Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Pictures From a Babylonian Captivity

 

"A multibillion-dollar bailout and Wall Street’s swift, subsequent reinstatement of gargantuan bonuses have inspired a narrative of parasitic bankers and other elites rigging the game for their own benefit. And this, in turn, has led to wider—and not unreasonable—fears that we are living in not merely a plutonomy, but a plutocracy, in which the rich display outsize political influence, narrowly self-interested motives, and a casual indifference to anyone outside their own rarefied economic bubble."

Chrystia Freeland, The Rise of the New Global Elite, January 2011

"The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."

Alex Carey

"In the 1970s, a wave of young liberals, Bill Clinton among them, destroyed the populist Democratic Party they had inherited from the New Dealers of the 1930s. The contours of this ideological fight were complex, but the gist was: Before the ’70s, Democrats were suspicious of big business. They used anti-monopoly policies to fight oligarchy and financial manipulation. 

Bill Clinton’s generation, however, believed that concentration of financial power could be virtuous, as long as that power was in the hands of experts. They largely dismissed the white working class as a bastion of reactionary racism.  Obama is simply the latest in a long line of party leaders who have bought into the ideology of these 'new' Democrats, and he has governed likewise, with commercial policies that ravaged the heartland."

Matt Stoller, How Bad Obama’s Financial Policies, Washington Post, 12 January 2017

"Act up to your light, though in the midst of difficulties, and you will be carried on, you do not know how far. This is His gracious way with us: He gives, not all at once, but by measure and season, wisely.

We must begin at the beginning.  Each truth has its own order; we cannot join the way of life at any point of the course we please; we cannot learn advanced truths before we have learned primary ones.   I know we shall find it very hard to rouse ourselves, to break the force of habit, to resolve to serve God, and persevere in doing so. 

And assuredly we must expect, even at best, and with all our efforts, perhaps backslidings, and certainly much continual imperfection all through our lives, in all we do.   We live here to struggle and to endure: the time of eternal rest will come hereafter.

John Henry Newman


Stocks were on a rally track this morning as the Non-Farm Payrolls Report came in with a 'Goldilocks' flavor.

But alas, during the day Russia decided to shut off the gas to Europe and so markets reversed, and hard.

It's the exogenous events that get you.  Bet the masters of the universe didn't see they usual setup falling apart.

Well, it's a three day weekend, and when unforeseen risk rears its head, you hit the exits.

Gold and silver were rallying along with everything else, but gave up much of their gains.

The US Dollar, which dumped in the morning, did a snappy rallyback on the plight of the Europeans.

"The most important problem in the world today is your soul, for that is what the struggle is about."

Fulton J. Sheen

Monday will be a national holiday in the US.  So see you Tuesday.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Shall We Stop This Bleeding? - A Shining City on a Hill

 

"It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue, and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice.  Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character."

Joseph Heller, Catch 22


"Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by act of Congress.  By attempting to gratify their desires we have in the results of our legislation arrayed section against section, interest against interest, and man against man, in a fearful commotion which threatens to shake the foundations of our Union."

Andrew Jackson, Message to the Senate On the Veto of the Second Bank of the United States, 1832


"Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires.   You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration.  We know, and well we know by bitter experience, that no appeal for the right, for justice, for humanity, can ever touch you.”

Jack London, The Iron Heel


"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

Stocks slumped badly today, purportedly on a warning from SNAP and the economic data from this morning, which fell a bit short on the PMI.

Unsurprisingly, they managed to take back quite a bit of their losses in the afternoon trade. 

The Dollar fell further, dropping into the 101 handle. 

Gold and silver rallied, and held most of it. 

Tomorrow is a not inconsequential option expiration for precious metals on the Comex. 

Dolly will be going in for surgery tomorrow, and her return will most likely happen at the end of the day. 

Old age is no joke, even for good little dogs. 

So unless something unexpected happens, there will likely be no commentary tomorrow night. 

Have a pleasant evening.