Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Before a Towering Babel of Lies

 

“To live in truth is to be in harmony with one’s conscience.  Truth always unites and bonds people.  The greatness of truth terrifies and exposes the lies of small, fearful people.  For centuries, an unbroken struggle against truth has been waged.  Yet truth is immortal, while a lie dies a quick death.

To master the technique of systematic lying many people are needed.  But not many are needed to proclaim the truth. A small band of people of truth is enough — they will radiate it.  People will find them on their own and come from afar to listen to the words of truth.  We cannot accept or be satisfied with easy, superficial, propaganda imposed by force.  We must learn to distinguish lies from truth. This is not easy in the times in which we live — times in which, as a contemporary poet has said, 'never before have the backs of our people been so cruelly scourged with the whip of lies and hypocrisy.

Peace cannot be understood as the forced silence of the people. Ideologies based on lies and violence collapse; they bear evil fruit and moral devastation. We have far too many examples of this in the history of Europe and the world.

The fundamental condition for man’s liberation toward acquiring truth and living by the truth is to stand with the virtue of courage. The sign of Christian courage is the struggle for truth.  The virtue of courage is overcoming human weakness, especially worry and fear.  For in life we should fear only the betrayal of Christ for a few pieces of silver in exchange for empty peace.

It is not enough for a Christian merely to condemn evil, lies, cowardice, enslavement, hatred, and violence.  A Christian must be a true witness, spokesman, and defender of justice, goodness, truth, freedom, and love. He must courageously demand these values for himself and for others.

To a large extent, we ourselves are guilty of our own enslavement when, out of fear or convenience, we accept evil and even vote for the mechanisms that sustain it.  If out of convenience or fear we support the mechanism of evil, we then have no right to condemn that evil, because we ourselves become its creators and help to legalize it.

To preserve dignity means to live in accordance with conscience. It means awakening and forming a right conscience within oneself. It means caring for the national conscience. For we know that when the national conscience failed, great misfortunes befell our history. But when the national conscience began to awaken and come alive with a sense of responsibility for the homeland, then the nation was reborn.

We must cultivate this ability to fight within ourselves if we wish to remain a nation that, even with a cross on its shoulders, walks with dignity toward resurrection.You will not fully preserve your dignity if you carry a rosary in one pocket and a booklet of the opposing ideology in the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon. You must make a choice — but you must make it after deep reflection.

Even if you have completely failed in human terms, even if you have lost your dignity and sold yourself entirely, you still have time.  Pull yourself together, get a grip, rise up.  Start anew.  Try to build on what in you still comes from God.  Try — because life is given to us only once."

Jerzy Popiełuszko, Sermon, Kościół św. Stanisława Kostki, Warsaw, May 27, 1984

“We became aware someone among us in this spiritual dark night of the soul was raising the standard of love on high.  Someone unknown, like everyone else, tortured and bereft of name and social standing, went to a horrible death for the sake of someone not even related to him.  Therefore it is not true, we cried, that humanity is cast down and trampled in the mud, overcome by oppressors, and overwhelmed by hopelessness.

Thousands of prisoners were convinced the true world continued to exist and that our torturers would not be able to destroy it.  To say that Father Kolbe died for one of us or for that person’s family is too great a simplification. His death was the salvation of thousands.  That’s how we felt about it.  That was a shock full of optimism, regenerating and giving strength; we were stunned by his act, which became a mighty explosion of light in the dark camp.”

Patricia Treece, A Man for Others, 1982

"Kolbe looked directly and intently into the eyes of those entering the cell.  Those eyes of his were always strangely penetrating.  The SS men couldn’t stand his glance, and used to yell at him, Schau auf die erde, nicht auf uns!  Kolbe was a psychic trauma, a shock for the SS men who had to bear his look, a look that hungered not for bread, but to liberate them from evil."

Bruno Borgowiec, Personal testimony from a prisoner at Auschwitz, 1947

"Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him for the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

As he journeyed he came near to Damascus.  And suddenly there shone around him a light from heaven. And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice crying out to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?  And Saul asked, 'Who are thou, Lord?'  And the Lord said, 'I am Jesus, whom you persecute.'  And in fear and trembling Saul asked, 'Lord, what will you have me to do?'"

Acts 9:3-6

"It is very easy to get drunk with hate.  Hate is like the glass of whisky which is given to the soldiers before a bayonet charge.  Whisky stimulates but does not nourish.  Hate is not creative, only love is creative.  

The most deadly poison of our times is indifference.  Let us remember that love lives through sacrifice and is nourished by giving. Without sacrifice, there is no love. The Cross is the school of love.

No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. 

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 ourselves are defeated in our innermost souls?”

Maximilian Kolbe, Martyr for Love

"Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign that faith rules through ordinary things: through cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music and books, raising kids — all the places where the gravy soaks in, and grace shines through.  Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.  Lacking any other purpose in life, it would be good enough to live for their sake."

Garrison Keillor, A Prairie Home Companion


The unmistakable resumption of hostilities in the Persian Gulf circumvented any false representations of negotiations and prospects for peace, which have recently become customary on stock market Mondays.

Stocks fell, and went out on their lows with prospects of higher oil prices looming on the horizon.

The Dollar rallied.

VIX rose from its recent low.

Gold and silver were hit by selling, no doubt on a desire for additional liquidity. 

Bitcoin has fallen back into its intermediate trading range again. 

There will be a stock market option expiration on Friday. 

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

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Hardship, Sorrow, and Blood

 

“Lawlessness has come out of Babylon, that is, from the elders who were to govern the people as judges. They perverted their thinking; they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven, and did not keep in mind just judgments. How you have grown evil with age. Now have your past sins come to term, passing unjust sentences, condemning the innocent, and freeing the guilty."

Daniel 13:5,9,52-53

"Banking today is like playing Russian roulette— with someone else’s head. With rewards often far outweighing the risks, the sense of responsibility has vanished. There is a system that pushes you to take risks and a culture that shames anyone who admits errors or weakness. Nobody ever challenges the front office. You become part of the fabric of the place. Then they dispose of you."

Joris Luyendijk, Swimming with Sharks, 2015

“The failure of normal empathy is central to sociopathy, which is marked by an absence of guilt, intentional manipulation, and controlling or even sadistically harming others for personal power or gratification.  Power not only corrupts but also magnifies existing psychopathologies, even as it creates new ones. 

Fostered by the flattery of underlings and the chants of crowds, a political leader’s grandiosity may morph into grotesque delusions of grandeur.  Sociopathic traits may be amplified as the leader discovers that he can violate the norms of civil society and even commit crimes with impunity. And the leader who rules through fear, lies, and betrayal may become increasingly isolated and paranoid.

Trump creates his own extreme manipulation of reality. He insists that his spokesmen defend his false reality as normal. He then expects the rest of society to accept it—despite the lack of any evidence. This leads to what Lifton calls 'malignant normality' — in other words, the gradual acceptance by a public inundated with toxic untruths of those untruths until they pass for normal.”

Dr. B.X. Lee, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, 2017

"The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. As for the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power.”

Jack London, The Iron Heel, 1907

"The status quo has at least tolerated the corruption and the fraud, if not profited directly from it, and most likely continues to do so. The power brokers have become susceptible to various forms of blackmail. And so a failed policy can become almost self-sustaining long after it is seen to have failed, and even become counterproductive, because admitting failure is not an option for those in power.

The financiers will attempt to make the people an 'offer which they cannot refuse' again, as they did on the occasion of TARP, when they threatened to crash the economy. I do not see meaningful reform happening easily, given the intractable hysteria which is gripping those wealthy few who are eager to seize and hold power. There is a portion of the public who think that whatever they believe must be true, whether the facts support it or not. And this is a great heresy against reason, and an abuse of faith. There will be no rapturous escape from judgement for this apostasy and lawlessness, except perhaps into madness.

There is an almost unbelievable tolerance of brazen bullying and deception, a sneering cyncism and disregard of any truth in people who say a thing one day, and then deny it and say a totally different thing on the next, without shame.  Love grows cold even among the faithful, and lies abound.  This is the very epitome of the will to power.  The western world and its leadership are at a crossroads.  And the path ahead, if taken, means hardship, sorrow, and blood."

Jesse, Wall Street, Largely Unreformed, 25 October 2012


Stocks shook off the intensifying war in the Mideast once again, and managed to move a little higher in to the weekend.

Gold and silver struggled again, as the rally in paper assets seems to draw liquidity to itself.

VIX has fallen to a near term low.

The Dollar chopped around but closed unchanged.

SpaceX continues to wallow.

Bitcoin is bouncing along in its trading channel.

The geopolitical situation bears watching this weekend.

Will Trump use one of his media mouthpieces on Sunday night to float false news about an impending ceasefire at Iran's request?

Can this familiar ruse work once again?

Hard to say.   It is not that people believe it.  It is that the moneyed interests and insiders want to continue looting the capital of the nation that they are running into a ditch.

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

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Power and Privilege Without Conscience

 

"When we read of organisations in trouble, we often hear the sad confessions of executives who tell of moving away from natural laws and principles for a period of time and begin overbuilding, over borrowing, and over speculating, not really reading the stream or getting objective feedback, just hearing a lot of self-talk internally.

Mahatma Gandhi said that seven things will destroy us.  Notice that all of them have to do with social and political conditions.  Note also that the antidote of each of these deadly sins is an explicit external standard or something that is based on natural principles and laws, not on social values. 

1. Wealth Without Work
2. Pleasure Without Conscience
3. Knowledge Without Character
4. Business Without Morality
5. Science Without Humanity
6. Religion Without Sacrifice
7. Politics Without Principle

The more people rationalize cheating, the more it becomes a culture of dishonesty. And that can become a vicious, downward cycle.  Because suddenly, if everyone else is cheating, you feel a need to cheat, too.

As dangerous as a little knowledge is, even more dangerous is much knowledge without a strong, principled character.  Purely intellectual development without commensurate internal character development makes as much sense as putting a high-powered sports car in the hands of a teenager who is high on drugs. Yet all too often in the academic world, that's exactly what we do.”

Stephen R. Covey, Principle Centered Leadership, 1990

"It is no exaggeration to say that since the 1980s, much of the global financial sector has become criminalised, creating an industry culture that tolerates or even encourages systematic fraud.  The behaviour that caused the mortgage bubble and financial crisis of 2008 was a natural outcome and continuation of this pattern, rather than some kind of economic accident.

This behaviour is criminal. We are talking about deliberate concealment of financial transactions that aided terrorism, nuclear weapons proliferation and large-scale tax evasion; assisting in major financial frauds and in concealment of criminal assets; and committing frauds that substantially worsened the worst financial bubbles and crises since the Depression.

And yet none of this conduct has been punished in any significant way.

Total fines on the banks for their role in the Enron fraud, the internet bubble, violation of sanctions against countries including Iran and money-laundering activities appear to be far less than 1% of financial sector profits and bonuses during the same period.

There have been very few prosecutions and no criminal convictions of large US financial institutions or their senior executives.  Where individuals not linked to major banks have committed similar offences, they have been treated far more harshly.

Almost all the prospectuses and sales material on mortgage-backed bonds sold from 2005 until 2007 were a compound of falsehoods.  And as the bubble peaked and started to collapse, executives repeatedly lied about their companies' financial condition.  In some cases, they also concealed other material information, such as the extent to which executives were selling or hedging their own stock holdings because they knew their firms were about to collapse."

Charles Ferguson, Heist of the Century, The Guardian, 20 May 2012


Future historians may well characterize this period of decline in Western democracy as a general failure of character, and the pursuit of power and pleasure without virtue or conscience that became epidemic among the power elite. 

From time to time men go mad.   And sometimes they go mad in herds.  But the madness serves none but itself.

Stock rallied today, despite or because of the fresh outbreak of conflict in the Middle East.

One can easily picture our oligarchs joining together in greedy defiance and price discovery and consequence.  Because they have done it before, repeatedly.

This is how they can show they are truly masters of the universe, exceptional. 

It is said that Israel has now joined the US in direct attacks on Iran.   

This is the overreach of madness. 

Gold and silver rallied back a bit. 

VIX of course fell.

Bitcoin is bouncing along the bottom of the intermediate trend channel.

Crypto and its various manifestations are the child of excessive liquidity, and the suspension of judgement in a fascination with new technology.   

If liquidity dramatically recedes from the markets, these curiosités captivantes may be left stranded, like sun-bleached bones on a beach, along with a wreckage of many similar devices of technological hubris.  

This has already happened to the mania of non-fungible tokens (NFT). 

Bubbles promote excessive build-outs of malinvestment.  These are the cumulative effect of moral hazard, cultivated by the astonishing lack of market discipline, and effective and equal justice.

"Moral hazard is the probability that a party insulated from risk will behave differently from the way they would behave if fully exposed to the risk.  Moral hazard arises because an individual or institution does not bear the full consequences of its actions, and therefore has a tendency to act with increasing recklessness, literally 'without reckoning.'  It also encourages the rise to power of sociopaths in society as a whole.

The wristslaps and bailouts will continue until these modern maestros create damage too great to be bought off in the backrooms.  Their descent from the heights will be impressive, if you can avoid the impact crater."

Jesse, Moral Hazard, 22 March 2008

The powerful princes of privilege have become addicted to the notion that others must bear the weight of their lawlessness.  

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Sans Souci

 

"To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequence; that nothing can be unjust.  The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice.  Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues."

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651

“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

"The economy — once a great scatter of small productive units in autonomous balance, has become dominated by two or three hundred giant corporations, administratively and politically interrelated.  The political order, once a decentralized set of several dozen states with a weak spinal cord, has become a centralized executive establishment which has taken up into itself many powers previously scattered.  The military order, once a slim establishment in a context of distrust fed by state militia, has become the largest and most expensive feature of government."

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, 1956

"On earth it has no equal,
      a thing that is made without fear.
He looks over every thing that is great;
      He is the king of the children of pride.”

Job 41:33-34

OK, the computer problem is resolved.   My laptop power plug was behaving badly, not charging, actually all hot and bothered, etc.   But a tech came out and put in a new motherboard tonight.  I sprang for the super duper premium on-site computer repair warranty service.   Well worth it I must say.

I didn't watch stocks all the closely today, although it was amusing to see the resources of the US putting forth their best effort to defend the stock prices for the holdings of Trump and the Congress, et al.

All hell seems to be breaking lose in the Mideast, but the Masters of the Wall Street and Washington universe are sans souci.    

Why worry when you are like unto God?

Maybe they can start worrying tomorrow.

 Anyway, my laptop is running like a champ again. 

Have a pleasant evening.