Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Damned for the World

 

"Inequality is a euphemism, a kind of shorthand, for all of the things that have gone to make the lives of the rich so much more delicious, year on year, for the last three decades.   And also for the things that have made the lives of working people so wretched and so precarious in that same time.

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.  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."

Thomas Frank, Listen Liberal

"The lofty mind of man can be imprisoned by the artifices of its own making.   If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves.”

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

"They [industrialists] were ruined, when they were required to send labouring children to school; they were ruined, when inspectors were appointed to look into their works; they were ruined, when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery; they were utterly undone, when it was hinted that perhaps they need not always make quite so much smoke."

Charles Dickens, Hard Times

"You should thank God for bank bailouts. Now, if you talk about bailouts for everybody else, if you just start bailing out all the individuals instead of telling them to adapt, the culture dies.  There's danger in just shoveling out money to people who say, 'My life is a little harder than it used to be.'  At a certain place you've got to say to the people, 'Suck it in and cope, buddy.'"

Charlie Munger, September 2010


Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.

Let's see if there is another 'leak' of the data, and a violent burst of likely insider or collusive trading, as we saw with the CPI report on December 13.

Stocks had another volatile day, finishing up a little to the green.

Gold rallied again, and is pushing up against resistance for a breakout attempt.

Silver got nailed with the weakness in stocks.

VIX declined because.

The Dollar slipped a bit.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Les Enfants Terribles - Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday

 

"This is how the people of God may guide themselves and their own actions along the way.  If there is no love evident in the words and the heart, then the words and the actions are not of God, but of something else.

Love is not what we do, but how we do what we do.  Love is found in the most ordinary things, not in grand gestures and elaborate mannerisms, but in the small daily acts of kindness and fellowship, done lovingly and with care, for His sake.   It is how we carry our cross, not in front of a cheering crowd, but in the quiet moments, and the little things, while walking with Him.

We do not need to hate and reject the world, and despise and subdue His creation.  They are a gift from God, to which we bring our own good use and order in His name.   And if we are wise, with our reverent wonder.  We can work with His gifts lovingly, and not abuse them from excess and greed.

It is not the world that is a source of evil, but the willfulness of our hearts, made hard with pride.  Only love is creative and productive.   Only love is accepting and uplifting, able to bring all things forward to His plan and make them new.   Love consecrates, while sin desecrates and destroys in its lust for possession and the will to power."

Jesse, 24 June 2015

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.  The old heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  I also saw a holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race.  He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God will always be with them as their God.  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away.'

The one who sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.'"

Revelation 21:1-5

"When experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana

Gold and silver came in ripping higher after the holiday break.

But alas, the gods of the market and masters of the universe did not find it in their will to allow such an unseemly breakout.

Stocks slumped hard again, although they did bounce back a little in the late trade.

The VIX reading is odd.  It opened at 22.90 and apparently just camped out there all day.  Let's see if that was an error that gets corrected.  Hard to believe in such a lively market.

There will be a Non-Farm payrolls report on Friday.

The days may change, but the song remains the same.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - And So It Begins - Our Year of Living, Dangerously

 

"The impulse to freedom and democracy always seems weak and hopeless when matched against the forces of oppression, because aggressive oppression is always more single-minded, having already crushed internal dissent and perspective, and is generally better organized and equipped.

And yet even the greatest tyrannies have fallen, always. This is because they carry within themselves the seeds of their own renewal and return to balance, or utter destruction. Their strength is their weakness, in its overreach and self-absorption."

Jesse, 8 June 2012

"For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality.  And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses."

Pierre Bourdieu, L'essence du néolibéralisme, Le Monde diplomatique, March 1998

“There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given.   Of other generations much is expected.   This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

In this world of ours in other lands, there are some people, who, in times past, have lived and fought for freedom, and seem to have grown too weary to carry on the fight.   They have sold their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living.   They have yielded their democracy. I believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient hope.  They begin to know that here in America we are waging a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy.  We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936

"What then must we do?  We must give with love to whoever God has placed in our path.   Don't think about the major issues.  You do what you can about the misery in front of you.  You add your light to the sum of all light."

Billy Kwan from The Year of Living Dangerously, 1982


Stocks were down most of the day, but voilà, miraculously rallied to unchanged at the end in negligible volume. 

Gold and silver rallied a bit.

The Dollar decline a little.

The VIX was vixenish.

And so begins our year of living dangerously.

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - What Then Are We To Do? - The Wash and Rinse Continues

"The way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.  But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him.  This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to live as he lived.

Beloved, I am writing no new commandment to you but an old commandment that you had from the beginning.  The old commandment is the word that you have heard.  And yet I do write a new commandment to you, which holds true in him and among you, for the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.

Whoever says he is in the light, yet hates his brother, is still in the darkness.  Whoever loves his brother remains in the light, and there is nothing in him to cause a fall.  Whoever hates his brother is in darkness; he walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes."

1 John 2:3-11

‘Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and accomplish great things in your name?'  Then I will declare to them, ''I do not know you.  Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.'”

Matthew 7:21-23

"Be not deceived— God is not mocked.   Whatever a man sows, so shall he reap."

Galatians 6:7

"The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until extreme old age. His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words. During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, 'Little children, love one another.'

The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, 'Teacher, why do you always say this?' He replied with a line worthy of John: 'Because it is the Lord's commandment, and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.'"

Jerome, Commentary on Galatians, 4th century


Financial people and economic ideas come and go, but the wash and rinse endures. 

Stocks rallied hard taking back yesterday's losses and then some.

Gold and silver rebounded as well.

The Dollar dropped.

Trading is light.

The transfer of wealth continues, the skim on the vitality of the nation.

The proxy wars between the principalities and powers continue.

Need little, want less, love more.  For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

In the end, that is all that really matters.

Have a pleasant evening.