“Do not weep for me — weep instead for yourselves and your children.”
Luke 23:28
"The present war crisis is something we have made entirely for and by ourselves. There is in reality not the slightest logical reason for war, and yet the whole world is plunging headlong into frightful destruction. This is a true war-madness, an illness of the mind and the spirit that is spreading with a furious and subtle contagion all over the world."
Thomas Merton, The Root of War, The Catholic Worker, October 1961
"Right now the US is on the path to a devaluation and a selective default on its debt and currency. No one can say 'how and when' with certainty. But surely it seems probable that there is a stop and a stumble in the growth of this mother of credit bubbles somewhere ahead.
Some suggest that devaluation of a sovereign currency no longer has any significance and meaning. Why? Because what would one devalue such a currency against, as it is tied to no external standard? And so they say that the Dollar is its own standard as the reserve currency of the world.
It is always a mistake to assume that there are no external standards, no dissenting views, that things are merely what we say they are and should be, for everyone.
The dollar standard is in fact the 'full faith and credit of the United States.' And if that confidence is broken, the reversion to fundamental 'external' values may be impressive.
Unthinkable? Every fiat currency that has ever existed has eventually been destroyed, or undergone an significant transformation. Even the US dollar has undergone evolution and reincarnation in its brief history, and will continue to do so.
The world may choose to create a one world currency, under the control of the Fed and the Central Banks, which is a prelude to One World Government. This would be one way to extend the existence of a fiat regime. Kill off all the alternatives, by force. A regime of the will to last a thousand years, forged in blood, betrayal, and deception."
Jesse, Thinking the Unthinkable, 11 November 2008
“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory, or one of unthinkable horror.”
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1952
"The ultimate purpose of crime is to establish an endless empire. It seeks a state of complete insecurity and anarchy, founded upon the tainted ideals of a world thought doomed to annihilation. When humanity, subjugated by the terror of crime, has been driven mad by fear and horror, and when chaos has become the supreme law, then the time for the empire of lawlessness will have come."
Fritz Lang, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, 1933
Stocks were their usual wobbly selves in the early trading.
However, around 1:30 there was a longer dated Treasury auction that was not received well by the market.
And so down risk assets went.
Interestingly enough the Dollar bottomed around that time, and then gained back a little of its losses.
Intervention or a 'flight to safety?' No way to know for sure.
But gold and silver rocketed back to go out near the highs of the day.
VIX ticked up slightly.
The US markets are a mispriced accident waiting to happen.
The talking heads are reassuring. As they often are, when talking about other people's money.
I sold some of the miners I bought last Friday at fire sale prices.
My allocation to equities was the highest it has been in a very long time.
And was highly concentrated.
So now it has been reduced to something a little more comfortable, and amenable to hedging.
This afternoon I watched this interview 'Deadly Betrayal' with Jeffrey Sachs and US Air Force Chief Dennis Fritz about the endless wars and American exceptionalism.
There is some interesting information disclosed which you might find to be illuminating about things that happened then and are happening now, that you won't hear on the mainstream media.
It seemed to fill in some of the blanks I still had from my own intensive reading into these things.
We have surely have been misled by those gripped with an illness of the mind and of the Spirit.
And the band played on.
Have a pleasant evening.
