"The problem with movies and books is they make evil look glamorous, exciting, when it's no such thing. It's boring and it's depressing and it's stupid. Criminals are all after cheap thrills and easy money, and when they get them, all they want is more of the same, over and over. They're shallow, empty, boring people who couldn't give you five minutes of interesting conversation. Maybe some can be monkey-clever, some of the time, but they aren't hardly ever smart."
Dean Koontz
Gold and silver bounced back a little bit today as the dollar gave up some of its recent gains.
It is not always this way, but at this time at least the precious metals seem to be price driven by the forex traders, who care not a whit about supply and demand.
That is setting up a real witches brew of malinvestment, because they are attempting to sustain the unsustainable with increasing use of force of leverage and market dominance.
Sometimes you have no choice but to let someone in power have their way, and try to stay out of the blast radius when the inevitable reckoning comes. Even when it is long past time for a change in strategy and style, and apparent to most that their approach is beyond all rational expectations.
Then hard reality intrudes, and their dreams of fame, vindication, and conquest collapse and burn in failure. And the innocent suffer.
I am sure you are familiar with that axiom from your experience at work, especially if you have worked at a large organization staffed with 'very serious people' at the top.
I am not sure how far the monetary blast radius will extend, but it will almost certainly be fairly impressive.
"Several economists I know seem to have assimilated a norm that the post-real macroeconomists actively promote – that it is an extremely serious violation of some honor code for anyone to criticize openly a revered authority figure – and that neither facts that are false, nor predictions that are wrong, nor models that make no sense matter enough to worry about."
If Bloomberg television quoted his views correctly today, then a well known academic economist they cite explains that we have full employment, even though the labor participation is so low, because the video games available to consumers have gotten so good that people would prefer to stay at home and play them rather than work.
And so they don't work, and therefore we can ignore them and the economic engineers of the Fed can claim full employment with a straight face.
If the games were not so good, then people would get bored staying at home and would go to work. It is just a rational actor's choice.
Since when is work, for the majority of people at least, an optional choice for one type of pleasure and entertainment and diversion compared to others? Let's see, shall I go to the movies, go fishing, or go to work today?
How many moons are there on this guy's planet? What a knucklehead application of economic models and ideological stereotypes that makes reality into a kindergarten caricature.
Of course people would rather do whatever they wanted if they had the choice, rather than work at something that someone else gives them to do, especially for the 90% whose jobs are tedious and repetitious.
Why is it that the stooges of the moneyed interests always run to monetary economic incentives models to examine the choices of their masters, but do not seem to be able to apply them to the people who do the day to day work?
If anyone dare propose something that would diminish the elephantine incomes of their patrons by a few percent, they have a holy conniption fit about these 'job creators' being discouraged about building businesses. Why, if I get a penny less than $120 million this year for spending so much of my valuable time creating and promoting financial frauds, I don't think I will even bother to get out of bed.
Perhaps Mr. Economist should consider the time honored, common sense proposition that people are reluctant to take menial shit jobs for poverty wages, unless they are absolutely coerced into it. So rather than enhance the incentives, let's increase the coercion, for them.
Perhaps Mr. Economist might consider the revolutionary notion, a corollary to their own economic incentives models, that more people would be working if there were more jobs that paid living wages?
How much anecdotal information about people staying in long lines over night for decent jobs can they ignore in their stereotypical models?
When people say, I cannot attract good talent for jobs, do they ever consider raising the pay to attract a better caliber of candidate? Oh no, the free market only works from the top down.
What a world we have, that has such creatures in it. In fairness, the rubbish emanating from the left of the economic auditorium is often equally nonsensical. And that is because economics is too often a science that is flexible enough to serve whomever pays for it in a culture that considers greed to be the highest good, and for the market to be god.
"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right."
John Kenneth Galbraith
"Countries such as Great Britain and the United States became rich because their citizens overthrew the elites who controlled power and created a society where political rights were much more broadly distributed, where the government was accountable and responsive to citizens, and where the great mass of people could take advantage of economic opportunities."
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Why Nations Fail
"I don’t think there’s any doubt that quantitative easing enabled the rich and the quick. It was a massive gift… I hope that we do indeed succeed in being able to say in the end the wealth effect was more evenly distributed. I doubt it.”
Richard Fisher, former Dallas Fed President
Freedom is not an objective to be reached and then forgotten. It is a way of life.
Gold and silver were lower today, largely on a stronger dollar and what I like to think of as stock market option expiration for September which is this Friday. The options on miners are lucrative enough to warrant the attention of some of the pigmen.
It is fashionable but fatally myopic to blame everything on government manipulation when the regulatory bodies and their bosses are as ideologically and financially compromised as they are today, and the moneyed interests buy and sell politicians almost openly, and even then quite brazenly.
But still, these fluctuations in the metals themselves are just short term 'wiggles' for the most part, and the overall trend remains bullish.
So if you chase and fret about with these fluctuations, you may get dizzy, and a bit poorer, from chasing your own tail. Especially if you are over-playing your hand and your temperament with excessive leverage.
Stocks have been gyrating the last couple of days, largely on little things like comments from central bankers.
I think much of the 'action' and the increased volatility has more to do with the stock option expiration this Friday the 16th as with anything that could be considered fundamental. Stocks are in bubble valuation territory however, and the 'real' volumes remain light compared to the algo driven volumes.
This is a corrupt system which you tolerate, so get used to it or seek to change it and make it just for everyone.
"Two-thirds of the directors at the New York Fed are hand-picked by the same bankers that the Fed is in charge of regulating.
Today, the United States is No. 1 in corporate profits, No. 1 in CEO salaries, No. 1 in childhood poverty, and No. 1 in income and wealth inequality in the industrialized world.
Today, the top one-tenth of 1% owns nearly as much wealth as the bottom 90%. The economic game is rigged, and this level of inequality is unsustainable.
We need an economy that works for all, not just the powerful.
I think what the American people are saying is enough is enough. This country, this great country, belongs to all of us. It cannot continue to be controlled by a handful of billionaires who apparently want it all."
Bernie Sanders
"Then the kings of the earth, their nobles and their commanders, the rich, the powerful, and every one of their willing slaves and free men, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us, and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne, and from the righteous anger of the Lamb.'"
Rev 6:15-16
We had our answer, a real workable solution, and we trampled it in the dirt and threw it away, because it did not flatter our vanity.
Today we had the expected correction in the markets. It was the first stock market move greater than one percent since the Brexit decision in July.
Stocks came down hard on nothing particularly new. And bonds followed as yields rose, and the reckless pursuit of returns without regard to risks reversed.
They had all been greatly overextended by a calculated and intentional mispricing of risk, and today we had a minor settling of accounts.
That mispricing of risk had not been at all accidental, and was well supported by many fine words and false rationalizations that were repeated by the pundits in the media who afterwards will shamelessly plead ignorance, despite their pretentious claims to the well paying rewards of authority. It is what I have called 'the CEO defense.'
Gold gave up a little less than silver, which has a higher industrial component, but even moreso, a higher beta. This was a result of the dollar moving slightly higher in the usual currency cross trading.
I took the short broad stocks hedge for my silver positions off in the afternoon, probably a little too early, but these leveraged instruments are notoriously volatile, and they had done their job for me. I always seem to be a little early in these things.
Next week will be heavy on economic data as indicated in the calendar below.
People always say at these times, 'what is next?' Not, 'what can we learn from what just happened.' Not, 'what can I do personally to make things better for everyone, and not just myself.'
This is probably not such a great thing, and will be quickly forgotten enough. But the reckoning of accounts will come, when gold will be more likely moving up many, many dollars ovrnight. And the fear in the markets will be palpable. And the mood of the people will become ugly.
The politicians have failed, the regulators have failed, the people have failed to be vigilant and vocal for justice for all, and not just for their own private benefits.
But these are all things that you know, and that you have been told many, many times. And you will think about it for a day, and then most likely forget all about them.
In the end the only pity is not to have saved yourself, your real self, the part of you that matters and will remain and has lasting value, and which is also the substance of those whom you love.
And the good news is that it is almost never too late to come back home. The pity is that in their stubborn pride and foolish greed some will not. This is the only tragedy.
The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery.
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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