Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things - Audacious Oligarchy

"This week, I am introducing legislation to end a war that should have ended long ago, the war in Afghanistan.  The United States has been fighting The War on Terror™ since October of 2001 and it has cost 6 trillion dollars."

Senator Rand Paul


“The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure [status quo] of society intact. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.”

George Orwell


“A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people.  Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about.  It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.  Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Major General Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket


"America's infrastructure is desperately in need of investment, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.  The ASCE estimates the US needs to spend some $4.5 trillion by 2025 to fix the country's roads, bridges, dams, and other infrastructure."

Thompson and Matousek, America's Infrastructure Is Decaying

Between the continuous wars, bailing out the financial system, and subsidizing the soft corruption of the ruling class there seems to be little left over for keeping the country's infrastructure up to date and competitive.

Stocks failed to rally again today, but within an uptrending channel. I have marked it on the stock futures charts.

Gold and silver held their ground once again. The Dollar declined slightly.

Are we not exceptional? Are you not entertained?

Have a pleasant evening.

Audacious Oligarchy: The Permanent War State, Corporate Plunder, and Democracy in Chains

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General.  And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers.  In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism."

US Major General Smedley D. Butler, War Is a Racket


"The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform."

Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup


Most of them became wealthy by being well connected and crooked. And they are creating a society in which they can commit hugely damaging economic crimes with impunity, and in which only children of the wealthy have the opportunity to become successful. That’s what I have a problem with. And I think most people agree with me."

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation


"The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well.   Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich.  Plunder, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."

Tacitus