Iron Grip of the Credibility Trap: The Ongoing War On Whistleblowers and Transparency

Sam Seder interviews documentary film maker Robert Greenwald on his 2013 film, War On Whistleblowers.

A reader informs me that this documentary is currently available on Netflix streaming.

“Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance.”

Office of the President-elect Barack Obama, 2008 Transition Project

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - JPM Throws Down 229,400 Ounces of Gold To Meet Deliveries

Today was the end of quarter. The positions can be marked to market.

There was intraday commentary on a widely reported story concerning market rigging here.

On Friday JPM moved 229,400 ounces of gold from the eligible to deliverable category in their Comex warehouse, in preparation for the April delivery period which starts about now. 

It looks like that gold that was moved over to the registered category by JPM is to fill the delivery requests that the Comex received on Friday, according to this report.    I have included a screen shot of the relevant page below.

JPM filled 2,640 April futures contracts for 264,000 ounces.  So they needed to issue at least some of those additional warrants, since they only had 214,097 going in.  And most of that came out of their 'house account.'

I thought that it was interesting that a good chunk of that gold is being stopped by Nova Scotia, for their own house account.   Special thanks for the link to the famed Samoan gold analyst from Investment Research Dynamics, Salelologa Dave.

And the band played on.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Slouching Into the End of Quarter

"How many do I have to kill before I get my name in the paper, or some national attention?"

Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer in a letter to KAKE-TV

The Chicago PMI missed by a country mile this morning, but that is so real economy that it hardly mattered.

Last night on one of America's most watched evening news programs, 60 Minutes, they said 'the stock market is rigged,'  with enough examples and details that even an average American might understand it.  But that hardly mattered because everyone knows, and doesn't care.

The VIX fell back to more comfortable level, as the latest adventure in foreign nation building does not seem to have triggered a major regional conflict.   Meanwhile the infrastructure at home continues to crumble and rust.

Old Yellen came out today and said that the labor market is struggling, and that more stimulus will be required, despite all the meretricious talk about the great American recovery. But that hardly mattered because things are important, but people aren't.

The know-nothings continued their crusade against the weak, the different, the elderly, and the victims in a society gone mad, who they liken to vermin and parasites. 

And the plutocracy continued to rob the public blind, while they are admired for their stature, strength, and daring, and held up as role models by a fawning corporate media.  And the intellectuals and thought leaders are silent. 

And so the quarter ended, with an air of pride in the exceptionalism of the Pax Americana.

Have a pleasant evening.

The 'Stock Market Is Rigged' and an Epidemic of Fraud

You have probably heard by now that the popular US news magazine style program 60 Minutes carried a segment interviewing Michael Lewis about his new book last night. In it Lewis says that the 'US Stock Market is rigged,' referring to the front running of basic price data taking place with the cooperation of 'the exchanges, the banks, and the traders' in order to regularly cheat large institutional and fund investors on their stock transactions.

You may rightly say that this is nothing new. You have heard about this new type of organized and systemically arranged 'front running' here and other places on the web many times over the past five years. And there were people who had been interviewed, occasionally but not so much of late, on some of the financial news networks complaining about it.

This morning NY AG Eric Schneiderman was interviewed about the investigation he is conducting on Bloomberg TV. Schneiderman was quite politic, praising HFT itself as 'providing liquidity' and pointing to some of the trading firms grasping for milliseconds of advantage as some sort of misguided bad apples.

The lady anchor on the show who questioned him was quite adamant that is it the fault of the regulators for allowing it to happen. She likened these Wall Street traders to her children, who are constantly looking for ways to circumvent her rules, and the shame is on her when they succeed.

I don't think the anchor really understood what she was saying in that awful comparison. These are not children, in the morally formative stage of relative innocence. They are adults, with tremendous advantages and often in positions of power, who have often taken oaths and fiduciary responsibilities. And they too often violate them, and twist the laws to escape responsibility, shamelessly.

This is the unspoken entitlement of the privileged class, the price of their naturally beneficial role in society, that is, the entitlement of being above the law, because they are so special, and so legally advantaged and well connected.   This is the twisted reincarnation of class and racial arrogance,  the one percent's burden of bringing order and direction to its social and genetic inferiors.

Well, that is the moral hazard of excusing Wall Street's criminal thefts, of giving a slap on the wrist when they are caught lying, cheating and stealing, of believing canards like the exchanges are responsible and self-regulating, and ignoring the key role that they and the Banks play in enabling widespread fraud and financial plunder.

Why do people ever listen to those apologists for financial fraud, who dismiss all accusations of market manipulation as mere conspiracy talk? Yes they are skillful in creating doubt, and since all fraud is founded on the hiding and control of information, there is always room for doubt.

Perhaps the worst of this is that 60 Minutes and other are willfully ignoring the power of money in silencing regulators, cutting their budgets, and using political influence to kill their attempts at enforcing the law by corrupting the political process.

Complicating matter, the Federal Reserve has taken the policy of shoving manufactured liquidity into the system through these very Wall Street banks and their exchanges, who are taxing the stimulus like warlords who take Red Cross aid for themselves, allowing a trickle of them to go to the intended recipients. This 'trickle down' approach by the entitled is a sick joke, because it continues robbing the public to pamper the privileged few.

And anytime a whistleblower steps forward, they are smeared and charged with crimes. What a world we are giving to our children, who we apparently teach by our words and example that breaking the rules is a fine art, and that justice is a poorly defined and highly debatable abstract concept. And the truth is merely what we say it is, if we say it well enough, and have enough powerful people and credentialed experts to back us up. Whatever 'is' might mean.

And there are other frauds still going on, like the blatant manipulation of the futures markets with large scale buying and dumping of positions in quiet markets to shove the price around, with regulators turning a blind eye to it. As long as the exchanges, the biggest traders, and the politicians are getting their piece of the action, nothing will be done about it. But such actions have real world consequences.

Old story, always with a bad ending.

Gold Daily And Silver Weekly Charts - Here Comes April

"It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste.

But in practice such a society could not remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupified by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away.

In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance."

George Orwell, 1984

Gold stabilized today, and silver showed a little resilience.

There was the usual in and out of the Comex gold warehouses yesterday, which are preparing for the April active delivery month.

And I would be remiss if I did not remind you that with the end of the month comes a new Non-Farm Payrolls report next week.

There was intraday commentary and an interview with Jim Rickards on gold manipulation today that you might wish to have a look at here.

I see where the IMF is already putting the Ukraine on the loans and austerity treadmill.  (cf. Greece)

Have a pleasant weekend.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who call bitter for sweet, and sweetness for bitter."

Monday is the end of the first quarter, and the end of March. The paint may not yet be dry on the tape.

The economic calendar has more interesting tidbits next week, and so that may drive some of the action after the end of quarter rituals.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Jim Rickards: Study Will Show That Gold Is Being Manipulated on the Comex (Again)

"If I were running the manipulation I would be embarrassed at this point, it is so blatant...The regulators have been asleep at the switch."

Jim Rickards

As an aside, and in case you wondered, I do not take Rickards at face value. I sift what he says, carefully. And that is enough said about that, except that it is good advice in general especially when it comes to money and investments.

No one listens because the US regulators don't want to see it,  Wall Street traders make money off it, the mainstream media ignores it, and the shills deride anyone who brings it up. So I do not expect anything to come out of this latest version of a study that I have seen several times before, unless it is somehow associated with more undeniable smoking gun evidence uncovered through the London Fix investigation, and a 'limited hangout' operation. But I can doubt that as well, because it requires too much self-awareness for the masters of the universe.

The real smoking gun will more likely be tied to be an unanticipated default somewhere in the system.  And then people will ask, 'how did we not see this coming?'  And the hunt for a scapegoat or patsy will be underway. God will not forgive us if we once again allow some of the old and shameful persecutions of the weak and innocent and the other to carry that burden of guilt yet again.

The public will be trimmed and skinned in yet another bailout, or should I say 'bail-in,' to replace what had been rehypothecated. Possession will be nine-tenths of the law. And the big crooks will throw the shills, stooges, and the little crooks to the mob, without a second thought.

It is different this time, because we are different. It can't happen here. The most delusional words ever spoken.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Roll Over Beethoven

There was intraday commentary on the gold market and in particular the April delivery month here.

We are crossing over into the April delivery month, and I think the price and volume action reflect that reality. Especially with regard to the relatively high number of potential contracts that are still in a position to stand for physical delivery.

More gold came into JPM eligible storage yesterday.   I'll have to take another look at the ETF inventories in the next couple of days.  Has anyone seen the Ukraine's national hoard?   lol.

Let's see how the next two or three days go.   I expect this will settle out by the end of the first two delivery weeks.

As you might have expected Ben Bernanke is no cheap 'intimate dinner' date. I hope they at least give him cab fare with the check.

Spring is in the air.  Have a pleasant evening.

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Tottering Into the End of the Beginning

Monday will be the end of the third quarter.

If they are going to paint the tape then they will have to begin tomorrow.

The big depressant on US equities yesterday was that Citi failed the Fed stress test for the second time in three years.   This is the beast that Sandy Weill and Robert Rubin wrought, in overturning Glass-Steagall and marrying Wall Street to Washington, with Bubba as the Elvis impersonating preacher.

Judging by the earnings-less, piece of crap IPOs being shoved out the door, I think this year may bring some clarity to market valuations, most likely in the second have after most of the steaming IPO deuces being held in the pipeline have dropped.

Have a pleasant evening.

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds - Stand and Deliver, or Roll Over

The metals are getting pressed heavily as we come out of options expiration,

The open interest, or number of April gold contracts that are going into First Delivery notice next week for the April active delivery month, are still rather high and are being pressured, especially those stalwarts who held in the money calls yesterday.

The open interest for April alone as of yesterday was 69,714 contracts representing 6,971,400 ounces.  The 'deliverable ounces' on the Comex were about 637,591 ounces of gold as of yesterday. 

So obviously not all the open interest can stand for delivery, and it never does, unless the price goes higher and encourages more eligible ounces to warranted over for delivery. 

I suspect a little of today's April price decline is due to the jackals taking a piece out of those who are rolling their contracts over to the next active month of June.  Notice that the preliminary volume for the April contract is well over two times yesterday's open interest.  Those are some hot little potatoes.

As usual, it appears that JPM has its hand on the jukebox, or the organ grinder crank if you prefer.

Our Samoan Attorney: When Corporations Take Precedence Over People

"There is felt today very widely the inconsistency in this condition of political democracy and industrial absolutism.  The people are beginning to doubt whether in the long run democracy and absolutism can coexist in the same community;  beginning to doubt whether there is a justification for the great inequalities in the distribution of wealth, for the rapid creation of fortunes, more mysterious than the deeds of Aladdin’s lamp."

Louis D. Brandeis, The Opportunity in Law, Speech to Harvard Ethical Society, May 4, 1905

I was curious about this current US Supreme Court Case of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby. The basic contention is that a for-profit corporation with no other religious responsibilities can claim an exemption to the law based on the religious beliefs of the owners of that corporation.

I should add that, at least in my own perspective and apparently that of the legal precedent, there are organizations specifically dedicated to the fulfillment of a religious purpose that can claim such exemptions where the law conflicts with some of their deeply held beliefs.  Indeed, individuals can also claim such exemptions in some cases as well, as in the case of conscientious objectors.

I am interested because of the general trend of providing corporate entities in the US with the same level of privilege and protections as individuals, but without all the commensurate obligations of a citizen.  Therefore it could be rightly held that corporations would be superior in the eyes of the law, having the same rights but without having to go to war, or to send their children to war, and be required to offer their last full measure of devotion to the Constitution and their nation.

Let us not kid ourselves. A corporation exists merely as a legal invention, to provide certain protections and conveniences to individuals who own those corporations, most notably access to preferential tax and bankruptcy treatment, and protections against certain types of risks and liabilities.  To give that legal invention the same regard, or as I point out above a higher status, than a person is to degrade the nature of the individual human being under the law, and essentially to deny them equal status. Is a man four-fifths of a corporation?

I am not being facetious.  If corporations were treated as equal to people, the Too Big To Fail Banks would probably be in prison, instead of living large on public subsidies.  And a few corporations might even be sitting on death row.  As it is, that they are too big to punish has become an unspoken tenet of American justice.  And for this unaccountable power, they deserve to enjoy the greatest and most sacred freedoms of the individual as well?   Can you imagine a more certain recipe for injustice?

I see the human individual as under attack in this society, where the law is twisted to promote the ascendancy of power of organizations over the rights of individuals. In reality it is individuals behind the corporations pulling the levers from behind the legal protections and subsidies of the corporate entity.  It is just another form of leverage, and too often an abuse of power and privilege.

In politics these days, it sometimes seems to be all stick and no carrot, all threat and little incentive, unless you are one of the privileged, protected by a swath of money, legal representation, and corporate power.

It reminds me sometimes of The Planet of the Apes, where the gorillas have all the weapons and horses, and they ride around capturing or killing the human beings. 

This is nothing new.  I grew up under the canard that States' Rights allowed certain areas of the country to intimidate and oppress certain whole classes of people as a matter of public policy.   There are those who even now will say that a business person has the right to refuse service to an individual on the basis of the color of their skin, or their religious beliefs, or their choice of partners. 

Freedom of conscience does not give one the right to inflict their private conscience on the rights of other individuals under the law.  But there are corners of the Constitution that have long been the refuge of scoundrels, who would kill freedom in its own name in order to advance their own selfish prerequisites and privileges.   

But being woefully out of touch on the case law and legal trends, I asked le Café's Samoan attorney for his opinion of this issue, and he has responded as you can read below.

I think that we might find the position of Hobby Lobby in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores to be almost nonsensical, but consistent with our currently fashionable mental diseases and defects. If our central bank thinks QEternity is actually benefiting the masses, our 'intelligentsia' believes that either there is no systemically driven income inequality, or that if it exists, it does not matter, socially or economically, I should not be surprised that we either will accept, or come close to accepting, the argument that purely legal entities have religious rights.

While my rant-o-meter can go off the charts when I start talking about this sort of sophistry, the case represents something potentially much more bothersome, which is the use of bogus First Amendment arguments to gut government legislation and regulation. I believe that le Café had linked to an article on precisely that subject not that long ago.  How Corporations Hijacked the First Amendment

Between 1895 and 1937 (the dates are imprecise but reasonably accurate), a conservative Supreme Court had engaged in social engineering, especially in the economic arena, by imputing substantive rights into the due process clause of the 5th and 14th Amendments. In various cases, the court held that certain rights were so fundamental and inalienable, that government could not legislate in those arenas. Indeed, legislating in those areas was deemed to be equal to depriving someone of the right to life, liberty, or property without due process of law.  Hence, that line of jurisprudence became known as substantive due process ("SDP"). A five- or at most six-justice majority used the 14th Amendment to strike down government legislation that benefited society as a whole, but harmed the interests of the monied interests and big business in general.

Not surprisingly, during that 40-year period, the Supreme Court Justices were obsessed with the principle of "freedom of contract." To protect that quaint notion, the court struck down minimum wage laws, child labor laws, maximum hours laws, and the like.

The most famous case involving substantive due process was Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905), in which the court struck down by a 5-4 vote NY legislation governing the maximum hours that bakers could work.   The five justices in the majority concluded that bakers had an absolute, inviolable right to contract to work long enough hours to harm their health. Here is what Justice Rufus Peckham wrote on behalf of the five buffoons:

"The question whether this act is valid as a labor law, pure and simple, may be dismissed in a few words. There is no reasonable ground for interfering with the liberty of person or the right of free contract by determining the hours of labor in the occupation of a baker. There is no contention that bakers as a class are not equal in intelligence and capacity to men in other trades or manual occupations, or that they are able to assert their rights and care for themselves without the protecting arm of the State, interfering with their independence of judgment and of action. They are in no sense wards of the State. Viewed in the light of a purely labor law, with no reference whatever to the question of health, we think that a law like the one before us involves neither the safety, the morals, nor the welfare of the public, and that the interest of the public is not in the slightest degree affected by such an act." (198 U.S. 45, 57.)

Having concluded that the law could not be upheld as a labor law, Justice Peckham concluded that it could not be upheld as a health law either:

"We think that there can be no fair doubt that the trade of a baker, in and of itself, is not an unhealthy one to that degree which would authorize the legislature to interfere with the right to labor, and with the right of free contract on the part of the individual, either as employer or employee. In looking through statistics regarding all trades and occupations, it may be true that the trade of a baker does not appear to be as healthy as some other trades, and is also vastly more healthy than still others.... But are we all, on that account, at the mercy of legislative majorities? .... No trade, no occupation, no mode of earning one's living, could escape this all-pervading power, and the acts of the legislature in limiting the hours of labor in all employments would be valid, although such limitation might seriously cripple the ability of the laborer to support himself and his family." (198 U.S. 45, 59-60.)

That rationale was just as nonsensical then as it is today.  It is worth noting that the three New York state courts that had reviewed the law had upheld it. 

The case is now remembered primarily for its famous dissents. John Marshall Harlan, who is most famous for his solitary dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, dissented with two other justices that the state certainly had the right to legislate and regulate for the common good and that the "freedom to contract" was hardly inviolate. Harlan noted that:

"It may be that the statute had its origin, in part, in the belief that employers and employees in such establishments were not upon an equal footing, and that the necessities of the latter often compelled them to submit to such exactions as unduly taxed their strength. Be this as it may, the statute must be taken as expressing the belief of the people of New York that, as a general rule, and in the case of the average man, labor in excess of sixty hours during a week in such establishments may endanger the health of those who thus labor. Whether or not this be wise legislation it is not the province of the court to inquire." (198 U.S. 45, 69.)

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes had the last word then as he does today:

"This case is decided upon an economic theory which a large part of the country does not entertain.... The liberty of the citizen to do as he likes so long as he does not interfere with the liberty of others to do the same, which has been a shibboleth for some well known writers, is interfered with by school laws, by the Post Office, by every state or municipal institution which takes his money for purposes thought desirable, whether he likes it or not. The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics.... Some of these laws embody convictions or prejudices which judges are likely to share. Some may not. But a constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the State or of laissez faire." (198 U.S. 45, 75.)

Justice Holmes' dissent is only two pages, but it gets to the heart of the matter. The 14th Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics. In other words, the constitution does not require us to adopt Social Darwinism, that being the survival of the fittest, or laissez-faire as our national ideology.

By 1937 or 1938, SDP was dead. It is so dead today that even Justices Scalia and Thomas have spoken out against it as judicial overreach. For example, in United States v. Carlton, 512 U.S. 26, 39 (1994), Justice Scalia referred to SDP as an "oxymoron" in a concurring opinion that Justice Thomas joined. Unfortunately, that is little more than hypocrisy in my opinion. A similar group of conservative justices is imposing its own conservative, and I would argue reactionary, world view by expanding the scope of the First Amendment disingenuously to do exactly what the justices were doing during the Lochner Era.

Ultimately, what these five men are doing will fail, just as SDP failed 80 years ago because it is as illogical now as it was then. The court cannot thwart the will of a nation to govern itself in a more forward-looking and rational manner.  Justice may be deferred, but it will not be denied. 

Currency Wars: The Plot Thickens

"International discord over Ukraine does not bode well for the settlement of differences over the IMF’s future. Though the G7 is excluding Russia from its number, in retaliation for its action in Crimea, this does not amount to isolating Russia. There has been no suggestion that Russia be excluded from the G20.

The USA and its allies have suspected that several other G20 members would not stand for it. This suspicion was confirmed yesterday when the BRICS foreign ministers, assembled at the international conference in The Hague, issued a statement condemning ‘the escalation of hostile language, sanctions and counter-sanctions’. They affirmed that the custodianship of the G20 belongs to all member-states equally and no one member-state can unilaterally determine its nature and character. In short, their statement read like a manifesto for a pluralist world in which no one nation, bloc or set of values would predominate...

It now seems unlikely that the USA will complete (or, indeed, begin) legislative action on the IMF reform by the 10 April deadline the BRICS have set. The odds are moving in favour of a showdown at the G20 finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ meeting due in Washington on that date...

Beijing leaders have long dreamt of displacing, or at least dethroning, the US dollar from its reserve currency role. US dominance of the IMF is one of several effective bars to the achievement of such a goal. The kind of action Russia is advocating, the BRICS wresting control of the IMF in despite of US veto power, might have some appeal.

That would mark the end of the unified global monetary system that has developed since the IMF was founded in 1945, to be replaced by a bloc of fiat currencies in the developed countries and a system in the emerging sector where currencies were linked to drawing rights in some new international fund, possibly with some material backing. (gold, silver, and possibly commodities - Jesse)

It seems unlikely that convertibility between these monetary systems could be maintained for long. Consequently, the 10 April meeting is shaping up as a potentially critical juncture in world economic history."

Paul Mylchreest, A Critical Juncture

Paul Mylchreest published this essay over at ZeroHedge this evening, and it is worth a read, as Paul is connecting some fairly important dots for us. I doubt that many traders will really understand the implications of what he is saying, without even having read the comments. Good traders often take a highly focused, very detailed, but narrow and short term view of things, and this is both their strength and their weakness. It deserves a broader stage, but it is unlikely to get it when the major media remains willfully blind.

I had not thought of a dual system previously, in which the Anglo-Americans and their allied states decide to go in one direction, maintaining their hegemony around the dollar and the euro, and the rest of the world going in another. It would be inherently unstable, and throw the global credit and forex markets into a somewhat chaotic state. But then again, who could have predicted the folly of a loosely associated set of nations adopting a single currency without the rigor of monetary transfers and fiscal union with which to balance the system.

This is not likely to be a singular event, but part of an evolutionary change in the makeup of the international monetary system that has been developing for years. At some point things will begin moving more quickly, and change may come in an avalanche of events that will leave most analysts gaping in disbelief.

When do you think the American Revolution began, on 4 July 1776?  Such great turns in human events happen over long periods of time.  But, in retrospect, there are always critical junctures in the process of change, with hard positions taken, and opportunities for peaceful evolution lost.

"All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door."

John Kenneth Galbraith

And since the grand failure of the Soviet state, nothing has grown more corrupt and self-serving than the ring of corporations and crony capitalists that have become the post Bretton Woods banking cartel. It has begun to consume itself, and to kill its own. The economic hitmen have finally come home.

But predicting 'when' is difficult in matters such as this. What starts the avalanche, what sound triggers the slide, which snowflake proves to be too much?  When is enough wealth and power— enough?

Certainly the events in the Ukraine are difficult to understand without a broader geo-political and economic context, except in the most facile and jingoist of caricatures of different perspectives. They are barbarians, and hate us for our freedom, the wonders of our financial engineering, and the beauty of our culture. We are the liberators. We bring loans and economic progress. We come in peace. Look on our works, ye mighty, and despair.

"Although U.S. Navy and Marine forces generally operate on a regular cycle of deployments to European waters, they rely on a network of permanent bases in the region, especially in the Mediterranean. These should be retained, and consideration given to establishing a more robust presence in the Black Sea. As NATO expands and the pattern of U.S. military operations in Europe continues to shift to the south and east, U.S. naval presence in the Black Sea is sure to increase."  Project For the New American Century, 2000

We are not the makers of history. We are not gods. We are not even the sovereigns of our own passions and delusions and fears.

We who forget history are its victims.

Gold Daily And Silver Weekly Charts - Option Expiration

Yes Virginia, it was a precious metal options expiration on the Comex today.

Yesterday there was the usual inflows and some outflows in the Comex gold bullion warehouses as the bullion banks ready themselves for the April active delivery month.

I have placed the gold technical averages chart up today, because in addition to the 'golden cross' of the 50 and 200 DMA, the price of gold has fallen to test the 200 DMA. Anyone who considers themselves a technical analyst must be aware of these developments. As far as chart formations, there are some possibilities, but time will tell.

Let's see what happens.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Wash and Rinse

I think this is where they dump the dogs ahead of the end of quarter tape painting, but let's see.

This is a dicey market.

 

Houseless

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them...

If you can't feed a hundred people, the feed just one.”

Mother Teresa

Here are the words that I hope none of us ever will hear. And the real loss, the pity, is that some will. 

‘Depart from Me, accursed. For I was hungry and you gave Me no food, I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe, sick and imprisoned and you did not care for me.’ And they will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not care for You?’ And He will answer, ‘Truly I tell you, when you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for Me.’

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Option Expiration Tomorrow

There was some cursory movement of bullion out of the Comex warehouses yesterday, but in general they are reasonably well equipped ahead of the April active contract period which begins next Monday with first notice.

As you know there is a precious metals option expiry for the April contract tomorrow.  We may consider the gut check already delivered for it ahead of time perhaps, but there is still the off chance of another hit in the quiet periods tonight and the day after tomorrow.

I have included a chart of the gold price in dollars with a few technical because we finally saw the 50 DMA climb over the 200 DMA.  That is known as the 'golden cross.'   It would be more meaningful if it was occurring on substantial volumes.

I am not such a big believer in technical measures except at their extremes in an inefficient market that is being managed to certain ends.   But it is worth noting at least. 

The delivery calendar is more important, and not so much even that for New York and London.  The real markets for precious metals are now in the Mideast and Asia.

Time settles all accounts.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Hope Floats, and Apparently So Do Stocks Into Quarter End

As a reminder we are coming into the end of the first quarter of the year on Monday next, and that should be a prompt for those trying to understand this stock market action, which seems amazingly resilient.

Desperate men and women do desperate things. And to the extent that their 'good fortune' has been excessive and largely unwarranted, so their ability to rationalize even the previously most unthinkable things becomes increasingly possible, and in the end, almost commonplace and compelling, at least to them. There may be no better contemporary showcases for this than Washington and London, although Brussels is certainly in contention.

Have a pleasant evening.

Oxford Union Debate On Snowden: And Chris Hedges On Civil Disobedience

The Oxford Union Debate on the question "Is Edward Snowden a Hero?" is quite interesting, and I am glad that they have made the individual contributions available on youtube. I wish they had made it available as a whole piece, but this will have to do.

It was a formal debate, and so we see the usual rhetorical ploys here and there.  A Mr. Crowley, speaking against, tried to make the case that only history can pass a judgment on Mr. Snowden. He threw in a little fear, uncertainty and doubt as well. One can always argue that time is needed to make any decision, so it is a bit of a red herring and somewhat cheap, but nevertheless it was nicely done.

Of all the negative arguments,  Mr. Toobin makes the most representative and pertinent case, with the usual amount of diversions and rhetorical equivalences, which is basically what the US government takes as their perspective in this.  I believe those fellows interrupting him are the 'judges' of debates, who can push a bit on things that are unclear, which is a polite way of saying 'howlers.'  But I could be mistaken. 

I have never attended an Oxford debate, but I have visited there numerous times. I have a framed needlepoint framed, compliments of a talented relative, hanging in my study.  I sketched it from one on the kneelers in Newman's church, St. Mary's, that has the Oxford motto, Dominus Illuminatio Mea.  The Lord Is My Light.

The positive side of the question carried the day and quite well. I suggest you listen to all the presentations, as you may find others that you like more, and that offer insights for your own thought.  You can search for them using Google, and typing in search words like "Oxford Union Debate Snowden youtube videos" for example. You can also try the Oxford Union youtube channel which I have just found here.

I wanted also to highlight Mr. Hedges' presentation, because in it he speaks to the much broader and more interesting subject, that of civil disobedience which he calls 'moral courage.' At first it rankled a bit that he distinguished such courage from that shown on the battlefield, but then as I listened his point became clear. And as always, his speaking style and literary allusions are quite pleasant to hear.

I regret that the modern news in the US does not offer such interesting forums for discussion, instead staging 'debates' between two paid actors who merely yell at one another.

One thing that never came out explicitly in the debate, at least in the portions which I have read or heard so far, is the concept of natural law. There are the laws of a nation, and in terms of strict legality, things which are done there may be judged illegal or lawful, based on those laws.

But what happens when a country grossly violates human rights, for example, under the aegis of their laws? Are they protected? Are those who follow those laws merely following the law, or orders, if you will?

Under the laws of the Reich, Sophie Scholl committed treason, judged by a lawful court, and was duly beheaded. A German lawyer emailed me some time ago and made that case quite forcefully. 

But those who did the judging and the beheading were later themselves convicted of a number of crimes, including crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to wage aggressive war among them, that were extra-legal to the Reich, and any written body of laws of which I am aware. They were judged guilty under the laws of what is moral, or the natural laws. It is the appeal to these overarching natural laws that Jefferson appealed when he wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident..."

It is an interesting concept. Martin Luther King directly attributes it to Divine Providence, in one of his most famous speeches which I almost never tire of excerpting, as I do in the last video below.  It is why he gave up his life, after all.

If we did not have a Constitution in the US, it might be necessary to engage in this discussion. But since the Constitution is quite clear on any number of these points, and the distribution of power, and oversight and transparency, and supremacy of individual rights, we need not worry perhaps.

Except for those who would hide and deceive and ride roughshod over what the narrowly legal mind and the flourish of rhetoric can consider just 'another piece of paper' when weighed on the expedient scales of the scheming mind, servile apathy, and the will to power.





I have just found Mr. Binney's presentation here.    Although it was dry, sometimes disjointed, and a bit technical, it was nevertheless interesting because he has quite a few of the facts and history of these programs at his fingertips through personal experience.

I thought Chris Huhne gave a nice summation for the proposition here. I include it because this meme that Snowden purposely fled to Moscow to live there is quite irritating. He was trapped there because the US yanked his passport, and through pressure even went so far as to stop an official flight carrying the Ecuadoran president in order to prevent his seeking asylum there. How obligingly forgetful and servile the presstitutes in the mainstream media can be when it suits.