Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Damned for the World - Accomplice to Unimaginable Evil

 

“The lofty mind of man can be imprisoned by the artifices of its own making.  If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves.”

E.A. Bucchianeri, Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World

“There are only two kinds of people in the end— those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'  All that are in Hell choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.”

C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 1945

"In the storm the tree strikes deeper roots in the soil; in the hurricane the inhabitants of the house abide within, and rejoice in its shelter.  So by suffering the Father would lead us to enter more deeply into the love of Christ.

Our hearts are continually prone to wander from Him; prosperity and enjoyment all too easily satisfy us, dull our spiritual perception, and unfit us for full communion with Himself.  It is an unspeakable mercy that the Father comes with His chastisement, makes the world round us all dark and unattractive, leads us to feel more deeply our sinfulness, and for a time lose our joy in what was becoming so dangerous.

Though He has indeed no pleasure in afflicting us, He will not keep back even the most painful chastisement if He can but thereby guide His beloved child to come home."

Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ, 1895

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace.  But with disgrace comes humility, and with humility comes wisdom.  The humility of the righteous will guide them, but the deceitfulness of the proud will destroy them."

Proverbs 11:2-3

"To enter heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter hell is to be banished from humanity.  What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is 'remains.'  To be a complete man means to have the passions obedient to the will and the will offered to God: to have been a man – to be an ex-man or 'damned ghost' – would presumably mean to consist of a will utterly centered in its self and passions utterly uncontrolled by the will."

C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 1940

"The more a thing may disappoint them, the more it may be proven false, the more readily it is debunked and shown to be a falsehood, or even evil, the more strongly some will embrace it, as if by sacrificing their own integrity, and perhaps even their souls, for something so unworthy will silence the criticisms and redeem it. 

For to admit that the Reich was a lie, and a mistake, that they were fanatical fools, and Hitler an incompetent creature of evil would be to admit that one was wrong, a failure, and worse, had become an accomplice to an unimaginable evil.  To accept that guilt, to admit one's complicity in such a horrendous assault on justice, to humble oneself and ask for forgiveness, would have taken a heroic act of self-awareness, humility and repentance.   And worse, for these fanatics, it would diminish their pride, which was at the foundation of the most fervent supporters of such flamboyant excess.

That, and a desire to become beasts, to lose themselves in their mindless fanaticism, and escape the pain of being men.  And so they struck out, and killed everything that held up a mirror to their darkened souls, and showed them their pride was based on a lie.  Pride is the mother of all sin. This is the descent into hell.  This is the unwillingness to let go of the lie, for the sake of pride and its power, and cling to evil as it draws one into the abyss."

Jesse, Seth the Arbiter of Chaos, 15 May 2018


Stocks were cheered by the weaker than expected JOLTS jobs number this morning, taking it as a portent for the Non-Farm Payrolls number this Friday, and its potential implications for interest rates.

And so they rallied, going out near the highs.

In concert with the drop in Treasury yields the Dollar rather briskly and stayed there.

Gold and silver thereby rose, going out near the highs as well.

How quickly this new optimism can turn on a single number.

We will get the ADP employment number and the second estimate of GDP tomorrow morning.

The ADP number is often out of sync with the Non-Farm Payrolls so it is difficult to estimate how markets might react to a hit or miss.  However, they may take note of something of unexpected proportions, if for no other reason than a wash and rinse, if the market speculators are leaning one way or another.

Below is a piece based on Bonhoeffer's 'Theory of Stupidity.'   You may recall that when I quote it here I use 'foolishness' rather than 'stupidity.'   In English the two words signify a willful and voluntary impairment of intellect, or a natural lack of intellect respectively.   It seems that Bonhoeffer is referring to the former given the context of what he is writing and what was happening.  

A foolishness so profoundly stubborn that it damns itself into the abyss.  It's odd how history rhymes.

It is reminiscent of what G. K. Chesterton called 'national madness' in What Is Wrong With the World, written in 1910.

Fitting for us, in our time of hysteria, audacious oligarchy, exceptional arrogance, delusional meritocracy, and general willful goofiness.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A World on Fire - Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday

 

"Augustine began to write this book three years after Rome first collapsed and opened its gates to a barbarian invader. Alaric and his Goths sacked the city in 410.  Rome had been the inviolate mistress of the world for a thousand years.  The fall of the city that some had thought would stand forever demoralized what was left of the civilized world. Those who still took the pagan gods seriously  —  and it seems they were not a few —  looked about them for a scapegoat upon which to lay the guilt for this catastrophe.

The Christians had emerged from the catacombs and had been officially recognized by the convert Emperor Constantine.  Nevertheless Christianity remained the object of superstitious fear on the part of many, and it was inevitable that the bad luck that had befallen the Empire should be blamed on the Church.   St. Augustine took up his pen in 413 AD and set about proving the absurdity of such a charge.   This furnished him with the subject matter for the first ten books of The City of God."

Thomas Merton, Introduction, Augustine City of God, February 1994

“Pride is the beginning of sin.  It was pride that changed angels into devils; and it is humility that makes men angels.  There never has been, and never can be, and there never shall be any sin without pride.

What does love look like?  It has the hands to help others.  It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy.  It has eyes to see misery and want.  It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men.

Do not grieve or complain that you were born in a time when you can no longer see God in the flesh.  He did not in fact take this privilege from you.  As He says: ‘Whatever you have done to the least of my brothers, you did to me.’   Believe, so that you may understand.

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” 

Augustine of Hippo

The big tickle this week is likely to be the Non-Farm Payrolls report for August on this Friday, September 1st.

Stocks wobbled around but managed to end up with modest gains as Treasury yields receded slightly.

The Dollar chopped around sideways, finishing nominally unchanged.

Gold and silver rallied, with gold holding on to some gain but silver finished unchanged.

The VIX has fallen back down to near the 50 DMA, which has been its lower bound lately.

It looks like Florida is in for a rough time.  Remember them in your prayers.   Let's hope that this is not the beginning of a cycle, a trend.

Need little, want less love more.  For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

"There never has been, and never can be, and there never shall be any sin without pride."

And the same can often be said about the downfall of public figures, whose original misdeeds are compounded and most often eclipsed by their attempts to deny and erase them.

Pride goes before a destruction, and an arrogant spirit before a fall.

The madness serves none but itself.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Endless Wash and Rinse

 

"The Federal Reserve, as one writer put it after the recent increase in the discount rate, is in the position of the chaperone who has ordered the punch bowl removed just when the party was really warming up.”

William McChesney Martin, Speech to Investment Bankers Association of New York, October 1955

“The job of the Federal Reserve is 'to know when to remove the punch bowl at the party.'   Under Alan Greenspan’s leadership its motto became let’s all get drunk and see what happens."

Said Elias Dawlabani, The Next Generation Economic System, 2013

"We're not even thinking about thinking about the consequences of our actions."

Jerome Powell, Chairman, Federal Reserve, June 2020

"The problems we face did not come down from the heavens.  They are made, they are made by bad human decisions, and good human decisions can change them.  The economic game is rigged, and this level of inequality is unsustainable.  We need an economy that works for all, not just the powerful. "

Bernie Sanders

“As is often the case, we are navigating by the stars under cloudy skies.”

Jerome Powell, Fed Chair, Jackson Hole Remarks, Ausust 25, 2023


It's so difficult and complex. Shut up and know your place.

Don't look at the man behind the curtain.

It's so difficult and complex. Shut up and know your place.

After all, who could have seen it coming?

Financial asset bubbles, such as the several we have seen since 1999, result in outsized gains and fabulous wealth for the shameless few, especially if they are greased up with high bracket tax cuts by a servile political class.

The most popular corrective measure is higher prices and the austerity of cutbacks, wage stagnation, and unemployment for the 98% who obtained little or no benefit from this orgy of control frauds, regulatory failures, insider trading, and willful policy errors.

And in the aftermath they say that they're only human and repeatedly make the same mistakes, for outsized pay and power.  Be afraid, and know your place.  And take out your confusion and anger on the innocent and the weak and the other, those who we choose to offer up for sacrifice.  

You may suffer, but they'll suffer even more, and you may draw some self-righteous comfort from a small portion of our dark power.  

Words of hate and fear are a narcotic, and the power elite's favorite mass distraction.  And as we saw so many times in the last century, they do this all too well.

And so there we have it, another fine wash and rinse in the city on a hill.

Stocks finished higher, while the VIX finished lower.

Gold and silver took a hit, as expected, but managed to finish up not all that badly.

There will be a precious metals option expiration at the Comex on Monday.

It's traditional to give the 'in-the-money' call option holders a gut check on the day after to encourage them to sell those new futures contracts positions.

Play the long game.  Eternity is for keeps.

Have a pleasant evening.