Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Our Murderous Potential

 

"On Wall Street he and a few others—how many?—three hundred, four hundred, five hundred?—had become precisely that ... Masters of the Universe."

Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities

"Christianity is called the religion of pity.  Pity stands opposed to the powerful emotions which heighten our vitality; it has a depressing effect.  We are deprived of strength when we feel pity.

The essential characteristic of a good and healthy ruling elite is that it views itself not as a function of the monarchy or the commonwealth, but as its very meaning and highest justification, and that it therefore accepts with a good conscience the sacrifice of untold human beings who, for its sake, must be reduced and lowered to incomplete human beings, to slaves, to instruments.

What is good?  All that heightens the feeling of power in a man, the will to power, power itself.  What is bad?  All that is born of weakness.  What is happiness?  The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome."

Friedrich Nietzsche

"Modern politics is expensive—power follows money. Money confers the power to command the labor of others.  Love of money is love of power.  And love of power is the root of evil."

Edward Abbey

"Power will achieve its murderous potential. It simply waits for an excuse, an event of some sort, an assassination, a massacre in a neighboring country, an attempted coup, a famine, or a natural disaster, to justify the beginning of murder en masse."

R. J. Rummel

“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory, or one of unthinkable horror.”

C. S. Lewis

Stocks had yet another wide ranging day, with the SP finishing flat and the NDX up a bit.

The VIX dropped sharply.

The Dollar chopped sideways and finished slightly lower.

The precious metals joined in with the old intraday two step, down and then back up a bit.

The CPI came in 'meh' this morning.

Stock option expiration on Friday.

The US is busy shooting down things in its upper atmosphere.   Good times.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - To Be Human - CPI Tomorrow

 

"Our money and priorities are for the most part elsewhere, disconnected from many of the common realities of most people.  This is part of the reason for our historic economic inequalities.  But there is an underlying goodness and kindness that you can find if you look for it, and let yourself become a part of it. We just forget, because we see so much wickedness and greed, and it gets the most attention.

As William Butler Yeats put it in the aftermath of the first World War, 'the best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.'  Perhaps, but these things come and go.   And when it becomes bad enough, people rouse themselves from their torpor, and change comes, one way or another.

That is not what it is to be human.   Most do not even have a genuine understanding of what that means anymore.  They think, well, if Mother Teresa abandoned the poor and ran off to be an investment banker or an actress, that would only be human.  We are content to be trousered apes.   We make beasts of ourselves to avoid the pain of seeing what we really serve, and who we are slowly becoming.

At some point not to become fully human in every sense of the word, and to hold on to your humanity is, in the end, the only real tragedy."

Jesse, 1 February 2017


"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity...

And what rough Beast, its hour come 'round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming, 1919

Stocks were in a mood to move higher today, although the CPI data point tomorrow morning had them on edge.

Gold and silver were hit.

The Dollar slide lower.   Althugh it's funny because if I had just listened to bubblevision I would have thought it moved higher.

The VIX fell.

There will be an index option expiration next week.

If the CPI makes an unexpected print tomorrow we may have some action.

The geopolitical bias in the media is almost astonishing.

I suppose it has always been there, but it is very handed of late it seems.

Perhaps the abomination of desolation draws steadily closer.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - What the Struggle Is All About

 

“Many innocent and totally loyal men become involved in these activities; but the trouble is that they come upon the scene after the first provocations have been made, and they are generally unaware of them.   An allowance must be made for the fact that the provocation can come from either side.    Neither side is all right or all wrong.

But the fact remains that most of the men who become involved in these activities do so after there has already been some clandestine exchange.   They are trying to correct what they believe has been a serious abuse.  They do not know where the real action began; to put it simply, they don’t know whether they came in on the first or the second retaliation strike.   Very few would ever be party to striking first in any event. So the first strike takes place in deep secrecy.

It is always of paramount importance to know that the information we have is not planted, false or a product of deception.”

L. Fletcher Prouty, Chief of Special Operations, the Joint Chiefs of Staff under John F. Kennedy

"For the hearts of these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed their eyes, so their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them."

Matthew 13:15

"They do not see the image of Almighty God before them, and ask themselves what He wishes: if once they did this they would begin to see how much He requires, and they would earnestly come to Him, both to be pardoned for what they do wrong, and for the power to do better.  And, for the same reason that they do not please Him, they succeed in pleasing themselves.

Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of Christ as in a net, and preparing the way for a general Apostasy from it.  Whether this very Apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist, or whether he is still to be delayed, as he has already been delayed so long, we cannot know; but at any rate this Apostasy, and all its tokens and instruments, are of the Evil One, and savour of death."

John Henry Newman

"The real conflict is the inner conflict.  Beyond armies of occupation and the catacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love.  And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?”

Maximilian Kolbe

"Those who have faith had better keep in the state of grace, and those who have neither had better find out what they mean, for in the coming age there will be only one way to stop your trembling knees, and that will be to get down on them and pray.  The most important problem in the world today is your soul, for that is what the struggle is about."

Fulton J. Sheen

Stocks slumped, but the SP 500 managed to creep its way to unchanged by the close.  

The tech heavy NDX continues its slide lower from its locus of the bubble heights.

Gold and silver traded weakly today as the Dollar edged a little higher. 

Next week is Valentine's Day.  

And as a special valentine the CPI will come out that morning.

An significant result may move markets one way or another.

And then we will enjoy the index options expiration on Friday.  

Not nearly as big a deal as a quad witch, but the pigmen may take any excuse to party.

Many Americans are distracted and almost oblivious to what is going on, particularly the rest of the world.  

In his mercy God does not call but a few to be martyrs, as a light to the nations. 

But he does call every one of us to be repentant, to seek and accept his forgiveness, and then to be thankful, and go and sin no more. 

This is what it is to be a child of God.

"Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior.   Christians are called to compassion and to action. "

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

And this does not mean to draw a figurative sword in your 'righteous anger.'

You have none.  

None of your anger is righteous, but a trap and a snare, a diversion intended to distract you from your true calling, which is mercy and compassion.

Shun those who in the darkness of their misery would lead you astray, to be lost and devoured.

You know in your hearts this is the temptation.  Remember also then the costs.

 Have a pleasant weekend.