24 October 2024

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Lies, Damned Lies, and Fraud

 

"I am writing to alert you to a possible circumstance of fraud and manipulation in your popular ETF, SLV, due to the excessive short-selling of its shares.  Current reports indicate the most recent level of total short sales now exceed 36 million shares.  This is an increase of more than 14 million shares from the previous reported amount.

Publicly-traded ETFs that have specific metal backing are highly unique securities.  Perhaps a small short position may be overlooked on a temporary basis until the metal is deposited in the Trust due to logistical considerations.  But a short position that represents more than 10% of the outstanding shares issued means that many buyers of the shares have no metal backing.  This is clearly not in keeping with the spirit of the prospectus that each share issued be backed by one ounce of silver on deposit with the custodian."

Ted Butler, Open Letter to Larry Fink, CEO BlackRock, April 28, 2011

“In a sense, blowback is simply another way of saying that a nation reaps what it sows.  Although people usually know what they have sown, our national experience of blowback is seldom imagined in such terms because so much of what the managers of the American empire have sown has been kept secret.”

Chalmers Johnson, Blowback, 2004

"This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men. And I was one of them."

John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, 2004

"Price discovery is not a sexy function of markets, but it is critical to the efficient allocation of scarce capital and resources, and to the preservation of the long term wealth of investors and the economy as a whole.  If price discovery is compromised by manipulation, then we will all be gradually impoverished and the economy will be imbalanced and unstable."

London Banker, Lies, Damned Lies, and LIBOR, 10 July 2012

"Power will achieve its murderous potential. It simply waits for an excuse, an event of some sort, an assassination, a massacre in a neighboring country, an attempted coup, a famine, or a natural disaster, to justify the beginning of murder en masse."

R. J. Rummel, Death By Government, 1994


We are advised not to look at things which the empire's elites wish to do, but find inconvenient to be made known.  

And so there is a steady progression in the decline of their morals, from swindles, to frauds, and  lawlessness.

This will not end well, but it will end.  

 They take offense at everything except their greed, but have no shame in their own unrighteousness.

And so when the fall comes, and they are caught up short, they will reach into our pockets for  another bailout. 

Stocks managed to sustain a little bounce, after several days of declines.

Gold and silver rebounded as the Dollar declined.

VIX remains subdued and most likely mispriced.

We are not pricing in the enormous risks being engaged by the madness of the elite.

A reckoning is coming.   I will take no joy in it, because of the number of innocents who will be harmed.

As the empire staggers, one or more of its vassal states will fall first, as a sign and a warning. 

Denial is more likely than reform.

The madness serves none but itself.

Have a pleasant evening.


23 October 2024

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Revelation To the Servants of the Dragon

 

"I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does.  When that happens, it is the end of the world.  When the author walks on to the stage the play is over.  What is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else—something it never entered your head to conceive—comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left?  

For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature.  It will be too late then to choose your side.  There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up.  That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. "

C. S. Lewis,  Mere Christianity, 1944

“Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham.  The rich man also died and was buried, and his soul went to the place of the dead.  There, in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side.

The rich man shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have some pity!  Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.  I am in anguish in these flames.’  But Abraham said to him, ‘My son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing.  So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish.  And there is a great chasm separating us.  No one can cross over to you from here, and no one can cross over to us from there.’

Then the rich man said, ‘Please, Father Abraham, at least send him to my father’s home.  For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them so they don’t end up in this place of torment.’  But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them.  Your brothers can read what they wrote.’

The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham!  But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’   But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded, even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Luke 16:19-31

"It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery. These may, perhaps, succeed at first, and limp along on hope for awhile with a flourishing appearance. But time betrays their weakness, and they eventually fall into ruin of their own designs."

Demosthenes, Bartleby, 1917

The sin of the rich man in the parable of Lazarus was not that he had been given great wealth, even though has no gratitude, no sense of obligation, and thereby no empathy. He thinks that it is all because of his own merits.  His sin is that he allowed his preoccupation, his obsession with worldly possessions, to blind himself with his pride to the suffering of Lazarus, his poor brother, who sat every day on his doorstep.  And he gave him nothing, not even a look or a kind word.

It was only in the torment of the afterworld that the rich man's eyes are opened.  And looking across the great gulf he finally sees Lazarus, with the holy Abraham.  And the first thing that the rich man does is to beg for comfort for himself, and ask Lazarus for a favor.  He feels no repentance, never once saying that he is sorry.  For even as his eyes were opened, his heart remained hardened, obstinate, and he remained firmly in the grip of his sins. It was his sins that were the chasm that separated him from true life— the door to his torment was locked from the inside.

Nations that have been blessed can blind themselves to their excesses and offenses, while taking sole credit for the blessings that have been given to them.  And so they misuse their power and wealth and great fortunes, granted to them by God, to oppress and subjugate others.    And in their hardened hearts they hold their selfishness aloft, profanely, as the greatest good, the exceptional — even as they oppress and plunder and murder their own and others.  

Until at long last God humbles them, and breaks the backbone of their power."

Jesse, Lazarus and the Rich Man, 12 March 2020


Stocks declined sharply today, although they managed to rebound from the lows in the last hour of trading.

Gold and silver corrected, somewhat sharply.  The Dollar rose to 104.40.

The managers of the casino could see the specs leaning into the precious metals rally, and decided to take them out for a quick wash and rinse.   

For in this casino, the house knows in aggregate and sometimes in the specific what you are holding in your hand. 

VIX rose slightly but remains subdued.

I am sick at heart over what the servants of the darkness of this world are doing, by their own hand and through those they have bought, having been bought themselves, in a mutual fellowship of corruption.

Their judgement will be terrible to behold.  May God have mercy on their souls.  

Cromwell: Sir Richard is appointed Attorney General for Wales.
Thomas More: For Wales. Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world— but for Wales?"

Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons
But if it is God's will, may they face some justice in this life, for their own repentance perhaps, and as an example for salvation of the many.

Have a pleasant evening.


22 October 2024

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Storm of Dissolution and Madness

 

"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K."

Eddie George, Governor Bank of England, in a conversation with the CEO of Lonmin, September 1999

“The men of the higher circles are not representative men; their high position is not a result of moral virtue; their fabulous success is not firmly connected with meritorious ability. Those who sit in the seats of the high and the mighty are selected and formed by the means of power, the sources of wealth, the mechanics of celebrity, which prevail in their society.

When institutions are corrupting, many of the men who live and work in them are necessarily corrupted. Within the corporate worlds of business, war-making and politics, the private conscience is attenuated— and the higher immorality is institutionalized.   It is not merely a question of a corrupt administration in corporation, army, or state; it is a feature of the corporate rich, as a capitalist stratum, deeply intertwined with the politics of the military state.”

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, Oxford Press, 1956

"If at the start this cancerous growth in the nation was not particularly noticeable, it was only because there were still enough forces at work that operated for the good, so that it was kept under control. As it grew larger, however, and finally in an ultimate spurt of growth attained ruling power, the tumor broke open, as it were, and infected the whole body."

The White Rose, Second Leaflet, Munich 1942

“We are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go out.”

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, 1928

Stocks had another wobbly, wide ranging trading day.

But fortunately they ended up a little lost, to mostly unchanged.

Gold and silver continued their breakouts higher.

Silver has taken the 35 handle.

Gold is punching higher towards its next measuring objective.

The Dollar dropped and then came back, holding on to 104.

The gold and silver rally is not dollar related.  It looks like a flight to safety.

Let's see if anything substantial comes out of the BRIC summit.

Leaked intelligence documents purport to show the IDF plans to attack Iran.

Curioser and curioser.

As JFK noted to Pierre Salinger in private conversation during the lead up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, "I said, 'Mr. President, you don't have a cold. There’s something going on.'   He said, 'You bet there is something else going on.'  And then he said, 'When you find out, grab your balls and run.' 

Pierre Salinger, On the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1995

Have a pleasant evening.



21 October 2024

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Snakes in Suits: Influence, Betrayal, and Madness

 

"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

George Orwell, The New Statesman and Nation, August 1937

"Boys who were found hiding were hanged as traitors by the SS as a warning that, 'he who was not brave enough to fight had to die.'   When trees were not available, people were strung up on lamp posts. They were hanging everywhere, military and civilian, men and women, ordinary citizens who had been executed by a small group of fanatics.  It appeared that the Nazis did not want the people to survive because a lost war, by their rationale, was obviously the fault of all of us.  We had not sacrificed enough and therefore, we had forfeited our right to live, as only the government was without guilt."

Dorothea von Schwanenfluegel, Eyewitness account, Fall of Berlin 1945

"Our plutocracy, whether the hedge fund managers in Greenwich, Connecticut, or the Internet moguls in Palo Alto, now lives like the British did in colonial India: ruling the place but not of it.

Mike Lofgren, The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government, 5 January 2016

"Under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep.  I do not exaggerate.  If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves.  It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor."

Thomas Jefferson,  Letter to Edward Carrington, 16 January 1787

"Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

John Harrington, Epigrams: Of Treason, 1618


Gold and silver came in steaming from the overnight foreign trade.

But a rally in the Dollar in NY time knocked them back down to mostly unchanged.

Stocks gathered themselves together at the same time and turned sharp losses into smaller losses and nearly unchanged.

The BRICs will have their summit meeting in Kazan, Russia over the next two days.

Never, ever expect the classic narcissist leader to fail to try every trick in the book, up to and including leading their nation into the abyss, in order to advance even their most narrow, pettiest desires.

This stuns those who would never even considering doing something so dishonorable and madly selfish.   

The disadvantage of the average person is that they are not given over to madness, and find the mere concept of it horrifying.

But for some it is just the business of the day.

We have seen it in history.  I have seen it in business.  It is stunning.

Have a pleasant evening.