Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Requiem for Power by Innocents

 

"The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.

He was in complete command of himself nay he was more: he was completely himself.  Nothing could have demonstrated this more convincingly than the grotesque silliness of his last words.  He began by stating emphatically that he was a Gottgläubiger to express in common Nazi fashion that he was no Christian and did not believe in life after death. 

He then proceeded: 'After a short while gentlemen we shall all meet again.  Such is the fate of all men.  Long live Germany, long live Argentina, long live Austria.  I shall not forget them.'  In the face of death he had found the cliché used in funeral oratory. Under the gallows his memory played him the last trick: he was 'elated' and he forgot that this was his own funeral.

Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at all.   He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing.  It was sheer thoughtlessness — something by no means identical with stupidity — that predisposed him to become one of the greatest criminals of that period. 

That such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken together which, perhaps, are inherent in man — that was, in fact, the lesson one could learn in Jerusalem. The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil. It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us: the lesson of the fearsome word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.”

Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, 1963

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

Luke 23:28

"The opposite of love is not hate, but callous apathy and uncaring.  And tragedy occurs when such heartlessness is advantaged by careerism, and an ideology that rationalizes unconscionable expediency, sanctioned privation, organized repression, and eventually murder, on a massive scale.  This is not how monsters are created, but how their enablers and supporters are formed. These are not  Hitlers, but little Eichmanns.  And they are abroad again, making and influencing policy on an alarming scale, today."

Jesse, Hitler's Little Eichmanns, 16 January 2013

"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing us to slavery."

Thomas Jefferson, A Summary of the Rights of British America, 1774

"According to Traudl Junge the Goebbels’ children sang for Hitler, who was very pleased to hear their song.  This innocent choir of young voices was soon murdered by its very mother, in the bunker, just before the mother herself committed suicide.  There is no academic phrasing suitable enough to describe the incomprehensibility of how mankind can achieve this nonsense, especially at this high level of leadership."

Panayiotis Demopoulos, Götterdämmerung: Suicide Music and the National Self, May 1, 2014

So the Fed cut 25 bps today as expected, although Donnie new appointee opted for a deeper cut, don'cha know.

The chart of the US Dollar below is instructive as to the action in the markets overall.

The Dollar plunged, and gold and silver rallied.  Stocks slumped.

But, and I mean but, the 'invisible hand' grasped the markets by the throats, or some similarly tender region, and drove them the way they wished.

So gold and silver were hammered lower in the late day trade.  What a surprise for an FOMC day.

It's nice to see that the wiseguys have not become too lazy to steal. 

Stocks rallied back to unchanged, and maybe a little gain.

VIX fell.

There will be a triple witch option expiration on Friday.

Not one thing has changed.  

Today was just an exercise in the undermining of what little remains of confidence in the markets and the ruling elite of the US.

What an old-fashioned notion - confidence in oaths and integrity.

Some days I just don't have the words.

As Roger Babson famously noted in September 1929, sooner or later... 

And it will leave a mark.  Probably before Thanksgiving at the outside.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Masterly Bit of Stupidity

 

“Woe to the shepherds, who have been feeding only themselves. You eat the fat, you take the wool, and you slaughter the fattest animal, but you do not feed the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bandaged the injured or brought back the strays or looked for the lost."

Ezekiel 34:1-5

“Capitalism is at risk of failing today not because we are running out of innovations, or because markets are failing to inspire private actions, but because we’ve lost sight of the operational failings of unfettered gluttony.  We are neglecting a torrent of market failures in infrastructure, finance, and the environment.  We are turning our backs on a grotesque worsening of income inequality and willfully continuing to slash social benefits.  We are destroying the Earth as if we are indeed the last generation.”

Jeffrey Sachs, Self-Interest Without Morals Leads to Self-Destruction, Financial Times, 18 January 2012

"Most people do not realize that it was Adam Smith who wrote in The Wealth of Nations the famous characterization of England as a 'nation of shopkeepers.'   He was writing about narrowly mercantile nature of the British Empire and its colonial markets strategy. The exploitation of the Empire's resources and peoples by a few legendary companies is well known.

If one substitutes 'crony capitalists' or 'financiers' for 'shopkeepers' it might well be a decent fit for the latter years of the American Century, which is based on a regime of guns and dollars.  

Why is the American moment running out of steam?  It is probably the failure to move to a non-military based economy after the cold war, and invest the peace dividend into domestic infrastructure and basic technology development for peaceful purposes and the improvement of life, instead of financial legerdemain, economic hoaxes and frauds.  Having fed so well for many years on war, the crony capitalists have had to expand their operations at home again, and create new wars, to maintain their exorbitant privilege.

Jesse, A Nation of Financiers, 12 August 2011

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune, March 1985

"The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ten Years After, 1943

"Fear not, little flock, for your Father delights to welcome you into His Kingdom."

Luke 12:32


The West is slowly dying of neglect.  Of the neglect of oaths, of honesty, and of honor.

In the end, its a withering of character through undeserved privilege and gradual compromise with corruption.

This is the way of empire. 

Stocks did a pop and flop ahead of the FOMC rate decision tomorrow.

Stocks, particular big cap tech, is richly valued, with insufficient discounting of risk.

A fairly classic late stage bubble condition.

Gold move higher as the Dollar continued its slide, in anticipation of higher debt and lower rates.

It's a matter of supply and demand, but finally comes down to a failure of faith in credit.

Again, the failure of character in leadership.

It is likely that the Fed will cut 25 bp tomorrow, and make some noise about data dependency.

The precious metals are typically sold on FOMC and triple witch option events, often after a grand run up.  

In the short run the markets are a game of Liar's Poker.  But even liars can overextend themselves.

 Let's see if they can break that pattern this time. 

Our leader is doing his best to compromise the nominal independence of the Fed, such as it is, a creature of the Banks.

This is no anomaly.  He is compromising government end to end, from the courts to foreign policy to the Congress.  Business and the media follow power and money, except for a few exceptional occasions.

There is certainly some historic precedent for all of this.  

And yet this is just the visible manifestation, not the real power behind it all, which resides in the shadows.   It is forbidden to speak of them, and those who stray too close are warned, and then silenced. 

In the short term it is all about the behaviour of the enablers — a willful compromising of conscience, a lack of character and empathy in the professional class, and an inability to love anything more than the lowest of their appetites. 

This too will end, and like rats the hollowed out enablers will scatter.  But the powers of darkness remain.

"In the history of every great catastrophe, you will find that some masterly bit of stupidity sets fire to the oil-soaked rags."

Edwin Lefèvre, The Game Got Them, Everybody’s Magazine 1908

Have a pleasant evening. 

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 inflation adjusted terms we may be seeing a significant high in some market prices that could stand for some time.   

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.