Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Mission Accomplished — with Mirrors and Illusions

 

"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.”

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

"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action...Words are used to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests."

Gore Vidal, Imperial America, 2004

"Donald Trump wasn’t actually a successful businessman at all, not in the normal sense anyway.  He was an economic magician or, in classic American terms, a con man, who regularly ground business after business — a set of casinos, hotels, an airline, and a series of other endeavors ranging from Trump Steaks to Trump Vodka to Trump University — into the dust of bankruptcy or failure.  

What made him such a magician was that, in case after case, his greatest 'business' skill proved to be jumping ship, dollars in hand, leaving those who trusted him, had faith in him, believed in him holding the bag."

Tom Engelhardt, Donald Trump Will Bankrupt America, March 31, 2019

"As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool returns to his folly."

Proverbs 26:11

"And in some ways, it creates this false illusion that there are people out there looking out for the interest of taxpayers, the checks and balances that are built into the system are operational, when in fact they're not. And what you're going to see and what we are seeing is it'll be a breakdown of those governmental institutions. And you'll see governments that continue to have policies that feed the interests of — and I don't want to get clichéd, but the one percent or the .1 percent — to the detriment of everyone else."

Neil Barofsky, Interview with Bill Moyers, 2012


Mission accomplished!

Let the parades and celebrations begin.

The signs are all there, if you have the will to open your eyes and see them.

Stocks have vaulted back to bubble top highs.

Gold and silver were smashed lower again, along with the Dollar of all things.

Crypto is blooming.

If the world ran on vaporous nonsense, we would have a secure claim to the mother lode.

Breathe deeply of the gasses of our modern oracles. 

Let's see how this plays out.  Maybe it will be different this time.

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Ripened for the Sacrifice

 

“To ripen a person for self-sacrifice he must be stripped of his individual identity and distinctness.  The most drastic way to achieve this end is by the complete assimilation of the individual into a collective body.  The fully assimilated individual does not see himself and others as human beings.  When asked who he is, his automatic response is that he is a member of a certain tribe or family.  He has no purpose, worth and destiny apart from his collective body; and as long as that body lives he cannot really die."

Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically. They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission. Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.”

Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, 1941

"The whole town and all its inhabitants are quite drowned in carnival din, masks and confetti.  And on top of that the news of the Reichstag fire.  Dancing on a volcano."

Alban Berg, Letter from Berlin, September 1, 1933

Risk assets were in full rally mode today, with stocks and other bits of bubble stuff going out near the daily highs.

Silver moved up a little, gold trading was heavy to the downside.

The Dollar slumped.

You wouldn't think that Iran had just bombed US bases in Iraq and Qatar, given the defiant buying of risk.

There were no U.S. casualties, President Donald Trump said, as he dismissed the attack as a “very weak response” and said the U.S. was warned by Iran in advance.  “Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

And so the risk markets rallied, because Iran apparently showed restraint, once again.

But this is far from over.  And Iran has not 'gotten it all out of their system.'

There is most likely some Iranian interest in providing a more lasting lesson to the Netanyahu government. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Be Always In My Prayers

 

"The shepherds sleep on in the love of themselves, in greed and corruption: they are so drunk with pride that they sleep and do not feel.  They see that the devil, the hellish wolf, carries away the life of grace in them and their subjects, but do not care.  And the whole cause of this is the perverse individuality of self-love. 

Love itself is dying of thirst and hunger for our salvation.  No longer be silent!  Cry out with a hundred thousand voices.  For it is clear that, through silence, the world is ruined, and the Bride of Christ is impaled."

Catherine of Sienna, Lettera 16, A uno grande prelato,

"This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal."

Aaron Bushnell, 25 February 2024 

“Fascist politics invokes a pure mythic past tragically destroyed.  Depending on how the nation is defined, the mythic past may be religiously pure, racially pure, culturally pure, or all of the above.  The dangers of fascist politics come from the particular way in which it dehumanizes segments of the population.  By excluding these groups, it limits the capacity for empathy among other 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, 2018

"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

"Let no man pull you so low as to hate him."

Martin Luther King, A Knock at Midnight, 11 February 1962


It is not that they 'don't know.'   It is that they don't care. 

Care enough to see.  Care enough to hear.  Care enough to speak.  Care enough to feel.

Because to do so might require them to do something, deny themselves something, incur some obligation which is a risk, a limitation, a task, an annoyance. 

Love dies not only through hate, but envy, pettiness, indifference, and fear.  

But the devil lurking behind all of them in the darkness is pride. 

Lead, kindly Light, amidst the grey and gloom
The night is long and I am far from home
Here in the dark, I do not ask to see
The path ahead— one step enough for me
Lead on, lead on, kindly Light.

Stocks were slumping after a wide ranging session on the futures markets, as is customary for a triple witch option expiration these days.

Valuation are cut loose from their moorings in any sort of rational model connected to reality.

The pricing of bitcoin is the emblem of our time, as tulips had been the symbol of a prior market bubble.

Gold and silver had the usual ride as well, finishing up a bit mixed on the day.

The Dollar was choppy as well.

VIX remains largely complacent, hovering around its longer term moving averages.

Our foreign policy is anchored in adolescent, intemperate madness, and the greed and pathology of a few.

You are always in my prayers, as I hope I am also in yours. 

Have a pleasant weekend.   

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Idols of Caesar and the Promises of Christ

 

"Life under a strongman means not simply being lied to but being beset by contradiction and uncertainty until the line between truth and falsehood blurs and a kind of exhaustion settles over questions of fact.  Authoritarianism wants to convince its supporters that nothing is true, that the whole machinery of truth is an intolerable imposition on their psyches, and thus that they might as well give free rein to their fantasies."

Brian Phillips, Rise of the Postmodern Right, November 16, 2016

“The man who discovered the real Hitler was Dietrich Eckart.  We find his presence at every important point in Hitler’s career until Eckart’s death in the last days of 1923.  Eckart literally made Hitler.  And he was closely related with the Thule Society, with the powerful Germanenorden.  In the political field their actions were everywhere a matter of secrecy and covert plotting, always of power politics and sometimes of murder."

Georges Van Vrekhem, Hitler and His God, 2012

“Men lost faith in the state not because Christianity held them aloof, but because the state defended wealth against poverty, fought to capture slaves, taxed toil to support luxury, and failed to protect its people from famine, pestilence, invasion, and destitution. Rome was not destroyed by Christianity, any more than by barbarian invasion; it was an empty shell when Christianity rose to influence and invasion came. A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.”

Will Durant, Caesar and Christ, 1944

"The genius of American power is expressed in the movie The Godfather II, where, like Hyman Roth, the United States has always made money for its partners. America has not turned countries in which it intervened into deserts; it enriched them."

Robert Kagan, American neo-con and husband of Victoria Nuland, July 17, 2003

"Come, I will show you the judgement on the great whore who reaches across many waters. The kings of the earth have given themselves over to her in lust, and have become drunk with the wine of her idolatry."

Revelation 17:1-2


The Fed did nothing with interest rates, as expected by most.

I think they are unlikely to do anything this year, except if the US economy starts collapsing as it did under Covid.

Gold was hit hard, as is customary for an FOMC day, especially one followed by a triple witch option expiration the day after a market holiday.

VIX remains complacent, in the face of an escalating war.

US markets will be closed tomorrow for a Federal holiday.

Need little, want less, love more.  For those who abide in love, abide in God, and God in them.

Have a pleasant evening.  See you on Friday.