Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Morgan Stanley's Premature Capitulation - Fashionable Fraud

"Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.”

W.H. Auden, September 1, 1939 


"You should thank God for bank bailouts. Now, if you talk about bailouts for everybody else, there comes a place where if you just start bailing out all the individuals instead of telling them to adapt, the culture dies...

There's danger in just shoveling out money to people who say, 'My life is a little harder than it used to be.' At a certain place you've got to say to the people, 'Suck it in and cope, buddy. Suck it in and cope.'"

Charlie Munger

As you may recall it was reported last week that Morgan Stanley was predicting that gold would never see $1300 again, having failed to take out that level so many times and then fallen back to 1280. That is the headline that Mining.com was carrying at least, although that is not exactly what they said according to the quotes, which were still rather bearish to say the least.

I am waiting for a breakout and confirmation from what is an obviously tight range around the 100 and 200 DMAs.  Since I believe that gold and silver are very manipulated markets these days, with semi-official sanction at the least, I am not willing to place any faith yet in the technicals that seem to indicate a bottom has been made.

Silver is struggling in particular, and gold gets batted around on the Comex in the off hours with almost reckless abandon, or audacious arrogance if you prefer. 

The divergence and manipulation between the paper markets and the physical markets is real, obvious to anyone who has eyes to see, and more widespread than the media will seemingly admit.  from energy to interest rates, from currencies to precious metals.

And that will end, badly.  It will hasten the demise of the existing financial order.  And there is both risk and opportunity in this change.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Earnings, Geo-politicals, Median Wage and Demand

“I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of Admin. The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid 'dens of crime' that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result.

But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.

Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Preface

The CEO types who make up the managerial elite do not have enough substance to be called 'evil.' We live in an age of greedy, morally ambivalent Eichmanns, and so fraud and lies and a carelessness of character are the fashion at the top.

The big drivers of the market right now are the geopolitical issues, especially the Nato-Ukraine-Russia unrest, the individual earnings of companies, and for the longer term the median wage and the growth and stability of aggregate demand.

And underlying all this is a pool of liquidity that the Fed is handing out at virtually no cost to their friends in the financial sector.

That pretty much states the outlines of the field, and the line markers.

I see quite a few risks to the markets, and to the economy of the world overall. We seem to be reaching the extremes of the longer trend in crony capitalism that obtained traction during the 1980's, in the US and in England in particular.

This is the big 'ebb and flow' underlying current events. The turning point is a long time coming, but once it comes it may happen more quickly than we might otherwise expect, given the long, slow lead time to change. This is why it will catch so many unawares, like the tsunami that never seems to actually come despite warnings, but when it does, surprises many.

Have a pleasant evening.

Matt Taibbi: Minding the Wealth Gap

Munk Debate On State Surveillance: Hayden-Dershowitz vs. Ohanian-Greenwald

Alan Dershowitz and Michael Hayden versus Alexis Ohanian and Glenn Greenwald, with a video appearance by Edward Snowden.

The actual debate starts around minute 27 on the video. You may use your cursor to click ahead to it.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - More of the Same

If not for the manipulative efforts, there appears to be little legitimate trading volume left to the Comex metals.

The usual games overnight, and a bounce back to the magic 1300 level for gold.

The Jobs Report sucked out loud, despite the 'better than expected' headline jobs number which in my estimation was largely a contrivance, based on a skew in the seasonality and a rather large Birth-Death model addition. 

The unemployment percentage is largely irrelevant now, given all the tinkering they have done with the long term unemployed who are no longer counted among job-seekers.   The hourly wage remains stagnant, not keeping pace with prices.

Have a pleasant weekend.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, But Alas, Few Wages

Job growth continues at its aenemic pace despite the better than expected headline monthly number, which was largely due to a seasonality adjustment and an outsized Birth-Death model addition.

Wage growth was stagnant, and labor force participation continues to drop.

There is a pig under all that lipstick and mascara, and its name is insatiable greed and the folly of selfishness.

Have a pleasant evening.