Suckonomics 101

Where were we prior to the weekend?  Oh yes.. Here’s what wrote a reader Friday after the employment miracle:  “Take the number of people Employed on this page here  – which is 873(000) and divide it by three.  Answer: 291(000).  Now multiply this times 2 and you get what?  582 (000).  Or, simply scroll down to the line “Part time for economic reasons” and read across:  582 (000).“

 

Is this a meaningful coincidence or a smoking gun?  We leave that for you to decide.  You can read the BLS methodology here, if that’s comforting.  But whatever you do, don’t read the…oops!

 

But our other observations about suckonomics are about to be proven out this morning as gold is down, the dollar up, and this means the market should stumble to the downside at the open this morning.

 

As we near server time, the NAS is down 14 and the S&P is down 6, or so and there’s nothing much on the economic calendar till Wednesday.  So if you wanna just stay in bed this morning, I’ll sign you’re excuse not and you can hand it in tomorrow.  Although jobs are rare enough these days, showing up probably still makes sense if you have that three-meals habit…

 

Chavez Wins

We wont play pile-on to the conspiracy theories here, just notice that the polls were a lot closer than the results. Hugo Chavez may be effectively president for life since his health issues seem likely to catch up with him this term.

 

Thumbs UP to: Overlawyered.com

America once proudly (and rightly) claimed to be a nation of laws.  But the problem is that there are so many laws around that it is virtually impossible to live a single day without breaking at least some of them, intentionally or otherwise.

 

So you may wish to add to our morning information scans a site called “Overlawyered” which includes a bunch of stories (growing) about how this “under law” stuff is biting us on the butt.

 

Pay particular attention to the MarketWatch story about how a pending Supreme Corps decision could impale your right to see used [whatever] because of copyrights….OMG we are tripping on our own pechewzelwackers, aren’t we?

 

On t’other hand:  Maybe if copyright holders get their way they’d have to admit and make clear that they are only renting use…which is what some software companies do without disclosure.  Use for one year and then code self-destructs when you thought you were buying longer term use.

 

Now, do we file this under “Ankle-grabs” or under “Vaseline”? Hmmm…no room left in the “Astroglide” file….

 

Robo Job Theft

As if we don’t dig deeply into the topic in my book “Broken Web” for you, here’s a peachy look at the future under the headline “Robots will steal your job, but that’s okay: How to Survive the Coming Economic Collapse.“

 

Now, let’s all put on our thinking caps…where have we heard this before?

 

Nobel Gobbledee

A fair number of stories are out this morning about how John Golden and Shina Yamanaka have won the Nobel Prize for medicine for work on reprogramming of mature (body) cells to become pluripotent.  The gobbledee?  Pluripotent is what juvenile stem cells are, meaning they can go any one of several ways in how they grow up. 

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Wonder how many anti-aging, hangover cures, and other street-level medical advances the Committee considered?

 

Another Discrimination Story

OK, sure, there’s an outbreak of meningitis going on in nine states now. But that’s not my beef today.

 

I’m more curious why it’s meningitis and not womeningitis.  Can we please exercise a bit more acuity in our overly “politically-correctness” frenzy.

 

Peoplingitis or themingitis would be much gentler. Unless I come down with this scourge in which case it would become meingitis.

 

Quakeability?

Note from Patrick Geryl this morning:

 

“Hi George,  

There was a CME hit today…so it is possible that we have earthquakes. In September we had an unexplained earthquake while the Earth was hit by a proton storm…   If we don’t have a 7 plus quake today or tomorrow, then it is possible we have one around October 12-13. Reason: 4 planets are almost Lined Up, but not with the Earth.  

Patrick Geryl “

 

Thanks for the heads up…here’s the detail on it from the Solar Influences Data Center:

 

“A shock signature was detected by the ACE spacecraft on Oct. 8 soon after 0400 UT, triggering active conditions at planetary levels. Current readings show Bz excursions down to approximately -15 nT. This shock signature might be related to the CME expected to arrive on Oct. 9, and/or to the fast solar wind stream linked to a small coronal hole….“

 

Wonder if the 6.0 down south of the below sea level Imperial Valley is worrying folks?  Eyeballs as 625 miles south of El Centro, but on the same fault line…

 

Another was 6.3 buty down in the Banda Sea, so not part of the California falls in ocean story.

 

Life’s a Gas…

Except in South Korea this weekend, the gas was poisonous as some 3,000 people figured out the hard way.

 

Who Need Neighbors Like This?

“National Band of Canadf kforeclosing Americans’ homes over crediot card debt” says the headline.  Say, did I mention the “Astroglide file” is full?

 

Idaho’s Bureaucracy

Say, reader Russ seems tro be losing his respect for the once independent-minded people of Idaho.  Seems the state (per the papers up there) is trying to get into the business of regulating guyed towers over 50-feet in height.

 

As the heads-up from Russ reads:

 

“Seems like a bunch of bs… the FAA and FCC already regulate towers why should the  state dept of transportation… I hope they get some HAM Radio feedback on this…. The ARRL needs to be contacted as well!!!  I could not get through to the local ham radio clubs as their email system is FUBAR and it wont send….. I strongly suggest you forward this to anyone you still know on this end of the state involved with ham radio etc, and make sure they know what is up so they can comment…. “

 

And, if they start with guyed towers, only a matter of time till crank-up and self-supporting towers go into the mix.

 

Yessir…overlapping bureaucracy is what it sounds like.  And white exclude military towers….they don’t hurt if you smack ‘em in a helicopter, or what?

 

Maybe the same water contamination that has vexed Washington DC has made its way West, you think?

 

More after this…