Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Gold Closes at a Record High

"The acceptance of near-indigency of the mass of the citizens as the price to be paid for the highest stage of prosperity was accompanied by very different human attitudes.

Townsend righted his emotional balance by indulging in prejudice and sentimentalism. The improvidence of the poor was a law of nature, for servile, sordid, and ignoble work would otherwise not be done. (abuse of the other by the powerful is a 'necessary evil.')

Also, what would become of the fatherland unless we could rely on the poor?   For what is it but distress and poverty which can prevail upon the lower classes of the people to encounter all the horrors which await them on the tempestuous ocean or on the field of battle?'"

Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, 1944


“The real conflict is the inner conflict.  Beyond armies of occupation and the catacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love.  And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost selves?”

Maximilian Kolbe


"Behind the concrete, the visible events, behind all objective, logical considerations, we find the irrational element: The struggle against the demon, against the servants of the Antichrist.

Everywhere and always demonic powers lurk in the dark, waiting for the moment when man is weak; when of his own volition he leaves his place in Creation, as founded for him by God in freedom; when he yields to the force of evil, he separates himself from the powers of a higher order; and after voluntarily taking the first step, he is driven on to the next and the next at a furiously accelerating rate."

The White Rose, Fourth Leaflet, Munich 1942

Gold and silver soared today, as the Dollar continued to slide.

The breakouts on the precious metals charts were hard to miss.

I hope that you did not.

This has been a long time coming. 

'For what does it profit a man...'

Stocks moved higher, driven by the non-organic (printing) creation of money, distributed carefully to the 'right people' without regard to the broader public benefit.

Naturally the thoughts of traders will begin to believe that there must be a stop to this, that it is an excess, and will not continue.

And it will not continue. But the extent of it, and the time for it to end, is not known to us.

But we may know what signs to watch, and what precautions to take based on our own capacity for risk..

What matters at the end of the day is not what other people say or do. What matters is the struggle between good and evil in each of our hearts, for which we will be held to account.

In the greater scheme of things the rest of it is a diversion and distraction.
 
The rationalization of injustice and the oppression of the weak by the powerful and the well-to-do is as old as Babylon, and evil as sin.   It is the power of the darkness of this world, and of spiritual wickedness in high places.   Despite the pretty wrapping clever people may put on it, the rot of decay and corruption is within.

The only difference is that it is not happening in the past, or in a book, or in some vaguely frightening prophecy— it is happening here and now.

The real tragedy is to become what you hate— and to spend an eternity with it for company.

So let's make some more money in these markets, but not lose sight of why we do this, and especially recall the only things that really matter.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Gold and Silver Demonstrate Their Role as 'Safe Haven' Assets

“Once completely freed, the bankers very quickly ran their institutions off the cliff, taking much of the global economy with them. Not only did they create and sell a huge amount of junk, but they turned the financial system into a gigantic casino, one in which they played mainly with other people’s money.

Both parties make a public show of how bitter their conflicts are, and how dangerous it would be for the other party to achieve power, while both prostitute themselves to the financial sector, powerful industries, and the wealthy.”

Charles H. Ferguson

And they are hard at work running that same playbook once again.

Why not? It pays well, and there are little to no personal consequences.

Congress is to busy trying to nickel and dime the unemployed so they don't become lazy, and the Fed is a faithful servant to its owners and masters.

Stocks continued to correct, although big cap tech was able to haul itself up off the lows in the last hours of quiet trading.

Let's see how things proceed next week.

The bulls may not be ready yet to throw in the towel.

Gold and especially silver put in a stellar performance this week.

The dollar continued to slide.

On the close gold was hanging on to the 1900 level, and silver at 23.

It seems as though there has been some heavy building in the related stock market options.

I will not be at all surprised if the bullion banks don't give the punters a stiff gut check next week.

Depending on where gold and silver end up this *could* be a constructive measure to firm up the base with stronger hands.

Geopolitical risks remain elevated.

Domestically, the pampered princes and princesses of the Congress and White House continue dither away every opportunity to truly heal the economy, for the sake of their Big Money masters.

The Banks are truly the heart of darkness.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Gold and Silver Reach Their Short Term Measuring Objectives

Operation Diligent Valor:  Navy Veteran's Unprovoked Beating by Federal Agents in Portland

"From time to time our national history has been marred by forgetfulness of the Jeffersonian principle that restraint is at the heart of liberty. In 1789 the Federalists adopted Alien and Sedition Acts in a shabby political effort to isolate the Republic from the world and to punish political criticism as seditious libel.

In the 1920's the Attorney General of the United States degraded his office by hunting political radicals as if they were Salem witches. The Nation's only gain from his efforts were the classic dissents of Holmes and Brandeis (Olmstead v.United States)...

The architects of fear have converted a wholesome law against conspiracy into an instrument for making association a crime. Pretending to fear government they have asked government to outlaw private protest. They glorify 'togetherness' when it is theirs, and call it conspiracy when it is that of others.

In listing these abuses I do not mean to condemn our central effort to protect the Nation's security. The dangers that surround us have been very great, and many of our measures of vigilance have ample justification.  Yet there are few among us who do not share a portion of the blame for not recognizing soon enough the dark tendency towards an excess of caution.”

John F. Kennedy


"Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperilled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.

Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means — to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal — would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this Court should resolutely set its face."

Louis Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead v. United States


"Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed. Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. To justify suppression of free speech, there must be reasonable ground to fear that serious evil will result if free speech is practiced. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the danger apprehended is imminent. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the evil to be prevented is a serious one...

Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty.

It is therefore always open to Americans to challenge a law abridging free speech and assembly by showing that there was no emergency justifying it.  Moreover, even imminent danger cannot justify resort to prohibition of these functions essential to effective democracy unless the evil apprehended is relatively serious."

Louis Brandeis, Whitney v. California


“What they were doing was unconstitutional. Sometimes I worry that people take the oath of office or the oath to the Constitution, and it’s just a set of words that mean nothing. They really don’t feel in their heart the weight of those words. They came out in this phalanx, running, and then they plowed into a bunch of protesters in the intersection of the street and knocked them over. They came out to fight. I took a couple steps back, straightened up, and then just stood my ground right there, arms down by my side. They are thugs and goons. I couldn’t recognize anything tactically that they were attempting to do that was even remotely related to crowd control. It looked to me like a gang of guys with sticks. I’m not a redwood tree. I’m an overweight 53-year-old man.”

Christopher David, Navy veteran and peaceful protester, Portland, Oregon

Gold and silver hit high notes today, as the Dollar continued to slide.

Stocks dumped, led lower by the big cap story stocks.

We have only just begun.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Tesla the 'Story Stock Deluxe' - Precious Metals Soar as Dollar Dives

This was another typical sleepy summer day of trading.

Silver and gold continued tearing higher, with silver firmly planting its price flag over 23.

The US Dollar gave up the 95 handle, finishing on the DX Index around 94.92.

After the bell the big tickle was Tesla reporting its financial results.

Chipotle and Microsoft also chimed in.

But Tesla is a 'story stock deluxe.'

It is running on momentum now.  And has achieved a valuation bubble accepted only by pure cynics and true believers.

Expectations have become so overblown that the story of autonomous electric cars for everyone  has had to start morphing into some fantasy 'platform' for selling and servicing things other than cars and batteries.

Well, I would not get in front of this one, but its fall from these lofty heights will likely be fairly impressive.

I got a chuckle listening to the financial bobbleheads and spokesmodels talk about how it is risky to give working stiffs a little extra kick in their unemployment checks, because it might make them lazy, and discourage them from going to back to work.

How about putting in some real safeguards, like no bonuses for executives of financial companies and major corporations that are receiving bailouts?

Surely we don't want to encourage to keep taking reckless actions because there are no personal consequences for their extreme mispricing of risks and short term pursuit of quick profits.

But I don't think the same rules apply for them as they do for the rest of us.  And that speaks volumes about how the politicians view the people versus the elites.

Well, baseball season has started at last, and we have been enjoying watching it in the evenings.  Nice to have MLB.TV access.   Despite the canned audience noises its good to have it back.

Have a pleasant evening.