‘Bout Time to Rally

February 9th, 2010

Contrary to what some people think, I am not a pessimist when it comes to financial markets.  I’m an agnostic.  I don’t care if a market is head for the moon, or directly to hell, if you have some clear vision into how the wave counts are working out – and you’ve done some study on how to invest using levered products like double-return tracking funds or options,  there’s always a way to make money.

Problem is, of course, that you’ve got to have the wave counts right, or you get tossed out on your ear broke.  So, after doing a fine series of short-side option trades from January 12th till the end of last week, I decided to put on a short rally-covering position which I expect I’ll be clicking out of today or tomorrow.

When I looked early this morning, the price of gold was up over $150 and that could mean a 100-150-pooint day for the Dow.  And, should that happen on schedule – heading for what I’m guessing will be a high around 10,250-10,350 before turning down again, I may be able to tack another 10% onto my tiny portfolio.

The reason I plan to take profits today (or tomorrow) if everything goes well?  Subscribers to the December Shape of Things to Come report from www.halfpasthuman.com have been keeping an eye on February 11th ever since the report was issued because the banksters/PowersThatBe are schedule to bump into troubles later this week:

“This [systemic rot] is showing as [pervasive] and becoming [exposed] as the [criminal federal reserve banksters] will ‘attempt’ to [stabilize] the [currency flows].  They are indicated to be [reacting in shock] and further to take [actions] that will [reveal the gaping holes] in the [control systems].  Once this [secrets revealed] phase of [currency control] begins to manifest in late Winter 2010, most probably after February 11th), the data sets are all gathering under the descriptor of [breach (in the dame)].”  (Shape of Things to Come v013, p.14, 12/5/2009)_

OK, now we fast-forward for those skeptical of predicting the future using pretty cool software and go to present headlines that happen to hit around Feb. 11th:

 

And this comes on what date?  February 11th.  Why are we not surprised?

A couple of possible ‘punches’ come to mind here:

 

I think you can see why the PTB will do whatever they can to run up the market for a couple of days going into Feb. 11th, non?

Granted, this kind of thinking may seem a bit far -fetched, but I pays my money and takes my chances.  In the pre-open the financial stock I went long on (at its low Monday) is already up 1.4%.  So, yeah, maybe my trading target will be ‘hit’.

The more gullible (who don’t think through how much the PTB would have to pay put-holders if the Dow really doesn’t rally into next week’s options expiration at least some distance – may be satisfied that the Wholesale Inventories number out at 10 AM Eastern this morning, or tomorrow’s Balance of Trade numbers of Oil inventories will have something to do with the upward thrust I’m expecting.  But “Heaven’s no!”

having given you a few hints, I’ll just go back to quietly minding my trades.  I learned long ago, never to pay my unrealized capital gains until realized, LOL.

Bombs In Play?

The headline that “Israel urges “crippling” sanctions now against Iran” has us wondering if they maybe know something about this Feb. 11th talk?

Still, I remember who invented algebra – a nearly crippling stunner at times itself.

Let It Snow, Redux

Washington is about to get another 20-inches.

We’ll have none of those distasteful jokes about how many inches (and for how long) the rest of the country has taken from Washington, please.  This is a G -rated website. 

(G as in greed?)

Global What?

Meantime the additional snow is causing some timing issues for a NOAA climate change announcement.

Not Photoshopped

That picture of GWB on a billboard reading “Miss Me Yet?” is not a Photoshop bit off the net.  Real deal is alongside I-35 up in Minnesota.

Social Security Busted?

Don’t get me started on how the busting of Social Security could lead to revolution in America (that’s in today’s Coping section if you’re interested).  Still the stories are out there asking “Will Baby Boomers Bust Social Security“? 

What??? With all the fine IOU’s the past half dozen administrations wrote up while the Fed was blowing off purchasing power of dollars?  What Who’d have thunk?

OK, besides UrbanSurvival readers who’ve had the low-down on buying dirt to raise food, getting debt free, not trusting 401(k)’s  (Did I warn you, or what?) and so forth for 13-years now…

See: “Government requests information on using annuities in 401(k)’s” – which the way I figure would create a new class of bond patsies.  But then I’m a grouch and skeptic at this hour.  I’m just plain unsociable the rest of the time.

Foreign Affairs

Prime minister ‘halo hair‘ Yulia Tymoshenko is refusing to concede defeat in Ukraine elections.  Is her ‘do’ done?  Great exercise in archetyping, huh?

European Super-Government

Why do I get the feeling that people in Europe have sipped a little too much fluoride?  I mean think about it:  first they had nice little national governments.  Then the globalistas got into the mix and sold them the EU…and now the Euro MP’s are backing a new European Commission.

And no doubt from that level will come more globalist agendized stooges to push global taxes in the globalist push to ‘own earth’.

The longer the leash, the less controlled the dogs says common sense…but where’s the accountability.  Are Euro memories as short as ours when it comes to elites and the blameshifters?

I can just hear the excuses now.  “Oh that law was drafted by the European commissioners.  No wonder our forefathers got off the continent.

Conspiracy Theorists

Blair slams ‘conspiracy theorists’ for their decision to commit British t5roops to the Iraq War.

Look here Tony:  Uranium enrichment takes tons of electric power.  Iraq couldn’t keep the power on 8-hours a day.  That wasn’t the kind of power they would need for enrichment was it?

So if all the M.I. number bureaus down the street couldn’t figure it out, wasn’t anyone advising your team smart enough to see through the WMD  BS?

If a behavior seems strange but a theory ties all the weirdness together, maybe it’s a fact not a conspiracy.

Take quantum physics conspiracy as another example….

Coping: The Revolution That’s Now in Progress

February 9th, 2010

Maybe I missed something which caused ‘all this’ to happen.  Sure, it has been there in the predictive linguistics out of www.halfpasthuman.com (next run due around March 21) with its warnings of a country of years back that the ‘revolution meme’ would be running ‘hot’ (linguistically speaking) in this timeframe.  But,  even with the rickety time machine, there are events forming up that make me sit back in wonder:  Is this what “revolution” looks like? 

What’s interesting to me – and maybe it’s a symptom of increasing pressure of the socioeconomic/political/psychological sort – is America is developing a ‘hair trigger’ mentality.

It first popped conscious for me Sunday when a reader of the latest Peoplenomics report confused “George-reporter” with “George’s view”.

In my interview with Jim Goulding, he gave an interesting analysis of the conflict between generations; e.g. the Boomers, the 40-somethings (Gen-X’ers) and the young up and coming “Millennials” (Mills).  To which a reader sent in:

“I’ve never been actually PISSED that you were wrong – this statement is total and complete BS! ‘And, Xers? We all hate ourselves and think all the problems in the world are our fault. We are looking to the Mills to save us

UP YOURS for even thinking such a thing. X’rs ARE PISSED AT THE BOOMERS! Simply because they made a really comfy nest for themselves and fed us to the wolves.

We do not want our kids saving us, WE WANT THE BOOMERS OUT OF OUR WAY! Boomers by and large are complete idiots who have hid behind a facade of rules and regulations preventing the ascent of my generation – they have created nothing else. Just rules, rules, rules. If that is your take on the X’ers – Screw you along with the Charlatan boomer generation. Not sure I ever want to read / hear another word out of you – that’s your linguistics drop off. We stop listening.”

Until that email, the ‘revolutionary’ discussion had been – at least in my mind, a small place at that – to be confined to socioeconomic and possibly political outcomes.  But THIS was a whole LOT BIGGER.

But Wait!  There’s more.  A reader this morning sent it an email that got into how there’s a repolarization around racial lines going on as well and she noted a couple of examples from television and (as she read them) presidential books. 

She then got around to the topic of her email “The Revolution may already be here:”

“…ultimately, it seems that this country is loosing a lot of ground on the issue of mending fences, and all living “together.” my anthropological background would draw the conclusion that rather than Obama drawing people together, somehow he has created an impetus for the channeling of all old wounds into a new power of accusation rather than a melding of people. very worrisome. and part of that is just the reading between the lines of other things. of course, the problem is that history cannot be changed; therefore, if we are to base our interactions on historical injustice, there is no resolution…only a wound that grows ever larger, picked at and festering…

I’ve seen some other things but don’t wanna take up yer time, just thought you could throw this in your hopper…oh, saw a woman financial commentator from Davos; her comment was that she was very surprised at the power china had there this year, and how diminished the united states was as a power…

Other examples of the “Revolution in Progress” started to pop out of the headlines when looked at in this particular way.  For example, you saw where the (female) politic chief of King, North Carolina is in hot water because during a state of emergency due to snow, residents were barred from buying alcohol and firearms.

Now, it’s not like she personally declared ‘martial law’ – it’s just that when a state of emergency happens in many burgs, the ban on alcohol and firearms kicks in.  Stimulus-response.  Except, that America has been hypersensitized because of recent (historically speaking) events like the KatRita ‘canes that brought jackbooted thugs into our living rooms seizing Constitutionally protected rights and people have made it clear aren’t going to stand for that.

(Why someone would go out in near-blizzard conditions to buy a gun is beyond me, but I suppose that’s why I don’t living in NC… on the other hand, running out of rum for hot buttered rums that does make sense.)

I guess the key thing that’s dawning under what’s left of my hair is that ‘the revolution’ meme is not a one-dimensional political upheaval.  It has other dimensions as well:

  • It’s the boomers having to give up their plans for a long and prosperous retirement since they allowed themselves to be ripped off by the banksters and fraudsters over multiple administrations who stole from Social Security Trust fund money, putting in dead-beat IO’s which will be paid back with deflated  purchasing power ’script’.
  • It’s everyone figuring out that since 1913 the Feral (sic) Reserve has deliberately diminished the purchasing power of savings by 2.3% per year by printing more money than a correspondent increase in GDP would dictate in order to assure US dollars would retain purchasing power.
  • It’s the X’ers who are not seeing the Boomers ‘get out of our way’ so they can move into command-level of the economy.
  • It’s the remains of the crooked Boomers in politics who figure that open borders/immigration will mean more low-end workers to fund the aforementioned ripped-off Social Security and now other frauds like the payment for the bankster bailouts and so forth.
  • It’s the Millennials who are taking up an ‘ain’t never gonna be able to get me some’ mindset which is coupled with ‘planet’s been wrecked anyways…’ attitude which makes them an ‘ain’t got nuthin, so ain’t got nuthin’ to lose…’ group.  Mills buy a home?  Not even on the drawing board for my kids and they’re all pushing 30.  Are they pissed?  Yep.
  • Then you’ve got several imperial cultures (Black and Hispanic) trying to change the prevailing media-portrayed paradigm…which is being fought with hard times/rise-up-against-oppression music, sexually explicit imagery, drugs, and, oh just for good measure more weapons than you can shake a stick at…
  • You do have the ‘right’ tattoo, don’t you?  That’s like people are putting on their own UPC codes when they ‘too’ up…marks of the beast/ownership down at the archetype level.  Preconscious tribalism/retribing/ganging/role-assigning, stamped right here.  A rite of passage into….membership in….in…..well…what?
  • Did I mention the growing anger around climate/’environmental destruction?

 

Which unfortunately doesn’t even begin to cover all of the social pressures that are moving America into Re-Revolutionary times.  I bet there’s a secret government study group that has figured this out as well and which whispers in the ear of people in Washington: “Ya’ll better keep BIG distractions like wars in the sandbox going, or this whole thing’s gonna blow…”

Seems to me, it may anyway.  At least that’s where the linguistics have been pointing and while those who see the future (like Cliff and others – e.g. Gerald Celente) have tried to keep discussion of the ‘revolution’ in a positive light (e.g. ‘revolution in spirit’, ‘revolution in technology’, and ‘intellectual revolution’) there’s a far more sinister set of forces developing that is pushing multiple towards the barricades and confrontation with authority on multiple fronts:

  • Irresponsible finance
  • Disappearing opportunity for advancement
  • Imperial culture symbology (bling & pimped out rides)
  • Unaffordable housing
  • Soaring costs for basics like food & clothing
  • Environmental destruction
  • Slimy political officeholders who failed to Lead when they had a chance

 

Like the Peoplenomics reader who got pissed that I interviewed someone who ‘put it out there’, try not to confused George the Messenger with the news he’s delivering.  It isn’t pretty.

America’s being divided by supremacists of all stripe:  Supremacy of Federalism, Supremacy of Nanny State, Supremacy of Police/Anti-terrorism, Supremacy of Financial exploitation, Supremacy of intergenerational cost-shifting, Supremacy of the Boomers holding onto power, Supremacy of Bling and Street/Turf Power, and the list just goes on and on.  Did I mention the republicrats/democons – supremacists of their own FU’d paradigm who kill third party efforts to get fundamental ‘change’ on the docket?

So if you want to figure something big, try to figure out how to reverse the tide now flowing in human affairs. 

If we (as a nation) don’t wrap our arms around this problem set/meta set associated with “the R word” then we about lock in another word and it feeds into concepts that leaves a couple of billion dead littering modelspace over the next few years:  terra change and devolution.

Like Report from Iron Mountain said:  If America doesn’t have an external enemy, we have a bigger problem…

We’re maybe going to have some snow out here at the ranch later on this week.  One to three inches I hear.

Got to run out today and buy much rum so as not to be impacted by States of Emergency I didn’t see coming.

Not like I’m the sole bearer of bad news on this stuff.  Go read over the Paul Farrell story “How to invest for a global-debt-bomb explosion Prepare for an apocalyptic anarchy ending Wall Street’s toxic capitalism.

Send your comments to george@ure.net


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Peoplenomics This Week

Life After Trading?

A good friend of mine was recently let go at a major trading operation in Chicago where he was supervising a group of bond traders.  I had a chance to pick his brain a bit about what’s “out there” and, since he’s got an excellent handle on generational turnings (after Strauss & Howe) what he sees on the road ahead is useful.  Following the interview, be sure and flip over to this week’s ChartPack where the ‘end of the world’ is slowly resolving into view…

More For Subscribers            To Subscribe, CLICK HERE

Cookie Video

The folks at Maxa Research have put together a short video (sound track by guess who?) that shows the Maxa Cookie Manager.  You can see it here.

I don’t usually get all whipped up about software, but this is one of those dandy tools that just simply works great.  First thing I put on my new computer when I got it was Avira Anti-virus and Maxa Cookie Manager (MCM).  Either follow the on-screen download instructions of simply click:

Once you try it out, to upgrade to the fully functioning version, just click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those nasty and highly intrusive ‘non-browser specific’ cookies.  Bonus:  You computer may run faster. 

Not for Mac’s:  MCM does support the Safari Browser, but that does not mean it is compatible with Mac OS. Maxa-Tools only support the Windows world….so far.  Give them time…

“Live on $10,000″ A Year

Having a hard time making ends meet?  (Like who isn’t, right?)  A good starting point to better match up income with outgo is our $10 e-book “How to Live on #10,000 a Year…or less!”

 Buy Now

It’s an automatic download.  It’s written in an information dense style: The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the cheap, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you have a little hustle left.  A bonus section called “How to Build Anything” should instill confidence if you’ve never taken on a home improvement/home creation project before, too…..  Click here for the index and details.

MyGroPonics

My commodity broker JB Slear and I have written a simple book to get you started on high density hydroponics.  It’s an example of how someone with a little creativity, access to a few ‘dollar stores’ and willing to try out some new farming techniques can grow an amazing amount of produce sin a very small space – like even an apartment balcony (if it gets some sunlight).  Sound interesting?  It’s just $10 bucks here…

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Pass It On

A different take on things – that’s what you’ll find here most mornings.  If you know of anyone who might also like our content, simply click here and send a link to them.  Or, if you hated what you read, send the link to all your ‘worst enemies’.  Like they say in Burbank, “Ain’t no such thing as bad press…”

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 Last week’s report is here.    For back issues of this site, click here.

Secret Meetings of Banksters

February 8th, 2010

If you’re thinking “Gee, what were all those central banksters doing meeting in Australia this weekend to talk about?”  You’re not alone.

My personal ‘best guess’ is that it’s because (as I explained in the ChartPack with Peoplenomics this weekend for subscribers) “How the World Ends” is now clearly in sight for the global financial system.  It’s not just in sight but it’s actually now just a simple charting exercise…really!

If you take the recent Peoplenomics report on ’social engineering’ and marry it up with the ChartPack this weekend, you’ll understand why this week’s version of the Aggregate Index (at the bottom of this page) now includes the note “Next ‘terrorism’ insertion point”.  Just guessing:  5-10 weeks out.

Without a late spring to summerish terrorism event, a huge number of people will wake up to Depression 2.0 and that will really cause problems.  And like I’ve said before, look for whatever it is to include some big web use component to drive seizure of freedom on the internet, to boot.

All of which is not to suggest that banksters would ever back such a thing directly.  We’ll be left with no fingerprints, just more suspicions. 

Meantime, a number of people have suggested that this is a dandy time to watch/listen to “The Whitehouse Coup (1933)” just in case you’re thinking history doesn’t rhyme.

As one of the YouTube posted wrote “a couix? was thwarted,BULLSHIT. Resist oligarchy now. “We The People” are null and void unless we rise up” the mood in America is changing as is the patience of the people.

Note: Try not to confuse my reporting on social change as endorsing anything other than lawful actions like voting and peaceful assembly.  Since this site is focused on how we’re replaying the Great Depression of the 1930’s with the one that is being extended (and as been since 2000) in an effort to paper over generational change and fiat currency debasement, we do need to watch social markers developing and key among these is the rhyming between the social events of the 1930’s and contemporary events.

Where the 1930’s was seen of things like “Communists Led the First National Demonstration During the Great Depression“  we see a rhyme (half a verse off) with the Tea Partying this time around.  Paradoxical stuff, but follow along here…this isn’t always going to make perfect sense since this Depression is different than the first one…

Hijacking Tea?

Interesting article over at InfoWars.com about how the “Subverted Tea Party Movement told to embrace Republican Platform.“  Not that it comes as a huge surprise, since GOP operative-types took out some ‘tea party’ web named even before the Bushistas were bounced from office.  Good theater to watch people think a multi-party system is possible.  Which, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, the ruling duopoly could never allow. 

Then the GOP seems to be taking up a “No experience is no problem” kind of mindset.  Repubcrats and Democons, ‘change’ slogans is all that ever seems to get delivered.

You saw the recent Time article on the secessionist movemrent up in Vermont?

Washington Closed

Say, here’s a novel idea…seeing as the federal government operations in Washington are mostly closed down today for weather I have to be the bad guy and ask “Is this a paid day off”?  Just a lot of taxpayers are likely curious.  The Federal Times reports this will be an “an excused absence for the number of hours they were scheduled to work.”

Might this be another one of those reasons that working for government is so much more popular than working for yourself or working in private industry?  Need I mention the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employee Retirement System? 

As a small time consultant, writer, and goatherd, I’d sure like to get a benefit package like that…ain’t anyone heard about ‘equal protection statues’ besides us civvies?

Speaking of weather, they could be writing “To Live and Slide in LA” as heavy mudslides are reported up in the foothills to the Angeles National Forest due to rains.

Iran’s Percentage Game

Word that Iran is planning to enrich uranium to 20% purity could be taken as good news – or bad:  They are going for higher purity levels for a research reactor, and a weapon would require 90% purity.

The country is also holding a domestic laser exhibit – all kinds of interesting nuclear-related things one can do with lasers, so one more “Hmmm…”

Sarah Palin’s already beating the war drums out on the campaign trail.

Connecticut Explosion

Five dead and many injured in a natural gas explosion at a power plant under construction in Connecticut Sunday.

Sun Cycle 24 Starting?

Although it may have been delayed a bit, the Sun is  showing some interesting activity now as SpaceWeather has a biggy developing out of sunspot 1045...

Gotta move up putting those Schottky diodes on my solar panels, I guess…might need ‘em in a couple of years as surge protectors.

Coiping: Monday & Work

February 8th, 2010

While probably 99% of American males were glued to their teevee sets for Super Bowl, I spent Sunday on the back of the snorting orange monster called Kubota (made in Georgia, btw) whipping a sense of orderliness out of about 5-acres which later on this year will be goat pasture.  this morning I’m pretty much sore all over and discovering muscles I didn’t know I had.  But about 3-acres is done for the year and ready for fencing which only leaves about another two week’s worth of tractoring – maybe three – to get the land whipped into the kind of shape I want it.

Fair bit of art to tractoring rough land.  First thing you do is poush over scrub trees and grind them up with the brush-hog a flail mower that runs on a power-take-off shaft from the tractor and beats everything to snot making a tremendous racket the whole time and jarring you silly.  The next step is to pull the Muscatine grape vines out of the large oak trees.  The grape vines, many as big around as your wrist can be 60-80 feet long and yes, when they come down on your head, they hurt, LOL.  All that’s left is running over them to turn ‘em into mulch and then to push up the logging leftovers that haven’t decomposed yet.

Point is that while I was doing this, I was reminded that there are some jobs which people do that are extremely rewarding.  For example, framing a house has always been high on my ‘personal rewards’ list.  Something about capturing or taming formerly disorganized space that’s just darn rewarding.

Writing (and broadcasting) has always appealed to me, too.  Something about being able to wr4ite (or speak) something that will get people to thinking rather than just sitting around swallowing crap hook, line & sinker.

Working on electronics has its own special rewards, too.  Chasing electrons around through the bowels of a radio, for example, trying to find where they’re not corralled and doing what I want ‘em to.   And finally, getting them to come out of a speaker or an antenna output, depending on whether they’re receiver electrons or transmitter electrons.

The reason for mentioning this – and on a Monday, at that – is to remind myself, my kids, and maybe you that if you’re doing something that you really enjoy, it’s not really work.  It’s activity and sometimes the right activity can verge on being fun.

I realize not everyone can be having fun all the time but there’s a joy that comes from a good landing, well-stitched artery, perfectly prepared meal, properly operating software, timely mail delivery, and nicely designed and framed house that is its own reward.

I figure the safest time to be out working in the woods of East Texas is when Super Bowl is on; fighting a cold north wind, trying not to snag a hydraulic line on brush being pushed, not to snap a stump with the mower blade, and at the end of it having a nice piece of land looking cared for.

Best of all:  No hangover and I get to do more of it over the next several weeks and maybe some of the novelty/joy will wear thin.  I’ll try to shoot a few  before & afters for you.  Main difference between Super Bowl Sunday and After Bowl Monday, near as I can figure, is most places don’t supply beer & grazing materials on the job site.

Gone Sailing

Meantime, as a 10-year liveaboard sailor, I’d be negligent not to mention that the America’s Cup trials are getting underway today.  Good story on the NY Times website about the monohull versus multihull debate.

Since you may have never got deeply into nautical design, allow me to bring you up to speed a bit.  There are several different approaches to ‘hull’ shape – the part of the boat that goes in the water. 

A traditional hull is a long banana-ish kind of affair that moves through the water in a very predictable way.  The basic formula is 1.34 times the square root of the waterline length gives you the basic ‘hull speed’ which can be diddled with this way and that.  But it’s why little boats can’t keep up with bigger boats of the same hull type.  A 36 foot traditional monohull will do 8.04 knots (6 * 1.34)  as a basic displacement hull, while a 9 foot boat will do 3.02 knots.

The diddling is incredible, though.  How the bow enters the waves, reduction in wetted area (wetted area equals friction) and even how well the boat is “faired” around protrusions like through-hull fittings for engine cooling or how much disturbance the rudder makes – all that figures into ultimate speed for a given set of conditions.

The 1.34 monohull speed is just a basic rule of thumb and there are calculators alike this one where you can find conversions for multi-hulls, although truth be told, if you’re going exotic, I’d recommend you look at hydrofoils, but that’s a whole other discussion.  I’m sure if my friend Cliff were up at this hour, he’d say something like “What about skimming & planing hulls like the Sharpie and the Geary designed Flatties?”

Example of a flattie may be seen here  of you can go buy one used for $500 bucks if you’re in Oregon.  The discussion of “sharpies’ could last longer than a day at work and there’s a fair write up on Wikipedia about them.  Cliff really likes the Phil Bolger sharpies, although if you like sailing straight up and down, you would be much better off with a multiple hull since the sharpies are tender – nauticalese for tippy to a point (about 30º of tippy since you asked).

Which gets us around to the whole question about the America’s Cup racing: Should the sport continue to be confined to monohulls, or should the sport be changed up to include multihulls and exotics like hydrofoils?

Hard call: traditionalists on one side, speed demons on the other.

Either way, as the old sailing joke goes:  ‘If you want to get a really good approximation of sailboat racing, go stand in a cold shower and tear up $100-dollar bills.”  Been there, done that. If you ever get there yourself, a little more Buffett and remember the old saying “Gentlemen never go to weather…”

Press on General Aviation

I’ve been getting a fair number of emails and notes from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association urging me to contribute to their fund to fight new restrictions and user fees in Washington, although no sign of user gees for general aviation/sport pilots in the current budget.  Still with the budget process just starting it may come up…so goes the fund raising material.

My own feelings?  If a plane is using ATC [air traffic control] it oughta pay its fair share, TCA’s [terminal control areas] excepted so sport  & private pilots can still fly on the cheap.  But pressurized pistons and corpjets using IFR [instrument flight rules] airspace (Class A airspace is all that at and over 18,000 feet)?

“If they fly Class A…let ‘em pay…” or how about “17-9,  free is fine…”? Although I appreciate how it takes a checkbook to be heard in Washington.

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How comes FAA pilot’s licenses STILL don’t have pictures on them?????

Lifestyles/Deathstyles:  Killer Boredom

New research says you really can be bored to death.  Funny this would come up.

While I was resting up after having my Sunday brain bouncing I was looking at airplanes again and thinking to myself.. I’ve got to come up with a new hobby and/or huge personal project.

I’m convinced that people are by nature inquisitive, learning, wandering, adaptive critters and that when they stop wandering, inquiring, adapting, and learning news tuff they wither up and die.

This being Monday is a fine time to ask “What turns my crank?  What’s my BIG GOAL that I’m working toward?  What’s the big mountain I’m climbing?”

 

If you don’t have one, go find one…’cuz is you don’t, you may be sliding toward the Big Exit faster than you have to….seem the movie “The Bucket List” is very much on point.

 

Reader’s Writes:

Here’s one:

I read your column every day…sometimes twice if needed. It is part of my morning routine up here in the Great White North.

I have two complaints.

1. You publish your blog at 8 hundred and I am up at 5…gotta wait 3 hours. 2. You are getten gun shy. Somebody must uh sprinkled some buckshot your way in the form of rebuke.

My very humble advice would be to not be shy concerning your views. Your blog is a source of truth and hope in an entropic society.”

Answers are simple:

1.  Sleep in more.

2.  Not getting gun shy – just ‘normal folks’ (if I can stretch that far enough to include you ) are getting more radical.  Remember, when the web bots started talking about how regular folks will be using terms like ‘revolution’ (3-4 year ago) that was revolutionspeak.  Today it’s ho-hum.
 

No put away that Molotov cocktail and get’cher ass off to work. Don’t you have a hobby to fund, or sumpthin?  Leftovers and replay of game highlights to look forward to tonight?

Send your comments to george@ure.net


Shop Till Your Drop Department:


Peoplenomics This Week

Life After Trading?

A good friend of mine was recently let go at a major trading operation in Chicago where he was supervising a group of bond traders.  I had a chance to pick his brain a bit about what’s “out there” and, since he’s got an excellent handle on generational turnings (after Strauss & Howe) what he sees on the road ahead is useful.  Following the interview, be sure and flip over to this week’s ChartPack where the ‘end of the world’ is slowly resolving into view…

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Cookie Video

The folks at Maxa Research have put together a short video (sound track by guess who?) that shows the Maxa Cookie Manager.  You can see it here.

I don’t usually get all whipped up about software, but this is one of those dandy tools that just simply works great.  First thing I put on my new computer when I got it was Avira Anti-virus and Maxa Cookie Manager (MCM).  Either follow the on-screen download instructions of simply click:

Once you try it out, to upgrade to the fully functioning version, just click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those nasty and highly intrusive ‘non-browser specific’ cookies.  Bonus:  You computer may run faster. 

Not for Mac’s:  MCM does support the Safari Browser, but that does not mean it is compatible with Mac OS. Maxa-Tools only support the Windows world….so far.  Give them time…

“Live on $10,000″ A Year

Having a hard time making ends meet?  (Like who isn’t, right?)  A good starting point to better match up income with outgo is our $10 e-book “How to Live on #10,000 a Year…or less!”

 Buy Now

It’s an automatic download.  It’s written in an information dense style: The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the cheap, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you have a little hustle left.  A bonus section called “How to Build Anything” should instill confidence if you’ve never taken on a home improvement/home creation project before, too…..  Click here for the index and details.

MyGroPonics

My commodity broker JB Slear and I have written a simple book to get you started on high density hydroponics.  It’s an example of how someone with a little creativity, access to a few ‘dollar stores’ and willing to try out some new farming techniques can grow an amazing amount of produce sin a very small space – like even an apartment balcony (if it gets some sunlight).  Sound interesting?  It’s just $10 bucks here…

Add to Cart    View Cart   

Pass It On

A different take on things – that’s what you’ll find here most mornings.  If you know of anyone who might also like our content, simply click here and send a link to them.  Or, if you hated what you read, send the link to all your ‘worst enemies’.  Like they say in Burbank, “Ain’t no such thing as bad press…”

—-

 Last week’s report is here.    For back issues of this site, click here.

‘New Electrics” Breakthroughs Arriving

February 5th, 2010

We’ll get to the Unemployment data in a minute.  That’s routine stuff and sometimes the nonroutine is much more important.  We can finally start to reveal what’s happening with the predictive linguistic forecast from www.halfpasthuman.com which has for the past 2-years, or longer, referred to something in modelspace that best translated into “the new electrics.”

Confidential sources now tell us that both China and India are about to unveil new electrical devices which will break the grip of the global energy & power cartels with breakthrough technology that bends the rules of physics in new and game-changing ways.

One device, due out from China shortly is described as a “battery charger” which will support a fixed 2 KW load on a continuous basis.  Yep – that unit which has an anticipated price point in the $2,000 (USD range/current exchange rates) also features a projected lifespan of 50-years and is a zero emissions device.

Apparently, the new devices use certain rare earth/strategic metals and are the motivation for China putting the brakes on strategic mineral exports recently.  This also plays into the reports that China’s interest in going to the moon is more than a passing fancy.  There may be desired materials there.

The purported existence of a Chinese over-unity device suitable for commercialization may also play into why China “Renews opposition to Iran sanctions” on the one hand, while Iran’s leadership is promising February 11th will reveal a strike against ‘global arrogance’ and we’re left wondering if more than opposition to antigovernment demonstrations is in play.

We hear the Chinese technology is not precisely perfect.  Seems that due to the physics involved, the unit doesn’t scale well; meaning that optimum efficiencies come in the 2 KW region and so larger installations, like homes, would need multiple units if air conditioning is required.  More to the point, it works best when fed as a DC output into a large battery bank and yes, the Chinese have been getting large in battery development (which breakthrough US efforts continue in Utah in the quest for ever higher energy densities for storage media which run the gamut from conventional lead-acid to the more exotic zinc/air and the class called ’super-capacitors.’

(I’ll skip my personal involvement in battery instrumentation, but I know enough to know that absorbed glass matt batteries (like the Concorde AGM’s) are the battery of choice for F-15’s while long-life lithium is the choice for high altitude remote video gear….really remote and really mountainous terrain video gear, LOL)

And the technology is not likely to land in the US; at least immediately, since China is planning it’s own version of ‘power to the people’ with goals of developing vehicle conversions and other ’schools’ for distributing the technology benefits.

Significantly, we hear that the key IP (intellectual property) was set for patent approval several months back which fits like a glove with the predictive linguistics.

When the announcement comes, we’re not looking for the Chinese to sell it as an ‘over-unity device’ (produces more energy than consumed), but simply they plan to call it a ‘battery charger’ and thus not offend conventional paradigm adherents who would have a problem acknowledging something out of their immediate understanding.

Our sources tell us that the only issue now is time-to-market since over-unity applications have been claimed in other countries by companies like Lutec Australia and here in the US the efforts of The Orion Project have also been directed toward the fundamental breakthroughs in over-unity engineering.

The other project is described as an Indian-backed project which relies for its precious materials on deposits (at/near – we’re not clear from our sources on this) the disputed Kashmir region along the hotly contested India/Pakistan border.

Our sources tell us this machine is different than the Chinese.  for one thing, it reportedly is  capable of variable load handling.  Thus, it will be more adaptable and we hear more scalable in size.  rumor has it that certain Swedish officials are holding talks with the Indian company because there are unique power issues in the high latitudes and the Indian project may deliver under more adverse conditions. 

According to our sources, the Indian company unit can be scaled to 10 KW within the same box and uses different technology so there’s potentially a ton more IP to be developed in the field.

So, as we go into the carefully orchestrated decline in the global financial markets occurs over the balance of the year, we expect new rising stars in the FOREX markets may be the Renminbi and the Rupee.  

We’re left to speculate whether Venezuela’s recent devaluations are based on good intel or the market separating wheat from chaff.

In terms of ‘what good the rickety time machine’ we figure it doesn’t get much better than this and our thanks to the confidential sources who are keeping us up to speed on ‘the new electrics’.

Can’t Stop Laughing / Crying Department

Testing 10,000 Redux

We start this morning’s adventures in the market with the jobs report just released:

The unemployment rate fell from 10.0 to 9.7 percent in January, and nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged (-20,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment fell in construction and in transportation and warehousing, while temporary help services and retail trade added jobs.

Household Survey Data

In January, the number of unemployed persons decreased to 14.8 million, and the unemployment rate fell by 0.3 percentage point to 9.7 percent. (See table A-1.)

In January, unemployment rates for most major worker groups–adult men (10.0 percent), teenagers (26.4 percent), blacks (16.5 percent), and Hispanics (12.6 percent)–showed little change. The jobless rate for adult women fell to 7.9 percent, and the rate for whites declined to 8.7 percent. The jobless rate for Asians was 8.4 percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

This release includes new household survey tables with information about employment and unemployment of veterans, persons with a disability, and the foreign born. In January, the unemployment rate of veterans from Gulf War era II (September 2001 to the present) was 12.6 percent, compared with 10.4 percent for nonveterans. Persons with a disability had a higher jobless rate than persons with no disability–15.2 versus 10.4 percent. In addition, the labor force participation rate of persons with a disability was 21.8 percent, compared with 70.1 percent for those without a disability. The unemployment rate for the foreign born was 11.8 percent, and the rate for the native born was 10.3 percent.

The ‘True Life Confessional” about the 2009 corrections to the CES birth/death model came in at only -617,000 jobs.

And, thanks to a fine statistical reorganization, you have to hunting around to find the civilian workforce number (one of those incredible shrinking numbers Washington is so famous for – you know – like the ‘peace dvidend’ of a few years back?).

When you find it…you’ll see that the number of people employed jumped 541,000 jobs in January.  I must be a crack head demon because I sure don’t see it…but who am I but a nutter in the East Texas Outback?

The corrections to the CES Birth Death Model can be found here...  Even better (as in less believable) the U-6 alternative measures of labor underutilization dropped from  17.3% of the workforce last month down 8/10th’s of a percent to 16.5% this month.

Yeah, sure, you bet’cha.

When you run into headlines like “Payrolls fall in January, jobless rate at 5-month low” don’t stop and ask “If jobs are going away, how can the unemployment rate drop?”  Damn it….you’re not supposed to understand any of this stuff…isn’t that clear? 

To Markets, To Markets

Stocks could muddle a bit lower this morning based on the futures (oh, and growing wonderment about the jobs number methodology).  In the wake of the Thursday decline, Robin Landry sent out an advisory to his colleagues who are professionals in the biz…

“This is a quick update to alert you to the possibility that the first wave down is about to end and give you a chance to sell at the top of a wave ii rally. My primary count has us in a 5th wave down to complete wave I down. The alternate count is even more bearish and wave i ended on 1/29/10 and wave ii completed at the high on 2/2/10. If that is the case then the decline is now in wave iii and my target for it is the 9500 area. I hope the primary count is correct and on a rally it will enable more of you to get your house in order. The main thing to remember is that the surprises will be on the downside. The jobs report out in the morning should help clear up the count. “

So we’ll watch the first hours or two into trading.  I won’t go on the very first market move since there’s a reason they call the first hour “the amateur hour”.

Meantime, my commodity broker, JB Slear has started up a daily preopen comment and this morning’s is “Red  lights everywhere…”

Also of Note

This being Friday and with many big stories, About the only other two to mention in passing is the  powerhouse storm about to sock-it-to the East today and into the weekend. 

The other one is the earthquake.  The predicted 8.0 and above that was supposed to hit Portland according to one seer/forecaster turned out to be a 6.0 off the northern California coast.  With Portland still standing, you get to score this anyway you choose.  I await a second forecast and a new prediction.  One point is not a trend around here.

Coping: Buying Gold Yet?

February 5th, 2010

In a word: No.  But since this is Friday you get the long answer:  Reader wanted to find out if we’re into a buy zone for gold yet:

“George,

Can you believe that people are still fleeing into the dollar? It’s like they are running to the one room in the center of the burning house that doesn’t have smoke in it yet. The DXY was up to 80.28 at my first check this morning (3:30 AM…the puppies got active early). I can’t seem to find a straight answer on whether Greece is going to default and start the cascade or accept restructuring with austerity and have a total political meltdown. The EU bankers are smoking dope if they think Germany is going to bail out the whole Mediterranean region. I read that Spain is twice the burden of Greece, Portugal and Ireland put together. I don’t know whether that is an exaggeration or not. Today is going to be a good day to buy Gold. I look forward to seeing what you have to say today.

I don’t give financial advice!  But IF we fire up our hugely complex graphics program and take a couple of Kitco charts (that’s where I bought my lone gold coin, LOL) we’d see that 1) there’s a trend line which we can see in the one month charts which to me (not you!) infers lower to come and also that someone(s) saw yesterday coming and probably made pretty good bucks on the $46 beat-down:


 

Remember, gold spiked up to $1,212 in December, so I keep my credit card handy and Kitco’s phone number in hand for just the moment when I think a bottom is really in.  Now?  Not in my opinion – but that’s because I want to see if the $990 holds, or between now and summer if there might be further beat-downs administered to shake out some of ‘those of little faith’ which would allow the PTB to add to their positions before the whole economic system hits the skids later this year.

More than 2-cents worth, but since you asked, that’s how I see it.  Again – THIS IS NOT TRADING ADVICE!

Still, the longer-term decline in the dollar seems to be reversing and so a rally to 0.80 vis-à-vis the basket can’t be ruled out, especially if the Eurozone is going to have a series of financial IED’s going off. 

So follow my logic on this.  So given that we’re around $0.73 this morning, that would infer a run of something near  8 3/4% rally, which means in my vastly simplified way of looking at the economic world that I am expecting:

  • Gold pulling back to at least $980
  • The Dow coming down to the 9,400-9,500 range

 

Of course, this is just a dart thrown early before the CES jobs adjustment got unveiled, but that my present trading plan.  The only thing that changes more than my trading plans, however, is Elaine’s choice of paint colors for the house and even then, I sometimes run ahead.

Once we get there, i.e. Dow 9,500, then I may go long a few selected stocks (via options) and then once the rally targets are hit, roll over once again onto the short side of stocks.

Lots of times people ask me about entry points into trades that I make and I seldom answer.  Oh, sure, I will occasionally tells Peoplenomics readers about this trade or that but only after I enter and updated again after I exit so no nit-picky regulator can accuse me of profiting from revealing my trades…and that’s all goodness so no problem. 

But the remarkable thing is while everyone seems to want to know my entry points nobody ever asks my exit points.

Howard Hill (www.mindonmoney.wordpress.com) and I were talking about this last evening since one of my short-term plays might be to buy ‘aty-the-money’ call options at the depths of the current decline (today or Monday maybe) on the cheap and then roll out of them in about 7 trading days (or so) going into the February options expiration which comes on my birthday this year.

Howard thinks I’m nuts (not that he’s wrong, mind you) and he suggested as an alternative I consider buying one of the “Four Horsemen” (of Bankpocalypse) since there’s one which is still priced like an option and about half its book value and his gut is that it could return 20% in fairly short order (6-8 weeks).  It’s why you oughta read Howard’s column.  Damn smart fellow and generous to boot.

It was about here that I interrupted his thinking to remind him that I can’t envision anything more boring than a 20-25% return in 6-8 weeks.

Howard – having the Big Name School math degree (but he didn’t go skulls which is a clue as to which school maybe, LOL) – pointed out that if I’d make one 20% return trade a month, I could end a year’s worth of trading up nearly eight to nine times my original stake.

True that, and maybe it’s why Howard’s house is much larger than mine, but I like adventure, adrenaline, and the riskier plays.  Something about all those flashing lights going off on one of the monitors.  Gives me an excuse to sit on my butt staring at a screen.  Still, I figure if I can make 40% returns in the same period, my year end return would be closer to 56-times my grubstake.  Magic of compounding. Either that or the wild-eyed greed of unresolved karmic issues.  Or, whatever….

All this ambles around to something serious pros do and rank amateurs don’t:  The pro has a defined entry point for a trade as well as a defined exit point.  The amateur asks only for entry points.  May I remind you: Divine inspiration when to sell usually comes when the trade is upside down and by then it’s a little late.

Soooo…If you plan on making serious money, might I ever-so humbly suggest that you get in the habit of writing down before each trade what your entry and exit points are as well as the “do not exceed levels” along the way? 

Ure’s Primary Trading Rule:

 ”He who trades and runs away has cash to trade another day.”

Hurts having such discipline, but following it I clicked out of half my put options yesterday when 10 puts purchased for $100 per contract hit $140 per contract Thursday afternoon, and yes, that’s a 40% trade entered on 1/12/2010 and exiting 2/4/2010.  The other one I closed out was 4 options at a different strike entered 1/12/2010 for $170/option contract and closed yesterday for $240 per contract. 41%.
Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose.  But I have been sitting on the sidelines long enough that I’m no longer considered a pattern day trader.  Time to start buying a few of these cheap lotto tickets as the markets panic? 

With Maps of Global Risk

A reader told us that the World Economic Forum has a mighty slick “Risk Interconnections Map” online which is useful for figuring out how one world event interacts with another.

I can’t tell for sure but it looks like the map is a 2D isolation off a mapping ap most likely done in the ThinkMap platform. I showed you the p0latform back in December, 2008 (scroll down to VisualThesarus here.)

So yes, while the map looks cool in a static 2D display, it’s even cooler when you can pop up the 3D version and spin it, rotating around, up, and under it…Even neater if it has streaming news content and an emotional impact engine on it, but presumably you don’t get all the bells and whistles unless you’re in the WEF…still, the static display gives you the idea.

Now make each one of the dots a multiple drill-down into the supporting systems (markets, resources, manpower, politics & religious sects, etc…)within each country and see if you can get it on the store shelves at the $59 price point before Christmas…and don’t forget the RSS feed with risk ranker, OK?

Nice to see the ThinkMap ap being used…if that’s indeed what it is.  The fonts and links look right…. I talked to Cliff about rolling the web bot predictive modelspace over into ThinkMap instead of using the IntelliCad LISP interface, and while it would be keen and neato, doesn’t gain anything at a practical.  Still would have been cool to have link maps tying concepts in and changing over time, but the rickety time machine isn’t going to market.

Speaking of which!

The new RAID 3 X 9 is happily check-checking its heart out so spiders oughta to be venturing forth in a few weeks and we may get out first glimpse of web bot data around March 21st, or so.

Send your comments to george@ure.net


Shop Till Your Drop Department:


Peoplenomics This Week

The “Art” of Social Engineering

I have only written about Directorate 153’s social engineering mission a couple of times previously; once when its existence could be hypothecated in the wake of September 9/11 (Peoplenomics #6, Dec. 1, 2001) and we covered the hypothetical hiring of a new fellow at the Directorate – an economics/applicant named simply Rick in our September 5, 2004 report #150.  As you’ll recall, we hypothecated that a new head of strategic economic planning for the world’s hidden perpetrators of ‘peaceful war’ had been hired from senior global banking ranks in order to ensure social engineering and orchestration of global banking went smoothly.  In today’s report we look at how that project has been going or late (hypothetically) and look ahead to future inflection points where terrorism/social distracters may again be desired by the PTB.  Let me emphasize again, this is all hypothetical.

More For Subscribers            To Subscribe, CLICK HERE

Cookie Video

The folks at Maxa Research have put together a short video (sound track by guess who?) that shows the Maxa Cookie Manager.  You can see it here.

I don’t usually get all whipped up about software, but this is one of those dandy tools that just simply works great.  First thing I put on my new computer when I got it was Avira Anti-virus and Maxa Cookie Manager (MCM).  Either follow the on-screen download instructions of simply click:

Once you try it out, to upgrade to the fully functioning version, just click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those nasty and highly intrusive ‘non-browser specific’ cookies.  Bonus:  You computer may run faster. 

Not for Mac’s:  MCM does support the Safari Browser, but that does not mean it is compatible with Mac OS. Maxa-Tools only support the Windows world….so far.  Give them time…

“Live on $10,000″ A Year

Having a hard time making ends meet?  (Like who isn’t, right?)  A good starting point to better match up income with outgo is our $10 e-book “How to Live on #10,000 a Year…or less!”

 Buy Now

It’s an automatic download.  It’s written in an information dense style: The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the cheap, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you have a little hustle left.  A bonus section called “How to Build Anything” should instill confidence if you’ve never taken on a home improvement/home creation project before, too…..  Click here for the index and details.

MyGroPonics

My commodity broker JB Slear and I have written a simple book to get you started on high density hydroponics.  It’s an example of how someone with a little creativity, access to a few ‘dollar stores’ and willing to try out some new farming techniques can grow an amazing amount of produce sin a very small space – like even an apartment balcony (if it gets some sunlight).  Sound interesting?  It’s just $10 bucks here…

Add to Cart    View Cart   

Pass It On

A different take on things – that’s what you’ll find here most mornings.  If you know of anyone who might also like our content, simply click here and send a link to them.  Or, if you hated what you read, send the link to all your ‘worst enemies’.  Like they say in Burbank, “Ain’t no such thing as bad press…”

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 Last week’s report is here.    For back issues of this site, click here.

PTB: Fear the Jobs Number, Steal the ‘Net

February 4th, 2010

Tomorrow’s jobs report should be a masterful work of statistical sleight of hand, if any of the reports going into this are accurate.  Take, for example, the report that “824,000 Jobs Will Disappear on Friday” that came out of Bloomberg on Wednesday.

At the root of this is something called the CES Birth/Death Model.  It’s a forecasting tool used by the Labor Department to estimate the creation of jobs which would otherwise not be counted since the assumption is that small companies and startups don’t get properly accounted for.

When you look at the Birth/Death model you can see how the statistical ‘confessional’ last January took 356,000 jobs out of the previous year’s optimism.

A little quick time with a calculator shows that with the exception of the January 2009 reduction of 356,000 jobs, the CES Birth/Death Model alleged that 1,238,000 jobs had been ‘created’ in 2009.

To expect this huge creation was going on in the private sector seems absurd yet unabashedly, the CES numbers for 2009 claimed (ex-January ‘09) that 154,000 construction jobs were created in the midst of the housing collapse.

Equally rich:  The CES Model would have us believe that 312,000 jobs were creased in leisure and hospitality – no doubt from all those exotic vacations we could all afford in 2009.

Almost as good as:  The 187,000 jobs created in the private sector in Trade, Transportation, and Utilities while trucking companies were going BK and the Ports were seeing major declines. 

Have a glass of well-fluoridated coffee and look at the price of gold this morning (down) and the odds seem pretty good that the Dow today and tomorrow will have a hard time holding onto this week’s gains by week’s end when the reality of the jobs picture sinks in.

But don’t expect too much reality, too quickly:  It wouldn’t be good for the sheep to come out and add back the faulty CES estimates because they would push the reported unemployment rate up around 10.7 to 10.8%.  Can’t have that, now, can we?

The key number to watch tomorrow will be the civilian workforce number.  You see, in order to make December look like things were improving, that number alleged that 661,000 fewer people were in the workforce in December. 

The GOOD NEWS is that when I read the report out of the UK that “Internet surfers caught in a web of depression” suddenly made sense.  While the report posited this:

“But it was not clear whether using the internet causes mental health problems, or whether people with mental health problems are drawn to the internet.”

Another answer comes to mind:  The internet is a kind of touchstone for reality seekers.  Except the reality we find on sites like the BLS/CES Birth/Death Model site isn’t exactly happy reading if you have half a brain and can find a calculator.

Notwithstanding: This does lay more and more foundation for licensure of the Internet.  You can see the PowersThatBe trying to wrestle the ‘free ‘net” out of existence as fast as they can, witness the story in the NY Times Wednesday that what we need is a “driver’s licenses” for the Internet to counter online fraud, hackers and espionage, a Microsoft executive suggests.”

Next thing that will come is government reviewed content and restrictions on socioeconomic critics. Could that be one reason why we see such a drop-off in linguistic structures for the Internet from late 2011 onward?

The Communications Act of 1934 was the analog in the First Depression.  I expect here in the Second Depression that the ‘Netstapo’ will be forming up any old time now.  From the September 1929 market peak to the June 1934 roll-out of the Communications Act which allowed the PowersThatBe to squash dissident broadcasters in the Depression and consolidated social control via the radio networks (and later television) took almost five years.

So all you need to get the timing of the seizure of the Internet right is a calendar and a click over to Yahoo Finance’s historical monthly Dow data to find how to count out four year 9-months to when it’s all due to hit this time.

Of course, this will all take a little work, since Australia’s attempts to stifle the ‘Net have resulted – for now – in their government backing off plans to hijack the ‘net for the PTB there.

What does it mean?  If you’re trying to infer what’s ahead, a check of last week’s Peoplenomics report “The ‘Art’ of Social Engineering” spells it out clearly.   And just this week we see confirmation in the mainstream press that “Intelligence officials ‘certain’ U.S. will be attacked in the next six months“.

Need more evidence?  Why sure!  “Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyber attacks“.  Expect in time licensing of spiders and off html/ftp activities first, but just watch where it goes… “Police want backdoor to Web users’ private data” says a CNET report today.

 

I can forecast with better than 50-50 odds that when ‘terrorist’  attack comes (once the reality of Depression 2 starts becoming obvious – when the Dow sinks under 7,000 again BTW) that the perps will be ‘found to be using the net’ and that will lead to a massive PTB hype campaign promoting net regulation and control.  I can hardly wait to see how the ‘regulations’ will be crafted not so much to limit terrorists from embedding codes in .JPEG’s and such, but how the PTB will try to shut down sites which reveal their inner workings and which alert the public to the dangers of runaway government which long ago escaped the grasp of the electorate’s control.

And the study that reported the Brits think the net may draw mentally challenged folks?  LOL….yeah sure, you bet’cha. 

Truth-seeking is now an illness.  Gee, that makes analyzing financial markets easier, doesn’t it?  No need to bother with reality any longer.  The world’s a sim and we are all but avatars, Citizen.

Morning Numbers Check

Market futures were down some earlier following overseas markets.

The federal debt ceiling is tracking to bust limit by the end of this month...

Productivity

Who needs jobs, if productivity can go up fast enough, huh?

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 6.2 percent annual rate during the fourth quarter of 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This gain in productivity reflects increases of 7.2 percent in output and 1.0 percent in hours worked. (All quarterly percent changes in this release are seasonally adjusted annual rates.) This was the first quarterly increase in hours worked since the second quarter of 2007 (0.9 percent).

Productivity increased 5.1 percent over the last four quarters—more than during any similar period since output per hour rose 6.1 percent from the first quarter of 2001 to the first quarter of 2002 (chart 1, table A). Labor productivity is calculated by dividing an index of real output by an index of the combined hours worked of all persons, including employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers.

Earnvanna: A mythical land from the Olde Testament of the Church of the Almighty Dollar where productivity and profits go up infinitely while employment costs go to zero (see chart above) resulting in a wonderful state of being for the promoters of globalism who search the world spreading the Gospel of Free Trade so long as they get a piece of the labor rate spreads so long as the Swiss, Caymanian, and Turks’ banks don’t out them.

Jobless Hike

I knew the jobless number was going to be up unexpectedly when it wasn’t promptly posted on the Labor Department site this morning.  Bad news travels slow before the open of markets.  Pure coincidental, you understand…

Retail: Mixed Bag

The retailers are starting to weigh in…and an AP story headlines “Retailers report modest gains for January” but just what that means is a little murky and we’ll have to get more detail.

Problem is when retailers talk about small gain, are they talking about gains in unit sales which is different than a gain in cash sales especially if we don’t back out inflation from year ago numbers…you can hype this six ways to Sunday and still have a defensible position.

Bank Rates

The ECB and BoE have left rates unchanged.  Obviously, to move anything in the delicate/precarious position of the global financial picture would upset things…

Useless News

Here’s an assortment of stuff that may have no bearing on your life but which makes the mainstream to keep the distraction pipes full:

 

Peter Piper picked a pig of pickled peckers…” leaving biotech researchers to wonder “How many pickled peckers were on the pig that Peter Piper picked?”

Drop by tomorrow for the biotech adventures of Dick & Jane…

Coping: Connecting Dots

February 4th, 2010

Every now and then – as a writer – there’s a chance that something will be ,’skipped over’ which the writer thinks is terribly apparent on the face of it, but upon reflection is based on the writer’s near certain knowledge that the reader will be able to keep up with dot-connecting at near warp speed.  That doesn’t often happen, so this morning (*with apologies for not laying out the dots in more obvious fashion in Wednesday’s report) I’m going to hand a little more meat on the concept of “Depression-Era Thinking Visible, which was the top story/most important concept change I noticed on Wednesday morning.

To make this easy, I’m going to actually throw down a whole bunch of dots for you and lead you through the connections to avoid confusion.

Dot #1

The January 24 issue of Peoplenomics made it perfectly clear what my expectations are for the present period forward several years…as we slide to the bottom of the Second Depression.

“Decline starts here, doesn’t end this year and we see Down under 4,000 before the year is out. A bounce early next year after a low this year of….hand me a dart, wouldja? Uh…3765.8 on the Dow. Then a rally to (another dart?)….uh….7,223.79 and then a Wave 5 decline to Dow 783.”

Since that report, although we’ve seen a couple of rally attempts, the market hasn’t gone much of anywhere and the put options I bought have been up as much as 27% although in fairness, they’re presently up less than 10%.  Nevertheless (and this is not trading advice so don’t whine at me later, you’re a grown up and your money is yours to deploy as you will), it seems to me that the majority of the bounce off the March 2009 lows has a better than even chance of being IT and a longer deeper decline lays ahead.

Dot #2

Some very good people I know…I mean extremely bright, talented, innovative folks in the money field have lost their jobs.  One writes the most savory www.mindonmoney.wordpress.com and the other, Trader Jim Goulding got pink-slipped this week up in bond fields of Chicago.

The thing about Trader Jim’s being cut loose that bothers me is that I’ve told you many times about his excellent free ebook “Winter is Coming“.  He’s an excellent trader and trading coach, yet he reports that when it comes to hiring nowadays  up in Chicagoland Bond Trading World, the only folks in high demand are “quants” – quantitative analysts – who might be able to squeeze fractions of pennies on massive volume, but strategic trading?  Forgitaboutit.   Not in vogue.

Goulding’s resume is on line here if you know anyone who needs a group of traders managed or some serious risk management handled.

My observation (and it may be wrong) based on dozens of similar dots over the past year or two is that there is a fundamental change in how investing is handled in play.

We saw it coming along slowly at first as some of the major stats like M3 was “disappeared” by the Fed.  True, it’s been reincarnated by Trader Bart over at Now and Futures, but don’t go looking there before you’ve finished breakfast:  The annualized change rate for M3 is now running about 4% negative on an annualized basis.

Do I have to scream this at you?  OK, then…

“DEFLATION IS OUT THERE!!!”

Which is why I have been telling anyone who will listen that my personal strategy (nut not advice) is to balance your risks so as to be impervious to a high rate of inflation or a high rate of deflation.

Which is why some money on property which can produce a little bit of income, some money in US Treasuries (as long as government is intact, they should have some return) and some precious metals to balance off the risk that government will have to resort to hyper-inflation in a year (or three) to create enough jobs to propel us out of the mess we’re sinking into.

A reader looked at yesterday’s report and sent in a note which needs clarification:

What escapes the discussion is a fundamental problem of economics: IF people really DO cut back on their spending, it actually LENGTHENS the amount of time taken to recover. Sometimes best to shut up.

Say what? The Prez is not allowed to speak about values that made this country great?

It certainly is not consumption, borrowing to the hilt and indiscriminate spending. Is that not what got us into trouble in the first place? Have you looked at the exploding debt, relative to GDP since 1998? Every crisis was counteracted with more easy money from Easy Al and Ben. So what’s wrong with saving rather than continuing to consume and deferring the burden unto our children? It is precisely this now-now-ism that got us into this mess in the first place.

Want to be clear here:  I’m not critical of the Obama administration’s ‘you don’t go to Vegas’…I’m simply saying that we’re seeing a process – one that Nicholas Kondratieff thought was unavoidable:  At some point the return to core values (thrift & savings) collide with the desires of the bankster class and one faction of the PTB that wants to follow the myth of prodigious and persistent growth and deny the reality of economic cyclicity which the return to Depression Era “Thinking brings.

This is neither good nor bad.  It just is

Jim Goulding’s work in “Winter is Coming” suggests the bottom of the present ‘recession turned Depression’ won’t be along until sometime around 2014.  I’m not trying to be critical of the Obama administration on economic policy (that’d be too easy).  Instead, I’m trying to chronicle as we go how the rhyme with the first depression is laying out in this one and note that in Depression 1.0 government officials tried to guide financial behavior and it could be argued that their policy responses just made things worse.

The reality – best I can see it for all the media fog – is that this administration knows that the only way to kick-start the economy is with a whole lot of easy money but they lack the political capital to do what’s necessary and with headlines about how marginal democrats are starting to distance themselves in campaigns this year, and folks like Nouriel Roubini using terms like “political capital” it’s evident to me that we’re now into the acceleration to the downside of Depression 2. 

Whether people want to get straight and come to terms with that reality is another matter.  My main point was that pushing thrift now from the highest policy levels amounts to stepping on the gas in a car that’s just gone over a cliff.  May not change the outcome, but it draws attention to who took over as driver once the car was clear of the cliff’s rim which happened in Bushtober of 2008.

No, UrbanSurvival is not a place of “now-now-isms” that got us into this mess..  It’s about watching the economy, driven off cliff, estimating its trajectory, figuring out an approximate landing zone, and then trying to figure out in advance how to crawl out of the wreckage.

No hurry, though.  If Jim Goulding’s right, Robin Landry’s work is right, my consigliore’s work is right, and if my own well documented writings here are anywhere near right, we’ll be in decline for a couple of more years.  Or has the reality of the ‘jobless recovery’ somehow escaped you, or hasn’t it sunk in yet?

WuJo: Code?

A couple of days back (or was it last week?) I had a link to an airport runway which when viewed with Google Earth seemed to be packed with vehicles.  But a reader who looked at the strange places were there were no vehicles inferred something else:

“George, when I first looked at “closed” base and saw the SUVs parked on runways…first thought was it looked like the old computer punch code cards, why are there gaps in the grouping of the cars? why not fill in and why leave a space behind. if you were to get a vehicle they would come from the sides, not middle ???? strange…code”

Lacking our ability to make scalar communications system, are we trying to communicate something to off-worlders by laying our vehicles on a closed airport runway in punch card fashion?  Makes a helluva plot for something..

Send your comments to george@ure.net


Shop Till Your Drop Department:


Peoplenomics This Week

The “Art” of Social Engineering

I have only written about Directorate 153’s social engineering mission a couple of times previously; once when its existence could be hypothecated in the wake of September 9/11 (Peoplenomics #6, Dec. 1, 2001) and we covered the hypothetical hiring of a new fellow at the Directorate – an economics/applicant named simply Rick in our September 5, 2004 report #150.  As you’ll recall, we hypothecated that a new head of strategic economic planning for the world’s hidden perpetrators of ‘peaceful war’ had been hired from senior global banking ranks in order to ensure social engineering and orchestration of global banking went smoothly.  In today’s report we look at how that project has been going or late (hypothetically) and look ahead to future inflection points where terrorism/social distracters may again be desired by the PTB.  Let me emphasize again, this is all hypothetical.

More For Subscribers            To Subscribe, CLICK HERE

Cookie Video

The folks at Maxa Research have put together a short video (sound track by guess who?) that shows the Maxa Cookie Manager.  You can see it here.

I don’t usually get all whipped up about software, but this is one of those dandy tools that just simply works great.  First thing I put on my new computer when I got it was Avira Anti-virus and Maxa Cookie Manager (MCM).  Either follow the on-screen download instructions of simply click:

Once you try it out, to upgrade to the fully functioning version, just click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those nasty and highly intrusive ‘non-browser specific’ cookies.  Bonus:  You computer may run faster. 

Not for Mac’s:  MCM does support the Safari Browser, but that does not mean it is compatible with Mac OS. Maxa-Tools only support the Windows world….so far.  Give them time…

“Live on $10,000″ A Year

Having a hard time making ends meet?  (Like who isn’t, right?)  A good starting point to better match up income with outgo is our $10 e-book “How to Live on #10,000 a Year…or less!”

 Buy Now

It’s an automatic download.  It’s written in an information dense style: The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the cheap, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you have a little hustle left.  A bonus section called “How to Build Anything” should instill confidence if you’ve never taken on a home improvement/home creation project before, too…..  Click here for the index and details.

MyGroPonics

My commodity broker JB Slear and I have written a simple book to get you started on high density hydroponics.  It’s an example of how someone with a little creativity, access to a few ‘dollar stores’ and willing to try out some new farming techniques can grow an amazing amount of produce sin a very small space – like even an apartment balcony (if it gets some sunlight).  Sound interesting?  It’s just $10 bucks here…

Add to Cart    View Cart   

Pass It On

A different take on things – that’s what you’ll find here most mornings.  If you know of anyone who might also like our content, simply click here and send a link to them.  Or, if you hated what you read, send the link to all your ‘worst enemies’.  Like they say in Burbank, “Ain’t no such thing as bad press…”

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 Last week’s report is here.    For back issues of this site, click here.

Depression Era Thinking Becomes Visible

February 3rd, 2010

There’s a fair bit of controversy going on about “President Obama again criticizes trips to Las Vegas” which (no surprise) is making gigantic headlines in where?  Las Vegas, of course.

What got Obama in trouble with Vegasites and Chamberites was saying that when times are tough “You don’t going buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgages.  You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”  Hmmm…common sense, there…

What escapes the discussion is a fundamental problem of economics:  IF people really DO cut back on their spending, it actually LENGTHENS the amount of time taken to recover.  Sometimes best to shut up.
Which is exactly what turns an economic recession into an economic Depression.  When a recession recovery begins, people promptly forget about the ‘bad times’ and go about their previous free-spending ways.  That creates consumption and that creates what?  Jobs, velocity of money, and you can wander back over into virtuous cycle feedback fairly quickly.  Print money and off you go – plenty of demand for it.

What’s going on now, however, is the whole nation is tipping toward the reciprocal of virtuosity…  This as we just passed a tipping point (invisible to most) where people start becoming thoughtful about their spending if not outright afraid.  Velocity crashes, manufacturing backs up, pricing power evaporates and along comes deflation.  Oops!

While the president thinks he’s making economic sense (thrift and savings) by telling people to actually save for a rainy day, he may want to consider that he’s actually keeping employment low in the hospitality industry and so forth.  That means pressure on airlines, car rental outfits (which impact Detroit, right?) and so forth.
 

Economies are almost never static.  A sector that’s not expanding is shrinking and with the last Fed G.19 report showing credit card spending dropping at nearly 20% per year, that’s bound to have continued impacts on the service sector and so forth.

Timing Volker’s Ascension

About the safest bet I can think of in politics now is that someone will have to be offered to the increasingly angry public as a sort of ‘human sacrifice’ to appease voters.  A number of candidates for this political sacrifice come to mind (Geithner, Summers, et al) and the replacement actor who is making a lot of headlines right now might be someone like Paul Volker.

Speaking of which, you saw where he is taking a firm stand against banks doing too much speculating that doesn’t benefit investment clients?

I don’t look for Volker to make his move yet…more likely, he’ll wait till the tide of economic history has started to swing a little more clearly.  Although he gets a lot of credit for “Whip Inflation Now” back when, the reality is that a lot of economic geniuses are so ordained simply for being in the right place at the right time.

Just like Summers & Geithner, et al, are in the right place at about precisely the wrong time and we collapse toward the bottom of D2.

Next Round of Layoffs

My consigliore called yesterday and explained how the next round of layoffs – which has the potential to be huge – will be in state and local governments.  All a matter of falling property values and with it will come declines in tax revenues.

Unlike Uncle,  of course, where “Largest-over federal payrool to hit 2.15 million” is about to happen.  They have the printing press which helps.

California is out of the limelight (for the past few weeks) but “As feds stiff state, budget crisis deepens” warns a Dan Walters piece in the Fresno Bee.

And in Florida where the governor’s budget assumptions are being roasted.

And in Nevada where 300 state workers are likely to get pink slipped

And in….well, you got the idea, huh?  This is what double-dips on the slippery-slip come from -   and why we’ll be seeing some kind of human sacrifices offered up by Washington this year.  Sacrificial scapegoating we’d called it back in the newsroom days.  Some things never change.

Change?  Did someone say “Change”?
To Market

ADP job report says companies cut fewer than their forecast 22,000 jobs in January.  no, there’s no growth yet, so I wouldn’t be holding a block party over this. Maybe I will get my reversal to the downside today which will get wave 5 to the downside rolling.

ISM non-manufacturing number comes later today along with the energy stocks report if my handy-dandy crib notes are correct.

Pays to Be A Bankster

“Outrageous!” Yes, but those AIG super-compensation bonuses are ‘legal’ says a federal pay czar.

OK, fine.  How much has all the genius and posturing cost when a $500/hour employment comp lawyer would have given the same answer in what, 2-hours of staff time?

Repeat after me: “Show time!”

Truth Leak

Meantime, Moody’s figures that bad bank debt is not declining – Nope!  Likely to rise for another year according to a Telegraph report…  Say, is that an echo I hear?  Listen closely….

Show time!  Show time!  Show time….

Sunspot Jitters

OK, OK, relax.  People have been sending me emails all morning about the headline that “Solar storms threaten Olympics blackout” at the London 2012 games.

Pardon me while I just chuckle at this.  First of all, the current sunspot check over at www.spaceweather.com shows what?  One lousy sunspot. 

Now, what does this mean?  Simply that Solar Cycle 24 is way slow getting started.  I mean way slow.  Slower than Obama ‘change’ slow.  Slower than ‘transparency’.  Slower than ‘balanced budget’ slow…(I could go on, but you get the idea, right?)

Here’s the deal.  Solar cycles are 11.5 years or so in length (and yes, they correspond to the 11-11.5 year economic cycle which can be observed in California real estate and Juglar’s work (which was 8.5-11 if I remember right).  (Why these don’t get tied to sunspots is beyond me…..)

So, I assume you’ve read the papers which are widely available that the peak of solar flare risk is on what?  The backside of the cycle which puts the risk of a major flare predominately  5.5 years into a cycle and more likely around 6.5 years into a cycle.

Which means what?  Well, seeing as the bottom of Cycle 23/24 is still being formed and looks to be drawing out much longer than anyone expected, I’m not putting on the tinfoil hat and installing Schottky diodes on my beard trimmer until mid…oh…what’s ‘09 +5?  2014? 

And the longer the bottom takes, the more Mr. Ure will be able to take advantage of falling diode prices.  Sheesh!  “The sky is falling, the sky is falling! And I must find a surge protector!”

Apparently, sheep do poorly at astronomy and physics.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Snow?

A panicky reader is worried about the possible 3-4 feet of snow around Charlottesville, Virginia expected later this week:

“I have been told the Virginia Dept of Transportion had a meeting this morning in Charlottesville where they were briefed on the distinct possibility this one storm could dump over 40 inches of snow between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning.

That’s up to my wife’s shoulders !

Anyway, its snowing like crazy now, so we’ll see by tomorrow morning if we get that 4-6 inches tonight and will keep you posted.

While suggesting local residents just ‘chill’, we will go so far as to grant a gold star for headline writing to The Hook which headlines “Snowmageddon: Friday in Charlottesville…”  I like it – a lot…

Coping: With Clusters of Strangeness

February 3rd, 2010

Problems down at the WuJo keeping up with all the high strangeness, not the least of which were all the orb pictures people sent me. 

Which gets me to the first point of this morning’s update:  While Mr. Esoteric is in the high powered aquisition of new ways to behold Universe at all times – which implies an open mind – he is always balanced by Mr. Science who says “Open mind, yes, but not so open as to have your brains fall out…”

One set of ‘orb’ pictures I reviewed was such an obvious set of doctored pics that I wondered how anyone could fall for them being as purported.  But, to be sure, there were some that seemed straight-ahead “Yup, that could be one…” but even these are not conclusive in any sense since I’m not actually buying into ‘orbs’ until I see some face-to-face, or at least take the pictures myself with known camera gear under known conditions and tear it apart with the latest from Corel and Adobe (Photo-Paint and  Photoshop) which I keep on hot standby for events like people telling me that this picture is this, or that picture is some space goat entail or whatever.

Remember: Open Mind, Skeptical Always.  Remember the state motto of Missouri.  (A big-ass hint if you need it by scrolling down a ways here…)

Speaking of which, I have to stop mentioning Missouri.  In one of may manic marketing moments I sent the State a note suggesting an updated motto more friendly to building tourism dollars.  I suggested what?

“Missouri Loves Company”

Never heard back from them.

If you’re not rolling on the floor (or yelping from spilling coffee) you have absolutely no sense of humor.  Read it aloud a few times and see if the lights come on, or if anyone is home upstairs.

A little more intriguing, while I run around snapping flash pictures all over the ranch at night (much to the consternation of the goats who are sure (again) that I’ve ‘lost it’, is the report of high strange out of Oztralia.  Folks on the net there have been writing up all kinds of copy (and snapping screen captures) of supposed ‘radar anomalies” lately.

Our Ozstralia regional WuWu correspondent sends this…

“You want to know JUST how odd it was here in Australia today???

The electronics all over the house went nuts, the wifi connection for my computer reset itself again and again (and it’s been acting nutso for almost a week now), my cameras (which all have computer sensors in them) stopped working and then later resumed all functions, my electronic flash unit stopped and then later restarted, and the icing on the cake was when the emergency flashers on the station wagon suddenly started flashing just before dinner time and the car hadn’t even been driven for several days!

The cat came in the house this morning and he was really, really agitated and he never left my side all day — following me to and fro between the cottage and the studio. And he kept ‘talking’ all day to let me know that he was quite upset about something. The last time I saw him like this was 2 years ago on the 100-plus degree day that my husband Mark got bitten by a poisonous snake and the snake also killed our Burmese Gigi.

Mark and I knew something was wrong all day — it was like the air was a gel consistency and you had to work at moving through the density of it. Throughout the day we had to keep stopping ourselves and doing little mental corrections so we didn’t absorb the energy or get stroppy with one another. And I knew straight away that it was something external.

When I had the flash unit cease working tonight and then the car flashers started blinking all by themselves within 20 minutes of each other, I told Mark, “This is NOT coming from us! There is something going on out there in the world!”

I don’t have time to read all of the forums and alternative news sources to keep up to date with this stuff nowadays — but it was quite apparent from my own inner sensing that things were being ‘toyed with’ out there in the planetary atmosphere. If this isn’t HAARP, it certainly is something equally insidious and it is frankly appalling that people’s lives are being toyed with in this manner!

We’ve got a couple of candidates for ’source of high strangeness’ on the radar (pun intended, sorry).  One is this persistent rumor on the ‘net that there will be a major earthquake around 11 AM this morning (or is it tomorrow?) on the US west coast somewhere, which will be an 8.0 or some-such.

While we’ve been terrifically accurate with our own earthquake predictions based on the rickety time machine (example: The 2008  China quake call within a three days) but there doesn’t seem to be much threat of “Big Ones” until after July 7 by that metric.

On the other hand, if we  indeed do get something north of say a 6.5 today or tomorrow around 11 AM, then the source of this particular quake prediction will go up several notches in credibility.

Meantime, the quake is ,supposedly to be nearest to Portland, Oregon.  The hell of it is, that when made, such predictions (Feb 3 instead of Feb. 6) gain lots of traction on the net because it sometimes seems people don’t have enough to worry about.  Like tax hikes, the national debt, multiple wars, pink slips flying all over and the soaring cost of groceries wasn’t enough.

Either that, or there has been so much mental energy put into this particular meme that something relatively routine (6.0 or under) would be declared “IT” and the effects of prayer will be credited with making it smaller than the 8.0+ which has been so widely bandied about.

Not to put down prayer – or any other way of manipulating the template of The Field in any way, shape, or form, but seems to me that if it’s a smallish quake that could just have easily been created by pushing the templates of The Field/kalapas around, know what I mean?

if not5, run over to Amazon  and pick up a copy of “How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life ” and review the chapters on how humans – equipped with dandy patterns recognition skills – can actually “make up” patterns that aren’t really there.

On the other hand, an 8.0 felt anywhere in Oregon today is a statistical improbability and that would impress me greatly.  However, be advises, I don’t impress easily and under a 6.0?  Forgitaboutit.

Cheap Screens

I think I’ve mentioned that one of the joys of coming out to my office in the morning, sitting down with a 24 ounces of coffee and writing up this running commentary on money, Universe, and the missteps of the great Dance Instructor is that I have multiple monitors on my computer.

Four to be exact.

So I can watch a market ticker on the left screen, have a 64-bit browser open on the right side of #2/middle, FrontPage on the left side of #2, Outlook and weather/time/date gadgets on #3 and network monitors, intrusion attempts and so forth on #4.  A 32-bit version of Internet exploder is on #1 in case I want to see something in Flash whichj seems not to work on 64-bit exploder.

Reason for laying this out for you is to explain that by simply plugging in an additional screen (if you have a spare video out, as on a laptop) you can utilize the extended desktop feature of Windows.  So you can have material on one screen, and should you wish, just drag it to the other.  Dandy for writing reports while looking at a spreadsheet, marketing plan, or running SQL queries (little early for that, though) on the other screed while your word processing hums along on t’other.

Why mention it again this morning?  Because as part of rampant deflation, the price of LCD monitors is collapsing.  I have three matched 24″ Sceptre’s that came in at $160 each.  And I got an email this morning that CompUSA has $99 18.5″ monitors on sale.  TigerDirect’s overstock page features some 22″ monitors (refurbs) for $119.97.

Ever since I got hooked on multiple screen computing back in 2001, or so, I would never live any other way.  It makes work fly past and it’s just a lot more efficient way of operating.

There is one drawback…and only one:  When people came into my office I would have to peer around a pile of monitors to see them.  A simple rearranging of furniture ended that LCD-lined foxhole appearance.  

Even visiting Panama Bates has two monitors now, the regular one on his laptop and an extended monitor above it.  Works like a charm.

Mr. Ure’s Birthday

In light of the horrible condition of the economy, I’ve decided to recommend only CraigsList items for you to send me for my birthday this year.  Here’s an ideal one.  (See the pix…nice ride, fo sho)

Power From the People

Say, yesterday I was moaning about my high electric bill and a reader wondered if I was selling anything to the local power company off our solar system.  Nope.  Consuming that, too.

Nevertheless, the reader makes a dandy point in that IF I had an amount of power to sell back compared to what I consumed, the local utility would still get the upper hand since they charge all kinds of things that residential solar types don’t charge them.

 Think about it:  The local utility charges a “power correction factor” so on a seasonal basis they charge more per KWhr because of their higher costs, and then there’s all kinds of taxes, too.

“You oughta be charging them taxes back…” suggests our egalitarian reader.

Fine point, that…

One Second Thought

…send the money to your local food bank.  “Hunger in America jumps to ‘unprecedented’ 46 percent.

Wonder if there has been a  corresponding downturn in the weight-loss industry?

Including the ones of this page here…

Send your comments to george@ure.net


Shop Till Your Drop Department:


Peoplenomics This Week

The “Art” of Social Engineering

I have only written about Directorate 153’s social engineering mission a couple of times previously; once when its existence could be hypothecated in the wake of September 9/11 (Peoplenomics #6, Dec. 1, 2001) and we covered the hypothetical hiring of a new fellow at the Directorate – an economics/applicant named simply Rick in our September 5, 2004 report #150.  As you’ll recall, we hypothecated that a new head of strategic economic planning for the world’s hidden perpetrators of ‘peaceful war’ had been hired from senior global banking ranks in order to ensure social engineering and orchestration of global banking went smoothly.  In today’s report we look at how that project has been going or late (hypothetically) and look ahead to future inflection points where terrorism/social distracters may again be desired by the PTB.  Let me emphasize again, this is all hypothetical.

More For Subscribers            To Subscribe, CLICK HERE

Cookie Video

The folks at Maxa Research have put together a short video (sound track by guess who?) that shows the Maxa Cookie Manager.  You can see it here.

I don’t usually get all whipped up about software, but this is one of those dandy tools that just simply works great.  First thing I put on my new computer when I got it was Avira Anti-virus and Maxa Cookie Manager (MCM).  Either follow the on-screen download instructions of simply click:

Once you try it out, to upgrade to the fully functioning version, just click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those nasty and highly intrusive ‘non-browser specific’ cookies.  Bonus:  You computer may run faster. 

Not for Mac’s:  MCM does support the Safari Browser, but that does not mean it is compatible with Mac OS. Maxa-Tools only support the Windows world….so far.  Give them time…

“Live on $10,000″ A Year

Having a hard time making ends meet?  (Like who isn’t, right?)  A good starting point to better match up income with outgo is our $10 e-book “How to Live on #10,000 a Year…or less!”

 Buy Now

It’s an automatic download.  It’s written in an information dense style: The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the cheap, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you have a little hustle left.  A bonus section called “How to Build Anything” should instill confidence if you’ve never taken on a home improvement/home creation project before, too…..  Click here for the index and details.

MyGroPonics

My commodity broker JB Slear and I have written a simple book to get you started on high density hydroponics.  It’s an example of how someone with a little creativity, access to a few ‘dollar stores’ and willing to try out some new farming techniques can grow an amazing amount of produce sin a very small space – like even an apartment balcony (if it gets some sunlight).  Sound interesting?  It’s just $10 bucks here…

Add to Cart    View Cart   

Pass It On

A different take on things – that’s what you’ll find here most mornings.  If you know of anyone who might also like our content, simply click here and send a link to them.  Or, if you hated what you read, send the link to all your ‘worst enemies’.  Like they say in Burbank, “Ain’t no such thing as bad press…”

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 Last week’s report is here.    For back issues of this site, click here.