Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Incalculable Risk of Being Honorable

 

"'A lot of white-collar criminals are psychopaths,' says Bob Hare.  'But they flourish because the characteristics that define the disorder are actually valued.  When they get caught, what happens?  A slap on the wrist, a six-month ban from trading, and don't give us the $100 million back.  I've always looked at white-collar crime as being as bad or worse than some of the physically violent crimes that are committed.'

Some can be particularly good at bending the rules to fulfill their need to feed on whatever their diet demands.  They are naturally drawn to positions of power, frequently faking their credentials and results, and are often verbally acute, willing to say and do almost anything to get their way.  They may be able to buy their way into positions of power and manage their environments very effectively, except their family relationships and children would rarely be described as normal.  Psychopathy breeds a multitude of other disorders.  And they seem to be gaining traction, getting better, and finding kindred spirits in the growing partnership between corporations and the government."

Jesse, Psychopaths Among Us and the Necessity of Law, 9 September 2011

"In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact...

If leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupified by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance."

George Orwell, 1984

"If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves."

E.A. Bucchianeri, Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World

"It is hard to say whether he was overwhelmed by the mere idea of such an immense and wicked enterprise, or whether he feared that the rot went deeper and that resistance on his part might spell death.  In any case, he gave many people the impression that he was in the plot.  The other tribunes and the centurions also preferred the advantages of the moment to the incalculable risk of being honourable.  Their mood may be summed up thus: a shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all."

Tacitus, The Murder of Galba 

 

The markets were understandably edgy today, putting their portfolios in order for a weekend fraught with exogenous risk.

The major stock index futures declined, and actually went out at the bottom, declining further after the bell.

Gold and silver initially rallied strongly, but were whittled back as the day wore on.

The metals shorts may be giving way, but they are drawing a line in the sand at gold $2000.

If that resistance is broken, gold may run.

VIX maintained its elevated level.

The Dollar chopped sideways finishing essentially unchanged, but at an elevated level relative to recent history.

Obviously the disorder in the Congress amongst the bickering and stiff-necked Republican tribesmen is adding to the unease domestically, but make no mistake that the growing war clouds in the Mideast are raising the fear levels, even among the congenitally greedy.

And then there is the ongoing war in the Ukraine, which our ADHD news media has temporarily misplaced.  

"Everywhere and always demonic powers lurk in the dark, waiting for the moment when man is weak; when of his own volition he leaves his place in Creation, as founded for him by God in freedom; when he yields to the force of evil, he separates himself from the powers of a higher order; and after voluntarily taking the first step, he is driven on to the next and the next at a furiously accelerating rate."

White Rose, Munich 1942

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Old Switcheroo - Empire of Lawlessness

 

“I've always resented the smug statements of politicians, media commentators, corporate executives who talked of how, in America, if you worked hard you would become rich.  The meaning of that was if you were poor it was because you hadn't worked hard enough.  I knew this was a lie, about my father and millions of others, men and women who worked harder than anyone, harder than financiers and politicians, harder than anybody if you accept that when you work at an unpleasant job that makes it very hard work indeed.”

Howard Zinn

"There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success."

Lord Acton

“People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages.  They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves.”

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite

"A lot of white-collar criminals are psychopaths. But they flourish because the characteristics that define the disorder are actually valued. When they get caught, what happens? A slap on the wrist, a six-month ban from trading, and don't give us the $100 million back. I've always looked at white-collar crime as being as bad or worse than some of the physically violent crimes that are committed."

Robert Hare

"The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well. Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Plunder, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."

Tacitus


The ongoing current of statements from the spokesmodels and talking heads over the past week, as well as a number of market indicators I have learned to watch over the past thirty years or so had me thinking that we would see a terrible jobs number this morning, and a fantastic reversal and rally in equities and the metals.  And I structured my trading positions accordingly, with a hedge for uncertainty.

And this morning when I heard the monster overshoot in the Jobs number I thought, 'oh no, I was wrong.'  Thank God for the hedge, but I wish it was larger.

But little did I know.  I'm glad I did nothing as the little set piece we call the 'free markets' played out.  Am I getting more patiently wily or just lazy?  Oh me of little faith. 

But what else might we expect from empire building jokers who make a blasphemous religion of greed out of victimizing the innocent.  

It is probably a mistake to ever underestimate the shamelessness and greed of the power elite.

And so the Dollar this morning rocketed higher, and then dropped precipitously and ended slightly lower into the close.

Stocks did the opposite, with a monster rally crushing the shorts and hedges.

The VIX fell sharply after spiking higher.

Wash-rinse-repeat.

My eyesight continues to return, if all too slowly but surely.  Whenever I might feel like getting too comfortably complacent He always seems to knock me down hard off my perch.  Thank God for His loving kindness and tender mercies.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Barbarians in the Kitchen - History Will Not Absolve Us

 

Banking today is like playing Russian roulette— with someone else’s head.   With rewards often far outweighing the risks, the sense of responsibility has vanished.   There is a system that pushes you to take risks and a culture that shames anyone who admits errors or weakness.  Nobody ever challenges the front office.  You become part of the fabric of the place.  Then they dispose of you.

Joris Luyendijk, Swimming with Sharks, 2015

"When a society fails to restrain the worst behaviours of those who prey on others through the abuse of power or money, their example brings out the worst in a much larger subset of the population.  Bad behaviour breeds bad behaviour, and those who profit by it find ways to justify this through self-serving social and political theories.  People who have this weakness in their character are naturally attracted to high profile positions of power.  Psychopaths breed and nurture sociopaths, imitators who are able to extinguish their own empathy and remorse through ideology and excess."

Jesse, Without Empathy or Remorse, 13 August 2016

"The barbarian will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being.  We sit by and watch the barbarian. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh.  But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.”

Hilaire Belloc, This and That and the Other, 1912

“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”

Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, 1971


Soft corruption is growing ever brazen, and pervades the corridors of power in the US.

Ignoring these things gives rise to vocal groups who will use it as an excuse for almost anything, any crime, betrayals, greed, cowardice, and eventually murder, in those public figures that flatter them and fatten their wallet.   

The events of this young century confirm this.   History suggests that is the way to national madness.

I am not sure where we're going, but we're on our way.

Stocks were hammered again today.

The VIX has climbed back up out of the doldrums.

Silver did a moon shot rally, and although beaten back from the highs, still managed to pull out a decent bounce back.

Gold struggled again although some of the miners were showing some life.  Hedges still on.

The Dollar chopped sideways for a slight loss.  How about that?

I hear there will be a stock index option expiration tomorrow.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

The Kansas City Fed will be hosting their annual soirée in Jackson Hole on August 24^th.

I wonder if they will have a Sports Book in addition to a bucket shop stock board and big screen ticker?

We are coming up on the 60^th anniversary of the political assassinations in the 1960s and the advent of endless war that changed the course of American history.

And the band played on.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metal Charts - Reckless Disregard

 

"Complex systems that have artificially suppressed volatility tend to become extremely fragile, while at the same time exhibiting no visible risks.  In fact, they tend to be too calm and exhibit minimal variability as silent risks accumulate beneath the surface. 

These artificially constrained systems become prone to 'Black Swans' — that is, they become extremely vulnerable to large-scale events that lie far from the statistical norm and were largely unpredictable to a given set of observers.

Indeed, the longer it takes for the blowup to occur, the worse the resulting harm in both economic and political systems."

Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan of Cairo, Foreign Affairs

"Having fallen from the eternal, the evil one's desires are endless, insatiable.  Having fallen from pure Being, he is driven by the desire to possess, to fill his emptiness.  But the problem is insoluble, always. He is compelled to have and to hold, to possess and consume, and nothing else.  All he takes, he destroys."

Denis de Rougemont

“It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one.  Those who have followed the assertive idiot rather than the introspective wise person have passed us some of their genes. This is apparent from a social pathology: psychopaths rally followers.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan

'Life is a school of probabilities.'

Walter Bagehot

...and the tuition is paid by their willful miscalculation and mispricing of risk.  Good designs have linear consequences.   Unfortunately bad designs have exponential consequences. 

Stocks did the customary 'pop and flop' today, with a rally in the morning that faded out to nothing in the afternoon. 

Gold bounced back, while silver endured its own wash and rinse to finish nearly unchanged.

VIX has come up a bit off its multi-year lows.

The market has weak underpinnings and is susceptible to any kind of exogenous surprise.

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Brood of Vipers - Stock Option Expiration on Friday

 

"What is offensive is that they lie, and worship their own lying."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

"Three dark personalities, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, have been studied in businesses.  Although the first two share similar traits with psychopathy, such as superficial charm, lying and manipulation, the inability to accept responsibility for their actions, and the complete lack of empathy, guilt and humility, a large body of research has demonstrated that psychopathic individuals are more dishonest, treacherous and destructive than the others.  While all three dark personalities can be bad news for a company, corporate psychopathy is the most dangerous."

Cynthia Mathieu, The Devil Lurks In the Suit

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: power attracts pathological personalities.  It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.  Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune

"Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by twenty well-documented traits and characteristics. The most visible are glib/superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self worth, a strong need for stimulation (that is, psychopaths are easily bored) and impulsivity.  However, there are others, which they successfully hide from view, in particular pathological lying, conning, manipulation, a lack of empathy, remorse and guilt. Over time, one might begin to see examples of irresponsibility, lack of realistic, long-term goals, and their failure to take responsibility for their own actions."

Paul Babiak, Robert Hare, Snakes In Suits

"Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all."

Edmund Burke

"The temporary alliance between the elite and the mob rested largely on this genuine delight with which the former watched the latter destroy respectability. To its conviction that history, which was a forgery anyway, must be added the terrible, demoralizing fascination in the possibility that the difference between truth and falsehood may cease to be objective and become a mere matter of power and cleverness, of pressure and infinite repetition.  

Not Stalin’s and Hitler's skill in the art of lying but the fact that they were able to organize the masses into a collective unit to back up their lies with impressive magnificence.”

Hannah Arendt

After the bell the news came out that Fox settled their defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787 million.

There seem to be some heavy judgements falling lately on those who willfully and almost pathologically spread outrageous lies and foment violence in the pursuit of influence and profit. 

You may choose to look away, but you can never again say that you did not know the lies that you were spreading to your children and grandchildren, 'just keeping them informed.'

Politicians and financiers are a vile bunch in general.   But that does not excuse your willingness to get down in the mud with them for a cheap thrill and some cathartic lawlessness.

Stocks did the usual pop and flop, one day wash and rinse, to which we have become accustomed.

The Dollar fell.

Gold and silver bounced back, although the miners with heavy play in the options market seemed to underperform.

Must be a stock option expiration on Friday.

VIX is now at a noticeable low—  as are the morals of far too many people, led by the catastrophic ethical failures of our professional elites at almost every level.

"Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty."

Simone Weil

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Which Side We Have Chosen

 

"Self-regulation is at best a vulnerable strategy in any human concern involving trust, but is absolute folly in an industry where the emphasis and incentives are based on the ruthless pursuit of performance at any cost, and where such behaviour is lauded.

There is little doubt that strong personality types such as even marginal psychopaths can hijack an organization, a [political] party, or even a sub-culture given the right environment of moral relativism and complacency.  And if successful, they bring more of the morally ambivalent and weak-willed along with them.

The efficient market hypothesis is more a clever cover story than a legitimate scientific observation worthy of consideration in public policy discussions.  Transparency and oversight are absolutely essential in all financial matters.   The financial system, and their amoral enablers in politics and the media, have done enough damage to the world.  It is time to stop."

Jesse, Psychopaths on Wall Street, 17 March 2012

"The suspicions that the system is rigged in favor of the largest banks and their elites, so they play by their own set of rules to the disfavor of the taxpayers who funded their bailout, are true. It really happened. These suspicions are valid.”

Neil Barofsky, TARP Inspector General

"A lot of white-collar criminals are psychopaths.  But they flourish because the characteristics that define the disorder are actually valued.  When they get caught, what happens?  A slap on the wrist, a six-month ban from trading, and don't give us the $100 million back.  I've always looked at white-collar crime as being as bad or worse than some of the physically violent crimes that are committed."

Robert Hare

"Three dark personalities, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy have been studied in businesses. Although the first two share similar traits with psychopathy, such as superficial charm, lying and manipulation, the inability to accept responsibility for their actions, and the complete lack of empathy, guilt and humility, a large body of research has demonstrated that psychopathic individuals are more dishonest, treacherous and destructive than the others. While all three dark personalities can be bad-news for a company, corporate psychopathy is the most dangerous.

If success is defined by the accomplishment of one’s goal, then I would say psychopathic individuals, by definition, are often successful. That is, they are successful at manipulating others into getting what they want, whatever the cost might be to others. Their ability to charm, manipulate and lie to others, coupled with the fact that their lack of empathy and guilt and failure to accept responsibility for their actions, gives psychopathic individuals the upper hand to attain their goals, by any means possible.

There is a difference between being confident and not being capable of humility or modesty. Good leaders will back their realization and success stories with verifiable facts and will do it with a certain dose of humility, occasionally giving credit to others. Moreover, good leaders will take some credit but will also give credit to their team members while psychopathic individuals are likely to take all the credit for previous achievements."

Cynthia Mathieu, The Devil Lurks In the Suit

"I wonder whether people who ask God to intervene openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. Then it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not."

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1944

Stocks did their yo-yo routine again today, but nevertheless rallied back from their flighty drop of yesterday.

Gold and silver moved higher.   Both are within range of breaking out.

They may be tested by the Comex metals option expiration of next week.

VIX chopped sideways in familiar volatility.

The Dollar climbed back a little.

Have a pleasant evening.