Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Walking Dead and the Markets

"But I have always been seated in first class!  Let me talk to your supervisor."

“When you see clouds forming in the west, you say, ‘A storm is gathering’? And then the rains come. And when you feel the south wind blowing, you say, ‘Hot weather is on the way.’ And so it happens. What hypocrites you are. You are so good at forecasting the weather, but you are totally unwilling to accept the spiritual significance of the times in which you live. You can’t even think for yourselves, and choose what is righteous and good."

Luke 12:54=57


"I urge you, brothers and sisters, to be wary of those who cause divisions and undermine the faithful, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned. Avoid them. For such people do not serve our Lord, but their own appetites. And by clever words and flattery they deceive the hearts of the innocent and naive."

Romans 16:17-18

The markets appear to be on edge.  A reckoning seems to be coming.

It is probably only a matter of time, given the sheer amount of brazen shamelessness and lying.

The mispricing of risk is doing its bad work.  And some day in the not too distant future, some market sector, rotten with hidden risks, will rise up like a horde of the walking day, and assault the financial markets as had happened in 2008.

They be doing so already, given the huge amounts of money that the Fed is being required to administer to the Banks, now on a daily basis and in size.

And as for yourself, and the things that truly matter, do not follow this one, or that one.  Or believe in this school, or that school.  Or be excited and disquieted and misled by false words and flattery from demagogues and con men.    When you are judged you will not be asked who you know, and what influences and groups you may have followed as you do now.

For you know without a doubt that the things which you loudly and proudly proclaim now will seem useless and utterly impertinent and foolish then.

Rather, walk with God, with your eyes on His light as He has given it, and let others follow as best that they may.  For they will answer for themselves, as you will answer for your own.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The End of the Line - Tortured Reason Tries to Leave the Building

"Violence in the voice is often only the death rattle of reason in the throat."

Henry George Bohn


“When you go far enough to the right you meet the same idiots coming around from the left."

Clint Eastwood, Interview, Time Magazine, February 20, 2005


"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

Samuel Johnson

Let's see which way these markets, which are becoming increasingly wound up, will break.

I think it comes down to a race between a manufactured delusion and realities.

I can't believe that Zuckerberg played the China fear card today in his Congressional testimony.  What a tool.

This is Idiocracy 2.0.   All of it.  

Lord have mercy!

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Devil Take the Hindmost

"An investigation into the rigging of Libor, the benchmark interest rate that tracks the cost of borrowing cash, has been unexpectedly closed.  The decision comes despite evidence that implicates the Bank of England. It means no one will now be prosecuted in the UK..."

Andy Verity, BBC, Libor rigging inquiry shut down by Serious Fraud Office


"Preserving its historical role, gold continues to be one of the safest assets in the world, which enhances stability and confidence even under normal market circumstances...

The importance of gold in national and economic policy strategy has increased recently, with both holding precious metal within the country and increasing its stock being part of a dominant international trend...

In recent years, an increasing number of countries have decided to again designate a dominant role to this precious metal functioning as a traditional reserve asset and to increase their gold reserves."

Central Bank of Hungary (Magyar Nemzeti), Hungary's gold Reserves Increase Tenfold, Reaching Historical Levels


“A mighty bubble of wealth is blown before our eyes, as empty, as transient, as contradictory to the laws of solid material, as confuted by every circumstance of actual condition, as any other bubble which man or child ever blew before.”

Edward Chancellor, Devil Take the Hindmost


"They run all away, and cry, 'the devil take the hindmost'."

Beaumont and Fletcher, Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding

Despite all the happy talk, nothing has changed.  Not one thing.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Violent Indifference - The God of the Market and Its Toxic Cult of Power

"Behold the aggrieved, reactive creature fashioned by neoliberal reason and its effects, who embraces freedom without the social contract, authority without democratic legitimacy, and vengeance without values or futurity.  Far from the calculating, entrepreneurial, moral, and disciplined being imagined by Hayek and his intellectual kin, this one is angry, amoral, and impetuous, spurred by unavowed humiliation and thirst for revenge.

The intensity of this energy is tremendous on its own, and also easily exploited by plutocrats, rightwing politicians, and tabloid media moguls whipping it up and keeping it stupid.  It does not need to be addressed by policy producing its concrete betterment because it seeks mainly psychic anointment of its wounds. For this same reason it cannot be easily pacified—it is fueled mainly by rancor and unavowed nihilistic despair. It cannot be appealed to by reason, facts, or sustained argument because it does not want to know, and it is unmotivated by consistency or depth in its values or by belief in truth.

Its conscience is weak while its own sense of victimization and persecution runs high. It cannot be wooed by a viable alternative future, where it sees no place for itself, no prospect for restoring its lost supremacy. The freedom it champions has gained credence as the needs, urges, and values of the private have become legitimate forms of public life and public expression.

Having nothing to lose, its nihilism does not simply negate but is festive and even apocalyptic, willing to take Britain over a cliff, deny climate change, support manifestly undemocratic powers, or put an unstable know-nothing in the most powerful position on earth, because it has nothing else. It probably cannot be reached or transformed yet also has no endgame.

But what to do with it? And might we also need to examine the ways these logics and energies organize aspects of left responses to contemporary predicaments?"

Wendy Brown, Neoliberalism's Frankenstein


"The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists. The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism


"The fact that these foolish people are often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that they are not independent.  In conversation with them, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with them as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of them.   They are under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in their very being.

Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil.  This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy the human soul.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison


“Technically it was not hard—it would not have been hard to exterminate even greater numbers.  At the time there were no consequences to consider.  It did not occur to me that I would be held responsible.

That [human life] just didn’t enter into it.  I suppose you want to know if my thought and habits are normal.   I am entirely normal.   Even while I was doing the extermination work, I led a normal family life.”

Rudolf Höss, Kommandant of Auschwitz, as quoted by G. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary

The Market as a Violently Indifferent God

“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory, or one of unthinkable horror.”

C. S. Lewis


"As everything in what used to be called creation becomes a commodity, human beings begin to look at one another, and at themselves, in a funny way, and they see price tags. There was a time when people spoke, at least occasionally, of 'inherent worth'— if not of things, then at least of persons.

It is sometimes said that since everything is for sale under the rule of The Market, nothing is sacred.  The Market is not omnipotent— yet. But the process is under way and it is gaining momentum."

Harvey Cox, The Market as God


"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming

Stocks managed to close with a decent gain today, with the SP 500 taking out the 3000 level.

This is just a 'round number' and is of little importance on the charts.

The Dollar and silver were mostly unchanged.  Gold was off a bit on 'technical selling.'

The financiers seem very eager to get this market moving higher.  Is this yet another phase in the latest smash and grab?

The discussion on Bloomberg this morning about Brexit was a caricature of the underlying reality.

Not one thing has changed.  The mispricing of risks and the deliberate misshaping of the narrative continues.

Whom is it that this system serves?   A man of the markets, reshaped in the image of an uncaring and violently indifferent god.

How sad it is, that no one pays attention to the wisdom of history, until the day that they look down and see the blood of their victims on their hands.  And they hear the words of judgment that pierce the facade of their delusions with its truthfulness.

And then they at long last finally realize what they have become.  And that they have given themselves over to the darkness, and are lost.

These violent delights have violent ends. And in their triumph, die.

Have a pleasant evening.