Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Fear the Walking Fed - Pee-pee Pants City

 

“They perverted their thinking; they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven, and did not keep in mind just judgments.   How you have grown evil with age.  Now have your past sins come to term, passing unjust sentences, condemning the innocent, and freeing the guilty."

Daniel 13:9,52-53

“He did not care for the lying at first. He hated it. Then later he had come to like it. It was part of being an insider, but it was a very corrupting business.”

Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation. You snakes, you brood of vipers."

Matthew 23:13-14,33

"They are not governed by rationality or conscience or even common sense.   For periods of time oligarchies are able to survive in an uneasy equilibrium enforced by power, but ultimately these wickedly wealthy wither and die on their great piles of gains."

Jesse, Crony Capitalism: The Fed's Frankenstein, 17 December 2010

"Capitalism is at risk of failing today not because we are running out of innovations, or because markets are failing to inspire private actions, but because we’ve lost sight of the operational failings of unfettered gluttony.  Successful capitalism has never rested on a moral base of self-interest, but rather on the practice of self-interest embedded in a larger set of values.

We are neglecting a torrent of market failures in infrastructure, finance, and the environment. We are turning our backs on a grotesque worsening of income inequality and willfully continuing to slash social benefits. We are destroying the Earth as if we are indeed the last generation."

Jeffrey Sachs, Self-interest, Without Morals, Financial Times, January 18, 2012

Soft landing, dead ahead.  

Stocks managed to pull out another save, with only the tech stocks holding back.

VIX fell again.

The Dollar declined.

Gold and silver bounced.

The Fed hardly ever gets a major forecast right, and can't seem to create a sustainable 'soft landing' for the real economy without generating a vicious asset bubble that crests and crashes.

But the banks are made whole, and the band plays on.   Wash-rinse-repeat.

"Boy, do I have a feeling we're getting close.  Yeah, gonna be pee-pee pants city here real soon."

Negan, Last Days on Earth, The Walking Dead

Time for the next scapegoat to raise their hand.

Here's a soft landing for you, right here.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Observance and Judgement Without Love

 

“Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Balaam obeyed God from a sense of its being right to do so, but not from a desire to please Him, not from fear and love.  His endeavour was, not to please God, but to please himself without displeasing God; to pursue his own ends as far as was consistent with his duty.  In a word, he did not give his heart to God.  I say plainly, and without fear of contradiction, though it is a serious thing to say, that the aim of most men esteemed conscientious and religious, or who are what is called honourable, upright men, is, to all appearance, not how to please God, but how to please themselves without displeasing Him.  I say confidently,—that is, if we may judge of men in general by what we see— that they make this world the first object in their minds, and use religion as a corrective, a restraint, upon too much attachment to the world.  They think that religion is a sort of moderate love of the world, a moderate luxury, a moderate avarice, a moderate ambition, and a moderate selfishness."

John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons IV, 2

"The problem Newman addresses here is with those long time believers who have grown in the faith, and may exhibit many of its gifts, but stop there without bearing the kind of fruit of which they are capable. And why do they do this?  Simply because they never grow to fully love Him and His, more than they love their own fears, desires, and selves.  They always hold some better portion of themselves back and in reserve.  They love God as they think that they must only in order to avoid punishment and to be comfortable, while being blinded to their own sinful shortcomings, never fully growing into the love which is the substance and the salvation of their true selves.

And in the worst cases, they become self-righteous, being proud in their gifts and their selection as they think it in their own minds.  They may even harbor private hatreds, sins against the Spirit, judging others and seeing admonitions to take up the cross of His obedience with love as intended for all those others, but not for themselves.   They are imbued with the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy and spiritual pride.   And it is the road to a dwindling of the spiritual life, and a gradual erosion of faith as a vital element of our every action.

Jesse, Obedience Without Love - The Leaven of the Pharisees, 5 April 2017

"He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice."

Maria Faustyna Kowalska


Only the truly proud, those made hardened and delusional by sin, would see no problem in choosing the door of His justice, thinking themselves to be relatively worthy and saved, compared to all those 'others.'

They refuse His mercy, as they have chosen not to be merciful to others.

And they will call out, 'Lord, Lord,' and be sent away into the darkness. 

You want to argue canon law and economics with the Lord of hosts?   

"If only I had known..."

Do not be one of them.   

And so stocks were swooning most of the day, but managed to gather themselves together and rally back to nearly unchanged into the close, after the rest of the world had gone to bed.

Gold and silver were nailed in some follow up action to the events of last week.

VIX came in high and fell hard.

The Dollar rallied on expectations of American exceptionalism.

I think our leaders have become proud and reckless to a remarkable degree, and many are led by their example.  Not just here, but around the world. 

I spent a satisfying day exploring the mysteries of my oil burner.  I knew it was burning rich on start up but could not tell why.   But it would sense that and shut down sporadically and require a manual restart. 

The old hand tech quickly figured it out and replaced the ignition electrode components.  Considering they were original equipment from the 1950s, I won't complain.  And the cost was remarkably reasonable all things considered.

So my eyes and the furnace are now in tip top shape.  What a great start to the week.

Now if only we could do something about those madcaps and self-righteous knuckle-draggers in Washington.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Through Renovated Eyes

 

"We pray for the big things, and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small, and yet really not so small, blessings.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Repentance and forgiveness are the two great gifts of God, freely given.  But there is the third and greatest gift, which is thankfulness.  For with thankfulness our sinful pride is vanquished, our hearts are opened, and love enters.  And a light comes into our lives."

Jesse, Love and Thankfulness, 15 November 2018

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”

William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

"Here Homer with his nervous arms
Strikes the twanging harp of war,
And even the western splendour warms,
While the trumpets sound afar:
But, what creates the most intense surprise,
His soul looks out through renovated eyes."

John Keats, Ode to Apollo


So to make a long story short, I had 'no stitch' cataract surgery on my left eye yesterday, dreadfully early in the morning.

It was surprisingly quick and painless.

And today I have 20/30 vision, which will be improving as my eye continues to normalize over the next week.

Putting the past aside, choosing this new doctor and latest technique was absolutely the right decision for me, on a number of different levels.

As usual lot of eyedrops for the next 30 days, to prevent infection and to promote healing and normalization of the cornea and sclera.  

This is a fairly non-invasive surgery compared to things as they had been done.

It's funny but now with both eyes done my seeing distance vision is superb, better than it has been since probably the second grade.  The colors are vibrant and the contrast is sharp.

But I now need reading glasses, lol.    A small price to pay.  

I picked up a couple OTC temps at the drugstore on the way home.   They will fit me for a more permanent solution at the end of the month as my vision stabilizes.

Fashion tips?   Pas de 'Chuck Schumer' look.

The young man proposed a type of bifocal but with a clear upper portion.   Maybe even polarized.

Stocks shook off the interest rate jitters and a stronger than expected Jobs report.

Wash - rinse - repeat.

And perhaps more surprisingly growing geopolitical tensions and potential trade disruptions.

Gold and silver backed off as the Dollar rallied.

And so it goes on.

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

Have a wonderful weekend.  I will.