Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Plague of the Unspeakable

 

"When we are the victims of an illusion we do not feel it to be an illusion but a reality.  It is the same perhaps with evil.  As soon as we do evil, the evil appears as a sort of duty.  Once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder. 

As soon as men know they that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles."

Simone Weil, La Pesanteur et la Grâce, 1947

"Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil.  It is a battle fought by a great evil, struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness.”

Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate, 1959 

"When a war breaks out, people say: 'It's too stupid; it can't last long.' But though a war may well be 'too stupid,' that doesn't prevent it from lasting. Foolishness has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves. In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words they were exceptional humans: they did not believe in plagues.

Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they forgot to be human, that was all, and thought that everything still was possible for them; which presupposed that plagues were impossible. They went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How could they have given a thought to anything like a plague, which rules out any future, cancels journeys, silences the exchange of views. They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are plagues."

Albert Camus, The Plague, 1947

"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

"Cherish therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention.  Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them.  If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves...for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor."

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Edward Carrington, US National Archives, 16 January 1787
 

Stocks kicked into rally mode today, as the ongoing conflict in the Mideast looked like it might give the boys of Wall Street a little breathing room.

They wanted to get back what they lost with the sneak attack on Friday.

And, as a reminder there will be a triple witch stock market option expiration on this Friday.

So they may get a little more time to execute their usual script.

Gold was slammed.  Silver not so much.

Bitcoin rallied back.

It was a day for risky assets to shine.

If you watch something like this analysis by Alastair Cooke, you will get a better idea, in plain language, of how a seasoned diplomat and political observer might perceive what just happened.

It is not a good look for the exceptional.  One never participates in shooting people with whom you are negotiating under a flag of truce and parlay, no matter what distasteful lies and unworthy excuses with which you may choose to rationalize it.

I had thought we were a little better than to be complicit in something sordid and dishonorable like this.

These are the fruits of moral hazard. 

"The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God."

Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: 1933-1945

What are we becoming.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Seductive Illusions of Empire

 

"Their tongues are devious weapons, bent like a drawn bow. With falsehoods rather than truth they have gained power in the land.  They commit one crime after another.  They do not know me."

Jeremiah 9:3

"For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.  But the one who restrains it will continue to do so until he steps away.   And then the lawless one will be revealed, the one whom the Lord will slay by the breath of his mouth and bring to an end with the splendor of his coming.

The coming of the lawless one will be the work of Satan made manifest in power, signs and wonders of falsehood, and in every wicked deception designed for those who are perishing because they did not accept the love of truth, and be saved.

For this reason, God permits them [the exceptional] a powerful delusion to believe their lies, that all may be condemned who deny the truth and instead take pleasure in lawlessness."

2 Thessalonians 2:7-12

"If at the start this cancerous growth in the nation was not particularly noticeable, it was only because there were still enough forces at work that operated for the good, so that it was kept under control. As it grew larger, however, and finally in an ultimate spurt of growth attained ruling power, the tumor broke open, as it were, and infected the whole body."

The White Rose, Second 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


An explanation of today's market decline is unnecessary, unless one is a spokesmodel for one of the financial or ideologically inclined organizations which are always trying to find clever ways to distract and mislead the narrative.

The mispricing of risks has corrected a bit, but I fear it has some way to go. 

Perhaps a substantial way to go, all things considered, including the real economy.

Gold popped but was held in check.

Silver ended the week mostly unchanged, but this was on top of a prior stellar performance the week before. 

Despite what people say, silver is just not as 'monetary' as gold.

And Bitcoin is a risk asset in drag.  

VIX ticked up.  But it did not yet spike.

I would imagine they will be exchanging 'presents' with messages attached back and forth this weekend over there.

The targets and the heft (throw weight) of the packages will be pivotal.

Even moreso if anyone else selects to cast off pretense and most openly engage. 

And then there is the Ukraine, the neglected. 

It's always something new and shinier with the Empire. 

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." 

Have a pleasant, and hopefully uneventful, weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The First Drop In the Onrushing Abyss

 

“I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot.  But because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, ‘I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything,’ and yet do not realize that you are wretched, poor, pitiable, naked, and blind."

Revelation 3:15-17

"Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it’s a dimension of the soul; it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation.  Hope is not prognostication.  It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. 

Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed."

Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace, 1990

“It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one. Those who have followed the assertive idiot rather than the introspective wise person have passed us some of their genes. This is apparent from a social pathology: psychopaths rally followers.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan, April 2007

"Now might be a good time to find something that you can firmly believe in, something that is greater and better than yourself, and then hang on to it and faithfully serve it, with all your strength and hope."

Jesse, La Vie en Rose, 18 August 2015

"And Peter understood that neither Nero, nor all his legions, could overcome the living truth— that they could not overwhelm it with tears or blood, and that now its victory was beginning.

He understood with equal force why the Lord had turned him back on the road.  That city of pride, of crime, of wickedness, and of a lust for power, was beginning to be His."

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis, 1896 

Stocks managed to hold a modest rally today.

There was a hidden weakness on the tape amidst all the bravado.

The Dollar gave up the 98 handle.

Watch the Bond and the Dollar.   They will speak the truths that risk assets like equities hide.

VIX is still mispricing risks of all manner.  

Hubris knows no fear, until it feels the first breath-taking plunge into the abyss.

Those imperious few.  

They will be scattered remnants on the streets of hell, voicelessly blown here and there by dull, directionless winds. 

In the end, the only thing that matters is to be among the saints.

Have a pleasant evening 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Liberty Cabbage

 

“Remember our war hysteria, when we called sauerkraut ‘Liberty cabbage‘ and somebody actually proposed calling German measles ‘Liberty measles?’ And the wartime censorship of honest papers?  As bad as Russia!  Why, where in all history has there ever been a people so ripe for dictatorship as ours!”

Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here, 1930

“Authoritarianism begins when we can no longer tell the difference between the true and the appealing.  At the same time, the cynic who decides that there is no truth at all is the citizen who welcomes the tyrant.  Freedom depends upon citizens who are able to make a distinction between what is true and what they want to hear.  Authoritarianism arrives not because people say that they want it, but because they lose the ability to distinguish between facts and desires."

Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom, 2018

“If we look more closely, we see that any violent display of power, whether political or religious, produces an outburst of foolishness in a large part of mankind; indeed, this seems actually to be a psychological and sociological law: the power of some needs the foolishness of others.  It is not that certain human capacities, intellectual capacities for instance, become stunted of destroyed, but rather that the upsurge of power makes such an overwhelming impression that men are deprived of their independent judgment, and give up trying to assess the new state of affairs for themselves.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 1951

“It is better described as simple-mindedness: people are often attracted to authoritarian ideas because they are bothered by complexity.  They dislike divisiveness.  They prefer unity.  A sudden onslaught of diversity—diversity of opinions, diversity of experiences—therefore makes them angry.  They seek solutions in new political language that makes them feel safer and more secure.

Democracy itself has always been loud and raucous, but when its rules are followed, it eventually creates consensus.  The modern debate does not. Instead, it inspires in some people the desire to forcibly silence the rest.  People have always had different opinions.  Now they have different facts."

Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, 2020


Charts are early tonight, because we have to take Daisy to the vet.  

Have a pleasant evening.