Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Pictures From a Babylonian Captivity

 

"A multibillion-dollar bailout and Wall Street’s swift, subsequent reinstatement of gargantuan bonuses have inspired a narrative of parasitic bankers and other elites rigging the game for their own benefit. And this, in turn, has led to wider—and not unreasonable—fears that we are living in not merely a plutonomy, but a plutocracy, in which the rich display outsize political influence, narrowly self-interested motives, and a casual indifference to anyone outside their own rarefied economic bubble."

Chrystia Freeland, The Rise of the New Global Elite, January 2011

"The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."

Alex Carey

"In the 1970s, a wave of young liberals, Bill Clinton among them, destroyed the populist Democratic Party they had inherited from the New Dealers of the 1930s. The contours of this ideological fight were complex, but the gist was: Before the ’70s, Democrats were suspicious of big business. They used anti-monopoly policies to fight oligarchy and financial manipulation. 

Bill Clinton’s generation, however, believed that concentration of financial power could be virtuous, as long as that power was in the hands of experts. They largely dismissed the white working class as a bastion of reactionary racism.  Obama is simply the latest in a long line of party leaders who have bought into the ideology of these 'new' Democrats, and he has governed likewise, with commercial policies that ravaged the heartland."

Matt Stoller, How Bad Obama’s Financial Policies, Washington Post, 12 January 2017

"Act up to your light, though in the midst of difficulties, and you will be carried on, you do not know how far. This is His gracious way with us: He gives, not all at once, but by measure and season, wisely.

We must begin at the beginning.  Each truth has its own order; we cannot join the way of life at any point of the course we please; we cannot learn advanced truths before we have learned primary ones.   I know we shall find it very hard to rouse ourselves, to break the force of habit, to resolve to serve God, and persevere in doing so. 

And assuredly we must expect, even at best, and with all our efforts, perhaps backslidings, and certainly much continual imperfection all through our lives, in all we do.   We live here to struggle and to endure: the time of eternal rest will come hereafter.

John Henry Newman


Stocks were on a rally track this morning as the Non-Farm Payrolls Report came in with a 'Goldilocks' flavor.

But alas, during the day Russia decided to shut off the gas to Europe and so markets reversed, and hard.

It's the exogenous events that get you.  Bet the masters of the universe didn't see they usual setup falling apart.

Well, it's a three day weekend, and when unforeseen risk rears its head, you hit the exits.

Gold and silver were rallying along with everything else, but gave up much of their gains.

The US Dollar, which dumped in the morning, did a snappy rallyback on the plight of the Europeans.

"The most important problem in the world today is your soul, for that is what the struggle is about."

Fulton J. Sheen

Monday will be a national holiday in the US.  So see you Tuesday.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - What Time's the Next Wash and Rinse? - Jobs Tomorrow

 

Just charts tonight. 

Let's see what the Jobs Report says tomorrow and how the market reacts.

Have a pleasant evening. 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - I Refute It Thus - The Sophistry of the Fed's Monetary Policy

 

"The commercial world is very frequently put into confusion by the bankruptcy of merchants that assumed the splendour of wealth, only to obtain the privilege of trading with the stock of other men, and of contracting debts which nothing but lucky casualties could enable them to pay; till after having supported their appearance a while by tumultuary magnificence of boundless traffic, they sink at once, and drag down into poverty those whom their equipages had induced to trust them."

Samuel Johnson, Rambler #189, January 7, 1752

"Hot money seeks out the conscious mispricing of risk. Capital, in the form of both money and personal talent, increasingly flows into malinvestment and the gaming of markets.

The productive economy languishes, left wanting for the lack of creative resources and attention. The bubble rises to unsustainable valuations— and fails, and a nation's capital is consumed. The next five years are not about winning, but surviving."

Jesse, 5 August 2019

"After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. 

I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it.

I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- 'I refute it thus.'"

James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson LL. D.

Stocks made another attempt to rally today on the worse than expected ADP Jobs number, but alas, they failed badly in the latter half of the day.

Gold and silver also had another rough day.

Crypto is a bubble asset, like beanie babies.

The Dollar declined slightly.

The larger than expected drawdown in the fossil fuels did not help.

Keep an eye out for the Jobs number on Friday.

This will be our third bubble and bust, all of them caused by the self-serving for the financial elite policy errors of the Fed, since 2000.

Have a pleasant evening.