Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Temptation of Power and High Places

 

"Hell for all eternity, for so little in exchange.  The gates of Hell are terrible to behold, are they not? The lofty mind of man can be imprisoned by the artifices of its own making.  If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves.”

E.A. Bucchianeri, Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World, 2008

"The dangers of fascist politics come from the particular way it dehumanizes segments of the population.  It limits the capacity for empathy among citizens, leading to the justification of inhumane treatment, from repression of freedom, mass imprisonment, and expulsion to, in extreme cases, mass extermination."

Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works, September 2018

"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. It is not merely that at present the rule of naked force obtains almost everywhere.  Bully-worship has become a universal religion."

George Orwell, Review of Bertrand Russell's Power, 1939

"What is the good of saying you are on His side, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream.  For it will be God without disguise; so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature.  It will be too late then to choose your side.  It will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not."

C. S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity, 1944

"And because of the increase in lawlessness, the love of most will grow cold.  But those who stand firm to the end, will be saved.  And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the world as a witness to all nations. And then the end will come."

Matthew 24:12 -14

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Behold, your house is now yours, but is made desolate."

Matthew 23:37-38

Stocks were a bit wobbly today, digesting their recent parabolic gains.

VIX continues to drop into relative complacency.

The Dollar has slipped off the 98 handle.

Silver staged an impressive rally today, gaining back all of its recent losses.

Gold remains political, as it is a genuine currency held by the world's central banks, whose role is evolving.

The hegemon views it unfavorably, because it is beyond its obsessive control.

But the world is now multi-polar, and the times they are a-changin'.

Donnie is meeting with Putin this week.   

I think Putin has a very clear and oft stated set of conditions and objectives.

Donnie is transactional, and wants to come away with a big headline, either with a cash number associated with it, or a peace deal to further his Nobel aspirations.

I don't think he can forge a true peace deal.  Europe and the Ukraine are sticking points in this.

So let's make a deal.  

Anything for a headline that distracts from the ongoing Epstein scandal.

It's most likely worse than you think. 

And the credibility trap demands it is not likely to see the light of day.

But for the cultists, real things don't really doesn't matter.

Each cult forges its own rules.   

For some, murder is not murder, even on a grand and open scale.

And for the cult that enables the grifters, everything is doubt and deflection. 

There is a great temptation to abuse power for those in high places.

These days it is au courant for the superior class to give in, as a validation of their exceptional privilege.  

All the finest people are doing it. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Freedom: To Remain Standing

 

"In post-war Germany, the White Rose was and is revered.  Sophie’s story looms especially large in the history of Ulm, my hometown.  She personifies the importance of acting according to one’s beliefs and of following your conscience, even in the face of great sacrifice.  Her story reminds us to not be silent, and fight for what Sophie wrote on the back of her indictment a day before she was killed: Freiheit — Freedom." 

Tanja B. Spitzer, Sophie Scholl and the White Rose, February 22, 2020

"At just this moment, I learn for the first time of the martyrdom of the Scholls.  I never saw these two young people.  In my rural isolation, I got only bits and pieces of the whole story of what they were doing, but the significance of what I heard was such I could hardly believe it.

The Scholls are the first in Germany to have had the courage to witness for the truth. The movement they left at their deaths will go on, and as is always the case with martyrdom, they have sown seeds which will raise important fruit in time to come.  This young brother and sister went boldly about their work, almost as though they were defying death.  Their betrayal came through a miserable university proctor, who was then so afraid of being beaten or otherwise punished, that he had to be taken into protective custody.

They died in all the radiance of their courage and readiness for sacrifice, and thereby attained the pinnacle in lives well lived.

Their bearing before the tribunal — that of the girl, especially — was inspiring. They flung their contempt of the court, the Party, and the insane, would-be great man, Hitler, into the faces of their judges, and at the end, did something which carries the icy breath of the Eternal about it for us who survive.  

For, with their last words, they repeated the warning once given by the condemned Knights of the Temple to their judges, that those who were persecuting them and those who stood behind them would ‘within a year be called to judgement before the throne of God.’  

But the Scholls departed from this life quietly, and gravely and with wonderful dignity gave their young blood.  On their gravestones let these words be carved, and let this entire people, which has lived in deepest degradation these last ten years, blush when it reads them: Cogi non potest quisquis mori scit — 'He who knows how to die can never be enslaved.'

We will all of us, someday, have to make a pilgrimage to their graves, and stand before them, ashamed. Germany has been sinking deeper and deeper into unreality ever since It is now completely drugged on its own lies. The cure will be more awful than anything ever seen before in history. This people is insane. It will pay dearly for its insanity. The air of this summer is full of foreboding, and fire and iron must heal what no physician can any longer cure."

Friedrich Percival Reck-Malleczewen, Diary of a Man in Despair, 1947 

"The world would undoubtedly be a better place if Sophie Scholl were a household name.  We would have an image of how life can be affirmed by someone who didn’t have to be a victim at all, but chose to be one because others were."

Clive James, Cultural Amnesia, 2007

"Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you're doing it. Right now. This is what the ruling class has decided is normal."

Aaron Bushnell, Last words, 26 February 2024

Stocks were rallying hard up to new highs today, on a largely in-line inflation number.

Except for core inflation which came in a bit hot.

This is a bubble.  It has all the hallmarks.

Do not try to get in front of it.  But be mindful when the rest around you go mad.

Gold and silver bounced a little bit, even as the Dollar fell back on the prospect of interest rate cuts in September.

Donnie is going to meet with Putin in Alaska.  He does not have a particularly strong hand to play.

If Trump had been president during the Cuban missile crisis we would be all dead.  

But Putin is a seasoned diplomat and politician.  So we have some nope.

The internal, moral rot and apathy in the US is of much more concern.

We stand silent and complicit in the face of a genocide that matches the viciousness of the worst of the last century.

We stand silent, and therefore complicit, as the structure of our Constitution is slowly being dismantled, clause by clause, amendment by amendment.

We stand silent, as our Congress disgraces itself a bit more every day in the service to greed and power.

What can one say in the face of such complicity with evil? 

Where are we going Lord? 

"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 objective, logical considerations, we find the irrational element: the struggle against the demon, against the servants of the Antichrist."

The White Rose, Fourth Leaflet, Munich, 1942

Be mindful of your soul.  For that is what this struggle is all about, whether you realize it or not. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Staggering Price of Deceit

 

"With the tools of democracy, democracy was murdered and lawlessness made ‘legal.’  Raw power ruled, and its only real goal was to destroy all other powers besides itself.”

Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, April 2010

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: power attracts pathological personalities.  It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.  Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune, 1985

"Price discovery is not a sexy function of markets, but it is critical to the efficient allocation of scarce capital and resources, and to the preservation of the long term wealth of investors and the economy as a whole.  If price discovery is compromised by manipulation, then we will all be gradually impoverished and the economy will be imbalanced and unstable."

London Banker, Lies, Damn Lies, and Libor , 2012

"What is most offensive is not their lying — one can always forgive lying — lying can be a delightful thing, for it leads to truth.  What is offensive is that they lie, and worship their own lying."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment , 1866

"You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires.  He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

John 8:43-44

Stocks did one of their signature 'pop and flop' moves today.

Gold and silver were hammered.

There is a stock option expiration coming up at the end of the week, after all.

VIX is just wallowing.

The Dollar chopped around and finished nominally unchanged from Friday.

Economic data and a US-Russia meeting in Alaska may provide some meaningful market news.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Show Me Your Ways, O Lord

 

"Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me: for you are the God of my salvation.  Remember, O Lord, your tender mercies and loving kindness, as they have ever been of old."

Psalm 25:4-6

"'For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'

And they will ask, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' Then he will answer, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'”

Matthew 25:42-45

"A new commandment I give you, to love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

John 13:34

"There was a scholar of the law who had come to test him and said, 'Rabbi, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' and Jesus asked him, 'What is written in the law? How do you understand it?' The scholar replied, 'You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.' Jesus replied, 'You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.' But because he wished to justify himself, he asked Jesus, 'And who then is my neighbor?' 

And Jesus replied, 'A man fell victim to robbers, as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho...'"

Luke 10:25-30


Stocks had their usual funny, highly contrived trading day.

Most of the action on the tape seems very 'handled.'

Gold was hit after a huge overnight spike up to a new near term record high.

Silver just meandered around.  I think the physical delivery situation will sustain silver to a certain degree - because the Western central banks do not have any silver in their reserves to lend out at key moments.

The Dollar chopped around and ended mostly unchanged. 

VIX dropped quite a bit.  We are back into relative complacency.

If one ignores the sturm und drang of the contrived culture conflicts, it is difficult to understand who is really running things in the US political system, and why basic transparency and reform seem to be so illusive. contrived contrasts of the culture conflicts,

Here is an interesting discussion of the American political scene since WW II and the growth of the 'Deep State' for your weekend viewing.

Have a pleasant weekend.