Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - La $Douleur$ du Monde - Jay Powell Before Congress

 

“Keeping international reserves in dollars means recycling dollar inflows to buy U.S. Treasury bills — U.S. government debt issued largely to finance the military spending that has been a driving force in the U.S. balance-of-payments deficit "

Michael Hudson, The Bubble and Beyond

"If at the start this cancerous growth in the nation was not particularly noticeable, it was only because there were still enough forces at work that operated for the good, so that it was kept under control.  As it grew larger, however, and finally in an ultimate spurt of growth attained ruling power, the tumor broke open, as it were, and infected the whole body."

The White Rose, Second Leaflet, Munich 1942

"Though justice often moves slowly, it seldom fails to overtake the unjust."

Horace, Odes

“O Lord, our great and awesome God, who keeps his promises with mercy to those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and judgements. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land."

Daniel 9:4-6

“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

 

It started as a 'risk on' day with stocks surging higher and the havens lower.

But by the end of the day stocks were back to about unchanged.

Gold and silver recovered much off their intraday lows, and were just a bit lower.

The Dollar slid lower again.

I suspect markets are trying to anticipate the next two days of testimony by Fed Chair Jay Powerll to the US Congress.

So 'positioning' with a little wash and rinse thrown in.   How could they resist.

Big Jobs Report on Friday.

FOMC meeting coming in March.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Pied Pipers of the Apocalypse

 

"Institutions become political weapons, wielded forcefully by those who control them against those who do not. This is how elected autocrats subvert democracy—packing and 'weaponizing' the courts and other neutral agencies, buying off the media and the private sector (or bullying them into silence), and rewriting the rules of politics to tilt the playing field against opponents. The tragic paradox of the electoral route to authoritarianism is that democracy’s assassins use the very institutions of democracy—gradually, subtly, and even legally—to kill it.”

Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die

"The undeserving maintain power by promoting hysteria."

Frank Herbert, Dune

"Anyone can be misled by a clever person, and no one likes to readily admit that they have been had. It is a sign of character and maturity to realize this, and admit your were deceived, and to demand change and reform.  But some cannot, even when the facts of the deception are revealed.  The more incorrect that the truth shows them to be, the louder and more strident they become in shouting down and denying reality:  cognitive dissonance.

The more extremely held the views, left or right, the more ardent the self-deception and surrender of individual identity.  Because at the extremes, it is no longer about justice, but about the objectification and irrelevance of the individual, the elevation of ideology over truth, and the dehumanisation and demonisation of 'the other.'"

Jesse, The Economic of Demagogues, 18 June 2012

“What comes out of a person, that is what makes them unclean.  From within people, from their minds and hearts, come wicked thoughts, immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness.  All these evils come from within and they make one unclean.”

Mark 7:20-23

Stocks ended the day in rally mode, spreading that green around to kick off the month of March.

Smells like a wash, preceding a rinse to me.

Next week we will have Jay Powell's testimony to Congress, and of course the Friday Non-Farm Payrolls report.

Gold and silver rallied higher.

They are coming into some important overhead resistance.  

They need to take it out and stick it with several closes to confirm an intermediate trend change.

The Dollar chopped back down.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Dollar Burn and Markets Bubble

 

"Complex systems that have artificially suppressed volatility tend to become extremely fragile, while at the same time exhibiting no visible risks. In fact, they tend to be too calm and exhibit minimal variability as silent risks accumulate beneath the surface.

Although the stated intention of political leaders and economic policymakers is to stabilize the system by inhibiting fluctuations, the result tends to be the opposite. These artificially constrained systems become prone to 'Black Swans' — that is, they become extremely vulnerable to large-scale events that lie far from the statistical norm and were largely unpredictable to a given set of observers.

Such environments eventually experience massive blowups, catching everyone off-guard and undoing years of stability or, in some cases, ending up far worse than they were in their initial volatile state. Indeed, the longer it takes for the blowup to occur, the worse the resulting harm in both economic and political systems."

Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan of Cairo, Foreign Affairs 2011

"Double, double toil and trouble;
    Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
    Then the charm is firm and good."

William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“The narcissist devours people, consumes their output, and casts the empty, writhing shells aside.”

Sam Vaknin

"Through a set of economic policies designed to bail out and subsidize failed and often tainted corporate enterprises, while actively promoting a false sense of confidence to support those policies, the public has become exposed, by those very people entrusted to protect them, to dangerously high levels of hidden counterparty risks.  The cautionary functions of the media, the political class, and the regulatory bodies have been routinely directed, distorted, and even silenced for the benefit of a highly compromised and increasingly self-serving elite. 

And this corruption has begun feeding on its own momentum, resulting in increasingly blatant examples of deception, distortion, and outright theft. This is crony capitalism, and its deadly credibility trap."

Jesse, April 2012

Stocks took an early dive on the higher than expected labor costs and lower productivity.

But,never fear, they recovered in the afternoon and finished solidly in the green.

The Dollar rallied on expectations of a more hawkish Fed.  

Gold and silver took a dip and then bounced back to nearly unchanged into the close.

Another tranche of gold bullion left the Hong Kong warehouses.

Russia and China and a few other central banks have been stockpiling gold bullion pretty heavily since about 2006.

The paper claims to physical bullion leverage in the West is estimated to be greater than 100 to 1.

Don't expect the Douleur rentiers to go quietly into that good night.

Have a pleasant evening.


There were some additions to our extended family yesterday, in God's loving kindness and tender mercies.