Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Father of Lies and of Madness

 

“Civility means a great deal more than just being nice to one another.  It is complex and encompasses learning how to connect successfully and live well with others, developing thoughtfulness, and fostering effective self-expression and communication.  Civility includes courtesy, politeness, mutual respect, fairness, good manners.”

Pier Massimo Forni, Choosing Civility, February 28, 2002

"So let us begin anew—remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof.  Let us never negotiate out of fear.  But let us never fear to negotiate.  Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us"

John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961

"I recall having cautioned you all that we have entered a period of hysteria several times. I saw this phase coming years ago. And here we are.

1.Exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement.

2.A psychological disorder whose symptoms include conversion of psychological stress into physical symptoms, selective amnesia, susceptibility to autosuggestion.

At other times I have referred to what follows from hysteria as 'the madness.' That is when hysteria is driven into action, sometimes by those who would seek to use that madness for their own ends. And as you recall I often say, 'the madness serves none but itself.'

I think there is a lot of fear and uncertainty out there. And it is going to get worse. And in such a time it is even more important to stick to the facts, maintain your composure, keep a cap on the rhetorical flourishes and excesses, and remember that if you do not know what will happen, that the other guy might be right as well. Age has taught me that those who see things in pure black and white are often just color blind and nearsighted.

It is those who can proceed calmly and with serenity who will pass through this period relatively well, and even if they do suffer some unavoidable misfortune, they can do so without regret."

Jesse, A Plea for Civility, 14 April 2013

"Why do you not understand what I am saying?  It is because you cannot bear to hear my words.   You are from your father, the devil, and you willfully carry out your father’s desires.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and he does not stand with the truth, for there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks in accord with his nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

John 8:43-44


What else can one expect to happen if a social system is created that values money and power above all else?    That chooses to create and act within its own false reality?  

Where the thought leaders of a nation prefer to say nothing, or go along to get along, to promote and prophesy illusions?

The 'elite' of the West have struck a monumental Faustian bargain for money and power.   

And there will be hell to pay.  For them of course, but for many, many innocents. 

Stocks soared.

Gold and silver rallied hard up to overhead resistance.

VIX did not decline, which was interesting.

The Dollar fell sharply.

Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday.

The geopolitical situation is on a rolling boil, whether we wish to ignore it or not.

Forewarned is forearmed. 

What matters most in the long run is your soul, and the souls of those that you love. For that is what this is all about.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Before the Banality of the Gods of Evil

 

“We carry on like slaves. There isn’t time to breathe, and I am up to my eyebrows in this business of feeding those who have nothing.   And they are many—those with nothing.  As a rule my purse is as dry as [Mexican President] Calles’s soul.  We ought to speak, shout out against injustices, with confidence and without fear.  

Viva Cristo Rey!"

Miguel Agustin Pro, Martyred 'in hatred of the faith', Mexico, November 23, 1927

“This great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts.  For evil to appear disguised as light, compassion, historical necessity or even social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Word, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil.   Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior.  Christians are called to compassion and to action."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martyred, Germany, April 9, 1945

"But if not, I will not bow, and God grant that we will never bow, before the gods of evil."

Martin Luther King, Martyred,  America,  April 4, 1968

"The government soldiers cut him with a machete until he was bleeding from several wounds. They made him watch the execution of some of his friends. He cried and moaned with pain as they cut off the bottom of his feet, and made him walk through the town. At times they stopped him and said, 'If you shout, 'Death to Christ the King' we will spare your life'. The young Josélito would only say,  'I will never give in,  Viva Cristo Rey y Santa Maria de Guadalupe.'”

José Sánchez del Río, Martyred, Mexico, February 10,1928

"The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the the sacrifice of many victims of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost selves?”

Maximilian Maria Kolbe, Martyred, Poland, 14 August 1941

Stocks were wobbly, but managed to gather themselves together for another heave ho higher.

VIX fell of course.   Geopolitical and economic risks?  Talk to the invisible hand.

Gold and silver moved higher,

The Dollar moved higher.

The outsized self-importance of the worldly would be a parody in its lack of perspective and judgement, if they were not also able to cause so much damage and heartache to others through their delusions.

They are not so much tragic as just sad.

Sadder still are those who throw the best of themselves away, foolishly, in blindly following them.

It calls to mind the recent children's crusades of the gullible and the deluded, the demented opera buffa of the 'insurrection' and wars for territory and egos of the anointed.

This is the tragedy of the madness.  Few can stand against it, unless they remain firmly standing in love. 

And it has not yet found its completion.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Götterdämmerung - Variations on a National Madness

 

"On April 11th 1945, as the Red Army fast-approached Berlin, the Berlin Philharmonic gave what might have been its last concert before the end of the war. Albert Speer, who had intervened to save members of the Orchestra from their senseless drafting into the Volksturm, organized a final concert, entitled Konzert für Minister Speer in the Berlin Beethoven Hall, still curiously standing amidst the city’s rubble.

According to most sources as well as popular myth, Speer engineered a move for the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic to the relative peace of Bayreuth, but they chose to remain with their Berliner audiences until the end of the war.  The Orchestra’s final concerts were given in candlelight, under bombing and with Hitler Jugend children offering the exiting members of the audience cyanide capsules for private use, adding to the tragic and conclusive atmosphere of the whole affair.

The people of Berlin, suffering greatly as they were in those last months of the war, might have found the lush Wagnerian orchestral landscape extremely poignant in the face of defeat and the accompanying humiliation, pillaging and rape which they feared it would bring.

The Orchestra went on to give two more concerts, in which the main works were – fittingly – the Deutsches Requiem by J. Brahms and Tod und Verklärung by J. Strauss.  It becomes quite clear from the choice of repertoire that the Orchestra was now playing a funeral march for the entire nation.  This neurosis of being unable to see an alternative future in which the German nation might exist outside of final victory, is best reflected at the infanticide that took place in the bunker by Magda Goebbels.

According to Traudl Junge the Goebbels’ children sang for Hitler, who was very pleased to hear their song. This innocent choir of young voices was soon murdered by its very mother, in the bunker, just before the mother herself committed suicide.  There is no academic phrasing suitable enough to describe the incomprehensibility of how mankind can achieve this nonsense, especially at this high level of leadership."

Panayiotis Demopoulos, Götterdämmerung: Suicide Music and the National Self

"Upon her recent passing at the age of 76, I took the opportunity to reread Bubby's memoirs. In four different instances, my grandmother had stood—amid the smoke of the crematoriums, the barking dogs, the trampling boots and swinging clubs—on the infamous selection line at the head of which Mengele and his minions stood, pointing left and right, sentencing some to back-breaking labor, and sending others to the gas chambers.

Indeed, the miracles and the mysteries of the events of those days abound along with the horrors and the tragedies.  In contrast to the vile actions of the 'Angel of Death' were the noble and heroic actions of many 'Angels of Life' who stood ready to risk their own lives for the sake of saving that of a stranger.  It is thanks in no small part to 'angels' like these, who stepped out from behind their own misery and grief to come to the aid of others, that generations now live on to tell the story.  How clearly we see the infinite ripple effects of single acts of kindness and compassion, even if accomplished in a split second."

Yossi Refson, Angels of Light

"The real conflict is the inner conflict.  Beyond armies of occupation and the catacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love.  And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?”

Maximilian Kolbe


The German people had their music.   We have a confabulation of clickbait websites and talk radio. 

These cacophonies suffocate common sense and conscience, and drive national madness to a fiery abyss.  The will to victory and power becomes an overpowering will to die.

"And they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can stand against it?”     Rev. 13:4

They never believe it is even possible, until the Beast has fallen upon them, holding their throats in its merciless jaws.

"If there are damned souls in hell, it is because men blind themselves."   E. A. Bucchianeri

Stocks were mixed and sluggish today, going out flat or well off the highs.

The VIX continued to fall.  It is getting near the lower bound of recent support.

The Dollar rallied.

Gold and silver both lost ground.  The silver futures holders finally got their gut check.

Non-Farm Payrolls report tomorrow might move the markets depending on how off forecast it is, to the high or low.

This will be the last payrolls report until the FOMC meets again in September to manage their benchmark interest rate mischief.

Otherwise the adults have already started leaving for the upcoming three day Labor Day weekend.

Statistically September is one of the worst months for US equities.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Vanities - The Decline of the American Republic

 

“It’s no accident that the size of the financial sector today as a percentage of GDP is at levels equaled only on the eve of the Great Depression.  Like the decade leading up to the financial crisis of 2008, the Roaring Twenties were marked by not only financial boom and technological wonder, but also massive income inequality.  Worker wages stagnated and those of the upper classes grew, bolstered in large part by stock prices.  Another similarity was a rise in debt, both public and private, which was used to mask the declining spending power of the lower and middle classes and its dampening effect on GDP growth."

Rana Foroohar, Makers and Takers, 17 May 2016


"Financial collapses that are not due to natural disasters or war are always founded in fraud. And if you dig a bit, you will find that there are individuals behind it.   It is not some random madness, but a weakness of character, a perennial gullibility, a feeling that 'everyone is doing it,' that seems to be exploited periodically by heartless individuals.  In certain periods of history they become more socially acceptable.  When things seem to come mysteriously rushed out of nowhere with little factual basis behind them, and don't make sense, then they probably don't. This holds true for the Iraq war, and the bank bailouts, MF Global, and the financial and commodity market scandals that are yet to be revealed."

Jesse, The Myth of Alan Greenspan, 10 May 2012


“Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan pulled off one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated against the American people in the history of this great nation, and the underlying scam is still alive and well, more than a quarter century later.  It represents the very foundation upon which the economic malpractice that led the nation to the great economic collapse of 2008 was built.   They came up with the perfect strategy for the redistribution of income and wealth from the working class to the rich."

Allen Smith, The Greatest Fraud Ever, 14 April 2010


"Hillary's record on this subject [financial reform], and her service to Big Money, and the role that she and Bill played in gutting the progressive wing of the Democratic Party while making themselves rich on their speeches to the Big Money crowd, speaks for itself.  To expect anything different from her if she gets in office will be like the hope and change from Obama which didn't make it past his third week in office, when he brought back Clinton's financial policy team."

Jesse, Wall Street Reform and Fiscal Policy, 6 February 2016

"There is now abundant evidence of widespread, unpunished criminal behavior in the financial sector.  The evidence is now overwhelming that over the last thirty years, the U.S. financial sector has become a rogue industry.   As its wealth and power grew, it subverted America’s political system, including both political parties, government, and academic institutions in order to free itself from regulation.  The rise of predatory finance is both a cause and a symptom of an even broader, and even more disturbing, change in America’s economy and political system.   The financial sector is the core of a new oligarchy that has risen to power over the past thirty years, and that has profoundly changed American life."

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation


"The Clintons, along with a large group of Republican Congressmen and compliant Democrats, put a 'for sale' sign not only on the Lincoln bedroom, but on the rest of the White House and the Capitol.  They certainly did not do it alone, as it was a bipartisan effort to overturn the protections established in the darker days of the Great Depression.  And it became the thing to do in Washington and New York, to partner up with big money to take the public for a wild ride.   The Clintons turned the Democrats into the Republicans, while the Republicans were turning into a mob."

Jesse, Role the Clintons Played in Enabling the 2008 Financial Crisis, 13 February 2016


"Less than two months after stepping down from the Fed, Yellen was raking in huge fees from the mega banks on Wall Street, the very banks that are supervised by the Fed.  When Yellen was nominated by President Joe Biden for the post of Treasury Secretary, she had to file a new financial disclosure form.  That form revealed that she had received more than $7 million in speaking fees, the bulk of which came from Wall Street mega banks and trading houses, after stepping down from the Fed."

Pam and Russ Martens, The Fed's Trading Scandal Broadens,, 24 October 2022


"And so these reformers, throwing their constituency under the bus, have become the facilitators of the deep capture of our regulatory and political system in a bipartisan effort to get rich.  Most are just people, being carried along by an unsustainable tide of cynicism and personal greed that has imprinted itself on the minds of our privileged elites.

They choose to commit criminal acts through a wonderful power of rationalization, in a downward spiral of moral decline.  This perverse mindset, which used to be a denizen of rural enclaves and big city bosses is becoming pervasive in Washington and New York."

Jesse, Wall Street's Double Agent, 9 July 2015

"It's not just America.  The whole world has sort of turned muddy.  By and large, the world is increasingly run by ignoramuses, wackos and psychotics.   This was long before Donald Trump.  But we've got more crazy people running the world now than ever.

I think it's the one reason a guy like Donald Trump ran. They understood where he was coming from. That Trump is just a blowhard. They laughed at him. They knew Trump doesn't know what he's talking about. But Trump wasn't the same old big smile and a lot of good words. 

The Democrats have been going around saying, 'We're for the people, we're for the little guy.' And all they do is run to Wall Street for money.  And the one guy that didn't, Sanders, was sabotaged by the Democratic National Committee.  If I were the Democrats I would stop worrying about Donald Trump and start talking to the American people about jobs and health care. "

Seymour Hersh, 23 July 2019


"We are coming apart as a society, and inequality is right at the core of that.  When the 90 percent are getting worse off and they’re trying to figure out what happened, they’re not people like me who get to spend four or five hours a day studying these things and then writing about them — they’re people who have to make a living and get through life.  And they’re going to be swayed by demagogues and filled with fear about the other, rather than bringing us together."

David Cay Johnston, Inequality's Looming Disaster, May 2014


“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory, or one of unthinkable horror.”

C. S. Lewis

 

Stocks managed to pull themselves together and extend their rally higher, up to the key overhead resistance levels they are visited before.

Gold and silver fell a bit.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

VIX remain essentially unchanged. 

What time is the next wash and rinse?

Risk levels remain elevated, and the underlying fundamentals of the equity markets are shaky.

Stagflation, that most improbable of natural outcomes, spawned by a twisted monetary and fiscal policy has come to pass.  

How was it forecast here some years ago, when most were arguing for the inevitability of deflation, or the abandonment of any rational perspective on monetary policy?

You have hardened your hearts, and surrendered yourself to lies.

How can you hope to understand anything?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Pandemic of Willful Goofiness - Stock Index Option Expiration

 

“You hypocrites.  You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time?  Why can you not judge for yourselves what is right?"

Luke 12:54-57

"The undeserving maintain power by promoting hysteria."

Frank Herbert

"Demagogues are willing to do or say anything to gain office or to consolidate their power.  Unconstrained by ideology, they have no concern for the consequences of their actions.   Anything that serves to make them more powerful is good enough for them — even if the political system that facilitated their rise should be destroyed in the process.  They wreck the informal rules of civility that democracies require to survive.  Once voters are activated along violent lines and fervently believe the myths propagated by the demagogue, the dam is broken; the ordinary rules of democratic politics no longer apply, and there is no telling what might come next."

Daniel Ziblatt

“Against such foolishness we are defenseless.   Reason falls on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the foolish person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Anyone can be misled by a clever person, and no one likes to readily admit that they have been had.   It is a sign of character and maturity to realize this, and admit your were deceived, and to demand change and reform.  But some cannot do this.  It seems as though the more incorrect that the truth shows them to be, the louder and more strident they become in shouting down and denying the reality of the situation.  And anyone who denies their fantasies becomes someone to be feared and hated, shunned and eliminated." 

Jesse, 18 June 2012


 Stocks rebounded strongly today.

Gold and silver rocketed higher after the recent, determined price suppression.

The Dollar slipped back from its recent high.

The VIX continued to move lower, slowly.

It's all about the Benjamins, the stock option expiration today.

Take a good look at the gold futures chart.  Notice any patterns?

The option market is a bucket shop.

Nevertheless, we are one exogenous event from a market meltdown.

Dancing on the rim of a volcano, as it were.

People seem determined to embrace their own destruction out of a fit of unrighteous anger, fear, and willfulness.

We'll try to stay out of their way as best we can, and remember them in our prayers.

The madness serves none but itself.

Have a pleasant weekend.