Stock Market and Precious Metals Charts - You Can't Handle A Tax Cut

“The gods are deaf when we pray to them, their fire
Recoils from our offering, their birds of omen
Have no cry of comfort, for they are gorged
With the thick blood of the dead.   O my son,
These are no trifles!  Think.  All men make mistakes,
But a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong,
And repairs the evil.  The only real crime is pride.”

Sophocles, Antigone


"I think it would be nice just tonight to just acknowledge that this tax cut is really not for the middle class; it’s for the rich. And that whole thing about higher wages, well, it’s a good selling point, but we know companies don’t just give higher wages — they don’t just give away higher wages just because they have more money. Corporations are sitting on a lot of money. They are sitting on a lot of profits now — I don’t see wages going up."

Senator Sherrod Brown (D)


“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing. As opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”

Senator Chuck Grassley (R)

I think Chuck forgot about healthcare, food, rent, and education.  The kinds of little details and modern problems that are not a problem for the elite living within the Washington power bubble.

Apparently some think that only corporations and the already wealthy are smart enough to handle any extra cash.  Deserving.  The rest can wait for the trickle down effect.  And keep waiting.

And you thought you number one on Orange Donny's priority list.  This guy and his entourage is all circuses and no bread.    It's a club, and you aren't in it.

Don't feel badly if you were taken in.   Look how many people were bamboozled by Obama, and the heart of big money clubbiness, Hillary.

Stocks were in rally mode this morning, and there was the usual heavy-handed hit on the precious metals in late London trading and the opening of the Comex.

However, stocks did a rather impressive turnabout, closing flat to down by the end of trading.

Several reasons could be cited for this. Probably the most significant is the usual blundering destructiveness of the GOP Congress in their haste to hit the trough.

The Freedom Caucus in the House is throwing a monkey wrench into the work on a continuing budget resolution that would prevent a government shutdown. These freedom-lovers have demanded that Paul Ryan include no Democrats in any of the budget resolution discussions. The better to avoid a workable solution that might be contaminated by something less harsh and obtuse.

And of course there was the howler, pointed out to me yesterday by my Samoan attorney, that in their zeal to skin the people and please their masters, the Senate GOP accidentally retained the 25% AMT on that new breed of aubermenschen. the corporations.   Some say this helped to throw a wet blanket on the big tech rebound on the Nasdaq.

And so the Congress is falling all over themselves to apologize, and to remove this insult to their corporate constituents.   As for the regular people, well, they care not so much.  They wouldn't know what to do with the extra money if they had it.  They would probably blow it on things that would immediately boost GDP, and not on stock buybacks, dividends, and monopolization.

Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Hard Times Killing Floor Blues - Non-Farm Payrolls On Friday

"Because of the increase in wickedness, the love of many will grow cold."

"Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends."

Stocks rallied hard on the open based on the Senate passing the GOP 'tax reform' bill.

I put that in parentheses because it is no reform, not in the least.  It is the continuation of a process that has been taking place for the last thirty years or so.

It is the transfer of income and wealth from the broad populace to the most powerful and wealthy few.  The evidence is in the record inequality of wealth in the US.

Have no part in any of this.  It is the way of a culture of death.  And it will ensnare many.

The wonder is not that so many willingly forfeit their souls.  The wonder is that they will do it for so little.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Copping a Plea, Tax 'Reform', Non-Farm Payrolls

"Let justice flow like a river, and righteousness as an ever-flowing stream."

Amos 5:24

I was tempted to title this Red, White, And Screwed,  borrowing a phrase from comedian Lewis Black. Alas, I am not worthy.

The markets tanked around 11 AM on the news that Michael Flynn is copping a plea to lying to the FBI as part of a deal that will have him providing testimony against peers and higher in the Trump Administration.

The markets then proceeded to claw back most of their losses on news that the GOP 'tax reform' appears to be able to obtain the sufficient votes in the Senate to pass. The two bills, from the House and the Senate, would then have to be reconciled in conference.

I spent the better part of the day helping my goddaughter obtain her first driver's license. It was a laborious process, but in the end the prize was achieved, and she was happy.

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report next week, for the month of November. I include the economic calendar below.

It's never the crime that gets them in trouble; it's always the cover-up.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A World Starved For the Truth - Misdirections

"God is not waiting around to get even with people for things that they have done fifteen years before. God is gentle and humble of heart; unconditionally good and loving. Therefore we do not need to cower and grovel before God’s will. We need to trust in it; trust in its awesome beauty, its unconditional power to bring goodness out of seeming limitless diversity of so many people’s lives; trust in the affection that the Hebrew prophets termed hesed we emet—  a parent’s love for a child.”

Robert J. Spitzer


"And because of the abundance of wickedness, the love of many will grow cold."

Matthew 24:12


"Caesar was swimming in blood.   Rome and the whole pagan world was mad.   But those who had had enough of transgression and madness, those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins.  When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that which the society of the time could not give any one—  happiness and love."

Henryk Sienkiewicz,  Quo Vadis: In the Time of Nero

Stocks were off to the races later in the day as John McCain suggested he could support the tax bill currently being debated.

It is so kind of Wall Street and the wealthy being enthusiastic for a 'middle class tax cut.'  Not.

Notice that VIX continued to climb today.

Towards the abyss—  step by step, inch by inch.

Gold and silver have gotten smacked around post option expiry as I had suggested that they might be.

Let me assure you of one thing.  You are not going crazy, and the world has not been turned upside down.  Like the last two bubble tops, in 2002 and 2008, things that don't make sense appear to be the norm, and what is proven and substantial seems but a vapor.

This is the objective of a control fraud, and quite a few other frauds in this world:  to make one lose their bearings.

Earlier today with this calculated confusion in mind, I picked a the quotes above.

Together they show the joy of the good news.  And love is its fulfillment.

To turn this joyful gift of peace into hatred, violence, greed, or harshness to others, and especially the least of these, is to sin against the gift of the Spirit, which is peace and love.

God is not a fool, nor vindictive, nor faithless.  God is love, a love so great that He does not overwhelm us with it, out of respect and love for our free will to love Him or not.

To think of God as being in our own human terms and motives, merely more powerful, is to create a false idol that inevitably ends in resentfulness, anger, and despair.

As always, if you wish to test the message of those who would speak for Him, or if you examine your thoughts of these things, always look for the love in it. Love is the one thing that evil, in its selfish egoism, cannot abide.  You may find everything else in there, from self-righteous indignation to stern and unyielding judgement the is blind to His redemption—  but you will not find love.

And if you love the Lord, as He loves you, you cannot turn out of fear back to the despair of the darkness.  For the price has been paid, and you have been freed to walk in the light.  And He will be with you, as He has promised, until He leads you into His father's house.

And if He puts a suffering or a setback upon us as we and the world may see it, it is what we would wish for ourselves, if we were but wise, and understanding of His economy.

As I have mentioned before, I do not direct my writings to those who have given themselves over to Mammon.  Try as we might, they are in God's hands now.  We can remember them in our prayers, but their willing blindness is going to require more than logical arguments and moral appeals.

No, what is of more concern now at this time is the love of the faithful, which is at risk of growing cold given the increase in wickedness and the temptations to despair. Many will fall, and this is of great concern to all, since those who remain steadfast will be saved.

As C. S. Lewis noted in his famous correspondence of the devils, The Screwtape Letters:

“Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's [God's] will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

Have a pleasant evening.