Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Damn the Recession, Stabilize the Green Shoots - Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday

"You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity."

Robert Heinlein, Logic of Empire

The words, or perhaps more precisely 'bullish totems', for the day were green shoots and stabilizing.

As in the economy appears to be stabilizing, and green shoots are appearing.

In short, it appears as though the moneyed interests are committed towards attempting to take out the prior stock market highs, and perhaps set up another blow off top.  Wax on, wax off.

Or at least extending this bubblation to allow a few more gig economy IPO pigs to hit the street, and still give them time to unload their positions,  taking their profits from the first quarter V-shaped, parabolic rally.

Thank you, Fed.

Let's see if timing and events favor this, or not.  I suspect that the interpretation of the news will definitely be leaning in their direction.  But the news can only torture reality so far.

Speaking of cons and zombie valuations, Bitcoin jumped 23% today for some unknown reason.  Did not some study just conclude that about 95% of the Bitcoin 'trades' are phony?

Gettin' paid.

According to a new book, Commander-in-Cheat by sportswriter Rick Reilly, Trumpolini does not cheat all that much at golf— he most often has his caddy do it for him.  Shamelessly and relentlessly.  Although he is so often inclined to aggressively kick his ball into the fairway for a better lie that his nickname amongst the caddies at Bedminster is Pelé.

He's a decent golfer.  He doesn't need to cheat to play a very respectable game, especially for his age.  And if he beats someone he apparently doesn't even take the money.  It's all about the bragging, about looking better than the other guy, about proving to himself and everyone else that the rules do not apply for someone as special as him.

Gold and silver were largely unchanged today, as was the Dollar, le douleur du monde.

Non-farm payrolls number on Friday may be important in the narrative which the sell side of Wall Street has been formulating.

There will be a third indicative vote on the various plans for Brexit in the British Parliament tomorrow, Wednesday.  Here is a brief video about the various choices which they have been considering.

Have a pleasant evening.

Audacious Oligarchy: The Rules Are For the Little People

“The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life.  A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors.  Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.”

George Orwell


"We've become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy.   I think that's been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I've ever seen in my life."

Jimmy Carter


"Financial predators are usually narcissistic and audacious.  They regularly have an extreme sense of entitlement coupled with high self-efficacy.  Many of them have a charismatic quality and are preternaturally persuasive.  Financial predators are commonly shameless and quite adept serial liars. They perceive themselves having near unlimited guile and resourcefulness to extricate themselves out of any compromising situations."

Russ Alan Prince, Forbes


"Most of them became wealthy by being well connected and crooked. And they are creating a society in which they can commit hugely damaging economic crimes with impunity, and in which only children of the wealthy have the opportunity to become successful.  That’s what I have a problem with."

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation


"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

I cannot stress enough that this elitist attitude towards society is a learned mindset, that comes with a sense of extreme entitlement, and not some inherited tendency.   As it succeeds it can become contagious among those who are morally weak and easily influenced.

Who would not be tempted to believe people when they tell them that because of where they went to school and who they know that they are special, and entitled to bend the rules for their own benefit?

And unfortunately the corrupting power of easy money is in its ascendancy in US society, now as it has been at certain times in the past, and is to be found in the halls of established power on both sides of the aisle.

The oligarchy funds think tanks and personalities to persuade and lure in the disgruntled and the gullible in order to clear the way for the domination of society by a powerful and wealthy few.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Risk On - You Never Can Tell

"While everyone enjoys an economic party the long-term costs of a bubble to the economy and society are potentially great. They include a reduction in the long-term saving rate, a seemingly random distribution of wealth, and the diversion of financial human capital into the acquisition of wealth. As in the United States in the late 1920s and Japan in the late 1980s, the case for a central bank ultimately to burst that bubble becomes overwhelming. I think it is far better that we do so while the bubble still resembles surface froth and before the bubble carries the economy to stratospheric heights. Whenever we do it, it is going to be painful, however.”

Larry Lindsey, Federal Reserve Governor, September 24, 1996 FOMC Minutes


“I recognise that there is a stock market bubble problem at this point, and I agree with Governor Lindsey that this is a problem that we should keep an eye on... We do have the possibility of raising major concerns by increasing margin requirements. I guarantee that if you want to get rid of the bubble, whatever it is, that will do it.”

Alan Greenspan, September 24, 1996 FOMC Minutes


And in some ways, it creates this false illusion that there are people out there looking out for the interest of taxpayers, the checks and balances that are built into the system are operational, when in fact they're not. And what you're going to see and what we are seeing is it'll be a breakdown of those governmental institutions. And you'll see governments that continue to have policies that feed the interests of -- and I don't want to get clichéd, but the one percent or the .1 percent -- to the detriment of everyone else.

Neil Barofsky in a 2012 interview with Bill Moyers


"Donald Trump wasn’t actually a successful businessman at all, not in the normal sense anyway.  He was an economic magician (or, in classic American terms, a con man) who regularly ground business after business — a set of casinos (at a time when other casinos were thriving), hotels, an airline, and a series of other endeavors ranging from Trump Steaks to Trump Vodka to Trump University — into the dust of bankruptcy or failure. What made him such a magician was that, in case after case, his greatest 'business' skill proved to be jumping ship, dollars in hand, leaving those who trusted him, had faith in him, believed in him holding the bag.

He had a history of screwing anyone who relied on him, whether we’re talking about the investors in his Atlantic City casinos or a bevy of small business types and others who worked for him — plumbers, waiters, painters, cabinet makers — and were later stiffed. In other words, Americans elected a bankruptcy king as their president and character will tell.

There really are no secrets here. In the end, Donald Trump clearly cares about nothing but himself (and perhaps his family as an extension of that self).   Whether in his first or second term (should he win again in 2020), if things start to head south economically, count on this: he’ll repeat his well-documented history and jump ship, leaving the American people, including that beloved base of his, holding the bag."

Tom Engelhardt, Donald Trump Will Bankrupt America


"Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world."

Alexander Pope

It was risk on today, as stock gapped open higher and pushed upwards with a mind to making yet another blow off top, sooner rather than later.

The dollar and the metals declined in this devil-take-the-hindmost burst of good feelings and animal spirits.

Let's see how far they can take this, and how low it can go again this next time. You never can tell.

Have a pleasant evening.