SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - The Possessed - 牢人

“You cannot imagine what sorrow and anger seize one's whole soul when a great idea, which one has long and piously revered, is picked up by some bunglers and dragged into the street, to more fools like themselves, and one suddenly meets it in the flea market, unrecognizable, dirty, askew, absurdly presented, without proportion, without harmony, a toy for stupid children.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Possessed

Stocks caught a bit of a bounce today, swayed here and there by the varying and shifting interpretations of 'just what the heck is going on' in the geopolitical arena.

The failure of stocks to rally despite the light selling volume is not a constructive sign.  However, this lack of buying does not in and of itself serve to set up a major decline in the ten percent plus region.

But it does serve to remind one of the fragility, selectivity, and somewhat ephemeral nature of The Recovery™.

How remarkable it is, that there are those who argue fervently for austerity and tough love for others, and how the opposite camp argues just as vociferously and often mindlessly for 'stimulation' and easy money.  And both for essentially the same unreformed system that is founded on systemic fraud and officially sanctioned injustice, well covered by a blanket of stealthy stone-walling and bold faced lies.

Is it a surprise that 'easy money' from the Fed is flowing only to the wealthiest few, to the Banks and the corporations that surround them, who use the funds to purchase other companies building even greater monopolies?  Is it a surprise that they use it not to produce in the face of stagnant wages and slack demand, to buy back their stocks and pay outsized bonuses and dividends?   Is it a surprise that this allows the moneyed interests to continue to provide the huge flow of money to the high priests of official corruption in Washington and London to promote the rights and the primacy of the new corporate godheads.

What a world.  These days it is truly a 'burden to be educated,' not only in the sense of having enormous and often unpayable student debts, but to bear the burden of having to think for oneself.  It is not easy to be unable to live comfortably, blinded to the lies by the sedation that comes from freedom from thought that a slavish devotion to one ideology or the other offers to those who are among the possessed.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Michael Parenti - Land of Idols: Lies, Wars, and Empire

"The [neoliberal] goal has been the 'Third Worldization' of the United States:

• an increasingly underemployed, lower-wage work-force;
• a small but growing moneyed class that pays almost no taxes;
• the privatization or elimination of human services;
• the elimination of public education for low-income people;
• the easing of restrictions against child labor;
• the exporting of industries and jobs to low-wage, free-trade countries;
• the breaking of labor unions;
• and the elimination of occupational safety and environmental controls and regulations."

Michael Parenti, Land of Idols, 1993

"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology."

Michael Parenti

"Plunderers of the world, when nothing remains on the lands to which they have laid waste by wanton thievery, they search out across the seas. The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well. Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Robbery, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."

Tacitus, Agricola

Iraq was not a unique event.  It is a modus operandi, a template.

Ideology serves to make people blind to their actions.  On one hand they can rail against the Banks, the obvious excesses of the multinational corporations, and the many abuses and corrupting influences of Big Money.

But on the other they can speak up stridently for the liberating principle of a 'free market capitalism' and the dispensation of the rule of justice in favor of might makes right which, in service to the mythical god of scientific economy, dictates that there be plunder and demands the pillage of the weak, who are objectified as being 'the other.' 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Wind of Change

"How are the mighty fallen, and their weapons of war destroyed."

2 Samuel 1:27

As we might have expected, the gold that left the JPM warehouse yesterday magically reappeared, with an adjustment and then some. The record of their antics is in the report below.

The pattern held today, as gold and silver were hit in the early hours, and then kept under pressure most of the day. Gold recovered a bit more than silver into the closing hour. As you may recall August is an active delivery for gold, but not for silver. You have to wonder why this would matter, since the metals seems to be there primarily for show, but apparently it does.

Change is coming.  Uncertainty is the only certainty.  It may be a long time coming, but when it does appear it will be like a thief in the night.

Keep in mind that we are in a currency war, and what it is about and why it is happening, and some of the things that are happening may make more sense.  What has been hidden will be revealed.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Bei Mir Bist du Schön

"How can such episodes of such savage cruelty happen? The heart of man is an abyss out of which sometimes emerge plots of unspeakable ferocity capable of overturning in an instant the tranquil and productive life of a people."

Karol Józef Wojtyła

The 'better than expected' economic numbers this morning had stocks on the bounce, but this proved to be short lived as reality seemed to intrude on the recovery fantasies of Wall Street's verkäufers zu Scheiße.

It was acceptable for stocks to dip back down to test support again, but they really must find their footing and climb back again, or risk losing hold of their channel and begin a real correction. I still think that the machers have the money, compliments of the Fed.

But with the political Federals continuing to poke the Russian Bear with sticks for whatever reasons they may have, the markets can remain understandably nervous.

I have to admit that there are many things that would not make sense to me if I do not allow for the reality of a currency war, and some unfortunate decisions on the part of the Anglo-American central banks that may have compromised the politicians in a scheme to manage the price of gold, gone horribly wrong. 

And history tells us that there is no advantage that the pampered princes will relinquish willingly, without paying dearly to keep it, with other people's money and blood.

Have a pleasant evening.

The Swing Kids Swingkinder were jazz and swing music lovers in Germany in the 1930s, mainly in Hamburg (St. Pauli) and Berlin. They were composed of 12 to 18-year-old boys and girls, most of them middle or upper-class students, but with some apprentice workers as well. They admired modern Western fashions and thought, defining themselves in the style and jargon of swing, and were opposed to the fascist nationalism of the Nazi Party, especially the Hitlerjugend.  They were swept away in the madness and tides of war, a brief flicker of light and life before the deluge.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Just Another Series of Unfortunate Events

If you look at the warehouse report for Friday you will see that almost 600,000 ounces of gold took a hike out of the JP Morgan Comex metals warehouse.  That was almost half of their total gold.  Let's see where it turns up, since nothing seems to actually leave the Comex metals warehouses anymore these days.

Do you think that the charges that JPM was fudging its reports to the CFTC on trader's metal positions was any factor in this?  Probably not.  But there seems to be a decided erosion of confidence in the process as it exists in the New York metals market, at Madame Tussaud's on the Hudson.

The big dogs holding gold for the Comex in their warehouses now are HSBC and Scotia Mocatta. 

So far this month of August, approximately 226,000 ounces of gold have been stood for delivery, as compared to a total of a little more than 968,000 ounces registered for delivery at these prices.  As we have seen lately, it does not bother the banksters to allow the inventories to shrink down to a small percentage of the global metals market.  And so price discovery is divorced and diverges from pricing.

The metals were mildly hit on the New York open, and then capped pretty much for the rest of the day.  The exercise seems to be protecting the psychologically important levels of 1300 and 21 for gold and silver respectively.

If I were of a mind to hold gold and silver in some venue for trading for a quick buck, I might consider keeping it at some Comex warehouse, or holding it in some ETF like GLD or SLV.  After all, it is a relatively low cost venue.

But if it was for anything except a quick trade, I would personally be inclined to get it out.  At my earliest convenience.  But that is just my preference.

When it is too late to move your wealth, they will most likely be blaming no one in particular, just a series of unfortunate events.  Like MF Global. 

Or the Hotel California.  You can check out, but you can never leave:  except on their terms.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Be Careful With a Fool

Stocks caught a bounce today, which was a little weaker than one might have expected given that it is a bounce off strong support.

I think part of the problem that the pros are having here is that they are having difficulty handing off their positions at these higher prices.

Those that have money are all in, and there are few bears. Those that don't have money, or who are eschewing the markets, are chasing new bubbles in housing, which looks like a fairly risky bet.

And underpinning it all is the very artificial and narrow 'recovery' that is leaving Main Street behind.  I see great danger ahead.

You might hope that these jokers in New York, London, and Washington will wise up before they reap the whirlwind.  And you might be wrong.   Be careful with a fool.

Johnny Winter was professionally active until the time of his death near Zurich, Switzerland, on July 16, 2014.  He was found dead in his hotel room two days after his last performance, at the Cahors Blues Festival in France on July 14, at the age of 70.

RIP Johnny.

Have a pleasant evening.