“He did not care for the lying at first. He hated it. Then later he had come to like it. It was part of being an insider, but it was a very corrupting business.”
Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
“Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne
und die trägt er im Gesicht
und Macheath, der hat ein Messer
doch das Messer sieht man nicht.”
Berthold Brecht, Die Moritat von Mackie Messer
It was a remarkably quite day for the precious metals, as the option expiration for the inactive month of March contract went by quietly enough.
Madame Yellen, American Viceroy of Wall Street’s careless few, paid a visit to the Senate, where the august personages threw posies and puffballs for the most part, with a little side muttering for the benefit of groundling in the pit.
And between inanities and well trod but unremarked policy errors she reminded us that the Fed can consider raising interest rates at any meeting, and if they remove the word ‘patient’ from their pronouncement, it does not mean that they are losing theirs. The patience which they have shown to their serially recidivist patrons at the Banks, for example, is legendary.
Speaking of recidivism, JP Morgan, which is currently on a mockery of ‘two years probation’ for a crime spree almost too long to comprehensively recount here, is once again under investigation with ten of its fellow Banks for rigging the London Precious Metals market. Unashamed of course, it appears that the House of Morgan will now start charging for the privilege of given them your money.
That’s all rich, in its own way. The mighty US regulators cast their eyes at the transgressions in London, which is of course their right since the plottings were apparently undertaken in the Banks US offices, while they turn their regal noses aside from the greasy, noisome bucket shop that is just a light breeze away in lower Manhattan.
