Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - At the Time of the Lord

 

"They have acted shamefully, committing abominations,
    yet they are not ashamed,
    and do not even know how to blush.
Therefore they will fall among the fallen;
    at the time I visit them they shall be brought down,
    says the Lord."

Jeremiah 6:15

"The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war."

Sydney J. Harris, Personal Prejudices, 1953

"Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits impatiently for her meeting with us."

Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, 2007

"Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty.  Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening.  As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers, with approving smiles."

Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, 1947

“Religion used to be the opium of the people. To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life.

But now, we are witnessing a transformation: a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged.”

Czeslaw Milosz, Discreet Charm of Nihilism, NYRB Nov 1998

Trading is going to be very light this week, likely with an upward bias as we saw in the holiday trade last week, although we may very well see a back and forth action, as the wiseguys continue to reap the investment community and the real economy.

Gold is on the verge of breaking out.  It needs to take out 2080 and go for a run.

The Dollar continues to slump.

VIX remains complacent.  There is little provision being made for an exogenous black swan event, although the probability of one is elevated.   Risk assets are priced for perfection.

Consequences are rarely expected, and those that most deserve them experience the most intense outrage at having received them.   

This is hubris, and its willful blindness.  It brings down the proud and the willful.

Be not deceived, for God is not mocked.  As men sow, so shall they reap.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Hope and Change - The Discreet Charm of Elitism

 

"The gulf between employers and the employed is constantly widening, and classes are rapidly forming, one comprising the very rich and powerful, while in another are found the toiling poor.  As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel.  Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters."

President Grover Cleveland, State of the Union, December 3, 1888

"I think Bill Clinton was the pivotal figure of our times. Before he came along, the market-based reforms of Reaganism were controversial; after Clinton, they were accepted consensus wisdom. Clinton was the leader of the group that promised to end the Democrats’ old-style Rooseveltian politics, that hoped to make the Democrats into a party of white-collar winners, and he actually pulled that revolution off. He completed the Reagan agenda in a way the Republicans could not have dreamed of doing—signing trade agreements, deregulating Wall Street, getting the balanced budget, the ’94 crime bill, welfare reform. He almost got Social Security partially privatized, too.  A near miss [Miss Lewinsky that is] on that one.

He remade our party of the left (such as it is) so that it was no longer really identified with the economic fortunes of working people. Instead it was about highly educated professional-class winners, people whose good fortunes the Clintonized Democratic Party now regarded as a reflection of their merit. Now it was possible for the Democratic Party to reach out to Wall Street, to Silicon Valley, and so on. This was something relatively new for a left party in the industrialized world, and it was quickly adopted by other left parties in other countries, most notably 'New Labour' in the UK.  Unfortunately, this strategy has little to offer the people who used to be the Democratic Party’s main constituents except scolding.  It merely assumes that they have, as the ’90s saying went, nowhere else to go."

Seymour Hersh, A Conversation on US Politics with Thomas Frank, July 13, 2023

"The Press of the United States?  Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it.  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.  There is no Republican Party.  There is no Democratic Party.   You are lick-spittles and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy.  You talk verbosely in antiquated terminology of your love of liberty, and all the while you wear the scarlet livery of the Iron Heel.”

Jack London, The Iron Heel, 1907

Hope and change.

Right...

Stocks slumped a bit today on a dose of reality out of the earnings reports.

It was just a little leak compared to the recent 'AI-fueled' bubble action, so the bulloney boys are undaunted.

In the spirit of trend reversals, the Dollar rallied, and gold and silver lost ground.

There will be a stock option expiration tomorrow.

FOMC next week.

They never see it coming.  Because they think that they and their friends are it, above it all, blessed with the discreet charm of an effete and anachronistic elitism, the old shibboleth of 'class.'

“Religion, opium for the people.  To those suffering pain, humiliation, illness, and serfdom, it promised a reward in an afterlife.  And now we are witnessing a transformation.  A true opium for the people is a belief in nothingness after death–the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.”  

Czeslaw Milosz

Lessons unlearned bring old and familiar consequences, familiar at least to those who study history, and don't choose to consider it to be beneath them.

In the end, it is never between you and them, but between you and God.

Have a pleasant evening.