We’d like to begin with Volkswagen’s suicidal attempt to skirt pollution sensors and controls on their automobiles, essentially creating a fraud that at some point may lead to criminal charges. That drove VW’s stock down almost 17% on the day and hammered other automotive stocks.

Investors’ eyes and ears are turning toward the actual functioning of markets, even as we hear continual proclamations from various Federal Reserve members regarding a rate liftoff.

Crude oil is a good example of how the focus has been re-oriented.

In case we didn’t have enough of the truth-or-consequences scenario that has been catapulted into markets since the Federal Reserve decided yesterday to stand pat on rates, we now have the right wing in the U.S. Congress again troubling its own house. (And everyone’s house with it.)

The statement issued by the Federal Open Market Committee touched upon a small handful of reasons it voted to hold rates steady. We highlight some of them below in bold.

Tomorrow, should Chairwoman Janet Yellen and the rest of the voting members on the Federal Open Market Committee ignite lift off on the first rate hike since 2006, a majority of analysts believe a reactionary stock selloff would follow.

What we’d like to say today is, “Relax. Don’t worry. Be happy.” That is, when it comes to thinking about the Federal Reserve and the start of its September FOMC meeting.

We’d like to say, “Follow the data,” except you’d tear yourself in two, given how contradictory the data points have been (forever, it seems like). Just today, consumer spending was up, but not as much as predicted.

In his 1919 poem, “The Second Coming,” William Butler Yeats wrote:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…

Are Investors, analysts and traders acting like big babies? We think so. Even at its much easier-going mid-20s levels, the VIX is reporting that back to us. It’s absurd.

Correction: Yesterday we misstated the date of next week’s Federal Reserve FOMC meeting. It will be September 17^th, not the 18^th. We apologize for any confusion.

An important inflation reading released today showed U.S. import prices falling 1.8% in August as the cost of crude oil and a basket of other goods dropped. Import prices slid 0.9% in July.

As the U.S. dollar strengthened today, gold lost even more of its safe haven appeal and now appears to be strung out on the corner waiting for a big fix of inflation. If stable-to-lowering yields on U.S. bonds across all maturity dates are any indication, the wait is going to be a long one.