Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Consequences - Metals Rally, Stocks Slump

 

"The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment.  We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought.  We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves.  Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships."

Vaclav Havel, New Year's Address to the Nation, 1 January 1990

“The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least to neglect, persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.  To attain to this envied situation, the candidates for fortune too frequently abandon the paths of virtue; for unhappily, the road which leads to the one, and that which leads to the other, lie sometimes in very opposite directions.  But the ambitious man flatters himself that, in the splendid situation to which he advances, he will have so many means of commanding the respect and admiration of mankind, and will be enabled to act with such superior propriety and grace, that the lustre of his future conduct will entirely cover, or efface, the foulness of the steps by which he arrived at that elevation. 

In many governments the candidates for the highest stations are above the law; and, if they can attain the object of their ambition, they have no fear of being called to account for the means by which they acquired it.  They often endeavour, therefore, not only by fraud and falsehood, the ordinary and vulgar arts of intrigue and cabal; but sometimes by the perpetration of the most enormous crimes, by murder and assassination, by rebellion and civil war, to supplant and destroy those who oppose or stand in the way of their greatness.  They more frequently miscarry than succeed; and commonly gain nothing but the disgraceful punishment which is due to their crimes.”

Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759

"I wonder if this ignorance of history is a cause or an effect.  Does ignorance facilitate gullibility and exploitation, or does it not also make it more bearable for lack of comparison?  Perhaps it is something of both.  One can not otherwise explain America's fascination with and fatal attraction to second rate actors, narcissistic lotharios, idiot sons, wardheelers, and reality show divas.  Such is the state of an empire in decline.  A still vibrant nation can survive its Warren Hardings and Andrew Johnsons, and perhaps even an unfortunate run of them.   One can only wait and see what will happen next, watchful and prayerful and hopefully prepared."

Jesse, 7 January 2011

 

The Payrolls Report came in pretty much on forecast. 

Stocks failed in their initial rally attempt and went out losing ground.

VIX rose.

The Dollar fell.

Gold and silver rallied a bit.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Masters of the Universe - Non-Farm Payrolls Tomorrow

 

“In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.”

Czesław Miłosz,  Nobel Prize, 8 December 1980


“They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions, but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself.  The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.”

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird


"At times, God will be the only witness to your righteous behavior.  Sometimes God is the only one who will understand your motives.  At such times all you can do is maintain your integrity, trusting that God always keeps His eyes on you.  God looks favorably upon those who walk with integrity, doing what they know is right, regardless of how others perceive their actions.

The most important thing is that you are a person of integrity before God.  When no one seems to understand why you have done something or when others question whether you have done all you should have done, your confidence should not be in the hope of vindication in the eyes of others.  It should be in the knowledge that God keeps you in His sight.  If you have this confidence, it will be enough to sustain you."

Henry Blackaby, Integrity Upheld

 

I have included a chart below of the range of gold futures contracts.

The August contract is now setting the 'spot price' and is driving the continuous contract quote as well.

See how narrow the volume is, compared to October and December.

The Dollar chopped sideways finishing just a little lower.

Gold traded woodenly, compared to the volatility in the related miners.

Silver lost more ground but took a bit back after the initial plunge bath.

Stocks bounced a bit in tech land but as for the rest of them, meh.

Non-Farm Payrolls tomorrow.  

It's the big reveal for all the preceding shenanigans.

The lack of integrity in Western political, financial, academic, and corporate leadership is very discouraging.  Financialization has ripped civility of the spirit from our hearts and souls.

"I want to end with the idea that the [unregulated] market is capable of resolving all of our social conflict, fairly and justly.  That is the great idea of the 1990's.   And we all know now what a crock that is.   I think what we need in order to restore some kind of sense of fairness is not the final triumph of markets over the body and soul of humanity, but something that confronts markets, and that refuses to think of itself as a brand."

Thomas Frank

The oligarchy is audacious, and getting moreso every day. 

Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshaling its hosts from all parts of the world, preparing to take many, both the willful and unsuspecting, as if in a net.

Winning....

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Shifting, Whispering Sands - The Unspeakable

 

"Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating. Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty. Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but was wrong in thinking that we can get them for ourselves, without grace."

Simone Weil, La Pesanteur et la Grâce, 1947

"Only those who live by faith really know what is happening in the world.  The great masses without faith are unconscious of the destructive processes going on.  The most important problem in the world today is your soul, for that is what the struggle is about."

Fulton J. Sheen, 1947

"Evil will remain with us, no one will ever eliminate human suffering, the political arena will always attract irresponsible and ambitious adventurers and charlatans.  And man will not stop destroying the world.  In this regard, I have no illusions.

Neither I nor anyone else will ever win this war once and for all.  At the very most, we can win a battle or two-and not even that is certain.  It is an eternal, never-ending struggle waged not just by good people (among whom I count myself, more or less) against evil people, by people who think about the world and eternity against people who think only of themselves and the moment.  It takes place inside everyone.  It is what makes a person a person, and life, life."

Vaclav Havel, Summer Meditations, 1991

"For, in the end, the only real tragedy is not to have been a saint."

Léon Bloy, La femme pauvre

Fitch, the credit ratings agency, gave US Treasuries a downgrade last night.

As you may recall, the ratings agencies have been the servile minions of their biggest customers on Wall Street, the Funds and the Banks.

I am sure they were caught by surprise.   

As if.

So the Treasury Yield Curve levitated.

The Dollar rose, which is an odd effect in the bigger picture, but short term is expected.

Gold and silver were hammered.

Stocks cratered.

There must be a Non-Farm Payrolls report in this pile somewhere, if not a pony.

Wash, rinse, repeat.   

The plutocrats' transfer of wealth continues, like the shifting, whispering sands.

If you can maintain your humanity and your soul, when all else are losing theirs with abandon, you win.

Have a pleasant evening.