“Thus, it should be understood that when pro-US figures use the term, 'rules-based international order,' they are not referring to anything analogous to the rule of law. Quite the opposite, they are using Orwellian language to describe a system in which essentially no rules can be established and/or observed, given that the dominant state has the prerogative to violate and/or rewrite “rules” at its whim.” Aaron Good, American Exception
Stocks bounced today. There was a strong desire to paint a little better looking candle on the weekly chart, and they were probably short term oversold.
There was no 'risk on' mood yet, just a little greed creeping back into the fears of the 'buy the dip' crowd.
This remains a highly volatile market, susceptible to endogenous shocks, even ones of a not exactly overwhelming significance in otherwise normal times.
Gold, silver and the Dollar pretty much went sideways, even with the additional volatility of a stock market option expiration.
The economic crowd will be gathering at the Fed's soiree in Jackson Hole next week.
I think we can expect to see quotes, even taken out of context, moving markets one way or another.
I may be out of pocket a bit more than usual next week. But I will certainly try to get a posting done each day.
The markets will always be there. Your friends and family may not.
“Right, and again, it’s not necessarily intentional. It’s that those are the people that you’re surrounded with, so there becomes a group-think. And look, you are aware of what you’re going to be rewarded for and what you’re going to be punished for, or not rewarded for, like that definitely plays in the mind, whether you want it to or not, that’s a reality.”
Krystal Ball (courtesy of Caitlin Johnstone)
"Media companies run by the country’s richest people can’t help but project the mindset of their owners, and they are naturally incompetent when it comes to viewing their own role in society.
Trump may have accelerated distaste for the press, but he didn’t create it. He sniffed out existing frustrations and used them to rally anger toward 'elites' to his side. The criticism works because national media are elites, ten-percenters working for one-percenters. The longer people in the business try to deny it, the more it will be fodder for politicians. Sanders wasn’t the first, and won’t be the last."
Matt Taibbi
"And that's what I meant by playing ball. I was essentially told, play ball, soften your tone, and all of these good things can happen to you. But if you stay harsh that was going to cause me real harm, in those words.
It creates this false illusion that there are people out there looking out for the interest of taxpayers, the checks and balances that are built into the system are operational, when in fact they're not. And what you're going to see and what we are seeing is it'll be a breakdown of those governmental institutions. And you'll see governments that continue to have policies that feed the interests of -- and I don't want to get clichéd, but the one percent or the .1 percent -- to the detriment of everyone else."
"Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful (though sometimes badly mismanaged) industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy.
These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, and lobbying industry."
Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation
"Looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery. We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity...few people have yet considered the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of cold war with its neighbors."
George Orwell
"A true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, that we are not going to be judged.”
Czeslaw Milosz, The Discreet Charm of Nihilism
The problem is not just with 'the media.'
The corruption in the developed world permeates the professions, from politics to healthcare to the media to telecommunications to the legal system to accounting and especially to the financial system.
It is a system based on deception, that abuses the power of money and other forms of career rewards and advancements and honors to promote the benefits of a relatively small group of people, to the detriment of everyone else.
What is sad is not the obviously and often justifiably angry unsophisticated who are taken in by some clumsy con man who was propped up by the powerful insiders as a strawman in the first place.
The real sadness is the well-intentioned, educated people, who historically have been the 'conscience' of nation, that faithfully plug into their favorite, 'highly respected' media outlets, and allow their minds to be formed into the kind of unthinking, fearfully reactionary, and highly propagandized mindset that sits back and cheers on its own destruction, along with the overthrow of everything that it once believed to be good.
The corporate media bias against Sanders is just one example of many, especially if one thinks about the lead ups to war, and the blatant and persistent persecution of dissident voices, whistleblowers and reform and popular movements.
Power corrupts, and even worse, it attracts and rewards the highly corruptible. This is why ordinary people combine to form laws, to protect themselves and their families from the abuses of power by the amoral, unscrupulous, and otherwise unrestrained.
It is a story as old as Babylon, and a betrayal evil as sin.
"He who does not shout the truth when he knows it makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers."
Charles Péguy
"To redeem creation the saint wages war on the entire fabric of creation, with the bare weapons of truth and love. What we need is not truths that serve us, but a truth we may serve."
Jacques Maritain
"Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength, but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it."
Léon Bloy
The bulls were trying to rally stocks up today, but they met a decided lack of enthusiasm by others for their efforts.
Both the Dollar and gold and silver moved higher today, reflecting perhaps a new perception of risks that is slowly penetrating the consciousness of the markets.
Bloomberg news finally discovered gold in a positive light, now that it is among the best performing, non-single stock assets of the year.
GE, a major US giant and compoenent of the Dow Industrial average, was hammered today on the stock exchange as the famous Madoff whistleblower, Harry Markopolos, said that "GE is a bigger fraud than Enron." Ouch!
I have out of town company arriving this weekend. I hope to spend time showing them around the area and doing things with them while they are here next week.
So postings may be late and somewhat abbreviated, unless something signficiant happens.
"Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful (though sometimes badly mismanaged) industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy.
These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.
If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism."
Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation
"Hot money seeks out the conscious mispricing of risk. Capital, in the form of both money and personal talent, increasingly flows into malinvestment and the gaming of markets.
The productive economy languishes, left wanting for the lack of creative resources and attention. The bubble rises to unsustainable valuations— and fails, and a nation's capital is consumed.
Are you not entertained? As Egon von Greyerz noted, the next five years are not about winning, but surviving. So, then let us then proceed."
Jesse, 5 August 2019
“During the Summer of 1929 the stock market was marked by wild swings, violent up and down price movements, that left market participants feeling dizzy and almost exhausted. Whatever may or may not come, now might be an excellent time to take inventory of your finances, and provisions for the future. And you may wish to order your affairs to be more resilient in the face of risks, both hidden and mispriced.”
Jesse, 10 August 2019
“But man, proud man,
Dress'd in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd—
His glassy essence—like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep..”
William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
"O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king.
But if not, even if he does not preserve us, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the images of gold you have set up and commanded us to worship."
Daniel 3:16-18
As a reminder, there will be a stock market option expiration on Friday.
I pray daily that God will give us the light, and the strength, to know His will, and to resist the temptation to join in the hatred, the madness, and the worship of the darkness of this world, that seems to possess so many of our countrymen, day by day.
'But if not, I will not bow, and God grant that we will never bow, before the gods of evil.'
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.
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