"They defended him, verbally and physically, every time he committed one of his criminal acts. They went blithely on past the suffering of all the bombing victims, the prisoners in the concentration camps, and the religious persecutors, because a different regime would have meant the end of their power. 'You made this monster, and as long as things were going well you gave him whatever he wanted. You turned Germany over to this arch-criminal.'”
Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, 1947
The notion that the corporations are going to use their windfalls for productive expansion and higher wages for workers is utter fantasy.
They have not done so for over twenty years, and they are hardly urged to change that, and certainly not by anything in this latest change in tax policy. Its purpose is to put more money in the pockets of the powerful and fortunate, pure and simple.
Increased taxes on consumption and consumables, including imports and sales taxes, are generally regressive taxes, falling most heavily as a percentage of income on the broader public.
The promises of great growth, investment, and trickle down prosperity are the same old canards and misdirection, put forward by the moneyed interests' flim flam men and their carnies.
"You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit."
Ephesians 2:19-22
“We who used to value the acquisition of wealth and possessions more than anything else now bring what we can into a common fund and share it with anyone who needs it. We used to hate and destroy one another, and refused to associate with people of another race or country. Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and pray for our enemies.”
Justin Martyr
“In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack, even on the least of men, is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in His own Person restored the image of God in all.
Through our relationship with the Incarnation we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our familiality with all mankind.
Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil, and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are... Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Today was a sleepy half day of trading ahead of the 4th of July Holiday.
US markets will be closed tomorrow.
Stocks sold off into the close.
The precious metals gained ground on a weaker dollar and a deeply oversold short term condition.
There will be a Non-Farm payrolls report on Friday.
As I had forecasted some time ago, we are now in a period of hysteria, wherein people will be saying, and most likely doing, some crazy and reprehensible things. The propaganda is so blatant on some internet sites that it is almost amazing.
If they are full of hatred, and race baiting, antisemitism, slanders, lies, and scorn for the weak and the other, shun them. It is a good thing to step back from the emotional exchanges and looks objectively at what is being said and done, all in the name of winning.
Be careful of what you put into your own minds, as you would be of tainted and unhealthy foods.
Do not cast aside your faithfulness, that you may be left vulnerable, and without the ability to stand in the world but not of its madness, until the end For we are being tested, and will be even moreso before this page in history turns.
“How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
William Shakespeare
Is there a darkness over the earth?
It glimmers like a candle in the night.
The darkness of our hardened hearts,
Casts images and shadows in the light.
Stocks were flashing 'risk off' signals based on the simmering trade wars early this morning.
But there is little conviction in this holiday market, and the wiseguys were able to walk the major indices back up, and trigger some short covering to take them into the green.
Gold and silver were hit again. The drain of physical gold continues.
These lower prices for the metal are freeing up some physical gold, or at least nominal claims on pooled gold, out of some of the major funds like GLD.
There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.
The weather is hot and humid here. I feel sorry for those whose A/C has failed in it. These extremes tend to test the fitness of our systems. I keep a couple of window A/C units in the shed that we have accumulated over time, and will use them for backup in a hot minute if required.
The only things hot in this house were the spicy crab and corn chowder and the Anasazi bean gumbo. No worries here unless the supply of gin, tonic water and limes gets too low. Must not risk malaria you know. The bugs out there are ferocious.
Dolly and I are cool. She just snorted her approval in her sleep. We'll go for a walk much later when the sun goes down. My left knee is still knackered and so walking is not yet enjoyable— but more doable.
The financial systems in the US will be tested, and not on paper with make believe risks like the Fed performs. And I suspect that once again they will not have been able to see it coming. As for the reasons why they never do, I think you know the answer.
Need little, wants less, love more. For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.
"To have shrunk, under such circumstances, from manly resistance, would have been a degradation blasting our best and proudest hopes; it would have struck us from the high ranks where the virtuous struggles of our fathers had placed us, and have betrayed the magnificent legacy which we hold in trust for future generations.
It would have acknowledged that on the element which forms three-fourths of the globe we inhabit, where all independent nations have equal and common rights, the American people were not an independent people, but colonists and vassals."
President James Madison, November 1813
"President James Madison signed a war declaration against America’s former colonial ruler, Great Britain, after Congress — for the first time in American History — voted to declare war against another nation. It became known as the War of 1812, although its many detractors, mostly members of the opposition Federalist Party, preferred calling it “Mr. Madison’s War,” especially when, in 1814, the war was going so badly for America that the British faced little resistance when they invaded Washington, D.C., and burned down several government buildings, including — famously — the White House.
America’s casus belli was Great Britain’s attempt to blockade all trade, including American trade, with Britain’s traditional enemy, France, which was badly hurting America’s fledgling economy. Also, needing crews to man its expanding navy, British ships were stopping American ships on the high seas and “impressing” — essentially hijacking — American seamen to serve as crew on British ships, which was a violation of international law and an affront to America’s pride.
The actual war was a see-saw affair and although British military forces dwarfed America’s, as they did during the American Revolution, the British army (like all invading armies) faced myriad logistical, communications and re-supply disadvantages. What’s more, its navy, by far the world’s greatest, was unable to impose its will on an overmatched but scrappy American navy that gained a number of victories in the Great Lakes and Atlantic. At the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813, for example, American frigates defeated a British fleet and gained control of the key city of Detroit, while another American fleet wrestled control of Lake Champlain from the British, thereby thwarting their intended invasion of New York.
It also helped the American cause that British attempts to prevent neutral nations from trading with France necessitated that much of the British fleet be devoted to that effort. As a result, Britain was essentially fighting two wars on both sides of the Atlantic costing, by some estimates, 11 million pounds a year. Roughly speaking that meant it cost Britain $50,000 a year for every American seaman its navy “impressed,” which was hardly a cost-effective way to staff its ships.
Thus Great Britain was as amenable to ending the war as America, actually approving the war-ending Treaty of Ghent two months before the U.S. Senate did. That treaty satisfied neither party, although it ultimately led to the permanent end of the British presence in America and gained for America a new international respect. Thus 'Mr. Madison’s War' not only did not hurt him politically, as his Federalist opponents hoped, it gave America a new sense of confidence that it was finally an independent member of the family of nations."
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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