Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My! - Quick Look at Last Year's Stock Crunch

"The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until extreme old age [age 94 c 100 AD).   His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words.  During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, 'Little children, love one another.'   The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, 'Teacher, why do you always say this?'   He replied with a line worthy of John: 'Because it is the Lord's commandment, and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.'"

Jerome, Commentary on Galatians, based on the commentaries of Origen of Alexandria

Yo Jerome, was St. John a conservative or a liberal, a Democrat or a Republican, an Austrian or a Keynesian?  Tell us the things that really matter about what we choose to believe.  We don't care about the truth anymore.

Stocks hit pause again today, as 'investors' continued to consolidate their recent gains from baseless optimism about trade talks and other macroeconomic fables.

The Atlanta Fed has retargeted its GDP 4Q forecast to 1%. Well, at least it is still positive, right?

The denial over the Ukraine 'quid quo pro' is crumbling quickly.  The cover-up is shifting to diversionary personal attacks on no longer particularly relevant players.   By 2020 we'll be seeing The Hansen Brothers debut on Capitol Hill.   And that's entertainment.

Gold and silver are marking time after the recent hit by the Bullion Banks. They have a massive short poisition burning a hole on their balance sheets. I wonder if the hedge funds have the guts to take them on again like they did in the summer.  No matter, gold is going to go where it needs to go, despite the short term antics of the pampered princes of the Banking system.

You know what to do by now.

The first three charts show us the stock market compared to the stock performance from last year, and an historical look at valuations expressed in PE ratios.

And a pleasant time is guaranteed for all.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Lawlessness - Repentance, Forgiveness, Thankfulness

“People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves.”

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite


“Instead of flooding the entire economy with liquidity, and thereby increasing the danger of inflation, the Fed could support the stock market directly by buying market averages in the futures market, thereby stabilizing the market as a whole.”

Robert Heller, Federal Reserve Board, 1989


Now, we don't have the legal right to sell gold but I'm just frankly curious about what people's views are on situations of this nature because something unusual is involved in policy here. We're not just going through the standard policy where the money supply is expanding, the economy is expanding, and the Fed tightens. This is a wholly different thing."

Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Minutes from May 18, 1993


"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K."

Eddie George, Governor Bank of England, in a conversation with the CEO of Lonmin, September 1999


“Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune."

Carl Jung

Lawlessness breeds lawlessness.

Why are you surprised, given the example of lawlessness that we have embraced at the national level?

How much of the rule of law and integrity are we willing to surrender for the sake of easy money and stock market gains and political power?

Thomas Paine once wrote that 'these are the times that try men's souls.'   In his original pamphlet he used the word 'try' in the sense of testing, or straining. 

There is also another meaning to the word, and that is 'judge,' and a soul is a soul.

The craziness will continue until the market crashes, or some other collision with reality brings the cycle of lies to a stop.

But that is a collateral event to what is really at stake, for you personally, in what really matters.  But it is still not too late—  repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness.


Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Weighed, and Found Wanting - Ubi Sunt

"Jesus asked him a third time, ‘Do you love me?’  And Peter said, ‘Lord, you know all things—  you know that I love you.’ And Jesus said, ‘Feed my sheep.'

'Verily, verily, I say to you, when you were young, you dressed yourself, and walked where you liked.  But when you are old, you will stretch out your your hands, and another will dress you, and take you where you would not like to go.' 

Then he said to him at last, ‘Follow me!’"

John 21:17-19


"For whoever desires above all to serve his own life will lose it, but whoever is willing to lose his life for My sake will find it."

Matthew 16:25


"Where are the princes of this world,  and those who lorded it over the creatures of the earth?  Those who made sport of the birds of the air, and hoarded up riches in which they trust, and for whom there is no limit to their greed, those who schemed to get wealth, and were always anxious about their possessions.

But now there is no trace left of them. They have vanished down into the bowels of the earth, and others have risen to take their place."

Baruch 3:16-19


“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.  Therefore be wise as serpents, but as pure of heart as doves."

Matthew 10:16

And where is he who would be the god of this world, the Emperor Nero?   Ubi sunt principes gentium?

At most he remains as an unpleasant memory, returned to the dirt and dust beneath the soles of the common peoples' feet.  Perhaps he survives only as a remnant of this world that he served, caught up on the fingers of a young child at play, to be brushed off and discarded with a 'tut tut' by a doting mother.

Stocks were able to move higher, adding to their new highs from Friday.

Gold and silver were off a bit as the Dollar rose.

Factory orders came in worse than expected.

The lying in Washington DC is reaching epidemic proportions.  But the rabid elite and their followers of the right and of the left do not care about the truth anymore, only winning.

Winning.    But what does it profit a man...

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Who Is Like the Beast? - Stocks Close at New Highs on Jobs, Trade Optimism

"His money came from human misery and death and despair, as always it does.  Yet, there is none to reproach him, neither God nor man, and all fawn upon him and he will be a senator and crowds will laud him and he will have the ear of the President and all will honor his riches and consider him worthier than other men because of it.

Mankind adores its betrayers, and murders its saviors."

Taylor Caldwell, Captains and Kings


"They do not see the image of Almighty God before them, and ask themselves what He wishes. And, for the same reason that they do not please Him, they succeed in pleasing themselves.   Hence, they become both self-satisfied and self-sufficient; – they think they know just what they ought to do, and that they do it all; and in consequence they are very well content with themselves, and rate their merit very high, and have no fear at all of any future scrutiny into their conduct."

John Henry Newman


"The only real tragedy, in the end, is not to have been a saint."

Léon Bloy, The Woman Who Was Poor

Stocks closed at new record highs as the 'unexpectedly strong' Jobs Report came in this morning better than expected.

It really was not all that good. But the powers that be wanted a rally.

"Atlanta Fed's GDPNow fell to 1.1% for fourth quarter from 1.5% Can’t think of a better reason to rally."

Danielle DiMartino Booth

Gold and silver were largely unchanged as the Dollar continued to move lower.

All is well in the Pax Americana.

Have a pleasant weekend.