Moyers and Wolff: Capitalism Has 'Hit the Fan'

"Even as President Obama’s talking points champion the middle class and condemn how our economy caters to the very rich, modern American capitalism is a story of continued inequality and hardship.

Even a modest increase in the minimum wage — as suggested by the president — faces opposition from those who seem to show allegiance first and foremost to America’s wealthy and powerful."

Bill Moyers, Taming Capitalism Run Wild

A symphony of greed.

I would lay the failure of capitalism, or more properly the lapse of market capitalism into crony capitalism and corporatism, at altar of the triumvirate of the false gods of modern economics: globalization, fiat currencies, and naturally efficient markets.

And of course the fact that it is no longer socially unacceptable to be a lying, cheating conman, as long as you are sucessful at it. Greed is good, and so the achievement of wealth by any means available, as long as you beat the system and don't get indicted, is the epitome of human achievement and worth.

The most insidious trend is the adoption of the 'just-world hypothesis' and a Darwinian rationalization in blaming the victims for the outcome of this flawed set of policies and sanctifying of success.

This will very possibly result in yet another century of turmoil, degradation, and blood.

Bill Moyers: Mike Lofgren and the Corruption of American Politics By Corporate Money

Here is an interesting tale of some of the self-serving hypocrites of Washington.

Commentary is provided by Mike Lofgren, author of The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted.

Moyers & Company Full Show #134: The Resurrection of Ralph Reed.

Credibility Trap: Fatal Web of Lies

From "Bill Moyers World of Ideas" 1994 Interview with ethicist Sissela Bok:

"As a philosopher, Sissela Bok grapples with hard truths – and with hard untruths, as well. Her writings explore the psychology of lying, the consequences of deception, and the perils of keeping secrets. With advanced degrees in both psychology and philosophy, she has taught ethics at Harvard’s Medical School, the Kennedy School of Government, and philosophy at Brandeis University. Her books include Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life and A Strategy for Peace."

Moyers: Can a republic die of too many lies?

Sissela Bok: I think a republic definitely could—especially if the lies are also covered up by various methods of secrecy. If you combine lying and secrecy, and if you also bring in violence so that secrecy covers up for schemes of lying and violence, then I think a republic can die.

I don’t think it’s possible for citizens to have very much of an effect if they literally don’t know what’s going on.

A credibility trap is a condition in which the financial, political and informational functions of a society have been compromised by corruption and fraud. The leadership cannot effectively reform, or even honestly address, the problems of that system without impairing and implicating, at least incidentally, a broad swath of the power structure, including themselves.

The influential status quo tolerates the corruption and the fraud because they have profited, at least indirectly from it, and would like to continue to do so. Even the impulse to reform within the power structure is susceptible to various forms of soft blackmail and coercion by the system that maintains and rewards them.

And so a failed policy and its support system become self-sustaining, long after it can be seen by objective observers to have failed. In its failure it is counterproductive, and an impediment to recovery in the real economy. Admitting failure is not an option for the thought leaders who receive their power from that system.

The continuity of the structural hierarchy must therefore be maintained at all costs, even to the point of becoming a painfully obvious, 'organized hypocrisy.'

Related Reading:

JP Morgan and Madoff: Nesting Dolls of Fraud, Pam Martens

America's Gilded Capital: Losing Democracy to the Predator Class

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Wax On, Wax Off

 

"The privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right."

John Kenneth Galbraith 

 

"And in some ways, 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." 

Neil Barofsky, 2012 interview with Bill Moyers

 

"From top to bottom of the ladder, greed is aroused without knowing where to find a comfortable foothold.  Nothing can calm it, since its goal is far beyond all it can attain.  Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned."

Emile Durkheim

 

"He has shown you what is good.  The Lord requires you to act justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." 

Micah 6:8 

 

The wash and rinse continues.

Just charts tonight.    I was out of pocket all day.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

The Hunger Games And a Dystopian View of America's Future from Chris Hedges

"One may safely say that it would be no sin if statesmen learned enough of history to realise that no system, which implies control of society by privilege seekers, has ever ended in any other way than collapse."

William E. Dodd, US Ambassador, Address to the American Chamber of Commerce in Berlin, 1933


"America's corporate and political elites now form a regime of their own and they're privatizing democracy. All the benefits, the tax cuts, policies and rewards, flow in one direction: up."

Bill Moyers

Spokesmodel for the 1 Percent Interviews Our Heroine

If you wish to see a vision of the future of America you may want to read the book that many of your brighter 'young adults' are reading, The Hunger Games, in which an almost frivolous, certainly decadent, and highly predatory elite located in the Rocky Mountains (Aspen?) rules the 13 districts of North America through its heavily armed squads of Peacekeepers.

Poverty and privation is the rule in most of the districts as the economy is largely extractive rather than productive. For whatever reasons, most districts seem rather lightly populated and underdeveloped. I suspect it is a nod to neo-feudalism where efficiency and productivity take a back seat to control.

I started reading the first book because I like to keep a finger on the pulse of what the kids are reading.  It gives us something to talk about, in addition to hearing the names and habits of these fellows in One Direction.

I ended up reading all three books. They are easily read and quite entertaining as a story, with decent character and plot development for a young adult book. They have a huge following judging by the backlogs for them at the public libraries.   I am sure that many teens have not read them, or read them with understanding, in the same way that most adults are similarly unaware of what is happening around them.

But there are certain pivotal books that capture the thinking minds of the young, and give us a cultural indication of what they are thinking and where they may be heading.  In my own generation, The Catcher in the Rye was one such book.

On one level beneath the drama and entertainment, The Hunger Games is a disingenuously brilliant political satire about today. 

Is this the future? No one can say. But for the moment at least, that is the direction in which we are heading. All that may be lacking is a war or natural catastrophe.

But certainly something is in the wind, if one only looks at the recent proliferation of dystopian essays and novels, which seem to spring up during periods pregnant with change. And this is certainly a recurrent theme even in important scholarly works as cited in Inequality Matters: Why Nations Fail.

Here is a recent video discussion with Alex Jones and Chris Hedges that piqued my interest, even though I am not a regular listener to Mr. Jones. But it reminded me that I wanted to write a brief piece about the substory in The Hunger Games.

And below that is one of the better maps of Panem which I have found, showing the Capitol and the Thirteen Districts, with a brief description of what they supply to their parasitic elites.  Spoiler Alert.  A rebellion occurs, triggered by a seemingly trivial act of defiance and individualism by the heroine. Much of it is powered by those hardy souls in District 13.

I have seen the first movie based on book one, and it does not quite capture the depth and detail of the book, given the limitations of the time and the medium.  But it is well done for what it is, but it is a supplement, not a substitute.



Watch the entire interview here.

"And may the odds be ever in your favor."

Bill Moyers: ALEC, the Secretive Corporate-Legislative Body Writing US Laws

ALEC in the US Congress

State Legislators with Ties to ALEC By State


International ALEC 'Delegates'

Senator Cory Bernardi – Australia

MEP Philip Claeys – Belgium

Hon Iris Evans (PC - Minister of International and Intergovernmental Relations) - Canada

MEP Ivo Strejcek – Czech Republic

MP David Darchiashvili – Georgia

Assemblywoman Ayesha Javed – Pakistan

MEP Adam Bielan – Poland
MEP Michal Kaminski – Poland
MEP Miroslaw Piotrowski – Poland
MEP Konrad Szymanski – Poland

MEP Cristofer Fjellner – Sweden

MEP Richard Ashworth – United Kingdom
MEP Martin Callanan – United Kingdom
MEP Niranjan Deva – United Kingdom
MEP Daniel Hannan – United Kingdom
MP Chris Heaton-Harris – United Kingdom
MEP Roger Helmer – United Kingdom
MEP Syed Kamall – United Kingdom
MEP Robert Sturdy – United Kingdom

Bill Moyers and Trevor Potter On Big Money's Election Effect

Weekend Viewing: Chris Hedges with Reminiscences of a War Correspondent

Here is a slightly different look at Chris Hedges, as he discusses literature, journalism, and his memories as a war correspondent.

It has some remarkably good, sometimes poignant, moments and is well worth watching.

He has some hard words for Wall Street and the elite academic institutions that serve them en passant starting around minute 38.

I have also added a second appearance by Chris on the Bill Moyers show in which he discusses his more recent visits to American 'sacrifice zones.'

Thanks to a reader from Delray Beach for letting me know of it. Le Café is blessed with the abundant contributions of many readers, members of the invisible community of those who care for the things of the mind and the spirit, from all around the world.

They are a joy and a consolation for us all.

And I have included a third video in which Chris and members of Occupy debate the imperative of non-violence, agents provocateurs, and the 'Black Bloc' movement.

What Are Sanders and Obama Going To Discuss

Apparently President Obama and Senator Sanders are going to have an 'informal one-on-one meeting with no agenda' and no press today.

This presidential election has really framed up as an attempt at a popular revolt against a Big Money political establishment. And it is fascinating to watch.

Although the mainstream media keeps feigning astonishment, the broader public is clearly seeking two non-establishment candidate who, for better or worse, they think cannot be bought off by Big Money and the revolving door.

This meeting is an informal one with no set agenda.

Perhaps Obama will share the insight he allegedly had early in his Presidency about reformers as recounted by the ex-CIA whistleblower Ray McGovern.

"He’s afraid of what happened to Martin Luther King Jr. And I know from a good friend who was there when it happened, that at a small dinner with progressive supporters – after these progressive supporters were banging on Obama before the election, Why don’t you do the things we thought you stood for? Obama turned sharply and said, “Don’t you remember what happened to Martin Luther King Jr.?” That’s a quote, and that’s a very revealing quote."

Ray McGovern

I am sure Obama was being flip.   They was no need to buy him because he was a well-crafted brand backed by Big Money from the very start.  What he was voicing, if indeed he said this, was the time honored motto of political corruption, to go along to get along.  This was the great lesson to the Democratic party from the Clintons.

I have included a short but interesting video at the very bottom about how things work in Washington these days as recounted by Neil Barofsky to Bill Moyers.

And finally I include a short video describing the state of politics in the US from that wild eyed radical, former President Jimmy Carter.

Bernie Sanders Meets With Obama Today: What They Might Talk About
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
January 27, 2016

Expensive media real estate is reporting that presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, will meet with President Obama in the Oval Office today. Much is being made of the fact that the meeting comes less than a week before the politically important Iowa caucuses and just two days after Politico published an exclusive interview with the President in which he appeared to favor a Clinton presidency. (Memo to the President: this election is about finding an authentic non-establishment candidate, so your opinion as the quintessential establishment figure is not likely to sway folks – at least not in a good way.)

The first thing that came to mind when we heard about the meeting was that one or more kingpins on Wall Street might have asked the President to whisper in Senator Sanders’ ear to stop repeating at every campaign stop that the business model of Wall Street is fraud. Sanders is also regularly stating on the stump that one of his top priorities as President will be to break up those Wall Street banks that would require another taxpayer bailout if they should fail.

Would Wall Street actually be brazen enough to try to censor the message of a sitting U.S. Senator? Back in March of last year, Reuters reported that representatives of Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America “have met to discuss ways to urge Democrats, including [Elizabeth] Warren and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, to soften their party’s tone toward Wall Street.” The article noted that withholding campaign donations to Senate Democrats was one option that was on the table at the Wall Street banks...

Read the entire story at Wall Street On Parade.

Jim Rickards On JP Morgan's Trading (Gambling) Loss - The Hypocrisy of Plutocrats

JPMorgan, the nation's largest bank, receives an explicit federal subsidy (deposit insurance) and a much larger implicit federal subsidy. It's improper for the megabank to use these subsidies to speculate in derivatives. And yet it can do so with hardly any serious regulatory consequences.

Financial institutions such as JPMorgan love to buy derivatives because they are opaque, create fictional income that leads to real bonuses and when (not if) they suffer losses so large that they would cause the bank to fail, they will be bailed out.

The Dodd-Frank Act's Volcker Rule was designed to solve the problem.

However, JPMorgan led the effort to gut the Volcker Rule and the provision that requires transparency. JPMorgan is the world's largest proprietary purchaser of financial derivatives -- precisely what the Volcker Rule sought to end. The bank claims that it does not engage in proprietary trading and that it purchases derivatives solely to hedge. That claim is an example of what Stephen Colbert meant when he invented the term: "truthiness."

William K. Black

What the spokesmodels deftly avoid is the discussion that JPM is not a privately financed hedge fund, but a government supported entity using insured deposits, subsidized funds, and the protection of the Federal Reserve as a bank holding company.

Why was it that the investment banks like Goldman suddenly wanted to become bank holding companies during the financial crisis? Oh yeah, that.

If these jokers want to gamble fine. But Jamie Dimon's mentor Sandy Weil led a lobbying effort that spent hundreds of millions to overturn Glass-Steagall, and now JPM is leading the fight aginst the Volcker Rule.

People don't mind if you bet and lose. They do mind if you cheat and win, and they mind it even more if you keep the money when you win, but you charge it to the public trust when you lose. And that is exactly the game that Wall Street led by JPM is playing right now. And these people know better.

Here is an antidote to the faux market hystrionics on CNBC and Bloomberg TV. Investigating JP Morgan Chase - Simon Johnson
and also Bill Moyers Interviews Simon Johnson on JPM and the Next Financial Crisis

Bill Moyers: Weapons Of Mass Distraction and Bending Towards Justice

The Middle Class: Death By a Thousand Cuts - Is Nothing Sacred?

"The corporate right and the political right declared class warfare on working people a quarter of a century ago and they've won... Take the paradox of Rush Limbaugh, ensconced in a Palm Beach mansion massaging the resentments across the country of white-knuckled wage earners, who are barely making ends meet in no small part because of the corporate and ideological forces for whom Rush has been a hero."

Bill Moyers


"The escalation of the class war against the poor and the working class is intense. More and more working people are beaten down. They are world-weary. They are into self-medication. They are turning on each other. They are scapegoating the most vulnerable rather than confronting the most powerful. It is a profoundly human response to panic and catastrophe. I thought Barack Obama could have provided some way out. But he lacks backbone.

Can you imagine if Barack Obama had taken office and deliberately educated and taught the American people about the nature of the financial catastrophe and what greed was really taking place? If he had told us what kind of mechanisms of accountability needed to be in place, if he had focused on homeowners rather than investment banks for bailouts and engaged in massive job creation he could have nipped in the bud the right-wing populism of the tea party folk. The tea party folk are right when they say the government is corrupt. It is corrupt. Big business and banks have taken over government and corrupted it in deep ways.

We have got to attempt to tell the truth, and that truth is painful. It is a truth that is against the thick lies of the mainstream. In telling that truth we become so maladjusted to the prevailing injustice that the Democratic Party, more and more, is not just milquetoast and spineless, as it was before, but thoroughly complicitous with some of the worst things in the American empire."

Cornel West


"Politicians are the public face of corporate power. They are corporate employees. Their personal narratives, their promises, their rhetoric and their idiosyncrasies are meaningless. And that, perhaps, is why the cost of the two presidential campaigns is estimated to reach an obscene $2.5 billion. The corporate state does not produce a product that is different. It produces brands that are different. And brands cost a lot of money to sell...

Unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force which turns everything into a commodity. Human beings become commodities, the natural world becomes a commodity, that you exploit until exhaustion or collapse...

You can dismiss those of us who will in protest vote for a third-party candidate and invest our time and energy in acts of civil disobedience. You can pride yourself on being practical. You can swallow the false argument of the lesser of two evils.

But ask yourself, once this nightmare starts kicking in, who the real sucker is."

Chris Hedges


"The most sacred of the duties of government is to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.”

Thomas Jefferson

Nihilne sanctum est?

Politicians from both sides of the aisle will swear pious oaths to protect and foster the well being of the middle class.  They will say that their policies and proposals are all designed for its betterment.  And yet the state of the middle class continues to dwindle into despair and disrepair. Why is this?

It is not because of the predominance of a right or left ideology, of taxation and deficits and austerity. It is not because of the re-emergence of a perversion of the gospel, in the predestination of prosperity. We have seen all this before. It is not because in our comfort we have lost the sense of the imperative of common cause.

It is because of the overwhelming corruption of power, and of the cynical amorality of thoroughly modern political managers who worship power and personal wealth as ends unto themselves.   They distract the people with artificially divisive social issues and crises, while robbing them blind.

It is driven by the allure of the cartels, monopolies, and  monied interests, and their corrupt political bargains.  It is a child of the subornation of perjury on a massive scale. It is the unscrupulous servility to power of those who have sworn to uphold and protect the law.   What is truth?  Whatever suits us, whatever we say it is, by whoever has the power and the craft to define 'we.'  It is not the triumph of evil so much as the absence of any sense of the good, of honor, honesty, and of simple common decency.

And it is marked by the daily subverting of the law as a matter of convenience and comfort to the insatiable few, and the cravenness of their enablers, driven by personal ambition, ignorance, and fear.  It is the will to power, the elevation of the ascendant self and the system that supports it, above all else.  Greed is good.  Whatever works.  And the enemy is all that is not the self, which is the other.

And where there is nothing sacred, the people perish.

Pictures at an Exhibition of an Oligarchy

“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."

Bill Moyers and Neil Barofsky, The Bullet or the Bribe


"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.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Failure to Reform

"But there is a sort of 'Ok guys, you're mad, but how are you going to stop me' mentality at the top."

Robert Johnson

Audacious oligarchy.

This will not end well.

And a preview of Matt Taibbi and Bill Moyers discussing Why We Can't Let the Banks Off the Hook.

Ignoring such pervasive white collar crimes, which are still ongoing by the way, creates a climate of extreme moral hazard, festering corruption, and teaches felony by example.

I think they give Obama, the regulators, and the Congress far to much credit in ignoring these crimes 'for the good of the system.' It is all about careerism, the credibility trap, and going along to get along.

They cannot reform the system because they are the system, and the political and financial elite are doing just fine with the system the way that it is, thank you very much. They do not want things to change.

Bill Moyers With Matt Taibbi and Yves Smith on the Banks - The Psychopathy of Wall Street

"Too many people hold the idea that psychopaths are essentially killers or convicts.

The general public hasn't been educated to see beyond the social stereotypes to understand that psychopaths can be entrepreneurs, politicians, CEOs and other successful individuals who may never see the inside of a prison."

Dr. Robert Hare

Source

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Oh the Bovinity! - Flight to Safety - Stock Option Expiration Friday

"While everyone enjoys an economic party the long-term costs of a bubble to the economy and society are potentially great. They include a reduction in the long-term saving rate, a seemingly random distribution of wealth, and the diversion of financial human capital into the acquisition of wealth.

As in the United States in the late 1920s and Japan in the late 1980s, the case for a central bank ultimately to burst that bubble becomes overwhelming. I think it is far better that we do so while the bubble still resembles surface froth and before the bubble carries the economy to stratospheric heights. Whenever we do it, it is going to be painful, however.”

Larry Lindsey, Federal Reserve Governor, September 24, 1996 FOMC Minutes


“I recognise that there is a stock market bubble problem at this point, and I agree with Governor Lindsey that this is a problem that we should keep an eye on....We do have the possibility of raising major concerns by increasing margin requirements.  I guarantee that if you want to get rid of the bubble, whatever it is, that will do it.”

Alan Greenspan, September 24, 1996 FOMC Minutes


"And in some ways, 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."

Neil Barofsky, 2012 interview with Bill Moyers

Stocks were in meltdown mode, relatively speaking, to the insouciance with which they have greeted most negative economic news this year.

That recovery on Friday reeked of bravado and phoniness.  But it went less noticed because there is so much of that going around lately.

There was special coverage and a wave of happy talk this morning on bubblevision, that seemed to fade into quiet desperation and calls for a rate cut to rescue the markets.

But there was really no panic, despite the fact that both of the gaps in the equity indices have now been filled, as we had suggested that they would be.  For this is no breakaway gap in a booming economy.  This was a gap in a highly cynical, very technical, asset bubble following the debacle in December.

Gold was a clear beneficiary of this, banging up to the $1300 level.   The dollar and silver were both fairly flat.

We may get a tweet fueled rebound of sorts.  But it is unlikely to last.

There will be a stock market option expiration on Friday.

Just a quick mention as the eight year saga of Game of Thrones staggers to a close. A friend of ours sent us the following diagram of the series from China, which is included below. It is remarkably insightful. I have seen other versions floating around the circles where these things are discussed.

I am given to understand that the writers for these last few seasons of GoT are moving on to become the writers of a new Star Wars trilogy.

Need little, want less, love more.  For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

Have a pleasant evening.

JPM Trader Bruno Iksil Driving Derivatives Markets with 'Massive Positions' and 'Excess Capital'

A secretive JPM Trader in London, alternatively known as 'the London Whale' or 'Voldemort,' is distorting the credit derivatives markets with massive positions, and a willingness to move them advantageously in the markets.  It is a classic case of gambling with other people's money, in this case the excess capital provided by the Fed and the Treasury.

I am sure they are all legitimate hedging positions as Blythe Masters just asserted without proof.  lol.

There may be action on this, however, as JPM is hurting other trading desks and not the average person.  The public is prey but the financial powers take care of their own.

JPM is TBTF (Too Big To Fail) and TCTP (Too Connected To Prosecute).

This must seem ironic given Jamie Dimon's recent 38 page letter complaining about regulations which are stifling his firm.  See this Bill Moyers interview with Paul Volcker about 'Gambling with Other People's Money.

London and NY are the centers of global market abuse, particularly London which provides a haven for privileged abuse.

JP Morgan has to all appearances been distorting various markets for years with impunity. They dominate the silver market with opaque positions and have been the subject of an inquiry by the CFTC which has been quietly stalled for years, most likely based on their political influence and government ties.

If the full truth ever comes out it may be a scandal larger than Enron, Lincoln Savings, and Madoff combined. And that is why it likely will not ever be fully revealed, because it compromises so many in the political and financial establishment. It is a premier example of the credibility trap that is stifling genuine reform and real economic recovery.




JP Morgan Trader's Heft Distorting Markets - The Times of India

Bill Moyers and Tom Engelhardt On America's 'Supersized Politics' and the Age of Spectacle

The Grandeur That Was Rome

"In the past thirty years it seems that Anglo-American culture has grown increasingly narcissistic. I do not know if there are more narcissistic individuals in society now, and perhaps there are not.

But I do think that narcissism is much more widely tolerated, rewarded, and even admired now than it would have been in the period of 1930 to 1950 for example. And that is what makes all the difference. More people feel free to indulge their selfish and egotistical tendencies, and to cultivate them, in order to be fashionable and competitive.

As an aside, I think this also tends to explain the decline of literature and poetry in American culture, and the rise of reality shows and the preoccupation with extravagance. Literature calls us out of ourselves, ex stasis, in order to fill us with knowledge and the creative impulse, while spectacle merely panders, and flows in to fill the empty and undeveloped voids in our being."

Jesse, Empire of the Exceptional:  The Age of Narcissism

Tom Engelhardt is the founder of TomDispatch.com and author of The End of Victory Culture and co-author, with Nick Turse, of Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare.



The impulse to evil is not the domain of any particular people or time, but a recurrent problem that must be confronted by each generation, and each individual person, in their own way and calling.

There is always the temptation to look upon injustice as insurmountable, and to simply turn away and to wash our hands with the thought that there is no use of trying, and even worse, in a descent into the apathy of relativism and uninvolvement saying, 'what is truth?'

That is the fate of those who who have ceased trying to be human, who have given themselves over to self-absorption, addictions, or despair, who are dying inside, and who when the time comes will make beasts of themselves, to escape the painful fragility of their own insubstantial being.

If there was any good news in the recent elections it is that so many well funded corporate efforts to promote particular candidates and their own agendas failed, despite the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars in slickly deceptive advertising campaigns.

This was a small victory for the American people, as the sputtering Karl Rove and the more cynical among the corporate interests went down to a general defeat, even as they were unable to accept or even comprehend that not everyone will play the fool for money, all the time.

But the more general problem of the corruption of the political parties by big money remains, and reform is the ingredient without which there will be no progress, and no sustainable economic recovery.

Bill Moyers and Lawrence Lessig On Privacy

Bill Moyers and Bernie Sanders On the Dysfunctional US Political System

Big money has corrupted the US electoral process, again.

I am not sure what the answer might be, but it is becoming fairly evident that the two party system as it is now constructed is failing.

How can it be called successful when it is so widely viewed as a choice between the lesser of two evils, with people voting AGAINST the other guy, more than they are voting FOR their own candidate?

This is not a good sign for a sustainable system of the people, by the people, and for the people.