Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Rule of Law

 

"A lot of white-collar criminals are psychopaths.  But they flourish because the characteristics that define the disorder are actually valued.  When they get caught, what happens?  A slap on the wrist, a six-month ban from trading, and don't give us the $100 million back.  I've always looked at white-collar crime as being as bad or worse than some of the physically violent crimes that are committed."

Robert Hare, as quoted in Psychopaths Among Us

“I've always resented the smug statements of politicians, media commentators, corporate executives who talked of how, in America, if you worked hard you would become rich.  The meaning of that was if you were poor it was because you hadn't worked hard enough.  I knew this was a lie, about my father and millions of others, men and women who worked harder than anyone, harder than financiers and politicians, harder than anybody if you accept that when you work at an unpleasant job that makes it very hard work indeed.”

Howard Zinn, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train

"People can rationalize almost anything, for even a considerable time, for years, and ignore all the consequences of their actions and inactions.  And when someone finally forces them to look at what they have done, and shows it to them firmly, describing it in uncompromising words, they are shocked, defiant, in denial, then appalled, and finally ashamed.  One does not become a monster overnight, but in stages."

Jesse, Psychopaths Among Us and the Necessity of Law, 9 September 2011

"THOMAS MORE:  Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

WILLIAM ROPER:  I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

THOMAS MORE:  Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?

This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast, man's laws, not God's, and if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?  Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake."

Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons

"He who fights with monsters should be wary that they may become a monster. For if you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes back in you."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886

This was an interesting day of seeming convergences.

Stocks rose overall, although big cap tech was flat.

VIX fell.

Gold and silver were higher.

The Dollar rose.

Was this a flight to safety, or a flight of the imagination.

There will be a stock option expiration on Friday.

And as a reminder, there will be a BRICs Summit meeting next week on October 22-24.

There may be some implications for the markets, particularly gold and silver. 

And of course, as a consequence of the madness of the exceptional, we remain dancing on a volcano.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Sometimes They Come Back

 

"One of the primary characteristics of narcissists is their exaggerated sense of entitlement.  It's hardly surprising then that so many politicians somehow think they 'deserve' to game the system.  After all, from their self-interested perspective, isn't that what the system is for?   In their heavily self-biased opinion, if they want something, by rights it should be theirs.  So, nothing if not opportunistic, they take from public and private coffers alike whatever they think they can get away with.  And given their grandiose sense of self, they're inclined to believe they can get away with most anything.

Exploiting their privileged position in such a manner hardly leaves them plagued with guilt.  In general, guilt isn't an emotion they're prone to.  How could they be if they feel entitled to the objects of their desire?  In their minds their very ability to attain something must certainly mean it was merited."

Leon F. Seltzer, Narcissism: Why It's So Rampant in Politics, December 21, 2011

"The truth is that the European Union entered the Russia/NATO/Ukrainian war recklessly, based on flawed calculations and with a misguided strategy, and I attribute this to the actions of European Union President [Ursala Von der Leyen].   If we want to win, the current failed strategy must be changed."

Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, Speech to European Commission, 13 October 2024

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.  The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951

"The more power a government has the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects.  It simply waits for an excuse, an event of some sort, an assassination, a massacre in a neighboring country, an attempted coup, a famine, or a natural disaster, to justify the beginning of murder en masse."

R. J. Rummel, Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900, 1994

"Hatred can be nurtured anywhere, idealism can be perverted into sadism anywhere. The inferno could erupt anew anywhere. The history of man is the history of crimes, and history can repeat. So information is a defense. Through this we can build, we must build, a defense against repetition.

There is no denying that Hitler and Stalin are waiting for us to forget, because this is what makes possible the resurrection of these two monsters."

Simon Wiesenthal

 

Stocks fell decidedly today, as part of the endless wash and rinse.

VIX rose.

The Dollar chopped around.

Gold and silver rallied.

And where they make a desert, they call it peace.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Rulers of the Darkness of this World

 

"What is unrecognized about JFK's presidency, which then makes his assas­sination a false mystery, is that he was locked in a struggle with his national security state. That state had higher values than obedience to the orders of a president who wanted peace. There is nothing so threatening to systemic evil as those willing to stand against it regardless of the consequences. It’s unbelievable— or we’re supposed to think it is— that a president was murdered by our own government agencies because he was seeking a more stable peace than relying on nuclear weapons. It’s unspeakable."

James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, 2008

"It's a small group with a lot of power.  A lot of wealth.  They don't necessarily - they're not necessarily always the names, the household names that spring to mind, in this kind of context.  But they are the people who could pull the strings.  Who have the influence.  Who call the shots."

Simon Johnson, Bill Moyers Journal, February 13, 2009

"We live in a world where love itself is condemned.  People call it weakness, something to grow out of.  Some are saying: 'Love is of no importance, we should rather develop our strength.   Let each one become as strong as he can, and let the weak perish.'   They say that the Christian religion with its preaching about love is a thing of the past.  This neo-paganism may well cast-off love but, in spite of everything, history teaches us that we shall be the victors over this.  We shall not forsake love. We are here in a dark tunnel, but we have to go on.   At the end, an eternal light is shining for us.  Lord, thy will be done."

Titus Brandsma, Dutch priest, executed at Dachau, 26 July 1942

"This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal."

Aaron Bushnell, Last words, 26 February 2024

"This country has become frankly a warfare state built on affluence, a power structure in which the interests of big business, the obsessions of the military, and the phobias of political extremists both dominate and dictate our national policy.  It also seems that the people of the country are by and large reduced to passivity, confusion, resentment, frustration, thoughtlessness and ignorance, so that they blindly follow any line that is unraveled for them by the mass media.”

Thomas Merton, Cold War Letters, 1968

"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 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, 1919

"They will not see.  They will not listen. Blindly they follow their seducers into ruin."

White Rose, Leaflet of the Resistance, January 1943


 It was a risk on day, as stocks and the Dollar rose, and the VIX fell.

Gold and silver were under a bit of pressure.  No surprise there.

There will be a BRICS Summit meeting in Kazan, Russia on October 22-24.  It may be worth to watch for any statements they make on the precious metals and alternative currency and payment systems. 

One may receive the impression that the conmen on Wall Street are working overtime to sell this market.

Many myths and illusions are being actively promoted by the courtiers to the oligarchs in advance of the November elections.

And then the denouement may finally come.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - To See Evil For What It Is

 

“It is true that in the beginning men submit under constraint and by force; but those who come after them obey without regret and perform willingly what their predecessors had done because they had to.  This is why men born under the yoke and then nourished and reared in slavery are content, without further effort, to live in their native circumstance, unaware of any other state or right, and considering as quite natural the condition into which they were born.”

Étienne de La Boétie, The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, 2015

"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

"Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know."

Wendell Berry, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, Collected Poems: 1957–1982

"It is so important to understand that one of the primary means of immobilizing the American people politically today is to hold them in a state of confusion in which anything can be believed but nothing can be known, nothing of significance that is.  And the American people are more than willing to be held in this state because to know the truth — as opposed to only believe the truth — is to face an awful terror and to be no longer able to evade responsibility."

E. Martin Schotz, History Will Not Absolve Us: Orwellian Control, and the Murder of President Kennedy, 1996

Once again stocks managed to shake off risk-weariness in the morning, and gave a little and hold it into the afternoon.

VIX drifted lower.

Gold and silver rallied.   We may have established an end to this most recent correction.

And so we toddle on into another, risk-fraught weekend.

Have a pleasant evening.