Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Industrious Lunatics: One Vast Vision of Imbecility

 

"The calm words of the wise are worth more than the shouts of the rulers of fools.  Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one unrighteous man can destroy much that is good."

Ecclesiastes 9:17-18

"These are peoples that have lost the power of astonishment at their own actions.  When they give birth to a fantastic fashion or a foolish law, they do not start or stare at the monster they have brought forth.  They have grown used to their own unreason; chaos is their cosmos; and the whirlwind is the breath of their nostrils.  

These nations are really in danger of going off their heads en masse; of becoming one vast vision of imbecility, with toppling cities and crazy countrysides, all dotted with industrious lunatics.”

G.K. Chesterton, The Mad Official, 1912

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true.  Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.

The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951

“Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.”

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794

"The Barbarian hopes — and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too.  He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being.  Discipline seems to him irrational.

We sit by and watch the barbarian.  We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid.  We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creed refreshes us; we laugh.  But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles."

Hillaire Belloc, 1912


Stocks soared for the State of the Union, and then promptly flopped.

VIX ticked back up, but was well off its high.

The Dollar spiked again in the afternoon and then back down to nearly unchanged.

Bitcoin seems to be firmly locked into a rather narrow trading range.  I have been playing swings in it for a while now, and its a good earner, as the mob bosses would say.  Fitting, because crypto does seems like organized crime.

Gold and silver caught a bid.

While the domestic economic data is interesting and all that, it is the geo-political factors that will be weighing most heavily on the risk markets and the precious metals. 

Vance and Rubio have been hitting on the FUD factor (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) in support of a war with Iran that is very reminiscent on the drumbeats for the war with Iraq in 2003. Which was also a bunch of hoo-haw.

He-who-must-not-be-named wants this war, and has been lobbying for it since the 1990s.

Trump doesn't want to do it, and his generals know it is a tactical headache, but here we are.

The volatility in this market must be unsettled for the average punter.  It reminds me of other late stage bubbles we have known and loved.

Keep your leverage low, your positions flexible, and always, always avoid taking 'the big hit.'   It can wipe out many years of trading profits almost overnight. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Emptiness That Drives Their Madness

 

“We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

Stephen Miller, CNN Interview, 6 January 2026

"Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater."

Alvin Smith, George Washington Carver: Man of God, 1961

"Every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness. Hell is a nothingness which has the pretension and the illusion of being. A mere chance can strip us of our possessions — except the power to say ‘I’. That is what we have to give to God — in other words, to sacrifice. There is no other free act which is given us to accomplish — only the surrender of the ‘I’"

Simone Weil, La pesanteur et la grâce, 1947

"In dark and pathological times, when the better part of the human spirit are on the wane and love grows cold, many lust after power.  Power becomes the standard of value, the coin of the realm, in a deeply fallen world.  And in such a world the only virtue is greed.

How much is enough?  The will to power is a pathological sickness that becomes insatiable and all consuming.  It anoints its own angels of death.  Do not be among those who will be taken during the dark times when the love of many grows cold.  Stand humbly and firmly to the end.  And you will have your greatness."

Jesse, Preserving Sanctity in Times of Darkness, 6 July 2017

"His instruments are poor and despised; the world hardly knows their names. They are busied about what the world thinks petty, and no one minds them. They are apparently set on no great works; nothing is seen to come of what they do: they seem to fail. 

But there is an unseen connection in the kingdom of God. Such is the rule of our warfare. We rise by falling; we inherit the earth through meekness; we gain comfort through mourning; we earn glory by penitence and prayer. Heaven and earth shall sooner fall than this rule be reversed; it is the law of Christ's kingdom, and nothing can reverse it but sin."

John Henry Newman 

 

Stocks rallied today in response to the big, beautiful State of the Union speech by Trumpolini last night.

What a surprise.

Gold and silver were rallying a bit but in the last hour were hit hard by program selling on higher volumes.

What a surprise.

Gold and silver owe no allegiance to anyone, any counterparty, and that is why those obsessed with a lust for power hate them. 

VIX fell.  What are the risks for the masters of the universe?

The dollar slipped after a mid-day push.  

The Dollar, once the bastion of imperial overreach, is becoming the weakest link. 

Bitcoin managed to rally quite nicely, but is still within a lackluster trading range.

The Trump boys are crypto-kids.  But they are only concerned with Bitcoin to the extent that it might reflect badly on their own crypto corner.

There are some very broken people, broken and sick at heart, who lust for power to have their revenge on innocence and the love they think they have been denied.  They need to fill their emptiness with things and people, and their obsessions often take a turn to the darkness. They have no goodness in them, consumed by daemonic madness.

We are certainly seeing this now with the Epstein revelations, and government's policies towards the weak and the disadvantaged that are marked by needless brutality, and too often malevolent cruelty.  This is not 'normal.'   This is not righteousness.  

This is as old as Babylon, and evil as sin.  

If people will turn a blind eye to wars of aggression, murder on the high seas, and open genocide, what limits could their 'inner morality' possibly place to contain their lawlessness?  They give themselves over to madness, to escape the pain of being broken creatures, lashing out in a cycle of self-inflicted pain.  

Do not be among those who will be taken by the darkness, when the love of many will grow cold.  Stand humbly and firmly to the end.  And you will find your salvation, and abundant life.

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Great Crash of 1929, and Its Little Brothers

 

"Economic history, even at its most violent, has a much less exciting tempo than military or even political history.  Days are rarely important.  All of the autumn of 1929 was a terrible time, and all of that year was one of climax.  With the invaluable aid of hindsight it is possible to see that for many previous months the stage was being set for the final disaster.

The great crash was the counterpart of the insane speculation in common stocks in 1927, 1928, and especially in the summer of 1929 that preceded it. The sequence was in the classic manner of the pure speculative episode.

Prices first went up because of good earnings. Then they took leave of reality. The market was taken over by people for whom the only important fact was that prices were going up.  Their buying then put up the prices but with the certainty that when the supply of such speculators ran out, as eventually it would, the upward movement would come to an end and prices would collapse in the rush to realize and get out.

In a market like that of 1929, there are three possible reasons why people buy stocks. One is for the old-fashioned purpose of sharing in the current income of an enterprise.

A second and far larger group of people were buying stocks because they had heard that the stock market was a place where people could get rich, and they were righteously persuaded that their right to be rich was as good as the next person.

Finally, stocks were being bought by those who knew that a boom was on but who intended to get out-or even, at a high level of professionalism, to go short- before the crash came. As 1929 wore along, it was this group that became increasingly nervous.

The market was making phenomenal advances; one couldn't get out while there were still such gains to be made. But whenever there was upsetting news, the market dropped sharply on large volume. Some were getting out.

We are now hearing from the banks and the Federal Reserve that financial genius, manifested through monetary policy, will be our salvation.  High interest rates, tight money, and the resulting recession will end inflation.  We need to be as skeptical now as people learned they should have been then. 

I hope that no one will think me unkind to those who believe that monetary witchcraft will protect us from painful economic consequences.  One seeks, indeed, to save these very good men from the possibly drastic consequences of their own illusions."

John Kenneth Galbraith, Congressional Testimony: Can It Happen Again?, October 29, 1979 

"As of February 2026, after 12 quarters of selling, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is holding a record cash pile of $382 billion.  This liquidity is primarily parked in short-term U.S. Treasury bills.  Cash and equivalents now account for over 30% of Berkshire's total assets."

Ask ChatGPT,  Hey Has Buffet raised his BH cash allocation?


A low cost S&P stock index fund seems to be a decent place for investment over a LONG TERM 20+years time horizon.  It has some drawbacks, especially over shorter time horizons. 

Every investment contains some element of risk.  And when considering risk, there is power in having a diversified portfolio of investments.  How to achieve diversification suited for one's needs is a fit subject to discuss with a professional, with the understanding that not all 'professionals' are equally competent and fiduciary.

As Walter Bagehot said, 'Life is a school of probabilities.'  

Yo, sound the bell, school's in.  Can't touch this. 

Stocks managed to rally back today, as I suggested might happen.

Bessent can't have his Prince delivering the State of the Union address tonight without bragging rights on the Dow.   Even Hot Lips Leavitt couldn't put a positive spin on a market slump.  She'll most likely get some practice with this as the year moves along. 

Gold and silver also gave it up early as expected, it being a Comex futures March contract option expiration and all.  But they bounced back nicely which is something a little new.

VIX is holding a littler higher these days, skipping along on the EMA 20.

The Dollar bounced up just a little. 

So let's see what Donald says to further baffle the world tonight.  

Sorry, I won't be watching.  I have some episodes of Knight of the Seven Kingdoms to watch.  I still am leery of HBO after they carelessly shoved the final episodes of Game of Thrones out the door.    

I read the Tales of Dunk and Egg books by Martin and I liked them very much.  I stopped watching House of the Dragon because I read that book too.  

If I wanted to be bored and disappointed I would watch the State of the Union tonight.

Have a pleasant evening.