Spiritual pride leads to a lingering spiritual death. It turns the living being into a tomb, bright and polished on the outside, proudly ornamented with scrupulous attention to detail, and ostentatious adherence to the letter of the law — but inside full of corruption, and festering foulness. They love the rituals and the worldly forms of religion, but want nothing to do with mercy and love. It is a sickening romance with the self, unto death.
Jesse, Essere Umano, 20 August 2017
"Then he added, “'Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.'”
Matthew 9:13
"The master summoned him and said, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave your entire debt because you begged for mercy. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant for his debt, as I had pity on you?’ Then in
anger the master handed him over to be tortured until he paid his entire debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless you forgive others, from your heart.”
Matthew 18:32-35
"Then they will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ And He will say, ‘Truly, what you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ And those who were heartless will go to eternal punishment, but the virtuous to eternal life.”
Matthew 25:44-46
"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be forgiven."
Matthew 5:7
As you may recall I said that the equity markets are still 'bubble-friendly' a few trading days ago.
And so they are.
It was 'risk on' as stocks took back their recent losses.
The Dollar slipped off the 92 handle, just.
VIX dropped to its short moving average.
Gold and silver had big bounces.
I think a lot of this was an unwinding of 'technical trades' designed to skin the broader trading public.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.
The short end Treasury auction was well bid, bringing some relief to the markets overall.
Keep an eye on the Treasury auctions tomorrow for a tell on the technicals at the longer end.
"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
"Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make."
Lord Farquaard, Shrek
"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
There was a blog post with substantial commentary about the metals and other markets earlier today.
If you take the time to watch the video you may learn something which could prove to be useful.
In response to a few questions I had from viewers, lawsuits have been tried before, and not been able to gain traction.
There is a school of thought that says a bubble like this cannot be brought down by internal reform, but has to collapse first, in order to be resolved.
But aren't we working on the fourth bubble or so of this cycle in stocks?
Crime pays, and therefore lives on, until it does not.
Tech plunged again, all the way to what looks like a 'must hold' level.
The SP 500 also gave it up a bit, but not as much.
The Dow Industrials rallied, but it is a papier-mâché showpiece for tourists.
The Dollar rallied, taking out the 92 handle.
The rising 10 Year Treasury yield is having its effect.
Higher rates with a stronger dollar is something even our servile, corporate-sponsored nomenklatura and their elite money masters cannot possibly desire as a policy outcome, even in their sociopathy and naive recklessness about financial matters.
But you could say the thing about our endless wars with so little of strategic value to gain.
"If price discovery is compromised by manipulation, then we will all be gradually impoverished and the economy will be imbalanced and unstable.
Over the past 25 years the forces of regulatory liberalisation and demutualisation of markets have allowed the largest global banks to set the rules, processes and infrastructure of global markets to their own self-interested requirements."
London Banker, Lies, Damn Lies, and LIBOR
"American political corruption was the buying up of legislatures and assemblies to keep them from doing the people's will and protecting the people's interests; it was the exploiter entrenching himself in power, it was financial autocracy undermining and destroying political democracy. By the blindness and greed of ruling classes the people have been plunged into infinite misery.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Upton Sinclair
"He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers."
Charles Peguy
When I write about 'running the stops' this is what I mean, as is explained in the video below. They do it quite a bit in the metals markets, but also in the rest of them, including the bond markets.
There are commentators and sites that continue to excuse and cover up the corruption ongoing in the markets.
You might be correct, given all the evidence, to be a bit skeptical if not suspicious of
those professional scoffers, and the perennial
promoters of unregulated 'free markets' in which powerful insiders have the ability
to cheat and defraud the public at will.
The pity is that it still continues, along with quite a bit of additional antics and shenanigans.
Here is something I wrote back in 2009 about a particular event, which was called the Dr. Evil strategy by Citibank when the European regulators took them to task for running the stops in the European bond market.
Ted Butler and many others have been doing good work citing and challenging this silver and gold market manipulation, for years. Ted in particular has been writing the book on JPM and the silver market.
Bart Chilton passed away some years ago at age 58. But Gary Gensler, his old boss, is now back again. Will anything be done?
If you are trading with a online broker, do you notice how odd the price action has become when you place an order?
I do not seek to persuade you. If you don't realize yet what is going on, it may be because you cannot.
I just feel an obligation to bring things like the video below into the light of day.
Make up your own minds.
Or listen when the opinion molders say, 'nothing to see here move along,' and 'look look over there, people are trying to take your freedom by making you wear a mask.'
But if and when the physical markets blow up, as these highly leveraged schemes generally do, and no one could have seen it coming, and some outlandish rationale is advanced, you will know what happened, if you choose to see what has been there all along.
“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.’”
Let us pray for those whose hearts are hardened against His grace and loving kindness by greed, fear, and pride, and the seductive illusion and crushing isolation of evil.
We pray that we all may experience the three great gifts of our Lord's suffering and triumph: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness. And in so doing, may we obtain abundant life, and with it the peace that surpasses all understanding.
It is available for your use at no cost, but with attribution and a link to the original posting.
I make every attempt to respect the rights of others. If you feel that something here has infringed your work please let me know and I will correct it immediately. It is not always easy to determine the status of material posted to the Internet with regard to fair use and public domain.
