monstrosities, except as instruments of policy to provide some degree of freedom to shape events and responses.

If you want to wage a currency war, you need to have some dreadnoughts packing serious financial throw-weight, and economic muscle.  It may be Machiavellian, counter-democratic, and expensive, but that is the diktat of strategy if you want to control things and wield power to do what you will, both at home and abroad.

Is a corollary to the currency war a financial arms race and the construction of institutional behemoths?  I think it might be.   Or it could just be widespread ignorance and corruption amongst the ruling class which certainly is conceivable.  Or some of both.  Why do governments sometimes engage in corporatism?  Take your pick."

Jesse, Financial Dreadnoughts in Times of Currency War,  22 February 2013
 

It was 'risk on' today as bully cast aside his fears and engaged the wash cycle in the markts.

Stocks finished decidedly higher.

VIX dropped sharply back to recent lows.

The Dollar edged higher.

Gold and silver were pressed lower again.

Pretty much the kind of pre-option expiration action we have come to expect.

Have you noticed how economic and financial sanctions and restrictions have become a major component of American policy responses with the Fed and the Banks as key components in controlling markets and impacting trade?

Have a pleasant evening.

Another More Terrible Financial Crisis Is Coming— For the Benefit of a Few

"So we may not be that far away from the next bubble bursting, and I could imagine, if I think about policy, what we just talked about, with the end of a recovery cycle, we’ve pumped $4 trillion in this country, $30 trillion globally, into the economy with monetary policy.   So that’s tapped out.

We are now using fiscal policy to overheat a late-stage recovery in order to keep the Republicans in office.  We are doing nothing to bolster underlying growth with educational reform, infrastructure reform, et cetera."

Rana Foroohar, The Rich Have an Escape Plan


"I think it’s important in the power of finance and how pervasive this is throughout the economy, this has very little to do with Republicans and Democrats. In fact, some of the key opening doors for finance happened in the Clinton administration."

Paul Jay, Clinton's Committee To Save the World Unleashes Wall Street

Rana Foroohar is an associate editor and global business columnist for The Financial Times, and CNN’s global economic analysts. She’s the author of Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business.

The Japanese Economic Dilemma in a Nutshell

Here is a note from a friend in Japan:

In today's Nikkei (Japanese version), on page 5, tucked behind all the hype about the government's decision to lower corporate taxes, in hopes that major companies will raise wages, was a short article on "three miscalculations about the economy" this year.

1. Tax revenues increased with the increase in the sales tax but consumer spending fell. Tax revenues expected to increase by about 5 trillion yen.

2. Weaker yen and higher stock market improved family assets for some I would say, but exports did not improve, and were about 8% lower than 4 years ago.

3. CPI (excluding fresh food) increased, resulting in a real wage decline. Rreal wages have been falling since mid 2013 and are now around 4% lower year over year.

Over the past few days I have been reading about the so-called lost decade of the 1990s and the government's policy decisions to try to kick-start the economy.

In 1990 the government had about 60 trillion in tax revenues and 69 trillion in general account total expenditures.

Now, the government estimates 52 trillion in tax revenues for fiscal 2014 but has more than 95 trillion in expenditures.

Even a second grade student can see that something is not working.

As you know, I think that there are three things that must be done.

Reform, reform, reform.

The Japanese economy is burdened with an unusually bad demographic problem, made much worse by the burdens of insider dealing, crony capitalism, and zombie banks and their corporations.

And its greatest burden of all is an elite that serves itself and its friends first and foremost, and that finds a greater kinship with its global counterparts than with the people whose interests it purports to represent.

 

"The conflict between the East and West was designed to scare the people of the world into accepting a convergence of these two monopoly systems of authoritarian power. The end result was to be a new Imperial Order and a New World Empire run by an elite self-perpetuating oligarchies from the leading nations of the earth."

Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, p. 860

 

Related:

Princes of the Yen: Central Banks and the Transformation of an Economy

Why the (Global) Kleptocrats Do Not Want a Recovery

The Pursuit of Global Corporatism

Princes of the Yen: Central Banks and the Transformation of an Economy

"Central banks have the power to create economic, political and social change. This is how they do it."

While I cringed at some of the early parts of the film and the mid-century American attitudes towards the Japanese, even if it was in the aftermath of a long and viciously fought war, I think this documentary provides some valuable insights into the evolution of the modern economy that is Japan.  I direct your attention to the things that we are often saying about different peoples today.

 

I struggle very hard not to judge other periods, cultures, and people with a righteous and twice removed temporal prejudice, enhanced by distance and hindsight.  And I believe such liberality might serve us well, given that we will most likely appear like blundering, hapless baboons to our great grandchildren some day.  What were they thinking!?

 

As a general observation based on experience, people everywhere are just people. Unless you are wearing the goggles of ignorance, fear, and hatred. And wicked men in business and government often encourage that sort of thing for their own ends.   But, in the end, the madness serves only itself.

 

But some cultures do tend to encourage and reward certain traits of personality and behavior more than others.  This has deep roots in their cultural, social, and religious heritage.  So the same economic conditions in two different cultures might provide two very different outcomes.

I recall explaining some of this to a professor from England whom we had in business school.  He could not quite understand how some of the things that were happening in Japan (Japan Inc. as it was known then) that ought not to be occurring in a two party system. The answer of course was that Japan at that time, in the early 1990's, was essentially a single party system with heavy ties to an embedded bureaucracy in partnership with corporate cartels.  And Richard Werner does a fairly good job at describing the evolution and nature of that system.

I think this structure helps to explain the long economic stagnation in Japan that puzzles so many, and has the Keynesians so befuddled.   They have never met any stimulus that they didn't like, even when it was being poured into and abused by a corrupt and inefficient system. 

 

Rather than being naturally more successful at its financial engineering, as fellows like Bernanke have snarkily suggested in their American exceptionalism,  I think it is becoming painfully obvious that the US is 'turning Japanese' in its serial policy errors propagated by an insular, ruling elite and the moneyed interests with their political power.

 

Speaking of financial engineering, Professor Richard Werner has been a long time economic advisor to Japan, and coined the term quantitative easing for his recommendations to them.

 

Japan, and the 'Asian tigers' as well, were mercantilist in their outlook and crony capitalist in their composition.  The enormous amounts of monetary stimulus were dissipated in supporting zombie corporations, a ruling elite, unproductive investments, and widespread soft corruption and insider dealing.

To engage in 'free trade agreements' under these circumstances with other command and control economies is foolish, especially when it puts domestic labor, social services, and the environment at par.  Especially when such processes are disguised under layers of complex rules and commissions, and easily manipulated by global corporations.   These are the bonds of global repression of the common people by concentrated power.

 

It rips the heart out of local autonomy and democracy under the banner of 'competitiveness.' It is corrosive of precious freedoms, and tramples the Constitution. But money has helped to ease the consciences of Western politicians.

Even moreso, can there be any doubt that the US, rather than helping to provide a positive example of a different way to Asia, inculcating freedom through its success of democratic and free markets, is in fact falling into the same model, a kind of a lowest common denominator of inverted totalitarianism under the standard of globalization.

 

I would like to think that Chalmers Johnson would most likely agree that if the Bank of Japan's economists are indeed the 'princes of the yen,' this is because they are now and have long been liege lords in the Empire of the American Dollar and the Anglo-American banking cartel.

US Minimum Wage Compared to Other Countries

"The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."

George Orwell

I think we can stipulate that these charts do not compare US minimum wages to some of the worst sweatshops of Asia and the Southern hemisphere with whom US workers are expected to compete thanks to undiscriminating 'free trade' treaties. 

And so human rights and the public good are invariably and consciously driven towards the lowest common denominator of cruel and abusive government corruption.

These charts are from Tim Taylor at the Conversable Economist.

I am sure people will draw from them whatever they wish to support their own policy biases and pre-conclusions.

But the one thing we need to internalize is that the US has become all about setting policies and enforcing laws to create and maintain a working underclass as a vulnerable food source for the predator class, a condition that is inimical to a thriving democracy.

And people are becoming more aware of this now that a good portion of the former middle class is falling into that underclass category that lives from hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck. 

It is becoming undeniable that the political class is no longer listening to 'the people,' but to the richest and most powerful individuals and the organizations that support them and give them that power.

This is not 'capitalism.'  This is crony capitalism, and the deadly corruption of oligarchy.

Bill Black on the Rule of Predatory Finance Over Argentina

As you know I think that this ruling by the Supreme Court, written by Antonin Scalia, which essentially puts the Argentine people and the other creditors at the mercy of the demands of a few vulture funds, may prove to be a watershed, or perhaps trigger, event in the excesses of crony capitalism and the Empire of the Dollar. 

 

The blowback from this action on foreign assets held in the US, and on US corporate assets held overseas, may be profound.  

 

The BRICs will be having their annual summit in mid-July.   And the US has certainly given them something to think about,  set at least a part of their agenda,  and given them a common cause of concerns, over the past four or five months.   I see no reason for optimism that a ruling elite, grown in-bred and self-absorbed in its hubris, will do anything different in its self-serving policies.

 

If there ever was a time for enlightened leadership to rise to the occasion it is now.  And in looking over the current crop of puffed-up princes and predators, we can see none.

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Emperor Wears Nada - Blood on the Pampas

Gold and silver pulled back a bit today after an exceptionally good week.  They were higher most of yesterday evening, if one could distract themselves from the season finale of Game of Thrones. 

I really need to go back and reread the first five books of the series.  I remember the highlights, but keep forgetting some of the details.  Its been about five years since I read them.  And Lord knows when G. R. R. Martin will get around to finishing volumes six and seven. 

Martin is a great story teller, and certainly has found his voice with this particular series.  I have read his Dunk and Egg series, which should be a good 'fix' for frustrated Martin aficionados.    But most of his other things like the science fiction were meh.  I have not read his vampire story Fevre Dream yet, which is set in the 19th century on the Mississippi River, but it did not sound inviting.  I think what is intriguing is the expanse of the world he creates in A Song of Ice and Fire, and the highly engaging details and characters.

As you know this is an FOMC meeting week, so we will have to see how well the precious metals hold their levels. I would certainly like to see silver take out 20, but that may or may not be in the cards.

 

"The Supreme Court said today it would not hear Argentina's case against hedge fund creditors, and Argentina's stock market got killed on the news.

Argentina's Merval Index, a price-weighted index designed to reflect the performance of Argentine listed companies, fell 12%."

Business Insider, Argentina's Stock Market Crashed Today

In case you missed it, the Merval stock index (Argentina) crashed today.  I mentioned it in the stock market commentary below.  This was courtesy of the US Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case that is forcing that government's hand in its dealing with some funds who refused to negotiate the debt, demanding full payment. 

 

This sets up the government for a potential default since the lower US court had ruled it could repay no debts without first settling with funds who have purchased Argentine debt and have refused to enter into the restructuring, instead demanding full payment.   The world seems to have viewed this market drop as a secular event.  I find it interesting that the US Courts have precedence here.

Some additional ounces of gold were 'stopped' on Friday, but there continues to be little movement in the Comex warehouses, which seem to be like the Hotel California. Bullion can check in but it never seems to leave.

Actually this is not all that hard to understand, if you keep in mind that the US markets are where the elite meet to cheat, and that actually BUYING bullion and taking delivery in any serious amounts happens elsewhere. What is more surprising is how the LBMA is becoming the same sort of market with the movement of precious metal action to the East.

I have almost reached the conclusion that there will be no reform until something unfortunate and unavoidable happens to wake people up.  I continue to hope not, but it does seem to be in the cards.   People are growing hungry for justice.

Perhaps we will see a Stannis Baratheon riding down the wildlings of Wall Street someday.  I am sorry to say that it rarely happens in real life as it does in fictional worlds.  Most of the time the would be savior turns out to be a betrayer, a type of Judas goat. 

But as with Jon Snow, there are quite a few who 'would like to fight for the side that fights for the living.'  And one can hope that they may eventually prevail with the right kind of encouragement and assistance.  After all, the real fight is not among the power hungry gamesters at King's Landing, but with the Night's Watch on the Wall. 

Winter is coming.

Have a pleasant evening.

Bill Moyers: Deep State Hiding In Plain Sight

"Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose.

My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an 'establishment.'

All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched.

Far from being invincible, its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State’s protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude."

Mike Lofgren, Anatomy of the Deep State

"Rome lived upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face. Industry is the only true source of wealth, and there was no industry in Rome. By day the Ostia road was crowded with carts and muleteers, carrying to the great city the silks and spices of the East, the marble of Asia Minor, the timber of the Atlas, the grain of Africa and Egypt; and the carts brought out nothing but loads of dung. That was their return cargo."

Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom of Man

Chris Hedges On the Power of the Modern Media and Fox News

“He who dictates and formulates the words and phrases we use, he who is master of the press and radio, is master of the mind. Repeat mechanically your assumptions and suggestions, diminish the opportunity for communicating dissent and opposition. This is the formula for political conditioning of the masses.

The big lie and monotonously repeated nonsense have more emotional appeal in a cold war than logic and reason.

The continual intrusion into our minds of the hammering noises of arguments and propaganda can lead to two kinds of reactions. It may lead to apathy and indifference, the I-dont-care reaction, or to a more intensified desire to study and to understand. Unfortunately, the first reaction is the more popular one...Confusing a targeted audience is one of the necessary ingredients for effective mind control.

The eternal demagogue will arise anew. He will accuse others of conspiracy in order to prove his own importance. He will try to intimidate those who are neither so iron-fisted nor so hotheaded as he, and temporarily he will drag some people into the web of his delusions. Perhaps he will even wear a mantle of martyrdom to arouse the tears of the weak-hearted. With his emotionalism and suspicion, he will shatter the trust of citizens in one another."

Joost Meerloo M.D., The Rape of the Mind

Hedges specifically discusses Fox News, and deservedly so,  because it has set the tone for the modern news programs. There were never more ironic words than their slogan, 'fair and balanced.'  But he could have included a few other corporate copycat channels as well, including the financial channels which have become little more than infomercials for Wall Street and the one percent.

Most 'news shows' in the states have become extended op-ed's where paid professional hucksters and 'strategists' spout slogans and sound bytes at one another, with a fairly cavalier attitude towards an intelligent exposition of the facts. 

Emotions are more powerful than facts in the modern mass media. Frighten the people, anger them, give them an object for their fear and anger, and in their rage you can move them in whatever direction you wish.

And you can look to the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, the weakening of the FCC, the proliferation of cable channels with hours of programming to fill, and the concentration of the media in the hands of a few corporations, or perhaps more correctly global conglomerates, for the cause of this terrible decline in what is lightly these days called journalism. And in the destruction of a literate news media, thereby lies the deterioration in public and political discourse.

This is not about right versus left.  It is about politicians, financiers, and intellectuals of a predator class who think they can strike a Faustian bargain, and unleash the will to power, and control it for their own ends.

But the madness serves none but itself.

A Message From the Banking and Brokerage System

"At this late stage in the history of American capitalism I'm not sure I know how much testimony still needs to be presented to establish the relation between profit and theft."

Lewis H. Lapham


"In an oligarchy, private ownership is merely a concept, subject to interpretation and confiscation."

Jesse, Trustee to Seize and Liquidate Even the 'Stored' Customer Gold and Silver Bullion From MF Global

No comment about the bank notice below is necessary for those who understand what this means. And if one does not understand it at this point, no comment is sufficient.

Paper currency held in a bank is not a 'risk free' asset. To the contrary, it is like walking around with a very large and willfully powerful counterparty that has one hand in your pocket.  And in troubled times, a 'warehouse receipt' or a line item on a bank account statement held in another country is little more than another piece of paper.

And in the case of 'digital money' they do not even have to have a hand in your pocket.  They hold everything, all your savings, up front, and you have to apply for your money at a window, where they determine how much you may have.  And that window can be closed anytime at will.

They take your wealth, pay you almost nothing for it, and then offer you protection, with limits, from themselves.

The deregulation of banks and the overturn of Glass-Steagall was intended to create a license to steal, by design.  Hundreds of millions were spent in a decade long effort lobbying for it. These were the protections that were given to us, and fought for by our fathers and grandfathers.  And we squandered away that wisdom, having unlearned the lessons of the past.

This is predatory financial capitalism and modern monetary theory unrestrained by the rule of law and transparency.  This is the lesson from Cyprus, and of MF Global.  And it is no different in the US or UK, except in the matter of time and degree.    None are safe where there is no justice for all.

And the financial sociopaths and their enablers have no limit to their greed,  no sense of boundaries, and certainly no shame.  

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

The Middle Class: Death By a Thousand Cuts - Is Nothing Sacred?

"The corporate right and the political right declared class warfare on working people a quarter of a century ago and they've won... Take the paradox of Rush Limbaugh, ensconced in a Palm Beach mansion massaging the resentments across the country of white-knuckled wage earners, who are barely making ends meet in no small part because of the corporate and ideological forces for whom Rush has been a hero."

Bill Moyers


"The escalation of the class war against the poor and the working class is intense. More and more working people are beaten down. They are world-weary. They are into self-medication. They are turning on each other. They are scapegoating the most vulnerable rather than confronting the most powerful. It is a profoundly human response to panic and catastrophe. I thought Barack Obama could have provided some way out. But he lacks backbone.

Can you imagine if Barack Obama had taken office and deliberately educated and taught the American people about the nature of the financial catastrophe and what greed was really taking place? If he had told us what kind of mechanisms of accountability needed to be in place, if he had focused on homeowners rather than investment banks for bailouts and engaged in massive job creation he could have nipped in the bud the right-wing populism of the tea party folk. The tea party folk are right when they say the government is corrupt. It is corrupt. Big business and banks have taken over government and corrupted it in deep ways.

We have got to attempt to tell the truth, and that truth is painful. It is a truth that is against the thick lies of the mainstream. In telling that truth we become so maladjusted to the prevailing injustice that the Democratic Party, more and more, is not just milquetoast and spineless, as it was before, but thoroughly complicitous with some of the worst things in the American empire."

Cornel West


"Politicians are the public face of corporate power. They are corporate employees. Their personal narratives, their promises, their rhetoric and their idiosyncrasies are meaningless. And that, perhaps, is why the cost of the two presidential campaigns is estimated to reach an obscene $2.5 billion. The corporate state does not produce a product that is different. It produces brands that are different. And brands cost a lot of money to sell...

Unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force which turns everything into a commodity. Human beings become commodities, the natural world becomes a commodity, that you exploit until exhaustion or collapse...

You can dismiss those of us who will in protest vote for a third-party candidate and invest our time and energy in acts of civil disobedience. You can pride yourself on being practical. You can swallow the false argument of the lesser of two evils.

But ask yourself, once this nightmare starts kicking in, who the real sucker is."

Chris Hedges


"The most sacred of the duties of government is to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.”

Thomas Jefferson

Nihilne sanctum est?

Politicians from both sides of the aisle will swear pious oaths to protect and foster the well being of the middle class.  They will say that their policies and proposals are all designed for its betterment.  And yet the state of the middle class continues to dwindle into despair and disrepair. Why is this?

It is not because of the predominance of a right or left ideology, of taxation and deficits and austerity. It is not because of the re-emergence of a perversion of the gospel, in the predestination of prosperity. We have seen all this before. It is not because in our comfort we have lost the sense of the imperative of common cause.

It is because of the overwhelming corruption of power, and of the cynical amorality of thoroughly modern political managers who worship power and personal wealth as ends unto themselves.   They distract the people with artificially divisive social issues and crises, while robbing them blind.

It is driven by the allure of the cartels, monopolies, and  monied interests, and their corrupt political bargains.  It is a child of the subornation of perjury on a massive scale. It is the unscrupulous servility to power of those who have sworn to uphold and protect the law.   What is truth?  Whatever suits us, whatever we say it is, by whoever has the power and the craft to define 'we.'  It is not the triumph of evil so much as the absence of any sense of the good, of honor, honesty, and of simple common decency.

And it is marked by the daily subverting of the law as a matter of convenience and comfort to the insatiable few, and the cravenness of their enablers, driven by personal ambition, ignorance, and fear.  It is the will to power, the elevation of the ascendant self and the system that supports it, above all else.  Greed is good.  Whatever works.  And the enemy is all that is not the self, which is the other.

And where there is nothing sacred, the people perish.

Bart Chilton On Silver Manipulation - Gold and Silver Coiling For a Major Move - The Next Disaster

In discussing the government's lack of reaction in reforming the high frequency trading developments in the market, the CFTC's Bart Chilton remarks in the video below about the unfortunate tendency of regulators not to act until something unfortunate happens as being a:

"...tombstone mentality, when you wait for a disaster before you put something in place."

The CFTC is hampered and opposed at every step of the way by the financial powers and their exchanges, who unfortunately wield a powerful and well-funded lobbying effort that tends to lead the political element in Washington by the nose, or their wallets, as you prefer.

I have come to believe that the US government will do nothing effective to reform the gold and silver markets and the equity exchanges until there is a MAJOR dislocation in the markets, and a virtual 'run on the exchange.'

Change will come after the US financial system is threatened by a major solvency or liquidity event.

Whether it originates from a failure to deliver in gold and silver markets that exposes them as a highly artificial and overleveraged house of cards, or another 'flash crash' that brings down a major exchange or trading house through counter party failures, I now believe that this sort of failure and scandal is what it will take to bring meaningful reform to this highly unstable Anglo-American financial system.

Change will be not voluntary with these greedy, self-destructive jackals, especially after the moral hazard that was introduced by the unfortunate policy error of 'no-strings' bailouts from the last financial crisis.   And the lack of regulation and accountability that has ensued is corrosive.

Reform will be accomplished, but only under the duress of the next financial disaster.