Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Furious and Subtle Contagion

 

"Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

George Orwell, Facing Unpleasant Facts, 1999

"In all these instances the large multinational bankers were actively supporting both sides.  It is a shocking fact that both British and American banks continued to do business with the Nazis even after the War was well underway, even as Germany was invading Europe and bombing London."

BBC, Banking with Hitler

"The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."

The Project For a New American Century, Rebuilding America's Defenses, 1997

"The present war crisis is something we have made entirely for and by ourselves. There is in reality not the slightest logical reason for war, and yet the whole world is plunging headlong into frightful destruction, and doing so with the purpose of avoiding war and preserving peace.  This is a true war-madness, an illness of the mind and the spirit that is spreading with a furious and subtle contagion all over the world."

Thomas Merton, The Root of War, The Catholic Worker, October 1961

“A clique of US industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy.  I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime.  Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there.”

William E. Dodd, US Amabassador to Germany, 1933

"The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small.  It is nearly nil.  Perhaps this is inherent.  In a community where the primary concern is making money, one of the necessary rules is to live and let live.  To speak out against madness may be to ruin those who have succumbed to it."

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash of 1929

"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. And so you made yourselves into the Mamelukes of a man who carries on his head responsibility for a hundred thousand murders and who is the cause of the sorrow and the object of the curses of the whole of the world."

Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, Diary of a Man in Despair, 1947

Stocks continued moving higher todday.

VIX was mostly unchanged.

Gold declined but silver managed to hold its own.

And so we shuffle off into the weekend.

Have a pleasant one.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - What Time Is the Wake Up Call?

 

“The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whip their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy— then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece.”

Hunter S. Thompson

“When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.”

Timothy D. Snyder, On Tyranny

“When you live under such an oligarchy, there is always some crisis or the other that takes priority over boring stuff such as healthcare and pollution.   If the nation is facing external invasion or diabolical subversion, who has the time to worry about overcrowded hospitals and polluted rivers?  By manufacturing a never-ending stream of crises, a corrupt oligarchy can prolong its rule indefinitely.”

Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege."

Thomas Clement Douglas

"Where is dignified modesty and a firmness of virtue of any use, now that blasphemy is in power, and justice is ignored, and there is no law but lawlessness, and few make an effort to hold back the wrath of the gods?”

Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."

US Major General S. D. Butler, War Is a Racket
 
"Satan, who is the lord of this world, has blinded the minds of the fallen. They are unable to see the glorious light of the good news."

2 Corinthians 4:4

What is it going to take?

Lately I seem to sit back after watching the goings on, and ask myself, 'what is it going to take before people realize how absolutely bonkers they have become, and how badly they and their children are being used by the utter swine whom they admire and empower?

And this is certainly not limited to the States, not by a long shot.  It's an historic trend.

Well, that's a speculation for another day.   I am sure future historians will have something to say about it.

Stocks finished unchanged after another day of the old up and down.

The advance is broadening a bit as the high flyers are bumping up against the ludicrous valuations zone.

Gold was off a bit, while silver soared higher, taking back the big heat from earlier in the week.

Wash - rinse - repeat.

VIX drifted lower.

The Dollar was largely unchanged.

Can you feel it coming?   Most cannot see it, but the tension on the tape is there, and the extravagant madness of the powerful is rapidly approaching the unsustainable.

Well as for me, I am basking in my new eyesight which is high def and unbelievably rich in color.

I made a blueberry pie for the young man last night.   For some reason blueberries here have been on sale and are delicious.  I have been having them with yogurt that I made, Icelandic skyr style.

Daisy and I abide.

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

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Hell Is Empty, and All the Devils Are Here

 

"In many governments the candidates for the highest stations are above the law; and, if they can attain the object of their ambition, they have no fear of being called to account for the means by which they acquired it. They often endeavour, therefore, not only by fraud and falsehood, the ordinary and vulgar arts of intrigue and cabal; but sometimes by the perpetration of the most enormous crimes, by murder and assassination, by rebellion and civil war, to supplant and destroy those who oppose or stand in the way of their greatness.”

Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759

"What we see at present is a battle between the central banks and the collapse of the financial system fought on two fronts.  On one front, the central banks preside over the creation of additional liquidity for the financial system in order to hold back the tide of debt defaults that would otherwise occur.  On the other, they incite investment banks and other willing parties to bet against a rise in the prices of gold, oil, base metals, soft commodities, or anything else that might be deemed an indicator of inherent value. 

Their objective is to deprive the independent observer of any reliable benchmark against which to measure the eroding value, not only of the U.S. dollar, but of all fiat currencies.  Equally, their actions seek to deny the investor the opportunity to hedge against the fragility of the financial system by switching into a freely traded market for non-financial assets."

Peter Warburton, The Debasement of World Currency: Inflation, But Not As We Know It, 2001

"Or one may say that there were no real human villains; that given the economic and political cues, actors would have been in the wings to come on and play the parts which circumstances dictated.Certainly there were many others as reprehensible and irresponsible as those who played the leading roles. The German people were the victims. The battle, as one who survived it explained, left them dazed and inflation-shocked. They did not understand how it had happened to them, and who the foe was who had defeated them. The real collapse of our currency began when it became evident that certain industrial circles were more powerful than the government."

Adam Fergusson, When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse, 1975

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

William Shakespeare, The Tempest

"Envy follows pride; whoever is envious is proud.   Envy comes to us from Hell; the devils having sinned through pride, sinned also through envy, envying our glory, our happiness. Why do we envy the happiness and the goods of others?  Because we are proud; we should like to be the sole possessors of talents, riches, of the esteem and love of all the world.

Everything is good and precious in God’s sight when we act from the motives of adoration and of love. Christ tells us that even offering someone a glass of water would not go unrewarded. You see, my children, that although we may be poor, we can still easily give alms. How good is our God! When we are no longer able to come to Him, He comes to us. We are each of us like a small mirror, in which God searches for His reflection.

John Vianney, Curé d'Ars, On Envy

 

The markets cast aside all fears and rallied higher, reaching for that magic round number on the SP 500.

The Dollar fell a bit.

VIX declined further.

Silver got clocked.  Gold held on by its fingernails.

Chinese New Year begins on the 10th, and that will put a damper on the recent buying of physical gold i Asia.   New Year gifts are often physicals, and coins are a favorite.

The depravity of the political class almost world-wide is quite daunting.

Self-destruction and delusion are in vogue.

It seems like a race to the bottom, to see who will falter first.

At times madness stalks the halls of power, and sets the minds of men on fire.

This seems to be such a time 

Who could have seen it coming?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Fear the Walking Fed - Pee-pee Pants City

 

“They perverted their thinking; they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven, and did not keep in mind just judgments.   How you have grown evil with age.  Now have your past sins come to term, passing unjust sentences, condemning the innocent, and freeing the guilty."

Daniel 13:9,52-53

“He did not care for the lying at first. He hated it. Then later he had come to like it. It was part of being an insider, but it was a very corrupting business.”

Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation. You snakes, you brood of vipers."

Matthew 23:13-14,33

"They are not governed by rationality or conscience or even common sense.   For periods of time oligarchies are able to survive in an uneasy equilibrium enforced by power, but ultimately these wickedly wealthy wither and die on their great piles of gains."

Jesse, Crony Capitalism: The Fed's Frankenstein, 17 December 2010

"Capitalism is at risk of failing today not because we are running out of innovations, or because markets are failing to inspire private actions, but because we’ve lost sight of the operational failings of unfettered gluttony.  Successful capitalism has never rested on a moral base of self-interest, but rather on the practice of self-interest embedded in a larger set of values.

We are neglecting a torrent of market failures in infrastructure, finance, and the environment. We are turning our backs on a grotesque worsening of income inequality and willfully continuing to slash social benefits. We are destroying the Earth as if we are indeed the last generation."

Jeffrey Sachs, Self-interest, Without Morals, Financial Times, January 18, 2012

Soft landing, dead ahead.  

Stocks managed to pull out another save, with only the tech stocks holding back.

VIX fell again.

The Dollar declined.

Gold and silver bounced.

The Fed hardly ever gets a major forecast right, and can't seem to create a sustainable 'soft landing' for the real economy without generating a vicious asset bubble that crests and crashes.

But the banks are made whole, and the band plays on.   Wash-rinse-repeat.

"Boy, do I have a feeling we're getting close.  Yeah, gonna be pee-pee pants city here real soon."

Negan, Last Days on Earth, The Walking Dead

Time for the next scapegoat to raise their hand.

Here's a soft landing for you, right here.

Have a pleasant evening.