Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - They Walk in Darkness

 

"And the judgement is this, that God’s light has come into the world, but people love the darkness more than the light when their actions are evil. For those who do evil hate the light and refuse to come into it for fear that their lawlessness will be revealed. But those who live in the truth come into the light, so that it can be seen that they are doing God's will."

John 3:19-21

“If we go as far as we can into the darkness, regardless of the consequences, I believe a midnight truth will free us from our bondage to violence and bring us to the light of peace.”

James W. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable

"Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so. But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression — for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses.  There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?

There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's. And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.  So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.

But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walks in darkness knows not whither he goes.

Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.

Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter's star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness."

Vermont C. Royster, In Hoc Anno Domini, December 24, 1949

"At first, the love of money, and then that of power began to prevail, and these became, as it were, the sources of every evil.   For avarice subverted honesty, integrity and other honorable principles and, in their stead, inculcated pride, inhumanity, contempt of religion and general venality.  Ambition prompted many to become deceitful; to keep one thing concealed in the breast and another ready on the tongue; to estimate friendships and enmities, not by their worth, but according to interest; and to carry rather a specious countenance than an honest heart.  These vices first advanced but slowly, and were sometimes restrained by correction; but afterward, when their infection had spread like a pestilence, the state was entirely changed, and the government, from being the most equitable and praiseworthy, became the most rapacious and insupportable."

Sallust, Conspiracy of Cataline


Trading volume was very light today as most of the adults left by noon, if they bothered coming in at all.

Gold and silver fell back a bit.

The Dollar moved higher.

VIX fell to its near term low.

The US markets will be closed tomorrow in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday.

The markets will be open until 1 PM on Friday.   

Trading should be very light excepting some exogenous event.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Destroyer of Markets - Audacious Oligarchy

“A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson


“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”

Noel Langley, The Wizard of Oz, screenplay


"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-spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy."

Jack London, The Iron Heel


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

C. S. Lewis

Stocks bounced today.

This was somewhat expected as noted yesterday. Their declines had reached the fibonacci retracements for a correction.

Gold and silver also had healthy bounces today.

Gold is a trading range.

Silver is in an intermediate consolidation pattern.

The Dollar laid off a bit from its recent gains.

Donholio continues to harm his chances for the next election by boasting or otherwise revealing things that he did.    In this latest he confessed, over a recorded phone call, to Bob Woodward that he had purposely downplayed the virulence and threat of the coronavirus pandemic.

This will be excused, or simply be ignored, by the true believers and kindred souls. And as always, those who cannot recall, or could not have known.

"And we can carry on the practice of charity and prayers in our daily lives, in the little things, if we can take the first step when called. It is that first step, away from the path of selfishness and death, and into the arms of love and true life, that is the key.  The first step out of the darkness and into the light is the hardest.  But once there, in that loving and hospitable place, our true home for which we were made, we find comfort and place, and pray that we may never leave."     Jesse, April 2014 

Repentance, forgiveness, thankfulness.

Need little, want less, love more.  For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Violent Indifference - The God of the Market and Its Toxic Cult of Power

"Behold the aggrieved, reactive creature fashioned by neoliberal reason and its effects, who embraces freedom without the social contract, authority without democratic legitimacy, and vengeance without values or futurity.  Far from the calculating, entrepreneurial, moral, and disciplined being imagined by Hayek and his intellectual kin, this one is angry, amoral, and impetuous, spurred by unavowed humiliation and thirst for revenge.

The intensity of this energy is tremendous on its own, and also easily exploited by plutocrats, rightwing politicians, and tabloid media moguls whipping it up and keeping it stupid.  It does not need to be addressed by policy producing its concrete betterment because it seeks mainly psychic anointment of its wounds. For this same reason it cannot be easily pacified—it is fueled mainly by rancor and unavowed nihilistic despair. It cannot be appealed to by reason, facts, or sustained argument because it does not want to know, and it is unmotivated by consistency or depth in its values or by belief in truth.

Its conscience is weak while its own sense of victimization and persecution runs high. It cannot be wooed by a viable alternative future, where it sees no place for itself, no prospect for restoring its lost supremacy. The freedom it champions has gained credence as the needs, urges, and values of the private have become legitimate forms of public life and public expression.

Having nothing to lose, its nihilism does not simply negate but is festive and even apocalyptic, willing to take Britain over a cliff, deny climate change, support manifestly undemocratic powers, or put an unstable know-nothing in the most powerful position on earth, because it has nothing else. It probably cannot be reached or transformed yet also has no endgame.

But what to do with it? And might we also need to examine the ways these logics and energies organize aspects of left responses to contemporary predicaments?"

Wendy Brown, Neoliberalism's Frankenstein


"The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists. The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism


"The fact that these foolish people are often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that they are not independent.  In conversation with them, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with them as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of them.   They are under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in their very being.

Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil.  This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy the human soul.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison


“Technically it was not hard—it would not have been hard to exterminate even greater numbers.  At the time there were no consequences to consider.  It did not occur to me that I would be held responsible.

That [human life] just didn’t enter into it.  I suppose you want to know if my thought and habits are normal.   I am entirely normal.   Even while I was doing the extermination work, I led a normal family life.”

Rudolf Höss, Kommandant of Auschwitz, as quoted by G. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary

The Market as a Violently Indifferent God

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

C. S. Lewis


"As everything in what used to be called creation becomes a commodity, human beings begin to look at one another, and at themselves, in a funny way, and they see price tags. There was a time when people spoke, at least occasionally, of 'inherent worth'— if not of things, then at least of persons.

It is sometimes said that since everything is for sale under the rule of The Market, nothing is sacred.  The Market is not omnipotent— yet. But the process is under way and it is gaining momentum."

Harvey Cox, The Market as God


"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming

Stocks managed to close with a decent gain today, with the SP 500 taking out the 3000 level.

This is just a 'round number' and is of little importance on the charts.

The Dollar and silver were mostly unchanged.  Gold was off a bit on 'technical selling.'

The financiers seem very eager to get this market moving higher.  Is this yet another phase in the latest smash and grab?

The discussion on Bloomberg this morning about Brexit was a caricature of the underlying reality.

Not one thing has changed.  The mispricing of risks and the deliberate misshaping of the narrative continues.

Whom is it that this system serves?   A man of the markets, reshaped in the image of an uncaring and violently indifferent god.

How sad it is, that no one pays attention to the wisdom of history, until the day that they look down and see the blood of their victims on their hands.  And they hear the words of judgment that pierce the facade of their delusions with its truthfulness.

And then they at long last finally realize what they have become.  And that they have given themselves over to the darkness, and are lost.

These violent delights have violent ends. And in their triumph, die.

Have a pleasant evening.