Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Spice Must Flow

Wall Street Banks and the Fed

"In the last days the culture of society will become angry and hard, and a trial for those who love God. For people will be self-centered, lovers of themselves and obsessed with money. They will boast of great accomplishments, and strut around in their prideful arrogance, mocking all that is good and kind. They will neglect to love even their own families, and act ungrateful and lawless.

Many will become addicted to hateful and malicious thoughts and hateful words. Slaves to their desires, they will be ferocious, angry despisers of what is good and right. With brutal treachery, they will act without restraint, bigoted and blinded by clouds of conceit.

They will demand and find their delight in the pleasures of this world, and ignore their need to serve God. They may act religious, but they want to serve themselves."

2 Timothy 3:1-5


"Paul turned the Emperor and said, 'When they permitted you to mount your father’s throne, it was only on the assurance that you’d keep the spice flowing.  You’ve failed them, Majesty.  Do you know the consequences?'”

Frank Herbert, Dune

Risk as measured by the VIX rose, the Dollar continued to fall, and stocks gave up some of their recent gains from a very overbought short term condition.

Gold and silver advanced a bit.

Tomorrow will be New Year's Eve, so trading may be thin to moribund in the afternoon, unless something happens.

The US financial sector is running on hot money.

The spice must flow.

Have a pleasant evening.

Flight to Safety

When they had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi. Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet:

A voice was heard in Ramah,
sobbing and loud lamentation;
Rachel weeping for her children,
and she would not be consoled,
since they were no more.

Merson, Rest on the Flight to Egypt

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Billions In Fed Repo Money Fuel Year End Financial Assets Rally

"Gentlemen!  I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country.

When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin!

Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out."

Andrew Jackson, From the original minutes of his meeting with the Philadelphia bankers, February 1834, from Andrew Jackson and the Bank of the United States (1928) by Stan V. Henkels


"Democracy is held captive, not just by money, but by ideas — the ideas that money buys."

William Greider

Stocks finished the holiday shortened week catching their breath after another sharp move higher on light volumes.

Gold and silver also digested their recent gains.

The Dollar took a bit of a dive lower.

Lots of company visiting here.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Bubbling Into the New Year - Gold Breaking Out as Stocks Rise to Records

Mammon, Child of Pride

"Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction."

Erich Fromm


"Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population.  Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful (though sometimes badly mismanaged) industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy.  These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.

If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite.  Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism.

The real challenge is figuring out how the United States can regain control of its future from its new oligarchy and restore its position as a prosperous, fair, well-educated nation."

Charles Ferguson, Predator nation


"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege."

Thomas Clement Douglas

US equity markets pushed higher into the close to new highs, led by a fairly narrow advance of the usual big cap suspects in quiet trading.

Gold has broken out of its downtrend and silver is following suit.

We are in financial asset bubble territory. This one is eventually going to end as badly as 2008 and 2002.

But there is no stopping a group a people determined to become rich quickly, when they are maddened by greed with thoughts of future consequences or collateral damage to others. Even words of caution inflame their sense of entitlement to spoils and towering pride.

And they have plenty of examples to emulate amongst our prominent people and leaders.

Let's see how we go into the New Year.

Have a pleasant evening.