21 June 2017

Confronting the Unspeakable


"Those who are at present so eager to be reconciled with the world at any price must take care not to be reconciled with it under this particular aspect: as the nest of The Unspeakable. This is what too few are willing to see...

Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God."

Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable


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

Czesław Miłosz


“We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.”

John Henry Newman

They house people in deathtraps.   They poison the drinking water.  They financialize and corrupt almost every otherwise beneficial social institution from public education to healthcare. They foment endless wars for the pursuit of their own power and profits.

They have the courts pronounce their soulless piles of money, the corporations, as 'people,' while people themselves are judged to be of little consequence, to be thrown aside as if they were trash.

They catch the unsuspecting  within the jaws of stagnant wages and corporate monopolies, and squeeze until there is nothing left.

This is the return of the anti-human madness.  This is the Unspeakable.

Government ministers ‘congratulated themselves’ for cutting fire regulations
Charles White for Metro.co.uk
Friday 16 Jun 2017

"Conservative ministers were proud of slashing fire regulations, just months ahead of the Grenfell Tower block blaze.

In February this year, ministers posted on a government website details of their ‘anti-red tape’ agenda on new-build properties.

In a separate report fire safety inspections, the Conservatives said, had been reduced for some companies from six hours to just 45 minutes.

The move, titled Cutting Red Tape, was part of the Tory plans to abolish a ‘health and safety’ culture that they claimed was hurting money-making businesses.

Residents in Grenfell Tower block have complained that their homes were not properly fire-safe including lack of sprinklers and alarms.

Former Prime Minister David Cameron promised to abolish the ‘albatross’ of ‘over regulation’.

He said in 2012 that a Conservative government would: ‘Kill off the health and safety culture for good’.

The death toll from the fire in Kensington is expected to rise to almost 100.

More than 2,400 pieces of regulation have been scrapped since Cut Red Tape began...

Read the original article here.




The Trend That Will Shake the Nation


"Hubris calls for nemesis, and in one form or another it's going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started."

Mary Midgley


"Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that create huge inequalities.

We have perfected our weapons, our conscience has fallen asleep, and we have sharpened our ideas to justify ourselves as if it were normal that we continue to sow destruction, pain, and death."

Pope Francis I

It is a very perverse view of life that fundamental necessities like healthcare are being portrayed as a discretionary purchase that people make because they 'like it.'

Oh yes, I am enjoying having Multiple Sclerosis, or cancer, or some other chronic illness because it allows me to go out and spend money I don't have on overpriced drugs protected by government sanctions from corporate monopolies.  And the fact that I am unfortunate is all my fault because I am obviously a life unworthy of life.

And endless war in support of the formation and maintenance of some vast global order that the imperial state controls is a necessity whose enormously extravagant costs must never be questioned.

This attack on the fundamentals of human existence is being supported by propaganda campaigns and corruption of thought and basic decency not all that dissimilar from the same sort of trash that early on formed the basis for those actions that we have rightly condemned as crimes against human life in the past century.

How blinded to the consequences of our actions are we are becoming.

What other basic necessities of life will the anti-humans continue to price out of reach, using their power and influence in order to feed a mania to bring more and more of the public to its knees in service to their debt and desire for basic survival?

Look for the public to start looking farther afield to find alternatives as the Republicans and the Democrats continue to abandon them in their service to Big Money.

The greatest things in Nature start slowly and quietly, but continue to gather force until they overwhelm the works of men.  

This is nemesis, the the inescapable agent of the downfall of an over-reaching arrogance driven by an obsession to be as gods, and have the power of life and death.






20 June 2017

Stocks and Precious Metal Charts


“People need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently or to help others, to place common interests above their own, to respect the elementary rules of human coexistence.”

Václav Havel








18 June 2017

Bernie Sanders on BBC Show Hardtalk


Updates will be sporadic this week.

The queen is in hospital for treatment of dehydration, observation and testing.

The interviewer in the video below is Stephen Sackur.

I thought Bernie handled him brilliantly.





Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Blues en Mineur 1940


"Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering, in order that they may have life."

Léon Bloy

There was a stock option expiration for June on this Friday past as noted on the option calendar below.

There will be a Comex option expiration for the precious metals on June 27th which is the Tuesday after next.

The economic news still indicates an economy that is faltering on the edge of a sustainable recovery. The biggest problem is still the lack of real income (wage) growth among the breadth of the participants in the real economy.

I am afraid that the deck is still stacked pretty much against the 99% because of financial, regulatory, and political distortions in favor of the wealthiest few at the expense of the many.

Next week is a bit light on economic news. That calendar is also included below as well as the results of economic announcements for this week past.

See you next week.






15 June 2017

A Few Select Charts


The Lord is my light and my salvation—
       whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life—
       of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 27

I will most likely update the regular charts into the weekend.  It may be on Saturday.  We have tests and a doctor appointment tomorrow.

Have a pleasant evening.