Having been proven right in my latest silver flipping strategy, and with mostly boring economic numbers due out, we can turn our attention this morning to some rather frightening headlines that probably won’t hit the MSM [MainStreamMedia] for a day or two.
Recall that in some of the longer term predictive linguistic values we keep seeing references to food shortages/famine/death of 1-billion + in the next couple of years. From past experience, the farther ahead of time something appears in modelspace, the larger it turns out in real-time when it shows up in the here & now. Which is why I found the BBC article on the Irish Potato Famine and how a “Killer gene cause potato famine” to be so interesting.
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Given the rotten growing conditions for some crops up in the Northeast this year, what if the mutation we should worry about isn’t flu but instead is something like a plant disease?
This is not just an idle “Gee, what if…?” kind of question. It’s a damn serious one right now and if you don’t plan to be one of those 1.25-billion people due to die over the next couple of years (mainly from starvation) then pay attention to stories that aren’t in the mainstream. Here’s one in the Southeast Farm Press: “Are wheat varieties losing disease resistance?“
Not exactly an academic question, since you already know (or should) that wheat rust (UGG-99) is slowly working its way across the Eastern European steppes and recent research is lowering the yellow rust ratings of certain kinds of wheat. Not mainstream stuff:, but you’ll find that story on the British Famer’s Weekly Interactive site under the headline “Top varieties’ yellow rust ratings crash.”
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To be sure, the shortage of honey bees hasn’t killed us off – yet. Nor has the die-off of ladybugs. Ditto the “British Columbia bears during from salmon shortage.“
No, it’s not MainStream yet, but give it 9-months. Food’s going to become a big deal. A really, really, really BIG deal. Meantime, back at the MSM…
Trade This
Curiously, one of the things to decline in this morning’s trade figures is export of foods, feeds, and beverages, down $400 million this month. Exports of automotive vehicles, parts and engines was up $1.3 billion. More? Sure, you bet:
“The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, through the Department of Commerce, announced today that total July exports of $127.6 billion and imports of $159.6 billion resulted in a goods and services deficit of $32.0 billion, up from $27.5 billion in June, revised. July exports were $2.7 billon more than June exports of $124.9 billion. July imports were $7.2 billion more than June imports of $152.4 billion.
In July, the goods deficit increased $4.3 billion from June to $42.7 billion, and the services surplus decreased $0.1 billion to $10.7 billion. Exports of goods increased $2.7 billion to $86.7 billion, and imports of goods increased $7.0 billion to $129.4 billion. Exports of services increased $0.1 billion to $40.9 billion, and imports of services increased $0.2 billion to $30.2 billion.
In July, the goods and services deficit decreased $32.9 billion from July 2008. Exports were down $36.8 billion, or 22.4 percent, and imports were down $69.8 billion, or 30.4 percent.
Stock futures are pointing to a lower open. Bye-bye high nigh? (Looked interesting as it fled my fingers, but you may not have had enough coffee yet to enjoy it, however…)
Foreclosures Hurting
Despite the happy-slant headlines, the nations foreclosure rate sucks and Treasury says millions more are in the pipeline.
More candid: “U.S. foreclosure near record, peak in late ’10: report“. Worst is yet to come.
Gee, wonder where you might have heard that before?
Defending them Poppy Fields
“Nato chief warns against early Afghan exit.“ Of course he would. He’d be out of a big important job if there weren’t wars being constantly whipped up. No, we need that (barren, God-forsaken hunk of) land for something. Didn’t we learn something from Russia’s ten-year disaster there? Nope.
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Oh, WTF, no jobs here if it was over, anyway. Besides, doesn’t this slow China some how? Just sayin…
Last of the Terrorist Meme
A note from Cliff about the hijacking (old fashion terrorism) that wraps up our window of September 7-9 nuttiness, which was capped off by the Mexican jet hijacking on Wednesday drew the observation “Aha! Distributed meme!”
Yup: sometimes predictive linguistics come as a single event (like the NE Power Outage hit a couple of years back, or the Sept. 3/4 earthquake with the buildings falling into foundations) while other times it comes distributed as in the flurry of disappearances and this flurry of terrorism-related headlines.
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By our software-driven time libretto, the next interesting headline should be a ‘surprise’ storm causing some relocation of people and a Katrina-like outcome in the Florida/Carolinas kind of area, but I just don’t see it yet. Hopefully, we’ll be wrong and weather will be fine.
Sticks and Stones Department
The headline that “Obama heckled by GOD during speech: “You Lie” during his standup before congress last night comes as no surprise. I mean, what city were they in? And weren’t they all elected? 
