14 February 2017

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Yellen and the Jawbone - Valentine's Day


"She is more precious than jewels— and nothing you could desire can even compare with her."

Proverbs 3:15

Fed chair Yellen made some hawkish noises concerning the possibility of a rate hike in March around 10 am EST.

That took the dollar up, and the precious metals down.

The PPI (wholesale price inflation) came in a little hot this morning.

There is no real sustainable recovery. The credibility trap has caused a great number of our ruling elite to become ineffective hypocrites.

But this is nothing new. People of privilege will go to great lengths when that privilege, long held, is threatened.

I do think that things are 'going to get real' as they used to say, probably later this year. Look for the next shoes to drop in Europe.  The EU is the paradigm of official folly.

Today is Valentine's Day. I spent quite a bit of it with mine.

Have a pleasant evening.



13 February 2017

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Risk On


Stocks were drifting higher today on lighter volumes.

The precious metals were off a bit on a stronger dollar.

Janet Yellen will be testifying tomorrow.

Have a pleasant evening.



12 February 2017

Weekend Reading: A Defense Against the Rising Evil


"It seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings...

Only the humble believe in Him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that He does wonders where people despair, that He takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; He loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken...

In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack even on the least of men is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all. Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer


"Yet such in one shape or other is the way with the multitude of men everywhere and at all times; they do not see the image of Almighty God before them, and ask themselves what He wishes: if once they did this they would begin to see how much He requires, and they would earnestly come to Him, both to be pardoned for what they do wrong, and for the power to do better. And, for the same reason that they do not please Him, they succeed in pleasing themselves. For that contracted, defective range of duties, which falls so short of God’s law, is just what they can fulfill; or rather they choose it, and keep to it, because they can fulfill it.

Hence, they become both self-satisfied and self-sufficient; – they think they know just what they ought to do, and that they do it all; and in consequence they are very well content with themselves, and rate their merit very high, and have no fear at all of any future scrutiny into their conduct, which may befall them...

And such, I say, is the religion of the natural man in every age and place; – often very beautiful on the surface, but worthless in God’s sight; good, as far as it goes, but worthless and hopeless, because it does not go further, because it is based on self-sufficiency, and results in self-satisfaction.

I grant, it may be beautiful to look at, as in the instance of the young ruler whom our Lord looked at and loved, yet sent away sad; it may have all the delicacy, the amiableness, the tenderness, the religious sentiment, the kindness, which is actually seen in many a father of a family, many a mother, many a daughter, in the length and breadth of these kingdoms, in a refined and polished age like this; but still it is rejected by the heart-searching God, because all such persons walk by their own light, not by he True Light of men, because self is their supreme teacher, and because they pace round and round in the small circle of their own thoughts and of their own judgments, careless to know what God says to them, and fearless of being condemned by Him, if only they stand approved in their own sight...

Yes, it is the ignorance of our understanding, it is our spiritual blindness, it is our banishment from the presence of Him, who is the source and the standard of all Truth, which is the cause of this meagre, heartless religion of which men are commonly so proud...

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!

Do you think he is so unskillful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the truth? No; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you a remission of taxes; he promises you reform.

This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; he tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors; he does so himself, and induces you to imitate him; or he promises you illumination, he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them.

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."

John Henry Newman


"And because of the increase in wickedness, the love of many will grow cold. But those who endure to the end will be saved."

Matthew 24:12-13


"Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength—  but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it...

The only real tragedy, In the end, is not to be a saint."

Léon Bloy


A saint— a saint that is always failing, but always rising.

The touchstone of all goodness is love.

Love is not a weakness or a softness of the heart. Love is only for the strong, because only the strong can overcome the fear and smallness that keeps them from loving.

Evil is the weakness of hate and fear, the darker side of the human condition.  Unselfish love is not natural to us, unless we exercise a will to choose it, and take the abiding comfort and strength with it from something greater than ourselves.

Where you see something that confuses you, whether it is good or ill, ask yourself, 'whom does it serve? and where is the love?'

Love is the one thing that the hypocrisy of evil cannot reliably imitate, but at most wear briefly as a mask.

People can rationalize their way to a hell on earth with the same practical, step by step reasoning with which they buy a pair of shoes or a new overcoat. And once their fingers are firmly entwined with those of evil, then the madness fully falls upon them, and they are done.

We are substantially no different, no better, and certainly no more exceptional than others now and those who have come before us.  To imagine ourselves to be so superior, so exceptional, so above all the temptations of power is a part, not of any virtue, but of the excessive pride which led to the fall of the first and most favoured among the angels.

If you do not wish to hear this, if it makes you uncomfortable, then good.  That discomfort is the first step, the first recognition and the beginning of your own path to personal reform and the fullness, and dare I say salvation, of your own humanity.


10 February 2017

No Updates Tonight - And Back Home Again


Busy day.

The queen slipped and fell on the ice.  About ten minutes after we got home from spending all day at the hospital getting pretty good news.

It does not seem that amything is broken but she is very sore.  Back to hospital for x-rays.

It's always something.

See you Monday.

P.S. Back home at 12:30 AM.  Went to the local 'urgent care' for a quick x-ray. RN friend said it would be much quicker than going all the way to the hospital ER.  Shoulder was completely dislocated.  The doctor could not do it there as it required a kind of anesthesia.

Went to the hospital ER which was hopping on a Friday night.  Waited almost 3 hours for a full emergency room bed to open up.  Place was full of people with sickness like the flu who go through a 'fast track.'   They had to put her into a deep sedation with painkillers and valium to reset her shoulder.  It was remarkable to watch.  They had me hold her hand to help her to relax, and to talk about something that makes her happy.    The talk did turn to chocolate truffles.

Starość nie radość - 'Old age is no joke.'

All better now.  Good to be home. That could have been so much worse.

Thanks for God's tender mercies.


09 February 2017

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Risk On - Snow Day - Crony Capitalism


“A true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged.”

Czesław Miłosz

As you may have heard a winter storm swept across the northeastern US this morning. Luckily it came up the coast a little further east than expected, so we only received about six inches of heavy wet snow, which failed to drift in the high winds. Those further east got clobbered.  Even with a snowblower clearing it was tiring, though.

The continuing fraud and inequality is taking a toll on the economy and society. Yes, the pigmen are emboldened and elated, because they see themselves winning. Things have not blown up in their faces yet, and the bailouts which they received from their grateful servants in government has made them feel almost invincible.

About 11 tonnes of paper gold were dumped on the market early, as part of the risk on theme of the technical trade, and the perception management surrounding a number of odious IPOs coming to market.

It will not last.  And Trump and the GOP are going to own the next financial crisis and its aftermath.

Speaking of our entitled establishment, here is the usually hidden face of corporate conservatism on those decadent, lazy, and spoiled US workers.    At least the Wall Street Democrats know how to feel the common people's pain, or fake it convincingly from a distance, over cocktails and canapes in their exclusive enclaves.

But they did figure out a way to make the average US citizen pay more to die younger, and consider themselves exceptionally well-served.

And our enlightened ones wonder why the natives are restless, and change is in the wind.

Have a pleasant evening.