Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Great Complacency

"In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future.   When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Stocks were largely unchanged today, as the lack of news left investors spinning around last week's levels, trying to squeeze a little coin out of the markets.

Gold and silver managed to make a little headroom, although they are still lower after the big 'Dr. Evil' smackdown last week in which a large volume of metal was dumped at market with the design of cracking the price lower and 'running the stops.'

We will be getting quite a bit of economic data this week. I have included the economic calendar below. PPI and CPI should give us a look at the inflation that the Fed is pushing against by raising rates, or not.

And all eyes are on Washington while Duc l'Orange is wowing them in Asia. The Senate and House have both crafted versions of the 'Tax Reform' legislation that the corporate world awaits with bated breath.

Have a pleasant evening.

Our Kind: Why the Democrats Abandoned the Middle Class

"Another example of giving the game away in few words came two nights ago when the liberal-elitist 'Inside Elections' political analyst Stuart Rothenburg spoke on the PBS NewsHour.   'The Democrats as a party'  Rothenburg told NewsHour host and Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member Judy Woodruff,  'are divided between the Bernie Sanders wing and Hillary Clinton wing, the pragmatists and ideologues.'

For Rothenburg, the Clinton wing members are the 'pragmatists,' the realistic adults who want to 'get things done' (one of the great neoliberal president Obama’s favorite phrases and claims).  The Sanders folks are 'ideologues,' a pejorative term meaning people who are mainly about ideology and who are carried away by their own flighty and doctrinal world view. 

This was a slap (an ideological one I might add) at the more progressive and social-democratic faction of the Democratic Party – a blow masquerading as 'objective' and detached political analysis."

Paul Street, Giving the Game Away

If you watch this relatively short video much of what has been puzzling you about the failure of our political system will be made clearer.

Franklin Roosevelt could work tirelessly for the common person because he was already comfortable in his own skin with regard to his social status.  And more importantly, as a result of his long term paralysis he knew how little social status really meant.   As suffering sometimes does, it introduces compassion and empathy, even among the upper crust.

But the New Deal principles were shunned for the credentialed aspirations of those class-climbing, middle class kids who would be rich and acknowledged as members of an elite crowd with the right kinds of bona fides.   There are probably few better recent examples than the Clintons.   Their attitudes towards the average American are paternalistic at best, and highly cynical and patronizing at worst.

They attempted to disguise their credentialed, professional class preferences with 'identity politics.'   But if you look at the culmination of actual policy initiatives, versus platform platitudes, the Democrats, similarly to the GOP, serve no one but themselves.   Winning...

They rely on the 'lesser of two evils' to scrape out the occasional win, when the excesses of the other party drive people to embrace 'hope and change,' and to be largely betrayed once again.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Yellow Sign

"In reality, though, it was never about us and our economy at all. Today it is obvious that all of this had only one rationale: to raise up a class of supermen above us. It had nothing to do with jobs or growth. Or freedom either. The only person’s freedom to be enhanced by these tax havens was the billionaire’s freedom. It was all to make his life even better, not ours...

We endure potholes and live in fear of collapsing highway bridges because our leaders wanted these very special people to have an even larger second yacht. Our kids sit in overcrowded classrooms in underfunded schools so that a handful of exalted individuals can relax on their own private beach.

Today it is these same golden figures with their offshore billions who host the fundraisers, hire the lobbyists, bankroll the think tanks and subsidize the artists and intellectuals.

This is their democracy today. We just happen to live in it."

Thomas Frank, We Built a Paradise For Offshore Billionaires


"I opened the box. On the pink cotton inside lay a clasp of black onyx, on which was inlaid a curious symbol or letter in gold.  It was neither Arabic nor Chinese, nor as I found afterwards did it belong to any human script."

Robert W. Chambers, The Yellow Sign

As the commentators on Bloomberg TV noted, someone literally dumped a $4 billion block trade at market in the gold futures shortly before noon.  And as one would assume with such an obvious and clumsy bludgeoning, it knocked the wind out of the price down to the mid-70s.   Oops?

There was also a corresponding jump in the Dollar Index.

Or the increasingly desperate attempts to keep things under control.

Smells like teen spirit.

Stocks are marking time sideways.   The mispricing of risk in the stock and bond markets is fairly impressive now.

Have a pleasant, and in upper US quite chilly, weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Repairer of Reputations

Mr. Wilde, The Repairer of Reputations

"A growing economy with related worries about increases in future inflation would typically produce rising yields on longer-term notes and bonds, not declining yields. A dramatic flattening in the yield curve is seen as a red flag for an economic slowdown, sagging inflation and as a potential precursor to the onset of recession. None of that would be consistent with the Federal Reserve continuing to tighten interest rates – which it is expected to do again in December."

Pam and Russ Martens, Does Jay Powell Hear the Alarm Bells From a Flattening of the Yield Curve<


“The ambition of Caesar and of Napoleon pales before that which could not rest until it had seized the minds of men and controlled even their unborn thoughts.”

Robert W. Chambers, The King In Yellow: Repairer of Reputations

We *almost* had a correction in the US equity markets today.  Imagine that!

However, crisis was averted as determined buying of the SP 500 futures stepped in this afternoon after the European traders went home to their schatzies.

There was a definite whiff of concern in the air this morning, as indicated by the VIX which sparked up quite sharply, and then fell down again as the calming liquidity flowed over the financial asset markets.

The flattening yield curve in Treasuries is setting off alarm bells, and well it might.

But what do the exceptional have to worry about, as long as they are winning.   Even if their winning is the most insidious of delusions, and their ascension to the throne of endless power a hallucination.

Gold had a bit of a rally today, following on gains, as silver slumped a bit.  It was the beginning of a 'flight to safety' that got squelched.

We'll know when a real flight to safety catches hold, because the continued efforts of the Street to pump up stock prices is going to leave a lot of empty support levels underneath.

Hence, as I have said, in attempting to prevent a 3% correction they are going to set up something stiffer, in the neighborhood of 10%.

And it is not because they are stupid, or foolish.  They just don't give a damn.

Take your pick of geopolitical or domestic events that could trigger such a sharp decline .  The stage is set.

Have a pleasant evening.