Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Change Forged in Misery and Blood

 

"The only resource against political disorders that had been known till then was the concentration of power. Solon undertook to effect the same object by the distribution of power.  He gave to the common people as much influence as he thought them able to employ, that the State might be exempt from arbitrary government.  It is the essence of Democracy, he said, to obey no master but the law.  Solon recognised the principle that political forms are not final or inviolable, and must adapt themselves to facts; and he provided so well for the revision of his constitution, without breach of continuity or loss of stability."

John Dalberg Lord Acton, History of Freedom in Antiquity, 1877

"Gold does have some remarkable qualities that make it quite suitable for use as money.  No one can create it, it is enduring, and relatively stable in terms of growth.  As an external standard it is almost ideal.  There is little wonder that diverse societies have gravitated towards gold and things like it down the long corridor of time.  And yet it does have one drawback: gold alone cannot enforce honesty on a corrupted system.  The recent growth on paper of the rehypothecated gold supply is one case in point.

There is no secret to creating a workable system.  I know I could do it, and many other people could so as well and perhaps much better.  The problem is that people with power do not wish to have a good system.

There will be no good and sustainable monetary system easily reached for the same reasons that this generation of leaders can no longer create and put forward fair and workable laws for their own country.  They are overcome by ego and greed.  They wish for a system riddled with loopholes and personal advantage for them and their friends.  So this is what is produced.  And until this changes, progress and change will be spattered with misery and blood, as it has so often been in the past.

If there is any key point I wish you to take and hold in your minds and hearts it is that there is no such thing as a perfect, self-regulating monetary system.  There could only be such an ideal model if men and women were angels, perfectly rational and reliably virtuous.

And like wealth, the distribution of reason and virtue is very uneven, and so all systems must rely on a continuing effort and bias towards equal justice for all.  And this has inescapable requirements for the design of the system.  Among these are transparency and the rule of law.  And the assumption that there will always be those who will be actively attempting to subvert the system, some bluntly, and some quite cleverly. So there must be a mechanism for administering justice, for all.

Money is power, and power corrupts.  No system can succeed by its own design if its reins are held in the hands of mortal people, with all their weaknesses and failings.  So the system must account for this, and accommodate change and judgement, as well as the balance of justice.

This was the great innovation of the US Constitution, the balance of power and its ability to change and evolve through law, with its commitment to justice and equality as an ideal, integrated into its construction, even though imperfectly by imperfect men of their time. This is what made it such a bright star on the darkened horizon of human endeavour, a hymn to human freedom. And look what they've done to our song.

It will be fascinating to see how this evolves. Will we see the creation of an SDR like monetary instrument based on a basket of items and currencies not under the control of a single power bloc?

Will the world evolve into three or four powerful trading blocs, each with their own currency arrangements? Will the current dollar hegemony continue on until the collapses, and the what could have been an evolution will be a more sudden monetary revolution in which great wealth is destroyed, transferred and created anew?

We do live in interesting times. And inescapably, these questions are now being addressed in the ongoing struggle for monetary power, in what some have called the currency wars."

Jesse, Currency Wars, 9 September 2013

"How long can the US government protect the dollar’s value by leasing its gold to bullion dealers who sell it, thereby holding down the gold price?  Given the incompetence in Washington and on Wall Street, our best hope is that the rest of the world is even less competent and even in deeper trouble.  In this event, the US dollar might survive as the least valueless of the world’s fiat currencies."

Paul Craig Roberts, The Golden Rule, Daily Kos, 19 May 2009

"The vast majority of privately negotiated OTC contracts are settled in cash rather than through delivery. Cash settlement typically is based on a rate or price in a highly liquid market with a very large or virtually unlimited deliverable supply, for example, LIBOR or the spot dollar-yen exchange rate. To be sure, there are a limited number of OTC derivative contracts that apply to nonfinancial underlying assets.

There is a significant business in oil-based derivatives, for example. But unlike farm crops, especially near the end of a crop season, private counterparties in oil contracts have virtually no ability to restrict the worldwide supply of this commodity.  Nor can private counterparties restrict supplies of gold, another commodity whose derivatives are often traded over-the-counter, where central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise."

Alan Greenspan, Testimony to Congress, July 24, 1998

We are now dealing with people in positions of power who are lawless, and have demonstrated that no crime, no matter how horrific or dishonorable, is beyond them.  And they have no shame, and believe that they will never be held to account for their transgressions.  This is the fruition of moral hazard.

Change is coming, slowly.  And those who have served their basest desires and wickedness in high places, for many, many years, will not accept that change quietly. 

This is the lesson from history.

Global automotive giant Honda has reportedly posted an annual loss for the first time in 70 years.

Stocks shook off geopolitical tremors and awful inflation numbers and extended their rally.

Bitcoin jumped higher in the last hour of trading.   I am now more convinced than ever that it is a control fraud that will end in misery, but only after it has been used by unscrupulous people to add to their wealth.

The Dollar rallied.  Gold and silver were smacked lower.

Never forget this is a currency war, and the US and the BRICs are at the epicenter of it.

VIX is once again supine.  The mispricing of risk is a key element of any financial asset bubble.  

I am not going to try and convince anyone of anything.   There is no sense talking with people given over to madness, and those determined to be rich through extraordinarily means. 

As always, people are free to serve whom and what that they wish.

Free to follow and serve their idols, even into the abyss.  And many will.

This is the lesson from history.

But for many of us, the challenge is to be a Christian, and remain standing in faith in an increase of lawlessness. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Power: The Will to Destroy and Be Destroyed

 

"Their tongues are devious weapons, bent like drawn bows. With lies rather than truth they have gained power in the land. They commit one crime after another. They do not accept me."

Jeremiah 9:3

"When one knows it is possible to kill without risking either punishment or blame, one kills; or at least one surrounds those who kill with encouraging smiles.  If one feels a little disgust, one keeps quiet about it, and before long one extinguishes it, for fear of seeming to lack manliness.  One is swept up; it is an intoxication impossible to resist without a strength of soul I am obliged to consider exceptional, since I have never encountered it anywhere.  

In contrast, I have encountered peaceable French persons, whom I did not despise up to this point, who would not have had themselves the idea of killing, but who bathed in this atmosphere soaking in blood with visible pleasure.  For the latter I can never have any esteem in the future."

Simone Weil, Letter to George Bernanos on the War in Spain, Paris, 1938

"We shed blood for high-sounding words spelled out in capital letters. We seek to impart content to them by destroying other men who believe in enemy-words, also in capital letters. … The nothingness of national, class, or racial myth must receive an apparent substance, not from intelligible content but from the will to destroy and be destroyed."

Thomas Merton, The Answer of Minerva: Pacifism and Resistance in Simone Weil, 1968

"You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined. Suddenly it all comes to be, all at once.  You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done.  For that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing.  You remember everything now, and your heart breaks.  Too late.  You are compromised beyond repair."

Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45, 1955

Stocks managed to shake off a mountain of awful news to rally again, led by the tech bubble.

The Dollar rallied.

Bitcoin pulled back.

Gold stumbled, but silver powered higher, most likely on Chinese stockpiling and the bubble enthusiasm for the economy.

We live in times that try men, that weigh their souls.

God will determine by our actions who will be judged righteous, and not.   

And for many, they are weighed, and will be found wanting.

This will not be a trial, with testimony and response.  It will be a perfect exposition.  

The light of truth will show you what you are, with no need for explanation or excuses or negotiation.

Evil, when we are in the presence of its power, seems attractive, and even an obligation.

Do not be deceived, for God is not mocked.  What a man sows, so shall he reap.

And that will be that, the only thing that matters, in the end. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Refusing to See, Hardening Their Hearts

 

"We want to go on the record, here and now, that the past scandals of the New York Stock Exchange are going to look like minor hiccups when the history of the current New York Stock Exchange era is written. The listing standards for companies that the New York Stock Exchange allows to trade under its imprimatur is the worst in its history."

Pam Martens, Wall Street On Parade, 30 December 2021

"What normalization does is transform the morally extraordinary into the ordinary. It makes us able to tolerate what was once intolerable by making it seem as if this is the way things have always been.

The dangers of fascist politics come from the particular way in which it dehumanizes segments of the population. It limits the capacity for empathy among other citizens, leading to the justification of inhumane treatment, from repression of freedom, mass imprisonment, and expulsion to, in extreme cases, mass extermination."

Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works, 2018

"In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words they were exceptional humans: they did not believe in plagues.'It's impossible that there could be a plague, because everyone knows that they have vanished from the West. We should not act as though half the town were threatened with death, because then it would be.'  Yes, everyone knew that, except for the dead.

Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they forgot to be human, that was all, and thought that everything still was possible for them; which presupposed that plagues were impossible. They went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How could they have given a thought to anything like a plague, which rules out any future, cancels journeys, silences the exchange of views. They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are plagues."

Albert Camus, The Plague, 1947

“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky."

Luke 21:10-11

Stocks sold off early, on signs that the 'peace' in the Mideast is an illusion.

Gold was sold but bounced back a bit.  Silver shook off the sellers and gained for the day.

VIX fell of course.

The Dollar continues to hang around the 98 handle.

Japan is selling dollars to support the yen.  But their portion of the DXY index is not large enough to move it.

Bitcoin fell back to support on the higher end of the 80k handle.

I continue to believe, very strongly, that if the 'peace' with Iran falls apart, the markets are going to crater, and take a number of things with them.

But cooler heads *might* prevail.   

Donald regrets getting himself into this, against the advice of his own intelligence agencies and military.

But Netanyahu wants to dominate the area, and Iran stands in his way.

Why Trump allows himself to be used in this way is a puzzle.  Every president since Reagan has been approached with the same proposition, and turned it down.

Perhaps some day the truth will be revealed.  

In the meantime, the mispricing of risk continues.

Let's hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - In These Final Hours

 

"The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand;  the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone".

George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life, 1858

"The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less their victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil.  Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt.  And pain is not only immediately recognisable evil, but evil impossible to ignore.

We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities; and anyone who has watched gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating, will admit that we can ignore even pleasure.  But pain insists upon being attended to.  God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 1940 

"Behold, I am standing at the door, knocking. If one of you hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with that person, and that person with me."

Revelation 3:20

"God is constantly knocking at the gate of my heart to invite me to go beyond the state I have reached, because my whole life should be a journey on the way to Love.  I cannot give a renewed assent to Love, nor above all can I give a more intensified assent than hitherto, unless a divine movement comes secretly to my heart to help it ascend higher.  I can refuse it.  But if I let God act he will raise me further, step by step, to a greater love."

Charles Journet, The Meaning of Grace, 1960

"This great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, compassion, historical necessity or even social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on traditional concepts. The Incarnation is the ultimate reason why the service of God cannot be divorced from the service of man.

In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack, even on the least of men, is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all.  Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 1937

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth."

John 1:14

A person who does not read, who has not explored and reflected upon the thoughts and experiences of those from other lands and times, those gone before us, is left stumbling through life, afflicted with what the Buddhists call the three poisons: greed, hate, and delusion. 

And many grow quite comfortable with that impairment, with the notion that their cravings are the principal laws of the world.  And they will destroy all that is the truth, and offends their hollowness. They raise their flags on fields of barbaric self-absorption, and attempt to fill the great hole in their being with things and structures and people whom they consume.

It is the role of the law, and the duty of good people through all time, to restrain the bestial spirit which possesses those given over to madness, who if they can will live on the flesh of the innocent.

Let us not judge those who have been derelict in their duty toward God and their fellow men in days gone by, but rather learn from them, and not place that mantle of disreputable guilt on ourselves and our children.

Stocks managed to gather themselves and squeeze a little higher yet, falling back a bit into the close.

There is little doubt in my mind that this is a purposeful distortion of the markets for a number of reasons, the most potent of which is the need for gilding the lily of failure by those unworthy few in power. But primarily to help to disguise their looting, and their future plans for retaining it.

As one of their vile breed once said, 'Never waste a crisis.'

Gold managed to rally higher again after its recent event-driven shellacking.  But silver bolted higher, with the force and momentum that never ceases to amaze.

The industrial component of silver is powerful, but also a two-edged sword of beta volatility.  

VIX ticked up a bit, but is still in a fog of delusion.

Bitcoin is continuing to break up and out of its trading range.  So far the action looks more calculated than organic.  But we'll know more at overhead resistance. 

Inflation data tomorrow.

A serious economic dislocation is gathering on the horizon.   And the captain and crew of the goodly ship of state are busy looting the purser's office, and walking the decks saying 'all is well'.

Who could have seen it coming?

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Drenched by Storms, Faithful to the Last

 

"The world does not understand what our real power is, and where it lies.  And until we put ourselves into its hands of our own act, it can do nothing against us.  Till we leave off patience, meekness, purity, resignation, and peace, it can do nothing against that Truth which is our birthright, that Cause which is ours, as it has been the cause of all saints before us.  But let all who would labour for God in a dark time beware of any thing which ruffles, excites, and in any way withdraws them from the love of God and Christ, and simple obedience to Him."

John Henry Newman, The Weapons of Saints, 29 October 1837

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."

G.K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News, December 31, 1910

"His instruments are poor and despised; the world hardly knows their names. They are busied about what the world thinks petty, and no one minds them. They are apparently set on no great works; nothing is seen to come of what they do: they seem to fail. But there is an unseen connection in the kingdom of God. Such is the rule of our warfare. We rise by falling; we inherit the earth through meekness; we gain comfort through mourning; we earn glory by penitence and prayer. Heaven and earth shall sooner fall than this rule be reversed; it is the law of Christ's kingdom, and nothing can reverse it but sin."

John Henry Newman, Joshua, Christ and His Followers, 13 April 1834

"Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth, you who carry out what He commands. Seek righteousness, and seek humility, that you may find shelter on the day of the Lord’s wrath."

Zephaniah 2:3

"I know there is a God – and I see a storm coming. If he has a place for me, I believe that I am ready.'”

John F Kennedy, from James Douglass, JFK's Rendezvous with Death, November 2009

"Wonderful providence indeed which is so silent, yet so efficacious, so constant, so unerring. This is what baffles the power of Satan. He cannot discern the Hand of God in what goes on; and though he would fain meet it and encounter it, in his mad and blasphemous rebellion against heaven, he cannot find it.

Crafty and penetrating as he is, yet his thousand eyes and his many instruments avail him nothing against the majestic serene silence, the holy imperturbable calm which reigns through the providences of God. He makes a guess here, or does a bold act there, but all in the dark. If even devils, sagacious as they are, spirits by nature and experienced in evil, cannot detect His hand while He works, how can we hope to see it except by that way which the devils cannot take, by loving faith."

John Henry Newman, Christ Manifested in Remembrance, 19 May 1833

"The Beatitudes remain a paradox only for those who believe that God is other than how Christ reveals him. Those who expect the arrogant to always rule the earth are surprised by the Lord’s words. Those who are accustomed to thinking that happiness belongs to the rich may believe that Jesus is deluded. However, the delusion lies precisely in the lack of faith in Christ. He is the poor man who shares his life with everyone, the meek man who perseveres in suffering, the peacemaker persecuted to death on the cross."

Pope Leo XIV, Angelus Address, 1 February 2026

 

If, say six months from now, you could look back on this time, what would you do differently?

Think about it.   And then do it now, and not when you are looking back with regret.

Stocks powered to a new high, setting the bubble and all that follows from it firmly in place.

This is the hubris of worldly power gone mad.

Gold and silver bounced a bit.

Bitcoin held its own.

VIX remain dulled to the mispricing of risk.

Trump will be going to China to visit with Xi Jinping.

I am sure the meeting will be very polite and mannered.  And that Donald will rein in his restless impulses.

Elsewhere around the world, there are storms that seem to be gathering in their power.   Men have lost their way, 

As a group of students wrote in Munich 84 years ago:

"Everywhere and always demonic powers lurk in the dark, waiting for the moment when man is weak; when of his own volition he leaves his place in Creation, as founded for him by God in freedom; and when he yields to the forces of evil, he separates himself from the powers of a higher order; after voluntarily taking the first step, he is driven on and on to the next and to the next, at a furiously accelerating rate."

When the times seem dark, and it becomes difficult to see ahead through the storm, we are obliged to gather ourselves together and move forward, advancing in confidence with our shepherd.  

Even though in fear and trembling, as those who we remember have walked before.

Have a pleasant weekend.