Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Babylon the Great - Stock Option Expiration on Friday

 

“'Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who is seated upon many waters, with whom the rulers of the world have committed sin, and with the wine of whose immorality the worldly have become drunk.” And he carried me into the wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, with seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, adorned with riches, holding in her hand a golden cup full of idolatry and the impurities of her lawlessness; and on her forehead was written a name of mystery: 'Babylon the great, mother of harlots and of earth’s abominations.'"

Revelation 17:1-6

"The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well.  Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them.   Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich.  Robbery, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."

Tacitus

"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.  Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for.   Don't imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of any régime, and then suddenly return to mental decency."

George Orwell

"The more power a government has the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects."

R. J. Rummel, Death by Government: A History of Mass Murder and Genocide Since 1900

"Then the kings of the earth, their nobles and their commanders, the rich, the powerful, and every one of their willing slaves and free men, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains.  And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us, and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne, and from the righteous anger of the Lamb.'"

Rev 6:15-16

Stocks slid on a worse than expected report from retail giant Target.

Some were puzzled about the miss in Target, and the exception report from rival Walmart.

The short answer is Walmart's grocery business, which carried the day for them.

Gold and silver were weak to chopping sideways.

The Dollar also show a weak, sideways move.

Stock index option expiration on Friday.

It turns out that the missiles that struck Poland were of Ukrainian origin.

What a surprise.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The View from the Sycamore Tree - Sorrows of Empire

 

"It [the financial crisis] is a failure of regulation.  In fact, one of the ironies of this whole discussion is they want to give more power to the Fed.  The Fed, which flooded the market with liquidity, which did not put in regulations until after the crisis.   In fact, closing the barn door after the horse is out.  And now to reward them for their excellent job, they want to give them more power."

Joseph Stiglitz, March 31, 2008


“I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein


"It's an empire. There's no two ways about it. It's a huge empire. It's been extremely successful. This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people."

John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman


"For those who are determined to be rich fall into temptations and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful passions which drown them in ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is the root of all evil, after which some have coveted, and have lost their faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."

1 Timothy 6:9-10


"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

George Orwell

"So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way"

Stocks were in rally mode today based on the softer than expected PPI economic data.

Gold and silver were under pressure.  

But the fog of war rolled over the markets this afternoon.

I was surprised to see the spokesmodels repeatedly beating the tom-toms of belligerence.

Smells like teen spirit.   Or perhaps a 'suggestion' from higher up.

There will be a stock index option expiration on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Shenaniganza - Stock Index Option Expiration on Friday

 

"It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery.  These may, perhaps, succeed at first, and limp along on hope for awhile with a flourishing appearance.   But time betrays their weakness, and they eventually fall into ruin of their own designs."

Demosthenes


"Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving ourselves."

Ludwig Wittgenstein


"The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Stocks attempted to stick a rally for the start of the week, but failed.

Gold, silver, and the Dollar all rose a bit.

VIX closed higher.

Stock index option expiration on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - History Lesson - Faustian Bargains

 

"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage."

John Kenneth Galbraith


"This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; he promises you illumination, he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind.  He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them.

He shows you how to become as gods.  Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his."

J. H. Newman, The Time of Antichrist


"The Nazi’s crisis is principally a financial one.  The layer in the party interested in theories has always been extraordinarily thin.  The intellectuals already parted company with the party.  The majority of party members consist of the dumbest of the dumb, with the brown-shirts’ cadres held together by cash payments, and not by convictions.  The party’s head office has been spending like there’s no tomorrow, living off the attitude that it would spread itself over the state with its plagues of locusts in the foreseeable future.

The Hitler Party likes to emphasize its uniqueness, and it really should not be measured against conventional yardsticks.  Even if it were to explode into smithereens today, the fact would remain that it recently won fifteen million voters.  It must satisfy not only a particular political need, but also a specifically German emotional condition.  Its brutality, loud-mouthedness and brainlessness have acted not as a deterrent but rather as an attraction, and have generated unconditional and subservient followers. This fact cannot be easily brushed aside.

The great, nativist Führer, who has all the allures and outer appearance of a Gypsy Virtuoso, might have his box-office hit and fade with it.  But the evil and ugly instincts he has called up will not blow away so easily, and will plague the whole of public life in Germany for long years to come.  New political and social systems will replace the old ones, but the after-effects of Hitler will also rise again, and later generations will have to step up for the wrestling match that the German Republic was too cowardly to fight."

Carl von Ossietzky, Winter Fairy Tale, 3 January 1933

Alas, Carl von Ossietzky's estimate of the demise of the National Socialists was overly optimistic, and badly mistaken about the depths of the moral cowardice and opportunism endemic in people of privilege, and the behind the scenes deals being made by politically influential Germans.  

On November 19, 1932 a letter signed by 22 important representatives of industry, finance and agriculture, had asked Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor.  Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor after the parliamentary elections of July and November 1932 had not resulted in the formation of a majority government.

At the end of the same month that he wrote his Winter Fairy Tale, a new German cabinet was sworn in during a brief ceremony in Hindenburg's office. The NSDAP gained three posts: Hitler was named chancellor.  

Following the February 27, 1933 Reichstag fire, which the NSDAP used to seize power and crush all opposition, Ossietzky was arrested and held in 'protective custody' in Spandau prison.  Ossietzky underestimated the speed with which the Nazis would go about ridding the country of unwanted political opponents.

In 1936, he was awarded the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize but was forbidden from traveling to Norway and accept the prize.  After enduring years of being systematically starved, tortured, and generally maltreated in various Nazi concentration camps, Ossietzky died of tuberculosis in May 1938 in a Berlin prison.

Stocks managed to shake off any concerns that might have remained and rallied into the weekly close.

The VIX fell further as a feeling of 'confidence' returns to the speculation.

The Dollar took another leg lower onto the 106 handle.

Gold and silver moved higher into overhead resistance.

PPI next Tuesday.

"If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves.”

E.A. Bucchianeri, Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World

Vanity, wealth, and power are the idols and masters of this world. But they have been overthrown through the death and resurrection of the Lord, who took on our nature, so that we might partake in His. He has ransomed us from ourselves, freed us from the tyranny of the world, and raised us up, giving us the choice to serve Him not as slaves, but in freedom.

Serve then whom you will, but know well who you serve. For it is that which you love, and with whom you and yours will abide.

Have a pleasant weekend.