"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right."
John Kenneth Galbraith
"For decades, we have had a trade policy that has been written by giant multi-national corporations to help giant multi-national corporations. They have no loyalty to America. They have no patriotism. If they can save a nickel by moving a job to Mexico, they’ll do it in a heartbeat. If they can continue a polluting plant by moving it to Vietnam, they’ll do it in a heartbeat."
Elizabeth Warren
“At the heart of the TPP were new rights for thousands of corporations to sue the U.S. government before a panel of three corporate lawyers that could award unlimited sums, including for loss of future expected profits, to be paid by American taxpayers when the corporations claim U.S. policies violate the new entitlements the TPP would provide them.
The TPP also included extreme new monopoly protections for pharmaceutical firms that blocked competition and ensure high medicine prices. The deal’s environmental standards, negotiated by Democratic President Barack Obama’s trade ambassador Mike Froman, were a roll back from those included in the last four agreements negotiated by George W. Bush.”
Public Citizen, More Information on the Trans-Pacific Partnership
There was a wailing and gnashing of glaringly whitened teeth on Wall Street today.
The spokesmodels were distraught with sympathy for the plight of their pampered plutocrats.
The Fed did exactly what was expected. However...
What sent the Street into a tantrum were statements by Fed Chair Powell that suggested that this was not the beginning of a major easing cycle.
What, no more high fructose hot money with tax cuts for Wall Street, financed by austerity for everyone else?
Inconceivable!
This is late stage financial bubble action, and the financial class is jonesing for more easy money to keep propping up their Ponzi schemes and credit asset cons.
Now the attention will turn to the economic data, and demanding reassurances from the Fed that the flows of hot money into the pockets of the elite will continue unabated.
With tax cuts. And more monopoly power. And even less accountability for crime.
And everyone else be damned.
I came into today short stocks from last night, and to this I added some this morning. I had trimmed back my short term gold position in my trading account on strenght earlier this week.
Why? Because while nothing is certain, today's action was fairly probable. If you are operating from the right set of base assumptions.
I am not too concerned about gold yet, and will be looking to add back to the short term positions. I may wait for the Non-Farm payrolls report. But the stock index shorts were a nice hedge.
Depending on what gold does the rest of the week, I may shift to one of ther alternative chart scenarios, rather than the symmetrical triangle.
Have a pleasant evening.
