Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - We Inflate Assets and Crush People

"Legitimate power always includes attentiveness to justice, When power is not attentive to justice it cannot endure. This is a summons to us to keep the agenda of justice for the vulnerable alive and front and center to maintain a kind of subversive stance toward power.

The market ideology is now the new form of imperial power and many of us, without any critical reflection, have signed onto that and organized our lives in that way..."

Walter Brueggemann


"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. The sensitivity of the poor to injustice is a trivial thing compared with that of the rich."

John Kenneth Galbraith


“In the eyes of the empire builders men are not men, but instruments.”

Napoleon Bonaparte

As a reminder there will be an option expiration for the precious metals on the Comex tomorrow.

The Fed's minutes were released today.  They showed a bias to raising rates in June if the recent economic weakness proved to be transitory.

The question of the Fed's changing their benchmark interest rate is probably a little less significant than the question of what they will be doing with their enormous Balance Sheet.   Currently they are rolling the instruments over, but will likely be looking to start capping those renewals of the current holdings.

Removing items from the balance sheet has a less predictable impact on financial assets as compared to interest rates which is easier to hedge.

After the bell the CBO released their new study for the House proposal for 'reformed' healthcare.  And the Bloomberg spokesmodels trumpeted it as good news.   In this latest version the budget deficit would be reduced by 198 billion over ten years.  Huzzah!  Of course one has to accept a lot of assumptions to make that valid.

And only 23 million people would lose their access to health insurance, instead of 24 million.  Improvement!

Medicaid would be slashed and older people and those who are sick would be paying much higher insurance rates.   But at least the tax cuts for the wealthiest would be there as a consolation.

Luckily the Senate isn't going to have any part of this inhuman piece of repugnant trash, which in my opinion disgraces the House GOP for all to see.   Have no illusions about these jokers.  And that includes the corporate Democrats.  See the video below.

The Fed, a servant of the financial system, continues to pursue its dual mandate of inflating financial assets and crushing working people.

People keep waiting for some outrage that will spark an outcry, but slowly but surely the dehumanizing of the republic at the hands of the ubermenschen continues, in most of the Western countries.   It is the fashionable thing to do.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Breaking You

You've been let down, it's true
Your pain is so easy to see
You're haunted by your history
And it feels like you've got no escape.

Your life left you high and dry
You used to be sure of yourself
But then your whole world went to hell
And tomorrow looks just like today.

Lift up your eyes
Love is on the way
And it won't pass you by
You just gotta reach out your hand.

Audrey Assad, Breaking You

Stocks 'extended the bull market' as the spokesmodels on Bloomberg TV were saying in their adept analysis after the bell.

I have an itch to put a modest short back on to the equity market, but I resisted it for now.  These things tend to have a time of their own.

And besides, it is not yet clear to me that all the suckers are back in, and the pros are looking to hand this third generation stock bubble off.

Volatility has come back down quite a bit once again.

Gold and silver were weak today. There will be an option expiration on the Comex this week Thursday the 25th. June is a more important month for gold than silver.

The GOP and the talking yam did not fail to disappoint with their initial budget proposal. They are going after the weak, the poor, and the sick in order to provide more of everything to their masters of wickedness in high places.

I suspect that they will be making many of those who voted for Trump's promises howl in pain with their heartless policies before this is over. Too bad the Democrats cannot find a progressive spot in their own greed hardened hearts.

Difficult times for simple honorable souls indeed. But a thorough reading of history suggests that this is how things most often are. But it is better to struggle in goodness than to accumulate in heartlessness, at least in God's economy.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - And Where They Make a Desert, They Call It Peace

“He felt that he had known them all, those strange terrible figures that had passed across the stage of the world, and made sin so marvelous and evil so full of subtlety."

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray


“In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely.”

Hunter S. Thompson

Stocks were drifting higher today on light volumes and the good news of a very large arms deal with Saudi Arabia.   Few things are so immensely profitable for us than war, because its products contain their own need for replacements.

Gold and silver saw a little upside on weaker economic outlooks based on stagnant wages, weakening demand, and the continuing printing of money by the unproductive bushels in pursuit of mad and discredited economic theories.

There will be a Comex precious metals options expiration this Thursday the 25th.

Trump's budget was revealed in absentia today.

It presents a diligent effort to strip the weak, the poor, and the disabled of what little they have in order to give the wealthiest few even more. This would be more surprising if one were to forget that this has been the general theme since the rule of Bill Clinton, who while serving the vile interests of mammon could at least make us feel better about it, make us think that he too felt our pain.

I was wondering today, was Hillary really the lesser of two evils? She certainly has the credentials, if not the polish of her spouse and predecessor who were exceptional orators and performers. Even W managed to memorize his lines, and effect the steely gaze when mouthing the watchword, 'terror.'

This is the shortcoming of Trump that so infuriates the more accomplished fakers, swine and hypocrites among our ruling elite—   he is a clumsy liar and a terrible actor, and so rarely fails to spoil the public's illusions about our goodness.

Have a pleasant evening.

Reprise: How Elitist Democrats Betrayed Their Traditional Working Class Base And Gave Trump the Presidency

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Between the Crosses, Row By Row

"One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them."

Thomas Sowell

Today was an option expiration, and we had an additional pop in stocks in order to complete the routing of the bears who piled on to the 'Trump dump.'

The putative reason for today's rally was a statement by the Fed's Bullard about the role that additional QE may play.  I am not sure if this was 'real' or just another reasons to wash and rinse the public.

Next week will be the June option expiration for precious metals on the Comex.

Stocks are at a bit of a crossroads here.  The SP 500 futures and big cap tech in the NDX, for example, have retraced approximately fifty percent of the recent drop, and are both at the midpoint of their respective bull trend channels.

There will be the second estimate of Q1 GDP next week.  I do not think it will be a big mover, since we tend to be forgetful of where we have been, even most recently.

Memorial Day is coming up at the end of this month.  As the poem says, 'take up our quarrel with the foe.'  

Who is 'the foe' of liberty and the pursuit of happiness?  In the answer to that question lies maturity, and wisdom.

Have a pleasant weekend.