"The days of chastisement are coming, and judgement is at hand. Their sins are many, and their hatred great. They think prophets fools, and the righteous mad. Even the faithful are deep in their corruption. God is mindful, and holds them to account for their lawlessness."
Hosea 9:7-9
"As dawn was breaking angels urged Lot, saying, ‘Hurry! Take your wife and your daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.’ When he hesitated, they grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and daughters and led them to safety out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them...
Then the Lord rained down fire and brimstone from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah. He devastated them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, wiping out all the people and every form of vegetation. Lot’s wife looked back as she was following, and turned into a pillar of salt.
Abraham rose early that morning and hurried out to that place where he had stood in the Lord’s presence. He looked out across the plain toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and watched as dark columns rose from the cities like smoke from a furnace."
Genesis 19:15-16,24-28
"To enter hell is to be banished from humanity. What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is 'remains.' To be a complete man means to have the passions obedient to the will and the will offered to God: to have been a man – to be an ex-man or 'damned ghost' – would presumably mean to consist of a will utterly centered in its self and passions utterly uncontrolled by the will."
C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 1940
“When pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with disgrace comes humility, and with humility comes wisdom. The humility of the righteous will guide them, but the deceitfulness of the proud will destroy them."
Proverbs 11:2-3
And so we toddle on into the second half of 2025.
I have trouble finding reliable sources of information these days.
And when it comes to making careless, clickbait statements of speculation, excess is considered the rule.
This is the age of puffery. And the cheeto-bandito is the puffiest.
Stocks finished the day unchanged to lower.
Gold and silver rallied higher, but gave up a chunk of their gains as the day wore on.
There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report this Thursday in a holiday shortened week.
VIX is low and complacency is high.
The Dollar has firmly slid off the 97 handle.
The Euro is not a suitable replacement for the Dollar as a global reserve currency.
I would think that a basket of leading currencies, and at least gold, might be more acceptable.
And those currencies should reflect the current state of the world economy.
But before then, we have to get past the current crop of growing and festering world crises.
So, in the short term, gold looks like the best bet, with some additional allocation to silver.
Other metals are primarily an industrial play that may be quite profitable. But not from a monetary perspective.
As the Dollar falters, it is likely to be a wild chase.
Have a pleasant evening.
