Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Ship of Fools

 

“Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love a cow - for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them.  This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort.  They do not rightly love God, when they love Him for their own advantage.”

Meister Eckhart

"What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed people will not know who is responsible, and when the problems get bad enough — as they might do for example with another serious terrorist attack, as they might do with another financial meltdown — some one person will come forward and say: ‘Give me total power and I will solve this problem.’  That is how the Roman republic fell.  That is how democracy dies."

David Souter, US Supreme Court Justice, September 17, 2012

"Now one believes every fool
Much practice and fortune telling
Springs forth due to the printers' art
They print all that one brings to them
What one says and sings of scandals
That passes by now without punishment
The world wants to be deceived."

Sebastian Brant, Das Narrenschiff

"The foolish ask nothing better than not to have to understand anything, and they even used to get together and try not to understand, because the last thing of which a person is capable is to be malicious and foolish all by themselves.  Without understanding, they form spontaneously into herds, not according to any particular affinities but in obedience to the petty ideology, which swallowed up the whole of their small lives, allotted them by birth or chance.  They would far rather kill than have to think."

George Bernanos, Under the Sun of Satan

"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


Stocks popped in a continuation of the optimistic rally from Friday — and then flopped into the afternoon.

Gold and silver moved lower.

VIX fell once again.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

There will be a Comex precious metals futures option expiration on the 25^th.

It is a tragically ironic aspect of history and human nature that because of their intense obsession, people often become what they hate.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Not in the Rigorous Sense, But Damned Nonetheless

 

"We didn't truly know the dangers of the market, because it was a dark market," says Brooksley Born, the head of an obscure federal regulatory agency — the Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC] — who not only warned of the potential for economic meltdown in the late 1990s, but also tried to convince the country's key economic powerbrokers to take actions that could have helped avert the crisis. 'They were totally opposed to it,' Born says. 'That puzzled me. What was it that was in this market that had to be hidden?'"

PBS Frontine, The Warning, October 2009

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

E.A. Bucchianeri, Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World, 2010

"Our hearts are continually prone to wander from Him; prosperity and enjoyment all too easily satisfy us, dull our spiritual perception, and unfit us for full communion with Himself. It is an unspeakable mercy that the Father comes with His chastisement, makes the world round us all dark and unattractive, leads us to feel more deeply our sinfulness, and for a time lose our joy in what was becoming so dangerous. Though He has indeed no pleasure in afflicting us, He will not keep back even the most painful chastisement if He can but thereby guide His beloved child to come home."

Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ, 1895

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with disgrace comes humility, and with humility comes wisdom. The humility of the righteous will guide them, but the deceitfulness of the proud will destroy them."

Proverbs 11:2-3

"For to admit that the Reich was a lie, and a mistake, that they were fanatical fools, and Hitler an incompetent creature of evil would be to admit that one was wrong, a failure, and worse, had become an accomplice to an unimaginable evil.  To accept that guilt, to admit one's complicity in such a horrendous assault on justice, to humble oneself and ask for forgiveness, would have taken a heroic act of self-awareness, humility and repentance. And worse, for these fanatics, it would diminish their pride, which was at the foundation of the most fervent supporters of such flamboyant excess.  That, and a desire to become beasts, to lose themselves in their mindless fanaticism, and escape the pain of being men. And so they struck out, and killed everything that held up a mirror to their darkened souls, and showed them their pride was based on a lie."

Jesse, Seth the Arbiter of Chaos, 15 May 2018

"You made this monster, and as long as things were going well you gave him whatever he wanted. You turned Germany over to this arch-criminal, you swore allegiance to him by every incredible oath he chose to put before you.”

Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, Diary of a Man in Despair

“The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned...
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!”

Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus


The wrath of God. What a quaint and barbaric concept for those who would be as gods. 

And in this tide of evil, the love of most grows cold.

Stocks powered higher today on relatively light volumes on no news, because they can.

The Dollar moved lower.

The VIX fell again into complacency.

Gold moved a bit higher, silver not so much.

The world is teetering on the precipice of a wider war, driven by those without shame, conscience, or respect for anything higher than themselves.

And many follow, in willful blindness.

How could you?  You snakes.  You brood of vipers.

Liars and murderers all. 

Such is the fatal allure of this attractive but deceitful world.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Austria's Beer Party Pours It On, Pulls a Head

 

"A political party in Austria that started as a joke is surging in the polls after coming up with an unusual strategy to curry favor with Vienna's populace — proposing a policy that would give a monthly barrel of beer to each household in Austria's capital. The aptly named 'Beer Party,' is currently polling at 12%, faring better than the center-right ÖVP party, which earned 10% in the latest poll, according to The Local, an English-language news outlet based in Austria.

If the state's elections were held today, the Beer Party would be on track to pick up city council seats. The Beer Party started out as satire. Dominik Wlazny, a 36-year-old musician, doctor, and performer created the group in 2015 to draw attention to what he saw as corruption within Austria's political ranks.

The organization's priorities include getting rid of taxes for beers served at bars while simultaneously upping the tax on 'Radlers' — a 50:50 concoction of beer and lemon soda — as well as similar mixed-drink 'atrocities.'  Meanwhile, the party's Radler buy-back program would allow people to turn in the lemon-flavored drinks in exchange for 'real beer.'

Wlazny ran for president in Austria's 2022 elections, becoming the country's youngest-ever candidate at 35 years and 10 months. Among his list of policy goals were a media literacy campaign in schools and a competency test for elected officials. He earned roughly 8.1% of the vote that year, per EuroNews. Besides its beer-themed policy goals, the party also holds a progressive stance on trans rights and green initiatives and wants to expand investments in public transport and sports facilities."

Nick Gallagher, Austria's Beer Party Surges in the Polls Ahead of State Election, The Messenger

 

Stocks slipped gear back into rally mode today, rising into their highs in the late afternoon on dodgy volumes.

Wash - rinse - repeat.

VIX fell.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

Gold and silver rebounded also going out near the highs.

Stock option expiration tomorrow.

There will be a February gold futures contract option expiration next week.

I like the idea of Austria's Beer Party.

We also have less serious satirical political parties in the US that propose outlandish policies and offer even less qualified candidates than the British.

They are called the Democrats and the Republicans.

And because they act so goofy doesn't mean that they are crazy.  They just think you are.

And you shouldn't have to be a banker or billionaire to be able to party hearty on the government tab.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Idols of the Market: Wicked and Unfaithful Hearts

 

"Hubris is the addiction to wealth and power, an arrogant over-reaching that involves injury to others.  By impoverishing economies it destroys the source of profits, interest, capital gains, and even recovery of the original savings and debt principal.  This abusive character of wealth and power is not what mainstream economic models describe.  That is why economic theory is broken.  The concept of diminishing marginal utility implies that the rich will become more satiated as they become wealthier, and hence less addicted to power.  This idea of progressive satiation returns gets the direction of change wrong, denying the basic thrust of the past ten thousand years of human technology and civilization."

Michael Hudson, Reality Economics, December 19, 2012

“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.”

Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom

"Since the earliest stages of human history, of course, there have been bazaars, rialtos, and trading posts—all markets.  But The Market was never God, because there were other centers of value and meaning, other 'gods.'   The Market operated within a plethora of other institutions that restrained it.  As Karl Polanyi has demonstrated in his classic work The Great Transformation, only in the past two centuries has The Market risen above these demigods and chthonic spirits to become today's First Cause.  The Market is not omnipotent—yet. But the process is under way and it is gaining momentum."

Harvey Cox, The Market As God, The Atlantic, March 1999

"Then the Devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him the kingdoms of the world in all their greatness. And he said to him 'All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me.'”

Matthew 4:8-9

"The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell.  And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything."

Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory, or one of unthinkable horror.”

C. S. Lewis

“In an earlier era, conflicts between aristocrats and ordinary people would be decided in favor of the aristocrats no matter what; judges who were themselves aristocrats took it for granted that people of their own class must prevail. Some of the developments that we have sketched suggest that we may be returning to such a system.”

Pam Martens, Everything That's Dangerous About US Banks Today, January 17, 2024

Stocks were wobbly again today, finishing lower.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

VIX edged higher.

Gold and silver were hit with selling again.

Another big chunk of physical gold left the Comex registered warehouses in Hong Kong.

There will be a stock option expiration on Friday.

Stop fomenting war and the murder of innocents in the pursuit of ever more money and more power.

Have a pleasant evening.