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"...Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the church of Christ as in a net, and preparing the way for a general apostasy from it. Whether this very apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist, or whether he is still to be delayed, we cannot know; but at any rate this apostasy, and all its tokens, and instruments, are of the Evil One and saviour of death.
Far be it from any of us to be of those simple ones, who are taken in that snare which is circling around us! Far be it from us to be seduced with the fair promises in which Satan is sure to hide his poison!
Do you think he is so unskillful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the truth? No; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you a remission of taxes; he promises you reform...
He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his."
J.H.Newman, The Times of Antichrist
The divergence between gold and the broad stock indices is highly encouraging that the precious metals have put in at least a short term bottom, and may threaten to break out over the next couple of weeks.
This is still a very slow time of the year, and seasonally weak for precious metal investments. But favorable winds are just around the corner.
On a breakout, the intermediate target for gold will be around $1755, with some pauses and at least one larger pullback along the way.
Fairly disappointing Jobs Report, but Wall Street has its eye on earnings season and the puffed up corporate numbers that will start rolling out next week.
Watch out for the short term noise, and keep your attention focused on guidance, rather than current numbers which are two parts accounting fluff and three parts Fed subsidies.
If the consumer is not healthy, American business will not be healthy. The effects may just show up with a lag.
Additionally, I have included the daily cash charts of the SP 500 and the NDX with some indicators that seem to suggest that the markets are overextended for the short term, and are ready for some consolidation and perhaps a pullback after this amazing run higher. It can of course become even more overbought in the short term.
A weak report, but not as tragically dramatic as the silly revisions higher that preceded it based on the ephemeral ADP report.
Traders and politicians like the volatility that emotions bring to the decision making process. Jolting the herd from here to there serves to distract them while moving them along in the desired direction.
The recovery is weak, returning to the weak job growth that was evident prior to the crash of 2008, within the bounds of 2005-2006 for those wearing their Bush goggles. The economy is sick, and could possibly take a turn for the worse. It badly needs a structural reworking, and unfortunately that discussion is not even on the table. The monied interests are setting the agendas and shaping the news.
Simple short term stimulus will not 'fix it,' and fiscal austerity is snake oil from the same con men and grifters that brought you the financial crisis with a sick, unbalanced economy on its way to third world status. What is the 'industrial policy' of the US. I would submit that it is still deregulation, the deification of ideal markets that do not exist, and the shifting of more capital to the few in hopes of a trickle down effect that never really occurs. The funds are used to further bind the real economy with artificial impediments and rents.
From budget surplus to death spiral in a little more than a decade. Gee, where did we go wrong?
You all know what needs to be done. But there is not nearly enough to slake the greed of the powerful. So down this road we must go.
Here's one for those who favor giving tax breaks on offshore funds for multinationals who use accounting gimmicks and loopholes to realize their income in tax haven countries. The program allows corporations like GE to repatriate their stashed cash on the cheap, and pay it out in tax free dividends to wealthy shareholders and bonuses for their executives.
It is a powerful incentive to send even more employment and economic activity offshore, and for countries to engage in state directed mercantilism. There are no Porterian 'natural competitive advantages' involved, but there is a strong artificial disincentive to allow domestic consumption and advancement of the mercantilist's own middle class. There is, at the end of the day, the least common denominator of the health and freedom of the many as the unifying corporate objective, and the principle of one world government.
Trickle down is a canard. Globalization and 'free trade' is a means of beating down all independent public policy and local sovereignty. There is no purely objective macroeconomics without major policy assumptions as to the public 'good.' Naturally efficient and rational markets are the economic equivalent of Piltdown Man.
And there is no such thing as sustainable 'free trade' between independent political entities under fiat currency regimes, without assuming a perfectly rational system run by angels. The game is rigged and the regulators and politicians are bought, always and everywhere, under this type of artificial construct, with a nationless oligarchy as its ultimate objective.
