"The oligarchic character of the modern English commonwealth does not rest, like many oligarchies, on the cruelty of the rich to the poor. It does not even rest on the kindness of the rich to the poor.
It rests on the perennial and unfailing kindness of the poor to the rich."
G. K. Chesterton,
Heretics
"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,
television interview, September 27, 2015
"It is precisely this — high-powered computers and the swagger of those who operate them — that is causing worries over high-frequency trading’s increasing sway. 'The markets used to be about capital formation,' said Mr. Quast, the consultant. 'Now 80 percent of trading is driven by some form of statistical arbitrage. We are buying into a statistical house of cards that could unravel very quickly.'”
Landon Thomas,
Inquiry Stokes Concern over Trading Firms that Shape Markets, 3 September 2009
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
The Great Gatsby
"A rogue does not laugh in the same way that an honest man does; a hypocrite does not shed the tears of a man of good faith. All falsehood is a mask; and however well made the mask may be, with a little attention we may always succeed in distinguishing it from the true face."
Alexandre Dumas,
Les Trois Mousquetaires
“We can have democracy in this country or we can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”
Louis Brandeis,
source
"God has a way of standing before the nations with judgement, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America 'You are too arrogant! If you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power! And I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still, and know that I am God.'"
Martin Luther King,
Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam, 1967
The ECB bid
au revoir to nominally negative interest rates today.
And so the euro rallied and the Dollar declined a little further into the 106 handle, which is still rather elevated.
Stocks rallied on the bad economic news this morning.'
It's that kind of Fed-eriffic, otherworldly market.
Gold and silver rallied sharply after a big overnight plunge in honor of the Comex option expiration tomorrow.
The VIX is at recent lows. I put a more extended VIX chart up to put it into a broader context.
Stocks have a way to go in order to take out those secondary highs on the CrashTrak model.
But they are finally having a decent go at it.
Have a pleasant evening.
