Hurricane Sandy Track for the Next Five Days

We may wish to keep an eye on this one for any potential impact on trading for the early part of next week.

It will probably not maintain a broad hurricane intensity, but it looks to have some serious momentum behind it, with the tides of a full moon at its back.

I am sure most Northeasterners remember the 'Halloween' storm of last year.

There is some question on how and where Sandy will make landfall on Monday or Tuesday. It could bring several feet of snow with it to Pennsylvania, and heavy rains to the NYC metropolitan area.

It will probably not maintain hurricane status, dropping to a serious tropical storm.

More significantly, depending on the storm surge direction, NY traders may wish to bring their water wings with them to the pits. It could be much worse than Hurricane Irene in that regard.

I have added this chart below because it shows the track most clearly and makes the last leg into the shore much more visible.  The storm damage will depend on the path this takes.  It could conceivably be anywhere from Boston to Washington at this point.

It may move further out to sea but the models make this seem less likely. We will know more in another day or so. Get those generators ready.

I have to add that a week ago when I started tracking this storm when it was off the Yucatan Peninsula, the ONLY model that showed it taking its current track was the Canadian model. Every other major model showed the storm moving much further harmlessly out to sea. Score one for Canada on the weather front.

One of my son's friends from school is a serious meteorologist in training. He keeps us updated on the latest thinking in the emerging science. He does it because he loves it. Even when they were in high school he spent a great deal of time on it.

What is his incentive to do this? It is not the expectation of a solid six figure income. It is the joy of learning, the ecstasy of understanding. And he may well be rewarded for this, but that will be a benefit, not the primary objective.

In the days when people considered what they did for a living as a craft, in the manner of craftsman, this attitude towards one's vocation was not so uncommon as it might be today, when everything and everyone is considered just a transaction.

Of course not everyone and every job can rise to that level. But such regard for honest labor was considered an important ideal, and society honored those who honored it.

In our world today, everything is money, no matter how it is achieved, including theft and fraud and the exploitation of slave like labor.  Look who we choose as our role models, and our leaders.   The attitudes and mores of human society moves in cycles, and I think we are at the low ebb of this one.

Think about the implications of this, and then see why we are where we are today, in the teeth of a storm.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts

Another day of capping with some notable movement in some of the mining companies like AEM which soared nine percent today.

SP 500 and NDX Daily Charts

The selling is starting to look a bit overdone to the downside, but GDP on Friday may have some influence on the future direction.

Wall Street Back In Business, Largely Unreformed

“I have seen them, and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my wrath may burn against them, that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” Ex 32

This brief video below is notable for an appearance by Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism. 

A credibility trap exists when the regulatory, political and/or informational functions of a society have been compromised by a corrupting influence and a fraud, so that they cannot address the situation without hindering and implicating, at least incidentally, a broad swath of the power structure including themselves.

The status quo has at least tolerated the corruption and the fraud, if not profited directly from it, and most likely continues to do so.

The power brokers have become susceptible to various forms of blackmail. And so a failed policy can become almost self-sustaining long after it is seen to have failed, and even become counterproductive, because admitting failure is not an option for those in power.

The financiers will attempt to make the people an 'offer which they cannot refuse' again, as they did on the occasion of TARP, when they threatened to crash the economy.

The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustained growth and recovery.

I do not see meaningful reform happening easily, given the intractable hysteria which is gripping those wealthy few who are eager to seize and hold power.  There is a portion of the public who think that whatever they believe must be true, whether the facts support it or not.   And this is a great heresy against reason, and an abuse of faith.  There will be no rapturous escape from judgement for this apostasy and lawlessness, except perhaps into madness.

There is an almost unbelievable tolerance of brazen bullying and deception, a sneering cyncism and disregard of any truth in people who say a thing one day, and then deny it and say a totally different thing on the next, without shame.  Love grows cold even among the faithful, and lies abound. 

This is the very epitome of the will to power. The western world and its leadership are at a crossroads. And the path ahead, if taken, means hardship, sorrow, and blood.