Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Painting the Tape - Non-Farm Payrolls Next Friday

 

"It is hard to imagine a more inherently ineffective system of capital and resource allocation than crony capitalism.  It is like playing a game in which the rules are rigged to deliver most of the money in the system to a relative minority of insiders, thereby bankrupting all their customers.

Greed compels the materially obsessed to obtain the greatest piles of chips, but in the long term renders their chips to be almost worthless because they are unable to stop their fraud and plundering, even when it is in their best interests.  

They are not governed by rationality or conscience or even common sense.  For periods of time oligarchies are able to survive in an uneasy equilibrium enforced by power, but ultimately these wickedly wealthy wither and die on their great piles of gains."

Jesse, Crony Capitalism: The Fed's Frankenstein, 17 December 2010

"Proclaim the truth and do not be silent in fear. We have had enough pressure to be silent. Cry out with a thousand voices. The world is rotten because of silence. You know that every evil is founded in the love of self. Self-love is a fog that takes away the light of reason, which sustains itself by the light of faith. One is not lost without the other.

Love transforms us into what we love.  Out of darkness is born the light.   Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire."

Catherine of Siena

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.  Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, but neglect the weightier provisions of the Law: justice and mercy and faithfulness.  You blind guides, who strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. In this way, you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. You serpents, you brood of vipers.  How will you escape the sentence of hell?

Matthew 23:13-33

Stocks managed to go out with a bang, ending the 2nd quarter and the first half of the year.

The spokesmodels were shaking their pom-poms, beckoning the public to get on board the rally train. 

The Fat Lady may not yet be singing, but she is most likely warming up.

The VIX continues to show complacency in the face of interest rate and recession risks.

Gold and silver bounced on Dollar weakness.

Tuesday will be the 4^th of July holiday and the markets will be closed.   

Monday the 3^rd will be a light half day, with most of the adults already gone on holiday.

As you may recall the story of the latter part of the 1930s was a conservative Supreme Court overturning public programs of the New Deal on constitutional grounds.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Have a pleasant weekend.