Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Children of God, Children of Darkness - Like Tears in the Rain

 

"The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts.   For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ten Years After, 1943

“Once they’re in power, narcissists consolidate their position by firing everyone who challenges them.  In their place rise a plague of toadies, opportunists, and enablers equally guided by self-interest and short on scruples.   So you end up with these individualistic cultures with no teamwork and low integrity."

Lee Simmons, Stanford Business School

"A confident, aggressive delivery style - often larded with jargon, clichés, and flowery phrases - makes up for the lack of substance and sincerity in their interactions with others.  They are masters of impression management; their insight into the psyche of others combined with a superficial - but convincing - verbal fluency allows them to change their personas skillfully as it suits the situation and their game plan.

They are known for their ability to don many masks, change 'who they are' depending upon the person with whom they are interacting, and make themselves appear likable to their intended victim. The most debilitating characteristic of even the most well-behaved psychopath is the inability to form a workable team."

Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, Snakes in Suits

"I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil.   I think I've come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants.  A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man.   Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy."

G. M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary

“The greatest evil is not done now in sordid dens of crime. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices by quiet men, with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks, who do not need to raise their voice.”

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

"He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being.   Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison

"This is how we know who are the children of God and who are the children of Satan: anyone who does not do what is good is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their neighbor."

1 John 3:10

The PPI came in less than forecast.

And that was enough to trigger a powerful counter-rally in stocks.

Otherwise known as a wash and rinse.

Gold and silver rallied strongly.  

Gold bar sales are surging at Costco.  

Spokesmodels and economists are baffled.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

Geopolitical risks continue on in a rolling boil.

They will continue to be ignored - until they can't.

It's a simple concept.  

Stop provoking wars, stop murdering and oppressing the innocent.

Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.

"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

What are we doing?  Who are we becoming? 

How will our children remember us?

And for what?

A bunch of power hungry human husks with empty souls and hardened hearts?

'All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.'

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Delivered From the Lion's Mouth

 

"God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen.  And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, earthquakes, and severe storms.   A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars."

Revelation 11:19-12:1

"Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshaling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the church of Christ as in a net, and preparing the way for a general apostasy from it.  Whether this very apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist, or whether he is still to be delayed, we cannot know; but at any rate this apostasy, and all its tokens, and instruments, are of the Evil One and savor of death.

Far be it from any of us to be of those simple ones, who are taken in that snare which is circling around us!   Far be it from us to be seduced with the fair promises in which Satan is sure to hide his poison...

He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you.  He bids you mount aloft.  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 Times of Antichrist

"As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be with the coming of the Son of man. In the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, even to that very day in which Noah entered into the ark. They did not understand what was happening, until the flood came and swept them all away. This is how it will be with the coming of the Son of Man."

Matthew 24:37-39

"Be sober, be vigilant. Your adversary, the devil, prowls the earth like a roaring lion, seeking those whom he may devour."

1 Peter 5:8

"But the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me, so that the message might be fully proclaimed that all the Gentiles might hear.  And I was delivered from the lion's mouth."

2 Timothy 4:17

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

Ephesians 6:12

 

As I am sure you have already heard, the Consumer Inflation number came in higher than expected this morning.

Some of the phantom rate cuts again went by the wayside of reality.

The Dollar rallied strongly, putting in over 100 basis points on the DXY index.

Stocks fell sharply.  The mispricing of risk is sometimes difficult to maintain.

Gold and silver came some ground back, but not nearly as badly as one would have seen even a few months ago.

Physical buying in the East may be sustaining the price.  

PPI tomorrow.

Let's see if the bipolar market punters can swing back to delusional again.

Need little, want less, love more.

For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

And in the end, when all is said and done, what else is there that matters?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Got Gold? - Hint: Not the Commonwealth

 

"History teaches us that the capacity of things to get worse is limitless."

Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, 2007

"Indeed there can be no criterion, no other standard than gold. Yes, gold which never changes, which can be shaped into ingots, bars, coins, which has no nationality and which is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence."

Charles de Gaulle

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."

Voltaire

"George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, demanded that the information was published immediately. 'Gordon Brown's decision to sell off our gold reserves at the bottom of the market cost the British taxpayer billions of pounds,' he said. 'It was one of the worst economic judgements ever made by a chancellor. The British public have a right to know what happened and why so much of their money was lost. The documents should be published immediately.' Between 1999 and 2002, Mr Brown ordered the sale of almost 400 tons of the gold reserves when the price was at a 20-year low.

It is understood that Mr Brown pushed ahead with the sale despite serious misgivings at the Bank of England. It is not thought that senior Bank experts were even consulted about the decision, which was driven through by a small group of senior Treasury aides close to Mr Brown. The Treasury has been officially censured by the Information Commissioner over its attempts to block the release of information about the gold sales."

Holly Watt and Robert Winnett, Explain why you sold Britain's gold, Gordon Brown told, UK Telegraph, 24 Mar 2010

"Gold is absolute objectivity.  It is blind, like justice.  It has no politics and ideology, no likes or dislikes, no friends or enemies.   All it recognizes is its possessor, whom it serves faithfully as long as he has it."

Charles de Gaulle

Stocks did their usual yo-yo wash and rinse.

Inflation data coming out tomorrow has the markets on edge.

Every night in Asia gold and silver rise strongly, and then are slowly sold back during the day in London and New York.

Has you ever noticed how the United Kingdom has an aversion to owning gold?

A current list of the official gold reserves by country is attached below.

What the heck, Canada, you have NO gold?    Where are you hosers keeping your wealth?  Season hockey tickets, extra sharp cheddar, and smoked meat?  

Geopolitical situation is simmering, but closer to boil than most realize.

Someone wake up Uncle Joe.  

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Seduced by Lies and Idols

 

“Very few people believe in the devil these days, which suits the devil very well.  He is always helping to circulate the news of his own death.  The essence of God is existence, and He defines Himself as: 'I am Who am.'  The essence of the devil is the lie, and he defines himself as: 'I am who am not.'  Satan has very little trouble with those who do not believe in him; they are already on his side.”

Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ

"They live out their days in prosperity, and slide peacefully down into hell."

Job 21:13

"There is probably no greater threat to the faithful than that of the sanctifying of success by worldly measures. Invariably, when a principled belief aligns itself with the state, and the wealthy, and the powerful, it ends up as lost as if it was suffering persecution."

Jesse, Sanctifying Greed, 6 June 2023

"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, 2010

"During this time, a growing professional class believed that scientific progress could be used to cure all social ills, and many educated people accepted that humans, like all animals, were subject to natural selection.  Darwinian evolution viewed humans as a flawed species that required pruning to maintain its health.  Therefore negative eugenics seemed to offer a rational solution to certain age-old social problems."

David Micklos, Elof Carlson, Engineering American Society: The Lesson of Eugenics, 2000

"Many commentators automatically assume that low intergenerational mobility rates represent a social tragedy. I do not understand this reflexive wailing and beating of breasts in response to the finding of slow mobility rates.  The children of earlier elites will not succeed because they are born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and an automatic ticket to the Ivy League.  They will succeed because they have inherited the talent, energy, drive, and resilience to overcome the many obstacles they will face in life.  Life is still a struggle for all who hope to have economic and social success.  It is just that we can predict who will be likely to possess the necessary characteristics from their ancestry."

Greg Clark, The Economist, 13 Feb. 2013

What is offensive is that they lie, and worship their own lying."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves.”

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, 1956

"The humility of the righteous will guide them, but the deceitfulness of the proud will destroy them."

Proverbs 11:2-3

"Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery?  Or the Jim Crow South?  Or apartheid?  What would I do if my country was committing genocide?'   The answer is, you're doing it.  Right now."

Aaron Bushnell

The young man and his friends were visiting our in-laws in northern Ohio this weekend, and watched the totality of the eclipse from Edgewater Park on Lake Erie.   

Stocks traded weakly and listlessly today, finishing slightly lower.

But VIX dropped rather sharply.   Yay us.

Gold and silver moved higher.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

We have inflation data this week.  That may provide some impetus for action.

The corporate news is a thin veneer of propaganda that hides the cracks in the official narratives.

And people, even though who think of themselves as 'truth-tellers,' just believe what they wish to believe, what suits their narrative.

January 6 was just people visiting the Capitol.   

Gaza is a highly moral nation of righteousness trying to protect itself.

We can't help it that stupid people get hurt.  It's just business. 

What we do is obviously God's will, because we grow and prosper, and triumph over all.

We are exceptional, a shining city on a hill, a beacon of light to the nations.

And if the prophets and messengers tell us otherwise, we persecute, imprison, and murder them.

When we face judgement, the penetrating truth of who we are and what we have done will be irresistible, and searing.

I suspect purgatory is the convergence of the lies we tell ourselves, and the reality of who we are.

Better to face it now, a little at a time.  

Ask God to show you your sins, and open your hearts to His instruction and mercy.  It is not a one and done, but a process.

There is only so much we can do for people.   Even if someone gives their life for them, and then comes back from the dead to warn them and give them hope, they don't want to listen, and cover their ears with lies.  

And give themselves over to idols, and falsehoods, and demagogues.

It is a sickness unto death.  One from which there may be no escape.

Have a pleasant evening.