Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Rot of Imperial Decay

 

"A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy.  I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime.  Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy.  They extend aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there."

William E. Dodd, US Ambassador to Germany, Letter to President Roosevelt, 1936

“The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whip their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy— then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece.”

Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

"The party defined what was legal and what was not.  The presumption of innocence was replaced by a universalized presumption of guilt.  Extreme radical systems have unique features, including rationalization of power, definition of the enemies. They represent efforts to establish total control over society through systematic aggression against any form of autonomous associations, as well as the persecution and eventual extermination of ideologically defined adversaries.  The ideology is aptly summarized in an apocalyptic statement from the vision of a superior elite whose utopian goals sanctify the most barbaric methods — the denial of the right to life to those who are defined as 'degenerate parasites and predators,' the deliberate de-humanization of the victims."

Vladimir Tismaneanu, Understanding Radical Evil, July 7, 2011


Gold and silver were hammered down today. I have been expecting something like this, and have been standing aside in cash. 

I came back in and took some new positions near the close.

China is having a holiday week in February, and I do not know how active their trading markets will be.

Stocks waffled around.

VIX is a puppet on a string.

As I have mentioned before, the smell of Bessent and the government are all over the tape and the 'official data.'  

When Donnie realizes he is going down, things could get much more bizarre. 

If after all that has happened you are still willing to ignore and rationalize fraud, lies, willful murder, and genocide, then you are most likely on a twisted path that will not end well for you and those around you. 

I will pray for all of us.

Have a pleasant weekend. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - True Spiritual Darkness

 

"You belong to your father the devil, and you want to serve your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not serving the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

John 8:43-44

"In contrast to the vile actions of the 'Angel of Death' were the noble and heroic actions of many 'Angels of Life' who stood ready to risk their own lives for the sake of saving that of a stranger."

Yossi Refson, Angels of Light

"Beware of false prophets who disguise themselves in sheep’s clothing, but who are inwardly ravening wolves. By their fruits you will know them."

Matthew 7:15-16

"The devil is no fool.  He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell.  And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.  When we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen."

Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."

Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law, 1904

"These things I command, that you may love one another. If the world despises you, know that it has despised me first, before it has hated you. If you were a thing of the world, the world would love you as its own. But I have chosen you out of the world, you do not belong to it, and it rejects you."

John 15:17-19

"This is love, that He laid down his life for us.  And we are obliged to lay down our lives for one another.  If anyone has the means and sees a brother or sister in need, but closes his heart against them, how can the love of God abide in that person?  Children, let us love each other not only with words or speech, but with actions and truth."

1 John 3:15-16

“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me. Weep for yourselves and your children."

Luke 23:28

“No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the catacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love.”

Maximilian Kolbe


Because the freedom granted by ignorance is unconstrained by facts, we learn nothing. 

Most evil is committed not by those who choose to be good or evil, but who refuse to serve anything but themselves.

And the band plays on.

Stocks slumped hard today, but once again managed to recover quite a bit of that loss in the afternoon hours. 

Bessent and his ESF cronies are active.  This most likely includes the NY Fed, but a loose coalition of hedge fund and private equity operators who are actively gaming the system for their own benefit.

Gold and silver were smacked very hard in a calculated bear raid.   I was expecting one, especially after this later moonshot rally in silver.

This is how they operate.  

They are not particularly clever because they do not have to be.   They are operating virtually without oversight, and the omerta on Wall Street is a powerful accessory to deception.

I think the intent to strike Iran in a more serious way has fizzled out, with the failure of the 'color revolution' type protests that were sparked by the three sisters of darkness: MI6, Mossad, and the CIA.

But with the fleet at hand, Donnie is going to have to do 'something' to save face, without provoking Iran to retaliate by crushing something that will be missed, either some US base or a chunk of Tel Aviv.

These are difficult times.   Spineless politicians and unprincipled journalists are laying down smoke that enables some rather bizarre ideologues and power-mongers to engage in excesses normally considered untenable.

Murder a few Americans in the street to attempt to provoke a reaction, turn a blind eye to one of the worst massacres of civilians in this current century — anything goes as the oligarchs continue to acquire the means of public media and control it. 

This is going to come to an end, and most likely a very harmful and damaging end, in which a large number of innocent people are going to be hurt.

This is the way of the bubble, and the bust.

And so we are going down this path once again, for the third time in that many decades.

It is the reaving of the American economy by the plutocrats.

Let's see how well this observation by the chief financial officer of the US will age. 

"I think 2026 is going to be the year of the Trump boom." Scott Bessent, January 29, 2026

How are the mighty fallen.  And their weapons of power have perished.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Oligarchs, Flush With Victory

 

"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege."

Thomas Clement Douglas, Canadian MP

"Communism and fascism or Nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority."

James Alexander Campbell Brown, Techniques of Persuasion, 1963

"Whoever today still doubts the reality, the existence of demonic powers, has failed by a wide margin to understand the metaphysical background of this war.  Behind the concrete, the visible events, behind all the objective, logical considerations, we find that which goes beyond the merely rational: the struggle against evil, against the servants of the antichrist."

Die Weiße Rose, Fourth Leaflet, Munich, 1942

"Around the world, authoritarian leaders are on the rise.  They're working from a common playbook.   They use violent rhetoric.  They attack the media.  They see their political rivals as existential enemies to the nation.  Demagogues are willing to do or say anything to gain office or to consolidate their power. Unconstrained by ideology, they have no concern for the consequences of their actions.  Anything that serves to make them more powerful is good enough for them — even if the political system that facilitated their rise should be destroyed in the process."

Daniel Ziblatt, Saving Democracy from Demagogues, 2022

"The oligarchs are flush with victory, and feel that they are firmly in control, able to subvert and direct any popular movement to the support of their own fascist ends and unslakable will to power. This is the contempt in which they hold the majority of American people and the political process: the common people are easily led fools, and everyone else who is smart enough to know better has their price.

And they would beggar every middle class voter in the US before they will voluntarily give up one dime of their ill gotten gains. But my model says that the oligarchs will continue to press their advantages, being flushed with victory, until they provoke a strong reaction that frightens everyone, like a wake up call, and the tide then turns to genuine reform."

Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, May 2009

"The more power a government has the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects.  Power will achieve its murderous potential.  It simply waits for an excuse, an event of some sort, an assassination, a massacre in a neighboring country, an attempted coup, a famine, or a natural disaster, to justify the beginning of murder en masse."

R. J. Rummel, Mass Murder and Genocide, 1994


The Fed did not change interest rates today.

Stocks popped and flopped back to unchanged.

VIX is wallowing, oblivious to the growing economic and geopolitical risks.

Gold and silver went ballistic in an impressive rally to new highs.  

What are the precious metals telling us?   

If you don't yet know, you have not been listening.  

And you certainly are not prepared for what is coming next.

The hand of God is moving, slowly and silently among us.

I know, you don't believe it.

Did you believe that gold would be near $5400 and silver at $118 even six months ago?  

If someone could tell you what would happen over the next 24 months you would not believe that either.  But you could figure it out for yourself, if you were not so taken over by foolish pride and fantasy.

"God will allow a powerful delusion to take those who rejected the truth, so that they may believe the lie and be condemned, because they have delighted in their lawlessness."   2 Thessalonians 11-12

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Love of Power Is Hell

 

"A new commandment I give you — that you love one another, as I have loved you.  By this all will know that you are mine — if you love one another.'”

John 13:34-35

"Holiness consists simply in doing God's will, and being just what God wants us to be.  Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.  Without love deeds, even the greatest, count as nothing.  Our Lord's love shines forth as much in the simplest of souls as it does in the most highly gifted, as long as there is no refusal of His grace."

Thérèse Martin de Lisieux, L'Histoire d'une Âme

"What we would like to do is change the world–make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe and shelter themselves as God intended them to do.  And to a certain extent, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, of the poor, of the destitute – the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor.  We can to a certain extent change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world."

Dorothy Day, Love Is the Measure, June 1946

“The opposite of love is not hate, he said.  It’s power.  Relationships fueled by a drive for power, where one person seeks dominance over the other, are incapable of producing love.”

David Talbot, The Devil's Chessboard: the Rise of America's Secret Government, 2015

"And the rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to my brothers from the dead, then they will surely repent of their sins and turn to God.’ But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded, even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Luke 16:30-31 

The absence of love is power.  The love of power is hell. 

The emptiness of the absence of divine comfort, that selfless presence which comforts and flows around a soul in the vastness of eternity, is what will burn those who refuse the call to love.  The absence of God from 'interference with their lives' that they had desired is a terrible judgement.  They suffer in a torment of regret, alone and unloved.

The casual ease with which people consign themselves to the abyss makes the devils in hell rejoice, and the angels in heaven weep. 

Who could have seen it coming?

 Stocks continued to rally today.   

Today was a minor option expiration for gold and silver futures on the Comex. 

Gold and silver came in struggling, but rocketed higher in the late day trade as the Dollar continued its cascading decline.  

Uncle Buck plunged in the closing hour to fall into the 95 handle. 

What are the markets saying to us?

VIX wallows.

Bitcoin managed to stage a little rally in the last hour.  It is back in its trading range after a failed breakout attempt.

FOMC rate decision tomorrow. 

Trump is heading into a turning point.  That much is obvious to anyone who is watching.

His attempts to thwart the midterm elections will escalate.  

The hand of God is moving now among us.   

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - And Where Are the Snows of Yesteryear?

 

"They shall eat the bitter fruit of their ways, and be gutted by their schemes.  The foolish turn away from me — to death.  For fools are destroyed by their pride and self-deception.”

Proverbs 1:31-33

"Where are the princes of this world, and those who lorded it over the creatures of the earth?  Those who hoarded up riches in which they placed their hope.  Those who have no limit to their greed, who scheme to get more wealth, and are always anxious about their possessions.

Now there is nothing left of them.  They have vanished into the bowels of the earth, and others like them have risen to take their place."

Baruch 3:16-19

"And Joan, the holy maiden from Lorraine
Whom the English burned at Rouen;
Where are they now, O Virgin Queen?
And where are the snows of yesteryear."

François Villon, Ballade des dames du temps jadis

"The inability to identify with others was unquestionably the most important psychological condition for the fact that something like Auschwitz could have occurred in the midst of more or less civilised and innocent people.  The silence under the terror was only its consequence.  The coldness of the societal mindset, the isolated competitor, was the precondition, as indifference to the fate of others, for the fact that only very few people reacted. The torturers know this, and they put it to test ever anew.

One must come to know the mechanisms that render people capable of such deeds, must reveal these mechanisms to them, and strive, by awakening a general awareness of those mechanisms, to prevent people from becoming so again.

It is not the victims who are guilty, not even in the sophistic and caricatured sense in which still today many like to construe it.  Only those who unreflectingly vented their hate and aggression upon them are guilty.  One must labor against this lack of reflection, must dissuade people from striking outward without reflecting upon themselves.  The only education that has any sense at all is an education toward critical self-reflection."

Theodor Adorno, Education After Auschwitz, 18 April 1966


Silver rocketed to a new all time high today of 117.70, but backed off to around 108 into the close.  Still a solid gain piled on the recent breakout over 100.

Gold rallied.

Bitcoin slumped a bit.

The Dollar continued its cascading decline, now to the bottom of the 97 handle.

Stocks rallied sharply.

Then tend to do that on Mondays lately.

We will be having the FOMC rate decision on Wednesday.

It's hard to tell, but things seem to be approaching a tipping point in the States, as we head into the midterm elections. 

It seems that the bold lawlessness of the day will keep testing the strength of justice and the commitment of this generation to the freedoms which it has been given.

That boldness will continue until stopped.  And as men learn that they can break the law with impunity, they will develop a taste for it, and the impetus for even greater excess.

"Where are the leaders?  Has our political process become so compromised by powerful interest groups and the threat of character assassination that even the best among us will not dare to speak honestly about the solutions that might bring us back to common sense and fundamental fairness?"    Senator Jim Webb, A Time to Fight, 2008

Where are our leaders indeed?

Have a pleasant evening.