05 December 2016

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - And in Their Triumph, Die


"These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder..."

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

The dollar went lower, as did the metals after the initial spike on the Italian vote last night.

The markets are casting aside their doubts for even more risk.

I have little hope for any meaningful reform from this new administration and the current breed of financiers.

They are the gods of money, who have been nurtured by a system of their own.

How readily the proud game with death, having yet had no taste of it's consequence.

Have a pleasant evening.








SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Risk On - Blue Skies


"You will most certainly not die. So then eat, for God knows that when you eat from that tree your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing the depths of both good and evil.”

When it came to the populist vote in Italy, it was definitely sell the rumour and buy the news.

Risk on.

Have a pleasant evening.




04 December 2016

The Credibility Trap - These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends


"These violent delights have violent ends.
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder..."

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Credibility Trap:   a condition that can afflict any organization in which self-interest, internal focus, and reliance on a self-appointed 'authority' of its top leadership grows to a point that precludes addressing certain chronic problems and points of failure that are impacting its organizational objectives.

An inner core of leaders comes to view their own interests and personal places in the power structure as superior to all other considerations.  The key factor is when they develop an increasing reliance on authority and the control of organizational resources, rather than on performance and improvement as measured by external outcomes.

Stated differently, a credibility trap is what can happen overtime when an organization fails from the top down.  Rather than being caught by the many checks and balances of management, the failure becomes self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing— institutionalized and systemic.   It becomes ingrained into the 'DNA' of an organization's management in terms of style and priorities.

The core power structure becomes increasingly rigid, and meaningful change is viewed as undesirable, and even dangerous.  However they may mask this reluctance to change by imposing largely counterproductive change on those below them with a proliferation of rules and organizational restructurings that are cosmetic rather than substantial.

The focus becomes process rather than production.

Ironically, as personal power and reward increases, a sense of personal responsibility and accountability diminishes.  Therein we see the recent phenomenon of highly paid and powerful executives who, when their organization fails, blithely testify that they had no idea what was going on beneath their very noses.

Insiders begin to dictate an accepted view of things that is added to the rite of admittance into the power elite, along with certain forms of language and norms of behaviour.  Any contrary evidence that is presented is ignored, and legitimate criticism even from within its own ranks is dismissed, ridiculed, and aggressively suppressed.

The increasingly debilitated leadership relies on the close, almost over-deliberate control of money and internal resources.   Since they will not admit their own failures or shortcomings, they come to blame external factors and their own subordinates and suppliers.

If this tendency continues, this management myopia can become so profound that it eventually precludes even acknowledging that any problems exist, even in the face of a series of very public failures.  This is the threshold of the credibility trap.

When the organization has gone beyond the point of effective internal reform and renewal, a 'hard stop' is often imposed by exterior forces, in a lack of resources and attention from beyond ithe leaderships direct organizational control.    And then change will finally come in reform or a forced reorganization.

"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right."

John Kenneth Galbraith

Related: Pelosi: 'I Don't Think People Want a New Direction'




03 December 2016

November Intraday Price Averages for Gold and Silver - Pictures In an Exhibition


"Pardon one offence, and you encourage the commission of many."

Publilius Syrus


“And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”

Dick Durbin, US Senator From Illinois


"And there is a kind of an 'ok guys, you're mad, how are you going to stop me' mentality at the top."

Robert Johnson, economist



Thomas Frank - What Happened, One More Time - Economic Devastation and Populist Backlash


"The American white-collar class just spent the year rallying around a super-competent professional (who really wasn’t all that competent) and either insulting or silencing everyone who didn’t accept their assessment. And then they lost. Maybe it’s time to consider whether there’s something about shrill self-righteousness, shouted from a position of high social status, that turns people away.

The even larger problem is that there is a kind of chronic complacency that has been rotting American liberalism for years, a hubris that tells Democrats they need do nothing different, they need deliver nothing really to anyone – except their friends on the Google jet and those nice people at Goldman.

The rest of us are treated as though we have nowhere else to go and no role to play except to vote enthusiastically on the grounds that these Democrats are the 'last thing standing' between us and the end of the world.

It is a liberalism of the rich, it has failed the middle class, and now it has failed on its own terms of electability. Enough with these comfortable Democrats and their cozy Washington system. Enough with Clintonism and its prideful air of professional-class virtue."

Thomas Frank




The Imperial Presidents From the Fall of the American Republic


“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.”

Plutarch


"And I'll leave you with one set of numbers that I found today, which is just an absolute for this whole thing. In 2015, Wall Street Bonuses, not regular compensation, bonuses, seven years after they were bailed out with the public purse, totaled $29.4 billion dollars.

Total compensation paid to every single person in this country who makes minimum wage totaled $14 billion...

The era of neo-liberalism is over. The era of neo-nationalism has just begun."

Mark Blyth


“There may be thunder in Europe but it is in America the lightning will fall.”

Ambrose Bierce