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Replaying 1929 "Standup Economics" This economy is a what? |
Replaying 1929: Business, Financial, and earth change newsUpdated: Saturday May 31, 2008, 2008 07:00 -- CDT The Early Briefing In depth perspectives are for subscribers to www.peoplenomics.com |
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Quake Machine Thoughts A bit of follow-up to yesterday's report "Warring with Earthquakes? US Next?". Just a couple of points.
The first is that I did a little study looking to see if I could find something of interest by correlating the magnetometer readings which are part of the HAARP program (and freely available on the HAARP site in the Online Data section. I'll leaving it to our readers who are geologists to figure it out, but you can get different data from the HAARP site and then compare it to both recent and longer-term historical data which is available from the USGS web site. That's if you don't have anything else going on this weekend.
The next point is that I sent an email to the information folks at the HAARP project which is pretty self-explanatory:
I'll let you know if I hear back from anyone, or if the black Suburban's show up, and my column goes missing, you can draw you know what conclusion, LOL. OK, don't laugh...
My thought is that if the government really wanted to stop rampant speculation on the internet, it would be a simple enough thing to do: Publish the transmitter logs for the 48-hours before and the 12-hours after the China quake, and for the whole period while the Myanmar Cyclone was building. Seems like a simple solution to me, but then again, maybe the memeering on the net is the desired outcome.
Speak of earthquakes, guess what was going on under Nebraska?
Quake? Oh! This one...
It's a little early for radian math, but maybe, let me see, that would put antipodal about midway on a line from North Platte to Columbus. Nebraska.
I wouldn't be too worried about this being important, as the antipodal point to the 6.6 is about 580 miles northwest of the center of the New Madrid fault activity, which is more down in the four-states area where Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee meander together. --- If you go back more than a decade, there was some discussion in the open press circa 1997 that the Russians might actually have been working on an earthquake warfare scheme, but that was to be powered by timing underground nuclear explosions if I recall correctly. Here's a document which is sometimes cited from a 1997 SecDef (William S. Cohen) press conference.
Transmitter logs and directional antenna steering around events like Myanmar and China would answer so many questions, not to mention freeing up gobs of bandwidth, but whatever...
The Tegucigalpa Slide People in the airline business have mostly never been thrilled about the airport in Tegucigalpa. One of those one-way kinda of places (like the Cusco airport in Peru. Once you commit, you're going down. Five died in yesterday's accident in Honduras where an A-320 didn't get on the numbers or brakes right.
Change That Index! Market juggling is expected in June as the annual Russell Investment indices are about to be updated. Oh goody! Market volatility!
What's Their Beef? A rally against US Beef imports in South Korea this morning, Asia time. Hey! Bring back the ban and leave the T-bones here for us!
Ah, Gassed High petroleum prices are showing up at the pumps worldwide. Although it's hard to believe, our gasoline in the US is taxed much more lightly than other countries where who social and health programs are built on the backs of drivers.
It's not just gas prices, it's everything petro-based.
Iran Next Department: Bomb Plans The International Atomic Energy Agency has been telling its members that Iran actually has a blueprint of a nuclear weapon. Say, you don't think they got it online, do you?
US Human Rights Violations Amnesty International's latest report assails the US for its Guantanamo Bay prisoner operations. The report also mentions The Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Myanmar. But two others are problematic for the neocons: They mentioned Iraq and Gaza. What do you want, peace or gas?
Around the Ranch: Fencing On Schedule If you notice this morning's column is a little shorter than most it's because by the time you get this far into today's report, I will already be out working on fencing. Putting in fencing is something that goes with owning goats, ranch, acreage and so forth.
Normally it's not a bad gig, but on nearly-summer days, when temps will be pushing into the mid-90's that nothing beats getting started on the job while it's still reasonably cool out. And that goes with the sun being low in the sky.
It does remind me to mention a couple of points that most citified people don't give much thought to, and that's the notion of the 'schedule of operations' in your life.
A 'schedule of operations' is an old machinist's term and it means roughly the 'order in which you go about something'. To lathe machinist, it means specifying whether a part is cut or drilled first, or whether it goes in the milling machine first, or the lathe first, depending on the workpiece. It's usually the fastest and most efficient way to build a part commensurate with the tolerances and finish to be delivered.
In city life, there's not much difference in how one goes about things. Occasonally, if you go to the store first it means your groceries will thaw out if you get groceries and then go to the mall for a few hours. But for the most part it's single decision scheduling for things that are right-in-your-face obvious.
You get out on a ranch and you end up thinking three days to a week ahead of time. Example: Fixing the air conditioner in Elaine's car, for example, means that if she needs to run to the store, she won't be taking the pickup. That's good, because doing that project first let me leave three rolls of fencing and a couple of hundred pounds each in the truck where it's much faster to thread the rolls onto the 'fencing dispenser' I built up a while back.
And that, in turn was part of the larger fencing plan for the property, all cobbled up so as to require minimum in m what I call 'excess work'. Guys like me (and chief time monk Cliff) every so often amaze folks with all that we do. Cliff in the past week, besides doing the linguistics runs also put up a 35' long metal frame building so he could continue resin work on his boat project. That kind of thing.
How do I get so much done? It's all a matter of 'schedule of operations' which is why I should be good for a couple of hundred feet of fencing this morning and have the project nearly done tomorrow. Might be some fencing ties to put on, but that should be about it.
And, did I mention that that out-in-the-open fencing will be done at first light, while the fencing that's in the shade of the big oaks, gum trees and pines, will be done as the morning progresses, so that as much advantage is taken of the shade as possible? Lots of angles to projects; subtleties that ease the way if you think them through.
There you have a free bit of 'out here' wisdom, to start the weekend (when you really get to work for yourself and your own great purposes in life); start with a solid 'schedule of operations'.
It's damn useful at getting the most done with the best result for the least effort. On the other hand, it may explain why most women hate going shopping with men: too damn outcome oriented/'git 'er done and on to the next part thinking. Oh well...where's the tractor key? Light enough outside.
See you Monday morning...
Peoplenomics.com Advice to the Kids: So, You Want a Pension, Huh?Not that I would ever expect someone like Warren Buffett to come out and say "Second Depression!" as I've been writing about for 10+ years as the inevitable outcome of consuming ore than we make and printing up phony financial instruments ala Ponzi to do it, but when someone of Buffett's standing "sees "long, deep" U.S. recession" ahead, then perhaps there's still enough lead time to actually get ready. So, if you're willing to ride out and meet Fate, it's time for some contingency planning for the aftermath of what may have been America's Golden Age.
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"Live on $10,000" Updated There's now a single-page website devoted to my little ebook "How to Live on $10,000 a year (or less) at www.liveontenthousand.com. Yep - still possible. I also took a bit of additional material that was pertinent from recent issues of Peoplenomics and included them. The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the aforementioned dollar amount, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you make a little more than that and do some active savings... Click here for the page with more details on it. ---- Last week's report is here. For back issues of this site, click here. (Goes back to 1997!) ---- I promised Elaine that I would unload some of my equipment, so if you're looking for ham gear, especially the older tube-type (EMP resistant) type, send me a note and I will send out the list of what I'm selling off when I get it together. Click here to Put Me On Ham Gear List
Friday May 30, 2008 Warring With Earthquakes, US Next? With the predictive linguistics folks noting the chance of a major US earthquake between the summer solstice and fall equinox and maybe in July, I've been paying more than the usual amount of attention to the 'chatter' on the net about a supposed 'battle' between the current occupants of the White House and the rest of the world using advanced technology to produce things like massive earthquakes as weapons.
This is right up there with the Denver alien video coming out later today and yes, this kind of speculation is admittedly right out on the edge of woo-woo. Still, there's enough traffic on the subject to at least warrant some discussion. --- Benjamin Fulford, for example, has a video on YouTube (reposted on Google Video) that says Japan is among the country's being blackmailed with earthquake machine threats...and it leads, it seem, to a showdown between the US and China using earthquake machines. Eye opening stuff...
Tying in HAARP as an earthquake machine would make sense, especially since there has already been speculation that the US used HAARP ground-penetrating capability as an intelligence tool before the attack on Bora Bora sometime back. And then there are the patents...
Worse, as early 2004/ 2005, there was discussion on the net not only about the potential of HAARP to be used for intelligence gathering, but also to be used to steer hurricanes and the like. Again, more patents.
And, as one reader asked in an email "Doesn't it seem a little strange that US (and other) Navy ships were so conveniently close to Myanmar? I suppose one could ask that...
I also should not need to remind you that a lot of web traffic has been devoted to discussion of government weather control programs, such as the Air Force 2025 "Owning the Weather" report, the ground-breaking work of Scott Stevens, although his www.weatherwars.info site seems not to have been updated for over a year. But others have taken up the line of inquiry, including Steve Quayle's recent book "Weather Wars: and other unnatural disasters". In Steve's book, you might want to flip to chapter 11 "Manmade Earthquakes".
All of which would be entertaining reading except that the story (or meme if you like) seems to be gathering steam with www.whatdoesitmean.com reporting Thursday that "China Orders Strike Against US for Catastrophic Earthquake." --- So why are we discussing this on a hopefully somewhat respectable economics oriented site like UrbanSurvival? The way I see it, a cautious investor would collect the dots here which would include:
If I were still playing with paper assets, I wouldn't be in a hurry to own insurance and re-insurance companies over the summer, just in case. Might also be an interesting play to buy a few building material stocks. If such a quake did occur, it might spin the beleaguered building supplies stocks on a dime.
No, this is not investment advice. Just an observation that when there's smoke showing up in several places, the odds of finding someone running around with matches seems a little higher than random/chance, and excursions from random do impact markets as exogenous events. The idea's to spot them before the herd.
'Them Winds' Hot video out of Nebraska... The latest chart of tornados YTD from the Weather Service shows how 'out of ordinary' this year is so far:
While Hurricane Alley has been busy living up to its name, we should note that the Hurricane Season starts on Sunday and the experts are guessing that up to nine named hurricanes could be coming along, although around here, my bet is that the number might go to 12 or even 13. Just a hunch, nothing more.
Personal Consumption and Expenditures New figures out today. The press release stuff first:
Hmmm...let's see: Personal income goes up, but you don't get to keep any. Splendid. Just splendid. And savings?
But, lest we forget, I seem to recall about a year back the personal savings rate was refigured because it kept running in the red, so it was 'corrected' something like 1.3%, so if it's up in this report, it likely means your savings are likely being depleted slower than last month. Is this happy news, or what?
Say, here's an 'extra-credit' question: Are the government number-twiddlers counting the principal contribution from your home mortgage as "savings"? LOL - care to bet me?
Banks, Insurance, and Runs Because of the problems of Northern Rock (a bank run) a while back, I've been paying extra-special attention to emails from sources in the banking industry who are also watching things even more closely. So, when the FDIC issues its "Quarterly Banking Profile" and I don't have time to read the whole thing (because I would doze off at about page 9, or so), I trust my learned colleagues in mahogany fox-hole land who summarize it like so:
24-pages to say that? Whew - I am thankful for friends who can summarize...
Wal-Mart Power Fortune magazine reports that Wal-Mart puts the squeeze on food costs - using its huge purchasing power to hold prices as well as they can. Still, the reality is that with diesel over $5-dollar many places, there's going to be increases for the rest of the rest as producer costs do have to get passed up the food chain, so to speak. Farm milks prices could go up $5-per hundredweight later on this year, reports the American Agriculturalist. Pencils to 33% possibly - and maybe more. Tell me what will happen to oil prices and I can give youi a better guess...
Oil Impacts Once again, the casual investor is being pulled in two directions by the headlines. One says "Oil prices ease further after sharp falls", but at the same time another says just hours before that "Oil prices surge on surprise drop in supplies". --- Don't know how the traffic has been in your town; there hasn't been a strange car on our single-lane road here at the ranch for months. But, youngest daughter Allison reports her motorcycle-riding boyfriend has noticed a slight drop in traffic in the Seattle area. If you want to get a sense of such things, bikers are a lot more sensitive than car-drivers, being much more alert to car spacing and such. --- As for July Crude, it was hovering between $126 and $127 when I last looked, but the price at the pumps is mostly over $4 for gas and over $5 for diesel. Elaine's youngest, Brandon, reports that with a little shopping of the right truck stops in the Seattle area, he was able to load 21-gallons of diesel for $100... I think he said the Flying J in Tacoma...showing $4.81.9 this morning. In California, prices are bumping up against $5 a gallon.
An Inconvenient Opera "La Scala to stage Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth' as an opera. Well, I never was much of an opera fan...
Media Concentration If you care, there's coverage of Rupert Murdoch's thinking in the WSJ OL today. --- Speaking of media and all.. a reader sent this in Thursday morning:
I would hope the guest talking-heads are better at finance than history...
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: Still Sucking Them In... So here I am, sucking down the first cup of coffee, and I get an email from a friend I've known 50-years or so, which says "Very Urgent -Very Urgent" in the subject line (SL=). Goes like this:
Oh, no, not again! OK, I respond with...
I hope my friend's feelings aren't hurt, but I pay lots of money to anti-virus and other computer security providers (go ahead and guess, LOL) so that I don't have to worry about this kind of thing. Next time some email says "send this to everyone you know", toss it in the digital dumpster.
In fact, I finally decided I have had enough so I wrote a couple of rules in my email router so that if the phrase "send this to everyone you know" or "send this to all your friends" shows up in an email, it's now routed right to the dumpster. I got better things to do at 5:30 - like drink my coffee and think about how crazy the world is...
When Life Hands You an Onion... ...it means your probably not in upstate New York. "Hmmm...what is Ure trying to say here?" you're asking yourself. Read this:
Makes Walla Walla even more sweet, huh?
Coal-Fired Life My frustration with not being able to find coal here in East Texas got a couple of interesting responses. The first:
Now check this out - there is a place to buy bulk coal:
I just remembered another reason I want to buy some coal. According to the classic woodsman's cookbook, George and Berthe Herter's "Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices" real BBQ'ing is done over coal, not this sissified self-lighting stuff charcoal. --- Send snip and save items to george@ure.net --- end snip and save section ---
Around the Ranch: The Master Mechanic A while back, in fact last fall sometime, Elaine mentioned to me that the air conditioning in the Daewoo - which continues to be a great car at 115,000 miles, had gone out. It was one of those things on my 'miles-long' todo list around here which kept getting shoved to the bottom of the list because it was one of the colder winters, not to mention springs, that local folks can remember. Getting two inches of snow had been previously unheard of in these parts.
Nevertheless, it came up on this list this week, and since temps are now getting into the 90's on a regular basis, Elaine did a little research and found that we could get an air compressor recharge kit (with stop-leak, so as to seal things up) for about $15 at AutoZone.
The project took only a few minutes and the a/c now blows as cold as when new.
I figure if I had taken it to a shop, it would have been a hundred-dollar bill at minimum. The lesson? Do it yourself car repairs and maintenance can still save a bundle if your ride's past warranty. --- I mention this because most folks don't realize that to pay for a $9-dollar car wash, they need to earn $11, and it really takes about the same amount of time. Especially if it's a sunny day and everyone has the same idea as you.
Every time I go by a car wash (or one of those quickie oil change places) I run through the calculations: How much will is cost to have it done, versus doing it myself? I mean when all costs - time, taxes, and all that - is taken into account. I am cursed with P&L disease or monkey mind.
Based on today's personal consumption and expenditure report, it seems most people don't think about such matters, which is why we're owned as banker chattel. They prefer to go to the gym - pay for that - and then go sit in a line for a car wash. Boy, for 2-bits worth of gear, I can solve both problems - just send me your gym fees for such pearls of wisdom. I guess that's what makes us easy pickin's...
Thursday May 29, 2008 New Word for the Day: Brinking I like new words. So today I've got a new one for you to test-drive. It's "brinking". Brinking is the fine art of taking a situation as close to the breaking point as one can without actually going over the edge. Which is to say, the fine art of living on the brink of disaster.
Brinking, close as I can figure, has been implanted at the preconscious levels of thought by the numerous 'reality' shows on television where dozens of contestants on an almost continuous basis are asked to push their tolerance for either disgusting or challenging this to the brink. This "why would you be so stupid as to voluntarily do that?" kind of behavior then propagates through the whole of the Western mindset.
Lest you not buy the proposition that the whole world is 'on the brink' of financial calamity, a quick visit to the UK Telegraph's website under the headline "Financial Crisis" ought to put any of those silly fears to rest.
A few days back, for example, George Soros warned that "We face the most serious recession of our lifetime". Not to put too fine a point on it, but Soros was born August 12, 1930, and thus his lifetime spanned most of the Great Depression, having barely missed the October '29 Crash, so I can only imagine that his inference is that the present brinking might be as serious as the Depression, or perhaps more so.
While some are reporting that the credit markets are flashing new warnings about how close we are to the brink, the head of the Dallas Fed is promising a quick change of policy if inflation gets worse.
Last night's reassurances by Richard Fisher don't exactly give great comfort, however, as I seem to recall some famous wrong words by another fellow named Fisher. Ah, here it is: Irving Fisher, once famous economist who said:
I sure hope the two Fisher's aren't related. --- Besides the Great Financial Brinking, we also have the Middle East brinking. I hope the war-promoters have noticed that Iran and Syria have signed a defense pact?
And if you have kids that drive you to the edge of sanity with troubling behavior, you can relax. It's just them doing an impression of our more adult brinking.
Set Your War Clock "Hamas expect war when Egyptian negotiations end - June". Wonderful. Just frigging wonderful.
GDP Report: Growth Less than 1% Wait! Hear that faint voice off in the distance screaming "This sucks!"? But wait, this is an improvement...let's run up the market!
The report, I notice uses 'chained 2000 dollars" which means, if they are chained to the 'offishul' government figures we're probably already negative in the GDP column. But wait! Who would want to admit that? That might mean we're already in a recession, and God knows, we aren't, right? Right? The Oil Party and corpgov wouldn't do that to us would they?
As Goes GM Department More restructuring planned. I think that means expect more layoffs in less polite/veiled terms. The old Wall St. saying is what? "As goes GM, so goes the market..." But, that was born of pre-tech days, so maybe it's now "as goes Vista..." Ooops, let's not go there.
Web Bots: Quakes, Lakes, and Fires With a report out of China that "Chemicals, rain add to China's quake lake fears" I recall reading about this high alpine lake problem in the predictive linguistics some time back. Although the archetypical imagery of a lake fouled with chemicals has also been met by a recent lake polluted with chemicals case in Colorado, there was a good reference to the current goings on in China in the March 1 ALTA 1308 Part 0 run sent to www.halfpasthuman.com subscribers on March 1st of this year:
(Note: If posted elsewhere a link to www.halfpasthuman.com and this site is required)
The convenient thing about the first part of a data run from the time monks is that in the Part Zero reports, there's a short summary of the preceding data, such that a person new to the problems of capturing the essence of future all wrapped up in language can point at Part Zero and say "Aha! We're maybe about here in the temporal flow of things..." Tell Smokey the Bear we called about his overseas colleagues.
Storming Indy A sharp-eyed reader in the Indianapolis area promises to send us pictures as 2,300 Marines will be storming the Eastgate Consumer Mall and other locations next week. While I appreciate the Corps' devotion to real-life exercises, there's something gnawing at the back of my mind. What's the word? Desensing perhaps?
Still Flowing Here's a headline for you: "Two years on, Indonesia mud colcano still flowing..."
Still Slowing Now, says the NYT, it's the auto industry that's dealing with fallout from the Housing Bubble imploding...
Still Towing You don't want to cut corners on your household budget in Dallas by letting your car insurance lapse. Get stopped for a minor traffic issue, and found to be without insurance, and you'll get your car towed to an impound lot...
Still Mowing While lawn mowing goes green in some places, in others, just stop mowing seems to make sense in others. That'd be places without the copperheads, coral snakes, cotton mouths, and oh, did I mention chiggers around here? Mowing here is more a personal safety issue than a green deal.
Still Rowing Big rowing events in Switzerland this weekend as a run-up to Beijing. Sculling not skulling...
Still Sowing... However, spring crop sowing will wrap up in Russia and former satellites shortly.
Still... "New ethanol plant bets on a better method than corn." Which will make a lot of consumers, pigs, and cattle happy, I'm sure... Hand me those sugar beet seeds, would yah?
Rocky Mountain High Department: UFO Footage? More than a few eyes will be on Denver tomorrow where footage of a purported alien will be shown as Denver mulls an "Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission." Tell 'em to drop off one of those zero-point levitation things at the ranch, please?
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: Dying to hear from you, too The headline "Now you can send e-mail after you death" has me a little bit worried. If you can send e-mail after you death, how long before government starts sending us tax notes after death? Oh? Already doing it? Sorry I brought it up. Still, I was looking forward to dying just as a way to finally clear out my inbox.
Silvery Question A reader writes this
I have no idea what is ahead for silver, and this is not investing advice, but I just bought another $1,000 of September $25 silver call options on the commodity exchange. And I plan to ride my July $25's to the very end, even if it's a zero. What does that tell you about my sanity? This is exactly why I don't offer financial advice...
Steak for Pennies Huge delicious steaks for pennies? Well, yes and no. Turns out it's something called papercraft and it helps if you a) read Japanese and b) don't mind eating what looks like filet of paper mache. I can here all the mice in the CPI Unit at the Labor Department clicking here in unison now. I can almost hear it: "OMG - They're heart-healthy, too!" Thanks, had my share of paper thin steaks already...
Is Mexico Fueling Us? A reader sends this...
While it seems to be true that fuel is a heck of a lot cheaper in Mexico, it's a long commute just to fill up and if you don't have a turbo-diesel Jetta, there may not be anything in savings.
Especially when you figure in the cost of a squad of Blackwater's finest to get you through the border area, where there's been more gunplay than on old cowboy movie festival. In fact, "Mexico Crime Wave takes ten more lives" goes one headline datelined Ciudad Juarez, which if you haven't been there, is just over the pedestrian overpass from El Paso... --- Send snip and save notes and comments to george@ure.net --- end snip and save section ---
Around the Ranch: Back to RSS A couple of readers have asked me "Why did you stop doing RSS feeds?" The answer is simple enough - not being much of a feed-user I just didn't have it high enough up the priority list to make it happen. however, given that a few folks have asked, it is now back on the 'things to do before breakfast list' - a frighteningly long document that sometimes looks as though it will force starvation upon me. So at least for now, RSS is back. That said, if my breakfast starts landing before me much after about 10 AM, I reserve the right to get cranky and reprioritize again. I knew you'd understand.
Wednesday May 28, 2008 The Global War Behinds the Scenes Pull up a cup, we need to have us a talk about the global war that's going on and the various factions at work. It's a really interesting tale. A bit convoluted, but you can see it with a fresh cup of coffee, an open mind, and a clear head...
Let's start with the performance of gold and silver on Tuesday, which had their little fannies kicked for a loss of almost $18 bucks in gold. MarketWatch headlines it as "Market strength lowers metal's investor appeal; silver drops 4.5%." What was in the low 900's on Tuesday's close has continued to erode this morning, dropped to under $890.
One possible reason for silver to drop? The US Mint has been rationing the number of silver US cons they can purchase and that has resulted in the conflicting forces of a shortage of US silver coins on the one hand, and a large end-of-month downward spike (deliveries time?) on the commodity site.
But if you thought inflation was a goner, just based on metals, consider that the head of HSBC is calling for an interest rate increase - not a decrease as one would normally expect if inflation was truly under control.
Despite the happy-talk promotion that "all's well and getting even better", there's something much larger going on: what's I've referred to for several years as the global "Manufacturer's Resource Wars." --- The most recent report of a whole global region forming a power and trading block comes as "South American nations to seek common currency." No doubt, they have seen the dictatorial presidency arise from the Constitutional Republic system in the USA and figured if the Almighty Dollar can seize power and rule by Executive Orders, fudging a few stats along the way to get there, not to mention starting wars and suffering a housing collapse, then why shouldn't South America get in on the fun, and form up a regional coup, too? As North America proves, if it happens slowly, the sheep will doze right through it.
This will tend to reinforce the BRIC nations - Brazil-Russia-India-China, as resource-rich lands (people or resource) which have not been completely mired in debt.
The US meanwhile continues to press along with it's CFR-promoted www.spp.gov plans, which have already brought Mexican trucks rolling on American freeways, effectively turning independent trucking into a dirt-for-pay situation resulting in parked rigs, which in turn drives up costs and who do you think benefits?
Oh, and does Brazil have a nuke ready to test? --- But, it's not like the battle is only on for South America. Our traveling correspondent, who runs in oil circles, and is referred to only as WT - the Wandering Texan - advised this morning that...
That region can be reasonably expected to be the gun runner's Woodstock, as you've got a region with resources, a population which is weak because of the AIDS epidemic, and China needs its own version of Lebensraum (elbowroom of German WW II). Care to go long 7.62X39?
Another country which might be construed as jockeying for position is Japan which is vowing to double aid to Africa by 2012. A little 'resource quid pro quo'? Last check, countries were not in the free lunch game - there're always strings. --- The ongoing war between the [regional/corporate] factions is a messy thing indeed. The fuse has been lit on the 'death of the dollar' in part by the US figuring out we don't have much choice other than to see the Dollar decoupled from oil (why did you think prices of oil were going up?) yet at the same time, the Euro may have its own clock ticking as there has been some question raised about LIBOR methodologies and there could be a "New LIBOR" in Europe's future..
The new global dynamic to watch is this one: When there's a report about how the US may launch a preemptive attack on Iran (ostensibly over nukes, but in reality over their oil reserves) we see the dollar go up. When the buck is up, gold and silver get slammed and oil comes down. Quick, call the bomber crews.
Take today's headlines as supporting this new pet theory of mine: We are reading that "Oil prices drop below $127 a barrel" on the one hand, while on the other, it's reported that "Bush 'plans Iran air strike by August.' Is this a tradable relationship? I guess time will tell. --- There's still the matter of 'keeping the lid' on the US internal economy.
Nominally, the reason is that the dollar gained a bit against the Euro, but this comes about the same time as the US confessed that the Consumer Sentiment was at a 16-year low and the housing crisis is not spinning on a dime, as had been widely predicted.
What's worse for Washington is that an economist, John Williams of www.shadowstats.com ) is suing the government over its economic data, something that certainly makes sense since both Elaine and I have been to the store recently, but from a policymaking standpoint it won't matter as long as the public can be swayed with the soft-think that 'core rates' (prices gong up due to inflation, but not counting food and energy) is somehow more real than $4.50 gas and $5.00 diesel working its way through the system.
By some methods, such as predictive linguistics, this all hits the fan in a major way come early October. True, there are some writers such as Devvy Kidd, who sounds an alarming note with the headline "Americans Embracing the Iron First of totalitarian Government," but I'd bet that somewhere inside the Beltway there are lots of briefings and dozens of Spinmeisters pimping the idea "Can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs."
There is, after all, a global war going on - driven by the Four R's: Resource, Region, Race, and Religion, with the goal of 'power' in its many dimensions as the sought-after outcome
As the WOPR computer said in the movie War Games: ""A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
Which explains in a nutshell why the number of people opting out is increasing. "Green survivalist movement grows in the U.S." Perhaps it was triggered by CNN's earlier story "Survivalists get ready for meltdown." The concept is popping all over mediapsace.
I'm so old I remember the pre-media-labeled age when a 'green survivalist' was something else and the foundation of America: A farmer. But that was before the 4RW and the mergers of corpgov and the MSM. And before the Google news search for the term 'shortage' popped up with more than 42,000 returns.
Terror Fears Stoked Against the background of the 4RW, and perhaps curiously timed, is the ABC report that "Al Qaeda supports 'Tape to call for use of WMD's". Or, in shorthand: ABC reports AQ's NBC plans...all it needs is a postmark from Iran, huh?
Let's see here: the US making threats on Iran jams down gold and silver and the dollar up, but I'm not sure how this plays...
'Them Winds' You might want to click over to the Tornado Trend chart on the government's weather site later today to see if they update it. (Last update was on 5/23 as of press time for us.) --- Parkersburg Iowa saw its worst in 32-years this week. Nearly 500 homes damaged there. --- Here at the ranch on Tuesday, we had about 7-10ths to 8-10th's of an inch in about 2-hours. Those storms are helping put the US on track to break 1998's record as deadliest on record.
Czech: The Climate DebateCzech president Vaclav Klaus is ready to debate Al Gore over whether climate change is real. Right after he said it to the National Press Club he met with VP Dick Cheney...
Memes: Secrets RevealedThis summer things are not expected to go well for the Bushista entity over in www.halfpasthuman.com modelspace and with the new book from Scott McClellan taking numerous whacks at GW and the WH crew, I guess we're at the start of the next wave of 'secrets revealed'. Jas Jain's take on this?
OK, Jas and I may disagree about when solid deflation shows up (it's not at my Wal-Mart or Chevron yet). But we do agree on secrets, busses, crooks and dopes in the main...present company excepted, of course. If you got this far, there's hope.
Dangerous Energy DrinksSeems they are causing concern in school over behavior risks. I have to wonder if that can happen in schools, what about the workplace?
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Coping: Help WantedFrom a couple of readers with their eyes open:
Another offers this:
Me? I tend to look at the daily stock market volume as a similar indicator - people willing to gamble with paper...
Coal? Where?I'm not the only one who is looking for coal to buy...
Well, a couple of people have told me that they have sources in East Texas, but I have never heard back from anyone. If youi know of a good source of coal in Kentucky or East Texas (how much could 10-tons be?) let me know. --- Send snip and save notes to george@ure.net - Anything is fair game, but I'm the judge and jury on what's pertinent and what's not...
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Around The Ranch: Another 'Million Dollar' IdeaYou know I thinker around with ham radio, as do a few readers of this site. Well, here's an idea for a product which would sell like hotcakes. The new product I propose is simply an antenna switch which would not only move a coax connection from one radio to another, but which would also move the linear amplifier switching, plus two two-wire +ground control circuits at the same time.
I don't know why this hasn't been done - it's obvious as hell to me. You see, right now, when I move from one radio to another, as when I was testing my Icom 746 and my Kenwood TS-440 with Jeff (see 'tank antenna' story from yesterday), I had to physically move things around.
Let's say you have three radios. Maybe one is good for voice, one is good for data (slow scan TV or BPSK) or Morse code use, or whatever. Once in a while it's fun to use a different radio, right? Maybe e you want to use a ham station resource (computer?) on multiple radios depending on your mood.
But right now, even though I have antenna switches coming out my ears, moving full operating capacity between radios involves pulling of plugs and swapping things around. The computer control cable has to be moved from one radio to another, the audio out into the sound card (or the free-standing USB soundcard) for data needs to move, and so does the Morse code paddle if I want to use that.
I want to be able to flip ONE switch and move: Antenna, the radio's computer control line, audio out, audio in, plus the keyer paddle, and maybe an audio line if I'm using an equalizer/gate for HQ SSB.
Make 'em up and sell them on eBay --call it the SuperSwitch or something - it's a road to riches, I tell you. Hell, patent it, just send me a couple for my radio shack here, would you?
Tuesday May 27, 2008 Transforming Pressures: A Tuesday Survey There are still a number of coming events to tick through over the summer, the earthquake between June 21st and mid September, for example, but already the aware observer can start to see the pressures, now building, that will cause most all of us to go through some kind of personal transformation of our lives before the end of 2009.
Given that I have the odd view that life is supported by seven major 'functional areas' the analysis can be summed up by considering each and noting recent news headlines in that area. Once you've got that, a picture of 'life after transformation' comes into soft focus.
Care for a run-though?
Food The biggest things going on with food can be summarized as soaring prices, limited availability, wheat rust, and some web sites reporting they are out of storable items because of government buying. Say, you don't think that someone knows something that hasn't been shared with the whole population, do you?
Shortages in places like North Korea are pressuring people to begin moving to new locations (despite the political pressures to stay put). Dis you say Diaspora? Not that it's limited to North Korea - food/migration would seem to be on the increase in Africa as well, but as you'd expect from leaders there, De Nile is just upcountry a bit. Meanwhile, unrest in places like Egypt bring the specter of violent political change; hungry people are more motivated than fat and fed.
People who are trying to lay in some personal/family emergency stocks are running into reports like this one on stored food supplier web sites:
Over at www.emergencyessentials.com, if you click on their #10 cans of freeze-dried foods, you'll find that many are back-ordered, especially if there is a lot of protein in the dish - like beef stroganoff or chicken ala king.
Not that it's making headlines in the mainstream media today, but there's a headline in the Wall Street Journal today that "Fungus Strain is Menacing Wheat Crop" - and it's a global issue, not just Persia.
Shelter The housing crisis has continued to brew, shoved off the MSM by the more pressing stores of the day; tornados and such, which we'll get to in a minute. I won't rehash the carefully crafted Hillary gaffe, though.
Government response to the housing situation in general is predictable - a sort of regulatory snooze alarm. For example, USA Today headlines that "Housing (discrimination) complains increase, but fewer charges are filed".
Some communities have noticed that "High Housing Costs Pushing Young Adults Away", but despite that, other headlines inform us that "Mass. housing sales post big drop." In "California Home Prices Drop 32% Amind Foreclosures, Realtors Say." I read that as meaning there's much farther to fall.
Admittedly, that may sound deflationary to folks like my pal Jas Jain who argue massive deflation will be the long-term workout of the economic restructuring (which sounds ever so much more benign that Greater Depression, don't you think?), we've got prices going up in lots of areas, such as food. Unfortunately, most people still gotta eat. The question on the table for your consideration is whether people living in tents can save the economy from deflation is their food prices go up enough?
Energy Unlike the last Depression, this one will likely feature many goods remaining unaffordable (or going up in price, instead of down as the deflationists are calling for), at least in the early going, because the price of energy, a key component in almost all physical goods, continues to increase. This morning, oil is back around $133 a barrel after an attack in Nigeria. CNBC is running an oil ticker now, so I'm thinking "Bubble, but for how long? Days or years?"
Folks up in the Boeing Commercial Airplane Division might well be biting nails a bit. The recent cutbacks at American, with likely others eyeing cutback options, too, may mean fewer sales.
What is specifically NOT being talked about is how a cratering of Boeing sales might be one of those 'snow-ball effects' when the recession/Depression II get's really rolling this fall. The reason? Boeing sales are a big component of the US Balance of Trade. When commercial and military jet sales flop (who's got the dough, right?) then the balance of payments gap widens which puts massive downward pressure on...er...open your wallet and tell me what currency you see for now?
At some point, members of CONgress ought to start worrying for their jobs if the self-reinforcing aspects of the pending economic collapse kick in before they get themselves another term of office this fall, not that their special fat-cat retirement plan will mean much, denominated as it is (at least for now) in FeRN's (Federal Reserve Notes) and at adjustments nowhere near what the plebes get.
Wonder how long it will take them to sneak through a dark of night change in their retirement plan while the rest of us go through hell with Social Security already not keeping u p with the real rate of inflation? Policymakers (policy bumblers?) fiddle with 'core rates' that ignore the broader and longer term impacts of oil and food price inflation.
But that's a longer rap for a different day. You're just back from a long weekend and maybe this is a bit much, eh?
Transportation If you want an example of how the impacts of transformation are starting to bite into life, without most people being aware of it, just look to the story (paradoxically worded): "Largest decrease in driving ever". When it costs nearly $90 to fill my pick-up, the reason I've only been to town once in the past month becomes apparent.
Finance Let's see: The markets are about flat this morning, after a 507-point drop last week that was significantly missing the usual pre-holiday bullishness. Here, take this T.S. chit to the Chaplain. Have I not warned of 'paper assets'?
That means some serious declines may be ahead this week, but we shall see. The markets, like a lonely shipping accident survivor treading water, will imagine Consumer Confidence numbers and new housing sales to be lifeboats. But, fundamentally there's a much larger play going on. Investors are sometimes slow on getting the whole plot, preferring to focus on the increasing irrelevant subplots of the Life's Great Libretto. Go figure.
Environment More tornadoes are expected in the Midwest today, in the same general area that got creamed over the long weekend. Looks like upper Oklahoma will be the centerpiece today and maybe over into Tennessee.
Parkersburg Iowa was mostly destroyed this weekend, as well, cost four lives in the process.
Just because vast cracks are opening in the Arctic Ice, don't worry yourself none about that. And even though the red spot on Jupiter seems to have new competition perhaps due to solar-system-wide heating changes, the carbon credit promoters are still working their magic on the sheep. Don't want to disturb anyone, now, do we?
The UK's Times Online headlines it fairly: "Personal Carbon Credits: the trick --- The phoney climate change war is upon us. We're are being drawn into a Blitz spirit"
Just so - bread and circuses to keep the transformation in hiding a while longer.
Communications The biggest threat to the orderly operation of the PTB paradigm, which includes a political leadership/royalty despite what the Constitution says class, is to focus on the excessive freedom to associate implicit in internet use. I'm betting on licensing or restrictions within a year.
All it will take will be some horrible 'terror cell' planning to involve the 'net in some way and the power grab will be on. Just as the government decided to license Nature with its grab of radio spectrum in the 1934 Communications Act which set up the FCC.
As a holding action till that comes along, the survivalists (really prepared folks) are now too many in number to be called 'nutjobs' and right-wing extremists, although having a book on Constitutional Rights may be a a red flag to police state agents. Instead, we're starting to read stories about "Energy fears looming, new survivalists prepare."
Viacom is going after YouTube in a case seen as a threat to the 'net,
While the internet has done positive things, like link 17 councils in Plateau State Nigeria, it has also become a haven for illegal betting.
The battle for net freedom is far from over, and it's significant to note that Firefox 3.0 is due out next month and Internet Exploder...I mean Explorer 8.0 is due out before the end of the year. ---
So there you have it, a summary of my seven major life supporting meta systems and what's going on in each. It's a nice, compact way to look at things and it allows you to sit back (if you're so inclined) and look at the overall direction of world events.
Food, shelter, and energy are all going through radical adjustments due to pricing. Food and energy have gone up at the store and gas station, while housing prices went up much earlier, and it's just taken a long time for it to sink into people's wallets that they paid too much. Ought to be a lesson in here about excessive leverage, but I suppose most people will miss it. Leverage is the road to riches, so goes the financial mantra. I suppose that's true for some, but the people living in their cars in California are the victims of the same over-leverage process that made undeserving millionaires in the crooked housing scams and housing flippings.
If you plan for less money in a year's time, worse weather, and coming restrictions on personal communications (perhaps as energy prices cause the free or next-to-nothing tariffs to be reconsidered) you will likely not be disappointed.
Less transportation seems to be in the cars, but then when you heard the airline commercial proclaiming "You are now free to move around the country", it should have served as warning that we were getting near the end of that. You're not free to move about the country unless you have a huge wad of cash, but that's not stated.
Still, America remains a great idea. All we rally need to start realizing the Dream is a lot more solar panels, a lot more farmers on smaller farms, extreme mileage vehicles, and a lot less government overhead.
But then, it was that way before the weekend began and nothing much seems to have changed since Friday. Welcome to Monday on a Tuesday.
Around The Ranch: Tanks for the Fun Since there aren't many snip and save items today (send them to george@ure.net) - we'll launch into the really important stuff: how my friend Jeff, WB4WXD managed to come up with another possible winner in the K0S Strange Antenna Challenge which runs every Memorial Day.
Jeff went by the local National Guard Armory and got permission to use a set tank on display outside the Armory as an antenna by simply clipping his antenna lead onto the back of the tank with a pair of vice-grips, like so:
With the final lashup looking like this, the antenna may have been acting as a dipole where one half is the Dodge Caravan and the other half is the tank.
With me at the ranch with a more conventional (and efficient) antenna, we met up on 3916 (LSB) (12 miles or so) and managed a contact and from there it was up to the 10-meter band and Jeff scored a contact with a KD9 (Stan was the op) somewhere in the upper Midwest - want to say Wisconsin. A thousand miles maybe?
If you're a ham radio type, you know that the collection of coil(s) and capacitors coming off the final amplifier section of a transmitter is called the 'tank circuit'. Well, Jeff now has another kind of tank circuit to offer to world...
Me? I just sit and wonder what a Smith Chart plot of a tank's nominal impedance might look like...hmmm. More pictures on the local ham radio club web site here...
This was almost as much fun as when K7COC and I put the dipole on top of the Space Needle in 1961 or was it ' 62 Seattle for the World's Fair station... a Drake TR-3 if I recall...and some QRN from the torch igniter, too...
Monday May 26, 2008 Horrific Winds - Again The tornado season has been horrible this year - way above not only the past several years but also way out of shape in terms of the ten year averages as well as shown in this Weather Service chart that was current through last Friday.
Storms over the holiday weekend have killed at least 8 people in Iowa and Minnesota, with more storms due today in the upper Midwest. Warnings map here.
The winds, no doubt, are connected to the growing conflict between Global Warming pressures on the one hand, and Global Cooling on the other, with new discussion about the role of sunspots in all this.
First The Quake... ...now floods are coming to the area of China ruined by that 7.9/8.0 earthquake two weeks back. More than 700,000 people in harms way there, so the PLA is sending in more troops to help out. It's reported that 69-dams are in danger of bursting, too. --- Meantime, a new study says quakes can be triggered from the other side of the globe which sounds a lot like hard science is catching up with the softer science of hyper-dimensional physics and antipodal studies which I've told you about before. 'Bout time.
Life on Mars? NASA has dropped a a life-searching robot onto the surface of Mars this weekend and it's sending back first photos. Not exactly the kind of place most real estate developers would be interested in...
The probe's name is Phoenix - and sure enough, the territory sure looks a lot like it.
The NASA press report says that "As planned, Phoenix stopped transmitting one minute after landing and focused its limited battery power on opening its solar arrays, and other critical activities. About two hours after touchdown, it sent more good news. The first pictures confirmed that the solar arrays needed for the mission's energy supply had unfolded properly, and masts for the stereo camera and weather station had swung into vertical position."
Flight of the Phoenix, huh?
Getting High Department Speaking of Whatzzup and such, a skydiver is planning to go for a world record trying a jump from 25-miles up. Yes, his gear is equipped with automatic opening devices in case the 1,500 km/hour ride causes him to lose consciousness.
Markets Asleep - Oil Wide Awake The US stock and commodity markets are closed today for Memorial Day, but there continues to be action in the overseas bourses. In Asian trading, for example, oil was right back up pressing in on $133 a barrel. --- Lots of people have asked me if I think Peak Oil is real - and the answer is yes. But, you have to remember that peak Oil doesn't mean we run out of oil. It only means that we won't be able to enjoy it at a dirt cheap price and unlimited supply on demand. Instead, we will see consumption restrained by supply, or we will see pricing do the restriction of consumption for us.
While abiotic oil (making oil in the earth at high temperatures and pressures) may be true, it's not going to make enough new energy to refill reservoirs fast enough to make a plastic world and power high cubic inch muscle cars. That kind of lifestyle is toast. The change will become obvious over the next couple of years if you're still in denial.
While the chief time monk is now working on an electric car, Elaine and I are pondering whether to put in a reservation for one of the new SmartCars - it's a $99 reservation fee, but designed to keep broker sand horse-traders from jacking up the price of the rigs as they hit the street. They're expecting the same kind of "worth more than you paid for it" phenomena that hit the Mustangs when they first came out, or the more recent example of the Prius. 41 MPG hiway sounds pretty good... --- Disagree though you may on the Peak oil question, the International Eneergy Administration is taking things seriously enough that they are investigating whether supplies could run dry by 2012. Which, in case you think of that as waay off in the future is down to just 3 1/2 years from now. --- With 2009 being the linguistic "Year of Transformation" by the work over at www.halfpasthuman.com, it seems that energy and the death of the dollar in terms of purchasing power and a tool for projection of American power, will take a fair amount of getting used to, but that should be evident to the aware person come this fall when we expect the market to hit the skids in a serious way.
Memorial Day Around the nation, lots of people will be out taking part in Memorial Day observances. Here at the ranch, a quiet moment or two and a toast is planned for a few names on The Wall. And our thanks to men and women worldwide who are working their butts off to keep us free today. There's that nagging question whether those of us at home are doing our part to support the goals of the Framers of the Constitution, but let's save that for another time. This is a day to recall sacrifice of those who got us this far...and the opportunity to go further.
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Coping: Are Full Tanks Cheaper? A number of readers have questioned me about my simple assertion that driving with a full tank (as taught to me by my father) was cheaper than running a tank down low at all times.
No shortage of readers were openly skeptical saying that the weight of the gasoline would be a meaningful part of the calculation, and that I should have recognized that and reported it as such.
It's true. The average car in 2001 weighed in at 2,945 pounds and yes, 10 gallons of gas more would weigh 62 additional pounds. There are several ways to look at this.
On the one hand, yes, that's a 2.1% increase in vehicle weight.
Back in the day when I was driving my 1973 Porsche 911 (lightened to 1925 pounds), filling the tank with 17 gallons was a 5.4% increase in vehicle weight (105 pounds roughly, and actually noticeable on those 'slam you back in the seat' advances from zero to 70 on freeway onramps.
But the power to weight ratio is not the only variable behind this adage about 'it doesn't cost any more to run 'em full.
The more subtle reason has to do with the value of your time. Show you what I mean:
A person who habitually runs their car a quarter full to "save money" will go to the gas station four-times more than me. Even if they spend a short five minutes at each stop, that is still 15-minutes out of their life whereas I still have that time to allocate elsewhere.
I bill my client time out at $75 an hour, and 15-minutes of client time has a value of $18.75. Now, there's no way that the fuel saving of a full tank is going mount up to $18.75 per tank.
I'll concede that if the analysis is narrowly interpreted such that only a single metric (fuel consumption) is used; then yes, the 'correct' answer in the physics world is that full tanks consume more. However being a management geek, two of the keys to life I focus on are time and money. There are always competing investments and standing at gas pumps more often costs me money and time from other parts of my life, so to me that's a tangible cost. --- FWIW That's why I use a tractor bucket with some dirt in it to set fence posts. If I was pounding in fence posts by hand I'd be in much better shape, but each post would take 5-minutes or so. With the tractor bucket, and a helper, I can set a post in under a minute. Going from 12 posts an hour to 50-60 per hour costs me about a quart of ranch/off-road diesel. A buck's worth of fuel to get 4-additioinal billable hours ($300 revenue potential) for each 60 posts? Hell yes, I'll make that decision all day long. Even when I consider the $8/hour operating cost of the tractor (depreciation, wear, etc). As long as I keep remembering that what I am doing with the tractor is $9 per hour (diesel and costs) then I will use that as efficiently as I can. A helper, like a high school kid looking for gas money still keeps me way under budget.
If you're thinking I obsess about costs like the fellow in the movie Pi did about numbers, you'd be wrong, but not entirely...
It's also why I keep a pretty good stock of power tools. Sure, I can saw every board for a project with a hand saw, although I might die of boredom before getting the job done. But, for now anyway, power saws make sense. No, they may not be "right" from a purist's standpoint, but I don't see purists building many homes.
That will all change, as we get down transformation lane next year and thereafter, but for now, I'm working on foundational things that will allow us to make the transformation smoother than most.
For example, this fall, I want to get a foundation pad for a new home in. Once that's done with the high energy factor concrete used nowadays, then I can finish with cord wood walls, straw bales mortared, or any of a number of other options.
This makes life vastly more complicated, but welcome to the world. Our shopping list of projects includes a wind-shelter and long term housing with things like solar A/C using the earth as a heat sink. We're trying to get the biggest parts of these done now - the parts that may be in short supply in the future.
I suppose this may be a bit much to nibble on at this hour, but consider the future and remember the money you spend today ripples out into your future when you'll reap the harvest of both the good and the bad decisions now.
I'll just keep running my tank full, thanks. --- Send snip and save notes to george@ure.net. Anything about life, and how to beat the game or think about it in new and useful ways is fine
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Peoplenomics.com Advice to the Kids: So, You Want a Pension, Huh? Not that I would ever expect someone like Warren Buffett to come out and say "Second Depression!" as I've been writing about for 10+ years as the inevitable outcome of consuming ore than we make and printing up phony financial instruments ala Ponzi to do it, but when someone of Buffett's standing "sees "long, deep" U.S. recession" ahead, then perhaps there's still enough lead time to actually get ready. So, if you're willing to ride out and meet Fate, it's time for some contingency planning for the aftermath of what may have been America's Golden Age.
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"Live on $10,000" Updated There's now a single-page website devoted to my little ebook "How to Live on $10,000 a year (or less) at www.liveontenthousand.com. Yep - still possible. I also took a bit of additional material that was pertinent from recent issues of Peoplenomics and included them. The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the aforementioned dollar amount, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you make a little more than that and do some active savings... Click here for the page with more details on it. ---- Last week's report is here. For back issues of this site, click here. (Goes back to 1997!) ---- I promised Elaine that I would unload some of my equipment, so if you're looking for ham gear, especially the older tube-type (EMP resistant) type, send me a note and I will send out the list of what I'm selling off when I get it together. Click here to Put Me On Ham Gear List
News from Elliott
Wave International
Before the chart, a little background: Once upon a time, a long while ago, I observed during my quest for 'truth' in economics, that the powers That Be, the talking heads on the teeve, and the other information sources that actively engage in the programming of humans not to think, had conveniently swept several trillions of dollars that disappeared in the Internet Bubble's bursting (since spring 2000) under the rug. Surely, it wasn't unnoticed by the thousands of people who called brokers and said "Where is my money?" "Gone, but hang in there as you're a long term investor!" was about all they heard back.
But, the truth of the matter is that this chart shows what your account would look like if you have taken a few thousand dollars and invested equal amounts in the Dow, the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ Composite in the waning days of 1999. It's not a very pretty picture, and it sort of gives away the other side of the story. You know, the one that no one has an interest in telling, because it's a truth which shows the amazing coincidence of the timing of 9/11, the disappearance of naked shorting evidence and all, along with the impact of The Wars which have managed to keep the economy out of an earlier depression than the one expected by me by late 2008.
No, it's not a perfect replay of 1929, but history doesn't repeat exactly, it only rhymes. So think of this as the rhymes and the crimes chart:
Write when you get rich,
George Ure, The People's Economist
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