Death By Metadata: Greenwald and Scahill with Amy Goodman

Bill Moyers: Deep State Hiding In Plain Sight

"Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose.

My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an 'establishment.'

All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched.

Far from being invincible, its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State’s protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude."

Mike Lofgren, Anatomy of the Deep State

"Rome lived upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face. Industry is the only true source of wealth, and there was no industry in Rome. By day the Ostia road was crowded with carts and muleteers, carrying to the great city the silks and spices of the East, the marble of Asia Minor, the timber of the Atlas, the grain of Africa and Egypt; and the carts brought out nothing but loads of dung. That was their return cargo."

Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom of Man

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Coiling Into Option Expiration

Yes it is that time again as next Tuesday is another option expiration for the precious metals on the Comex. See the calendar chart below.

The Comex warehouses continued to shuffle their chips and cards, with no meaningful movement of gold bullion in or out yesterday.

Gold is obviously coiling in a symmetrical triangle at key resistance, within a large inverse H&S formation, and an even larger 'W formation.'

I do not expect the Comex situation to resolve itself this month, with continuing low inventories of deliverable gold and antics with price and delivery being played until there is some shock from outside the pits, some failure to deliver that cannot be covered up or brushed aside. 

It *could* break right at the Comex, but I suspect that the price setting mechanisms there are sufficiently divorced from the real market so that Comex will be collateral damage to some much larger event. 

It takes patience in times like these, since things unfold slowly when you watch them every day.  But when the time is come, it seems as though it happens all in a rush, and the inevitability of it all appears to have been written large on the wall. 

That is how it was with the last financial crisis, and that is how it will be with the next one which is probably no more than two years away.  While the policies and fundamentals remain the same, it will be foolish to expect other outcomes.

Have a pleasant weekend. See you Sunday evening.

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Bumping Against Resistance

Stocks tried to rally today, but fell back again in the afternoon. This 1840ish resistance on the SP 500 futures is proving formidable, with at least twelve tests so far this year that have failed to breach it, four times most recently.

I think we will need to see some signs of sustainability in the real economy before stocks can move confidently higher, with the Fed starting to pull back on the rate at which it throws easy money to the financiers.

And despite a few misleading statistics here and there, it is just not happening yet. This is a classic liquidity trap, where the failure of aggregate demand is causing the production side to hold back, and yet the policy makers continue to dampen the income side that fuels that demand.

Do not get me wrong, providing living wages to more people would certainly stimulate aggregate demand, but so also would a more mercantilist stance towards exports and imports, or an exogenous demand such as war. Perpetual war of the sort we see the US and UK engaging in does not quite do it, as it is a slow smolder and narrowly concentrated in high ticket technology.

How can any other outcome be expected, given the continuing anti-human nonsense that is monetary and public policy?

Have a pleasant evening.