Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Empires of Fear and Anger, Force and Fraud

 

"In the federal elections of November 1932, the last free election in that nation for some time, the NSDAP received 33% of the national vote, and 196 of the seats.

In a January 1933 compromise promoted heavily by industrialists who feared socialism and communism, the NSDAP party leader was named chancellor of a coalition government.

In February 1933 there was a fire that destroyed part of the Reichstag building that was blamed on leftists and communists.   The government passed the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State, Reichstagsbrandverordnung, which suspended civil liberties and outlawed all other political parties.  This is known as Machtergreifung, the seizure of power.

In March 1933, in an election marked by violent repression and the silencing of most political opponents, starting with the left but moving quickly to include the Social Democrats and the Zentrum, or Center Party, the NSDAP received 43% of the national vote, and 288 seats out of 647.

The Enabling Act, Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich, was passed, and plenary power was granted to the Chancellor to enact laws without the involvement of the Reichstag.

By July 1933 there were about 27,000 key political leaders and journalists, in opposition to the NSDAP, housed in newly established concentration camps in Oranienburgm Esterwegen, Dachau, and Lichtenburg.

There were no more meaningful elections until 1949.

In their fear and anger the German people reached for a strong and decisive leader who promised them a return to normalcy and freedom from their confusion, and sought to preserve themselves as they wished to be with the heady fumes of power.   

The great majority of the people looked on, and did nothing.

And the rest, as they say, is history."

Jesse, Fear, Intolerance, and Anger, 12 December 2015

There will be a packet of economic data out tomorrow including ex-im prices and retail sales.

But of course the Big Tickle will be the Fed rate decision on Wednesday afternoon.

I think it is reasonable to expect a 25 basis point cut, with words about data vigilance to follow.

We *might* see a 'sell the news' phenomenon.

There will be the September Option expiration of the triple witch variety on Friday.   

Gold and silver both cracked higher today, with gold punching through 3700 and sticking the close, and silver joining in by breaking 43.

Inflation with a slowing economy looks to be developing.  It takes a special level of unfortunate circumstance or government incompetency to achieve this unusual type of stagflationary outcome.

But Donnie and his merry pranksters may be just the crew for the job.

VIX ticked UP today to the 200 DMA, despite the soaring equity markets.

Low rumbling underneath the surface perhaps, signalling a nascent movement to risk aversion.

But, let's see what happens.

The extension of the probability tails, and ignoring of major exogenous risks, is setting up what *could be* a rather nasty wash and rinse.

The Netanyahu and Zelensky governments seem to be pushing for an escalation of US involvement in their regional conflicts.  And they have their usual neo-con cheerleaders in government and media here. 

In 'real terms' we may be witness to a significant high in some market prices.  Maybe generational.

The unsustainable is maintained through force and fraud. 

As fraud loses its effectiveness, force increases. 

 Madness is in the air.  The metals have caught a whiff of it.

Have a pleasant evening. 

  

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Dread Gathering of Beasts

 

“Above all, don't lie to yourself.  A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.  And having no respect he ceases to love. and having no love, he gives himself over to passions and animal pleasures.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, 1880

“Truth and the hatred of truth come into our world together. As soon as truth appears, it is regarded as an enemy.   They remain in ignorance as long as they hate, and they hate unjustly as long as they remain in ignorance.”

Tertullian, Apologeticus, 197

"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women?  It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes.  That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow.  A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few, as we have learned to our sorrow."

Judge Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty, 21 May 1944

“Hell has three gates: lust, anger and greed.”

Ved Vyasa, Mahābhārata महाभारतम्

"In the last days perilous times shall come.  For there shall be men who are lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, evil speakers, disobedient to their parents, unthankful, impure, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, without temperance, without meekness, without goodness, traitors, rash, puffed up, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God."

2 Timothy 3:1-4

Stocks rose to another high. 

This is a 'vanity bubble,' a transparent swelling of lies.

Gold bounced back, silver rallied with stocks.

VIX fell again.

The Dollar chopped around.

We are one event away from a historic reckoning for this cult of idolatry, a dread gathering of beasts. 

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Weep Instead for Yourselves and Your Children

 

“All tyrannies are virtuoso displays over many years of cunning, risk-taking, terror, delusion, narcissism, showmanship and charm, distilled into a spectacle of total personal control.  Tyrants are the greatest of all actor-managers — omnipotent impresarios.

For a dictatorship to last long, it has to ensure a degree of economic prosperity and justice. When these are no longer assured, their fall is inevitable.  A dictator meticulously collects around himself, people who feed him with 'facts' and 'assessments' he likes to hear rather than truth.  He shuts himself from the harsh reality outside and indulges in actions that only increase the wrath of the masses."

Simon Sebag Montefiore, Dictators Get the Deaths They Deserve, October 26, 2011

"Indeed, one can be deceived in many ways; one can be deceived in believing what is untrue, but on the other hand, one is also deceived in not believing what is true."

Søren Kierkegaard, Kjerlighedens Gjerninger, SKS vol.9, 1847

"Over the past 30 years the plutocrats have used their vastly increased wealth to capture the flag and assure the government does their bidding.  This marriage of money and politics has produced an America of gross inequality at the top and low social mobility at the bottom, with little but anxiety and dread in between, as middle class Americans feel the ground falling out from under their feet.  Millions of Americans have awakened to a sobering reality: they live in a plutocracy, where they are disposable."

Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers Journal, 30 April 2010

"Turning to them Jesus said, 'Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me.  Weep instead for yourselves and your children.'"

Luke 23:28

It was risk on today, as the dismal unemployment claims number came in hot, and the inflation numbers were high but in-line.

So its rate cut time, yay!

We may be led by hysterical fools and craven nincompoops, dancing along like trousered apes for the sake of a powerfully pampered few, but we still know how to celebrate 'winning.'

VIX fell.

The Dollar fell.

Stocks soared, pulling silver along with them.

Gold held its ground weakly on the risky exuberance.

There are some ugly things gathering on our horizon, but no one really wants to hear it.

A few years ago I made a decent forecast which came true, and a snarky reader said that 'I would probably like to be a prophet.'

And I answered, 'Certainly not.  Prophets have notoriously poor career prospects.'

And they do.  People do not want to hear about the consequences of their lawlessness and excess and foolishness.

You can't drive with your crazy drunk grandpa or your crazy drunk self at the wheel every other day, and not expect something bad to happen eventually.

And yet here we are. 

"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.  Plunder, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."

Tacitus, Agricola

Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.   Even if they delude themselves into thinking that for their greed, lawlessness, and even murders, that they will not be judged. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's Last Words To the American People

 

April 13, 1945
Jefferson Day Speech 

Americans are gathered together this evening in communities all over the country to pay tribute to the living memory of Thomas Jefferson — one of the greatest of all democrats; and I want to make it clear that I am spelling that word "democrats" with a small d.

I wish I had the power, just for this evening, to be present at all of these gatherings.

In this historic year, more than ever before, we do well to consider the character of Thomas Jefferson as an American citizen of the world.

As Minister to France, then as our first Secretary of State and as our third President, Jefferson was instrumental in the establishment of the United States as a vital factor in international affairs.

It was he who first sent our Navy into far-distant waters to defend our rights.  And the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine was the logical development of Jefferson's far-seeing foreign policy.

Today this Nation which Jefferson helped so greatly to build is playing a tremendous part in the battle for the rights of man all over the world.

Today we are part of the vast Allied force — a force composed of flesh and blood and steel and spirit — which is today destroying the makers of war, the breeders of hatred, in Europe and in Asia.

In Jefferson's time our Navy consisted of only a handful of frigates headed by the gallant U.S.S. Constitution — Old Ironsides — but that tiny Navy taught Nations across the Atlantic that piracy in the Mediterranean — acts of aggression against peaceful commerce and the enslavement of their crews — was one of those things which, among neighbors, simply was not done.

Today we have learned in the agony of war that great power involves great responsibility.  Today we can no more escape the consequences of German and Japanese aggression than could we avoid the consequences of attacks by the Barbary Corsairs a century and a half before.

We, as Americans, do not choose to deny our responsibility.

Nor do we intend to abandon our determination that, within the lives of our children and our children's children, there will not be a third world war.

We seek peace — enduring peace.  More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars—yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman, and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.

The once powerful, malignant Nazi state is crumbling.  The Japanese war lords are receiving, in their own homeland, the retribution for which they asked when they attacked Pearl Harbor.

But the mere conquest of our enemies is not enough.

We must go on to do all in our power to conquer the doubts and the fears, the ignorance and the greed, which made this horror possible.

Thomas Jefferson, himself a distinguished scientist, once spoke of 'the brotherly spirit of Science, which unites into one family all its votaries of whatever grade, and however widely dispersed throughout the different quarters of the globe.' 

Today, science has brought all the different quarters of the globe so close together that it is impossible to isolate them one from another.

Today we are faced with the preeminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships — the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together, in the same world, at peace.

Let me assure you that my hand is the steadier for the work that is to be done, that I move more firmly into the task, knowing that you — millions and millions of you — are joined with me in the resolve to make this work endure.

The work, my friends, is peace.  More than an end of this war — an end to the beginnings of all wars.  Yes, an end, forever, to this impractical, unrealistic settlement of the differences between governments by the mass killing of peoples.

Today, as we move against the terrible scourge of war — as we go forward toward the greatest contribution that any generation of human beings can make in this world — the contribution of lasting peace, I ask you to keep up your faith.   I measure the sound, solid achievement that can be made at this time by the straight edge of your own confidence and your resolve.   And to you, and to all Americans who dedicate themselves with us to the making of an abiding peace, I say:

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.  Let us move forward with strong and active faith.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Undelivered Jefferson Day Speech

FDR died of a heart attack on April 12, 1945