NAV Premiums of Precious Metals Trusts and Funds - Pleasant Cycles of Financialisation

"By the middle of the stage of financial capitalism, however, the organization of financial capitalism had evolved to a highly sophisticated level of security (paper asset) promotion and speculation which did not require any productive investment as a basis.

Corporations were built upon corporations in the form of holding companies, so that securities were issued in huge quantities, bringing profitable fees and commissions to financial capitalists without any increase in economic production whatever.

Indeed, these financial capitalists discovered that they could not only make killings out of the issuing of such securities, they could also make killings out of the bankruptcy of such corporations, through the fees and commissions of reorganization.

A very pleasant cycle of flotation, bankruptcy, flotation, bankruptcy began to be practiced by these financial capitalists. The more excessive the flotation, the greater the profits, and the more imminent the bankruptcy."

Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope

More Central Banker Questions

Q.  Why is there no real recovery, and little to no reform?  Why are the same old policy errors being replicated again and again?  Why are we seeing the creation of yet another paper asset bubble without a robust growth in the middle class?

A.  Because the moneyed interests are still in control, and they like things just as they are.  This is a pleasant repetitive cycle of accumulation for the one percent. 

 

Not only are the Banks not bearing the losses from their speculation, but their gambling is subsidized by the creation of money and the rules of taxation on the profits, and their losses are transferred back to the victims.

Why would anyone wish to change it, who is motivated by a fairly narrowly interested, almost pathological, desire for the personal accumulation of wealth and power?

Since when are sociopaths reasonably expected to be self-effacing, altruistic, and rationally self-regulating?

At the very heart of self-destructive evil is the inability to say 'enough.'   I have enough power, money, land, sex, control, pleasure, wealth, admirers, etc.

If this type of obsession was not present to some extent in the human genome, history would not be littered with autocrats, dictators, and despots. 

 

Alas, the untempered bent of history on a large scale is not to create egalitarian democracies where each person lives like an angel, but the excessive and destructive creations of autocrats, oppressions, and tyrannies.

US Equities: Rich Valuations, Insiders Selling

Stocks seem to be rather fully valued in expectations of The Recovery™.

Happy days are here again.

For some.

 

Central Banker's Joke

 

Q.  How many monetary policy errors does it take to destroy the world's greatest middle class?

 

A.  How many do you need?

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - And That Was the Non-Farm Payrolls Report

"One may safely say that it would be no sin if statesmen learned enough of history to realise that no system, which implies control of society by privilege seekers, has ever ended in any other way than collapse."

William E. Dodd, US Ambassador, Address to the American Chamber of Commerce in Berlin, 1933

“Our pundits and experts, at least those with prominent public platforms, are courtiers. We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power. It is smoke and mirrors, tricks and con games, and the purpose behind it is deception...

A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, and fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death.”

Chris Hedges, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

"People only see what they are prepared to see."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Could they get any more blatant and careless in just hitting the market with massive sell orders to drive down the price?  It's a great way to collect on short positions on the miners among other things, as some joker noted on bubblevision today.

Careless as in not having a care, because they do what they want and no one will call them on it.

I would not trade gold and silver futures on the Comex in this environment. I rode some pretty hairy markets in the early 2000's, and enjoyed aggressively trading the stock futures.

 

 But based on what I see now I think the rules and regulation have become so captured by a few big players that it just makes no sense for even a seasoned investor to get near them.  But that is what I am doing for myself. You can make up your own mind.

The Non-Farm Payrolls report was 'better than expected.' It caught a lot of analysts off balance because it was the net result of a pretty profound revision of the numbers going back at least a year. I won't say much more than that for now, since I have not had the time to sit down with a spreadsheet and see what was actually done.

But if the Fed wanted cover to change their wording in March, and then hike a bit in June to give themselves some cushion for lowering rates after their later experiment in policy error blows up (again), then I think they have it.

It is pretty obvious that the Fed is making public policy by default. The default of course is their willingness to use their self-funding ability, taking the gains they make from creating money and trading in sovereign debt for their expenses, and returning the leftovers to the Treasury.

 

The Fed is stepping into an obvious policy vacuum that has been created by a corrupt and servile Congress and Executive who have lost the will and the ability to govern, which has now become more of a pastime to their own posturing and looting. 

So we will sit back quite a bit over the next few weeks and wait to see what the philosopher kings at the Fed decide to do, with the unfolding freak show of the Congress as backdrop. Americans love to ignore international developments, but the Ukraine and Greece will continue to weigh on the financials.

And as always, lest you forget, we are in a currency war. And when the going gets tough, the privileged cheat, steal, and lie.

I said several times we might see some antics in the metals today, and what we got was 'a message.' I think these jokers are getting nervous, and when the pampered princes get nervous they tend to lash out.

Putin was meeting with Hollande and Merkel in Moscow, and the US/UK are concerned that they will negotiate a separate deal with Russia and not maintain their 'Nato unified front.' 

And of course there is Greece. A small people seem to be standing up to the moneyed interests and are saying 'enough.'  And those who are in pursuit of global empire want that movement contained.

That sort of thing can give other people ideas. As President Snow said in the Hunger Games:

“Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective, a lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it’s contained. So, contain it.”

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Geopolitical Risks and Numbers Nonsense

 

"A clueless political personnel, in denial of the systemic nature of the crisis, is pursuing policies akin to carpet-bombing the economy of proud European nations in order to save them."

Yanis Varoufakis

The big tickle today was the jobs report. They went back and greatly revised the numbers for at least all of 2014. I really did not have the time today for the kind of analysis I would like to give a change of that magnitude.

But let's just say that the skepticism about the employment picture I have had for the past few weeks, as so well expressed by the CEO of Gallup, has not abated one bit.  I think we are dealing with very frightened public figures who have become inured to lying to get what they want.  They have been using contacts and deceit and special privileges and arrangements most of their lives.

Stocks were in rally mode, but backed off hard into the loss category into the close. The SP futures have taken multiple runs now at the near overhead resistance around 1265-1270, and they either punch it through next week, or we may just go back down again for a reconsideration of the whole rally effort.

I expect geopolitics involving the Ukraine and Greece to dominate the news for the next few weeks. The Street will forget about it, and rally up now and then on some bubblicious news item related to dodgy accounting and ridiculous company market caps and growth estimates, and then tumble on back down again.

Some of the lesser reported news today was the 'emergency meeting' in Moscow between Merkel, Hollande, and Putin with regard to the fighting in the Ukraine.

The US and the UK are calling for 'Nato unity' in taking a hard line, and are concerned that France and Germany might strike a compromise that cedes a portion of the Ukraine and Crimea to Russian influence.

We are losing our humanness in the States, and are being actively conditioned to be 'hard' and ruthless in our quest to order the world. That is of more concern to me perhaps, that the gap between perception and reality will continue to widen to some tear in the social fabric.

But life goes on, and human spirit endures.

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

An Uninvited Guest At the UK Arms Dealers Annual Dinner This Week

This was the scene at this year's annual dinner for the UK ADS Society:  Advancing Aerospace, Defense, and Security.

 

Who is in charge of their security, Inspector Clouseau?

 

Well said, nonetheless.

 

I wonder how good the vetting is at the Fed's conferences?  

 

At least the UK Arms Dealers were more gracious in removing their protester, than was Senator John McCain who reacted to his own anti-war protesters from Code Pink: Women For Peace this way last week.  Class!

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Non-Farm Payrolls Tomorrow - The Fed's Serial Policy Errors

 

Gold and silver took the usual early hits and then came back a bit intraday.  As you can see, gold is pinned to support.

 

Speaking of jobs, the Cleveland Fed head Loretta Mester says that interest rates should be rising soon because of the solid labor gains.   And this from Cleveland? 

"There are accumulating signs that the economy is building momentum and that, this time, a pick-up in speed will be sustained because the underlying fundamentals have improved," Mester told a bankers' group in Columbus, Ohio.

Is this another 'green shoots' sighting?  Or a familiar phase in bubblenomics?  Victory, huzzah!  Because we say so.

 

I think maybe Fed President Mester needs to get out more often, and to more varied different venues than bankers' luncheons.   Youngstown would be a good place to stop for a Jib Jab hot dog.  Maybe not as good as the PO Lunch in Newcastle Pa., but certainly on a par with Yocco's in Allentown (or Easton if you want a beer with that dog).   And don't forget about Corporal Klinger's favorite, Tony Packos in Toledo. 

 

The working poor in her areas may not be able to afford McDonalds as much, but they still like their hot dogs when they can afford them.  Maybe while she is there, she can talk to some people about their wonderful lives in The Recovery™, compliments of the Fed's propeller heads and their serial policy errors.  

 

And while she is there, she can ask about what is going on in Europe, and factor that into her equations.   And about what the Gallup CEO recently said about the booshwa nature of the unemployment numbers.   Does she wish to make public policy based on that?    Maybe, until the real economy bleeds out.

 

God save us from the propeller heads, and the generals who are far from the field, and fighting the last war.  The carnage they inflicted in the first World War was epic.  And so was the carnage of their political peers in the terms of the peace.

 

I will try not to take what she says too seriously because the Fed has an itch to raise rates at least once, so they have room to cut them again when their latest bubble bursts.

 

Tomorrow is Non-Farm Payrolls.  I suppose they will create a good report to make us feel better.  They might even say something nice for a change about wages and labor participation. 

 

I have included a delivery report on gold below, which has sparked some real interest for the first time this month.

 

There was some intraday commentary regarding gold and the dore of war here.

I am not a 'gold bug' whatever the heck that means.  But I do think that gold and silver are important components of a solid portfolio, particularly in these times of currency wars.  I had a penchant for collecting coins from a young age, but never became interested in gold whatsoever until after 2000, when I became intensely interested in currencies. 

 

Anyone who studies currencies without appreciating the history and qualities of gold as a natural currency is ill-educated.  And people who 'hate' gold are probably the real goldbugs if I understand what they mean by it as a pejorative term, because they say the buggiest, most obsessively absurd things imaginable about it.

 

But to heck with them.  Their folly will be sifted by time.  Despite the antics which we may be in for tomorrow.

 

Tick tock.

 

Have pleasant evening.

 

 

Related: 

The Big Lie: 5.6 Percent Unemployment 

Greek economic austerity measures tied to 30 Year high in Suicides

 

 

 

 

 

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Let It Bleed

Non-Farm Payrolls tomorrow.

This stock market is priced for fantasy, and a bubble. 

 

Kudos, I imagine are in order, for the cynical pigtocrats who rode it all the up, talking it higher as they handed off to mom and pop and the managers of other people's money. 

And so we dream on.

Have a pleasant evening.