“One day, we will have to stand before the God of history. And we will talk in terms of things we've done. And its seems to me that I can hear the God of history saying, 'That was not enough. For I was hungry, and you fed me not. I was naked, and you clothed me not. I was devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in, and you provided no shelter for me. And consequently, you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness.'" Martin Luther King
"Just days before she resigned as UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley delivered a private speech to the Council for National Policy, a secretive group of influential right-wing figures. Journalist Max Blumenthal obtained exclusive access and reveals shocking details -- including Haley's admission that she threatened the Chinese ambassador with a US invasion of North Korea."
The gist of this interview is that Nikki Haley was being lauded by the liberal media and the corporate Democrats as standing out in the Trump administration as a moderate, and even as a 'woman of color.'
It is similar to the rehabilitation of George W. Bush amongst the Democratic political elites. Its like he and Bill Clinton are political cousins. And in some ways they were. And the Obamas and Hillary will suck up to anyone who is an insider and an enabler of the moneyed interests, like themselves.
The interview makes the case that the goal posts have moved so far to the right that even war hawks and neo-liberals are starting to look like benign moderates.
The move has been so steady and gradual and so protracted that most don't even notice, how 'flaming socialists' like Obama are really yesterday's corporate Republicans.
Even the winter won't last forever
We'll see the morning, we'll feel the sun
We'll wake up in April, ready and able
Sowing the seeds in the soil
Even the darkness cannot disarm us
We'll see the morning, we'll feel the sun
We'll break up the earth, 'cause we know
That it's worth it
Sowing the seeds in the soil
Of our love.
Audrey Assad, Even the Winter
Stocks had another ranging day, with a sweep from the highs to the lows. The SP 500 finished nearly unchanged with the tech heavy Nasdaq a little weaker.
All in all it was a stock option expiration, and the market was looking for a direction.
At this point the right kind of trigger event is going to send this skittish market much lower. I am looking around the 2500's on the SP 500 futures, so it could be quite a wild ride.
But the lack of organic action and 'investment' buying, as opposed to short term gimmickry, makes this a difficult market to trade.
Gold and silver finished largely unchanged as the Dollar gave up a little of its strength from yesterday.
I was getting restless watching this inane market action in the late morning. And so I asked the Lord for something to do to make things better in the world. And I kid you not, I found myself almost immediately directed to thoroughly cleaning and scrubbing the bathroom, top to bottom. I think the Queen was listening in on that conversation. Not a doubt in my mind.
Little consolations and tender mercies. They are there, where you least expect them. And there resides peace of mind, and an easy heart.
Well after that task was completed, I went outside and trimmed some late growth in the trees and hedges and shrubs, and cleaned up the front lawn. We cracked the freezing mark here last night. The temperature dipped to about 27 degrees, which was quite chilly to say the least. But it warmed up today, and the afternoon was one of those glorious autumn days when working outside is just the right thing to do.
Need little, want less, and love more. Because those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.
"If modernity is characterized by a loss of the sense of the real, this fact is connected to what has happened to money in the twentieth century. Everything threatens to become unreal once money ceases to be real.
Money is one of the primary measures of value in any society, perhaps the primary one, the principal repository of value. As such, money is a central source of stability, continuity, and cohesion in any community. Hence to tamper with the basic money supply is to tamper with a community’s sense of value."
Paul Cantor, Literature and the Economics of Liberty
"One of the most nefarious consequences of dishonest money is to destroy our ability and willingness to act responsibly in the light of our own judgments. It has led us to replace common sense by compliance. We have substituted the law for what is moral and what is right. We have substituted audit checklists for an auditor’s judgment about what is true and fair. And we have substituted phony mathematics for the judgment we once possessed in understanding the nature of value and that of risk."
Anthony Deden, Investment Value in an Age of Booms and Busts
"Advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool."
Project for a New American Century, Rebuilding America's Defenses, 2000
Stocks were weak today. Global jitters and weaker than expected results from real economy companies shook bully's swaggering confidence.
Gold and silver tried to rally, and gold managed to hold a bit of a gain, as the US Dollar gained ground higher.
Politically active and publicly prominent men and women in the US would do well to remember this sage advice from George Bernard Shaw: 'I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.'
Today was an absolutely beautiful autumn day here in the northeast.
"Hell is empty, and all the devils are here."W. Shakespeare, The Tempest
“The easiest way to steal a man's wallet is to tell him you're going to steal his watch.”
Leigh Bardugoh
“They support freedom for themselves and slavery for everyone else, and they use the freedom of the market to disguise this. Economic coercion is just a different form of force.”
Robert Peate
“As long as there are crazed or crafty leaders to play on old fears, a mob will turn cruel.”
Leigh Brackett
“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil. And there is perhaps no surer way of infecting ourselves with virulent hatred toward a person than by doing him a grave injustice.”
Eric Hoffer
You have surely heard of 'the fog of war.'
Its financial analogue is 'the mist of mispriced risks and their deceptive valuations.'
Note that fraud requires a longer description than war. Fraud and the power of money is necessarily more complicated than simple murder, which too often serves as one of its instruments of policy.
Alcoa kicked off the real earnings season tonight, after the Banks have finished spewing their financial results early.
Gold and silver tried to rally, but were smacked down in the afternoon in the currency crosses. The Dollar gained.
Stocks were slumping badly, but were rescued in the late afternoon, led back up by the SP 500 futures which closed unchanged.
The SP 500 futures are the locus of market intervention. See the writings of ex-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin for the technical and ethical justifications for this.
Here is a message I received from Pam and Russ Martens at Wall Street On Parade:
"Our publishing schedule has been interrupted due to the pressing need to provide loving support and care-giving to a family member who is experiencing a health emergency."
Please remember them in your thoughts and prayers.
There will be a stock option expiration on this Friday.
There will be a Comex precious metals option expiration on the 25th. It is not a significant option contract month. The focus is now on the December contract.
Murder a Washington Post columnist? Not a problem, if you have the right connections and 'juice.'
'What is truth' asked Pilate? And then turned and washed his hands of it.'
Our modern procurators and prefects of plutocracy and empire don't even understand the purpose or substance of the question, except as a means of distracting us from yet another one of their lies.
We have taken a natural paradise, and a beacon of freedom to the world, and are turning it into a suburb of Hell— for the unquenchable greed of a few.
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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