Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Whims and Desires of the Elite

 

"Let them wait, if their past experience shall induce them to think that any high honour or any exquisite pleasure is to be obtained by a policy like this.  Let them wait, if this strange and fearful infatuation be indeed upon them, that they should not see with their eyes, or hear with their ears, or understand with their heart.  But let us know our interest and our duty better.  Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us,  'Reform, that you may preserve.'"

Thomas B. Macaulay, Speech Before Parliament, March 2, 1831

"The real problem for others is when narcissistic features, especially a sense of entitlement and a lack of empathy, shade into antisocial and destructive behaviors.  When this happens, the pattern might be described as aggressive or malignant narcissism, which is difficult to distinguish from psychopathy.

Another characteristic of psychopaths is an ability to avoid taking responsibility for things that go wrong; instead, they blame others, circumstances, fate, and so forth.  Psychopaths will lie even to people who already know the truth about what they are saying. Even in the face of contrary evidence, the psychopath can lie so well that listeners doubt themselves first, rather than question the psychopath."

Babiak and Hare, Snakes in Suits, May 2006

"There is a class of individuals who have been around forever and who are found in every race, culture, society and walk of life.  Everybody has met these people, been deceived and manipulated by them, and forced to live with or repair the damage they have wrought.  These often charming-but always deadly-individuals have a clinical name: psychopaths.  Their hallmark is a stunning lack of conscience; their game is self-gratification at the other person’s expense.  All take far more than they give.

The most obvious expressions of psychopathy-but not the only ones-involve the flagrant violation of society’s rules.  Not surprisingly, many psychopaths are criminals, but many others manage to remain out of prison, using their charm and chameleon-like coloration to cut a wide swathe through society, leaving a wake of ruined lives behind them.

Psychopaths appear amazingly unfazed by the possibility, or even by the certainty, of being found out. When caught in a lie or challenged with the truth, they seldom appear perplexed or embarrassed-they simply change their stories or attempt to rework the facts so they appear to be consistent with the lie. The result is a series of contradictory statements and a thoroughly confused listener. And psychopaths seem proud of their ability to lie."

Robert Hare, The Charming Psychopath: How to Spot Social Predators, Psychology Today, 2007

"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.  Power will achieve its murderous potential.  It simply waits for an excuse, an event of some sort, an assassination, a massacre in a neighboring country, an attempted coup, a famine, or a natural disaster, to justify the beginning of murder en masse."

R. J. Rummel, Death by Government: A History of Mass Murder and Genocide, 1994


Stocks gave back some of their rocket rally from yesterday.

Just a normal pull back so far.

Gold and silver rallied, but gave it back in the afternoon.

There will be a option expiration on the Comex this coming Thursday the 25th.

VIX ticked up a bit.

Bitcoin continued to decline.

There is a new documentary about the tragic US war in Afghanistan called 'Bodyguard of Lies.'  It is coming out on Paramount+.   It looks to be a good one.  

The US spent 300 million dollars per day for 20 years on the failed military exercise against the Taliban, not including the tragic loss and disruption of life.   A few gained wealth and power from it.

"Faustus had advanced beyond the level of a scarlet sinner — he was a conscious follower of the Prince of Darkness."

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

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Greeding Frenzy - Servants of the Beast

 

"They will not see. They will not listen. Blindly they follow their seducers into ruin."

The White Rose, Fifth Leaflet, Munich 1943

"Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil.  This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.  The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome foolishness."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 1945

“He will choose you, disarm you with his words, and control you with his presence.  He will delight you with his wit and his plans.  He will smile and deceive you, and he will scare you with his eyes.  And when he is through with you, and he will be through with you, he will desert you, and take with him your innocence and your pride."

Robert D. Hare, Without Conscience

“This great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts.  For evil to appear disguised as light, compassion, historical necessity or even social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Word, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil.  Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior.  Christians are called to compassion and to action. "

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Who Stands Fast, Letters and Papers From Prison, 1945

"The foolish ask nothing better than not to have to understand anything, and they even used to get together and try not to understand, because the last thing of which a person is capable is to be malicious and foolish all by themselves.  Without understanding, they form spontaneously into herds, not according to any particular affinities but in obedience to the petty ideology, which swallowed up the whole of their small lives, allotted them by birth or chance.  They would far rather kill than have to think."

George Bernanos, Under the Sun of Satan, Paris 1926 

 

Ivan the Terrible reportedly was shocked with remorse, after he struck and murdered his own son with his scepter in a fit of anger.  This is the famous portrait of them by Ilya Repin pictured above.

To stand fast as a faithful Christian you must not just talk like one, you must act like one, and serve the commandments of God.   The leaven of the Pharisees colors a lot of what passes for piety these days. 

Many say how they hate evil and love good, with the trappings of solemnly pious words, but it is they who decide what is evil, and what is good.  And do so in the darkness of their hearts. 

If you are a servant of the Beast, soon enough you will fall into lies, then hate and anger, and after into an eternal regret. 

Only love and the humility of faithful service can keep you standing in this greeding frenzy.

Gold and silver were on an absolute tear higher today, and went out on the highs.

I wish some of my old friends like Ted Butler and Jim Sinclair were alive to see this. 

The rally we have been seeing in both precious metals is truly impressive, but it's making this old cross-market tape reader a little edgy.

There will be a futures contract option expiration for the precious metals on the Comex this Thursday, the 25^th.  It is for the October contracts which are more significant for gold rather than silver.  As you know the biggest contract month of the year is December. 

If stocks were not rallying right along with the metals I would be even more concerned that the financial class were circling the wagons. 

It looks like something is broken behind the scenes, or somebody is going to get whacked.

Yeah, the Dollar is sliding and the yield curve is acting a squirrelly, like it sees trouble coming but it doesn't know when. 

The economic indicators are sucking out loud now, and it almost looks like stagflation on the horizon.

VIX is still sleep-walking, but that's just another sign of the mispricing of risk.

Bitcoin continued its slide today which was also a bit odd, since it usually correlates with the NDX. 

It is hard to have any certainty about a long odds event, but this market seems to be gearing up for a really stiff correction, maybe after a little more frothing at the top.  It's only a matter of time.

How much? 10%?  20?  More?   Let's see what the trigger event and government response will be. 

Uncertainty is the rule of the day, with Donnie and his Merry Pranksters doing their wild and crazy cowboy routines in world affairs and economic policy decisions.    

The recent debacle over H1-B visas was handled from a messaging standpoint about as badly as any bad decision I have seen in a very long time.   

The geopolitical situation is a nail-biter.  If you don't know this then you probably aren't paying attention, just listening to the mainstream media infomercials. 

Overall I cannot remember so much brazen lying going on in my life.  

I have faith, and I have hope, but my confidence levels are getting thin.  There are too many Bozos and Baghdad Bobs and not enough guys with nets to rein them in.

 Well, let's see what happens.  

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - We Who Are About to Die Salute You

 

"While everyone enjoys an economic party the long-term costs of a bubble to the economy and society are potentially great.  They include a reduction in the long-term saving rate, a seemingly random distribution of wealth, and the diversion of financial human capital into the acquisition of wealth.  As in the United States in the late 1920s and Japan in the late 1980s, the case for a central bank ultimately to burst that bubble becomes overwhelming.  I think it is far better that we do so while the bubble still resembles surface froth and before the bubble carries the economy to stratospheric heights.  Whenever we do it, it is going to be painful, however.”

Larry Lindsey, Federal Reserve Governor, FOMC Minutes, September 24, 1996

“I recognize that there is a stock market bubble problem at this point, and I agree with Governor Lindsey that this is a problem that we should keep an eye on.  We do have the possibility of raising major concerns by increasing margin requirements.  I guarantee that if you want to get rid of the bubble, whatever it is, that will do it.”

Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Chairman, FOMC Minutes, September 24, 1996

"Where a bubble becomes so large as to pose a threat the entire economic system, the central bank may appropriately decide to use monetary policy to counteract a bubble, notwithstanding the effects that monetary tightening might have elsewhere in the economy.  But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?  And how do we factor that assessment into monetary policy?  We as central bankers need not be concerned if a collapsing financial asset bubble does not threaten to impair the real economy, its production, jobs, and price stability."

Alan Greenspan, Speech to the American Enterprise Institute, December 5, 1996

"As you may recall, Greenspan was taken aside by Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin after that 'irrational exuberance' speech. And that was that. The bubble denial by the bankers became vehement, until everything collapsed in 2001. And then it was observed, 'who could have seen it coming?'"

Jesse, It's Always Something, 27 July 2021

"I was aware that the loosening of mortgage credit terms for subprime borrowers increased financial risk. But I believed then, as now, that the benefits of broadened home ownership are worth the risk."

Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence, September 2007

"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


Irrational exuberance all over again.

And despite what the steady propaganda that is put out by the moneyed interests, who are the beneficiaries by far of these repeating asset bubbles, the corporate world has been not over taken by government.  Rather, it is government that has been taken by the moneyed interests.

This is what the decade long, very well-funded campaign to overturn New Deal regulations, including Glass-Steagall, was all about.

But you cannot reason with those who have replaced thinking with listening to and repeating slogans and well-crafted propaganda.  

So why bother. Follow the money.  And you may find the truth.

Stocks rallied again today, moving to new highs.

The VIX fell.

The Dollar rose.

Bitcoin fell in the usual wash and rinse. 

Gold and silver both rocketed higher.

On an 'ordinary' trading day I would say this looked like a flight to safety. 

However, this was a triple witch stock option expiration day, which we get four times per year.

So for now we'll just mark it up to the short term shenanigans that are so common in US markets today. 

The exogenous risks being ignored by the US markets make my skin crawl.

I just cannot ignore them and look the other way.

There is no doubt in my mind that we are in bubble number three for this time period.  

And there is no doubt that this bubble, like the previous two, is going to end, and badly.

Timing these things is rough, and most will get in too early, plunge in greed, and get skinned in despair.

Don't do that.

Donnie has a lot of executive weight to throw around, and he is clearly not shy about twisting the data and markets to suit his desires.

Are you not entertained? 

Prepare and pray, and keep our own backyards clean.

Have a pleasant weekend. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Contempt for the Truth of the Cross

 

"Then the devil led him up a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, saying, 'I will give you all this power and their glory, for it is mine, and I can grant it to whomever I please.  All this will be yours, if you will fall down and worship me.'”

Luke 4:5-7

"But we must be completely clear — if nationalism is truly the hallmark of a people in the prime of its youth and energies, how does it happen that under its aegis morality decays, ancient customs die out—that men are uprooted, the steadfast derided, the thoughtful branded, the rivers poisoned, and the forests destroyed?  Why, if this is a high watermark of our national life, has our speech been vulgarized in this unprecedented way?

I do not know if the end of the world is at hand, as Dostoyevsky said. But this I do know, that these are years of a turning in human affairs which can never be changed again, and that the tyranny of an arrogant civilisation is at an end.

No good can come to a country whose foundations are propaganda and treason — no good to a people which pharisaically and self-righteously shifts the burden of its own sins onto ancient symbols, takes its oath to criminals, and is ready to take any oath and make any contract with Satan.

You made this monster, and as long as things were going well you gave him whatever he wanted. You turned Germany over to this arch-criminal, you swore allegiance to him by every incredible oath he chose to put before you. And so you made yourselves into the Mamelukes of a man who carries on his head responsibility for a hundred thousand murders and who is the cause of the sorrow and the object of the curses of the whole of the world.

They defended him, verbally and physically, every time he committed one of his criminal acts. They went blithely on past the suffering of all the bombing victims, the prisoners in the concentration camps, and the religious persecutors, because a different regime would have meant the end of their power.

It does sometimes happen that a would-be great man is allowed to toy with the levers of the gigantic machinery of history. But suddenly the wheels begin to move, faster and faster, and he is thrown into the machinery and crushed. A miserable hysteric may play Alexander the Great before the world for a while. But sooner or later, history comes along and pulls the mask off of his face.

This people is insane. And 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 cure."

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

Stocks popped on the overnight and rallied early, but faded in the afternoon.

VIX rose also during the day.

Tomorrow is a triple witch option expiration.

The Dollar rose.

Gold and silver were hit again, but rebounded back.

The holders of miners were sitting pat for the most part it seemed.

Both ends of the political spectrum are rich with extremes in thinking, in their inventive interpretations of reality. 

When the hammer drops, I wonder how some true believers in their selfish fever dreams are going to react, as reality turns their pipe dreams inside out.

Cognitive dissonance is no joke.  Especially for the pathologically self-deceived.

There won't be any talking to them, then as it is not possible now.  

They will have to be healed by fire and iron. 

Sadly, that's the way it is with willful selfishness - a hard ending for a hardened heart.  

Have a pleasant evening.