Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Decline and Fall of the Malignant Few

 

"The truly savage and frenetic part of New York, the terrible, cold, cruel part, is Wall Street. Rivers of gold flow there from all over the earth, and death comes with it.  There, as nowhere else, you feel a total absence of the spirit: herds of men who cannot count past three, herds more who cannot get past six, scorn for pure science and demoniacal respect for the present.

And the terrible thing is that the crowd that fills this street believes that the world will always be the same, that it is their duty to keep that huge machine running, day and night, forever.

I was lucky enough to see with my own eyes the recent stock-market crash, where they lost several billion dollars, a rabble of dead money that went sliding off into the sea.  Never as then, amid suicides, hysteria, and groups of fainting people, have I felt the sensation of real death, death without hope, death that is nothing but rottenness, for the spectacle was terrifying but devoid of greatness.

I felt something like a divine urge to bombard that whole canyon of shadow, where ambulances collected suicides whose hands were full of rings."

Federico Garcia Lorca, A Poet In New York, October 1929

"Whoever acquits the wicked, whoever condemns the just, are all an abomination to the Lord."

Proverbs 17:15

“The mob believes everything it is told, provided only that it be repeated over and over.  Provided too that its passions, hatreds, fears are catered to.  The grosser, the bigger, the cruder the lie, the more readily is it believed and followed.  The mob has no memory; needless to pretend to any truth: the mob is radically incapable of perceiving it: the mob can never comprehend that its own interests are what is at stake.”

Alexandre Koyré, Réflexions sur le Mensonge, March 1943

"And Abraham said, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not reform and repent, even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Luke 16:31


As you probably heard by now the Jobs Report came in shockingly low.  Stunningly bad.

Treasury yields on the short end plummeted, and took the dollar with them.

Gold and silver rallied to the upside.

Initially stocks rallied on the expectations of a rate cut at the next Fed meeting later this month.

But then the wiseguys thought about it and decided to sell, sell, sell.

I mean, what good are rate cuts if the economy is imploding, which is what such a low reading implied.

And so we had some wide ranging highs and lows in several of the markets.

I believe that Donnie and his Merry Pranksters are going to crash the economy, among other things, including the ruin of many poor souls.  

Try not to become one of them in your pride and your blindness. 

Its like watching drunk grandpa driving the car while he shakes his fist, yelling at the other drivers, pedestrians, dogs, cats, and mailboxes.

But that is something for another day.   

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

Welcome to September.

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Awful Presence of the Eternal

 

“Son of man, they have set up idols in their hearts.  They cling to the errors that will make them fall into sin."

Ezekiel 14:3

"The world seems to go on as usual.  There is nothing of heaven in the face of society; in the news of the day there is nothing of heaven; in the faces of the many, or of the great, or of the rich, or of the busy, there is nothing of heaven; in the words of the eloquent, or the deeds of the powerful, or the counsels of the wise, or the resolves of the lordly, or the pomp of the wealthy, there is nothing of heaven. And yet the Ever-blessed Spirit of God is here; the Presence of the Eternal Son, ten times more glorious, more powerful than when He trod the earth in our flesh, is with us. 

Let us ever bear in mind this divine truth — the more secret God's hand is, the more powerful — the more silent, the more awful."

John Henry Newman, Christ Manifested in Remembrance, Parochial Sermons Vol 4, N° 17,

"The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority, they don't dare to assert themselves.”

Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger

"The fact that the foolish person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent.  In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him.  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.  This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 1945

"For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."

Hosea 8:7

Non-Farm Payrolls tomorrow.   Let's see how it comes in and how the markets react.

Stocks managed to rally back up.

Gold and silver were slumping overnight, but less so during the day.

VIX is falling back down to la-la land again.

The Dollar was chopping around.

Bitcoin is pretty clearly in a trading range.  I have included a chart on this below.

The refusal of the Administration and the ruling party to release the Epstein information to the public is easy enough to understand.   It contains particularly repulsive information about them that they do not wish you to know. 

It is too much of a disgrace and a shame, a sickness great enough to put the fear of its exposure in people who are otherwise shameless.  It is just that bad, just that disgraceful that it demands to be covered up.  And they love power so much that they lie and break oaths to sustain it.

But, the band plays on. 

You really cannot help people.  I used to believe that people would listen to the facts, and then would act accordingly in a rational manner.

I really didn't understand Bonhoeffer's essay on the intransigence of foolishness, which he wrote from prison about the willful delusions of the German public, as they slid into the abyss.  

It is hard to accept the persistence of such irrational self-destructive behaviour among nominally educated and civilized people.

I understand it now.   

We will witness to history. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Heavy Weight of Silence

 

“Four sorrows are certain to be visited on the United States.

• First, there will be a state of perpetual war.
• Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal ‘executive branch’ of government into a military junta.
• Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions.
• Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens.”

Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 2005

"Seneca had made the bargain that many good men have made when agreeing to aid bad regimes.  On the one hand, their presence strengthens the regime and helps it endure.  But their moral influence may also improve the regime's behavior or save the lives of its enemies.  For many, this has been a bargain worth making, even if it has cost them—as it may have cost Seneca—their immortal soul.  The Rome he has been trained to serve, the Rome of Augustus and Germanicus, was gone.  In its place stood Neropolis, ruled by a megalomaniac brat.”

James Romm, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero, 2014

"And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.  We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak."

Martin Luther King, A Time to Break the Silence, 4 April 1967

"When we are the victims of an illusion we do not feel it to be an illusion but a reality.  It is the same perhaps with evil.  Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty. As soon as we do evil, the evil appears as a sort of duty.  Once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder.  As soon as men know they that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles."

Simone Weil, La Pesanteur et la Grâce, 1947

"Our collective denial of the obvious, in the setting up of Oswald and his transparent silencing by Ruby, made possible the Dallas cover-up.  The success of the cover-up was the indispensable foundation for the subsequent murders of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy by the same forces at work in our government—and in ourselves.  The unspeakable is not far away."

James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, Maryknoll, 2008

I have to be somewhere in a bit, so I'll post the market data now and we catch up on any changes tomorrow. 

Stocks popped and flopped today, although they are coming well off their lows.

Still, it's not much of a recovery from yesterday's decline.

Gold and silver continued their rallies, but were substantially backing off from their gains in the late afternoon.

The Dollar declined.

Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday may dominate the week's action, barring any exogenous events.

One of the biggest problems we have today is the failure of law to curb the excesses, the greed and phantasms of the pathological. 

This is the very purpose of the law: to protect the majority from sociopathic behaviour and crime.

The forces of abnormal appetites are always at work trying to persuade people that they, and their children, do not need protection from predators, by the predators, in their obsessive pursuit of money, sex, land, and power over the weak and the innocent. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Global Fellowship of Death

 

"Wealth is not without its advantages.  But, beyond doubt, wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding. "

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society, 1958

"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 greed subverted honesty, integrity and other honorable principles and, in their place nurtured pride, inhumanity, contempt of true religion and general corruption. 

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 unsustainable."

Sallust, De coniuratione Catilinae, circa 40 BC

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, so shall he reap."

Galatians 6:7

"The days are coming when men will go mad, and when they meet a man who has kept his senses, will rise up against him, saying, 'You are mad, because you are not like us.' And I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said, groaning, 'What can get us through such snares?' And then I heard a voice saying to me, humility.”

Anthony the Great, Abbot of Colzim Egypt, and saint, 251-356

“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be with the coming of the Son of Man.  People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given away in marriage, up until the very day that Noah entered the ark.  Then the flood came, and swept them all away...

And they said to him, 'Where will this happen, Lord?'  And He said to them, 'Where death is, there will be a gathering of vultures.'”

Luke 17:26-27, 37


Stocks dumped with some downward conviction from the overnight, but managed to catch a bounce off the bottom in the late afternoon. 

I am not sure why except that it was well overdue.

Perhaps there are some thing happening behind the scenery.

Gold and silver rocketed high, with gold futures tapping $3600 late in the day.

Silver made a good show of it as well, touching $42.

I remember well when silver was at $4.50, and no one would believe it would even crack $10.    

I had a friend in Texas, who had accumulated quite the silver hoard over time.   He liquidated everything at $15.   He thought it was done.

I said we were going to $50. 

And this was not all that long ago.

VIX rebounded up to its 200 DMA.

Uncle Buck made a good showing as well.

It looked like a bit of a 'flight to safety.'

How you feeling, Donnie?

It's always something.

The rest of the world is in a rebellious mood.

They are growing tired of the antics of some of the US associates.

The European leaders seem rather rinsed out, servile, hapless. 

Let's see what happens.

Have a pleasant evening. 

In All Things Humility - To Remain Standing

 

My children, perform your tasks with humility;
     then you will be loved by those whom God loves.
The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself;
     so that you will find favour in the sight of the Lord.
For though great is the might of the Lord;
     by the humble he is glorified.
Neither covet what is too difficult for you,
     nor be perplexed by what is beyond your power.
Reflect upon what you have been commanded,
     for what is hidden is not your concern.
Do not become contentious in matters beyond you,
     for more than you can understand can be seen by you.
For pride has led many astray,
     and wrong opinions have impaired their judgement.

Without eyes there is no light;
     without knowledge there is no wisdom.
A stubborn mind will fare badly at the end,
     and whoever loves danger will perish in it.
A stubborn mind will be burdened by troubles,
     and the sinner adds sin to his sins.
When setbacks come to the proud, there is no healing,
     for an evil spirit has taken root in them.
The minds of the knowing love wisdom,
     and an attentive ear is the desire of the wise.

Sirach 3:17-29  

"He must become greater, as I must become less."

John 3:30

"To accept that guilt, to admit one's complicity in such a horrendous assault on justice, to humble oneself and ask for forgiveness, would have taken a heroic act of self-awareness, humility and repentance. And worse, for these fanatics, it would diminish their pride, which was at the foundation of the most fervent supporters of such flamboyant excess.

And so they lashed out, and killed everything that held up a mirror to their darkness, and showed them their pride was based on a lie."

Jesse, Seth, the Arbiter of Chaos, 15 May 2018

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Defy the World With Your Faithfulness

 

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You trust in God. Trust also in me."

John 14:1 

"Our hearts are continually prone to wander from Him; prosperity and enjoyment all too easily satisfy us, dull our spiritual perception, and unfit us for full communion with Himself.  It is an unspeakable mercy that the Father comes with His chastisement, makes the world round us all dark and unattractive, leads us to feel more deeply our sinfulness, and for a time lose our joy in what was becoming so dangerous.  

Though He has indeed no pleasure in afflicting us, He will not keep back even the most painful chastisement if He can but thereby guide His beloved child to come home."

Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ, 1895

"Do not be afraid little flock, for your Father delights to welcome you into His kingdom."

Luke 12:32

"Defy the world with love, and a light will come into your life. If we love and serve the Lord, as He loves us, we need have no fear, despite our human weakness.  Do not fear the blowing and bluster of men, for as you will see soon enough they are but shadows, a tempest of dust, for a day. 

Jesus, I trust in you."

Jesse, Nous, Les Petits de Dieu, 17 January 2025

"To escape the pain caused by regret for the past or fear about the future, this is the rule to follow: leave the past to the infinite mercy of God, the future to His good Providence, and give the present wholly to His love by being faithful to His grace.”

Jean-Pierre de Caussade, L'Abandon a la Providence Divine

 

Our starry-eyed markets finally shook off their Panglossian mispricing of risk.  

At least for a day.   Ahead of a long holiday weekend.

Stocks fell.

VIX ticked up off its recent lows.

The Dollar chopped sideways. 

Gold and silver exploded higher in what looked like a flight to safety.

A nice way to say goodby to August, and look forward to the three day weekend with the national holiday on Monday.

There are quite a few things one can be concerned about: the lopsided economy, the erosion of personal freedom, the undermining of the Constitution, complicity with  mass murder, the normalization of aggressive war, and the moral decline and servile corruption of the Western elite.   

We see the darkness and madness advancing, in a most shameful moment in history.  And we are at the center of it.

Jesus, I trust in you. 

Have a pleasant weekend. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - All the Poets Can Do Is Warn

 

“This book is not about heroes.
English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them.
Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory,
honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power,
except War.
Above all I am not concerned with Poetry.
My subject is War, and the pity of War.
The Poetry is in the pity.

You shall not hear their mirth:
You shall not come to think them well content
By any jest of mine. These men are worth
Your tears. You are not worth their merriment.
Yet these elegies are not to this generation,
          This is in no sense consolatory.

They may be to the next.
All the poet can do to-day is to warn.
That is why the true Poets must be truthful.
If I thought the letter of this book would last,
I might have used proper names;
but if the spirit of it survives Prussia,—
my ambition and those names will be content;
for they will have achieved themselves
fresher fields than Flanders.”

Wilfrid Owen, Poems, 1920

For from the least to the greatest,
     they are greedy for unjust gain;
     and from prophet to priest,
     they all deal falsely.
They treat the wounds of my people carelessly,
     saying, Peace, peace,
     when there is no peace.
They act shamefully, they commit abominations;
     yet they have no shame,
     they do not know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
     at the time of my judgement, they shall be overthrown."

Jeremiah 6:13-15

Stocks managed to pull together a rally, shaking off some geopolitical and corporate concerns.

What, me worry?

VIX fell again.

The Dollar dropped further.

Gold and silver rallied in a flight to safety (or from insanity).

Assuming the stock market shakes off its bubble excess,  which can unfold in several ways and several time frames, gold looks poised to run to 4000.   

It *could* happen in a significant flight to safety sooner than we expect.

I am not quite as keen about this, given the economic damage from which gold (and silver) will rise.

But certainly the metals are no cause of this, but simply an effect, an indicator, of disastrous mismanagement. 

We are so foolish to allow such scoundrels and grifters to set the course of our societies.

Nothing is inevitable.   There is always a choice, another way.

Unfortunately most are choosing to look on and say nothing, until trouble comes to their doorsteps. 

Have a pleasant evening.