Wall Street and The Clintons

The Clintons turned the Democrats into the Republicans, while the Republicans were turning into a mob.

Do not be a partisan for either party. Be a partisan for justice. Be committed to fairness, transparency, liberty, and the truth.

The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery.

The Clintons and Wall Street: 24 Years of Enriching Each Other
by Richard W. Behan
February 26, 2016

For twenty four years the Clintons have orchestrated a conjugal relationship with Wall Street, to the immense financial benefit of both parties. They have accepted from the New York banks $68.72 million in campaign contributions for their six political races, and $8.85 million more in speaking fees. The banks have earned hundreds of billions of dollars in practices that were once prohibited—until the Clinton Administration legalized them.

The extraordinary ambition displayed in the careers of Bill and Hillary Clinton defies description. They have spent much of their adult lives soliciting money from others for their own benefit...

Hillary Clinton’s net worth is forty five million dollars; Bill Clinton’s is eighty million. Measured by family wealth, this puts the couple in the top 1% of American households by a factor of 16.  (and they claim to have left the White House 'broke')

The Clintons’ ambition is reinforced by arrogance. Their behavior in the Monica Lewinsky affair is only the most glaring example. Sexual frivolities while holding office are scarcely unusual, having spiced the lives of public figures for centuries, but if the dalliance is exposed, the scarlet official typically resigns in shame and scuttles into obscurity...

That performance pales, however, compared to the Clintons’ self-serving transformation of the Democratic Party, from the champion of working people to the lapdog of Wall Street—and of corporate America in general. Cleverly the Clintons still pander to the traditional constituency, but in serving its new clientele the transformed party abandoned the less fortunate strata of American society, especially the communities of color...

Read the entire article at Counterpunch here.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts -

The economic news this morning was 'better than expected,' showing an upward revision in 4Q GDP and stronger consumer spending.

And the dollar rallied, the Fed hawks like Cleveland's Mester were out talking the likelihood of rate increases, and stocks rallied, but then flopped badly into the close.

And so we say goodby to February, as we leap over Monday of next week, and toddle bravely into the great unknown, often wrong but rarely in doubt.  This is the way things are when you are living on credibility in the age of the long con.

Speaking of cons, Chris Christie endorsed Donald Trump this afternoon.   Birds of a feather, like grackles and starlings.

It was a reasonably strong month for gold, at least on paper.

There are some interesting things going on in silver, which the usual suspects will firmly deny are of any such interest. I direct your attention to the intraday commentary about that here.

I think silver might be a little more interesting going forward than it has been.

Nothing has changed. Not one thing. And that, alas, is the pity of it.

Have a pleasant weekend.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - The Violence of the Scams

"This nation is getting remarkably adept at turning its less affluent citizens upside down and shaking them, until literally every single cent falls out of their pockets. And then it induces them to take on debt so they can be shaken down some more."

Malcom McMichael

The 'better than expected' economic data this morning sparked a rally, that was then sold off, leaving the major indices red into the close.

How amazing that the backward looking data from this morning shows that Americans are spending more, near a record, and that spending is on recreation!

No wonder there is such job growth in the services, like bartenders and waitstaff.

Does this mean that the more than half of our citizens who are subsisting in poverty and food stamps are having a secret good time of it?   Or that the government statistics and the economic models are a bunch of self-serving, cockeyed nonsense.   No question mark on purpose, the question is rhetorical.

Let us bear in mind that for the privileged and the shameless, nothing is too low, or too ridiculous when faced with the alternative of surrendering their greatly undeserved advantages.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Silver Potential Claims Per Ounce of Comex Deliverable Climb To New High

"When running a Ponzi scheme, how does one avoid enormous, unexpected withdrawals, runs on the bank, so to speak, that would pull back the curtain and reveal a little man blowing smoke? One way would be to attract a core of investors who could be counted on to never withdraw more than a small percentage of principal each year."

Mitchell Zuckoff

As you know if you have been following the running commentary here, February has been a deadly dull month for silver on the Comex.

And yet the action in the warehouses, bullion coming and going, has been quite active as you again have heard here many times.

Much of this has to do with the fact that CNT is using their own licensed facility as a means of managing the flows of bullion for their wholesale silver supply business, notably to the US Mint.

As you can see from the chart below, the amount of 'registered silver' has been declining steadily, while the open interest, or number of contracts for this silver sold on the Comex exchange, has been climbing.

And so we have another interesting thing to watch, and which I assume we will be told not to look at, that it means nothing.

The potential claims per ounce of deliverable silver on the Comex Exchange has climbed to a new high. And this in a particularly inactive month.

If you look carefully at the charts below you will see that there is plenty of silver in the warehouses. It is that for some reason not so much of it is in the registered category, which is something 'new.'

Another thing you may notice is the huge hoard of silver in the JPM warehouse, and the declining stocks in the active wholesaler's warehouse, CNT.

Curiouser and curiouser.