Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - This Attractive But Deceitful World - Dr Evil Followed Up By Mini-Me

 

"The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans are the nation’s most egregious tax evaders, failing to pay as much as $163 billion in owed taxes per year, according to a new Treasury Department report released on Wednesday.

The analysis comes as the Biden administration is pushing lawmakers to embrace its ambitious proposal to invest in beefing up the Internal Revenue Service to narrow the 'tax gap,' which it estimates amounts to $7 trillion in unpaid taxes over a decade. 

The White House has proposed investing $80 billion in the tax collection agency over the next 10 years to hire more enforcement staff, overhaul its technology and usher in new information-reporting requirements that would give the government greater insight into tax evasion schemes.  The proposals have been met with deep skepticism from Republicans and business lobbyists." 

DNYUZ, The top 1 percent are evading $163 billion a year in taxes

 

"Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.  Moral values are in flux.  The muddy depths are being stirred by new monsters and witches from the deep.  Trolls walk the American night.  Caesars are stirring in the Forum.

To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil. "

Gore Vidal,  Comment, Esquire, July 1961

 

"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, Audacious Oligarchy

 

Gold and silver were hit again today down to trend resistance, but managed to bounce back a bit into the close.

Not a Dr Evil class market swindle as we saw a week or so ago, but maybe a 'mini-me.'

Stocks were lower, even the storied big cap tech stocks.

The Dollar moved a little higher.

Again this looks like a very technical trade.

But we are entering what has proven historically to be a volatile season for stock bubbles.

Let's see what the rest of the week brings.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Gold and Silver Mugged On Dollar Rally

 

"Every century is like every other, and to those who live in it seems worse than all times before it.  The Church is ever ailing, and lingers on in weakness.  The cause of Christ is ever in its last agony, as though it were but a question of time whether it fails finally this day or another.

The Saints are ever all but failing from the earth, and Christ all but coming; and thus the Day of Judgment is literally ever at hand; and it is our duty ever to be looking out for it, not disappointed that we have so often said, 'now is the moment,' and that at the last, contrary to our expectation, truth has somewhat rallied."

John Henry Newman, Via Media

 

I am posting the charts early tonight and will skip the commentary, except to note the mugging of gold and silver this morning, the rise in the Dollar, on some perception about interest rates. 

Some of the miners took an extra hit over their exposure to the political unrest in Guinea.

Stocks were off but the big cap techs managed to keep on trucking. 

Today smells like teen spirit, and a technical trade after the shock Jobs Report.

I am going to see an oral surgeon (for the first time) and doubt I will feel like posting anything later. It's only one tooth that went bad under a crown but still...   Ugh.  

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Precious Metals Soar as Weakness of Recovery Data - Holiday Weekend

 

"Gold has worked down from Alexander's time.  When something holds good for two thousand years I do not believe it can be so because of prejudice or mistaken theory."  

Bernard M. Baruch

 

“When the system is rigged, when ordinary citizens are powerless, and when whistle-blowers are pariahs at best, three things happen.  First, the worst people rise to the top.  They behave appallingly, and they wreak havoc.  Second, people who could make productive contributions to society are incented to become destructive, because corruption is far more lucrative than honest work.  

And third, everyone else pays, both economically and emotionally; people become cynical, selfish, and fatalistic. Often they go along with the system, but they hate themselves for it. They play the game to survive and feed their families, but both they and society suffer.” 

Charles H. Ferguson, Inside Job 

 

Misdeeds, once exposed, have no refuge but in audacity. And they had accomplices in all those who feared the same fate.” 

Tacitus, Annals 

 

It appears that there is a dwindling and overleveraged supply of gold and silver heading towards an unmanageable and relentless source of demand.

Or in other words, exhaustible supply meets seemingly insatiable demand.

Gold and silver rallied strongly on the much weaker than expected Jobs Report.

 The recent and illegal Dr. Evil smack down in prices comes full circle, once again. 

What a surprise. 

The assumption by the markets is that the weakness of The Recovery^TM will keep the Fed on the sidelines except for the occasional symbolic effort and jawboning.

Stocks had another ranging day, giving 'investors' vertigo.

The SP 500 could not quite regain the green, finishing slightly lower for the day.

The bubble marquee stocks ended slightly higher.

There will be a Labor Day holiday in the US on Monday, so those markets will be closed.

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - As Time Goes By

 

Stocks were mixed today, with a divergence between the SP 500 and the big cap tech divas.

Gold and silver were lower.

The Dollar fell closer to the 92 handle.

We had quite the weather event, with the remnant of Tropical Storm Ida dumping eight inches of rain on our area.

We are fortunate to live on high ground.   South of here along the Raritan river the flooding was catastrophic.

It's always something.

Here's looking at you, kid. 

Have a pleasant evening

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Gathering Storm

 

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it." 

Mark Twain

 

“Many of our most vaunted innovations are simply methods -- electronic or otherwise -- of pulling off some age-old profit-maximizing maneuver by new and unregulated means.” 

Thomas Frank 

 

“The combination of power, optimism and abstract thinking makes powerful people more certain. The more cut-off they are from others, the more confident they are that they are right.” 

Margaret Heffernan, Willful Blindness

 

The heart of the rain that is Tropical Storm Ida is rolling over us now.  

I was down the street helping a neighbor get some things ready. 

We have active flash flood and tornado warnings.

Stocks reached for another high note today, but fell back to the earth and mostly unchanged into the close.

Gold ended up flat while silver managed to hang on to a decent gain.

The Dollar was just a bit lower.

All eyes are on the Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.

The markets seemed to just shake off the big disappointment in the ADP private employment report today.

This market makes me a bit edgy.   I am out of all positions in the my trading account, keeping cash on hand.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Our Modern Know-Nothings - History Repeating

 

“Explosive urban and industrial growth had thrust the [Massachusetts] Commonwealth into the forefront of the industrial states in the antebellum period, creating, in the process, wrenching social and economic dislocations.  The failure of the established parties to mount a significant response to the myriad issues and problems spawned in the matrix of modernization weakened partisan attachments and set the rank and file of the established parties on a quest for a political vehicle that would make a difference in their lives. 

In 1854, such a vehicle materialized in the form of an antiparty, antipolitician populist movement that promised to cleanse the statehouse of corrupt old parties and self-serving political careerists and turn the government over to the people so that they might right the wrongs that had for so long afflicted them.

Among the afflictions, it is true, were the many social problems associated with mass immigration; but there were other troubling and pervasive concerns endemic to an unharnessed, rapidly expanding urban, industrial order, including the tyrannical factory system, the decline in the status of labor, the widening gulf between rich and poor, and the deteriorating quality of urban life.” 

John R. Mulkern, The Know-Nothing Party In Massachusetts 

 

"I am not a Know-Nothing.  That is certain.  How could I be?  How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people?  Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid.  As a nation, we begin by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.'  

When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.'  When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy." 

Abraham Lincoln, August 24, 1855 

 

“Against foolishness we are defenseless.  Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the foolish person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental.   In all this the foolish person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.” 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Prisoner for God: Letters and Papers from Prison

 

Some stocks were a little wobbly after their recent parabolic gains. 

We may see more signs of instability as the bubble proceeds to its natural conclusion.

Gold was up a bit, silver not so much.

The active months in the gold contract are now October and December.  For silver the most activity is now in December.

The Dollar was once again unchanged at 92.67.   Three days in a row.  How about that.

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.

I am really getting antsy about the equity markets.  

I have pretty much stopped watching most network television, and am much more selective about the sites that I read on the internet.   I spend much more time reading and praying and working outside, and trying to help others.

It makes my thinking clearer, and my overall outlook generally more content.

As Fulton Sheen noted, "The most important problem in the world today is your soul, for that is what the struggle is about."

People can become addicted to all sorts of things.   And there are plenty of examples in history of how people became addicted to demagogues who wove a delusional cartoon fantasy for their followers.

Time to disconnect from the machine, and start thinking and feeling for something more worthwhile and genuine and lasting.  

As a test, change that channel, stop running to read those websites.  See how badly you miss your favorite source of emotional opiates when they are gone.   Be patient with yourself in your withdrawal.

But above all save yourselves, for in the end to lose yourself, to throw yourself away for what is essentially nothing, is the only real tragedy. 

Need little, want less, love more.  For those who abide in love abide in God, and God brings life to them.

Have a pleasant evening.