“Plunderers of the world, when nothing remains on the lands to which they have laid waste by wanton thievery, they search out across the seas. The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well.   Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Robbery, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.”

Tacitus, Agricola

I was interested to see that Greece may have agreed to ‘privatize' their sea port and air port as a condition of reaching some agreement with their Euro/IMF creditors. And even more interested that the Ukraine is said to have drawn up a long list of assets it too will be offering up for privatization, in return for the protection of the US and its NATO allies, for the enrichment of their sons and benefactors of their powerful few.

Money Shot: A money shot is an element of a film, video, broadcast, or print project that is disproportionately expensive to produce and/or is perceived as essential to the overall importance or revenue-generating potential of the work.

I do not believe that the US and its corporate allies care anything about the Greek or Ukrainian people, their standards of living, their freedom, or their general welfare. I think they are in it for the power and for the money, and fairly narrowly so.

This overreach for profit and power of the corporatist state overseas and at home is the money shot. This is the reason that we are engaging in discretionary wars, and secret trade treaties, and paper asset bubbles, and rigging markets, so that we can continue to enrich the one percent through an economic policy of plunder.

Gold and silver managed a decent rally up to overhead resistance today. Since The Bucket Shop has not yet changed in any meaningful way we must patiently wait to see if there is any follow through. At the end of the day this is still just a game of Liar's Poker.