Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - In the Service of Power, Lies, and Murder

 

"If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves.”

E.A. Bucchianeri, Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World, 2010

"Greed is not good.  Greed is a disease, an aberration of simple honest ambition and necessary provision taken to excess. 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. 

Every great religion, every school of philosophy has cautioned throughout history on the perils of unbridled and unregulated greed.  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, and attacks the very contentment of society at its heart, turning it towards oligarchy and oppression."

Jesse, Greed Is Not Good, 19 December 2010

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with disgrace comes humility, and with humility comes wisdom. The humility of the righteous will guide them, but the deceitfulness of the proud will destroy them."

Proverbs 11:2-3

"For where envy and selfish ambition exist, there is lawlessness, and every wicked action.   Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your worldly desires that make war among yourselves? You desire but do not possess. You kill and envy but you cannot obtain; you fight and wage war. You do not receive because you do not ask. You ask but do not receive, because you ask for things in the wrong way, to spend it on your passions."

James 3:16-4:3

"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 just wobbled around today.

Gold and the Dollar gained a little.

Silver was smacked down lower for now to the 31 level.  Because they can.

They are bulking up the Comex gold inventories in Hong Kong. 

This sometimes presages a raid on prices.

There will be an option expiration on the Comex for gold and silver this week on the 25^th.

VIX wallowed.

The intention of Israel to invade and occupy parts of Lebanon seems to be progressing.

The markets are not pricing in a wider conflict in the Mideast yet, or the coming climax of the war in Eastern Europe.

The BRICs will be meeting next month, and may have some interesting announcements with regard to currencies.

It is a commonplace to say that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It is perhaps more to the point that power attracts the corruptible, and those with major personality flaws such as psychopathy and narcissism.  

The same is true not only of politics, but of most large organizations, especially those who lack the balance of oversight by the righteous, and rules against the abuses of power.  

The world extracts a price from those who serve power for its rewards.

"Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty.  As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers, with approving smiles."

Simone Weil

Such is the way of Leviathan, embodiment of chaos, and the most ardent of its servants.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Consumption of the Ages

 

"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes."

Andrew Jackson, On the Second Bank of the United States

"Jim, lad, there be consequences an' then there be consequences. Devil take 'em all, says I, and pass aft the rum."

Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“Financial operations do not lend themselves to innovation. What is recurrently so described and celebrated is, without exception, a small variation on an established design. The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version.”

John Kenneth Galbraith, A Short History of Financial Euphoria

"It is no exaggeration to say that since the 1980s, much of the global financial sector has become criminalised, creating an industry culture that tolerates or even encourages systematic fraud.  The behaviour that caused the mortgage bubble and financial crisis of 2008 was a natural outcome and continuation of this pattern, rather than some kind of economic accident.

This behaviour is criminal.  We are talking about deliberate concealment of financial transactions that aided terrorism, nuclear weapons proliferation and large-scale tax evasion; assisting in major financial frauds and in concealment of criminal assets; and committing frauds that substantially worsened the worst financial bubbles and crises since the Depression.   And yet none of this conduct has been punished in any significant way.

Charles H. Ferguson, Wall Street's Role in the Financial Crisis, The Guardian, 20 May 2012

"The asset bubbles since the turn of the 21st century have been enabled by four basic instruments of monetary policy error: Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, and Powell."

Jesse, Malice Domestic and Endless Foreign Wars, 31 July 2018



Gold and silver gave us some clean breakouts today, and went out near the highs. 

The dollar chopped sideways again, finishing marginally higher.

VIX fell.

The major indices gave back a little of  yesterday's meteoric rally.

 "Great designs have linear consequences. Bad designs have exponential consequences."

The coming dislocation from illusion may prove jarring, and as always, inexplicable and unanticipated.

Some large entities may not make it, at least in their current forms. 

They are sliding peacefully into the abyss.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Deceitful Children and Their Illusions

 

"There must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live."

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, 4 March 1933

"Experience, however, shows that neither a state nor a bank ever have had the unrestricted power of issuing paper money without abusing that power; in all states, therefore, the issue of paper money ought to be under some check and control; and none seems so proper for that purpose as that of subjecting the issuers of paper money to the obligation of paying their notes either in gold coin or bullion."

David Ricardo, The Works of David Ricardo, 1848

"When depreciated, mutilated, or debased coinage or currency is in concurrent circulation with money of high value in terms of precious metals, the good money automatically disappears."

Thomas Gresham, 1560

"It begins with a highly complex financial system, whose very complexity makes it difficult for anyone to know what might be going wrong; by definition, the multiple parts of the financial system are linked, which means that trouble in one institution, city, or region can travel easily and quickly to others.  

Buoyant growth in the economy makes the financials system more fragile, in part due to the demand for capital and in part due to the tendency of some institutions to take on more risk than is prudent. Leaders in government and the financials sector implement policies that advertently or inadvertently increase the exposure to risk of crisis.

An economic shock hits the financials system. The mood of the market swings from optimism to pessimism, create a self-reinforcing downward spiral."

Robert Bruner and Sean Carr, The Panic of 1907,  August 31, 2007

“For these are a rebellious people, deceitful children, unwilling to listen to the commandments of the Lord. They say to their seers,‘Do not see!’, and to the prophets,‘Say nothing of what is right. Tell us only the things that please us — prophesy illusions.'"

Isaiah 30:8-10

These words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer have never held a stronger meaning for us.

“Against such foolishness we are defenseless.  Reason falls on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the foolish person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental.

In all this the foolish person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.   Never again will we try to persuade the foolish person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

And so we see a strong rally in stocks, based on no new information that triggered the sharp sell off from the day before.

Gold and silver, which had sold off sharply the day before, rallied strongly.

Gold has held its short term breakout fairly well so far.   It needs to regain some momentum to take out the resistance it now faces, and move on to its next objective.   It may well do that.

Silver has not yet broken out of its trading formation on the weekly chart.  It made it back up to the top of the range today, but rangebound it remains.

The mundane mind of the spokesmodels finds comfort is silly rationalizations and arcane auspices of the chief equity strategists from the Banks.

On the political front, our official narrative is simple madness, driven by the reckless lust for power and money by the dominant extremes of the halls of power, public and private.   

Most are only looking out for their own short term advantage, whether it is truly good for them or not.

And the more frightened and uncertain people get, the louder and crazier they become.

This is a wicked and adulterous generation.  It demands a sign.

Well, why don't you tell us what is happening, and what we ought to do?

This is what several voices have been doing, for some time now.  Mostly to hardened hearts, in bare, ruined choirs.  

This is how it has always been.  They don't believe in war, and plagues.

Until something that will be missed has been consumed.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Be Still, and Know That I'm God

 

"God has a way of standing before the nations with judgement, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America, 'You are too arrogant!  If you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power!  And I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name.  Be still, and know that I am God.'"

Martin Luther King, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam, 1967

“The fine thing about pacts with the devil is that when you sign them you are well aware of their conditions.  Otherwise, why would you be recompensed with hell?”

Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me; I was naked and you clothed me; I was ill and you took care of me; I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will say to him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and give you something to eat, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?  When did we see you ill or in prison and come to visit you?’  And the King will answer, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brethren of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you did not give me anything to eat; I was thirsty and you did not give me anything to drink; I was a stranger and you did not welcome me; I was naked and you did not give me any clothing; I was ill and in prison and you did not visit me.’

“Then they will ask him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison and not minister to you?’  He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you failed to do for one of the least of these brethren of mine, you failed to do for me.’  And they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous will enter eternal life.”

Matthew 25:31-46

I have an appointment with the vet now, so here are the charts at the close.

Today went pretty much as I had expected and prepared for.

Never underestimate the shamelessness of these conmen and professional liars.

Have a pleasant evening.