Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - We Hear a Hundred Thousand Voices Crying

 

"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 last and forever after, their own dark and miserable soul as it really is, alone."

Jesse, Death By Overdose, 24 February 2015

"I was satisfied that I wasn't personally to blame and that I hadn't known about those things.  I wasn't aware of the extent of the crimes.  But one day I went past the memorial plaque which had been put up for Sophie Scholl in Franz Josef Strasse, and I saw that she was born the same year as me, and she was executed the same year I started working for Hitler.  And at that moment I actually sensed that it was no excuse to be young, and that it would have been possible to find things out."

Traudl Junge, Im toten Winkel - Hitler's Sekretärin, 2002

"The world would be better off if people tried to become better.  And people would become better if they stopped trying to become better off. For when everybody tries to become better off, nobody is better off.  But when everybody tries to become better, everybody is better off."

Peter Maurin, Easy Essays, The Catholic Worker, 1933

“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself to a righteous cause?  What does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”

Sophie Scholl, Last Words, Executed February 22, 1943

"When you speak these things, they will not listen. When you call to them, they will not answer. Then declare, 'This is the nation that would not listen to the Lord their God, and would not accept his words. Truth has perished among them, it has disappeared from their mouths. Cut off the hair of your sacred vow and throw it away. Raise up a dirge on the barren heights, for the Lord has rejected and abandoned the generation under His wrath. For the Judeans have done what is evil in My sight.' This is the Lord’s declaration. 'They have set up detestable things in the house that is called by My name — and defiled it.'"

Jeremiah 7:27-30

"The demon's target is not the possessed; it is us the observers — everyone in the house.  The point is to make us despair, to reject our humanity, to see ourselves as beasts, vile and putrescent, without dignity, ugly, unworthy."

William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist, May 1971

Stocks continued to float higher, in Ponzi like technical buying that ignores most if not all risks, both economic and geopolitical.

Gold and silver rallied overnight and then were pushed lower in New York.

Gold has displaced the Dollar as the World's Premier Investment.   I am sure the empire is not pleased.

The Dollar is chopping around.

Bitcoin got smacked lower and is now down around 'must hold' support.

VIX is in la-la land.

I do not like to associate with arrogant bullies, pathological liars, shameless thieves, and those who cheat, and even ravage and destroy, the innocent of all ages.

And I think most people, when they are thinking clearly and for themselves, tend to agree with this.  It's basic humanity and common sense.

This is what makes the things that are going on today, that seem to be tolerated and even encouraged by so many, even among the educated and professional elite, so inexplicable.

We will hear a hundred thousand voices crying out in their pain and misery to heaven. 

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

And His just hand is already moving, slowly but surely, among us. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - We Who Murder the Prophets and Persecute Saints

 

"Where such a shift in power is in favor of the governing elite, Power can now achieve its potential.  Where the elite also has built-up frustrations regarding those who have lost power, or nonetheless feels threatened by them; where it sees them as outside the moral universe, or where it has dehumanized them; where the outgroup is culturally or ethnically distinct and perceived by the elite as inferior; or where any other such factors are present, Power will achieve its murderous potential.

It simply waits for an excuse, an event of some sort, an assassination, a massacre in a neighboring country, an attempted coup, a famine, or a natural disaster, to justify the beginning of murder en masse.  Most democides occur under the cover of war, revolution, or guerrilla war, or in their aftermath."

R. J. Rummel, Death by Government, 1993

“Violence does not necessarily take people by the throat and strangle them.  They are required merely to become accomplices in its lies.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1970

“She was truthful when lying was the common speech of men; she was honest when honesty was become a lost virtue; she was a keeper of promises when the keeping of a promise was expected of no one; she was modest, and fine, and delicate when to be loud and coarse might be said to be universal; she was full of pity when a merciless cruelty was the rule; she was steadfast when stability was unknown, and honorable in an age which had forgotten what honor was; she was a rock of convictions in a time when men believed in nothing and scoffed at all things.

She was unfailingly true to an age that was false; she maintained her personal dignity unimpaired in an age of fawnings and servilities; she was of a dauntless courage when hope and courage had perished in the hearts of her nation; she was spotlessly pure in mind and body when society in the highest places was foul in both — she was all these things in an age when crime was the common business of lords and princes, and when the highest personages in Christendom were able to astonish even that infamous era and make it stand aghast at the spectacle of their atrocious lives black with unimaginable treacheries, butcheries, and beastialities.”

Mark Twain, Joan of Arc, 1896

"We are all lost. We have burned a Saint!"

Jean Tressart, Secretary to Henry VI of England, May 30, 1431

"I know this now. Every man gives his life to what he believes.  Every woman gives her life for what she believes.  Sometimes people believe in little or nothing, and so they give their lives to little or nothing."

Jeanne d'Arc, Trial records, 15 March 1431

The offenses against the Constitution and the waves of lawlessness that we seem to be accepting, if you step back and compare what is happening now and how things were when we were younger, is startling.  The reasons for this are obvious.  They don't even bother to hide it.

Reporter: The DOJ has this new fund — $1.7 billion.  Why should taxpayers pay for the January 6ers?
Trump: Because in my world, loyalty outranks law.  They broke the rules for me, so you pay the bill for them.  That’s the transaction.

Stocks popped and flopped a bit.   

I'm a little surprised they did that well, considering how the wheels are falling off the global political situation and economy.

Gold and silver were hit hard again, but managed to take some of that back into the close.

This past Saturday was the feast day of Saint Joan of Arc.

Her accomplishments are all the more remarkable when we recall that she was executed on 30 May 1431 at age 19. 

This warrior-saint, deserving of all honor, who led the army of France to astonishing victory against fierce opposition.  How would we treat her today? 

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - By the Blood of the Risen

 

"The end of all things draws closer.  Therefore be serious and disciplined with your prayers. Above all, be constant in your love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.  Be kind to all without complaining.  Like good stewards of the grace of God in its various ways, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. 

Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Christ.  To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever, amen.

Do not be surprised at the trial by fire that is taking place among you, as though something strange was happening. But rejoice that you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed."

1 Peter 4:7-13

"His stature was still an asset to the regime, however, and Nero put him to work drafting a letter justifying the killing to the Senate. He had to claim that Nero had acted in self-defense against a dangerous woman, but not by celebrating the death of a mother. It did not impress the Senate, though only a hardcore stoic named Thrasea Paetus showed explicit disapproval of the blatant propaganda.

Seneca had made the bargain that many good men have made when agreeing to aid bad regimes. On the one hand, their presence strengthens the regime and helps it endure. But their moral influence may also improve the regime's behavior or save the lives of its enemies. For many, this has been a bargain worth making, even if it has cost them—as it may have cost Seneca—their immortal soul.

The Rome he has been trained to serve, the Rome of Augustus and Germanicus, was gone. In its place stood Neropolis, ruled by a megalomaniac brat.”

James Romm, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero, 2014

"The end result was to be a new Imperial Order, and a New World Empire run by elite, self-perpetuating oligarchies from the leading nations of the earth."

Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, 1966

"He fell with his face to the earth, as if kissing some one's feet. The silence continued long; then were heard the words of the aged man, broken by sobs, 'Quo vadis, Domine?'

Nazarius did not hear the answer; but to Peter's ears came a sad and sweet voice, which said, 'If you desert my people, I am going to Rome to be crucified a second time.'

The Apostle lay on the ground, his face in the dust, without motion or speech. It seemed to Nazarius that he had fainted or was dead; but he rose at last, seized the staff with trembling hands, and turned without a word toward the seven hills of the city.

The boy, seeing this, repeated as if an echo, 'Quo vadis, Domine?'

"To Rome," said the Apostle, in a low voice. And he returned.

And that same evening he went to the Ostian cemetery to teach and baptize those who wished to bathe in the water of life. And thenceforward he went there daily, and after him went increasing numbers. It seemed that out of every tear of a martyr new confessors were born, and that every groan on the arena found an echo in thousands of breasts. Caesar was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan world was mad.

But those who had had enough of transgression and madness, those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins. When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that which the society of the time could not give any one, — happiness and love."

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis, 1905


When great powers fall into the trap of asymmetric wars against highly motivated and entrenched indigenous people, they bleed. 

Stocks managed to extend their rally once again, on more fog and puffery from the Administration on a settlement to the conflict in the Middle East.

And they fell back again on more reports that Iran disavows the things that have been said.

This must surely be the oddest negotiation that I have ever witnessed, or even heard of.

Gold spiked quite hard today around 11:00 AM EDT.   It gave back a some as the day wore on, but managed to hold on to an additional gain.

You may have noticed that when we get this hard selloffs into significant contract months option expirations, after a day or two of additional shenanigans we get a sharp rally back as the equilibrium of the market attempts to reassert itself.    

Silver was content to wallow around.

Bitcoin managed to hold on to support and break its recent decline from a failed breakout attempt. 

VIX is complacent, which is odd but in line with recent fashion in the world of the power elite.

Both the economic and the geopolitical spheres seem rather 'wobbly' these days.  Having a group of pathological liars with the support of sociopaths is not constructive. 

How are so many awful leaders, with strikingly high disapproval ratings, managing to stifle the world's democracies and turn them upside down?  It makes one wonder.

The mighty rise and are fallen, but the word and the spirit endure — by the blood of the Risen.

 Need little, want less, and love more.  For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Shining a Light Through the Darkness

 

"For the things of the world, the desire for physical pleasures, the envy for the things that we see, the pride in our possessions, are not from the Father.  The world and its desires are passing away, but those who do the will of God remain forever."

1 John 2:16-17

"Greed, I say, is a great flood; it is a whirlpool sucking one down, a constant yearning, seeking a hold, continually in movement; difficult to cross is the morass of sensual desire.  A sage does not deviate from truth, a brahmana stands on firm ground.  Renouncing all, he is truly called 'calmed.'"

Gautama Buddha, Attadanda Sutta: The Training, trans J. Ireland, 1995

"Whoever loves money never has enough, and whoever loves abundant possessions is never satisfied with their income.  So this is a meaningless vanity."

Ecclesiastes 5:10

"The moon shines in the open, not under cover.  The sun shines in the open, not under cover.  The teaching and training proclaimed by an Awakened shine in the open, not under cover.  These three things shine in the open, not under cover."

Gautama Buddha, Paṭicchanna-sutta: Under Cover, trans Bhikkhu Sujato 2018

"You are the light of the world.  A city that is set on a mountain cannot be hidden.  Nor do people light a lamp and then put it under a basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house.  Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see good deeds and glorify our heavenly Father."

Matthew 5:14-16

Stocks managed to extend their rally again today.  Unless something seriously dislocates we can expect the stock bubble to continue being inflated.

I don't think I have seen anything quite like this, even at the worst of the Wall Street financial scandals.  The pretense of legitimate price discovery was always covered by at least a fig leaf of official imprimatur.

Gold and silver recovered a bit after a final, vicious smackdown for those brave souls still holding Comex claim checks on a shrinking store of precious metals.   

VIX is now flashing a warning into the weekend.

The Dollar is chopping around.

Bitcoin has slipped off its recent breakout attempt, and has fallen back down to key support.  A further decline below 70k would not be constructive to the crypto narrative.

The levels of risk in both financial and geopolitical terms is astonishing.   The world is most likely heading right into a global recession with the kind of stagflation that bites particularly hard.

And the flashpoints in the Mideast and Eastern Europe are sparking ominously.

Now we know what those who have gone before us have felt in turning points of history as those who would defy their mortality rage at their passing into dust. 

Where are the snows of yesteryear? 

Defy the madness, we who are no longer captives of this perishing world, and shine a light for the rest through the darkness. 

Have a pleasant evening.