Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Golden Slumbers

Gold and silver popped higher today from early on, and then continued their rally as the Fed minutes were leaked ahead of schedule, maybe to provide some relief to the stock market.  They revealed confusion and gloom about the real economy, and cast some doubt on their move to raise rates in September.

So yields on Treasuries slumped, as did oil, while gold and silver continued on their move up to overhead resistance.

This is a particularly important resistance level for gold which is in an active month, although you would not know it by look at the action, or lack thereof, at The Bucket Shop®.

You will not see any breakout coming at the retail level, or in the paper trade in New York and London where leverage of paper to bullion is already at historically high levels.  It will be too easily hidden and explained away.

But there will be a reckoning between willfulness, the will to power, and reality.

And if and when it does become obvious, it will almost certainly be too late to act.  

This is likely still to be a long and rough ride.  We are in a period of historic change, which some have called a 'currency war.'  A lot of people don't get it, or do not want to admit it.

Get right, and sit tight in a durable portfolio, and let's see what happens.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Takin' It To the Street

Stocks were slumping hard today, in the general theme of the global recession in the real economies.

The Fed minutes were leaked thirty minutes early this afternoon, and so the Fed released them. They cited downside risks to GDP and confusion amongst the members.

This sent the Treasury yields crashing and gave a boost to stocks off their bottom.

The risks in this market are grossly underpriced.

At some point this global recession in the real economy is going to be taking it to The Street.

And then there will be some type of reckoning of the divergence between financial fantasy and hard reality.

Have a pleasant evening.

Wilkerson: Who Makes US Foreign Policy

Part of what I teach is how since World War II and the acquisition of this enormous power by what in essence is the new Rome in the world, the United States, part of the shift that takes place in manipulating and managing that new power is a centralization of foreign policy away from the old cabinet places where it used to take place, most prominently through the Foreign Service and through the secretary of state, to the White House and to the creation of the 1947 National Security Act, the National Security Council.

So if you ask me pro forma where does it exist today, it exists more in the National Security Council and its staff than it does anywhere else, certainly anywhere else in the cabinet. So what I'm saying is it's centralized in the White House.

But what does that mean in terms of, I think, your real question, who's behind the White House, and who's therefore behind U.S. foreign policy, more or less? I think the answer today is the oligarchs, which would be the same answer, incidentally, ironically, if you will, for Putin in Russia, the people who own the wealth, the people who therefore have the power and who more or less (and I'm not being too facetious here, I don't think) buy the president and thus buy American foreign policy. So that's as succinct an answer as I can give you and touch on a few historical points...

And you could say in some respects this shadow behind the power that makes money off war, period, no matter who's the belligerent, makes money off that volatility now, especially with computers that are able to assist them in doing so, like currency manipulation, for example, or just general speculation. With computers you can do it at lightning speed and you can do it in a nanosecond, and you can make billions in that nanosecond, and you don't care about what you're doing to the real economy, because you're raking in the dough.

Lawrence Wilkerson

You may watch the entire three video interview here.

Letter to Edward M. House
Warm Springs, November 21, 1933

My dear Friend:

...I had a nice talk with Jack Morgan the other day and he and he seemed more worried about Tugwell's speech than about anything else, especially when Tugwell said, "From now on property rights and financial rights will be subordinated to human rights." J.P.M. did not seem much troubled over the gold purchasing, and confessed that he had been completely misled in regard to the Federal expenditures.

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson— and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of WW [Woodrow Wilson]— The country is going through a repetition of Jackson's fight with the Bank of the United Stated - only on a far bigger and broader basis.

I am having a grand rest and am catching up on much needed sleep. Take care of yourself and do write me soon.

Franklin Roosevelt

War is a racket. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General.

The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912.

I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights.

Major General Smedley Butler, USMC

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Snakes and Ladders

Today was an interesting day.

Certainly not at The Bucket Shop, which showed all quiet in the reports from the warehouses and deliveries yesterday.

As noted in an intraday post which you may read here, gold and silver were both hit in the usual manner shortly after the trade in paper opened up this morning.

That of course is not odd or interesting.  More like the modes du monde these days.  The markets open, and then attempts are made to cheat us.  And then the nibbling continues on more subtly for the rest of the day.   If we do not complain too much, they leave us alone, and just take a little bit from every trade through their algos and HFT.

No what was odd was that gold snapped back almost immediately from its hit, but poor silver went down almost 3 percent and stayed down, losing the fifteen handle.

Is any of this an efficient market mechanism, a 'level playing field' of price discovery?

No, it is more like a con game, with the basic structure of the old child's game of Snakes and Ladders.  Or Chutes 'n Ladders as it is called in the States.

The snakes lie in wait for the passerby, ready to take them down a notch.  And they use the ladders of insider knowledge and good old fashioned cheating to give themselves a leg up.

And no one notices.  And if they dare say anything, they are assaulted with contrived nonsense that sounds good, sometimes so good that even people that one might think to be their companions in a righteous cause are taken in by it, and propagate it.

And for what?  What does it profit someone, to betray their own cause and their associates?  Is it money?  That I can understand, although it certainly does make the act particularly craven.  Perhaps it is something more amenable to rationalization, such as pride, or just an exhaustion in fighting a good cause for all the wrong reasons, and failing to receive the recognition and rewards one thinks that they deserve?

Who can remain standing, if they are merely standing on their own pride and self-interest?

We must all hold to something greater than ourselves, better than ourselves, or we will surely fail to remain standing in the winds that will soon be blowing across the land.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - La Vie en Rose

"Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good."

Václav Havel

Now might be a good time to find something that you can firmly believe in, something that is greater and better than yourself, and then hang on to it and faithfully serve it, with all your strength and hope.

Have a pleasant evening.

Hidden History: The Wall Street Coup Attempt of 1933

I wonder why this is never mentioned in history classes in the US.

And I wonder why the US media has not frankly discussed what happened.  Is it because it would embarrass powerful figures still on the scene today?

I wonder why there is no frank discussion of the Wall Street interests who helped to finance the fascists in Europe, including the National Socialists in Germany, even during the 1940's?

When the going gets tough, the moneyed interests seem to invariably reach for fascism to maintain the status quo.

We keep too many things hidden 'for the sake of the system.'    This obsession with secrecy is all too often the cover to hide misdeeds, incompetency, abuses of the system, and outright crimes.

If some things cannot bear the light of day but are allowed to remain hidden, the chances are pretty good that they will become a festering sore and a moral hazard for the future.

Here is a BBC documentary about what had happened.  It did happen.  That is not speculation or a rumour or a conspiracy theory.