Thanksgiving - And Deliver Us From the Evil of Our Hardened Hearts

"Lord, I thank you for your faithfulness and love.

Though the Lord is exalted, he looks kindly on the lowly;
though lofty, he sees them from afar.
Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
you preserve my life.
You stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes;
with your right hand you save me.
The Lord will preserve me;
your love, Lord, endures for ever –
do not abandon us, the works of your hands."

Psalm 138


"Naked I came into this world from my mother's womb, and naked I will leave this life. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.   Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Job 1:21


"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 well, according to his will.
May he grant you joy of heart,
and may peace abide among you."

Sirach 50:22-24


"Remember us, O Lord, in thy loving kindness and tender mercies, as ever they have been from old."

Psalm 25:6


"I have learned how to be content with whatever I have.  I know how to live on almost nothing, or with everything.  I have learned the secret of living in every situation.  And I have learned to be thankful, whether empty or full."

Phillipians 4:11-12


“Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering, in order that they may have life.”

Léon Bloy

"Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations, especially such as have shown kindness unto us,  and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord...

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789."

George Washington

I have remembered all of you in my thoughts and prayers, as always, my brothers and sisters in Christ.   And I give thanks for you and your goodness.  Let us commend ourselves to His merciful forgiveness, and trust our futures to His loving kindness, and tender mercy.  Let us permit ourselves to be fashioned to His will, not for His sake, but for ours.

Remember to feed the least of His creatures, the birds and animals.  And the hearts of those you meet, with a kind word and a smile. 

Be kind to those who are around your table today, even those who may be 'difficult.'   And pray for His mercy and enlightenment if that difficult one is you.

Need little - Want less - Love more

Thanksgiving Menus— From Days Gone By

The prices have not been adjusted for inflation.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Repentance, Forgiveness, and Gratefulness - Revelations

"We’re in the most economically disruptive period since the 1880s and there’s been no bankruptcies.  As quantitative easing turns to quantitative tightening, all these zombies are going to be exposed."

Stan Druckenmiller


"The clowns on TV rant about 'the great macro backdrop and alluring valuations.'  No mention of liquidity as if they don't know this is the fuel for risk assets.  Someone should tell them that the global monetary base began to contract last March and is now running at a -7% YoY rate.  The best economy of all time just saw core capex orders decline at a 2.9% annual rate in the three months to October. Imagine what happens when it goes to something less than best...

I love it when people always say I'm always 'too early'.  You can be late to a bull market -- it's an escalator on the way up.  You can't be late to a bear market -- because it's an elevator going straight down."

David Rosenberg

Stocks managed to squeeze out a little dead cat bounce today, and even held on to some of the gain into the close.

Gold and silver were up slightly and the Dollar chopped sideways.

Tomorrow US markets will be closed for the Thanksgiving holiday.

A frigid blast of arctic air has already started crossing the region.  Temperatures will be 35° below average for Thanksgiving, with a high in the 20's and wind chills in single digits.  Tomorrow night it is going to be in the 'teens.

There will be a light day of trading on Friday, aka 'Black Friday.'

Being thankful, for all His consolations, kindnesses, and tender mercies.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Scam America - The 'Santa Claus Rally' Left Town

"Nevertheless, real sums have started to evaporate. And much of it happened with the biggest stocks in so-called tech. The seven FANGMAN stocks – Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google’s parent Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, and NVIDIA – got hosed today. Again...

It gets costly when the entire market depends on a handful of over-hyped mega-caps."

Wolf Richter, Wolf Street


"The problem with movies and books is they make evil look glamorous, exciting, when it's no such thing.  It's boring and it's depressing and it's stupid.  Criminals are all after cheap thrills and easy money, and when they get them, all they want is more of the same, over and over.  They're shallow, empty, boring people who couldn't give you five minutes of interesting conversation if you had the poor luck to be at a party full of them.  Maybe some can be monkey-clever, some of the time, but they aren't hardly ever smart."

Dean Koontz

Stocks continued their declines today.

They are at support, on the very brink of a much larger decline.

A bit surprising given the bias of this holiday week, and the traditional 'Santa Claus rally.'

And yet one barely detects any fear, and the safe havens are of little interest.

We do have the phenomenon of the 'smart money' index declining markedly a few week ago.

This could just be a thorough wash and rinse ahead of the year end tape painting.

But I would not bet on that just yet.

I heard today that almost 50% of cellphone traffic will soon be scam messages and robocalls.   I think landline calls may already be past that.

It is nice to see the telecoms sector catching up with the monopolies in healthcare, big pharma, social media, and the financials.

My sister-in-law stopped in late last night after the long drive in from Ohio.  I was glad to see her, and greeted her with the perfect meal on a cold and damp night—  a hot bowl of beef noodle soup. 

She was shocked at how rich the broth and flavorful the broth was, with a simple beefy flavor.  She left very early this morning to join the rest of the band moms for their Thanksgiving Day adventure in NYC.  We are expecting the coldest day for the parade in history.  Yikes!

I made the last visit to the store today.   I discovered that I was out of poultry seasoning, and did not have everything at hand to make my up own.  The turkey necks purchased yesterday were slow cooked with a few other things into the broth for the stuffing and the gravy on Thursday.

Dolly was attentive to the smells coming from the kitchen.  But other than that, when the weather turns wet and cold, one can hardly pry her from the little nest she makes in the blankets on her chair.

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

Have a pleasant evening.

Update on the CrashTrak Equity Profile - A Banquet of Consequences Part II

"One of the most disturbing facts that came out in the [Adolf] Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane. I do not doubt it at all, and that is precisely why I find it disturbing.

If all the Nazis had been psychotics, as some of their leaders probably were, their appalling cruelty would have been in some sense easier to understand. It is much worse to consider this calm, 'well-balanced,' unperturbed official conscientiously going about his desk work, his administrative job which happened to be the supervision of mass murder.  He was thoughtful, orderly, unimaginative.  He had a profound respect for system...

The sanity of Eichmann is disturbing. We equate sanity with a sense of justice, with humaneness, with prudence, with the capacity to love and understand other people. We rely on the sane people of the world to preserve it from barbarism, madness, destruction. And now it begins to dawn on us that it is precisely the sane ones who are the most dangerous...

The whole concept of sanity in a society where spiritual values have lost their meaning is itself meaningless."

Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable

When you have allowed sociopaths to erect a system which rewards expediency, cleverness, and winning without regard and respect for human values, fairness, or even common mercy and the dignity of others; a society which views compassion and a sense of justice as a weakness to the point of a dangerous deviancy; a culture in which harshness and crudeness and the abuse of power in pursuit of even more wealth, or of the weak as an enjoyable diversion for the superior, are enshrined with a sign of growing strength the only virtue— with such role models and rewards, what else would you expect the highly educated but spiritually weak-willed and morally ambivalent professionals among you to do?

They will implement and execute to plan, under the cover of playing within the rules of a rigged game, with an efficient and myopically determined focus as they do with all that they undertake. They will march themselves into hell with a deluded sense of pride and high accomplishment.

And where do you think this madness will end?

If the bulls cannot stop the selling, put in a bottom, and turn this around we might be in for something notable.

Hopefully the bulls will be able to get their act together to at least stop the selling as they square up their positions into the holiday.

I have to say that I am not 'feeling the fear' yet and the safehavens are notably quiet.

And it would not take a lot to turn the market higher. A word or two from Trump, or one of his proxies, or the Fed's Jay Powell would likely do the trick.

The risk in that is, of course, that if they give it a go and it does not stick, then after an initial bounce the market may take another leg down with a vengeance.   And once the panic sets in, and the real fear selling is underway, it may be too late for jaw-boning to work, even if one if wielding the jawbone of a truly formidable donkey.

I have started to populate the spreadsheets I made in 2000, and last used in 2007, which track the movement of this market and compare it with significant declines from the past.

I have been underestimating the volatility in the NDX using eyeball measures on the chart. One really needs to plug the numbers in.

This is a light trading week. If the bulls cannot turn it on Wednesday or Friday then their hearts may not be in it.

The market is not dominated by 'value investing' but by momentum traders and algos. In that sense it is vulnerable to an outsized move, both up and down.

If there is a 'crash' as I noted some time ago there is little doubt it will be blamed on Trump's trade policies, and to some extent Brexit. This would be a coup for the globalists and freetraders.

They will never acknowledge that the Banks and their Fed willfully allowed an asset bubble to grow, for the third time, in order to continue the transfer of wealth to the top under the guise of investment and asset allocation.

When I dropped my son off at the airport I told him the stock market may crash while he is there, but not to be concerned because I have made provisions.

You may wish to do so as well, even though I still think a crash is a low probability event.

See you tonight.