Just Charts at 2 PM - 'Christmas Party' - Starość Nie Radość

I am taking the queen, by her command, to a 'Christmas party' at the rehabilitation facility where she ensconced for five weeks earlier this year.  It was five weeks because that was all the insurance companies will permit. This is where she was taught to care for herself and get around despite the paralysis, and to speak more clearly again despite the aphasia.

It is also where the caregivers are trained in the ways to care for their loved ones while they recover, or not.  They do remarkable work at this location and the employees are very dedicated.  She said she wished to go so that the staff can see what they had set in motion, and 'just to be with the others.'

Now you know why she is my better half.

I don't like going to parties where I don't know anybody unless I am in a rare mood.  But since she cannot drive, I must honor my personal pledge to take her anywhere she wishes without grumbling.   Except for lady clothing stores, unless there is a Home Depot next door where I can seek a refuge.  There are some standards that must be upheld for the sake of a happy marriage.

Test results this week were better than expected although a follow up in two months is necessary on the usual 'area of interest' on which there is some differing opinions.   It is always something with this kind of illness, that can be managed but not cured.   As my old teacher and much later also my son's godfather used to say, starość nie radość—  old age is no joke.

But all in all this was a very good year, after a particularly rough start.

Tender mercies. Always, the tender mercies, like candles in the darkness.


P.S.  Much later.  Ok, she was right.   I had a great time.   The guy sitting next to me was a riot and the food was great.  The therapists are angels.  These are the gentle people whose campfires of caring cast a light in these times of elephantine greed.

Charts At the Market Close - Central Bank Follies

The markets were still churning around today, going nowhere in particular.

I think that the theory that there was a determined intervention in the markets yesterday in the aftermath of the Italy vote is a reasonable one.

The Banksters and their functionaries learned a lesson from Brexit, although in this case the Italy vote result was widely expected, and turned into a bit of a 'bear trap' engineered by the well-connected.

The credibility trap is a very useful explanation for a number of odd behaviours that we are seeing these days, both in policy, politics, and finance.

How else could someone explain an article such as recently appeared in Fortune with the title, Donald Trump Is Inheriting the Best Economy In a Generation.

Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - And in Their Triumph, Die

"These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder..."

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

The dollar went lower, as did the metals after the initial spike on the Italian vote last night.

The markets are casting aside their doubts for even more risk.

I have little hope for any meaningful reform from this new administration and the current breed of financiers.

They are the gods of money, who have been nurtured by a system of their own.

How readily the proud game with death, having yet had no taste of it's consequence.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Risk On - Blue Skies

"You will most certainly not die. So then eat, for God knows that when you eat from that tree your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing the depths of both good and evil.”

When it came to the populist vote in Italy, it was definitely sell the rumour and buy the news.

Risk on.

Have a pleasant evening.

The Credibility Trap - These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends

"These violent delights have violent ends.
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder..."

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Credibility Trap:   a condition that can afflict any organization in which self-interest, internal focus, and reliance on a self-appointed 'authority' of its top leadership grows to a point that precludes addressing certain chronic problems and points of failure that are impacting its organizational objectives.

An inner core of leaders comes to view their own interests and personal places in the power structure as superior to all other considerations.  The key factor is when they develop an increasing reliance on authority and the control of organizational resources, rather than on performance and improvement as measured by external outcomes.

Stated differently, a credibility trap is what can happen overtime when an organization fails from the top down.  Rather than being caught by the many checks and balances of management, the failure becomes self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing— institutionalized and systemic.   It becomes ingrained into the 'DNA' of an organization's management in terms of style and priorities.

The core power structure becomes increasingly rigid, and meaningful change is viewed as undesirable, and even dangerous.  However they may mask this reluctance to change by imposing largely counterproductive change on those below them with a proliferation of rules and organizational restructurings that are cosmetic rather than substantial.

The focus becomes process rather than production.

Ironically, as personal power and reward increases, a sense of personal responsibility and accountability diminishes.  Therein we see the recent phenomenon of highly paid and powerful executives who, when their organization fails, blithely testify that they had no idea what was going on beneath their very noses.

Insiders begin to dictate an accepted view of things that is added to the rite of admittance into the power elite, along with certain forms of language and norms of behaviour.  Any contrary evidence that is presented is ignored, and legitimate criticism even from within its own ranks is dismissed, ridiculed, and aggressively suppressed.

The increasingly debilitated leadership relies on the close, almost over-deliberate control of money and internal resources.   Since they will not admit their own failures or shortcomings, they come to blame external factors and their own subordinates and suppliers.

If this tendency continues, this management myopia can become so profound that it eventually precludes even acknowledging that any problems exist, even in the face of a series of very public failures.  This is the threshold of the credibility trap.

When the organization has gone beyond the point of effective internal reform and renewal, a 'hard stop' is often imposed by exterior forces, in a lack of resources and attention from beyond ithe leaderships direct organizational control.    And then change will finally come in reform or a forced reorganization.

"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right."

John Kenneth Galbraith

Related: Pelosi: 'I Don't Think People Want a New Direction'

November Intraday Price Averages for Gold and Silver - Pictures In an Exhibition

"Pardon one offence, and you encourage the commission of many."

Publilius Syrus


“And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”

Dick Durbin, US Senator From Illinois


"And there is a kind of an 'ok guys, you're mad, how are you going to stop me' mentality at the top."

Robert Johnson, economist