America, The Farewell Tour - Ezekiel In the Valley of Dry Bones

"You do not know the working class. But you are not to be blamed for this. How can you know anything about the working class?  You do not live in the same locality with the working class.  You herd with the capitalist class in another locality.

And why not?  It is the capitalist class that pays you, that feeds you, that puts the very clothes on your backs that you are wearing to-night. And in return you preach to your employers the brands of metaphysics that are especially acceptable to them; and the especially acceptable brands are acceptable because they do not menace the established order of society."

Jack London, The Iron Heel


"Legitimate power always includes attentiveness to justice. When power is not attentive to justice it cannot endure. This is a summons to us to keep the agenda of justice for the vulnerable alive and front and center to maintain a kind of subversive stance toward power.

Power is the capacity to organize and administer social goods and social access. Truth is the structure of reality that is in the nature of things that cannot be violated by our capacity to administer it. Power can sometimes be administered in harmony with such truthfulness, but very often power is seduced so that it runs contradictory to truth.

The market ideology is now the new form of imperial power and many of us, without any critical reflection, have signed onto that and organized our lives in that way so we do not have any time, energy or capacity for the things that are rightly important to us."

Walter Brueggemann, Speaking Truth to Power


“People need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently or to help others, to place common interests above their own, to respect the elementary rules of human coexistence.

Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good."

Václav Havel


“In the eyes of the empire builders men are not men, but instruments.”

Napoleon Bonaparte


"And the Lord asked me, 'Son of man, can these dry bones have life again?'”

Ezekiel 37:3

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Shockproof and Nearly Shameless - Speaking Truth to the Valley of Dry Bones

Doré, Ezekiel's Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones 

"Many people think of our times as being the last before the end of the world. The evidence of horror all around us makes this seem possible. But isn't that an idea of only minor importance?  Doesn't every human being, no matter which era he lives in, always have to reckon with being accountable to God at any moment?  Can I know whether I'll be alive tomorrow morning?

Isn't it a riddle and awe-inspiring that things can be so beautiful, despite the horror? I've seen something wondrous peering through my joy in the beautiful, a sense of its creator.  Only people can be truly ugly, because they have free will to separate themselves from this song of praise.  It often seems they will drown out this hymn with cannon thunder, curses, and blasphemy.

But I have realized they will not succeed. And so I want to throw myself on the side of the victor.”

Sophie Scholl


"Behind the concrete, the visible events, behind all objective, logical considerations, we find the irrational element:  The struggle against the demon, against the servants of the Antichrist.

Everywhere and always demonic powers lurk in the dark, waiting for the moment when man is weak; when of his own volition he leaves his place in Creation, as founded for him by God in freedom; when he yields to the force of evil, he separates himself from the powers of a higher order; and after voluntarily taking the first step, he is driven on to the next and the next at a furiously accelerating rate.

It is the time of the harvest, and the reaper cuts into the ripe grain with wide strokes. Mourning takes up her abode in the country cottages, and there is no one to dry the tears of the mothers. Yet Hitler feeds those people whose most precious belongings he has stolen and whom he has driven to a meaningless death with lies.

Everywhere, and at times of greatest trials, men have appeared, prophets and saints who cherished their freedom, who preached the One God and who with His help brought the people to a reversal of their downward course.  Man is free, to be sure, but without the true God he is defenseless against the principle of evil.  He is a like rudderless ship, at the mercy of the storm, an infant without his mother, a cloud dissolving into thin air."

We will not be silent.

The White Rose, Fourth Leaflet, Munich 1942


"The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me forth by the Spirit, and set me in the middle of a valley; and it was full of bones.  He led me, back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.  And the Lord asked me, 'Son of man, can these dry bones have life again?'”

Ezekiel 37:1-3

The US equity market was being described on the financial tv shows today as 'shockproof.'

At least they did not say that it has reached a permanently high plateau.

Now is a good time, as previously noted, to start watching potential 'trigger events' that will knock this 'risk is dead' thinking into a cocked-hat.

But why be glum? The rains that have made everything sodden and mossy around here appear to be taking a break for the weekend, which promises to be pleasantly warm and sunny. We are fast approaching my favorite time of the year.

Gold and silver were lower today as the dollar 'soared'— back up to the top of the trading range that it has been bouncing within for some time now.

Hysteria is running deep, and with it comes intolerance, and contempt for the other. Not a good time for those who seek to remain standing.

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

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Devaluing the Presidency Even Faster Than the Currency

"I think I could beat Trump, because I’m as tough as he is, and I’m smarter than he is.  And by the way, this wealthy New Yorker actually earned his money.  It wasn’t a gift from daddy.”

Jamie Dimon

I could swear that there had been a story somewhere from the time of the financial crisis when Barack Obama asked a room full of Wall Street Bankers, 'Who's your daddy?'   And Ben Bernanke jumped up and said, 'Pick me, pick me!  I'll be your daddy!'

As you may have noted the inflation figures missed estimates to the low side with core CPI and PPI across the board coming up light.   Inflation from this tight labor market and booming economy is so frightened of the technocrats at the Fed that it has apparently left town, just disappeared, moved to South America.

The Street chose to declare that, like the end of history, we have also achieved the death of risk, and started piling back into equities, while selling gold, silver, the US Dollar, and the VIX.

Apparently there was a bit of a dust up when JPM CEO Slippin' Jimmy Dimon said that he could best Trump in the next Presidential election.

This afternoon the talking heads on financial TV were taken with thoughts of drafting Jamie Dimon for President.

One analyst wondered out loud that after running JPM, no job would be worthy of him and his talents, except the presidency.   (We're not worthy)   And my jaw drops to the keyboard.

"You are a den of vipers and thieves.  I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out."

Where is Andrew Jackson when you need him?

Have a pleasant evening.