"In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack, even on the least of men, is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all. Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Non-Farm Payrolls report was a mixed bag this morning.
I doubt it will deter the Fed from raising rates 25 to 50 bp. This has been their the imperative of their internal needs for using rates as a tool for some time. They wanted badly to get off the zero bound, ahead of the next recession.
Only fear of the weak recovery and macro events have held them back, largely from a reputational perspective. Never underestimate the craven motives of a seasoned bureaucrat.
Stocks caught a bit of a bounce, primarily as a technical matter into a weekend overshadowed by the vote in Italy and continuing 'populism' in Europe.
"This whole 'red scare' thing has become so thoroughly ridiculous, so blatantly propagandist and overblown, so pervasively passed around by mainstream media outlets without serious investigation, so obviously picked up off a shelf in ad hoc convenience, and so completely hypocritical by the professional elite, that I am tempted to write it off and forget about it. But I should probably be deeply troubled for other reasons.
It is a sign of the establishment going further off the deep end, and further dropping its pretenses. It is a sign of a desperate elite that will say anything, do anything, and risk everything to control the narrative and protect itself.
We are descending into farce. Deeply dangerous farce."
Reader M. M.
This is a short video from Thomas Frank below. I have included two more short videos that are optional.
Every pundit who is grinding their axes about the various forces that unjustly took the election from Hillary needs to listen to this.
Thomas Frank is absolutely right. Everyone who had their eyes open could see this loss by the Democrats coming, or at the least a much closer race than expected. Donald Trump certainly saw it, and used it for his advantage.
And even now, the core political and entertainment establishment clearly is not accepting this, does not care in their cozy complacency.
A good part of this is because of the credibility trap, and their sense of entitled superiority.
If you don't believe this, watch the Democratic establishment mouthpiece channels like MSNBC almost any evening.
I hate to bother you with yet another posting on this subject, but the context of the situation shows that the message needs to be repeated, and driven home in order to penetrate the echo chamber of the Beltway Bubble.
The widely accepted attitude of the Wall Street Democrats was that the working middle class had 'no where else to go,' and so their interests could be sacrificed, time and again. They chose consciously to spend their energy in the pursuit of specialized big money interests.
And they were richly rewarded with huge sums of campaign donations, personal speaking 'repayments,' and sinecures during the out-of-office periods that the big money donors could provide.
The courtiers in the media and big money donors around the world are very put out that their claim checks for the spoils of a Hillary victory were invalidated. Their outrage and disappointment is remarkable, as if they have somehow been cheated of their due, their turn at the pig sty of public looting.
They blame racism, the Russians, sexism, Bernie bros, hackers, the 'deplorables' in a bit of an ironic twist on the Romney moment, the electoral college, and even the roots of democratic process itself.
They and their strategy failed. Spectacularly.
But they cannot fail, because they are so exceptional. And there is the work to return to the real world for them, in overcoming themselves and their selfish disappointment and cognitive dissonance.
I have been very clear that I was no supporter of Trump, and could not vote for him in good conscience under almost any circumstances I could imagine.
But like so many others I could not in good conscience comfortably pick the 'lesser of two evils' in this case, especially after the serial betrayals of the reforms, the reforms he promised and for which he was elected, that we had at the hands of Obama and his party. The nomination of Hillary was an 'in your face' gesture to the people by the worst of the embedded and outdated elements of a inwardly focused party in its decline.
The same and worse could be said of the Republicans, but that is another story. They just were not able to ruthlessly suppress their insurgents as had the DNC. And if you do not realize that they did so, then you are blinded by your ambitions and should step aside.
If anything, the antics of the DNC during these primaries showed that their callous disregard for the broader economic interests the people, and the hypocrisy which their self interests enabled, knew no bounds.
Think of the arrogance of their mindset— vote for our candidate because she is not good, but less bad than the other fellow, and once again you really have no other choice.
And they wonder why they were so soundly rejected.
The final refuge of the exceptionally arrogant is to dismiss those who have rejected them, and expect them to come crawling back, asking for another chance.
This is certainly preferable to admitting that they had the choice of the people and the winning candidate in their own ranks, and defeated him because they could, because it felt good to exercise power and influence once again, especially when it served their own selfish ambitions.
And in doing so, they defeated themselves.
But perhaps the people will not submit again, and choose whatever is offered, the less worse of a bad deal.
Perhaps the political class will have to eventually let go of their delusory arrogance, and face the work, and the pain, of remaking themselves into what they and their party had once represented: a real constructive and progressive choice, and not just another flavor of less abusive but equally audacious oligarchy.
For in truth, it is still just another form of arrogant oligarchy that serves itself, albeit under the fig leaf of a rationale of 'public service' in constructing a false moral high ground, that is an inch above the swamp.
And if they have the time for it, here are two more short videos that need to penetrate the collective consciousness of the party in order for meaningful progress to occur.
The top of the chart is cumulative, the bottom portion is the daily volume.
Yesterday was easily the biggest day of this year for physical gold deliveries in Shanghai.
They may show themselves only in the longer term, but pricing action does develop profound physical market consequences for supply and demand. History has proven that.
I have included the Comex delivery reports from yesterday for both gold and silver, because I thought that the volume and what the players were doing with it was interesting.
There will still much heavier deliveries for this new contract month as compared to the last, which is to be expected.
And it seems from looking at the details that the customers were disgorging their long positions and the bullion banks were snuffling them up for their house accounts.
In other words, we are in the rinse cycle of a wash and rinse.
For any number of reasons, the wiseguys like to really take something down before they let lose the dogs of the market forces and let it go up. Let's see if it works out that way this time, which should start showing up next week some time.
Non-Farm Payrolls tomorrow, and the Italy vote over the weekend.
The Donald is out saving jobs in Indiana, and I will give him some credit for that, even though it maybe a bit overdone. At least he is doing something about the real world economy, which the Dems would rarely do unless it involved the desires of a big donor. The Dems would just feel their pain, and try to comfort those losing their jobs with the thought that it is for the inevitable cause of progress, or some other tawdry slogan like that.
I am wondering if all those donors to the Clinton Foundation can get their money back, now that the principals have been sidelined from the favor dispensing business. And I wonder how Barry plans to cash in, now that his terms of service are over. University president? UN chieftain? Hitting the book and speech circuits in the manner of the Clinton clan? I doubt he will sully his hands with running an actual business, in which he has little experience, or apparent interest.
The Dow Jones 'Industrials' were heading to new all time highs, even as the techs continued to lead the declines to the downside, with the SP 500 going along for the ride.
The Dow is being supported by financials, since its days as an industrial indicator in any kind of Dow Theory are long over. As I have remarked before, the DJIA is the index for tourists, and local news programs.
The economic news was mixed, with unemployment higher than expected but some other industry indicators doing better.
This is going to keep becoming a tale of two economies.
"Sanders laid out the dilemma facing the Democratic Party. The Democrats must find their way back to a connection with ordinary people, and this will require a complete change in the way they do business. He's convinced that the huge expenditure of time and mental effort the Democrats put in to raise more than $1 billion for the Clinton campaign in the past year ended up having enormous invisible costs...
'I've seen it for years. I've seen a media, which has basically ignored the declining middle class, that doesn't talk about poverty at all, and has no sense of what is going on in the minds of millions of ordinary Americans. They live in a bubble, talk about their world, worry about who's going to be running 18 years from now for office. Meanwhile, people can't feed their kids. That's something I knew.
Talking about those issues, seeing that they resonated, that did not surprise me. How quickly they resonated did surprise me. How weak the Democratic establishment was, and how removed they were from the needs of ordinary people, that also surprised me.'"
"There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the second is art. Neither is independent of the other or more important than the other. Without art science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery. The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous."
Raymond Chandler
The economic news came in 'better than expected' this morning with Chicago PMI and the ADP Employment change beating estimates in particular.
The Dollar was stronger, and thereby we had some down moves in the precious metals priced in dollars. This does not always happen, but depends upon the reason for which the dollar is stronger.
The warehouses were boring as usual. I posted the first December delivery report last night which shows that we will likely see a 'livelier' month than we have had in November.
Non-Farm Payrolls looms on Friday, but do not forget about the Italian referendum on the weekend.
Trump is filling out his initial cabinet appointments. It so far looks like he is not draining the swamp, but rather changing out one set of alligators for another.
And then there is the upcoming FOMC meeting in which one might be stunned if the Fed does nothing again. Not necessarily anything useful or significant, but they will likely do something.
Let us pray for those whose hearts are hardened against His grace and loving kindness by greed, fear, and pride, and the seductive illusion and crushing isolation of evil.
We pray that we all may experience the three great gifts of our Lord's suffering and triumph: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness. And in so doing, may we obtain abundant life, and with it the peace that surpasses all understanding.
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