Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - What Shelter from the Mania?

 

“The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."

Alex Carey, Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda, 1997

"How did we get into this mess in the first place?  As in the 1920s, the current 'disturbance' started with a 'mania.'  But manias always have a cause.   If you investigate individually the manias that the market has so dubbed over the years, in every case, it was expansive monetary policy that generated the boom in an asset.   The particular asset varied from one boom to another.   But the basic underlying propagator was too-easy monetary policy and too-low interest rates."

Brian M Carney, Bernanke Is Fighting the Last War, Oct. 18, 2008

"We may make ourselves popular by telling our fellow citizens that they have made Discoveries, conceived Inventions, and made Improvements.  We may boast that we are the chosen people; we may even thank God that we are not like other men.  But after all it will be but flattery, and the delusion, the self deceit of the Pharisee."

John Adams, Letter to John Taylor, 29 July 1814

"We are entering a speculative mania now. Hysteria and passions are running high with greed and entitlement. When the reckoning comes, the insiders and moneyed interests will be blaming the small speculators.  They always do.  But they are at the heart of it, urging on the speculation, and steadily weakening the safeguards and regulations at every turn so that they can extend their outsized misappropriation of the nation's wealth."

Jesse, Mania, 26 January 2021

"It is equally beyond doubt, that every speculative mania which has run its course of folly and disaster in this country has derived its original impulse from cheap money."

The Economist, 1858

“In reading the History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.”

Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 1841

"The period of financial distress is a gradual decline after the peak of a speculative bubble that precedes the final and massive panic and crash, driven by the insiders having exited but the sucker outsiders hanging on hoping for a revivial, but finally giving up in the final collapse."

Charles Kindelberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes, 1978

"In a community where the primary concern is making money, one of the necessary rules is to live and let live.  To speak out against madness may be to ruin those who have succumbed to it.   So the wise in Wall Street are nearly always silent. The foolish thus have the field to themselves.  None rebukes them."

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash of 1929


Tomorrow will be the Non-Farm Payrolls report for November.  

And given that the risk markets are highly dependent on liquidity supplied by the Fed, its importance is greatly amplified.

So let's see how it goes.

The Dollar fell, losing the 106 handle.  It's a bit surprising given the economic and political turmoil in Europe.  The euro is the largest influence on the DXY index.

VIX marked time at a recent low.

Stocks tried to rally but foundered, with the futures falling even further from unchanged after the close.

Gold and silver were suitable hit the day before the Payrolls, although silver managed to take back all of its losses from the open, finishing unchanged.

But as this latest episode of the Fed's meddling to support its increasingly parasitical banking system winds down, we see the aftermath of the bubble approaching once again.

And the neo-cons, the warhawks in Washington, are gorging themselves with abandon one what the financial system fails to consume of the real economy.

Where can one find a safe shelter from his hysteria, this willful mania?

Not in Bitcoin, of that I am almost sure.

And not in the self-serving strategic blundering of the likes of Blinken, Sullivan, and Biden.   They are at the heart of decay and corruption in the bare bones of the Empire.

And almost assuredly not from act two of Don Trumpolini.   It will be different, but not likely better.

One must look to history, to see what assets have endured the storms of human greed and foolishness, of broken promises and betrayals.

And stand, to remain standing, despite the lawless winds that blow through the land.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - This Is the Way the World Ends

 

"What is about to happen is that we're going to be drawn into another conflict in the Middle East with Iran, and that is what war hawks are pursuing right now.  Now you say, Dennis Fritz, why do you say that? 

Bibi Netanyahu has been wanting for decades what's happening right now, and the Bush administration did not want that to happen, and they thought and felt that we had a better way to do this.  We could not take the pushback, as is taken right now, of the innocent killings that have happened with the Palestinian people. And so the Bush administration decided that, instead of you going in directly and killing innocent women and children, we're going to take out the governments that are funding Hamas and Hezbollah. 

By the way, we're accustomed to fighting wars with the military and not going into urban environments where there is the risk of killing many women and children, which is happening right now. And so our government decided that we were going to go in and attack Iraq first. Why? Because under the Clinton administration, there was a regime change policy—it gives us the right to have a regime change policy for another country. Think about that for a moment. 

And so we figured that the American people would understand there's a regime change policy, which I don't understand why we would understand that, and it will give us justification to go in to take out Iraq on behalf of Israel. Why? 

Because at the time, Saddam was doing a lot of funding of the Palestinian people, in particular, Hamas and Hezbollah. And if we got rid of Saddam and the then the Iraqi government, that will cut off some of the funding of Hamas and Hezbollah. And then, by the way, the next country will be Syria because they were doing likewise, and we're going to do it under the guise of them having chemical weapons."

Dennis Fritz, Interview on Deadly Betrayal: The Truth About Why the US Invaded Iraq, October 2024

"The fact is, I think, that my friends really didn't know.  They didn't know because they didn't want to know.  They could have found out, at the time, only if they had wanted to very badly.   I fooled myself.   I had to.  Everybody has to.  But I didn't want to see it, because I would have then had to think about the consequences of seeing it, what followed from seeing it, what I must do to be decent."

Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45, 1955

“Sooner rather than later, in my view, historians will write the complete and accurate history of these disastrous wars from start to finish, and sordid will it be. Alas, however, as with most history that is as accurate as humans can make it, those guilty of the crimes and ravages it inevitably encompasses, will have escaped all but a divine providence's justice. This book at least will perhaps disturb their present comfort. It does mine.”

Larry Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, Forward to Deadly Betrayal, October 2024

"In all these instances the large multinational bankers were actively supporting both sides.  It is a shocking fact that both British and American banks continued to do business with the Nazis even after the War was well underway, even as Germany was invading Europe and bombing London."

BBC, Banking with Hitler, 1998

"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

George Orwell

"They say to their seers, 'Do not see!’ and to the prophets, 'Say nothing of what is right! Tell us only things that please us. Prophesy illusions."

Isaiah 30:9-10


Dennis Fritz is appalled.  And like a few others wants us to know what happened, and is still happening.

Dennis, an insider of sorts, wrote a well-documented book.

But what is ironic is that people do not want to hear this, or see what is true.   

But what is the truth at core of this?

I have given this a lot of thought for the past five years.   And what Dennis does not account for as far as I know is Ukraine, which seems to be the 'smoking gun' in this.  And Taiwan.  

Iran is hardly the only target.  There are several, and one can see the machinations unfolding towards each.

I have come to think that Zelensky and Netanyahu are most likely scapegoats.  Not patsies, no, they are not innocent in the least.  But for now their interests are aligned, and useful for the darkness in the high places of the world.

The perpetrators are the same old clique of those who worship money and power above all.  The same money men who funded both the Nazis and the Allies.

As old as Babylon, and evil as the man of sin.

Stocks rallied to new all time highs.

The Fed is signaling that rate cuts will be slower and shallower because the economy and inflation are resisting their latest mechanisms.

Gold and silver edged higher, as the Dollar chopped sideways.

VIX moved higher even as stocks hit a crescendo.

In the face of such wicked lawlessness, I just don't have the words.  But it is important to know where and how to stand, to remain standing.

Have a pleasant evening. 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Implications of the Incarnation

 

“We who have so much to do seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day.  We who are anxious about many things look forward to your coming among us.  We who are blessed in so many ways long for the complete joy of your kingdom.  We whose hearts are heavy seek the joy of your presence.  We are your people, walking in darkness, yet always seeking the light.”

Henri Nouwen, Advent Prayer

"He became what we are, so that he might make us what he is."

Athanasius of Alexandria, Against Heresies

"'Gnosis’ was an enormous temptation in the early Christian Church.  What made it so insidious was the fact that the Gnostics very often did not want to leave the Church.  Instead, they claimed to be offering a superior and more authentic exposition of Holy Scripture, though, of course, this was only for the ‘superior souls’.   It inevitably encouraged an almost unbounded arrogance in those who had moved from mere ‘faith’ to genuine, enlightened ‘knowledge’.

Myth seeks the ascent of man to spirit; the Word of God seeks descent into flesh and blood.  Myth wants power; revelation reveals the true power of God in the most extreme powerlessness.  Myth wants knowledge; the Word of God asks for constant faith and, within that faith, a growing, reverent understanding.  The revelation of God’s Word is gentle patience amidst the inevitable tensions of life.  Error never shows itself in its naked reality, so as to not be discovered.   On the contrary, it dresses itself elegantly, so the easily led may believe that it is more truthful than truth itself.”

Irenaeus of Lyons, The Scandal of The Incarnation

"In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God.  Thereafter, any attack, even on the least of men, is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all.  Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship


Our faith is founded on the unity of the three great realities: the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection.  

In the incarnation the Word is firmly rooted in our lives.  Through the crucifixion the world is redeemed and purified.   And by the resurrection we are raised with it to the eternity of divine love.

Stocks wallowed around today, digesting their recent gains.

Gold bounced up a bit, and silver rallied quite impressively.

Powell speaks tomorrow, and there will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.

VIX is near to lows that lately have suggested complacency, and a precursor to a correction.

I still cannot believe the things that I am seeing and hearing.  

What is one to do?

Come let us adore Him.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Yammering Madness in the Garden of Beasts

 

"It makes me proud of all of us who are secretly going to pieces behind closed doors but still somehow keeping it together for the public, collaborating in the shaky ongoing effort of not letting civilization fall apart for one more day.

One reason we rush so quickly to the vulgar satisfactions of judgment, and love to revel in our righteous outrage, is that it spares us from the impotent pain of empathy, and the harder, messier work of understanding.

So many letters to the editor and comments on the Internet have this same tone of thrilled vindication: these are people who have been vigilantly on the lookout for something to be offended by, and found it.

The truth is, there are not two kinds of people. There’s only one: the kind that loves to divide up into gangs who hate each other’s guts. Both conservatives and liberals agree among themselves, on their respective message boards, in uncannily identical language, that their opponents lack any self-awareness or empathy, the ability to see the other side of an argument or to laugh at themselves. Which would seem to suggest that they’re both correct.

Some part of us loves feeling right and of being wronged. But outrage is like a lot of other things that feel good but, over time, devour us from the inside out. Except it's even more insidious than most vices because we don't even consciously acknowledge it's a pleasure. We prefer to think of it as a disagreeable but fundamentally healthy reaction to negative stimuli, like pain or nausea, rather than admit that it's a shameful kick we eagerly indulge again and again, like compulsive addiction.

Quite a lot of what passes itself off as dialogue about our society consists of people trying to justify their own (selfish) choices as the only right or natural ones by denouncing others' as selfish and wrong. So it's easy to overlook that it all arises out of insecurity.

Let me propose that if your beliefs or convictions matter more to you than people—if they require you to act as though you were a worse person than you are—you may have lost perspective.

Timothy Kreider, We Learn Nothing

“Americans had built themselves a world of speculative pipe dreams. That world was inhabited, not by people who had to be convinced, but by people who sought excuses for believing.”

John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State, 1967

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists. The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951

The madness serves none but itself. 

Keep that in mind.   That may help us understand some of the more bizarre things that are going to be happening for a while.

I cannot believe some of the things that I see and hear these days.   People have always been nuts, but as least they were ashamed of it, and somewhat furtive.  

Now they are prominent in the news and the government, shamelessly.

The Democrats are urbanely corrupt, cynical elitists and accomplished liars.

The Republicans are barking mad.  They don't even try to hide it anymore.

Trump's cabinet nominations are 'odd.'  And not in an eccentrically engaging way.

So, as we toddle on towards mo' better wars, and another financial crisis, stocks once again managed to rally near to all time highs.

The Dollar rallied on euro weakness.   And its weak because the European nations are obligingly self-destructing, trying please their true masters.

Gold and silver were sold.

VIX has now declined enough that I think it is flashing a strongly cautionary signal.

The timing is questionable, because it's hard to tell what event will trigger the actual slide.  

But the threshold for a slide keeps getting lower and lower.

Powell will be speaking on Wednesday.   Most likely he won't say much, but there is always that chance.

Non-Farm Payrolls and the reading of the tea-leaves up to that will likely be market moving.

Remember to care for your soul, because that is what this is all about.

Have a pleasant evening.