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Published Monday through Friday about 8 AM Central Time Except Holidays Depending on my mood...
Updated:
Saturday
January 17, 2009
06:40 CDT
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Trickle-Up Troubles/Patriot's Paradox Although I swear to myself weekly that I won't write on weekends, except to do the weekly in depth report reserved for subscribers to my Peoplenomics newsletter, it seems here lately that events have been of magnitude, and encompassing the "Year of Transformation" concept, that I'm compelled to get up at 4 AM and jot down at least a few of the 'dots to connect' as having at least a framework for the arriving changes (through summer) should be somewhat comforting.
I'll begin with the note that here it is January and we are now seeing the leading edges of the 'rationing/shortages/restrictions' that have been popping up for almost a year in the www.halfpasthuman.com linguistic forecasts. Specifically, the state of California on Friday had a whole barrelful of bad news about the formerly 'Golden' state's budget.
The biggest concern, however, is that there are plans by state officials to begin cutting in the welfare sector and that's where I become concerned that not only is the talk of rationing/restrictions about to show up out of modelspace, but worse, cutting entitlements/welfare is the kind of thing which in other periods of history and other countries has set the stage for that most dreaded of words, 'revolution', the leading edge of which is already touching Greece, Latvia, Poland, a the list goes on and on.
For now, the state is telling certain vendors that it will have to wait on their money, and people who were expecting a California tax refund are going to have to chill for a while: The state doesn't have the dough to pay.
The coverage in the Sillycon Valley's Merc is (as usual) very good and the article "California welfare cuts expected to be deep" is worth reading.
But, after doing so, I'm left with what I call trickle-up troubles and the 'patriot's paradox.'
The trickle-up trouble concept is best summarized as a fear that the linguistic 'summer of hell' which the language shifts suggest will show up not only in the USA, but also globally as a 'fuzzy revolution' this summer, may not hit the federal government from the 'failing banks and national institutions, but may instead arrive as a cadre of angry governors who will be paying the price at the state level for the current push-off of financial woes on the shoulders of taxpayers and, to some extent, at the expense of the States.
It's long been common practice that the federal government often enacts federal programs but either doesn't provide state refunds for the expense of programs, or is very slow to pay, but this would be something far beyond that. It's that states may start to default on their obligations, just as private financial entities have, and the federal side which has already been sucked dry by private insurance outfits, banksters, and so on, may not have enough left to save the very framework of American government.
Indeed the conspiracy-minded might view this are more than coincidental: It' could be the Executive Branch tightening its control not only to the point where Congress and the Supreme Court have been diminished to relatively diminished roles (or irrelevance, depending on how you read Executive Orders and signing statements that often infringe on the obvious intent of Congress).
By holding state's by the 'budget nuts' the federalization of America would accelerate, and in the same way that Congress has been marginalized, so too would States be relegated to minor functionary roles as implementers of programs from 'on high.' Not that this is likely to set well everywhere, since despite the historical focus on slavery, the War Between the States was to a large extent over the size and power of the central government.
And this brings me to what I'd frame as the Patriot's Paradox.
The paradox is this: If you saw that your country was headed down the wrong path, how would you respond to it with your personal financial resources? If, for example, you had a half-million dollars in an 401(k) would you move it into other kinds of assets than financial 'paper'? Or, would you realize that in making that kind of move, you might actually be participating in the undermining of the 'paper game' and thus, what could be viewed as sensible asset management could also be regarded/labeled as subversion by those with a vested interest in 'paradigm preservation'.
Temporal Marker A reader who gets the web bot runs (future predicting linguistics) wonders if this week's 7.4 earthquake in the Kuril Islands fills the temporal marker for the 'quake in disputed lands'. Well, since the Kuril's are contested by Japan and Russia, I'd guess so...which means (let me set my timer here) we should be about a week out from Obama's "test".
Attn Texas: BOHICA Thinking the CANAMEX high project, one of the keys to outsourcing those pesky well-paying jobs in the US to lower cost Mexican labor, was dead after being pronounced so by Texas governor Rick Perry on January 6th?
Well, no, it's actually been repackaged and rebranded, it seems as the John Birch Society reveals that the " Trans-Texas Corridor Born Again As “Innovative Connectivity Plan”.
This from the same gang that couldn't think straight in Austin which took Lone Star State roads, whose construction was paid for by taxpayers, and sold off toll road operating rights to foreign corporations which tax money from the Republic and pocket it in other countries.
Takes a certain kind of genius to come up with it, and a different kind of genius to sell those kind of scams. You're welcome to add descriptive adjectives to the word genius. I would, but this is a PG-rated site.
All part of the growth of government and corporate interests which are well positioned to stomp on regular humans. It's a natural consequence of differential tax treatment (corporations versus humans) which we get into in this weekend's Peoplenomics.
The Proof Is In The Headlines Not to give away the content that keeps this server operating, but here are two headlines which when read back-to-back make the case about as clear as can be:
Ure's Axiom 127: Equal protection under the Constitution only applies to human-human conflicts, not human-corporations conflict. Advantage: corporations.
No Free Lunch But then, there never is as I notice the report "Electric cars will need lots of financial support - report."
A Few More Data Points As we lurch along toward what (linguistically) may be a Middle East showdown in a week, this curious opening tidbit from Friday guest host of "The Current" Sheila Coles was interesting:
What me worried about next weekend? More data points:
Does Osama know something we don't? Or, is it just an effort to shake surveillance teams?
Did I mention January 26 is the dark of the moon and what better time for Gen3 and Gen4 imaging gear to be used to greatest effect?
Around The Ranch: Tool Talk
Not often that I will pimp tools, but every so often one comes
along that really catches my eye. In this case it's the
new Rockwell RK5102K Sonicrafter Deluxe 72-pc Kit
Pretty cool product: Cuts using high frequency vibrations. Gee, wonder where they got the word 'sonic" from, huh?)
All excited with my find, I called chief time monk Cliff to announce I had found a New Tool. This is always something of a festive occasional around here. I've been a 'tool junkie' my whole life - may be something genetic about being a fireman's son?
Anyway, imagine my disappoint where I heard "Yeah, got the German version of it last year for something like $289...used it on the boat around the tabernacle. Really good for using anywhere you'd just a Japanese saw...get extra cutting blades - they run about $11 bucks..."
Damn! Spit fire & save matches. Foiled again! Figured he'd have a set of nokogiri, but this?
One of these days I am going to find a tool that Cliff doesn't already have in his collection. Oh sure, I have a few things, but they're career specific stuff. I don't have the prolog compiler or a stripped out Windows 98 kernel he's got, but he probably doesn't have the dual-trace 40MHz oscilloscope, signal generators, or a vacuum tube tester I've got.
Still, one of these days I'm going to find a new and specifically general purpose tool before he either buys or builds one. Or so I like to think. Maybe I'm just delusional, you think? --- Damn I'm glad I'm not doing Saturday updates, LOL...
Strategic Contingencies: Obama's Persian Gulf "Test"? Remember the talk about how an early test of the Obama presidency was expected early on? Those comments which 'came and went' during the presidential campaign might now materialize in real-time later this month. So, in order not to be caught flat-footed by possible future events, we mix up the latest outputs from the predictive linguistics project, dump in a handful of high tech Land Warrioring suitable for a Tom Clancy novel, and then season it with just a spritz of 'collision of civilizations' to come up with a contingency planning framework for a late January 'international crisis' which could become the modern day analog of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Details are for subscribers only, but even for non-subscribers, the personal action points might be: That high gas mileage car may turn out to be a good idea, if indeed Camelot 2 meets Missile Crisis 2 in the waters between Jazireh-ye Qeshm and a little island named Abu Musa.
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Why, sending an email to everyone in your 'contact' file and tell them about www.urbansurvival.com of course!
"Live on $10,000" Updated What? You haven't ordered the ebook "How to Live on $10,000 a year -- or 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 or, click one of the following button:
Yep - still possible. I also took a bit of additional material that was pertinent from recent issues of Peoplenomics and included them. The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the aforementioned dollar amount, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you make a little more than that and do some active savings... Click here for the page with more details on it. ---- Last week's report is here. For back issues of this site, click here. (Goes back to 1997!)
Friday January 16, 2009 Turn on the Business Unit Blender Got a bank or major corporation that's in trouble? Bothered by pesky strings on who can be in what bonus pool? Feeling tired and low because you were told to buy a major mortgage company more at less at gunpoint, knowing full well it would become a real drag on your operation and you'd have to get bailout money at some point? Welcome to the new all-purpose solution to nightmares financial which I call "The Business Unit Blender."
It's quietly running, so we can carefully pry the top off and look down in side it and see what's being 'blended, chopped, chipped, separated, and pureed:
Ah...there's a big chunk: "City posts loss, splits up the company"...you see that?
Look, here's another: "Treasury, Bank of America reach bailout deal."
And another! "UBS sells parts of commodities unit to Barclays."
So, barring disastrous financial news this morning on the Consumer Price Index, which we'll get to in a second, there's actually something of a respite at least for the financial stocks.
Oh sure, outfits on the corporate side are still slugging it out wth falling consumer demand for about everything. You saw where Black Angus Steakhouse have filed for bankruptcy because people are staying home in droves? Or that thanks to falling sales, Samsung (South Korea) is in reorganize mode?
I've said it before, and I'll say it again 'till I'm blue in the face: The reasons for the current financial debate really come down to a couple of very simple concepts: There's not much out there in the way of new "Gotta have it" products. Even the $650-billion being sought for the transition to digital TV is just a blip: Everyone I know has at least one digital-set ready for the big changeover.
Until humans get control of how corporations work (which I'll get into at some level of detail this weekend for www.peoplenomics.com subscribers) we're all bound up in a dance that ends with the bankers, who are presently leading the dance, stepping on all our toes.
Why? Because bankers believe that they are the alpha and omega of the world. The truth is something else: They're not.
It's like I've seen time and time again in companies I've worked in: The CFO gets to thinking he knows more about sales than the VP Sales. On the rare case when the CEO buys that crap, the finance types generally run things into the ground. Finance is bean counting, yet in America today we're seeing the ultimate primacy of the bean counters who are mortgaging our futures in an unbelievable way because most folks don't have the chutzpah to say "Ban the Bean Counters" - bring back the visionaries.
This is not exactly new territory for America, though.
We've been here before in the first Great Depression. I
was reading FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Bloomberg, I think it was, had a headline on this morning that went to the effect "Acompora says 6,000 possible is 2008 lows are broken." Which is pretty much what Robin Landry said earlier this week. At least a few folks are 'seeing it'.
The rest? We'll just likely see the same kind of well-intended follies come through the Obama administration; works projects, extension of government, and all the rest.
America is getting painfully close to replaying the Depression as I've been writing for 16-years that we would. Although it's playing out much slower than I expected, it's nevertheless here in form. A reverse migration out of cities is underway, illegal immigrants are finding more opportunity back in Mexico, there's a lack of groundbreaking product innovation in the 'gotta have it' category, and banks - despite all the government dough - are not lending for the simple reason that consumer confidence has cratered.
A national malaise is upon us, yet the mainstream media is loathe to call it what it is. This state we're now in has been touched, felt, and labeled in the past with a single word:
Depression.
The workaround for us 'average Americans' is to reach back into time, figure out how we would have played events had we been alive in the 1930's (which gets us to a reincarnation discussion, but we needn't go there) to figure the best possible route through it. Which is why my emphasis continues to be less on moneymaking and a lot more on self-sufficiency.
And look! Just out in time to bolster my self-sufficiency argument is this:
Hyperstagflation & the CPI Somebody who caught my appearance on an internet radio show this week (with Patrick Timpone on One Radio Network) asked me for a short working definition of 'hyperstagflation' which is what I'm expecting to see in the real economy.
To borrow a concept from The Bond Dude, it's when the things you don't need are dropping in price while the thing you do need are going up.
On morning's like this, when we have fresh grist - like the Consumer Price Index numbers to chew over - I try to sit back for a couple of hours and contemplate their 'inner meaning'.
The biggest decrease was in energy - down to the tune of a -21.3% annual rate, which carried over into transportation down annualized at the rate of -13.3%. Demand crash.
Food, on the other hand is up 5.8% on an annualized basis - so you see how 'what you need goes up' anyway? Even housing is up 2.4%...which I take to mean landlords aren't fools - has the housing collapse has maybe helped rental vacancy rates? Need to look into that...
But the report overall is evidence at the macro-econ level of deflation. If the actual cost of living (seasonally adjusted, but not inflation corrected) is up 0.1% and M-3 (reconstructed) is up 15% (although the rate of increase is under 8% now, evidence that pushing on the noodle is getting harder) I'd call it somewhere between a 8% and 15% deflation rate.
My friend Jas Jain would no doubt be pointing to the Consumer Debt Report and saying "I told you so...", which he did. I'd be pointing to the increased food prices though and say "But wait!" What's a little stagflation between friends, though? Besides, housing is up......without the energy slump we'd be in inflation I'd counter and it would be a long (but enjoyable) conversation.
Oily Mess As global demand implodes, we see oil is down to about $35 now: A combination of the weakening Western economy and the need of the oil empires to pump in order to meet their social contract obligations in their home countries, not to mention pay for those ice arenas in the desert and building that financial empire in Dubai.
Gotta hand it to those geniuses at the International Energy Agency for forecasting oil demand dropping for a second year in a row. No sh*t? Who couldn't have connected those dots by the end of the October 6-10 bloodletting?
Fighting Continues, Balancing Critiques A poll in Israel says 94% of the Israeli public supports Gaza operations. Quick. Look surprised.
As we build to our 'war window' next over the next week to 10-days (perhaps involving Iran) the ramp-up from the Iranian side continues to build with Iran's president saying it is 'Not Feasible' for Israel to live."
Israel meantime has arrested an Israeli for passing information to Iran.
This last point is the important one, I think, tactically. IF Iran was going to do something more belligerent than build a nuclear power plant, seems to me that they'd want to do it while their intelligence was still 'fresh'. Now that Israel has arrested what sounds like it might have been a key agent, it's only a matter of time until Shin Bet figures out the extent of the damage and the IDF reformulates in order to minimize the damage.
One might speculate, therefore, that Iran is in something of a window right now: They have what may be current 'inside information' on what's going on in Israel, but if they wait too long for any 'acting' on it, the value of their current intel might be seriously eroded. I think I hear a clock ticking. --- Meantime, I'm getting about an equal number of emails from readers who accuse me on the one hand of being anti-Semitic on the one hand and pro-Zionist on the other.
The truth, by the way, is neither. I'd suggest that you had look into the 'rickety time machine' you'd have a much different set of priorities than the partisans to any conflict. We needn't go there, except to note that by year's end a whole lot of humans will be 'transformed' because events yet to come. And it's only the start. Say, got a garden in? Walking shoes that are broken in? Water filter? Read up on what the concept Diaspora means?
Global Melting Although it's vogue to talk about global warming, the global melting of economies is worth keeping an eye on because it's the kind of thing that feeds global chaos. In case you've been sleeping since real human purchasing power peaked in 2000, global purchasing power by most humans is in a world of hurt.
Here's a story about how Poland may be getting ready to join the global collapse.
And no, things have not quieted down in Latvia, where there have been protesters clashing with police.
Did I mention the difficulties in Bulgaria this week?
Even already troubled Sudan is bracing for more troubles as war crimes charges loom for its president. --- What's really hard to model (other than just looking at it in HPH modelspace, maybe) is the complex systems response to increasing chaos. At first, it may be a minor nuisance. Then, it builds to a pretty steady background noise.
It's all very much like putting a handful of sand into a transmission of a car. The car might act up a little bit, and maybe even smooth out once the initial onset of damage is done and ground into paste. But the paste that remains is a fine grinding paste and the transmission's life expectancy is dramatically shortened to the point where even a few miles becomes a poor gamble.
Well, the world's complex socioeconomic system might be considered to be in a similar state. We've got fresh handfuls of sand - almost daily. The 'paste' is working around the edges, and we've got any number of conflicts going on globally about yesterday's paradigms. And in defense of yesterday's power structures. Clock's ticking.
Say, got a garden in? Walking shoes that are broken in? Water filter? Read up on what the concept Diaspora means?
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Coping: HP is Selling WHAT? A reader happened to send me a link to an interesting 'new merchandise' offering by HP. It's an 'urban survival' kit which is described this way:
About $11-bucks. No idea how much for shipping. But worth noting that HP has come out with such a thing. One of those "My, ain't that interesting?' kind of items.
If I were to add a few more items to such a kit, I'd probably add a tube of super glue. If you happen to be in a building when a big earthquake comes along, there's a lot of discussion about how super glue can be used to seal cuts (disclaimer: this is not medical advice, duh!). Go do some reading by throwing in words like "super glue stitch serious cut" and you'll come up discussions like this one.
Next thing I would add would be a pair of rubber gloves. You can get packs of the power-free nitrile (purple) kind at Wal-Mart for next to nothing and we keep boxes of them around the ranch. Dandy for working on greasy cars (or setting up the suspension on the red car yesterday - needed some dialing in to get 1G corners). Point being that if you work on someone else's injuries, you would want them and they come in useful for changing a flat tire and other roadside repairs.
Next I'd put in a small LED flashlight. Nothing big, but enough so you could find your way out of a building at night in event of a power failure.
In event of an earthquake, another extremely useful thing would be a couple of NIOSH N-95 masks. You can get disposable masks for less than a buck each.
QuickRead Books makes a dandy (small) easy-to-use first aid guide, in case you don't have the luxury of an EMT son who constantly drum ABC (airway, breathing, circulation) and other mnemonics into you every chance that comes along. I didn't know, for example that "O SHITA" was one response protocol for acute asthma: Oxygen, Salbutamol, Hydrocortisone, Ipratropium, Theophylline (Aminophylline if life threatening). More emergency medical mnemonics here, if you want... --- Send snip and save items to george@ure.net --- end snip and save section ---]
Thursday January 15, 2009 Producer Prices and Other Blues The headline is that Producer Prices are still falling:
Then we have the details...
Add this to the discouraging report out of JP Morgan this morning and it looks like another 'red numbers' day on Wall Street. It oughta be clear by now why, well before the October start of festivities, I was tell you "Flee paper assets!!!"
Not that the market needs another nail it in to set up a decline shortly to under 6,500 (See Robin Landry's warning to get into 'Crash Watch' mode, but here's another one: "US Foreclosure filings up 81 percent in 2008"
The Fed Beige Book out this week figures the worst is yet to come, too. Complete Beige Book is here in case you're having trouble sleeping...
Change You Won't Like The first stock broker I ever worked with, back when it was William P. Harper & Son in Seattle, before it became Harper-McLean, which in turn was before it was bought by Puget Sound Bancorp in 1989, was a fellow named Stu Seirer. His dad was a legendary outdoorsman with a hunting and dishing show on KING-TV (in days of black & white TV) and he'd had plenty of time sitting around campfires hearing jokes such as hunters and fishermen will tell after a hard day of sport.
One of my favorites - which I took as a lesson on investing - went something like this:
The lesson here? I mean besides how 'hide the sausage' management teams work? Despite many promises of change, this week's Clinton confirmation hearings keep bringing back the Legionnaire story as Clinton has ruled out direct talks with Hamas, who like it or not is the elected government of Gaza. Further, I can't help but remember that she voted for the War in Iraq, so her saying troop withdrawal is a 'top priority' rings just a tad hollow.
Along the same line, e.g. hollow sounding, we note that the Tim Geithner nomination to head up Treasury seems now 'too big to fail', and after what the DC Examiner headlines under "A little less transparency please" it seems that wish will be granted and Geithner will get the nod.
But of course. It's all in the change joke. Except instead of Francois, Marcel, and Henrique, we have players Bill, George, Barak, and the Banksters.
In fewest possible words: Joke's on us, eh? Change? The way things are going, that's all we'll be left with...and chump change at that.
Life Where? As long as I've started on 'good humor Thursday' - no doubt because I'm having more dental work done in a couple of hours and the NO2 is just ahead - a pleasant break from a shot of el Don for breakfast, here's another 'story'.
It begins with the late George Carlin's wonderful observation that went something like "Screw this NASA stuff, we should be looking to see if there's life on Earth.
No jobs in that, no votes to speak of, and what's the point, eh? So instead we're being treated to the revelation in the Sun that there is "Life on Mars."
No point about a follow-up question about intelligent life on Earth. Why? Step over here to our...
Money For Nothing Department Not that you need evidence of 'paradigm defending' as you should already have figured out that with the market approaching half it's valuation of 15-months back, we need fewer stock brokerage outfits, not maintaining nose-counts. But in case you're still in denial, go read how "Bank of American may receive U.S., aid for Merrill Lunch purchase."
Ask yourself: "Why are we giving money to brokers who sold us loser investments in paper? Why aren't we bailing out the futures of reg'lar folks who got screwed?" Refer back to the "Change" joke.
Besides, B of A has only received $25-billion worth of tax money so far...a mean lump under the TARP and pauperish levels considering the fruits of your labors, and those of your progeny are quickly becoming an investment bubble on their own. But, of course, you knew that, right?
Statehood for Mexico? Lots of folks are asking what I think of the "U.S. military report warns of 'sudden collapse' of Mexico is possible"; and article which has appeared in the El Paso Times and is going somewhat viral on the 'net.
Well, it's not like Mexico is alone: The report also says the Pakistan is also at risk of sudden collapse. So, I asked a friend, a very successful businessman his take on all this Mexico at risk talk:
What's not in the military report is the concept that the United States is also at risk of sudden collapse (refer to stories #1, 2 & 5 in particular if you haven't figured this out on your own yet) but it's not PC/good for one's career track in .mil-land to voice those kind of broader concerns. That's one of those 'change' stories folks don't like to think about.
Fortunately, there were be plenty of distractions along the way - which will serve to keep you unbalanced - and un prepared - along the way, so don't worry about Mexico being unbalanced. Look at Capitol Hill as a nearer starting point...or the oil trade...
Attack in the Power Vacuum I fully expect by the end of the month we'll see a major flare-up over Iran (Israel bombing) because the headlines are starting to fill with possible 'justifications' and 'leading indicators'. I mean beyond the US just sending 6-million pounds of arms to Israel. There's a void/window between administrations, of course...which would avoid placing blame on the outgoing or incoming for giving 'the nod'.
By the way, let's pencil something out: A ship making 20 miles per hour, leaving from the US this week would arrive in Israel when? Call it 6,200 miles, divided by 20 MPH gives us 310 hours of steaming time (OK, dieseling time, but don't be so picky). About 13-days. If the goodies had left middle of last week, they'd be offloading just in time for the 'dark of the moon' - ideal timing for an attack - on the cusp of 'change at the helm' of the U.S.
Here are some of the 'tension builders':
Peoplenomics.com subscribers already have the picture of how things might play out in the Persian Gulf - outlined in last week's report. So we just twiddle thumbs and wait for a report of a ship grounding of some kind to kick off the flare-up.
Oh, and little 'reader tips", too, like this one:
Yep, that would put it in the 'date range' outlined in Peoplenomics and from the time monks at www.halfpasthuman.com. We sit, we wait, we listen for the ship grounding report...
This note from the time monks (a/k/a the lingo-slingers) says we're at a key temporal marker and a good time to check seat belts:
Never comfortable when we see a major temporal marker go by...
Killing For Peace Department "Israel strikes U.N. complex in Gaza Strip" headlines the NY Times.
If you're doing the math on this, it's now something like "An eye for 76.92 eyes" and about half of them civilian.
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Coping: Latest Coffee Study There's a dandy one - and infinitely important at this time of the day - "Big coffee drinkers hallucinate more: study." Thank goodness. I thought it might be my half-dozen shots of el Don for breakfast. Just kidding! (It's only 3...LOL)
The really scary part of the report as I read it was not the coffee-hallucination link, but the passing mention that "...three percent of people regularly hear voices in their head."
Say WTF???? I mean besides Ohrworms? OMG we are all friggin doomed!
(Remind me to send 13¢ to the Mogambo Guru for borrowing his tagline.)
*** Marketing Idea *** Let's call it 'Hallucijuice!" One of the few domain names that's not being squatted on...
Global Where A note from the ice box this morning:
What the hell do you expect? It's winter! Here, have some coffee and let's hallucinate.
But seriously, folks the Russians say the world is on the brink of another Ice Age and we gotta book Al Gore for a tour of Siberia to whip 'em up a bit. Global Warming is an easy sell in Phoenix in the summer (duh) but let's see how it plays in Irkutsk this time of year.
But, seriously, I'm sure old AG could get a standing room audience even there. If he holds the talk in a phone booth. (rim shot)
Tending Our Gardens Lots of feedback about yesterday's question from the Midwest farm (with two farms) who was wondering how to help people and still make a buck. As it turns out, a reader responded by pointing out how CONgress - responding to the lobbying efforts of certain states - has really put the kibosh on local agriculture:
More options to consider? Sure!
A 'city' dweller sends this:
Yet more research?
Another, who has been pondering what to grow
Thanks to Homeland Security, we don't call Ag Planning "plotting" anymore...(rim shot) Financial Training - Free Here's a fine idea from a reader who 'gets it'::
Preserving a Lost Art Got a couple of ham radio related emails worth passing along:
Yep - that'd be something to put on a resume: "Member: Croatian Telegraphy Club"...right alongside membership in "The International Morse Preservation Society." --- Send snip and save items to george@ure.net --- end snip and save section --- Wednesday January 14, 2009 Landry: On Crash Watch (10:50 AM EST) Just got off the phone with my friend and long time market follower Robin Landry...another veteran of the cold Long Waves discussion group. He advises me that we could be set up for a 'fifth wave crash' scenario unfolding as the day wears on: Highlights...
"For the first time, my indicators have given me some more and lower targets: 6,342 (best case) down as low as 4,600. 70-80% of the time my targets are hit, George."
"In other words, what looks like we're happening here is we're in jeopardy of having a fifth wave crash...so all of these so-called 'experts' who were saying the bottom's in and going to be wrong based on my indicators, which are based on what people as a whole are doing - and that is they are selling like crazy."
"The more that the government gets involved, changing the rules day by day, the less confidence people have. Thus, the ore likely the decline will continue."
Landry's contact info: rlandry@allegiance.tv
Update: Heard on the Street Source at the VP level of one of Wall Streets biggest just passed on the new name for the combined Morgan Stanley and Citigroup trading operation that's making the rounds in the pits today:
CitiMorg
Problematic Appointments Timothy Geithner has little problem; seems according to reports, that he failed to pay something like $34,000 of federal taxes due for several years and then there's a question about his former household worker's visa. All of which seems to put a bit of doubt into whether he'll make it past the hearings on his confirmation. After all, does the line of inquiry, if he can 'forget' $34,000 due to the government should he be running the Treasury? --- Then there's the matter of Hillary's treatment of her husband's donor list...oh, and not to mention her direct intervention in government issues which directly impacted at least six companies which later made "contributions" to the Bill Clinton Foundation. Contributions huh?
Just like she was reading my 'fear of loss comments', she wheeled out the 'stampede 'em' tactic, trying to close her sale to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by implying that future wars could be fought over global warming impacts.
Who needs science, which informs us that a) the climate data doesn't take urban heat islands into account, b) 2008 was something like 14 out of 30 years of climate data, or that 'global warming' is happening on other planets too as we get closer to the galactic ecliptic in 2012? Given that Al "Maunder deficient" Gore has been out spreading climate fears and promoting carbon credit trading, sort of keeps this one 'all in the family' as I read it. --- And speaking of the American Aristocracy and the stampeding of the public - which seems exempt from the treatment (not to mention qualification inspections) that would be applied to us non-royal/wrong bloodlines types - we are reading this morning how Caroline Kennedy is hoping to get president-elect Obama to New York to press for her coronation as what's her name's replacement. --- As far as I've been able to read (and I'm just starting to wade through Ben Bernanke's Essays on the Depression, the plan is for a massive inflationary effort in order to get the economy 'back on track' which is to say, back growing government control, intervention, and surveillance of regular humans. Gotta make work and keep folks occupied, right? What better ways.....
Perhaps it's all best typified by the governance of The Republik of Messachusetts where, if you don't have what's now mandatory health care insurance, you will be seriously fined by the state. Make a decent income in the Republik of Mess. and not have health care insurance and you could be fined $1,068 for a year of 'non-compliance'.
But wait! This all comes as fallout from the Commonwealth's tax filing, which in case you miss the deliciousness of it all, is self reporting...which makes admitting to the liability a matter of self incrimination! Not that anyone in Messachutsetts has recall of the 5th Amendment,. But, sure as hell, if you don't self-incriminate, and put a note on your tax statement that you 'plead the 5th' you'll be getting a visit from state folks who won't be happy about your knowledge of the Constitution's p[rotections from self incrimination. ---- My point is simply that the current headlines underscore that there are clearly two sets of laws in America. Those for reg'lar folks and laws for the Super Rich, which is why Bernie Madoff's (alleged) $50-billion rip-off lands him in his spacious penthouse, while the pilot who supposedly tried to fake his own death after being told to pay over half a million dollars to an insurance outfit - he's now in hospital after trying to commit suicide after a wide ranging escape - demonstrates the unevenness of American jurisprudence. --- But so it goes: The Poor get poorer and the rich get away with it, but then you already knew that.
Watching politics in America is like going to NASCAR races. A colleague, who was the long time news director at KJR, Seattle, and WSAI in Cincinnati, once explained (circa 1968) "People don't go to stock car races to see cars go fast and turn left. They go because someone might get killed. That's the rush, the thrill, the reason of it..." Made sense then and still does...people are basically....uh....sick, or vicarious thrill-seekers, I reckon.
If you just want to see cars turn left, head down to any busy street corner. And if you just want to see how reg'lar folks without 'juice' are treated, head down to the local police station on a Friday night when there's a full moon, and welfare checks are just out.
Otherwise, turn on C-SPAN and watch the bread and circuses. The outcomes are under control, but it's wonderfully good theater. the rush, the thrill, the reason of it, redux. --- The way I got it figured is this: If Bill with Hill couldn't get us world, or Middle East peace in their first eight years, I say bring in a new player. If we want someone to shoot straight with us about the economy and square away Treasury, go find an absolutely honest first-rate CPA no one has heard of from Columbus or Portland...not another 'insider', please. OMG enough is enough.
Or maybe it isn't, huh?
Never going to happen, of course. Which is why I keep returning to Scary Dave's sermon from the Church Of Dave titled (don't click this next link if the 'f; word offends you) "Don't let the bastards get you down."
Retail Sales and Trade Figures This just out in the past half-hour from the Census folks:
Busy morning at Census because they also came out with the trade balance figures which were much improved:
Retail was down 2.7 percent from the previous month is the headline number.
Good news bad news kind of thing: Good for the country's balance sheet (or not as bad) but sucks if you're a being chewed up by the recession's impacts.
Church, Power, and Vitamin Wars Headlines about "Tyrannical FTC Threatens Christian Church with Imprisonment for Selling Dietary Supplements." Religious freedom? Not if you're a Rastafarian and like the ganj or now, it seems a Christian who likes Church health supplements. --
But, of course. I assume you have read enough of the
available literature like Graham Hancock's Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind
This all relates to economics how? Because money is 'attachment' to the paradigm. Detached folks are unruly. So are really healthy ones that use purification of body and mid to seek enlightenment. Yup...got to protect the integrity of the current ruling paradigm...
Rolling Out Bin Laden Seems there's a new audio tape from Osama bin Hidin. Curious timing on these things. The message predictably calls for Jihad against Israel. The death toll from the Gaza conquest is quickly nearing 1,000 with about half the dead being civilians.
What A Tangled Web Department Seems "Spider-Man creator Stan Lee is to unveil the world's first gay superhero." reports the UK's "The Scottish Sun." Me? Er...I'm the Page 3 sort....but give the Sun credit for covering (uncovering) everything.
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Coping: Strategic Farming Let's get into this email which popped in around midnight Monday:
This was such an interesting email that I decided to call the farmer involved and get a few more details - more or less fix in my mind what the locations were, and find out how many acres are involved.
Turns out the one farm in Arkansas is in the 1,000 acres+ size and the one in Tennessee is around half that...but good-sized operations to be sure.
From there it was off to my library and a little pondering.
First book that seemed very much on point was this one: Booker T. Whatley's handbook on how to make $100,000 farming 25 acres: With special plans for prospering on 10 to 200 acres
Whatley, with the editors of "New Farm" took the problem of maximizing cash flow on a farm and figured out the smallest footprint it would take to make six figures (top line). What they came up with was a You-Pick mix of vegetables and fruit that would spread revenue out pretty well over the growing seasons, and since the book was written in 1987, a dash to the Minneapolis Fed's inflation calculator suggests that equivalent performance today would be $189,788 off 25-acres of You-Pick.
Elaines (late) father and his wife had a very successful You-Pick operation up in Redmond, Washington, so I know the concept - and they did just fine with it.
Since one of the farms is within an easy hour's drive of Memphis, or 45-minutes with me driving, IJ'd sure look at putting in a You-Pick operation on maybe 150-acres. Only perhaps 100 in veggies this year and investing in some fruit trees on 50 for future harvests.
Not sure what the existing equipment is at the near Memphis farm, but the Whatley book says you'll need primary and secondary tillage, planter and cultivator, and some other miscellaneous equipment. But, seem s to me that if you're talking about what could be a million-dollars of revenue that some cap-ex could be justified.
It goes without saying, of course, that you'd want to do a survey of county extension agents within the market area, to see how many You-Pick operations there are, but assuming not too many (farmers get in ruts like everyone else - they're just literally ruts - then it's a matter of price.
One of the great freedoms of farming is that you get to pick the kind of operation you want from a huge list of options. For example, we made a decision here at our (little) 30-acres spot to raise goats. No, they won't make us a fortune, but within a year or two the herd will be up to sufficient size that there will be enough mouths to keep the property well 'munched down' - goats eat darn near everything. In addition to getting the land in shape for other uses on the horizon, the goats provide goat milk which seems to go for about $2/gallon, plus some of the fancy goat cheeses are very good.
I think of it as FBO: Farming by objective. The farmer who asked the question had a dandy idea...and as it turns out, with a small amount of marketing - maybe a website and a system of 'reservations' - he could pull in half a million bottom line if the economy hangs together, and have a humanitarian option if it doesn't. Not to mention he could go all certified organic and all the rest.
Something I thought about for our acreage was putting in a steerable web-cam and actually leasing out 1-acre plots. I know a former programmer-type in Kansas who I've been chatting with about his operation...seems that if you had access to a good 'sim engine' people could go to a web site, model what they would like for one acre, and then become virtual farmers.
Imagine what it would be like to go online to your own one-acres farm's web cam and be able to watch as you buy services from the e-farmer. Tuesday from 10:30 to 11:AM we will be tilling your field with the tiller attachment (PayPal the e-farmer $50 for that) and once the crops are in, you could watch the 3-times a week watering (or whatever the sim plan is) and then buy harvesting and other services. Behind on your sim plan? Buy fertilizing...PayPal some money in for that.
One of the most interesting parts of this concept is that it might actually skirt some of the rules about sale of produce. An e-farmer could presumably ship themselves produce from their own (leased) plot for their own personal use, right? Just thinking out loud about regulatory matters. Want a crate of onions off your farm? Point, click, and here they come.
The problem with this e-farming approach is that the non-farmed overhead gets to be high. Might have some appeal to rich folks in big towns who could make cocktail party talk about being an e-farmer. But, seems the real value point is in simple You-Pick operations. Maybe with a web site and live web cam so people can watch the operation year round and make reservations for 'picking time' online.
As usual, my advice would be to look for a 'dual use' business model: One that could be used for humanitarian purposes on the one hand, and on the other turn a damn fine profit if things workout in a muddle-through kind of way.
Does it make sense that you could grow and sell local fresher veggies to the Memphis market (50 miles away) cheaper than product grown in California fields 1,500 miles distant? Hell yes...and that's the kind of change/transformation/getting local which is starting to occur to people in this the year of Transformation. --- So first thing I'd offer (free consulting here) is go look at the annual revenue flows on Whatley's book. January it's You-Pick Club revenues, February it's thinks like Honey, comfrey, and sweet potatoes, while June gets into crops like blackberries, blueberries, and early corn. Whatley has rabbits, you could throw in eggs (carefully, they break, LOL) and if you have a D6, or so, and some spare time, you could put in a fish-raising operation. Dig large pond, plate it with some Bentonite and fill. Buy some trout or catfish stock and next thing you know, you have a 'catch your own" operation
Don't mean to get off too much into farming. But, if you figure that I'm looking at putting in about 6,000 feet of goat fencing this year, you'll understand that like the Army, farming isn't a job, it's an adventure.
As a personal note: I really enjoy land clearing, fence building, and bush hogging as much as I enjoy driving the 930, and maybe more so. Like putting up framing on a house, which is another really rewarding thing because you see a 'house appear' directly from your efforts, so too, working the land is a marvelous experience. Even the simple act of cutting a trail through heavy brush is as enjoyable as pushing a race car through the corkscrew on the backside of Laguna Seca, if you're a hands-on sort of person.
The Graphics Rework Thanks to Rebecca Price (web site www.rebeccaprice.com or email rebecca@rebeccaprice.com ) for the fine graphics retooling. Send comments on the 'new look' to her directly (click here) and cc me...I'm getting tired of forwarding compliments. Or, better yet, hire her for graphics work...I highly recommend her. --- Send snip and save items to george@ure.net --- end snip and save section ---
Tuesday January 13, 2009 Economic Paradigms: Broken and Brokers If you're awakening and find your blood pressure is a little low, wait till you get a load of the headline in the NY Post this morning: "Bonus Pool is Back: Morgan Stanley, Citi Plan $3B in Big-Shot Handouts." That Citi's stock closed down 17%, or so, Monday is not surprising. --- I'm not sure that I'm 'getting it": The salesmen who keep trying to get more and more of your life savings into a paper game where the benchmark S&P 500 Index has fallen from a high of (just to pick a date here) 1557.59 on October 5th 2007, to a close of 870.26 on Monday are about to get more rewards? Pinch me!
That's a loss of 44.13%! But wait, it gets even better: The 'haircut' administered to most 'sheep' by the government figures in here, too: Not only is the benchmark down 44% but over the past 15-months, that 'money' (a laughable descriptor) was watered down by 'inflation' by something on the order of 5%. Close enough to 50% overall for me.
In other words, if you have a 401(k) plan (or a college plan for your kids) and it kept pace with the S&P, it would have lost about 50% of its purchasing power.
Oh...wait! I forgot to back out management fees. Let's let that slide - I'm not here to beat up on brokers. But it's time the national media got a little more aggressive on two fronts.
Disclosure of Sales Methods I do sales & marketing (plus strategic planning) as a consultant. If I were designing a 'make all possible money' sales scripted plan for stock brokers it would go something like this:
THE easiest way to sell something is called the 'take away sale'. It's all covered in a little $10.00 ebook I wrote ("The Best Book EVER About Sales") which covers (among other things) how this 'take away' or 'fear of loss sale' is scripted (yeah, good sales people follow a script, or hadn't you figured that out?).
If spending $10 bucks is too big an investment for you, at least go rent the move "Boiler Room" which shows some of the techniques in action.
The point I'm getting around to is this: "Why aren't the big teevee 'investigative' units out interviewing sales managers of investment outfits and asking questions like "Have you added any additional disclosures to your sales scripts to ensure that people realize that THERE'S RISK IN STOCKS?"
A Disclosure 'Workarounds' The second bullet point in this morning's first rant is that by setting up brokerage efforts as a new joint venture which is apparently in the works, the full disclosure about how much comes in, how much sticks to the brokers selling product, and how much goes into the bonus pools can be conveniently avoided.
In other words, the parent companies that got into trouble are looking at workarounds (like setting up joint ventures) which could keep daylight & disclosure out of their sales operations. The TARP disclosure requirements presumably wouldn't be applied to these new 'joint venture' (JV) kinds of shops because they are simply an 'asset' or an 'investment' on the balance sheet. A JV with 'independent management' would simply allow the sales teams/methods to continue pretty much as they have in the past without that pesky Congress interfering and snooping about operations.
It's clear that snoopy congress is trying to get a handle on Wall Street's largess. The fact that Barney Frank is talking about requiring disposal of those corporate jets and such is a mighty inconvenience. Ergo, the 'workaround' will be to assign the leases to someone else after much caterwauling and protestation. The game stays the same...just the paychecks of the pilots would come from a new JV.
And why would I (if I were a highly compensated peddler of 'investment paper') jump ship over to any new JV as quick as I possibly could? Well, that damn Frank fellow is talking about caps on executive comp, too! OMG, how could he? Quick, where do I sign?
I LOVE Sales...BUT.... Don't get me wrong....I LOVE sales & marketing and consider myself pretty good at it. But there's a fundamental sea state change that's going to have to show up on that planet under your feet over the next 10-years, or so, and it's all outlined in my friend Dr. Jack Lessinger's book "Transformation: The Fall of the Consumer Economy, the Rise of Responsible Capitalism"
Jack's a retired professor emeritus (Business, University of Washington) and even if the topic doesn't grab you enough to part with $20 bucks, at least click that link and read the first two chapters. Damn fine stuff...and no, I don't get a commission on sales, LOL.
By the by, if it strikes you as something of a coincidence that Jack's book happens to have the same title as the descriptor chosen by the www.halfpasthuman.com predictive linguistics work to summarize 2009, I'd simply say., great minds run in parallel channels, don't they?
Don't get me wrong: There's nothing inherently wrong with making $200K in sales (or a lot more if you're a great broker/salesman). And yes, there has been some pain as 'under performers' have been rooted out of the brokerage houses.
The problem is that the current 'constant growth' business models (which Lessinger figures will have to go by the wayside) have given rise to sales organizations where someone with a heart and a little too much interest in client outcome (versus the company bottom line and the monthly 'sales quotas') is rooted out.
Since I'm driving a 930 (again) I can tell you straight up that fast or luxury cars that are symbols of success actually reveal a lot about their drivers.
Don't know if you've ever heard the joke: "What's the difference between a Porsche and a Porcupine?" Answer: "With a porcupine, the pricks are on the outside."
And that's what has to change. We need to be retooling not only the core business model into the 'sustainable mold, but we need to start working on how to apply a different metric than simply raw sales numbers to the equation. But no, the Obama administration is not likely to be any more successful than the Bush administration at achieving that outcome.
Rick Wagoner is 'Getting It" I know this may sound like a pipe-dream. Why, the image of a sales force being compensated on the overall 'goodness of product' and 'customer benefit' orientation is just downright un-American.
Why, George Ure is a damned subversive for even suggesting that in sales something besides dough on the desk is how sales efficiency is measured.
Or is he?
You see, if you know where to look, there's already evidence of the 'new paradigm' working...and working extraordinarily well. Take General Motor's Saturn division. When it was set up, the goal of Saturn was not to get the most 'bloodthirsty, dollar-driven' sales persons out of the auto industry. Nope. They wanted 'sales' people who were genuinely customer-oriented and product zealots above all else.
And, whether he realizes it, or not, GM's CEO Rick Wagoner, renewed my faith that GM will be able to survive the current downturn in some manner because of the Bloomberg headline Monday: "GM May Keep Saturn as It Trims Brands, Wagoner Says."
Whether Wagoner has consciously thought through the coming of the new business paradigm to the extent outlined in Lessinger's book, is certainly unknown. If you know Rick Wagoner personally, I'd sure appreciate your asking him and letting me know.
Saturn is different than the 'generics' of the auto industry. It's a brand based on meeting customer requirements first and foremost. Everything from the annual customer picnics to the consultative (win-win) sales approach clicks.
What Saturn did - and what Wagoner is sensing at some level, even if it's only in the predictability of financial performance is that 'customer communities' are what will rule the future. Saturn is to households what Porsches are to speed aficionados.
Fortunately, I'm not the only sales & marketing type to see what's coming from out on the horizon. Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba have created a site called www.creatingcustomerevangelists.com and it's worth a read here on how fiercely-loyal customer communities can be created in almost anything...even hernia surgeries. Saturn and Porsche are not alone.
Neither is Wagoner. At some level, Howard Schultz at Starbucks has tapped it, too, although with a heavier emphasis on 'branding' per se. But at it's core, Starbucks' growth was fueled not by a good cup of coffee. It was driven by the best cup of coffee.
What's missed by many corporate decision makers is that when push comes to shove, people want quality and durability. But the economic question is "How does Detroit stay in business building 300,000 mile cars instead of cars that need replacing every 100,000 or less?" Takes some evangelistic customers rallying around a few quality points, as Saturn's case shows.
This might seem far afield from the sales function merger being eyed by Morgan and Citi, which is where we started this morning. But really, it's not.
Their contemplated approach is a key frontline battle between the 'old paradigm' way of doing things and investing in the 'next paradigm'. Depending on how they play it, their part of the financial industry will either be 'on the bus or under it' within a decade. Write it down.
How Do We Fix It More Broadly? Eventually, this is the kind of systemic change that will necessarily result from running into limits of global resources.
Since my friend Cliff is heavy into aikido, I've been pondering the easiest way to force a transition of America into a 'sustainable business model' future. Amazingly, I think I've come up with it...and I'll outline it for Peoplenomics subscribers this weekend. Pretty cool, workable, and simple!
But it's not the kind of thing I would expect to see proffered by the new "Change" administration. I expect they will occupy the traditional role of government - expanding its influence and increasing taxes - without regard to the underlying 'shifting sands' of paradigm replacement and how to get ahead of the change curve.
That would involve actual leadership, which as Lee Iacocca noted in his "Where have All The Leaders Gone" is seriously missing.
Recession's Silver Lining Check it out: As the recession digs in, the drop in foreign goods being imported is improving the balance of trade picture:
Pisser if you're a W. Coast longshoreman or a stevedore, but good for the balance of trade.
Bush Wax A longish press conference by outgoing George Bush on Monday...and apparently more to come as he plans a farewell address to the nation. From an aircraft carrier flight deck? No....
Don't know about you, but $350-billion is not change now, is it?
Above The Law Department "Financier stays free on bail, Must give inventory of valuables."
Not to put too fine a point on this, as it's apparent, but if you are accused of holding up a bank in New York, I think you go to jail. Be accused of holding up a client base for $50 billion and you go back to your penthouse?
You can read the order here, or just take my word for it: This is the kind of 'rich people can get away with anything and be protected by the PowersThatBe that leads to revolutionary change.
Awl Fall Down Awl (oil if you ain't from this here part o' Texas) dropped under $37 on soft demand...this keeps pressing forward the case I made in Peoplenomics for the PTB to fan a war with Iran to test Obama and soak up the oil glut... --- Oh sure, the Saudis are planning to pump less awl in February, but that I don't think that will stop the agendas...
Long Recovery "Central bankers expect global recovery in 2010" headlines the IHT this morning.
Not to be a prick here, but if these CB geniuses didn't see this coming, why should we believe they will get its leaving right? Maybe I need to start taking Prozac like everyone else. More fluoride, too, long as we're not to question things...
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Coping: My New Cell Phone Theory I was helping a friend earlier this week drop a little more cash to his personal bottom line.
"How much a month are you spending on cell phones?"
"Oh, runs about $220-$230 a month I guess..."
Nothing extraordinary about it, but this particular friend has a ham ticket and so does his wife and kids. Yes, they will likely pitch the cells and go the cheaper route: Maybe buy one of those 'disposable phones' like the one I got for last week's Denver trip.
Since we don't normally use such extravagances, and I prefer Elaine looking hot not cooked, our cell phone bill comes out to about $100/year, including the phone.
I bring this up because of the story this morning of the fellow out in California who got a $2,905.60 bill from AT&T because his daughter than up an astounding 14,528 text messages in a month.
Rolling this one around, I've come up with a new theory which I like to share with you.
I wonder if HR managers can use this as a hiring metric?
Middle East Feedback Readers sending in plenty of email about the Gaza fighting, like this note from Old City, Jerusalem:
He was probably recalling that they started falling after Gaza was taken from Egyptian control in 1967 and was denied free trade, access, and the list goes on...but your point is well taken.
You Know it's a bad Idea When Department The Calgary Herald reports that "Exxon supports carbon tax."
The environmental equivalent of 'wife beating credits' picks up steam. Must be money it for them, huh? --- Send snip and save notes to george@ure.net ---end snip and save section --- Monday January 12, 2009 Obama's "Test": Wider Middle East War? Peoplenomics readers, who got a rare glimpse into how news analysis and the ALTA predictive linguistics forecasts can 'play together' to perhaps get a sense of coming events will no doubt want to read this article: "Unusually Large U.S. Weapons Shipment to Israel: Are the US and Israel Planning a Broader Middle East War?" in addition to this weekend's report that outlines what I expect in the ME later this month. --- So how much ammo is involved? Well, lemme see here: The well-connected Debka File site says it's 3,000 tonnes. Hand me the calculator and a shot of Jack, wouldja?
Let's see here: one tonne is a metric ton...1000 kilograms. So that's (rounding off) 2,200 pounds per ton times 3,000.... 6.6 million pounds of ammo.
Say, it that to attack Gaza or level it? OK, Maybe it's resupply.... --- Meantime, I've heard a rumble that departures from Norfolk are being staged so as not to draw attention...just a rumor for now, but worth pondering, 'specially in light of Peoplenomics' content this weekend.. --- Since the US (and the West) seems by my reckoning to be working its way through an echo of conditions of the Great Depression, it's interesting that the hyperinflation groundwork has been laid with all the bailouts and now a wider war comes into view. It could be argued that the secondary depression from 1937 on didn't really end until the outbreak of hostilities in WW II.
So, it's against that background that we can see (from the perspective of the PTB/Planet Owners) that inflation and war might need 'hurry up solution' (e.g. big wear, quick) since a "Leading economist f4ears decade of weakness in US". No, no me...someone else, LOL.
Not a Syrian Reactor??? Remember the story last year about the purported Israeli bombing of a Syrian nuclear reactor that was never acknowledged by either side? A bit of follow up crossed my desk this morning. If you have the bandwidth, watching the December interview with International Atomic Energy Agency's Dr. Yousry Abushady with Egyptian television is interesting because he says the CIA's report to our Congress on the 'Syrian reactor' was a mistake; we carefully note that's his personal assessment, not the official IAEA position, though.
While leaves me wondering: Might there be a Syrian project underground somewhere, or might this have been a bio lab? Or something else? And if it wasn't tall enough to be a North Korea-style reactor, what was it that Israel flattened that Syria didn't go public about?
Climate and Context As I drove back to East Texas from Denver Friday night (average speed 63+ MPH including stops), I had plenty of time while zipping across 'the square states' to listen to the radio, since I-70 is damn boring, and come to think of it, so's I-35 southbound from Salina to Dallas. Besides being struck (again) by the virtual disappearance of local radio content, thanks to the Balkanization of broadcasting by corpgov ownership rules of the FCC and hearing the same half dozen thought-constrained personalities over the whole trip, I was stunned by the general lack of critical thinking on 'the climate issue' reflected by the talk radio hosts. I wasn't rushed to this savage judgment...it just sort of appeared.
Most folks don't get the ARRL's dandy ham radio magazine QST, but if you did, a quick read of the December issue's report "Maunder and Other Minima" would have alerted you (if you're a thinking sort) that "Hmmm...very pronounced cycles here, relating to perhaps the 11-year economic cycle, the 11-year climate cycle, and a bunch of other events..." Of course!
Maybe it's because it was bloody awful cold, not to mention blowing 40 MPH+ across the plains, but remembering that Madrid (Spain) is just getting back to normal after the heaviest snowfall in decades on Friday got me to thinking about the matter of 'balance' in news coverage and thinking processes when it comes to climate.
Moreover, the concept of climate change now seems to be morphing into an excuse to install global government (a sort of New World Climate Government) as the Washington Times headlines today that "Obama climate czar has socialist ties: Group sees 'global governance' as solution."
It may have escaped your notice this weekend if youi don't read the Russian press regularly, but the Pravda article "Earth on Bring of an Ice Age" was pretty good, although I'd fault it for not explaining the correlation to the Oort and other minima (besides Maunder).
Even Alaska is colder than normal, says a report on NPR - dropping to 78 below around Tok (pronounced as in "one toke over the line"), while folks in Wisconsin are talking about their 39-inches of snowfall in December. Even the usually damp Pacific Northwest has been bothered by a 'river of moisture' from the Pacific that's caused huge amounts of damage and isolation...quite unusual climate variances, indeed.
While there are some good cases for investing in climate change, such as Frank Ackerman's "Climate Economics in Four Easy Pieces", I continue to be troubled by the talk of 'global solutions' to climate while trading carbon credits is being promoted -which sounds suspiciously like trading wife beating credits - and 'global governance' would steal the independence and autonomy of the greatest nation on earth. Sorry, draw the line on that one.
Besides, as I sit back and pencil out ways to really solve the global financial collapse and climate change at one fell swoop, it always comes back to the faulty global business model that rewards non-human legal entities for playing the purchasing power parity differential between countries in order to show paper 'profits'.
If the planet were to reward sustainable business models instead of the constant growth model, through tax relief and other incentives, side issues like global warming would become self liquidating. But, since that's not in the interest of the bankster class, it's not going to work out that way, so what the PowersThatBe are rushing to install is global government (under the guise of climate control, and cobbling up all kinds of financial incentives to fatten the PTB's share of your labor) before global financial collapse and voiding of the social contract arrives.
Don't get me wrong; it's a darned interesting race. The 7.2% unemployment number out Friday, is a perfect example of headlining the wrong number. As I told Patrick Timpone during a radio interview on KLBJ (Austin, TX) Saturday night, Table A-13 of the Employment situation report shows more than 2.4 million Americans aren't counted as unemployed as they are "not in the labor force" count yet they still want a job. Table A-12 of the Friday report fessed up to 13.5% of the workforce as being under employed; the IT managers flipping burgers because their jobs went to India, the Philippines, or wherever.
Meantime, the president-elect says the recession requires a "scaling back on promises" which I think is politease for "Now that I won, ya'll won't get what you bargained for..."
Not that it's any surprise around here. Folks voted for 'change' but the truth of an old saying keeps welling up within me as a study and write: "The more things change, the more they stay the same..."
Same-o Summers / How Spinning is Winning Larry Summers and other Obama administration financial advisors were in Washington this weekend as the decision what to do with the Trouble Asset Relief Program is being passed around for comment.
Time was when a problem was big in Washington, it was swept under a rug. Now it's a TARP. Have we made great progress building America, or what? --- Back when the Bankster Bailout/Coup was just getting started, the word "bailout" was being used in financial stores about 82% of the time and the word 'rescue was being used in 18% (and less).
If you doubt the 'top down' control exerted on neutered media middle management, consider that this morning, Google's news engine returns 100,666 hits for 'rescue' while 'bailout' returns a mere 65,888.
You see how the thought control process works? The word 'rescue' is now used 60.4% of the time while bailout is used 39.6%. Lemme see: We made fun of the Soviet's rewriting of history? This is absurd!!!
The solution? Finding editors who will 'out' the corpgov spin artists who do it all with 'suggestions' that aren't committed to writing...just a friendly phone call from upstairs. --- Am I the only ex news director who thinks it should be a federal crime to interfere in newsroom decisions, or is outraged at how the linguistic/thought control process works? Pointless question, perhaps; thanks to corpgov ownership rules of broadcasting and the mind-numbing, dissent-quelling internet censorship being test run on the Ozstralians, I'm not sure whether the concept of free speech is an endangered species or a joke...
I especially like the president-elect selecting reporters from a pre-screened list. That's safe, huh? None of this yelling, seniority-based, competitive stuff. Softball press all the way. Ho-rah.
Oily Outlook With word this morning that Oil has slumped under $39 a barrel (yet miraculously, gasoline prices are going back up...look shocked at that...) We have been watching Association for the Study of Peak Oil reports, like the one out of the Netherlands, which are trying to sort out the difference between a global drop in production as Peak Oil passes from the decline in production due to the current oil glut. --- Natural gas is up on geopolitical concerns, mainly about the dust-up between Ukraine and Russia over gas for Europe.
Global Economic Collapse Continues Watching it is sort of like watching a pinball game. One day it's here, the next day there. Today, it's Russia's turn at the whipping post -- "The Ruble falls to a 6-year low; Russia devalues 2nd time in Two Days" reports Reuters.
--- Coping: New Ugly Americans? No doubt about it, being an American in Islamic countries these days is not something to be taken lightly. Our former Houston Bureau chief, now in Indonesia has an update on what it's like to be from the Land of Uncle there lately...
I suppose I should mention there's no let-up in the fighting with "Israel pounds new Hamas targets, enlists reserves" today. You don't read or see much about the quarter million who turned out in Madrid to demonstrate against the war. More of those 'friendly calls to editors' from upstairs, I expect. Nor are the demonstrations (both sides) in Germany making much time/ink here.
Yes, I Bought a Used Car Nice note from a Peoplenomics reader who saw my brief confessional about the used car I bought in Denver:
Buying a used car is not something I'd recommend for everyone...but the way I figure it, there's a considerable depreciation savings, less global impact than buying a new car, and besides it's just plain fun...
Reverse Migration Appears this is really of interest more for Peoplenomics readers, who generally like to get a little deeper into economic matters. Remember, I've said on many occasions that in the Second Depression, there would likely be a reversal of the 1920's migration which was from the farms to the big cities?
Check out what's going on in China now: "As Orders Dry Up, Factory Workers Head Home."
Is it too early to say "Told yah!"? --- Send snip and save items to george@ure.net ---end snip and save section ---
Now, go wage something productive.
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.
So one of our charts for Peoplenomics subscribers oughta be widely circulated - it shows that if you line up the peak of the Dow in January 2000 with the peak in early September of 1929, we're on a very very close replay track. Much closer than even the chart shows if you were to back out inflation, and put in the effects of 1929 deflation, but that'd be real work, and I'm sort of lazy if the truth be told.
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:
"George, that's only a coincidence!" your monkey-mind will protest.
Why sure it is...you bet. A 9½ year long coincidence...yessir....just a coincidence, I'm sure...
Write when you get rich,
George Ure, The People's Economist
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last night and I was struck at how the wannabe socialists are
pushing along the same follies as were tried in the previous
depression. And, on the back of an envelope, figuring how
it would all work out about the same: A long economic
depression ending in a war. Wonderful, huh?
,
to understand why the PowersThatBe control anything that helps
you gain different perspectives; why alcohol and drugs are
criminalized? The PTB need to rule the current paradigm
and it's just way too threatening to them to have a bunch of
free-thinking, free-spirited types out challenging the ruling
line of bullsh*t.
.
