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Published Monday - Friday about 8 AM Central Time Except Holidays....many major typos are fixed by 8:30 daily
Updated: Saturday,
March 21, 2009
07:55 CDT
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I'm Not the Only One To Notice This being Saturday, with a huge to-do list here at the ranch, my comments will be a bit shorter than weekdays. That said, Terence Corcoran over at the Financial Post this week asked a very difficult question in a column titled "Is this the end of America?" Time was that even asking a question like that would immediately result in being branded as a loonie, nutjob, or subversive, but if you take a look at the US Monetary Base chart that accompanies Corcoran's article, it should become immediately clear to you why I've been a strong advocate of gold, silver, and developing an independent supply of food. Corcoran's got a clear-eyed assessment worth reading. --- Evidence that America is in the midst of a 'melt-down' is coming more and more into focus it seems, as the financial headlines continue to show that 'things ain't as they should be' here lately:
Despite the hoopla in most media about the specifics of this development, or that, my personal choice is to step back from it all and look at the longer historical perspective.
As I explained to our premium content subscribers over at www.peoplenomics.com last weekend, the period we're now in is a natural consequence of over-production in a huge number of areas. In Scoville Hamlin's 1930 classic "The Menace of Over Production" the outline of what was then a developing Depression was traced back to over production in a broad spectrum of human endeavors including the bituminous coal industry, oil, textiles, agriculture, and the radio industry to name just a few from the period.
A look around today's economy says that we have experienced a similar "Menace of Over Production" which precipitated the current hard times. These include the over production in the auto industry, over production of Housing, over production of Financial Products, and over production of software and sure, let's throw in the over production of computer networks. Want to throw in over production in the death industry? Sure, what the hell. How many times we can blow up or poison the planet can be expanded infinitely, so why not?
What happens at the moment of inflection or 'waking point' is almost like the climb up to the top of a grand rollercoaster. There's that spot at the very tippy-top where the car almost stops for what seems like an age, you look to the distant horizon, look down.....and then the decline begins. And that first drop was a monster.
The tippy-top moment for the economy which we're suffering through now was the closing days of 1999 when in September of that year I explained in the short paper "Death by Dot Coms: When Barriers to Entry Fail" what would likely follow -- the collapse of the Internet Bubble. From there, trillions of shareholder value began to evaporate in early 2000, the Dow and other indices hit their all-time highs, which have held to this day, if one is conscious enough to consider the purchasing-power equivalent of dollars then versus the inflation-hollowed dollar of 2007 when the Dow hit its nominal all-time high just over 14,000. But it wasn't the high on a purchasing power-adjusted basis.
While it's been hotly debated since 2001 whether the events of September 11th were really an act of terrorism, the longer view of history suggests that 9/11 happened precisely and almost too conveniently at the correct moment to re-energize America's economy, if only for a few years. It spawned a whole new industry (Security/Anti-Terrorism) overnight. It took vast amounts of resource and flipped it over into war-making. Solved an employment problem for young people. It caused some level of inflation and no longer was the country faced with the difficult choices that would have been involved in properly consuming the 'peace dividend' should it have survived. Kiss off balanced budget prospects, again.
Concurrently, an attack of easy money on all front's whipped up a new buying frenzy in Housing and thanks to what's been called the "Enron loophole" we saw massive overbuilding of financial products and a new generation of financial excesses that hadn't been seen since the late 1920's. Rumors have even been bandied bout that one reason Bernie Madoff was treated with such 'kid gloves' was because there may have been more than just private investors used in his operations; there's a question whether governments may have been involved at some level. --- As of Friday's close of the financial markets, things were back to about evenly debated; whether we were at last in a rally which 'had legs', or whether the market would decline from here. I called my friend Robin Landry, who manages money for clients from his office in Shawnee, Oklahoma and asked him what he sees ahead.
As usual, there are two competing Elliott wave counts to be considered. Under one count, we get a decline next week and into the following, but we hold short of the recent lows around Dow 6,626 and then start a major rally from there which will see a major upward thrust by oil and the precious metals. The move of oil this week over $50 certainly argues for that case, as well as the strengthening gold prices. But on the other hand, oil weakened toward week's end.
The alternate count that Landry is watching is that the decline picks up speed next week and takes out the 6,626 recent Dow low, and from there were go down to the 5,800 level, or in a worst case 4,400 on the Dow and then we get the rally which again will feature oil and metals, but there would be one hell of an entry point if gold gets down into the upper $30's and gold were to do a short, nose-bleed inducing drop to the $700's, or even $650. --- One of my projects today will be munching on the latest ALTA report from www.halfpasthuman.com because it gives a much better long-range view of what's to come. I did call Friday to ask my friend and chief time monk Cliff about whether the two US ships colliding in the Strait of Hormuz was the temporal (time) marker that means the Obama administration is heading into its "test of the president" period.
But my questions were quickly deflected, and rightly so, because as time monks, there's very little point in worrying through the day-to-day problems because the global coastal event, and the renewed activity along the Pacific Plate threatens to begin a period of major activity in the HPH modelspace called the 'terra entity" that doesn't end well. Giving more credibility to the possible rise of sea level was the increase of estimated sea-level rise that came out as this week progressed, such that now, scientists are talking about more than 16-feet being in the cards globally when the West Antarctic Ice Shelf (WAIS) by itself could drop into the ocean, and that problem threatens literally any day:
Videos over a year old show were already showing that within 50-years, you ought to be able to sail to Europe by heading north fro the US West Coast, rather than around the world as the Northwest Passage thaws out, but at the same time, places like Boca Raton (elevation 16-feet) should become really good bass-fishing areas.
So no, the chief time monk was not nearly as concerned about day-to-day market gyrations as you might be. 300-mile per hour winds as the climate goes bonkers are maybe a little more worrisome than even the latest uptick in federal spending. Mass starvation as the global economic system breaks down is may be a tad more of an issue than bond yields. And finding drinkable water within as short as 2-3 years could become more important than whether you get to claim a loss for this, or that, on your tax filings. --- It all depends how you want to live your life, I suppose: With a very long eye toward the future, or a really short-term view on trading and job-keeping.
The ratio of aware humans to sheep is something to observe. There are still 16-million people in Florida who stand to almost certainly own tidal property within 100-years, or maybe 50, or maybe next year. Don't even ask about the millions in Bangladesh or low-lying parts of India, or where oil will be refined since refineries would be put out of business by sea level rise.
Yet the Western high-consumption paradigm is alive and well, ruled quietly by a group we call the PowersThatBe; those few who pull the strings of governments and media, who profit from the passes so they can perpetuate their own power. To them, the week's economic news is everything. And it likely will be for another year or two.
But then comes a Great Leveling as happens at times in history. Times when the old paradigm shows itself to be unalterably broken and we evolve into whatever comes next. Oh sure, the chart in the Corcoran piece suggests it's already happening. But that's just a money chart. Watch the earthquakes, the plagues, the rising sea level and work out those longer-term problems as best you can for yourself and your kids. Global Diaspora - people getting up and move around by the millions - that's the kind of thing to watch.
The odds of being alive in 2015, or so, are dropping much faster than you might think. So I'll spend this weekend worried about my garden, thanks. Time to be transitioning into Bogslife. Beyond old governments/systems because as the chief time monk is fond of saying "chance favors the prepared mind" and I got a lot of preparing to get done. I expect you do, too.
No Radio Tonight Due to schedule changes at Genesis Radio Network, looks like our appearance with Scott Stevens is on hold until April 4th - more as we get closer.
The Year's Toughest Questions Inboxes are funny critters. But since I write about economics and a sort of going-along-to-get-along level of personal preparedness, my inbox seems to attract a tremendous number of questions. Some of them I can answer, some of them I can't. In any event, while I don't offer financial advice, I will go so far as to propose some things you might wish to consider in your own financial and life-planning. So I thought what I needed to do this week was pull out the Top-10 questions and discuss them so you can make your own best call as to what the 'right' course of action is for you, given that everyone has a different set of circumstances and we don't live in a one-size-fits-all world. Let's begin with this one: THE most asked question I get is...
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"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 March 20, 2009 Urgent Update Ships Collide, Strait of Hormuz The report this morning that two ships (both US Navy) have collided in the Strait of Hormuz and have spilled 25,000 gallons of fuel, may be an important temporal marker delayed from when first expected. Peoplenomics subscribers are advised to reread Peoplenomics issue#384 of January 11, 2009 titled "Strategic Contingencies: Obama's Persian Gulf "Test"? ". Pay particular attention to the HalfPastHuman.com linguistics section under "Basis of the Conflict Linguistics" which began:
All of which is not to claim that this will erupt into a 'test' for the president, but the linguistics are fitting extremely closely and deserve careful attention to future developments and in particular whether Iran will now seize on this as an excuse to exert additional control over the Strait on environmental concerns or grounds.
My apologies for being so premature (January) in outlining this scenario which may be in play now as we don't usually put out such detail so far in advance of events. Such is the rickety nature of the time machine we use.
Great Patience Friday The markets, of late, have been really testing my patience. I explained back in December that I would like to see a decline into the February/March timeframe and then a major rally till the early part of summer, say mid-July, or so. I think it's pretty clear that we have completed the little bounce up to (and slightly past) Robin Landry's 7,404 level, but the fact that the market closed above that for just one day puts Landry back watching his indicators to see if we will get more than a modest decline to something greater than the 6,626 level and then rally toward the 9,100-10,500 range, or whether we'll just sink like a stone from here to the real low, which then might be under 6,600 on the Dow and possibly into the 4-thousands. It's not hard to figure that the next big move could be up; the harder part is sorting out the "From where?" question. Entry points matter.
Bullish sentiment is now reported over 45%, and typically when that happens, a market high is near, so we seem set to head lower...but the vexing question is still "How much lower?" That matter requires great patience --- It's hard to be patient, however, with many of the headlines floating about today. Take for example the House behavior on AIG. While the headlines are that the "House passes bill taxing fat AIG and other bonuses" my friend The Bond Dude (TBD) made an extremely astute observation, which I'll try to fairly summarize:
All of which gets me back to wondering how folks, including the president on Leno last night, could be 'surprised' by any of this. While "AIG gives names of bonus recipients to New York's attorney general" Andre Cuomo, it all has an air of dreaminess about it; like it's as much about keeping the public distracted from reading their 401(k) results, and making the appearance of 'change' take place. Must be something extra cynical in my coffee this morning, or I've just lost patience. --- That aside, this will be a critical weekend for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Endorsements from the president and presidential press secretary have, in the past, been more or less the 'kiss of death' for one's career prospects, we should get some valuable insight in the next few weeks as to how much patience the man at the top has. --- Then there's the little matter of how much patience the 'working man' will have with all the economic uncertainty, and let's not forget about those monstrous 401(k) losses. "London police fear violent protests at G-20 economic meeting" says one report. Gee, I can for the life of me think why... --- But for all the economic gyrations, the hand of the puppet masters may be dimly seen in the background as the push is on (from several quarters, if you'll pardon the sick monetary pun) to push the world into a single currency. "A "U.N. panel says would should ditch dollar", taken with the reports that Russia wouldn't mind something like that, to the point where Vlad Putin will be pitching that at the G-20, and it all seems like a whole new layer of Globalism could result.
It's almost like the global PowersThatBe, having installed their cronies to run individual countries are now pushing like crazy to install themselves as Masters of the Universe globally. Putin is a fine example; bet you don't even remember the name of Russia's current president, do you? If you answered Dmitry Medvedev, you get a gold star. But even so, I bet it took you a minute.
To borrow a title from the James Bond series, it's almost like "The World Is Not Enough". Folks seem to forget that Putin's career was deeply rooted in the KGB. And many political commentators have speculated that the whole Reagan-era "Wall Came Down" was not so the West could partner with Russia, so much as it would be easier to take over the whole world, by pretending to be better businessmen. If you can't understand the strategy, you need to play more chess.
To summarize my outlook: We have some real power-thirsty people who would no doubt like to take over reigns of the whole planet. Yet to achieve that, they first need to build up the UN's role, so that free humans will bow down to the new Global Government, which will then make all National Governments answer to it. The start will be 'soft'. We see it in the U.N. seeks oil tax for Global Green "New Deal."
If youi wanted to think in highly conspiratorial terms, you might want to consider the headlines that are all pushing us toward "global solutions" ever so conveniently offered just when America is at its most vulnerable. "Rapid declines in manufacturing spread Global Anxiety".
I ask you to consider whether this is purely a chaotic systemic event, or whether there are those who have grandiose plans to increase and perpetuate both personal and family dynastic power. That we have a Secretary of State who seems to like big plans that haven't worked, like her national health care attempt, concerns me, given that the name Clinton, like Putin, has become such a branded name. And when Global Taxes are wrapped in the flag of the environment's defense - however unfair or unworkable, the hair on the back of my neck stands up.
And speaking of Hillary, almost unnoticed is that the US Supreme Court considers anti-Clinton movie - and whether it was a documentary or a 90-minute anti-Clinton for President effort. Question seems to be whether the term "unfit for office" was a reasoned political assessment as one would expect in a documentary, or whether urging people to vote anti-Clinton made it a political ad. --- So much of the news is pushed and shoved, this way and that, by largely unseen forces, that it frightens me for the kind of country my children will grow up in. Just another example of unseen hands? Go look up the WHOIS record on some of this seemingly "spontaneous" (city name) Tea Party web sites. You'll find in some cases that republicorp types are involved and that the site domain names were purchased in AUGUST 2008, which means the hidden hand is working an agenda over on that side of things, too. --- It all adds up to a thoroughly screwed up world, not that that should surprise you any. As bad as the republicorps seem to be, the democorps are just as bad, but few bother to plumb the depths of meaning of the "corps" designation because it's the lobbyists and the corporate influencers working this agenda, or that, which really run the world.
Which is why corporate power and influence continues to grow, and why I'm so disappointed when books like the "Singularity is near" come out. Not that their best case interpretation isn't possible, it's just extremely unlikely that we'll have a new kind of expanded freedom and less work as humans because of our technological expertise. Why? Because someone is going to own whatever new stuff comes along and in the exercise of ownership we will see, as is already the case in Iraq, how corporations prevent regular humans from carrying seed from season to season: Tribute must be paid to the seed corporations and that agenda is being worked here in the US with anti-human HR 875 which would effectively outlaw small farms, being aggressively pushed by those more interested in money than humanity. --- Linguistics are being played like a fiddle to control your thinking. Take the title of HR 875. It's labeled as the "Food Safety Modernization Act." Yet, as the John Birch Society notes, it should be opposed because:
And this fits what I've warned you of many times over: When government wants to expand, they just wrap things up in "anti-terrorism", "saving the environment", or even more insidious, a "hero" image, as is the case in the latest attempt to sneak in gun control by linguistic manipulation.
It's all like pushing a bill through CONgress to increase availability of matches to children but mislabeling it as a "Fire Safety Act"...who would, after all vote against "Fire Safety"? It's the same old crap from the politicos - the "yes we want no bananas" kind of wording. --- The only really good news I've seen this week is that a plan by the feds to destroy once-fired bullet casings has been reversed, but only after a couple of Montana senators intervened. --- And so goes another week in the life. So-called leaders are still scheming, government's hand is getting deeper in your pocket almost every year, and all most of us want to have is enough time to pursue whatever's in our hearts without having to hire an attorney or file a three-year long process environmental impact statement to do it. It'd be nice if the markets would stabilize, but that might involve sound money and less pulling of future demand into the present through massive advertising expenditures.
The problem is, if that were to all happen, we'd find ourselves in the midst of a most terrible Depression. Actually, though, it's already unfolding, it's just not admitted yet.
So I continue watching and waiting for some tradable to happen in the markets, amused as FDIC chair Sheila Bair seems to have enough sense to call BS on Treasury Sec. Geithner's call for a super-regulator. What did I tell you government answer to every problem is? More government?
I don't know about you, but I'm not sure how long my patience will hold out. Maybe the best thing to do will be to keep the TV off more of the time and send more time driving my rototiller. Speaking of which...
Michelle's Garden Tired of my nearly constant whining about how important it is to put in a garden? Please note that the "White House to break ground on 'kitchen garden'. How many clues do you need when I say wildly inflationary food prices are coming? --- Of course for many, Depression 2.0 is already quite real as folks are 'living in the capitol' building in Wisconsin.
Peloser "Pelosi tells illegal immigrants that work site raids are un-American." Not sure what planet she's on, but out here in the East Texas outback, we have laws, they get enforced and we don't pee away $30-grand of taxpayer money to fly home on a whim. We also don't undermine the hard work of Border Patrol, soft pedal the drug war on the border. And, come to think of it, out here, foot & mouth disease gets treated promptly. Want my vet's number?
Terra Entity: Dots Worth Connecting Although the headlines out of down-under claim that "Tonga eruptions 'unrelated' to underwater earthquake", Let me think this through: A major earthquake happens about 175 miles from an active volcano. Moreover, the volcano sits on the Kermadec Ridge, an undersea range that takes off to the northeast from White Island. That this earthquake looks to my untrained eye like it occurred in the Tonga Trench (the northeasterly extension of the Kermadec Trench) seems pretty obvious. Yes, it's a fair distance up the trench, so to speak, but it sure suggests to me and some of the other 'great unwashed' that the Pacific Plate is on the move and someone's soft-peddling the obvious.
Rickety Time Machine Radio Note to www.weatherwar.info and chemtrail researcher Scott Stevens: Please send me the URL so people can hear Cliff and I on your new internet radio show tomorrow night....I'll post it, so please check back. I know it's called "Amerika" and it's on from 9 to 11 PM tomorrow night...if tomorrow is March 21st...
Price Is Right Our graphics art whiz, Rebecca Price, is in the process of launching a new editorial cartoon web site. Notice carefully the retooled star field change on Old Glory here capturing the New Economics quite nicely...
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: Them Tea Parties Not withstanding the fact that some of the Tea Party sites have been in the works by republicorps who are doing their best to go above and beyond the call of "loyal opposition" there are some Tea Party events that are spontaneous and not concocted by anti-democorp types. So it's worth sharing this email:
While I most heartily agree with the nonviolent approach, I'd also advise some serious research to see who the organizers are... just saying...we get 'played' enough...and the only sure-fire antidote I've found that works is research & questioning all assumptions.
'Nother Good Email Came in from a reader who has lots of questions:
OK, answers:
Whew - not trading advice...just my take on things. But yeah, that volcano stuff is eerie... --- Send snip and save items, used sports cars, heritage seeds and whatever comments to george@ure.net --- end snip and save section ---
Thursday March 19, 2009 Brass Tacks and the One World March As I got up this morning, the first thing that hit me between the eyeballs was where the Dow Futures were sitting: right smack-dab on Robin Landry's 7,404 number for the Dow. They've since bounced up. Although the market closed above that on Wednesday, it was more a reaction to the Fed deciding to engage in a particularly curious form of economics, wherein it will buy US Treasury debt.
This is all part of a massive global readjustment that has the avowed purpose of repairing a terribly out-of-whack global economy whose problems stem from the fact that cannibal corporatism has reached the 'edge of the Petri dish, and the 'food supply' for further growth via legitimate means has been reached. What's ahead now is only one course that's going to be somewhat painful: a new kind of company which is motivated by something other than growth of EBITDA and the bonus pool, something that's been in the wings since the model started blowing up in early 2000 as the Internet Bubble was pricked.
A particularly candid assessment came in the UK Guardian papers on Monday that sized up the British Labor Party's big [economic] gamble this way:
Having seen this coming for a couple of years, it's no wonder our compadres with the rickety time machine over at www.halfpasthuman.com have labeled this the "Year of Transition" where a huge portion of global humans start figuring out that the old ways aren't working and something better needs to be developed, perhaps to emerge in recognizable form in 2010 and beyond, but which along the way will bring the social displacement/ Summer of Hell/2009 due in a few months.
The precursor events are visible to the aware observer even now as is shown by the beginning of MainStreamMedia coverage of the dozens of Tea Party protests held (or being planned) around the nation and getting wide circulation on YouTube and other video streamers.
So with this libretto in hand and knowing the PowersThatBe are about to mount a major pimping of 'prosperity' through mid to late July, about the limit of personal action between now and then is to figure out how to cope with global failing systems as the year progresses, not know which one will trigger the political/economic crisis to come in November, but realizing that basis like food, footwear, water and willpower are things we can be address at a personal level. ---- Zooming in, the Fed action on Wednesday about ensures that $1-trillion dollars will be 'created' out of thin air, although the issue as I see it, continues to be one of velocity since money at rest doesn't create jobs, money in motion does. Filling the coffers with money at rest (capital) only works when that money is loaned out at interest, a process that takes time, and that will be something for future historians to debate. --- Underlying the economic problems is a broader issue: I happened to spend a few hours yesterday in the Federal Election Commission's database of political contributions to do a little research on how much money Senator Chris Dodd (who added the executive bonus provisions to the Stimulus Bill) had received from current and past AIG executives. I got up to $54,000 with contributors through "L" in the alphabet and became so distraught that I called Robin Landry to commiserate a bit.
Landry made an interesting point after we agreed that honesty and integrity seemed to be in increasingly short supply in the country of late. He noted that with the executive bonuses, there's a fine line because if government can arbitrarily negate written contracts it sets a dangerous precedent: from then on - when contracts can be voided at the government's will, you could get to a point where systemic trust could break down. A most astute observation on his part. And systemic distrust seems a key in turning a recession into a Depression.
So that got me to wondering what would happen if I set up a keyword flag on the word "lie" and put it into my morning routine of news questing; what would come up?
"Obama LIED to us in order to push his merit pay/charter school agenda" headlines one report.
Over here, in "Dodd Changes His Story" the word 'lie' appears. And although the phrase "now I remember adding that bonus language..." comes up in some reports, the best news of the day may be that some in the MainStreamMedia are getting tougher with their questions.
Of course, as the questions get tougher, the answers found become more distasteful:
Still, the good news is that the usual drivel and softball questions are evaporating and now we can get down to asking hard questions, not only of our leaders, but of ourselves. --- Anyone for bit of linguistic (perhaps closer to semiotic) history? Back in the old days in America, when we were that place Louis L'Amour wore about, that wild West & frontier spirit of general stores, women used to go shopping for fabric in order to sew their own clothes. That was ages before container loads of textile goods from sweat shops overseas, you see.
Women would have the shopkeeper keep pull out this bolt of this fabric or that, so they could look at the fabric, feel it and the shopkeeper would oblige because that was a period when customer service really mattered and every penny counted.
When a woman eventually looked like she might have made up her mind what to purchase, the shopkeeper would ask "Shall we get down to brass tacks?" It was a reference reference to a series of tacks placed at measured intervals on the counter; 'brass tacks' was how things were measured. --- That's not a bad analogy to what's going on at the uber-macro level in the world today: The globalist model has been stretched about as far as it can, so over the next few years, emerging truths about the limits of growth will become apparent. We're starting to 'measure up' the world so we can build a more workable paradigm to carry humans forward.
Summer of Hell, the problems of next November, and a lot of foreclosures, unemployment, angst and even 'taking it to the streets' is all coming our way from further up the timeline. But the really cool part is to sit back in semi-detached state and observe the Grand Design Pattern being followed by Universe as we go shopping for a new definition of human 'progress'. It's circuitous route that humans follow before getting down to 'brass tacks'.
Global Oil Tax Meanwhile, on the road to globalist's One World Government, the UN has been cooking up a new global oil tax plan to initially raise $750 billion for what's being called a "Green New Deal". --- I don't know about you, but I have serious reservations about the US paying a UN tax of any kind. Why is that? Because to pay a tax infers authority. And sorry, the Framer's of America were sovereign kinds of fellows. So is this the new Crown? Not for me, thanks.
More Trouble for Globalists While Globalists have been warning that it would be dangerous for the US or UK to engage in any tariffs to put their domestically made goods on a more even footing with sweat-shop goods from overseas, since that's where they make the most money - on wage rate differentials, I notice little attention is being paid by the MSM to Mexico placing tariffs on U.S. made goods.
Now why isn't there more uproar, you're wondering? The new tariffs, which Mexico is putting in place today spare outfits like Ford and Tyson according to this report.
We've placed a tickler on the word "tariff" because in the last Depression (the 1930's) tariffs were one way countries tried to level the international playing field, or run things in their favor. Today, it's by competing currency devaluations; same effect, just one step removed./
Think of it this way: In the last Depression, the PowersThatBe were largely in the US and UK, hence tariffs/taxes on imported goods were how profits could be assured. Now, since the PTB are global, the currency front is where the action is because the money's being made on the wage rate differentials.
If all countries has precisely equal labor and capital rates, there would be no international trade to speak of, since it would be cheaper to make goods at home....but that's obvious, right? The only reason you have a job today is that your position hasn't been automated or outsource elsewhere. If you think I'm lying, I can give you the names of thousands of former IT directors to talk with...or simply call the customer support number for most software outfits and notice the accents.
Family Matters Along the way, there's a redefinition of the word 'family' underway. "U.S. teen birth rate up again, fewer pre-term babies" reports one headline. But while "US births break record; 40 pct. are out-of-wedlock". --- Speaking of demographic pushing trends: You saw the story over at KFMB's web site: "Military Layoffs: Unclose Same May No Longer Want You"?
Eventually, economics will likely drop the level of US military spending, and as that happens, returning troops will spur the economy, that is, of course, if they can find meaningful jobs when they get here.
Weedies The Obama administration's Attorney General signals a shift in marijuana policy. This leads me to wonder if folks are actually coming to their senses, or if money & influence of the booze lobby - foes of things that compete with their 'getting high franchise' - is drying up?
Oil Up Over $51. Remember my projection of $3 gas within a year...prices can't stay down forever, so enjoy it while you can. The double whamming is when the dollar is slammed. That's when things will get....er...interesting.
Watch Leno Tonight President Obama is due to be on Jay Leno's show tonight, becoming the first sitting president to make an appearance. Wonder if he'll do stand up? --- Speaking of speaking: Hopefully the teleprompter will work better for O tonight than the St. Patties Day situation where a prompter blunder left Obama thanking himself in a speech....
Terra Entity: New Lands Arriving Our predictive linguistics pals have been telling us for months to be alert to 'new lands' emergent in the southern hemisphere. Not as expected off Patagonia (yet), but this one bears watching as a volcanic eruption is moving around flights to New Zealand.
Today's homework assignment: How many new undersea volcanoes will it take to move sea level enough to feed into the global coastal event realization of global pop(ulation) entity in modelspace due along this year?
--- snip and save section --- Coping: Investing in TEOTWAWKI I'm not the only guy who has a Bond Dude...someone who looks at the market from the fixed income perspective. A reader just sent me a remark by his Bond Dude which is pretty revealing:
But just because we are in a new Depression - something that's slowly seeping into the collective consciousness, it doesn't mean that it's totally 'the end of the world as we know it' -TEOTWAWKI. Still, there seems to be a fair bit of risk into jumping on this "new bull market" just yet. As a reader in Europe noted today:
The problem in making sense of the world, in light of the Fed decision on Wednesday is becoming more difficult, for sure, as another writes:
You got it! The whole financial world is now certifiably unsane. Not insane - I said unsane. As in completely frigging nuts. Here's further proof:
Figuring out how to cope with - and invest a bit here and there - in the face of the massive changes now underway presents something of a problem. It's like walking into what you used to gamble in when it was an honest casino had suddenly replaced all its blackjack dealers with sleight-of-hand specialists who were certifiably nuts. And when you go over to the roulette machines, it dons on you that none of the machines are paying off anything. except for the ones that are already occupied by players who are friends of the casino's owner. And over at the dice table, the die are loaded...but the loads change on every throw or two, so no matter what, yoiu get deeper and deeper down in your own pocket to just keep playing.
At some point, you pinch yourself and ask "What am I doing in this casino?"
Folks who've been reading this site may have come to the conclusion it's a good place for cheap drinks and people watching, but little else. The sense of surreal is starting to permeate the public's mind, as in another email I read:
And the change is everywhere you look:
Puts a whole range of meanings on this...
Till tomorrow?
Wednesday March 18, 2009 Update Fed Gets Aggressive Fed Gets its new statement....
Cheap more for a long time? Woohoo! Press the rally button down on the Street. Oh, and gold's taken off, too...
A Word To Ben: Velocity One of the simplest concepts in economics is the velocity of money. It's sort of like inventory turns ratio, to my way of thinking. You know: If you have 10 widgets in inventory and over the course of the year, you sell 10, and replace those 10, you have a turnover of 1. One in, one out, kinda thing. The formal answer to inventory turns is :
So, if you want to have a little more money fall to the bottom line, you do what? Increase the number of times your inventory turns over during the year, or run with leaner inventory to reduce inventory associated costs (like warehousing, and such). Simple so far, right?
In the study of how money sloshes about and makes the world go round, round, round, the Velocity of Money is stated in the similar form:
That big V thingy on the left means 'velocity of money' while the big T on top there is your aggregate value of all transactions, and the big M on the bottom means the amount of money in circulation in a particular period.
I mention these two formulas today because they are at the very heart of what America is presently facing and why there continues to be a chance of the US slipping deeper into a recession and dragging the rest of the world along with us into a full-blown Depression.
Not that I'm alone in this assessment, since legendary commodities trader Jim Rogers is saying much the same thing - as you can see in this video if you've got the bandwidth...
Rogers says the US bailout approach mimics the lost decade experienced by Japan after their market peaked in 1989 - says we're trying the same thing. Worse, he says "They may turn it into that (the 1930's)..." which would put us in a Depression again.
This morning, let's consider the two formulas above from the perspective of a formerly robust business segment: Auto and truck manufacturing.
Starting first with inventory, we see the pictures floating around the net how there are scads of new cars sitting unsold, even tons of product made for the 2008 model year. What had been a turns level somewhere around 1, meaning 2008 cars were almost all sold off in that model year, has now turned into something less than 1, meaning there's leftover, unsold 2008 inventory.
This then ripples into the nation's velocity of money since fewer cars are being sold, so in our Velocity of Money figuring, the big T on top has gotten smaller, while the Big M on the bottom has remained essentially unchanged.
I say essentially unchanged because of two very items:
Now let's ask, why might that be? Employment is going down, but prices keep going up. Evidence needed?
We turn to this morning's Consumer Price Index report, realizing that hedonics (the substitution of Salisbury steaks for Porterhouse, and that kind of thing) allows these numbers to be pushed hither and yon, although since the Bushco days, it's mostly hither:
Current rate extrapolated? 6.17% per year. They somehow don't mention the forward implications of 0.5% compounded out 12 months and instead, continue to play into the notion of backward-looking economics, which is why we get into so much trouble. No one bothers to see that cow in the road in front of the car, since we're all looking back at Abilene, wondering what we went there fore....
Unadjusted, the food (ex beverages) index was up 4.8% over the past year. What keeps things from looking worse? Energy prices were going down at an annual rate of 18.5% compared with unadjusted year-ago numbers.
But wait! Again, that's backward-looking. In the most recent month, energy prices were up a whopping 3.3%, which if you pencil it forward means a 47.7% increase in energy costs a year out, which means what? That if this kind of increase continues, we will be at $3.12 gas in a year if you're paying $2.11 a gallon now.
As the numbers came out, the folks down on Wall Street are looking to give back some of yesterday's trade which moved toward Robin Landry's 7,404 level...
I'd remind you that every close under Dow 7,404 in Landry's work, just let's longer term indicators on the 90-minute chart catch up to the already bearish count which is suggesting at a minimum a retest of the 6626 lows, or a mid-range expectation of 5,800, and a worst-case 4,400 before we get the meaningful rally.
Also seems to me that it increases the odds of jailed economics whiz Martin Armstrong's turn date (which I pencil for about April 21, since the date 2009.3 would be Jan 1 + [0.3*365 = 109.5] that gets us to a week after Tax Day, or so), to be a low, but that's not investment advice...just a dart over coffee and I tend to hit the water cooler more than the dartboard in my guesses. --- Role of Gold: While the Fed and CONgress seem only to be pushing velocity of money in the direction of bankers, while the rest of us wait around for trickle-through to show up, I have to wonder if maybe this isn't part of a globalist plan to install the New World Order, which as we all know is the Western Capitalist/ USA-British Banking Cabal's idea of how to run the [global] railroad.
I trust you've seen the headline that at the upcoming G20, the Kremlin is about to pitch a new global reserve currency. Since Russia is now the top oil producer in the world, if I read figures right, then it would make sense that they would look at the Chinese experience of buck-holding and want to avoid that. You'd probably make the same call.
But the other day, as I was reading through the government's statistics on money and such, I noticed that the US has 250+ million ounces of gold and that in whatever report I was reading, that gold was valued at $42.222 an ounce.
*Devil's in the details correction: from Wikipedia:
Well, my, my, wouldn't it be a simple matter to reduce out debt and improve our nation's balance sheet (all in one fell swoop) to just let gold float up to the price which it's going for on eBay - nearly $1,000 an ounce? Suddenly, the whole US economic picture gets a lot healthier and we could get back to the real problems we have, namely, how do we put more cash into the hands of consumers?
Don't want to be the one to break this to you, but that's not the plan. You see the NWO, or at least the US-British Banker cabal has other designs, it seems, so we'll just keep perpetrating the myth that the US and world are in terrible financial times, all the while not mentioning that some of our key numbers are based on valuing gold at 1/20th of it's market value. Especially when the national debt is $11-trillion dollars. I'd sure think about putting $250 billion more value on books, but no lobbyist dough to be had on that, or what?
All this leaves me speculating endlessly that whatever the hidden agenda is behind all this, and while it's not yet clearly visible, I get all twitchery when I think about it too much.
Implausible Deniability Department :Obama Administration: We didn't find out about AIG bonuses until this month..." Since we taxpayers now own 79% of AIG, I'd be asking WTF?
The real deal hints a Buffalo News article is that this is starting to shed light "on AIG political cash cow." You getting this yet? Money in, favors out. Yessir,
Here's a novel thought: How's about someone with a little balls/cajones in Washington (if there is such a person) puts in an amendment to any tax AIG execs that would require all members of CONgress to refund any and all that campaign money some of the Hill's worst no doubt received from outfits that later took public TARP or TALF money...and let's throw in payback of those MADOFF contributions, too, just for good measure.
It'll NEVER happen, of course, but OMG we are such sheep...
Things Looking Up "UFOs photographed over London" says the Telegraph this morning. Part of the 'contact coming' meme, one asks?
Saudis 'Help' in Gaza? The very well connected Mideast outfit Debka is headlining this morning that the "Saudis create anti-Israel "militia" in Gaza to combat Hamas."
--- snip and save section --- Coping: Life's Remaining Pleasures Worried about your job? That disappearing 401(k)? Or, just the mysterious lack of 'change' filtering through the system into your pocket?
Relax...here have some chocolates...for as the BBC reports, when there's a recession going on, the more people look for the sweet sweets...
Another thing that's changing? A report out of Connecticut says "Library use on the rise as residents trim spending."
Other life pleasures, such as a pint at the local pub in the UK, are falling a bit as evidenced by the UK's report that alcohol consumption was down 3.2% in 2008. Not that government policies aren't driving people to drink, it seems, but because taxes on booze have gone up.
I Knew There Was Something Fishy, Department "Fish oils cardiovascular claims overstated" says a report out today. Oh crap...I mean carp.
We're "Finnished"? The Finnish Transport Ministry has unveiled a 2020 climate program. Among their objectives: They want fuel consumption down by more than 40%.
Not to break the news to 'em, but if you take how the markets have been doing over the past 1.5 years and extend that out to 2020, they may not have to do anything to hit their goal.
Kindling Effects
I couldn't help but notice that Fujitsu has a new product coming
out...aimed at Kindle: Amazon's Wireless Reading Device
Called 'e-paper' this is a color reader product called a FLEPia.
When You Thought You'd Seen It All.... Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin are entering the world of comic books as characters. Wonder how Hill's latest gaffe with the Russian dude and that button would sketch up?
Idol Thoughts Here's a site with a poll asking 'Do you think 'American Idol' is fixed? Not normally the kind of thing to be covered here, but the poll gives us a rare bit of insight into the lack of mental clarity in America these days.
You see, one of the choices is "Not sure, and don't care. I prefer "Antique Roadshow." Yet, if people really didn't care, they wouldn't waste time voting.
It's the trick of marketing I'm fascinated with. The illusion of disinterest is offered yet at all kinds of levels, people buy into to what the time monks often call the 'cult of personality' but it's labeled elsewhere are 'celebrity' or 'royalty'. Subtle and graceful, how it plays? If folks didn't care, they wouldn't click that choice, as nearly 20% had when I looked.
I'm pretty sure it means something. I'll let you ponder it. How about starting with "Is active disinterest" really disinterest? --- Please send along your snip and save contributions to george@ure.net - you know, the kind of thing you snip out of the paper or hear at the office and put on your refrigerator and then ask 6-months later "What did I save that for?" --- end snip and save section ---
Tuesday March 17, 2009 Web Bot Hit: The New Electrics Arriving THE Tech Breakthrough To Watch You ought to be keeping an extremely sharp eye on Carbon Nanotubes (CNT's) because it turns out that CNT's may replace copper wire in some applications.
---
Seems, since the linguistic reports of HalfPastHuman (which you may find useful if you're trying to live ahead of the future, instead of under it) say we're right now in the dawning of a period called 'the New Electrics", CNT's are where to place your bets. --- There's a second reason to invest in outfits that show high promise in CNT's. It comes from recent work suggesting that CNT's may actually be able to get at some of that rumored "free energy". I assume you caught that "Carbon nanotubes can cut down motor commutator energy loss by 90%" a few days back? --- How about another reason? Then there was that report in "Nature" about CNT's great for ultrafast charging batteries, too. --- Now let me throw one in the hopper just so it's for sure out in the public domain: I was reading his paper last night where James Clerk Maxwell proposed in 1861 that when a magnetic field runs in a particular direction, there are 'lines of force'. He further describes how the energy is transferred from line to line, so that all the currents induced follow the right--hand rule.
But thing creates a molecular-level problem: So here's the key insight from Maxwell's 1861 paper. Picture two wheels, each turning. If one wheel is turning clockwise, a while pressed against it will turn which way? Counterclockwise. This led Maxwell to propose there are something akin to 'idler' wheels down at the fine magnets level which transmit energy between 'active wheels' (right-hand-rule followers.
And you see where this gets? The so-called 'Zero Point Energy" under Maxwell's interpretation of magnetic vortices theory -- heady stuff for 1861, eh? gut was a freakin' genius and no wonder Heaviside edited out the good stuff -- is likely to be found and tapped by utilizing these so-called idler wheels which Maxwell proposed."
There. All public domain. Now it's just an engineering issue. But isn't that what us marketing guys always say? "It's JUST software code..." was one I used to say all the time. Same thing here: Maxwell says go looking for 'idler wheels' - now will you just get on with the engineering and stop messing with these half steps between?
The engineering can be patented to get at these 'idler wheels'. The wheels themselves? Sorry, already in the public domain and hanging around a magnet near you. Lodestone the next uranium? Who knows?
Maximum Pain Theories We're going to get to the markets - much to cover there, but before we go there, I'll begin Life Lesson by noticing that the Universe has be calling me to write something about my pain theory, since it has been supplying plenty of pain for me to ponder over the past few days. (skip ahead to my point by clicking here)
It started with the arrival of new-born goats and a couple of nannies that wouldn't nurse their young. These bad mommas had to be restrained so the babies wouldn't be kicked and so the nans get into the habit of nursing. Along the way, their uncooperative horns and my body had a few disagreements. Along came my old friend pain. I may be starting 7-th decade perhaps, but not many more brain cells than where the first began, it turns out.
This was followed the next day with Aikido Master Zeus the Cat flipping me...OK, maybe more like tripping me...on the way back from the goats. Between the moment of tripping, there was a delicious moment of time-expansion that goes with all fine martial arts. It seemed like weeks in that space between trip/flip and impact as I assiduously avoided further contacts with the cat, with a cross between River Dance and Jackie Chan, as I worked out how not to break anything and set up rolling just so on impact. Except for seeing stars for a second, sensei cat was just calling pain to visit some more.
Third time's a charm when Universe is speaking to you and you're too dumb to get it, so instead of a single root canal on Monday, I had two. Universe conveniently had a patient booked after me cancel. Thanks, loads. This morning it's Ibuprofen and as soon as E goes to town, something strong for the afternoon.
The now need for another crown aside, although that does get us to the financial pain topic, I think I'm starting to get the message, so maximum pain is where we begin today's study of markets.
This is triple-witching week, when loads of options expire and will be settled up. The maximal pain theory of options trading suggests that the market will close for options traders at that price level which will allow the holders of underlying securities to pay off on as little as possible.
Let's look at General Motors options, just for example. If GM closes out the week at exactly 2 1/2, it looks like 109,960 call option holders would not make a dime. 56,486 holders of $4 call option holders (call options are bets the stock would go higher) options would be out all their dough, and so forth.
But then look at the put options (the bets the stock will go lower): There's 56,475 holders of GM call options that expire this week, who could make $1.50 a share ($150 per contract which stands for 100 shares worth).
What the market will do over the balance of the week, is usually to tend toward that price which will cause the most amount of pain among the option holders, or at least that's how it seems to option players including me when I engage my darker side and am playing them. One way to do this is calculate all the losses on GM amongst all call options and all put options and model out the weigh (or buoyancy) of things based on creating the maximum number of losers.
Another way to consider short-term directionality of the market is to go back to the previous options expiration, which was February 20th, and look at where the indices were then compared to where they may end up this week. Last expiration, the Dow was at 7,365'ish, the NASDAQ composite was around 1,441, while the S&P 500 was about 770.
Naturally, this 'maximum pain theory' is not perfect, and the indices are made up of lots of individual stocks, so anything goes, but at the macro level, you could ask "Has my outlook on the economy gotten better or worse, compared with last month at this time?"
Frankly, from where I sit, not much has changed. We still have only one way to get out of the mess - printing money, otherwise while a good Depression would punish the wicked (rather than making them whole and sticking you & me with the tab, there's that little matter of social unrest, soup lines, and upset people who might be inclined toward revolutionary thinking and acting; such as replacing the lobbyist controlled Congress with an outfit that could be recalled and which would listen to those of us back home when we call and express our opinions on this or that.
There's still a larger tab coming, though, because we're likely to see tougher gun control, the corporate takeover of farming will be pushed along with HR 875, and Nancy Pelosi is pushing for free-money for a couple of Bay Area papers which, hey! Didn't they endorse her? Why is it folks in Denver weren't recipients when the Rocky Mountain News was in trouble? At least there, the ex-staffers are launching a web site and getting with the change.
Saw an email yesterday (or was it a web site) that said something to the effect that 20-years ago the majority of the nation's media was owned by 50 companies. Today we're down to just six.
Oh, and if you're retired military (thank you for serving), we are also reading how the Obama administration is about to follow in the footsteps of the crooked Clinton administration and pull a 'change the deal' on some types of medical coverage for service-related disabilities and injuries. As I see it, when someone gets a service related injury, you don't ever change the terms and conditions that were in place at the time of injury; that's just dishonest, but further evidence I suppose of just how far the lobbyists have gotten in their checkbook coup in Washington. Let's not go there (although I am seriously pissed about this kind of 'change'.)
OK, let's go there, then. Is it just me, or since we've had a minor rally in this bear market is the timing purely coincidental that the slap at the military shows up as soon as there's a chance they won't be necessary to maintain domestic order should a Depression show up in earnest? I'm not talking about the rumors that folks re-upping for another term are being asked if they would turn guns on Americans, or the fine work of Oath Keepers. I'm talking about changing deal terms for people who have paid some of freedom's highest prices.
I guess, since the Obama administration has hired so many Clintonistas, it shouldn't come as a surprise: Huge disappointment. --- Senator Charles Grassley is so upset about the AIG bonus situation that he's quoted as saying that AIG execs should 'quit or suicide'. Grassley's got one thing right: there is no "culture of shame and acceptances of personal responsibility" to be seen in any of this so far. --- What's ahead for the market, then? I called my friend Robin Landry to find out if yesterday's drop from a session high just 11-points from his 'last-line-in-the-sand rally target of 7,404 was enough to turn him into a believer.
OK, that'd line up with the notion that right in here would be a good resting point in the rally while the market makes up its mind where to go next.
Not that it means stability: There's a whole pile of data coming, and I suppose we could start with this morning Producer Price Index figures just released by the Labor Department:
After the PPI numbers, the futures were looking like a pop of 14 points, as I keep an eye on 7,404. ' Another thing that may weigh on the market is tomorrow's release Consumer Prices and then the Fed decision, but that last is a no-brainer. Fed's now in the box I've been telling you would show up a long time ago, and like Japan, we're now locked into a zero-percent paradigm and once there, recovery gets to be difficult. The answer, of course, is to get money into hands of consumers, so while we wait the two years till the mislabeled 'stimulus' does something, don't be surprised if conditions deteriorate, layoffs continues, and oh yeah, a few million more folks lose their homes.
Don't think it can happen? Wrong. MSNBC reporting this morning that "US Banks supper 149 percent rise in band loans: New data on each of 8,000 banks shows breath of recession's impact."
So is there any good news in all this? Oh...er...sure: Like no one but me seems to be calling it a Depression yet. Although I've been working on Scoville Hamlin's 1930's book (more for Peoplenomics readers this weekend) and what the "Menace of Overproduction" is all about.
Global Warming Notes A new study out of the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee says earth is undergoing a natural climate change. Gosh, better discredit this one quick, or that carbon credit hysteria might die down. This as worldwide hurricanes set a new low. Quick...whip up some fear! Hide the heat island data! World's ending! Government must expand power! Give me a frigging break.
Natural outgrowth of excess consumption of resources and amazingly, Hamlin and others warned of precisely this kind of environmental damage in the last depression.
Those who don't learn the lessons of history are abound to repeat what?
Snake Swallowing It's Tail Department You ever ask yourself "If a snake started to eat itself, but chowing down on its own tail, would it in the end (LOL) consume itself? This is the core visual that always comes to mind when dealing with circular references in spreadsheets or databases.
It's also especially useful when reading the remarks of other economics realists, who it's fashionable to call 'doomsters', such as the headline from CNBC: "Treasurys are a disaster waiting to happen': Dr. Doom."
Got time for a little thought experiment to internalize Faber's correct assertion? Try this one.
Grab all the money out of the kid's Monopoly set. and get a friend to help you. Lend all the Monopoly money to your assistant at 10% interest. Have them cut down a tree, make more paper, and print up additional Monopoly money to pay you back.
Now repeat this process for as long as you can while asking "How long before we run out of trees to cut down?"
That's the core issue with the Fed buying Treasurys. Oh, and as soon as that happens, what's China's incentive to ever buy another? Move over Mugabe! He come Tim and Ben.
Many Tea Partiers, Missing Media As one might suppose, made ever-so-convenient by the concentration of media power, there's not been much coverage (nearly zilch) of the more than 150 'tea parties' being planned or held already around the nation. Quick, look surprised. --- Please also recall that at some point, someone in government will figure out as I have, that just like the FCC seized radio control in the last Depression, so too, internet regulation and perhaps licensure will come with this one. Remember where you read it first.
Iran's Nukes In the latest round of headlines, Israel's "IDF Chief: Strike on Iran concrete option" says ynet. And, the JPost has this curious headline: British Prime Minister "Brown: Iran must talk to the American's." --- The problem I have with Brown is how can anyone take him seriously on matters related to the future? I mean after selling of Britains gold on the cheap and now amidst reports he might sell off the Royal Mint to private holders in TPTB (the PowersThatBe)? Would you listen to someone like that? I mean especially if you were sitting on approximately 11% of the world's proven oil reserves? Right.....so move along, nothing to be seen here...
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Coping: Worries in the Dark of Night Had a thought-provoking email from a reader that's worth sharing:
Oh this is easy: Blend end. Leave your lights out. You ought to have LED flashlights galore, night vision, and so forth. Heck, having lights on means two things; I have power and if I have that, think what else I may have.
You need to read up on rhodopsin. Since the rhodopsin/visual purple will have been bleached out of your eyes, so if you need to operate in darkness, whoever it 'out there' has a 30-minute headstart on getting acclimated. Consider a red filter for your flashlights (reduces visual purple bleaching, which is why it's the color of choice for night fighters. --- But this gets me to a ne thing to ponder. I've heard some incidental reports that the reason the military's new generations of thermal imagery (amber displays) and most night vision uses green, is because red-colored displays apparently can trigger perceptions of other-worldly creatures and activities.
So, if you
have any first-hand knowledge/experience seeing scary things
while using red night vision gear, please pass it along.
Doing some data collecting in this (admittedly somewhat arcane)
area. Seems to be somehow linked to triggering DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine)
production, which in turn could trigger hallucinations
or transport to other dimension of thought/reality, depending
on your take on Graham Hancock's book Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind
All of which brings me around to the concept of a series of flashing red LED's plus eye movement (or different light positions) as a way to trigger DMT experiences, but that's not something to be taken lightly (poor pun intended) while the lights are off in your neighborhood. Might want to have someone around if you decide to go on one of these trips. There's a reasons to have a good shaman handy.
Dumb George Department Several people asked by Monday's UrbanSurvival report hadn't been updated. Well, you doof, it was! I (duffus primus) had merely overlooked changing the date on the report. Bad me, silly you. Or is it.... --- Send snip and save items to george@ure.net --- end of snip and save section ---
Monday March 16, 2009 G-20, That Was Fun Why already this morning I'm seeing reports that "Obama Upbeat on G-20" as finance conductors will meet again next month. Of course, there was the usual hoopla from this weekend's meetings about the need to 'do more' and work toward a sustainable recovery. Unfortunately, I haven't seen anyone propose much more than running the printing presses to make up more money, and if there are losses, push them off onto the public, which continues to be unrepresented by a Congress which ignored overwhelming public opposition to bankster bailouts despite the Will of the People. But, of course, it's all to be expected.
And speaking of which, AIG listed its counterparties last night, who benefitted from your taxpayer generosity, pledged despite your objections - shame on you. Turns out one of the French bank Societe Generale received $11.9 billion while Deutsche Bank got $11.8 billion and Barclays took $8.5 billion off the table. Damn, you're generous.
The opposition to just printing up 'money' to deal the bankers a painless way past the crisis continues building. A sharp-eyed reader noted that the State of Maryland is considering House Joint Resolution 5:
Of course, it hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell. Or, as I often remind myself: "Who needs tanks if they have banks?
Although Ben Bernanke is already claiming that a new depression has been averted, I'm not so sure. Time will tell, of course...but keeping bankers in business doesn't solve the problem of consumer saturation, as folks in Detroit are finding out. And Japan's economy has been in decline since 1989, so no, I'll just watch the numbers a bit longer. Still, we may be seeing the....
Laws of Economics Suspended? Headline: "World mints report soaring demand for gold coins." So gold is down $5 this morning and off its all-time high by 7% or so? Why sure...makes perfect sense in the new world of digi-paper.
Pssst! Wanna Buy a Mint? The UK press reporting the Royal Mint may go on the block. What is it with Gordon Brown and gold, anyway? --- Even though the market futures are pointing to a higher open, that 7,404 Dow level looks pretty daunting technically. Robin Landry sent out a client note today which says:
So, I'm sitting on the sidelines in cash, or what little there's left after I go get another root canal today. But again, gold oughta be rising just because of all the gold going into my mouth lately if for no other reason.
Empire State Disaster The Fed's Empire State index, which was expected to be down -32 was actually down 38.2% this morning.
Dow futures still pointing up, for reasons that defy sense. Intervention, anyone? --- Fed's Capacity Utilization Report comes out later this morning.
Just to get Monday off on the right foot (of the left one if you prefer) here's a dandy economics thought experiment: Say you have 10 factories and 2 of them are not doing any business, so you survey all the plants and calculate that they are making goods at 80% of capacity.
Now, permanently close (as in tear down) those two factories so they no longer count. Next, export all the jobs from 3 more plants and close them too, so you only have five plants of the original 10 left.
Then let's further suppose demand is collapsing too, such that of the remaining plants are operating at only 90% of capacity.
What do the statistics show? Capacity utilization is up 10% from 80% to 90%.
This is why I keep Tums and el Don next to my computer. One, or t'other, is needed most mornings.
A Rose By Any Other Name, Department The headlines that "Guantanamo inmates no longer 'enemy combatants" seems another fine example of the kind of 'change' we're getting out of Washington these days. Gee, I can hardly wait till the next obvious step: We'll have to start calling the guards concierges? And then? Hell, let's give 'em airline miles, too!
Is Austria Right? Far right apparently as I read how "The far right is on the march again: the rise of fascism in Austria." Is it something in their water or the mountain air? Birthplace of Hitler and all...
Stand By for e-bombs New gadgets to zap electronics - and humans - coming from the defense industry, says a Wired report..
Chemtrails Going Mainstream After a long slow start, the linguistics work at www.halfpasthuman.com notes that things like this May 2008 video "Germany becomes one of the first countries to admit Chemtrails Ops" and the nearly 30,000 YouTube hits may be leading to international media presence of this as an issue before late summer.
--- snip and save section --- Coping: Pick A Number, Any Number It occurred to me a while that sometimes the news develops a kind of droning sameness about it. Determined not to become stale, I observed that a lot of the news stories about involve counting. I mean, at the core, the current financial mess, just to use an example, would not be much of a big deal if the numbers associated with it were in the hundreds, or even thousands. But, when the word "trillion" enters the picture, then you start to pay attention.
Or, do we? The Detroit Free Press carried a recent piece "Trillion: It's the new billion". You can also see how a particular number is doing by looking at how it's handled on the internet. The word trillion was at first capitalized and italicized, then it was downgraded to italicized only, and here lately, it's lost the italics and its capital, but then haven't we all? There were almost 77-thousand news hits in the Google news search tool for 'trillion' this morning.
That pales in comparison to the approximately 628-thousand references to billion.
While you're off multiplying 628-thousand times one billion so you can compare it with 77-thousand times one trillion - just to see if journalists are all pointing toward some number range or other, I'll be off going the other way.
I'll just pull some number out of the air...let's say 9...and go do a search on that:
My point is what?
Just that humans are creatures of habit and one set of habits we all develop over time is how we 'sample' the news environment - and other domains of life, too. Editors and news directors, and the other denizens of mediaspace don't have any particular claim on deciding which news is important versus which news is not. They occasionally think so but it's not the case. What's really going on mostly is they have their own sampling mechanisms and if those happen to line up with the public's tastes, then fine.
Not that it's a BIG deal, but there are other ways to slice and dice 'news' (or anything else) beyond the norms of society. Today I'm showing you how to slice-by-number. We could just as easily have picked a number like 21 ("Forever 21 stores shine amid slide").
After you've had some fun with slicing by number, you can slice by colors. At a simple level, the major colors were assigned to ordinate directions of the compass, but then again, I assume you knew the relationship or earth, air, fire, and water to the colors red, green, yellow, and blue from your studies of magic, feng shui, or just out reading John Gage's book on color and meaning, right?
Not to make too big a point of it, but if you search the color 'green' in the news headlines this morning, you'll come up with a story out of Boston that "Exuberant and green-garbed crowds partake in parade" which reminds me to wear green tomorrow for it's St. Patrick's day.
Once you've worked through colors, you can get to work on compass directions as well as the various shades of up and down.
578-thousand hits for 'north', 375-thousand for 'east', 570-thousand for 'south', and 478-thousand for 'west'.
3.1 million references for up versus 1.2 million for down makes me wonder if there's an undercurrent of optimism, since more seems to be going 'up' than 'down'. Or, is 'up' bad...like taxes going up? Hmmm...
Done with that? More to go as you'll want to try filtering for the temperatures (cold, frozen, etc., not the numbers since we've done that) and then there's a whole spectrum of emotions to search: Love returns 284,200 news items in the Google News tool, while Hate offers only 39,807.
Gee. Maybe there's hope for us yet.
Email of the Day A Peoplenomics subscriber who enjoyed this week's 'Top-10 Questions Answered" report sent this one:
Gallows humor, eh? Well, hang around, there's more where that came from... --- Another subscriber did not enjoy my using common texting abbreviations to annotate my weekly chart series:
My reply?
Off to the dentist...something that's become a bit of a drill lately... --- Send snip and save items, PayPal contributions, critiques, a side order of spaghetti, and a new Ferrari to george@ure.net --- end snip and save section ---
Here's the latest from www.opencongress.org on the House bill which would let workers inside the District of Columbia work income tax free!
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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market, it seems. 
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