29 July 2025

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - And Everywhere the Ceremony of Innocence Is Drowned

 

"Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming, 1919

"With the tools of democracy, democracy was murdered and lawlessness made ‘legal.’  Raw power ruled, and its only real goal was to destroy all other powers besides itself.”

Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, April 2010

"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

"You made this monster, and as long as things were going well you gave him whatever he wanted.  You turned Germany over to this arch-criminal, you swore allegiance to him by every incredible oath he chose to put before you— you, officers of the Crown, all of you."

Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, Diary of a Man in Despair, 1947

"The whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: ‘Blessed is the king, he who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, hosanna in the highest!’  Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, silence your disciples!’

And Jesus said, ‘If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.’"

Luke 19:36-40

Are you being duly respectful and obedient to the principalities and powers of darkness?  

A conspiracy of silence in the face of despicable lies and crimes against humanity prevails.

“The real damage is done by those who don’t want their lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves.  Those with no sides and no causes. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies.  Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only stories."   

Sophie Scholl

And at home, Congress, the universities, the professional class and the media sell themselves cheaply, and cover themselves with disgrace— the forswearing of oaths and obligations.

Empire, like slavery and plutocracy and sin, poisons the hearts and minds of those who pursue and embrace it. 

It's a familiar story. 

Stocks took around this morning from their lofty heights, and despite the encouraging words of the spokesmodels of the plutocracy, fell back a bit from setting another new high.

Gold and silver bounced a bit from their recent Comex option expiration smackdown.

There will be an FOMC rate decision tomorrow.

They are widely expected to hold rates.   But who knows what they might say or do.

The pressure on them by the Economic Sophisticate is as strident as it is thoughtless.

VIX bounced up a bit from its slumber.

The clock is ticking.

The unsustainable will not be sustained.

Have a pleasant evening. 

 

28 July 2025

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Concert for the Ministers - Judgement Is Coming

 

"May the town be accursed and destroyed!
Disintegrate and wither, Rome!
Your degenerate people wish it so."

Wilhelm Richard Wagner, Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen, (original libretto), 1842

"Successful totalitarian rule is precisely that because it allows little variation in its subjects’ intentions—and the Nazi regime was a totalitarian regime par excellence.  When Hitler spoke of the German ‘Volk’ he did not make a suggestion, but a demand: 'if a German, you are a Nazi or a traitor'.

It is crudely general to suggest collective responsibility for the German populace.  It is, however, fair to suggest that those who continued to defend the idea of Germanhood publicly as the war went on—when this had become synonymous with barbarity—were in fact renouncing their humanity for the sake of individual survival and peace of mind.

On April 11th 1945, as the Red Army fast-approached Berlin, the Berlin Philharmonic gave what might have been its last concert before the end of the war. Albert Speer, who had intervened to save members of the Orchestra from their senseless drafting into the Volksturm, organized a final concert, entitled Konzert für Minister Speer in the Berlin Beethoven Hall, still curiously standing amidst the city’s rubble.

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

"It isn't by chance that I have the Party Rallies open with the overture to Rienzi.  It's not just a musical question.  At the age of twenty-four this man, an innkeeper's son, persuaded the Roman people to drive out the corrupt Senate by reminding them of the magnificent past of the Roman Empire.  Listening to this blessed music as a young man in the theater at Linz, I had the vision that I too must someday succeed in uniting the German Empire and making it great once more."

Adolph Hitler, from Albert Speer, Spandau: The Secret Diaries, Trans. 1976

"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. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?”

Maximilian Kolbe


It is not likely that there will be a new war crimes trial, a new judgement at Nürnberg, conducted by mindful victors anytime soon. 

They would certainly need a bigger courtroom.

But, and this I believe as much as I can believe anything, there will be a judgement, a final judgement. 

And nothing will be held back, nothing covered by the darkness of lies and dissembling. 

The truth will penetrate to the core of those standing before the judge of nations.

And the sentences will be lawful, just, and quite likely, severe.

“If any one should cause these innocent ones who believe in me to go astray, it would be better for them to have a great millstone hung around their neck, and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." 

Matthew 18:6

Judgement is coming. 

And hell is coming with it. 

They know who they are.  They do not believe in judgement.  They do not believe in hell.

Nevertheless, judgement and hell await.

Stocks fell back a little from their lofty valuations today.

Even mania needs to take a break, every now and them. 

The Dollar rallied sharply today on the EU's capitulation to Trump, in the craven deal agreed to by Ursula von der Leyen, the Neville Chamberlain of our generation.

Today was an option expiration for precious metals on the Comex, for the big August contracts.

There will be an FOMC decision on Wednesday, and Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday. 

You have to laugh at the quick turnaround by Trump and crew on l'affaire Epstein, and the contortions of his true believers in excusing and deflection yet another betrayal, and justice denied.

There are so many dishonorable and faithless acts by those in government these days.  

But they are almost made insignificant in the shadow of wars of aggression, theft, rape, murder on a grand scale, and unacknowledged crimes against humanity.

The people are easily manipulated and distracted and  misdirected.

But there is one who is not. 

Judgement is coming.

Have a pleasant evening.  

25 July 2025

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Rumbling of the Volcano

 

"Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.  We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.  Our knowledge has made us cynical.  Our cleverness hard and unkind.  We think too much, and feel too little.  More than machinery, we need humanity.  More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.  Without these qualities life will be violent, and all will be lost."

Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator, October 15, 1940

"The first victims of the Konzentrationslager, concentration camps, were largely the political opposition to Hitler: the Social Democrats, the intellectuals, the communists.
"The first concentration camps in Germany were established soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933. In the weeks after the Nazis came to power, The SA, the SS, the police, and local civilian authorities organized numerous detention camps to incarcerate real and perceived political opponents of Nazi policy."

These first concentration camps were meant to remove and intimidate opposition to the regime. We must never forget how the people of conscience among the German people were cowed into submission, to remove and silence their voices and serve as an example to the rest.

People who knew what was happening either approved or pretended not to see it. Like most terrible and horrible acts, it did not begin with a single event, a single decision. It began with a profound intolerance for other people, ideas and dissent; and then, when it found its political footing and felt more confident, it found the will to murder the weakest, the most vulnerable, and those who had no one to speak for them.  And its unquenchable thirst for power, money and blood was unleashed."

Jesse, First the Opposition, then the Weakest and the Most Vulnerable, 10 August 2015

"It would be no sin if statesmen learned enough of history to realize that no system which implies control of society by privilege seekers has ever ended in any other way than collapse."

William Dodd, US Ambassador to Germany, 1933

"You!  You made us in the house of pain!  You made us... things!  Not men.  Not beasts.  Things!"

H. G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau

“When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically.  They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission.  Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.”

Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, 1941


If you were wondering why gold and silver were hit so hard today, there is a precious metal futures option expiration on Monday. 

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.

PCE inflation and GDP and an FOMC rate decision are coming out mid week.

Stocks continued to drift higher.

They are very overbought. 

VIX is settling down into near term lows. 

Risk is looming behind the scenery.

No one can see it coming when you're sitting on top of the world.

Have a pleasant weekend. 

 

24 July 2025

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - But I Want to Do What Is Right

 

"Sin is lawlessness."

1 John 3:4

"Where does the truth lie?  Should one go off and build a little house with flowers outside the windows and a garden outside the door and extol and thank God and turn one’s back on the world and its filth?  Isn’t seclusion a form of treachery, of desertion?

I am weak and small, but I want to do what is right."

Hans Scholl, Letters and Diaries, 1941

"The American economy increasingly serves only a narrow part of society, and America's national politics has failed to put the country back on track through honest, open, and transparent problem solving.  Too many of America's elites-among the super-rich, the CEOs, and many of my colleagues in academia-have abandoned a commitment to social responsibility.  They chase wealth and power, the rest of society be damned."

Jeffrey Sachs, The Price of Civilization, January 2012

"The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.:

2 Thessalonians 2:9-12


Stocks managed to hold their ground at what is by most rational measures an unsustainable top.

But rationality has set sail some time ago.

Gold and silver were under pressure again, although the Dollar did not advance to any degree.

I don't think our current crew of 'reformers' want to reform anything.

They just want to private label it for their own venal purposes.

VIX is on the mat.

People who have their eyes open are troubled.

That is why so many do not wish to open their eyes, just double down on their worship of madness.

You know who is serving evil these days.

Hate is hate, lawlessness is lawlessness, and murder is murder.

But what troubles the individual conscience now is what has troubled honest and virtuous minds from time immemorial.    

Lord, what then am I to do?

And the answers have all been given.

Be in the world, but not of it.   Serve the Lord and not the darkness.

Work first on changing yourselves, in serving the Lord faithfully, of being that little light in the darkness for any who come near.

Do not be discouraged because you are not able to perform any grand feats, heroic acts for all to see.  

This is what I call the 'snare of despair.'

This is not your calling, although you may be called to something in the time that comes.

Do not demand courageous acts of others, so that they may fight and suffer to distract your restless emptiness. 

Some do perform extraordinary acts.  And these should be admired and respected and recommended to others.  

Stand, even as those around you seem to be falling away.  There are others that you may not know or see that have lashed themselves in hope to you, a pillar in the stream.

"The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?"    Dorothy Day

For it is in serving the Lord, and others for His sake, that we serve Him.  Not in the way the world may judge and perceive us.

The time of the worldly is passing, and the nothingness of their hearts falls to dust. 

And how do we know that we are following the Lord?

Love and the cross are two things that evil cannot bear. 

Have a pleasant evening.