Weekend Reading - He Was Lost, and Has Been Found - Repentance, Forgiveness, Thankfulness, Mercy

 

“When the healthy pursuit of self-interest and self-realization turns into self-absorption, other people can lose their intrinsic value in our eyes and become mere means to the fulfillment of our needs and desires.” 

P. M. Forni 

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy."

Matthew 5:7

 

"Help me, Lord, that my eyes may see all with mercy, so that I may never suspect or judge from appearances, but look deeper for what is good and beautiful in others' souls, and then come to their aid.  He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice. " 

Maria Faustyna Kowalska

 

"I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I've come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy." 

G. M. Gilbert 

 

"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead."

James 2:26

 

"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 solidarity with all mankind." 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"And forgive us our sins,  as we forgive those who offend us."

Luke 11:4

 

Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus,
but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying,
“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

So Jesus told those indignant listeners this parable:

“A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father,
‘Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’
So the father divided the property between them.
After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings
and set off to a distant country
where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.
When he had freely spent everything,
a severe famine struck that country,
and he found himself in dire need.

So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens
who sent him to his farm to tend the swine.
And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed,
but nobody gave him any.
Coming to his senses he thought,
‘How many of my father’s hired workers
have more than enough food to eat,
but here am I, dying from hunger.
I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him,
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I no longer deserve to be called your son;
treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”’

So he got up and went back to his father.
While he was still a long way off,
his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.

His son said to him,
‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;
I no longer deserve to be called your son.’
But his father ordered his servants,
‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him;
put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Take the fattened calf and slaughter it.
Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;
he was lost, and has been found.’

Then the celebration began.
Now the older son had been out in the field
and, on his way back, as he neared the house,
he heard the sound of music and dancing.
He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean.
The servant said to him,
‘Your brother has returned
and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf
because he has him back safe and sound.’

He became angry,
and when he refused to enter the house,
his father came out and pleaded with him.
He said to his father in reply,
‘Look, all these years I served you
and not once did I disobey your orders;
yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends.
But when your son returns
who swallowed up your property with prostitutes,
for him you slaughter the fattened calf.’

He said to him,
‘My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother was dead and has come to life again;
he was lost and has been found.’”

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - As Old as Babylon, and Evil as Sin - Strike a Level

 

"Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening.  Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.   Power is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the latter it crushes, the former it intoxicates.   The truth is, no one really possesses it." 

Simone Weil 

 

"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make a man a more clever devil." 

C. S. Lewis 

 

"You do not know the working class.  But you are not to be blamed for this.  How can you know anything about the working class?  You do not live in the same locality with the working class.  You herd with the capitalist class in another locality.  And why not?  It is the capitalist class that pays you, that feeds you, that puts the very clothes on your backs that you are wearing to-night. 

And in return you preach to your employers the brands of metaphysics that are especially acceptable to them; and the especially acceptable brands are acceptable because they do not menace the established order of society.  Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires.  You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." 

Jack London, The Iron Heel 

 

 Gold and silver both held their price at the 61.8% retracement level. 

Next week will tell us if this is a major correction or the start of a new formation. 

But the amount of physical bullion being added in Hong Kong suggests 'mission accomplished' in cleaning out the precious metal ETFs. 

As I said, look for this type of action to continue while the gold pool falls apart.

Stocks took a plunge today, but then held their own levels as needed on their charts and managed to stage a major relief rally. 

Let's see if bully can keep that going as a trend change, or not. 

The Dollar moved to the top of the 91 handle. 

Again, let's see which way we go from here. 

Interest rates may be a key determinant. 

For those who are astonished by the antics of the some of the opposition party Senators, both outrageous and shameful, keep in mind that this is nothing new, and not so mysterious. 

The same service to the moneyed interests with a reckless disregard for the public was common among the Republican congressmen throughout the Great Depression. 

And although it is so often unmentioned, the one percent attempted to foment a coup against the elected government  by violent means in Washington DC.   

History does rhyme.

People imagine that we all worked together, but this is not at all what happened. 

Have a pleasant weekend. 

 

 

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Great Cycle of 'Stuff' - Wild Day in the Markets

 

"This word inequality.  It's visible in the ever rising costs of healthcare and college, in the coronation of Wall Street, and the slow blighting of wherever it is that you happen to live.  And you catch a glimpse of inequality every time you hear about someone that had to declare bankruptcy because a child got sick, or you read about the lobbying industry that drives Washington DC, or the new political requirement, the new constitutional requirement that every presidential candidate has to be a billionaire's favorite, or a billionaire themselves. 

Inequality is about the way in which speculators, and even criminals, get a helping hand from Uncle Sam, while the Vietnam Vet down the street from you loses his house.  Inequality is the reason that some people find such incredible significance in the ceiling height of an entrance foyer, or the hop content of a beer, while other people will never believe in anything again. 

This is what a society looks like when the glue that holds it together starts to dissolve.  This is the way ordinary citizens react when they learn that the structure beneath them is crumbling.  And this is the thrill that pulses through the veins of the well-to-do when they discover that there is no longer any limit on their power to accumulate." 

Thomas Frank

 

"There is a lack of critical assessment of the past. But you have to understand that the current ruling elite is actually the old ruling elite. So they are incapable of a self-critical approach to the past." 

Ryszard Kapuscinski 

 

"Major commercial and investment banks—and the hedge funds that ran alongside them—were the big beneficiaries of the twin housing and equity-market bubbles of this decade, their profits fed by an ever-increasing volume of transactions founded on a relatively small base of actual physical assets.   Our future could be one in which continued tumult feeds the looting of the financial system, and we talk more and more about exactly how our oligarchs became bandits and how the economy just can’t seem to get into gear.  Recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform.  And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time." 

Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, May 2009 

 

Fed Chairman Powell did not meet the expectations of Wall Street in his speech and remarks today. 

It is hard to imagine what he could have said to please them that would have been even mildly credible.. 

And so in a reset of interest rate, easy money thinking, nearly everything got sold. 

Stocks took a breath-taking dive. 

They managed to finish on the charts where they needed to finish. 

It took on the characteristics of a liquidity event.

Gold miners seemed to fare a little better than silver miners, but most were sold.

I made money today in my trading account, despite some truly awesome and sudden swings in value during the day, up and down. 

I did take down my stock index short positions today. 

Let's see how the Non-Farm Payrolls report comes out tomorrow. 

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Long Time Coming - Stocks Drop Hard Led by Big Cap Tech

 

This place is like somebody's memory of a town, and the memory is fading. It's like there was never anything here but jungle.

Rust Cohle, True Detective 

 

"It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought." 

John Kenneth Galbraith 

 

"You are the very cause of your ignorance, yourselves. You put away the light, yourselves; you first pluck out both your own eyes, yourselves; and after that other men’s too, so that the blind may lead the blind, until you both fall into the pit.” 

Thomas More

 

"Foolishness has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves. In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; they did not believe in plagues." 

Albert Camus 

 

Stocks slumped today, with the selling gaining some momentum in the afternoon. 

It was clearly a 'risk off' consideration. 

The VIX got some legs higher. 

Gold and silver were pushed lower once again, and the miners could not provide any leadership. 

The dollar moved sideways. there will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday. 

Have a pleasant evening.