“There are only two kinds of people in the end — those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.' All that are in Hell choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 1945
"It is never a minor thing to know God’s will and not do it. God calls this sin. At times we deceive ourselves into thinking that good intentions equal obedient actions. They do not. A good intention without corresponding activity is disobedience. When we encounter God and He gives us a direction, it is not enough to write down the date in our spiritual journal, or even to tell our friends and church of our 'decision.' God’s call is not to make a decision but to obey! Deciding to obey is not equal to obeying. A good intention without corresponding activity is disobedience."
Henry Blackaby, Experiencing God, 2007
"Expedient amorality is de rigueur these days among the entitled class of power brokers who serve the system, which in their minds is themselves, as a privileged, ruling class. Capitalism does not demand that we destroy human lives for the sake of maximizing profits using any and all means which that end justifies. The Market is not an end to itself. The Market is not God.
This is beyond capitalism. It is a pernicious form of selfishness and self-indulgence, a privileged arrogance. It is as old as Babylon, and evil as sin."
Jesse, The Careerists and the Banality of Evil, 24 July 2012
“Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them. God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity. But we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason."
Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, 1963
"Returning to the question of hell, whether it is empty or not: unfortunately, I fear that many souls go there, all those who persevere in their choice of distancing themselves from God to the end. Being in the kingdom of hate, damned souls are subjected to the torment of the demons and to the sufferings they reciprocally inflict on one another. In the course of my exorcisms I have understood that there is a hierarchy of demons, just as there is with angels. More than once I have found myself involved with demons who were possessing a person and who demonstrated a terror toward their leaders.
The final criterion of our judgment will be the love that we have had toward God and toward our brothers and sisters. How, then, will this particular judgment occur? At times, I run into persons who are convinced that immediately after death they will meet Jesus in person and that He will give them a piece of His mind for some of their dolorous affairs. Frankly, I do not think that it will happen like this. Rather, I believe that, immediately after death, each of us will appear before Jesus, but it will not be the Lord who will review our lives and examine the good and the bad each of us has done. We ourselves shall do it, in truth and honesty.
Each one will have before himself the complete vision of his life, and he will immediately see the real spiritual state of his soul and will go where his situation will bring him. It will be a solemn moment of self-truth, a tremendous and definitive moment, as definitive as the place where we shall be sent. Let us consider the case of the person who goes to purgatory.
It will involve the sorrow of not immediately going to paradise that will make him understand that his purification on earth was not complete, and he will feel the immediate need of purifying himself. His desire of acceding to the vision of God will be strong, and the desire for liberation from the weight of the pains accumulated during his earthly life will be compelling."
Gabrielle Amorth, An Exorcist Describes Death and Judgement, 25 October 2019
Stocks did their usual wartime boogie woogie today, ending in a big pop n' flop.
Bessent and his Band of Merry Pranksters are pushing the markets around using the futures, a tactic that was pioneered by Robert Rubin when he was the Treasury Secretary. If you don't believe me, go look it up.
Gold and silver rallied and then fell back a little. They seem to be reacting to the gyrations of the dollar.
VIX fell back to the 20 EMA.
We will be getting some consumer inflation data tomorrow. It is for February and is already outdated by the onset of this latest military adventure.
Almost nothing that comes out of the Trump Administration is true, especially if it involves money, shameless scandals, or brazen acts of lawlessness. They tend to make statements during the day to boost the markets that later prove to be fictional.
The risk markets are very important symbols of Trumpian triumphalism.
The premises that caused them to start this military conflict were clearly not true, which just about informed observers outside of DC would have known. They exist in an echo chamber of delusions and lies. Their strategy and preparations are entirely ineffective and inadequate, ripe with unintended consequences.
This is likely to exert very negative pressures on the global economy, including the US. They may try to downplay and diminish them.
But the risk and lack of control in this operation is apparent to anyone who is willing to accept the truth from whatever source.
Have a pleasant evening.
