"Unhappy people are better off living in the city. A person can live in the city for a hundred years and not even realize that they are already dead and rotting. They don't have time to realize this on their own; they are too busy."
Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata, 1889
The data seems to indicate that a sharp decline in Real Median Personal Income to a negative growth year over year seems to precede an economic recession.
As for the causes of this correlation, one might well wonder. But given that the US economy tends to be consumption driven, a sharp decline in real median personal income would seem to be something worth considering.
And one might well ask, are we headed for that same experience today, with a broad slowing in aggregate demand because of a decline in growth of median income?
I am not happy that this is based on annual data. I would have been monthly, or at least quarterly.
Below this I also include a chart that shows the growth of average hourly wages of non-supervisory workers. I looked this up because of a minor debate going on between two popular media economists, Baker and Krugman, about the start of wage stagnation, whether it has been since 1980, or the last recession.
As always it seems, I was not able to find my exact desired data, which would have been median real wage growth in non-supervisory, non-salaried workers. But the case for 1980 as the start of stagnation seems rather good.
But I did stumble upon this phenomenon of declining personal income preceding recessions, which seems much more important, if true. So it was not a complete waste of time to pursue this quibble over whether we are at full employment now, and why wage growth is not yet appearing.
"Friday, April 20, was Hitler's fifty-sixth birthday. The radio announced that Hitler had come out of his safe bomb-proof bunker to talk with the fourteen to sixteen year old boys who had 'volunteered' for the 'honor' to be accepted into the SS and to die for their Fuhrer in the defense of Berlin.
What a cruel lie! These boys did not volunteer, but had no choice, because boys who were found hiding were hanged as traitors by the SS as a warning that, 'he who was not brave enough to fight had to die.' When trees were not available, people were strung up on lamp posts. They were hanging everywhere, military and civilian, men and women, ordinary citizens who had been executed."
Dorothea von Schwanenfluegel, The Battle For Berlin
“Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
That really is the problem isn't it, as captured in those two seemingly disparate quotes by Bonhoeffer. How does one speak out without judging, or rather falling into the fault of being judgmental? And yet not to fall into that more terrible complicity of silence?
What complicates the matter is that the people tend to enjoy when someone is speaking out against those things which they do not like. But they tend to react with almost violent indignation when anything with which they have emotionally identified themselves is brought up for judgement. Not intellectually, but emotionally identified.
The more a thing may disappoint them, the more it may be proven false, the more readily it is debunked and shown to be a falsehood, or even evil, the more strongly some will embrace it, as if by sacrificing their own integrity, and perhaps even their souls, for something so unworthy will silence the criticisms and redeem it.
As noted in the first quote, I was always puzzled by the mass hangings of those who were not showing sufficient enthusiasm for the Fuhrer during the Battle of Berlin, even as the Russians were rolling into town and the war was obviously lost. Why weren't these brave SS fanatics fighting for their city, rather than going around and hanging boys and old men?
But it makes perfect sense, if one thinks of it in terms of the credibility trap.
For to admit that the Reich was a lie, and a mistake, that they were fanatical fools, and Hitler an incompetent creature of evil would be to admit that one was wrong, a failure, and worse, had become an accomplice to an unimaginable evil.
To accept that guilt, to admit one's complicity in such a horrendous assault on justice, to humble oneself and ask for forgiveness, would have taken a heroic act of self-awareness, humility and repentance. And worse, for these fanatics, it would diminish their pride, which was at the foundation of the most fervent supporters of such flamboyant excess.
And so they struck out, and killed everything that held up a mirror to their darkness, and showed them their pride was based on a lie.
So odd, that after having lost a long and costly war that was based on hatred and lies for the economic benefits of a few, that men would dress up in their costumes, which in any other context would be ridiculous, and rampage around, lynching the innocent.
Pride is the mother of all sin. This is the descent into hell. This is the unwillingness to let go of the lie, for the sake of pride and its power, and cling to evil as it draws one into the abyss.
This is why some thinkers say that the door to hell is indeed locked— from the inside.
And not all violence in the service of evil has to be physical. In modern times the weapon of choice is often economic and financial.
Stocks ended the week quietly, having struck their level for the stock option expiration today.
There will be a precious metals option expiration on the Comex next Thursday the 24th. I have included those calendars below.
"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference."
Thomas Jefferson, Notes On the State of Virginia
"Do not be deceived, for God is not mocked. What a man sows, so shall he reap."
Gal 6:7
"'Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man, but to God.' When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And a great fear came upon all who heard of this. Some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, carried him out, and buried him."
Acts 5:4-6
“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.”
Teresa d'Ávila
Stocks were showing strength earlier in the day. They were buoyed by a much better than expected Philly Fed report, due largely from expected orders.
Then some discouraging words were said about the trade negotiations between the US and China. Thereafter stocks sold off, but recovered a bit into the close.
The US Dollar was marginally higher. Precious metals gained back a bit.
The immanent hand of God is moving over this world. Who can tell where it may fall?
Tomorrow will be a stock option expiration.
Have a pleasant evening.
In the garden of our Savior
No flower grows unseen
His kindness rains like water
On every humble seed
No simple act of mercy escapes His watchful eye
For there is One who sees me
His hand is over mine
[Verse 2]
In the kingdom of the heavens
No suffering is unknown
Each tear that falls is holy
Each breaking heart a throne
There is a song of beauty in every weeping eye
For there is One who loves me
His heart, it breaks with mine
[Chorus]
O the deeds forgotten
O the works unseen
Every drink of water flowing graciously
Every tender mercy You’re making glorious
This You have asked of us:
Do little things with great love
This You have asked of us:
Do little things with great love
Little things with great love
[Verse 3]
At the table of our Savior
No mouth will go unfed
And His children in the shadows
Stream in and raise their heads
O give us ears to hear them and give us eyes to see
For there is One who loves them
I am His hands and feet
There is One who loves them
I am His hands and feet
“Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors
and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away..”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, New Poems, City Lights
"Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried, the little children died in the streets."
W. H. Auden, Epitaph To a Tyrant
"All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born."
"So we may not be that far away from the next bubble bursting, and I could imagine, if I think about policy, what we just talked about, with the end of a recovery cycle, we’ve pumped $4 trillion in this country, $30 trillion globally, into the economy with monetary policy. So that’s tapped out.
We are now using fiscal policy to overheat a late-stage recovery in order to keep the Republicans in office. We are doing nothing to bolster underlying growth with educational reform, infrastructure reform, et cetera."
"I think it’s important in the power of finance and how pervasive this is throughout the economy, this has very little to do with Republicans and Democrats. In fact, some of the key opening doors for finance happened in the Clinton administration."
Rana Foroohar is an associate editor and global business columnist for The Financial Times, and CNN’s global economic analysts. She’s the author of Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business.
"If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. But you do not belong to the world, as I have chosen you from it."
John 15:18
Suffering is a means by which God saves us, afflicting us so we do not lapse into vain self-sufficiency, a pride and a perverse individualism that gathers us blindly into ourselves, and separates us from His own. To suffer is how we grow in humility, and conform ourselves to do what He commands, rather than as we may will.
Prayer is how we sustain ourselves in times of both suffering and joy, with humility in this life, as we resort not only to ourselves or to the world, but to all things with God.
And so we find comfort in His will, and the conversations that we keep with His many tender mercies. The world can not see this, and in not seeing does not understand. To the world we are fools.
His consolations and comforts are hidden, delivered to us in quiet moments, heart to heart. And so He gathers us together to Himself, and keeps us safe, and slowly takes us from this world and the dark powers therein, that search endlessly for souls to make their own, and to devour.
Stocks and the precious metals slumped today as yields on US Treasuries climbed. The ten year Treasury yield finished at the highest level since 2011.
This in turn greatly strengthened the US Dollar. Bloomberg characterized this as a 'risk off' reaction to something or other that was not clear. North Korea or Jerusalem? The VIX took a leg higher.
The retail sales number was rather weak, which would not support higher interest rates per se. Although there was an upward revision last month, and Empire Manufacturing did come in a big stronger. All in all a zzzzzz. The SP 500 yield has fallen below the 3 month Treasury yield. And this is just the market to buy stocks for clipping coupons, right? lol.
Perhaps the market has decided that the Fed will be raising rates no matter what the productive economy is doing, which is not all that bad of a bet. Unless there is an economic cataclysm. The Fed seems to be self-absorbed and self-referential to a remarkable degree, having painted themselves into a corner with few places left to hide.
I suspect that gold was in an over-reaction Many punters have noticed gold's tendency to bottom off the NFP-FOMC combination, and probably placed too many weak bets ahead of the curve. Well, that is one possibility at least.
Or maybe the masters of the universe were just having a day. Anything is possible when bullshit reigns.
I just checked and there it is, a stock option expiry this week. The calendar included below. Mary is not normally that big of a month for stock options as I recall.
"On Wall Street he and a few others - how many? - three hundred, four hundred, five hundred? - had become precisely that— Masters of the Universe. There was no limit whatsoever! Bullshit reigns."
Tom Wolfe, Bonfire of the Vanities
Bullshit and faithlessness reign in our amoral wilderness. And you-know-who is the King of the May.
“It’s no accident that the size of the financial sector today as a percentage of GDP is at levels equaled only on the eve of the Great Depression. Like the decade leading up to the financial crisis of 2008, the Roaring Twenties were marked by not only financial boom and technological wonder, but also massive income inequality. Worker wages stagnated and those of the upper classes grew, bolstered in large part by stock prices. Another similarity was a rise in debt, both public and private, which was used to mask the declining spending power of the lower and middle classes and its dampening effect on GDP growth."
Rana Foroohar, Makers and Takers
Paul Jay interviews Rana Foroohar on the global economy, debt, and financial crises.
Rana Foroohar is an associate editor and global business columnist for The Financial Times. She’s also CNN’s global economic analyst and she joins us in the studio.
Here is a link to the original interview and transcript, as well as five additional interview segments.
The Western establishment is caught in a credibility trap. And this intransigence to change and to even rationally discuss genuine reform is going to lead to severe economic and civil dislocations before it is resolved. And they don't care, because they have been winning for so long that they no longer can even imagine what they might lose.
"The big thing that happens for 10 years [upwards of 20] is that you have asymmetric economic growth where 80 percent of the income distribution gets none of the rewards of the growth after the recession. Of course you get populism after that. It’s natural. It’s just the way it works. Bernie Sanders is a populist. Bernie Sanders’ populism is all about scapegoating. It’s rich people, it’s bankers, it’s Republicans [and the corporate Democrats]—it’s all these people who got your stuff. That’s the kind of populism that we frequently see as opposed to a kind of ethical populism, which basically says we have good values, let’s go share."
I could not believe that Politico had the stones to label Brooks 'center right.' If he is center right, then Abbie Hoffman is center left.
Notice in the first sentence that Brooks admits that there is a terrible disparity that has been built into the system, although he does not say how. But he then goes on to excoriate and delegitimize anyone who dares to point that there is a systemic problem out, and suggest that it needs to be changed. As opposed to an 'ethical populism' in which the effectively disenfranchised approach the politically rapacious figureheads for the powerful and ask, 'may we please share?'
It really frosts the corporate tools that the public did not stick to the script and vote for 'reform' with Hillary. Or Jeb.
Where the powerful use the channels of a society to crush and distort ideas, they will soon enough turn to crushing people while casting a distorted image of them to across the public channels of communication which they monopolize.
And if there is dissent from the system as it is, this if fueled by terrorists, lunatics, and of course, the Russians and their accomplices who have been sowing dissatisfaction.
When disruptive change finally breaks out, no one could have seen it coming— because they have tightly shut their eyes to it, and deafened their hearing with slogans and ideologically slanted catch phrases fed to them by think tanks and the mainstream media.
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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