“The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty— and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe— the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God."
John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, 20 January 1961
"Narcissism is a psychological condition defined as an obsession with the self. While not all forms of self-love or self-interest are destructive, extreme cases can be very damaging and may be diagnosed as narcissistic personality disorder. In these instances, the disorder is characterized by a lack of empathy for others, sadistic or destructive tendencies, and a compulsion to satisfy personal needs above all other goals.
Those with severe cases often believe they are naturally superior to others or that they possess extraordinary capabilities. They may have extreme difficulty acknowledging personal weaknesses, yet also have fragile self-esteem. Narcissistic people also frequently believe that they are not truly appreciated, and can be prone to outbursts of anger, jealousy, and self-loathing when they do not get what they feel they deserve."
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition, Text Revision. 2022
"In the past thirty years it seems that Anglo-American culture has grown increasingly narcissistic. 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. More people feel free to indulge their selfish and egotistical tendencies, and to cultivate them shamelessly, in order to be fashionable and competitive.
I think this also tends to explain the decline of literature in American culture, and the rise of reality shows and the preoccupation with spectacle and extravagance. Literature calls us out of ourselves in order to fill us with knowledge through the creative impulse, while spectacle merely panders, and flows in to fill the empty and undeveloped voids in our being.
The narcissistic tendency is not something particular (exclusive) to the wealthy, but is a cultural trait, expressed in many ways including an increase in self-absorption and incivility. Power expresses itself in the assertion of the will over others, and the cultivation of unrestrained personal power, the triumph of their will, is the lifeblood of the narcissist.
It is the excess of the age we learned that greed is good, screwing everyone is acceptable business practice, that there is no law but their desires, and that most people are inferiors intended to be used by them. Each success emboldens them to do more, ask for more, expect more as their due. And eventually they go too far, and fall. And that is when their own failing, and if you will, sin, can become ours if we do nothing to stop it and to repair it. Especially in an age in which narcissists and sociopaths,including their enablers, are actively assaulting the public interest and public trust in order to serve their own short term, selfish ends, no matter what the longer term consequences to society as a whole might be."
Jesse, Empire of the Exceptional, 1 October 2012
Today we saw one of those days that often follow on a precious metals futures option expiration, in which those who are holding newly issued contracts as a result of their 'in the money calls' are subjected to a test of their resolve— commonly referred to as a gut check.
And in general we have now moved to the front month being the December contract, which is the most heavily traded and consequential of the year.
There will also be a Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday, the last report before a hotly contested national election in the States.
Therefore, let the games begin. Or at least continue on, but with renewed vigor.
Stocks did their usual alley-oop, rising sharply in the morning, and declined in the afternoon.
The decline itself was orderly, as they say, and fell to some reasonable support level.
So, barring some alarming exogenous event, it appears that the risk market will KBO as Churchill used to say.
Mindful, nonetheless, of some sort of surprise in the payrolls report, to the down or up side.
Like many of us this year's election seems to me particularly dissatisfying, if not alarming. I am hard pressed to vote for any group that has embraced the provocation of aggressive wars, and the enabling and denial of a genocide. But I am also discouraged from casting even a protest vote for someone who is clearly unhinged, and dangerously corrupt in a slightly different, but more pathological way.
I am badly put off by the proposition that voting a single issue, and ignoring all the rest of it, does not offer an adequate moral justification, in the same way that choosing fascism as a deterrent to socialism was an acceptable moral decision for many in the last century.
And so my suggestion is to make that choice, so that when some day you are alone on a bed in a room, facing the yawning expanse of time, that you can at least take some comfort that you had done your best, and not thrown it all way for some illusory personal gain of a minute.
Have a pleasant evening.
