Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Simply Murder

 

"A thriving upper class accepts with a good conscience the sacrifice of untold human beings, who, for its sake, must be reduced and lowered to incomplete human beings,to slaves, to instruments.  One cannot fail to see in all these noble races the beast of prey, the splendid blond beast, prowling about avidly in search of spoil and victory; this hidden core needs to erupt from time to time, the animal has to get out again and go back to the wilderness.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886

"As a very young man, and it seems so long ago, I spent some time walking with those who spoke out against injustice.  Later, as a grown man, I stood in the same dark cells of the Mamertine Prison in Rome, where Paul and Peter were imprisoned, and where Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy, a letter from jail, where he was held by the power of an empire that, at that time, ruled the world.

And I walked along some of the paths in the catacombs, the hidden places of the early believers who did not yet even have the name of Christians, but simply called their beliefs 'the good news' and 'the Way.' And they loved one another, and watered the roots of their faith with the blood of martyrs.

We are travelers through history, although slowly, one step, one day at a time.  But we are in it, in history, and we play our part of it.  It is not something distant, but real.  This is our moment.   And Christ calls us to follow him now, even as he did then, in those days when he walked the earth, when he was a passing figure in the crowd, and beckoned with a simple wave of his hand, and the sound of his voice.

Now as an old man I see a nation that has been given great power, and has come once again to a decision point, where it may choose for the truth, or take a darker road.  And it seems as though we have already turned away from the truth, and are going down that fateful path, the way of greed and fear and above all pride, and the worship of worldly power for its own sake, cleverness, deception and the arrogance of money, in our willful blindness.  And may God have mercy on us, and our children and our grandchildren, if we do."

Jesse, Unfulfilled Dreams: A Tension At the Heart of the Universe, 5 April 2012

"For the general reader, one or two chapters should suffice to convince them that the authors have emphatically proven their points. And to grasp these points and fully realize that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by elements of his own government led by the CIA and that the mass media were accessories after the fact to this terrible crime – to let this really sink in – well, nothing is more important in understanding what is going on today...

I do not agree that we need a new investigation. The facts have long been clear: President Kennedy was assassinated by the U.S. National Security State led by the CIA. What we need to do is draw the implications from that fact. They are profound."

Edward Curtin, Review: The JFK Assassination Chokeholds, 16 May 2024

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

Ephesians 6:12

Stocks managed to have a somewhat positive day led by big tech.

The rally overall seems tired and overextended.  But still seemingly in the driver's seat.

Gold and silver soared overnight in Asia, with silver going up limit in Shanghai.

But the familiar story is the kind of paper games that come into play in London and New York.

This is unsustainable, but very stubbornly supported by the Western financial powers.

VIX continues to bounce near recent lows.

Madness.  Murder and madness.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - In Service to Naked and Arbitrary Power

 

"With the tools of democracy, democracy was murdered and lawlessness made ‘legal.’  Raw power ruled, and its only real goal was to destroy all other powers besides itself.”

Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, April 2010

“Oh where is the noble face of modesty, or the strength of virtue, now that blasphemy is in power and men have put justice behind them, and there is no law but lawlessness, and none join in fear of the gods?”

Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis

"Public opinion has become the object of intensive efforts to control, manage, manipulate, and increasingly intimidate.  In political, military, economic realms, power becomes, in varying degrees, uneasy before the suspected opinions of masses, and, accordingly, opinion-making becomes an accepted technique of power-holding and power-getting.  The minority electorate of the propertied and the educated is replaced by the total suffrage— and intensive campaigns for the vote.

As the scale of institutions has become larger and more centralized, so has the range and intensity of the opinion-makers’ efforts.  The means of opinion-making, in fact, have paralleled in range and efficiency the other institutions of greater scale that cradle the modem society of masses.  Accordingly, in addition to their enlarged and centralized means of administration, exploitation, and violence, the modern elite have had placed within their grasp historically unique instruments of psychic management and manipulation.

The men of the higher circles are not representative men; their high position is not a result of moral virtue; their fabulous success is not firmly connected with meritorious ability.  Those who sit in the seats of the high and the mighty are selected and formed by the means of power, the sources of wealth, the mechanics of celebrity, which prevail in their society.  Commanders of power unequaled in human history, they have succeeded within the American system of organized irresponsibility.

Of course, there may be corrupt men in sound institutions, but when institutions are corrupting, many of the men who live and work in them are necessarily corrupted. In the corporate era, economic relations become impersonal— and the executive feels less personal responsibility. Within the corporate worlds of business, war-making and politics, the private conscience is attenuated— and the higher immorality is institutionalized.  It is not merely a question of a corrupt administration in corporation, army, or state; it is a feature of the corporate rich, as a capitalist stratum, deeply intertwined with the politics of the military state.

A society that is in its higher circles and on its middle levels widely believed to be a network of smart rackets does not produce men with an inner moral sense; a society that is merely expedient does not produce men of conscience. A society that narrows the meaning of 'success' to the big money and in its terms condemns failure as the chief vice, raising money to the plane of absolute value, will produce the sharp operator and the shady deal.  Blessed are the cynical, for only they have what it takes to succeed.

America - a conservative country without any conservative ideology-appears now before the world a naked and arbitrary power, as, in the name of realism, its men of decision enforce their often crackpot definitions upon world reality."

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, Oxford Press, 1956

"When humanity, subjugated by the terror of crime, has been driven mad by fear and horror, and when chaos has become the supreme law, then the time for the empire of lawlessness will have come."

Fritz Lang, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, 1933


Stocks were parked today, after a week of substantial gains.

Gold and silver rocketed higher, with silver putting in a short-scorching rally.

The Dollar was nominally unchanged.

There are big events on the move behind the scenes.  

For now we only feel their tremors.

And when history unfolds, does it matter?

After even the most shocking of events what remains is the rewriting of history and the forced suppression of dissent from the prevailing narrative. 

For those who manage the conversations and control the evidence, the truth is a very malleable thing— at least for those who would be as gods.

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

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Calm Before Their Exceptional Madness

 

“When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically.  They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission.  Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.”

Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, 1941

"Demagogy enters at the moment when, for want of a common denominator, the principle of equality degenerates into the principle of identity."

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras

"The economy - once a great scatter of small productive units in autonomous balance, has become dominated by two or three hundred giant corporations, administratively and politically interrelated… The political order, once a decentralized set of several dozen states with a weak spinal cord, has become a centralized executive establishment which has taken up into itself many powers previously scattered… The military order, once a slim establishment in a context of distrust fed by state militia, has become the largest and most expensive feature of government."

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, 1956

"Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun."

Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, 1965

“Unprecedented state secrecy gave the power elite vastly expanded realms in which to pursue desired political ends. Its dimensions and details obscured by state secrecy, exceptionism—the institutionalized abrogation of the rule of law—allowed for the state to decisively influence politics at key moments in a top-down, authoritarian manner while practices of plausible deniability preserved a degree of democratic legitimacy.

In other words, the power elite’s rise precluded meaningful democracy since major decisions were not to be arrived at through open, informed public debate in which responsible officials and political parties were influenced by a healthy civil society which could allow the informed, prevailable will of the public to become manifest in policy.”

Aaron Good, American Exception: Empire and the Deep State, 2022

"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

The markets were off a bit today, accommodating their recent impressive gains.

Gold and silver were similarly disposed.

Tomorrow is our stock option expiration.

Looking over the world's current crop of exceptional peacocks and pigeons can we not now, at long last, fully understand Hannah Arendt's observations about 'the banality of evil?' 

Let's see where their shenanigans may lead us.  

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Have a pleasant evening.