Remembering Ed Schultz, Kind Of - This Is the World That We Live In Now

"The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set one's teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one's neck. The Hate had started. As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed on to the screen...

Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically...

To keep them in control was not difficult. A few agents of the Thought Police moved always among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt was made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings.

All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working-hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice...

The essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies, all this is indispensibly necessary."

George Orwell, 1984

Gold and Silver Holdings of Trusts and Funds - Price Manipulation: The Thing Speaks For Itself

Dangerous leverage in the gold markets seems to be pressing the ready supply of physical gold, even prompting withdrawals and redemptions from the trust and funds on relatively small price swings, as opposed to the silver market where supply is adequate.

If there is a dislocation in the physical gold market, which some have suggested as a possible outcome, then res ipsa loquitur. 'the thing speaks for itself'. 

There should be little surprise or debate with regard to the negligence of the regulators of the markets and those engaging in price manipulation including the Fed, the SEC, and the CFTC. 

The market price manipulators have been too long free to act with near impunity, much as Bernie Madoff had been able to do before his own price manipulation scheme toppled over, with the regulators and the Banks turning a blind eye to systematic fraud.

Stocks and Precious metals Charts - Risk On! - Running With the Devil

"Maintaining the status quo of falling real wages and rising inequality by offshoring jobs to low cost countries like China, who then lend money back to the US, also risks pushing down growth rates.  We made a deal with the devil long ago; now he's here, and he wants his due."

Luke Gromen


“There can be few fields of human endeavor in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance.  Past experience, to the extent that it is part of memory at all, is dismissed as the primitive refuge of those who do not have the insight to appreciate the incredible wonders of the present.”

John Kenneth Galbraith, A Short History of Financial Euphoria


"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.  On such a full sea are we now afloat.  And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures."

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

The Non-Farm Payrolls Report came in about as expected on the headline numbers, but short on wage growth.   Stagnant wages—  who could have seen it coming.

It makes you wonder what sorts of jobs are being added.

The US tariffs on China took affect at midnight.  And China responds in kind.

So the trade war has begun.

And they bought it, with stocks up steadily, and gold, silver and the US Dollar all lower, if only a bit.

Gamble, gamble.

Next week may tell us about the precious metals, now that the short term noise is past.

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

Have a pleasant weekend.