Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Fall of the Republic - The Oligarchy Is Audacious

 

"According to several reports, the administration is considering Michael Barr for the vice chair of supervision slot.  Barr is a veteran of the Clinton and Obama years who is now the Sanford Weill Dean of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.  (Weill was the former CEO of Citigroup, whose merger with Travelers Insurance triggered the end of Glass-Steagall and the beginning of the mega-bank era.)

As assistant Treasury Secretary for financial institutions in the Obama years, Barr was the key right-hand man to Tim Geithner and liaison with Congress on the Dodd-Frank reforms.  Sheila Bair wrote considerably in her memoir of that time about how Barr defended the financial industry from aggressive regulation at every turn, seeking to eliminate strong derivatives regulations, weaken the Volcker Rule that attempted to prevent banks from engaging in risky trading with customer money, and preserve the ability for future bailouts.  He infamously gave the quote to New York magazine that the bill could have broken up big banks if Treasury had agreed to it, but they decided against it.

Barr was also the lead designer of HAMP, the failed foreclosure mitigation program that allowed banks to trap borrowers in predatory schemes.  Barr kind-of sort-of apologized for the failure to stop the foreclosure wave in a 2020 book, saying that the White House should have “acted more forcefully from the start.” He also led the investigation into fraudulent evictions with phony documents, promising things would change within a year. (They didn’t.)"

David Dayen, The Return of Michael Barr


"Impunity is epidemic in America. The rich and powerful get away with their heists in broad daylight. When a politician like Bernie Sanders calls out the corruption, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal double down with their mockery over such a foolish 'dreamer.'   The Journal recently opposed the corruption sentence of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell for taking large gifts and bestowing official favors — because everybody does it.  And one of its columnists praised Panama for facilitating the ability of wealthy individuals to hide their income from 'predatory governments' trying to collect taxes.  No kidding.

Our major institutions, the ones that should know better, are often gross enablers of impunity.

Jeffrey Sachs, The Age of Impunity, 2016

 

The wiseguys wanted to take stocks up today in a risk on wash cycle, but the bombshell miss by Netflix broke the script, and weighed heavily on the big cap tech stocks.

These are, as you may recall, once again the bloated heart of a 'new era' stock bubble.

Gold and silver bounced.

The Dollar fell back hard from 101 but managed to hang on to the 100 handle fairly well.

A strong Dollar hurts the real economy, but does well for the financiers who can buy up foreign assets on the cheap.

The VIX fell in the spirit of a wash cycle attempt.

This will end.  But it is going to end badly for many. 

You know what to do. It is the same in every age.

But we are such faithless cheats and swindlers that we convince ourselves that we do not, because we do not wish to do what we have been told to do, what has been written on our hearts. 

Greed and pride kill.  But love covers a multitude of sins.

And the band played on.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Behold All Things Made New

 

"They boast with pride about things of which they should be ashamed.  They think only about the privileges and glories of this world."

Philippians 3:20


"Some may then ask, why did He not manifest Himself by means of other and nobler parts of creation, and use some grander instrument, such as the sun or moon or stars or fire or air, instead of appearing as a mere man?   The answer is this. The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering humanity. For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been to appear and dazzle the beholders.

But for Him Who came to heal and to teach, the way was not merely to appear here, but to place Himself in the service of those who needed Him, and to be made known to them as they could bear to accept it, not misappropriating the value of the Divine appearance by exceeding their capacity to receive it, to make use of it."

Athanasius, On the Incarnation


"Wonderful providence indeed which is so silent, yet so efficacious, so constant, so unerring. This is what baffles the power of Satan. He cannot discern the Hand of God in what goes on; and though he would fain meet it and encounter it, in his mad and blasphemous rebellion against heaven, he cannot find it.  Crafty and experienced as he is, he appears like a child or a fool, like one made sport of, whose daily bread is but failure and mockery.

If even devils, sagacious as they are, spirits by nature and experienced in evil, cannot detect His hand, while He works, how can we hope to see it except by that way which the devils cannot take, by loving faith?"

John Henry Newman

The Dollar moved higher on increases in Treasury yields, and especially because of the differentials with other nations in the DXY index.

Gold and silver were hit hard by the same.

Stocks enjoyed a risk on day surprisingly enough.

Let's see if the bulls can keep the 'exuberance' going.

When haughty people strut their stuff, the result is almost always unintentionally funny.   

That is because they have lost their way, and true sense of who they are.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Risk Off, Risk On - The Triumph of Equivocation

 

"The money of vested interests nullifies genuine voter choice and trust.   The democracy gap in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out, do not vote, or listlessly vote for the least worst every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the least worst gets worse.

We’re told that we’re a polarized society, right?  And, sure, there are differences between the Left and the Right over reproductive rights, school prayer, gun control, government regulation, and now, immigration.

That’s the way the ruling classes have manipulated people for more than two thousand years: divide and rule.  The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door."

Ralph Nader, Crashing the Party, 2007


"Progress is a nice word.  But change is its motivator.  And change has its enemies.”

Robert F. Kennedy


"To achieve fat financial-sector profits, the housing and mortgage markets might as well have been merged with Las Vegas.    The principal inventors, hustlers , borrowers and culprits were the nation's 15-20 largest and best known financial institutions - including the ones that keep making headlines by demanding more bail-out money from Washington and giving huge bonuses.  These same institutions got much of the early bail-out money and as of December 2008 they accounted for over half of the bad assets written off.

The reason these needed so much money is that they government had let them merge, speculate, expand and experiment on dimensions beyond all logic.  That is why the complicit politicians and regulators have to talk about $100 billion here and $1 trillion there even while they pretend that it's all under control and that the run-amok financial sector remains sound.

But for the moment, let me underscore: the average American knows little of the dimensions of the financial sector aggrandizement and misbehavior involved.  Until this is remedied, there probably will not be enough informed, focused indignation to achieve far-reaching reform in the teeth of financial sector money and influence.  Equivocation will triumph.  This will not displease politicians and regulators leery of offending their contributors and backers."

Kevin Phillips, The Disaster Stage of US Financialization, April 7, 2009

Some days I just don't feel that adding any words is necessary for those who have been paying the least amount of attention to what has been going on.

And as for those that can't or more likely refuse to see it yet, they probably won't, until it gets them. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Easter 2022 - He is Risen

 

"On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb.  So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, 'They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.'

So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.  They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.  When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.

Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed."

John 20:1-8


"Do not abandon yourselves to despair.  We are the Easter people, and hallelujah is our song."

John Paul II


"Without a doubt, at the center of the New Testament there stands the Cross, which receives its interpretation from the Resurrection."

Hans Urs von Balthasar


"He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.  We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.  They put him to death by hanging him on a tree. 

This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.  He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.  

To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Acts of the Apostles 10:37-43


"Let us feel what we really are— sinners attempting great things.  Let us simply obey God’s will, whatever may come.  He can turn all things to our eternal good.  Easter day is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy."

John Henry Newman

 

He is truly risen.  

The tomb is empty, and death is overthrown,  and we are the heirs to eternal life.

'May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all.'   Rev 22:21

Alleluia, Alleluia.