Google Suit

Very interesting doings on the legal front to be aware of as Google has been sued by a group of web sites that are not happy about their rank in listings from the search engine operator.  A couple of points: First, the suit might bring to light some of the closely guarded secrets of how Google compiles its rankings.  Secondly, the suit promises to make a ton of work for SEO (search engine optimization) firms.

Jittery French

Student and union activists are expected to be out in force today as national protests continue over a government jobs program.  The government is trying to make the labor market "more flexible and less protective" say reports.  Which means, longer working hours and fewer bennies, so here come the protests.

Iran: Pick a Headline

If you are sitting down with your coffee this morning trying to figure out how "real" the threat of war with Iran is, good luck.  You can find some headlines that suggest that war is coming if Iran doesn't stop its uranium enrichment program.  One such headline declares "The Countdown Begins."  On the other side, the BBC reports that the press in Iran is backing the idea of talks to avert war.  You're welcome to use the ultimate UrbanSurvival forecasting methodology to divine what's next: Flip a coin.

We're How Broke?

So how big is the US debt?  Take 28 Eiffel Towers made of gold and you'd be close says one report.

Shortage Monitor

Our extremely unscientific way of monitoring the web bot's "encounter with scarcity" arrival this spring/summer shows that shortage reports dropped by 300 overnight to 13,200 presently.

Latest additions:

• Ireland risks a gas shortage if the UK runs low.

• A shortage of monster machine tires is slowing Australian mineral development.

• Australia is also short of engineers FWIW. 

• US pharmacists may become short in supply according to one forecast.

• Pellet stove users in some parts of the US report shortages.

On this last point, a reader sent in the following about their adventure trying to get pellets in the area up north of Seattle:

"The spouse hates all this doom and gloom and stuff, though he knows from experience it pays to be prepared**. The pantry and heating supply has since been allowed to run down, and I've been met with a lot of resistance over the last year on getting things restocked back up to where I'm comfortable.... until a few weeks ago.

Can't remember if you've mentioned pellet stoves on your site (I thought you had one). We use two Quadrafire pellet stoves to heat our old house. Some stoves use shelled corn, but our stoves use the pellets made of compressed sawdust, which look a lot like rabbit food. You dump a 40 lb bag of pellets into the hopper of the stove and the thermostat and electronic ignition take care of everything else, feeding more pellets into the burn pot as needed. We rarely go through more than 3 tons of pellets in a heating season. We used to get it all delivered during late summer each year, but for the last year the spouse has been waiting until we get down to a day's worth of pellets. Then he stops at the dealer on the way home from work and picks up about two weeks' worth of pellets and hauls it home in his tiny car.

Imagine our surprise during a cold snap a few weeks ago when the spouse discovered the pellet dealer wasn't just out of our brand of pellets, but out of EVERY brand of pellets. The dealer told Spouse he couldn't get in any more for the foreseeable future, as he'd been told by his suppliers that all the pellets were being shipped "back East." The dealer was phoning around to see if he could borrow pellets from other dealers in western Washington but hadn't scored any yet.

After a panicked phone call from Spouse, I immediately ran down to a local landscaping place that carries a small inventory of pellets. That outfit had one lonely pallet of just under 50 bags, having just reserved their other 1 ton pallet for the dealership my spouse had called from. I got into the store just ahead of three other people who had come a half-hour north trying to find pellets, as the stores in the Everett area and towns immediately north were completely out. So we each took a few bags with a promise from the landscaping guy he'd get in 35 tons from a Tacoma manufacturer in a few days.

The pellets didn't arrive!

The landscaping place was told by the Tacoma manufacturer that their order had never gotten written up (???) and that the best the manufacturer could do for them was deliver 10 tons in a few more days (we broke out the electric space heater$$$ while we waited for pellets). The landscaping place also told us that our usual dealer was sending a big truck up to Canada to bring pellets down. Apparently the Canadian manufacturers have a big inventory of pellets available, if you don't mind the quality.

Right now we've got about a ton of pellets on hand. The spouse is thinking that we never ever let it go below 2 tons again, just in case. I'm thinking it's time to go dig out the woodstove, just in case."

Just so we can have a running tab on shortages, I'll start keeping a chart:

Gen-X Anger

Another email worth passing on:

Yesterday you wrote: "'That's refreshing - to hear a Baby Boomer own up to screwing up the world.' Well, we haven't done as well as we should have, so why not admit it, right? It struck me, though, that there are millions of 30-and-unders who are seriously angry with us 50-and-overs because we have stolen the dream from them."

Only a true man can admit to a wrong. Being an amateur generational theorist, you hit the nail on the head. Gen-X is pissed at the boomers. I should know, I'm leading edge Gen-X and I'm furious at the hypocritical boomers.

However, a boomer who can look at mistake, the way you have, is in the minority. If we could only get that to a majority, things would be better.

You rock George!

Naw.  I just figure that if wisdom comes from making mistakes and I must be wiser than most, having made more mistakes than most people I know...

St. Patrick's in the Rearview

Our neighbors across the road has us over for an incredibly good St. Patrick's Day dinner:  A couple of vodka martinis, corned beefs with all the trimmings, home made wine (which would be an award winner, if they ever made more - as it is, I'm volunteering to procure their annual output).  All this was followed with blueberry pie and ice cream, and a handshake to buy a pickup truck.  About the only thing missing was a winner lottery ticket...

Peoplenomics

Flu, shortages and whatever - this week our topic for Peoplenomics.com topic is to go through (step-by-step) how to develop your own home inventory list.  Complete with a spreadsheet for the Excel literate.

Heck of an article for subscribers this week about the dangers of our very short, tight, supply lines.  The article is "Death by JIT" and a subscription to a year's worth of such gems will set you back only $30.  Details here.

Live Well, Cheaply

"How to live on $10,000 a year or less" is a runaway best seller at our bookstore.  The entrance is over here.

Spread the Word

Please help get the word out about this free site.  Click here to tell a few friends about it.  Just fill in their emails.

Friday March 17, 2001

Truth's Out

Looks like the Boston Legal closing arguments story is still online - To see the video which has people buzzing like crazy try this link: http://www.boston-legal.org/ and hit the "Stick It" closing arguments video.   The text is here. It's awesome.

(story outdated) Truth - Over Quickly

That episode of Boston Legal with the great speech has been removed due to copyright infringement.  Darn!  "I wonder if there's any way to get a legal copy? asks one reader.

(story outdated) The Truth on TV????
Hats off to  "Boston Legal"  where it looks like the truth is leaking out.

Click over here to watch the best 5-minutes of TV I've seen in a hell of a long time.

As one reaction poster noted on the "You Tube" site: "This is what i have been saying for sometime but it is hard to get this message across especially the main stream presstitutes."

Production, Capacity, Utilization

The Federal Reserve this morning released its Industrial Capacity & Utilization report for February.  You can read the whole report and come to your own conclusions:

Industrial production increased 0.7 percent in February after a decrease of 0.3 percent in January. The output of utilities jumped 7.9 percent in February, as the weather moved closer to seasonal norms after January’s warm temperatures. Mining output decreased 0.5 percent in February, and manufacturing production was unchanged after a gain of 0.8 percent in January. At 110.9 percent of its 2002 average, overall industrial output in February was 3.3 percent above its February 2005 level. Because of the jump in utilities output, the rate of capacity utilization for total industry rose 0.4 percentage point, to 81.2 percent, a level just above its 1972-2005 average of 81.0 percent. Capacity utilization in manufacturing edged down in February to 80.4 percent, a rate 0.6 percentage point above its 1972-2005 average.

My only observation is that manufacturing was up 4.2% YoY while manufacturing capacity utilization was up 2.3% leading me to conclude that things are looking up a bit in manufacturing. Seems to me that'd be a good thing. 

Balancing that out this morning, we see GM is increasing its reported losses, which will weigh.

Money for Nothing

CONgress has raised the federal debt ceiling again - this time by $781 billion of your earnings.

Mystery Fever of India

With the world's attention now turning to bird flu, which we expect will shortly morph into concerns about viability of the globalist business model,  I was intrigued this morning to read that a "mystery fever" has hit the town of Malagaon, India.  The report out of Nashik is not terribly enlightening, but it's a data point to consider.

I spent a few minutes this week chatting with my friend Robin Landry in Shawnee, Oklahoma, one of the best trend experts I know.  He mentioned in passing that he had a recent experience with some kind of a mystery illness, if I can label it such, that hit in Oklahoma.  No national press about it, but emergency rooms he reported were somewhere between chockablock full to overflowing.  So when I read about the case this morning in India, I start to wonder.

Bird Flu Moving

The latest country it has shown up in seems to be Israel, which has now ordered a poultry quarantine as a result.  Meanwhile, the web bot predictions of "restrictions on travel" are coming into focus as a Scottish researcher says global animal transport may need to be halted.  I figure it may only be a matter of time until the "animal" category includes humans.

Not a Pass

One of my friends told me that I was far too easy on the administration for blowing the Katrina and Rita responses.  "You've got this "monolithic view of government," he noted, "And it was like you were giving them [the administration] a pass because of bird flu."  Well, no, it was a think piece and wasn't meant as a pass at all.  All I was suggesting was that at some point, multiple problems come up the governmental "food chain" to a very few people that make major decisions, and it was possible that government couldn't deal with multiple crisis simultaneously. Too many problems and too few channels - that kind of thing.  But a pass?  Nope - at least not intended. A bad record is still a bad record.

Appropriate Reactions

You can read the Marc Siegel piece in the Boston Globe this morning, if you are looking for someone to warn about the "Cost of Bird Flu Hysteria."  History three years from now will judge whether he's right, I guess...

However, as we pointed out yesterday, it is unheard of for the government to warn in advance about "social disruptions" to come on a government web site.  If there's one link to click on this morning (if you haven't already) it's this one.

eBook Coming

Whether it's the bird flu, or some other highly contagious disease to come, I have asked my son (another George Ure) to write a book, complete with diagrams and references, that would give a regular person a quick lesson in how to set up green zones, red zones, decontamination procedures, and the kind of stuff my son goes on endlessly about, as he operates an on-call instant HIV testing business in the Seattle area. He's my "expert" on dealing with communicability. Selfishly perhaps, I wanted a plain-speaking book on biological decontamination.  If you'd like to be notified when it comes out, click here to get on the list. I'm just guessing about 40-50 pages.

Operation Swarmer

That's the big operation in Iraq right now, with 1,500 troops engaged in rooting out insurgents. It's expected to continue through the weekend.

Shortages

A Hawaii reader sends us this:

"Noticed your reference to the propane shortage on Maui. I lived on Maui for twenty years and just moved to the big island a year ago. The propane shortage is statewide and is due ( at least so the news says) to a lightning strike causing power outages to a Chevron refinery which produces propane and which will take some weeks to repair due to the parts needing to be shipped in, etc.

 

Here on the big island, many, many people live off the grid, and make regular trips to town to refill their propane tanks and their water bottles, as we do. Many of the propane refilling stations are closed, and the ones that are open are rationing. It is not causing any hardships so far, nor do I hear people voicing much concern. They assume that the powers-that-be will, naturally, take care of things so that no American suffers anything more than a transitory discomfort. For myself, I hear it as a warning bell: ding-ding!! the next round will now begin, and the rules will not be the same.

 

I "discovered" peak oil about three years ago, and regularly ask people that I run into in the course of my day, if they've heard of the term. I have not had one single positive answer, as in, no, no one has any clue. I do not lecture or proselytize. If they look blank and do not express interest, I just let it go. I guess I ask for the sake of my own curiosity, and I am constantly amazed that no one is paying attention to such a vital issue.

 

I'm also a housing bubble-US gov. deficit spending aficionado, and I am equally amazed at the vast and overwhelming ignorance of most everybody. Sometimes, I feel like a fisherman, baiting my hook and casting my line, tossing questions and tidbits of information. I get no nibbles, and if I depended on it for my living, I'd be starving to death. The information is there, for anyone who cares to look. Why is it so many do not, will not, look? Websites like yours open a window to the world that lies beneath the lies, but few care to go down the rabbit hole.

 

Tea party, anyone?"

More Shortages

Water shortages are being discussed in Mexico City.

Search engine returns, at 12,900 yesterday jumped up to 13,500 today - and increase of 600 returns in one day - compared with an increase of 100 the day before. 

Also: I canceled my order for more rounds of 9 MM Luger ammo at CDT:  They were out of stock on large quantities it turns out.

NYC's Soft(?) Dictators

NYC Police have joined the dictatorship - as word of proactive arrests at political demonstrations in 2002 have come to light.  Not that anyone will care...

The Rebellion Meme

(A meme is a thought virus.) French students have been raising hell this week with their protests over a new youth labor law.  A quarter of a million took to the streets yesterday.  What's interesting to us is the phrase "political rebellion by the country's younger generation" that popped up in the Washington Post's coverage. 

The concept of rebellion (as web bot subscribers know) has been rising out of the data for several months of runs, and I ran into it first hand this week as an inter-generational feeling when I was talking to a customer service rep. While waiting on a computer, and talking about the weather, politics, and whatever, the 31-year old who was assisting me said "That's refreshing - to hear a Baby Boomer own up to screwing up the world."  Well, we haven't done as well as we should have, so why not admit it, right?  It struck me, though, that there are millions of 30-and-unders who are seriously angry with us 50-and-overs because we have stolen the dream from them.

OK, what do I mean stolen?  Well, the oceans are out of fish. The sky is full of whatever. The economy is based on least cost labor with virtually no thought of sustainability - something we only started talking about in the 1960's and were co-opted from by the greeds and needs of the 80's and 90's.  Young people today who want to buy a home feel like they are being conned into "buying at the top" of the housing bubble, which seems to be in the process of bursting.  You get the idea, right?  Anger with old folks - and that's before they figure out how badly CONgress and the administration are screwing them over with intergenerational tax transfers.  Oh boy, wait till they get the bills we're leaving them.  You think they're mad now?

St. Patrick's Day

I thought I would pass on this fine thought from the Irish:

"May the road rise to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face.

And rains fall soft upon your fields.

May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

And may you be heaven an half an hour befour the devil knows your dead!"

Thanks to our friends at Oppenheimer for reminding us.. 2-million people (which infers 4-million eyes) will watch the NYC parade today.  Lemme see, here in Texas that'd call for a "yeee haw and b'gorah"

Texas Fire

...situation has improved as the winds ease.

Thursday March 16, 2006

Did Flu Planning Over Shadow Katrina Aid?

Government avian flu preparation is really impressive so far, but there's now a question in my mind whether devoting the large amounts of government planning resource to bird flu may have been - what we called in business school  -"the hidden variable" behind the federal government's apparently slow response to the late August 2005 Katrina disaster in New Orleans.  If it was, we may never know for sure, because telling the American people (and especially those in Louisiana) words to the effect that "we're working a bigger problem" would not have been politically acceptable at the time - and it likely not today.  Nevertheless, there's a chance that's what was going on.

First, the bullet points that you need to know - with our emphasis on personal economics and planning - that I've pieced together:

• The federal government has an extremely well developed flu pandemic web site that looks like it has been many months in the making.  yet you may not have heard of it yet: So right now, go look at www.pandemicflu.gov and see if you don't agree: There is a ton of content there and much of it is news to me, but exactly along our "context shift"  line of thinking.

• Quite remarkably, on this site the federal government is officially alerting you to the possibilities of "social disruptions," and is dmitting that "Being able to work may be difficult or impossible," "Schools may be closed for an extended period of time," "transportation may be disrupted," and "people will need advice and help."

• The Federal Reserve on Wednesday has issued an advisory to financial institutions to hunker down and get ready for bad (or worse) from the flu: "This advisory is intended to raise awareness regarding the threat of a pandemic influenza outbreak and its potential impact on the delivery of critical financial services. It further advises financial institutions and their service providers to consider this and similar threats in their event response and contingency strategies. This issuance discusses the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza (National Strategy) and the roles and responsibilities it outlines for financial institutions."  The phrase "impact on critical financial services" is the key - the possible (likely?) coming pandemic could screw up the nation's financial system.

• There's also an important timeline marker in the Federal Reserve advisory:  "On November 1, 2005, the White House issued the National Strategy, which discusses the threat and potential impact of a pandemic influenza event." 

I want you to keep this date in mind for a few minutes - the White House had a plan on November 1st 2005.  But when did Bird Flu start popping up in headlines?

• I'd refer you to the article "Bird flu: we're all going to die" by Charles Arthur that appeared on June 2, 2005 in the UK's The Register.

• Our government's Centers for Disease Control reports that "Research studies to test a vaccine to protect humans against H5N1 virus began in April 2005, and a series of clinical trials is under way. "

• And we find much earlier references, too:  The magazine Nature printed a bird flu article referencing the possible spread of avian flu to humans in Vietnam is Jaunary 2004!

Now here's the point of today's research:  I'd guess there's a 50-50 chance that while George Bush and his administration are being taken to task almost daily for failing to react in some massive way to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, they may have had a potentially far worse problem on their plate and been devoting huge amounts of resource to it at the time.  While nurses are faulting the response, and while Joe Lieberman has lost his bid for Katrina documents from the White House, I suspect that bird flu planning may have held center stage

You see, Katrina struck on August 29, 2005.  And the National Strategy for bird flu was unveiled on November 1, 2005.  That would have given government (White House, FEMA, and lots of other agencies) just 60-days to come up with a realistic threat assessment and comprehensive plan to deal with a coming pandemic.  I don't know about your experience, but in all my time as a reporter I have never seen government come up with a detailed plan or move that fast on a potential threat. I expect itt takes many months to get the kind of consensus reflected in the plan.

I'd place a sizeable wager that Katrina and Rita took a back seat to planning for the arrival of avian flu.  Naturally, it's not being reported this way yet, because it would be a political crapstorm to have it widely reported this way. But that's my best guess right now.

I think you'll see in our late March "context shift" arriving, the federal government has been devoting huge amounts of planning and preparedness to the flu - possibly at the expense of other items.  And the government pandemic web site didn't just pop up overnight - it's part of a Bigger Plan.  As I pointed out earlier: For the US government to speak in a predictive manner of "social disruptions" and "impossible to work" is absolutely unheard of.

Bird Flu Resources

With the federal government putting together a huge web site, and with the Federal Reserve concerned about the threat to the nation's economic system, I thought you might want to have a list of "official" flue resources.  Here's a list - mostly from the Federal Reserve/Comptroller of the Currency advisory to institutions:

Government's Main Pandemic Flu site

http://www.pandemicflu.gov

Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) [http://www.dhhs.gov/nvpo/pandemics/index.html]

Business Pandemic Influenza Planning Checklist (DHSS) [http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/pdf/businesschecklist.pdf]

Avian Flu Website (DOD) [http://deploymentlink.osd.mil/medical/medical_issues/immun/avian_flu.shtml]

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) [http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/index.htm]

World Health Organization (WHO) [http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/en/]

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) [http://www.publichealth.va.gov/flu/pandemicflu.htm]

Department of Agriculture (USDA)

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?navid=AVIAN_INFLUENZA&navtype=SU

Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) [http://www.osha.gov/dsg/guidance/avian-flu.html]

Department of State [http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/health/health_1181.html]

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) [http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/home/News/news_items/avian_influenza.html ]

You might want to read everything at the government's main site: www.pandemicflu.gov as well as check out the Red Cross and print out this section of today's report, or hit some of the links and add them to your "favorites" file.

Web Contingency Plans

I have been making at many contingency plans as possible:  What I'm trying to get set up in the next month will be "triple redundancy" for internet access: dial-up (done), satellite (done) and wireless access at 2 MB (pending) with a static IP so I can hang a backup server on it. 

One of the questions you should be asking at work is "How can we operate this business if two conditions are imposed on it?  One would be a limitation of human-to-human contact.  The other would be minimal contact with other humans in face-to-face encounters.

So how much business that you're doing now can be pushed over onto the web?  Can you do sales with a good PowerPoint, web-sharing software, Skype, and so forth?  If you're in the intellectual property arena, can you handle most of your business over the net?  I realize that there is a lot of paperwork in the court system, for example, but there ought to be some way of filing all court papers electronically...  Put this on your to-do list under things to think about at work...

Adventures in Ammunition

A reader wrote in to remind me of the ABC News story headlined "How will Bird Flu change your life?" and suggested that I could have written the story for them.  Perhaps.

I called Cheaper Than Dirt yesterday to ask them where my block of 7.62 X 39 ammo was - the order had been accepted into their system last week, and I received part of the order (cleaning supplies, not the ammo) with an enclosed note that the rest of the order would be in a separate shipment. Calling to check on the order I was told "Sorry we're out of stock" so I had them issue a refund.  I was assured that my other order for 9 MM Luger rounds would be shipped.  But in the meantime, E was out shopping yesterday and picked up some 7.62 in 100 round boxes at WalMart.

Shortages of the Day

In keeping with our expectation of an "encounter with scarcity" which will likely come in tandem with a growing awareness of bird flu, we've spotted a couple of new shortages today. 

• The island of Maui over in Hawaii is experiencing a propane shortage.

• In the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, growth and population pressures have caused locals to notice a shortage of stop signs.

• Thanks to outsourcing, Vietnam is having a shortage of labor, mainly at the low end of the skills chain.

• Pakistan has a sugar shortage

• Suva has a shortage of rugby referees ( :-) )

• Uganda has a diesel fuel shortage

Shortage references on one of my news hunting engines is up to 12,900 - a gain of 100 in the past day.  (Noted for benchmarking purposes)

Selling Iran

While we have seen reports that Iran's oil bourse may be put off until later this year (lots of rumors flying around this), the administration's SecState Condi Rice is still promoting the idea that Iran is the central banker for terrorism.

One of the best articles on the Iran oil bourse I've read in a while which takes the "big picture" approach is one in the India Monitor says as a threat to US dollar hegemony, Iran is way down the list of threats.

Congressman Ron Paul reportedly tells the folks at Prison Planet that the Iran War is on hold because more selling needs to be done.

Terrorist Heroes?

Lots of discussion starting to pop up over the movie "V for Vendetta".  I mentioned yesterday that I tend to "map" everything mentally in three dimensions.  And for something like this, the mind space could be gridded something like this - put the subject anywhere you like:

I'm not assigning the movie a position yet, but in terms of how I'd dimension it in "holographic mind space" I'd probably find someplace to "file it" in this kind of matrix.

H&R IRA's

New York's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has taken on H&R Block over sales of an IRA with big fees.  H&R Block is planning to fight it. 

Oil Outlook

Crude prices seem to be fairly steady - at least for now.  Meantime, the US Army reportedly sees the reality of Peak Oil.

And a NYC reader sends this along: "Regarding oil, I'm part of a peak oil meetup group in nyc and our group is putting on a conference the end of April. All the biggies, Kunstler, Ruppert, Fitts, Savinar, Klare, Pfeiffer, etc., etc., will be there. You can find the info at www.energysolutionsconference.org.  I'd really appreciate it, if you mention the conference, and also it would be great if you found the time to attend."  OK, mentioned it - but I won't be able to attend due to client commitments.

Wednesday March 15, 2006

Ides of March

"Beware the Ides of March." A few people know that this was issued as a warning to Julius Caesar, but the truly informed today need to run around the office asking really important questions like "Did you know that "Ides of March" was a song done by Iron Maiden (the album Killers, 1981), not to be confused with the band "Ides of March" which did the song Vehicle in 1970?"  A one-hit-wonder, if I recall correctly....

Strangely, the Ides of March has not been commercially exploited to the same extend as St. Patrick's Day this Friday. I would have thought there would be a Caesar Salad Association or some such, but guess not. Elaine is not much of a meat eater, but as a life-long omnivore, I've got plans for beer and corned beef and cabbage Friday afternoon.  You might want to remind yourself to wear something green on Friday, unless of course, your social life really sucks...

If you know anyone who is an engineer (hardware, software, other except Civil) you need to know that St. Patrick is the patron saint of engineers.  Why not civil engineers?  Well, as the old joke went when I started off on the BSEE track years ago, there's no such thing as a civil engineer!  Get it?  Ha! Doubly so Friday, huh?   How did we get off on this tangent?  Oh yeah, trying to plan for the worst and hope for the best..Pass the Bushmill's will ya?.

We'll be watching the market closely, as always, but it seems like it will be a perfectly normal trading day.  Still, you never know, Julius.

Shortages Ahead? Read A Book

One of the interesting dangers of the information age is that people often miss the important distinction between "data" and "information."  It was a popular subject back in business school and it's important that folks differentiate between data (collection of facts) and information which is actionable. Many folks don't consider the distinction.

I mention this because Canadian News Hound Tim B (a many times daily news tipster) sent in this thoughtful email"

This info can be found on Page 21 of 'Power Down" by Richard Heinberg:

 

WORLDWIDE TOTAL CEREAL CROP

FIGURES YEAR......RESERVES ALL IN MILLIONS METRIC TONNES

1999               ...                     684.5

2000               ...                     633.4

2001               ...                     584.2

2002               ...                     466.6

2003               ...                     371.9

So, note that as of three years ago, we had about 10 WEEKS worldwide cereal reserves, and based on the trend from 1999, we now in 2006 likely have ONLY about 200.0, a stinking 5 WEEKS RESERVE WORLDWIDE !

 

What could reduce even this razor-thin margin to ZERO?

(OR worse, NEGATIVE!)?

 

Drought

Insect plagues

Fungus (rust)

Destructive weather (too hot, hurricanes, widespread tornadoes (like March 12),

too much rain, too cool, rain at the wrong time...)

 

Commodity Prices so low that planting is discouraged But how about FUEL too expensive, such that farmers cannot afford to plant, or use fertilizers, or harvest? If oil spikes to $100-$150 right before spring seeding, or stays high into fall harvest in N.A., well...

Yup, the US is headed toward being a net food importer, alright, if we're not already.  It seems that the marvelous Just-In-Time inventory system, which has been great in terms of allow corporate profitability to be puffed up here and there, doesn't offer much elasticity.

I've started searching news outlets for the word "shortage" - and the results are interesting because it's a different way to grid current events.  I run these matrices in my head all the time and they look like this:

Some of the current "shortage" stories out and about:

• Animal (read that: protein) shipments may be slowing down at the international level because of a lack of ships to handle live animal shipments.  A problem for Australia.

• New Zealand has a shortage of veterinarians.

• Bangladesh has a water shortage and is blaming India.

• Seaford, England, has a water shortage, too.

Occasionally, readers will suggest that I am too much of a "glass half empty" kind of fellow, so as a nod to that reader, here's what is plentiful:

• There's lots of methadone available in Ontario.

• There's no meat shortage for Passover and Independence Day in Israel.

• Georgia has no shortage of potential fullbacks.

• And, there's no shortage of gasoline in Botswana lately.

There, I feel fairly balanced, now.  (Whew!) My point in this exercise is to do a little benchmarking for later reference (later on this year) to see if there is much change in the "shortages" meme.  One news search tool shows 12,800 results for the search term "shortage" right now, and 2,270 for the term "plentiful."   Roughly a 6:1 ratio of news coverage in the shortage/plentiful sphere should be noted for future consideration as well.

AND... speaking of shortages, as we were a moment ago, people in Iraq are stockpiling food, weapons, ammo, fuel and everything else they figure they will need in the soon to be appearing (in mainstream media) Iraq Civil War.

Saddam in Court

Same guy (or same stand-in?) and same rap.  "I'm the president of Iraq..." Blah blah blah.

Bird Flu Odds

ABC News is reporting the odds of Bird Flu going human-to-human at about 50-50.  While some otherwise fairly balanced media have been lagging (or ignoring) the government's low-key advice to stock up, ABC has been on the leading edge of the story.

One other news-about-news note today: Mike Wallace is retiring from "60-Minutes."

Web Bots: No Changes

Thanks for voting in the poll (if you did) on whether I should include more, the same, or less content about the forward-looking (future predicting?) web bot project over at www.halfpasthuman.com.  I received 1,616 emails as of tabulation time (6:11 AM) and that will be when things get "frozen."  54% (868) of respondents want more, 39% (632) said it was about right as it, while 7% (116) said I was devoting too much focus to it.  Looks something like this visually:

So, no changes.  I figure the people who want more detail can ante up for a subscription to the project. 

Dangerous Drug Test

Two people may die as a result of trials of a new anti-inflammatory drug being tested in England. Reuters reports "The trial was set up by U.S. drug research company Parexel International Corp. on behalf of German pharmaceutical company TeGenero AG"  So why the adverse reaction?  Well, this isn't exactly aspirin they're testing.  According to the TeGenero web site:

"Volunteers taking part in a clinical trial involving TeGenero’s study drug monoclonal antibody TGN1412 have experienced adverse events. The study, sponsored by TeGenero, involves TeGenero’s TGN1412, an immunomodulatory humanized agonistic anti-CD28 monoclonal antibody that is being developed for the treatment of immunological diseases with a high unmet medical need, such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and certain cancers."

Tuesday March 14, 2006

Context Shift Arriving?

Let's start this morning with a very curious email that I need to discuss with you - and seek your guidance on - because it raises very interesting questions:

"I like your site, mostly because we already tend to agree with the depression is underway scenario. But you are out of your mind with the predictive web bot stuff. I'd sooner believe in astrology. It hurts the credibility of your entire site."

If you're a long-time reader of this site, you already know about the "web bot" technology pioneered by www.halfpasthuman.com, which among other things, has predicted major features of everything from 9/11 (link to July 2001 article) to the Northeast power Outage (link) and it has accurately captures lots of aspects of other events such as the Columbia disaster, the Tsunami, the DC Sniper Case, and others.

Most recently, for almost a year, the technology has been speaking of "restrictions on travel" and for about six months, it has been sounding the alarm about a coming "encounter with scarcity."  It has also captured mood shifts of the country darned well, such as the growing period of "rebellion" which will break out into "conflict" at the end of August first part of September.  And we get two major international crisis between now and then.

I won't review how the technology works as we have posted that elsewhere on this site, and yes, there have been many pretenders come along and claim to have the technology.  Since we started advising you of the context shift around the end of March (21-29).  This is not something I just pulled out of my hat - you can click here to read the references I was making to the context shift a month ago - and that was long after the web bot project subscribers got word of what's coming.

Not to freak you out about how good the technology is, but we began reporting publicly about the coming "encounter with scarcity" way back at the beginning of November 2005 - and so yes, we have been quietly preparing since that report.  The People's Economist wouldn't be worth a damn if he didn't follow his own advice.  I will admit our timing sucks as that's the hardest part of the bots.  Here's what I wrote about in November 2005:

"lastly, in the most recent of runs, October 29th, we see how this threat of travel restrictions will being to cast a shadow over the country in December: "The Populace/USofA entity is showing via cross links that the 'shocks' of November will lead to 'restricted movement'. This is being interpreted as that, rather than 'scarcity' as there are both appearing within the entity. The suggestion from the originating cross links is that a combination of 'secrets revealed' and a run-in with 'scarcity' will lead much of the populace of the country into a period of 'restricted movement'. This may well be indicating a very very bad holiday travel season."

November 2005 - got that? What bothers me is that the longer the lead time we get on major context shifts and tipping points is the further ahead of events things show up in linguistic analysis, the more severe they are in terms of impacts on our personal lives.

Now, to get to the point of this email I received: Yes, the main theme of UrbanSurvival is about economics and how we are, in my opinion, on the front edge of a massive economic depression, the likes of which will match (or perhaps exceed) 1929 in scope, being played out against a vastly different background.  And yes, the web bots are a real "stretch" but nevertheless, they seem to work and do a fine job of giving us a heads up about what's coming next.

So here's the question I want to ask you - and please click one or the other to vote - when you click the (Vote) next to your feelings, it should pop up a email with a pre-filled subject line that will route it into my automatic vote tabulator:

• (Vote) There's too much referencing the web bot predictions

• (Vote) There's about the right amount of referencing the forecasts

• (Vote) There's not enough detail about the forecasts

I will tab the result tomorrow morning and will try to be guided by reader input like yours - Thank you!

About Them Scarcities

While the web bot predictions have been including the references to "encounter with scarcity" and "restrictions on travel" for some time, we are nevertheless surprised to see the government officially mentioning to people to "stock up on provisions" just in case. 

If our reading of the 'bots is right, this is just the "leading edge" of what's coming, and it should arrive in full force within a week to 10-days.  Right on schedule for the context shift. 

This past weekend, we advised our subscribers to the $30 a year www.peoplenomics.com reports that stocking up is doubly important because the modern Just-In-Time manufacturing and distribution system (that has allowed corporations to take "money out of inventory" [by keeping very little inventory on hand]) has a distinct downside:  When extraordinary demand pops up, there's nothing left in the supply chain (technical a lack of supply chain elasticity) so what would in the 1950's have been an inventory drawdown swells out of proportion and becomes what the 'bots are talking about - an encounter with scarcity.

I know that's got to be a mind stretch for you, but language shifts really do seem to presage fundamental shifts in how internet communicating humans live, and as a result, we get a great long-range "heads up" on such things and communicate them to those who are interested.

Bird Flu

The death toll from the avian flu is continuing to climb.  In Azerbaijan, the death toll is now reported at 100. In Southeast Asia, Myanmar is issued a call for international help following reports of its first outbreak.

Economic Impacts

The International Monetary Fund says the economic impacts of the bird flu could be tremendous.  No one is saying just how bad it will be, but think bad and you'll be in the ball park. You're not really still in the stock market are you?

Money and Bird Flu

Not to put a purely capitalist face on these developments, which we expect will catch hold of the US emotionally within a week or two and we may see in that timeframe our first reports of store shelves being wiped clean by consumers, but there might be some ways to profit. 

For example, I found myself asking the other day, "What pharmaceutical companies rely most heavily on egg supplies to grow vaccines, that won't be able to culture cures because eggs might go into short supply due to bird flu?"  I was also pondering: "If there is a huge die-off of the bird population globally, then  what will be the pesticide companies that will keep going?"

Our colleagues at www.halfpasthuman.com threw some cold water on my "get short and get rich quick" notions, though by appropriately asking "If the dinosaurs died off in a period when 20-spcies a day were disappearing from the planet, why do you think you will be able to survive a 50-species a day die-off?"   Hmmm...maybe bugs will inherit the earth.

Beef: Food Chain Jitters

Just in case you were planning to stock up on lots of beef in order to have a readily available protein source for the period of possible scarcity ahead, you might be interested to learn that a cow in Alabama has tested positive for Mad Cow.  This one was put down by a veterinarian, and didn't enter the food supply, but the fear is that where there is one, there may be others.

Again, to return to the "money" side of matters, this has already had an impact on fast food operations and protein processor shares.

Oil Outlook

Oil investment banker Matt Simmons said something several months ago that is still ringing in my head (gotta have it looked at maybe?).  He said something to the effect that the only thing that would keep the world's economy from crashing onto the rocks due to Peak Oil would be a good sized Depression, or words to that effect.

We're beginning to see how a combination of Bird Flu and an economic recession, already in the cards due to the recently inverted yield curve, would get us to exactly that place: a defacto depression of sorts.

The latest data point to stir into your thinking is that the International Energy Agency says that weaker demand this year could moderate oil consumption.  What's interesting (and shows me how slow most economists are when it comes to incorporating new thought) is that the IEA forecast isn't based on Bird Flu or concepts like home quarantines, etc.  Nope: It's based on high prices.
 

Missing Mochas?

Here's an interesting email from a reader in Maryland, that is once again on the theme of "encounter with scarcity"

George, Sat March 11, my daughter and I arrived at the local

organic grocery in Annapolis, MD about 10:15 am-it was unusually warm out and so the store did not seem to have the usual crush of folks and in the dairy aisle-there were only a few boxes of extra-large brown eggs-no xl white ones. Loads of brown jumbos (most expensive) and a few boxes of large white eggs. I bought the brown extra-larges (more expensive than whites) and didn’t think a lot about it until I got to the milk section. There I found a small stocking of the usual organic choices but no gallon containers of the 2% organic that we buy. So I asked the young gal who was restocking only about 6 half gallons each of the several types they carry, what was up with the lack of product and she said “you know I emailed the company about that and they just said ‘demand was up’” This store is very popular and should have had plenty available given the day and time-in my opinion.

Now as is our custom, my 12 year old and I stop next door at Starbucks for a beverage for the ride home. I asked the clerk there if they had any of their canned cocoa powder which they sell for folks who like to brew mocha’s at home and she said every store nationwide was out and I should check online to see when it might be available. Now what is interesting to me is I had in the past week checked three other Starbucks for the cocoa and they were all out and hadn’t had any for a time-but no one offered up the “nationwide” comment. I haven’t checked online yet but I find this fascinating in light of the “bots” recent high or should I say “lowlights” re: scarcity. Signed, “Mocha-less near Annapolis” ps. cream and half and half were also down to several pints and half pints as well. ???

So, if you go to Starbucks and want a dusting of cocoa powder on your latte this morning (a great waker-upper) let me know if you run into missing cocoa powder?  Thanks.  Could just be a coincidence, but then again...it fits the forecast of scarcities arriving that we have been telling you about for weeks and weeks...

Other News

Frankly, I'm now about 90% confident that the predicted context shift at the end of this month will be a widespread public recognition that it's time to stock up, and because of the dangerous lack of supply elasticity in Just-In-Time Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management, this will almost instantly cause encounters with scarcity in as little time as a week to 10 days, the other news events of today pale in comparison and potential impact.

While the number of war dead in what's becoming Iraq's Civil War has been climbing, to 65 in 24-hours, and the Prime Minister of Korea has resigned in a scandal centered around golf, I'd suggest that such stories are useful more or less for entertainment value only at this point.  (Although, given that Tom DeLay has also been having problems with his golf game lately, it makes me feel better about leaving my clubs in our storage building!)

My view is that you have an important opportunity over the next week or so to get ahead of the curve in terms of public recognition of the context shift. 

The choice here is to be ahead of the crowd, or possibly be trampled by it.

Current Account Deficit Up

Say, this is no surprise to anyone who looks at country of origin labels:

The U.S. current-account deficit--the combined balances on trade in goods and services, income, and net unilateral current transfers--increased to $224.9 billion (preliminary) in the fourth quarter of 2005 from $185.4 billion (revised) in the third quarter. The increase was mostly accounted for by increases in net unilateral current transfers and in the deficit on goods. In addition, the balance on income shifted to a deficit from a surplus, and the surplus on services decreased.

Goods and services

The deficit on goods and services increased to $197.4 billion in the fourth quarter from $181.4 billion in the third.

Goods

The deficit on goods increased to $212.4 billion in the fourth quarter from $197.3 billion in the third quarter.

Goods exports increased to $231.3 billion from $224.8 billion. Much of the increase was in capital goods and in automotive vehicles, engines, and parts.

Goods imports increased to $443.7 billion from $422.1 billion. Two-thirds of the increase was attributable to industrial supplies and materials, but all other major goods categories also increased.

Services

The surplus on services decreased to $15.1 billion in the fourth quarter from $15.9 billion in the third.

Services receipts increased to $96.8 billion from $96.2 billion. Increases in “other” private services (such as business, professional, and technical services, insurance services, and financial services) and in “other” transportation (such as freight and port services) were partly offset by decreases in other services categories.

Services payments increased to $81.7 billion from $80.4 billion. Increases in “other” private services, in “other” transportation, and in passenger fares were partly offset by decreases in other services categories.

Monday March 13, 2006

Will Food be al Qaeda's Next Target?

We've been pondering how to present this, as it is a potentially important, but there may not be much that can be done about it.  I'll start at the beginning: On Saturday came word that Rakan Ben Williams, a convert to al Qaida, is quoted widely on Islamic web sites as giving America is "last warning" before events that will 'bring Americans to your knees."

The interesting thing about the Williams speech was that our acquaintances at www.halfpasthuman.com (which developed the future predictive web bot software) also use a highly specialized form of linguistic analysis called "SKED" analysis, short for "subject matter elucidated domain."

The way it works is this:  If you have a speech from a single author you can often get much deeper meanings are substituting words and crossing out words.  But the technique doesn't work when statements are written by "groups of people."  This is why we can't apply the technique effectively to things like Federal Reserve policy statements which are group efforts.

By going through a SKED analysis of the Williams remarks, our colleagues believe they have detected a shift that may indicate something other than explosives will be the next mode of attack.  Perhaps it will be food.

Now, consider what an attack on our nation's food supplies would do, especially if it occurred at about the same time that H5N1 bird flu may cause the removal of poultry from the human food chain. With humans already numbering 6.5 billion souls, there has been some speculation that removing poultry would increase the number of starvation deaths globally by perhaps several million, as poultry is one of the the globes chief sources of protein. In Africa, for example, it's a large source.

The web bot developers have also seen scattered reports in their data streams that give us cause for concern.  Unconfirmed reports that French fish mongers are now hiring guards, for example, may surface in more conventional (mainstream) media over the coming week or two.

So with a SKED analysis of the latest al Qaida threat, coupled with the already developing change in economics due to consumer consumption changes around poultry, in places like France, we suspect that the coming "context shift" we've been writing about emergent toward  the end of the month may be related to American's becoming hungry.  It's not a certainty, but things seem to shade in that direction.

Nuclear Poker

It's sort of like a game of Texas hold 'em: Russia says Iran can still negotiate a peaceful solution to the nuclear crisis and Iran is saying no, they don't care to.

As a result of this, the US is keeping military options open.

Sun Fears

Is it the "quiet before the storms"? A lot of scientists are watching the lack of sunspots and predicting that the next solar cycle with be a wild romp.  Fun for us ham radio hobbyists, but sunspots and solar storms could also threaten power grids.

Earth Changes

Mongolian dust is being blamed for pink snow falling in Russia this weekend.  Although drought is also a problem in the US, at least there's a small silver lining to it:  Northeast Texas may see some reduction in fire ant populations. Local hunters tell us fire ants have decimated the wild turkey population in Texas because the birds build their nests on the ground.

---

17 dead in a China mine disaster, more missing.  We're not surprised by the uptick in mining casualties this year - and others have noticed, too.  For example, there's increasing awareness within the US government about the general risks to the Heartland from the New Madrid fault and its potential for a massive earthquake.  Quakes like the one in the Admiralty Islands today are not the fear.  It's movement of ground in the Midwest of America, such as the weekend quake in Ohio that worries FEMA.  And the FEMA concerns are echoed out West where CalTrans is working on upgrades to California bridges.

The earth is ringing with quakes - such as one in Pakistan today, another this weekend off Japan. Thailand is worried about a "Big One," too.

Bigger Card Charge Offs?

Credit card companies are issuing warnings.

Email to Ponder

Still thinking about this one:

I attended a seminar regarding the future oil famine. I suppose the term future is subjective since some people believe peak oil has already begun. The speaker showed the Canadian film "End of Suburbia...Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream" http://www.endofsuburbia.com/ . Funny this was produced by the Canadians. Anyway, I've read some of the work of Knustler & Heinberg, and they do make so good points. The thing I would like your opinion on is this claim that oil begin traded in US dollars, and the attempt by some Arab/Muslim countries to switch to Euros, would cause such overwhelming economic devastation the U.S. could not allow, hence our military involvement in the oil rich regions of the world.

I have no doubt about our national interest linked to oil consumption. Jimmy Carter said as much nearly 30 years ago. However, when I asked the speaker at this seminar the question, he said its not really so important what currency oil is traded in, its what the holder of the currency does with once the trade is done. In other words, so what if the Iranians sell oil to the French in Euros. The more important question is what do the Iranians do with the Euros? Do they buy U.S investments with them?

More to the point, if a country holding a lot of U.S. dollars as their national reserve currency decides to trade it off, then we really have a problem.

Of course you know this.

Do you want white or fried rice with that?

Those Banner Ads

No, I don't have much editorial control of the ads that appear on this site as they are supplied by Google's Adsense service.  Still, I can block specific ad sites (it takes time to do).  Occasionally I get notes from readers like this one:

"George I had a good laugh seeing the YoungCommunist Banner hanging over your web page are you a supporter or did somebody hack your site LMFAO."

So if you see an offensive URL, please send it along.

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Write when you get rich,

George Ure, The People's Economist