"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, Discipleship 1937
“Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.
Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society."
Dr. Samuel Johnson
"Price discovery is not a sexy function of markets, but it is critical to the efficient allocation of scarce capital and resources, and to the preservation of the long term wealth of investors and the economy as a whole. If price discovery is compromised by manipulation, then we will all be gradually impoverished and the economy will be imbalanced and unstable."
London Banker, Lies, Damn Lies, and Libor
Stocks were mostly unchanged, but with a slight risk on flavor after the release of the Fed minutes.
Big cap tech led the way up, with money coming out of the small caps in the Russell 2000.
Gold and silver ended mostly unchanged after a morning attempt to break up higher.
I think the chart is pretty clear what gold needs to do. And silver will follow.
Let's see if they can get the job done.
The Dollar chopped sideways.
And the band played on.
I think the chart shows the potential for gold to move to $4,000 within a few years at the most.
“The essence of a speculative bubble is a sort of feedback, from price increases, to increased investor enthusiasm, to increased demand, and hence further price increases. Major speculative bubbles, as I argued in Irrational Exuberance, are always supported by some superficially-plausible popular theory that justifies them, and that is widely viewed as having sanction from some authority figures. These may be called new-era theories.”
Robert Shiller
"The term mania describes the frenzied pattern of purchases, often an increase in prices accompanied by an increase in trading volumes; individuals are eager to buy before the prices increase further. The term bubble suggests that when the prices stop increasing, they are likely – indeed almst certain – to decline.”
Charles Kindleberger
“In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.”
Charles MacKay
Foolishness is always popular, but it seems especially so among a surprisingly large minority of the people these days.
The more foolish the subject or theory, the louder and more aggressive the followers of a delusion seem to speak.
For many, continuing the delusion seems much more attractive than the alternative, which is to admit their foolishness, which they cling to proudly.
Pride indeed goes before a fall.
And it often blindly follows a more cynical and self-deluded fool into the abyss.
Stocks backed off their highs a bit today.
Gold and silver continued to advance to overhead resistance and to what could be the top of a short term trading range.
Let's see if they can break out, or if this will continue on a bit longer.
"Easy is the descent into hell;
The door to death and darkness stands open, day and night.
But to retrace one's steps, to return once more
to the pure clean air, and cheerfulness and life:
That is our task, that is our true labour."
Vergil, Aeneid
“The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”
Garry Kasparov
"Everyone knows that plagues have a way of recurring throughout history, yet somehow we find it hard to believe in the ones that crash down on us out of the sky. There have always been plagues and wars, yet they always take us by surprise. When war breaks out people say it's stupid and won't last long. Stupidity has a knack of getting in the way, which we would see if not wrapped up in ourselves. In this our townsfolk were like everybody else— they did not believe in plagues."
Albert Camus, The Plague
Big tech was rocking an rolling higher with the SP 500 keeping up the pace, setting a new all time high.
The VIX held stubbornly where it had been.
The Dollar declined and Treasury yields were flat.
Gold and silver faded a bit along with oil.
The cybercurrencies (aka digital beanie babies) continued to march to tulip land.
And earnings season rears its head once again.
Some heads are rolling today at Credit Suisse, tied to the recent big losses due to hidden risks.
There will be an update on the impact to the bank this weekend.
There are more, but they are preferring to keep silent.
"A new commandment I give you, that you love one another. As I have loved you, so you also love one another. By this all will know that you are Mine, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35
Stocks were on a tear higher today, with the SP 500 setting a new high over 4,000.
Both the SP and the NDX went out on the highs.
The VIX fell to a level we have not seen since March of last year, at the beginning of the pandemic.
Gold and silver bolted higher, both running up to the overhead resistance at 1730 and 25 respectively.
The next upper resistance level will be telling, if we are going to slip into a trading range or break out
The Dollar gave up the 93 handle.
It seems that everyone wants to be the best, because they have a natural desire for acceptance, recognition, and praise.
And in a dark and pathological time such as ours this means that everyone wants to have power. Power becomes the standard of value, the coin of the realm in a deeply fallen world. And in such a perverse world the only virtue is greed.
So they who serve the world with greatness want to be tough, unafraid, quick and intemperate on the attack, and harsh. Yes that is the mark of power, a formidable wielders of weapons.
If by some accident that person may wish at least nominally to serve God, then they too often desire to take up the sword like an avenging angel, and smite those enemies of God, who are all too often those who merely annoy and offend them. This is because their idea of what it is to be a human being has been subtly poisoned by the times; in their broken emptiness they exalt themselves. And all too often that feeling of offense simply becomes a blind hatred of 'the other.'
The will to power hates and despises weakness. Then they are no longer of God, but have given themselves over to the darkness. And they fully become its creature. Those who take up the sword of judgement for their own purposes will die by it, by a pride which is the first of all sins, in a death without redemption.
This is a subtle but very effective snare, a sin wholly against the Spirit. We embrace the world and its values not in our love of it, but in our hatred of it as we see it. This is not service, or greatness, not as it is measured in God's economy. This is a willfulness and a destruction of the self that comes from sin, but that in its own insidious way may encompass many of the trappings of a religion: the ornaments of ritual, and symbols, and all the showiness, the noise and pomp of human office—
but always and remarkably devoid of God's love.
We may love the services and outward manifestations of religion as we prefer them, the old and familiar or the hip and modern, or whatever our personal preference may be, but come to despise the very people, the body of the Church, that gives it life and meaning. We destroy what we have loved because we will to possess, to compel it, not to serve it as God has created it, with love.
Worldly power is a perversion of heavenly power in that it expresses itself in the ability not to create and fulfill life, but to diminish and destroy it. And it exults in what it thinks is its power over life, which is death. How much money, how much power is enough? The will to power is a pathological sickness, that becomes all consuming and insatiable.
Be on your guard always, and do not allow yourselves to be among those simple ones who will be taken in during the dark times, as the love of many grows cold. Stand firmly, but humbly, to the end. And you will have your greatness.
How sad it would be, not to be able to hear the endless song of praise of creation, and the music of the cherubim, as they sing their hymns of love to their Lord. In hell, all love is drowned out by the anger and complaints of the unworthy who can never have enough, and so suffer in an endless desert, devoid of all beauty and love.
Need little, want less, love more. For they who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.
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.
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