Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Loving Kindness and Tender Mercies

 

"We pray for the big things, and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not so small) blessings.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I will say, rejoice; show patience and consideration to all, for the Lord is always near. Let nothing make you anxious; but with prayer, and by supplication, and with thanksgiving, let your needs be made known unto God; and the peace of the Lord, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds, in Christ Jesus."

Philippians 4:4-7

"Remember us, O Lord, in thy loving kindness and tender mercies, as ever they have been from old."

Psalm 25:6

For the first time post-COVID lockdown we are having all the extended family over for Thanksgiving dinner: 12 adults and 5 little ones.  Most of them are working hard in modest jobs, just scraping by.  There is a 20 pound turkey, and plenty of sides from the daughters.  It's nice to see God's innocents running and speed-crawling around the house again. 

There are times when we fall to our knees and thank God for all His blessings and tender mercies.

And there are other times when we arrogantly refuse to bend or bow, and to defer to anything but ourselves, in complacent pride.  And then God brings us to our knees, to remind us of who we are, and how to be grateful for what we have been given.

Please remember to feed the least of His creatures, the birds and animals, and of course His children. What you do for the least of these, you do for Me.

Bring comfort and fellowship to the hearts of those you meet, especially those impoverished by fear and isolation, trials and afflictions, with a kind word and a smile and acts of mercy.  Each of us has our burdens and troubles to carry. And it is our duty and joy and freedom to lessen the troubles of others, out of acceptance and thankfulness for His love, of those who are unworthy, like us.

I remember all of you in my thoughts and prayers, as always, my brothers and sisters in the Lord.  And I give thanks for you and your goodness and your efforts to walk in His paths.  And for those who have wandered off in the cold and dark.

Let us commend ourselves to His merciful forgiveness, and trust our futures to His loving kindness and tender mercy. Let us permit ourselves to be fashioned to His will, in our commitment to His gospel, not for His sake, but for ours, as He wisely commanded us.

Be kind to those who are around your table today, even those who may be 'difficult.'  And pray for His mercy and enlightenment to give a more acceptable example to His children, if that difficult one is you.

Do not wait for God to show you the consequences of your sinfulness and waywardness and pride.  Ask Him to show your sins to you, and for His forgiveness and mercy in thankfulness.  Better now than later.

US markets will be closed tomorrow for the national Thanksgiving holiday.  

They will be open on Friday, but will be closing early at 1 PM.

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 - That Day of Wrath

 

"While some were speaking in the temple, and remarking how lavishly it was adorned with costly stones and beautiful memorials, Jesus said, 'These things that you see — the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.'

And they asked him, 'Teacher, when will this be, and what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?' And Jesus said, 'See that you are not deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time has come.’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and rebellion, do not be afraid, for such things must happen first. But it will not yet be the end.' Then he said to them, 'Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place. And awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.'

When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you will know that the time of its desolation draws near. Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those in the midst of the city must leave, and those in the country should not return. For these are the be days of God’s judgement, so that all that has been written may be fulfilled.'"

Luke 21:5-11

"The perpetrators were scholars, doctors, nurses, justice officials, the police and the health and workers’ administration. The victims were poor, desperate, rebellious or in need of help. They came from psychiatric clinics and childrens hospitals, from old age homes and welfare institutions, from military hospitals and internment camps."

Commemorative Tablet, Tiergartenstraße 4, Berlin

“Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty. Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction. Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.

Power is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the latter it crushes, the former it intoxicates. The truth is, no one really possesses it."

Simone Weil, War and the Iliad, 1939

"They asked, 'Where will this happen, Lord?' And Jesus said, 'Where death is, there a gathering of vultures will be.'”

Luke 17:37

"Those among the rich who are not, in the rigorous sense, damned, can understand poverty, because they are poor themselves, after a fashion; but they cannot understand destitution.  They will be moved to the sound of beautiful music, and at Jesus’s sufferings, but His Cross, the reality of His Cross, will horrify them.  They want it all out of gold, bathed in light, costly and of little weight;  pleasant to see, hanging from a woman’s beautiful throat."

Léon Bloy, Exégèse des Lieux Communs

"The kings of the earth, the nobles, the military officers, the rich, the powerful, and every slave and free person hid themselves in caves and among mountain crags.  They cried out to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, because the great day of their judgement has come, and who can stand against it?” 

 Revelation 6:15-17

Stocks managed to gain a footing after another early selloff, and went into the close with a gain.

Gold and silver enjoyed a little bounce.

Some of the better miners showed signs of short covering.

VIX continued to decline.

Bitcoin continued backing off from its high, its recent run to $100,000. 

Stocks are primed for a sell off.   It's just a matter of what gets the ball rolling.

My big question is, 'can the US survive another two months of Genocide Joe and his Merry Pranksters?

I am trying to keep an open mind on Trump, as I generally tend to do with a new president.

It's not easy.

I look at the Western leaders and wonder where such a parcel of incompetent rogues came from.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - False Gods And Their Graven Images

 

“As observers of totalitarianism such as Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness To the Bitter End 1933-1945, noticed, truth dies in four modes, all of which we have just witnessed.  

The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts.

The second mode is shamanistic incantation.  The fascist style depends upon 'endless repetition,' designed to make the fictional plausible and the criminal desirable.

The next mode is magical thinking, or the open embrace of contradiction.   Accepting untruth of this radical kind requires a blatant abandonment of reason.  Klemperer’s descriptions of losing friends in Germany in 1933 over the issue of magical thinking ring eerily true today.

The final mode is misplaced faith.   It involves the sort of self-deifying claims.  When faith descends from heaven to earth in this way, no room remains for the small truths of our individual discernment and experience.   What terrified Klemperer was the way that this transition seemed permanent. Once truth had become oracular rather than factual, evidence was irrelevant.  At the end of the war a worker told Klemperer that 'understanding is useless, you have to have faith.'

If people feel lost and alone and broken and hopeless today, what will it be like if the world begins to come apart at the hinges?   Jesus was a man for simple people.  He didn't make his messages incredibly complex.   If you were a person that had the eyes to see and the ears to hear, then his message was easily understood.

Many who claim today with their mouths that they follow Jesus will abandon him then with their lives.”

Brandon Andress, And Then the End Will Come, April 2013


Today was an option expiration day for precious metals December contracts. 

A classic wash and rinse for a big contract month.  Take it up, and then smack it down hard.

Everything else is commentary.

If you have been following along here, you know what is likely to happen next.

How many times do you have to see this, to finally see it? 

And yet this is far from the worst thing happening in plain sight, that few are willing to see.

Gradually, and then all at once.

Are you not yet entertained?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metal Charts - And To Remain Standing

 

“This great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, compassion, historical necessity or even social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Word, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil. Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and to action."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martyred, Germany, April 9, 1945

“There isn’t time to breathe, and I am up to my eyebrows in this business of feeding those who have nothing.   And they are many—those with nothing.  As a rule my purse is as dry as [Mexican President] Calles’s soul.  We ought to speak, shout out against injustices, with confidence and without fear. Viva Cristo Rey!"

Miguel Agustin Pro, Martyred, Mexico, November 23, 1927

"Any nation is bound to perish if deprived of bravery, if it pretends that everything is good when it is not, and if it is satisfied with half-truths. Every day we must be aware that when we are demanding truth from others we must live in truth ourselves, demanding justice we must be just, demanding bravery we must be brave."

Jerzy Popiełuszko, Martyred, Poland, 19 October 1984

"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 come to you with such teaching, and even find people who take it up willingly.  Their 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."

Titus Brandsma, Martyred, Germany, 26 July 1942

"The government soldiers cut him with a machete until he was bleeding from several wounds. They made him watch the execution of some of his friends. He cried and moaned with pain as they cut off the bottom of his feet, and made him walk through the town.  The young Josélito would only say, 'I will never give in. Viva Cristo Rey y Santa Maria de Guadalupe.'”

José Sánchez del Río, Martyred, Mexico, February 10,1928

"The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the the sacrifice of many victims of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love.  And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost selves?”

Maximilian Maria Kolbe, Martyred, Poland, 14 August 1941

"Behind the concrete, the visible events, behind all objective, logical considerations, we find the irrational element:  the struggle against the demon, against the servants of the Antichrist.  Everywhere and always demonic powers lurk in the dark, waiting for the moment when man is weak; when of his own volition he leaves his place in Creation, as founded for him by God in freedom; when he yields to the force of evil, he separates himself from the powers of a higher order; and after voluntarily taking the first step, he is driven on to the next and the next at a furiously accelerating rate.  Everywhere, and at times of greatest trials, men have appeared, prophets and saints who cherished their freedom, who preached the One God and who with His help brought the people to a reversal of their downward course."

Hans and Sophie Scholl, Martyred, Germany, 22 February 1943

"And the world will look at you and they won't understand you, for your fiery furnace will be around you. But you'll go on anyhow. But if not, I will not bow, and God grant that we will never bow, before the gods of evil."

Martin Luther King, Martyred, United States, April 4, 1968

"You are killing your own brothers.  It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. The ones who have a voice must speak for those who are voiceless.  Peace is not the product of terror or fear.   Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression.  In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the oppression."

Oscar Romero, Martyred, El Salvador,  24 March 1980

“Who shall resist Anti-Christ when he comes if we show such patience towards the vices and crimes of his precursors?  By such leniency, we encourage kings to become tyrants."

Thomas a Becket, Martyred, England, December 29, 1170

"I die the King's good servant, and God's first."

Thomas More, Martyred, England, 6 July 1635

"About an hour later still another of the crowd flatly stated, 'Surely this fellow is one of Jesus’ disciples, for he is also from Galilee.'  But Peter said, 'Sir, I do not know what you are talking about.'  And as he said these words, a rooster crowed in the distance.

And at that moment Jesus turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered what Jesus had said— 'Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.'

And Peter walked out of the courtyard, and wept bitterly."

Luke 22:59-62

 

Today is the 61st anniversary of the visible rise of the deep state serving a plutocracy of the unspeakable.

"These vices first advanced but slowly, and were sometimes restrained by correction; but afterward, when their infection had spread like a pestilence, the state was entirely changed, and the government, from being the most equitable and praiseworthy, became the most rapacious and insupportable."

In some ways it was the nearly perfect crime, spawned from treachery and sealed by fear and greed.

The quiet rally in gold continues, stealthily in the background to the bubbles.

And so gold and silver finished higher.

The Dollar gained a little ground to finish around 107.50.

Stocks moved a little higher.

VIX fell, signaling the complacency in risk assets like stocks, and forgive me for pointing it out, Bitcoin.

And so we head into another weekend, led by Crazy Joe and His Merry Pranksters, who blithely roam the world fomenting wars of aggression and genocide.

“For these are a rebellious people, deceitful children, unwilling to listen to the commandments of the Lord. They say to their seers,‘Do not see!’, and to the prophets,‘Say nothing of what is right. Tell us only the things that please us — prophesy illusions.'"

Nuts.

Have a pleasant weekend.