Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Fruits of Currency War - FOMC Tomorrow

"A great war leaves the country with three armies; an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves."

German proverb

I would imagine that the proverb can be figuratively applied to a currency war.   We certainly are seeing an increase in the economically crippled, the financially devastated, and of course, plenty of thieves who continue to operate with impunity. 

Today is the last position, last notice day for the April gold contract.

Gold and silver continue to chop sideways in a narrow range.

Tomorrow is 1Q GDP in the morning, and the FOMC rate decision announcement in the afternoon.

Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday.

Over 500,000 ounces of gold have been 'claimed' on the April delivery, but the warehouses reflect little movement of physical bullion.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - If the Markets Are Up It Must Be Turnaround Tuesday

Today is a Tuesday.

Therefore the equity markets rallied.

TWTR is getting smacked after hours because of a slowing in the growth of users.

Ebay is on deck to report.

Have a pleasant evening.

Discussions From the Council on Foreign Relations Which You May Have Missed

In addition to that seminal work on American exceptionalism from The Project for a New American Century, there has been quite a bit of discussion about US supremacy in the 21st century in certain influential circles, including a series of much debated articles that originated in the Council on Foreign Relations. 

A thread of this discussion is included below with links to more recent articles of only a few years ago.  

Being aware of this may help you to understand some of the unease which certain parties around the world may feel.

I don't recall Katie Couric asking Sarah Palin what her thoughts were on this topic, when they were chatting about her extensive foreign policy readings and hands-on experience with international relations.  No wonder they gave Obama the Peace Prize, for basically just showing up.

Its not even clear that most Americans know what their leaders and their key advisers think about this, and what the differences might have been between a Mitt Romney and a Barack Obama Administration with regard to non-domestic issues. And the continuing influence of the neo-cons in the 'progressive' Obama Administration.

Or what a non-domestic issue might be.  Or even care.  Rulers of the world, that are largely ignorant of and mostly indifferent to it, except for specifically exploitable opportunities, in which they can extract what is of value, and make a desert, and call it peace.

Foreign Affairs March/April 2006 Issue
The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy
By Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press

For almost half a century, the world's most powerful nuclear states have been locked in a military stalemate known as mutual assured destruction (MAD). By the early 1960s, the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union had grown so large and sophisticated that neither country could entirely destroy the other's retaliatory force by launching first, even with a surprise attack. Starting a nuclear war was therefore tantamount to committing suicide.

During the Cold War, many scholars and policy analysts believed that MAD made the world relatively stable and peaceful because it induced great caution in international politics, discouraged the use of nuclear threats to resolve disputes, and generally restrained the superpowers' behavior. (Revealingly, the last intense nuclear standoff, the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, occurred at the dawn of the era of MAD.) Because of the nuclear stalemate, the optimists argued, the era of intentional great-power wars had ended. Critics of MAD, however, argued that it prevented not great-power war but the rolling back of the power and influence of a dangerously expansionist and totalitarian Soviet Union. From that perspective, MAD prolonged the life of an evil empire.

This debate may now seem like ancient history, but it is actually more relevant than ever -- because the age of MAD is nearing an end. Today, for the first time in almost 50 years, the United States stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy. It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike. This dramatic shift in the nuclear balance of power stems from a series of improvements in the United States' nuclear systems, the precipitous decline of Russia's arsenal, and the glacial pace of modernization of China's nuclear forces. Unless Washington's policies change or Moscow and Beijing take steps to increase the size and readiness of their forces, Russia and China -- and the rest of the world -- will live in the shadow of U.S. nuclear primacy for many years to come.

One's views on the implications of this change will depend on one's theoretical perspective. Hawks, who believe that the United States is a benevolent force in the world, will welcome the new nuclear era because they trust that U.S. dominance in both conventional and nuclear weapons will help deter aggression by other countries. For example, as U.S. nuclear primacy grows, China's leaders may act more cautiously on issues such as Taiwan, realizing that their vulnerable nuclear forces will not deter U.S. intervention -- and that Chinese nuclear threats could invite a U.S. strike on Beijing's arsenal.

But doves, who oppose using nuclear threats to coerce other states and fear an emboldened and unconstrained United States, will worry. Nuclear primacy might lure Washington into more aggressive behavior, they argue, especially when combined with U.S. dominance in so many other dimensions of national power.

Finally, a third group -- owls, who worry about the possibility of inadvertent conflict -- will fret that U.S. nuclear primacy could prompt other nuclear powers to adopt strategic postures, such as by giving control of nuclear weapons to lower-level commanders, that would make an unauthorized nuclear strike more likely -- thereby creating what strategic theorists call "crisis instability"...

Read the entire article here.

Related: 
Superiority Complex, Why War With China Is More Likely, The Atlantic, Jul 1 2007
The Nukes We Need, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2009
Second Strike, The Counterforce Fantasy, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2010

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - FOMC, GDP, Non-Farm Payrolls and End of April

 

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

Gold and silver may be running quite a gauntlet this week, as we have an FOMC meeting, the first quarter US GDP, the end of the big April delivery, and a Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.

We are up to about 500,000 ounces claimed for the month as of last Friday, but if you were just looking at the Comex warehouse reports it would seem as though nothing has been happening.

Physical gold appears to be under some short term strain as backwardation makes its reappearance in the gold forwards on the LBMA as discussed by James Turk.

This means that someone is willing to pay money to borrow physical gold bars AND collateralize that loan with dollars. That implies that physical in hand is worth more the promise to deliver physical gold in the near future, which is backwardation.

The Comex is becoming a shell game of paper cups with a little bit of physical bullion hidden under it. This will end when the cardboard box on which it is based falls over.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Daily Wash and Rinse - Party LIke It's 1987

"Sometimes you just have to bite your upper lip and put sunglasses on.”

Bob Dylan

Stocks did a big dipsy doodle today, ahead of what appears to be a big week for economic news and geopolitical uncertainty.

The foundations of this market are very weak, and this is both a weakness and a strength. Because the volumes are so light, and the trade so dominated by technical algo trading and gaming, it does not take much to shove it back up when it starts to go lower.

The weakness of course is that this same 'fluffy' character of the market will leave little support if heavy selling should be triggered by some internal or external event. In that sense it is like 1987. It is a market and an economy founded on sand.

Have a pleasant evening.

Could You Not Keep Watch With Me For Even One Hour?

"The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone."

George Eliot

Joanie's mother passed on from complications of pneumonia about a year before she went to the doctor with 'growing pains.'   Her six sisters and brother, as well as her father, were just beginning to get over the early loss of their mother and beloved wife.

Her father has largely given up his medical practice in Louisiana, and moved his family to be nearer to St. Jude's Childrens Hospital in Memphis.  St. Jude's has been wonderful, but this has taken an obvious financial and emotional toll on them, although I have rarely seen a more faithful and joyous family, even under these circumstances. 

Suffering and loss, especially among the innocent, is one of the great stumbling blocks of the faithful, and a seeming folly to those who have no faith. 

So we must rally to the support of those who are taking up their Cross, as will we all.  Some may ask, 'why doesn't God do something?'   He does.  He calls us, heart to heart.   He did this when He walked among us, but we do not see it when it happens now, we do not think about it in our own time.  And yet He is still here.

There are some remarkable advances being made in cancer research, and St. Jude's Children Research Hospital is a beacon. However, overall the work goes slowly and the marketplace too often seeks to maximize its returns, rather than to act boldly and take on the big projects for cures, rather than risk the incremental improvements and the steady cash flow of ongoing treatments.

We send many of our brightest and invest enormous amounts into finance and computerized systems to find better ways of cheating one another, and to spy and oppress and deceive one another.  And the effects of this tragic misallocation of energy and resources, this sickness of the spirit, are more widespread and insidious than we might imagine.

There are many fine people in our medical system, but this nation lacks the will to really rise to the aid of the afflicted, in all too many cases. There is even a growing satisfaction in the unnecessary suffering of the weak, in what is surely a diabolical form of 'justice.' 

We become what we fear and hate, because it wrings the love out of our hearts, leaving only emptiness and despair.  Indifference and greed kill bodies as well as souls. 

And Jesus wept.

Please remember Joanie and her family in your prayers, as she remembers all of you here at Le Café.

"Five days ago the St Jude staff sat us down to say they've exhausted all therapies. With teary eyes and faltering words, Joan's oncologist Dr. Navid told us it was time to go home...

The harrowing truth is that her prognosis is presently not even two months. Joan has a blessed grace period (Deo Gratias) of perhaps three weeks where she will continue with normal functioning. We're told there is a reasonable chance that she will rapidly succumb to a sudden event, likely a seizure, due to the neurological spread of her bone cancer. Hospice is on hand.

I'm talking to Joan about this brief time being an extremely special opportunity where her little prayers have a most particular power. She is praying Hail Mary's for the many folks, both near and far, who have been a part of our family.

We ask Heaven for a cure and for a holy resignation to the Divine Will. Providence has carried the Schneider pilgrims all through this journey and, despite my repeated offenses and unworthiness, I know in my bones His Mercy won't let us down."

If you wish to send a little card or note to her or her father you may do so at the address below.  If you do not know what to say, just say 'Thinking of you.  Remembering you in my prayers.'  Some of us have sent them a little 'shower of roses' as la petite fleur, Thérèse de Lisieux, had prescribed.  But a simple card of thoughtfulness is surely sufficient, for both them and for you. 

And we can carry on the practice of charity and prayers in our daily lives, in the little things, if we can take the first step when called.   It is that first step, away from the path of selfishness and death, and into the arms of love and true life, that is the key.  The first step out of the darkness and into the light is the hardest.  But once there, in that loving and hospitable place, our true home for which we were made, we find comfort and place, and pray that we may never leave.
 

Mark Schneider, M.D.

1570 Wood Farms Dr.

Cordova, TN   38016

 

Related: Update on Joanie, February 2014