SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Off the Lows

Stocks came off their lows in the afternoon.

Keep your eyes on the Russell 2000 for a better idea of the health of the recovery, and of the equity markets. The DJIA is a joke, a diversion for tourists and the media.

Have a pleasant evening.

High Tide for the Dollar: Revenge of the Sith

I have certainly considered this scenario many times, of how the dollar regime might evolve,  and the one discussed below remains one possible outcome.  

There is an intense international discussion going on about the future of the international currency system, and relations in general.  I have referred to this generally as the 'currency wars' for some time. 

Most Americans have yet to notice this, due in no small part to the silence of the mainstream media.   If the US and the BRICs cannot engage in a rapprochement over the future of the international monetary system, and keep pushing a hard line for a US dollar hegemony, then of course the BRICs may pursue those discussions by other means.

One way to do this would be to revalue gold at let's say $10,000 per ounce, and use it to partially back their own currency, or currencies.  Bill Holter does a good job of outlining that in the article excerpted below.  The details of how that one might play out is certainly open to much debate. 

The counter to this is force, which the US has been employing much more aggressively and pre-emptively of late than it otherwise has done in the post-Cold War era. 

I had assigned this somewhat unilateral devaluation of the Dollar to Gold outcome a low probability, thinking that the US and its allies, Britain, Japan, and parts of the EU, would continue supporting each other's currencies and policies of foreign exchange valuations through non-transparent swaps and buying, in a managed devaluation amongst themselves of course. But I thought they would at least open the door to allowing the SDR to be reconstituted with a broader basket of currencies and metals not under NATO control.

The events of late in Ukraine make me wonder if the negotiations have not broken down because the hard liners in the Anglo-American cartel have prevailed over those who might favor accommodation and compromise. When the coup d'état occurred, with the US involvement becoming known, I had one of those 'WTF' moments many of us had when the US made a hard right turn and attacked Iraq, seemingly out of nowhere as a response to 911.   Wow, where did that come from?

Certainly it must be obvious that the neo-cons are back in force in Washington, although the neo-liberal economists in the Obama cabinet are certainly capable of carrying the financial side of that American Century outlook.

This is not to say that Russia and China are in the right, or are 'good.'  They have positions and the Anglo-American financiers have positions.  One can certainly debate the relative merits, but for my own case I wish to try and understand what is happening, so that we may best adjust to it and understand what is happening and why.  

And it would certainly be difficult to give high marks to the Anglo-American elites for taking care of those at home, and managing the domestic infrastructure and prosperity.  As we see so often throughout history, this appears to be the case of an oligarchy versus another oligarchy, as they grow restless within their domains.

Therefore I continue to believe that we will see change, rather than collapse.  Although if I were writing a book, or selling my site for clicks, the temptation for blaring headlines of doom might be stronger.   Things change, and periods of change always invoke dire predictions and phantoms of doom.  

I am more concerned about a union amongst the oligarchs and the rise of a global governance that is anti-human, to be frank.   But even that is most likely an outlier I would like to think.  Of more real concern perhaps are the unsuspecting believers and the gullible who may be proudly riding the gospel of prosperity, and a fascination for the trappings but not the substance of devotion, into the maws of hell, with 'Lord, Lord' on their lips.  But that is another matter for a smaller audience, and a preoccupation for some of us here.

So grab something solid and hang on.  I don't know enough to be able to predict how this will turn out, and  anyone who might be able to do so realizes that the fog of war is descending quickly.   Predictions and guesses are cheap, and will become even more plentiful as things progress.  But knowledge is the coin of the realm.

There could be rough waters ahead, mateys. But one can always hope that cooler and wiser and stronger heads will prevail.  This will play out slowly, until something happens, and then events may being to move rather quickly.  Pray for the best, and prepare for the worst.

"Next Tuesday, Vladimir Putin will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, I believe that the odds are quite high that an energy deal will be announced where Russia will supply China with oil and gas and that infrastructure (pipelines) will also be built to the express exclusion of the dollar. Please understand that this is not a deal where a few million barrels of oil are sent and then get settled for, no, this will be a very long term partnership which is why the infrastructure will be built.

My intent was to explain that China has imported 1,000′s of tons of gold over the last several years and that they (even though their system is very highly leveraged just as ours) have prepared themselves for what is coming.  'What is coming' is that China will have just as many massive defaults as the U.S. will …but with a “small difference.” I believe that China will mark gold up to an arbitrary number of let’s say $10,000 per ounce which will do a number of things. First, this will make China’s holdings worth much much more which can and will be used as collateral to steady their debt markets. This collateral will serve to re liquefy the banks AND back their currency should they wish to (I believe they do).

Another added 'benefit' is that this will expose the fact that the West no longer has any gold. The dollar will go into a spiral because not just 'one lunatic' like Saddam Hussein is proposing to no longer use dollars. No, we are talking about 2 major oil producers and our largest trading partner who may just be the largest economy in the world having eclipsed us. Another little tidbit is that these 3 taken together were for years the absolute arch enemy of the U.S. and now they are forming a unified triad where Russia and Iran can say, 'Hey, you told us not to use dollars anymore, we’re just doing what you’ve told us to do.'  Talk about forming 'policy' without looking 5 seconds into the future, our sanctions would be the definition of this."

Bill Holter, They Don't Need Us, We Need Them

Read the entire article here.

The Most Destructive Bubbles of All: Corporate Profits Amid Private Poverty

"The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy.

Mr. Hoover didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow’s hands.”

Will Rogers, St. Petersburg Times, Nov 26, 1932


“Much like Herbert Hoover, Barack Obama is a man attempting to realize a stirring new vision of his society without cutting himself free from the dogmas of the past, without accepting the inevitable conflict. Like Hoover, his is bound to fail.”

Kevin Baker, Barack Hoover Obama: The Best and the Brightest Blow it Again, Harper's


"In regards to the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates as simple interest does, the rise of profit operates like compound interest.

Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.”

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations


“We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all — by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians — be participating in its destruction?

Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us."

Wendell Berry


“Trickle-down theory - the less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.”

John Kenneth Galbraith


"Fascism is capitalism plus murder."

Upton Sinclair

 

Tweeting the Decline and Fall of Western Civilisation, One Institution At a Time

“[Edmund] Burke said that there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate, more important far than they all.”

Thomas Carlyle

"In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people."

Hugo L. Black

"The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason."

Hunter S. Thompson

“We become slaves the moment we hand the keys to the definition of reality entirely over to someone else, whether it is a business, an economic theory, a political party, the White House, Newsworld or CNN.”

B.W. Powe

Quod erat demonstratum. (that which was to be demonstrated)