Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol 1954

“You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling. “Tell me why?”

“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by
link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my
own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?”
Scrooge trembled more and more.

“Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the
strong coil you bear yourself?  It was full as heavy and as long as this,
seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a
ponderous chain!..."

“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Ted Butler Calls Out JPM For Silver Manipulation - Stille Nacht

"I am talking about the data over the past seven years that show JPMorgan of having sold short on every silver rally to cap those price rallies to the extent that the bank held short positions that sometimes totaled over 200 million ounces and more than 30% of the entire market. And then the bank buying back every short position it added at a profit, never once taking a loss. Now this crooked bank has amassed more than 400 million ounces of physical silver at the depressed prices it created itself by continuing to short futures on the COMEX.

So let’s get back to why JPMorgan has been silent in the face of allegations that would constitute libel if they weren’t true. There is only one possible explanation – the bank just doesn’t want to go there. To react in any way to allegations that it is crooked in silver would bring outside attention to this issue. Any blowback from JPM against me would invite an investigation by the media and the investment community into what this issue is all about. I believe JPMorgan knows this and is doing what it can to prevent exposure, namely, allowing the allegations to go unanswered."

Ted Butler, An Unprecedented Circumstance

I doubt any of the Banks fear the media these days.  Except for a few mostly independent holdouts, investigative journalism in the US is subdued, if not comatose.

More likely they fear provoking a real 'discovery process.'

I am surprised that one of the commodity producing countries has not raised the issue of global price manipulation with the WTO, since besides the mining companies, they have the most to lose.

FOMC meetings with an announcement on Wednesday at 2 PM.

What is surprising is not that men and women will lose their souls, the only thing that they can ever possess that in the end really matters.

No, what is truly surprising is that they do so almost without a care or a thought, and for so little.  Almost as if their humanity was somehow a weakness, and their conscience a liability to be feared.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Wash and Rinse

Stocks were in a wide trading range today, as the algo held a little preliminary 'wash and rinse' ahead of the FOMC announcement on Wednesday, and the quad witch option expiration on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.

Silent Night, 1914

Late on Christmas Eve 1914, men of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) heard Germans troops in the trenches opposite them singing carols and patriotic songs and saw lanterns and small fir trees along their trenches. Messages began to be shouted between the trenches.

The following day, British and German soldiers met in no man's land and exchanged gifts, took photographs and some played impromptu games of football. They also buried casualties and repaired trenches and dugouts. After Boxing Day, meetings in no man's land dwindled out.

The truce was not observed everywhere along the Western Front. Elsewhere the fighting continued and casualties did occur on Christmas Day. Some officers were unhappy at the truce and worried that it would undermine fighting spirit.

After 1914, the High Commands on both sides tried to prevent any truces on a similar scale happening again. Despite this, there were some isolated incidents of soldiers holding brief truces later in the war, and not only at Christmas.

British Imperial War Museum, The Real Story of the Christmas Truce