Unlike “Enter the Dragon” – a Bruce Lee martial arts flick which unlike most columns around here has both a good character and a good plot – some days are destined for B ratings.
Such was the case Wednesday when my financial genius friend Howard called to mention (among other things) that the Washington Post was having a contest to find “America’s Next Pundit”. “I may enter,” he revealed.
Howard’s a considerably better writer than me, although his opus on the mortgage meltdown from an insiders perspective hasn’t seen print yet because the mortgage collapse (Phase One, residential) has become something of ‘old news’ and publishers are hooked on ‘the next hot thing’ (Phase Two, commercial). But, that’s still in the wings for a couple of more weeks.
The Post’s contest is limited to 400 words, a toughie for me because I’m an electronic journalist and we use recycled electrons, not physical goods like paper & ink which cost money.
Brevity? Around here? Yeah right…
“Start making your case” advises the Post.
OK then: “The Federal Reserve sucks and has hollowed out the dollar to where it only buys 4.6¢ of goods compared to what it would buy before the bankster coup outlined in The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve
I suppose at this point I could try to reinforce my position with more current data like yesterday’s Consumer Debt report which the bankster’s call Consumer Credit since they are creditors and you are the cannon fodder. But a trip to the grocery store, a serious inflation-adjusted review of what’s left in your 401(k), or trying to actually pay down a credit card balance that has interest rates that would embarrass even a loan shark, is all the proof most people would need.
There. That ought to put me in a Bruce Lee-like position. The Hero takes on the unruly mob of group-think editors and with a simple word-flip and lays them all out. This is fiction, of course.
This part’s not: I expect the Post’s ‘next pundit’ will spew the same consensus as previous contributors. Skeptics of the distracting game of right vs. left (instead of haves vs. have-nots) need not apply. Question the ruling paradigm? How dare! And the paradigm is: People go to Washington broke and come back millionaires. The common folk aren’t welcome.
More will cost you another tree.
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The Post also wants 100 words about the entrant. That’s easy: George Ure is an East Texas nutjob who has been writing about the decline of America’s economy since 1995 on his www.urbansurvival.com web site. Besides consulting and goat ranching, drum smashing, machining, remodeling, ham radio, and studio production, spends endless hours trying to decode Edward Leedskalnin’s and James Clerk Maxwell’s works. He’s semi-educated, highly skeptical and alleges that 13-years running a big city radio news department qualifies him as writer. Ure consistently forgets that he’s not writing for radio and frequently misspells and claims credit for inventing the ‘improvised punctuation device’ which is demolishing good grammar on the internet.
[enter].
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Curiously, the Washington Post has a different way of counting words than Bill Gate’s folks up at Microsoft. When I pasted my entry into Word (to get the word count) my part about ‘self’ was 99 words. By the time it was pasted into the entry form, it was counted as 102.
Here’s my first brush with Washington. I figure here’s 99 of something and when it gets to Washington its suddenly 102 of something. Right there an in-your-face 3% inflation rate – and that’s just dealing with words!
Same thing with my ‘submission’. In Word is was 399 while in Washington post Editorese it counted as 411 words. Perhaps it’s not the editors who count differently, maybe it’s their programmers – shouldn’t make wild assertions like this without proof that editors can’t count – but I’ve always had suspicions in that direction anyway.
Now Let’s Get Bombed
This morning’s column may be a tad shorter than usual since I actually had to run spell check on part of this morning’s report, so now we can unlax a bit and scan the important stuff in the inbox. Like this one – about how a reader is worried that we’re going to start something tomorrow when we ‘bomb the moon’…
“I’ve been reading lately that NASA wants to Bomb the moon on the 9th of Oktober. It is something that really worries me because of the actual reasons behind this bombing.
What kind of impact will this have on the moon and what are the consequences for the earth? It’s not that I’m afraid but it is more that I’m worried and maybe angry that “someone” decides to bomb another planet to see if there is water? What the hell are they thinking?
I’ve a feeling that there is another kind of 911 coming due to the actions of NASA.
I really wonder how the ET’s will react to this kind of action and what the punishment will be for us bombing the moon.
I just cannot believe that they are looking for the next thing to destroy, hell a crater of 5 miles wide, 5 miles!!! Does anybody think about the impact? Really a crater of 5 miles wide/impact on earth, what would it do? Wipe out the planet?
I’m really concerned and I wonder what you and cliff think about this event. Does it lead up to something massive on the 25th of October?”
No worries…yet. Here’s my read of the predictive linguistics reports. First, whatever it is that’s coming October 25th (plus or minus several days) is likely to be mainly economic in flavor. 85/15% kind of thing. So, even if the US/Israel go bomb Iran in that date, it’s likely to be an also-ran news event.
Something that would fit? A massive decline in the US dollar, or a thousand-point drop in the stock market in one day. Who knows? Maybe enough people will sober up or skip the Prozac on Friday the 23rd that they will realize paper and ink means nothing (Washington post aside, LOL). A crack in the market would certainly fit Friday or Monday would fit, but then so would a Top Five bank failure/reorganization and emergency spending package for the first of the next round to “Too Big To Failers” which is another reasonable guess.
Or that too quick denied story about the US buck being sent packing when we go begging for oil…that kind of thing.
At least it seems things will be primarily economic in nature. The best defense for such things I can think of would be a bit of extra cash, so you can buy a little something at the store, although that may not last long because of the magnitude of the electronic nightmare. I’d also make sure the cable bill is paid up so you can see all the stress/panic due over the following couple of weeks on television.
But bomb the moon? Not hardly a concern. The real ‘alien wars’ stuff isn’t till late 2010 and it may be only a bad attempt to launch Project Blue Beam or some other ‘spin the masses’ trickery. Another 9/11 or a further economic meltdown will be off the table – and we’re at about our carrying capacity for war(s) already. What’cha gonna do?
And the Perfect Home Page Is?
A couple of readers have suggested I look at www.startpage.com – which they point out is more private than some of the other pages. I presently use my own home-brewed home page but startpage looks interesting.
So, got any strong feelings as to what makes a good home page? Always been curious about that, never seen much research on it, though…
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Send your comments to george@ure.net
The UrbanSurvival Mall:
Peoplenomics This Week:
A Bad MoM, Real About Real Estate, and Depression Era Myths
Three parts to this week’s report: Part 3 will deal with the very worrisome report from HPH modelspace which was posted on the UrbanSurvival site on Saturday. Part 2 reviews some of the macro “myths” were that came out of the first Depression and how the systematic dismembering of those hard-learnt lessons set the stage for the great pain yet to come here in the second Depression; which brings us to Part 1 – a much larger/further housing price collapse, and massive (and rising) unemployment. It’s unfortunately simple when you look at implied housing prices resulting from even modest declines in aggregate loan-to-value (LTV) rates…
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…
Maxa-Cookie Manager
No, when you tell your browser to ‘empty your cookies’ of web sites you’ve visited, it probably won’t get them all. Why? Because there is a whole class of ‘browser-independent’ cookies that will gobble up space on your hard drive, but more important is they will sneak out information about you without you being aware of it. Ever week I get emails like this one:
“Thanks again for the Maxa Tools recommendation, I never knew how much additional garbage gets attached every time I browse. “
Test drive it free by downloading it. To upgrade to full functionality will be $35 bucks. Is your privacy worth it?
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 nasty and highly intrusive ‘non-browser specific’ cookies. Bonus: You computer may run faster. I’ve taken 1,000 37,970 41,837 cookies off my machine now. It’s just amazing. (I might ask their CTO to add one more digit to the “Total deleted till now” window…)
Attn: Mac Drivers: 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. Given Jens and the other engineers time…
Feeling Thorny?
Want to be a thorn in the side of the Old World Order? Simply click here and send a link to this site to everyone on your distro list…Nothing more dangerous than sharp, clear-thinking upstarts who ask a lot of questions, eh? Unless you believe WTC-7 fell over on its own, of course….
“Live on $10,000″ Updated
I’ve told you in the past to order my ebook “How to Live on $10,000 a year or less…” with the rationale that “We’re all going to live it shortly, anyway.“ Don’t know as you have looked lately, but the unemployment rate is up more than 3% since I wrote the first edition of that book and underpasses have never been more homely. Worth ordering? Just visit www.liveontenthousand.com or, click this little whizzy…
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… Click here for the index and details.
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Last week’s report is here. For back issues of this site, click here. (Goes back to 1997!)
