Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Danger Close, Reckless Disregard

 

“Instead of flooding the entire economy with liquidity, and thereby increasing the danger of inflation, the Fed could support the stock market directly by buying market averages in the futures market, thereby stabilizing the market as a whole.”

Robert Heller, Have Fed Support the Stock Market, WSJ, October 27, 1989

"Our future could be one in which continued tumult feeds the looting of the financial system, and we talk more and more about exactly how our oligarchs became bandits and how the economy just can’t seem to get into gear. Recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. We’re running out of time."

Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, May 2009

"The United States is a plutocracy, with an income and wealth distribution that rivals South America’s worst cases, but economists refuse to acknowledge that these outcomes are attributable to ill-advised public policies on taxation, regulation, trade, and education spending over the last several decades.  Economists bleat about 'globalization' as though it were inevitable rather than a set of deliberate policy choices. Markets are political creations, so results produced by them are not inviolable or free from question."

Lee Sheppard, Economists' Malign Influence on Taxes, Forbes, May 3, 2012

"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

"Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after 'the present unpleasantness' ceases.

They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.

Henry Wallace, The Danger of American Fascism, 9 April 1944

Today was more of the same thing we have been seeing on Fridays for the past months.

In addition to the usual shoving around of the markets during the day, we see this at the bell. 

"Trump will remain at the White House this weekend with no public events and every item on his schedule marked closed press. The last fully closed-press weekend was more than 4 months ago, from July 10 to 12. Netanyahu's close confidant and Mossad chief Roman Gofman is in Washington meeting senior Trump administration officials to resume the war with Iran, as Netanyahu presses Trump to launch major combat operations, US officials tell Axios. He is also expected to meet CIA Director John Ratcliffe and travel to Miami to meet envoy Steve Witkoff. Trump said yesterday he would not hesitate to strike Iran again and might do so now."

and

"RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall are on lockdown with sirens sounding, following an imminent threat to US military forces in the UK, per multiple initial reports. Lakenheath is responding to a bomb threat and drone activity, with sirens also sounding at RAF Feltwell."

I would not be surprised if you are skeptical about all this, since I am as well.   This is becoming a regular Friday occurrence, with a late Sunday spate of announcement about talks of a deal.

So far the US posture towards an Iran conflict resembles chimps jumping up and down, breaking things with sticks and false flags while making threatening faces, without fully engaging with the other side.  Mostly to support their con games.

Not that this is a bad thing necessarily.  But this constant manipulation of world events to game the markets is becoming intolerable.

And yet, when reckless people play with guns, sometimes someone gets hurt. 

So let's see what happens. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Crushing the Power of the Parasites

 

"Then Jesus was led, by the Spirit, into the wilderness, to be tempted by the devil. After fasting for forty days and forty nights, he hungered.  And the Tempter came to try him."

Mark 4:1-2

This also recalls another passage so familiar that we also do not think of its implications. 'And lead us not into temptation...'

Doesn't it seem odd and out of place that God would lead His own people into harm's way? Isn't temptation a very negative thing that we are told to avoid at all costs?

Temptation is certainly not something we should seek out, given the risks in taking that proposition as our own choice. But if we think instead of temptation as a 'trial' or a preparation for our calling, as in the case of our Lord whose time in the wilderness preceded his public ministry, it is something that can strengthen us, make us stronger in our faith through that trial, that testing, in the practical applications of what we believe.

It is not intended that spiritually we remain an untested bunch of cream puffs, riding to heaven on feather beds, with God attending to all our needs like the staff on a cruise ship.

Like warriors we must train for the contests, but it is in the contest itself that we do most of our learning and growing and extending ourselves to the limits. Such exercises are always marked by pain, in the muscles, and in the core of our being.  We are 'the Church militant' here and only later, one would hope, triumphant at long last.

And it is one of the most sublime ironies of God's economy that the greatest weapon in our battle is not the violence and power of the world, but the service and self-effacement of God's love. As the pilgrim of the absolute Léon Bloy said,

“Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength, but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it.”

The power of love and forgiveness is unfathomable and bewildering to the principalities and powers of this world, and the spiritual darkness that rules them. And this then is to be their failure and their demise.

Jesse, Try a Little Tenderness, 20 February 2018

“Pride thinks its own happiness shines the brighter, by comparing it with the misfortunes of other persons; that by displaying its own wealth they may feel their poverty the more sensibly. This infernal serpent, pervading the human heart, keeps people from reforming their lives, holding them back like a parasite.”

Thomas More, Utopia

"And whenever you may stand to prayer, forgive, if you hold anything against any one, so that your Father in the heavens may also forgive you."

Mark 11:25

The markets are grinding slowly against the headwinds of geopolitical risks and an unproductive, extractive economic system in the West.

Gold and silver were hit hard again.

The Dollar DX index which is really the inverse of the euro rose to 103.

If the leadership in the US is ineffective and corrupt, in most of Europe it is tragic. 

Stocks opened lower but held their ground.

Things appear to be heating up in the mideast despite the assurances of 'peace, peace where there is no peace.'

VIX is doing VIX like things.

The conspicuous mispricing of risk in the markets is purposeful, and not some accident, act of God, or inadvertent misapprehension of animal spirits.

It has been cultivated and encouraged by the moral hazard of political and intellectual corruption.

And it will continue, as history shows us, until we very firmly do something to stop it.

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Papier-mâché

 

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ And the lawyer answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’

"As you know, this passage above is the introduction to one of the greatest and most memorable of the parables from our Lord's own lips, the story of The Good Samaritan.

Our Lord did not offer us an exemption from sin if we call on His name, but forgiveness, if that request is offered in true repentance, a recognition of our faults, and faith, and an active response to His command to 'go and sin no more.'

We are a generation made drunk with power and its illusions, a perverse individualism that has been foretold for increasingly dark times.  Examine your own actions and thoughts and behaviors first.  For you will not be called upon to answer for what others do, but what you yourself has done."

Jesse, To a Power Drunk Generation, the Vista of Eternity, 19 January 2015

"Today idols arise and demand our worship: success at any cost, money, an obsession with appearance, popularity, or the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure. Sometimes, in order to win the approval of others, we may go so far as to lie, betray, or humiliate someone on social media.  Do not bow down before anything that cannot give you life. And if you have ever fallen, get back up.  Do not allow anything or anyone to take away the freedom God has given you.

Christ loves us as we are, but His love is too great to leave us prisoners of sin, of what destroys us.  The fire He came to bring has the power to break our chains and restore our freedom to love.  There are wounds to be healed, failings to be acknowledged, and, whenever possible, wrongs to be made right.  Allow Christ to transform you"

Pope Leo XIV, Address from Argentina, 10 November 2026

“Then the rich man said, ‘I beg you, Father Abraham, send Lazarus to my father’s house. For I have five brothers for him to warn, so that they also will not come to this place of desolation and torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them.’

But the rich man again said, ‘No, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead comes back and speaks to them, they will repent.’ And Abraham said, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they listen if someone warns them who has risen from the dead.’”

Luke 16:27-31 

I see dead people.  Walking around like regular people.  They don't see each other.  They only see what they want to see.  They don't know they're dead.

Stocks rallied with a hard push from the powerful again, attempting to breathe a semblance of vitality back into the bubble economy.

Gold and oil were once again being capped.  Those who cherish illusions find their physicality to be unnerving.

Their papier-mâché markets and painted valuations cannot bear the reality which they hide.

Weighed, and found wanting. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Surviving Among the Destroyers

 

“Only fraud and falsehood dread examination. Truth invites it.”

Samuel Johnson

"A kleptocracy is sucking the life out of working men and women by force and fraud. A group of sociopaths, who have committed one of the great crimes in history, not only blithely walk away with their loot unpunished, but come back to rob their victims once again, to finish the job. And they gorge themselves on the public trust even while begrudging the widow her pittance, or trying to steal it. They pervert and corrupt so many, filling their hearts with their passionate lies, appealing to what is the very worst in them. They are truly a den of vipers and thieves."

Jesse, September 2012

"The banks [and large hedge and private equity funds] engage in fraud for two reasons. First, they profit from swindling the public. Second, they can get away with it via a simple technique. They buy off the regulators with promises of enormously lucrative jobs when they leave government service, and they buy off the politicians with huge direct and indirect campaign contributions."

Laurence Kotlikoff, When Banksters Buy Regulators and Prosecutors, Forbes, October 21, 2014

"All the most noted destroyers and deceivers of our species, all the founders of arbitrary governments and false religions have been extraordinary people; and nine tenths of the calamities that have befallen the human race had no other origin than the union of high intelligence with low desires."

Thomas Babington Macaulay, Francis Bacon, Edinburgh Review, 1837

"It should be a matter of greater shame to learned men that their knowledge may be like winged angels, but their desires truly are like serpents that crawl on the ground."

Francis Bacon, The Foundation of Learning, 1605

"We cannot look to the conscience of the world when our own conscience is asleep."

Carl von Ossietzky, Das besiegte Deutschland, Berliner Volks-Zeitung, 1920


The markets are holding their collective breath to see what happens next.

I am too.

Have a pleasant evening.