Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - And Where Are the Snows of Yesteryear?

 

"They shall eat the bitter fruit of their ways, and be gutted by their schemes.  The foolish turn away from me — to death.  For fools are destroyed by their pride and self-deception.”

Proverbs 1:31-33

"Where are the princes of this world, and those who lorded it over the creatures of the earth?  Those who hoarded up riches in which they placed their hope.  Those who have no limit to their greed, who scheme to get more wealth, and are always anxious about their possessions.

Now there is nothing left of them.  They have vanished into the bowels of the earth, and others like them have risen to take their place."

Baruch 3:16-19

"And Joan, the holy maiden from Lorraine
Whom the English burned at Rouen;
Where are they now, O Virgin Queen?
And where are the snows of yesteryear."

François Villon, Ballade des dames du temps jadis

"The inability to identify with others was unquestionably the most important psychological condition for the fact that something like Auschwitz could have occurred in the midst of more or less civilised and innocent people.  The silence under the terror was only its consequence.  The coldness of the societal mindset, the isolated competitor, was the precondition, as indifference to the fate of others, for the fact that only very few people reacted. The torturers know this, and they put it to test ever anew.

One must come to know the mechanisms that render people capable of such deeds, must reveal these mechanisms to them, and strive, by awakening a general awareness of those mechanisms, to prevent people from becoming so again.

It is not the victims who are guilty, not even in the sophistic and caricatured sense in which still today many like to construe it.  Only those who unreflectingly vented their hate and aggression upon them are guilty.  One must labor against this lack of reflection, must dissuade people from striking outward without reflecting upon themselves.  The only education that has any sense at all is an education toward critical self-reflection."

Theodor Adorno, Education After Auschwitz, 18 April 1966


Silver rocketed to a new all time high today of 117.70, but backed off to around 108 into the close.  Still a solid gain piled on the recent breakout over 100.

Gold rallied.

Bitcoin slumped a bit.

The Dollar continued its cascading decline, now to the bottom of the 97 handle.

Stocks rallied sharply.

Then tend to do that on Mondays lately.

We will be having the FOMC rate decision on Wednesday.

It's hard to tell, but things seem to be approaching a tipping point in the States, as we head into the midterm elections. 

It seems that the bold lawlessness of the day will keep testing the strength of justice and the commitment of this generation to the freedoms which it has been given.

That boldness will continue until stopped.  And as men learn that they can break the law with impunity, they will develop a taste for it, and the impetus for even greater excess.

"Where are the leaders?  Has our political process become so compromised by powerful interest groups and the threat of character assassination that even the best among us will not dare to speak honestly about the solutions that might bring us back to common sense and fundamental fairness?"    Senator Jim Webb, A Time to Fight, 2008

Where are our leaders indeed?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Lawless and Self-Enslaved

 

“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.”

C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 1945

"As you have willed it, so your house is now yours to command — but it is made desolate.’”

Matthew 23:38

"But, outside the realm of business, these men are stupid. They know only business. They do not know mankind nor society, and yet they set themselves up as arbiters of the fates of the hungry millions and all the other millions thrown in. 

We well we know by bitter experience that no appeal for the right, for justice, for humanity, can ever touch you.  I know nothing that I may say can influence you.  You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things.  You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats.  You are lick-spittles and panderers, the creatures of the plutocracy.” ”

Jack London, The Iron Heel, 1907 

"We labor and labor and labor for stuff that never satisfies us. The market ideology is now the new form of imperial power and many of us, without any critical reflection, have signed onto that, and organized our lives in that way so we do not have any time, energy or capacity for the things that are rightly important to us, our humanness."

Walter Brueggemann, Truth To Power, 2013

"I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.  I do not mean that they may not wish to come out of hell, but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self-abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good.  They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved."

C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 1940


Fed rate decision next Wednesday afternoon. 

The Dollar slumped down to the 97 handle as the rest of the world is selling hubris.

Gold and silver rocketed higher, with silver punching through $100 and closing above $102.

Gold is knocking on $5,000. 

Stocks tried to extend their rally and then fell back to hold a modest gain.

It did not take much to get VIX wallowing near complacency again.

Donnie's done.  He just doesn't know it yet.  Slowly, and then all at once.

The dogfight that will take place afterwards could be interesting.

We are expecting a major snowstorm here in the northeast this weekend.

Daisy and I are ready.  I washed all the blankets today.

Have a pleasant weekend. 

 

 

Cold Weather Special: Sweet and Sour Meatball Soup

 

This is an old recipe from my godfather who was Prussian/Polish.  My grandmother was German and she had her own similar version.

I have modified the recipe a bit over the years, but here is the basic idea.  Once you get familiar with it free to experiment with things that suit
your taste. 

It is a good cold weather soup.  Süße und Saure Suppe

Into a large pot add four quarts of clear chicken stock.
Add four stalks of celery. If it is green clean the outside
to remove any bitterness.

Add one pound of cleaned pork neckbones. This will add 'richness.'
One or two cloves of garlic.
Bring to a boil and simmer for 45 minutes.

Remove the bones and celery. I usually take any meat off the bones
and use it in something else, not in the soup. Sometimes the dog gets lucky.

Take 1 pound of ground beef and 1 pound ground pork and 8 to 16 oz.
of plain bread crumbs in a large bowl.  Add one tablespoon celery salt and pepper to taste.
One well diced onion.

Mix in two eggs. If the mixture seems heavy add up to 1/2 cup milk to soften the bread crumbs.
Salt and pepper to taste. A sprinkle of garlic powder if you are of that persuasion.

Bring the stock back up to a boil. Make the meatballs and add them to the stock. Cook them until they float to the top on a slow boil.  Remove them and put them on the side in a bowl.

Add one cup of diced celery, one diced leek, one large potato,
and five or six sliced carrots.
Slice and add one lemon, removing the seeds.
Add one package of cleaned and separated chicken wings or wingettes.  Bring to a slow boil and simmer for about 45 minutes.

Turn the heat down very low.
Add 2 pints of sour cream. 

Add one cup of sugar. Mix lightly without breaking up the carrots and other things in the soup.
Add some stock to the sour cream container and let it cool off.
Add 1/4 cup flour to the stock in the container and mix it well.
Add this back to the soup to thicken it. A rue can also be used. Or cornstarch.

Now taste the soup broth and add sugar to suit your taste. Do not overdo but it should taste slightly sweet.   If it is not sour enough add
some cider vinegar to bring the sourness into balance with the sweetness.

Add back the meatballs and let it simmer for about fifteen minutes. Don't burn.

Add some chopped scallions for color, and ground pepper. Add salt if needed.

Serve in a bowl with a crusty bread.

The meatballs tend to absorb the liquid overnight. Add some chicken stock if needed.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Empire in Decline

 

"When the person at the top is malignant and self-serving, unethical behavior cascades through the organization and becomes legitimized.  Narcissists change the companies or countries they lead, much like bad money drives out good, and those changes can outlast their own tenure.  Divergent voices are silenced, flattery and servility are rewarded, and cynicism and apathy corrode any sense of shared purpose in a culture where everyone’s out for themselves. In the extreme, they can destroy the institution itself."

Lee Simmons, How Narcissistic Leaders Destroy From Within, Stanford Business, April 30, 2020

"Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely.

God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else - something it never entered your head to conceive - comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left?

For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature.  It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not.  Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever."

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1944

"In the days before the flood people were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, even to that very day in which Noah entered into the ark. They did not understand what was happening. And then the flood came, and swept them all away."

Matthew 24:38-39


It seems likely that we have some surprises and revelations coming. 

Stocks attempted to extend their rally today.

VIX fell sharply.

The Dollar continued its slow cascade lower.

Gold and silver rocketed to new highs.

If this doesn't seem to have significance, you may be sleepwalking through life.

I am surprised by how few mainstream economists and financiers are failing to connect the dots.  

They tend to cluster around familiar ideas like birds.  It will take some noise to send them scattering.

"Every idol, however exalted, turns out, in the long run, to be a Moloch, hungry for human sacrifice."
Aldous Huxley, The Devil's of Loudon, 1971

Slowly, but surely, the overreach of empire is unraveling.

Have a pleasant evening.