Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Option Expiration for November - The God of the Market

"Since the earliest stages of human history, of course, there have been bazaars, rialtos, and trading posts—all markets. But The Market was never God, because there were other centers of value and meaning, other "gods." The Market operated within a plethora of other institutions that restrained it. As Karl Polanyi has demonstrated in his classic work The Great Transformation, only in the past two centuries has The Market risen above these demigods and chthonic spirits to become today's First Cause...

Does anyone doubt that if the True Cross were ever really discovered, it would eventually find its way to Sotheby's? The Market is not omnipotent—yet. But the process is under way and it is gaining momentum."

Harvey Cox, The Market As God: Living In the New Dispensation

Today was the Comex option expiration for November futures for both gold and silver.

Since November is not an active month for either metal it did not impact the prices significantly.

December is the next big month for both precious metals that I track.

The dollar index was off a little bit in forex trading, and stocks were a bit wobbly.

The data continues to confirm that The Recovery is a thin facade over misgovernance and the mispricing of risk due to a pernicious corruption of the balances in the system.

People have been asking me how I think one candidate or another might be for gold and silver.

I am not sure I can frame a good answer for that, because there are so many variables besides a particular candidate.  I can make a decent case either way.

Personally I have been thinking a bit harder about how each candidate might react to opposition since the electorate is so clearly polarized, and both candidates have historically high disapproval ratings.

It is, after all, 'the choice between two evils' whether one is lesser or not, as the media likes to say.

And I hate to say it, but despite the trappings of religion or supremely benevolent ideology in which some of our new evils like to cloak themselves, it does seem in practice to be more of a form of self worship, a kind of neo-Paganism, than any acknowledgement of a higher morality and sense of obligation to a greater power than our own selves.

But as you know, my 'model' of the Imperial Presidency is expecting a type of a Nero to appear on the seen, marked by growing excess and over-reactions to even perceived resistance in pursuit of their own goals.

In our parlance, that would be someone Nixonian to a fault, or at least I would hope it would not be much more than that. Perhaps bolder and more shameless.

Again, either one of the front runners may step up, or rather down, to meet and exceed that mark.  I would hope not, but I do believe the possibility is there.

This is not to say that I am trafficking in eschatology.  I think that is mostly prideful and distracting, and we have certainly been through times like this here before.  We just forget about them.  We think that we are somehow different, exceptional, and more put upon than our parents and grandparents.

Like gold and silver, goodness is precious because of its relative scarcity. And these days it does seem to be particularly hard to find.  The economist Pierre Rinfret told me that a few months before he passed away, as he reflected on his life and experience in politics.

But goodness is not constrained by nature, but rather by the toxic drought of our hardened hearts.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - La Douleur du Monde

Stocks were in sell-off mode today as rude reality gave the paper assets reverie a rap on the knuckles.

So, you might ask, 'why didn't gold rally as a safe haven?'

And all you need to do is look at the US dollar chart. The dollar was rallying in the forex crosses as the Chinese continued to depreciate the yuan and the forex traders were barfing on the Brexit pound.

Speaking of jinxes, Krugman was congratulating himself today on his call that Brexit would have no negative impact on the British economy. Paul, they have not Brexited yet. And in addition to the usual economic lags, the certainty of Brexit and what it might really mean is hardly clear yet.

The dollar is now overbought, and at a high from earlier this year. But it may have some more upside, especially in the cross trades which tend to 'overshoot.' But longer term a strong dollar is anathema to the real economy exports. Of course if Hillary has her way, there will be no national borders, and we will all serve one big happy new world order ruled by the self-appointed philosopher kings.

As you know, sometimes the precious metals are traded as currencies, and their prices rise and fall without regard to fundamentals and even risks. The aggressive and often officially sanctioned mispricing of risk is one of the hallmarks of the serial bubbles which populate the landscape of our markets since the recent turn of the century.

But hang in there. Every dawg has its day, and the yellow and silver dawgs look like they might be getting ready to cry havoc and run loose.

I have been thinking quite a bit about the next 12 months. It does seem likely that Hillary Clinton will win the presidency. She is also likely to 'tip her hand' in the first 100 days of office, especially in the people whom she appoints to key positions.

This was absolutely the case in Obama's first 100 days, where it quickly became apparent that hope was dead, and change had left town.

Hillary strikes me as more Nixonian than even Obama, who certainly is given over to secrecy in the service of parochial elitism. If you do not think so, look up US actions taken under the Espionage Act since its inception.

But in the case of Hillary, in addition to the usual Nixonian lies, scheming, and stone-walling, she and Bill have previously given themselves over to a more 'hawkish' interventionist hard line both abroad AND at home.

Let's hope it does not roll that way again. But we might be keeping a close eye on the appointments for all the economic and financial positions, and the Attorney General.

I admit I am gloomy. Remember that in my own projections for the Empire, Obama is a very credible Claudius, and Nero is next in line. And either of the presumptive party picks seems capable of filling out that toga. No matter who wins, this election is just embarrassing.

But why be glum? The Chicago Cubs look formidable to win the World Series.  They last played in one in 1945, and last won it in 1908!  Although the equally formidable Giants are giving them a real run for their money in their series.

What could be more poetic than if the Cubs play against the injury plagued yet resilient Cleveland Indians in the World Series, if they can make a good showing against a very tough Blue Jays team.

Last night the Tribe swept the formidable Boston Red Sox, who were tops among the favorites to win the World Series itself at the end of regular season play.  And the Indians themselves have not been in the World Series since 1954, and last won one in 1948.

What an improbable pairing that hardly anyone would have anticipated.

And yet it may happen. And so we should treat most forecasts including mine with due skepticism, and remember that we all approach the future, planning for the worst but hoping for the best, as unlikely as it may seem.

Who knows, we may be surprised? Obama often ignored the wishes of his most ardent supporters, and Hillary may also cross hers, the kingpins of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Big Healthcare.

Have a pleasant evening.

The Fall of the American Republic: Six Caesars

"Rome has grown so much since its humble beginnings that it is now overwhelmed by its own greatness...The state is suffering from two opposite vices, greed and excesses; two plagues which, in the past, have been the ruin of every great empire."

Livy

Plutocracy, Then and Now - The Lesser of Two Evils

The world being what it is, we sometimes have to choose between two less than desirable options. The problem with choosing the lesser of two evils that are distasteful enough is that one has to numb their conscience to do it. This is what is known as a 'Faustian bargain.' We may lie to others and especially ourselves about it, but there it is.

But the individual will find that if they choose to make this kind of rotten deal with their own conscience enough times, and put their inner voice aside to make an expedient, practical choice rather than a moral one, and pile lie upon lie to ease the pain of their betrayal, eventually their conscience will fail them when it matters the most.  Or they may simply find themselves too compromised to do anything but overtly choose what is objectively wrong or suffer serious personal consequences.  They have intertwined their fingers with the power of darkness so deeply that now they are his.

And this is how the banal, time serving functionaries familiarize themselves into eventually doing otherwise unthinkable, and sometimes monstrous things.

The road to hell is paved, not with one climactic choice, but a long series of increasingly bad choices and lies, that eventually grow into a complete betrayal of duty, and our honour, and our sacred oaths of service.

We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed?  Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers?  Why else would we all— by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians— be participating in its destruction?

Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us. How do we submit?  By not being radical enough.  Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing.

Wendell Berry


Under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them.

If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

Thomas Jefferson, 16 January 1787


Special privileges and the use of the taxing power for private gain, these are the twin pillars upon which plutocracy rests. To take away these supports and to elevate the beneficiaries of special legislation to the path of honest effort is the purpose of our party.

And who can suffer injury by just taxation, impartial laws and the application of the Jeffersonian doctrine of equal rights to all and special privileges to none? Only those whose accumulations are stained with dishonesty and whose immoral methods have given them a distorted view of business, society and government.

Accumulating by conscious frauds more money than they can use upon themselves, wisely distribute or safely leave to their children, these denounce as public enemies all who question their methods or throw a light upon their crimes.

Plutocracy is abhorrent to a republic; it is more despotic than monarchy, more heartless than aristocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It preys upon the nation in time of peace and conspires against it in the hour of its calamity. Conscienceless, compassionless and devoid of wisdom, it enervates its votaries while it impoverishes its victims.

It is already sapping the strength of the nation, vulgarizing social life and making a mockery of morals. The time is ripe for the overthrow of this giant wrong. In the name of the counting-rooms which it has defiled; in the name of business honor which it has polluted; in the name of the homes which it has despoiled; and in the name of religion, upon which it has placed the stigma of hypocrisy, let us make our appeal to the awakened conscience of the nation.

William Jennings Bryan, 30 August 1906


The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933


Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after 'the present unpleasantness' ceases.

They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.

Henry Wallace, 9 April 1944


It was of the utmost importance to me that people in western Europe should see the Soviet regime for what it really was. Since 1930 I had seen little evidence that the USSR was progressing towards anything that one could truly call Socialism. On the contrary, I was struck by clear signs of its transformation into a hierarchical society, in which the rulers have no more reason to give up their power than any other ruling class.

George Orwell, Animal Farm preface, 1945


Now we remember that it was Bill Clinton's administration that deregulated derivatives, deregulated telecom, and put our country's only strong banking laws in the grave. He's the one who rammed the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) through congress. Mass incarceration and the repeal of welfare, two of Clinton's other major achievements, are the pillars of the disciplinary state that has made life so miserable for Americans in the lower reaches of society. He would have put a huge dent in Social Security too, had the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal not stopped him. If we take inequality as our measure, the Clinton administration looks not heroic but odious.

Mounting a campaign against plutocracy makes as much sense to the typical Washington liberal as would circulating a petition against gravity. What our modernized liberal leaders offer is not confrontation but a kind of therapy for those flattened by the free-market hurricane: they counsel us to accept the inevitability of the situation.

Thomas Frank, Rendezvous With Oblivion, 1 September 2006


Our plutocracy, whether the hedge fund managers in Greenwich, Connecticut, or the Internet moguls in Palo Alto, now lives like the British did in colonial India: ruling the place but not of it.

Mike Lofgren, The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government, 5 January 2016


We are not left to conjecture how the moneyed power, thus organized and with such a weapon in its hands, would be likely to use it. The distress and alarm which pervaded and agitated the whole country when the Bank of the United States waged war upon the people in order to compel them to submit to its demands can not yet be forgotten.

The ruthless and unsparing temper with which whole cities and communities were oppressed, individuals impoverished and ruined, and a scene of cheerful prosperity suddenly changed into one of gloom and despondency ought to be indelibly impressed on the memory of the people of the United States. If such was its power in a time of peace, what would it not have been in a season of war, with an enemy at your doors?

No nation but the freemen of the United States could have come out victorious from such a contest; yet, if you had not conquered, the Government would have passed from the hands of the many to the hands of the few, and this organized money power from its secret conclave would have dictated the choice of your highest officers and compelled you to make peace or war, as best suited their own wishes. The forms of your Government might for a time have remained, but its living spirit would have departed from it.

Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, 4 March 1837


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


That first [gilded] age of banking oligarchs came to an end with the passage of significant banking regulation in response to the Great Depression; the reemergence of an American financial oligarchy is quite recent. Of course, the U.S. is unique. And just as we have the world’s most advanced economy, military, and technology, we also have its most advanced oligarchy.

Major commercial and investment banks—and the hedge funds that ran alongside them—were the big beneficiaries of the twin housing and equity-market bubbles of this decade, their profits fed by an ever-increasing volume of transactions founded on a relatively small base of actual physical assets.

Our future could be one in which continued tumult feeds the looting of the financial system, and we talk more and more about exactly how our oligarchs became bandits and how the economy just can’t seem to get into gear.

Recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time."

Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, May 2009


The American economy increasingly serves only a narrow part of society, and America's national politics has failed to put the country back on track through honest, open, and transparent problem solving. Too many of America's elites-among the super-rich, the CEOs, and many of my colleagues in academia-have abandoned a commitment to social responsibility. They chase wealth and power, the rest of society be damned.

Jeffrey Sachs, The Price of Civilization, January 2012


The problem of the last three decades is not the 'vicissitudes of the marketplace,' but rather deliberate actions by the government to redistribute income from the rest of us to the one percent. This pattern of government action shows up in all areas of government policy.

Dean Baker, Vicissitudes of the Marketplace Would Be a Big Improvement, 29 September 2014


Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful (though sometimes badly mismanaged) industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy. These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.

If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism.

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation, June 2012


This elite-generated social control maintains the status quo because the status quo benefits and validates those who created and sit atop it. People rise to prominence when they parrot the orthodoxy rather than critically analyze it. Intellectual regurgitation is prized over independent thought. Voices of the dispossessed, different, and un(formally)educated are neglected regardless of their morality, import, and validity.

Real change in politics or society cannot occur under the orthodoxy because if it did, it would threaten the legitimacy of the professional class and all of the systems that helped them achieve their status.

Kristine Mattis, The Cult of the Professional Class, 4 April 2016


Plutocracy is not an American word but it's become an American phenomenon. Back in the fall of 2005, the Wall Street giant Citigroup even coined a variation on it, plutonomy, an economic system where the privileged few make sure the rich get richer with government on their side.

By the next spring, Citigroup decided the time had come to publicly 'bang the drum on plutonomy.' 

Over the past 30 years the plutocrats, or plutonomists— choose your poison— have used their vastly increased wealth to capture the flag and assure the government does their bidding.

This marriage of money and politics has produced an America of gross inequality at the top and low social mobility at the bottom, with little but anxiety and dread in between, as middle class Americans feel the ground falling out from under their feet.

Like those populists of that earlier era, millions of Americans have awakened to a sobering reality: they live in a plutocracy, where they are disposable. Then, the remedy was a popular insurgency that ignited the spark of democracy. Now we have come to another parting of the ways, and once again the fate and character of our country are up for grabs.

Democracy only works when we claim it as our own.

Bill Moyers, last episode of Bill Moyers Journal, 30 April 2010


Hubris calls for nemesis, and in one form or another it's going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started.

Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live By, 2003

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Option Expiry on the Comex - History Lesson

"The problem of the last three decades is not the 'vicissitudes of the marketplace,' but rather deliberate actions by the government to redistribute income from the rest of us to the one percent. This pattern of government action shows up in all areas of government policy."

Dean Baker

"Most of them became wealthy by being well connected and crooked.  And they are creating a society in which they can commit hugely damaging economic crimes with impunity, and in which only children of the wealthy have the opportunity to become successful. That’s what I have a problem with. And I think most people agree with me."

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation

"If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time."

Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup

I think it is telling, if not a bit amusing, that the two presumptive presidential candidates are not only disfavored but actually despised by a greater percentage of the people than ever before.

Well, it tracks with the arrogant propensity to continually misprice the risks, thinking that we can be as gods, and the market is our instrument of service.

Besides 'it is different this time' the most damaging assumption about what comes next is 'well, it has not happened yet.'

The madness of greed and hubris that drives all this will serve none but itself.

Let's see if gold will provide us with any meaningful movement on the chart formations.

Silver needs to hold 16.

Have a pleasant evening.

History Lesson

Tsar Nicholas II:  I know what will make them happy. They're children, and they need a Tsar. They need tradition. Not this! They're the victims of agitators. A Duma would make them bewildered and discontented. And don't tell me about London and Berlin. God save us from the mess they're in!

Count Witte:  I see. So they talk, pray, march, plead, petition and what do they get? Cossacks, prison, flogging, police, spies, and now, after today, they will be shot. Is this God's will? Are these His methods? Make war on your own people? How long do you think they're going to stand there and let you shoot them? YOU ask ME who's responsible? YOU ask?

The Imperial Presidency

Central Bank 'Tightening' and Dire Choices - History Looking 'Rhyme-y'

History says, don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

Seamus Heaney

'Raising rates' and 'tightening' looks more like offshoring and a shift change at the central banks' print shop.

Game of Swaps.

And in the second chart, the history of empire is starting to look choiceless and  'rhyme-y.'

Hope and change.  Change was led down a blind alley and strangled, and hope is on a bus out of town.

Deep State at Home and Abroad: Mike Lofgren and David Talbot

"Behind the ostensible Government sits enthroned an invisible Government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."

Theodore Roosevelt, The Progressive Platform


"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests...

Any individual who is able to raise enough money to be considered presidential is not going to be much use to the people at large. He will represent whatever moneyed entities are paying for him. Hence, the sense of despair throughout the land as incomes fall, businesses fail and there is no redress."

Gore Vidal, The Decline and Fall of the American Empire, 1992


"Last year, pressed by progressive donors at a dinner party to act more like the progressive they thought he was, Obama responded sharply, 'Don’t you remember what happened to Dr. King?'”

Ray McGovern, Doubting Obama's Resolve To Do Right


"The TPP, along with the WTO and NAFTA, is the most brazen corporate power grab in American history. It allows corporations to bypass our three branches of government to impose enforceable sanctions by secret tribunals.

These tribunals can declare our labor, consumer and environmental protections unlawful, non-tariff barriers subject to fines for noncompliance. The TPP establishes a transnational, autocratic system of enforceable governance in defiance of our domestic laws."

Ralph Nader


"Citizens in many countries wonder how certain government policies can persist in spite of widespread popular opposition or clear perceptions that they are harmful. This persistence is frequently attributed to a 'deep state.'

'The Establishment,' as it’s been called in the United States, where it evolved from the Washington-New York axis of national security officials and financial services executives. They are said to know what is 'best' for the country and to act accordingly, no matter who sits in the White House."

Philip Giraldi, America's Establishment Has Embraced 'Deep States'

Hillary as President: Robert Reich vs. Nomi Prins

I am so very glad that Pam and Russ Martens have written this article below.   I had intended to write something on this topic, and I probably would not have done it nearly so succinctly and so well.

The excerpt below is just a taste of a longer and more interesting piece, and I suggest that you read it.

While the Republicans are temporarily fragmenting along lines of personal ambition and various billionaire special interest groups, the Democrats are continuing to split between the Wall Street and populist progressive wings.   

And The Clintons are the unabashed leaders of the big money wing of the party.  With regard to the most recent series of financial crises, the Clinton's set the stage, and Bush II enacted it.

It seems likely that if unchallenged, the party bosses will be running roughshod over the concerns of the progressive and reform-minded elements of their constituency.

Another election of Bush v. Clinton would be a suitable emblem for the decline of democracy.

The next election, I believe, will be the opening act in an interesting decades long evolution of the American Republic.

Wall Street On Parade
Debating Hillary for President: Robert Reich v. Nomi Prins
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 25, 2015

Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary in Bill Clinton’s administration and currently Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, is an important voice for tackling income inequality in America by bringing back the Glass-Steagall Act, busting up the too-big-to-fail banks, and imposing a securities transaction tax...

Unfortunately, Reich, an otherwise clear-eyed progressive has a deep blind spot. Her name is Hillary Clinton...

There is one person in America who might be able to change Robert Reich’s mind about Hillary before he blows his otherwise stellar work on taming Wall Street with an unwise gambit of getting deeper into the Hillary camp. That person is Nomi Prins, a Wall Street veteran and meticulous researcher on the democracy-shriveling nexus between Wall Street and the Oval Office...

A column by Prins on Hillary Clinton’s Presidential attributes was posted to Paul Craig Roberts’ web site last Friday. It is not the detail-lite version on Rubin. Prins writes:

“When Hillary Clinton video-announced her bid for the Oval Office, she claimed she wanted to be a ‘champion’ for the American people. Since then, she has attempted to recast herself as a populist and distance herself from some of the policies of her husband. But Bill Clinton did not become president without sharing the friendships, associations, and ideologies of the elite banking sect, nor will Hillary Clinton. Such relationships run too deep and are too longstanding…

“Though she may, in the heat of that campaign, raise the bad-apples or bad-situation explanation for Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis of 2007-2008, rest assured that she will not point fingers at her friends. She will not chastise the people that pay her hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop to speak or the ones that have long shared the social circles in which she and her husband move…”

Read the entire article at Wall Street On Parade here.

Elizabeth Warren: The Unfinished Business of Financial Reform

If Elizabeth Warren were running for President, serious financial reform would be a key part of the national debate and her agenda.  The same can be said of Bernie Sanders.

Hillary may talk the talk but I am afraid that she, like the Republicans, are bought and paid for by the moneyed interests.   They are creatures of the system, caught in a credibility trap of deep capture by financial corruption.

 

Matt Taibbi:  Hillary's Fake Populism

 

We could be surprised. There is always that possibility.  We were certainly surprised by hope and change, in the wrong way. 

But I am not very optimistic.   The next President will most likely be from the same lineage of the last five as shown below.   They will most likely preside over the general trend in Western governments that, by distraction and deception, will continue to burn down the poor, the weak, the young, the aged, and eventually the middle class, to make room for the temple of Mammon.   And the love of many will grow cold.

The text of Senator Warren's speech may be downloaded in PDF form here.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Ounce by Ounce - Farewell to Empire

The Capitol stuffs its ears when it hears you; the world reviles you. I can blush for you no longer, and I have no wish to do so.  

The howls of Cerberus, the dog of the underworld, though resembling your speeches, will be less offensive to me, for I have never been associated with Cerberus, and I need not be ashamed of his howling.

Farewell, but make no music; commit murder, but write no verses; poison people, but do not dance; be an incendiary, but play no harp. This is the wish and the last friendly advice sent to you by me.

Petronius, Arbiter Elegantiae, Farewell to His Emperor

The Western gold market is a bucket shop.  Its manipulations are slowly depleting their prospects and their reserves.

 

Their vaults are being drained of gold, ounce by ounce, day by day, year by year.

 

They have taken flight from the moral high ground, and have found their true place, in wallowing with pigs.

 

It is a long walk down a dark hallway to the waiting crowd, and the inevitable day of reckoning, when you too are fallen.    You can and do extend your time by hiding and running, masquerading and lying, but you will never rest, in this world or the next.

 

Besides the incremental output from mining, the basis for the great Ponzi scheme keeps getting smaller, and smaller. 

 

Time is on our side.  And this is the nature of our warfare;  we rise by falling.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

 

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

Domestic Democracy or Foreign Imperialism, But Not Both

"Once you go down the path of empire, you inevitably start a process of overstretch, of tendencies toward bankruptcy, and, in the rest of the world, a tendency toward the uniting of people who are opposed to your imperialism simply on grounds that it’s yours, but maybe also on the grounds that you’re incompetent at it.

Indeed, one wonders whether we have already crossed our Rubicon, whether we can go back. I don’t know.

The Department of Defense is not, today, a department of defense. It’s an alternative seat of government on the south bank of the Potomac River. And, typical of militarism, it’s expanding into many, many other areas in our life that we have, in our traditional political philosophy, reserved for civilians. Domestic policing: they’re slowly expanding into that.

So, what do I suggest probably will happen? I think we will stagger along under a façade of constitutional government, as we are now, until we’re overcome by bankruptcy."

Chalmers Johnson

That bankruptcy will not only be financial, but moral and spiritual.  It will be a fiat culture, that is, reality will be defined as whatever power says it will be.

 

Below is a talk given by Chalmers Johnson in April, 2007

This was before the financial crisis and bailouts.

And before the Reform President Obama largely ratified the abuses of his predecessor and given over the welfare of the people to the corporations and the moneyed interests, finance and militarism, the pen and the gun, the bullet and the bribe.

 

 

The Recovery™ In One Chart

"Plunderers of the world, when nothing remains on the lands to which they have laid waste by wanton thievery, they search out across the seas.  The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well.  Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich.

Robbery, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."

Tacitus, Agricola

Funny thing, human nature. Despite all the trappings of progress nothing ever seems to change except the names.

Empire is now called 'war on terror.'

Panem et circenses. Washington is certainly a circus, and we know who is getting all the bread.

Financial Crisis in America: If Only the King Knew!

Signs of Decay

1. Internal corruption
2. Imperial overreach
3. Inability to reform.
   

Harvard Law Review
Incentives and Ideology
By James Kwak
May 20, 2014

“'If only the King knew!', we cried a thousand times from the depths of our abyss.” Cahiers de doléances de Cahors, 1789

In pre-Revolutionary France, common people would often say of their problems, “If only the King knew . . . .” Whatever evils they suffered at the hand of their government must be due to the king’s ministers and officials, for the king himself could not be at fault.

But the king knew exactly what was going on. As Levitin shows, our financial regulators were and remain deeply enmeshed in a complex political environment. At the margin, they have the discretion to do favors for the industry or for specific institutions (such as the OTS backdating a capital infusion by IndyMac to make it seem well capitalized when it actually wasn’t). But major regulatory decisions, such as turning a blind eye to derivatives or bailing out banks, are made by the political system as a whole...

More generally, we can’t blame everything on the bureaucrats. The financial non-regulation that made the 2008 crash possible was the explicit policy of multiple presidential administrations, and some of its most important elements sailed through Congress with bipartisan support. The choice to bail out large banks rather than homeowners was made by the Bush and Obama Administrations.

And Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act, which largely left in place the regulatory system that had failed so spectacularly, with the Administration lobbying heavily to weaken the most far-reaching reforms. In other words, President Obama knew exactly what was going on — just as President Clinton knew what was going on when he signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, allowing the consolidation of commercial and investment banking."

Read the entire article in the Harvard Law Review here.

Related:
Credibility Trap: Moyers and Barofsky on Failed Reform and Another Financial Crisis

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - They Make a Desert, and Call It Peace

"Plunderers of the world, when nothing remains on the lands to which they have laid waste by wanton thievery, they search out across the seas.

The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power. Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them.  Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich.

Robbery, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they create a desolate wasteland, they call it peace."

Tacitus, Calgacus' Speech from Agricola

Perhaps Calgacus was anticipating the rise of the predatory financial class and their Banks.  They seem to be almost unparalleled in their global power and reach, as well as their lack of self-awareness, and arrogance.

Gold and silver bounced back a little today, but from the charts it is clear that they are now working once again on an important overhead resistance level that marks a key 'neckline' in a series of inverse head and shoulder formations.

We may see quite a bit of sideways chop for the month of March, in anticipation of the next active delivery month of April.

Friday is another Non-Farm Payrolls report, which is often a magnet for market antics.  If the big trading desks cannot shove the price of gold lower, then we might have some indirect confirmation that the shortage of physical gold from the huge transfer of bullion to Asia is starting to bite into the cartel's ability to shove the paper markets around with their position size and leverage. 

There was no movement of bullion in or out of the Comex warehouses yesterday.

Have a pleasant evening.

Chalmers Johnson: The Decline of Empire

Signs of Decay

1. Internal corruption
2. Imperial overreach
3. Inability to reform.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - 'They Make a Desert, and Call It Peace'

"When in any country the small-farmer class is being squeezed off the land; when its labourers are slaves or serfs; when huge tracts are kept waste to minister to pleasure; when the shibboleth of art is on every man's lips, but ideas of true beauty in very few men's souls; when the business-sharper is the greatest man in the city, and lords it even in the law courts; when class-magistrates, bidding for high office, deal out justice according to the rank of the criminal; when exchanges are turned into great gambling-houses, and senators and men of title are the chief gamblers; when, in short, 'corruption is universal, when there is increasing audacity, increasing greed, increasing fraud, increasing impurity, and these are fed by increasing indulgence and ostentation; when a considerable number of trials in the courts of law bring out the fact that the country in general is now regarded as a prey, upon which any number of vultures, scenting it from afar, may safely light and securely gorge themselves; when the foul tribe is amply replenished by its congeners at home, and foreign invaders find any number of men, bearing good names, ready to assist them in robberies far more cruel and sweeping than those of the footpad or burglar'--when such is the tone of society, and such the idols before which it bends, a nation must be fast going down hill.

A more repulsive picture can hardly be imagined. A mob, a moneyed class, and an aristocracy almost equally worthless, hating each other, and hated by the rest of the world; Italians bitterly jealous of Romans, and only in better plight than the provinces beyond the sea;  more miserable than either, swarms of slaves beginning to brood over revenge as a solace to their sufferings; the land going out of cultivation; native industry swamped by slave-grown imports; the population decreasing; the army degenerating; wars waged as a speculation, but only against the weak; provinces subjected to organized pillage; in the metropolis childish superstition, whole sale luxury, and monstrous vice.

The hour for reform was surely come. Who was to be the man?"

A.H. Beesley, The Gracchi Marius and Sulla, 1921

The mouthpieces in the media are maintaining a steady drumbeat against gold and silver.  The real economy wallows in official and financial corruption.

From discussion with friends in Japan, it seems that a version of a striking financial recovery in the US is being painted by the government and the media there, that seems to be at odds with the reality which the common American is facing. I am informed that a similar situation exists in the UK,  but with much less effect.   Who dares to question the sanctification of such success, and the power of an Empire?

"By dulling the blade of tyranny, I reconciled Rome to the monarchy."

Emperor Tiberius Claudius Augustus, I Claudius

Chalmers Johnson: End of Empire, Signs of Decay

"History teaches us that the capacity of things to get worse is limitless. Roman history suggests that the short, happy life of the American republic may be coming to its end... [the US will probably] maintain a facade of constitutional government and drift along until financial bankruptcy overtakes it.

Of course, bankruptcy will not mean the literal end of the United States any more than it did for Germany in 1923, China in 1948, or Argentina in 2002-03.

It might, in fact, open the way for an unexpected restoration of the American system, or for military rule or simply for some development we cannot yet imagine. Certainly, such a bankruptcy would mean a drastic lowering of our standard of living, a loss of control over international affairs, a process of adjusting to the rise of other powers, including China and India..."

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

The Imperial Presidents

Wall Street is the Praetorian Guard.

As for Nero, we'll just have to wait and see.

But perhaps it might be good to have some fire insurance.