Stocks and Precious Metals Charts -Clown Cars Rampant on a Field of Greed - AAPL Gets Four Comma Market Cap

"Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence."

John Kenneth Galbraith


“The downward spiral of dumbness in America is about to hit a new low.”

Hunter S. Thompson


“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.”

Laurence J. Peter

Stocks climbed higher today led by big cap tech, which in turn was led by Apple, which managed to close as the first trillion dollar market cap US stock. Huzzah!

The US Dollar managed to close over the 95 handle again on expectations that the Fed will keep raising rates because of our strong recovery.

Gold and silver sold off a bit in anticipation of the Non-Farm Payrolls report tomorrow, as hedge funds pile in on the short side of the futures.

The Trump EPA has decided to bailout the US auto manufacturers, and the middle finger to consumers and the environment, and is rolling back fuel efficiency and emission targets.  Yay us!

Did anyone else notice that Russia is positioning its military on the border of Syria and the Golan Heights?   I think not.

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

Non-Farm Payrolls Report tomorrow.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Much Ado About Very Little

"I hold that the price of silver, gold and other metals is artificially derived at due to excessive speculation on the COMEX at the hands of managed money technical funds on one side and other traders, mostly commercials, on the other side, with JPMorgan playing a dominant role in the process.

As a result of JPMorgan’s outsized influence, the price of silver has remained artificially depressed in price, while the bank has used the depressed price to not only amass billions of dollars in paper trading profits, but it has also accumulated 750 million ounces of physical silver on the cheap, along with 20 million ounces of physical gold."

Ted Butler, A Simple Equation, 1 August 2018,

Ted Butler is the dean of those who comment on the trading structures of Comex silver.

As far as the Fed and the system's regulatory process goes, never in the history of financial endeavor have so many, done so much, for the benefit of so few.

Today the Fed did nothing about its benchmark rate today, and provided only minor tweaks to its statement.  This was as expected.

There is a high probability that they will raise rates in September. They will do so unless the economy visibly falls off the rails.

They wish to get the short term rate high enough to give themselves room for policy actions, eg. 'cuts', when this current bubble which they have created implodes, for the third time since the recent turn of the century.  But they must move slowly, or they risk inverting the yield curve, which is an ominous sign for the equity markets.

Stocks were weak all day, with the SP 500 showing the greater weakness as compared to big cap tech in the NDX.

Gold and silver were off a bit. What a surprise.

The US Dollar was marginally higher.

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

Have a pleasant evening.

Stop Thinking and Fall In Line, or Else: The Fruits of the Russia Russia Resistance

It is hard to believe that we are hearing this sort of thing presented seriously as news analysis.

Unfortunately this has become quite popular on the news media outlets that are becoming virtual fronts for various and particular political agendas.

Fox News started it, and showed that it pays.   But CNN and MSNBC have certainly jumped on the bandwagon, and are giving them a run for the money.

We live in an increasingly insubstantial economy of gigs, clicks, financial frauds, and the illusions that power them.

This is McCarthyism, the fear and derision of which has long been the shibboleth of the liberal intellectual establishment.  It is and always has been a despicable and cynical play for power popularized but not exclusive to its namesake Senator from Wisconsin.

The irony is that we become what we hate.

And as a reminder,  Bill Clinton and the GOP Congress of the 1990's, in a bipartisan effort,  placed the mainstream news media in the hands of a powerful few.