Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Awful Faces From Beyond

 

"We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.”

Hilaire Belloc, The Barbarians, 1912

"The Hitler Party likes to emphasize its uniqueness, and it really should not be measured against conventional yardsticks.   Even if it were to explode into smithereens today, the fact would remain that it recently won fifteen million voters.  It must satisfy not only a particular political need, but also a specifically German emotional condition. Its brutality, loud-mouthedness and brainlessness have acted not as a deterrent but rather as an attraction, and have generated unconditional and subservient followers."

Carl von Ossietzky, Die Weltbühne, January, 1933

"Representative institutions no longer represent voters.  Instead, they have been short-circuited, steadily corrupted by an institutionalized system of bribery that renders them responsive to powerful interest groups whose constituencies are the major corporations and wealthiest Americans.  The courts, in turn, when they are not increasingly handmaidens of corporate power, are consistently deferential to the claims of national security.

Elections have become heavily subsidized non-events that typically attract at best merely half of an electorate whose information about foreign and domestic politics is filtered through corporate-dominated media.  Citizens are manipulated into a nervous state by the media's reports of rampant crime and terrorist networks, by thinly veiled threats of the Attorney General and by their own fears about unemployment.  What is crucially important here is not only the expansion of governmental power but the inevitable discrediting of constitutional limitations and institutional processes that discourages the citizenry and leaves them politically apathetic.

No doubt these remarks will be dismissed by some as alarmist, but I want to go further and name the emergent political system 'inverted totalitarianism.'  By inverted I mean that while the current system and its operatives share with Nazism the aspiration toward unlimited power and aggressive expansionism, their methods and actions seem upside down.   For example, in Weimar Germany, before the Nazis took power, the 'streets' were dominated by totalitarian-oriented gangs of toughs, and whatever there was of democracy was confined to the government.

In rebuttal it will be said that there is no domestic equivalent to the Nazi regime of torture, concentration camps or other instruments of terror.  Instead, inverted totalitarianism has its own means of promoting generalized fear; not only by sudden 'alerts' and the publicized heavy-handed treatment of aliens and the Devil's Island that is Guantánamo Bay, but by a pervasive atmosphere of fear abetted by a corporate economy of ruthless downsizing, withdrawal or reduction of pension and health benefits; a corporate political system that relentlessly threatens to privatize Social Security and the modest health benefits available, especially to the poor. 

With such instrumentalities for promoting uncertainty and dependence, it is almost overkill for inverted totalitarianism to employ a system of criminal justice that is punitive in the extreme, relishes the death penalty and is consistently biased against the powerless.

Thus the elements are in place: a weak legislative body, a legal system that is both compliant and repressive, a party system in which one party, whether in opposition or in the majority, is bent upon reconstituting the existing system so as to permanently favor a ruling class of the wealthy, the well-connected and the corporate, while leaving the poorer citizens with a sense of helplessness and political despair, and, at the same time, keeping the middle classes dangling between fear of unemployment and expectations of fantastic rewards once the new economy recovers.

That scheme is abetted by a sycophantic and increasingly concentrated media; by the integration of universities with their corporate benefactors; by a propaganda machine institutionalized in well-funded think tanks and conservative foundations; by the increasingly closer cooperation between local police and national law enforcement agencies aimed at identifying terrorists, suspicious aliens and domestic dissidents.  What is at stake, then, is nothing less than the attempted transformation of a tolerably free society into a variant of the extreme regimes of the past century."

Sheldon Wolin, Inverted Totalitarianism, May 1, 2003


Stocks took a dive again today, but managed to rally back and post some measurable gains.

Gold and silver were smacked again, hard.

The bears were leaning pretty heavily on the miners, particularly some that were ex-dividend today.

Buying them on the dip was an edgy trade at times.

But they managed to come back again into the close, somewhat.

VIX declined.

The Dollar rallied.

And so we toddle on into the weekend. 

As a reminder there will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday March 7th.

The weather has become rather warm here the last few days, rising into the low 60s while the sun is out.

And so today was a good day to wear shorts while taking Daisy for her afternoon walk.

It's the little things that make life worth living.

Need little, want less, love more.

For those who abide in love, abide in God, and God in them.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - You Who Murder the Prophets and the Innocent

 

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who murder the prophets and abuse those whom God has sent to you as messengers.  As you have willed it, so your house is now yours to command— but it is made desolate.”

Matthew 23:37-38

"During the years of the Weimar Republic Carl von Ossietzky's political commentaries gained him a reputation as a fervent supporter of democracy and a pluralistic society. He was convicted in 1931 of revealing state secrets, the illegal German militarization, and served 18 months in prison. He was released in 1932. Ossietzky continued to be a constant warning voice against militarism and Nazism when, in January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor and the Nazi dictatorship began.

On 28 February 1933, after the Reichstag fire, he was taken by the police and held without trial in Spandau prison.  He was detained afterwards at the concentration camp KZ Esterwegen near Oldenburg. He was visited while in the camp by Swiss historian Carl Jacob Burkhardt, as a representative of the International Red Cross.  Burkhardt described Ossietzky as 'a deadly pale broken creature, who seemed numb, with one eye swollen over, and his teeth broken.'"

Jesse, In memory of Journalist Carl von Ossietzky, 16 June 2012

"Tell my friends that I have come to the end.  I hear my wife tried to visit me.  We cannot speak to the conscience of the world when our own conscience is asleep. 

I only wanted peace."

Carl von Ossietzky, German Journalist, winner in absentia of 1935 Nobel Peace Prize, died after a long brutal imprisonment on 4 May 1938

"Only one who spent the years following the First World War in Germany can fully understand how hard a battle it was that a man like Ossietzky had to fight.  He knew that the tradition of his countrymen, bent on violence and war, had not lost its power.  He knew how difficult, thankless and dangerous a task it was. to preach sanity and justice to his countrymen who had been hardened by a rough fate and demoralizing influence of a long war.  In their blindness they repaid him in hatred, persecution and slow destruction; to heed him and to act accordingly would have meant their salvation and would have been a true relief for the whole world.  It will be to the eternal fame of the Nobel Foundation that it bestowed its high honor to this humble martyr and that it is resolved to keep alive the memory of his work."

Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years, 1956

"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

Stocks wobbled today.

Gold rallied, as the Dollar fell.

Silver moved lower with equities.

VIX rose.

Earnings may dominate the stock market action, with tech and the miners reporting results this week.

It is hard to believe some of the things that are happening, even if one forecasted them, and anticipated them.  What are we becoming?

The moral cowardice of the West is, once again, our shame.

"But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.”

Hilaire Belloc

 Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - As It Was, So It Is - The Cruel Tutelage of History

 

"The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals; they give them the opportunity to carry on their destruction; and of course they do so. [déjà vu]  Is this a sign that the Germans are brutalized in their simplest human feelings, that no chord within them cries out at the sight of such deeds, that they have sunk into a fatal consciencelessness from which they will never, ever awake?"

Sophie Scholl, The White Rose, Second Leaflet, Munich 1942

"Wonderful providence indeed which is so silent, yet so efficacious, so constant, so unerring.  This is what baffles the power of Satan.  He cannot discern the Hand of God in what goes on; and though he would fain meet it and encounter it, in his mad and blasphemous rebellion against heaven, he cannot find it.  Wonderfully silent, yet resistless the course of God's providence. And if even devils, sagacious as they are, spirits by nature and experienced in evil, cannot detect His hand while He works, how can we hope to see it except by that way which the devils cannot take, by loving faith?"

John Henry Newman, Parochial Sermons 17

"Men rejected what is good, having cherished the nothings of demons and men, instead of the truth."

Athanasius, On the Incarnation

The Hitler Party likes to emphasize its uniqueness, and it really should not be measured against conventional yardsticks. Even if it were to explode into smithereens today, the fact would remain that it recently won fifteen million voters.  Its brutality, loud-mouthedness and brainlessness have acted not as a deterrent but rather as an attraction, and have generated unconditional and subservient followers.  But the evil and ugly instincts he has called up will not blow away so easily, and will plague the whole of public life in Germany for long years to come.  New political and social systems will replace the old ones, but the after-effects of Hitler will also rise again, and later generations will have to step up for the wrestling match that the German Republic was too cowardly to fight."

Carl von Ossietzky, Winter Fairy Tale, 3 January 1933

"Only one who spent the years following the First World War in Germany can fully understand how hard a battle it was that a man like [Carl von] Ossietzky had to fight.   He knew that the tradition of his countrymen, bent on violence and war, had not lost its power.  He knew how difficult, thankless and dangerous a task it was. to preach sanity and justice to his countrymen. [plus ça change]  In their blindness they repaid him in hatred, persecution and slow destruction; to heed him and to act accordingly would have meant their salvation and a true relief for the whole world.  The abstention from the solution of human problems by brute force is the task today as it was then."

Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years, 1956


We find it easy to judge others, but we almost always fail to see the same flaw in ourselves. 

We shut our eyes and turn away from the truth. And if we are shown it, we react in anger and often violent denial. 

This is how our pride draws us to the abyss. 

But things are so complicated.  What are we to do?  

"The Lord requires you to act justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

Micah 6:8

That's what He said, at many times in many ways.

Stocks plunged today, on a combination of factors including more pseudo-hawkish comments from the Fed's Powell, gathering storm clouds over the Mideast, and lousy corporate earnings reports.  Especially from companies with some material connection to reality.

It seems we had a risk off day all in all.

Gold and silver rallied.

The VIX rallied higher again.

The Dollar surprisingly lost ground despite the interest rate hawkishness.

Tomorrow is an option expiration for stocks, although certainly not a major one like the infamous triple witch.   

We might see a two step, as the traders do their technical trading in the morning, and then square up for the potential uncertainties of the exogenous kind over the weekend.

 

As Groucho said,  'I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal.'

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Witness to Injustice - True Nihilism

 

"We cannot speak to the conscience of the world when our own conscience is asleep."

Carl von Ossietzky, editor of Die Weltbühne, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935


"During the years of the Weimar Republic Carl von Ossietzky's political commentaries gained him a reputation as a fervent supporter of democracy and a pluralistic society.  He was convicted in 1931 of revealing state secrets, the illegal German militarization, and served 18 months in prison.  He was released in 1932.

Ossietzky continued to be a constant warning voice against militarism and Nazism when, in January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor and the Nazi dictatorship began.  Ossietzky was one of a very small group of public figures who continued to speak out against the now ruling Nazi Party.

On 28 February 1933, after the Reichstag fire, he was taken by the police and held without trial in Spandau prison.  He was detained afterwards at the concentration camp KZ Esterwegen near Oldenburg.

He was visited while in the camp by Swiss historian Carl Jacob Burkhardt, as a representative of the International Red Cross.  Burkhardt described Ossietzky as 'a deadly pale broken creature, who seemed numb, with one eye swollen over, and his teeth broken.'

Carl von Ossietzky's international rise to fame began in 1936 when, already suffering from serious illness that was not being treated, he was awarded the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize after an international campaign of people who hoped to achieve his release through this recognition and honor. 

 The award divided public opinion, and was generally condemned by conservative forces.  The leading conservative Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten argued in an editorial that Ossietzky was a criminal.

He was largely forgotten during the period of favorable international regard for the Third Reich, sparked in part by the propaganda campaign for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and the German 'economic miracle.'

Ossietzky died in the Nordend hospital in Berlin-Pankow, still in police custody, on 4 May 1938, of tuberculosis and from the after-effects of the abuse he suffered in the concentration camps.  In 1938 Time Magazine named Adolf Hitler as their 'Man of the Year.'"

Jesse, In memory of Journalist Carl von Ossietzky, 16 June 2012


"Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute?  They put to death those who foretold the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers you have become."

Acts 7:52


“Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love."

Julian Assange, Witnessing


Commodities were slammed today, with oil, gold and silver taking a hard sell-off, purportedly because of a 'disappointment' on Wall Street at the level of Chinese economic stimulus.

Smells like teen spirit.

Stocks themselves were trading weakly despite the much better than expected housing data.

A true opium of the people is the belief that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our lawlessness, our selfishness, and even murders that we are not going to be judged.

Historically the cup is filling,  and this is when we might see a reversal begin to unfold, call it karma, nemesis, fortune, judgement, or natural consequence as you prefer.

But for now, let's see what the rest of the week brings.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - History Lesson - Faustian Bargains

 

"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage."

John Kenneth Galbraith


"This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; he promises you illumination, he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind.  He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them.

He shows you how to become as gods.  Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his."

J. H. Newman, The Time of Antichrist


"The Nazi’s crisis is principally a financial one.  The layer in the party interested in theories has always been extraordinarily thin.  The intellectuals already parted company with the party.  The majority of party members consist of the dumbest of the dumb, with the brown-shirts’ cadres held together by cash payments, and not by convictions.  The party’s head office has been spending like there’s no tomorrow, living off the attitude that it would spread itself over the state with its plagues of locusts in the foreseeable future.

The Hitler Party likes to emphasize its uniqueness, and it really should not be measured against conventional yardsticks.  Even if it were to explode into smithereens today, the fact would remain that it recently won fifteen million voters.  It must satisfy not only a particular political need, but also a specifically German emotional condition.  Its brutality, loud-mouthedness and brainlessness have acted not as a deterrent but rather as an attraction, and have generated unconditional and subservient followers. This fact cannot be easily brushed aside.

The great, nativist Führer, who has all the allures and outer appearance of a Gypsy Virtuoso, might have his box-office hit and fade with it.  But the evil and ugly instincts he has called up will not blow away so easily, and will plague the whole of public life in Germany for long years to come.  New political and social systems will replace the old ones, but the after-effects of Hitler will also rise again, and later generations will have to step up for the wrestling match that the German Republic was too cowardly to fight."

Carl von Ossietzky, Winter Fairy Tale, 3 January 1933

Alas, Carl von Ossietzky's estimate of the demise of the National Socialists was overly optimistic, and badly mistaken about the depths of the moral cowardice and opportunism endemic in people of privilege, and the behind the scenes deals being made by politically influential Germans.  

On November 19, 1932 a letter signed by 22 important representatives of industry, finance and agriculture, had asked Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor.  Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor after the parliamentary elections of July and November 1932 had not resulted in the formation of a majority government.

At the end of the same month that he wrote his Winter Fairy Tale, a new German cabinet was sworn in during a brief ceremony in Hindenburg's office. The NSDAP gained three posts: Hitler was named chancellor.  

Following the February 27, 1933 Reichstag fire, which the NSDAP used to seize power and crush all opposition, Ossietzky was arrested and held in 'protective custody' in Spandau prison.  Ossietzky underestimated the speed with which the Nazis would go about ridding the country of unwanted political opponents.

In 1936, he was awarded the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize but was forbidden from traveling to Norway and accept the prize.  After enduring years of being systematically starved, tortured, and generally maltreated in various Nazi concentration camps, Ossietzky died of tuberculosis in May 1938 in a Berlin prison.

Stocks managed to shake off any concerns that might have remained and rallied into the weekly close.

The VIX fell further as a feeling of 'confidence' returns to the speculation.

The Dollar took another leg lower onto the 106 handle.

Gold and silver moved higher into overhead resistance.

PPI next Tuesday.

"If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves.”

E.A. Bucchianeri, Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World

Vanity, wealth, and power are the idols and masters of this world. But they have been overthrown through the death and resurrection of the Lord, who took on our nature, so that we might partake in His. He has ransomed us from ourselves, freed us from the tyranny of the world, and raised us up, giving us the choice to serve Him not as slaves, but in freedom.

Serve then whom you will, but know well who you serve. For it is that which you love, and with whom you and yours will abide.

Have a pleasant weekend.