TL;DR: An amazing level as a daily market peak and the weekly close are about to duke it out.  Meanwhile, the web broke Monday and the Ure’s did their doctor visits, too….

Markets: Technical Contradictions

Markets are putting on a better crime drama than anything on streaming, lately.  The “crime drama” today is the nearly $100 drop in the price of physical gold.  The “crime?”  In a word?  Rehypothecation.  Around here?  We call it The Invisible Crime – one that could victimize the whole planet!

Let me slow the roll a bit:

Rehypothecation—the practice of financial institutions reusing collateral pledged by clients for their own borrowing—is one of those elegant sleights of hand that turns real wealth into a hall of mirrors. When applied to physical gold, it crosses a moral and systemic line. But the ultra-pricks have spread around enough grease to keep regulators ignoring this for decades.

Gold’s very purpose is to serve as a tangible, finite store of value, immune to digital legerdemain and fiat dilution. Yet major bullion banks routinely pledge, lend, or “lease” the same bars multiple times, turning ounces into promises. The result is a shadow supply chain of paper claims vastly exceeding the metal actually held in vaults—an illusion of abundance built on counterparty faith rather than elemental reality.

In a just financial order, such multiplication of physical collateral would be illegal, akin to issuing multiple titles to the same plot of land. Instead, regulators tolerate it under the banner of liquidity and “market efficiency.” This permissiveness lets bullion markets appear deep and stable, when in truth they are leveraged to fragility. The gold futures market in London and New York can settle hundreds of contracts with a single ounce moving on paper, undermining the very reason investors hold gold: certainty of ownership. The sleight becomes complete when no criminal statute is triggered—because the system itself was written to protect the illusion, not the integrity of the underlying asset.

Rehypothecation of gold thus stands as the ultimate contradiction in modern finance. The law protects a process that erodes the trust it claims to preserve. Banks profit by turning elemental scarcity into digital derivatives, while the public sleeps under the illusion that their allocated bars exist somewhere, solid and untouched. If a true run on physical delivery ever came, the curtain would drop on the great golden myth of our age: that possession no longer matters in a world ruled by promises.

Ures Core Value Axiom:  One LIE is value is made of digits.  Another is Gold is made of paper.

Three Market Monte

Let’s see here: paper gold? Check!  Bitbulls?  Down $2,275 today around $108,362.00 — Check!

Which leaves us laughing at the Stock Market.  Why?  Well…if the market can close out the week around present levels (and you gotta believe in the Easter Bunny, right?) then we will have the picture-perfect split!

No, we ain’t talking some Hollywood bad dog and his harlot-hotty.  Nope – the technical implications of a Double Top (or close enough) on a New Moon!!!  This means by the New Moon in December, we should be at a low – just in time for my Slaughter of the Elves, II  that I have been nattering on about.

Friend, it doesn’t get more glorious than this among the marketdemic circle jerks. What was the commercial? “Two, two, two tastes in One!”  Except it’s Daily versus Weekly charts are ruling – like it matters when the build is about to collapse.

Building collapse did you say?  Funny thing about leverage, digital or financial—it always fails quietly, then all at once.

(Partially) Broken Web

You do remember my Peoplenomics reports from back in 2012?  The ones where I wrote about my book Broken Web?

Well, tomorrow on Peoplenomics there’s a 20-odd page update to the book.

The Splinternet is where I lay out some of the (few) things Broken Web didn’t get right.

Allow me the privilege of doffing cap, gown, and quoting from the Abstract of tomorrow’s report:

“This paper revisits the original threat matrix from Broken Web, measures which 2012 risks endured or evolved, and introduces the Ure Risk Equation, a Drake-style model for estimating civilization-scale failure probability in an over-connected world. From online radicalization to AI-driven automation of both creation and destruction, the evidence points to a new reality: the Internet has outgrown its human stewards. The question is no longer whether the Net will fail, but whether humanity can remain coherent when it does. In an age where every outage feels normal and every opinion becomes a domain, Splinternet: What Broken Web Got Wrong asks the only question that still matters—Is this progress, or entropy with a user interface?”

Why, that sounds almost too  thoughtful and deep for this hour, doesn’t it?

Ure right – Back to the play, Mrs. Lincoln.  (So rudely interrupted during Our American Cousin, Act II, Scene iii…)

“Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal — you sockdologizing old man-trap!”

Sockdologist’s News Rounds

[It comes from “sock,” a colloquial term meaning “to hit hard,” and “-ology,” jokingly added to make it sound like a learned science. So a sockdology was literally “the science of socking someone,” or figuratively, a final, crushing argument or comeback.]

Socking it to Trump: Chicago-Area Judge Rules ICE Can Be Arrested at Courthouses.  A Biden appointee (Lest we forget…)

Socking it to Portland: US appeals court says Trump can deploy soldiers in Portland.  The dissenter in the 2 out of 3 decision was a Clinton appointee.  (Lest we yada, yada…)

The Left stands up another Trump basher: Ex-Prosecutor issues dire warning about Trump’s latest court win: ‘Keeps me up at night’.  A Harris supporter, say the data files.

Hell remains warm:  We warned you that Seattle would not play in a Series until hell froze over.  It’s still warm as the Blue Jays go instead:  Blue Jays and Dodgers meet to start the World Series | AP News

Avoid Tehran Friday night:  First game of the Series means attention will be elsewhere.  As US steps up diplomacy amid fears Netanyahu could abandon Gaza ceasefire deal | | AW.  But you know, Iran isn’t off limits so come game time, flash glasses? (See why I didn’t go into PR? Only punch when no one’s looking…)

There goes the peace pretending: Hamas Defends Executing Palestinians: ‘This Is a Transitional Phase’.

Did they finally get full? Food Network Cancels ‘The Kitchen’ After 40 Seasons. Hopefully, it was done humanely. You know? Over, easy?

Around the Ranch  Still Alive

Elaine and I agreed a long time back to use the same PCP.  Reason is simple:  How much information can be lost when you have to remember all the things your doctor tells you?

Pretty much a non-event, mainly.  My blood pressure was 146/71 despite my “white- coat” syndrome.  (Where your blood pressure spikes around anyone in white lab coats…)

We found it was pretty interesting that despite our taking lithium orotate (which might have something to do with ALZ onset) both of us were under what are essentially background levels.

My recent cutback in red meat may have contributed to my red blood cell count being low. Still looks like the Omega-3s and solid multi-vits plus the anti-aging protocols are working.

I drank a lot of water before the visit – and asked to use the “facilities” and was directed to the small room, one hall over and two doors away.  Returning, I asked the PCP “Got any more of those pee cups? I filled up as many as I could, but if you have more I can finish peeing…please?)

(I’ve gotten used to people rolling their eyes.)

Pappy told me the story of being at Pearl during WW II – nurse came in and handed him a beer glass to pee in (such was the supply chain at the time)/

“Want that poured with, or without a head on it?”

Seems to run in families, huh?

Off to contemplate why – Since science says the Moon is 4.275 billion years old, why do aome people insist we get a New Moon every month?  Or, is that an in Ure face hint that everyone on this planet is crazy?

Write when you get rich,

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