"If you’re the Democrats and you look at the lessons of the election, you saw that people rejected your neoliberal economic legacy, that means you have to start challenging the powerful corporate sectors that you’ve been representing for a long time, actually posing real alternative policies to Donald Trump.
If you do that, though, you risk losing your privileged status within the power structure. And it's the same thing if you’re in the media and you identify with that faction of the power structure."
I had just finished a commentary for this evening after the close, while I was watching Tottenham vs. Ajax Amsterdam in the UEFA final. Tottenham has just come back with two quick goals to tie it up 2-2.
And I hit 'delete' rather than 'update.' And blogger is very unforgiving about that sort of thing, alas.
Stocks remain in elevated risk, although the wiseguys will be propping the market until Friday at least.
There is a big IPO for Uber coming out, and they won't let the market decline much further, if it can be helped, until they launch that oinker.
Have a pleasant evening.
Postscript: In an electrifying finish Tottenham just won to advance to the final against Liverpool in Madrid.
"The Federal Reserve printed $4 trillion to buy up the banks’ bad debt while permitting ten million homeowners to be foreclosed. Student loan debt prevents university graduates from forming independent households. Mortgage and credit card debt prevents households from having discretionary income with which to drive retail sales."
Paul Craig Roberts
"Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country.
When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin!
Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out."
Andrew Jackson, in a meeting with the Bankers, February 1834
"The truth is, there are not two kinds of people. There’s only one: the kind that loves to divide up into gangs who hate each other’s guts. Both conservatives and liberals agree among themselves, on their respective message boards, in uncannily identical language, that their opponents lack any self-awareness or empathy, the ability to see the other side of an argument or to laugh at themselves. Which would seem to suggest that they’re both correct...
Let me propose that if your beliefs or convictions matter more to you than people—if they require you to act as though you were a worse person than you are—you may have lost perspective.”
Tim Kreider, We Learn Nothing
Stocks were on another wild ride today, plunging lower than the lows from yesterday, which were erased by a 'timely' boost in buying.
But alas, it was not to be today, as this fresh draft of fear swept over the halls of the mighty, the financial engineers and giants.
Although some short covering and late day buying in the futures managed to take stocks back up to some levels with more 'comfortable' losses.
If stocks cannot shake this off and manage to close the week out in a decent position on some support, we could see a fresh wave of more serious selling next week. Or sooner.
"What the two sets of party elites also share is contempt for their parties’ base of activists, voters and non-donor constituencies. Aside from paying them lip service during election season, Republican elites have no use for their base of religious voters, anti-immigrant activists and small-business people...
Similarly, Democratic Party leaders have no use for the priorities of their voters and activists, who by large margins support Medicare-for-all, the Green New Deal and an end to our militarized foreign policy...
The realization of how little the agendas of ordinary people matter to the elites of both parties has made it a lot more acceptable for their betrayed bases to look for alternatives, which would have been unthinkable a decade ago. In fact, this realization is the genesis of the populist moment in current American politics."
“Incestuous, homogeneous fiefdoms of self-proclaimed expertise are always rank-closing and mutually self-defending, above all else.”
Glenn Greenwald
“People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves.”
C. Wright Mills
"Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government."
Edward Bernays
There is no point in trying to persuade and cajole the various party elites, of either side of the aisle, to redirect their attention back to the American public. Their minds and hearts belong to the donor class and the power elite, and while they may pay lip service to reform and rights and the public welfare, their venal instincts bring them around to follow the money, every time.
Obama betrayed the progressiver trust in the mandate he was given for reform. That is a difficult but key admission towards freeing oneself from the unthinking herd. And abandoning the ''lesser of two evils' rationale.
Have you ever wondered why there are effectively only two parties in this vast America?
Trump talks a good game as well, albeit more loudly and more crudely and more shamelessly, but he is betraying his own base of supporters as well. He is remarkably adept at shifting the blame, and blowing all the familiar dog whistles when his natives get restless. The benefit to him is that he is riding a wave of irrational anger and backlash, and he feeds and channels it like most unscrupulous demagogues do so well.
The American people soundly rejected Hillary and her party apparatus which was made evident in the last election. And as a result of what could have been a learning experience the Democrats may talk a good game about change, and then the party elite serve up who— the corporatist party hack Joe Biden, probably the least reform-minded and progressive candidate in the field. And all the courtiers to corporate power in the media and the other enabling organizations fall immediately into line.
And try to shame anyone who disagrees or dissents from the prevailing narrative.
Liberals like to pride themselves with their intellectual sophistication and high-principled judgement, as compared to 'the deplorables.' Conservatives do the same thing, with a strong emphsis on morality and common sense.
But when it comes to it, they both will stand by and accept terrible injustice, if not outright crimes, and toss aside the very principles for which they apparently stand. For the sake of winning. But oh no, not for their own benefit, but for the sake of 'justice' for the right kind of people. Never mind the methods they must regretfully employ.
They will bend themselves into logical knots, and paint their hypocrisy with rationales designed to let them keep their pride and sense of being better than the rest, whom they despise. They are the most noble, untainted by the things that they despise. But they embrace what they hate in other guises.
They will do it for the sake of 'the party,' for winning, for the continuing power of an organization which has been waylaid by a relatively small group of the servants of the powerful few, and primarily serves itself, while couching its actions as 'the lesser of two evils.'
For the sake of victory over the forces of evil these jokers will make Faustian bargains, for the sake of expediency and some higher good, with the same thought and care with which they change their underwear.
Change will come. But it will be jarring, and disruptive.
"There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away. The British people can face peril or misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy, but they bitterly resent being deceived or finding that those responsible for their affairs are themselves dwelling in a fool's paradise."
Winston Churchill
“Those entrapped by the herd instinct are drowned in the deluges of history. But there are always the few who observe, reason, and take precautions, and thus escape the flood. For these few gold has been the asset of last resort.”
Antony C. Sutton
Just charts tonight.
The futures reversed and are selling off after hours as the US says it will increase China tariffs on Friday.
Let us pray for those whose hearts are hardened against His grace and loving kindness by greed, fear, and pride, and the seductive illusion and crushing isolation of evil.
We pray that we all may experience the three great gifts of our Lord's suffering and triumph: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness. And in so doing, may we obtain abundant life, and with it the peace that surpasses all understanding.
It is available for your use at no cost, but with attribution and a link to the original posting.
I make every attempt to respect the rights of others. If you feel that something here has infringed your work please let me know and I will correct it immediately. It is not always easy to determine the status of material posted to the Internet with regard to fair use and public domain.
