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Nosebleed for the
Markets
When we were chatting last Saturday morning,
the Dow had just
closed out the week at 12,307.35. This morning, I can't
help but notice that the Dow has closed at 11,842.69 for the week
and if you're awake enough to handle a calculator, pencil, of still
have enough mental acuity to do it in your head, that's a little
more than a 464 point drop for the week.
---
If you're wondering why the market took a dive, there were plenty of
'reasons' proposed on MSM outlets. One of the reasons cited
was Israel's Iran War dry run, which in turn caused a bump up in oil
prices, leading to headlines like "Crude
oil jumps on Israel-Iran bomb talk."
All of which gets us around to the question "What's next?"
In a mid-session chat Friday, Robin Landry made an interesting
suggestions. "George, in one of your Peoplenomics reports,
maybe you should lay out what life would be like with $500 oil, $25
gas, and all the rest of what could be coming..."
He then went on to explain how the next couple of weeks will be
pivotal. One wave count would have us spent a little more time
at these levels, but above 11,700, and then take off with a final
moonshot of the Dow to well over 14,700 - maybe even as high as
16,000 or greater, before getting to the massive collapse that will
come as the world's greatest-ever paper bubble collapses.
On the other hand, if we sink through the 11,700 level, and then
under 10,000, we can pretty much expect the conclusion of the
decline to take us down to the 2001-2002 kind of lows (with 7,400 as
a target) and perhaps even below that.
So we'll just bide our time and see what comes next. The Big
Players are winding up Q2 and balancing their books.
The specific problem is that Q1 ended with the Dow at
12,262.89 and the
year began from a 2007 close of
13,264.82.
Not counting dividends, the Dow has lost 10.7% of its value in the
first six months of the year, something that is not being widely
reported in mainstream media.
Not that people will be able to do anything about it, as the
PowersThatBe are still firmly in control. Expect to hear the
term "buy and hold" all over mainstream media in the coming few
weeks.
The Runs:
Kissy, Kissy, Make Up
As though we need one more data point to solidify the view that
there's really not much choice in the election this fall, we have to
note that after calling each other everything in the book, it's nice
to know that "Obama,
Hillary Clinton to campaign together" next week.
"Am I the only one who sees this as peculiar?" wondered Elaine.
Nope. It's the neocon/PTB version of 'buy and hold'. You
buy the White House and then hold it.
Since we already knew Mars was cold, you'd think we'd land in a hot
spot and look for water, not ice...but I guess that shows you why
I'm not a NASA consultant.
--- snip and save section ---
Coping:
The Time Before This
Nicholas Montserrat's book, "The Time Before This" was one of the
best books I read when young, although I disagree with the authors
view that "We have no rights, only responsibilities."
Nevertheless, the issue of whether Life and Civilization has been
here before is a persistent Big Question.
Here's a head-stretcher article from 2007 that gets into some of the
archeological evidence that that researchers like Graham Hancock
have been pointing to: 'The
History Before History".\
Your homework assignment for the balance of the weekend is write a
200 word summary of why these facts are conveniently ignored by
modern religions. Due Monday at 6AM.
---
Send your essays (or other snip and save goodies) to
george@ure.net
---
Around the Ranch:
Missing Time?
OK, how does this happen? I wake up in the middle of the
night and notice I have a full kidney to offload. I casually
notice the beside clock says 1:47 AM. I toddle off to the
bathroom, unload the kidney and wander to the kitchen for a glass of
ice water.
There, the clock on the stove says 3:33 AM.
I go back to bed, thinking the beside clock is wrong. It now
says 3:35 AM.
Curious, huh?
Even stranger was the vivid dream that followed immediately:
I was taken on a trip to an Area-51 kind of place on some kind of
aircraft, facing backwards safety reasons. I could see
the two pilots by looking over my left shoulder. We arrived
and then attended a briefing at this military base where a
Disney-owned outfit provided security and specially logoed white
jump suits for this group of six I was with were briefed on some
kind of nuclear something or other somewhere else in this facility
which we were told was supposed to be closed.
A further oddity, like this wasn't enough strangeness: There was a
television playing on the left side of the room with the high level
military guy doing the briefing - who explained it was to provide
noise to cover up any listening devices as well as distract people
who were not ready for the knowledge about to be imparted..
Then, my alarm clock went off - it was 5 AM and time to roll out
Heck of a dream - real as hell and in color, too, as most of my
dreams are. I'm pretty sure I must have read the clock wrong
when I got up in the middle of the night...but then again, am I
supposed to forget something?
---
See you Monday - unless you're a subscriber, in which case Sunday
afternoon, then.,..
Peoplenomics.com
Getting Pumped:
Change of Status
It happened again on Saturday night when
I was chatting with a group of folks around the Southwest on ham
radio. The future tapped me on the shoulder. One of the hams in the
QSO (conversation) said that although he loved his older Porsche
(928), it was getting to be a real pain to drive because it isn't
easy on the gas. Now that gas is nearing $4 a gallon even here
in the "Land of Oil Rigs" (Texas), this reminded me how things
presently held in high regard for their "status" value may be
changing in tradable ways over the coming few years. Not that
the meek shall necessarily inherit the earth maybe, but at least if
they drive a high mileage diesel Jetta with a 25-gallon tank, they
might at least be able to raise a down payment in the future.
Anyone want to sell a
good Honda
Insight which a
CNN-Money page listed as turning in 60 MPG city and 66 MPG highway? More
For Subscribers
Not a Subscriber yet? It's just $40/Year: (Allow
48-hours for processing)
UrbanSurvival has a very
interesting business model - one that depends on growth. This
busin4ess model is a lot like capitalism in that growth is required,
but of course we won't ever get to cutting down the rainforests. So
even if you don't subscribe to our premium newsletter at
www.peoplenomics.com, please tell everyone you know about this
site. The more this site grows, the more time and content will
show up on the free site...
Click here to send 'em an invite... Thank you!
"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.
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 June 20, 2008
Democorp's Dodd
Sneaks in Government Money Spy Plan
This is mindboggling - the headline from
www.FreedomWorks.org that
"Senate Housing Bill Requires eBay, Amazon, Google, and all
Credit Card companies to Report Transactions to the Government".
The sad details:
"Washington, DC - Hidden deep in
Senator Christopher Dodd's 630-page Senate housing legislation
is a sweeping provision that affects the privacy and operation
of nearly all of America’s small businesses. The provision,
which was added by the bill's managers without debate this week,
would require the nation's payment systems to track, aggregate,
and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to
the federal government.
FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey
commented: "This is a provision with astonishing reach, and it
was slipped into the bill just this week. Not only does it
affect nearly every credit card transaction in America, such as
Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express, but the bill
specifically targets payment systems like eBay's PayPal, Amazon,
and Google Checkout that are used by many small online
businesses. The privacy implications for America's small
businesses are breathtaking."
"Privacy groups like the Center for
Democracy and Technology and small business organizations like
the NFIB sharply criticized this idea when it first appeared
earlier this year. What is the federal government's purpose with
this kind of detailed data? How will this database be secured,
and who will have access? Many small proprietors use their
Social Security number as their tax ID. How will their privacy
be protected? What compliance costs will this impose on
businesses? Why is Sen. Chris Dodd putting this provision in a
housing bailout bill? The bill also includes the creation of a
new national fingerprint registry for mortgage brokers.
"At a time when concerns about both
identity theft and government spying are paramount, Congress
wants to create a new honey pot of private data that includes
Social Security numbers. This bill reduces privacy across
America's payment processing systems and treats every American
small business or eBay power seller like a criminal on parole by
requiring an unprecedented level of reporting to the federal
government. This outrageous idea is another reason to delay the
housing bailout legislation so that Senators and the public at
large have time to examine its full implications."
From the Senate Bill Summary:
Payment Card and Third Party Network
Information Reporting. The proposal requires information
reporting on payment card and third party network transactions.
Payment settlement entities, including merchant acquiring banks
and third party settlement organizations, or third party payment
facilitators acting on their behalf, will be required to report
the annual gross amount of reportable transactions to the IRS
and to the participating payee. Reportable transactions include
any payment card transaction and any third party network
transaction. Participating payees include persons who accept a
payment card as payment and third party networks who accept
payment from a third party settlement organization in settlement
of transactions. A payment card means any card issued pursuant
to an agreement or arrangement which provides for standards and
mechanisms for settling the transactions. Use of an account
number or other indicia associated with a payment card will be
treated in the same manner as a payment card. A de minimis
exception for transactions of $10,000 or less and 200
transactions or less applies to payments by third party
settlement organizations. The proposal applies to returns for
calendar years beginning after December 31, 2010. Back-up
withholding provisions apply to amounts paid after December 31,
2011. This proposal is estimated to raise $9.802 billion over
ten years.
FreedomWorks calls this what it is: "Broad, invasive provisions
[that] touches every aspect of American commerce."
What's going on? An attack on small cash transactions is one
way to read it. Wholesale government spying on private
citizens and a presumption of guilt is another.
And why do you think this might be? Could it be Dodd is a
puppet of the power-mongers and banking industry which needs
digidollars to replace traditional cash and require submission to
the mark-of-the-beast financial system?
As the headlines distract with an Israeli dry run attack exercise,
the battle for control of the nation's money is being waged by
banksters dropping in digidollar laws while no one is looking.
Or, so they hope...
There are two stories making headlines this morning that seem to
dovetail into what software developers would call a 'design
pattern'. The first story in the International Herald Tribune
advises that the
"U.S.
says exercise by Israel seemed directed at Iran'. In other
words a dry run for a preemptive strike on Iran's purported weapons
program.
We can sidestep the fact that Iran is being held to a
different/higher disclosure standard on nuclear development that
other countries, such as the U.S., U.K., and Israel and skip right
into the report out of Washington that the "House
votes to provide $162 billion to fund US operations in Afghanistan,
Iraq well into 2009" Do we have China threatening to bomb
us if we don't let weapons inspectors have free reign at Los Alamos
or Pantex?
---
The aware observer would notice that, as The Progressive story
begins "Capitulation
Row for Dems" is well underway. Even as the CONgress is
about to vote in immunity from prosecution for telecom executives
who violated laws and permitted unregulated spying on Americans like
you and me, the illusion of real choice in who runs for the
White House becomes apparent as "Obama
Silent as Democrats Give Bush More Spying Powers."
Thin Spin:
Obama says he'll fix it when he's elected. Yeah,
sure...Like Pelosi was going to do something about The Wars? LOL.
Wh0o can take any of these folks seriously?
The distinction to be seen is that both the democorps and the
republicorps are hand-in-hand partners in a larger entity called
"corpgov". War makes money, therefore, war is good.
"You're either with us or against us" the Decider has decided.
The drive of bureaucrats and politicrats to remain in power is
apparently the greatest force in nature. Even as the Midwest
is going through something that sounds like KatRita II with reports
that "Strike
Teams" invade Iowa flood victims' homes" the hypnotic corpgov
group-think paradigm reveals that there's little (if any) untainted
choice in this fall's "election".
The circular reference we see playing out is: Israel makes a 'dry
run' which should lead by the linguistics into their 'mistake'
attack yet to come, Bush gets his $162-billion for war funding,
Obama and the other democorps get bigger corporate campaign
contributions, and oil companies go back into Iraq with sweetheart
drilling deals, and the PowersThatBe pretend (keep selling the
illusion) that it's all independent decision-making and that
political choice in the USA is genuine and sincere.
I keep asking my democorp questions like "So, when do the 'change
promoting' democorps do something? When does Nancy Pelosi's
promises to change things in 100 hours kick in, or was it 100 days?
Not 100-years!? Are we all supposed to forget those? Lying
hacks are they not?"
---
Something is terribly wrong in America: Choice is gone, the
Constitution largely replaced with Executive Orders, politicrats lie
and spin everything, and bigger wars are planned.
The best thing I figure I can do to help would be give up my
'country breakfasts' of eggs, hash browns, toast, fruit, milk and
bacon or sausage. I need to switch over to Prozac and a shot
of Jack so that maybe I could get back in synch with the illusion
that the country I love still exists.
Do I need to point out how by handing out 'free money' and 'get out
of jail free' cards, the banksters have keep their buddies rich and
use massive foreclosures to fatten up bank equities via repo'ed
homes? Rescue of the public? Nope: "Foreclosure
rescue faces veto by Bush" we're reassured. Whew! The
headlines that
two
fund managers have been arrested out of thousands
involved in the conspiracy to defraud in the housing debacle looks
to me like window-dressing at best.
Dow Bummer Day?
The market futures are pointing down and we could see a test of
12,000 today. Could be that the 'third time's a charm'.
We tested 11,993 earlier this week, so a bounce off a low under
12,000 today would set up a further decline next week.
Dollar's dropping...triple witch for equities.
The cure will be along later in the summer as there's the regional
power outage in the linguistics to look forward to...
When it gets here, BTW. remember the same reports that are posted on
UrbanSurvival are also on the mirror site
www.independencejournal.com/today.htm so book mark it.
When the power goes, one of my regionally dispersed servers should
be up.
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: Premium May Not Help
A reader offers this on why some cars benefit from Premium gas while
others don't:
"Premium gas, made for higher compression engines, does not
deliver better mileage than regular for most cars. An additive
in premium makes it burn slower than regular to keep it from
pre-igniting in higher compression engines. (That additive used
to cost less than a penny per gallon, (1973).) Buying premium,
for most cars, is a big waste of money and lots of profit for
the oil companies."
Roots of Corporate Food Control
Interesting historical info here:
"good morning george...
From yesterday: "Recall that in
the 1960's the American family was spending about 30% of its
income on food. By the 1990's (I'm doing these numbers from
memory so they may be slightly off) the portion of personal
budget being spent on food was down to about 15%. "
it ain't off much george. we can
thank nixon/ford agriculture secretary earl butz for this one. i
saw him interviewed shortly before his death last feb and he was
real proud of that 15% figure.
butz, who in later years plead guilty to tax evasion, was a real
sweetheart who was forced from office after loudly making a
particularly nasty racist remark in front of pat boone on an
airplane. but the stage to damage the future health of
america and her peoples had already been set. he looked at the
then existing govt MO of paying farmers to not produce and
thought it was a dumb idea. he lobbied sympathetic lawmakers to
ram a new farm bill through congress making him the grandfather
of the high production farm program that dominates today fueled
by the same MO - corpgov subsidy. this opened the door for
industrialized farming. as my daddy would have said... that's
when the cow left the barn.
i'm as for decreasing costs as the
next guy but at what cost in the long haul? the
increase-production-at-all-cost farm policy of the 70's set the
stage for what has turned out to be a number of things hyped as
progress in keeping with growth-at-all-cost economics. gmo's,
massive fertilizer, herbicide, and pesticide applications as
well as new "crowd tolerant" seed varieties with higher and
higher endosperm mass in the off-spring causing the protein
content to take a hike. along with increased production came a
decrease in nutritional values of the end product leaving a
kernel of corn, for example, with higher and higher starch mass.
to paraphrase an Iowa farmer recently... we don't grow corn, we
grow crap! but that's not our fault. we're farmers. that's our
job... grow as much as possible. that's what we get paid for.
and what do we do with corn starch?
can you say HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP? ITS IN EVERYTHING!!! HFCS
was virtually unheard of prior to the 80's. high growth
production provided cheap commodities to the murky world of food
manipulation - break down those commodities to their basic
components and put them back together again as processed food.
just google key words high fructose corn syrup health problems
and have a read. but might be a good idea to add a good shot of
good ole corn whiskey to that cuppa joe first!
[G note: "HFCS
'natural' drink not deceptive, court rules' this week.
The FDA, which is largely populated by ex corpfood execs,
doesn't have a formal definition of 'natural' so unless
something comes from a different part of the space/time
continuum, the Frankenfood promoters can pretty much claim
anything is 'natural' if I read the reports right...]
it gets worse even. back in the day
when we were growing healthy corn it was generally accepted that
corn fed beef was enviable. That's still a widely held and
widely hyped notion but what many consumers probably don't know
is that now nearly all beef is corn fed. higher intake of higher
starch levels in the corn is producing saturated fat levels in
the end product that are through the roof. its one thing to feed
healthy food to food production machines and quite another to
feed them crap with a liberal side dressing of antibiotics to
throttle the affects of the crap. i mean they ram this high
starch stuff into cattle on factory feed lots at a rate so high
it can make the cattle sick and even drop dead caused by a
condition known as acidosis. acidosis comes with the program
anyway but there is a fine line between maximum production and
acute or sub-acute acidosis in ruminants. is it treatable? hell
ya! just ram em full of ionophores! we can thank the biotech
industry for answering the call on that one. ionophores are used
as antibiotics and/or growth enhancing feed additives. the USDA
cited tyson foods recently for claiming "raised without
antibiotics" because of the use of ionophores.
and we can thank our wonderful
agricultural universities like iowa st for promoting the whole
monsterous deal. over the years the entire economic growth model
plugged into this long forgotten event and morphed into a
monster bigger than the alleged barry bonds' steroid powered
home run record. its like steroids on steroids! ain't
growth-forever based economics at any cost wonderful george? and
we wonder why obesity and health problems are through the roof
in this country and far above any other developed country on the
planet!! it may be trite but its still true - we are what we
eat.
so ya, i got my garden in! sure is
yummy too!! this is my first year for a garden since growing up
on the farm over 50 years ago. i have an experiment going. i
like to juice. its the only way i can get most veggies in me.
before having fresh goodies from the garden i'd go shopping,
wash it all up, dry and bag it, and store in the fridge. i MIGHT
get the best shelf-life leaf varities like bok choy to last a
week. spinach is one of the worst. i put some of my very first
spinach crop in the fridge over 2 weeks ago and its still crisp
and crunchy. but is it still just as nutritious as it was when i
picked it? i juiced some last night. no comparison. it tasted
more like the freshest store bought i can find. when you turn
fruits and veggies into juice it starts to oxidize immediately
and its all relative to time and the freshness of the stock.
oxidation causes loss of nutrients and the taste buds tell the
tale immediately. later, as much as years later, body tells the
tale.
and oh ya, speaking of
telemarketers... ever gotten a call you've never forgotten? this
one happened about 20 years ago but still rings in my ear. i'd
worked about 20 hours straight finishing a job. it was 10 in the
morning and i had just gotten to sleep when the phone rang.....
"can i speak to mrs XXX?"
i said, "if you knew who you were
calling you'd KNOW there AIN'T no mrs XXX in this household! and
besides that, YOU JUST WOKE ME UP!!"
then i SLAMMED the phone down.
15 minutes later the phone rang and
woke me again. it was the same voice...
she said... "GRUMPY AS YOU ARE NO
WONDER THERE AIN'T NO MRS XXX!!!!"
For
reasons that are not clear to me, but are to the folks over at Alexa,
UrbanSurvival was, as of yesterday, holding a rank of 18,182th most
popular web site in the USA. Thanks for telling your friends
about this site.
The
mystery is why Urban is the 163rd most popular site in the US Virgin
Islands. This one stumps me. I can understand why my rank in
China would be 130,666 or 310,603 in France.
Still,
nothing breed success like success, so if you live in, or know
anyone who lives in the US Virgin Islands, please send them a note
and tell them to read UrbanSurvival every morning.
Meantime, I will have to ponder why so many people there seem to
'get it' while people on the mainland mostly don't. Perhaps
coconuts increase mental acuity, or they don't have fluoride in the
water?
Thursday June 20, 2007
Firefox User Note: Somewhere in
the code this week I have a gremlin which is making the morning
report spill over the right side, causing reader to complain
(in impressive numbers) about the problem. I still haven't
found where it's coming from, however there is a simple fix!
Simple click over to the Mozilla/Firefox site and
update your Firefox 2.x to
Firefox 3.0 and the problem disappears. I use both
Internet Exploder and FF 3.0 and it looks fine. Thanks - G
Rally Days!
Despite the bloody noses handed out this week, the test yesterday of
the 12,000 level (11,993.64
intraday) sets us up for a Wall Street tradition - rallying
after a down move into options expirations. The June clock
runs out on the index options at the close today and the equities
tomorrow. Normally, I wouldn't even bother noting this, but
folks have been asking "Is this the edge of the financial world?"
and the answer is still "Maybe...ask me about Wednesday of two weeks
after Q2 is off the table and the bets have been laid on Q3."
What's going on right now is a test of a 34-year trend line,
explained Robin Landry in a mid-session chat on Wednesday.
Depending on who draw the trend line, you can argue as high as
around 12,100+, or as low as just under 12,000, but to long-time
market players like Landry, \who got his managed accounts either out
or partially short a couple of months back when his proprietary
timing model started yelling "Run from the Street!", it's one
of those situations where patience and seeing ahead a ways pays off.
There's a good two-part article over at the FOREX Factory called "From
Stagflation to Deflation" (part one) and today's "Stagflation
to Deflation : Part 2". It outlines most of the major
points, although one thing I've been hearing is that before youi run
out and buy a bunch of distressed property to turn into a rental
empire, consider that home prices could be coming down for a couple
of more years before they get to anything near rational.
Yes deflation is coming, but there's a balancing act going on in the
Consumer Price figures as we work through a radical readjustment of
personal expenditures. Recall that in the 1960's the American
family was spending about 30% of its income on food. By the
1990's (I'm doing these numbers from memory so they may be
slightly off) the portion of personal budget being spent on food
was down to about 15%.
This allowed people to spend a lot more on houses and SUV's than
they would have in earlier times, as well as it led to the hugely
profitable new restaurant chains that sprung up in the 1990's.
Today, as the price of food reverts to historical levels, there's
less for cars, less for housing, less for gas (which keeps going up
anyway, dammit).
The personal behavior change to make, as I explained to Peoplenomics
subscribers last week, is to understand how all the economic items are
changing and adjust your definitions of status to encompass the
emerging reality. Say good-bye to McMansions and Hi-yah to hybrids
and gardening.
It should come as no surprise that the housing starts have been a little
anemic lately, with latest figures out from the Census Bureau this
morning.
---
The ultimate test of which route will be best will be to compare
portfolios and net worth changes over time. When we made the
decision to 'go rural' in 2002, colleagues at the time were deep into
house-flipping. in South Florida. Although prices have collapsed
there, I'll be darned if I have spotted deflation yet in 5-40 acre small
farms.
The reason is obvious: One depends on renters and greater fool buyers
sucked in by cheap rates while the other just makes its own money in the
form of either timber or goats in our case, or until the past few weeks,
corn and other grains up in the Midwest. Shoveling rabbit or
chicken poo is not a lot of fun, but when I see an egg I squint
really hard and see a dime. And when I see my rabbit-raising
neighbors, I see a $20 bill, or a hundred dollar bill for a goat (or
more).
Schneider points out the average 401k is only $60,000 according to
an AARP survey.
---
As the time monks noted in a recent chat, "You know how screwed we
are when you see 401k debit cards coming out..." Sad, but true
- not satisfied with spanking people's returns with hidden fees, the
banksters now want to drain money with a piece of plastic.
Remember this: The reason credit cards (which are debt
cards in reality) work is that they separate the pain of paying from
the active purchase. Which is why I use cash whenever
possible. With cash, the pain is real and immediate.
With credit/debit cards, the pain isn't apparent until weeks
after the fact. Too late to do anything about it.
Am I the only one disgusted with both sides? Obviously what's
going on is that once a candidate gets so much momentum, as both
Obama and McCain have, then it's public-be-damned and the bidding is
underway as major corporations and corporate interests bid up the
cost of the office.
Absurd? Oh sure. Democracy? Democratic Republic?
Hahaha...ROFL,
LMAO....we might as
well put the Presidency on eBay. At least there we could see
who the high bidder is...
---
Oh, and MSM won't bitch about this runaway corpgov bidding - they
get more ad revenue - how cozy, huh?
"You know it's bad when
prostitution is down
45% over prior year in Nevada. I tried to see if there was a
corresponding increase in sales of Vaseline by Johnson &
Johnson, but no such figures were available at press time."
Years ago, I remember Pappy got a telephone salesman to talk on the
phone for the better part of an hour before the phone-peddler (or
more correctly now 'telemarketer') figured out that he was being
strung along.
"What? I've talked to you for an hour and now you tell me
you're not going to buy!$#@!! Why did you do that?" the
telemarketer demanded. Pappy explained "I just wanted to keep
you from inconveniencing anyone besides me..."
Ever since then, I have tried the same technique when telemarketers
call, or I get enough information so I can file a
"Do Not Call Register"
complaint.
---
Then there's the problem of wrong emails like this one:
URGENT ORDER
Dear Sir/Madam, My name is **** **** and i will like to
order for Pallet Stoves and please get back to me with the types
that you have and prices range, for me to advise the quantity i
need also advise the major credit cards you accept so that we
can proceed...
Regards, **** ****
My
reply?
Dear **** ****. We don't do pallet stoves, sorry. We
are working on a breathalyzer equipped keyboard, however...
Several readers have been having a gas looking at these hydrogen
assist plans that are floating about and promising to help your gas
mileage. And some warnings:
George,
Sorry to bother you again but
thought after reading today's blog you might be interested in
reading this before you go converting your vehicles to hydrogen
assist.
Dear George, I have a question that I think others may be
interested in for these up coming change of times. I had a sales
man come by for AT&T cable ect., and I decided to try it. When
they did a credit check they came up with Unknown. The only
other time a credit check was done was for direct TV, the same
thing happened and they said I basically did not exist from a
credit stand point. I have all the utilities everyone else does,
paid cash up front for my house and I pay taxes. I have no debt
and have never been late on a bill. Is this why I don't exist? I
have all my deeds and things. Is this a good thing or bad? How
is credit, good or bad or you don't exist going to effect
peoples ability to survive in the future and all its changes?
Depends on whether you want to borrow in the future. I try to
buy a few things on credit which I could pay cash for - like the
tractor. Why? Because by having a tractor payment and
putting something big on a credit card once in a while we keep a
high credit rating. For example, when I was looking at buying
a Porsche lately, the bank we deal with in about 3-clicks said "Oh,
sure, we'll give you up to $60,000 and a 6.63% interest rate..."
Pass, but you got the idea.
There's a reason to keep a credit rating, namely if I ever want to
pick up a rental house or two in a few years when things bottom out,
my credit score will be good. Or, if we hit a medical
emergency, or something. there's a good credit history.
Key thing is that to get a credit rating, you have to use it once in
a while. The flip side: Darned difficult for identity theft if you
have only one or two accounts, a locking mailbox, a reloading setup
and a nasty temper.
---
Send snip and save items to
george@ure.net -but no pallet stove orders, thanks.
--- end snip and save section ---
Wednesday June 18, 2008
Seat Belts Won't Help
A number of market technical letters have been forwarded to me in
the past couple of days reporting that a very rare technical
confluence called the Hindenburg Omen has appeared in the markets
having been confirmed with Monday's action. The Wikipedia write up
goes like this:
That the daily number of
NYSE new 52 Week Highs and the daily
number of new 52 Week Lows must both be
greater than 2.2 percent of total
NYSE issues traded that day.
That the smaller of these numbers is greater
than 75. (this is not a rule but a function
of the 2.2% of the total issues)
That new 52 Week Highs cannot be more than
twice the new 52 Week Lows (however it is
fine for new 52 Week Lows to be more than
double new 52 Week Highs). This condition is
absolutely mandatory.
These measures are
calculated each evening using Wall Street
Journal figures for consistency. The occurrence
of all five criteria on one day is often
referred to as an unconfirmed Hindenburg Omen. A
confirmed Hindenburg Omen occurs if a second (or
more) Hindenburg Omen signals occur during a
36-day period from the first signal.
Getting ahead of events, as I forget and do every once in a while -
being often accused of living about 10-minutes in the future anyway,
you may wish to click back to the May 21 report where I laid some of
the groundwork for the problem at hand under the headline
(a little more
than a third of the way down the page) "$130 Oil: Meantime Here on
the Hindenburg". I don't usually quote myself, but let's
see how the following looks now that the Hindenburg Omen has
appeared:
"The Fed now finds itself between a
rock and a hard place: On the one hand we need to have lots of
liquidity in the financial system, and so instead of demanding
high quality assets to back up borrowing at the Fed's discount
window, it's 'bring whatever you have' that would otherwise send
honest accountants scurrying fleeing for fear of prison terms.
If the Fed didn't have this policy,
we'd already be in a Depression.
Worse? The amount of malinvestment
that has been run up since the last Great Depression (which in
turn needs to be wrung out of the economy before honest growth
can resume) absolutely dwarf's anything in history. When this
thing all goes kablooey, it will make the South Seas Bubble look
like a cakewalk and the Depression like a bad weekend.
Still, what's a Fed to do? If
there's no liquidity, there's no "money" (such as it is) to buy
oil and the consumer goods from China, since damn near all
production has been outsourced along with incomprehensible
foreign "customer service" agents. WASF. Got your survival
garden in?"
As you're probably suspecting by now, all this leads to what is
likely the biggest story of the day in all of the press, yet
one which only a very few, like Ambrose-Evans Pritchard,
International Business Editor of the Telegraph over in the UK, has
been putting in print. This headline ought to scare the hell
out of you:
At hand, says the article, is the potential for disaster as
inflation rears its ugly head, something I've referred to as the
(von Mises) Crack-up Boom.
"How bad could it be?" you're wondering; after all the PPT will save
the day, right?
Sadly, likely not. Although the President's
Working Group on Financial Markets has a large
bundle of cash in their Exchange Stabilization Fund which is
specifically earmarked for maintaining economic order in currency
markets (lest oil really go to $500 a barrel), a broad based global
attack on the Dollar could easily swamp the small funds the
government has. The game plan is to aggressively get ahead of
the problem and remain one step ahead of disaster where the size is
manageable.
"Has RBS been channeling you and Robin Landry?" one early-riser
wondered in an email.
Most likely not. Presumably, these group of bankers can see
the handwriting on the wall as well as anyone else, which in case
you missed it, features a continuing collapse of the housing market,
an inflation rate of finished goods in the Producer Price Index
running at an unadjusted 17+% and oil that has been testing $140 for
a breakout to $150 and above.
Oh, did I mention the flooding in the Midwest which means that
ultimately, the US will have less food available for export, thereby
putting us further behind the eight ball in the Balance of Trade
department?
Beyond that, it should be spurring you to some serious
"dot-connecting'.
One example would be to note that "Bush
will urge Congress to lift offshore oil drilling ban".
Why? Because with a big burst of inflation in the works,
members of congress will no doubt see that unless we get some
domestic oil flowing, times will continue to get event worse, as the
US Dollar collapse which I expect to return with a vengeance over
the summer and into fall, pushes the price of oil toward $300, not
just the obvious $150 target that could be mere weeks away.
---
Now, back to the impact of high reliance on foreign oil and
devastated crops. for a moment.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis released an update on Q!-08
International Transactions on Tuesday. The short version of it
is this:
I don't know if you're awake enough to check me on this, but this
sure smacks of a 5.32% quarterly change. And that pushes out
to a 23% annual rate of increase.
But of course, it doesn't. It's actually much worse than that
because at some point the markets global go non-linear short the
dollar. Recent jaw-boning about the mythical "Strong Dollar
Policy" (so mythical that
the Wiki
entry is basically missing) has likely about run its course, and
my the solstice, I expect we'll be completing the "bounce" phase of
the buck's latest advance and be ready for the next leg down on the
currency, which should spark the next huge spike up in oils and
metals; these things run as tides.
Thanks to the magic of compounding interest, no one wants to talk
about what happens with all that US debt paper sloshing around the
world, but with food now coming into short enough supply that we
could actually run out of corn before the 2009 crop comes in, I
suppose the RBS experts are simply stating the obvious.
Which is not spoken of in US MainStreamMedia (MSM) for fear of
setting off premature panic. We'll have the well-seasoned,
saw-it-coming type along soon enough.
In May, Larry Matlack of the American Agriculture Movement made the
case:
To summarize: America keeps spending more than we produce enabled by
formerly willing buyers of US debt instruments. With travel on the
verge of collapse due to oil prices, I'm just guessing Boeing will
have a tougher time selling jets, which in turn would hurt the
balance of trade. With less grain to sell, grain sales
overseas will drop, and this at a time when the compound interest
which we've been promising on our debt-paper is passing into the
non-linear compounding stage.
Yes, it ought to be quite a site to see.
---
"This guy out in East Texas is a nutjob," you're thinking to
yourself. "How can anyone have such an outlook and still claim
to be optimistic?"
First, let me say it's not just me that holds the "get ready
for worse than bad" - it's now the bankers at RBS who see it.
Secondly, the alternative view which seems more closely linked to
reality than the MSM-spoon-fed pabulum is widely and commonly
available for anyone who's willing to do a little slogging around on
the 'net.
I suppose it would be duplication of previous suggestions to read up
on what Ron Paul and other green/libertarian/Constitutionalists have
been saying about banker-owned money policies that have resulted in
the highest concentration of wealth at the top in history. So
much so that it's becoming obvious to the degree that CNBC has
a special report coming up June 26th "CNBC
Presents: "Untold Wealth: Rise of the Super Rich". No,
they haven't asked to interview me, either.
---
For most of us, the trick will be simply preserving our wealth and
property through the coming year. And remember, this is
before we get to the likely quake windows (according to the
predictive linguistics team at HPH) which comes between June 21 and
about September 1 with a question mark about July 7-9, and then
something big just before mid-December.
Unfortunately, those events will also add to the horrific
economic disaster because as we read Tuesday: "American
Red Cross: Disaster Funds are depleted." National Guard
forces that would normally be on hand to lead recovery efforts, I
don't need to remind you, have already been serving their country in
the Bush-Cheney oil wars, although there's an economic stimulus to
that which can't be overlooked in that it has kept unemployment in
check and resulted in massive windfalls for certain companies with
connections to the White House.
The Fed Open Markets Committee meets next Tuesday and Wednesday with
a rate decision expected out around1 2:15 PM Wednesday.
We can almost take "Pass" and hold at 2% to the bank now.
Will seat belts help? Nope, not a chance. Just
projecting a 23% annualized rate in the current accounts deficit
means that $172 oil is a slam dunk within a year, no matter what.
Unless we crash, that is. Then oil collapses along with
everything else.
That sets up a wonderful window for regular working people to
'fire-proof' their life savings. Seems to me that with
headlines like "European
bonds fall for fifth week on Interest-rate Speculation" that we
may see a window of opportunity over the course of late summer to
blow out of equities and roll into government-backed bonds (and not
just of the US, BTW) in order to preserve purchasing power and
wealth through what could be a wildly deflationary period following
what I expect will be the fall in the Fall.
Heavy Duty Weather Control
The headlines that Russia is messing about with weather control
comes as no surprise, of course. But, what does is that they
use sacks of cement dumped out of planes to throw particular into
the atmosphere.
And that sometimes doesn't work out as planned and the bags drop
unopened. Concrete proof of weather control?
--- snip and save section ----
Coping:
Quest for Mileage
As we read about how gas stations are going to be disappearing due
to margin squeezes,. here's an interesting email to ponder:
"George, There is a movement starting to get momentum. It's
hydrogen hybrid kits that can be put on cars relatively easy for
$300-500 there abouts.. that transforms the car to hydrogen
assist gas/diesel cars. The man behind the movement is Ozzie
Freedom (real name). He's like an underground hero...On youtube
etc. His quest started in '83 with research to find a way to
lessen the load ,if you will, with mpg's He was on Coast to
coast about a month or so ago and now the flood gates have blown
wide open worldwide.. from what I understand. All that needs to
be absorbed and believe me ..much much more... can be seen on a
this site
www.greengas4america.com or just look it up. Very
detailed and helpful. Let's put it this way, one of the highest
tech things is a mason jar and wire. He's getting 61 mpg with a
Camry. "
I've actually had a look at the site and it seems interesting.
Having a pretty decent machine shop here at the ranch, I might try
to cobble something up. If I do, I promise a report.
From the "oh, F*** ME, Department..."Look on The Sunny Side of
Life! Electronics, Women's Clothing, Hotel Rooms, Theme Parks,
Toys, and Dinnerware prices ALL DOWN!!!! What inflation???Try
eating any of the above. Post recipes on Snip and Save Section.
Talk about MSM! YIKES. Does anybody really believe this
stuff????Keep up the good work, George. For ALL our sakes, hope
you have a "Treasury" post after the revolution.
I'm sure the 'revolution' he's talking about would be the peaceful
kind, carried out within the letter of the Law... a kind of second
American revolution of spirit and attitude where people peaceably
reassert control. At least that's my hope. Still, I
wouldn't want to be a banker though just in case as such people
might have a few karmic debts out there...Like the insurance ad says
"Payback - this time it's for real..."
The Labor Department's Produce Price Index is out this morning and
less than a happy read:
The
Producer Price Index for Finished Goods increased 1.4 percent in
May, seasonally adjusted, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of
the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. This rise followed
a 0.2-percent advance in April and a 1.1-percent increase in
March. At the earlier stages of processing, prices received by
producers of intermediate goods rose 2.9 percent following a
0.9-percent advance a month earlier, and the crude goods index
increased 6.7 percent after climbing 3.2 percent in April.
What's even more interesting is that finished goods are up 7.2% over
the past year, which when you think about it is a huge nonsequitor
against the government's reported inflation rate of under 2% at the
core. Wait! Stop thinking those thoughts: Maybe we just
live in a land of milk, honey, and generosity where the retailers
and distributors of the country as just sucking up 5% smaller
profits in order to 'do the right thing' - you think?
That's a 17% inflation rate in the pipeline.
Of course, that in turn would fly in the face of constantly
expanding profits being reported by Wall Street, so something
somewhere has a curious odor about it...but let's not stop there.
In May, the index for finished
energy goods turned up 4.9 percent after falling 0.2 percent a
month earlier. Prices for finished consumer foods increased 0.8
percent following no change in April. By contrast, partially
offsetting the acceleration in the finished goods index, the
rise in the index for finished goods less foods and energy
slowed to 0.2 percent from 0.4 percent in the previous month.
Before seasonal adjustment, the
Producer Price Index for Finished Goods increased 1.6 percent in
May to 179.6 (1982 = 100). From May 2007 to May 2008, finished
goods prices advanced 7.2 percent. Over the same period, the
finished energy goods index rose 19.7 percent, prices for
finished goods less foods and energy increased 3.0 percent, and
the index for finished consumer foods climbed 6.5 percent. For
the 12 months ended May 2008, prices received by manufacturers
of intermediate goods advanced 12.6 percent, and the crude goods
index jumped 41.5 percent.
Finished goods
The index for finished energy goods
turned up 4.9 percent in May after decreasing 0.2 percent in the
preceding month. The index for gasoline rose 9.3 percent
following a 4.6-percent decrease in April. Prices for diesel
fuel also turned up after declining in the prior month. The
indexes for home heating oil, liquefied petroleum gas, and
kerosene rose more than they had in April. Conversely, partially
offsetting the upturn in finished energy goods prices, the
advance in the index for residential electric power slowed to
0.6 percent in May from 1.2 percent a month earlier. Prices for
residential natural gas also rose less than in April. The index
for lubricating and similar oils was unchanged in May after
increasing in the preceding month.
I don't want to mention this to my deflationist pal Jas Jain, who
has been valiantly warning of deflation to come, prematurely I
think, but the annualized rate of increases in intermediate
and crude goods is running at 12.6% and a screaming 41.5%
respectively. Remember, it takes 60-months for the price of
oil to work its way through the economy.
Why gold would drop $5 on such inflationary news is beyond the realm
of logic.
We of course will have deflation on the backside of economic
collapse, but goods in the pipeline will be going up fast enough to
offset at least a portion of the collapse in the housing market.
Which brings me to this...
Strong ARM'ing the
Market?
While the bulls are off making a fine case for how the Dow should go
to much higher levels -= especially if there can be enough
happy-talk generated about oil prices coming down as the Saudis
increase production, a colleauge reminded me in an email Monday that
there's this huge problem in the pipeline with regard to mortgages
that no one is paying attention to:
"George,
Per our telephone conversation
yesterday I wanted to add a bit about the worst of the worst
mortgage instrument ever sold in the go go times of 2002-2006,
the Option ARM's.
Option ARMS basically were an
instrument where the borrower could chose how much to pay. An
amount ONLY equal to the interest on the loan, an amount that
would generate a payment with a 30 year amortization, or an
amount that would generate a payment with a 15 year
amortization. OF COURSE THE INITIAL INTEREST RATE WAS A TEASER
RATE (as low as a couple of percent or so) generally good for 1
to 5 years.
The Teaser Rate's PAYMENT Reset was
limited in the amount that it could change per year, but in some
situations apparently the INTEREST RATE RESET itself was not so
limited (which could mean that in some cases one could actually
end up with a negative amortization situation since the payment
would reset up but not enough to cover the interest rate reset
... at least until the payment reset limitations allowed that to
catch up to the actual interest rate resets).
$500 billion dollars of these loans
were written, 60% or about $300 billion in California.
Per the information I have read
about 80% of those loans were being paid at the "interest rate
only" amounts, which of course means that those loans are now
deeply underwater since the collateral values have declined, in
some cases severely.
Add this type of loan to the No Doc
loan underwriting standard and one starts to get a feel for just
how loosey goosey mortgage underwriting had become by 2005ish.
As a reasonable person I would
venture a guess that MOST of the outstanding Option ARM
mortgages in the states that do NOT have deficiency judgment
collection abilities against the borrow WILL FAIL and WILL BE
FORECLOSED UPON.
One thing to keep in mind as you
look at the Mortgage Foreclosure statistics. Second Mortgages
are NOT being foreclosed upon in many places because real estate
prices have dropped so severely that they have ZERO Equity
available to them if the lender would spend the money to
foreclose (the real estate being worth even less than the
balance of the first mortgage). Why spend money to foreclose to
eventually get ZERO back?
A couple of good articles (and lists
of other articles) on this subject.
My associate brings up one of those 'inconvenient truths' that the
market is probably not taking into account. But, as he notes,
it's another half-trillion dollar WHACK! at the base of the economic
pyramid that's just waiting to go off. Surely,
the
PPT wouldn't let this happen would they? Why it could have
an impact that would be...er..country wide?
---
As Jim Kunstler's so fond of saying, "It's all good" because as it
turns out this morning, denial runs almost as wide as the
Mississippi in America recently - we're flooded with both.
With a collapsing housing market, option ARM's coming up, and food
shortages almost assured, the the early headline "US
stocks head for higher open as oil declines" may have to be
rewritten.
In the meantime, I've put a small "X" on the calendar because from
here (as I read it) we should linguistically be seeing another
90-120 days of unusual 'rains/floods'.
---
Every so often, we get around to the question of whether the time
monks really have a time machine - and I guess it depends on
your interpretation. If the definition is broad enough to
include a class of software that builds a dynamic view of the future
based on language shift that appears to have a better-than-pure
noise chance of collecting aspects and attributes of future events,
then yup, that's what they've got.
On the other hand, if you want something more than Vaseline smeared
over the lens, reduced to word groups in a SQL database that will
likely describe the coming future, then I have to direct you to
books by Mssrs.
Wells, Crichton and others who write about mechanical means to go
visiting the Morlocks.
Confused by the fine distinction between Buhco in modelspace and the
Morlocks in Wells? Don't feel alone.
That said, the linguistics have been doing pretty well lately, as
noticed by a reader who says:
I was amazed last night, while surfing the channels on my TV
around 7:00pm. I stopped on the FOX news channel and was amazed
to see Sheppard Smith commenting on a Grain elevator with
something in the area of 1 million bushels of corn fixing to be
ruined by the flood! The video showed the huge grain elevator
surrounded by water (it appeared to be floating).
Well, I'm not sure if this fits the "temporal marker" you spoke
of last week, or not, but it sure caught my attention.
When I read your piece on the elevator I was wondering how a
grain elevator could float, but this video sure made it look
like it was floating. Is that considered a "Hit"?
[Yes - g]
My way of thinking says; for something as odd as a grain
elevator to have even been mentioned in your article, then to
have it shown on the news a week later, among all the other
devastation, just simply blew me away! Keep up the excellent
work.
It's not that odd given that
we did the
"Quake Warning" two days before the China quake and "Wedding Quake"
the day before (May 9 and May 10 reports), but the odds
lately seem to be running a little better than chance. When we
starting asking questions like "Got your garden in?" months
before a flood starts to wipe out food supplies, might it be a
good idea to pay attention? It's as always your call, though.
---
This next run, especially the first couple of parts, should be
interesting because as we ended the 0209 run (e.g. the run looking
at the second lunar month in 2009) there was much indicating that
the rains/flooding in the upper Midwest could continue for another
90-120 days.
That's OK though, because here in what was formerly the Land of the
Free, more recently the Land of Indentured, the
government/PowersThatBe have conveniently arranged for housing
prices to drop another 20% over the next couple of years. That
way, they will be able to straight-faced report a lack of inflation,
and as long as you don't tell too many people about
UrbanSurvival.com, or explain left pocket/right pocket theory, few
will see the sham for what it is.
There's
no snip and save section this morning because there have been more
than the usual number of distractions, not the least of which were
two barely-walking fawns that decided to nibble on the greenery just
outside my office. Of course, as soon as I grabbed the camera,
they moved - and I should apologize for all the office reflections,
but there were two of them, one in the lower right corner and the
other middle lower/center:
June this year has been a good one for wildlife watching on the
ranch. Besides the usual assortment of unusual bugs, we were
treated to the escapades of a young skunk in the front yard last
night, which held the attention of the cats who were curious who
that was and they both has a "Where can I get my hair done like
that?" expression.
The second round of goat kidding should be getting underway soon,
too, if it hasn't happened overnight. Another distraction, but
that's true of all kids, I reckon.
---
Elaine went into town on Monday for Jury Duty. While the case
was delayed until July (which put her into "I think I'll go
shopping" mode), the most interesting financial report she returned
with (besides a lack of Appleton Gold in 1.75 liter bottles) was
that the local Judge referred to the jurors service fee as
"$6-Yankee dollars."
I suppose there was a time when a Southern gentleman referring to
paper-of-the-realm in such a manner might have been considered a
slur. But here lately, there's a certain precision of thought
that comes shining through. Turn on that color laser printer,
would you?
Monday June 16, 2008
Future Monday
A in last week's column, we began with the Monday admonishment to "Sit
On Your Wallet" as the picture wasn't exactly clear as to what
would happen next. I wish I could give you absolute clarity in
my view of the short-term trading future, but alas, staring into a
tripod of black oil ala Nostradamus doesn't suit me.
Perhaps it's because what's going on in the markets right now is
irrational. The Dow was able to pick up about 98 points last
week, but as our combined index comprised of an
equally weighted Dow, S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite shows here,
taken as a whole last week moved less than six points. Wake me
up when the action starts, please?
While it's true that the Dow rose nearly 98 posts last week, a more
thoughtful analysis would have to include Dow Theory, Elliott waves,
Gann Angles and even astroeconomics to get a more complete picture.
To tick through just some of these, I've put together the right
woo-woo to get Yahoo Charts to
show how despite the currency-driven pop last week (driven by
the end of Q2 currency trades), the underlying conditions do
build a case for a mini-crash sooner than later.
If you click the chart here, you'll see that from week ago
levels, the Dow Transports - key to Dow Theory, are down almost 2.5%
in the past week. The NASDAQ Composite is also down, just not
quite as much, but still more than one percent. (The chart
will change after the Monday open, so it may not look the same if
you're an occasional reader - sorry - snooze you lose...)
If I follow Robin Landry's work correctly, the wee bit of strength
in the market preopen today might complete a 2 of a larger 3, which
would set the stage for a 3 of the larger 3 to get rolling within a
trading week.
Robert Hitt of www.astroecon.com
was kind enough to give me a short-term outlook from his
perspective...
"June21 Saturday
June 22 Sunday
A MAJOR alignment will be about over. This is a YOD or finger of god
formation. Jupiter and Uranus are sextiled and Mars sits at the
opposite position to the midpoint. This forms a 150-150-60 triangle
that POINTS to something important.. Neptune is on the midpoint axis
of the Yod also being pointed through the YOD. The Mars Neptune
opposition is enhancing or aggravating the Jupiter Uranus
speculative sextile.
MMMMMM.. I don't like the looks of this .. The net effect of the
astro may be a lot of secret activity and not an overt trick we can
get a CLEAN handle on. Mars and Neptune also have a resonance with
infection. Maybe an infection or inflammation of the brain as in
riots over gasoline.
BECAUSE NEPTUNE IS INVOLVED I LOOK AT OIL AS A FOCUS for this very
special astro energy. This may be the astro associated with a
speculative peak ... a ramp up to 150 a BBL.. OR some political
interference in oil trading that in the long run could accelerate
the shortages.
Maybe we have a hint about RATIONING based on some political
changes. I lived through the odd / even rationing in the 70s. I
waited in gasoline lines for hours. Saturn was in Virgo from July
1978 till August 1980 as it is NOW being one full 29 year cycle
later until October 2009 . The problems then INCLUDING the Iran
hostage crisis did not conclude until Saturn left Virgo. Hummm.. If
we hit 150 on a massive short squeeze in oil and then laboriously
drop to 100 most people will think that is great right? Until they
consider the reason.. It will be either a collapse in demand OR an
attack on speculators who may be short oil already at lower than 100
and thus over leveraged wont be able to deliver on the oil they have
sold forward when it hits 150.
Enron had a problem like this also with their energy trading. In
today's casino style derivative markets there is obviously more oil
being sold than actually exists. I am NOT advocating selling oil
futures on this because doing so is very dangerous when a squeeze
can push prices way out of line with reality."
The time monks at
www.halfpasthuman.com meantime have started data collection for
their next sweep of the internet's chatter looking for language
shift out to the May 2009 period, although their most recent
"Speculator's Slices" section talks more about the chances of a
North American centered earthquake in the June 21- September 21
range as well as continued oil pressures.
The standard disclaimer is none of this should be taken as trading
advice, and in linguistics in particular, talk about
something in the future can show up almost as strongly as the a
future reality. It would be like a future meteor
impact or crustal shift event might be real or it might just
be a strong cultural meme induced by a hit movie about such an event
that builds a lot of emotional buzz. Still, I've got October
7th at 07:10 UTC marked down as a period to watch as well as the
period around July 8 when linguistics and astroecon seem in at least
partial agreement about some kind of 'blip' in that area. me?
I hope it's not the quake.
Frankly, I don't have much use for
Higgs bosons/ the Force which the experiment is seeking, but a
few rather well-read readers have expressed concern about the
potential for some serous warping of space-time as a result of
its operation and that, says the buzz around the net may be a
cause for concern.
I'm not going to get all in a dither about it, though, because even
if the collider experiments cause a 'timeline jump' (which is far
out of range for discussion at this hour) most folks wouldn't notice
it anymore than passengers on a railroad train notice going over a
switch. We just go somewhere a little different than our
previous trajectory would have implied. Still, the
long-running linguistics sets about 'sense of unreality/strangeness,
and people in a mental fog could be applied to a whole range of
human sensory experiences ranging from just everyone taking a double
dose of Prozac one day on the tame side, to the whole planet going
Philadelphia Experiment on the other.
But worry? Nope. if earth's going to jump a time-track,
so to speak, the reality will likely be that things would just get
stranger.
Let me see: Saudi's are promising to pump more oil, foreclosure rate
is up 48% year on year, and we've just been through a really bizarre
currency/FOREX expiration and the futures were up when I looked a
while back. Will the markets run up or fall down with equity
index options expiring Thursday and equities options expiring
Friday?
Seriously: How operation of the LHC could be make things any
stranger is a question we'll have to explore in future Mondays.
From the perspective of this Monday, I'd expect the market will be
lower a week from now, but the future holds it's usual surprises,
especially in option expiration weeks. Maybe a big rally so
the put-writers don't have to pay off so much, then a drop next
week. Yeah, that would make more sense. But can selling
be held at bay for a whole week?
Hungry For News
One thing I'm expecting this week is for commodity prices to be
moving up strongly in the grains. Why? As I told you to
expect last week,
the flooding in the upper Midwest has indeed turned into a 500-year
event and the time monks are hinting not to stash the
bumbershoot until 4-months from now, give or take a shower.
---
Not getting as much mainstream press is the flooding in China.
"What flooding in China?" you ask.
Grain prices here in the US are a different matter. Corn
continued up this morning as I checked the commodity prices,
as was wheat and there are many stories going to the idea that "Corn
farmers see record drop price". I expect prices will
continue to firm, too, as the impact of what's a 500-year flood in
places sinks in to the consciousness of traders.
A
new world's record for tattooing has been set. As if
nature doesn't make humans unique enough, I fail to understand why
people are compelled to decorate themselves. I don't know if
it's a money see, monkey do kind of thing, or what? I mean
they're not 'bad' I suppose, except for some minor health risks.
I just keep coming back to "Why?"
By the same token, I also don't understand the logic behind body
piercings either. Especially when people put them in places
below-the-belt (so to speak) or in their tongues. How do you
floss that?
I suppose it's just part of the "Hey, look at me, I'm special!"
generation. Yes you are special - you need to work so we
oldsters can get our Social Security. Perhaps if tattoos and
piercings help you cope with the yoke of oppression, then here's a
Sharpie and a paper punch. Have a nice day.
Get back to me when you have a proper business use case for such
herd behavior...I can make equal sense out of the "Big Toenails are
ugly and should be removed surgically" cult. besides, really
good/arty tattoos cost more than pin money, so to speak...
Bursting Your Bubble
"How the Housing
Bubble Burst" is a worthwhile read on MSNBC. Lately, I've
been pondering the Housing Bubble as an intergenerational wealth
transfer mechanism. In other words, Mom and Dad may be losing
their home, but banks will have to unload them sometime and
that will make them affordable for (tattoo wearing) young people who
will pay our Social Security...Wait! Am I repeating myself?
Green Think
Hats off to the Irish - they have rejected membership in the EU.
At least the Irish got to vote on membership in an
internationalist government. We should be so lucky here in
the USA where www.spp.gov is being
shoved down our throats without a vote or even a whimper from the
sleepy-eyes politicrats in the District of Corruption.
--- snip and save section --
Coping:
Eminent (Corporate)
Domain
Despite reassurances from this expert, or that, that letting
corporations such as Wal-Mart engage in use of public domain laws
because of the 'benefit to the community' they bring, we continue to
spy headlines around the country about how more corporations are
piling on to the string-pulling of local government.
Not that the government is likely to try and seize your home
for some 'public purpose' today, but as time goes on, and as
corporate/government alliances build sometimes contrary to local
residents, it's something to keep an eye on in local media.
Late Shipments
My commodity broker noticed how little attention is being paid to
the headline "Union
P\acific encts force majeure amid US floods." If you work
in a business or industry that depends on Midwest rail shipments,
you m ay wish to put a little pad in your Microsoft Project
settings...
While there are a lot of laughs the
most entertaining has to be Mark A. Wynne’s ‘Concluding
Observations’ in his article “Core Inflation: A Review of Some
Conceptual Issues":
I call your attention particularly
to the following paragraphs:
>>>> This review of various
approaches to core inflation measurement also suggests a
large number of questions for future research. First and
foremost, before choosing a measure of core inflation we
need to specify what it is we want the measure for. Do we
want a measure of core inflation to answer the question
“What would the inflation rate have been if oil prices (or
indirect taxes) had not increased last month?” If so, then
none of the approaches reviewed above will help. This
question can be answered only in the context of a full
general equilibrium model of the economy. Furthermore, if
the measure of inflation we are interested in is the cost of
living, then it is not clear why we would ever want to
exclude the effects of oil price increases or indirect
taxes. Thus it must be the case that when measuring core
inflation we have some other inflation concept in mind.
Ideally, a central bank would be most interested in a
measure of inflation that measured the rate of decline in
the purchasing power of money. Unfortunately there is no
well-developed and generally agreed upon theory that can
serve as a guide to constructing such a measure. Thus, in
practical terms, we are left with the options of (i)
constructing a core inflation measure so as to better track
the trend inflation rate (somehow defined) in real time or
(ii) forecast the future headline inflation rate, which in
many circumstances may amount to the same thing. <<<<<
~@#$%^&*UI!!! In other words,
what the heck is it and why are we talking about it?
Another article’s authors found “…a
negative cross-country correlation of inflation with non-defense
spending.” (Quick - look surprised - G)
The only article that did not have
the word ‘inflation’ in the title is about what results when a
central bank responds more slowly to the Taylor Rule signals in
conditions of ‘sticky wages’ and/or ‘sticky prices’. I hope my
wages aren't too sticky.
The economists at the central banks
seem very interested in inflation right now. Could they be
right?"
My
deflationist pal Jas would likely point out that if the Fed is
talking inflation, then we should all worry more about deflation,
just based on their track record. However my feeling is that
if you're still framing a discussion in inflation/deflation terms,
instead of the more correct "how much is the money's value being
watered down?" terms, you're bound to be looking at the question all
wrong.
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:
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