Links For Saturday, 30 March

"Are we often weary, disheartened and sad? Do we feel weighed down by our sins? Do we think that we won’t be able to cope? Let us not close our hearts, let us not lose confidence, let us never give up: there are no situations which God cannot change, there is no sin which he cannot forgive, if only we open ourselves to him."

Francis I, Easter Vigil, 2013

Links For Today

Bill Moyers: The Hypocrisy of 'Justice for All'

David Stockman: We've Been Lied To, Robbed, and Misled (podcast)

Afghan and Iraq Wars To Cost US From $4 to 6 Trillion

Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Shame of the Three Strikes Law - Rolling Stone

Inside the Three Strikes Project: An Inmate's Letter - Taibbi

Cyprus Depositors May Have Up to 60 Percent Seized

SAC's Steinberg Gets a Perp Walk - NYT

A Tale of Two Londons - Vanity Fair

Wall St Burden's the Public Debt - Michael Hudson

$600 Million Ponzi Scheme Collapse in North Carolina

Lesser Known Aspect of Currency War and the US Dollar - Rubino

Nation's Only State-Owned Bank the Envy of Wall Street

How G. W. Bush Won the Iraq War - Palast

Median Household Income Down 7% Since Start of Recession

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts

"Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable...

Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.

George Orwell

End of quarter today, and gold and silver were under pressure as the punters were pushing the SP 500 higher for that bright, shiny new high.

I took a counter bet to that into the weekend.

Intraday commentary here.

See you Sunday night.  Happy Easter.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - New All Time High for SP 500 at End of Quarter

These jokers really worked hard to squeeze out that new high, even on very light volume.

This is a monetary inflation rally.  

I would not get ahead of it, but when this market does turn for a correction the momentum players are going to be piling on in a big way.

Look at how far the SP 500 has come without a major correction.  That is how far it may fall.

But for now illusion holds the day.   Illusion is all one has, when reform and leadership fails.

'Clay stealing clay.'

Net Asset Value Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds

As one may deduce from the Commitments of Traders, some of the Hedge Funds and a couple of the Banks are playing the short side of the metals.

And as you may recall, today is the end of the quarter, as the markets will be closed tomorrow for Good Friday.

My usual take is that they are slamming the metals to make their mark to market look better for purposes of enhancing their results, and bonuses.

As Bishop Lazarus of Cyprus was said to have observed of a thief absconding with a pot, 'clay stealing clay.'

Bloomberg TV has been running a little show called "Is the Gold Bull Run Over?" They trotted out that crusty prune Jeff Christian, who declared that 'gold will be flat to down for the next two years.'

Let's see how all that works out.

In the meanwhile, the metals are under pressure, and the SP 500 desperately reaches for a new high.

With regard to the funds, we see the somewhat unusual event of a negative premium on CEF, and pressure on the metals overall.

Have a happy and joyous Easter. I may post the charts later, but will otherwise see you Sunday evening.