Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Lethal Chambers of Hardened Hearts

 

"The essential characteristic of a good and healthy ruling elite, however, is that it views itself not as a function of the monarchy or the commonwealth, but as its very meaning and highest justification, and that it therefore accepts with a good conscience the sacrifice of untold human beings who, for its sake, must be reduced and lowered to incomplete human beings, to slaves, to instruments."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886

‘The only fundamental and possible socialism is the socialisation of the selective breeding of man. A part of eugenic politics would finally land us in an extensive use of the lethal chamber. A great many people would have to be put out of existence simply because it wastes other people’s time to look after them.”

George Bernard Shaw, Lecture to the Eugenics Education Society, The Daily Express, March 4, 1910

"The moment we face it frankly we are driven to the conclusion that the community has a right to put a price on the right to live in it.  If people are fit to live, let them live under decent human conditions.  If they are not fit to live, kill them in a decent human way.  Is it any wonder that some of us are driven to prescribe the lethal chamber as the solution for the hard cases which are at present made the excuse for dragging all the other cases down to their level, and the only solution that will create a sense of full social responsibility in modern populations?"

George Bernard Shaw, Prefaces, 1934

"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

"Fascism is capitalism plus murder."

Upton Sinclair

"Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

As you may recall, George Bernard Shaw was a member of the Fabian Society, a far left organization, and an avid supporter of eugenics, which was quite popular in the US and UK in the early part of the 20th century.  He, like so many other of the elites, was an early admirer of Hitler and Mussolini.  He modified his views of course with age, but never apologized.  Truly, there is probably no more perilous habit than the sanctifying of success.

It is the theory of the political continuum that at the extremes of the left and the right, their perspective on the individual and the human soul become remarkably similar, and the outcomes and policies tend to be indistinguishable except in their wording and rationalizations.  They tend to denigrate democracy and the common public, and have a penchant for fascism.

Stocks were in rally mode this morning, for a number of reasons some of which were exogenous.  

The stronger than expected retail sales number was taken in stride, once you looked 'under the hood' and saw what constituted it.

And so things were clicking along happily.

But alas, an exchange of words and a threat of further escalation in the military situation in the Mideast turned the risk lever back to off.

Stocks melted, giving up all their gains and going out near the lows. 

Gold and silver rallied sharply.

VIX rose sharply.

I suspect that this new found respect will wear off if nothing occurs on the geopolitical front.

Wall Street can shift from fear to greed and back again with phenomenal speed.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Rough Seas Ahead Mateys - Political Continuum

The US markets were very sleepy today, with little serious conviction in any direction.

Gold and silver just drifted, held in their places after the excitement of the beginning of the week.

There was no delivery activity at The Bucket Shop yesterday, and just trickles of bullion out of the warehouses as shown below.

Let's see if next week brings us any surprised, most likely from overseas.

I do think that looking out six months that we will likely see a widening of the swings in volatility, as events drive real people to take certain decisions, and the Banks and their government associates seek to stabilize and maintain their status quo.

But why guess? Let us just take it as it comes. In particular we will be watching the volatility swings in stocks, and for the usual and important support and resistance levels on the charts.

In particular physical delivery of bullion is worth watching, especially since there is so much disinformation being spread around about it. What worries the financiers is always of interest to common people like us.

It looks like gold imports to India jumped 62.2% in July.

FOMC minutes next week.  I suppose we will have to endure the usual speculation and market antics associated with 'will they or won't they.'

The Fed will raise rates at least 25 bp off the zero bound in September or December at the latest unless the wheels are falling off the global economy.   It has little to do with any real recovery, but is just another manifestation of their bank-centric, one percent trickle-downism.

If you have a chance try to watch the full five part series about The Man Who Knew Too Much from The Real News.   I found the discussion to be fascinating.

Watching the conversations related to the political scene are a little more interesting now that the politicos are swarming the channels in anticipation of the big Election next year.   I have included an updated chart of the 'Political Continuum' below.

You can divert yourself on these hot lazy days by trying to place the various candidates on the charts, and perhaps even yourselves.    The toughest ones to place are likely to be opportunists, narcissists and sociopaths.

This is because they may have no inherent principles others than self-advancement or youthful experimentation.  I know that I moved all over the chart when I was younger, and spent quite a bit of time on right side of the circle, but as I grew and aged and raised a family I started settling in the center and then to slightly left of center in the 'progressives.'   There are tests online that will help to place you if you answer them honestly.

I am not surprised that with such a range of choices and so many candidates, that so many people feel alienated with no clear cut choice.  I would find myself very hard-pressed to vote for either of the two establishment candidates, Bush or Clinton.  And the rest of the broad range of the candidates seem to have been made from a cookie cutter, except for two.  And therein lies both opportunity and danger.  But it is still very early days and things may look very differently by Spring.

Reform is a lonely watch, because you are without a doubt running against the mainstream current of the powerful in a society.   One has to find some principle other than self-interest to sustain them.  It is a good time therefore for religious feelings, narcissist pre-occupation, banal greed, and political extremism.  People will always find something to worship, one way or the other.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Distorted Markets, Financial Sophistry, and Moral Hazard

There was intraday commentary here that included an interesting perspective from the audacious one percent and their enablers.

And there was another about the current state of political discussion in Britain, a recent awkwardly stated reflection by the Prime Minister that may have revealed the mindset of their powerful, and its possible relationship with the continuum of politics and 'statism' here.

Oddly enough, both seem to have some implications for another question that was raised by a reader who shared this from another site. It was in reference to a posting earlier this week at Le Café that showed that the number of potential claims on actual available gold at the Comex was back to a record high.  

 

And it is further related to a familiar theme about the relationship between a thing masquerading as a market, The Bucket Shop on the Hudson, and THE marketplace for precious metals in Asia and the Mideast.  And the potential longer damages implicit in their protracted divergences.

"It is not meaningful that there are 107.7 claims per registered ounce. you should consider that the ratio between paper SPY and real SPY is infinity.

You are making the fundamentally flawed assumption that you need a physical commodity to determine price. You do not.

It doesn’t matter how many physical ounces there are per claim. It can be 1 or 1000 or 107.7 or infinity and it simply doesn’t matter.

The purpose of commodity markets is not to trade commodities, it is to determine price. There are zero SPY physical contracts and the market works just fine.>

I was a commodities broker and part of the test is to ask the function of commodity markets. Every commodity broker understands you don’t need a physical product.

It’s not a broken system, it’s existed in one form or another for a longer time than currency in any form. But to use it you have to understand it and you do not.

Everyone who owns physical gold or silver bought it with paper. There is no difference, they are fungible. The only difference is the price you are willing to take or to give. Physical and paper are exactly the same.

Saying that financial markets are manipulated is about as meaningful as saying the sun rises in the East. Well, duh?"

What this person is saying is that price really has nothing to do with actual supply and actual demand for a physical thing.   And much worse, they seem to have a remarkable disregard for risk and leverage.  I was originally going to ignore this since it smelled like teen spirit.  But when they came back and announced their expertise, how could I resist using this as an occasion of some education.

Futures are derivatives, bets. They are wagers that are indicative of where professionals think that price is going, should be going, given a set of known and unknown factors with certain assumptions and other factors, including fraud and gaming the system with bluffs, etc.

These types of futures markets began as a means for people who actually used and supplied things like commodities to factor in the risk in the 'future' and to essentially spread the risk around.

The 'futures market' is not the market.   No derivatives market is the market.  It is a reflection of THE market, and that reflection or representation varies in its quality and efficiency from market to market and over time.   This is why we have rules and regulations and enforcement.

A derivatives market is a creature of risk arbitrage, and leverage, and it is a reliable indicator of price to the extent that risk is correctly perceived and priced, leverage managed, and these exchanges are REGULATED against the short term gaming that speculators are often wont to do. 

I really do not blame the guy who thinks these things in his statements above since he knows what he has been taught, and what the financiers think these days are distorted by moral hazard.

The notion that the paper markets can set prices as they will without regard to risk or leverage is a not uncommon assumption held by those in the pursuit of unearned wealth.  That is why we have market crises and crashes.

This willfulness of paper is at the heart of some interpretations of Modern Monetary Theory that enthrones the principle of fiat in determining value above all other considerations, including the willingness of actors in the physical marketplace to accept it at a stated value.  At its worst it is a reflection of a kind of statism.

This flawed assumption of the extensible power of fiat is the basis of every black market and currency crisis in history. 

Commodities are different than stocks, because a stock is itself a derivative wager, a share in the future profits, dividends, and losses of a company.   How can any broker fail to know that?  Pretty basic stuff.   That is the difference between buying bullion and a mining stock.  A futures contract is a promise to buy and sell a thing at some future date.  It is not the thing itself, but it is based on the promise that you CAN do what you say you do.

Like the famous short seller Daniel Drew once said, 'He who sells what isn't his'n, must buy it back, or go to prison.'   But it is not always just a matter price to someone who might really wish to have the thing with they think they are purchasing.

I understand the mindset.  I really do.  It is the same mindset that Kyle Bass calls out in his video below about the Comex about why he chose to take delivery of his gold out of a sense of fiduciary responsibility. 

Commodities are by definition a real thing, and are not totally fungible with paper money at any and all times at a set price.  I think this is the MF Global school of thought, and it is fraught with injustice and moral hazard.  And it is nonsense to think that paper can paper over any and all action or any excess, except in a nation of willful thugs acting in a web of lies that come crashing down periodically.

If you believe in the pricing of things without reference to supply, demand, time, and risk, I invite you to go for a very long and solitary walk into the Sahara Desert, with only the price of a couple of gallons of water and a hotel room in New York in paper dollars in your pocket. 

Enjoy the refreshing and thirst quenching crunch of paper and your comfortable bed of sand.

It is a broken system in which these types of wagers can set price without reference to a realistic set of expectations based on supply, demand, leverage, and risks.  This is where bubbles are born and frauds dwell.

Leverage is a component of risk, but given the state of things, I feel the need to call it out separately since it seems to be fashionable now amongst 'market professionals' to believe that leverage is irrelevant to the point of infinity.   Maybe it is when you are playing with other people's money, and there are no consequences for your actions.

Such a self-referential system does not properly allocate capital for future investment in supply.  It does not inform the planners of changes in consumer interest, and the state of their own needs and conditions.  It does not give consumers the surety that they can actually obtain what they need and when they need it, and not be forced to accept some substitute at a dictated 'price.'

This sort of nonsense used to be relegated to the intraday antics, in which markets are just a voting machine, but you could rely on markets on the longer term to obtain some greater efficiency. The breakdown is that the grift has completely taken over, thanks to the policy errors of the Fed and the regulators.

The financial markets are an enabler, and not an end unto themselves.   And when they lose their proper place in the bigger scheme of economic things where the real markets and people exist, it is because of the moral hazards of an outsized and over-leveraged financial sector. 

It may take some time to catch up with us, but we know that at some point there will be hell to pay in the real world.   And there are those who simply do not care, who are sure they can just take their loot and blithely walk away, if they ever bother to think that far ahead.

How can we not see this lesson now, after all that we have seen and been through over the past twenty years?

We seem to be relearning that lesson about every seven or eight years, and then forgetting.  And until the consequences of their actions are visited on these infantile masters of the universe, I suspect we will have to keep relearning them because they are certainly not going to stop on their own.

 

This is the point of madness to which the sophists of finance have brought us, for any variety of motives.  I don't really care to discuss it any further with these sociopaths and willful fools at this late stage and after the carnage they have created.  It makes me sick to even think any longer about it and where it may be bringing us.

If you do not get this by now, then you probably will not 'get it' until you are searching in the rubble for your face after the next financial crisis. 

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Careless Few and Their Tower of Babel

Gold and silver marked time today, after the fairly heavy handed smackdown from last Friday in honor of our Non-Farm Payrolls report.

 

There was some small bleeding of bullion out of the bucket shop's warehouses as noted in the reports below, but little else of note. 

 

I am reassured by some very serious people that the West's gold is not flowing East.  It is merely disappearing from here, and apparently reappearing as imports into China, Russia, the Mideast, and India there. 

 

There is nothing to see here, so move along.  Our gold is going nowhere, and their gold is apparently just apparating, like Harry Potter.  Although Harry could not have managed such a nice lingering illusion of paper as he scooted off with our gold into the Vanishing Cabinet on the Thames.  Wingardium leviosa!

 

The trick is to concentrate intently on the details, to become mesmerized by them, and to ignore all the rest.  Remember the Three D's: Destination, Determination and Deliberation.  Germany can't get their gold back?  Gold is stupid, and they don't need it.  And so moving right along...

 

I am looking into this news that HSBC is closing seven of their customer gold vaults in London.  I am a bit behind the curve today for personal obligations.  I do not know if this signifies anything yet.  But I do suspect that this will open up quite a bit of useful closet space for the globally careless few who are simply flocking in droves to London real estate like flies to honey, or whatever other propensities that flies may have.

 

I have guest posted a rather good summary of the US economic situation by C. K. Michaelson titled The Minority Report which you can read here.

 

There was also intraday commentary about the state of economic and public policy thought here.  I made some revisions to the chart of the continuum of economic and political philosophy and you may wish to take a look at it, to see if it is now a bit clearer. 

 

Putting a great deal of information and concepts into a meaningful but simple and concise format is always the most difficult challenge.  Especially when the modern impulse is to expend the greatest amount of complexity and mostly irrelevant detail on the simplest of canards.  The currency and class wars are growing this into a thriving cottage industry in support of our export of frauds and domestic deceptions.

 

One thing that struck me today is that, although we may be in difficult economic straits, we are certainly blessed with some of the most skillful and ardent professional liars in the world, if not in all of history. 

Their artfulness in distorting the facts, and in sweeping inconvenient facts aside by exploiting relatively inconsequential details, is almost astonishing. And their shameless diligence in the pursuit of wealth through deception is almost herculean.

We truly excel in our treachery, and as a nation, we can certainly be proud of it, of making good look false, black as white, of murder as human kindness, and the most ruthless and self-serving plunder and repression as the finest expression of the human spirit.

 

As Michael Parenti said, 'The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology.'

 

Never have so many, sacrificed so much, for such an undeserving and deceitfully careless few. 

 

Better call Saul.

 

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Statism is Relativism With Reference Only To Itself

"If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity.

From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, we Fascists conclude that we have the right to create our own ideology and to enforce it with all the energy of which we are capable. ”

Benito Mussolini, Diuturna

That philosophy described by Benito is fiat with a capital 'F.'  

In a fascist or more properly statist regime, the state is above all else.  All values, including money, are whatever we say that they are, to the extent that the state can back them up with whatever amount of fraud and force that are required.  Everything that a tyrant or tyrant state does is legal, because they hold their power as the ultimate source of the law, without the appeal to reasonableness or recourse to equanimity.

This is directly opposed to the principle of a higher justice that is embodied in the rule of law.   There can be no real independent justice if there is no value transcending human power.  If there is no standard of truth, then all ideas are equally meaningless and without inherent value unless backed by power and the will to decree 'let it be done.'  

A trillion dollars may be represented by market tested legal debt, by a finite store of gold, a single platinum coin, or the stalk of a rotting turnip, if we say that it is so.  All of these ideas are equally true says the sophist, and all value is arbitrary, to be decided by the will of the state.

This is the very blueprint for abuse from the extremes of both the left and the right, the statists of the Socio-Political Continuum who see power as the greatest good, whether their perspective is from the left or the right.

The great American innovation was to claim that certain values are self-evident, true without contingency to a counterparty, because they have been endowed as a part of nature by a transcendent power.   They may have made sometimes strong distinctions between human religions and that transcendent power, but the acknowledgement of the subordination of the law to certain higher values is unmistakable.  And because those values did not come from the state, they are 'inalienable' even by the state.

Yes, we can argue about the implications, dimensions and definitions of rights and freedoms.  But we can never cynically dismiss them as did the statists of the 20th century, most of whom also by necessity adopted a state religion, from state atheism to a vague neo-pagan mythology of the blood or some other state sponsored belief that was a tool of their official will.

I know this should be obvious, but it is remarkable how easily people can forget the basis for the great American experiment and the principles that inspired it.  It is the philosophical notion of the legal restraint of power and accountability of government to its source in the people themselves endowed with values and privileged by a power above the state.

Now, one can certainly argue how those standards will be incorporated into the law, and what those standards ought to be in practice.  But it is undeniable that there must be non-arbitrary standards, and that the law is not in any way sufficient to itself.  This is no form of legalism or a religion of the law. 

 

The law itself is answerable to those standards of authority granted by the consent of the governed with the bounds of recognizing that which exists transcendently.

"If there's no God and no life beyond the grave, doesn't that mean that men will be allowed to do whatever they want?'  

'Didn't you know that already?' he said and laughed again. 'An intelligent man can do anything he likes as long as he's clever enough to get away with it."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

And once again, I am not saying that there ought to be a gold standard per se. Not at all. There are many ways to set standards and maintain them, with gold having many of the key characteristics of a good external standard.  And so it can inform us by its historical example.

 

All things can be turned to evil, even inherently good things.  Our system is capable of corrupting almost anything including the word of God itself, and our own Constitution if we allow it.   Our hypocrisy knows few bounds, and our law has too often descended into a mere ritual of legality with little enough reference to justice.

But those things that are transcendent of human power and our pride at least remind us that we are doing evil, and that we are not sufficient unto ourselves as the arbiters of the universe. 

But I will go so far to say that virtually every would-be statist who wishes to set themselves up as an authority by fiat will almost certainly find gold to be troublesome, an impediment, and something to be feared and if possible, controlled.  

Like private conscience, and a belief in a power greater than the power of the state, gold whispers in the silence to us, that something is terribly wrong.

It was a quiet option expiration on the Comex today.  More on that tomorrow.

Have a pleasant evening.

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds - And Ah! Bright Wings

"When the people of any particular country have such confidence in the fortune, probity, and prudence of a particular banker, as to believe that he is always ready to pay upon demand such of his promissory notes as are likely to be at any time presented to him; those notes come to have the same currency as gold and silver money, from the confidence that such money can at any time be had for them...

The commerce and industry of the country, however, it must be acknowledged, though they may be somewhat augmented, cannot be altogether so secure, when they are thus, as it were, suspended upon the Daedalian wings of paper money, as when they travel about upon the solid ground of gold and silver."

Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

By the way, from what I have been able to determine, Adam Smith never said, "The problem with fiat money is that it rewards the minority that can handle money, but fools the generation that has worked and saved money."

 

It is certainly popular on the internet, and quoted widely.  But I have never found even the use of the word 'fiat money' in any of his writings that I have examined closely, much less this particular quote. And his use of the word 'minority' seems to be confined to the context of someone who has not yet 'come of age' or their majority.

If you find an actual citation from his original works I would be glad to have it.  I spend quite a bit of time trying to search out the basis for various quotes.  I am not always successful, but am continually shocked at how many quotes there are that seem to be just constructed out of thin air. 

And this does not include the even more common practice of taking quotes selectively and out of context to support notions that the author could have hardly been expected to support given the body of their work and thought in context.

 

Related:  Paul Krugman Does Some Injustice to the Thoughts of Adam Smith on Gold, Silver, and Money

By the way, some of Krugman's acolytes later admitted the error.  If only his more vehement opponents would so willingly show such grace in a misstep, of which we are all capable.  But such is the undervalued status of truth at the extremes of the political continuum.  God is truly to be found in the ordinary things, and the exceptional, but as He defines such exceptional rarities in His economy.

 

The Political and Social Continuum - What About the Outliers? Does Sin Exist?

As you may recall I have constructed this model to help me conceptualize the 'continuum' of political and social thought.

One of the motivations for this particular form was to help me to understand why those at the extremes can 'cross over' so easily from one to the other.

And in practice, the two extremes seem identical in many ways.

But I have struggled for some time where a sociopath or psychopath might fit in this scheme of things.

Today it struck me that sociopaths and psychopaths can fit anywhere they like, although given their attraction to power and control over others they would be mostly found at the extremes.

They can move about most easily because they are 'outside the continuum'  and by definition  are exceptionally under-socialized.   For whatever reason, they do not 'fit' within a social structure, but are essentially outliers because of their pathology, the way in which they have rationalized themselves.

They are a mutated form of the self-actualizing person. They may seem quite personally powerful, but inside they are hollow, almost histrionic. They would be products of broken homes, and have marriages of convenience, mostly their own.

The narcissists are often highly verbally acute and talented at using speech, with high IQs.  But the tell is their lack of consistency.  And they thrive in places of upper management where performance and personal responsibility can be rationalized and diffused.  They are corrosive for the long term.

And the same off model status might be said to apply to misanthropes and hermits, the extreme form of self-imposed isolationism. At some point their social maturity has failed. And then there are the many socially immature who have never progressed beyond adolescence most likely because of some trauma or lack of support for their development. They lash out in anger because they know something is missing in their lives.

Politicians and certain types of public figures can be tough to place on this model because they are often poseurs, in that they are motivated primarily by power, and will assume various modes and guises to obtain it. They are most notable for the lack of consistency between their public and private lives, their very disingenuousness.

Indeed their private lives can often be quite distinct from their public reputations, and remarkably so.

I have known many 'driven' figures who from a public face would seem to be quite successful, and often remarkably so. But almost invariably they are unhappy to the point of being miserable, and they spread their misery to their family and all that come close to them. They are broken but functional and for some their obsession gives them a remarkable focus. They are not distracted by sincere feelings and abstract principles such as 'justice.' People are at best trophies to be collected and more often objects to be used and discarded.

Do not get me wrong.  No one is perfect, and the definition of normal is broad given the natural diversity of creation.  And at the end of the day, we are all imperfect and often broken people.  It is how we react to these things that makes us what we are.  Some must struggle more valiantly than others.

I cannot give you a precise definition of 'sin' without reference to personal belief, along with the usual classical references, although I do believe it objectively exists.   I think the best way to explore this is to ask a higher power, sincerely and with some persistence, to show our own sins to us.  And that might prove to be interesting, especially among those who think they are without it and beyond it.

And although I cannot define what normality and sin are, I think I know what hell is.  To paraphrase Dostoevsky, hell is the inability to love and to be loved, even when it is true and freely offered.  That is the terrible curse of Tantalus, and the source of much anger and discontent and oppression in the world.

So there is my slight modification to this model, and my pass at practical psychology for today.

Hitlerland: Making a Deadly Peace with the Devil

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

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


"It would be no sin if statesmen learned enough of history to realize that no system which implies control of society by privilege seekers has ever ended in any other way than collapse."

William Dodd, historian and US Ambassador to Germany, 1933

I am reading a new book titled Hitlerland, by Andrew Nagorski. Thank you to reader Andrew for recommending it. He knows I am very widely read in this period of history and find it fascinating both from an economic, sociological, and political perspective.

I was prepared for a rehashing of things I have already known and read, and I must admit I was initially put off a bit by the title which sounds frivolous. I was pleasantly surprised, even a bit amazed.

The book is highly original, and extraordinarily factual, in that Nagorski spent an extraordinary effort investigating eyewitness accounts, many of them unpublished, by Americans who lived there during the period in Germany from the Weimar Republic to the rise of Hitler and the beginning of the Second War.

He inserts minimal personal opinion and analysis into the writing, being more the journalist than the historian. He does treat the after-the-fact accounts with the proper regard for posturing and self promotion. He does have some very charming vignettes as well that make it a highly readable book.

It is well done, a 'must read' for anyone who wishes to understand that period of time from the perspective of those who lived it.  It adds a new dimension to a much written about period of time.  Remarkably so.

If there is anything that was surprising, it is the abject misery and despair of the German people during the Weimar Republic with the hyperinflation, and how few people actually saw the worst to come politically, after a false economic recovery, with the Crash of 1929. One knows these things, but they do not really understand them, not having lived it.

 Personal accounts help in this. This is why I found the book, When Money Dies by Adam Fergusson so helpful in this regard, as well as Ken Burns masterful documentary, The Civil War.

The fear of the Socialists and the Communists in particular is a key driver for the events of that time, and is not to be discounted.  The cynical dealing and irresoluteness of the Weimar politicians is another factor.  There were open fights in the streets on a regular basis, although they were often surprisingly 'orderly' as this book relates. Some of the passages are quite amusing for those familiar with the German penchant for orderliness, even in the midst of urban warfare.

The capacity for self-delusion and a bad compromise is amazing, especially during periods of confusion, fear, and distraction. And the moral base in Germany at that interwar period was already notoriously relativistic and given to occultism, odd theories, and Nietzchean extremes.  And after war, hyperinflation, and a new Depression, their spirit and will to resist evil was simply exhausted, especially when it was backed by systematic terror and force.

We ought not to be too critical of those people, many of the Americans included, who did not see the worst coming. Did you see the recent financial collapse coming, and what has followed? Do you even understand it yet? History may be amazed at your ignorance. And yet all the signs of trouble were there during the period from 1999 to 2007.

Some people were warning of the credit bubble, the imbalanced financial sector, and widespread fraud.  And the American people were distracted by a 'war on terror,' and not the collapse of their lives and savings after the decimation from a brutal world war that left the flower of their youth dead, crippled, or broken.

And then in Germany there was another Crash, and the onset of Great Depression, and the people thought, no, not again. Anything is better than this. And so the bargain with the devil was made, and after a brief blaze of false glory, hell followed.

This is not to excuse anything that was done, or permitted to happen. Far from it. But it is to place this sort of tragedy within its human context, and to remind us that we are all capable of such confused cowardice and acquiescence in the face of evil.  We must remain steadfast and resolute against it, especially before resistance demands the type of heroism of which few are capable.

The consensus of those who met Hitler was that he was a most ordinary person, with little charisma or appeal.  Dorothy Thompson called him 'the very prototype of the Little Man.'  He seemed nondescript, but inwardly mad, illogical and ineffective, and they were incredulous that he could rise to power.

A key tenet of the Nazis was the rejection of objective fact and reason in favor of the passions of 'the blood' and of instinct.  Truth was not an impartial consideration or serious limitation to conclusion and action.  That is a familiar refrain amongst ideologues and the more extreme elements of both left and right on the political continuum.

There are a few heroic figures in this book, and prominent among them is the Pulitzer prize winning journalist Edgar Ansel Mowrer, whom I had never heard about before this, which is a shame. I will let you read about him for yourself.

I had not realized how badly the prospects of the National Socialist party had fallen in the years after Hitler's imprisonment for the abortive putsch and before his sudden rise to power as chancellor.  They were essentially done.  But they served a purpose as a cat's paw for those wealthy bankers and industrialists who feared the Communists and Socialists, and for cynical Weimar pols who were too busy fighting for power amongst themselves to see the rising threat of fascism.

I had not remembered that during the Night of the Long Knives not only the SA leadership was taken on shot, but old political rivals as well, some of whom were retired from political life. Hitler's ruthlessness was exhaustive, and examples were often made. Again, we ought not to discount the regular use of domestic terror as party policy from the very onset of its ascendancy.

That rise to power was supported by the fresh fears and concerns brought on by the Great Depression which knocked Germany back off course, and the craven weakness of spirit of the politicians of his day. In the manner of Mussolini he gained power almost by default, and then secured it with a brutal iron fist. I am now convinced that without that terrible economic collapse after 1929 to provide a ready platform, he would have died a relatively forgotten crank.

One thing that I wonder about often is the attention given to Hitler because of his abominable atrocities, and the relatively little time spent on his role model, Mussolini. I have read a bit more on him, and he was despicable, a ruthless thug. The early Nazis were referred to by the Americans as the fascisti.  

Here is a brief excerpt from the accounts of the American journalist Edgar Mowrer. It is not anything I had not known from other readings but gives one a sense of the style in which Nagorski allows events to unfold through the words of his witnesses to history, and how he weaves their testimony into a rich tapestry.