"We've become now an oligarchy instead of a democracy. I think that's been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I've ever seen in my life."
Jimmy Carter
“Fear and debt. The two most powerful tools of empire.”
John Perkins,
The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
"Over the past 30 years the plutocrats have used their vastly increased wealth to capture the flag and assure the government does their bidding. This marriage of money and politics has produced an America of gross inequality at the top and low social mobility at the bottom, with little but anxiety and dread in between, as middle class Americans feel the ground falling out from under their feet.
Millions of Americans have awakened to a sobering reality: they live in a plutocracy, where they are disposable. Now we have come to another parting of the ways, and once again the fate and character of our country are up for grabs. Democracy only works when we claim it as our own."
Bill Moyers,
last episode of Bill Moyers Journal, 30 April 2010
"Our plutocracy, whether the hedge fund managers in Greenwich, Connecticut, or the Internet moguls in Palo Alto, now lives like the British did in colonial India: ruling the place but not of it."
Mike Lofgren,
The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government, 5 January 2016
"Special privileges and the use of the taxing power for private gain, these are the twin pillars upon which plutocracy rests.
Accumulating by conscious frauds more money than they can use upon themselves, wisely distribute or safely leave to their children, these denounce as public enemies all who question their methods or throw a light upon their crimes.
Plutocracy is abhorrent to a republic; it is more despotic than monarchy, more heartless than aristocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It preys upon the nation in time of peace and conspires against it in the hour of its calamity. Conscienceless, compassionless and devoid of wisdom, it enervates its votaries while it impoverishes its victims."
William Jennings Bryan,
Speech at Madison Square Garden, 30 August 1906
Stocks went on another wild ride today.
The downgrade of a number of US Banks, including First Republic Bank to 'junk.'
And then there is the ongoing saga of Credit Suisse and the various attempts to pull it back from the abyss to which it has been descending.
But never fear, some well placed rumours and stabilizing buying in the major indices managed to bring stocks back a bit with big cap tech going well into the green.
The Dollar rallied hard to take out the 104 handle again. Euro-weakness and all that.
Gold and silver took a little bit of a trip themselves with all this volatility.
When they finally break into the light of day the shenanigans that have been ongoing in the highly leveraged, highly secretive precious metals market is going to look like a coronal mass ejection of monetary malfeasance and manipulation.
It's been a long time coming.
The VIX bounced up and then down.
Treasuries are 'trading like penny stocks' was one of the few incisive remarks on financial TV today.
The most nebulous was the bold assertion that blockchain is the remedy for our repetitive banking crises.
Have a pleasant evening.
