"You are the very cause of your ignorance, yourselves. You put away the light, yourselves; you first pluck out both your own eyes, yourselves; and after that other men’s too, so that the blind may lead the blind, until you both fall into the pit.”
Thomas More, The Sadness of Christ (Gethsemane), Tower of London, 1535
O Lord, pierce our hardened hearts, enlighten our blindness, and break the chains of our pride and self-deception, so that we may choose life.
“We are slow to master the great truth that even now Christ is, as it were, walking among us, and by His hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us to follow Him. We do not understand that His call is a thing that takes place now. We think it took place in the Apostles' days, but we do not believe in it; we do not look for it in our own case.
God beholds you. He calls you by your name. He sees you and understands you as He made you. He knows what is in you, all your peculiar feelings and thoughts, your dispositions and likings, your strengths and your weaknesses. He views you in your day of rejoicing and in your day of sorrow. He sympathizes in your hopes and your temptations. He interests Himself in all your anxieties and remembrances, all the risings and fallings of your spirit.
He encompasses you round and bears you in His arms. He notes your very countenance, whether smiling or in tears. He looks tenderly upon you. He hears your voice, the beating of your heart, and your very breathing.
You do not love yourself better than He loves you. You cannot shrink from pain more than He dislikes your bearing it; and if He puts it on you, it is as you would put it on yourself, if you would be wise, for a greater good afterwards.
God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission -- I may never know it in this life but I shall be told it in the next.
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught.
I shall do good, I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.
He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.
He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me -- still He knows what He is about.
Let us feel what we really are--sinners attempting great things. Let us simply obey God's will, whatever may come. He can turn all things to our eternal good. Easter day is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy.
The more we do, the more shall we trust in Christ; and that surely is no morose doctrine, that leads us to soothe our selfish restlessness, and forget our fears, in the vision of the Incarnate Son of God.
May the Lord support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done.
Then in His mercy may He give us safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at last.”
John Henry Newman
The mighty rise, are fallen, and forgotten— but the word and the spirit endure.
"In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack even on the least of men is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all.
Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind."
“I know not why any one but a schoolboy in his declamation should whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one another.”
Samuel Johnson
"This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men."
John Perkins
"A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can’t be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship...Once you go down the path of empire, you inevitably start a process of overstretch, of tendencies toward bankruptcy, and, in the rest of the world, a tendency toward the uniting of people who are opposed to your imperialism simply on grounds that it’s yours, but maybe also on the grounds that you’re incompetent at it.
It is time to realize, however, that the real dangers to America today come not from the newly rich people of East Asia but from our own ideological rigidity, our deep-seated belief in our own propaganda."
Chalmers Johnson
Stocks were wobbly today but not dramatically so.
Gold and silver managed to take a little back from their recent losses as the Dollar backed off sharply from its intraday high.
There will be an FOMC meeting next week. There is about a 35% probability of a rate hike at this meeting. We will have to watch the early economic data in the week, especially the PCE, to see if that probability might move a bit.
And on Friday there will be the April Non-Farm Payrolls Report.
James Butler Hickok, after the shootout with Davis Tutt
If the US does fall into stagflation then it is clearly a time for systemic change in our decision and policy making, and the mass turnover of the old leadership and their elites.
Stagflation is a policy error de luxe, when not precipitated by a major exogenous supply shock like the oil embargo of the 1970s. Up until that point most economists did not even believe that stagflation was possible.
It takes an extraordinary combination of almost purposefully bad decisions to create stagflation from within the policy choices of the economic system itself. Something like strangling economic demand by severely curbing income growth for the broad public while generously supplying easy money and selective asset inflation to the top one percent over a period of years might do it.
And it is a hell for the working public, that sees their income opportunities continue to stagnate while the prices of essentials continue to increase.
Alas, if there is stagflation I am sure the credibility trap will compel the propeller heads and their paymasters to find some scapegoat, or some elite friendly cause like a 'global trade war,' to carry the blame, rather than their own distorted, self-serving decision making.
I am posting the charts shortly after the close. I will most likely have to update them tomorrow.
Big cap tech is coming out after the bell, with Amazon, Microsoft, and Intel reporting their numbers. And the reaction so far in the stock futures has been 'enthusiastic' to say the least.
Gold and silver were off again today on further US Dollar strength. The lack of activity in the Comex gold warehouses, including Hong Kong, is remarkable.
Stocks were on another wild ride today, as earnings are coming in well thanks to the big tax cut for corporations, but going forward growth is hard to justify.
A lack of organic growth in the non-subsidized economy may be discouraging organic demand.
The upward redistribution of wealth continues to suck the very life out of the real economy. Never was so much owed by so few to so many.
Gold and silver were off a bit on the expiration as the Dollar, or is it King Dollar, rallied back to a short term high.
“In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.”
Czesław Miłosz
"The world of finance is a mysterious world in which, incredible as the fact may appear, evaporation precedes liquidation. First the capital evaporates, and then the company goes into liquidation."
Joseph Conrad
“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
Terry Pratchett
There is a profound, existential difference between the economy of the Devil and the economy of God. It is not that we don't know the difference, as the rules have been laid down simply, frequently, and unequivocally. It is just inconvenient to a certain type of perverse individualism.
The economy of God requires one to set aside themselves as the first priority, and their personal lust for money and power, and serve something greater— God and our fellows for His sake.
This does not appeal to the underdeveloped or malformed who are not able to see beyond their own immediate needs, and those that beyond that, all things considered, would be as gods, and therefore will not serve. Non serviam.
Stocks took a real tumble today. Caterpillar announced its first quarter results which were quite good. But on the conference call the CFO said that 'this is as good as it gets for 2018.'
And that sent US equities, which had been somewhat wobbly because of the climbing 10Yr yield, into a swoon.
The US Dollar fell off a bit from its recent highs, which helped to put a bid back under gold and silver.
As I have previously mentioned, the precious metals are trading primarily as an abstract instrument of value, like a fiat currency. Little regard is being given to their nature as commodities. This is more true for gold than for silver, because of the latter's significant industrial component.
Tomorrow will be the April Options Expiration for the precious metals on the Comex.
I expect the markets to continue to be volatile, moreso than the past twelve months or so. This is because this Trump rally is built on an unsustainable foundation of lies and mispricings of risk.
At some point I believe that we will see a much more significant correction in stocks. And then we will see what, and who, is left standing.
"Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government."
Edward Bernays
"The lady doth protest too much methinks."
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Stocks opened higher, but were a bit wobbly most of the day. They managed to rally back into the close, ending up largely unchanged from the close last Friday.
The US Dollar was rallying from the overnight and hit a new high for the year. It is still within a longer term trading range however.
Despite what Larry Kudlow might say about the benefits of a stronger 'King Dollar', an unusually strong currency acts like a tax or tariff on a nation's exports, and a subsidy on its imports.
This is hardly what might support the grand plans for the renewal of American's economic growth. But it does favorite financiers for whom the dollar currency is an instrument of advantages.
Gold sold off almost one percent. Silver fell a full three percent, giving back the gains from last week, losing the 17 handle in the process.
There will be a Comex precious metals option expiration on this Wednesday, 25 April. The expiry seems to be more significant for silver than for gold. Perhaps this is one reason why silver was hammered so hard in particular today.
CNN is smearing those who question the corporate media narratives as 'extremists,' lumping genuine progressives in with neo-nazis and pedophiles. Even the DNC did not go quite that far in their attacks on Bernie Sanders and the progressive grass roots of their own party in 2016.
The slow winding of the credibility trap is going to lead the self-anointed into paranoia and retribution. How else can Hillary explain why she was denied her presidency? And how will Trumpolini explain the coming collapse in all his grand economic plans for revitalization?
I get the odd feeling that the public will at least pick up the tab for all these grand delusions, and perhaps even end up being the whipping boy for the failure of the anointed.
Let us pray for those whose hearts are hardened against His grace and loving kindness by greed, fear, and pride, and the seductive illusion and crushing isolation of evil.
We pray that we all may experience the three great gifts of our Lord's suffering and triumph: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness. And in so doing, may we obtain abundant life, and with it the peace that surpasses all understanding.
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He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.
