Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Son of Man, They Cling to Idols In Their Hearts

 

"Our hatred is a deadly poison.  In hatred, we are like bees who must pay with their lives for the use of their stingers."

Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, Diary of a Man in Despair, 1947

"As though you could use violent, unjust means and achieve peace and justice.   Means determine ends; and must be like the ends proposed.   Means intrinsically different from the ends proposed achieve ends like themselves, not like those they were meant to achieve."

Aldous Huxley, Eyeless in Gaza, 1936

"No doubt it is more comfortable to deliberately wear blinkers that prevent one from seeing the evil done in the discharge of their responsibility— to be unwilling to see that one is defending murder and robbery."

Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, Executed in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, 23 January 1945

“Better to be a beggar in freedom than to be forced into compromises against my conscience.  

All of the Christian West stands and falls with the words of Genesis. 'And God created man in His image.’”

Dietrich von Hildebrand

"Reading von Hildebrand reminds us that there is only one sure remedy against an ideology of hate, and that is to expose it to public criticism and to affirm what it denies.  The ardent faith that inspired von Hildebrand is not easily recovered in our skeptical times.  But through his love of truth and his brave opposition to a public culture of deception, he bore witness to values that we still share. "

Roger Scruton, foreward to von Hildebrand's My Battle Against Hitler, 2014 

“Son of man, they have set up idols in their hearts. They cling to the errors that will make them fall into sin."

Ezekiel 14:3

"How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings.  But you would not let me.  As you have willed it, so your house is now yours to command— but is made desolate.’”

Matthew 23:37-38 

 

As they suddenly woke up to the reality of the economy and tax cuts, so the markets suddenly realized that the Mideast and Eastern Europe may be staggering along towards a wider, bloodier war.

Stocks dropped hard, and bounced very little into the close.

Gold and silver continued the spike from overnight, ran up to new highs, and were brutally sold down to finish in the red.

Nothing like the Dr. Evil strategy to provide a solid wash and rinse, especially into the weekend after Europe goes home to dinner.

VIX spiked, but backed off some, although it finished much higher than usual.

The Dollar rallied again, as it did yesterday, pushing up towards the 106 handle.

Yay us.

Netanyahu keeps poking Iran in the nose, as does the Ukraine with Russia.

Uncle Thug's minions are being quite the naughty boys. 

Let's see where this goes, hopefully not to hell in a handbasket.

Those who serve and worship the power of the world don't have to worry about falling into the abyss— the abyss is coming for them. 

And the longer this continues, the worse the resolution will become, and the more painful the final reckoning will be. 

They will be weighed, and found wanting.  And may God have mercy on their souls.

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Children of God, Children of Darkness - Like Tears in the Rain

 

"The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts.   For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ten Years After, 1943

“Once they’re in power, narcissists consolidate their position by firing everyone who challenges them.  In their place rise a plague of toadies, opportunists, and enablers equally guided by self-interest and short on scruples.   So you end up with these individualistic cultures with no teamwork and low integrity."

Lee Simmons, Stanford Business School

"A confident, aggressive delivery style - often larded with jargon, clichés, and flowery phrases - makes up for the lack of substance and sincerity in their interactions with others.  They are masters of impression management; their insight into the psyche of others combined with a superficial - but convincing - verbal fluency allows them to change their personas skillfully as it suits the situation and their game plan.

They are known for their ability to don many masks, change 'who they are' depending upon the person with whom they are interacting, and make themselves appear likable to their intended victim. The most debilitating characteristic of even the most well-behaved psychopath is the inability to form a workable team."

Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, Snakes in Suits

"I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil.   I think I've come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants.  A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man.   Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy."

G. M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary

“The greatest evil is not done now in sordid dens of crime. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices by quiet men, with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks, who do not need to raise their voice.”

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

"He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being.   Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison

"This is how we know who are the children of God and who are the children of Satan: anyone who does not do what is good is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their neighbor."

1 John 3:10

The PPI came in less than forecast.

And that was enough to trigger a powerful counter-rally in stocks.

Otherwise known as a wash and rinse.

Gold and silver rallied strongly.  

Gold bar sales are surging at Costco.  

Spokesmodels and economists are baffled.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

Geopolitical risks continue on in a rolling boil.

They will continue to be ignored - until they can't.

It's a simple concept.  

Stop provoking wars, stop murdering and oppressing the innocent.

Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.

"The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned...
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!”

Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus

What are we doing?  Who are we becoming? 

How will our children remember us?

And for what?

A bunch of power hungry human husks with empty souls and hardened hearts?

'All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.'

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Delivered From the Lion's Mouth

 

"God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen.  And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, earthquakes, and severe storms.   A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars."

Revelation 11:19-12:1

"Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshaling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the church of Christ as in a net, and preparing the way for a general apostasy from it.  Whether this very apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist, or whether he is still to be delayed, we cannot know; but at any rate this apostasy, and all its tokens, and instruments, are of the Evil One and savor of death.

Far be it from any of us to be of those simple ones, who are taken in that snare which is circling around us!   Far be it from us to be seduced with the fair promises in which Satan is sure to hide his poison...

He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you.  He bids you mount aloft.  He shows you how to become as gods.  Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his."

J.H.Newman, The Times of Antichrist

"As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be with the coming of the Son of man. In the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, even to that very day in which Noah entered into the ark. They did not understand what was happening, until the flood came and swept them all away. This is how it will be with the coming of the Son of Man."

Matthew 24:37-39

"Be sober, be vigilant. Your adversary, the devil, prowls the earth like a roaring lion, seeking those whom he may devour."

1 Peter 5:8

"But the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me, so that the message might be fully proclaimed that all the Gentiles might hear.  And I was delivered from the lion's mouth."

2 Timothy 4:17

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

Ephesians 6:12

 

As I am sure you have already heard, the Consumer Inflation number came in higher than expected this morning.

Some of the phantom rate cuts again went by the wayside of reality.

The Dollar rallied strongly, putting in over 100 basis points on the DXY index.

Stocks fell sharply.  The mispricing of risk is sometimes difficult to maintain.

Gold and silver came some ground back, but not nearly as badly as one would have seen even a few months ago.

Physical buying in the East may be sustaining the price.  

PPI tomorrow.

Let's see if the bipolar market punters can swing back to delusional again.

Need little, want less, love more.

For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

And in the end, when all is said and done, what else is there that matters?

Have a pleasant evening.