Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Dark Myths of Messianic Empires

 

"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."

Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check, 1919.

"Congressmen Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Brian Mast (R-Fla.) introduced H.R. 23, the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, which would 'impose sanctions with respect to the International Criminal Court engaged in any effort to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies.'  

The bill, which was fast-tracked by the 119th House rules package, was initially approved last June by the Republican-controlled lower chamber with the support of 42 Democratic lawmakers.  In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri."

Brett Wilkins, Groups Urge Congress, Trump to Reconsider Sanctions on ICC, Common Dreams, January 6, 2025

“The mainstream media must be considered part of the deep state.  Its assumptions, biases, priorities, and defaults are very much a function of the interests of a tiny elite of corporate wealth whose interests the media necessarily serves regardless of this or that outlet’s position along the ever-narrowing spectrum of allowable political perspective."

Aaron Good, American Exception: Empire and the Deep State, June 2022

"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."

R. J. Rummel, Death by Government: A History of Mass Murder and Genocide Since 1900

"A poor man is ever at a disadvantage in matters of public concern. When he rises to speak, or writes a letter to his superiors, they ask: Who is this fellow that offers advice?  And when it is known that he is without coin they spit their hands at him, and use his letters in the cooks' fires.  But if it be a man of wealth who would speak, or write, or denounce, even though he have the brain of a yearling dromedary, or a spine as crooked and unseemly, the whole city listens to his words and declares them wise."

Li Hongzhang, as quoted in The Cry for Justice edited by Upton Sinclair, 1915

"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. The idea of the elite as composed of men and women having a finer moral character is an ideology of the elite.”

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite

"The world is being inundated by the brazen conviction that power can do anything, and justice nothing."

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Lecture for Literature, 1970


Stocks sold off today for the same 'technical' reasons that they rallied yesterday. 

People feel the need to look for 'reasons' why the market do something on a given day.

Sometimes there is a reason, some key piece of data or an exogenous event.

Often enough the manner that stocks react does not seem to be customary to a particular piece of data.

I don't think I can stress enough that while markets tend to be more (relatively speaking) rational in the long run, in the short run they are a gamblers' game, a game of liar's poker.

If you bear that in mind, and understand the games these jokers play, you might do a little better.  

And keep in mind that the big players who are buying 'order flow' know in the aggregate where the specs and mid-tier guys are leaning and to what extent. 

Its a game of timing and information.

And the smaller players watch what the big guys are doing, in the pits and on the squawk boxes.

You don't have to believe it.  But that's how it is, and even moreso today than it was when I started out when some manner of regulation prevailed.  Now its more like the 1920s.

Gold and silver rallied, as did the Dollar.

Gold is coiling in a triangle within the larger triangle.  At some point it is going to run. 

It was a little surprising that silver decoupled from tech stocks, but that speaks to the nature of today's action.

Bitcoin did follow its NDX correlation and gave up the 100K handle and then some.

VIX popped up off its moving averages.  See what I mean?

As a reminder US markets will be closed on January 9 for the observance of Jimmy Carter's funeral.

Carter did not get along at all with the 'deep state.'  And they played him hard and dirty for it. 

The masks of the respected ujnspeakable seem to have dropped off a little in the last ten years or so.

And the Non-Farm Payroll report drops first thing on /Friday morning.

Stack your decks carefully then on Wednesday afternoon.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Heedless Suicide of the Gerasene Swine

 

"It is a dark day in our nation when high-level authorities will seek to use every method to silence dissent."

Martin Luther King, A Dark Day In Our Nation, Riverside Church, 30 April 1967

"A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can't be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship."

Chalmers Johnson, Interview on Democracy Now, February 27, 2007

"Many analysts, myself included, would conclude that Wolin has made a close to airtight case that the American republic’s days are numbered, but Wolin himself does not agree.  Toward the end of his study he produces a wish list of things that should be done to ward off the disaster of inverted totalitarianism: 'rolling back the empire, rolling back the practices of managed democracy; returning to the idea and practices of international cooperation rather than the dogmas of globalization and preemptive strikes; restoring and strengthening environmental protections; reinvigorating populist politics; undoing the damage to our system of individual rights; restoring the institutions of an independent judiciary, separation of powers, and checks and balances; reinstating the integrity of the independent regulatory agencies and of scientific advisory processes; reviving representative systems responsive to popular needs for health care, education, guaranteed pensions, and an honorable minimum wage; restoring governmental regulatory authority over the economy; and rolling back the distortions of a tax code that toadies to the wealthy and corporate power.'

Unfortunately, this is more a guide to what has gone wrong than a statement of how to fix it, particularly since Wolin believes that our political system is 'shot through with corruption and awash in contributions primarily from wealthy and corporate donors.'  It is extremely unlikely that our party apparatus will work to bring the military-industrial complex and the 16 secret intelligence agencies under democratic control. Nonetheless, once the United States has followed the classical totalitarianisms into the dustbin of history, Wolin’s analysis will stand as one of the best discourses on where we went wrong."

Chalmers Johnson, Our Managed Democracy, CounterPunch, May 16, 2008

“In a sense, blowback is simply another way of saying that a nation reaps what it sows.  Although people usually know what they have sown, our national experience of blowback is seldom imagined in such terms because so much of what the managers of the American empire have sown has been kept secret.  It is time to realize, however, that the real dangers to America today come not from the newly rich people of East Asia but from our own ideological rigidity, our deep-seated belief in our own propaganda.”

Chalmers Johnson, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, 2002

Stocks enjoyed a bit of a risk-on rally today, for no particular reason.

Gold and the Dollar were under pressure, as risk safe havens.

Bitcoin and silver rallied higher with the stock bubble.

VIX fell again to its longer moving average.

Deception is abounding.

It is hard to be optimistic about the future, given our leadership and their reckless, selfish policies, and utter willingness to use force and fraud to accomplish their schemes.

But as always, we are in God's hands.

The swine are certainly stampeding headlong in a frenzy of hubris and greed towards the cliff.

Perhaps we may learn something as we watch them pitching into their demise.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Market of Fraud and Speculative Delusion

 

"In 1929, millions thought they could easily become rich, and some did. The parallel moment in modern history came in the late 1990s, in the information-technology boom under President Clinton, which dissolved at the turn of the decade.

In the early 2000s the Bush administration sent clear signals that regulations on mortgages would not be enforced.  There followed every manner of scheme to fleece the unsuspecting—liars' loans, no-doc loans,  and neutron loans were terms of art in the business—bundled together, rated and securitized, then spread through the world and left to fester until rising interest rates and crashing prices wrecked the system.

This was fraud, perpetrated in the first instance by the government on the population, and by the rich on the poor.  The borrowers were, of course, complicit in some cases, taking out mortgages they never had a hope of paying down.  In many more, they were simply naive, gullible, open to pressure, credulous, and hopeful—something might turn up.  They took the assurances of lenders that housing prices always rise, that bad loans can always be refinanced.  They were attractive to lenders for all of these reasons, and because they had nothing to lose.  A borrower with nothing to lose will sign papers that another will not.  A government that permits this to happen is complicit in a vast crime.

As in 1929, the architects of disaster will form a rich rogues gallery to go shooting in.  The Old Objectivist, Alan Greenspan, was intermittently aware of impending disaster and resolutely unwilling to stop it.  The Liberal's Banker, Robert Rubin, had a reputation for fiscal probity eclipsed by catastrophic complacency at Citigroup, where he was paid SI 15 million and maintained silence, so far as we know.  There will be Phil Gramm, of whom in April 2008 the Washington Post wrote that he was 'the sorcerers apprentice of financial instability and disaster.'  There will be Lawrence Summers, impassioned advocate of the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, bounced from Harvard's presidency to Obama's White House—a man whose reputation remains to be rebuilt or buried by events.  And Bernard Madoff."

James K. Galbraith, Foreword to the 2009 edition of The Great Crash of 1929, May 18, 2009

“The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.”

George Orwell, 1984

"By the end of the summer of 1929, the conviction that the market had become the personal instrument of mysterious but omnipotent men was never stronger.  And, indeed, this was a period of exceedingly active pool and syndicate operations — in short, of manipulation.  During 1929 more than a hundred issues on the New York Stock Exchange were subject to manipulative operations, in which members of the Exchange or their partners had participated.  

The nature of these operations varied somewhat but, in a typical operation, a number of traders pooled their resources to boom a particular stock. This buying would increase prices and attract the interest of people watching the tape across the country.  The interest of the latter would then be further stimulated by active selling and buying, all of which gave the impression that something big was afloat.  Tipsheets and market commentators would tell of exciting developments in the offing. If all went well, the public would come in to buy, and prices would rise on their own. The pool manager would then sell out, pay himself a percentage of the profits, and divide the rest with his investors

While it lasted, there was never a more agreeable way of making money.  The public at large sensed the attractiveness of these operations, and as the summer passed it came to be supposed that Wall Street was concerned with little else. This was an exaggeration, but it did not discourage public activity in the market. People did not believe they were being shorn.  Nor were they.  Both they and the pool operators were making money with the difference, only, that the latter were making more.  In any case, the public reaction to inside operations was to hope that it might get some inside information on these operations and so get a cut in the profits that the great men like Cutten, Livermore, Raskob, and the rest were making."

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash of 1929, 1954

“Religion used to be the opium of the people.   To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life.   But now, we are witnessing a transformation: 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, The Discreet Charm of Nihilism

Trading for the new year starts next week in earnest. 

This week was for the junior traders who for the most part just following orders.

The commentary on the mainstream media, including financial television, is other-worldly.

It will be interesting to see how January goes this year.

I have been struggling with something that I now think is the norovirus.   I had not even known about it until a few days ago.  

Considering all the company we had for Christmas, including all the little ones, it is not surprising.

The symptoms of the norovirus are like a flu on steroids, but no coughing or congestion.  Just a runny nose, epic gastrointestinal distress, and the worst body aches I can remember.   I could barely walk.

I share this in case you too are experiencing mystery symptoms.

I am finally starting to feel better but am very fatigued.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Violent Force and Fraud of Plutocracy

 

“There is a lack of critical assessment of the past. But you have to understand that the current ruling elite is actually the old ruling elite. So they are incapable of a self-critical approach to the past.”

Ryszard Kapuściński, Writing About Suffering

"The US must win, since it has infinite ammunition: there is no limit to the dollars the Federal Reserve can create. What needs to be discussed is the terms of the world’s surrender: the needed changes in nominal exchange rates and domestic policies around the world."

Martin Wolf, Financial Times, 12 Oct 2010

"This elite-generated social control maintains the status quo because the status quo benefits and validates those who created and sit atop it. People rise to prominence when they parrot the orthodoxy rather than critically analyze it.  Intellectual regurgitation is prized over independent thought. Voices of the dispossessed, different, and un(formally)educated are neglected regardless of their morality, import, and validity.   Real change in politics or society cannot occur under the orthodoxy because if it did, it would threaten the legitimacy of the professional class and all of the systems that helped them achieve their status."

Kristine Mattis, The Cult of the Professional Class, April 4, 2016

"Mounting a campaign against plutocracy makes as much sense to the typical Washington liberal as would circulating a petition against gravity. What our modernized liberal leaders offer is not confrontation but a kind of therapy for those flattened by the free-market hurricane: they counsel us to accept the inevitability of the situation."

Thomas Frank, Rendezvous With Oblivion, 1 September 2006

"There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice, that does not live by secrecy."

Denis Brian, Pulitzer: A Life, Oct 1, 2001

“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.”

Émile Zola, as quoted in Dreyfus: His Life and Letters, 1937

"The one who sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.'”

Revelation 21:5

Stocks came into the new year on weakness that prompted selling from the market open, despite the shenanigans in the overnight futures markets.

The Dollar rose sharply to 109 and held.

Gold rallied sharply, as did silver.

VIX remains nearly oblivious.

One day does not a trend make.

But the past week or so has been a rough time for equities, at a time when Santa Claus usually comes to Wall Street.

There is an established order that is holding on tight to a privileged position that looks increasingly unstable.  

As the tremors mount, secrecy abounds to hide the force and fraud that sustains them.

There will be change.  It may not come quietly. 

Have a pleasant evening.