"Major commercial and investment banks—and the hedge funds that ran alongside them—were the big beneficiaries of the twin housing and equity-market bubbles of this decade, their profits fed by an ever-increasing volume of transactions founded on a relatively small base of actual physical assets.
Our future could be one in which continued tumult feeds the looting of the financial system, and we talk more and more about exactly how our oligarchs became bandits and how the economy just can’t seem to get into gear. Recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform."
Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, May 2009
"The great enemy of freedom is the alignment of political power with wealth. This alignment destroys the commonwealth - that is, the natural wealth of localities and the local economies of household, neighborhood, and community - and so destroys democracy, of which the commonwealth is the foundation and practical means.”
Wendell Berry
"The ferocity of media attacks on him [Bernie Sanders] often indicates that corporate power brokers are afraid his strong progressive populism is giving effective voice to majority views of the public... For corporate elites determined to retain undemocratic power, a successful Bernie 2020 campaign would be the worst possible outcome."
Norman Solomon
"Today in America, the middle class is disappearing. For many, the American dream has become a nightmare.
The business model of Wall Street is fraud. In my view, there is no better example than the recently-exposed illegal behavior at Wells Fargo. We have got to end the two-tier justice system — one for the poor and working class and one for Wall Street and the wealthy — that has existed for far too long in this country.
Wall Street won’t change until we make it clear that no bank is too big to fail and no CEO is too big to jail. Billionaires and Wall Street should not be buying elections.
The reason that Congress isn’t doing what the overwhelming majority of Americans wants has everything to do with the power of the monied interests. Let us bring our people together to take on and defeat a ruling class whose greed is destroying our nation. Our government belongs to each and every one of us, not just the few.”
Bernie Sanders
Gold and silver were mugged in honor of the day after the options expiration on the US Comex. I have to say that this was pretty much as had been expected. And that is a shame.
Stocks took another go at the big overhead resistance.
The spokesmodels noted that Wall Street 'looked through' the bad economic data that came out this morning.
A more elegant way of expressing this is that the lack of a recovery in the economy will have the Fed sidelined for the rest of the year, and will continue the hot money flows that fuel speculation in stocks and mispriced risks. The Fed feels free to continue pursuing the same monetary and regulatory policies that have cause us at least two bubbles and subsequent crashes so far in this century, and are working on a third.
This is no accident. It is a means to the greatest redistribution of wealth and record inequality since the Gilded Age.
And it is supported by an extremely well funded and determined public relations effort, with alternative media sites and think tanks, to lure people into proudly supporting their own economic pillaging.
Creating torrents of new money from nothing, and making sure that it reaches the hands of 'the right people' and no one else, is how to fuel bubbles without triggering a broader inflation. The Banks must be restrained, and balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery.
Need little, want less, love more. for those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.
Have a pleasant weekend.
