Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - What Sorrow Awaits the Shepherds of Lawlessness

 

"This word came to me from the Lord: 'Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds, the leaders of Israel.  Give them this message from the Sovereign Lord:  What sorrow awaits you shepherds who feed yourselves instead of your flocks.  Shouldn’t shepherds feed their sheep?  You drink the milk, wear the wool, and butcher the best animals, but you let your flocks starve. 

You have not taken care of the weak. You have not tended the sick or bound up the injured.  You have not gone looking for those who have wandered away and are lost.  Instead, you have ruled them with harshness and cruelty.  So my sheep have been scattered without a shepherd, and they are easy prey for any wild animal.  They have wandered through all the mountains and all the hills, across the face of the earth, yet no one has gone to search for them.

Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, you abandoned my flock and left them to be attacked by every wild animal.  And though you were my shepherds, you didn’t search for my sheep when they were lost.  You took care of yourselves and left the sheep to starve. 

Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord.  This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I now consider these shepherds my adversaries, and I will hold them to account for what has happened to my flock.  I will take away their right to care for the flock, and I will stop them from feeding themselves.  I will rescue my flock from their mouths; the sheep will no longer be their prey."

Ezekiel 34:1-10

"No one screams against this hell. No one protests. And if they abhor what they see, they do not have the courage to damn the damned. One alone would not have failed us. Péguy would have spoken, I hope, he would have let loose his scream. He is not here, and there is no one else."

André Suarès, 1939

"He who does not shout the truth when he knows it makes himself the accomplice of liars and frauds."

Charles Péguy, Lettre du Provincial, 21 December 1899

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

Ephesians 6:12

"They do not see the image of Almighty God before them, and ask themselves what He wishes.  And, for the same reason that they do not please Him, they succeed in pleasing themselves.  

Hence, they become both self-satisfied and self-sufficient; they think they know just what they ought to do, and that they do it all; and in consequence they are very well content with themselves, and rate their merit very high, and have no fear at all of any future scrutiny into their conduct.  The more secret God's hand is, the more powerful— the more silent, the more awful."

John Henry Newman

Stocks managed to wobble higher today, in the usual up and down session.

VIX crept a little higher.

Gold and silver managed to hold their ground, with silver even gaining a little.

The Fed is meeting in Jackson Hole.

Expectations are running high for a Fed rate cut, especially after the big downward revision in the Jobs number this morning.

Powell will be speaking later this week.  If there is to be some announcement, that maybe the time.

I can't help but wonder if the Fed does finally cut, in September perhaps, the markets will give us a dramatic 'pop and flop.'

And in the background, the rolling boil in geopolitical events continues.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Plague of Illusion and Madness

 

“Foolishness is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice.   One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force.   Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.

Against such foolishness we are defenseless.  Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the foolish person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental.

In all this the foolish person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.   For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a foolish person than with a malicious one.  Never again will we try to persuade the foolish person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Prisoner for God: Letters and Papers from Prison, 1944

“War, a struggle between 'our people' and 'the enemy,' creates a polarized world in which 'the enemy' is easily objectified and removed from the community of human obligation.  What the conservatives conceived of as sufficient measures overlapped with what were for the Nazis scarcely the first steps.  Only a minority of nonconformists managed to preserve a beleaguered sphere of moral autonomy that emboldened them to employ patterns of behavior and stratagems of evasion that kept them from becoming killers at all. ”

Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men, 1992

"When we are the victims of an illusion we do not feel it to be an illusion but a reality.  It is the same perhaps with evil.  Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty.  As soon as we do evil, the evil appears as a sort of duty. Once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder. As soon as men know they that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles."

Simone Weil, La Pesanteur et la Grâce, 1947

"When a war breaks out, people say: 'It's too stupid; it can't last long.' But though a war may well be 'too stupid,' that doesn't prevent it from lasting. Foolishness has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves. In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words they were exceptional humans: they did not believe in plagues.

A bubonic plague is not made to fit in a man's mind; therefore we tell ourselves that plagues are a mere bogey of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the exceptional first of all, because they haven't taken their precautions.

Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they forgot to be human, that was all, and thought that everything still was possible for them; which presupposed that plagues were impossible. They went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How could they have given a thought to anything like a plague, which rules out any future, cancels journeys, silences the exchange of views. They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are plagues."

Albert Camus, The Plague, 1947

Stocks backed off a bit from their nearly parabolic rocket rally today.

We start getting a little more information as the BLS revises, and some say severely lower, the jobs data.

The Fed is meeting starting tomorrow at Jackson Hole, and the jawboning from there may move markets.

Gold managed to bounce higher while silver held its ground.

The Dollar fell to a yearly low  I have included a second Dollar chart so one might see this.

The madness spreads like a plague, overwhelming some and silencing many.

The madness serves none but itself.

Lord, my brothers and sisters are sick, with a sickness unto death.

And I struggle with what to do, as the madness grows, and they surrender themselves to it.

All we can do is provide a little oasis of kindness and sanity, a light in the darkness. And continue praying for us all.

And to remain standing, even in fear and trembling, because that is what this is all about.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Prayer in The Land of the Lotus Eaters

 

"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

“We are slow to master the great truth that even now Christ is, as it were, walking among us, and by His hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us to follow Him.  We do not understand that His call is a thing that takes place now.  We think it took place in the Apostles' days, but we do not believe in it; we do not look for it in our own case.

God beholds you.  He calls you by name.  He sees you, and understands you, as He made you.  He knows what is in you, all your peculiar feelings and thoughts, your dispositions and likings, your strengths and your weaknesses.  He views you in your day of rejoicing and in your day of sorrow.  He sympathizes in your hopes and your temptations.  He interests Himself in all your anxieties and remembrances, all the risings and fallings of your spirit.

God has created me to do Him some definite service;  He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.  I have my mission — I may never know it in this life but I shall be told it in the next.   I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.  He has not created me for naught. 

Therefore I will trust Him.  Whatever I am, I can never be thrown away.  If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him.  If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.  He does nothing in vain.  He knows what He is about.   He may take away my friends.  He may throw me among strangers.  He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me -- still He knows what He is about.”

John Henry Newman

"Watch therefore and pray always, that you may escape all these things that will come to pass, and be among those standing with the Son of Man.”

Luke 21:36

It was risk on, and stocks were in rally mode, going out near their highs.

The Democratic convention starts today, and the Fed will be meeting in Jackson Hole later this week.

A gathering of vultures.

The Dollar fell back down to the lower bound of its recent range.

Gold and silver gained in the overnight and managed to hold on to some gains.

Everyone has forgotten about the confrontations of escalation overseas.

"A true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged.”

Czeslaw Milosz

Why would we care?  

Not when our mages of the media and high priests of power and finance can prophesy illusions.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - La Grande Illusion - Blood for Power and Profit

 

"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

"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, 1998

“A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about.  It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.  Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Major General Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket

"An expensive arms race, under cover of the military metaphysic, and in a paranoid atmosphere of fright, is an economically attractive business.  To many utopian capitalists, it has become the Business Way of Life."

C. Wright Mills, The Causes of World War III, 1960

"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.  All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.  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

We had the stock option expiration today, and is customary, the reversal of some recent trends.

Gold and silver were the big story.  The recent bout of price suppression, as seen in the heavy selling of the metals on the New York open, negating the overnight gains in Asia, was relaxed.  And the metals rocketed higher.

The Dollar fell, again reversing its recent trend.

VIX fell back down to a more the recent levels of its almost continuous mispricing of risks.

And if you think that 'the market is always right' you have not been paying attention of the history of our century.  The omniscient and efficient market is a perennial and well-worn canard.

As usual, signs and portents signalling rate cuts by the Fed have been driving the trade, which is largely 'technical' and inwardly focused.

Next week the Fed will be having its annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  They generally have their meetings in nice places, well-removed from the economic carnage which their willful errors have been inflicting on the broader economy

I strongly suspect that before too long we are going to see a major development in the ongoing wars in the Ukraine and the Mideast, which covers multiple locations.

Greed for money and power.  It is the first child of pride, and all the plagues and illnesses that it brings. 

In fifty years or so, historians may be more capable of objective analyzing the madness that has set the world on fire, once again.  It is uncannily familiar to the madness of the last century.  

The faces may changes, and some times with remarkable irony, but the means and motives remain the same.

Try to distance yourself from the current deluge if false narratives and propaganda, to remain focused on what really matters.

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

Have a pleasant weekend.