"The world needs a new generation of policymakers who don’t hobnob with billionaire speculators and who understand workers’ concerns. Unfortunately, the change will not come smoothly. Political turmoil in the West is very much about this. A heavy price has to be paid to bring about the change."
Andy Xie, SCMP 21 Sept 2018
Just charts.
I wanted to post them for the 'before' Trump's address at 9 PM.
I don't expect anything remarkable. He is expected to lay out a path towards withdrawing from Iran.
He will most likely not tell the truth.
I will be watching what Israel and the US do next, especially over the three day weekend when the US markets are closed.
Have a pleasant evening.
This is just another opportunity for insiders to continue their looting, which it seems the only thing of which they are capable of doing.
Gold and silver rallied smartly, as the Dollar fell back down to the 99 handle.
Gold and silver speak unpleasant truths, which is why the professional spinmeisters hate it.
VIX dropped back down to the 20 EMA.
Even Bitcoin bounced back a bit, but still within its managed trading range.
Crypto is an artifact of the bubble in the markets.
The West is on course for a hard encounter with reality on a number of fronts.
Europe and the UK among others are already feeling it, and it will get worse. And the US is moving along into a recession, and a severe correction in inflated asset prices.
When the pampered princes come with their hands out looking for another handout bailout, we may wish to consider making that experience severely corrective, and memorable. Moral hazard and all that considered.
I am not hopeful that a reckoning will happen this time, because the oligarchy and their spokesmodels are audacious.
And a sizable minority of the public have their captive media's Kool-Aid drip of self-destruction firmly plugged into their arms.
But change will come.
The mighty rise and are fallen, but the Word and the Spirit endure.
Have a pleasant evening.
“Christianity is not stoicism. The Cross does not sanctify us by destroying human feeling. Detachment is not insensibility. Too many ascetics fail to become great saints precisely because their rules and ascetic practices have merely deadened their humanity instead of setting it free to develop richly, in all its capacities, under the influence of grace.”
Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude, 1958
"For these are a rebellious people, deceitful children, unwilling to listen to the instructions of the Lord. 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
“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. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs His wonders where one would least expect them.
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, Nachfolge, 1937
"Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength — but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it."
Léon Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute
"Since God has accepted you to be among the holy people that He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowances for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must also forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which brings us all together in harmony. And let the peace of the Lord rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful."
Colossians 3:12-15
The first sin was pride, the declaration of the fallen angel,'non serviam.' All other sin flows from there.
Stocks came in having recovered overnight from their losses to stage a rally up from a lower open.
But, as we have often seen, the same lies lose their potency with repetition. And so stocks slumped into the close.
They are tagging some key support levels that if breached may open the door to a much deeper correction.
Gold and silver were struggling again.
Bitcoin failed to rally from its decline to the lower half of its intermediate trading range. Let's keep an eye on that.
VIX has been steadily climbing to reflect market risks, setting higher lows.
The Dollar has taken the midpoint of the 100 handle. This is not such a positive for the real economy, since a stronger dollar makes imports cheaper and exports more expensive.
People who make real products here are not advantaged. But the financiers like it.
I am afraid that most people are not yet taking the global risks seriously, preferring to listen to the lies and delusions of those to whom they have declared their loyalties above God and country.
This is not going to end well. When that realization hits home there may be a rush for the narrowing exits.
Have a pleasant evening.
“He became what we are, that we might become what he is.”
