Thomas Frank: Clintons Led the Democratic Betrayal of the Average Working American For Big Money

"There are two theories of prosperity and of well-being: The first theory is that if we make the rich richer, somehow they will let a part of their prosperity trickle down to the rest of us. The second theory — and I suppose this goes back to the days of Noah — I won't say Adam and Eve, because they had a less complicated situation — but, at least, back in the days of the flood, there was the theory that if we make the average of mankind comfortable and secure, their prosperity will rise upward, just as yeast rises up, through the ranks...

We so easily forget. Once the cry of so-called prosperity is heard in the land, we all become so stampeded by the spirit of the god Mammon, that we cannot serve the dictates of social conscience. . . . We are here to serve notice that the economic order is the invention of man; and that it cannot dominate certain eternal principles of justice and of God...

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

You can fool all of the people, some of the time. You can fool some of the people all of the time—  but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

An Open Letter To the Political and Professional Establishment: Everyone Can Still Serve Others, Even You

“But now, we are witnessing a transformation—   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, we are not going to be judged.”

Czesław Miłosz


"These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume."

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet


"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that kills its prophets, and persecutes God's messengers."

The 'drum major instinct' according to Martin Luther King is the impulse to lead, to be praised, to be the center of attention, to set yourself apart from and above your fellows, and to have more money and power than everyone else.

It can become the destructive impulse to arrogant pride and blind selfishness, and thereby becomes corrosive to society, our relationships, and our personal well being.

And it most certainly can lead politicians and the professional class to dance blithely along the path to their own self-annihilation.

History has proven that.

'But I have been in public service for twenty years!  Look what I have done!'

Yes, look around you, and see what you and yours have done.

See the poverty and misery of so many.   See your spin, your cynical hypocrisy, and your lawless betrayal of all that you had once believed in, for the pursuit of your own advancement and wealth.

You may have even managed to convince yourself and others that you were doing it for the greater good, while you were becoming a greedy, pathological liar, and everything that you had once despised.

But what does it profit a man...

See what you have done, and the burden that you carry because of it, before it is too late to change it and make amends.

Thomas Frank on the Election and the Neo-Pagan God of the Market

"Since the earliest stages of human history, of course, there have been bazaars, rialtos, and trading posts—all markets.   But The Market was never God, because there were other centers of value and meaning, other 'gods.' The Market operated within a plethora of other institutions that restrained it. As Karl Polanyi has demonstrated in his classic work The Great Transformation, only in the past two centuries has The Market risen above these demigods and chthonic spirits to become today's First Cause."

Harvey Cox, The Market As God: Living In the New Dispensation


"Do you not know that to whom you yield yourselves as servants to obey, his servants you become, whether of a corruption unto death, or of a righteousness unto life?"

Rom 6:16

Thomas Frank is far, far too kind to Obama and the Wall Street Democrats.

It was not about a misguided attempt to work together with irrational people.

No, it was all about throwing the people under the bus in the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar.  Nothing could be more clear.

This was the Clinton Legacy, and Obama and the rest of the Democratic Establishment went along for the ride—  into an electoral brick wall.

For the professional class of politicians and the wealthy this was not about civil rights, this was not about decency and justice, and it certainly was not about compassion and kindness even if they were very careful to keep mouthing the words and giving lip service to the pretenses of social but not economic equality.

It was all about money and power.  Theirs.  Narrowly focused greed that was willfully blind to all that was happening around it.  Washington and New York and London and Berlin are thick with it.

And now that their mighty god has betrayed them and bestowed its power on its other, more faithfully vicious children, they are running around without a mission or a purpose other than themselves, not knowing what to do next.

Just Charts on an Autumn Afternoon - As Time Goes By

I was out with the queen for most of the day, cruising out to the Pennsylvania Dutch markets west of where we live, so it is just charts tonight.   I believe that I have previously mentioned her own Amish heritage in Lancaster on her father's side.

As I mentioned yesterday, I think the post-election stock move is running out of steam.

The metals were hit today, about as consciously and deliberately as we have seen this year.  You can attribute much of this week's move in the metals to the dollar crosses, and I have been including the DX charts as usual.  But today was very conscious market action, slamming the metals and the miners down to support ahead of next week.

Next week will be a stock option expiration, and the week after the Comex metals option expiry.

December is a big month for the metals.

I am working very hard not to judge Trump's presidency yet by the putative Cabinet appointments that are being thrown about.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Just Charts - Deny and Defy - Les Feuilles Mortes

It was an absolutely beautiful late Autumn day here,  crisp and sunny.

And I could not resist the temptation to be outside working on productive things in the yard.  It gets dark so early now it is good to use all the daylight that we have.

The deny and defy rally looks to be just about over.   Huge divergences today.

It is almost as if the financiers are playing out the script they had agreed upon before the election.

Financials and healthcare are leading the way up on hopes of a friendlier regulatory climate.  The sectors that might be affected by a major fiscal stimulus in US infrastructure are feeling the love.

But the market seems very schizophrenic about the future.

Let's see how things go from here.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Deny and Defy - The Newer of Two Evils

"The even larger problem is that there is a kind of chronic complacency that has been rotting American liberalism for years, a hubris that tells Democrats they need do nothing different, they need deliver nothing really to anyone – except their friends on the Google jet and those nice people at Goldman.

The rest of us are treated as though we have nowhere else to go and no role to play except to vote enthusiastically on the grounds that these Democrats are the 'last thing standing' between us and the end of the world.

It is a liberalism of the rich, it has failed the middle class, and now it has failed on its own terms of electability."

Thomas Frank, Liberals Put Trump In the White House


"Those powerful few who use public and private resources to twiddle the markets in the short term, and quite a few other data metrics as well, are giving their brethren who were caught offsides by last night's election a chance to square up and get ready.  That's what they do.

They bought the SP 500 futures for stocks, and sold paper gold and silver for the metals.

And they wished to send all the rest of us a message— vote all you like, but we are still in control."

Jesse, Credibility Trap:  Deny and Defy


“There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.”

James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

Audacious!

There was intraday commentary on the huge swing in gold from last night to this afternoon here.

There was also some commentary about the surprising sweep for Trump in the elections last night here.

The swing in the US dollar was equally impressive as you can see in the first chart below.

And of course, I have updated my tracking chart of the Imperial Presidents. lol

In keeping with custom,  the new President should have roughly 100 days grace in his new position to show his hand. We should be watching his key appointments to the cabinet and agencies very, very carefully.

As you may recall, Obama tipped his hand back in 2008 in the first month or so, and did not even make it to 100 days before it was fairly clear what he was all about:  serving Wall Street and the Banks.

I sincerely hope Trump does not work out to be the same. If he disappoints his supporters, I doubt that they will take it nearly as well as the Obama base that just shrugged and took the latest betrayal by the Wall St Democrats in stride. Until yesterday perhaps.

In other words, if the plutocrats let this surprising election win of the presidency and both houses go to their head and do the wrong things in their selfish pride, there will be hell to pay.

I disliked both of the major party candidates almost equally, despite the ardent 'lesser of two evils' argument being promoted once again by the punditry of the status quo.

I chose a third way for myself strictly as an act of conscience.   But I suspect quite a few people looked at the situation, and rather than picking the lesser of two evils, they settled this time for the newer.

Along with many other commentators, I have characterized last night's election surprise as Son of Brexit.

There will be more of this sort of dislocating change in the status quo coming.  Keep an eye on Europe.

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Tithonus

As for gold and silver, I think we saw the impulse to treat them as safe havens fairly clearly last night, no matter what price shaping with the overnight trading that the pigmen may perform.  In the short term they are surely able to foster confidence in their shenanigans with our markets and money.

But as we saw clearly in the election surprises this year, after many a Summer dies the swan.

The delivery reports were a non-entity, and the warehouses were a bit of a snooze, with Hong Kong standing out a bit with another big slug of bullion going walkabout.

Have a pleasant evening.

Related: Thomas Frank, Donald Trump Is Moving To the White House and Liberals Put Him There