Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Public Be Damned

 

"The American economy increasingly serves only a narrow part of society. Too many of America's elite— samong the super rich, the CEOs, and many of my colleagues in academia chase wealth and power, and the rest of society be damned."

Jeffrey Sachs, The Price of Civilization, 2011

"I think that in particular, we can see how the oligarchy has actually become more powerful in the last since the financial crisis. They've been spending more than $1 million per day lobbying Congress and fighting financial reform.  I think that for some time the financial sector got its way in Washington through the power of ideology, through the power of persuasion.  And in the last year and a half, we've seen the gloves come off.  They are fighting as hard as they can to stop reform."

James Kwak, Bill Moyer's Journal, April 16, 2010

"We now have a society in America, Europe and much of the world which is totally dominated by the two elements of sovereignty that are not included in the state structure: control of credit and banking, and the corporation. They are ruthlessly going forward to eliminate land, labor, entrepreneurial-managerial skills, and everything else the economists once told us were the chief elements of production.  The only element of production they are concerned with is the one they can control: capital."

Carroll Quigley, Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown Univeristy 1976

“While boasting of our noble deeds we're careful to conceal the ugly fact that by an iniquitous money system we have nationalized a system of oppression which, though more refined, is not less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery.”

Horace Greeley, On the National Bank Act, 1872

"Our plutocracy, whether the hedge fund managers in Greenwich, Connecticut, or the Internet moguls in Palo Alto, now lives like the British did in colonial India: ruling the place but not of it."

Mike Lofgren, The Deep State: The Rise of a Shadow Government, 5 January 2016

"Accumulating by conscious frauds more money than they can use upon themselves, wisely distribute or safely leave to their children, these denounce as public enemies all who question their methods or throw a light upon their crimes.  Plutocracy is abhorrent to a republic.  It preys upon the nation in time of peace and conspires against it in the hour of its calamity.   Conscienceless, compassionless and devoid of wisdom, it enervates its votaries while it impoverishes its victims."

William Jennings Bryan, Address at Madison Square Garden, New York, 30 August 1906 

How do we know when the Wall Street mouthpieces on financial TV are 'talking their book', a euphemism for lying?   Their lips are moving.

As for the purveyors of the message, those paid to spread it?  As one of the spokesmodels said to those devastated by the frauds in the aftermath of the dotcom bubble: 'Well, no one made you buy stocks.' 

They do not care.  Truth and your well-being is not their job.  'Hate the game, not the player.'  It's not personal, it's just business.

Right.   Keep that one in mind.

Stocks were clobbered again today, as the markets were led lower by the broader market as shown in the Russell 2000.

The Dollar advanced a bit as the ongoing story of a soft landing with imminent rate cuts galore continues to fall apart.

Gold and silver were slightly lower.

VIX rose a bit.

Rough seas ahead as illusions fade.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - US Banking System Ripe For Another Crisis

 

"Day by day the money-masters of America become more aware of their danger, they draw together, they grow more class-conscious, more aggressive. The [first world] war has taught them the possibilities of propaganda ; it has accustomed them to the idea of enormous campaigns which sway the minds of millions and make them pliable to any purpose.

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."

Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check

"Following the second, third and fourth largest bank failures in U.S. history in the spring of last year, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave his semiannual monetary policy report to the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee in June. During both appearances, Powell stated the same thing: 'The U.S. banking system is sound and resilient.'

But according to a report last week from the federal agency whose mandate is to keep federal regulators apprised of the true condition of the U.S. banking system, it is actually ripe for another crisis and its condition is 'fragile and uncertain.'”

WSOP, Federal Agency Finds US Banking System 'Ripe for Another Crisis, January 2, 2024

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked


The talking heads were assuring us today that stocks were retreating because they had become extremely over bought last week/year/

Funny how they only tell us these things after the fact.

The Dollar strengthened.

Gold and silver were lower.

The VIX remains fairly complacent.

And so the new year begins.

Have a pleasant evening.

Happy New Year

 

“For last year's words belong to last year's language
   And next year's words await another voice.
   And to make an end is to make a beginning.”

T. S. Eliot

"These violent delights have violent ends,
     And in their triumph, die..."

William Shakespeare


Bonne Année à tous mes amis

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Keep the Faith

 

"If you do not stand firm in the faith, you will not stand at all.”

Isaiah 7:9

"One person of integrity can make a difference, a difference of life and death. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs."

Elie Wiesel

"Woe to those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter."

Isaiah 5:20

"We often think of peace as the absence of war; that if the powerful countries would reduce their arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds - our prejudices, fears, and ignorance. Even if we transported all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the reasons for bombs would still be here, in our hearts and minds, and we would make new bombs."

Thích Nhất Hạnh

"But Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded, even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Luke 16:31

"Lately, as you may have noticed, the emphasis of what I have been writing here has shifted to reassuring the faithful, and cautioning them against falling away as things get a little crazier, which they are bound to do.  I think the outcome, in general, of all this is 'baked in' now.   The problem is that I just cannot believe it.  It has been like watching a train wreck in slow motion.   

But the truly hysterical part of this cycle is still approaching, and it may get quite a bit worse when it does.   Paranoia is almost a given when the exceptional fail spectacularly.  There may be blood, if history is any indication, and a great deal of propaganda and distorted information spread by the money masters, without doubt.

Those who have gone before us have stood on similar ground, over and over again. And now it is our turn."

Jesse, Keep the Faith, 7 July 2017


And so it is the last trading day of the year, 2023. 

The trading was very quiet with some fairly benign profit and loss taking.

Complacency is the word here.

Mispricing of risk by a powerful few for short term gains is a theme, recurrent and profound.

"This 'broadening out’ in the market has been nothing more than a massive short squeeze in financials, health care and consumer discretionary. The most heavily shorted stocks have popped 40% in just the past two months."

David Rosenberg

A correction is coming.  It will retrace and fill that 'gap' at 4610 in the SP 500 futures chart at the least 

But we'll leave that for next year.

Non-Farm payrolls next Friday.

Thank you for your patronage at Le Cafe this year.

If you serve God you will hear and obey His voice, and not twist his words to serve your worldly desires.

But they do not believe in it.  They think that 'do what you will' is the whole of the law. 

And so they serve and worship coercive and acquisitive power, without fear of accountability.

God is not mocked.   What a man sows, so shall he reap.

The more silent God becomes, the more profound his chastisement will be.

Have a safe and pleasant New Year's Eve.