US Dollar Very Long Term Chart - La Douleur du Monde

 

The US Mega-Banks and SWIFT money transfer system for the world's reserve currency are Financial Dreadnoughts in time of currency war.

 Le privilège stratégique

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - And the Love of Most Will Grow Cold

 

"I urge you, brothers and sisters, to be wary of those who cause divisions and undermine the faithful, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned.   Avoid such people, who do not serve our Lord, but their own appetites.  And by clever words and flattery they deceive the hearts of the innocent and naive."

Romans 16:17-18

"Nor will love be seen coming from the hearts of those who are fallen into wickedness: they are the fruit of hate, deceit, greed, fear, pride, possession, and aggression.  And they will not only forsake love by washing their hands of it, they will eventually come to condemn it, and persecute it— and thereby condemn themselves.

For the people of God love is the touchstone of faith, the way to know if what we believe is with Him, or from something else; if we are walking with Him, or with something else; if the one who speaks is speaking for Him, or for something else; if we are keeping Him in our hearts, or something else; if we love Him, or ourselves, or something else.

Love does not speak with hate or fear or derision, but with the fullness of existence which is joy and mercy. Love is ridiculed and trampled upon by that which is in opposition to His creation.  When you are in doubt or confusion about what is true and what is false, look for the light of love.  This is the hallmark of the spirit in the world.

Love is not what we do, but how we do what we do.  Love is found in the most ordinary things, not in grand gestures and elaborate mannerisms.   It resides in small daily acts of kindness and fellowship, done lovingly and with care, for His sake.  It is how we carry our cross, not in front of a cheering crowd, but in the quiet moments, and the little things, while walking with Him.

The hardened heart judges others, while ignoring its own sins, thinking itself good.  Love is mercy, as it shows us our commonality with our fellow humanity as a weak and sinful creature.  We do not need to hate and reject the world, and despise and subdue His creation.  Creation is a gift from God, to which we bring our own good use and order in His name.  And if we are wise, with our reverent humility and wonder.  We can work with His gifts lovingly, and not abuse them from an excess of greed.  It is not the world itself that is a source of evil, but the willfulness of our hearts, hardened by pride.

Only love is creative and productive.  Only love is accepting and uplifting, able to bring all things forward to His plan and make them new.  Love consecrates, while sin desecrates and destroys in its lust for possession and the will to power."

Jesse, Love is the Refuge of the Way, 24 June 2017

"Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength— but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it."

Léon Bloy

And so we had a triple witch option expiration today.

Stocks were slammed.

Wash, rinse repeat.

Gold and silver soared, although they pulled back some into the close.

As we have seen before, the mischief of heavy selling was done in the days before expiration, particularly in the mining sector where stock options are more of a factor.

The VIX rose sharply.

The Dollar chopped sideways.  It is at a relative higher end of its recent trading range.

They have no shame.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - History Will Not Absolve Us

 

"Acts that are wrong in themselves can be expected to have bad effects of a particular kind that is not just accidental.  Their badness follows from what is wrong in the act itself, so that there is a rational, conceptual link between them and their results.  These consequences are a sign of what was wrong with the act in the first place.  Acts of lying or injustice are themselves expressions of disrespect and untrustworthiness, so they unavoidably call for more of the same.  Hubris calls for nemesis, and in one form or another it's going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started."

Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live By, 2003

“The world says: 'You have needs — satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.' This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

"Can we actually suppose that we are wasting, polluting, and making ugly this beautiful land for the sake of patriotism and the love of God? Perhaps some of us would like to think so, but in fact this destruction is taking place because we have allowed ourselves to believe, and to live, a mated pair of economic lies: that nothing has a value that is not assigned to it by the market; and that the economic life of our communities can safely be handed over to the great corporations.

Such damage is justified by its corporate perpetrators and their political abettors in the name of the 'free market' and 'free enterprise,' but this is a freedom that makes greed the dominant economic virtue, and it destroys the freedom of other people along with their communities and livelihoods.  We need to confront honestly the issue of scale.  Bigness has a charm and a drama that are seductive, especially to politicians and financiers; but bigness promotes greed, indifference, and damage, and often bigness is not necessary.  There are such things as economic weapons of massive destruction. We have allowed them to be used against us, not just by public submission and regulatory malfeasance, but also by public subsidies, incentives, and sufferances impossible to justify."

Wendell Berry, Compromise, Hell!, September 30, 2004


The ECB hiked its key interest rate by 25 bp to 4% this morning.

Retail sales and PPI came in stronger than expected, boosting the US Dollar.

But nonetheless stocks rallied, on the familiar refrain of 'soft landings.'

The spokesmodels were gibbering the usual bullish songs of selective dissonance.

Did I mention that there is a quad witch option expiration tomorrow?

Wash, rinse, repeat.

This November we will be remembering the 60^th anniversary of the first of the assassinations that set the stage for the decline of the American Republic.

The Latest Declassified Evidence on the Assassination of JFK

How easily we close our unfeeling eyes and forget, drifting senselessly with the tides.

Have a pleasant evening.