Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Oligarchy Is Audacious

 

"The reputation of economics and economists, never high, has been a victim of the crash of 2008.  An even more serious criticism is that the economic policy debate that followed seems only to replay the similar debate after 1929. The issue is budgetary austerity versus fiscal stimulus, and the positions of the protagonists are entirely predictable from their previous political allegiances.

The preposterous claim that deviations from market efficiency were not only irrelevant to the recent crisis but could never be relevant is the product of an environment in which deduction has driven out induction and ideology has taken over from observation.

The belief that models are not just useful tools but also are capable of yielding comprehensive and universal descriptions of the world has blinded its proponents to realities that have been staring them in the face. That blindness was an element in our present crisis, and conditions our still ineffectual responses.

Economists – in government agencies as well as universities – were obsessively playing Grand Theft Auto while the world around them was falling apart."

John Kay, An Essay on the State of Economics, October 4, 2011


"With a monetary expansion intended to help cure a credit bubble crisis that is not accompanied by significant financial market reform, systemic rebalancing, and government programs to cure and correct past abuses of the productive economy through financial engineering, the hot money given by the Fed and Treasury to the banking system will not flow into the real economy, but instead will seek high beta returns in financial assets. 

The monetary stimulus of the Fed and the Treasury to help the economy is similar to relief aid sent to a suffering Third World country.   It is intercepted and seized by a despotic regime and allocated to its local elite and warlords, with very little going to help the people.

Those who have taken a huge share of the last three bubbles would like to stop the bubble now, keep their gains, and return to a system of fiscal restraint with light taxation on their windfall of assets. So why does this not just simply happen?

It is difficult to reduce a population of free men into debt slaves, without risking a significant reaction. Therefore, it seems most likely that the government and the Fed will try to 'muddle through' for the time being, and look for an exogenous event [such as a war] to break the stalemate."

Jesse, October 2009


“Stand up for what you believe, even if you are standing alone.”

Sophie Scholl

The transfer of wealth through cycles of bubble and bust continues unabated.

The oligarchy is audacious.

Stocks slid lower.

Gold bounced while silver remained flat.

VIX chopped sideways.

The Dollar was moving sideways.

Expiration tomorrow. 

The spice must flow.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Cycle of Selfish Indifference and Objectifying The Other

 

“By intensity of hatred nations create in themselves the characters they imagine in their enemies.  Hence it is that all passionate conflicts result in the interchange of characteristics.”

George William Russell

"What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed people will not know who is responsible, and when the problems get bad enough some one person will come forward and say: ‘Give me total power and I will solve this problem.’"

David Souter, US Supreme Court Justice

“We cannot understand Fascism, but we can and must understand from where it springs, and we must be on our guard, because what happened can happen again.  For this reason, it is everyone's duty to reflect on what happened. Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous.  More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”

Primo Levi

"Communism and fascism or naziism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority."

James A. C. Brown

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

"A small number of zealous advocates can have an impact on the law that defies both science and conventional wisdom.”

Paul A. Lombardo, Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell

"The perpetrators were scholars, doctors, nurses, justice officials, the police and the health and workers’ administration.   The victims were poor, desperate, rebellious or in need of help.  They came from psychiatric clinics and childrens' hospitals, from old age homes and welfare institutions, from military hospitals and internment camps."

 Tiergartenstraße 4, Berlin, Commemorative Tablet

Stocks did the usual drop and then drift back up, going out nearly unchanged at the close.

Earnings are starting to come in more heavily now.

The VIX has fallen to a level not seen since the beginning of 2022.

Gold and silver were slammed this morning in a preliminary observance of the upcoming stock options expiration.

They recovered into the close.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

The Dollar did a similar pop and drop.

Proceed with caution. 

To paraphrase George William Russell, we become what we hate.

And then we sacrifice the weak and the helpless and the other to the Moloch of our passionate emptiness. 

The Iowa Senate decided in an early morning decision to roll back their anti-abuse of child labor laws on behalf of the Molochs of business. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Brood of Vipers - Stock Option Expiration on Friday

 

"What is offensive is that they lie, and worship their own lying."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

"Three dark personalities, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, have been studied in businesses.  Although the first two share similar traits with psychopathy, such as superficial charm, lying and manipulation, the inability to accept responsibility for their actions, and the complete lack of empathy, guilt and humility, a large body of research has demonstrated that psychopathic individuals are more dishonest, treacherous and destructive than the others.  While all three dark personalities can be bad news for a company, corporate psychopathy is the most dangerous."

Cynthia Mathieu, The Devil Lurks In the Suit

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: power attracts pathological personalities.  It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.  Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune

"Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by twenty well-documented traits and characteristics. The most visible are glib/superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self worth, a strong need for stimulation (that is, psychopaths are easily bored) and impulsivity.  However, there are others, which they successfully hide from view, in particular pathological lying, conning, manipulation, a lack of empathy, remorse and guilt. Over time, one might begin to see examples of irresponsibility, lack of realistic, long-term goals, and their failure to take responsibility for their own actions."

Paul Babiak, Robert Hare, Snakes In Suits

"Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all."

Edmund Burke

"The temporary alliance between the elite and the mob rested largely on this genuine delight with which the former watched the latter destroy respectability. To its conviction that history, which was a forgery anyway, must be added the terrible, demoralizing fascination in the possibility that the difference between truth and falsehood may cease to be objective and become a mere matter of power and cleverness, of pressure and infinite repetition.  

Not Stalin’s and Hitler's skill in the art of lying but the fact that they were able to organize the masses into a collective unit to back up their lies with impressive magnificence.”

Hannah Arendt

After the bell the news came out that Fox settled their defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787 million.

There seem to be some heavy judgements falling lately on those who willfully and almost pathologically spread outrageous lies and foment violence in the pursuit of influence and profit. 

You may choose to look away, but you can never again say that you did not know the lies that you were spreading to your children and grandchildren, 'just keeping them informed.'

Politicians and financiers are a vile bunch in general.   But that does not excuse your willingness to get down in the mud with them for a cheap thrill and some cathartic lawlessness.

Stocks did the usual pop and flop, one day wash and rinse, to which we have become accustomed.

The Dollar fell.

Gold and silver bounced back, although the miners with heavy play in the options market seemed to underperform.

Must be a stock option expiration on Friday.

VIX is now at a noticeable low—  as are the morals of far too many people, led by the catastrophic ethical failures of our professional elites at almost every level.

"Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty."

Simone Weil

Have a pleasant evening.