You know the political stupid season is in full swing when Judson Phillips, who’s the nominal head of the Tea Party comes out and blasts House Speaker John Boehner over his efforts to hold onto a debt ceiling bill which, by most accounts is not workable.
Nevertheless ( and despite hopes of bulls that the vote will be sensible later today ) there’s no telling how far America’s legislative terrorists will go in their efforts to (depending on who you listen to) either slam America into a Greece-like default, or hold to the principles of “fiscal responsibility” while ignoring that the rate of spending increase king was either George Bush, or Ronald Reagan before them.
The stock futures are up a tad on the hope reasonableness will somehow show up unannounced, which would be fine with me, since I’m on the long side of this puppy and a 500-point rally over two days following the return of reason is what I’m gambling on. Foolishly, so far, though, I’m sad to admit.
But, my outlook is for the indices to rally like crazy – maybe 5 percent or more – and for gold and silver to come off their flight to safety rally a bit, perhaps next week, provided, that is, reasonableness shows up.
Americans, it seems are sick of having their country held hostage by them legislative terrorists and Judson Phillips has called it right, I think.
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My friends Howard Hill is asking a more appropriate question, and it goes to our usual cui bono inquiry: Who stands to make money with a USA default? Once upon a time we might have known, but the Grahams did that it, so we’re left with Howard asking “Who plays AIG in the Sequel?”
With a $4.8 billion dollar bet against America, a lack of transparency, republicorp intransigence, and the Euro hitting the wall next week, the only thing missing from the financial blender is a couple of shots of El Don, and I figure those to be along shortly.
Then there’s the little discussed change in margin on Treasury debt to serve up a kind of guacamole.
Meantime, the corpgov republicorps seem to have forgotten the message Americans sent in the last elections was “Fix things”. We thought they had enough to sense not to break them in the process. But there you have it…the common sense ain’t common proof all over again.
FL’odd Thinking
Some what if there are privacy concerns? Florida is planning to sell private corporations proprietary driver’s license information. Oh, sure, it may raise $62 million, but don’tcha know healthcare corps would love to get that weight info, huh?
Oh, yeah, clip this out and save it for next time one of your friends tells you how republicorps (like FL guv Rick Scott) are ‘friends of freedom”. Scott’s also been a hold the federal debt ceiling crusader.
Now, where are those campaign contribution lists…wonder if Boehner and Scott have any common donors?
Best government (corporate) money can buy, eh?
Unemployment Improves
Here’s the weekly blast from he Dept. of Labor:
In the week ending July 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 398,000, a decrease of 24,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 422,000. The 4-week moving average was 413,750, a decrease of 8,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 422,250.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.9 percent for the week ending July 16, a 0.1 percentage point decrease from the prior week’s revised rate of 3.0 percent.
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending July 16 was 3,703,000, a decrease of 17,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,720,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,721,000, a decrease of 5,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,726,250.
Tomorrow’s reports will include GDP…
Drought Relief
Locals around East Texas sometimes call this time of year “monsoon season” which is when the occasional hurricane blows up from the Gulf and brings much-needed moisture to the drought parched area.
This weekend, tropical storm Don is due to lasso some moisture and bring it up toward the Rio Grand Valley and, if there’s enough, maybe the hay growers who’ve been suffering will get a second cutting this year, after all.
The National Hurricane Center outlook for wind speeds out 5-days looks like this (as of this morning):
But it isn’t exactly a panacea: Up north in the band from Iowa to Pennsylvania, the dry weather has farmers worried.
Despite .65″ in the rain gauge here last night, we’re still many inches under normal (remember back then?). Even the lows are hot:
“Record highest minimum temperature tied at Dallas/Fort Worth…
The low temperature at Dallas Fort Worth Airport on Wednesday… July 27 2011 was 83 degrees. This ties the previous record highest minimum for July 27 of 83 degrees set in 1998. “
And, maybe it’ll be somehow a super-sized version of compression heating, but this may be the best weekend of the year to get some baked “Okie from Muskogee”. Weather Service is looking for records in the region:
HIGH PRESSURE ALOFT WILL REMAIN OVER THE REGION…ALLOWING FOR THE DANGEROUS HEAT TO CONTINUE THROUGH THE WEEKEND WITH HEAT INDICES IN THE 105 TO 115 DEGREE RANGE. IN ADDITION… OVERNIGHT LOWS ARE EXPECTED TO REMAIN VERY WARM AT NIGHT AND WILL PROVIDE LITTLE TO NO RELIEF FROM THE HEAT. SCATTERED SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS COULD PROVIDE SOME TEMPORARY RELIEF IN A FEW SPOTS FRIDAY AND SATURDAY.
Weather TS Don will bring moisture up that way is a thin bet, at best.
The Data Gap, Evolving
Flip over to Stan and Holly Deyo’s site and scroll down to their note “Deal Millennium-Ark Family. Read up on their experience first-hand with an internet outage that smacks of the kind of thing Clif and Igor have been catching evolving around the net.
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All of which is why we have four internet onramps here and have separate servers for www.independencejournal.com, www.peoplenomics.com , and www.urbansurvival.com. Bookmark ‘em and if your company blocks the UrbanSurvival daily reports, try our SSL (secure layer) connection at https://www.urbansurvival.com.
Sinking Feelings
You know all about the linguistic talk about how “sinkholes” would be coming into the public mind…which it has pretty much on schedule. But what’s just plain weird is to catch the report out of the St. Petersburg Times that sinkhole insurance is about to his the roof (to so speak).
Who’da thought? More on sinkholes as “A sign of the times?” here.
Sick Out?
A lot of mainstream coverage of a ‘high sick rate’ at Continental Airlines the past day, or so.
But some of our readers are wondering if this might also have something to do with radiation leftovers from Japan still blowing this way…
Social Calendar
No, we are not going to the 12:01 AM local premier of Cowboys and Aliens. Maybe the afternoon show tomorrow.
(more after this…)
