Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Land of Illusion: The Hollow Men

 

"Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men."

T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men, 23 November 1925

"I see dead people.  Walking around like regular people.  They don't see each other.  They only see what they want to see.   They don't know that they're dead."

Cole Sear: The Sixth Sense

"We have all seen examples of the 'macho tough guy' culture that certain elements of the financial and political class likes to portray for themselves.   Interacting with them is like dealing with hollow men, walking around trying to convince themselves that they are winning.  Everything that they do in their private moments seems false, and exaggerated, a caricature and poor imitation of life.  Superficially charming, even glamorous.  But inside, hollow and full of corruption. 

They just keep shoving people and things into the emptiness of their souls, in the hopes of achieving some semblance of being by consuming.  If we could see their true selves, see into their souls, we might well run away screaming.  And so would they.  So maintaining the illusion becomes the primary thing."

Jesse, Costumes, 31 October 2018


It was up and away in the markets today.

Stocks managed to pull together a rally after some initial sputtering.

The big story was the breakouts in gold and silver.

Yes the Dollar fell fifty cents.

But gold and silver took off, rocketing higher as they broke out through resistance, and settled up at the highs in the close.

There will be a precious metals options expiration on the Comex tomorrow.  Let's see if they can pull together one of their usual market gambits.

I watched Biden speak to the UN today.  The best part was knowing that this is probably the last time he will ever do so.   It was a very effective recruiting message for the BRICs.

Like the other 'great names' of our age, his legacy is a hollow memorial made of straw and dead men's bones, and every manner of corruption.

And will be soon be thankfully forgotten.  

Be mindful of the gathering storms in the Mideast and eastern Europe.  

Vanities and madness. 

Ashes, ashes, they all fall down.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - In the Service of Power, Lies, and Murder

 

"If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves.”

E.A. Bucchianeri, Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World, 2010

"Greed is not good.  Greed is a disease, an aberration of simple honest ambition and necessary provision taken to excess. This simple distinction may be lost on a people no longer able to distinguish between virtue and sin, honor and expediency, appetite and gluttony, the means and the ends. 

Every great religion, every school of philosophy has cautioned throughout history on the perils of unbridled and unregulated greed.  Greed, often in company with hubris and fear, is a handmaiden of the corrupting influence of power and triumph of the will. Greed is contagious, and attacks the very contentment of society at its heart, turning it towards oligarchy and oppression."

Jesse, Greed Is Not Good, 19 December 2010

“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

"For where envy and selfish ambition exist, there is lawlessness, and every wicked action.   Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your worldly desires that make war among yourselves? You desire but do not possess. You kill and envy but you cannot obtain; you fight and wage war. You do not receive because you do not ask. You ask but do not receive, because you ask for things in the wrong way, to spend it on your passions."

James 3:16-4:3

"You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

John 8:43-44


Stocks just wobbled around today.

Gold and the Dollar gained a little.

Silver was smacked down lower for now to the 31 level.  Because they can.

They are bulking up the Comex gold inventories in Hong Kong. 

This sometimes presages a raid on prices.

There will be an option expiration on the Comex for gold and silver this week on the 25^th.

VIX wallowed.

The intention of Israel to invade and occupy parts of Lebanon seems to be progressing.

The markets are not pricing in a wider conflict in the Mideast yet, or the coming climax of the war in Eastern Europe.

The BRICs will be meeting next month, and may have some interesting announcements with regard to currencies.

It is a commonplace to say that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It is perhaps more to the point that power attracts the corruptible, and those with major personality flaws such as psychopathy and narcissism.  

The same is true not only of politics, but of most large organizations, especially those who lack the balance of oversight by the righteous, and rules against the abuses of power.  

The world extracts a price from those who serve power for its rewards.

"Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty.  As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers, with approving smiles."

Simone Weil

Such is the way of Leviathan, embodiment of chaos, and the most ardent of its servants.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Consumption of the Ages

 

"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes."

Andrew Jackson, On the Second Bank of the United States

"Jim, lad, there be consequences an' then there be consequences. Devil take 'em all, says I, and pass aft the rum."

Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“Financial operations do not lend themselves to innovation. What is recurrently so described and celebrated is, without exception, a small variation on an established design. The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version.”

John Kenneth Galbraith, A Short History of Financial Euphoria

"It is no exaggeration to say that since the 1980s, much of the global financial sector has become criminalised, creating an industry culture that tolerates or even encourages systematic fraud.  The behaviour that caused the mortgage bubble and financial crisis of 2008 was a natural outcome and continuation of this pattern, rather than some kind of economic accident.

This behaviour is criminal.  We are talking about deliberate concealment of financial transactions that aided terrorism, nuclear weapons proliferation and large-scale tax evasion; assisting in major financial frauds and in concealment of criminal assets; and committing frauds that substantially worsened the worst financial bubbles and crises since the Depression.   And yet none of this conduct has been punished in any significant way.

Charles H. Ferguson, Wall Street's Role in the Financial Crisis, The Guardian, 20 May 2012

"The asset bubbles since the turn of the 21st century have been enabled by four basic instruments of monetary policy error: Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, and Powell."

Jesse, Malice Domestic and Endless Foreign Wars, 31 July 2018



Gold and silver gave us some clean breakouts today, and went out near the highs. 

The dollar chopped sideways again, finishing marginally higher.

VIX fell.

The major indices gave back a little of  yesterday's meteoric rally.

 "Great designs have linear consequences. Bad designs have exponential consequences."

The coming dislocation from illusion may prove jarring, and as always, inexplicable and unanticipated.

Some large entities may not make it, at least in their current forms. 

They are sliding peacefully into the abyss.

Have a pleasant weekend.