"I would say that practically all the financial journals were on the take. This includes reporters for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Herald-Tribune, you name it. So if you were a pool operator, you’d call your friend at The Times and say, 'Look, Charlie, there’s an envelope waiting for you here and we think that perhaps you should write something nice about RCA.' And Charlie would write something nice about RCA. A publicity man called A. Newton Plummer had canceled checks from practically every major journalist in New York City."
Robert Sobel, PBS: The Great Crash of 1929
"The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil."
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash of 1929
"An investigation later discovered that business journalists for at least eight papers promoted stocks in their writing in return for bribes. The most embarrassing were at the Wall Street Journal, where reporters who wrote 'Broad Street Gossip' and 'Abreast of the Market' took payoffs for stock tips in the 1920s.
The revelations about the Journal reporters came out during hearings by the Senate Banking and Currency Committee in 1932, more than three years later, when Congressman Fiorello LaGuardia produced cancelled checks written to the Journal reporters from publicist A. Newton Plummer. The stories based on the bribes had gone as far back as 1923."
University of North Carolina, History of Business Journalism
"I have come to realize that the vast majority of decent, wonderful people, have no idea how they are being hoodwinked day in and day out by the scum of this world. We are lied to, misled, bamboozled, suckered, cheated, misrepresented, conned, manipulated and royally screwed! They take us to the cleaners day in and day out in every way possible. We, the people, pay the price of their cheating, their folly, their lying and their sheer stupidity."
Pierre Rinfret
Did these financial journalists and Wall Street operators back in the 1920s have no standards, and no shame?
We are very fortunate that such a thing could not happen today. Can you imagine any self respecting analyst or media type or (maybe) a politician accepting actual physical checks for misdeeds that leave such a clear trail of evidence?
In our modern era it would be much more likely to be cash in the form of hot tips on which way the High Frequency Trading wind will be turning the markets, privileged high-profile access, or some drinks and dinner, maybe even hookers and blow. The only risks might be some nasal cartilage, a guilty conscience (as if), and extra time at the gym.
How gullible and cynical can people get? How blindly arrogant and worshipful of 'success?'
When the mainstream media spreads lies and propaganda to support an unjust military action, or to discredit a whistleblower who is doing the journalists' purported job, that is one thing. And to support the epitome of Ponzi schemes based on some new and vaguely plausible technology favored by the moneyed interests is another.
That's not corruption, it's just time-honoured and ridiculously profitable bawdy good fun by the unprincipled few, that keeps the horrors of honest and equitable governance at bay. Oh, you object to institutional corruption and graft,
comrade?But soiling your hands by accepting coarse and dirty checks for aiding and abetting fraus? Please, no checks accepted. Evidence trail and all that.
Stocks took a proper nosedive this afternoon after staging the usual morning rally.
The reason attributed to this was concern about some of the bleeding edge banks like Silvergate, and now the Silicon Valley Bank. This led to a drawdown in share prices of the the Too Pig To Fail behemoths: JPM, Wells Fargo, Citi, and Bank of America.
The Dollar declined a bit as short term yields back off their recent highs.
Gold rallied as a consequence, but silver fell a bit in sympathy with equities.
Wash - rinse - repeat.
The looting and lying will continue until consequences for lawlessness in the system are restored.
The usual long term consequences for such actions are still in force, contrary to the elite fashionable opinions and preferences.
“Then the rich man said, ‘I beg you, Father Abraham, send Lazarus to my father’s house. For I have five brothers for him to warn, so that they also will not come to this place of desolation and torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them.’ But the rich man again said, ‘No, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead comes back and speaks to them, they will repent.’ And Abraham said, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they listen if someone warns them who has risen from the dead.’” Luke 16:27-31
They'll never learn.
Because the dark force that they have taken into their hearts doesn't want to leave.
Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Non-farm Payrolls tomorrow.
Have a pleasant evening.
