Weekend Reading: The Significance of the Individual

What we do, and what do not do, matters greatly, if not so much in the greater world, but to those around us, and to the resolution of our souls, the essence of our being.

We are free to believe what we will, but we will be held accountable for what we believe and what we do, and the consequences of our beliefs and our unbelief.
There is a simple belief in the Lord, and an equally simple unbelief.   One does not follow the will of God and His love by despoiling His creatures and His creation for their own selfishly destructive ends.  If there is no love in your actions, then you have lost your way.  Where there is no love, there is no living faith.  It is that simple.  No love, no life.

"Not everyone who calls out to me, 'Lord! Lord!' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven." Matt 7:21

And if you think that the Lord whom you serve calls you to self-righteous hatred, jealousy, intolerance, anger and envy, then you may serve that lord indeed, forever.  So do not bee deceived, and know well whom it is you serve.  It is worth some thought— for the time grows short, and the shadows lengthen.

"God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham.

Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us.

He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about."

John Henry Newman, Meditations and Devotions

Bill Black Financial Report - How London Aspired to Be Fraud Capital of the World

Apparently since Blair the FSA has been soliciting financial business by advertising the loosest regulatoary morals on either side of the Atlantic.

Not that the US is any paragon of virtue. Timmy is known as the go-to head boy for the biggest banks.

But this is no surprise, because as Kansas City Fed governor Hoenig said, for the past twenty five years the selection of the US Treasury Secretary has been done by a de facto private auction to the biggest banks.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Not Much of a Pullback Yet

Not much of a pullback but still stuck at resistance.

It appears that September has come and gone without the CFTC saying 'peep' about the manipulation in the silver markets.

Let's see how next week goes.

Have a pleasant weekend.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - HFT Is Strangling the Markets

I was a bit surprised to see the paint slipping off the tape today, in the face of slack domestic US economic news. People cannot spend what they do not have.

High Frequency Trading, as it now stands, is institutionalized corruption of the markets, and it is killing them. The SEC is looking at it, but it is hard to imagine that they will do anything meaningful in the way of reform.

Those who 'own' the exchanges are operating them as their personal casinos, front running and skimming customers at every turn, and they generally get their way with these regulators in the States.

The market was sluggish today. Let's see if the bulls can whistle up a rally next week on these light volumes.