Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Stormy Day in the Metaverse

 

"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

"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology."

Michael Parenti

"Congress and the Senate were empty pretenses, farces.  Public questions were gravely debated and passed upon according to the old forms, while in reality all that was done was to give the stamp of constitutional procedure to the mandates of the Oligarchy."

Jack London, The Iron Heel


"Psychopaths often come across as arrogant, shameless braggarts—self-assured, opinionated, domineering, and cocky. They love to have power and control over others and seem unable to believe that other people have valid opinions different from theirs. What makes psychopaths different from all others is the remarkable ease with which they lie, the pervasiveness of their deception, and the callousness with which they carry it out.

Wherever you find money, prestige and power you will find them.  We are far more likely to lose our life savings to an oily-tongued swindler than our lives to a steely-eyed killer."

Robert D. Hare, Without Conscience


Stocks were in rally mode, risk on this morning.

But alas, there appears to be a flaw in the bullish scenario.

Stocks reversed and gave up not only all of their morning gains, but fell out of bed, and went out on the lows.

We should not be watching where stocks go next, and if we set a lower low or not.

Gold and silver were monkey-hammered in the risk on exuberance this morning.

Gold managed to take back quite a bit of its early losses by the close of day.

Silver not so much.

The Dollar bounced a little higher on the flight to safety amid expectations of higher rates. 

What will they think of next?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Fall of the Republic - The Oligarchy Is Audacious

 

"According to several reports, the administration is considering Michael Barr for the vice chair of supervision slot.  Barr is a veteran of the Clinton and Obama years who is now the Sanford Weill Dean of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.  (Weill was the former CEO of Citigroup, whose merger with Travelers Insurance triggered the end of Glass-Steagall and the beginning of the mega-bank era.)

As assistant Treasury Secretary for financial institutions in the Obama years, Barr was the key right-hand man to Tim Geithner and liaison with Congress on the Dodd-Frank reforms.  Sheila Bair wrote considerably in her memoir of that time about how Barr defended the financial industry from aggressive regulation at every turn, seeking to eliminate strong derivatives regulations, weaken the Volcker Rule that attempted to prevent banks from engaging in risky trading with customer money, and preserve the ability for future bailouts.  He infamously gave the quote to New York magazine that the bill could have broken up big banks if Treasury had agreed to it, but they decided against it.

Barr was also the lead designer of HAMP, the failed foreclosure mitigation program that allowed banks to trap borrowers in predatory schemes.  Barr kind-of sort-of apologized for the failure to stop the foreclosure wave in a 2020 book, saying that the White House should have “acted more forcefully from the start.” He also led the investigation into fraudulent evictions with phony documents, promising things would change within a year. (They didn’t.)"

David Dayen, The Return of Michael Barr


"Impunity is epidemic in America. The rich and powerful get away with their heists in broad daylight. When a politician like Bernie Sanders calls out the corruption, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal double down with their mockery over such a foolish 'dreamer.'   The Journal recently opposed the corruption sentence of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell for taking large gifts and bestowing official favors — because everybody does it.  And one of its columnists praised Panama for facilitating the ability of wealthy individuals to hide their income from 'predatory governments' trying to collect taxes.  No kidding.

Our major institutions, the ones that should know better, are often gross enablers of impunity.

Jeffrey Sachs, The Age of Impunity, 2016

 

The wiseguys wanted to take stocks up today in a risk on wash cycle, but the bombshell miss by Netflix broke the script, and weighed heavily on the big cap tech stocks.

These are, as you may recall, once again the bloated heart of a 'new era' stock bubble.

Gold and silver bounced.

The Dollar fell back hard from 101 but managed to hang on to the 100 handle fairly well.

A strong Dollar hurts the real economy, but does well for the financiers who can buy up foreign assets on the cheap.

The VIX fell in the spirit of a wash cycle attempt.

This will end.  But it is going to end badly for many. 

You know what to do. It is the same in every age.

But we are such faithless cheats and swindlers that we convince ourselves that we do not, because we do not wish to do what we have been told to do, what has been written on our hearts. 

Greed and pride kill.  But love covers a multitude of sins.

And the band played on.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Behold All Things Made New

 

"They boast with pride about things of which they should be ashamed.  They think only about the privileges and glories of this world."

Philippians 3:20


"Some may then ask, why did He not manifest Himself by means of other and nobler parts of creation, and use some grander instrument, such as the sun or moon or stars or fire or air, instead of appearing as a mere man?   The answer is this. The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering humanity. For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been to appear and dazzle the beholders.

But for Him Who came to heal and to teach, the way was not merely to appear here, but to place Himself in the service of those who needed Him, and to be made known to them as they could bear to accept it, not misappropriating the value of the Divine appearance by exceeding their capacity to receive it, to make use of it."

Athanasius, On the Incarnation


"Wonderful providence indeed which is so silent, yet so efficacious, so constant, so unerring. This is what baffles the power of Satan. He cannot discern the Hand of God in what goes on; and though he would fain meet it and encounter it, in his mad and blasphemous rebellion against heaven, he cannot find it.  Crafty and experienced as he is, he appears like a child or a fool, like one made sport of, whose daily bread is but failure and mockery.

If even devils, sagacious as they are, spirits by nature and experienced in evil, cannot detect His hand, while He works, how can we hope to see it except by that way which the devils cannot take, by loving faith?"

John Henry Newman

The Dollar moved higher on increases in Treasury yields, and especially because of the differentials with other nations in the DXY index.

Gold and silver were hit hard by the same.

Stocks enjoyed a risk on day surprisingly enough.

Let's see if the bulls can keep the 'exuberance' going.

When haughty people strut their stuff, the result is almost always unintentionally funny.   

That is because they have lost their way, and true sense of who they are.

Have a pleasant evening.