What is a proper disposition towards life? It is to accept God as a loving father, who is full of tenderness and forgiveness for us, despite our willful blunders and hardened hearts. He yearns for us, as a father and mother yearn for the return of their most beloved child. It is to accept that we are not lost, we are not abandoned. We are wandering like a wayward child, full of our own headstrong delusions. And our father waits expectantly, calling out for us through the darkness. Jesse, 2018
"Children, do not allow anyone to deceive you about this: when people do what is good, it shows that they are righteous, even as our Lord is righteous. But when people repeatedly do what is sinful, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been evil since the beginning of time... Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love their neighbor does not serve Him, does not belong to God."
1John 3: 7-8,10
This is a useful prescription to apply to all those in power, not just the clumsier and more obvious ones, but especially the very clever, who are highly skilled at saying one thing, and doing another.
Stocks were on the move higher again today, with the Dow Jones 'Industrials' breaking through 25,000 for the first time.
The dollar was lower, giving back that little bounce rally it caught yesterday, and thereon gold and silver continued to rally higher.
The winds were howling today, blowing the newly fallen snow into drifts. The air is very crisp and cold, and will be getting much colder over the weekend.
Tomorrow we will have the December Non-Farm Payrolls Report.
Someone described the Trump Administration today as 'a Star Wars cantina full of odd creatures.' lol By all accounts, they are a fairly colorful bunch.
Gold and silver gave up a small amount of their recent rally today, being short term overbought.
And conversely, the dollar bounced up off its own losing streak from a short term oversold condition.
The putative reason was that the Fed minutes released at 2 PM revealed that 'some' would like to see interest rates increase more quickly.
The move may have been timed off the FOMC release, but it was a trading gimmick. How can such overbought and oversold trends not correct, given the slightest encouragement? I am sure the specs were starting to lean into them.
The moves were quite subdued, however, so unless we see something develop with the Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday it looks like we are just fooling around here in the light and largely inconsequential early year algo trading.
It will be interesting to see if stocks can hold these lofty levels, especially if the shorts have been cleared out a bit. The VIX was pounded down to an 8 handle today, settling just over 9, which is about as low as she goes.
I wish there was a way, short of opening a futures account again, to go long VIX without having to buy a dodgy ETF that is designed to lose. I spent too much time dodging failing futures firms in the past, dodging a bullet or two, to dip back into those waters again.
The Democrats should/could run the board in the midterm elections this year. Except they seem to have a fatal attraction for identity politics without a broader economic progressive policy, backed up by real programs and not just platitudes. They will not do it, not because they do not know what to do, but because they are beholden to and willfully serving organized money. And that is the Republican's turf, and they do it much better having had so many more years of practice.
A nor'easter is going to be roaring up the East coast tonight. It looks like it will miss us to the west, but move north and clobber New England with snow and high winds. The deep freeze comes back this weekend.
I was watching the critter factions fighting over the ground below the hanging squirrel buster bird feeder today. I had thrown some seed on the ground there last night, to give them a little more to brace them for the storm and cold. It was the squirrels vs. the blue jays, vs. the sparrows, in some of the most pointless squabbling I have ever seen. These birdbrains must be from Washington.
A short video is included below as a history lesson on how to be a leader after a long period of economic abusiveness. The only thing the current crop of Democratic leaders and FDR have in common is that they are both 'traitors to their class.' Maybe change will come some day.
"That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Get your money for nothin' get your chicks for free
We got to install microwave ovens custom kitchen deliveries
We got to move these refrigerators we gotta move these color TV's
Now that ain't workin' that's the way to do it
Play the guitar on the MTV
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and chicks for free."
America has institutionalized, has created economic and legal barriers to entry, in its current 'two party system.'
And now that both parties have given themselves over to Big money, albeit in various ways and slightly different forms, any dissent to the mandated narrative are finding difficult footing and expression. We saw that clearly in the 2016 election, but the US is hardly alone in this.
Thomas Frank says, 'They can't see it, Paul.' Indeed. There seems to be a lot of that going around, on both sides of the aisle and in the audience and professional galleries, Thomas.
That is the nature of the credibility trap. It is a well spring of self-interested hypocrisy and the misuse of words.
Frank's comments about the bible-believing pious Hillary are naively presented to the point of being almost sad, or else they would just be knee slapping hilarious. How about giving us the chapter and verse for the bible passage concerning 'whited sepulchers.' Granted, Bill and Hill could be thought of at the Jim and Tammy Faye of American televangelist politics. Paul Jay does well to maintain his composure.
That is how it is, these days however. As Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead put it so well, 'the lesser of two evils is still evil.' Hypocrisy and lies notwithstanding.
Don't get me wrong in this. The GOP is the worst, almost beyond all redemption. I think what is so cloying about the Democrats is that they are scripted to be the good guys in this melodrama, and willingly act the part. And yet their venality is showing.
Americans may loathe a conman or a villain, but they really despise a hypocrite. And that is 'what happened.'
I think we are seeing a global phenomenon, a kind of a mass revulsion against that well polished hypocrisy. And like most revolutions, in its anger it tends to make some very bad choices.
When one has picked a side, committed themselves as it were, and is rooting for either 'Red vs. Blue' in the games, it is all too easy to get caught up in the hypocrisy and selective morality of partisanship.
Even when it is clear that the guys running those games could care less about their loyal fans, in their quest for power and big money. Like modern day professional football.
"Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.
We must not conclude merely upon a man's haranguing upon liberty, and using the charming sound, that he is fit to be trusted with the liberties of his country. It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, — to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves.
It is not, I say, unfrequent to see such instances, though at the same time I esteem it a justice due to my country to say that it is not without shining examples of the contrary kind; — examples of men of a distinguished attachment to this same liberty I have been describing; whom no hopes could draw, no terrors could drive, from steadily pursuing, in their sphere, the true interests of their country; whose fidelity has been tried in the nicest and tenderest manner, and has been ever firm and unshaken."
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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