SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - There Goes Larry Ellison, Here Comes Alibaba

"A swath of early investors in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. will be able to sell more than $8 billion worth of shares on the day the Chinese e-commerce company goes public, an unusual arrangement that is influencing how bankers price the offering.

Alibaba plans to price its shares at $66-$68, which at the midpoint would give it a valuation of about $165 billion.

Insiders and other investors in companies staging initial public offerings are generally required to hold on to shares for several months, in "lockup" arrangements banks design to help protect the stock's price in its early days.

But with Alibaba, a number of shares equal to about a third of what could be sold in the deal aren't covered by such restrictions, according to the company's public filings. In contrast, no pre-IPO shares of Facebook Inc. FB +0.84% were allowed to be traded when the social-media company made its market debut.

Demand for Alibaba's shares appears strong ahead of its expected IPO Friday...

WSJ, Alibaba IPO Gives Insiders Rare Chance to Sell Early

After the bell the word came out that Larry Ellison will be stepping down as the CEO of Oracle. He will remain as the Chairman and Chief Technology Officer.  Bloomberg was gushing with the news.

The big news for tomorrow will be the results of the vote for Scottish Independence, which I view as a more political issue with implications for the Anglo-American banking cartel, if one subscribes to domino theories. Scotland's independence is dangerous in the same way that the peaceful demonstrations of Occupy were dangerous. It gives other people ideas.

And the big, big news will be the Alibaba IPO. It is being brought to market fairly briskly, on the day after they have ended their road show.

As you may recall, Goldman will be managing the order flow of shares tomorrow.  If they were not holding the bag for unsold shares I might be a little more concerned.

The secondary market might be lively, because of general 'edge' to the market, and the number of insider shares that are not 'locked up' from trading on the first few days of the IPO. 

I bought a little volatility today. I might buy more. I was talking with an acquaintance, and he asked me if the old saw 'sell Rosh Hashanah' might be in order this year (starts at dusk on 24 September). I said it might be a little late.

Let's see how the events of tonight and tomorrow go, and most particularly how we start off next week.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

European Sovereign Debt Levels to GDP Before and After the Bank Bailouts

What is even more clever than lining your pockets by ballooning the financial system into a great bubble by fraud and bad governance?

Getting the victims and bystanders to pay the price of your perfidy, and shifting the anger of the people to some unfortunates,  while 'reforming' the system to make it even more efficient at looting so that you can do it all over again.

No wonder that any movement that threatens the status quo in the least bit gets these white collared reivers and their pampered princes in such a lather.  It is important to make people think that no one else cares, and that they are alone.

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation.

"The sudden explosion of European sovereign debt is the direct and indisputable result of all our political parties deciding they would safeguard their mates’ and their own personal wealth (it is the top 10% who hold the bulk of their wealth in the financial products which would be destroyed in a bank collapse. NOT the rest of us!) by bailing out the private banks and piling their unpaid debts on to the public purse.

So whatever the trigger of the next crisis may be, they know any solution which saves the wealth and power of the over-class will have to involve piling new, private-bank bad-debts on to already indebted sovereigns and that, our leaders must be keenly aware, will not be easy to force on an already angry public. They know a whole range of the assurances they might like to give us about what must be done when the next crisis hits and how those things will undoubtably save us, will not be so easy to shove down people’s throats...

I think one of the cleverest things the 1% have done over the last few years is the way they have created a relentless public discourse, via their paid political front-men and women and their media empires, to insist on the need to ‘fix’ and protect the system, and the extreme danger to us all should the system not be ‘saved’. This has served as a perfect cover for making sure that not enough people have noticed that the system is, in fact, being gutted and replaced by something that better serves the interests of the 1%. We have not been fixing the banks, we have been feeding them."

Golem XIV, The Next Crisis Part One

“Why do you think we have a winner?,” President Snow asks while cutting a white rose.
"What do you mean?,” Seneca asks.
“I mean, why do we have a winner?,” Snow repeats, before pausing. “Hope.”
“Hope?,” Seneca replies slightly bewildered.
“Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective, a lot of hope is dangerous,” Snow declares. “A spark is fine, as long as it’s contained. So, contain it.”

Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

A Broken Economic System In One Picture

A truly bipartisan effort.

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation.

h/t Neil Irwin, You Can't Feed a Family GDP

Such a Parcel of Rogues In a Nation - Alba Gu Bràth

"For as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom, for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."

Robert the Bruce, Declaration of Arbroath, 6 April 1320

Fareweel to a' our Scottish fame,

Fareweel our ancient glory;

Fareweel even to the Scottish name,

So famed in martial story!

Now Sark rins over Solway sands,

And Tweed rins to the ocean,

To mark where England's province stands—

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

What force or guile could not subdue

Thro' many warlike ages,

Is wrought now by a coward few,

For hireling traitor's wages.

The English steel we could disdain,

Secure in valour's station;

But English gold has been our bane—

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

O, would or I had seen the day

That treason thus could sell us,

My auld grey head had lien in clay

Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace!

But pith and power, till my last hour,

I'll mak this declaration:

We're bought and sold for English gold—

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

Robert Burns, A Parcel of Rogues In a Nation, 1791

 

 

Is there for honest poverty

That hings his head, an' a' that?

The coward slave, we pass him by --

We dare be poor for a' that!

For a' that, an' a' that,

Our toils obscure, an' a' that,

The rank is but the guinea's stamp,

The man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,

Wear hoddin grey, an' a' that?

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine --

A man's a man for a' that.

For a' that, an' a' that,

Their tinsel show, an' a' that,

The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,

Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie ca'd 'a lord,'

Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that?

Tho' hundreds worship at his word,

He's but a cuif for a' that.

For a' that, an' a' that,

His ribband, star, an' a' that,

The man o' independent mind,

He looks an' laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,

A marquis, duke, an' a' that!

But an honest man's aboon his might --

Guid faith, he mauna fa' that!

For a' that, an' a' that,

Their dignities, an' a' that,

The pith o' sense an' pride o' worth

Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may,

As come it will for a' that,

That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,

Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.

For a' that, an' a' that,

It's coming yet for a' that,

That Man to Man, the world o'er,

Shall brothers be for a' that.

Robert Burns, For a' That, 1795

Social Darwinism

"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


"A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, and fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death.”

Chris Hedges


"In this way people are thrown aside as if they were trash."

Francis I

The Aktion T4 Programme provided the expertise, the administrative practices, and the bureaucratic rationales required to build the mass extermination facilities and the camps.

The beginning of social Darwinism is financial Darwinism, the unjust and willful allocation of means and opportunity.  This enriches the favored, and permits the oppressed to be more easily labeled as inferior, useless eaters, life unworthy of life. 

You may try to help them, but they are sub-human, and stubbornly beyond redemption.   It is a difficult task, but someone must do it.  As the superior few, we must do those hard things for the good of all. It is our destiny.  Thinning their ranks at a distance becomes easy to rationalize, and after a time a purely practical routine, like cutting the grass.

The root of it all is in the will to power, the desire of a select few to determine the value of all life, and to define both good and evil, with themselves as the ultimate good.  And their handiwork is not life, but a profound emptiness, the abomination of desolation.

They never have enough. Not enough money, not enough power, not enough killing. They cannot give life, so they will bring death.  They fear weakness and death, so they attempt to be its master. They would be as gods.  And in their pride they make themselves, and all those around them, not masters but monsters.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Late Afternoon Smackdown - Ball and Chain

I hope you have had the time to watch the David Cay Johnston videos I put up overnight. They will help to explain much of what is going on in the financial markets and The Recovery™.

 

Gold, and to a lesser extent silver, took a late day price hit after the FOMC meeting in dull trade.  I was wondering if the wiseguys were going to let an FOMC Day go by without at least a cheap shot.

I include the Comex warehouse activity for silver below. I do not believe it is particularly meaningful however.  The real action in precious metals is in the East. 

I am curious to see what is going to happen to stocks here.   The Alibaba IPO should hold them up since it is such a monstrously large snack for Goldman and the Merry Pranksters on Wall Street.

I am now looking for an indication of some traction in the precious metals more than anything else.  I think it will have to come from an exogenous source.  The US markets are thoroughly 'in hand.'  Unfortunately they are the wrong hands.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Hump Day

Today is Hump Day, and the humps trotted out Grandma Janet this afternoon to try and justify their serial policy errors designed to advance the well being of the Banks, and leave Wall Street in the financial desert.

All the rest was noise.

Alibaba's IPO looms in the background.  This could be a big 'home run' for the denizens of the Street.

Scotland votes tomorrow.

Let's see what happens.

Have a pleasant evening.

The Divergence Between Debt and Gold

There is little doubt that gold is 'money' in the de facto, if not official, sense. It has been so for at least two thousands years, if not longer.

In a policy regime in which the Western central banks wish to quietly devalue their currencies in concert, it would be awkward to allow gold to speak embarrassing truths.

I would like to think that now, unlike ten years ago before almost every market was shown to be manipulated and sometimes on a global scale, that a concerted effort to discredit the message that gold carries would not be beyond their capability. They certainly have the motive.

As you may recall, in 1985 Larry Summers and Robert Barsky wrote a paper on Gibson's Paradox showing the linkage between prices and interest rates, and more specifically the price of gold under a gold standard.  With the price of gold going higher, it would be much more difficult to manage longer term interest rates lower, he asserts.

We are not under a gold standard at this time.  But with the turning of central bank purchasing towards gold in 2006, with a substantial boost from Asian reserves acquisitions, the fears of the Western central bankers became paramount.  Once again, they 'stared into the abyss.'

I caution that correlation is not causation.  But it is more likely where there are independent linkages, fundamental reasons that support the linkage as it were.

And I also remind the reader that divergence and convergence run in cycles. And convergence tends to return, and often does so with a vengeance.

Brace yourselves, not so much for patience while under determined financial repression, but for the time coming when the failed schemes of today's financial engineers collapse from exposure, a challenge from the East, or from sheer exhaustion.

This chart is from the data wranger Nick Laird at Sharelynx.com.