"Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage.
And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun."
Kurt Vonnegut,
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
"Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be with the coming of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given away in marriage, up until the very day that Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came, and swept them all away...
And they said to him, 'Where will this happen, Lord?' And He said to them, 'Where death is, there will be a gathering of vultures.'”
Luke 17:26-27, 37
"Everyone knows that plagues have a way of recurring throughout history, yet somehow we find it hard to believe in the ones that crash down on us out of the sky. There have always been plagues and wars, yet they always take us by surprise. When war breaks out people say it's stupid and won't last long. Stupidity has a knack of getting in the way, which we would see if not wrapped up in ourselves. In this our townsfolk were like everybody else— they did not believe in plagues."
Albert Camus, The Plague
Stocks gave up some of their gains from yesterday, or as the spokemodels quaintly and charmingly put it, 'Yesterday there was optimism about the Ukraine: today there was not.'
Or as someone who is not afraid to say it might have put it, 'Yesterday was a very calculated and determined short squeeze. Today they let some of the air out of the bubble.'
Bully needs to set a new high. A failure to do so will put the risk imbalance higherl.
Gold and silver rebounded sharply, because of the artificial magnitude of the selloff the last two days in observance of the April contracts option expiration.
The Dollar continues its slide for much the same reason. There are no markets more manipulated than the currency and interest rate [LIBOR] markets. It is the dark heart of our financial system.
There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls Report on Friday. This has often been an occasion for shenanigans, operating behind a thin veneer of 'fundamentals.'
Have a pleasant evening.
