Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Consumed by Vicious Vanity, Again

 

“There have been men who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God himself, as if the good Lord had nothing to do but to exist.  There have been some who were so preoccupied with spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ.

Hell is a state of mind.  And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind is, in the end, Hell.  But Heaven is not a state of mind.  Heaven is reality itself.  All that is fully real is Heavenly.  For all that can be shaken will be shaken, and only the unshakeable remains.

There are only two kinds of people in the end — those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'  All that are in Hell choose it.  Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.  No natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves.  They are all holy when God's hand is on the rein.  They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods."

C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 1945

"Our hearts are continually prone to wander from Him; prosperity and enjoyment all too easily satisfy us, dull our spiritual perception, and unfit us for full communion with Himself. It is an unspeakable mercy that the Father comes with His chastisement, makes the world round us all dark and unattractive, leads us to feel more deeply our sinfulness, and for a time lose our joy in what was becoming so dangerous.

Though He has indeed no pleasure in afflicting us, He will not keep back even the most painful chastisement if He can but thereby guide His beloved child to come home."

Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ, 1895

"For to admit that the Reich was a lie, and a mistake, that they were fanatical fools, and Hitler an incompetent creature of evil would be to admit that one was wrong, a failure, and worse, had become an accomplice to an unimaginable evil.  To accept that guilt, to admit one's complicity in such a horrendous assault on justice, to humble oneself and ask for forgiveness, would have taken a heroic act of self-awareness, humility and repentance.  And worse, for these fanatics, it would diminish their pride, which was at the foundation of the most fervent supporters of such flamboyant excess. 

And so they lashed out, and killed everything that held up a mirror to their darkness, and showed them that their pride was based on a lie."

Jesse, Seth, the Arbiter of Chaos, 15 May 2018

"Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. If you want to be important — wonderful. If you want to be recognized — wonderful. If you want to be great — wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.

That's a new definition of greatness. And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve."

Martin Luther King, The Drum Major Instinct


So stocks once again teetered on the edge, with the bloated, high flying AI-onsphere leading the way lower. 

Gold and silver had a little bounce.

I think there are signs of the invisible hand of the ESF in the markets, mispricing risk aggressively to cover the official looting of the public trust.   

There is so much wrong with the governance of the Western world today, with its tolerance of cruelty and theft and heinous murder, that it is difficult to even talk about.

Moral hazard enabled this, with the gullibility of naive and angry people, powered by the corrupting influence of big money.  

"The Fed has spent years turning moral hazard from an embarrassing side effect into a rational business model. Every rescue lowers the perceived cost of the next gamble. Every emergency facility teaches markets that liquidity risk is temporary. Every rapid intervention tells executives that the real objective is not avoiding catastrophe, but making sure a catastrophe would be too politically expensive to tolerate.

So the structures get larger. The collateral gets murkier. The ratings get friendlier. The capital cushions get thinner. The chains of counterparties get longer. Then everyone acts stunned when one downgrade causes twelve institutions to discover they were all holding the same risk.

We are not preventing the next crash. We are steadily assembling the mother of all crashes while congratulating ourselves for distributing the explosives more efficiently. And when it finally happens, the people who designed it will explain that nobody could possibly have seen it coming.

Except, of course, anyone who remembers 2008…or who is unlucky enough to sit next to me at an airport bar when I have 3 hours to kill and feel talkative."

Quoth the Raven, OMG They're Doing It Again

Once more, with feeling. 

The wages of sin will be paid.

But the most pitiable will be the ones who made vows and took oaths to uphold justice and the Word, but did nothing to protect the innocent who suffered around them. They will be reaping a harvest of sorrow and regret, legendary even in hell.

Their only recourse for the unrepentant is the belief in nothingness after death.   And that wish may be granted to them, with the inescapable ache of emptiness and regret. 

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Malignant Self-Love: The Cult of Moloch

 

"What is hell? I maintain that it is the inability to love."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, 1880

"Dictatorship is characterized by having absolute sole power over people, and this power is often used in a cruel way.  A dictator disrespects basic, political, socioeconomic, and cultural human rights.

The glorification of a dictator has been called the cult of personality.  At its heart lies a paradox: the modern dictator must create the illusion of popular support or consent by rigging the electoral system.  He must rely on military forces, a secret police, a praetorian guard, spies, informants, interrogators and torturers.

Many dictators suffer from manic-depressive disorders, paranoia and delusions of omniscience and omnipotence.  They are usually ruthless, intolerant of criticism and indifferent to the suffering of others.  Acutely suspicious of others, they surrounded themselves with flatterers. 

Narcissistic individuals have a greatly exaggerated sense of their own importance and are preoccupied with their own achievements and abilities.  They see themselves as grandiose, have difficulty empathizing with the feelings and needs of others (lack empathy), and tend to be vindictive.  This becomes so serious that it interferes with daily life.

Many believed in the cults of Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Mussolini.  People had to acclaim their leaders and shout party slogans on command.  The purpose of the cult was not to convince or persuade, but to sow confusion, destroy common sense, enforce obedience, isolate individuals and crush their dignity.  People had to self-censor and in turn they monitored others, denouncing those who failed to appear sufficiently sincere in their professions of loyalty."

Francesco Gallo, Psychopathology of Dictatorship, Il Sileno Edizioni, 24 July 2020

“Evil wins through the strength of its splendid dupes, and there has in all ages been a disastrous alliance between abnormal innocence and abnormal sin.”

G. K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils, 1922

"The narcissist is the guru at the centre of a cult.  Like other gurus, he demands complete obedience from his flock, and feels entitled to adulation and special treatment by his followers.  He punishes the wayward and the straying lambs.  He enforces discipline, adherence to his teachings, and common goals.

Every cult needs a hate figure.  Narcissists and cult leaders thrive on hatred and pathological envy. 

Narcissists, and often by contagion their unfortunate victims, don't talk or communicate: they fend off, hide and evade. They perfect the ability of saying nothing in lengthy speeches.  They employ a lack of commitment elevated to an ideology.  The narcissist prefers to wait and see what procrastination brings: postponement of the inevitable leads to the inevitability of postponement as a strategy of survival.

The narcissist has to condition his human environment to refrain from expressing criticism and disapproval of him, or of his actions and decisions.  He has to teach people around him that any form of disagreement, however mild and minor, throws him into frightful fits of temper and rage attacks and turn him into a constantly cantankerous and irascible person.

To the narcissist, all other people are cardboard cutouts, two-dimensional animated cartoon characters, or symbols. They exist only in his inner universe. He is startled when they deviate from the script and prove to be complex and autonomous.  Narcissists damage and hurt but they do so offhandedly and naturally, as an afterthought. They are aware of what they are doing to others — but they do not care."

Sam Vaknin, Malignant Self-Love, 2003

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

Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun, 1952

"The consensus as to Donald Trump’s psychiatric issues is nearly unanimous. 'Textbook narcissistic personality disorder.'

Yet while the various diagnoses with which he has been labeled may accurately describe his actions, attitudes, verbal patterns and mental states, they cannot explain them.  As a stressed electorate tries to make sense of a campaign unlike any other, many people are asking themselves, what is the root of Trump’s bizarre displays?

Underneath all psychiatric categories Trump manifests childhood trauma.  His opponent Hillary Clinton evinces her own history of early suffering, even if milder and far more muted in its impact.

The ghostwriter of The Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz, reports that Trump had no recollection of his youth.  There is always a reason for such amnesia.  People have poor recall of their childhoods when they found reality so painful that their minds had to repress awareness and push memories into the unconscious.  'I don’t like to analyze myself because I might not like what I see,' Trump admitted to a biographer.

What does it say about our society that such deeply troubled individuals frequently rise to the top ruling circles, attaining wealth and power and even the admiration of millions?

People who are anxious, fearful and aggrieved may be unable to recognize the flaws in those seeking power.  They mistake desperate ambition for determination, see grandiosity as authority, paranoia as security, seductiveness as charm, dogmatism as decisiveness, selfishness as economic wisdom, manipulation as political savvy, and the lack of principles as flexibility. 

The flaws of our leaders perfectly mirror the emotional underdevelopment of the society that elevates them to power."

Gabor Maté, Trump, Clinton and Trauma, Globe and Mail, October 14, 2016

“The world says: 'You have needs — satisfy them.  Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.'  This is the worldly doctrine of today.  And they believe that this is freedom.  The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, 1880

Stocks slumped today as the recognition of what is happening in the Mideast and its economic consequences penetrated the fog of AI bubblemania.

The dollar rose.

Gold and silver fell in the related impulse to increase trading liquidity.

Bitcoin slipped from the top of its trading range. 

The impact of the price of oil is not fully priced into the markets, although it is starting to creep through.

I have included a map of Iran with population density superimposed over a map of continental Europe.

Politicians who say we should just 'bomb the hell out of Iran and let them negotiate from the rubble' should consider the magnitude of what they are suggesting.  Their lack of basic tactical and strategic knowledge, and the limitations of air power, especially in light of their positions, is shocking.  

But considering their basic lack of knowledge and regard for US law and the Constitution it may not be so surprising.  

Let's see how this progresses.

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Little Faith Will See You Through

 

"And the historians will ask the question, Why did we, scholars and writers in America, in this time, we who had been warned of our danger not only by explicit threats but by explicit action, why did we not fight this danger while the weapons we used best — the weapons of ideas and words — could still be used against it?"

Archibald Macleish, The Irresponsibles, 1940

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?  I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us.  It cannot come from abroad.  If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.  As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us.  I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice.  This disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth, and an insult to our intelligence, to deny.  Accounts of outrages committed by mobs form the every-day news of the times.  They have pervaded the country, from New England to Louisiana.  Whatever then, their cause may be, it is common to the whole country.

I know the American People are much attached to their Government;--I know they would suffer much for its sake;  I know they would endure evils long and patiently, before they would ever think of exchanging it for another.  Yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually despised and disregarded, if their rights to be secure in their persons and property are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the Government is the natural consequence; and to that, sooner or later, it must come.

Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence. Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the Constitution and laws: and, that we improved to the last; that we remained free to the last; that we revered his name to the last; that, during his long sleep, we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting place; shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our Washington.

Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.'"

Abraham Lincoln, Lyceum Address, Springfield Illinois, January 27, 1838

"Who can suffer injury by just taxation, impartial laws and the application of the Jeffersonian doctrine of equal rights to all and special privileges to none? Only those whose accumulations are stained with dishonesty and whose immoral methods have given them a distorted view of business, society and government.

Accumulating by conscious frauds more money than they can use upon themselves, wisely distribute or safely leave to their children, these denounce as public enemies all who question their methods or throw a light upon their crimes. Plutocracy is abhorrent to a republic; it is more despotic than monarchy, more heartless than aristocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It preys upon the nation in time of peace and conspires against it in the hour of its calamity."

William Jennings Bryan, Speech at Madison Square Garden, New York, 30 August 1906

“We have always known that heedless self interest was bad morals, we now know that it is bad economics.  The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Address at Madison Square Garden, New York, October 31, 1936

“To know and to serve God, of course, is why we’re here, a clear truth, that, like the nose on your face, is near at hand and easily discernible but can make you dizzy if you try to focus on it hard. But a little faith will see you through. What else will do except faith in such a cynical, corrupt time? When the country goes temporarily to the dogs, cats must learn to be circumspect, walk on fences, sleep in trees, and have faith that all this woofing is not the last word.

What is the last word, then? 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, The Meaning of Life, 1989


Knowledge grows by sharing. When you find it, repost and and forward it wherever you can. Little by little, the truth will find a way, but it takes our efforts to set it free from the creeping darkness that smothers it.  Watch as things continue to unfold. All things will be done in their due course. 

Stocks flopped this morning, as the false premise for the rally yesterday quickly dissipated into the false vapors of a negotiated peace.

Every time this Administration and their enablers open their mouths, lies come out.  It is what they do.

Stocks recovered as the day wore on.  Never underestimate how the unscrupulous will pervert and twist every aspect of a system to serve their own ends.  And they will not hesitate to kill their golden goose.

Gold and silver bolted higher, but gave back a bit into the close.   They are rebounding from the selling into the option expiration last week.

VIX of course fell as the mispricing of risk proceeds to their plan.

Bitcoin held up and gained a bit to the top of its intermediate trading range as shown below.

I am afraid that we are heading toward a cliff, blinded to it by a fog of lies and madness in high places.

Hold on to what you know is true, and of enduring value.

There is still time to prepare and stock up. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Dancing On a Volcano

 

"If they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves.  Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor."

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Edward Carrington, Paris, 16 January 1787

"Major commercial and investment banks—and the hedge funds that ran alongside them—were the big beneficiaries of the twin housing and equity-market bubbles of this decade, their profits fed by an ever-increasing volume of transactions founded on a relatively small base of actual physical assets.

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."

Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, May 2009

"The American economy increasingly serves only a narrow part of society. 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

"In all these instances the large multinational bankers were actively supporting both sides. It is a shocking fact that both British and American banks continued to do business with the Nazis even after the War was well underway, even as Germany was invading Europe and bombing London."

BBC, Banking with Hitler, 1998

"The fact is, I think, that my friends really didn't know. They didn't know because they didn't want to know. They could have found out, at the time, only if they had wanted to very badly. I fooled myself. I had to. Everybody has to. But I didn't want to see it, because I would have then had to think about the consequences of seeing it, what followed from seeing it, what I must do to be decent."

Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1955

"The whole town and all its inhabitants are quite drowned in carnival din, masks and confetti. And on top of that the news of the Reichstag fire. Dancing on a volcano."

Alban Berg, Letter from Berlin, September 1, 1933


Stocks rallied as the Don remarked that Iran is calling 'desperate for a deal.'

Most things rallied.

Gold and silver took off from their latest beatdown in observance of the recent option expiration. 

Bitcoin managed to creep up to the top of its trading range.

VIX of course fell, as risks tend to decrease in times of war and looming global crisis.

SpaceX did not rally and actually fell back down again.  Oh well.

I am just amazed at how cynical this age has become.   

Those who pledged themselves to fight evil and promote righteousness have become that which they hate, and are doing the worst of it again, in open defiance of the Law.

So called 'Christians' abandon Christ and His cross, and in their vanity choose to serve the opulent idols of worldly power. 

“You are the salt of the earth.  But if salt loses its savor, with what can it be seasoned?  It is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot."

The paragons of American patriotism are breaking every law, violating every Constitutional principle and oath, while abusing and murdering the innocent.

Lying has never been more fashionable among the elite, openly popular among their followers.   

"They have acted disgracefully by committing terrible acts. Yet they are not at all ashamed, and do not even know how to blush.  In the time of their judgement they shall be given over to the fallen."   Jeremiah 6:15

Justice awaits the inevitable dispensation of consequences.

Fiat justitia et ruant coeli. 

Have a pleasant evening.