Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Downfall

 

“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

"This elite-generated social control maintains the status quo because the status quo benefits and validates those who created and sit atop it. People rise to prominence when they parrot the orthodoxy rather than critically analyze it. Real change in politics or society cannot occur under the orthodoxy because if it did, it would threaten the legitimacy of the professional class and all of the systems that helped them achieve their status."

Kristine Mattis, The Cult of the Professional Class, April 4, 2016

"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 these 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

“It could be argued that we are now in the midst of a coup d’état in slow motion.  Democracy is weakening; few people would disagree.  Corporatism is strengthening; you only have to look around you.  Yet none of us has chosen this route for our society, in spite of which our elites quite happily continue down it.  Certainly corporatism is creating a conformist society. It is a modern form of feudalism.”

John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization, 1995

"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

Stocks flopped this morning on the news that the US and Iran are once again engaged in active warfare, with missiles flying in both directions.

Oil rallied on this news.

VIX took some notice but then went back to sleep.

Stocks rallied in to the close to take back much of their losses.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

Gold and silver took some light selling that dwindled a bit in the afternoon.

To me things now seem somewhat inevitable.  

Not that one can ever become complacent in trading markets.

But at the end of the day, what a man sows so shall he reap.

I don't think most people have really internalized what it means that our president, JFK, was assassinated in public by a coalition of the deep state, the CIA, and law enforcement because he opposed the expansion of war in southeast Asia, an escalating confrontation with the Soviet Union, and the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Israel.

We were witness to a coup d'état that was covered up brazenly with a heavy hand. And we have been living with the results of this, being overwhelmed by the subversion of our liberties in the face of a growing and parasitical oligarchy. 

We in the West are being inundated with 'information' and distractions, cleverly mixed in with force and fraud, so that most average people just their minds spinning with trying to determine what is true and just.

We seem to be reaching a pivot point, where the lies that have been laid on heavily are being exposed with almost embarrassing regularity, to be met by stubborn reinforcement by pathological liars and their bully boys.

This is going to end, and the reaction could be energetic.

But at the end of the day, we are going to be asked what WE have done, how WE have responded to his command to love one another as he has loved us. 

It's almost funny how most simply do not 'get this.'   It could not have been made more clear.

It is easier to judge and to look down upon others, than to think and to serve with our actions.

This is all that matters.  And we lose sight of it with reckless abandon. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Being on the Right Road

 

"While some were speaking about the temple, how it was beautifully adorned with precious stones and rich memorial offerings, Jesus said, 'All these things that you see here — the day is coming when there will not be left one stone upon another that is not thrown down.'"

Luke 21:5-6

"And each of you this morning in some way is building some kind of temple. The struggle is always there. It gets discouraging sometimes. It gets very disenchanting sometimes. Some of us are trying to build a temple of peace. We speak out against war, we protest, but it seems that your head is going against a concrete wall. It seems to mean nothing. And so often as you set out to build the temple of peace you are left lonesome; you are left discouraged; you are left bewildered.

Well, that is the story of life. And the thing that makes me happy is that I can hear a voice crying through the vista of time, saying: "It may not come today or it may not come tomorrow, but it is well that it is within thine heart. It’s well that you are trying." You may not see it. The dream may not be fulfilled, but it’s just good that you have a desire to bring it into reality. It’s well that it’s in your heart. Thank God this morning that we do have hearts to put something meaningful in.

And this brings me to the basic point of the text.  In the final analysis, God does not judge us by the separate incidents or the separate mistakes that we make, but by the total bent of our lives.  In the final analysis, God knows that his children are weak and they are frail. In the final analysis, what God requires is that your heart is right.  Salvation isn’t reaching the destination of absolute morality, but it’s being in the process and on the right road."

Martin Luther King, Unfulfilled Dreams, 3 March 1968

"Hubris calls for nemesis, and in one form or another it's going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started."

Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live By, 2003

"As Jesus left the temple area and was going away, his disciples approached him to point out the wonders of the temple buildings.  And he said to them in reply, 'You see all these things, do you not?  Amen, I say to you, there will not be left here a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.'

As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples approached him privately and said, 'Tell us, when will this happen, and what sign will there be of your coming, and the consummation of the age?'  And Jesus said, 'Take care that no one leads you astray.  For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and they will deceive many.

You will hear of wars and reports of wars; see that you are not alarmed, for these things must happen, but it will not yet be the end.  Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be famines and earthquakes from place to place.  All these are the beginning of the labor pains.  Then they will hand you over to persecution, and they will kill you.  You will be hated by all nations because of my name.

And then many will be led into sin; they will betray and hate one another.  Many false prophets will arise and deceive many; and because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of most will grow cold.  But the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.  And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come.'" 

Matthew 24:1-14

It was an interesting day in the markets as things bounced around in a fairly energetic manner.

Gold and silver were smacked lower.  A predictable follow up to the recent Comex option Expiration.

The Dollar spiked and fell.

Bitcoin slipped off the top of its trading channel.

Crude oil continued to make moves on paper that have only a tenuous connection to physical reality.

Stocks spiked higher, and then promptly flopped into a loss on the day.

I wonder if Trump and His Merry Pranksters were looking to unload some positions before the weekend.

This is not sustainable.  

 Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Slaking Moloch

 

“The lamp for the body is the eye.  If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be filled with light. But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness.  And if the light that you think you have is actually darkness, how great that darkness will be.

No one can serve two masters.  For they will hate one and love the other, and will be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and Mammon."

Matthew 6:22-24

"All men, of course, desire pleasure and safety.  But all men also desire power and all men desire the mere sense of being ‘in the know’ or the ‘inner ring’, of not being‘outsiders’: a passion insufficiently studied and the chief theme of my story.  When the state of society is such that money is the passport to all these prizes, then of course money will be the prime temptation.  But when the passport changes, the desires will remain.

If Mammon were the only devil, it would be another matter.  But where Mammon vacates the throne, how if Moloch takes his place?  As Aristotle said, ‘Men do not become tyrants in order to keep warm.’"

C.S. Lewis, A Reply to Professor Haldane, 1966

"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.  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, August 2010

"A life is either spiritual or not spiritual at all.  No man can serve two masters.  Your life is shaped by the end that you live for.  You are made in the image of what you desire."

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, 1956


And so we have another day of Operation Economic Outcast.

The Dollar did its usual sideways chop, going nowhere.  

Gold inched higher.  The money lenders view gold with deep suspicion.

Silver rallied after its option expiration beat-down.

Oil rallied higher, straining against the manipulation on paper.

I don't know if they can hold it off until after the midterm elections, but this is a very explosive situation fraught with economic risk that is being willfully mispriced.

These snakes do not care about you, your family, or their oaths and honorable obligations to God and country.

We are in a time of darkness rising, and it ends in disillusion and blood.

The leaders consecrate their nations to voracious, unloving gods through vile abominations and child sacrifice. 

Stock up, stack up, and remember what is, in the end, most important.

The faith and the church is not an exclusive club, or a mark of honor and privilege.  Strike the idea of being 'select' and better than your neighbor from your hearts.  That is the leaven of the Pharisees.

We are to be a field hospital for the kingdom of God, for his innocent and the broken, in the midst of worldly darkness and despair. 

You know what you have been called to do. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Day of the Beast

 

"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, 1955

"God will send them a deceiving power so that they may believe the lie, that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have taken pleasure in their lawlessness."

2 Thessalonians 2:3-12

"Once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder. As soon as men know they that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles."

Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, 1947

"Satan has been in the Heaven of Heavens and in the abyss of Hell, and surveyed all that lies between them, and in that whole immensity has found only one thing that interests Satan. Satan’s monomaniac concern with himself and his supposed rights and wrongs is a necessity of the Satanic predicament. He has wished to ‘be himself’, and to be in himself and for himself, and his wish has been granted. The Hell he carries with him is, in one sense, a Hell of infinite boredom."

C. S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost, 1942

"If heaven is seeing and in turn being seen, transformed and made new, by the beatific face of Pure Love in resplendent glory, then hell must be seeing, at the last and forever, one's own dark and miserable soul, as it really is, alone."

Jesse, Death By Overdose, 24 February 2015

"Great and sustained destruction requires great ambition. It must be conceived as the means toward achieving a new order, and although the idea behind that new order may be criminal and objectively very stupid, it must also be compellingly simple and at the same time absolute.  The ideology of genocide is all of those things.”

Philip Gourevitch, Tomorrow We Will Be Killed, 1998

“Every idol, however exalted, turns out, in the long run, to be a Moloch, hungry for human sacrifice.”

Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudon, 1952

"Those who have faith had better keep in the state of grace, and those who have neither had better find out what they mean, for in the coming age there will be only one way to stop your trembling knees, and that will be to get down on them and pray.  The most important problem in the world today is your soul, for that is what the struggle is about."

Fulton J. Sheen, The Day of the Beast, 1947

Bessent's economic war plan, Operation Economic Outcast, continues as the US attempts to control the soaring interest rates of its sovereign debt, the price of a shrinking global supply of oil, and the crippled confidence in the full faith and credit of the US Dollar.

But in the short term if you have the will and the cash you can cast a fairly broad fig leaf over the desiccated corpse of your strategic position.

The Dollar continues to chop sideways.  Again, DXY is not all that relevant given its heavy weighting to the Euro.

VIX fell.

Oil took a heavy handed hit that was a blatant price manipulation with the primary effect of enabling traders connected to Bessent and Trump to make easy illicit profits.  

It has little to no effect on global oil supplies, and no significant benefit to the American people.

There was a precious metals futures option expiration on the Comex today. 

It was more significant for silver than for gold.

We may get another gut check by the wiseguys on those holders of new futures contracts from their 'in-the-money' longs.

This is going to end badly.

The responsibility for this is not on one man, but those in the Congress and the Courts who have enabled this chronic abuses of the Constitution and the national interest.

Have a pleasant evening.