Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Limits of Imperial Power and Its Oligarchy

 

"The limit of the Fed's and Treasury's ability to create money is the value and acceptance of the dollar and the bond in open market transactions.

The Weimar government never 'ran out of money.'  Zimbabwe never 'ran out of money.'  And if interest is paid 'in your currency money' you can never fail to service your debt either.  What they did run out of were people willing to take their paper at its intended value, from those who are their sphere of control, their compulsion of legal tender.

It is not clear to me that the dollar has passed the point of no return. But it is obviously unstable, as a bulwark of a corrupted system.  And therefore it is making its holders understandably nervous."

Jesse, Money and The Limits of Empire, 13 February 2011

"A market collapse is nothing but risk-aversion meeting a market that's not priced to tolerate risk.  Buckle up."

John Hussman, April 30, 2025

"If we are indeed in a Minsky Moment, which we think we are, then monetary inflation by the Fed and government intervention without reform will most likely increase the probability of a protracted stagflationary repression in the United States, and possibly lead to civil unrest and an exogenous reform of the system.  An abandonment of the system as it is with a turn to fascism has been the historic choice of Wall Street.  The political lobbying against systemic reform by the Bankers and their sycophants will be intense and as persuasive to the many as most appeals to fear.  However, their reckless advice leads to a trip to the brink of the abyss."

Jesse, Which Way Out of the Minsky Moment, 23 March 2008

"The main objectives of managed democracy are to increase the profits of large corporations, dismantle the institutions of social democracy (Social Security, unions, welfare, public health services, public housing and so forth), and roll back the social and political ideals of the New Deal.   Its primary tool is privatization [and deregulation].

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 [Inverted Totalitarianism] will stand as one of the best discourses on where we went wrong."

Chalmers Johnson, A New Way of Understanding How the U.S. Is Controlled, May 16, 2008

"We are imperial, and we are in decline. People are losing confidence in the Empire."

Lawrence Wilkerson, The Travails of Empire, October 8, 2014


The Empire seems to have gone barking mad.  

Is this just a clever game, a negotiating tactic?   

The famous Nixonian 'madman theory' gambit?

Perhaps.  But when coupled with a multipolar world of gathering resistance to the usual economic coercion, in which one of your fundamental supports, the fiat Dollar, is based on trust and confidence, it can prove to be strategically fatal.

We seem to be in a pivotal moment.

Stocks were rallying all day, extending the imperial decree that despite the tariff shocks incoming all is well.

You didn't catch it if you just watch the cash price, but US equity markets futures utterly collapsed into the close and went red.

A disappointment from the Amazon cloud after hours is possible.  There are many possibilities.

Apple is up to bat next, later this evening.

Gold and silver were hammered today, as is customary on the day before a Non-Farm Payrolls report.

To say I think that this was 'technical' trading would be an understatement.

China metals markets will be quiet for the May 1 holiday week.

The Dollar bumped up a little higher.

The VIX is now low enough to suggest that this rally is getting really long in the tooth.

And did I mention that I think this was a dictated rally to put someone's tariff decisions in a less disastrous light?

One can only wonder.

The truth will come out, eventually.  

Be careful where you look and listen, or you may miss it.

See you tomorrow.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Conmen, Bullies, and Puppetmasters

 

"'A lot of white-collar criminals are psychopaths,' said Robert Hare.  '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.'

Hare has said that if he couldn't study psychopaths in prisons, the Vancouver Stock Exchange would have been his second choice.  Psychopaths can be found in legislatures, hospitals, and used-car lots.  Because they have no conscience, they're natural predators. If you didn't have a conscience, you'd be one too.

Psychopaths love chaos and hate rules, so they're comfortable in the fast-moving modern corporation.  Dr. Paul Babiak, an industrial-organizational psychologist based near New York City, is in the process of writing a book with Bob Hare called When Psychopaths Go to Work: Cons, Bullies and the Puppetmaster. The subtitle refers to the three broad classes of psychopaths Babiak has encountered in the workplace."

Robert Hercz, Psychopaths Among Us, 2001

"When the person at the top is malignant and self-serving, unethical behavior cascades through the organization and becomes legitimized.

Narcissists change the companies or countries they lead, much like bad money drives out good, and those changes can outlast their own tenure, O’Reilly says. Divergent voices are silenced, flattery and servility are rewarded, and cynicism and apathy corrode any sense of shared purpose in a culture where everyone’s out for themselves. In the extreme, they can destroy the institution itself.

But the gravest danger posed by such leaders is that their malignant influence guides the behavior and expectations of others — and ultimately shapes the culture of the organization or polity in their own image. Studies of businesses show that self-serving, unethical behavior at the top cascades through the organization and becomes legitimized, or at least normalized.

“Once they’re in power, narcissists consolidate their position by firing everyone who challenges them,” O’Reilly says. In their place rise a plague of toadies, opportunists, and enablers equally guided by self-interest and short on scruples. 'So you end up with these individualistic cultures with no teamwork and low integrity. We’ve documented this in a bunch of Silicon Valley tech firms.'”

Lee Simmons, How Narcissistic Leaders Destroy From Within, Stanford Business, April 30, 2020

"Malignant narcissism goes beyond mere self-centeredness.  It goes beyond feeling special.   And it goes beyond feeling superior.  Malignant narcissists lack the capacity for empathy and shame.  They also know this makes them different from others.  But they deeply prize these critical differences. And they hold those not like them in utter disdain. 

Narcissism becomes particularly 'malignant' (i.e. malevolent, dangerous, harmful, incurable) when it goes beyond mere vanity and excessive self-focus. Malignant narcissists not only see themselves as superior to others but believe in their superiority to the degree that they view others as relatively worthless, expendable, and justifiably exploitable.

This type of narcissism is a defining characteristic of psychopathy/sociopathy and is rooted in an individual’s deficient capacity for empathy.  It’s almost impossible for a person with such shallow feelings and such haughtiness to really care about others or to form a conscience with any of the qualities we typically associate with a humane attitude, which is why most researchers and thinkers on the topic of psychopathy think of psychopaths as individuals without a conscience altogether."

George Simon, Malignant Narcissism, December 27, 2013


Stocks sold off on the worse than expected economic data this morning.

But, wonder of wonders, they managed to take back all their losses and rally green into the close.

There were reports of a break in the Ukraine Russia talks, though I doubt anyone in Russia  knows or cares what they are talking about. 

Kind of like the talks that had supposedly occurred on tariffs with President Xi, which he said were imaginary.

Surely this is a sign of the prosperity and magnificence of Empire, which creates its own reality.

The Dollar bounced up to the top of the 99 handle.

VIX fell back to its 50 day moving average.

Gold and silver fell off a bit.

Ending badly.    

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Grace of Contentment amid the Phantoms of Power

 

"Our world promotes dissatisfaction with our lives.  We are constantly bombarded with newer and better things that will make our lives more complete if only we would obtain them.  If we listen to the world, we will always be comparing the lifestyles and possessions of others with our own, and we will always be dissatisfied.

If our contentment comes from possessions, activities, or other people, these can be altered or removed.  If our contentment comes from our relationship with Christ, there is absolutely nothing that can take that away.

Paul had enjoyed power and status among his people.  He had also been imprisoned and bound in stocks in the depths of a jail cell.  He had stood before a king and been stoned almost to death by an angry mob.  Paul had enjoyed the benefits and pleasures of life, yet he could give them all up and still be filled with the joy of the Lord.  His contentment did not depend on his environment but on his relationship with Christ.

'I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.'
Philippians 4:11

Contentment frees you to enjoy every good thing God has given you.  Contentment demonstrates your belief that God loves you and has your best interest in mind.  Discontent stems from the sin of ingratitude and a lack of faith that God loves you enough to provide for all that you need.  Strive to be grateful for all that God has given you.  A grateful heart has no room for envy."

Henry Blackaby, Contentment

“Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage."

Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, 1965

"Greed is not good.  Greed is a disease, an aberration of simple honest ambition and necessary provision taken to excess. It is a sin, a transgression against love.  This simple distinction may be lost on a people no longer able to distinguish between virtue and sin, honor and expediency, appetite and gluttony, the means and the ends.

And yet this generation would make a god of it, although they may not understand, or care, what it is that they are doing, and whom it is they serve. Greed, often in company with hubris and fear, is a handmaiden of the corrupting influence of power and triumph of the will.  Greed is contagious, a disease of the heart, that attacks the very contentment of society, hardening it towards oligarchy and oppression."

Jesse, Greed Is Not Good, 19 December 2010

Stocks were the usual wobbly again, but managed to pull together a rally into the close.

 VIX has continued to decline, and is now once again in the area where this stock bubble rally may be forced to pause.

Gold and silver attempted to rise and then fell back a bit again. 

Did I mention that there is going to be a Non-Farm Payrolls report this Friday?

Have we forgotten the promise of an open, beautiful audit of the holdings of the official US gold reserves?

Appearance versus reality.  

This is the key to all those pampered princes of power who have been rising from the darkness around the world.

Their appearance is all symbol and bluster, fueled by the mystique of passions and hate, reflecting a shallow lack of diligence and substance and competence.

Weighed, and found wanting.

But we have been here before.   

We have seen seemingly irresistible groups which worship the land and the blood, full of fury against the innocent, ready to destroy liberty and all life in a fit of delusional pride.

And they eventually all fall away, unproductive and unworthy, unable to create, only destroy.   

The children of desolation.

Our hope and our salvation lies in a different place, in the calm and loving heart of our Lord.

The sound and fury of the moment is passing, into the dust and the dirt of their vanities, the dry bones and corruption of a fallen world which fill their minds and their hearts. 

The faithful gathered in their thousands, as millions more looked on from afar, to mark the passing of a kind and gentle shepherd, on the very hill where the most powerful man in the world had crucified his predecessor, upside down.

Ubi sunt?  Sic transit gloria mundi.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Spurious Realities and Toxic Delusions of Power

 

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.  Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays. We are beginning to abandon our tolerance of the abuse of power by those who betray for profit the elementary decencies of life. In this process evil things formerly accepted will not be so easily condoned."

Franklin D Roosevelt, Second Inaugural Address, January 1937

"At times the truth shines so brilliantly that we perceive it as clear as day.  But then our nature and habit draw a veil over our perception, and we return to a darkness almost as dense as before.  We are like those who, though beholding frequent flashes of lightning, still find themselves in the thickest darkness of the night.

When I have a difficult subject before me—when I find the road narrow, and can see no other way of teaching a well established truth except by pleasing one intelligent man and displeasing ten thousand fools—I prefer to address myself to the one man, and to take no notice whatever of the condemnation of the multitude.  I prefer to extricate that intelligent man from his embarrassment and show him the cause of his perplexity, so that he may attain perfection and be at peace."

Moses Maimonides, Moreh Nevuchim, The Guide for the Perplexed, 1190

"Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups...  So I ask, in my writing, 'what is real?'  Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms.  I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power.  They have a lot of it."

Philip K. Dick, A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later, 1978

"All the world marveled at this, and gave their allegiance to the Beast. And they worshiped the dragon for giving such power to him. as they also worshiped the Beast. 'Who is as great as the Beast?' they exclaimed.  'Who is able to resist him?'  And the Beast was allowed to commit great blasphemies against God."

Revelation 13:3-5


Stocks came in wobbly, and went up and down in their usual willful way.  

Down they went and a proper selloff was averted, once again, with some obvious propping into the close.

Gold and silver sustained an early smackdown, but in the end gained some ground.

The Dollar fell rather sharply and obviously.

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report this coming Friday.

Lawlessness and self-dealing is the fashion of the day, with a heavy dose of malignant narcissism. 

Crimes again international law and humanity are defended with duplicity and hypocrisy.  

The Constitution itself is battered by money and the will to power.

How all this will end only God knows.  But these things rarely end anywhere but badly.

History is incredulous at servile lack of decency and willful collaboration in the face of madness.

"Why do German people behave so apathetically in the face of all these abominable crimes, crimes so unworthy of the human race?   The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals; they give them the opportunity to carry on their depredations; and of course they do so. 

Is this a sign that the Germans are brutalized in their simplest human feelings, that no chord within them cries out at the sight of such deeds, that they have sunk into a fatal consciencelessness from which they will never, never awake?"

The White Rose, Second Leaflet, Munich 1942

And yet despite all this, the world though fallen is redeemed. 

Have a pleasant evening.