Sydney, Australia did something interesting last night - they observed something called "Earth Hour" a largely symbolic blackout to promote awareness of global warming, which as we all know has been turned into a political football.

The feelings in Australia are as mixed as anywhere and the Australia Labor Party says the climate coping plans could "wreck [the] economy". While Australia has not signed the Kyoto Accords, the subject is planned for discussion as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference shortly, we also note that there's an intellectual 'softness' to the discussions about climate,; and at the same time, a kind of hijacking of the issue to turn it into a corporate bonanza/new market.

For example, Australia's "Climate of the Nation " report out today shows voter sympathies like these:

• "81 per cent of voters believe governments should make Australia a world leader in finding solutions to climate change
• 71 per cent believe our politicians are failing to lead on climate change.
• 86 per cent of people support a quarter of Australia's electricity generation coming from clean energy like wind and solar by 2020. "

The lack of intellectual rigor becomes apparent when you reverse the data, or what our time monks might call 'flopping the data', to see what the other side of the data implies.  Try these on for size:

• 19% of Australians don't want Australia to be a leader in finding solutions for climate change.

• 29% don't believe the politicians are leading on climate change.

• 14% want power coming from "dirty power sources".

The bias, hokum, distortion, and lack of rigor quickly becomes apparent.  I expect you could get a "survey"  showing 99% of Australians want Oz to lead the world in rape reduction, and likely 65% would say the Easter Bunny is a good thing.  See what I mean by "soft"?

---

Climate change is a big deal - don't get me wrong.  Otherwise, the White House would not be muzzling government scientists from speaking freely to The Press.

But, as one article notes, there's a great deal of heresy afoot.  An email I received yesterday has been making its rounds on the net this month and according to a Snopes "Urban Legend" report, this one is true:

"LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST

HOUSE # 1:

A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas.

In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern "snow belt," either. It's in the South.

HOUSE # 2:

Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American Southwest.

A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing groundwater through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system.

Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville,Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.

HOUSE # 2 (4 BR 4000 sq.ft.model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas, also known as "the Texas White House," it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

So whose house is gentler on the environment?

And no, you don't see this kind of thing showing up on mainstream corpmedia for the simple reason that there are some in the military-industrial-medical complex (MIMC) that have figured out a way to skin some bucks off the issue.  Studies, grants, retrofits - yup, gotta whip up support.  Off-planet causes?  Can we get back to you later (after we get our slice of the big $$$ involved)?

---

The emerging "duality"  running rampant right now is that people are self-sorting into easily handled 'thought groups" and from each, profits can be made. In the cold cruel world of real-life economics, cooperation is not as profitable as division and conflict.  Thus, we need to continuous growing the threats and divisions to keep people/society operation at a cohesive level.  Dr. Joseph Tainter's work here is most instructive.

It's been that way for a long time. The church going off to fight 'heathens' and then the 'Crusades' and later the marvel of corporate barons to control the masses and concentrate wealth and power in their hands is just dandy - if you're one of the folks on top. First people's in the Americas weren't so lucky.

So today, we scan the headlines and see quite clearly two factions at play: One is the old-style corporatists on the power path who are busily continuing to concentrate wealth through outsourcing, wage reductions and the like. Another group is the now corporatizing "global warming" crowd, who are getting corporate support because there's money to be made. Studies, reconstruction, lots of money.  Clean energy costs money and where there's money, there's opportunity for the powers-that-be orchestrating things.

---

The emerging "duality" here may be, as my event-predicting time monk friends explain it, due to the major personal pathways in life diverging.  Visualize a herd of people on one path called "quest for knowledge/truth" and another group called "quest for power".  In the middle are the unaware masses of go-along-to-get-along types.

The world condition today is largely defined by the "truth seeker" crowd is beginning to separate more from the "power path" paradigm.

This was underscored to me recently in a conversation with a friend, a devout Christian, who observed that "A lot of the people I know have left the church recently.  Many were 'born again' with me in the early 1980's. They are meeting for prayer in one another's homes and talking about their faith there because they are not getting what they want/need at a spiritual level, from the church."

The reason why seems clear: Many leaders of the 'religious right' have bought into the "power seeker's" path and are not dispensing/sharing the deeper spiritual meanings demanded by the the 'knowledge path/truth seekers.' These, in turn, see church leaders flying about in corporate jets and ask "Is this right?"  Similarly, when they hear wars being 'sold' from the pulpit, they ask "Is this right? What about those Commandments?  Where's Love?"
---

What I expect to see over the coming year (or spring/summer) is that the split between the power path and the knowledge/truth paths will diverge even more.  As they do, the uncommitted mass in the middle may reasonably expect to be subjected to harder and harder 'sales' pitches from the 'power" side to convince them that 'if you're not with us, you're against us.'  Maybe even on our own soil.

---

I may be wrong in this dismal outlook, but I have often wondered what would happen if you put Jesus, Mohamed, and Buddha in room and locked the door -- what would happen?

Would there be terrible fighting? Would one assert really  "power" over the others?

I like to think, as I've read a bit from each,  that the room would remain peaceful and highly intelligent conversation would occur among those present. Put another way, I suspect these people - higher beings if you will - were on the path of knowledge and seeking and truth. Not 'power'.

Yet, in the name of two of these, huge amounts of blood have been let through history.  Whenever I pick up a history book, the question pops back front and center: "In the wars that were/are being fought, was it (or is ) it because humans on the 'power path' routinely hijack the latest truth/knowledge and held it for themselves so they can wield it as a 'power tool' over others?

As more and more people I run into know intuitively that "something is wrong" and we're just waiting for the 'other shoe to drop" in the Middle East, and many 'born again' believers leave their churches to seek deeper spiritual truth and context, I expect the "powers" to turn up the heat in order to maintain their dominance and control.  The Essenes, I note, weren't much of a military power.

Well...enough rambling... there's a a pretty interesting read this morning  headlined "Host Not Found" about how the internet works to fight censorship.  "And this has what to do with the power vs. truth path discussion?" you're asking yourself.  Think about this:

"The net treats censorship as damage and routes around it." These are the words of John Gilmore, radical libertarian, Sun Microsystems employee number five and bona fide west-coast guru-gazillionaire, and for much of the last 10 years they've been repeated as part of the founding story of the internet, along with a gloss about the net's inception as a military communications network designed to withstand partial destruction by nuclear attack."

 Ah...a path of truth/knowledge tool born out of a power path tool - something easily overlooked and forgotten in everyday noise. There's a delightful juxtaposition there, don't you think?

We note that the Iran hostage crisis is continuing with little new to report beyond the "sailor reading from a script stories" which have been about.

Care to be me a beer (or two) that the hostages won't be deployed to key Iranian targets to be used as 'human shields' against a US/proxy attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure?

Mass casualties in the continuing Sunni-Shiite, US in the middle of it, civil war.

Yesterday I told you how we might be watching the first in a series of 'terra bites" events.  Well, overnight here at the ranch, we had maybe a half dozen weather radio alerts going off.  Plenty of rain overnight, too.  Between martini time and let-the-chickens-out time, we put just under an inch of rain in the gauge.  Worse to the north of us.

Making Ends Meet

Our ebook - "How to Live on $10,000 a year or less" is available at our Peoplenomics Bookstore for just $10.

Pass the Word to Your Friends

Friday March 30, 2007

Terra Bites

Although this is normal stuff for this time of the year, we've got many linguistic clues from our future-event predicting linguistic friends that this will be an exceptional year for weather/flooding/tornados gouging earth, so pay attention as the year wears on.  One reason?  Global warming and whether/weather human or off-planet caused - matters not in this context.

Four people died in tornado's in Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado earlier this week, and overnight,  our NOAA weather radio here at the ranch was going off as the chance of large hail, thunderstorm cells capable of producing tornados, and lots of rainfall/flooding came over as alerts.  Up in Oklahoma City, five injured Thursday from a twister.  Might want to bookmark Tulsa's  KOTV's web site - might be useful as the year goes on.

While we've had parts of Interstate 45 in Texas closed (flooding from passing thunderstorms), up north we might be seeing the Red River flooding starting to shape up  - something the web bot's time monks mentioned a while back.  Early to tell (which Red River) but there's a regional flood advisory for parts of South Dakota.

A flood warning is also in effect up around Binghamton, NY. But, if you visit the NOAA weather site, www.weather.gov (bookmark that, woudja?) you can see most of the flood warnings are in the nation's mid section.

Green (there's that color again) being the areas with flood warnings/statements/advisories. Water wings or sand bags, for many, I'm afraid.  But, about large numbers of people being forced to relocate (700,000, but the time monks have a tough time with decimals and commas), we're watching to see if/when/how that comes to pass.  But not just yet.

---

As long as we're talking about how "terra" bites (Terra being an entity in the time monk's linguistic modelspace) I've got about mid April circled for possibly something largish and West Coast-ish.  Even Russia's Pravda is reporting on Wednesday's small temblor in Montana.  While it was near the border between Beaverhead and Madison counties, it's also just 85-miles from West Yellowstone and only 65 miles from Earthquake Lake west of the park.  Makes us wonder about what's ahead for the Yellowstone caldera.

Out in California, a new map of the San Andreas using lasers may improve quake prediction accuracy.  A bit further west, and a long swim, we notice that the recent quake series in Japan continues to provide aftershocks and excitement.

The broad overview to keep in mind goes something like this:  War drumbeats keep getting louder, but at some point "terra intrudes" this year and reminds humans that Ma Nature has the final word, in spite of whether our scientific/Western Reductionist/egos argue otherwise.  Or, as the headline says, "Terra bites."  All this stuff going on now is just nibbles and foreshadows linguistically.  Bites will be more noticeable/undeniable, but that comes in a few weeks.

Tweakin'

Of course, in order for the terra entity to intrude on the war drama, we need to see that escalate a bit - and with rumors of Operation Bite (as we reported on earlier this week) and the latest developments in the region, that seems a safe bet.  You can see the forces building on both sides of the issue by just reading the press clips with an open mind. 

For example, Bill Carmichael is suggesting in the Yorkshire Post this morning "Let's give Iran a bloody nose." And, while Iran has aired a British sailor's apology for entering into Iranian waters without permission, we see the Party for Socialism and Liberation says what we've seen is "Iran stands up to British imperialist provocations.

Songwriter Bob Dylan almost got it right when he wrote "This ain't about democracy -- it's about war."  I might take it one step further and suggest it's about money.  Every time the tensions with Iran ease a bit, oil moves.  A read of the lyrics of Dylan's Master's of War gets to part of it, but the Rolling Stone's "Highwire"  (from their Flashpoint album) is reveals more:

Soaring Gas Prices

Financial Disaster Department

We have good news, and bad.  The good is that the Bureau of ECONomic Analysis reports that personal income was up 0.5% in February.

"Personal income increased $65.4 billion, or 0.6 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $53.8 billion, or 0.5 percent, in February, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $55.5 billion, or 0.6 percent. In January, personal income increased $110.5 billion, or 1.0 percent, DPI increased $74.2 billion, or 0.8 percent, and PCE increased $50.2 billion, or 0.5 percent, based on revised estimates."

If you're expecting the sky to part and the People's Economist to fall to his knees with tears in his eyes and say "Oh Hallelujah, it's all good!" you're gonna have a long damn wait. 

 

Personal savings as a percentage of personal income was -1.2%.  So the "Can't sugarcoat this" line is:

Deposable Personal Income :  9,679.0 billion

Personal outlays:                     9,796.5 billion

Tapping on the whiteboard:  "You dummies!  The only way you can spend more than you make is to rip out your savings and put yourself in debt!  Get the greed/gotta have-it-now crap under control, or we're all (quoting the Mogambo Guru - the angriest man in economics here) freaking doomed."

 

Corporate Rule

The latest fundraising report by the presidential wannabe's is expected shortly, but no big changes in the leader-board is expected.

 

Pardon me while I go gag on the whole notion of "buying the White House."  But, that's how it works nowadays. The right way to run the White House would be to elect the president and then whoever came in second in the presidential contest, that's who would be the vice president.  That's how the framers set it up.  But, you see what happens?  A small change like that, and then giving private banksters control of the money (1913's non federal reserve hijacking of Congress right/proper role in money creation) and next thing you know, we've got corporations and PAC's running the country.

 

Reader Notes

Server Notes: Although we're not completely hypnotized by ISO 9000-9002 management documents everything that moves thinking, we do recognize that it's useful to keep everyone in the loop when product changes are coming along.  So, over the next couple of days, you may find that links to our mirror site, www.independencejournal.com  (same content, slightly different look, and where the Mogambo Guru is posted) may experience a bit of "shiftiness" as I migrate the site over to a new server farm.  Remember, should anything ever happen to the UrbanSurvival site (as when we were hacked last August) that we are doing our dead-level best to keep the information flow robust.

 

The way we do this is to operate the mirror site, and keep geographic dispersal of our servers.  With the Urban site on an ultra-high-reliability server farm (a Texas co-lo farm if you're one of the six remaining IT experts who hasn't been outsourced to India yet).  The mirror site is located in Michigan.

 

Granted, we're not running fault-tolerant boxes (e.g. servers and routers) like your bank, considering the whole project (Urban + Indy Journal + Peoplenomics) is a 20-hour per week project of mine) it's a fairly reasonable approach.  I'm just guessing that 90% of corporate internet presences hasn't been this carefully thought out - just a guess.  Site redundancy doesn't get much attention, yet it's only a couple of hundred dollars per year.  Amazing how few companies are single site, single-provider -- which translates in our book to single-point-of-failure, which as any engineer knows is what makes airplanes fall out of the sky and such.

 

Branch water Bet:  Given the adventures ahead, I made a little side bet with the fellow across the road from us.  "Add up the value of all of your stock holdings close of business today, and then compare them with the value of the same holdings come the end of April," I wagered him.  Being as bragging rights about being "right" are at stake, the wager is for a branch water or two.  Frankly, I'd love to be completely wrong on all the dire things ahead - but I'd be cautious as hell, and if I were still in the market I'd be out.  Not investment advice (read our strong disclaimer), but I thought you'd like to do the same exercise. 

 

---

Thursday March 29, 2007

"You're Buying What?"

Sometimes I just get a hunch about something and have to do it.  Many times, I'm way early, or just plain wrong about something happening in the future, but more often than not, if I don't pay attention to my hunches, I turn out regretting it.  So, yesterday I took the plunge and bought myself a fresh stock of potassium iodide pills and a good used calibrated radiation survey meter and a couple of books from Shane Conner's outfit over at www.ki4u.com.

 

A quick look at what's going on in the Middle East might help you grasp why I ponied up a couple of hundred bucks for such things.

 

We are tracking "close enough for home use" to what the web bot project has been talking about for this period - e.g. constitutional crisis (Gonzalez et al and the war funding debate/threats/etc -- that I can't dismiss all of their dire predictions for April and beyond.  None of them are good.

 

With Iran attacking the dollar (by selling its oil in currencies other than ours) and by holding the British hostages, it's almost like they are egging on the neocons who are hell-bent (perhaps literally) for a strike on Iran.  Their insistence that "Britain must admit navy trespassed" coupled with the promised release of the female sailor sets up, as I've suggested before, an echo of the 1960's Francis Gary Power US spy plane event with the Soviets.  And now, it seems, even the release of the female sailor is in doubt because the UK is digging in its heels.

 

Besides the obvious escalation path which drags the world into a limited (or maybe not limited) nuclear exchange, which would almost certainly in my view result from a US 'first use' of nukes even "surgically" (remind me not to visit that surgeon), we note with growing trepidation the comments of democratic president wannabe Bill Richardson. who says on the campaign trail that a "nuclear 911 is possible."

 

Given that Richardson is so tightly tied to the powers-that-be, we wonder is this isn't some kind of coded warning to those with ears to hear. 

 

A chat with KI4U owners Conner and a follow up email reveals I'm not the only one thinking, like in chess, four or five moves out:

"George, Just my opinion, but here's the way I really see it all unfolding...

TPTB and their political lackeys would rather us think and accuse them of being stupid and inept, than for many of us to start getting a clue that they know exactly what they have planned for the demise of the dollar, our wealth, and our current taken-for-granted freedoms.

They know, with the collapse, that when enough people are eventually suffering sufficiently hard/long enough, that most people then will eagerly embrace any Draconian solutions they then later offer up, as long as not too many of us had caught on first that their failed policies had caused all that panic & pain to begin with!

For that reason, I also fully expect, before the dollar, economy, markets really fully implode, to where TPTB and Feds might get their rightful blame for having caused it all, that we will see instead an 'event' unleashed with which the media, and eventually history itself, will then blame for the subsequent (impending anyways) economic/market/dollar collapse.

Nuke terrorism, severe oil/energy crisis, war, pandemic, something/anything, to which then can be pointed to as the cause for the subsequent economic/market/dollar collapse, that was coming anyways.

Prep for it and then don't be surprised, stampeded, and herded into their 'Draconian solutions'.

But, if you have trouble imagining such evil PTB intent is even possible, understand that that is a common vulnerability of most all good and moral people, as they have little personal experience with the extreme depths of arrogance and all consuming lust for power that is the hallmark of truly evil people throughout history that know no common and decent moral restraints.

Shane Connor www.ki4u.com 

P.S. - Here's the article and link I'd mentioned on the phone...

The Good News About Nuclear Destruction

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51648

So that's almost it for today's report. Simple short and to the point. (Also aided by the fact that I forgot to set the alarm clock last night and woke up much later than usual.)

 

Gross Domestic Poorhouse

The Bureau of ECONomic Analysis has a GDP growth report out today which says:

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006, according to final estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 2.0 percent.

The GDP estimates released today are based on more complete source data than were available for the preliminary estimates issued last month. In the preliminary estimates, the increase in real GDP was 2.2 percent (see "Revisions" on page 3).

The increase in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, state and local government spending, and federal government spending that were partly offset by negative contributions from residential fixed investment and private inventory investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.

The small acceleration in real GDP growth in the fourth quarter primarily reflected a downturn in imports and accelerations in PCE, in exports, and in federal government spending that were partly offset by downturns in private inventory investment and in equipment and software and a deceleration in nonresidential structures.

Final sales of computers contributed 0.22 percentage point to the fourth-quarter growth in real GDP after contributing 0.07 percentage point to the third-quarter growth. Motor vehicle output subtracted 1.18 percentage points from the fourth-quarter growth in real GDP after contributing 0.76 percentage point to the third-quarter growth.

That pimped up the dollar and slammed gold a bit.  But you have to ask yourself "Do I believe the numbers?" and "How does this compare with underlying money growth?" which my friend Bart at www.nowandfutures.com figures is blowing up at just a shade under 12% annual rates.

 

All of this leads me to conclude the mass media hype of prosperity is will end badly, sooner than later, and as it does, the thoughtful planner will by now have lots of food, self/family protection measures, stored water, and even a radiation sniffer plus batteries.

 

As the predictive linguistics project over at www.halfpasthuman.com suggests, the world's headed for an "encounter with scarcity" - and the more lead time we have on such an event, we've found the larger the event is when it arrives.  We got over 4-months lead time on the 2004 tsunami, for example.

 

How big will "shortages" be?  A look at the chart we've been keeping which shows Google news search engine hits since the concept started coming out of data more than a year ago is instructive... and at new all-time highs:

 

 

An email from a reader which is typical of the data points now developing underscores what's ahead:

"I know you keep track of shortages stories. This past weekend, I hosted a baby shower. The mom-to-be had registered at Walmart, Target and Babies-R-Us (in Columbus and Marion, Ohio). Guest after guest complained that when they went to one of these stores, there was no inventory available for the items on the registry. It was really weird, how many of them said that. She got a lot of gift cards as a result."

What can I say? Ready a year or three early beats hell out of 1-hour too late.  George is either a preparedness nutjob or he's a prudent futurist.  Your call.

 

---

Wednesday March 28, 2007

Twilight Zone of Logic

"Your traveled into another dimension.  A dimension of not only money but of paper.  A land where greed trumps all.  Look! At the signpost up ahead,  Lower markets coming.

 

(Camera zooms in on narrator)

 

Presented for your consideration one George Ure.  A self professed People's Economist, who thinks the financial world will be ending shortly, Mr. Ure reads the news like a soothsayer reading tea leaves, and like all of us, finds a bit too much greed in people's hearts..."

---

Our Canadian Correspondent, Tim B. has been watching the soon-to-be war rumors floating about which he's labeled "Iranaramadingdong".  Figures Tim, "Iranian officials have said for months that more than half the OPEC member's customers switched their payment currency away from the dollar as Tehran seeks to diversify its reserves."  And along with the observation a link to a story headlined "China shifts to Euros for Iran oil."

 

While the Senate has signaled its support for a timeline to withdraw from Iraq, the move will be viewed by historians as largely ceremonial in that a wider war, not a withdrawal from the Middle East, is almost certainly in the cards.  The reason?  The movement recently of Iran (and to a lesser extent Venezuela) to re-price their critical oil sales to something other than dollars is a critical blow to the US Dollar/Bank of England/Power-That-Be [PTB] who are having gobs of fun making paper profits to concentrate more wealth than every before in history at the top of the foodchain. Why, we can't admit that any other currency could have preference over the dollars, because if we do that, hedge funds fail, subprime loans fall apart, and the whole future of the paper asset game is suddenly brought into doubt.

 

Now, obviously we can suffer that.  Why next thing you'd know, the dollar would be tresting two-year lows and Iran, having discovered our soft underbelly, would make daily comments about "No US Dollars!"   Oh, you mean that's all happening right now?  Shucks.

---

Our other reader ('the Charleston Voice") notes in an email that the Fed seems to be ignoring its dual mandate (price stability and full employment) and ignore the peril to the dollar as suggested by one article?

 

The problem, simply stated, is that for the Fed, there's no way out.  If they raise rates, then all those subprime (and even ARM's that are prime) will blow up due to excessive debt service requirements.  The good news is that at least the dollar would hold its purchasing power related to overseas goods - briefly.  But, if the Fed lowers rates, investors (already noticing that Iran and China seem to have no problem with Euro denominated deals) will begin to eye the exits from dollar positions.  Like US Treasury debt, which is already developing a sour taste on its own because of the perceived shift of influence afoot already.

 

And, ifs the Fed does nothing, a major boardroom option, the world drifts along with the dollar sinking, gold moving up, and lots of investors asking "Gee, should I leave my 401-K money in that high growth stock fund?"  Duh.

 

Unfortunately, it occurred to me in one of my strategic planning trances recently, that US and Russian planners may have something far beyond ugly up their sleeves - "winnable" nuclear war, which would be a natural progression from region conflict with Iran, which is close to Russia's southern flank.

 

Adding to pressures:  In April, which is 3 1/2 days from now, Russia, Iran, Qatar, Algeria and Venezuela will be forming a new "OPEC for natural gas.":  That will mean a new cartel controlling 60% of the world's natural gas right there, and if "me-too" countries like Algeria come along as expected, the control of natural gas will hit 70 percent - and maybe even higher.

 

So, let me ask you something simple here:  With a new "OPEC for gas" do you think the price of natural gas is going to go higher or lower?  Is it becoming clear to you why we have already put in a two-year supply of propane here at the ranch?  Some of my most astute friends have advised me to "Buy whatever you will be needing long term, right now!" because it may not be available/affordable later."  Europe is having what might be terms nightmares about the possibility.

 

Another reader points us to www.debka.com which seems to have a lot of contacts or sources within Israeli intelligence and offers:

"The intelligence report from Moscow, if correct, coincides with the ALTA 1207 report issued on March 25th, which says that the data shows a possible U.S. aggression against Iran around April 4-6 and a retaliation around April 9-10. "

What he refers to is called "Operation Bite" planned for 4 AM (time zone not specified) on April 6th by some reports.

 

A new Sprott Report says gold may never sink below $600 again. John Embry must be looking at the same world as me...

 

As the inevitability of an expanded US effort to maintain dominance of world affairs shades more and more toward an expanded war -- something the web bots call "duality" in reference to the "war crowd" separating from the "peace crowd" if I read it right -- and going nuclear at some point arrives, I'm reminded of the Barry McGuire song's lyrics:

"You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’ And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’

But you tell me Over and over and over again, my friend Ah, you don’t believe We’re on the eve of destruction."

War near at hand - we have to ask why would anyone have money in useless paper?

---

[The Rod Serling looking host comes back on stage wearing a dark suit holding a cigarette which he wields like a pointer...]

 

"And so our story's hero reads the headlines of his time, convinced more than ever that financial meltdown is nearly at hand to be followed quickly by Armageddon. He'll get his answer soon enough, delivered from the twilight zone. "

 

Soft Opening

Ben Bernanke and durable goods highlight the day.  A soft opening of the markets is expected. Middle Eat folks think the drop in consumer confidence will be leading to less consumer spending.  No kidding...If you don't have a job or money, and you've just been screwed in an ARM raising/twisting, how are you going to make ends meet?  Cut spending on crap!

 

Practical Radio Question

OK, enough serious stuff, although if you are a ham radio operator, I assume/hope/suggest that you have at least one old-fashioned tube type transceiver or transmitter/receiver combo in your

collection.  Here's a dandy email:

"I've heard you on Steve Quayle at one time speaking of HF radios. I thank you for getting me motivated to get my license. Passed the technical :)

I know you like the ICOM-718, but I can't figure out an antenna I should buy or make. My goal is to install something in the attic. I would consider something outside if it's not huge. Either I'm tired or losing my touch but I can't find much guidance via Google. I would appreciate it if you could point me at a source.

Oh boy.  Antennas.  Talking about ham radio antennas is like talking religion or politics - everyone's got an opinion they will swear by.  My current favorite antenna here at the ranch if the full wavelength loop for 80 meters which I've arranged so that it's SWR is under 2:1 across most of 80 & 75, the upper end of 40, and virtually all of the 20 meter band.    Flat top at 45' and a sort of diamond shape.  I push the impedance down by using a larger top wire and feeding it with a 4:1 balun.  My new long wire (IC-718 my "house radio"  with an Icom AH-4 tuner and really long wire against a great ground.

 

If I had one antenna, I'd get an inexpensive 5-band vertical and put a good ground plane under it.  A Hustler 5BTV which you can get from around $139 from DX Engineering is a fine choice, or the 6BTV, but I'm leery of shorter antennas with more tuning/loading points.  I'm putting up a new vertical (5BTV) next week and after a rebuild, I may use the existing one to put up a steerable vertical array.

 

Next on my shopping list?  They take up a lot of room, but the Controlled Current Distribution antenna looks like a great one, but it takes up about twice the length of a normal 1/2 wave dipole and I don't know how EMP resistant it would be and that's something to consider, given the voltage ratings of the capacitors.  Hmmm...they offer great performance and a lower noise figure, but are single band antennas.

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If the paragraphs above sounds like Mandarin Chinese to you, click over to our "Gentle Intro to Radio Communications" PowerPoint.  Then visit the American Radio Relay League to learn about the hobby - no Morse code required anymore.  And you can take yourself to school with HamTestOnline.com.

 

Or, you can just buy a good shortwave receiver (Under $100) and throw out any old length of wire antenna - and at least be able to listen to news from something other than corpmedia US.  Ham or shortwave listener (SWL) you'll want the current version of "Passport to World Band Radio".

 

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Tuesday March 27, 2007

Kittens, Satellites, and Bankers

This morning's report will be a bit shorter (and I hope to the point) than usual.  "Wonder why's 'zat?" you sputter into the bean grog.  Well, Elaine and I became parents to four semi-wild cats last night, and that as events unfolded took up a fair amount of our time.  The mother (Pusscilla) decided to have here "you'll never find me here" nest in the bushes next to the house.  And, naturally, it decided to rain ("amounts will generally be less than 1/10th of an inch" said the Wx Service).  Being a "good parent" I put a piece of sheetrock that had been painted as a test piece for my office, over the bushes to keep what started falling as light rain. 

 

Then along about 11:00 PM  local time, it started to really come down.  A couple of inches, I figure.  And, that piece of sheetrock turned out to be right under the heaviest runoff part of the roof - homes in Texas many times don't have gutters, you see.  So the sheetrock let go, painted or not, allowing the cats to get wet.

 

Next thing you know, we had a new mother cat with one of her young in her mouth, mewing at the screen door to the screen room/deck wanting in.  All the promises of "No wild cats moving into our space" were naturally out the window. 

 

After drying the cat, kitten, putting together a make-shift bed -- and E running out in her sailing jacket (perfect for retrieving kittens in downpours it turns out and fashionably, at that --- we finally got to be around midnight and spent most of the night with ears tuned to any noises.  Raccoons and possums love young (whatevers) and we knew they had run a couple opf recon missions to the screen room deck in the past (forensics on E's part).

 

They'll be aptly named, when they're old enough to be past most dangers with names like Rain, Flood, Torrent, and Thunder are in the running.  We've left our pejorative names like "drip" just to keep the naming PC.  And yeah, if they're female kittens, the names might be Rainette, Floodette, Torrencina, and Poof... So that's the kittens part. 

 

The "satellite" part is I'm writing on one of our backup "pipes" onto the internet as our main point-to-point microwave link is down.  Perhaps flooded, who knows.  But, we'll be on that this morning.  One more project.

 

And about "Bankers"?  Well, I know the banksters are trying to loan money into existence when I receive money lending pimps like this:

"Spring into action with a balance transfer"

It's time for some spring cleaning. You can go online and consolidate your balances. With a click, you can transfer balances to your **** *** credit card, and use your low 6.9% APR. With just one monthly payment it's the perfect opportunity to:

Take a well-deserved vacation. Consolidate higher-rate bills and have one convenient monthly payment. Why not? Just click to open a world of new possibilities for yourself."

Fortunately, there is nothing to transfer.  We don't have credit card debt, and our credit facilitates are not even touched.  The fact that my bank has been raising my credit limit to the point where I can put a nice new car on it sort of makes me wonder, too.

 

The Constitutional Crisis

Now that we're in the "release period" (emotionally/archetypically speaking) which will run through September, we also see the emerging "constitutional crisis" before us, as and aid to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says he plans to cite the Fifth Amendment when he's called to testify.

 

What amazes me even more than this, is that mainstream corpmedia hasn't jumped on allegations out of Texas about Gonzalez actions while working for in Texas.  It's a serious enough allegation that it may go mainstream despite the corpmedia 'handlers'.

 

Iran Issues

As the reports continue to swirl about over a pending US/Israeli strike against Iran, I have to wonder whether the Iranians will put one (or more) of the UK sailor hostages at specific military targets.  Sort of a 'human shield" thing - wouldn't surprise me a bit.  Meantime, Tony Blair says the situation is entering a "different phase" now.

 

Restrictions on Travel

Here's a second case of a plane delay over health fears:  You may recall earlier last week, a man who was reportedly tipped a 'few too many' said he had smallpox and that set off a scare.  Now we've got a case of a plane being held at Newark airport because many of the 272 onboard were sick - restrictions on travel, indeed.

 

This of course, underscores to us the dangers of international travel which can bring bugs and whatever else from one country to another in next to no time.

 

The BIG Issue

Of all the stories to watch, the one which will have the most impact on your life (assuming a strike on Iran doesn't somehow trigger a global escalation into a nuclear exchange between the US and whoever) is whether the world forges ahead into a big bout of inflation, or whether we slip into deflationary depression first. The Bank of England, one of the 'thought leaders' says it's worried about the inflation side. And the US Fed's Cleveland President says there are persistent inflation risks here, too.

 

What's missing from the headlines and stories for the most part is the explanation of what is causing this "inflation" to occur.  The answer - and you won't like this is you shop at Wal-Mart or anywhere else which retails largely imported goods - is that it means that the purchasing power of the US dollar is dropping.

 

The question is what happens next with the US Consumer Confidence numbers.  If the consumer keeps spending, then worries will lean towards inflation.  But, if the consumer pulls in their horns a bit, then deflation worries will come back to the fore.  Either way, the dollar is under some pressure this morning ahead of data.

 

On the flip side of the weak dollar issue, have you noticed that the Australian dollar is now at 10-year highes, thanks in part to our hosing mess?

 

Foreclosures Jump

Oh yeah, things on the housing front are looking grim.  US home foreclosure filings have jumped 12% reports the Chicago Tribune.  But in some places it's far worse.  Foreclosure filings jumped an amazing 79% last month in California, says one report.  Reports like this are becoming common.  Ohio's foreclosure filings were up 24 percent last year compared with 2005.

 

Here's my BIG IDEA of the year:   IF I were still being a wild-eyed options player, I would be using the current strength of the bounce to line up for a drop in a week or two.  Housing awareness and failing hedge fund stories ought to be abounding by then. 

 

That drop ought to be far bigger than the little February 27th decline, I figure.  I would plan on making a lot of money with puts.  No, this isn't investment advice...just me being tempted, but wondering how to fight the PPT... Do the math yourself and you will see what I mean.  Take the Dow from 12,400 down to maybe 9,700 within a month or two and you've got a profit party like there's no  tomorrow. 

 

Oh, and there might not be.  Shucks.

 

Still, send me a commish if you play it and win.  If you play it and lose, I'll want no part of it, thanks. 

 

New Subscriber's Note

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Monday March 26, 2007

tom: 0"> Government Gone Mad

Pardon me while I vent: The Framers of our beloved Constitution (and Bill of Rights) had a pretty good handle on how "absolute power corrupts absolutely" issue.  That's why - at least in the beginning - our Constitution was a cherished bastion against forces that would hijack government and twist it to their own power-tripping ends.

 

If you doubt for a minute that we've now crossed some almost invisible line - where government rules far more of your personal life that the Framers intended, and you doubt the excessive powers of the misnamed Patriot Acts, then consider how Big Government's local arms are also jumping onboard the trend to more intrusive governance.  My case in point is a headline every American ought to be aware of: "Florida: City to Seize Homes Over a $5 Parking Ticket."

 

If you read the story, you'll see how the idea is to charge people a $250 "appeal fee" in order to seek redress - and even then, the process starts off without a judge.  Thought you were in the Land of the Brave, Home of the Free?  Not so fast, pard.

 

And if that doesn't get your blood pressure up even without a jolt of Monday juice, try Michael Hodges "Federal Government Spending" report. Among his assertions: "New data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis confirm that the average federal civilian worker earns $106,579 a year in total compensation, or twice the $53,289 in wages and benefits for the typical private worker."

 

Don't get me wrong: There is a proper role for government.  But what the Framers had in mind was a group of strong United States with a central government strong enough to defend borders and there was even a direct prohibition on federal taxes which would be a direct capitation on the whole country - to keep central government from getting too big.

 

Alas, as one reader points out in a Pogo-like "We have seen the enemy, and he is us" sort of way, Since the Russians brought down their walls in 1989, we seem to have suspiciously traded places with them.  Our country has gone wild on government.

 

Here's one that ought to comfort you: There are now reportedly 435,000 Americans in the so-called "terrorist database".   I wonder if that somehow relates to the headline that the Department of Homeland Security has plans for the new HQ in a lunatic asylum?

 

War Continues

No need to worry about peace sneaking up on us all over the weekend:

• Britain is ticked about their sailors/marines being held hostage by Iran.

• You may be too young to remember the Gary Powers/US spy plane incident about 1960, but I remember that case and wonder if Iran will be trying for some kind of PR coup by putting the Brits on trial, which now seems to be a card they could play.

• After Saturday's UN sanctions, Iran is (predictably) suspending some kinds of cooperation.

• Dick Cheney is repeating the party line which sounds like a rework of "If you're not with us, you're against us..." kind of logic.

• Democorps, meantime are defending their pullout plans for next summer.

• And it's also obvious now that George Bush will hold military families hostage to get what he wants from CONgress, because by vetoing the military spending bill  as he's promising. 

Another "Don't know if you're old enough to remember, but...." note:  There were once bumper stickers on telephone company employee cars saying (only slightly tongue in cheek) "We don't care - we don't have to..."  Bush/Cheney/corpgov are taking that tack with CONgress.

 

The real libretto reads: "The US needed the war to keep the economy from imploding.  We still need something to keep the economy from imploding."  And, war or not, the report quietly slipped out of the US Department of labor on mass layoffs shows that mass layoffs are going back up again:

 

 

There's a report out today that CitiGroup may axe 15,000 shortly.

 

Oily Outlook

Of course, as the People's Economist, I'll just stand here in my office and tap on the whiteboard and remind you that "What grows an economy is new products, new consumption, and that requires genuine innovation.  Either that, or falling prices of some key commodity like oil."

 

But, now worries there:  Oil prices have popped back to the area about $63 a barrel this morning and we wouldn't be surprised to see things go higher - perhaps over $70, by the end of April as that's when a lot of this release of emotion stuff should start becoming apparent.

 

Naturally, we can't blame everything on the mindless outsourcing by corporate boards of directors.  Less money spent on production means fatter bonuses for those at the top, after all.  On the other hand, the behavior of that charming Knight (Sir Alan) encouraging people to buy homes when they really couldn't afford it is now coming home to roost - and inconveniently, about the same time as the war has run off the rails.  Senator Charles Schumer says 53,000 in New York are in danger of losing their homes.  It looks, when you read the AP report headlined: "Subprime bust forces families from their homes" that the heartbreak is everywhere.

---

We here lots of rumors that more layoffs are coming and that things will go badly for the economy in the coming month.  A big (read: over-the-road) truck truck manufacturer is having troubles.  Another hedge fund or two in Asia are rumored to be up against the wall, so we look for news there in the next week or two.

 

Ah, here's a headline to make you wonder how bright investors are: "Trader who sank Amaranth to start new hedge fund".  Yeah, by golly, that's comforting.

---

And just to show you how it all ties into a bundle, please note the Fallbrook (CA) Village News headline: "Layoff notices go out to teachers -- Home prices suspect in declining enrollment."

 

Many more such headlines to come, I'm afraid.

 

EU turns 50

Oh oh:  Another one of those "big government" stories.  The Pope says - as the European Union turns 50 - that it's on the path to oblivion.

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Speaking of 'extra-national' and such, a Uruguay report says George Bush plans to retire there and “being in Uruguay was like being at home.”.  And with water rights in the region key, Uruguay's going for mandatory military service.

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I just sort of assume you remember the North American Union report from last week, jah?

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Speaking of the "Papier, bitte?" department, you did see how Washington State is test bedding a combo drivers license passport?    Cheaper than a passport, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall... oh you get the idea.

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George Ure, The People's Economist

 

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