I swear, sometimes when I say something which is ½ in jest, I get people who write to me and ask “What in the world were youi thinking?” Take, for example, my Friday morning remark that “since it’s such a ‘nice quiet Friday….”
“Then you sir, are blind.
From my follow-up post on a lunatic forums site:
They can try to debunk all they want to.
Russia reportedly has ~140 billion in US debt they are trying to get rid of.
There was 134.5 Billion left in TARP at the end of March.
These two people were caught but NOT ARRESTED with 134.5 billion in US Bonds. Italian law states that they should have been arrested. As far as I know, only someone with diplomatic immunity can get away with something like that. Why they didn’t use a diplomatic pouch is anybody’s guess…. unless what they were toting around was under the official radar.
They were “Japanese Nationals,” in Italy trying to get to Switzerland.
Timmy (the cheat) Geithner is currently in Italy, meeting with the Japanese and Russian financial guys in relation to the G-8.
Related links:
Link to SEC to check bonds to see if legit and
Link to German article “Windfall for Italy?”
Russia’s holdings:
L:ink to Russia’s plan to cut Treasury holdings.
And “U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Friday will meet Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano and Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin in Italy, the Treasury Department said on Thursday. “
And, on top of that, Karl Denninger of Market Ticker notes a Zerohedge story indicating that the Federal Reserve may be tampering with the market.
Which is why we were greatly troubled when we learned recently on good authority that Federal representatives may have opened multiple undisclosed-type accounts with none other than State Street Global Advisors over the past few months. All of these accounts are allegedly handled by one single trader, who is cocooned and isolated from interaction with other partners.
Quiet Friday… I don’t think so.
Love your site though.. I read it often.
Yeah so do I (imagine that?). But follow my logic here on the ‘quiet Friday’ remark:
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The Dow came in with a modest gain for the week of 37-points. While that’s looking a bit long in the tooth to some, we won’t see the sulfuric acid on sugar kinds of moves until we get to next week and the lead-in to options expiration.
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The most exciting financial number on Friday was the Consumer Sentiment number and that was up to 69 – the fourth bullish report in a row, meaning that despite what we know around here thanks to the predictive linguistics work (that suggest by mid July the derivatives blow-up will be back and become obvious in very public ways by late August if’n I understand the time monks right), someone is buying the notion that ‘good times are just ahead’. Just ignore the apparent delta between the Consumer Debt numbers from the Fed and here, long as you’re at it, drink some of this here grape Kool-Aid.
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What’s more (of should I say “here’s moron…”) how the Dow has erased its 2009 losses now with the Friday close…
And then we have the usual scatter plot of miscellaneous data points that taken as an aggregate can be touted as good, or bad, depending on your point of view:
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There’s talk that large areas of some US cities may be bulldozed, for example. The bad news is that tearing down housing which could be reconstructed seems kinda dumb when we have people living under freeway bridges, but on the other, it might add to the 16 remaining jobs driving bulldozers…one of the few jobs that corporate wage-rate differential exploiters haven’t figured out how to export to India or China. Trust me: I know somewhere they have to be working on it, though.
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North Korea didn’t set off an nuclear tests on Friday, a good thing I reckon. On the other hand, they did say that any UN embargo would be an Act of War and their buddies in China are warning against possible Western use of force against them, too. OK, so maybe Kim Il Jong has pictures of some mucky-mucks in the Chinese party hierarchy, or some such, but lookie here: This is a dandy chance for the US defence industry to step up campaign contributions and load up on R&D contracts for the next generation of super-weapon.
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And sure, the democons have drafted a plan for health care reform which would cost $600–billion in new taxes, but as long as we have the presses going night and day for the bankster bailout and hyperinflation will come calling by year’s end (and more likely visible by November) WTF people? The republicorps alternative to to have massive overhead, high direct costs and phat profits to the corpgov hierarchy. Does it really matter if the hold-up is at gunpoint (“Give us your taxes) or at knifepoint (“Give us a zillion out of pocket for your Prozac”)? This is classic left pocket/right pocket divide and conquer the people – textbox despotism hidden behind the aura of partisanship to suck up the energy of the hopelessly hypnotized.
Speaking of which, I’m not kidding at all when I tell you that the whole health care debate is sideshow. Here’s the real deal : “The death rate drops to historic low” is THE biggest story of the week for many reasons. Let’s me ‘splain you Lucy:
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first: Too many people living too long means pressure on dwindling food production is continuing to increase.
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The financial system and it’s hoards of actuarial types are depending on us old people to die sooner than later, otherwise, too many winners on long-term insurance policies blows up the system.
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Then there’s the matter of the additional money that needs to be raised by pension funds to meet obligations to the healthy oldsters who are living too long.
Are there ‘policy answers’ to this vexing demographic nightmare? Of course!
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War with someone – and soon.
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More genetically modified crops – sure it may be Frankenfood, but better that than pitchforks, eh?
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A nice disease that takes out a big chunk of the population.
We have winners! NK, GM foods, and Swine flu! Oh, how provident of Universe to provide such well-managed (not to mention profitable) answers! Hallelujah! See you at the Sunday session of the Church of the Almighty Dollar tomorrow, for surely we are all blessed.
Well, except maybe for in Iran when “Heeee’s baaaack….” as president Ahmadinejad is reported leading that countries elections. Which I why I have been telling you “watch a week either side of October 26th for that to blow up” since that’s when linguistics looks for a big disturbance in the force.
Does make me want to go back to bed, but too much to do around the ranch… May I have the…
Next Critic
Oh here’s a gem…under the subject line “Get the facts before youi write”. Hell’s bells, who does that anymore? Here’s the email:
Getting the facts straight is important. Apparently you have been brainwashed with the rest of us on the smoking issue. SMOKERS HAVE A LOWER LIFE TIME HEALTH COST THAN NON SMOKERS. That was shown in some studies over that last few years. It is the non-smokers who have the enormous health-care costs. Google it! SMOKING IS BAD, but please do not help big brother spread this red herring.
It’s ‘cuz they die earlier, best I can figure. But, if you want to invest time researching (or debating my take) on what’s a bad habit, have at it. Here’s a good starting point. The only kinda smoking that makes sense is the NORML kind which would neuter the booze lobby….and maybe the connoisseur kind, since I still have my pre-Castro Cuban cigar in the humidor and a bottle of Remy from a thankful reader who saved a few bucks (ok, maybe more than a few) thinking and acting on the kind of thinking published here……
Boxed In
Hmmm…not sure what this one means:
“George, I’ve been with you since 2000. PLEASE…You need to change these stupid, limiting, inaccurate drop down category boxes. This isn’t my first request…”
This reader is referring to the choices in the category drop-down boxes on my news tip page. I have that on my to-do list. However, it was down at number 1,378 in the priority list.
I have moved it up to 993. to simplify things, I may just eliminate all drop-down choices and put “other” for all of them, LOL.
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This was accompanied by a note to “US Foreclosure filings top 300,000 as bank seizures loom.” Good thing to be aware of if you even so much as think of skipping work for a day…now’s NOT the time to risk ANYTHING.
Dark Outlook
“How come you haven’t mentioned the July Total Eclipse of the Sun?”
Because we’re not in China or Oilstan, maybe?
Unfortunately Right
Sadly, until a few days ago here’s a reader who was skeptical of the predictive linguistics that mentioned 50-people being involved in a big ‘disappearance’ this summer. Now, oh, look at this:
Hi George, you and hph might be right. Air France Plane crash: 50 bodies recovered as of Saturday morning news GMT.
Yup, here’s the story about 50 bodies recovered from the crash site.
Damn rickety time machine, anyway. Look for the report maybe Tuesday or Wednesdayish this week. I’ll let you know when it’s posted. Next critic, pleeze?
In the What?
Ah…in response to my ‘celling taxes” bit this week about the possibility of laying taxes on work-provided cell phone use as a taxable bennie, here’s something reassuring:
“Please stop sweating the details! Remember, when dreaming effectively too much focus on detail leads to a lot of random noise. Which I suspect is responsible for the absurdity below! “
Included was a link to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s listing of taxable and exempt property which reassures us that the following items are not taxable there yet:
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Toilet Tissue
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Periodicals and magazines purchased by subscription
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Garters and garter belts
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Lingerie
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Leotards and tights
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Hunting clothing, including camouflage and blaze orange
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Rainwear
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Deodorants, colostomy
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Hair restorative medications
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Sunburn treatment, lotions or creams (SPF and preventatives are taxable)
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Candy and gum
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Fruit drinks, noncarbonated or reconstituted, containing at least 25% natural fruit juice
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Caramel Corn (kettle corn is taxable !!!)
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Dress patterns
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Wet wipes
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Acne treatment, lotions, and creams
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Adhesives used for medical treatment
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Bed trapeze bars (Not that kind you perv!)
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Blood glucose monitors (How sweet….)
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Contact lenses, and wetting solutions
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Diet pills
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Prophylactics
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Thermometer covers (thermometers themselves are taxable)
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Pet cremation and burial services (caskets taxable, though)
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Shower clogs
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Snowmobile suits
This is only a sampling, of course, and every state has its own interp as to what should and shouldn’t be taxed…but I have to wonder just how aghast the Founding Fathers would be with this list.
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Might want to buy some of those tax-free snow suits now, btw: NASA says the sun is just about blank when it comes to sunspots. Oh, and that means global cooling. Just, you won’t see this on the 6-o’clock news, since it would fly in the face of the current hypodigm with it’s bankster bailouts and carbon credit nonsense (since it’s like setting up a wife-beating exchange to monetize another form of sick behavior).
We have bigger problems than paper and it’s never too late to work on your garden. Cooler earth means less food. And we hunger for solutions around here to the BIG problems. Like will the number of people who are going to die this year and next from swine flu (and fallout) going to be enough to offset the reduced agricultural output from the sun going ‘cold’?
See you Monday…unless you subscribe to Peoplenomics.com, in which case Sunday we’ll explore how complex societies recover from collapse…
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Send comments to george@ure.net
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For Your Money’s Worth:
Peoplenomics: Depression or Recession?
This week, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the market rally a bit more, with some softness to follow come month-end, and then one or possibly two more short moves up into either mid-July or mid-August. And then, I’m figuring the stock market will have completed its setup for another one of those ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ declines, which seem to be coming with some regularity. This week, a bit of detail on how past Depressions and sharp market drops have looked, and some amplification and detail on my very different way of looking at things’. We’ll start with…..
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MyGroPonics
My commodity broker JB Slear has nailed a great solution for people who living in apartments and condos who want to become at least partially self-reliant when it comes to raising food: An ultra-high efficiency micro-hydroponics system using readily available local parts. 25-pages and plenty of pictures to turn you into a farmer no matter where you live (Great if you have back problems, too…)…or if you just want to fill up the back yard with MyGroPonics trees and feed the neighborhood… $10 bucks here…
Maxa-Cookie Manager
Maxa-Tools has provided us with a free demo – which you’re welcome to try – of their dandy cookie manager tool that I use here on all my computers. It shows both the browser-specific and the newer browser-independent cookies. Quite happy with it.
Here’s the download link for the free demo:
www.urbansurvival.com/setupMCMstdGU.exe
Once you try it out, click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those pesky ‘non-browser specific’ cookies. Bonus: You computer may run faster. I took over 1,000 cookies off my son’s machine that he swore was clean. It ran much faster.
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UrbanSurvival just keeps getting more popular – thanks to your help. (Oh, sure, sometimes because we tell you the news before it happens and because my economic analysis has been better than 99% of the PowersThatBe who obviously don’t get it; but let’s not go into chest-pounding mode…) So don’t stop now. Tell all your friends to wander on by for an uncommon mixture of relevant & real economics, humor such as it is, preparedness, all served up with the occasional side order of …well, weird. Click here for a tool that may help. (It’ll pop up an email window if youi use Outlook (or a few other email programs) then simply send a link to everyone on your distro list…
“Live on $10,000″ Updated
What? You haven’t ordered the ebook “How to Live on $10,000 a year — or less”? Suit yourself. We’re all going to live it shortly, anyway. I just thought you might like a heads up by reading about how to do it before you get pink-slipped. But, suit yourself OR visit www.liveontenthousand.com or, click one of the following button:
Yep – still possible. I also took a bit of additional material that was pertinent from recent issues of Peoplenomics and included them. The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the aforementioned dollar amount, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you make a little more than that and do some active savings… Click here for the page with more details on it.
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