Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Crazy Man School of RealPolitik

 

"Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.   The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness."

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

"Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be 'governed' without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct.  It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government.  Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes— crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure— reach the light of day? 

If the German people are already so corrupted and spiritually crushed that they do not raise a hand, frivolously trusting in a questionable faith in lawful order in history; if they surrender man’s highest principle, that which raises him above all other God’s creatures, his free will; if they abandon the will to take decisive action and turn the wheel of history and thus subject it to their own rational decision; if they are so devoid of all individuality, have already gone so far along the road toward turning into a spiritless and cowardly mass— then, yes, they deserve their downfall."

The White Rose, First Leaflet, Munich 1942

"When humanity, subjugated by the terror of crime, has been driven mad by fear and horror, and when chaos has become the supreme law, then the time for the empire of lawlessness will have come."

Fritz Lang, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, 1933


The US president made a somewhat shocking announcement about the US taking long term possession of Gaza, clearing the land and developing it, and relocating the 2.2 million Palestinians to 'someplace nice.'  

There are several plausible interpretations of this development. It was something pre-written on paper which he read out, so it was not something just said 'off the hip.'

So either he meant it, and is in keeping with intentions put forward by a number of groups in the US and Israel.

Or, he was trying to break the 'deadlock' in the area by throwing an outrageous offer on the table, in order to provoke some of the parties towards alternatives.  

And acting crazy and off the wall is one negotiating tactic that has been used to some effect.  Richard Pryor had a famous bit about this and his 'pay negotiations' with club owning mobsters in Youngstown.  And Nikita Khrushchev famously took off his shoe and started banging it on the podium at the UN.  I remember seeing ad posters on buses at the time with a picture of this and the quote, "We will bury you."

There were some obvious whoppers rolled into his proposal, like how everyone he discussed it with thought it was a great idea.  That may be right, if the only people he discussed it with was his son-in-law the developer and some of the warhawks in his cabinet.

I won't bother speculating on what he intended.  It can be argued either way.  Narcissists are a difficult read and applying the normal rules of logic may not be appropriate and sound.

But I do know that negotiating in geopolitical flashpoints might not be the same business venue as one would use when negotiating a real estate deal in NY or NJ, or a payment issue with the mob in a nightclub. 

When I was running a global business unit I had someone pull that sort of thing on me at a contract signing that was settled, and that required me to travel to Washington DC in the winter.  They did not read the room correctly, and the power balance in the relationship.   It was not a macho thing.  But I made a rather compelling example out of the inappropriateness of it, which was exactly the right thing to do.   It never happened again, with any partner or vendor.  I even did it once with a very large computer software company who was clearly above my weight class, so you won't think I was a bully.  That was a calculated risk.

I would never, ever do that with a customer, let's be clear.  Even if they are being ridiculous, and abusive, you just walk away smiling and politely after having tried your best.  They are always right, even when they are wrong.

And of course, there is the possible chance that someone will call your bluff.  And make you back it up.

But as for the markets, they seemed to shrug all this off and moved higher.

VIX fell back below its moving averages again.

The dollar did a sideways wash and rinse, and finished slightly lower.

Gold and silver rallied quite sharply, but then fell to selling pressure in the afternoon, as is usual.

NY likes to play when the rest of the world goes to sleep.

Let's see how we finish out the week.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Behind the Curtains of Secrecy Lurk Demons

 

“What I have been trying to say to intellectuals, preachers, scientists - as well as more generally to the public, can be put into one sentence: drop the liberal rhetoric and the conservative default; they are now parts of one and the same official line [prevailing narrative]; transcend that line. 

We must come to understand that the exercise of responsibility is diminishing and in fact becoming organized as irresponsibility.  We must hold men of power variously responsible for pivotal events, we must unmask their pretentions - and often their own mistaken convictions - that they are not responsible.   Our politics, in short, must be the politics of responsibility.”

C. Wright Mills, The Politics of Responsibility, 1960

"I think that some day historians, in their attempt to make a coherent sense of a diversity of actors and events of our time, may make the case that the most common denominator among the people of power, our Western elite, was not wisdom or virtue or learning or even genuine accomplishments.  The most valued characteristic of our system seems to be the willingness of the individual to surrender themselves to the unspeakable— to do whatever they are told to do, say anything that they are told to say, attend whatever institution and join whatever organization that may be required, and to profess anything with fervent conviction that they are told to believe. And to never, ever violate the secrecy and carefully crafted image of the ruling class.

Whether this servile attitude comes from a total lack of character, a sociopathic obsession with power and money, or on the negative side a susceptibility to sexual or financial blackmail, for example, it just a spectrum of a system that has degenerated into a secretive series of schemes, scams, and cons, hidden behind an official mythology of manufactured stories under a blanket of closely guarded secrecy."

Jesse, The Higher Immorality of the Elite, 25 October 2024

"Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population.  Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful industries. These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, [corporate media], and lobbying industry.

If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultra wealthy elite.  Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism. Thus far, both political parties have been remarkably clever and effective in concealing this new reality. In fact, the two parties have formed an innovative kind of cartel— an arrangement I have termed America’s political duopoly. Both parties lie about the fact that they have each sold out to the financial sector and the wealthy.  So far both have largely gotten away with the lie, helped in part by the enormous amount of money now spent on deceptive, manipulative political advertising."

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation, 2012

 

According to Mr. Zelensky of the Ukraine, between $75 to 100 billion dollars of the $177 billion in 'aid' that the US government has sent to them is missing and unaccounted for.  

To paraphrase George Orwell, war against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it. 

All that is required to sustain this sort of thing is to keep the paying public distracted by bread and circuses, fear and greed.  And hatred of the unknown and of each other with narratives created by those without moral restraint in pursuit of a quick buck, and passed around by those who like to think that they are in with the ruling class, and  exceptional.

A story as old as Babylon, and evil as sin.  

Stocks slumped hard overnight, but managed to take back much of their losses during the day.

The Dollar continued a slow decline falling back to the 108 level.

Gold and silver continued to rally after their breakout.

Some gold left the Hong Kong warehouses as Asia returns from its lunar new year celebrations.

 VIX fell back down to its lower levels as the markets breathed a sigh of relief at the suspension of the looming tariffs and trade wars.

That which is unsustainable will not be sustained, except by increasing fraud and force.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - At the Hands of a Savage Few

 

"It is the time of the harvest, and the reaper cuts into the ripe grain with wide strokes.  Mourning takes up her abode in the country cottages, and there is no one to dry the tears of the mothers.  Whoever today still doubts the reality, the existence of demonic powers, has failed by a wide margin to understand the metaphysical background of this war.  Behind the concrete, the visible events, behind all the objective, logical considerations, we find that which goes beyond the merely rational: the struggle against evil, 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; and when he yields to the forces of evil, he separates himself from the powers of a higher order; after voluntarily taking the first step, he is driven on and on to the next and to the next, at a furiously accelerating rate."

Die Weiße Rose, Fourth Leaflet, Munich, 1942

"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege."

Thomas Clement Douglas

"A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few, as we have learned to our sorrow."

Judge Learned Hand, 21 May 1944

"The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was well executed."

Honoré de Balzac, Le Père Goriot

“When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically.  They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission.  Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.”

Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom

"It can only be hoped that American democracy will thoroughly realize, and this before it is too late, that fascism is not confined to any one nation or any one party; and it is to be hoped that it will succeed in overcoming the tendency toward dictatorial forms in the people themselves.   Only time will tell whether the Americans will be able to resist the compulsion of irrationality or whether they will succumb to it.”

Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
 

We are well on our way, Wilhelm, if we are not there already.

Stocks were reeling overnight, in reaction to Trump's intended imposition of fairly draconian tariffs on some of the US' biggest trading partners.

It is fairly well established in economics and history that tariffs tend to exacerbate the conditions of the economies involved.

Well, perhaps this time is different.

I can already see the true believers trying to rationalize what is going on.  

'Tariffs are like taxes', they say, 'and that money flows into the Treasury, which is a good thing for our deficit.'

What is ironic is that these words come from the mouth of someone who would condemn an income tax increase on the wealthy as an abomination.  

Well, we will see a lot more of that sort of thing going on.  

As Hermann Hesse once said Siddharta, 'when the suffering becomes acute enough, one goes forward.'

But I suspect things are going to be getting worse, a lot worse.

Stocks managed to find a footing and brought themselves back closer to the closing prices on Friday.

Last night I speculated that might happen.

The oligarchy is flexing its financial power.  Odder things are in the cards.

Gold and silver managed to rise back from their overnight selloff and come back to a modest gain.

The Dollar has rallied overnight, but fell back during the day.

So, Mexico has averted crisis for now, by sending its troops to the US border to 'restore order.'

And Canada has decided to stop drinking Southern Comfort, Jim Beam and Jack Daniels.

Denmark is trying to cut a deal to avoid a US Anschluss in Greenland.

The spines in Congress are turning to dust.  And the media is playing its role as gracious acolytes to power.

Rough seas ahead, matey.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Café at the End of the World

 

"While some of the crowd were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and offerings, he said,  'All that you see here, the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.'  Then they asked him, 'Teacher, when will this happen?   And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?'  And He said to them, 'Where death is, there a gathering of vultures will be.'”

Luke 21:5-7, 37

"Beauty is but a flower,
   That wrinkles will devour.
Brightness falls from the air;
   Queens have died, young and fair.
Dust hath closed Helen's eye.
   I am sick, I must die.
   Lord have mercy on us."

Thomas Nashe, A Litany in Time of Plague

"Et Jehanne, la bonne Lorraine,
   Qu'Anglois bruslerent à Rouen;
Où sont-ilz, Vierge souveraine?
   Mais où sont les neiges d'antan."

François Villon, Ballade des dames du temps jadis

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Percy Shelley, Ozymandias

"¿Qué fue entonces del rico y de su poderío
   de la vanaglorïa, de su orgulloso brío?
Todo ya es pasado y corrió como río;
   de todo su pensar fincó él mucho frío.
¿Dó son los muchos años que habemos durado
en este mundo malo, mezquino e lastrado?"

Pedro López de Ayala, Ubi sunt

"Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem."

John Henry Newman, Epitaph


Stocks tried to extend their rally today once again, and failed.

Gold and silver had the correction which we had expected to see.

The wash and rinse must be served.

VIX rose from its recent low.

The Dollar rallied a bit, taking back 108.

It will be interesting to see if the shroud of secrecy that remains over the deaths of America's thought leaders in the 1960's will finally be lifted.

Or if the need to hide the moral indifference that infests our elites will override the search for the truth.

Rather than reveal the deepest secrets, their shills and grifters will gladly distort and destroy them.

It's just business.

Have a pleasant weekend.