Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - What the Hell, America?

 

"Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. 

Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy. These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.

If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism.  (We're there - Jesse)

Both parties lie about the fact that they have each sold out to the financial sector and the wealthy. So far both have largely gotten away with the lie, helped in part by the enormous amount of money now spent on deceptive, manipulative political advertising. 

But that can’t last indefinitely; Americans are getting angry, and even when they’re misguided or poorly informed, people have a deep, visceral sense that they’re being screwed.

The real challenge is figuring out how the United States can regain control of its future from its new oligarchy and restore its position as a prosperous, fair, well-educated nation.

I’m not against business, or profits, or becoming wealthy. I have no problem with people becoming billionaires—if they got there by winning a fair race, if their accomplishments merit it, if they pay their fair share of taxes, and if they don’t corrupt their society.

But that’s not how most of the people mentioned in this book became wealthy. Most of them became wealthy by being well connected and crooked. And they are creating a society in which they can commit hugely damaging economic crimes with impunity, and in which only children of the wealthy have the opportunity to become successful. That’s what I have a problem with. And I think most people agree with me."

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation, May 2012


Stocks traded weakly once again ahead of the Consumer Price Inflation data due out tomorrow.

We will see the Producer Price Inflation information on Thursday.

Gold was edging higher most of the day.  Silver was unchanged to a bit lower in sympathy with equities.

The markets are having a bit of a time trying to price in the risk of the Fed doing something exceptionally stupid.

And of course the exogenous events, especially geo-political, are heightened.

The professional wrestling staged drama of 'the debt ceiling' can always get out of control.

We are in that difficult post-bubble period that follows on the past two Fed-induced asset bubbles.

This is the third time we have been here since 2000.

Thomas Frank asks, 'What the Hell Happened America?' in this video.  

Good question.  

And it can be asked about France, Germany, the UK, and most of the developed nations of the north and south of the world as well.

It is difficult to be an independent thinker these days, since the general discourse and the academy/media finds a comfortable refuge from thought (and uncomfortable truth) in slogans and stereotypes.

The oligarchy is borderless, and audacious.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Go and Do Likewise

 

"Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’  And Jesus said to him, ‘What is written in the law?  What do you read there?’ And the lawyer answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’   And Jesus said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’

As you know, this passage above is the introduction to one of the greatest and most memorable of the parables from our Lord, the story of The Good Samaritan.  Our Lord did not offer us an exemption from sin if we call on His name, but forgiveness, if that request is offered in true repentance, a recognition of our faults, and faith, and an active response to His command to 'go and sin no more.'

It might be better to have been born without any knowledge of His word and His commandments, than to hear His words and then hypocritically parade in them and His sacraments, with intricate invocations of His holy name on your lips, as a call to hatefulness, pride, division, self-justification, and oppression.

We are a generation made drunk with power and a perverse individualism that has been foretold for increasingly dark times.   May God have mercy on any who provide provocation and false teachings to others, and scandalous examples to their brothers and sisters, children and grandchildren, especially because of their willful selfishness, stubborn greed, and foolish pride."

Jesse, 19 January 2015


"In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack, even on the least of men, is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all. Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

Stocks traded weakly most of the day, but managed to climb back to unchanged and even a little green into the close.

Gold and silver were also a little lackluster.

The Dollar chopped sideways but managed to take a small gain.

VIX fell.

We'll be getting some inflation data on Wednesday which may shake things up.  Or not.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metal Charts - Consuming Emptiness - The Madness Serves None But Itself

 

"Cæsar was swimming in blood. Rome and the whole pagan world was mad.   But those who had had enough of sin and madness, those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and oppression, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came to hear the wonderful news of God, who out of love for men had given Himself over to be crucified for their sins.

And Peter understood that neither Nero, nor all his legions, could overcome the truth— that they could not overwhelm it with tears or blood, and that now its victory was beginning.  That city of pride, of crime, of wickedness, and of a lust for power, was beginning to be His."

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis

"Having fallen from pure Being, the evil one is driven by a desire to possess to fill his emptiness.   He is compelled to possess and consume, and nothing else.   All he takes, he destroys. He rules the worldly, as he is the Prince of this world."

Denis de Rougemont

"The Unspeakable.   It is the void, the emptiness of the end.   Not the end of the world, but a climax of absolute finality in refusal, in equivocation, in disorder, in absurdity, which can be open again to truth only by miracle, by the coming of God."

Thomas Merton

"I am guilty, but not in the way that you think.  I should have recognized my duty earlier;  I should have more sharply called out evil, as evil;  I suppressed my judgement far too long. did warn, but not nearly enough, and certainly not clearly enough;  and today I understand the nature of my guilt, and my obligation.

Albrecht Haushofer, executed by the SS, Berlin, 23 April 1945

“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 selves?”

Maximilian Kolbe

Although the Jobs report came in much stronger than expected, the markets decided to ignore the implied meme of no rate cuts, and piled into risk assets and out of safe havens.

I suspect that this was largely a 'technical rally' targeting the significant number of market participants who came into this payrolls day with bearish hedges.

Or more simply— wash follows rinse.

Gold and silver slumped.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

The VIX plunged.

The spice must flow.

Have a pleasant weekend.