Credibility Trap: Fatal Web of Lies

From "Bill Moyers World of Ideas" 1994 Interview with ethicist Sissela Bok:

"As a philosopher, Sissela Bok grapples with hard truths – and with hard untruths, as well. Her writings explore the psychology of lying, the consequences of deception, and the perils of keeping secrets. With advanced degrees in both psychology and philosophy, she has taught ethics at Harvard’s Medical School, the Kennedy School of Government, and philosophy at Brandeis University. Her books include Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life and A Strategy for Peace."

Moyers: Can a republic die of too many lies?

Sissela Bok: I think a republic definitely could—especially if the lies are also covered up by various methods of secrecy. If you combine lying and secrecy, and if you also bring in violence so that secrecy covers up for schemes of lying and violence, then I think a republic can die.

I don’t think it’s possible for citizens to have very much of an effect if they literally don’t know what’s going on.

A credibility trap is a condition in which the financial, political and informational functions of a society have been compromised by corruption and fraud. The leadership cannot effectively reform, or even honestly address, the problems of that system without impairing and implicating, at least incidentally, a broad swath of the power structure, including themselves.

The influential status quo tolerates the corruption and the fraud because they have profited, at least indirectly from it, and would like to continue to do so. Even the impulse to reform within the power structure is susceptible to various forms of soft blackmail and coercion by the system that maintains and rewards them.

And so a failed policy and its support system become self-sustaining, long after it can be seen by objective observers to have failed. In its failure it is counterproductive, and an impediment to recovery in the real economy. Admitting failure is not an option for the thought leaders who receive their power from that system.

The continuity of the structural hierarchy must therefore be maintained at all costs, even to the point of becoming a painfully obvious, 'organized hypocrisy.'

Related Reading:

JP Morgan and Madoff: Nesting Dolls of Fraud, Pam Martens

America's Gilded Capital: Losing Democracy to the Predator Class

Chris Hedges: The False Left-Right Paradigm and the Fatal Intransigence of Oligarchies

"In the same way, those who possess wealth and power in poor nations must accept their own responsibilities. They must lead the fight for those basic reforms which alone can preserve the fabric of their societies. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

John F. Kennedy, First Anniversary of the Alliance For Progress

History Lesson

Tsar Nicholas II:   I know what will make them happy. They're children, and they need a Tsar! They need tradition. Not this! They're the victims of agitators. A Duma would make them bewildered and discontented. And don't tell me about London and Berlin. God save us from the mess they're in!

Count Witte:   I see. So they talk, pray, march, plead, petition and what do they get? Cossacks, prison, flogging, police, spies, and now, after today, they will be shot. Is this God's will? Are these His methods? Make war on your own people? How long do you think they're going to stand there and let you shoot them? YOU ask ME who's responsible? YOU ask?

Tsar Nicholas II:   The English have a parliament. Our British cousins gave their rights away. The Hapsburgs, and the Hoehenzollerns too. The Romanovs will not. What I was given, I will give my son.

Rappaport, Last Days of the Romanovs

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

The jobs number was SO bad this morning that they had to skip the traditional metals raid, and the bad news bears got stuffed on a quick reversal.

There was intraday commentary regarding a rather large redemption of London Good Delivery Bars from the Sprott Physical Gold Trust here.

Germany's gold, Comex gold, almost half the gold from the western ETFs, seems like quite a bit of gold bullion is making like Jimmy Hoffa, and disappearing these days.  Maybe we should start looking for Jimmy in China.

A fellow might start to think that there sure are a lot of meaningless coincidences going around this place.

Have a pleasant weekend.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Jobs Shock, the Walking Dead

The Jobs number sucked out loud this morning, as the economy added a meager 74,000 jobs, compared to an expected number of 197,000.    That's a swing and a miss.  Both hourly earnings and average workweek missed as well.  Today's box scores are included below.

The good news was that the unemployment percentage dropped hard from 7.0% to 6.7%.   Huzzah!  Stocks rally back, and the VIX plummets.

The fly in that holiday toddy is that they did it by whacking the denominator in the unemployment ratio, declaring about a half million or so able bodied workers to be the new walking dead.  (Hey, I was just kidding about liquidating people as the next move the other day.)

Capping that bit of cheer off, US retailers reported their worst holiday season since 2009.

Let's talk.

Stimulating the economy is not a bad idea when it is in shock from a financial crisis brought on as the result of massive systemic fraud and financial asset bubbles perpetrated by the financial system.   And yes, austerity has been proven wrong, again and again, and is the stuff of puritans and pigmen.

But stimulating the economy by giving more money directly to the same self-serving jokers that caused the problem in the first place, AND failing to correct the massive distortions in the economy that have been growing through horrible policy decisions over a period of years, is not exactly what Lord Keynes might have had in mind, ya think? 

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

Have a pleasant weekend.