Hospital Beds, Physicians, and Infant Mortality Per 1000 Population in OECD Countries

I thought this was interesting.

 

I would imagine the national average for the US is subject to some significant regional variation.

 

Interesting that the US exceeds Canada by a bit in both.  No wonder there is often a queue for doctors and facilities there according to people with whom I have spoken.    The US manages that by deprivation.  I wonder if the wealthy can buy extra-systemic, first class care in Harper's world?

One might be tempted to surmise that unless one is wealthy, connected,  or exceptionally well-insured, in the event of a serious epidemic a person might end up in a makeshift quarantine facility, and not a hospital bed in order to manage costs.

 

To each as they deserve.  Welcome to Camp Hospice.  And may the odds be ever in your favour.

 

The trend for the US over time is in blue.

Physicians Per 1000 Population in OECD Countries

Infant Mortality Per 1000 Population in OECD Countries

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Leveling Up

Gold held its gains today, while silver was once again the target of some mild selling pressures.

The gold silver ratio is back up over 70 again as I showed in the intraday NAV Premiums tally.

Gold is stronger against most of the industrial metals including the white metals. This *could* be a sign of stresses in the gold supply, or even some foreboding of an economic event with gold serving as a safe haven.

Gold is apparently in the lead sled dog position for the precious metals now, so let's see if it can sustain an advance and break this pattern of lower highs and lower lows.

China should be back from their National Week tomorrow. Let's see if Asia will make a difference overnight.

Try to keep a broad portfolio of wealth and savings, so you are not too heavily impacted by any big event in any specific sector. And this includes your relationship with the first things, and the last things. For what does it profit a man...

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Stocks Continue Moving Lower On Weak Economy

US equities moved sharply lower today on weak economic news out of Germany, and jitters as we approach the US earnings season once again.

Consumer Credit expansion missed forecast in a big way, helping to encourage doubts about the ability of the working classes ability to sustain their consumption with stagnant wages and a weak household balance sheet.

This is not a sustainable recovery. It will keep going while the Fed keeps pumping money, like a car grinding its engine off a battery jump, but unable to fire on its own.

The reason? The financial system is draining all the fuel from the real economy, and the corporate profits are flowing largely into the already stuffed pockets of the one percent.

The Fed is supporting the Banks, and the public be damned.

It really is about that simple.

Have a pleasant evening.

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds

Silver continues to take it on the chin.

Gold Silver ratio is back up to 70.



 

Divergence In Gold and Silver Open Interest

Someone asked to see the open interest divergence in the gold and silver futures graphically that I mentioned in an earlier post here.

As always, Nick Laird of Sharelynx.com has the goods.

By itself the open interest divergence is not compelling, just odd.

But with everything else, especially the great and ongoing divergence in ETF and Fund physical inventories, and it begins to approach the irregular.

 

That is not to say we can comfortably call a bottom here, as oversold we might be at old support.  The downtrend will not be broken until we see a higher high.  

 

It would not be well to underestimate the thugs and pampered princes and the markets they that they control.  

 

What they cannot manage is the physical market which will eventually break them, as it did the London Gold Pool.  But that will take time.  But when the time comes, it will fall apart rather quickly unless some of these jokers wise up first and stop the spiral of inventory leverage and paper before it becomes a critical, systemic problem. 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Peak Empire, In Time of Plague

Sculpture after Albrecht Dürer's Knight, Death, and the Devil

Beauty is but a flower,

That wrinkles will devour.

Brightness falls from the air;

Queens have died, young and fair.

Dust hath closed Helen's eye.

I am sick, I must die.

Lord have mercy on us.

Thomas Nashe, A Litany in Time of Plague

We had a nice bounce after an overnight smackdown with gold tagging the 1180 support area.

There was intraday commentary about the interesting divergence between gold and silver here.

 

I am focused keenly on what I consider to be one of the greatest macro-economic events my generation will probably see in the Bretton Woods era when Nixon took the world off the dollar/gold standard.

 That set the world out upon some very uncharted seas that were easily overlooked in the sturm und drang of the Cold War.   But that all changed in the 1990's.   Few have yet perceived it, and what it implies for us.

And so here we are.  Peak Empire.

China comes back from holiday on the 8th.

Gold and silver need to break the downtrend of lower highs and lower lows. That is the technical market analysis in a nutshell.   I do not know when it will happen, and what it will lead to next.  One can only forecast, relying on probabilities.

 

Have a pleasant evening.