Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - This Low, Dishonest Age - The Unholy Monopolies of Corporatism

"Although journalism was always a loose extension of establishment power, something has changed in recent years.  Dissent tolerated when I joined a national newspaper in Britain in the 1960s has regressed to a metaphoric underground as liberal capitalism moves towards a form of corporate dictatorship. This is a seismic shift, with journalists policing the new groupthink, dispensing its myths and distractions, pursuing its enemies.

The source of  'fake news' is not only trollism, or the likes of Fox News, or Donald Trump, but a journalism self-anointed with a false respectability: a liberal journalism that claims to challenge corrupt state power but, in reality, courts and protects it, and colludes with it.

Complex stories are reported to a cult-like formula of bias, hearsay and omission. So much of the mainstream has descended to this level. Subjectivism is all; slogans and outrage are proof enough. What matters is the 'perception.'"

John Pilger, Hold the Front Page: The Reporters are Missing


"I am weak and small, but I want to do what is right."

Hans Scholl


“Stand up for what you believe, even if you are standing alone.”

Sophie Scholl

With the Philly Fed coming in much stronger than expected this morning, and lows in the unemployment numbers, stocks powered higher led by the unholy monopolies of corporatism: tech, healthcare, and finance.

Gold and silver moved higher, to the top of the recent trading range, on a lower US Dollar that broke below 94.

Tomorrow is likely to be a bit volatile because of the quad witch expiration in stock options.

There will be a Comex option expiration for the precious metals next week.

And an FOMC meeting. The market is pricing a 100% probability of a rate hike.

Dolly and I did some shopping this morning at our favorite eastern European deli.  It is much cooler now, the heat of summer seems to have broken.  The harvests are being gathered from the fields all around here.  It will not be too long before it's frost and pumpkins.

On the way home we spent a little time with the queen, to tidy things up, and change her flowers from Summer roses to something more autumnal.

"And now, bless the God of all,
who has done wondrous things here on earth;
Who fosters people’s growth from their mother’s womb,
and would fashion them according to his will.
May he grant you joy of heart,
and may peace abide among you."

Sirach 50:22-24

Have a pleasant evening.

Tales From the Dark Side: Ray McGovern

Here is a discussion that covers a variety of topics.

I find it to be fascinating.   It goes well with a drink in the evening when nothing is on the boob tube.

McGovern is a good conversationalist.  He is the kind of guy you might like to have a cup of coffee or a beer with, and just talk—  even if he was not a very knowledgeable former insider.   He and his partner at VIPS, Bill Binney, tend to piss a lot of people off, because they are willing to give voice to unpopular opinions, to it like it is, and back it up with reasoning and facts..   It is a dangerous habit in a time of general deceit.   After all, we kill the prophets, and stone those messengers sent to warn us.

Raymond McGovern (born August 25, 1939) is a former CIA officer turned political activist.  McGovern was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, and in the 1980s chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President's Daily Brief. He received the Intelligence Commendation Medal at his retirement, returning it in 2006 to protest the CIA's involvement in torture.  McGovern's post-retirement work includes commenting on intelligence issues and in 2003 co-founding Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Dance of Drudgeons - Winter Is Here

"[Hillary] Clinton tells Maddow that she [Hillary] was an obstacle to Russia's plan to undermine our democracy, and suggests we should be scared of the Kremlin's grand designs. The lengths these people will go to protect their privilege and deflect from their own failures is staggering, and a real threat...

I've said that Russiagate is an act of elite projection. For example: we hear endless warnings that the Russians seek to undermine confidence in US democracy. But what is the impact of Dem elites, like Clinton, proclaiming that 'the legitimacy of our elections is in doubt'?"

Aaron Maté


"The lady doth protest too much methinks."

William Shakespeare, Hamlet


"In the narcissist's surrealistic world, even language is pathologized. It mutates into a weapon of self-defence, a verbal fortification, a medium without a message, replacing words with duplicitous and ambiguous vocables.

When narcissism fails as a defense mechanism, the narcissist develops paranoid narratives: self-directed confabulations which place him at the center of others' allegedly malign attention."

Sam Vaknin


“She never forgets a slight, real or imagined.  She takes caution for cowardice and dissent for defiance.  And she is greedy.  Greedy for power, for honour, for love.”

George R. R. Martin, on Cersei Lannister


“It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.”

Voltaire

The question is not who is worse, and who would be the most damaging to the public, the familiar 'lesser of two evils'.   It appears to be a forced choice between competing crime families.

The real question that most independent thinkers have on their minds is: What is wrong with a system that keeps forcing such corrupt, broadly unpopular, and dreadful choices upon us, and what must we do to change it?  Hint: the corrosive and corrupting power of big money and elite establishment exceptionalism as rationale against reform

Stocks were mixed today, as big cap tech, the lead sled dogs on the way up, continue to churn around and presumably consolidate their gains ahead of the next move.

Gold and silver are rangebound.   It is not clear yet which way they might break for the short term.  I can see a case on the charts for another plunge lower from a technical standpoint to shake out the longs and let the wiseguys cash in on their shorts before the next move higher.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Deep Into that Darkness Peering - Risk On

“It could be argued that we are now in the midst of a coup d’état in slow motion. Democracy is weakening; few people would disagree. Corporatism is strengthening; you only have to look around you. Yet none of us has chosen this route for our society, in spite of which our elites quite happily continue down it.   Certainly corporatism is creating a conformist society. It is a modern form of feudalism.”

John Ralston Saul


"Donald Trump is not an anomaly. He is the grotesque visage of a collapsed democracy. The creeping corporate coup d’état that began 45 years ago is complete. It has destroyed the lives of tens of millions of Americans no longer able to find work that provides a living wage, cursed to live in chronic poverty.”

Chris Hedges


"Real power is, I don’t even want to use the word, fear.”

Donald Trump

Stocks were in rally mode today, with the SP 500 futures managing to breach the former high at 2917.

But it was not to be, as equities gave up much of their gains into the close.

Gold and silver were off a bit on a stronger dollar.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Sky Is Crying - Storm Warnings

Wall Street, Corporatists, and the Professional Class

"If we set aside the supervisory class and professionals on payrolls, the great underclass is composed of many no better off, with the rest worse off during 10 yrs of so-called 'recovery.'   Wage growth for non-supervisory workers is getting worse, not better, when adjusted for inflation."

Harald Malmgren


"They [the Banks] are less leveraged but have larger balance sheets. The risk is in the gross, not the net.  When times are calm, no capital is needed.  When panic begins, no amount of capital is enough."

Jim Rickards


“And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill.  And they frankly own the place.”

Dick Durbin


“Remember when nurses, caregivers, teachers and students crashed the stock market, wiped out banks, took billions in bonuses and paid no tax?  No, me neither.”

Fuad Alakbarov


“In economics, it is often professionally better to be associated with highly respectable error than uncertainly established truth.   Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Stocks were a bit wobbly from the open. But they sold off more decisively in the afternoon when it was announced that Trumpolini would have something to say about China and tariffs after the close.

Gold and silver were gaining a bit on Dollar weakness. This weakness is within a well defined trading range. And gold and silver are also caught in a sideways chop.

I suspect that some event will shake up the precious metals bears one way or the other, and the metals will break higher or lower, and perhaps sharply. It does seem more likely that it breaks higher because of the hugely impressive imbalance of shorts on the Comex, But let's see what the charts show us.

There will be a stock option expiration for September at the end of this week. There will be Comex precious metals option expiration next week.

I spent quite a bit of effort getting in touch with my inner-homeowner this weekend and today, taking care of a list of things that have been too long neglected, from lawncare to chimey repair to pruning to light mechanical repairs.

And with much of it done, Dolly and I have snuggled down to wait for the remnants of Hurricane Florence to bring us their rain.

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

Have a pleasant evening.