The Mighty Rise And Are Fallen, But the Word and the Spirit Endure

"About an hour later another of the crowd flatly stated, 'I know this fellow is one of Jesus’ disciples, for he is also from Galilee.' But Peter said, 'Man, I do not know what you are talking about.'   And as he said these words, a rooster crowed in the distance.

And at that moment Jesus turned and looked at Peter.  Then Peter remembered what Jesus had said— 'Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.'

And Peter walked out of the courtyard, and wept bitterly."

About 24 years ago I went on a trip to Rome with my wife, who was then three months pregnant with our son.  We wanted to make a pilgrimage for us and our unborn son to receive a blessing from the Pope, and to have a little holiday together before life would become a bit more circumscribed.  Before that my wife and I had traveled the world together, whenever the opportunity arose from my business.

We stayed at a charming (and relatively inexpensive at that time)  hotel tucked away in a corner off the Trevi fountain. While we were there one morning we visited the room in which the English poet John Keats died of consumption, just off to the left going down the Spanish Steps, into the Piazza di Spagna. The year before I had visited the house in Hampstead Heath at which he is said to have written, "Ode to a Nightingale."  Our trips often had a theme from history, around some figure I admired.

Later we visited Keats' gravesite in the Cimitero degli Inglesi, and read the inscription on his tombstone.

This Grave contains all that was mortal, of a Young English Poet, who on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his heart, at the Malicious Power of his enemies, desired these words to be Engraven on his Tomb Stone: Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.

Later we took a bus to the ancient wall of the city, and continued walking through the Porta San Sebastiano, south on the Via Appia in search of a particular country restaurant at which I desired to have our usual late lunch.  Afterwards were then going on to visit the catacombs a little further out from the city.

After a little while on the road we came to a small, simple church, the Chiesa di Santa Maria in Palmis, but commonly known as Chiesa del Domine Quo Vadis.  We went inside, and to my surprise, this was the place referenced by Henryk Sienkiewicz in his famous book, Quo Vadis which I had read in high school.   Famous at least for a time, as it was the subject of several movies.

The story of this meeting on the Appian Way so many years ago comes from the apocryphal Acts of Peter, thought to have been written in the 2nd century by a companion to John the Apostle.  But it was not included in the canon of the Bible.

It is a moving experience, to visit the places where these things occurred. I  felt the same way when we toured the Coliseum, the Forum, and the Mamertine Prison which had held both Peter and Paul before their judgement and deaths.   Europe is rich with many such sites.  History permeates it.

These mementos remind us that Keats, and Peter, and Nero, and Paul, and so many other figures whom we remember and read about in history were real people, in most ways like us, making decisions with confusion, worries, concerns, fears, and the rest of the issues that we have today.  We think that the call took place in their day, and we do not see it in ours. But it is there.

As John Newman once said,  "every century is like every other, and to those who live in it seems worse than all times before it...  thus much of comfort do we gain from what has been hitherto, not to despond, not to be dismayed, not to be anxious, at the troubles which encompass us. They have ever been; they ever shall be; they are our portion."

Here is the relevant section about this area on the Appian Way from Sienkiewicz's book.

"About dawn of the following day two dark figures were moving along the Appian Way toward the Campania.

One of them was Nazarius; the other the Apostle Peter, who was leaving Rome and his martyred co-religionists.

The sky in the east was assuming a light tinge of green, bordered gradually and more distinctly on the lower edge with saffron color. Silver-leafed trees, the white marble of villas, and the arches of aqueducts, stretching through the plain toward the city, were emerging from shade. The greenness of the sky was clearing gradually, and becoming permeated with gold. Then the east began to grow rosy and illuminate the Adban Hills, which seemed marvellously beautiful, lily-colored, as if formed of rays of light alone.

The light was reflected in trembling leaves of trees, in the dew-drops. The haze grew thinner, opening wider and wider views on the plain, on the houses dotting it, on the cemeteries, on the towns, and on groups of trees, among which stood white columns of temples.

The road was empty. The villagers who took vegetables to the city had not succeeded yet, evidently, in harnessing beasts to their vehicles. From the stone blocks with which the road was paved as far as the mountains, there came a low sound from the bark shoes on the feet of the two travellers.

Then the sun appeared over the line of hills; but at once a wonderful vision struck the Apostle's eyes. It seemed to him that the golden circle, instead of rising in the sky, moved down from the heights and was advancing on the road. Peter stopped, and asked, --

"See thou that brightness approaching us?"

"I see nothing," replied Nazarius.

But Peter shaded his eyes with his hand, and said after a while,

"Some figure is coming in the gleam of the sun." But not the slightest sound of steps reached their ears. It was perfectly still all around. Nazarius saw only that the trees were quivering in the distance, as if some one were shaking them, and the light was spreading more broadly over the plain. He looked with wonder at the Apostle.

"Rabbi. What ails thee?" cried he, with alarm.

The pilgrim's staff fell from Peter's hands to the earth; his eyes were looking forward, motionless; his mouth was open; on his face were depicted astonishment, delight, rapture.

Then he threw himself on his knees, his arms stretched forward; and this cry left his lips, --

"O Lord! O Lord!"

He fell with his face to the earth, as if kissing some one's feet.

The silence continued long; then were heard the words of the aged man, broken by sobs, --

"Quo vadis, Domine?" (Where are you going, Lord?)

Nazarius did not hear the answer; but to Peter's ears came a sad and sweet voice, which said, --

"If you desert my people, I am going to Rome to be crucified a second time."

The Apostle lay on the ground, his face in the dust, without motion or speech. It seemed to Nazarius that he had fainted or was dead; but he rose at last, seized the staff with trembling hands, and turned without a word toward the seven hills of the city.

The boy, seeing this, repeated as an echo, --

"Quo vadis, Domine?"

"To Rome," said the Apostle, in a low voice.

And he returned.

Paul, John, Linus, and all the faithful received him with amazement; and the alarm was the greater, since at daybreak, just after his departure, praetorians had surrounded Miriam's house and searched it for the Apostle. But to every question he answered only with delight and peace, --

"I have seen the Lord!"

And that same evening he went to the Ostian cemetery to teach and baptize those who wished to bathe in the water of life.

And thenceforward he went there daily, and after him went increasing numbers. It seemed that out of every tear of a martyr new confessors were born, and that every groan on the arena found an echo in thousands of breasts. Caesar was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan world was mad.

But those who had had enough of transgression and madness, those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins.

When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that which the society of the time could not give any one, -- happiness and love..."

Quo Vadis, by Henryk Sienkiewicz, 1905

The novel was a worldwide best seller in its day, from about 1906 to 1930. At the time I read it in 1968 I remember particularly enjoying the portrayal of Titus Petronius, Nero's Arbiter Elegantiae, who is said to have written the first western novel, The Satyricon.

The people of the world have always treasured such books and stories.  But it seems that they do so especially during times of suffering and troubles, when the great, who would be masters, rise up and proclaim their dominion over men and history.   Perhaps it, or some things like it, will have a revival when the madness is once again unleashed, and The New Rome falls, and The New Temple of the god of the market is sacked.

And where is the magnificent Emperor Nero now, ubi sunt, immortal god and lord of the world, but a memory, returned to the earth and dust, to live no more.

Perhaps he is now to be found only as a bit of dirt beneath the fingernails of some little child, to be plucked out and thrown away with a tut tut by a doting mother.

The glory that was Greece;  the grandeur that was Rome.  And so the mighty rise and are fallen, but the Word and the Spirit endure.

"For there are three things that will remain: faith, hope and love;  but the greatest of these is love."

Epub: Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Stock Option Expiry - US Douleur du Monde

"But there is a sort of 'Ok guys, you're mad, but how are you going to stop me' mentality at the top."

Robert Johnson


“A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.”

Hunter S. Thompson

Why are our election choices at the end of the day so often a choice between repugnant and despicable, so often a choice between corrupt narcissists with little difference except for their marketing brand and particular sponsors?

I think most of us already know the answer.

Tomorrow is a stock option expiration for March, which as I recall is not inconsequential.

A surprising number of people contacted me via email to ask if something had happened, as gold rallied but was noticeably lagged by PHYS and some of the mining stocks.

And then later on gold was hit, giving up its gains for the day and the miners et al. knocked down a bit further.

Silver held up fairly well, but was more surprising was that the dollar had quite a poor day of it as you can see below.

Other than normal profit-taking and short selling, I would consider the possibility that the biggest options players, who tend to be the Banks and the others who play virtually every market and market cross, saw a nice opportunity to clean the clocks of the call buyers in the miners and related trades who were enthused by the big run higher sparked by the Fed.

However that is a surmise for now and there are somewhat less complicated explanations.  But after all we have seen, I am much more willing to entertain the crookedness of the markets than I might have been some years ago.   The options markets have become almost as bad a rat's nest as the forex markets for the retail traders.

There was negligible precious metal activity at The Bucket Shop yesterday, and just a little leakage of bullion out of the warehouses.

Let's see what happens.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Stock Option Expiry for March Tomorrow

Stocks were getting jammed higher in fairly light trading today, led by the SP futures more than anything else.

Some might consider this some preliminary action to the March stock option expiration tomorrow.

Then again, perhaps it is just more animal spirits, brewed by those moonshiners at the Fed.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - March Madness

"The main thing is that the debt is in dollars. So we can't run out of cash--we print the stuff. Suppose that foreigners decide we're not reliable.   How does that drive up interest rates?   The Fed controls short-term interest rates, and long-term interest rates reflect expected short rates. How's that supposed to happen?"

Paul Krugman, Interview on CNNMoney

Well, at least now we know why gold was knocked down lower in the paper trading earlier this week.

It was to prepare us for The Big Retraction from the Fed, who begged a mulligan on their most recent rosy forecasts from three months ago about The Recovery™.   And as suspected, it's those foreigners who are at fault.  And that's why we can't have nice things.

There was intraday commentary about that here.

And so after 'fessing up and saying that things are not quite as good as they had thought, the dollar tanked and gold took off higher with some serious vigor.

There was little delivery activity yesterday in gold at The Bucket Shop.

But some customers coughed up over a million ounces of silver, most of which were taken on the cheap by the house account at JPM.    What prescient trading.

You may see that in the delivery report box scores below.  Quod erat demonstrandum.

Let's see how the rest of the week goes.

Get right, and sit tight.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - There Goes The Recovery™ Again, Receding Into the Future

“Victorians, Victorians, who never learned to weep.
Who sowed the bitter harvest that your children go to reap."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

Ah, the vagaries of empire, and the New American Century. O brave new world, that has such wieners in it.

The Fed had to ask for 'a mulligan' on its forecasts from just a few months ago, and reflected that in their FOMC statement today.

They reduced the forecasts for growth and inflation for this year, and suggested they would not be raising rates quite so confidently.

And for all this they seemed to blame 'global developments.'   As if.

Anyone with open eyes and an intermediate education in macroeconomics knows that the Fed is raising rates not for any benefits to the real economy, but to provide themselves some policy room to cut rates without going negative when their latest financial asset bubbles begin to collapse.

So the economic models continue to invent fictions about these long eight years that we have awaited The Recovery™,  while the pampered princes of the Establishment nod their heads accordingly, with a few notable exceptions.

I wonder how well the huddled masses will take it, when they vote for hope and change again, and get thrown under the bus without so much as a fare thee well.

And in the distance, we hear the increasing murmurs from the long suffering sans-culottes.

Have a pleasant evening.

FOMC Statement - Backing Off On the Rate Increases, Lowering Forecasts

The Fed recognized that growth is slow, and that inflation remains subdued.

I include a chart of the real median household income to demonstrate why the recovery is so wobbly.  Demand and investment are weak because most people have less money to spend.  Wow, what a surprise.

The pampered princes of the establishment keep pointing to the 'great jobs growth' while ignoring the low pay, part time nature of those jobs, and the slumping Labor Participation Rate.

The 'trickle down theory' does little more than enrich the already rich, and stretch the fabric of society to the point of instability.  

And I believe that this is purposeful, because they are caught in a credibility trap.  They cannot address the root problems because it risks their place in the 'system' that they have crafted that rewards their wealthy and powerful patrons excessively at the expense of most others.

The Fed attributes this uncertainty to 'global economic and financial developments continue to pose risks.'   And they have not only scaled back their inflation expectations, they have also scaled back forecasted GDP growth, which I think is still a bit optimistic.

If one looks at their 'dot plot' they are indicating a less frequent raising of rates this year, perhaps only two occasions rather than three.

I have included the Fed's data sheet below the text that shows the difference between what they had forecasted in December and what they have changed that to now.

The US dollar dropped and gold took off higher like a scalded cat.  Stocks remain mixed.

Janet Yellen will be giving a press conference shortly.

Release Date: March 16, 2016

For release at 2:00 p.m. EDT

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in January suggests that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace despite the global economic and financial developments of recent months. Household spending has been increasing at a moderate rate, and the housing sector has improved further; however, business fixed investment and net exports have been soft. A range of recent indicators, including strong job gains, points to additional strengthening of the labor market. Inflation picked up in recent months; however, it continued to run below the Committee's 2 percent longer-run objective, partly reflecting declines in energy prices and in prices of non-energy imports. Market-based measures of inflation compensation remain low; survey-based measures of longer-term inflation expectations are little changed, on balance, in recent months.

Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability. The Committee currently expects that, with gradual adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will expand at a moderate pace and labor market indicators will continue to strengthen. However, global economic and financial developments continue to pose risks. Inflation is expected to remain low in the near term, in part because of earlier declines in energy prices, but to rise to 2 percent over the medium term as the transitory effects of declines in energy and import prices dissipate and the labor market strengthens further. The Committee continues to monitor inflation developments closely.

Against this backdrop, the Committee decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 1/4 to 1/2 percent.  The stance of monetary policy remains accommodative, thereby supporting further improvement in labor market conditions and a return to 2 percent inflation.

In determining the timing and size of future adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, the Committee will assess realized and expected economic conditions relative to its objectives of maximum employment and 2 percent inflation. This assessment will take into account a wide range of information, including measures of labor market conditions, indicators of inflation pressures and inflation expectations, and readings on financial and international developments. In light of the current shortfall of inflation from 2 percent, the Committee will carefully monitor actual and expected progress toward its inflation goal. The Committee expects that economic conditions will evolve in a manner that will warrant only gradual increases in the federal funds rate; the federal funds rate is likely to remain, for some time, below levels that are expected to prevail in the longer run. However, the actual path of the federal funds rate will depend on the economic outlook as informed by incoming data.

The Committee is maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities and of rolling over maturing Treasury securities at auction, and it anticipates doing so until normalization of the level of the federal funds rate is well under way. This policy, by keeping the Committee's holdings of longer-term securities at sizable levels, should help maintain accommodative financial conditions.

Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Janet L. Yellen, Chair; William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman; Lael Brainard; James Bullard; Stanley Fischer; Loretta J. Mester; Jerome H. Powell; Eric Rosengren; and Daniel K. Tarullo. Voting against the action was Esther L. George, who preferred at this meeting to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 1/2 to 3/4 percent.