Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Oppan Gangnam Style

"Vanity is the quicksand of reason."

George Sand

Another bit of a bear raid in the metals took gold back down to touch the 30% retracement on the handle intraday.

Otherwise it was an uneventful day, as the true money believers placed another appendage in the dike of their illusions, and hoped for the best.

The word for the day is 'fatuous.' It means frivolous, silly and pointless.

Much of the financial market action in times of general fraudulence is fatuous, with genuine significance.

There is a faith based culture among the nation's financiers, as typified by Modern Monetary Theory, naturally efficient market theory, job creationism, free trade, and so forth.  It serves to show that a lack of faith in God is easily compensated for by an equally fervent faith in something else, like yourself.  Everyone believes in something.

And where the facts of the real economy are in conflict with such esoteric theories, a profane faith intensifies and rises to meet and exceed all objections.  After all, it is bound by no exterior restraints, being by its very nature willfully self-referential and manipulative.

And nothing chafes vanity more than hard reality, some recent post election behaviour being a case in point.

Any person is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts and outcomes. So one may believe as they will, but will be held accountable by the numbers for their beliefs. At the end of the day, life is a school of probability.

See you Sunday evening.

Gangnam is an area of Seoul south of the Han River. It is an icon of the rapid economic development of South Korea, having benefited from skyrocketing real estate prices and planned economic development. Gangnam is where the elite live, and the well-to-do young people go to party. In the song, the rapper Psy describes the kind of guy he is and the kind of girl he wants, painting caricatures of the ostentatious culture of the people in Gangnam.

This Korean rap video went 'viral' and is on its way to a billion views on Youtube. It is a 'catchy tune,' and would likely be easy to dance to in the manner of techno music which swept the Manhattan party scene during the era of the 'club kids.'

But it is also emblematic of the age and the culture: self-absorbed, frivilous, extravagant, unproductive, and vain.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts

Quite a nothing of a day. The big excitement was another round of histrionics from Representative Boehner with regard to the 'fiscal cliff.'

And there was the big driver of volume today, the MSCI rebalancing, which occurred at the close, as index managers scurried about chasing that other bit of nothingness.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Silver, the WidowMaker

Silver would not be denied.

It is coiling so hard, they are going to be carrying traders out of the pits on stretchers when it moves.

Shout and feel it.

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was called der Gabelschwanz-Teufel, 'the fork tailed devil' by the Luftwaffe and 2飛行機、1パイロット Ni hikoki, ichi pairotto, 'two planes one pilot,' by the Japanese. It saw service throughout WWII, especially in the Pacific Theater.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Free Money, Teen Spirit

Stocks had been largely higher on the day as GDP came in revised upwards from 2.0 to 2.7 percent growth. It was reassuring, especially if one did not look closely at the details.

Boehner came out later in the day, shaking the fiscal cliff shibboleth at the markets, causing them to dip quickly. One must presume that the Dems are playing hardball, as well they might.

In intraday commentary I speculate in passing that El Cliffo may be the wrapping paper for the next 'offer the people cannot refuse' from the Bankers and the mavens of privilege, in the manner of TARP.

I also, once again, outline the parameters for how hyperinflation might occur, and the latest in economic fairy tales being promulgated by the financiers and generation koolaid, money for nothing, and chicks for free.

The parade of pigmen between New York and Washington smells like teen spirit.  O brave new world, that has such people in it.

Have a pleasant evening.