Published Monday through Friday about 8
AM Central Time Except Holidays
Peoplenomics Subscriber
Note: The Peoplenomics.com site is down for a
server hard - one of the drives in the array went out overnight.
Access should be restored this afternoon and new subscribers
will be set up by Saturday. Thanks for your patience.
Takes time to reload off backups. Busy day today...
Happy
Talk, Rome's Burning
I don't like to see this, because it's very bad for millions of
Americans. While there are headlines about today going to
the idea that "Wall
Street's old hands not rattled by financial crisis", what
shapes up as the Wall Street hijacking of a lifetime of savings
and investment by the Baby Boomers is moving along at breakneck
speed.
To be sure, there are some reports that
the problem might be pushing over $1-trillion dollars,
the number of zeros involved there is so large as to
escape the recognition of Mr. & Mrs. Sixpack. Some places,
it's all being soft-pedaled as a half-trillion plan.,
Whatever.
Now, given that the Dow
closed Friday at 11,388.44, then a more accurate comparison
- one that takes inflation into account - would have to admit
that on a purchasing power-adjusted basis, the Dow is about flat
compared with 2003.
Tehir headline should read "Dow up 7-10th's of one percent in
Five Years!" Makes me want to run out and just pour
money into stocks, doesn't it you? I won't remind you that
to be just even with the Internet Bubble Peak the Dow
would have to be well north of 14,000 and that even the 7-10th's
of a percent is illusory because the Fed inflation adjustment
doesn't count the 8 completed months of 5% inflation for this
year - in which case the Dow is underwater, despite the
headlines to the contrary.
You can pencil that one out. If you get a positive number, go
sign up for a math course or check into a treatment center.
What this little gem of Wall Street special interest ruling
does, if Willie's got it right, is it means that if your
brokerage firm fails, then instead of going to their 'segregated
client fund account' to get your dough back, they can tap into
undeployed client funds and if the firm fails, you'd just become
a general bankruptcy creditor. Ain't that cute?
While there may be some hope for people who are
reading that the government may start to insure money market
funds, the really, really bad news is that once again, the
line between financial products is being blurred and FDIC/FSLIC
insurance, which used to be a big selling point of bank accounts
and savings & loan monies is being spread out to the rest of the
industry.
So to sum up, in this morning's special 'weekend comment' -
here's the highlights of what I've been able to glean so far:
Corpgov is pulling out all the stops in order to keep a lid
on what's a steam pot of sh*t until the bankster-bought
SINators and CONgresspersons can get re-elected.
There is NO FREE LUNCH and you are going to pick up the tab
for all the fat-cats. No, their bonuses and fat
paychecks are not on the block - are you kidding?
Your live savings is in a world of trouble and our adviase
to 'demonetize' and get things of value (paid for property,
farm land, a little gold and silver and a gun to protect it
with, is sounding a lot less crazy than it might have a
while back. Remember, all of those moves are fine
if you call yourself a farmer - which I am. If you
call yourself a survivalist, though, expect the neighbors to
turn you in for being a whacko.
With all of this - and with the world running out of energy -
you'd be surprised, more than likely, by the results of our
Friday poll: "Given $650 would you buy and AK-47 or a
solar panel?"
The results speak volumes about people's fears in these times
(more on that for
www.peoplenomics.com subscribers this weekend - now that the
Peoplenomics site is up after an attack/hardware failure this
week.
As I said yesterday, if your regular and sincere efforts to pay
your mortgage are not enough for the greedy types on Wall
Street, and if they are mostly starting to lose money because
they turned a regular payment stream into the world's
highest-rolling craps game, I say screw 'em. Let them feat
on their own just desserts.
And while you're at it: Mark down a 'fear date' on your
claendar - October 3 - because that's when the rigged market
loosens up a bit as the ban of regular shorting of almost 800
financial stocks is supposed to come off. Wanna make a
little side bet that we've only seen the first of the 'emergency
measures' yet to come this fall?
If you're a regular reader, you know this date is why we've been
loading up on beans, rice, meds, and coffee. OK, maybe few
other goodies to be used as trading stock. And why we've
got our family gathering planned for Oct 1-14. I figure it
never hurts to have a few people around who can snap-shoot
expert at 460 meters (without a scope) around. Sometimes
being a nutjob just makes sense.
Hopefully, we'll be spectacularly wrong on all accounts. But
just in case, remember there's two ways to play life that imply
vastly different approaches: One way is to play for
maximum gains. In that case, good luck bottom fishing the
market. The other way is to play for minimum potential
losses. In which case, check back here Monday.
Not often we do special updates around here, but the glaring
spin and bias in the Treasury Secretary's remarks this morning
demands a rational response - one you won't likely hear on MSM
because it's too simple and far too honest. First a
snip from Hank Paulson's remarks
which you can find in their entirety here:
"We have acted on a case-by-case
basis in recent weeks, addressing problems at Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac, working with market participants to prepare for
the failure of Lehman Brothers, and lending to AIG so it can
sell some of its assets in an orderly manner. And this
morning we've taken a number of powerful tactical steps to
increase confidence in the system, including the
establishment of a temporary guaranty program for the U.S.
money market mutual fund industry.
Despite these steps, more is
needed. We must now take further, decisive action to
fundamentally and comprehensively address the root cause of
our financial system's stresses.
The underlying
weakness in our financial system today is the illiquid
mortgage assetsthat have lost value
as the housing correction has proceeded. These
illiquid assets are choking off the flow of credit that is
so vitally important to our economy. When the financial
system works as it should, money and capital flow to and
from households and businesses to pay for home loans, school
loans and investments that create jobs. As illiquid mortgage
assets block the system, the clogging of our financial
markets has the potential to have significant effects on our
financial system and our economy. "
What Mr. Secretary fails to inform you of is a couple of key
points. These are that:
There wasn't just one bubble in America recently -
which most people believe because it came under the general
heading of "Housing Bubble". There were in reality
two bubbles. One was on the retail side, where
yes, there were excesses in lending practices.
But, the real bubble which Paulson is dealing with is the
bubble within a bubble' which is all about the excesses
within the credit market.
These excesses within the credit markets meant that
individual home loans which were never designed to be
'flipped' in the first place became a financial
spigot from which all the greedy sunovab*tches, who could
find a way to flip and swap themselves into fat
bonuses which now that they've been paid will never be
recouped, drank freely and want to drink even more right
now.
So, as long as you don't skip past asking "what do they mean
"illiquid assets?" - and as long as you don't understand that
your mortgage got 'flipped' in the recent gyrations on Wall
Street -sometimes several time - this Greatest Yet CON of
America will move forward.
Forget that you're putting your very Nation's financial future
on the line and puffing up a nearly bankrupt paper currency.
Ignore the future impact on generations to come. Just suck
it up and than the First of the BOHICAns (bend over, here it
comes again) for the fine job they're doing.
That's to you, not for you.
My view at the moment is pretty simple: If your faith
and credit as a mortgage holder is an illiquid instrument -
and if your honestly submitted mortgage payment is not enough
because the schemes and dreams of the super-rich are blowing up
in their face, they I say let them drink from the entrails of
their own killings and go bankrupt if that's the outcome.
I am calling my CONgressional DELEGATEs today to demand they do
something other than rubber stamp this corporate/ socialist
(corpgov) hijacking of America.
If you're mortgage payment is not enough, screw 'em. If
that means tough times and bankrupcies, maybe a return to less
leveraged times is a good idea. And, while we're at it, an
honest currency backed by gold and silver, too.
But then again, what do I - or the Framers of the Constitution -
know about such things? Hell, they thought Congress had
the job of controlling the money supply. OMFG what were
they thinking?
Yank Hank.
Soar Spot:
Markets Now
Officially Rigged!
The stock market is about to put on a big rally this morning.
No, not because the problems of the financial world have been
solved, but because the SEC and UK authorities have gotten
together to ban short-selling of financial stocks:
Commission Also Takes Steps to Increase Market Transparency
and Liquidity
Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2008 — The Securities and
Exchange Commission, acting in concert with the U.K.
Financial Services Authority, today took temporary emergency
action to prohibit short selling in financial companies to
protect the integrity and quality of the securities market
and strengthen investor confidence. The U.K. FSA took
similar action yesterday.
The order expires at 11:59 PM EDT on October 2.
Enjoy it while you can.
No doubt a government "rescue plan" will be unveiled
shortly. But, cynical me, I'd offer only one comment:
Sit on your wallet. This ain't about making you
money.
Suing To
Stop the AIG Bailout
Not a lot of MainStreamMedia (MSM) attention to this, but here's
a little 'sand in the gears' for the PowersThatBe who are
anxiously extending federal (e.g. our) tax dollars to bail out
the formerly private insurance company AIG:
U.S. Lacks Constitutional Authority for Emergency Loan
Queensbury, NY -- On the day following the 221st anniversary
of the signing of the U.S. Constitution, WTP Chairman and
constitutional activist Robert Schulz today filed a federal
lawsuit in United States District Court in Albany seeking to
halt the execution of the emergency bailout of American
International Group, Inc. (AIG) by the United States
Government and the Federal Reserve.
The lawsuit asserts that the commitment of public funds and
credit for the direct benefit of privately owned AIG is an
ultra vires action by the United States Government and
Federal Reserve, i.e., beyond the limited legal authority
granted by the Constitution. The lawsuit asks for a "show
cause" hearing demanding that the Government produce
evidence of its legal authority to commit public funds for
such a purpose, as well as emergency and permanent
injunctions halting the bailout transaction.
According to available information regarding the
transaction, the Federal Reserve will loan AIG $85 billion
dollars to stabilize its financial crisis, in effect, using
taxpayer money to fund the loan. In consideration of
taxpayer financing of the private bailout, the U.S. will
receive stock warrants for 79.9% of AIG stock.
Schulz believes that, "Beyond the moral hazard and dangerous
precedent established by this action, it is of vital
importance that the American people recognize that the
present financial crisis is a direct and predictable result
of decades of constitutional violations by the Federal
Government. Through a longstanding policy of disinformation
and collusion with the Federal Reserve and Wall Street
financial elite, the United States Federal Government has
denied public access to information about the secretive
operations of the privately owned and operated Federal
Reserve and its monopoly control of America’s money system.
This monopoly control of our currency by a private banking
cartel has resulted in increasing distortion, volatility and
cyclical (boom and bust) economic conditions in the U.S. and
abroad. America’s fiat currency (produced from thin air) is
manipulated by the Federal Reserve for the benefit of its
owners, major Wall Street financial institutions and the
Federal Government and is not unaccountable to the
taxpayers. These abuses of the Constitution have taken our
financial system to edge of the abyss. The chickens have
come home to roost."
Since 2002, the We The People Foundation and its supporters
have tried, thus far unsuccessfully, to get the Government
to respond to a number of First Amendment Petitions for
Redress of violations of the Constitution, including the
Federal Reserve System’s violation of the money clauses of
the Constitution. Had the Government honored the
Constitution and its obligation to respond to the citizens’
Petitions for Redress, many of the nation’s financial and
monetary problems could have been avoided."
If you're wondering about my opinion on this, I guess I'll just
say "actions speak louder than words" and I bought a highly
speculative/don't try this at home/use under adult supervision
short-term put option on the S&P 500 index for the October
expiration.
While it expires on October 16th hopefully worthless,
there's still that matter of the October 7th 'hot date' in the
predictive linguistics.
The other thing to keep an eye on is that a yield on some of the
panic-driven deals in the fixed income markets are pushing
upwards of 20%. That would be an equivalent to a Dow
Jonjes Industrial average of 5, so with the Dow at a PE about
3-times that5, the Dow could arguably fall to one-third of it's
present pricing (think about 4,500 here) and then only be
valued fairly relative to fixed incomes.
But, like I say, I am hoping this doesn't pay off.
That
Short Selling Cloud
Not to sound too conspiratorial here, but now that 'terror'
alerts are high (and I expect them to be publicly raised before
October 7th -October 2 or 3 when the shorting rules come off
would be timely ), one can sit back with a cup of coffee and
wonder about whether the recent 'sudden' changes in
short-selling rules both here in the US and in the UK will not
somehow figure into events yet to come.
A little reading of various conspiracy boards suggests that
there might have been some kind of cooperation between a few US
alphabet-agencies and other intelligence services around the
world, including the
KGB which Vlad Putin used to head, and this theory says that
an earlier Bush at the CIA might have built an 'exit plan' for
the Russian KGB-types during his vice presidential tenure.
When I think about it, that actually could make sense.
How could the fall of Russia be coordinated without some pay
off to those who could [violently] oppose a planned
collapse? Recall
George H.W. Bush was head of the CIA long before the
breakdown of the Soviet empire. Such contingencies would
have had to been obvious to strategic planners.
And, it wouldn't have been a bad plan, either. If you're
going to help to facilitate the roll-over of something as big as
the former Soviet Union, there would of course be palms to be
greased to keep things moving along just so. And
George H.W. Bush was VP under Reagan and then President when
the Wall in Berlin finally came down, so the timing of this
speculation is interesting. If there were to be favors passed
around to make sure the rollover of Russia happened smoothly,
this would be the platform to manage it from.
A little research on the web will find things like this:
"For
example, the offices conducting then-Congresswoman Cynthia
McKinney's investigation of 2.3 trillion - that's
TRILLION - dollars missing at the Pentagon (9/10/01 C-SPAN)
were destroyed in the attack on the Pentagon. Evidence
relevant to the Security & Exchange Commission (SEC)
investigations of Worldcom and Enron - re: the $70 billion
electric power swindle in California - was destroyed when
Tower # 7, which housed SEC offices, collapsed a few hours
after the Twin Towers. Both investigations disappeared. "
All coincidental, I'm sure, along with the later McKinney
events, but nevertheless with a 'hot date' Oct. 7th and the
ever-present possibility of terrorism striking at America's
heartland, we'll just watch to see if an October 7th (or
thereabout) event occurs. If it's terrorism, the close
proximity to the announcement of new rules of short-selling and
naked-shorting might be almost too coincidental to ignore.
That would be about the best evidence for an all-out 'war
between the factions' of the PowersThatBe" I could imagine.
So, I'll just watch the calendar.
Hey, why partner with Big Bird when Mickey Mouse would be much
more apropos?
---
If I advocate rural living, owning a gun, growing your own food
and being self sufficient, I'm a nutjob. Yet, when you
read all the preparedness literature from the government, it's
the path that makes sense. a curious conundrum.
--- snip and save section ---
Coping:
"I Want My America Back"
A reader in Odessa, Florida, sent a very articulate letter to
the Treasury Department yesterday and sent along a note with it.
I share it with you for a couple of reasons, not the least of
which is that it underscores the [revolution/rebellion]
meme which we've been tuned in to for about 6-months since it
started showing up in the
www.halfpasthuman.com predictive linguistics model space.
"Dear Mr. Ure,
I am more angry than I have ever
been. Below is a copy of a letter I sent to Mr Paulson via
the Treasury Department. I could not find an email address
for his office. I want my America back! I am seriously
considering moving out of the country. Maybe to China or
Russia or well ever the hell Al Qaeda is calling home these
days. I am ready to fight to get back what has been stolen
from us.
Mind you, I am not in financial
trouble. I am just Joe average still paying my bills on time
and I feel this way. Just imagine what is seething under the
surface of the neo-poor of this country.
Forget the "Million Man March".
The time has come for our media to start reporting the
truth. The time has come for a Three Hundred Million Man
March" on Washington, every state capital and every bank
headquarters.
I want my America back!
(name withheld) Odessa, Fla.
.--- (letter follows ---
Dear Mr Paulson,
I heard you say, very proudly,
on CNBC yesterday that "Nobody has ever lost a penny of
insured deposits, and they never will".
You thieving liar! It is people
of your ilk, that is, bankers and the like. that have
perpetrated a massive theft of the wealth of this country by
your banking practices. Not the least of which is the
creation of paper money out of thin air. By this practice
alone you steal our labor thru inflation. I could go on and
on about the creation of innumerable false asset classes
created by you people, all printed on paper that have no
real value at all. But, I feel no need. I am sure you know
of which I speak. We, Joe and Jane public are awakening to
your fraud.
Now we find that you are
stealing our money to buy companies and investments made by
companies that were nothing but fraudulent enterprises.
There is no such thing as a company "too big to fail"! If we
all must suffer to right the wrongs, then so be it. But the
guilty should pay the most, not the taxpayer.
Mr Paulson, I predict; Someday a
younger man than me will come to the door of the banking
system of this country and with one blow will strike it to
the ground. I pray that it be so. In that day I may have
already died or be too old or too poor to participate in the
revolution that will surely come and take you folks down.
But as God is my witness that day will come and if all I can
do is spit in the face of whoever happens to be the Fed
chief at the time or, if I am dead, then smile in my grave,
it will be done. I would happily give my life in the fight
to take back this country from you bastards. I am so very
angered by the bailout of the "fat cats" that have stolen
this country's wealth and labor and even more angered by
traitors like you that protect them.
I pray: G_d Damn you all! And
may it be soon, so, we can quickly get on with rebuilding
our country.
Or--------
You could join the cause of the
people you are supposed to serve. Start advocating for a
"Year of Jubilee" (look it up) for all our citizens, not
just the bankers and the so called "too big to fail"
corporations. In this way justice will be done.
(name withheld) Odessa,
Fla.
This will give you an idea of the kind of 'pressure' that
Cliff's work is dinging in the scans of the discussions out on
the internet - and the anger is not confined to 'political'
boards - the meme is leaking out like a huge hole below the
waterline.
As for myself, I have come up with a number of personal 'action
points' none of them violent, and in every way legal, yet at the
same time, they are easy, actionable, and I believe would bring
about positive change. Some of these include:
Vote with your wallet every time you open it.
Whenever you spend, you are casting a vote for, or against,
the marketing pseudo-reality, the prevailing socioeconomic
paradigm, and the status quo. See a company that makes
a product and has some kind of ethical core values (Example
of an ethics-based company: Newman's Own), buy their
products. See RBST-free milks? Buy it.
Organic? Buy it. Want to buy hardware?
Consider going out of your way to buy from a cooperative
(Like
Ace Hardware) rather than a megalithic 'big box store'.
The "anything for shareholders" paradigm is yesterday's
news. The cool thing about America is that the Framers
of the Constitution knew this and designed a system which
was flexible and could be changed. The corpgov
paradigm didn't really hit America until 1913. In
February of that year, the Sixteenth Amendment was
enacted (passed is debated to this day) and by December
1913, the Bankers had grabbed control vide the "Federal
Reserve Act" which had its roots as documented in G.
Edward Griffin's most excellent book "Creature
from Jekyll Island" Nothing happens by
chance...
Participate in the most important part of the
political process. No, that's not voting at the polls
on election day. Participate passionately in the
precinct committee meetings and caucuses in your own
precinct or ward.
Invest in yourself and your family.
Get an education and learn at least one trade which
would be necessary should the world ever slip back
toward the 1800's. We're only a terrorist attack
on the grid or power/energy distribution infrastructure
away from the 1800's anyway. It's just that the
'corpgov' paradigm hasn't got a plan for that, so
if it happens, then you need to have a hot backup plan
at the ready. The Russians, should they get angry
enough, have the capability to launch a preemptive
electromagnetic pulse attack on America that would put
us at about 1860 overnight. If you don't
understand that, you have not been reading very much
about how modern warfare can be played out.
Along with an education, invest in things that
can produce value: If you buy a home, try to find
one where you won't have to grovel to a Homeowners
Association for 'permission' to install solar panels,
rip off your siding and put in heavier insulation, or
put up a wind generator. There are quite literally
hundreds of opportunities to lessen your carbon
footprint and reduce America's dependence on foreign
oil. A bloated SUV ain't one of them, and neither
is reporting to Condo Nazis. Get cold weather
clothing, take up hiking, canning, get in shape, develop
a green thumb and commit to producing some small portion
of what you eat - event if it's only 5% because in the
future that might be the difference between life and
death in the future. You just never know about
such things. Think about land that can produce
something. A hobby where the tools can be applied
to a wide range of productive activities (metalworking,
for example) and why not build a small green house or do
condo farming with potted plants?
Agitate for policies that make sense. Some of
my favorite 'causes' are things like a single flat-rate
income tax. No sales tax on food or clothing.
Barring anyone in public office from holding any form
of 'dual citizenship'. I want leaders who have no
'opt-out' option. American first, and only, dammit.
Real borders, locking up anyone who hires illegal laborers,
and as long as we're at it, ban use of foreign call centers
and let's start making products in America again.
Turn off your TV and start retooling your reality
filters to capture what's really going on rather than the
MainStreamMedia paradigm. Spend at least 15-minutes of
quiet time every day just owning your own life -
assessing it, dreaming up alternatives for your own future
and getting back into an ownership position where YOU are the boss.
I think I've mentioned to you now and again about how one of the
next 'frontiers' of corpgov control over humans (besides
patenting life via seed stocks and licensing animals with the
creeping/creepy National Animal Identification Act) is the plan
for the highest levels of internationalist global government
to seize and 'license back to humans, access to the world'sfresh water. Ah, don't you love it?
Although it will take a minute or so to load, my source around
the UN in Geneva has come across a very revealing document (in
his continuing disclosure of documents that should be getting
the public's attention) that reveals what's going on at the
highest levels when it comes toi planning your water access.
File this under 'tax and control' by corpgovs. Scroll down
to "Global
Water Futures: A roadmap to future US policy"
Voting time: Should I spend $650 on another solar panel
for our system or buy a brand new Russian-made AK-47 for the
same money? (Toiugh choice, huh? Been pondering it).
If you enjoy the content here on UrbanSurvival (or from the
mirror site
www.independencejournal.com) please bookmark it for
yourself and share it with others by clicking below:
Peoplenomics.com
Watching the Entrances & Exits
Yes,
there have been talks this weekend about a bailout plan for Lehman,
but if this doesn't come to pass, and if the reports on energy
production out of Texas in the wake of Hurricane Ike are dire, this
could be the week that the markets break to new lows and sets up a
test of the 9,700 level on the Dow which has been a major line in
the sand from a technical standpoint. My countdown to a Friday
October 3rd under 10,000 sets off a 'terror' or financial calamity
is still on track. Now with all of this going on, does the
thought of citizenship elsewhere sound appealing? Well,
depends who you know, what your religion and ancestry is, but you
may be a bit late as the lock down Americans in America (and this
smacks of Germany in the late 1930's) is well underway.
Not a Subscriber yet? It's just $40/Year: (Allow
48-hours for processing)
Review of this week's report:
"Dear George, Inspired by today's bulletin, I looked at the
business section of the NY Times, and read on page 6 Why the
Bear Is Alive and Well. The writer, Paul J. Lim, talked
about P/E ratios, and I felt very smug, having been made hip
to them by your writing. The reporter seems to confirm what
you've been saying, which shouldn't come in as a surprise.
It's just interesting to see something about what I just
read from you."
What? You haven't ordered the ebook "How to Live on
$10,000 a year -- olr less"? Suit yourself. We're
all going to live it shortly, anyway. I just thought you
might like a heads up by reading about how to do it before you
get pink-slipped. But, suit yourself OR visit
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.
Among the 115-or so emails, was one from the Time Monks at
www.halfpasthuman.com
because it moves our expectations of how the events prior to our
hot area around October 7th will be playing out. So
here's the scoop from the time machine:
"Salve omnes, as you may have
guessed from the [markets] actions today (Wednesday) , the
emotional tensions are quite high.
We have run the most recent data
reads and the immediacy values are pointing to 9-17 and NOT
9-27 as the beginning of the plateau of the emotional
tensions which holds prior to the plunge into release
language. The shift into the 5/five months of release
language still is showing as beginning on October 7.
So we have *now* entered a
20/twenty day plateau which will release on October 7th.
Sorry about that, but the data
shifts all the time (with each processing, duh!@!)....so we
have already hit the peak of the current building tension
period...and it didn't even hurt that much...yet.
What we will look for is a
20/twenty day period of the same level of emotional tensions
around the global economy. Mostly it is about the dollar,
but no one is admitting that part of the secrets just yet.
The emotional turmoil will be felt to build and perhaps will
even have some small dips, but in the main it will stay at
today's levels. Over the course of the 20/twenty days we
expect a whole lot of international thrashing around, and
not much progress in solutions.
If we humans are really really
lucky, then 20 days from today, we will slide off into the
release of global depression and dollar death. If we are not
lucky....
Sorry about missing this, but we
had not had a reason to reset modelspace and progress it
through from zero point until today. Several changes brought
in by the immediacy values and the shorter term sets have
shown up. These have been noted in Part Two. "
As you know, my worst-case fear about events to come lines up on
the notion that says something like "Markets fall apart so much
going into October 7th (or so) that we have people starting to
awaken in huge numbers to the idea that a long wave cyclical
economic depression is unfolding - and that in turn is
such a threat to the modem (sic) world that event a terrorist
attack (false flag or otherwise) is "necessary" to prevent a
sudden cascading of runs of banks and so forth.
So, once we get our 'conveniently timed' terrorist attack, that
will spin the public's attention to the events going on in the
rest of the world to the extent that just "money" will not seem
so important. And, because the predictive linguistics crew
has had a coiuple of body count references (2.2 million and 22
million - decimal points being slippery in the timestream) there
seems to be enough gore on tap to meet the linguistic void.
Except of course this whole business of looking into the future
using language shift on the internet is still an exact science,
and just because we've caught global emotional bumps since mid
2001 (including 9/11 and so forth) the idea of a 6-6 month
unwinding of your whole lifestyle should be taken with a grain
of salt, slice of pie, shot of Jack, and serious prayer that
it's all just an artifact of processing. But, just in
case, we've done a whole lot of preparation figuring that the
worst that could happen would be we'd have some new items to
depreciate on the long form tax papers and a bunch of prepaid
expenses.
---
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, you'll recall I have
been bemoaning the fact that we have not had the 'military"
component coming up as much as expected to have the 20% terra
entity, 40% military and 40% economic descriptors met with
anything other than a sudden onset event.
Nothing like kicking markets when they are down, but as I've
said before, the appearance of Osama bin Laden at precisely the
moment of recognition of the Internet Bubble's collapse leads me
to expect another such "outlier" (as I'm sure it will be
positioned) as we are quickly approaching a similar point of
recognition in the wake of the Housing Bubble Collapse and
subsequent fallout.
If you believed that there was long-term manipulation of
the gold and silver market, the fact that gold has popped up
almost $100 in 30-hours since the rules were unveiled, well
circumstantial though it may be, it's good enough for me to
confirm my more sinister of conclusions. My sources
disagree - figuring it has more to do with all the money that
the Fed will essential print (via Treasury) but I'll take the
portfolio gain either way, thanks.
---
I've heard a rumor about that AIG may have had a lot of gold
longs in place and that the reason Treasury could somewhat
'safely' take them over was that they had some inkling of this
and with the short-selling rules back and being enforced (they
were never really gone, just overlooked, wink, wink, nod, nod)
gold and silver both seem to have a nice shiny future,
especially because the government's going to have to print up
more money for the Bankster's Cabal (a/k/a the Fed) to keep the
rest of the financial Universe from imploding.
Meantime, the PowersThatBe have conveniently put 70- or so
capital ships into the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf and
presumably are cheering on the runway repairs in Georgia.
Did I mention that the sale of bunker-buster bombs to Israel
went ahead after all?
If you're beginning to think there may be something to this
time-machine stuff, welcome to real life. But, even if you
can see a worst-case outline of the future, that gets us down to
the problem of "Whatcha gonna do 'bout it?"
Which is why for six months we have been rolling into physical
assets and such - things that are not dependent on the financial
system so much and with an emphasis on intrinsic value.
Food, water, private land, surveillance systems, animals,
investment grade diesel for our ag operations, and so on.
We'll even get the little money we haven't yet spent flipped
into the TreasuryDirect account, probably mid next week.
I'm still trying to figure out where my funds are in my eTrade
account, so pardon me for being a little short-ish this morning
because I'll be on the phone with their compliance department as
soon as they open in a few minutes (this is written while most
sensible people are sleeping - which implies that I'm not -
which would be a fine guess...)
Me? I expect a screaming rally today because my account
was screwed up and I didn't get my expiring at the close call
opens on the S&P. Damn. Oh, well...only money, huh?
The Global
Collapse
While stocks head higher today at the open (the stock traders
don't want to give all their money to the short-sellers) I have
to remind you that the Global Collapse is what to keep your eyes
on, not just the shenanigans with Nationalization
Roulette in the US.
My inside source - the bond dude - called last night and I awoke
just long enough to learn two very interesting things.
The first was that there are not enough janitors on Wall Street.
You see, in the Lehman deal, there are about (for round numbers)
one -million individuals contracts (swaps, etc) that have
to be repriced, marked to market, and then each one of
these needs to have a new counterparty found.
So, if you happen to work for any of the large Lehman paper
holders, and if you know how to run the systems involved, there
is no time off, long, longer, and longest hours because
rewriting a million swap contracts is not something you farm out
to a Cub Scout Troopas a community project. I
couldn't find repricing a nonstandard credit swap listed in
either the Field Book or the Cub Scout Manual. Oh well, no
Boy Scouts left on Wall Street anyway, who am I kidding?
The point is what? That the lack of available humans to work in
repricing/find-a-new-counterparty-hell may have been as much a
driver for the Fed/Treas. AIG bail (or whatever you want to call
it) as the dire condition of cash there.
Simply put: Every available janitor on Bond Street is sweeping
up LEH leftovers. Millions of pieces of paper. At
least cleaning up from Ike, everyone can get involved and pitch
in. But the residue from Hurricane Lehman? Gosh,
there were actually lots of smaller storms, Lehman partners,
Lehman Cayman, yada yada.... Millions of electronic pages
to clean.
---
So next, comes this really simple question from Bond Dude:
Since we're going down Socialist Road (privatize profits,
socialize losers) why don't we just take AIG which I'm the first
to say was one of - if not the best run insurance company
in the world - and install them as the core of a new National
Health Insurance program?
I mean, don't you and me own them now? Even better: they
work.
Long as we're at it, hows about they also national auto
insurance, too? OMG this is soooo obvious. Where's
Obama's staff? This is a gigantic PR coup just waiting to
be had. Goat rope that gecko!
If you thought the flood of money to the bankster's cable
to the tune of $180 billion would require that members of
CONgress stick around, roll up their sleeves and ask questions
like "WTF's going on here?" better refigure things.
Say, wasn't it just yesterday that I mentioned how Nancy
Pelosi's 'tough talk' was nothing probably nothing more than
Grand Standing? And you see this morning class, how Prof.
Ure has gotten right to the essence of things again? Hype,
shuck, and jive. Say, how about a new web address for
CONgress: HSJ.gov ?
Now it's
a
Greek naval vessel that's been taken over by pirates off Somalia.
Piracy on the high seas - but govt. types don't seem too
interested because calling this "terrorism" would imply a
response is needed. This has been building for years.
Without oil, no squeaks - got it?
OK, sure the markets are a mess and the world is coming unglued,
but no reason not to through a party, if you're this one couple
I know up in the San Juan Islands of Washington State.
Here's what they did (I've known these folks since 1973 or
so...)
They wanted to expand their Island home, being refugees from
Somerset (the hill that overlooks Bellevue and Seattle's
Eastside).
So they took out a Home Equity Line of Credit on on the Island
house at 4%. Then (and I fogot where they found it) but
they managed to find a 4½.
So, they will actually make money
on the HELOC fuinds, until they cut their remodeling
checks...but you have the idea I'm sure. Borrow low and
invest high - it's what the bigger fish upstream do all day
long, so no reason we 'smaller fish' can't look for the same
kind of opportunities.
If you ever wondered about questionable tactics of naked short
selling hammering the gold market, I think we have at
least empirical evidence today because within an hour of the SEC
press release announcing the outright (re-) banning of naked
short-selling, the price of gold has popped up more than $40.
The SEC Press release first:
"FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2008-204 Washington, D.C., Sept. 17, 2008
— The Securities and Exchange Commission today took
several coordinated actions to strengthen investor
protections against "naked" short selling. The Commission's
actions will apply to the securities of all public
companies, including all companies in the financial sector.
The actions are effective at 12:01 a.m. ET on Thursday,
Sept. 18, 2008.
"These several actions today
make it crystal clear that the SEC has zero tolerance for
abusive naked short selling," said SEC Chairman Christopher
Cox. "The Enforcement Division, the Office of Compliance
Inspections and Examinations, and the Division of Trading
and Markets will now have these weapons in their arsenal in
their continuing battle to stop unlawful manipulation."
In an ordinary short sale, the
short seller borrows a stock and sells it, with the
understanding that the loan must be repaid by buying the
stock in the market (hopefully at a lower price). But in an
abusive naked short transaction, the seller doesn't actually
borrow the stock, and fails to deliver it to the buyer. For
this reason, naked shorting can allow manipulators to force
prices down far lower than would be possible in legitimate
short-selling conditions.
Today's Commission actions,
which are the result of rulemaking under the Administrative
Procedure Act, go beyond its previously issued emergency
order, which was limited to the securities of financial
firms with access to the Federal Reserve's Primary Dealer
Credit Facility. Because the agency's exercise of its
emergency authority is limited to 30 days, the previous
order under Section 12(k)(2) of the Securities Exchange Act
of 1934 expired on Aug. 12, 2008.
The Commission's actions were as
follows:
Hard T+3 Close-Out Requirement;
Penalties for Violation Include Prohibition of Further Short
Sales, Mandatory Pre-Borrow The Commission adopted, on an
interim final basis, a new rule requiring that short sellers
and their broker-dealers deliver securities by the close of
business on the settlement date (three days after the sale
transaction date, or T+3) and imposing penalties for failure
to do so.
If a short sale violates this
close-out requirement, then any broker-dealer acting on the
short seller's behalf will be prohibited from further short
sales in the same security unless the shares are not only
located but also pre-borrowed. The prohibition on the
broker-dealer's activity applies not only to short sales for
the particular naked short seller, but to all short sales
for any customer.
Although the rule will be
effective immediately, the Commission is seeking comment
during a period of 30 days on all aspects of the rule. The
Commission expects to follow further rulemaking procedures
at the expiration of the comment period.
Exception for Options Market
Makers from Short Selling Close-Out Provisions in Reg SHO
Repealed The Commission approved a final rule to eliminate
the options market maker exception from the close-out
requirement of Rule 203(b)(3) in Regulation SHO. This rule
change also becomes effective at 12:01 a.m. ET on Thursday,
Sept. 18, 2008. "
I don't claim perfect knowledge of the specific mechanism - all
I can do as a somewhat informed observer is to note that within
an hour or so of the SEC rule change hitting (and going
into effect at midnight tonight, the price of the metals
is going skyward.
Do you think there might be some kind of connection there?
The market action would seem to confirm a lot of suspicions.
Global Collapse On:
First of the Bohicans
With apologies to James Fennimore Cooper, I have almost enough
government and Wall Street PR swill to write a new definitive
Great American Tale. Forget Lust, this one's all about
Greed.
Stick with me because we're going to take some indecent
liberties with literature here, but before we do a quick flip to
the
Urban Dictionary should remind you that BOHICA means "bend
over, here it comes...again".
"The story is set in the British
province of New York during the French and Indian War, and
concerns a Huron massacre (with passive French acquiescence)
of from 500 to 1,500 unarmed Anglo-American troops, who had
honorably surrendered at Fort William Henry, plus some women
and servants; the kidnapping of two sisters, daughters of
the British commander; and their rescue by Hawkeye, the last
two Mohicans, and others. Parts of the story may have been
derived from the capture and death of Jane McCrea in July
1777 near Fort Edward, New York, by members of an Algonquian
tribe.
The title of the book comes from
a quote by Tamanend, "I have lived to see the last warrior
of the wise race of the Mohicans"."
Needs a little work to be brought up to date, so how's about
this:
The story is set
in the ethnic province of New York during
the Bush Wars, and concerns a Hedge Fund
massacre (with passive government
acquiescence) of from 500 to 1,500 unarmed
Anglo-American bond managers, who had
honorably surrendered ain May - July, plus
some women and servants; the kidnapping of
two sisters, daughters of the Wall Street
commander; and their rescue by Hawkeye Ben
and Happy Hank, the first two Bohicans, and
others. Parts of the story may have been
derived from the death of the South Sea
Bubble by John Law or the earlier Great
Depression in New York, by members of the
Keynesian tribe.
The title of the book comes from a quote by
Ure: "I have lived to see the first warriors
of the dumb race of Bohicans".
Yes, this morning, be sure to do some toe-touches because you're
gonna have a not-so-nice surprise, sooner than later.
---
The real tribe that matters, when it comes to fiat (notional)
money is, as we all know, the PowersThatBe.
I seem to call that Hank Greenberg, who largely built AIG (and
who claimed in a TV interview Tuesday that AIG was a "national
treasure") was a ranking bigwig in the Council on Foreign
Relations - you know, that group which is pushing for a North
American trading block and the agenda of
www.spp.gov - which has never
been voted on in CONgress?
Why do I mention this? Only to inject a little
perspective into the discussion. Because media
slobbers to print jingoisms, an indigenous person on his own
land, protecting his own family from Western/corporate takeover
of the natural resources under his foot is called
(depending on who's doing the writing) either a 'freedom
fighter' or a 'terrorist.'
But, here's the thing: While you and I would likely agree
that someone strapping a bomb onto their body and stepping
aboard a loaded bus - full of innocents - is a terrorist,
when the world's biggest insurance company straps so much
questionable and explosive derivative paper on itself and
threatens to blow itself up and destroy the whole global
financial system, isn't that terrorism, too?
Seems to me that under (Forrest) Gumpian Economics "Terrorists
is as terrorists does."
---
It occurred to me, about 2-sips of coffee into this morning's
whisker harvest, that we lack the clear view of finance
evidenced by America's past Congressional leadership.
One of my all-time favorites was Senator Everett Dirksen to whom
the quote "If you owe the bank $10,000, you have a problem.
But, if you owe the bank $1,000,000, the bank has a problem..."
rings eerily true in today's circumstance. We just don't
have anyone who seems to be able to articulate the obvious.
If we did, I'd be less driven to write this column.
I don't know about you, but I'm just plain old pissed that our
elected (from a limited gene pool of talent, for sure) officials
are using my tax money (printed for the bankster cabal at the
misnamed "Federal" Reserve) and yours if you filed, to bail out
an insurance company. What the hell copy of the
Constitution are these pretenders back there looking at - if
at all?
What about Congress role in creating money - who farmed it out
to the crooks from Jekyll Island? And that led to the
income tax, but let's not go down that road today...
Of course, creeping socialism (socialize the debts, privatize
the wealth) is not a popular topic, but then again, who you
gonna believe: The Wall Street hype and bullsh*t about "This is
too big to fail" or your own lying eyes that reveal we've been
had by these, the first of the Bohicans?
----
I asked my 10-digits left of the decimal point fixed income
source about it last night and he reminded me that the AIG
bailout is more than the Bush administration has spent on aid to
mothers with dependent children during both terms in office.
Yup - shows you who's got the bread and who's got things
buttered, doesn't it?
Be extra careful doing your toe-touches this morning.
When I asked him "So when did the idea that interest is
correlated to risk leave the financial system?" "Oh,
about 15 years ago..."
Damn, I hate it when smart people tell me what's going on.
He then explained that all the players regardless of nominal
religious denomination, really all belong to the Fixed Income
Church of the Holy Basis Point. And, as we're seeing now,
the Church of the Holy Basis Point is going to Save AIG.
Baptize 'em in taxpayer money, Hallelujah brothers and sisters.
Pardon my skepticism here, since both the republicorp and
democorps eat from he same corporate trough, I'll just file this
under grandstanding until there's evidence to the CONtrary.
Might start by asking how much dough AIG and its officers have
ponied up as campaign contributions in the past ten-years....
Being a long-time news reporter I ask myself "Gee, what is
really going on in the background that is being swept
under the rug with a flashier headline, about a terrorist
attack here?
The Russian stock markets closed on Tuesday after losing what
would be the equivalent of 1,836 Dow points.
So, why are we not hearing about this meltdown in Russia?
You want to table a guess as to why? Because the
MainStreamMedia in America has no interest in letting the cat
out of the bag that a global economic Depression's second leg
down is now gathering momentum.
Just like they didn't tell you leg one down was when the
Internet Bubble burst and (coincidentally) was swung into two
wars overseas immediately after 9/11.
I mention this as extremely important stuff because 1) we have
our 'hot date' from the predictive linguistics team showing a
'prequel;' event around September 27th and then a big 'wham'
along about October 7th. As you may remember, I've been
worried about another 'terrorist attack' (besides AIG's
accessing public money) for a number of months. And, if
the Dow slips under 10,000 here in the next 19 days, I reckon
the odds are extremely high.
Maybe some folks overseas have figured out the obvious: This
ends badly. So they're lightening up on buying U.S. paper
products, if'n you know what I mean.
Golly - you thought Boeing or Grains were our biggest export?
LMAO hell no. It's Paper Debt!
Ike Death
Toll Rising
Something to keep an eye on: The death toll from Hurricane
Ike could be revised in coming days. An email from folks
in the hardest hit area explains why:
"I drove around the Clearlake area last night and it appears
that Seabrook took the biggest hit. There are many boats
from 16 to 50 feet in length on the side of the road that
were pushed off the highway by police cars. According to the
media, there are no fatalities in Seabrook, but many in the
Galveston area. My HPD buddies said that the ME is stacking
bodies in refrigerator trucks like cord wood. I'll keep you
posted."
So yes, this is a prequel to the larger rationing context due to
develop as we move toward December. Don't blame us when it
gets here - we just read the reports from the time
machine/predictive linguistics team and calls 'em like we sees
'em. We don't make the future - we just own it.
Radio
Time
With October 7th fast approaching, my friend Cliff, the chief
'time monk' on the predictive linguistics project at
www.halfpasthuman.com
and I will be on CoastToCoastAM
this weekend, Sunday night into Monday morning with George
Knapp doing the hosting. I've got a lot of respect for
Knapp's work - including his reports for KLAS TV in Las Vegas on
Area 51.
--- snip and save section ---
Coping:
Tomorrow's Statues
Horsing Around
Was
sitting in the office with Panama on Tuesday morning - waiting
for the market to open - and he happened to thumb through a book
(James Burke's The Day the World Changed") and pointed out a
picture of a man on a horse as a statue.
"Did you know that if one foot is raised, the man on the horse
was wounded in battle? Or, if the horse is rearing up, he died
in battle, or that if all four feet of the horse were on the
platform, the man died in bed?" he asked.
No,
I didn't know that, but now that I do, it's one of those
interesting little factoids that clutters my head up so much, I
often don't know what to do with so much information. Still,
seems like it's worth knowing.
Knowledge is funny stuff: All goes to my 'recipe collecting
theory of education' that says you can get an education anywhere
- you just have to keep your mind open for it to enter. But then
again, he was just horsing around.
---
Nevertheless, we have to wonder who in future years we'll be
seeing statues built to honor? More to the point, they
won't likely be riding horses. But, what will the modern
equivalent be?
Perhaps future statues will depict leaders sitting at their
desks. Not as exciting, but more accurate.
If
the leaders hands are on the keyboard, he died in mid-deal.
If
his computer is unplugged, he died during a power outage.
Or,
if he has his hand on a mouse, he died from information
overload.
Or
perhaps we'll have leaders depicted with cell phones held to
their ear. The phone against the ear might mean died in
mid-call. Depicted staring at the phone, he died trying to
find a signal. Depicted dialing could mean 'died
checking voicemail'.
No
point worrying about such things, though. By this time a
year from now, we may be resource-stripping America and melting
down statues for their scrap value. Already happening with
foreclosed homes, highway, and construction projects. The
new reality of transformation just hasn't swelled up from your
preconscious yet. Give it a month or two.
Resetting
Your Mortgage
Elaine and I keep a small mortgage on part of our land because
if you don't have debt, you don't have a credit score.
Having never missed a payment or defaulted on anything, I called
the local Land Bank yesterday and talked to them about lowering
our rate.
Sure enough, a pleasant five minute conversation resulted in a
reduction of 3/4's of a point, or so, and at a cost of just over
a hundred bucks for the paperwork. It drops the payoff to
10-years, saves $1,200 of interest charges.
If
you have a home mortgage, or you have some land, now might be a
very good time to consider resetting to a lower rate -- but be
sure to check all the angles.
It
seems to me that with government loaning money to all these
investment banks and now insurance companies for crying
out loud, it's only going to be a matter of time until inflation
comes screaming back.
How
quickly is the question. A democorp winning the Election
(which won't be clear until sometime in January linguistically)
might set the socioeconomic clock to 1933 - and that would have
been a dandy time to start playing with other people's money
again. On the other hand, if the republicorps win, it may
signal the unwinding in the Great Delevering will drag on for
another four years.
Hence, the delicate balancing act between other people's money (OPM)
use and high personal liquidity and ready cash.
Email of
the Day
How's this?
"I have been looking forward to
writing, but I'm not rich yet.
There are several aspects of the
coming chaos that I wanted to discuss with you, but my
long-winded writing style would likely result in my email
being overlooked by someone in your time-sensitive
lifestyle...
So instead, I will start with a
simple question:
What is it about your research
(yours and Cliff's) that causes you to focus on America
being the central point of most occurrences?
For example, the China Quake
that you thought was in the U.S.? Or the continued flooding
in late summer that appears to be happening in other parts
of the world? Or after Cliff stated in a web radio interview
earlier this year that he thought the U.S. would be calling
for early elections, and it appears to have now shown up in
Canada:
I wonder if this is because the
web knows no worldly boundaries, or are your interpretations
more U.S.-centric?
Finally, I have read you so
often, that I am now trained to scan headlines daily and l
can find articles that I know will show up on your website
1-2 days in advance (with about an 70-80% accuracy).
In fact, this is one that I
expect to see tomorrow:
Peace and Prosperity to you and
yours, and I look forward to writing an elaborate email to
you soon discussing the finer points of our respective roles
in the upcoming chaos and the following birth of the new
world...
I
don't often talk about
what I really do for a living - I help small and mid-sized
companies make money. A management consultant. Easy
to do, good money and happy clients and mentally very
challenging in these times.
I
thought you'd get a kick out of an email from a client in Ohio
who was kind enough to send along this 'endorsement':
"To remind you of where I was at
two years ago when I had my initial consultation regarding
my small business.
1. I was over $500,000 in debt
with $130,000 in unpaid taxes that could not be compromised
and had the potential of jail time. My personal debts
totaled over $120,000
2. My home was foreclosed on and
the Chevy Suburban repossessed and had moved to an apartment
in a drug infested neighborhood. bought a $500 rusted pickup
with no heat or air.
3.I was operating in a negative
cash flow bleeding $10,000 per month minimum
4. My key staff left with my
database of customers and started up down the street taking
30-50% of my clients and started discounting products 50%
5.I was forced to move from my
premium location to a lessor location due to a "civic
improvement project" without any assistance.
6. My computer network was
hacked and all customer emails were stolen and aggressively
marketed by the former employee.
7. I had a turnover rate of 60
days per employee and they were all losers. I had to work 80
hours a week to make up the shortfall.
8. My annual sales of 500,000
was flat for two years
9. My total income for the past
seven years was under 50,000 TOTAL !!!
10. I ran out of money for
shrinks and Prozac and couldn't keep a girlfriend.
You brilliantly assessed my
situation in a short time and challenged my stagnant
thinking to make some difficult changes. As a result of our
discussion I acted upon the advice and have had a complete
reversal of fortune.
1. The Business is debt free and
all back taxes were paid with interest without compromise.
2. Sales from October 2007 to
Sept 2008 are 1.9 million dollars placing me in the top 5 in
my industry.
3. My personal income for 2008
will be over $250,000. I have over $100,000 in the bank and
over $400,000 in receivables.
4. I have a dream staff of 14
highly qualified and happy employees who relish the overtime
we have.
5. I have retooled the entire
company with new computers and equipment. paid for with CASH
!
6. My personal debts are being
settled by a consultant as the have been sold off to a
variety of third parties.
7. I no longer see a shrink,
don't need Prozac and the girlfriend is a dream come true.
8. I now drive a modest used
minivan paid for with cash and still live in the hood but am
exited about having the ability to pay cash for a home.
My story is somewhat
unbelievable but accurate and true. I am throwing a 50th
birthday party this weekend for over 150 friends and I wish
you could be there.
I am looking forward to our next
consultation as I need to make some difficult decisions on
what to do with all this success....
ps... did you say your
consulting services were only $75 per hour? I spent more
than that driving to the casino this weekend.
In His Service
(client, name withheld)
I
couldn't make up a story as good as this one. Not everyone
has a great product, the motivation and the plain old guts
to do what works. For those who do, the rewards are pretty
good. Just a hard-headed application of the basics of
business for the most part - helping people get outside of
old headspaces and limits and into new.
So
yes, we do a little more around here than raise goats and scalp
money on deals like this week's Lehman
trade. We actually help folks.
For immediate release The
Federal Open Market Committee decided today to keep its
target for the federal funds rate at 2 percent.
Strains in financial markets
have increased significantly and labor markets have weakened
further. Economic growth appears to have slowed recently,
partly reflecting a softening of household spending. Tight
credit conditions, the ongoing housing contraction, and some
slowing in export growth are likely to weigh on economic
growth over the next few quarters. Over time, the
substantial easing of monetary policy, combined with ongoing
measures to foster market liquidity, should help to promote
moderate economic growth.
Inflation has been high, spurred
by the earlier increases in the prices of energy and some
other commodities. The Committee expects inflation to
moderate later this year and next year, but the inflation
outlook remains highly uncertain.
The downside risks to growth and
the upside risks to inflation are both of significant
concern to the Committee. The Committee will monitor
economic and financial developments carefully and will act
as needed to promote sustainable economic growth and price
stability.
Voting for the FOMC monetary
policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; Christine M.
Cumming; Elizabeth A. Duke; Richard W. Fisher; Donald L.
Kohn; Randall S. Kroszner; Sandra Pianalto; Charles I.
Plosser; Gary H. Stern; and Kevin M. Warsh. Ms. Cumming
voted as the alternate for Timothy F. Geithner.
Fed's in a rock and hard spot - market's not gonna like it...
Rate Cut Roulette
We'll get to the CPI report as our second headline today.
But first, the important stuff:
Statistical analysis has never been my favorite cup of
Poisson. My idea of a normal distribution is the kind
that come in checks from successful companies to shareholders,
rather than those curvy things pseudo numeratists post around
the net. Mark Twain's assessment of statistics ("Lies,
damn lies, and statistics") is still far and away the best
assessment I had seen, until yesterday.
That's when a reader sent me a link to a new article by Nassim
Nicholas Taleb with the title "The Fourth Quadrant: A map of the
limits of statistics" which is more than worth close scrutiny,
not just because Taleb's book 'The Black Swan" is the best study
ever about statistical outliers (like the market decline
which will continue through year's end that we got a leaping
edge taste of Monday) but because he clearly sounds an alarm
about "The Dangers of Bogus math":
"I
start with my old crusade against "quants" (people like
me who do mathematical work in finance), economists, and
bank risk managers, my prime perpetrators of iatrogenic
risks (the healer killing the patient). Why iatrogenic
risks? Because, not only have economists been unable to
prove that their models work, but no one managed to prove
that the use of a model that does not work is neutral, that
it does not increase blind risk taking, hence the
accumulation of hidden risks. "
The long and short of it - overly simplified just to get you
thinking about things other than work at this hour - is that
some classes of statistics work very, very well. If they
didn't all the molecules of air in the room would every so often
rush to one side of the room, with you on the other, and that
would end your tax paying days. We don't read about that
happening very often.
On the other hand, there is a class of statistics that
lives in Taleb's "Fourth Quadrant" that while the pretend
to give results worth believing really don't. The reasons
we have been so successful in the study of gambling is that it's
a win/lose, yes/no, heads/tails kind of result. Simple
enough to grasp even if you hate Poisson.
But the problem in his "Fourth Quadrant" is that many times, the
outcome of what is overly simplified to a logic based on a
yes/no/black/white/heads/tails world is that many outcomes are
not just adistribution there's more akin to a
topology and as such yes/no thinking falls apart because it
fails to adequately capture the impact of outliers. And,
just as in Russian Roulette, no telling when those damn outliers
will make their appears.
---
Now, let's roll back to Monday when I said it would not surprise
me to see the market drop 600 points. At its worse, as one
reader pointed out, I was 71 points off - better by a mile than
what anyone else was talking about in the pre-open that he was
aware of.
Not tooting my horn here, but intuitively, I've got a feel for
these 'outlier' events, such as the Monday collapse in the Dow.
Don't know where it comes from - just a kind of a 'gut feeling'
that comes along and I honor it in all manner of strange ways.
One of the ways is to keep a very, very small amount of money in
an eTrade account so that a) I have access to their charting
system and 2) because every so often it's fun while the world is
collapsing to see just how good my gut is. Here is my IN
and OUT trade for Monday:
Date
Order #
Order Summary
Price
Executed
Status
Order
Type
Quantity
(Exec / Entered)
Symbol
Price
Type
Term
Price
09/15/2008
24
Sell
700/AON
LEH
Limit
Day
0.2500
0.2500
Executed
09/15/2008
23
Buy
700/AON
LEH
Limit
Day
0.1800
0.1563
Executed
Chump change, but I hope it makes the point that yes, even in
the midst of disaster and bankruptcy, a fool with some guts can
walk in, play a few bucks on an outlier, come up a winner and
promptly leave the casino. Not a lot of money, just enough
for a couple of bottles of cheap rum, but you see the point.
Economic pundits? Ask yourself this: How many made money
in Lehman on Monday? I mean besides me?
---
The thing about the market decline on Monday is that
it has upped the pressure on Ben Bernanke to cut interest rates
as the Fed meet. Implications from the bond market?
41.7% of traders imply no change, but 40.2% expect a
quarter-point cut and 11.3% expect a half point. That
means under "normal conditions" (remember them?) the Fed would
do the consensus quarter point drop.
"Economists" meanwhile are at a median 2.0% consensus -
no change - so if anything moves, look for a market reaction
from their clients. Moreover, expect it.
(Traditional) Economists get just about everything wrong lately.
Including and especially the Great Delevering. It will
take years for them to catch up to reality and what I've
referred to as the reciprocal of the "virtuous cycle'. But
here's our ever-ready graphic to help them along which has been
on our Street Level Economics page for years. Deserves to
be dusted off now and then:
See how simple economics can be?
If the Fed goes for a half point drop panic immediately because
that will signal we're going down the same trail as Japan did
following their housing collapse in the 1989-present decline.
I don't think they're that crazy.
But should they do that, let me be the first one to hold up
Taleb's great little article and suggest that this will trigger
a global cascading collapse because we're not talking about a
single-dimensional heads/tails, yes/no kind of decision.
We're now in territory where all it will take is for just one
piece of sand in the gearbox to tear the whole global economic
engine apart.
Not that it's not falling apart anyway - it's just a matter of
how bad are you going to be personally hurt by events coming
down the pike and how do you protect yourself?
The global situation may be accurately cast as a bubble.
As a bubble is blown up in size, it expands and all things
appear to be great and wonderful. And then there's a
'pop!' and that's all she wrote.
Of course, this 'pop' will last well into next year and unless
you've transitioned your wealth into the tools of survival and
the manufacture of things with value, life may get really ugly.
No secotr will be untouched, but what will matter is where you
are in the food chain.
Government employees now are in a great spot. It will take
a year or two before tax collections collapse to the point where
government will lay people off. We can see how teaching
jobs could even be impacted next year as the student loan
picture continues to deteriorate. I've told many
colleagues in the private postsecondary higher ed field that as
a long-term investment a private college would be a poor choice.
Two years ago I was a nutjob. I still am today, but there
are clouds ahead for student loans - or anything else that will
require government financing.
Unfortunately, as the consumer economy falls apart over the next
year, the unemployment ranks will swell quickly in the private
sector. Stock up on things while you can and have money!
---
Unintended consequences of the LEH bankruptcy are just starting
to circulate. One Wall
Street firm has an internal research note today that says in
part...
"Summary: Evergreen Solar announced after the market close
that it could be negatively impacted by Lehman's
bankruptcy...
...The net impact would be a big uptick in share count
associated with the capped call transaction and common stock
lending agreement."
More details here on the MarketWatch site. I like
Evergreen Solar - and the whole renewable energy sector for that
matter...Like I said - unintended consequences. And how
many more will come to light?
---
Two Conversations
The two most important conversations I had on Monday were with
Cliff at HalfPastHuman and with my friend who's deep inside the
bowels of the fixed income markets. His firm, which
stepped up in July and August of this year and bought fixed
income units has all but quit buying. The reason?
Every time they bought something, discounts would become deeper
- to the point where they've gotten sick of it and are no longer
buying anything. That's destined to lead to what?
Deeper discounts ahead, of course.
And it's even more insidious than that. I won't mention
which Wall Street firm (that might have spawned a few
appointed government types though) a while back bought a big
mortgage servicing company. A good-sized one that accounts
from something like 25% of the subprime servicing.
Word has it that after the acquisition, the new parent cut staff
on the servicing side so that the business unit would show a
good profit, but (think Taleb and unintended consequences here)
that also meant that under-serviced loans have been piling up.
No telling how big that pile is, but the parent firm has been
short the mortgage market presumably knowing from their
subsidiary how bad things are.
My source then went on to say that there's a huge pile of
subprime that's 60-90 days past due, but hasn't hit foreclosure
yet and he points out that something like 75% of the loans that
are 90-days past due and only a year or so old turn into
foreclosures. My friend is pessimistic that the housing
mess will end anytime soon - and 'soon' to a fixed income guru
means within a year.
The conversation with Cliff of HalfPastHuman was also quite
sobering. "Remember our "October Event" is supposed to be 20%
terra entity, 40% military, and 40% economic?" he began.
Oh yeah, do I ever.
"Well, we're not seeing much of anything out of the ordinary
from the data stream coming in, which seems to shade toward a
sudden appearance of something big in the military arena."
Not comforting. Because that's how a sudden showdown with
Russia over our recent occupancy of the Black Sea and a
quick/overwhelming Russia hit, or a domestic terrorist event
would play out. And yes, the body count of 2.2 million
or 22-million is still floating about - it's just a matter of
who and where? We'll pass on anything that comes into
focus...
---
So, the emails come piling in.
"G,
I keep hearing that we will get
a huge drop in the markets. Today was 500 points. Lets say
we get 2-3000 in 30 days or so...what does that translate
into regarding the average man in the street? "
No retirement account or prospect of retirement, to begin with.
A semi-nomadic life among the ruins is a kind of worst-case, but
a high enough possibility to have good all-weather clothing and
broken-in hiking shoes. But again, I always over prep for
things.
You can test your preps easy enough any time by unplugging your
phone, turning off your power, not using your checking account
or credit cards - and don't forget to turn off the water, too.
If youi can get by for 90-days to a couple of years in
this condition, I'd say you're about as well prepared as you can
get.
On the other hand, if you can't, then relax because you've
got...let me see....20 days to October 7th.
---
The markets will likely be in a holding pattern to slight
downward drift today, awaiting the Fed decision. AIG
boosters seemed disappointed that the Treasury didn't offer to
write them a check, but nowhere do I find statutory authority
even on this wild ride to lend public money to a private
insurance company. Bad enough Wall Street banksters
are holding up the public coffers, I mean is there no shame?
(What, am I kidding? Of course
there's not!)
And then there's an article in
the Wall Street Journal suggesting that BofA may have paid too
much for Merrell Lynch. Yeah, yeah, the happy talk
with the money honeys was that the "Thundering Herd" of brokers
at ML was a prize, but hasn't anyone besides me and my
10-decimal point buddy figured out that when half the hedge
funds in the world disappear there won't be a need for oh, maybe
half as many brokers?
---
Since it takes a couple of weeks to get a TreasuryDirect Account
set up, that window is about to close, although my fixed income
source reminded me that no one has ever lost money in an FDIC
insured account. Which, while true so far, doesn't mean
the process is anywhere near prompt and I'd like to be
able to get my hands on my dough on a whim. We'll
be sweeping money into our TreasuryDirect account late this week
or early next.
Then there's the reader who wants to know what happens if the
government defaults on TreasuryDirect accounts. My answer
here was simple: "Remember those hiking shoes and that
semi-nomadic lifestyle among the ruins I mentioned a moment
ago?"
However, as I have explained previously, the momentary drops in
gold and silver are more likely related to the Great Delevering,
wherein funds are systematically unwinding positions and as
positions come off, prices get squirrely.
I expect at some point that the government will get serious
about fanning the flames of inflation in order to save the day.
When that happens, gold and silver will blossom, but even in the
meantime, recall that silver but even more so gold were highly
prized in the last Depression.
---
Rule Bending
As if the PR Department at the Fed isn't busy enough with a rate
decision, they've already got a whole slew of press released out
this week:
"The federal banking agencies
are evaluating the amendments to generally accepted
accounting principles proposed today by the Financial
Accounting Standards Board (FASB).
Several readers have why we don't simply
bring back the Glass-Steagall Act and separate investment banks
from commercial banks. The answer is, of course, that the
Bankers have deeper pocket and more persistence than mere Voters.
Just another bad hangover from the Clintonista Era.
Now, back to the fine art of rearview economics...
The Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical
Workers (CPI-W) decreased 0.5 percent in August, prior to
seasonal adjustment. The August level of 215.247 (1982-84=100)
was 5.9 percent higher than in August 2007.
The Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers
(C-CPI-U) decreased 0.2 percent in August on a not seasonally
adjusted basis. The August level of 125.843 (December 1999=100)
was 4.7 percent higher than in August 2007. Please note that the
indexes for the post-2006 period are subject to revision.
CPI for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U)
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the CPI-U decreased 0.1
percent in August, following a 0.8 percent increase in July. The
index for energy fell 3.1 percent in August after three
consecutive sharp increases. The gasoline index declined by 4.2
percent in August but is 35.6 percent higher than in August
2007. The index for household energy, which was up 3.8 percent
in July, declined 1.6 percent in August. The food index advanced
0.6 percent in August after rising 0.9 percent in July. The
index for food at home rose 0.8 percent in August after a 1.2
percent increase in July and is up 7.5 percent over the past
year. The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.2
percent in August after increasing 0.3 percent in July. A
downturn in the index for lodging away from home was responsible
for almost half of the smaller increase. Deceleration in the
indexes for new vehicles, apparel, and telephone services also
contributed. Partly offsetting these were larger increases in
the indexes for medical care and recreation."
No doubt about it: This does give the Fed room to move. Oh
sure, the compound annual rate for the most recent 3-months is still
7.2%, but that's down a lot from last month's 9.1% annualized rate.
More to the point, the "core rate' - that mythical touchstone of out
of touch economists showed that when you back out food and energy
9those don't count to these folks) the annualized rate is only 3.4%
and Year on Year (YoY) it's only 2.5%.
Meanwhile, the Fed will no doubt look at
last week's Money Stocks report and see that the M-1 is only up
1.6% YoY while M-2 is up 5.4%. Money supply growth may be
slowing and nothing like a little rate drop to kick it in the pants
and keep out of deflation territory.
As the first few drops from the shower hit my face this morning,
I found myself pondering an email from a friend in Aiken South
Carolina. It was about how the price of gas - just
before Hurricane Ike tore through Texas this weekend - had
gone up, up and then after Ike hit Texas gas disappeared:
"As I said in my last response--we didn't hear the
rumor down here in Aiken--we just ran out of gas without
anyone saying anything. There is no gas in this entire
town....I topped off the car at the last gas station open,
which will close in about 1/2 hour. Most have been closed
for a day or so....they say they will not get anymore until
sometime toward the end of next week?"
A
few other emails, read over the course of the weekend, had
gotten me to thinking about whether Ike could be playing some
kind of a "second fuse" role going into what linguistically
reads like a potential economic collapse this fall.
The
collapse of Lehman of course being the first fuse lit this
weekend with their record bankruptcy which I figure could push
the Dow down as much as 600-points today
The
'blame game' is already underway, too. A headline that "Lehman
CEO Fuld's hubris contributed to meltdown" misses the point,
I think, that a bank can suffer all kinds of hubris if
the balance sheet is healthy and the bank run in a sound manner
with adequate reserves.
Please recall, as a student of history, there was a very good
reason that following the 1930's when the Nation learned the
dangers of bankers becoming brokers, and visa-versa, the
functions of the two business forms were separated. The
reemergence of the banker/broker hybrid model (which we
collectively refer to as Banksters) was an inevitable outgrowth
of several small precursor events.
Among these put in Saturday banking - which seemed innocent
enough at the time - and the removal of interest rate caps after
the last hard fight by Organized Labor to impose a 12% annual
percentage rate cap nationally. And from there things
spiraled to today's latest, but certainly not last, reckoning.
---
Not
that the Treasury and Fed wouldn't have loved to, but
they only had so much money, a good chunk of which is gone, and
they have other major investment outfits such as which are
on life support such as
Merrill Lynch which apparently has struck a deal with Bank of
America, but until the ink is dry, we'll just remain
watchful of developments.
If
we go through a 5% decline in the Dow, that would translate to a
drop of 571 points today, but we'll just round off our
expectations to 600 points (or more) on the downside and count
anything less as a major victory for the President's Working
Group on Markets, the so-called Plunge Protection Team, that
will no doubt be working feverishly to fulfill their role as
maintainers of 'economic stability'. The futures were
only down 363 on the Dow as I looked prior to the open, but
hey, markets always go to extremes in one direction or another.
The
task is, of course, very much like trying to choreograph a train
wreck: There's only so much that can be done. What
they (the PPT/PTB) will likely do would be to let the markets
fall, as they almost certainly will today, and then when they
sense a bottom, but the futures like crazy to 'arb up' the
indices so that on a closing basis the day won't seem all
that bad. If, of course, everything works out just
so. But, the global markets are a big locomotive, with the
emphasis on loco.
---
If
you've been reading this site for a while, you will have paid
attention to the recent comments of Robin Landry who moved his
clients into cash, or short positions, over the past month since
his proprietary indicators sensed the trouble ahead.
And, you'll no doubt remember my reminder to open a U.S.
TreasuryDirect account so you could swing money out of whichever
bank you were in and into the (relatively) safer Treasuries
outside the banking system - especially if you were in the
$100,000+ range with your holdings.
Now.
We
still have a couple of weeks until things really heat up around
October 7th, so if you don't have a TreasuryDirect account, go
read the story captioned "Wilbur
Ross sees about 1,000 bank closures: report" and tell me
again why you have not been shadowing our moves?
Still, as bad (or good) as today works out, the worse damage is
ahead next month, linguistically. Today's likely just to
be 'foreplay'. Get used to it.
---
So
where are we? I mean, the condition of the global
financial system was essentially just as screwed up on Friday.
If anything, a pending bankruptcy for Lehman injects a
refreshing bit of honesty into events.
So
I keep circling back to Ike. And my friend in Aiken, SC.
A
worthwhile post to read over at The Oil Drum involves the "Implications
of a 10-day Refinery Outage". Sobering stuff - and any
shortfalls would show up uncomfortably close to what date?
Still, any chance to make a buck and someone's expense, right?
"Gas
Price Gouging Hits Hurricane States." Free enterprise
for gas stations, but not for failing banks? Fine policies,
yessir.
---
But
seriously, or nearly so: This is likely to be a tough Monday
morning in America - financial fallout and picking up after
Hurricane Ike which passed over our ranch on Saturday about
mid-day. But even so, we've got a ways to go before
October, so I will look for a good bounce in the market later
this week when I'm expecting a collective "Whew! That was
close..." to be heard from the markets.
It's then I expect to be buying my long expiration puts. I
have plenty of faith in America. but little in Banksters.
I reckon today's market action ought to justify that stance -
yet again.
So,
have some coffee, and watch today - which is looking like just
the introduction to the long book that follows:
Nightmare on Wall Street.
Watching the
Deities
With our readers and Peoplenomics.com subscribers well advised
on our shunning of equities except for some loose change to put
in the long-shot options, it's always interesting to read how
the various financial deities are doing for their congregations.
Or,
is this the Universe having a wry wink at us and explaining the
second-level meaning of the story
AIG seeks $40 billion bridge loan?
---
Also, as long as we're speaking of financial deities, let's not
forget former Fed Boss Alan "Housing bubbler" Greenspan.
the "US
in 'once-in-a-century' financial crisis: Greenspan".
No sh*t, Sherlock. Who do you think helped create it with
easy money, predatory lending, and >100% LTV loans for
people who had no business buying a home in the first place,
huh?
Ike's Leftovers
Hit
Ohio where our correspondent reports:
"About 300,000 lost power today
in the metro Columbus OH area as Ike's winds went through
and they are saying it may be up to a week to get everybody
hooked back up (many crews already sent to Texas/LA).
Much of Ohio from here (middle
of the state) up towards the NW was apparently hit with
60-65 steady gusting to 75-80 mph winds so the overall power
outage is going to be much larger than just what hit the
metro Columbus area.
Luckily weather is overall good,
not winter yet, and the winds were not accompanied by rain,
just winds, so other than trees crashing into everything and
shingles being ripped off roofs there should not be much
secondary damage."
The Runs:
Say what?
The
headline in the Washington Post this morning that "Bush's
Overseas Policies Begin Resembling Obama's" has me
scratching my head. There's still no anti-war,
pro-Constitution, pro-sound money candidate from either of the
corporate-owned parties.
Industrial Production today, CPI tomorrow. FOMC/Fed statement
Wednesday, Housing Starts Thursday and Leading Indicators on
Friday.
Heck - hardly nothing going on this week. Phone in sick.
Financial world doesn't end till October. Trust me on
this... Besides, couldn't you could use
some work on your
swing?
Remember, there's a 21-day clock still ticking in the Black Sea.
I
mean does He use 'internet time' or WWV, or the blanking
interval timing on the back porch of TV station signals?
The GPS constellation? Does he have a bookmark for
www.nist.gov? Does he
go by
sidereal time? Does His mathematics accurately
calculate the
local hour angle?
Hey, look, this is serious stuff. What if God is using
a Canadian time
reference? Or more informally, from my Danish roots,
what about coffee time and pastry time? And from my
distant youth, Party time?
Hey! Maybe God uses the
Hebrew calendar. But wait! That brings up a
couple of more issues:
First, would it be PC to apply a Hebrew calendar to goyim?
OK, say it is...then how does He deal with the
'missing years' issue? Or, does he go by the
Julian
calendar?
Gregorian, maybe? I mean that's the most common one,
but even there we find issues: Did We get His
Leap Year
set right, if His calendar has one?
I
just thumbed through my Bible here and I don't find any guidance
on this critical "What time is it?" issue, so I'm forced to the
conclusion that God has created the Universe like a massively
scaled up version of Vista. Cool when it works, but then
there's the rest of the time. Whatever that might be.
Aren't we due for another Service Pack soon?
----
Thankfully, with modern technology and the leveling of
hierarchies, maybe I could just fire off an email to
Pope@Vatican.com....
I wonder if His Holiness would have time to answer.
Wealth Transfer
Reader asks:
"Is it time to transfer cash in money market accounts to my
Treasury Direct Account? Please do it on the free site!"
Opinion only - not advice: Yes.
News from
Elliott Wave International
Chart of the Week!
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 PowersThatBe, 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:
This is a Free Financial News and economic information site updated daily except Sundays.
If you can not get to
www.urbansurvival.com from your corpgov workstation, please try our
mirror site: www.independencejournal.com
. This site is also available at www2.urbansurvival.com and
www3.urbansurvival.com which may not be blocked.
·Bulletins are posted as our work schedule permits and
as events warrant.
·I try to publish Monday-Saturday by 8 AM Central
Time/ 9 AM Eastern with 7:55 Central pretty normal. If you're easily
offended by the occasional typo, then check about 8:15 Central we usually
proofread and spell check after the first post. We've had some amusing
typos in the past... Sometimes a Saturday issue will be dropped due to
projects & chores on our ranch.
·Financial and news judgments of the publisher are not
to be considered "advice"
·Please read and understand our disclaimer
·All original content (C) 2008 by George A. Ure
except sources as linked. Very short extracts are occasionally
used under 'fair use' but never entire articles without permission. That
would be beyond 'fair use'.
·Copyright of all linked articles is cited under fair
use as this is a topic specific site (long wave economics and humanistic
economics, which we call "Peoplenomics"
Our premium
service, which contains more in depth reports is available on a $40/year
subscription basis. Details at
www.peoplenomics.com/subscribe.htm.
The "web bot
project" indicates a reference to the time predictive technology embodied in the
"Asymmetric Language Trend Analysis Intelligence Reports"
technology pioneered and
operated by Tenax Software Engineering for
www.halfpasthuman.com. An
intro to the
technology is here. Extracts,
when used, are with exclusive permission and any references on other web
sites must contain a link to both this site and HalfPastHuman's main page:
www.halfpasthuman.com.
(
