Ezekiel 34:1-5
“Capitalism is at risk of failing today not because we are running out of innovations, or because markets are failing to inspire private actions, but because we’ve lost sight of the operational failings of unfettered gluttony. We are neglecting a torrent of market failures in infrastructure, finance, and the environment. We are turning our backs on a grotesque worsening of income inequality and willfully continuing to slash social benefits. We are destroying the Earth as if we are indeed the last generation.”
Jeffrey Sachs, Self-Interest Without Morals Leads to Self-Destruction, Financial Times, 18 January 2012
"Most people do not realize that it was Adam Smith who wrote in The Wealth of Nations the famous characterization of England as a 'nation of shopkeepers.' He was writing about narrowly mercantile nature of the British Empire and its colonial markets strategy. The exploitation of the Empire's resources and peoples by a few legendary companies is well known.
If one substitutes 'crony capitalists' or 'financiers' for 'shopkeepers' it might well be a decent fit for the latter years of the American Century, which is based on a regime of guns and dollars.
Why is the American moment running out of steam? It is probably the failure to move to a non-military based economy after the cold war, and invest the peace dividend into domestic infrastructure and basic technology development for peaceful purposes and the improvement of life, instead of financial legerdemain, economic hoaxes and frauds. Having fed so well for many years on war, the crony capitalists have had to expand their operations at home again, and create new wars, to maintain their exorbitant privilege.
Jesse, A Nation of Financiers, 12 August 2011
"All governments suffer a recurring problem: power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."
Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune, March 1985
"The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ten Years After, 1943
"Fear not, little flock, for your Father delights to welcome you into His Kingdom."
Luke 12:32
The West is slowly dying of neglect. Of the neglect of oaths, of honesty, and of honor.
In the end, its a withering of character through undeserved privilege and gradual compromise with corruption.
This is the way of empire.
Stocks did a pop and flop ahead of the FOMC rate decision tomorrow.
Stocks, particular big cap tech, is richly valued, with insufficient discounting of risk.
A fairly classic late stage bubble condition.
Gold move higher as the Dollar continued its slide, in anticipation of higher debt and lower rates.
It's a matter of supply and demand, but finally comes down to a failure of faith in credit.
Again, the failure of character in leadership.
It is likely that the Fed will cut 25 bp tomorrow, and make some noise about data dependency.
The precious metals are typically sold on FOMC and triple witch option events, often after a grand run up.
In the short run the markets are a game of Liar's Poker. But even liars can overextend themselves.
Let's see if they can break that pattern this time.
Our leader is doing his best to compromise the nominal independence of the Fed, such as it is, a creature of the Banks.
This is no anomaly. He is compromising government end to end, from the courts to foreign policy to the Congress. Business and the media follow power and money, except for a few exceptional occasions.
There is certainly some historic precedent for all of this.
And yet this is just the visible manifestation, not the real power behind it all, which resides in the shadows. It is forbidden to speak of them, and those who stray too close are warned, and then silenced.
In the short term it is all about the behaviour of the enablers — a willful compromising of conscience, a lack of character and empathy in the professional class, and an inability to love anything more than the lowest of their appetites.
This too will end, and like rats the hollowed out enablers will scatter. But the powers of darkness remain.
"In the history of every great catastrophe, you will find that some masterly bit of stupidity sets fire to the oil-soaked rags."
Edwin Lefèvre, The Game Got Them, Everybody’s Magazine 1908
Have a pleasant evening.
