Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Snakes in Suits - The Leaven of the Pharisees

 

"Psychopaths can be found in legislatures, hospitals, and used-car lots. Because they have no conscience, they're natural predators.   Psychopaths love chaos and hate rules, so they're comfortable in the fast-moving modern corporation.  Dr. Paul Babiak, an industrial-organizational psychologist based near New York City, is in the process of writing a book with Bob Hare called When Psychopaths Go to Work: Cons, Bullies and the Puppetmaster.  The subtitle refers to the three broad classes of psychopaths Babiak has encountered in the workplace.

"The con man works one-on-one," says Babiak. "They'll go after a woman, marry her, take her money, then move on and marry someone else.  The puppet master would manipulate somebody to get at someone else.  This type is more powerful because they're hidden."  Babiak says psychopaths have three motivations: thrill-seeking, the pathological desire to win, and the inclination to hurt people.

"A lot of white-collar criminals are psychopaths," says Bob Hare. "But they flourish because the characteristics that define the disorder are actually valued.  When they get caught, what happens?  A slap on the wrist, a six-month ban from trading, and don't give us the $100 million back.  I've always looked at white-collar crime as being as bad or worse than some of the physically violent crimes that are committed."

The best way to protect the workplace is not to hire psychopaths in the first place.  That means training interviewers so they're less likely to be manipulated and conned.  It means checking resumés for lies and distortions, and it means following up references.

Paul Babiak says he's "not comfortable" with one researcher's estimate that one in ten executives is a psychopath, but he has noticed that they are attracted to positions of power.  When he describes employees such as John to other executives, they know exactly whom he's talking about. "I was talking to a group of human-resources executives yesterday," says Babiak, "and every one of them said, you know, I think I've got somebody like that."

Robert Hercz, Psychopaths Among Us, 2001

“They often make use of the fact that for many people the content of the message is less important than the way it is delivered. A confident, aggressive delivery style - often larded with jargon, clichés, and flowery phrases - makes up for the lack of substance and sincerity in their interactions with others ... they are masters of impression management; their insight into the psyche of others combined with a superficial - but convincing - verbal fluency allows them to change their personas skillfully as it suits the situation and their game plan.

They are known for their ability to don many masks, change 'who they are' depending upon the person with whom they are interacting, and make themselves appear likable to their intended victim. Psychopathic workers very often were identified as the source of departmental conflicts, in many cases, purposely setting people up in conflict with each other. The most debilitating characteristic of even the most well-behaved psychopath is the inability to form a workable team."

Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, Snakes in Suits

"What is good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the Will to Power, and the power itself in man. What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is increasing— that resistance has been overcome. Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but competence. The first principle of our humanism is that the weak and the failures shall perish. And they ought to be helped to perish. What is more harmful than any vice? Active pity for all failure and weakness — Christianity."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886


It seems likely that the relativistic 1970s spawned the 'greed is good' meme of the 1990's, and provided a Petri dish for the development of abnormalities by rewarding even latent tendencies to antisocial behaviour.   What was once frowned upon is now encouraged and rewarded. 

I think you may have already heard that in the modern era certain Wall Street firms screen for sociopathic tendencies in prospective new hires.  Not to screen them out, however.  On the contrary, like organized crime families, such shameless and conscienceless drive towards personal greed is highly desirable and rewarded by the modern financial corporation.  The white collar criminal and the street criminal are both criminals, using different tools but similar means and mores.

I think this may also be applicable for other organizations that are focused primarily on money and power as their primary objectives without a strong commitment to moral responsibility and the public good, such as some of our corporate behemoths, and perhaps even other self-aggrandizing monopolies like the major political parties.  

'Greed is good' is not just for the traditional white collar criminals anymore.  

Do you think that the situation we have today is somehow different, exceptional? Are traditional sources of moral guidance like the good news of scripture silent on the subject, unfamiliar with it?

Or is the depth of this fault primarily in us, and in our deluded and hardened hearts?

Whom do we reward and admire the most?  The humble saint, or the clever and successful sinner?

And so we are where we are.  

Religion used to be the opium of the people. To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life. But now, we are witnessing a transformation: 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

We don't want to hear it.  We who murder the prophets and abuses the messengers that God sends to us.

But sooner or later we will sit down to a banquet of consequences.

Stocks were wobbly today after the reading of the Fed minutes, but ahead of the oh so important reveal of Nvidia's financial results, in what Bloomberg termed 'the final hurdle for Mega Tech's earnings victory.'

Gold and silver were off.  As a reminder there will be a futures options expiration next Tuesday on the Comex.

The Dollar strengthened.

VIX continues to wallow.

History will not absolve us.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Children of God, Children of Darkness - Like Tears in the Rain

 

"The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts.   For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ten Years After, 1943

“Once they’re in power, narcissists consolidate their position by firing everyone who challenges them.  In their place rise a plague of toadies, opportunists, and enablers equally guided by self-interest and short on scruples.   So you end up with these individualistic cultures with no teamwork and low integrity."

Lee Simmons, Stanford Business School

"A confident, aggressive delivery style - often larded with jargon, clichés, and flowery phrases - makes up for the lack of substance and sincerity in their interactions with others.  They are masters of impression management; their insight into the psyche of others combined with a superficial - but convincing - verbal fluency allows them to change their personas skillfully as it suits the situation and their game plan.

They are known for their ability to don many masks, change 'who they are' depending upon the person with whom they are interacting, and make themselves appear likable to their intended victim. The most debilitating characteristic of even the most well-behaved psychopath is the inability to form a workable team."

Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, Snakes in Suits

"I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil.   I think I've come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants.  A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man.   Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy."

G. M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary

“The greatest evil is not done now in sordid dens of crime. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices by quiet men, with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks, who do not need to raise their voice.”

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

"He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his 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.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison

"This is how we know who are the children of God and who are the children of Satan: anyone who does not do what is good is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their neighbor."

1 John 3:10

The PPI came in less than forecast.

And that was enough to trigger a powerful counter-rally in stocks.

Otherwise known as a wash and rinse.

Gold and silver rallied strongly.  

Gold bar sales are surging at Costco.  

Spokesmodels and economists are baffled.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

Geopolitical risks continue on in a rolling boil.

They will continue to be ignored - until they can't.

It's a simple concept.  

Stop provoking wars, stop murdering and oppressing the innocent.

Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.

"The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned...
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!”

Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus

What are we doing?  Who are we becoming? 

How will our children remember us?

And for what?

A bunch of power hungry human husks with empty souls and hardened hearts?

'All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.'

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Modern Prometheus - Another Comex Options Expiration

 

"By the late 1970s, after fifteen years in the business, Bob Hare knew what he was looking for when it came to psychopaths.  They exhibit a cluster of distinctive personality traits, the most significant of which is an utter lack of conscience.  They also have huge egos, short tempers, and an appetite for excitement -- a dangerous mix.  

'A lot of white-collar criminals are psychopaths,' says Bob Hare. 'But they flourish because the characteristics that define the disorder are actually valued.  When they get caught, what happens?  A slap on the wrist, a six-month ban from trading, and don't give us the $100 million back.  I've always looked at white-collar crime as being as bad or worse than some of the physically violent crimes that are committed.'"

Robert Hercz, Psychopaths Among Us


"A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all."

Tacitus


"Many of the characteristics displayed by psychopaths are closely associated with a profound lack of empathy and inability to construct a mental and emotional 'facsimile' of another person.  They seem completely unable to 'get into the skin' of others, except in a purely intellectual sense.  They are completely indifferent to the rights and suffering of family and strangers alike.  If they do maintain ties, it is only because they see family members as possessions."

Robert D. Hare, The Charming Psychopath


Stocks managed to oscillate today, not quite sure what to do with their recent outsized gains from last Friday.

Gold and silver were hit lower, in honor of the metals futures options expiration on the Comex.

What a surprise.

The Dollar moved lower slipping off the 104 handle.

I suspect that a cadre of the initiated would like to keep the equity markets moving higher.

The better to eat you with, my dear.

Europe has banned the imports of Russian gold.   A symbolic gesture at best.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metal Charts - Slowdown in US Manufacturing Stuns the Markets - A Nation of Servants

"The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool."

Stephen King, Needful Things


"The bully type, the false 'tough,' has been the first to break down under the actual fire of battle.  The quiet, the calm, the determined have made the best soldiers.  Why? Obviously the bully is insecure in himself— he blusters to muster his own courage."

Pearl S. Buck, What America Means to Me


"Narcissists damage and hurt but they do so offhandedly and naturally, as an afterthough. They are aware of what they are doing to others - but they do not care.”

Sam Vaknin, Malignant Self-Love


"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. It is not merely that at present the rule of naked force obtains almost everywhere. Probably that has always been the case. Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion."

George Orwell


“Crowd-pleasers [demagogues] are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whip their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy— then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece.”

Hunter S. Thompson


The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato."

Karl Popper


"A confident, aggressive delivery style - often larded with jargon, clichés, and flowery phrases - makes up for the lack of substance and sincerity in their interactions with others ... they are masters of impression management; their insight into the psyche of others combined with a superficial - but convincing - verbal fluency allows them to change their personas skillfully as it suits the situation and their game plan.

The most debilitating characteristic of even the most well-behaved psychopath is the inability to form a workable team."

Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, Snakes in Suits

The end of quarter antics of Wall Street hit a brick wall this morning, when before the bell the ISM Manufacturing Index came in at 47.8%, which was quite a miss, and showed the early signs, not only of slowdown, but contraction. This also reinforced the Chicago PMI which came in with a shockingly low 47.1 on Monday.

And so stocks dumped and gold and silver rallied. The Dollar was marginally lower.

I would not count these jokers out just yet. We have some additional data coming out this week, especially the Non-Farm Payrolls and the ISM Services Index, which may serve to provide the wiseguys some additional courage in their market manipulation.

After all, 'manufacturing' is so much an old economy thing, and services are where we wish to be. A nation of servants ruled over by a few oligarchs and their enablers.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Snakes and Ladders Economy - Stock Option Expiration on Friday

“Psychopathic workers very often were identified as the source of departmental conflicts, in many cases, purposely setting people up in conflict with each other.   The most debilitating characteristic of even the most well-behaved psychopath is the inability to form a workable team."

Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, Snakes in Suits


"What is good?  All that enhances the feeling of power, the Will to Power, and the power itself in man.  What is bad?  All that proceeds from weakness.  What is happiness?  The feeling that power is increasing— that resistance has been overcome.  Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but competence.

The first principle of our humanism is that the weak and the failures shall perish.  And they ought to be helped to perish.  What is more harmful than any vice?  Active pity for all failure and weakness — Christianity."

Friedrich Nietzsche


"I’m not against business, or profits, or becoming wealthy. I have no problem with people becoming billionaires—if they got there by winning a fair race, if their accomplishments merit it, if they pay their fair share of taxes, and if they don’t corrupt their society.   But that’s not how most of the people mentioned in this book became wealthy.

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

Charles Ferguson

Satan and his Antichrist

"Satan’s monomaniac concern with himself and his supposed rights and wrongs is a necessity of the Satanic predicament. Certainly, he has no choice. He has chosen to have no choice. He has wished to ‘be himself,’ and to be in himself and for himself, and his wish has been granted.  To admire Satan, then, is to give one’s vote not only for a world of misery, but also for a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking, of incessant autobiography."

C. S. Lewis

Stocks wobbled a bit today, while the US Dollar gained.

Gold was off, falling back towards the lower bound of its symmetrical triangle.

Silver managed to add a bit to its recent stealth rally.

There will be a stock option expiration for July this Friday.

Shenanigans are underway, as is usual in our perversely bent financial system.

There was intraday commentary here about the early 20th century program in Germany to kill the elderly, the infirm, the depressed, the mentally and physically disabled, the dissident, homosexuals, and the homeless for the sake of reducing costs and increasing profits.

Don't turn away again and move on. 

Look, and see what The Market demands, what its predators, narcissists, and infantile sociopaths promote, and what you too, in the end, may become.