"It is crudely general to suggest collective responsibility for the German populace. It is, however, fair to suggest that those who continued to defend the idea of Germanhood publicly as the war went on—when this had become synonymous with barbarity—were in fact renouncing their humanity for the sake of individual survival and peace of mind."
Panayiotis Demopoulos, Götterdämmerung: Suicide Music
Notice from the charts that the equities have by and large been chopping sideways in a range for the last couple of weeks.
I expect some action towards the month end this week, and of course around the Non-Farm Payrolls, but no real moves until September and October.
The market is fully valued fundamentally, but with the central banks cramming liquidity top down through the financial system there is no telling what the financialized economy may do, and how far it may diverge from the real economy.
That is the very definition of a bubble: too much money mispricing risk too greatly.
"What dost thou see, lone watcher on the tower
Is the day breaking? comes the wish'd-for hour?
Tell us the signs, and stretch abroad thy hand
If the bright morning dawns upon the land.
The stars are clear above me, scarcely one
Has dimm'd its rays in reverence to the sun;
But yet I see, on the horizon's verge,
Some fair, faint streaks, as if the light would surge."
Charles Mackay, The Watcher On The Tower
What failing economy?
Gold and silver drifted higher today in what can best be described as 'lackluster trading.'
The Comex was too bored with its own paper bullion game to even provide data on deliveries last Friday, as you can see from today's delivery report to be found below.
As you may recall, there will be a Non-Farm Payrolls Report for August this Friday. It will be closely watched because one of the last 'safe' opportunities for the Fed to raise rates 25 bp before the election will be this September.
Janet's minder, Stanley Fischer, will be speaking on Bloomberg at 6:30 AM tomorrow, and he may have some things to say that *could* move the markets a bit, as he is sometimes inclined to do.
If I were Janet I would placate these knuckleheads by doing a 25 bp raise in September, and making it clear it was a 'one and done' unless the global economy starts percolating a whole lot more. The last thing the US needs right now is a stronger dollar, given the palpable weakness in the real economy, despite the sloganeering and statistical razzle dazzle to the contrary, for the past six years or so.
"Legitimate power always includes attentiveness to justice, When power is not attentive to justice it cannot endure. This is a summons to us to keep the agenda of justice for the vulnerable alive and front and center to maintain a kind of subversive stance toward power.
The market ideology is now the new form of imperial power and many of us, without any critical reflection, have signed onto that and organized our lives in that way so we do not have any time, energy or capacity for the things that are rightly important to us."
Walter Brueggemann, Speaking Truth To Power
The Personal Spending number this morning was 'better than expected,' and so stocks did as they were expected to do and rallied, a lot less than the stock touts on financial television would have you believe I must say.
The big tickle this week is speculation about what the FOMC will do in September. Since the economy still suffers from a sucking chest wound of policy errors and malinvestment, we might was well talk about when the Dr. Feelgoods of the Fed will come around with another shot of monetary morphine. Too bad they are giving it to the wealthy patrons and their servants in the peanut gallery, instead of to the patient, although it does tend to dull the reporting on the status of the patient.
Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday. It's all about the Fed.
"The state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight.
The pressure to conform to an authority figure or peer group can cause people to behave in shocking ways.
It is not too much to say that Wall Street may be the ultimate owner of the Deep State and its strategies, if for no other reason than that it has the money to reward government operatives with a second career that is lucrative beyond the dreams of avarice— certainly beyond the dreams of a salaried government employee.
The corridor between Manhattan and Washington is a well-trodden highway for the personalities we have all gotten to know in the period since the massive deregulation of Wall Street."
Mike Lofgren
"The unspeakable. What is this?
It is the emptiness of 'the end.' Not necessarily the end of the world, but a theological point of no return, a climax of absolute finality in refusal, in equivocation, in disorder, in absurdity, which can be broken open again to truth only by miracle, by the coming of God.
Those who are at present so eager to be reconciled with the world at any price must take care not to be reconciled with it under this particular aspect: as the nest of The Unspeakable. This is what too few are willing to see.
You are not big enough to accuse the whole age effectively, but let us say you are in dissent. You are in no position to issue commands, but you can speak words of hope.
Shall this be the substance of your message? Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God. You agree? Good. Then go with my blessing."
Let us pray for those whose hearts are hardened against His grace and loving kindness by greed, fear, and pride, and the seductive illusion and crushing isolation of evil.
We pray that we all may experience the three great gifts of our Lord's suffering and triumph: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness. And in so doing, may we obtain abundant life, and with it the peace that surpasses all understanding.
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