"All the world marveled at this, and gave their allegiance to the Beast. And they worshiped the serpent, for giving such power to him, as they also worshiped the Beast. 'Who is as great as the Beast?' they exclaimed. 'And who is able to resist him?' And the Beast was allowed to commit great blasphemies against God."
Revelation 13:3-5
"The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human modesty, and in human responsibility.
Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will emerge for the better in the sphere of our Being as humans, and the catastrophe toward which this world is headed, whether it be ecological, social, demographic, or a general breakdown of civilization, will be unavoidable.
We are still under the sway of the destructive and thoroughly vain belief that man is the pinnacle of creation and not just a part of it, and that therefore everything is permitted to him. People are manipulated in ways that are infinitely more subtle and
refined than the brutal methods used in the post-totalitarian societies. We still close our eyes to the growing social, ethnic, and cultural conflicts in the world. We are still destroying the planet that was entrusted to us.
The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human modesty, and in human responsibility.
In other words, we still don’t know how to put morality ahead of politics, science, and economics.
I feel that the dormant goodwill in people needs to be stirred. 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.
We are still incapable of understanding that the only genuine core of all our actions – if they are to be moral – is responsibility. Responsibility to something higher than my family, my country, my firm, my success. Responsibility to the order of Being [spirit], where all our actions are indelibly recorded and where, and only where, they will be properly judged.
Truth and love will overcome lies and hatred.”
Václav Havel
"The souls of the just are in the hands of God, where torment can never
touch them. To the faithless they appear to die, their passing like a
tragedy, their leaving a desolation. They are at peace. If they
experienced hardship, their hope was rich with eternal life; passing
was their affliction, but eternal will be their blessing.
They who
trust Him will understand the truth, those who are faithful will live in
love with Him forever. Grace and mercy await those whom the Lord has
chosen."
Wisdom 4:1-9
Stocks slumped again today, but once again managed to come back to even or green into the close.
Just another facet of the Fed's finance-friendly stimulus program one might say.
Gold and silver were slammed again, with silver coming back to unchanged.
Gold not so much.
Physical gold stocks in Hong Kong are very slim again.
Better call Powell.
By the way, Jay, how is that internal investigation of massive insider trading by Fed governors going?
I am flat again waiting to see how things go. I thought there might be a bounce, to set up a wash and rinse on the news.
"Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,
who have observed his law;
Seek justice, seek humility;
And perhaps you will be sheltered
on the day of the Lord’s justice.
This was the triumphal city, high and mighty,
Saying to herself, ‘I am the one, and none dare stand beside me.’
How desolate now has she become, a place fit only for wild beasts.
Those who pass by her scoff, and shake their heads at her ruin."
Zephaniah 2:3-15
"It is interesting to contrast the complacency of the career diplomats, at that time most often Americans of privilege, and their preoccupation with obtaining full payment of the German bonds for their wealthy domestic constituents and the banks, with the agony of the German people as they slowly sunk into the abyss. The lone voices that were raised in protest were suppressed, ridiculed, marginalized, and ignored even in America.
This is a fine example of serial policy error in the service of privilege and the status quo. To many amoral minds, including especially the capitalists of the free world, Hitler's rise to power was just another business opportunity, and the plight of his victims a crisis not to be wasted, a source of great profit. And not all those who benefited were censured and punished. Some families rose to greater prominence and power, even in America, on a pile of European corpses."
Jesse, Review: In the Garden of Beasts, 26 September 2011
"The real danger comes from encouraging or inadvertently tolerating inflation and its close cousin of extreme speculation and risk taking, in effect standing by while bubbles and excesses threaten financial markets."
Paul Volcker
"For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."
Hosea 8:7
“I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal.”
Groucho Marx
Stocks were sold hard in the overnight and at the opening of trade in New York.
And then as the day progressed the campaign to turn stocks and rally wore on, with the major indices unchanged or in the green at the close, led by the bubblemeisters in tech.
Like a dog returns to its vomit.
Gold and silver were slammed, hard.
The euro was sold to a 20 year low, and as a result the DXY index of which the euro is the major component, soared to the 106+ handle.
I came in short from the weekend, expecting some selling to carry into the opening, and covered those shorts in the first thirty minutes.
I did take some initial, lightly held trading positions in the usual suspects later in the day during what felt like capitulation for at least the short term. It may be rough to hold, much less build upon.
Let's see how the wash and rinse cycles progress into the Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.
The powers-that-be seem determined to wage a proxy war for economic power, to the last impoverished European.
How can they not? This is how they use everyone, even if needed their own.
“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”
Samuel Johnson
And having forsaken the image of God, they lose themselves in darkness, become it, and call its endless death and desolation winning.
“We are slow to master the great truth that even now Christ is, as it were, walking among us, and by His hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us to follow Him. We do not understand that His call is a thing that takes place now. We think it took place in the Apostles' days, but we do not believe in it; we do not look for it in our own case.
God's presence is not discerned at the time when it is upon us, but afterwards, when we look back upon what is gone and over. The world seems to go on as usual. There is nothing of heaven in the face of society, in the news of the day.
And yet the ever-blessed Spirit of God is there, ten times more glorious, more powerful than when He trod the earth in our flesh.
God beholds you. He calls you by your name. He sees you and understands you as He made you. He knows what is in you, all your peculiar feelings and thoughts, your dispositions and likings, your strengths and your weaknesses. He views you in your day of rejoicing and in your day of sorrow. He sympathizes in your hopes and your temptations. He interests Himself in all your anxieties and remembrances, all the risings and fallings of your spirit.
He encompasses you round and bears you in His arms. He notes your very countenance, whether smiling or in tears. He looks tenderly upon you. He hears your voice, the beating of your heart, and your very breathing. You do not love yourself better than He loves you. You cannot shrink from pain more than He dislikes your bearing it; and if He puts it on you, it is as you would put it on yourself, if you would be wise, for a greater good afterwards.
There is an inward world, which none see but those who belong to it. There is an inward world into which they enter who come to Christ, though to men in general they seem as before. If they drank of Christ's cup it is not with them as in time past. They came for a blessing, and they have found a work.
To their surprise, as time goes on, they find that their lot is changed. They find that in one shape or another adversity happens to them. If they refuse to afflict themselves, God afflicts them.
Why did you taste of His heavenly feast, but that it might work in you—why did you kneel beneath His hand, but that He might leave on you the print of His wounds?
God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission— I may never know it in this life but I shall be told it in the next.
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.
He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me— still He knows what He is about.
Every century is like every
other, and to those who live in it seems worse than all times before it.
Let us feel what we really are— sinners attempting great things. Let us simply obey God's will, whatever may come. He can turn all things to our eternal good. Easter day is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy.
The more we do, the more shall we trust in Christ; and that surely is no morose doctrine, that leads us to soothe our selfish restlessness, and forget our fears, in the vision of the Incarnate Son of God.
May the Lord support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in His mercy may He give us safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at last.”
John Henry Newman
"It seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.
This great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, compassion, historical necessity or even social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Word, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil.
God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs His wonders where one would least expect them.
Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and to action.
We pray for the big things, and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small, and yet really not so small, blessings.
In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack, even on the least of men, is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all.
Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"The dawn will come. Disappointment, sorrow, and despair are born at midnight, but morning follows. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”
Martin Luther King
"Listen, and I will tell you a mystery."
1 Cor 15:51
Love is moving among us. Do not let yourself be pulled away. Do not be left behind.
Let us pray for those whose hearts are hardened against His grace and loving kindness by greed, fear, and pride, and the seductive illusion and crushing isolation of evil.
We pray that we all may experience the three great gifts of our Lord's suffering and triumph: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness. And in so doing, may we obtain abundant life, and with it the peace that surpasses all understanding.
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