Real News: 'A System In Which Sociopaths Rise to the Top'

“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."

Arthur Brooks, President American Enterprise Institute, ‘Americans are Being Held Hostage and Terrorized by the Fringes’

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.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - All Is Well

"As you have willed your house is now yours— but is made desolate.’”

Stocks initially rallied, continuing their overnight strength, based on a tweet from Trump about seeking some relief from the sanctions being imposed on a Chinese telecoms company ZTE.

However during the day the Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross cast doubt on this, causing stocks to reverse and the dollar to gain back a bit on the flight to safety of sorts.

The US opened its new embassy in Jerusalem.

Gold and silver finished lower.

The Comex gold inventories set for immediate delivery continued to diminish.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Confronting the Unspeakable

"Those who are at present so eager to be reconciled with the world at any price must take care not to be reconciled with it under this particular aspect: as the nest of The Unspeakable. This is what too few are willing to see... Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God."

Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable

And so another week has ended.

The Dollar gave up a bit of its overbought gains, allowing gold and silver to rise back up a bit.

Stocks held their levels, after another remarkable run higher, prompted in part by weaker than expected data on inflation.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - On the Sunni Side of the Street

"U.S. support for the Sunni camp was made clear by the fact that Trump made Riyadh his first foreign stop as president, by his willingness to sell the Saudis $110 billion in military equipment, and by his repeated criticisms of Iran during his speech.  Why the United States would want to tilt toward either side in the Sunni-Shiite divide is mystifying.

These two sects have been at odds for centuries, with no signs of a detente. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization, is Sunni. The same goes for al-Qaeda, the group founded by Osama bin Laden that brought down the World Trade Center on 9/11."

USA Today, In Saudi Arabia, Trump turns Sunni


"I served in all commissioned ranks from a second Lieutenant to a Major General. And during that time, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses."

Smedley Butler, USMC


“I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office— “today.”  And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”  I said, “Is it classified?”  He said, “Yes, sir.”  I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.”

General Wesley Clark, Seven Countries in Five Years


"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology."

Michael Parenti

The inflation numbers came in weakly this morning, prompting stocks to rally on the notion that the Fed will stick to the minimum schedule of raising rates in order to give themselves sufficient room to cut rates when their latest financial asset bubble begins to implode.

And with this softness in rate increases, the dollar dropped and gold and silver rallied a bit in response.

There are lots of things that barely make sense that tend to dominate the mainstream news and discussions.   I would imagine that you have noticed.

This is the credibility trap in action. And it will get even weirder, and make a whole lot less sense.

But very important public and media figures will become ever more hysterical, and indignant about it, with a fury designed to whip up the people into—  confused and servile obedience.

Have a pleasant evening.