'There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.' Augustine

 

"Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts."

Hebrews 3:15

Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus,
but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

So Jesus told those indignant listeners this parable:

“A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father,
‘Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’
So the father divided the property between them.

After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings
and set off to a distant country
where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.
When he had freely spent everything,
a severe famine struck that country,
and he found himself in dire need.

So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens
who sent him to his farm to tend the swine.
And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed,
but nobody gave him any.
Coming to his senses he thought,
‘How many of my father’s hired workers
have more than enough food to eat,
but here am I, dying from hunger.
I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him,
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I no longer deserve to be called your son;
treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”’

So he got up and went back to his father.
While he was still a long way off,
his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.

His son said to him,
‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;
I no longer deserve to be called your son.’
But his father ordered his servants,
‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him;
put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Take the fattened calf and slaughter it.
Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;
he was lost, and has been found.’

Then the celebration began.
Now the older son had been out in the field
and, on his way back, as he neared the house,
he heard the sound of music and dancing.
He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean.
The servant said to him,
‘Your brother has returned
and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf
because he has him back safe and sound.’

He became angry,
and when he refused to enter the house,
his father came out and pleaded with him.
He said to his father in reply,
‘Look, all these years I served you
and not once did I disobey your orders;
yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends.
But when your son returns
who swallowed up your property with prostitutes,
for him you slaughter the fattened calf.’

He said to him,
‘My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother was dead and has come to life again;
he was lost and has been found.’”

Luke 1-2,11-32


"Almighty God lets the sinner go his own way, for He has given to man free-will, and does not want a forced obedience, but an obedience springing from love. In his forgetfulness of God, the sinner squanders his fortune, the natural and supernatural gifts which he has received, using his natural gifts, his health, his physical powers, and his reason, to offend God. He acts most unjustly and ungratefully towards his Creator and Benefactor, and loses the grace of God, merit, and the heirship to heaven.

The sinner, having forsaken the service of his God, falls under the dominance of Satan, and becomes the slave of his lowest passions, which are signified by the swine which the prodigal was forced to feed. But the more he obeys his passions, the more dissatisfied he becomes. No pleasure of the senses can give him happiness, and he feels an emptiness and spiritual hunger in his heart which he is powerless to satisfy. He knows no rest; he only knows that he is miserable, and hateful to himself...

Though the sinner has offended Him so grievously and so often, yet He does not reproach him, but forgives him everything, and restores him to his former rights and dignity of sonship. God alone can love in this way, and to us this sort of love is inconceivable. Our Lord portrays this narrow-mindedness of ours in the conclusion of the parable. The elder son cannot understand his father’s joy; he murmurs at it, and refuses to take part in it; and even professes to believe that his father prefers the returned prodigal to himself, the faithful, obedient and industrious son. By this behaviour of the elder son our Lord signifies the jealousy of the Pharisees, who considered themselves to be just, and murmured at the deep interest which Jesus took in sinners.

By the father’s answer in the parable our Lord shows how very unjustifiable any such jealousy would be. The just man ought to think of the great happiness which he has had of being always in the love and grace of God: and if he will try to realize what the infinite love of God is for every soul which He has made, he will rejoice with God as often as a soul which had been lost is found or saved. As the angels rejoice over the return of the prodigal, so ought we to rejoice over the conversion of sinners."

Frederick Justus Knecht


“The truth is that we were so spiritually and morally bankrupt that we could not even see some of those lines— we stepped over them blindly.   Other times we saw the lines alright, but we wanted to cross them.   

It wasn’t God who was dead.   We were."

Ray A. Practice These Principles


"It is very easy to get drunk with hate.  Hate is like the glass of whisky which is given to the soldiers before a bayonet charge.  Whisky stimulates but does not nourish.   Hate is not creative, only love is creative.  These sufferings will not cause us to crumble but will help us, more and more, to become stronger.   They are necessary—together with the sacrifices of others—so that the ones who come after us may be happy.”

Maximilian Kolbe


"Let all recognize My unfathomable mercy.  It is a sign for the end times.   Bring all devout and faithful souls, and immerse them in the ocean of My mercy.   Those who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice. "

Maria Faustyna Kowalska



We are in a time of a general madness, when lies are commonplace, and selfishness, jealousy, and anger torment the hearts of even those who would be faithful.  

We see many who become drunk with worldly success and concerns, anger and hate, and become like addicts seeking those who would supply their passions.  

As with all addictions, there is money and worldly power for those who cynically pander to them.

If you have not prayed in a long time, try to do so again, even if it is a little bit, every other day. 

And in your prayer, ask the Lord to show your sins to you, so that you might repent of them now, rather to suffer for them later, and seek his forgiveness.  And ask to sin no more. 

Do not become discouraged, because over time your prayers will be answered, as your heart grows in sincerity and opens up to accept His love and grace and His three great gifts: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness.

And the peace of the Lord, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Bank Runs and Flight to Safety

 

"Gold is unique among assets, in that it is not issued by any government or central bank, which means that its value is not influenced by political decisions or the solvency of one institution or another."

Salvatore Rossi, Chief of the Central Bank of Italy, 30 Sept 2013

"SVB [Silicon Valley Bank] has a host of problems associated with its specialty: The startup scene that is now facing a mass-extinction event.  Other banks don’t have that kind of exposure to startups. 

What rattled folks today was that SVB lost $1.8 billion on the sale of $21 billion of “available-for-sale” securities.  It sold them because it needed to raise liquidity and to “reposition” its balance sheet. 

Its depositors are startups that once had a huge amount of cash on deposit at the bank that they’d obtained from venture capital investors. But those startups are burning cash like there is no tomorrow, and they aren’t getting new funding, and so they’re draining their deposits from the bank. And the bank has to fund those cash withdrawals." 

Wolf Richter, Between a Rock and a Hard Place as Banks Run Out Free Money, Mar 9, 2023

"It [Nixon closing the gold window on a Sunday evening in 1971] was one of the most dramatic economic events ever, a very big deal and I was at the epicentre of it on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.  He [Nixon] was spinning political speak, but what he was saying was that the U.S. has defaulted on its debts. And it got me thinking about what money is. What are dollars if they are not tied to gold?

I saw how the government lied or certainly spun things in a certain way. I had all these philosophical questions, like ‘Whom do you believe?  What is actually truthfully going on?’  All of this pulled me into the global macro markets.  The currency markets would be important to me for the rest of my life."

Ray Dalio

"Gold has worked down from Alexander's time.  When something holds good for two thousand years I do not believe it can be so because of prejudice or mistaken theory."

Bernard Baruch

"Through the mills of God grind slowly,
   yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience He stands waiting,
   with exactness grinds He all."

Baron Friedrich von Logau, Sinngedichte

The equity markets got hit with a double barreled shot of risk reassessment this morning.

The Jobs Report came in smoking hot this morning, which shattered the fanciful notions of a Fed pivot, yada yada.

And the Silicon Valley Bank joined Silvergate and gave up the ghost, sending shock waves of contagion and suspicion through the banking sector.

Neither event ought to have been all that much of a surprise, but given the superficial and self-serving fluff that passes for analysis on the Street and financial media, it was.

And of course there is the ongoing backdrop of the slow crumbling of the crypto house of cards.

Gold caught a legitimate flight to safety after its recent pounding lower, and went out near the highs.

Silver also rallied but gave some of it back in sympathy with equities.

The Dollar gave back a little of its recent gains.

The VIX rocketed higher, but also fall back somewhat as happy thoughts were spread around.

Next week we will have the March option expiration quad witching event.

So more volatility is likely.

People are concerned that the regulators are asleep at the switch, having been plied with industry opiates and congressional laissez-faire ideology.

In summary, markets remain fragile and susceptible to shocks. 

It's not a matter of intelligence so much as of willfulness.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Great American Swindle - Bank Spank

 

"I would say that practically all the financial journals were on the take.  This includes reporters for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Herald-Tribune, you name it.  So if you were a pool operator, you’d call your friend at The Times and say, 'Look, Charlie, there’s an envelope waiting for you here and we think that perhaps you should write something nice about RCA.'  And Charlie would write something nice about RCA.  A publicity man called A. Newton Plummer had canceled checks from practically every major journalist in New York City."

Robert Sobel, PBS: The Great Crash of 1929

"The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small.   It is nearly nil."

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash of 1929

"An investigation later discovered that business journalists for at least eight papers promoted stocks in their writing in return for bribes.  The most embarrassing were at the Wall Street Journal, where reporters who wrote 'Broad Street Gossip' and 'Abreast of the Market' took payoffs for stock tips in the 1920s.

The revelations about the Journal reporters came out during hearings by the Senate Banking and Currency Committee in 1932, more than three years later, when Congressman Fiorello LaGuardia produced cancelled checks written to the Journal reporters from publicist A. Newton Plummer.  The stories based on the bribes had gone as far back as 1923."

University of North Carolina, History of Business Journalism

"I have come to realize that the vast majority of decent, wonderful people, have no idea how they are being hoodwinked day in and day out by the scum of this world.  We are lied to, misled, bamboozled, suckered, cheated, misrepresented, conned, manipulated and royally screwed!  They take us to the cleaners day in and day out in every way possible.  We, the people, pay the price of their cheating, their folly, their lying and their sheer stupidity."

Pierre Rinfret

Did these financial journalists and Wall Street operators back in the 1920s have no standards, and no shame?

We are very fortunate that such a thing could not happen today.  Can you imagine any self respecting analyst or media type or (maybe) a politician accepting actual physical checks for misdeeds that leave such a clear trail of evidence?   

In our modern era it would be much more likely to be cash in the form of hot tips on which way the High Frequency Trading wind will be turning the markets, privileged high-profile access, or some drinks and dinner, maybe even hookers and blow.  The only risks might be some nasal cartilage, a guilty conscience (as if), and extra time at the gym.

How gullible and cynical can people get? How blindly arrogant and worshipful of 'success?' 

When the mainstream media spreads lies and propaganda to support an unjust military action, or to discredit a whistleblower who is doing the journalists' purported job, that is one thing.  And to support the epitome of Ponzi schemes based on some new and vaguely plausible technology favored by the moneyed interests is another.  

That's not corruption, it's just time-honoured and ridiculously profitable bawdy good fun by the unprincipled few, that keeps the horrors of honest and equitable governance at bay.  Oh, you object to institutional corruption and graft, comrade?

But soiling your hands by accepting coarse and dirty checks for aiding and abetting fraus?  Please, no checks accepted. Evidence trail and all that.

Stocks took a proper nosedive this afternoon after staging the usual morning rally.

The reason attributed to this was concern about some of the bleeding edge banks like Silvergate, and now the Silicon Valley Bank.  This led to a drawdown in share prices of the the Too Pig To Fail behemoths:  JPM, Wells Fargo, Citi, and Bank of America.

The Dollar declined a bit as short term yields back off their recent highs.

Gold rallied as a consequence, but silver fell a bit in sympathy with equities.

Wash - rinse - repeat.

The looting and lying will continue until consequences for lawlessness in the system are restored.

The usual long term consequences for such actions are still in force, contrary to the elite fashionable opinions and preferences.

“Then the rich man said, ‘I beg you, Father Abraham, send Lazarus to my father’s house.  For I have five brothers for him to warn, so that they also will not come to this place of desolation and torment.’  But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them.’  But the rich man again said, ‘No, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead comes back and speaks to them, they will repent.’  And Abraham said, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they listen if someone warns them who has risen from the dead.’” 

Luke 16:27-31

They'll never learn.  

Because the dark force that they have taken into their hearts doesn't want to leave.

Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Non-farm Payrolls tomorrow.

Have a pleasant evening.