Munk Debate On State Surveillance: Hayden-Dershowitz vs. Ohanian-Greenwald

Alan Dershowitz and Michael Hayden versus Alexis Ohanian and Glenn Greenwald, with a video appearance by Edward Snowden.

The actual debate starts around minute 27 on the video. You may use your cursor to click ahead to it.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - More of the Same

If not for the manipulative efforts, there appears to be little legitimate trading volume left to the Comex metals.

The usual games overnight, and a bounce back to the magic 1300 level for gold.

The Jobs Report sucked out loud, despite the 'better than expected' headline jobs number which in my estimation was largely a contrivance, based on a skew in the seasonality and a rather large Birth-Death model addition. 

The unemployment percentage is largely irrelevant now, given all the tinkering they have done with the long term unemployed who are no longer counted among job-seekers.   The hourly wage remains stagnant, not keeping pace with prices.

Have a pleasant weekend.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, But Alas, Few Wages

Job growth continues at its aenemic pace despite the better than expected headline monthly number, which was largely due to a seasonality adjustment and an outsized Birth-Death model addition.

Wage growth was stagnant, and labor force participation continues to drop.

There is a pig under all that lipstick and mascara, and its name is insatiable greed and the folly of selfishness.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Non-Farm Payrolls Tomorrow

"Every century is like every other, and to those who live in it seems worse than all times before it...

God alone knows the day and the hour when that will at length be, which He is ever threatening; meanwhile, thus much of comfort do we gain from what has been hitherto, not to despond, not to be dismayed, not to be anxious, at the troubles which encompass us. They have ever been; they ever shall be; they are our portion."

John Henry Newman

As Newman said so well, every century is like every other, but seems to be the worst to those who live in it. I had a little chuckle the other day when I was reading essentially the same sentiment from Augustine of Hippo, who was writing about the beginning of the fifth century.

I had the opportunity some years ago to visit Newman's personal living quarters, and look through his amazing private library, at The Oratory on Hagley Road in Birmingham, England. His sense of history is profound.  And it was moving to sit at his very desk, to see some of his personal notes still there, his glasses, and to see the little bedroom and private chapel off his study where the notes and pictures of those for whom he prayed are still there on the wall.

I always get a thrill when I see the actual places and things of historical figures, because it reminds one that they were people just like us, with our own weaknesses and strengths, anxieties and trials, and our own hopes and misgivings.

Nothing really happened in the metals today, except for some withdrawals shown in the Comex gold warehouses, and some brave souls standing for 'delivery' in May.

Tomorrow is non-Farm Payrolls, and if the wiseguys have anything more to say, that is probably when they will say it.

Have a pleasant evening.