SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Ho Hum

As boring days go, today was a fairly boring day.

Given all the florid headlines about the confrontation in the Ukraine, the markets shook it all off.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Ukraine Gold Reserves Said To Be Put On Plane For Safekeeping in the US

 

Depiction on the Arch of Titus of the gold Menorah being
taken from the Temple to Rome after the sack of Jerusalem

This is a story based on a report out of the Ukraine. Obviously I do not know yet if it is accurate. The information coming out of the Ukraine and Crimea should be sifted carefully, no matter what the source. 

I find this one hard to believe.  I am informed by highly reliable people that no one cares about gold anymore. And very important analysts claim that transporting many tonnes of gold (Ukraine is said to have about 33 tonnes) is very difficult, and so unwieldy and fraught with peril that it must be a multiyear project.

But if the Ukraine's gold was taken away for safekeeping, it may be so safe that they will never see it again for a long time.  Just ask Germany.

Newswire 24
Ukrainian gold reserves loaded on an unidentified transport aircraft in Kiev
By Marcus Brooks

According to the iskra-news.info last night ,Ukrainian gold reserves (40 sealed boxes) were loaded on an unidentified transport aircraft in Kiev’s Borispol airport. The board took off immediately.

A source in the Ukrainian government confirmed that the transfer of the gold reserves of Ukraine to the United States was ordered by the acting PM Arseny Yatsenyuk.

So my guess is, that is if indeed this report is true it either means the new ruling elite have stolen the gold bullion or perhaps their is a legitimate fear of the Russians taking possession of this bullion, whatever the facts, it still looks very shady indeed.

Conclusion

Official narrative: gold bullion is going to USA (maybe to reassure the Germans their gold is in safe hands, after all the despite numerous requests from the German Govt The Feds have not given access for them to even view their Gold Bullion) . Real narrative: probably to Switzerland where it is divided between Yulia Tymoshenko and her cronies.

Here is a machine translation of the story in Russian from Iskra News:

Tonight from Borispol in the U.S. strartoval plane with gold reserves of Ukraine

As our site workers airport "Borispol", this night in 2-00, with the designated airport runway started unregistered transport plane ...

According to the staff "Boryspil", before it came to the airport four collector car and two cargo minibus Volkswagen, while , all arriving truck license plate missing. Car pulled out of about fifteen people in black uniforms, masks and body armor. Some of them were armed with machine guns. These people have downloaded the plane more than forty heavy boxes ... After that, some mysterious men arrived too entered the plane.

All loading was carried out in a huge hurry. After unloading the car without license plates immediately left the runway, and the plane took off on an emergency basis ... Those who saw all this mysterious "special operation" airport officials immediately notified the administration of "Boryspil", from which received a strong recommendation "not to meddle in other people's affairs ..."

Later, in received call back one of the senior officials of the former Ministry of income and fees, which reported that, according to him, tonight, on the orders of one of the "new leaders" of Ukraine in the United States has been taken all the gold reserves in Ukraine ...

Third World America: 'The Greatest Health Care System In the World'

“Propaganda serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.”

Eric Hoffer


“It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense, than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.”

John Kenneth Galbraith
 

Robert Johnson: New Perspectives For Economics

Some of Johnson's remarks are extraordinarily insightful.

I enjoyed his comments on the modern preoccupation with modeling. But I do think his looking back to the Thirty Years War for the trend towards abstract theory over the empirical method in general is a bit of a stretch. But it was kind of cool to think about it.

Quite the opposite, much of the rest of science is very much more empirically oriented, and based on experimentation, replication, and testing. Perhaps he intended that economics be considered more as a social philosophy, and that this trend is particular to that area of knowledge, and I did not understand this.

I think that economics had draped itself with the math and rigor of science, but bent over backwards to say those things that were politically expedient, depending on one's particular biases and opinions. The intricacy and jargon were there to provide the accoutrements, the flames and smoke and loud pronouncements, that make ordinarily people tremble before those modern Wizards of Oz.

He is otherwise rather kind towards those in his profession who, when the predators appeared on the horizon, swam out to meet the boats and came ashore with them in their plundering. Not all of course, but far too many, and for far too long. Where was the peer review and the discipline of the profession? While the coins were flowing, it seemed as though it was 'go along to get along' with the proper professional courtesy. Perhaps the tone was set for the trade by the Fed under Alan Greenspan.

I believe that his comments are primarily directed towards the economics profession in the US and England, who have taken point on the modeling bandwagon and have given themselves over to viewing reality through the prism of abstractions, shaped top down by ideology.