Black Monday

[Leftfield]

All cool Skid, I think we agree that the recent turbulence in the market has multiple causes..... that said, I was pretty happy the way NZX handled itself today..... we live in interesting times!

[moka]

It seems out of character for an optimist like you there winner. Have had a quick read unsure if it is a conspiracy theory crackpot website or not.

Democracy in Chains by Nancy MacLean. It sounds like a conspiracy theory and it is being run like one because as the book says “the American people would not support our plans, so to win they had to work behind the scenes, using a covert strategy instead of open declaration of what they really wanted.”

“Buchanan understood that asking Darden (President of the University of Virginia in 1956) fund what was in essence a political center at a non-profit centre of higher learning was highly inappropriate. To avoid criticism that an organisation with extreme views, or a highly propogandazing agency was being established on campus, he recommended that the center should not have the words “economic liberty” in its name even if this phrase captured the “real purpose of the program.” Page xxiii. It was called the Thomas Jefferson Center for Political Economy and Social philosophy.

By the late 1990s, Charles Koch realized that the thinker he was looking for, the one who understood how government became so powerful in the first place and how to take it down in order to free up capitalism – the one who grasped the need for stealth because only piecemeal, yet mutually reinforcing assaults on the system would survive the prying eyes of the media – was James Buchanan. Koch never lied to himself about what he was doing. Page xxvi.
From then on (late 1990s) Charles Koch contributed generously to turning those ideas into his personal operational strategy to, as the team saw it, save capitalism from democracy permanently. … ideas so ground-breaking, so thoroughly thought out, so rigorously tight, that once put into operation, they could secure the transformation in American governance he wanted.

https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs...chains#summary

[moka]

Are they the ‘they’ who keep the Fed in line? (along with many other things)

I think the answer is - it depends. If there is a democratic president in power, than yes, this is what they seem to do.

In 2010 the brilliant investigative journalist Jane Mayer alerted Americans to the fact that two billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch, had poured more than a hundred million dollars into a war against Obama. She went on to research and document how the Kochs and other rich right-wing donaors were providing vast quantities of “dark money” (political spending that, by law, had become untraceable) to groups and candidates whose missions, if successful, would hobble unions, limit voting, deregulate corporations, shift taxes to the less well-off and even deny climate change. Page xvii Democracy in Chains.

Who are 'they'? The financial elite such as big donors, Wall Street bondholders, and advocates of the neoliberal way such as economists, lawyers and bankers including the Fed.

”Advocates of the neoliberal way now occupy positions of considerable influence in education (the universities and many “think tanks”), in the media, in corporate boardrooms and financial institutions, in key state institutions (treasury departments, central banks), and also in those international institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization that regulate global finance and trade.” A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey

[bull....]

was that a crash on the open for us futures down 500pts first 2mins

[peat]

was that a crash on the open for us futures down 500pts first 2mins

a 3 min flash crash
then the 50% retracement.

[blackcap]

a 3 min flash crash
then the 50% retracement.

Wow... still down 200 though. Interesting times.

[Peitro]

Yikes that's a massive swing for after hours trading, was up 100 last time I looked, going to be an interesting night

[whatsup]

Looks like the bad news is not finished, cash in pockets time again !

[bull....]

Looks like the bad news is not finished, cash in pockets time again !

been 80% cash for a while now , not expecting any other way for the fore seeable future

[Filthy]

been 80% cash for a while now

lol that's been obvious for some time now (based on your enthusiastic posts every time the markets sneeze!)