Reprise: Remembering Oscar Romero and the Martyrs of El Salvador

"Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, 'Thou shalt not kill'. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination.

In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression...

You can tell your people that if they succeed in killing me, that I forgive and bless those who do it. Hopefully, they will realize they are wasting their time. A bishop will die, but the church of God, which is the people, will never perish."

Oscar Romero

In El Salvador in the 1970's, a right wing coalition backed by the country's richest families inflicted a reign of terror on the reformers who sought peaceful change in their repressive, oligarchic rule where a few had the most, and the rest lived in deprivation and poverty.

The Catholic Church in that country, under the leadership of Archbishop Romero of San Salvador, offered peaceful support and comfort to the protesters and the reformers and the many victims of official murder and terrorism.

On 24 March 1980 Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying Mass at La Divina Providencia, one day after calling on the soldiers to stop torturing, raping, and murdering people in the reign of terror.

No one was every arrested or held responsible for this act.

On the day of his funeral, the mourners were bombed, and attacked by snipers positioned on the rooftops.  Forty people died and many more were wounded.

Later that year four missionary nuns were raped and murdered shortly after they had arrived at the airport.

The assassination of Oscar Romero provoked a vicious twelve year civil war against financial and political repression, as the reformers gave up hope of any peaceful change.  And it opened the door for more radical elements in their ranks as the people gave in to despair.

As had happened in the past, and continues to happen today,  repression of peaceful change and justice threatened to bring about the very conditions that the ruling families of the country had feared.  These are the fruits of greed and the lust for power, driven to hysteria and violent repression.

People like to remember the frightful abuses of state socialism at the extreme, and well they should do this.  But they tend to overlook and excuse the crimes and repression inflicted on the people in the name of neo-liberal capitalism, which is nothing more than oligarchy and a fascism of the powerful. They both use fear and terror to herd the people into the abbatoirs of predation and repression.  And we allow ourselves to be blinded by their lies and propaganda, their myths of our exceptionalism, and our own fear, hate, and willfulness.

Hatred and violence in all their forms, whether of the extremes of the left or right, no matter what is used to justify such acts, are little different in their offense against His commandments and His love, and to the sorrow of the individual victims.

"It was a civil war of the 1980s, one that pitted leftist revolutionaries against the alliance of countries, oligarchs, and generals that had ruled the country for decades—with U.S. support—keeping peasants illiterate and impoverished. It was a bloody, brutal, and dirty war. More than 75,000 Salvadorans were killed in the fighting, most of them victims of the military and its death squads. Peasants were shot en masse, often while trying to flee. Student and union leaders had their thumbs tied behind their backs before being shot in the head, their bodies left on roadsides as a warning to others...

Many Americans would prefer to forget that chapter in American history; those under the age of 40 may not even be aware of it. Salvadorans haven’t forgotten, however."

Raymond Bonner, America's Role in El Salvador's Deterioration


'A true opium of the people is the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, and murders we are not going to be judged.'

Czeslaw Milosz

Relative Scarcity of Physical Gold Prompts Large Drawdowns From Funds and ETFs

"It appears that there is a dwindling and overleveraged supply heading towards an unmanageable and relentless source of demand."

It is interesting to watch the ongoing management of physical gold holdings in the West.

Physical gold has been seeing large drawdowns from inventory during this price decline, but silver does not.

This is not due to some preference or matter of taste.   Physical gold for sale at these prices is in short supply, whereas silver is not.

Both are subject to speculative price manipulation in the paper markets.

The relentless demand from Asia is stressing the highly leveraged claims per physical ounce of gold in London and New York.

It appears that there is a dwindling and overleveraged supply heading towards an unmanageable and relentless source of demand.

The system will be maintained— until it cannot.   Although the game can be extended by a determined effort, no commodity pricing pool can last forever in the face of a stubbornly stable supply and a steady excess of offtake out of the pool, shenanigans and antics notwithstanding.

Physical gold is flowing from West to East, into the markets and strong hands of Asia. 

Bye bye gold.

The eventual resolution may be quite energetic in terms of price.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Stormy Weather

"I preferred her to scepters and thrones,
and I accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her.
Neither did I compare any priceless gem to her,
because all gold is but a little sand in her sight,
and silver will be accounted as clay to her.
I loved her more than health and beauty,
and I chose to have her rather than light,
because her radiance never ceases.
All good things came to me along with her."

Wisdom 7:8-11

We had some profit-taking in the metals, and in short positions in equities today.

Let's see how things go next week.

I have to run now to take care of some errands while the sun is shining.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Most Economists and Market Pundits In De-nile - Walk Like an Egyptian

"No regulatory penalties, no criminal indictments for fraud, no clawbacks, no prohibitions of bonuses at least during early phase of financial market recovery, all of this sticks in my mind as unjustifiable— and imprudent, as it taught a lasting lesson that bankers had immunity."

Dr. Harald Malmgren


"At the recent market peak, the most reliable measures of U.S. equity market valuation (those best correlated w/actual subsequent long-term returns) were about 200% above (3 times) historical norms. No market cycle, not even 2002, 2009, has ended at valuations even half that level."

John Hussman

Yesterday I said:

"The 2770 level on the SP 500 Futures chart looks like an important support level. Below that the bulls will need to start taking Xanax if they break 2740 and stick a close below that."

The continuous contract SP 500 futures, which is what I watch and chart, failed to hold that support at 2770, and closed at 2747, after an intraday low at 2712, which is the diagonal support line from the previous correction lows.

As for big cap tech, after a plunge to test 6905 they managed to come off the lows and actually finish in the green around 7040

So at least for today the market stabilization crew can claim 'mission accomplished.'

The Dollar took a bit of a dive today, as the safe haven buying flocked to the bonds, sending yields lower, and to gold and silver which had the kind of bounce we have not seen in some time.

Gold finished near the upper band of its recent short term trading range.  Now we have to 'break out' to keep it going higher from here. 

Let's see how the wiseguys manage the markets going into the weekend.

As previously noted, a decent attempt to get the stocks back higher, after some possible doodling around down here near support is certainly possible.

I have not bothered to calculate the percent declines and Fibonacci retracement levels yet, as the current correction is still rather 'young.'

We are on the brink of earnings season once again, and those firms coming out and warning are being beaten rather soundly.

If stock buybacks are the main thing that the stock bulls can look forward to, then they are just delaying the inevitable.

Have a pleasant evening.