 |
Powered by subscribers to Peoplenomics.com
Subscriber
Entrance
|
|
Published Monday - Friday about 8 AM Central Time Except Holidays....many major typos are fixed by 8:30 daily
Saturday May
9, 2009
7:55 CDT
This site is supported by subscription to Peoplenomics. For additional content, please subscribe. Content mirrored at my other site: www.independencejournal.com,
Zeus the Cat: Are Humans Trainable? I am Zeus the Cat - and I am Write - and not to get in your face too much, but while fatso is sleeping in this morning, I'm taking over his website to bring you and your fellow monkeys a look at stoopid your world is from the cat's eye perspective.
Before we get started though, what's hiz name's deck that got built this week is pretty cool... only a couple of things wrong with it. The position is great for hunting. Sits about 20 feet from one of the bird baths and not 40 feet from the first of the bird feeders. What I'm not happy with is the height as it's about six feet high at the birding end. Still, easier to hide there than just sitting out in the open, although the hunting looked better up by the garden where the wild rabbits come out about this time of day.
Fatso's gotten me over to Hill's Science Diet saying it was for my health because I'd put on a few pounds. Not that it's any of hiz business...13 pounds isn't excessive body weight for a lean mean hunting machine like me, especially when I have to chase raccoons and other mid-sized preds off the property. Besides, look who's talking! --- Look, I know you don't care about a cat's life on a ranch out in the boonies of East Texas, but have you ever considered how dumb humans look to any other part of the animal kingdom? Seriously dude...get a clue!
Take for example the flyover of NYC by AF1. Now that is dumb. Or, as we cat's text it MTF? (The 'm' stands for meow).
Meowing of texting, you saw where a Boston trolley crashed...supposedly because the conductor was texting his bi...I mean girlfriend? MTF is with that...
And that get's me to the whole point that I've been meowsillating on since my last column a while back: Are humans trainable? I mean it! Check it out:
"Obama urges credit card reform" is kicking around as a story, right? Yet here's the tip in the "How they voted on predatory lending" report which I had to claw out of the Mankato Free Press up in Mousesota to find out that Texas 5th District Congressman Jeb Hensarling, who represents bipeds around here - voted in against credit card reform. Here's the quote:
You want to explain to me how that works? OK: Credit card companies have been cutting the fat hog since they skated on usury laws back in the 1960's. Here's the cat's eye view: don't send boyz to Washington when you should be sending men who can figure out that the reason there are so many credit card deals showing up in the mail (Hensarling's idea of 'choice') is that there's so damn much money to be made skinning humans of their hard earned cash.
You dumb humans oughta really rethink this whole concept of 'money' that you have going - it's twisted all your thinking. When I want a favor down the road from Puscilla the other cat - what do I, the Mighty Zeus do? Nothing! She kills, we share. I kill, we share. It's all about sharing humans - come on, wake up! --- The problem with money is what? Causes you people to do stupid - if not downright dis-moral things (dis-moral is a word in Catlish...you can add it to English if you like).
Here's how the world is used. Check the headline: "Under restructuring, GM to build more cars overseas". Got that? You taxpaying bipeds fork over more dough and then GM flees to India, China, or wherever else they can move product. Close down Detroit and will the last person out of Motown turn off the lights! That is what we cats would call dis-moral.
But'cha know why that word isn't used in English? Because it presents a harsh reality view of Life that humans have group-think hypnotized themselves out of.
Can we have a little heart-to-heart? Oh sure, I nip up a lot...but the nice thing about 'nipping (that's catnip, ape) is that it's an all natural deal. You taller Neanders take all kindza variants of fluoride molecules, box 'em up and pass 'em around so that half of frigging America is on some kinda pill. And what do you watch on TV? "Tell your doctor..." Vicious circle. You need an intervention...and that's what fatso figures long wave economic depressions are all about: Bunch'a people get hypnotized this way or that...and then when the game falls apart, everyone sobers up, relearns sharing as a concept...and next thing you know you've got a functional society again.
Well, the cat's calling you out. Stupid apes.
Speaking of which - you saw where the Governator in California is thinking about legalizing ape 'nip? "Arnold Schwarzenegger: it's high time to review marijuana law." My human Tubso has it right, though: Ain't gonna happen. Just too damn much money being made by the booze lobby and the cartels to really do anything more than talk.
As luck would have it, though, one of the other outcomes of the Depression (wait till late next year on this), some ape group-think (either a legislature or the federales, are going to figure out next year that the War on Drugs is an 'industry' that we won't be able to afford as the budgets of government worldwide implode over these next couple of years.
What kind of hypnosis are you people in? It's like saying that "God made a mistake by leaving peyote and this particular kind of hemp laying around Hiz planet" when you think about it. Well, have fun. I know - keeps a lot of lawyers working, prison guards employed, borders open (so I know someone's skating on pee tests) and all the rest. Just don't ad catnip to the list of "God's mistakes" or you'll be up to your ass in mice and rats faster than you can say "Hello kitty."
Doesn't anyone but cats (and a few dogs, like Sammy next door) get it? I was showing Sammy how to jog, just the other day, and just as he was gonna try to nip (definition #2) at me, I pulled a tree-climb on him. MOL...I yelled down "Sammy, you old dog...see? Planet came just purrrfect from the factory. No mistakes and plenty of trees for me, MOL..."
Now go on - tell me the part again about how cats & dogs are 'less' than apes? Hahaha. No, we don't live in the past...so we don't waste time on ex's, the relationships that didn't work...none of that. What's more...we don't waste our time plotting and scheming about five-year and ten-year strategic plans, or what to wear to some party next month. Nope. We just live in the eternal now and that's it.
When you humans read news stories about things like "More than 30K ordered to flee Santa Barbara fire" that gets you back into the present. But then you turn around and read something like the "WHO: Up to 2-billion people might get swine flu" and you're off future-tripping again. Here ape, here ape...stay in the present with me...
You know that's why humans keep pets, right? Emotional crutches, MOL. After our run the other day, Sammy was chewing a rawhide toy and I was nipping up, and Sammy said something really profound: "I think the humans I know are really only present in the Now about 30% of the time." Sammy's the dog-world answer to pure genius. I've taken to calling him Dogstein. --- Sammy's had his rabies shot... I've had distemper shots and all that (we don't like vaccines any more than you do, but you give us no choice...not hardly fair is it?) so we have been watching this flu thing. Here's the update to tubby's flu table for the day:
A number of people have written to what's hiz name - fatso - and have questioned his way of figuring 'mortality rates'. The truth of the matter, the whole idea was mine. He was having coffee with me earlier this week and I gave him two ways to look at the flu mortality rate.
The first thing I pointed out was that we could back out countries which have experienced no deaths early on in the spread of the disease, because people don't die the same day they get sick, at least so far as we know. What's hiz then said if the peak of mortality comes 2-3 days afters the onset of symptoms, why don't we use the case number from 2-days ago?
"No, won't work, apeman," I told him. "Reason being that we don't know how long the lag time is between confirmation of the flu. besides, the mortality count will be drifting around for a while so in the meantime, the number of 'fluless' countries will continue to decline as more and more cases are discovered, so we will eventually get back to a 'pure' cases versus death count as the disease spreads."
And that should be pretty quick: Remember, last Saturday we only had 615 cases of flu and here a week later we have 3,440, so over the week, the number of cases is up more than five and a half times. 5.593495935 to be exact.
I've left a note for fatso that a worst case could look something like this over the next 8 weeks:
OK, what does this mean? By sometime in the week after the Fourth of July weekend, everyone in the world would have been exposed....
But, of course, it won't work out that way...because the flu normally takes a summer break. So that's maybe why we don't get to these kinds of numbers until September or October.
Now here's a little bit of yarn for you to play with: What IF this is a kind of binary flu? In other words, I wonder if this is one of those things where the flu could set you up for exposure to something else which would be fatal? See? There you go...leaving now...
Say, speaking of which this is the first time in a long while that I've had access to my email - since what's hiz screwed up Outlook this week. --- WOW! Just opened my gmail...and look at some of these young hotties that are after hiz Zeusness! Here's a typical response from my personal ad in the Rat Reporter...which I also ran in the Mouser's Monthly:
Hmmm....not bad...but she didn't mention whether she's had kits...I don't do pussys with kits. She also didn't mention here age...remember, I don't date any felines under age 2. Well, except there was this one time...let's not go there.
Say, one more?
Sounds promising, too...but wait a minute...here's a follow-up email from Angel...
Oh, it isn't too bad...they're still there, just had the feline version of a vasectomy is all...like I said, not much interested in having kits.
Well, have to answer a bunch of personals....like the one that signed "Yours in chicken..." Ummmmm good one there. And the two Dachshunds? Get lost! I don't do dogs.. Well, except there was this one time...let's not go there.
That's all for now...gonna go freshen up my personal ad copy - new Rat Reporter comes out Thursday and I want to make sure I bold my email address: zeusishot@gmail.com. The serious-minded biped who normally writes this stuff should be back on Monday morning....gotta jet...I hear him coming...Bye!
By hiz mark,
Z eus the Cat
Peoplenomics The Case for Client-Server Government Before we launch into the two main items of this week's report, namely the concept of installing a client-server architecture on the federal government and a deeper analysis of bank failures that makes the case we're really much closer to a 'clean replay' of the 1930's Depression than MainStream Media (MSM) let's on, I'd like to begin with a huge "Thank you!" to the subscribers who keep the IndependenceJournal.com, UrbanSurvival.com, and Peoplenomics.com web sites going via their subscriptions. With this weekend's report, Peoplenomics is now 400 issues along...so if you count back 400 weeks that's when our first edition hit - October 19, 2001. The focus of that first issue, written just a few short weeks after 9/11? Two items that are very much current today: The first real discussion of my "systems perspective of life" and "Clash of Civilizations? Cyclical Aspects of Major Religions at 1,000 and 1,500 years..." Back in 2001 when Peoplenomics got started, I wanted to write something that would be a useful 'look-ahead' source news and financial analysis. Thanks to the predictive linguistics work of Cliff at HalfPastHuman.com and more than 13-years of major market journalism by moi, I think Peoplenomics has hit the mark more often than not and we've been far enough ahead of the MainStreamMedia as to make it almost humorous. So it's with some considerable pleasure I'll begin this week's report with a discussion of how the current flu scare makes an even stronger the case for modeling our physical government after client-server architecture topologies in computing....
More For Subscribers Subscription Information
Tell Your Friends About this Site So let me ask you this: When was the last time you ran into a no BS site about economics, investing, and the changing lifestyle that a resource-limited world needs to evolved? Well, why not tell someone about it? Click here for a tool that may help.
"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 May 8, 2009 8.9% Unemployment: Good News - and Bad The latest national employment situation report was released within the hour by the Labor Department. It's got some good news, and some bad, depending on your particular bent as you read it:
One could look at the alternative measures of labor underutilization portion of the report here and observe that the 'real' unemployment rate (if you back out the PhD's flipping burgers and such) was running at 15.8% in April, up 2-10th's of a percent for the month.
And the even worse news is that in the Federal Reserve's Consumer Debt Report (which they insist on calling 'credit') we read how the total amount of consumer debt is continuing to decline.....and has increased to a -5.2% annual rate.
True, revolving debt was less bad - down at only a -6.8% rate for the month compared with a -12.1% rate the month previous, but the nonrevolving debt, which had been 1.2% annualized positive last month is now dropping at a 4.2% annualized rate.
How does it all add up? Well, it's like I've said for some time now: We're in the gulf between outbreaks of crisis: Come the end of the month, things are due (linguistically) to start popping again and when they do, it ought to become apparent to most everyone that what flips a big recession into a depression is when the public starts to lose faith in a better tomorrow. Clearly, the tiny bumps in some positive aspects of today's numbers could be painted as optimistic but that's only if the person doing the painting doesn't explain error rates in reports. In that case, the so-called bright spots as I read 'em are all within statistical noise.
The Consumer Debt Report, on the other hand, is probably a cleaner way to look at things, since if people aren't willing to take on debt, the whole leveraged lifestyle paradigm collapses (wait till next fall for this part and let's not get too far ahead of ourselves yet) because the global corporatist system is based on perpetual growth at rates faster than humans reproduce.
So just go to work today and try not to think about - let alone do anything about - the latest stair step down. Focus on the simplified headlines like "Layoffs slow to 539K in April; jobless rate rises." And try not to remember the real unemployment rate is pushing 16%.
Build-A-Burger, Side of Depression Sorry if your private jet is down for maintenance and you won't be able to fly in to Greece this weekend. But, if your plane was up, and your pilots not on vacation, then maybe you could score a pass to the weekend's Bilderberger gathering in Greece.
That - according to reports - is where the PowersThatBe are meeting to make a key decision: Shall we have a short, sharp Second Depression, of the inflationary kinda, or should we have a long, slow agonizing one of the deflationary kind? How the deflationary kind work out is long - like the US First Depression. While the inflationary kind can be shorter (Weimar example) both are equally hard on the people who have to suffer through them.
We need to have very clear thinking on this: While it's true that the number of banks that have failed so far is not up to first Depression levels, the number of financial failures globally is certainly approaching those levels. What people don't cotton to is the idea that in lieu of just banks and brokers in the First Depression, this Second Depression features banks, brokers, real estate outfits, large insurance companies, automakers, and the list goes on. Add 'em all up side-by-side, and the numbers are pretty close to the first couple of years of Depression 1. Remember, in the First Depression we didn't lose whole countries. --- Shareholder Note: Since you and I (collectively 'the public') now own 79% of AIG, we have to note that AIG just lost $7.81 billion in Q1. The headlines are that it's a 'smaller loss'. To my way of thinking, it's like being partly dead. And who are the geniuses that cut the AIG deal who bought 80% of a company without a public seat in the Board Room? Thaty'd be Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke. ---
I don't know about you, but if I had a company which had gone
horribly wrong, the very first thing I'd hold out for (in return
for a nearly 80% ownership position) would be to throw the old
Board out on its collective ass. Not the Bushco
appointees, nossir. I promise to stop reminding you who ran the ship of state onto the rocks some day...once we've got this puppy patched up and refloated. But, in the meantime, as long as more losses could potentially mean more of our hard-earned taxpayer dough , I'll just keep pressing the point that only madmen or coconspirators would not give the public board-level control under the guise of avoiding 'nationalizing' a company. Are you kidding? Call it what it is....and can someone besides me remember that denial is how we got into this mess in the first place....
Brother Can You Spare Speaking of which: Just $75 billion more for banks... Why we Americans are truly the most generous rescuers of bankers, aren't we? Either that or the people we sent to Washington just don't give a damn about what the folks back home want. Naw, that couldn't be the case...oh nothing so dark as being bought off by the special interests, I'm sure....
Smoke-a-Barbara
Fludee Do Latest box score in the flue cases:
* Estimated Mortality Calculation The way I look at 'mortality' is pretty simple: I look at the death rate in countries which have experienced deaths, not those which have confirmed the virus and have no deaths. I'm sure we could have a week-long seminar over whether this is sound reasoning, but I figure it this way: Local (here in Texas) sources tell me (informally) that the virus may be infectious up to 2-days before symptom onset and the virus sheds (e.g. is transmissible) more than 7-days after symptom onset, and possibly as long as 9 days which is unusual. So given that the transmissibility window is as long as 11-days, I'm only counting in my mortality guestimate those countries where one death (or more) has occurred. As of today the calc's are:
The fuse is lit in a lot more.
--- snip and save items ---
Coping: With Email Issues I found out something Friday that I thought I'd share with you: If you use Microsoft Outlook 2007 and you don't bother deleting emails periodically, you really can get your Outlook .PST file big enough to cause problems. Case in point?
The problem began yesterday for no apparent reason...My Outlook program simply wouldn't load - it got a message about not being able to open the needed window. So I then went off questing for why that might be. Went through the use of scanpst.exe thinking that I might have a glitched out .PST file, but no, that wasn't it.
Then I went through and hit the Microsoft knowledgebase - and no resolution from that, including resetting the registry and removing the old .PST file. One thing led to another, but since I hadn't used any tech support time from Microsoft on this particular package, I called them up and actually had a great customer service experience.
While it's true the fellow I spoke with didn't sound like he was here in the USA (that would have been nice) he was, nevertheless extremely competent. And after about 45-minutes of being logged onto my computer remotely, the issues were found and fixed.
Turns out it was a very rare problem: In my file associations the .pst extension had somehow become associated not with OUTLOOK.EXE as it should have been, but had been associated with SCANPST.EXE - the fix-it tool. Ooops.
Once fixed, the problem went away, and since it was my first call, I didn't get dinged the $49.95/hour of tech support.
All of which wouldn't be worth wasting your time on except for the parting comments of the tech: "I see your Outlook .PST file is larger than it should be. If you have a .PST file and it gets much bigger than 1.8 GB, you are subject to having odd behaviors. So, in order to reduce your chances of losing all of your data, I'd suggest that you clean up your .PST file so that it's no bigger than about 1.8 GB.
Which is exactly what I did and this morning my computer is zipping along happily now that I have cleaned out 21-thousand odd sent items, 15-thousand (or so) deleted items and junk mail, and a whole lot more. I don't know who holds the world's record for the biggest .PST file, but after going through the experience, although pleasant enough, I've put a recurring task up on my calendar: "thin down Outlook" once a month. --- The battle of operating systems is far from over. I trust you saw this week that article in InformationWeek about how "Linux has passed the 1% usage milestone as Windows slips"
Having a tech tell me that I should be mindful of a 1.8 GB recommendation in my main mail program (that I was previously unaware of) has given me pause to reconsider open source yet again. Mail programs like Eudora for Linux (also available for Windows and Mac) seem to be calling.
On the other hand, since Microsoft has been really good about automated service packs, and since the customer support experience yesterday was excellent, I'll probably put off moving to Open Source, however tempting it may be. The main reason is that I deal with clients on a consulting basis and I don't need close compatibility with applications like PowerPoint... I need exact. Moreover, I don't have the time to see if v-cards work as neatly in Open Source...but it's certainly getting there.
The other alternative is sure tempting, too: Get an old Windows 98 box and run that. Hardly anyone is writing viruses aimed at legacy equipment - and maybe that's the safest thing. After all, I can still type no faster today into a Vista/Office 2007 machine, than I could into a Windows 97 machine using Office 97.
And that gets us around to the "progress" that outfits (like the Federal Reserve, for one) use when calculating 'productivity'. As the people's economist I maintain that even though we now all have 1-terabyte USB drives for backing up our systems, and really fancy graphic schemes, the basic work-speed of humans has changed little in the past 140-years or so. - more on that in the ham radio note below.
Meantime, now that email is back up - guess where my Friday will be going?
Global Coast Phenom / Swimmingly Good email:
Yeah, the weather up in the Pacific Northwest has been quite unusual this year. Looking at the forecast for today in Seattle, I can remember being out sailing on Elliott Bay in January with better weather than they're getting in May of this year.
However, that said, a little reality check from the almanac is in order: Seattle's rainfall - year to date - is within half an inch of 'normal' - the only glaring change is that May this year has about 1 ½ inches for the month more than normal. Will Seattle have a summer? Ask me in four months.
Designer Pets I don't know how I missed this one: "Fluorescent puppy is world's first transgenic dog" reported NewScientist last month. Hot damn! A glow-in-=the-dark puppy - just what every....er...I'm sure someone needs one. --- Would explain one thing though: Why Zeus-the-Cat eyes me funny when I reach for a can of spray paint lately.
Survivalists and Zombies More good email here:
Yeah, there are a whole lot of people in the 'under 30' demographic who are getting a sense - almost fatalistically - that the present course of events can't go on forever because the whole underlying business model is based on growth, growth, growth. When it flips over - and companies start to actually shrink operations, reduce sales, and so forth,
GLAS Still researching this - more in Peoplenomics this weekend for subscribers, I've decided...need more research time...which went away in my epic email adventure Friday.
Sleep & Grow Thin Can't help but note the article in the Gold Coast Mail today about how people who sleep more don't feel as much hunger as people who don't get much sleep. So check out the bottom line: If you want to lose weight, consider getting more sleep....think I'll go saw some zzzz's....
Lemme see....If I can just sleep for 97 days nonstop, LOL
--- Send snip and save items to george@ure.net --- end snip and save section ---
Around the Ranch: Ham Radio Note Seems like here lately, about all I do is work. Not that it's a bad thing per se...Universe puts work before you and your end of the bargain is to do the projects - however grueling and unfulfilling they may be; like spending 5 hours on an email problem Thursday (above). Nevertheless, I apparently made a note to myself to spend more time with ham radio this year since the following note popped up in my schedule today:
Part of being a 60 year old throwback - although the term technological Renaissance Man sounds a lot more complimentary - is being proficient in Morse code. Used to be able to do 40 wpm (+) in my head, although last time I checked I was only able to copy about 30-35, but still, decent enough speed to make 'the code' a lot of fun.
Not only that, but if America's youth today were just a little smarter, they might have read the written accounts, or watched the video of how Morse code is really faster than texting as demonstrated on one of Jay Leno's Tonight Show episodes. A few kids get it, though, as this video shows...
One other reason that Morse code is useful - especially as you begin to age a bit - is that if you ever have a stroke, or are in a really bad accident and can't more but one finger, for example, you can still bang out - hell, even blink out - More code. I have to admit that I still really have mixed feelings about the FCC's removing the Morse requirement to get a ham ticket. Part of me says that it's great that they did - since Morse was a barrier to entry for a fair number of people. On the other hand, it ensured that back in the 'old days' that fellow hams would be able to use the original digital mode, although I suppose that's passed us by, too.
Nowadays, we've got digital signal technology which gets signals out of what sounds like impossible conditions - actually below the noise floor, by sensing undetectable (to human) changes in the noise itself. Oh well... hope to at least turn the HF radios on for a while during the contest - really is fun. Of course, if you tell someone that your idea of a good time is sending and receiving Morse code, or chasing down a bad component in a 40-year old piece of tube-type radio gear, they look at you kinda funny. Can't for the life of me figure out why...
Time was that it was a genuine thrill to be able to pull a very weak signal out from down in the noise & static...there was not better technology than a straight key (or a 'bug') but like so much else in the world, that's down the road...
Thursday May 7, 2009 The Daily Dissonance World not making sense to you? Well, don't feel alone. Not to pick on anyone here, but when I read how News Corp chairman Rupert "Murdoch: [says] "The Worst Is Over" I have to wonder who is on what planet. Sure, sure, stocks climbed to a four-month high as banks jumped initially on the stress test reports. But is the news really all that good?
Let me whip out the calculator and put some numbers down:
True, that only $65.8 billion a mere pittance compared to the final days of Bushco when the real money was being printed up, but can Murdoch's assertion that "The Worst is Over" really be correct?
Personally, I doubt it. A fellow I know who's a pretty good analyst tells me that now might be a fine time to execute the 'sell in May and go away" adage - with a little more detail and some targets put up for Peoplenomics subscribers at mid day yesterday. I'm now in waiting mode to see if a downside reversal happens today.
The bigger picture, far as I can figure, is that we're in a kind of head fake zone right now: The worst of the initial collapse of the residential real estate market is now seemingly slowing, but we haven't really seen the ramp up I expect in the commercial real estate market.
It's not feeling like a bottom at all to me. Feels like a pause in the drop. Headlines like GM. posts a quarterly loss of $6-billion don't exactly make me want to run out and buy a new car, you know. The stories earlier this week about bank-owned homes being bulldozed in California is just a small sample of how the global depression is digging in: Even in Calgary Alberta - which with all of its oil development you'd think would be depression-proof to some degree - authorities are bulldozing a homeless camp.
Now, I don't know about you, but the way I expect things to play out as the summer comes along is this: The laid off people (remember GM is out for 9 weeks and Chrysler is closing 10-plants regardless of whatever deals are done, or not, with Fiat) and the homeless people both here, but also in France and England, could be a flashpoint for the linguistic 'summer of hell' just ahead.
Silver's Outlook One of my reasons to be ultra bullish about silver has been taken off the table as Mexico's Lower House defeated a measure which would have put silver back into circulation (in parallel with paper and digidollars). Undaunted, I hear that supporters of silver (the kind of money that is independent of banker manipulation) will be back before the Mexican senate in September.
Hugo Salinas Price noted in an email to me yesterday that things may go better in the fall:
Still, silver continues to rally today, up almost 40-cents when I last checked. The gold-silver ratio is changing and bears watching.
Secret Nuke Deal? Interesting story in the Washington Times about the supposed 40-year secret deal between Israel and the US over nuclear weapons held by Israel. Goes to the idea that the Obama administration is pushing Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and that would be tied to any USA position on Iran.
Which brings up an interesting problem: What would Israel do with their current stockpile of 300 (or so) nuclear weapons?
Flu: Can They Make Up Their Mind? Well here you go - once again the case for cognitive dissonance and 'duality' smacks us in the face again as I read that the "US public at risk from complacency over flu - CDC" says. Earlier this week it was the headlines that the public was over-reacting. Criminees sakes. Can we get lined up on the right amount of fear here, please?
Meantime, here are the latest numbers - as the death toll has climbed to 44 globally now...
* Estimated Mortality Calculation The way I look at 'mortality' is pretty simple: I look at the death rate in countries which have experienced deaths, not those which have confirmed the virus and have no deaths. I'm sure we could have a week-long seminar over whether this is sound reasoning, but I figure it this way: Local (here in Texas) sources tell me (informally) that the virus may be infectious up to 2-days before symptom onset and the virus sheds (e.g. is transmissible) more than 7-days after symptom onset, and possibly as long as 9 days which is unusual. So given that the transmissibility window is as long as 11-days, I'm only counting in my mortality guestimate those countries where one death (or more) has occurred. As of today the calc's are:
The Price is Right The wizardess of www.toon-republic.com has been looking at the Census folks running around GPS'ing everything in sight and she's wondering about how all that data collecting will work out among the homeless...
Oh, a follow-up note from a reader on GPS use by Census:
Yup, sure sounds like the description of the world's leading super power doesn't it...
--- snip and save action ---
Coping: With Rising Sea Levels You may remember that yesterday morning we were chatting about the Census Bureau using GPS units which make sorting out geographical information a lot easier than simple street addresses. After weeding through a number of conspiracy-minded emails ("They have smart bombs, George, and why wouldn't they target someone like you?" Answer - The bombs cost too much...) I) came across this one that's pretty good:
This email reminds me of something that the government has been working on - as a very long-term project - like on the 50-100 year time horizon - but it can be found in the gray literature if you know where to look. Essentially, government right now is working in semi-academic papers on the question which goes something like this: "If sea levels do rise over the next 50-100 years, and the rise is sufficient to drive people out of low-lying areas (think of Florida, Louisiana, etc.) what is the proper role of government in divvying up the remaining land? Or, putting the issue a little differently, should the government set up some kind of mechanism to take land from what are highlanders like me (600 ft. elevation) and redistribute some portion of it to former low-landers like, for example, a refugee family from Florida who had to flee because of the rising waters issue?
Believe me, this is NOT a hypothetical question, either. Remember that conspiracy theories aside, there was people in Washington who do read and take articles like the Science Daily report from February of this year that says a "Collapse Of Antarctic Ice Sheet Would Likely Put Washington, D.C. Largely Underwater."
And some agencies, like the boyz in the alphabet agencies have also turned up their 'situational awareness" of what the future likely holds - and what's more they have been aware of it much longer than you might appreciate. Take the Washington Post story that the "CIA plans to shift work to Denver" just a an example. --- In the HPH linguistics work, the discussion about the possible Global Coastal Event(s) that came out of that Scandinavian conference back in March (about the 21st if I recall rightly) hit a 'temporal marker' as a prequel. While we sitting here, biding our time waiting for the sequel to show up in the Late may to Mid July kind of timeframe, you may wish to consider that my colleague Cliff continues to work (as time permits) on his 27-foot modified Sharpie sailboat. He's at (if I remember this right) about 187-feet of elevation.
Not that he will necessarily need the boat any time soon (like next week), but the other side of it is that once the impact of rising waters globally becomes apparent to the mass of humans. some of the ultra-long range linguistics that go to people living surrounded by water in the upper stories of high-rise buildings in low-lying areas, you can get a sense of what that corner of the future looks like.
Consider, if you will, that since virtually all of the world's major oil refineries would be unable to process fuel, because oil refineries don't work well with their docks underwater, or the cracking towers submerged, what kind of ultra-long term planning might be desirable to pass along to your kids.
Since my son is coming down for a visit in a couple of weeks (flu madness permitting) the kind of future for him to plan for includes features like:
In short, even though I may not live long enough to see it, this global coastal stuff is pretty frightening. Toss in a few handfuls of civil disorder/rebellion against authority, a potential breakdown of the financial system, pandemic flue, and a cross between Water World and Mad Max...well, to say life will be challenging for our children - and their children - just understates the magnitude of what the future looks like.
Not saying that you should be an alarmist and start talking to your children about such a world. If they have been well programmed by MainStreamMedia they'd probably just have you hauled off blaming an early onset of severe dementia as the cause of your concern.
But, I can assure you, it's not dementia, paranoia, or any other of those uncomfortable labels that get bandied about. When I tell you that government has been planning for this for more than a decade, I'm not making it up. Want a good read? It's 121-pages and you have to know where to look, but over on a dusty EPA server there's a 121-page article from the Maryland Law Review (Vol. 57, 1998, No.1) that's got the longish title: "RISING SEAS, COASTAL EROSION, AND THE TAKINGS CLAUSE: HOW TO SAVE WETLANDS AND BEACHES WITHOUT HURTING PROPERTY OWNERS."
Reader, this part in particular from author James Titus's introduction:
Of course, the several decades of rolling change is one thing, but in the geologic past there have been incidents where slow change is going along nice and even-like and then it sudden goes nonlinear. And that's the lesson for my kids, son in particular.
I'm not saying that extremes of real estate valuations for waterfront property don't make sense, I'm just saying that make comparatively more sense around Lake Tahoe than they do at the southern end of the A-1-A which slides down the low-lying Floridian east coast next to the Inter-Coastal Waterway (ICW).
Pretty good Ian Bremmer article in Foreign Policy this month "Call: As go the Maldives, so goes the world."
Sometimes, the future is laid out in front of us nice and clear - as indeed all the ramifications of sea level change are being explored presently in science, legal, and foreign policy analyses as I've pointed out to youi this morning.
But the reason that most people don't take the harbingers of change too seriously is that they are spread out over a fairly long stretch of time. You might have caught the headline in the Christian Science Monitor back in November of 2008 under the headline "Faced with rising sea levels, the Maldives seek new homeland" but it may have seemed like a small (and quite distant for Americans) data point. And the next big bubble might have arguably not come until that March conference in 2009 about rising sea levels.
All gets me to one of the key reasons why Elaine and I live here in the East Texas outback, best illustrated with a event that took place about 4:30 PM last night.
We were sitting in the dining room, chatting about this (what kind of shower should we put in in the bathroom remodel?) and that ("Is that putting numbers in a certain arrangement on a piece of paper really working as an insect repellant and is that what you were talking about with Cliff in the graphic language activated substrate (GLAS) discussion?" - more on that tomorrow), when Elaine tilted her head and asked "Do you hear that?"
Sure enough, we both listened intently and with our heads turns just so, we could hear a high-pitched noise. A little walking around and the source of the noise was found: A halogen torchiere lamp was the source of the noise. What? Yessir - turns out that with the dimmer set just so, the lamp was putting out a high-pitched noise...up around 8 kilohertz, or 8,000 cycles if you're a throwback like me.
Needless to say, we turned off the lamp and vowed to run it either full on, or not at all, because the silicon controlled rectifier (SCR) used in the dimmer not only was causing the high-pitched tone, but it also messes up shortwave reception on the old Zenith Trans Oceanic over in our "Trader Vic's" room - the part of the house that looks like a South Seas beach bar.
This is a dandy example of a payoff from deliberately building an environment where our personal noise floors (to frame it in the radio or amplifier design paradigm) are kept extremely low. The house is so quiet most mornings the coffee maker wakes me up before the alarm clock...and the clicking of the cat's claws on the wood floors are noticeable.
The lesson of the day is What? That sometimes the important messages about the future are overwhelmed by the day-to-day urgency of problems. And whether the important data points are too small to note, of spread out over a long enough period of time that folks don't connect the dots (we're talking 1998 on some of them and even before that) is not as hard to accomplish here in the outback, but it's damn near impossible against the background 'buzz' of the big city.
Just something to think about while I surf Craig's List looking for a trailerable sailboat, while Cliff works on his Sharpie, and you're on your way to either swimming or sailing lessons for the kids.
You are teaching them to swim and about small boat handling, including sailing, aren't you?
Wednesday May 6, 2009 Special Update: Peoplenomics subscribers please note the special update below.
More For Subscribers Subscription Information
20% of Homes Upside Down Not that I usually post entire press releases, but some pretty sobering information is contained in the latest out today from real estate outfit Zillow.com: 20 percent of all US homeowners are upside down in their homes - meaning they owe more than the home is worth...
What makes the Zillow report so interesting is that it continues to feed that cognitive dissonance which so many people are feeling. You know, the one where the statistics and home sales prices are saying one thing, while officialdom - like Ben Bernanke's testimony yesterday - say something else. Like this, for instance:
So if you read these two accounts (Zillow and Ben) and find yourself scratching you head wonder "Gee, how can that be?" don't feel alone. It's just the emerging duality slapping you upside the head. Better get used to it: Plenty more is on order over the rest of this year and into next.
Flu Update Latest numbers:
* Estimate Mortality Calculation The way I look at 'mortality' is pretty simple: I look at the death rate in countries which have experienced deaths, not those which have confirmed the virus and have no deaths. I'm sure we could have a week-long seminar over whether this is sound reasoning, but I figure it this way: Local (here in Texas) sources tell me (informally) that the virus may be infectious up to 2-days before symptom onset and the virus sheds (e.g. is transmissible) more than 7-days after symptom onset, and possibly as long as 9 days which is unusual. So given that the transmissibility window is as long as 11-days, I'm only counting in my mortality guestimate those countries where one death (or more) has occurred. As of today the calc's are:
Mexico is set to end its flu closures today. But here in the US, I hear that many counties and municipalities are working on contingency plans to like up extra healthcare workers.
Iran Clock Ticking So while I have around October 26th circled, can't help but notice that "Israel would inform, not ask U.S. before hitting Iran" is making headlines this morning. What's the old saying...ah yes: It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission."
And it's not that Iran's president isn't flipping out language that seems like the equivalent of "bomb here" with his latest call out of Zionism as "occupation" and "aggression". (History of the Gaza Strip here)
With both sides seeming to harden their positions, I reckon it's just a matter of time until at least some part of the Middle East turns into the world's biggest-ever glass foundry. Late October?
Gads Nukes A reader sends this:
Naw. Nossir, if you want something to worry about try the failure of the government in Pakistan and them loosing control of their nukes to terrorists. That'd be something worth worrying about.
Getting Traction The story about a "200,000 year old statue found on Moon". I've seen enough evidence that others have been here long before 'officially blessed' history starts that I'm going to be watching this one closely.
Markets Dow futures were up about 50- when I looked. Seems to be related to the improvement in jobless figures in the weekly stats out this morning. And it popped despite a report that Bank of America will need to raise more than $30-billion.
But is that what I'm happy about? Nope. What I'm smiling about is that it seems silver is starting to move, up 40- cents when I checked. Maybe those $20 commodity call options I'm holding for July (price locks on June 25th) have a shot, huh? --- snip and save section ---
Coping: Information Versus Data & GPS Readings Way back, at the dawn of time, my faculty advisor in my MBA program ground something into my head that has stuck with me ever since: "Data is just a pile of discrete facts arranged in no particular order. Information on the other hand, is data arranged in a way such that it becomes actionable. As a senior manager always keep that in mind. More decimal points don't mean better decisions - there's an illusion in precision..."
And I have. I don't bother with pennies when doing taxes, I don't quibble with who's working 39.8 hours a week compared with 40.2. Instead, it's the big stuff that matters - not the little stuff. When I'm driving, used to be a 'hold the speed to within half a mile per hour, or flying, hold altitude within 20 feet. Malarkey. Life's too short to spend excessive time on the small stuff.
Not that there aren't a few things where precision isn't nice: Starting a ham radio net, or client conference call is something I usually hold to a 15 second +/- window...and for whatever reason, I drink a measured 2.5 cups (as in 24 ounces) of coffee in the morning. Although that's not necessarily out of a desire for precision in the wake up department, so much as it falls out from drinking coffee from a measuring cup, since there are damn few good (large) coffee mugs on the market. Most hold about 6-10 ounces and when I get to writing, I generally don't move for hours.
"OK, fine and interesting and all, but can we get on to the point -- if you're going to make one sometime today?" you're thinking...
Oh yeah. It's about the Census Bureau going around and making GPS readings of every habitable dwelling in the country. I talked with one of the Census workers last week when I noted a strange car sitting out on the road. "Are you lost?" I inquired.
"No sir, I'm with the Census Bureau and we're collecting home locations for the 2010 Census. In a few minutes, I'll be coming up to near your front door and noting the position of your home's main entrance. Is this the only habitable dwelling on the property?"
"Depends what you mean by habitable..."
"Well, is this the only home that people could sleep in on your property?"
"Oh...like has bedrooms and such....well, yeah, the house is the only place. I thought you were wondering if someone could snooze in the office or the shop out back, or over there in our storage building." I wasn't going to tell her that I really have nodded off, more than once in the office because who knows? That might be breaking some kind of law...there are so many any more.
I didn't think much about it at the time...but several readers have asked me for my take on it.
A few have pointed to headlines like "Big Brother GPS Doorway Census: Big Brother is watching you via the U.S. Census Bureau shooting GPS coordinates of your doorway." and have asked me if this isn't some kind of grand conspiracy.
A few sites have even suggested that only the GPS locations of gun owners are being noted, but I hardly think this is the case.
Best I can figure, the use of GPS could actually result in some improvement in the data collection process because while it might just be a single digit different between 123 Main Street and 124 Main Street, the GPS locations are distinctly different.
Moreover, on-the-ground GPS readings can give an altitude, too.
But beyond that, it allows a much more convenient way of sorting through data. If you think about it, a heap of addresses is a whole lot more difficult to throw into a data search or sort than GPS-based data. In the first case, you'd have to go out and write a whole bunch of code that starts with [convert address 123 Main Street into geo coordinates. Repeat until all addresses in the region are converted into GPS equivalents. ]. Instead, Census is just collecting the data in the field, and to me it makes sense, not some plot for a grand conspiracy.
But now I get to scratching my head and wondering about the precision problem. Let's take highly refined altitude data. Doing the right kind ofa sort, I'm sure that by sometime in 2011, someone will publish a report that says something like "Higher income people tend to live at higher altitudes."
Well, gee, gosh, how about that. Why do you think that might be? Could it have something to do with ever since Medieval times castles have been located on hills because it's easy to defend (and where the you know what rolls down hill probably came from, LOL). Or, in contemporary times, because the best homes are built on hills because they have what? The best views you think?
Another study I'm looking for would point out that the 'rich people tend to live on the east side of cities where geography allows. But you already know - or at least should know why this is so: Because if you live on the east side of a city, you can drive west (to work) in the morning without the sun in your eyes and drive east (returning to your home at night) with the sun at your back.
Obvious as much of this stuff is, people seem to often miss the obvious. So, what we get are huge projects like gathering the main entrance to every home in the nation. And using the latest and greatest of technology we're going to find what? Obvious answers to a whole lot of questions that we already knew the answer to.
If that means that it will be possible in the future to analyze just how much the price premium is for a high altitude home east of a city, that might be interesting.
But is much of this likely to be distilled down into personally useful information? You know...the actionable kind?
I wouldn't bet on it.
Lingo Lango Bongo 3^ The Urban Dictionary's new 'word of the day' is "swine flucation" which is a mandatory break from work of school to let the flu rates come down a tad.
Fate and Ink Although the national trend may be for newspapers to wither up and blow away in the winds of change...more like a hurricane lately, come to think of it, the Boston Globe has reached an agreement with unions that may keep Bean Town hands dirty a while longer. ---
There have been some wondering if the new Kindle 2: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)
I must be a Neanderthal (not to dis old hairy people, LOL) because I take huge joy in books. I'd be perfectly happy in a home where a modest family library of 5-10-thousand books was readily available (along with the time to read them all). If I kindle could add another 15-minutes to the day, I'd buy one in a heartbeat. But as things are now, if I drop a book when the cat jumps up in my lap, t'ain't no big deal. On the other hand, if the cat were to cause me to drop a $359 door piece of electronics on the floor, the offending cat would be in trouble.
Like I say, I must be some kind of throwback.
Meanwhile, the "White House says "No" to newspaper bailout" which is really too bad. Why the administration hasn't event spent a trillion dollars yet this week.
Around the Ranch: Decked Out Today is finally 'nail gun day' on my deck project. The deck is up, the joists are all hung, and so it will be with great pleasure this morning that I get out my framing nailer after breakfast and go around and put the final nails into my new 480-square foot deck on the front of the house. this project - like most - has taken longer than expected for a number of reasons ranging from rain last week to pressing client work, and the list goes on.
In an effort to speed up things, I decided to use pre-cut stairs...figuring that will save 20-minutes to a half hour of screw-around time.
The only part of the project which seems likely to slow things up now is Elaine's desire for a deck railing that 'doesn't block the view' of the birds, wildlife, goats, and such. Makes sense, but that leaves me wondering about design issues. "You want a Plexiglas railing...you know, like around a hockey arena?" "Don't be silly" didn't need to be spoken. What I had in mind was something like this one.
So I wonder whether a low bench around the perimeter would be acceptable. Or, maybe nothing at all, since we're the only folks who will use the deck, except maybe for an occasional visitor. Still, a railing would be nice and I saw some premade stuff at Lowes last night that looked pretty good - kind of light and airy and nicely done, but it was also about $35 bucks for what looked like a 4 or six foot hunk...and it would take many of those.
Manhandling 20 foot 2 by 6's onto the deck (43 of them, thanks for asking) has been almost as much fun as throwing around the 50-pound 4 by 4's - normally much lighter, but these are of the wet treated kind so they weight a bunch more than usual. Ditto the 2 by 6's - which come in about 60 pounds.
I suppose I shouldn't bitch too much about the project. It really adds value to the home, it has gotten me back in shape - and this week I will cross under the 200-pound barrier last seen...er....20-years ago. The price? About $2-grand in parts so far, although $553 of that could have been saved if I hadn't sprung for pea gravel and ground cloth under the whole thing. But compared to what it would cost to have someone else do it, it's a very good deal. And yes, I will be doing the actual deck part with screws, thanks to ready comments about stainless nails (even ring-shank) working themselves out over time. I appreciate the input - even if it results in more (bad pun warning) more screw around time.
There are two lessons in the deck project if you're a newbie to this site. First one is that if you really want to get projects done around the house, invite a bunch of people to come and visit you. My son, who's visit was canceled due to work at his end, is due in about 3-weeks and we want to have the deck, new door, windows, and such done before he arrives. (He & I are gong to do a bathroom remodel while he's visiting.)
The other lesson is about net worth. Adding the deck - or most any home improvement project done by a homeowner - usually adds value to a home. Not that you'd be able to sell it these days, but it's nice to have a home that's customized to just the way you like it. Besides, over time, all the hours that you put into such things usually show up eventually as an improved personal balance sheet.
Tuesday May 5, 2009 Latest from our Our Fluage Treatment Center... While Mexico tries 'normal' in 48-hours, it's really just another day, another set of numbers from the WHO to recap:
* Estimate Mortality Calculation The way I look at 'mortality' is pretty simple: I look at the death rate in countries which have experienced deaths, not those which have confirmed the virus and have no deaths. I'm sure we could have a week-long seminar over whether this is sound reasoning, but I figure it this way: Local (here in Texas) sources tell me (informally) that the virus may be infectious up to 2-days before symptom onset and the virus sheds (e.g. is transmissible) more than 7-days after symptom onset, and possibly as long as 9 days which is unusual. So given that the transmissibility window is as long as 11-days, I'm only counting in my mortality guestimate those countries where one death (or more) has occurred. As of today the calc's are:
Not
sure if the low case number increase is due to response, but we
should know in a week, or so. The Great Spring Rally...Sort Of... I told you last December how I was expecting a barn burner of a spring rally...and here we are, the Dow was up more than 200 points yesterday and to make matters even more ebullient, the S&P is actually ahead for the year. But while the headlines make it sound like a big deal, consider this:
The S&P closed out 2008 at 903.25 and the close yesterday was 907.25. Pencils out to a gain of (this is a biggie, better be sitting down for this...) 4-10th's of one percent. Yee haw!
Well, hold on buckeroo.
Consider that inflation is running 4% (or 8%+ if you look at hedonics-free food prices), so even with the magic of compounding, two more four-month periods of gains like this will still mean that on a purchasing power basis you won't even be keeping up with inflation. But, hey, who am I to inject some of this silly reality into the conversation,...
So pretend I don't mention that the Dow closed 2008 at 8,776.39 and with yesterday's close at 8,426.7 is still down 3.99% for the year and after inflation, closer to 5-5.5% on a purchasing power basis. ( Damn, am I Grinchly today.)
Worldwide stocks seem somewhat stable after recent gains.
Not that we're out of the woods: Reports are that about 10 major US banks will need more capital to hang in there. Things can only get (fill in your delusion of choice here______). Brother can you lend a trillion?
Oh THAT War... Think the US occupation of Iraq was going to last forever? Oh good heavens, you don't think we'd have that kind of change did you? Well, we might get it anyway since Iraq is sticking by its demand that US forces leave its cities by June 30th. Some folks just don't seem to get the 'statehood' concept.
Talk Too Much Department The UK's Home Office has released names of 16 people barred from entry into the UK including an American talk show host who was barred for 'extreme views." Well, like Pappy used to warn me "Most times, your mouth will get you into more trouble than it will get you out of..." True that.
Lingo Lango Bongo, Deluxe Maybe we're just overly sensitive to folks building lexicons (see today's Coping section for more) but Homeland security has reported pulled back an 'extremism dictionary'. According to the report in the Washington Times some of the extremists act like this:
Oops. Didn't know I was an extremist, musta thought we had border & immigration laws, silly me; although voting for Ron Paul maybe should be a tipoff that someone should keep an eye on me.
Oh, they are?
We're So Crewed Department Various US state attorneys general are going after CraigsList for apparently being a new conduit for find sex. --- I'll bite my tongue on the who's screwing who these days and simply point you at the more than 40-thosuand references to the word "bailout" in Google's News search tool. Or, how about the 84-thosuand (+) for 'deficit', or the...
Speaking of Spending Money... Didjah see where Chrysler has gotten a green light for federal loans as their talks with Fiat continue?
I'm filing this under fiat for Fiat...frankly, I'd like to see Harley Davidson buy an automaker, but that might make too much sense. American company, high quality, kick butt products with wheelsm on 'em...yeah, forget I mentioned it...
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: With Detractors Do you think it would be 'really cool' to have a time machine - or even something that lets you see events in fuzzy outlines before they occur? A sort of looking glass through time? Boy, have we got news for you!
Let me begin at the beginning of the latest episode - not at the beginning of the project which started way back here in 2001 where the 'tipping point' which regular people refer to as 9/11 happened about 45-days later. --- The rumor going around the net is that the PowersThatBe have some how scuttled the web bot project. Here's the truth of the matter, though: No, the 'rickety time machine' project has NOT been co-opted, nor has it been sold out...but there are messages like this one floating about the net...
Upon receipt, I passed it along to Cliff for comments and he sent back an unexpectedly detailed reply:
A couple of notes on my own here: The first is that strange as this may sound, being able to see the future (at least insofar as major psychological impacts down at the archetype level) really is a royal pain in the butt. Just as one example, we got the 'preview' of the Banda Aceh quake and "300 dead / land driven back to a previous age" five months in advance of it actually popping into life.
During that time, I'm tried to talk about it in advance - and people who might have mistaken me for 'normal' at some point wrote me off as a complete wanker. --- Need another example? OK, I walked away from a nice job in Burbank area October 2, 2005 because we had a pretty good handle on the "major earthquake", people camping out by fires and geographical hints that pointed to 34º North as well as another terra descriptor "southwest."
Since Burbank - where Elaine and I were living in September 2005 - was at 34º north, and because the Burbank is in the American "southwest" - not to mention the seismicity of SoCal, we chose to mosey back to our ranch here in East Texas, arriving October 6th after visiting kinfolk along the way.
Folks I knew in Los Angeles, and who I had tried to warn (advising them of the pending quake possibilities) thought I had gone absolutely batshit (sorry, but let's call it what it is).
Until the 2005 Kashmir quake that killed 79,000 struck on October 8th..... 34º29'35"N too, and whether you want to think of this as southwest Asia or not, I'll leave that up to you. But if you could see the future...even poorly...would you have the courage to act on your belief even if it could potent9ially cost six-figures? --- The technology is in its infancy, but it's still a personal burden like you wouldn't believe.
Suppose you could see pretty well that one of the bit US national banks was going to run into internal difficulties (which is to put it nicely) shortly (I'll remind you of this in the future, BTW) and it would be a nightmare for thousand upon thousands of depositors. Would you try to share that information? But how??! Without giving the name of the bank, one of the biggest in America, how would you report this possibility or potential that crops up in modelspace without opening up yourself to every corporate lawyer around - and setting yourself up personally for lawsuits for defamation, libel, slander plus a side order of ' he should be committed" and whatever else? --- Getting major aspects of the Northeast Power Outage right - a couple of months in advance - and plenty of other "hits" like the May 2008 China quake - large and small - might seem kinda cool. But, believe me, it's not. While the technology is not perfect, the odds of getting the number of 'hits' (linguistic fits) seems way above chance. Enough so that it's a huge personal burden...and no, that's not being mellow dramatic. --- We've done some very small-scale tests with the future...to see if it's malleable...which it seems to be. While that's maybe good news, it's not. Explain? Sure.
If you've been keeping up with physics you should have at least a conceptual outline of what's been evolving in the quantum mechanics department of Physics over the past 75 years:
Turns out that at a very deep, fundamental level, it turns out that God/Universe/Nature (or however you want to refer to in this here Matrix is highly entangled. With respect to Erwin: "Verschränkung'ed". Expect the cat to live when you view it and it lives! Expect it to be dead and so it will be....
Since Cliff, Igor, and I approached this project with a 'time monk's' perspective (look gently at the future but don't get caught up in profiting from it, or changing it) , we've been able to observe that yes, it appears the future really can be manipulated - future-jacked - if you will.
But it's much
more complex than people imagine. A good starting point
might be to read Dean Radin's book: Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality
Best I can figure, our looking at it - without any sense of attachment to a particular outcome is the only way that one can look at the future without changing it, because it seems that when a particular outcome is desired, the future can be made to drift a little, this way or that.
To be more direct, the entanglement / Verschränkung of it is such that it appears influenced by expectations.
What's more, in my study along the way, it seems many different human activities may influence how the future actually shows up because they change expectations. Does prayer work? Well, if it embeds a really firm expectation about how the future will arrive, of course. But doesn't that also mean meditation could work? Again, most certainly. And what about all those self-help guru's and their positive mindset/ positive expectations? Well, them too, at least to some extent.
But wait! What about groups that hold on to supposed magical traditions handed down from ancient Egypt - do they work too? Then what about a fraternity group or covens of 'magicians' following the tradition of the Golden Dawn schools...they all work on expectations of the future so what about them? Well, yeah, them too.
In fact, all of them may work, at one level or another (except for the groups that have been co-opted from the inside via Mafia-type favor-traders within the ranks of otherwise 'clean' traditions), but they only work to the extent they effectively implant changed expectations about the future.
Those involved in the web bot project maintained a definite 'hands off' approach to the work. Without that, we wouldn't be able to test 'future-jacking' and such. In other word, if we 'expect' a certain future, then it might appear...hence the focus on non-attachment to the future. Just go along for the rise with good expectations that Universe (acting through he transport layer) will send along a sandwich when needed. ----- Biggest personal lessons for George in all this? The first has been a really keen insight into how Power functions. Each of us has way more personal power to determine our individual future than most folks would even dream of. The underlying technology or transport layer by which the future arrives, doesn't seem to care much what the expectation of the future is...it just appears to some degree based on expectations about it.
What happens when those seeking Power enter the equation is that this personal self determination or self-manipulation of the future becomes forbidden, or lost, or tabooed away such that regular folks like you and me are hypnotized into thinking it doesn't exist. Then, what happens with Power is that some person or institution will set itself up and offer that for a price of some kind, you will be reintroduced to the power within each of us. A little 'tribute', either in the form of money, but also in the belief of the Power leadership's ideology/vision of the future and trah lah! Stairway to Heaven turns out to be right there in front of you.... ---- It's of course, much more complex that that, but human words have a hard time with explaining how reality that we seem to share is a kind of condensate from other layers of reality...and oh boy is that a long subject. One group will call some of the non-condensed critters 'demons' while others might call them 'archons and their kin' while still others might call them 'greys'.
What's most striking is that in the struggle for power various institutions cling to their 'divide and conquer' heritage. Strange battles there to keep humans from uniting, at least so it can look in some ways... plenty of material for a book on the subject....
But back to point: Say something a little too out of line about this underlying transport layer that delivers the future and someone will try to run you out of town on a rail, brand you an infidel, or whatever. Cool...we knew this wasn't gonna be easy from the beginning, which is why the nonattachment is so important. --- Did I get to perform an experiment or two along the way? Yup. I got to do a Nostradamus-type thing. I started with the question how could I 'encode' something about the future that would make 21st century sense when read in hindsight after an event showed up?
I told Peoplenomics subscribers the story of one such experiment a couple of weeks ago. (I apologize to Peoplenomics subscribers who have read this a couple of weeks back, but I consider it a fine example of the personal weight of all this:)
Several Peoplenomics readers wrote in to correct my lyrical quote: "Two riders were approaching..." I was told.
"Nope, you're not getting it...the three riders would be Cliff, Igor, and me..."
Does the technology suggest anything we haven't talked about? Well, having your money in a local bank of high quality is something on my personal list this week.
Oh, and does the world end in 2012? No. At least a few folks with "be on the road with cheerful courage" but whether that means we'll all be driving Saleen 7's to a party with friends, or wandering around in an out-take from Mad Max's world gleaning what can be found in the leftovers of 2012...well, don't want to spoil the adventure for you.
But the life-changer in all of this for me has been a developing appreciation that 'be careful what you wish for' has implications that go deeper than you might ever imagine. Want to change you life? Ask yourself this: "How many minutes a day do I spend consciously embedding my expectations about the future into the form I want it to arrive in?"
You might be pleasantly surprised. Or, then again, we could be wrong.
Monday May 4, 2009 Taxage (Like the new word? Shows you the power of coffee, LOL). So, what is taxage you're wondering? Well, if my thinking is clear enough on this, it may turn out to be the Second Depression's analog to the 1930's tariffs argument. You know, just like the corporatists were able to market the idea that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was renounced for setting off a global 'tariff war' that exacerbated the first Depression.
We read this morning how the Obama administration is about to seek "tax changes for U.S. firms overseas." While the official announcement won't come for a few hours, this will be a 'biggie' to watch since the multinational corps will scream bloody murder. Why? Because they are, if you pardon the timing of the phrase here, cutting a fat hog when it comes to taxes. The Obama administration (I think rightly) trying to make sure that outfits that outsource are on equal tax footing with outfits that are solely domestic.
This is a huge game, of course. But in the end, it spells either the end, or at least a decent decline in globalism. For years under the asleep at the wheel past administrations, multinationals could benefit from the cheap labor rates overseas such that even after transportation costs, they were able to make gobs and oodles of cheap goods in places like, oh, Asia, for instance.
But what happens when tax policy catches up, when the former third world standard of living (hence wages) come up a bit and simultaneously, the cost of transportation goes up as well? You don't need to be a rocket whiz to get this one figured. Corporatism can see the brick wall ahead.
All of which will be dandy for America - particularly if the administration continues to promote reinvestment in America and energy independence. But to get from here to there will be quite a battle and I look forward to pointing out the multinational's 'scream bloody murder' ad campaigns when they come along shortly. If this game really does change, then I'd be mighty pleased - maybe even to the point of being inclined to capitalize the word 'president' again.
Shrinkage Not that this should come as any great surprise to those of us who have been tracking the excessive growth of the financial sector in America since the landmark credit card interest rates battles of the 1960's, but seems now that enough institutions are crashing "Obama says financial sector to shrink". But I don't reckon they will go quietly, or cheaply... --- Meantime, "China has 'canceled US credit card': Lawmaker" says. Elsewhere we're reading that China and Wall Street have common concerned: The rising US Debt. The China gold-buying stories of a week or two back might encourage you to play along with The House; China being the House lately, although our own Treasury would never admit that to you. --- Silver and gold are starting the week off on a positive note. But, if China is really getting worried about buying U.S. paper, and if the debt is rising, I figure it's only a short time now until other people start reacting to the inflation-to-come and start hedging with precious metals.
Fluage (Definition: Fluage: A collection of news stories and data related to the flu.) There are parts of the current flu pandemic which are starting to line up uncomfortably closely with the predictive linguistics out of HalfPastHuman.com that go to the idea that the real impact of the flu/disease outbreak will not event start in a major way until September and that it will ramp up in a serious way into winter '09-10. World Health Organization Dr. Margaret Chan says her agency has been doing the right thing, is not over reacting, and is seriously concerned about the second wave of the flu.
While there are some experts who claim that the virus may be no worse than 'normal' flu, Mexico is considering easing some of its economic shutdown while yet others contend the epidemic is past its peak.
Nevertheless, I'll continue tracking the flu 'run rate' for a few days, since using my simple methodology for estimating a mortality rate, it seems to be stabilizing around the 3% rate. While that would put it in the vicinity of 'common flu' in a bad year, it's still nothing to be (here comes the first bad pun of the week, ready?) sneezed at.
Flu Stats
* Estimate Mortality Calculation The way I look at 'mortality' is pretty simple: I look at the death rate in countries which have experienced deaths, not those which have confirmed the virus and have no deaths. I'm sure we could have a week-long seminar over whether this is sound reasoning, but I figure it this way: Local (here in Texas) sources tell me (informally) that the virus may be infectious up to 2-days before symptom onset and the virus sheds (e.g. is transmissible) more than 7-days after symptom onset, and possibly as long as 9 days which is unusual. So given that the transmissibility window is as long as 11-days, I'm only counting in my mortality guestimate those countries where one death (or more) has occurred. As of today the calc's are:
My sense of it is that the cases could be going up something like 20-25% per day for a while and that we'll see the mortality rate stabilize somewhere around the 3% level.
What's the Right Reaction? My EMT son in Seattle says that healthcare providers are taking this flu very seriously, despite Washington having no confirmed cases yet. The latest (Monday morning 4 May) CDC stats show 226-cases in the US to date. Masking up and going through decontamination hand washing and more, is required. Yet, at the same time, when he visited a couple of Seattle night spots on Saturday (wearing a mask) he was the only one wearing one -- said it was a great conversation starter with young ladies. More seriously, the OSHA General Decontamination "Quick Card" I posted last week seems like a very good thing to have on hand since it gives you the mixing ratio for bleach and water, as well as how to decontaminate many things you might come into possession of. No, don't submerse electrical appliances, or anything stupid like that, but at least being aware of cross-contamination, washing your hands a lot more frequently and things like that just make good sense.
Here in East Texas, I noticed last week that the local Wal-Mart had a grocery cart wipes dispenser set up. It may have been there before and I've just been oblivious to it, but that kind of precaution seems absolutely reasonable.
While you can find articles with headlines line "Viewpoint: Overreaction breaks out" and "Health officials urge against flu overreaction" the other side of the coin is that it's prudent to shut down some optional large crowd gatherings./ Evidence of this comes in the report that New Mexico high school activities are being suspended, just as they have been in Texas, Alabama, and some North Carolina districts. BTW: Pig farmers in Egypt are still rioting over their culling last week.
Now that Canada has demonstrated that this flu can go human-to-pig, I'm sure that if pigs could write (having already mastered flight) they'd be writing about human flu. Wonder if they'd write in Pig Latin? Where was I....
Other reactions continue to appear: Twenty countries so far have banned the import of pigs, pork, and other meats in response to the flu outbreak. When the U.N.'s fears of the second wave this fall start to align perfectly with what's been in the predictive linguistics line up, I plan to use the window between now and fall to be prepared for quarantine here on the ranch, should things come to that in the second wave.
Lingo Lango Bongo Speaking of language, did you catch the piece in the NYT last week that in order to further the agenda of environmental groups, it looks like the phrase "global warming" may be headed for the scrap heap of language? Some focus group work seems to find that talking about the deteriorating atmosphere is one thing...but 'global warming' is a turn-off phrase.
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: With Technology It's hard to have a good sense of humor, especially when the stark contrast of the news these days makes it so clear that we're now deep in the heart of the 'duality jungle' and we're all pretty much lost with no idea where to go. As a natural consequence, there's a certain amount of 'retribing' going on as our leadership tries to find a way out, but for now, the duality jungle is a pretty daunting place.
Here's a perfect story from Bloomberg that illustrates the problem; "Sprint posts unexpected profit after job reductions". One side of my brain (the rational left) whispers "Gee, cool they made money, huh? How come I didn't buy a bunch of that?" The other side of my brain (the emotional right) argues "But wait! They fired 12,000 people to do it...What's good about that?"
What usually follows is something akin to a Windows divide overflow error, which results when a program (George-the-Writer) tries to access a part of the brain he should not. My personal reboot is another shot of coffee and going on to the next point, but you see the problem, I hope? --- Most people don't put much effort into finding their own path through the duality jungle, probably because if you think about it very long, it really will make you crazy. --- here's another dandy for you: "XP Mode confuses and amuses Windows 7 reviewers". The ComputerWorld story sends me off wondering if maybe Microsoft isn't lost in the duality, too. I mean why would I go out and upgrade to a product that takes me backwards? I'm having a hard time with that one. Maybe it's why Linux has crossed the 1% of market share boundary, though. Maybe? --- Then there's the matter of the new Palm 'Pre" which is set for release later this year. Reports are that Palm will have about 375,000 units ready to release, but since products like the iPhone 3G's sold a million units in the first three days of availability, headlines are popping up like "Manipulating the Palm Pre supply is just wrong."
But is it? I mean just because some time back, the lost herd in duality jungle moved one way, doesn't mean they will move this new way, does it? How does one shade marketing bets when the whole of techno humans seem to be lost; although most would blissfully deny it.
Last, but not least, will Amazon introduce a new Kindle this week? Again, seems like everyone is trying to hit exactly the 'sweet spot' with products. Lacking major innovation (direct-to-brain image downloads, for example) marketers are faced with a bewildering task: Find the largest possible niches, generate the most profits, while at the same time laying off the most people, who in turn will stop consuming...
Oh, oh...I sense another divide overflow error coming on....see you tomorrow...
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 |
Related Sites Favorite Places Coast to Coast AM Moral Equivalent / War
Our Favorite Tool: Minneapolis Fed Inflation Calculator
Our Suppliers: Graphics By
Machine parts: www.emachineshop.com
Printed Circuit Boards
Commodity Trading
Bullion Buying/Selling
Web Hosting
Radiation Monitoring
Emergency Food Stores
Tequila
Organic Heirloom Seeds:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This is a Free Financial News and economic information site updated daily except Sundays. If you can not get to www.urbansurvival.com from your corpgov workstation, please try our mirror site: www.independencejournal.com . This site is also available at www2.urbansurvival.com and www3.urbansurvival.com which may not be blocked. · Bulletins are posted as our work schedule permits and as events warrant. · I try to publish Monday-Saturday by 8 AM Central Time/ 9 AM Eastern with 7:55 Central pretty normal. If you're easily offended by the occasional typo, then check about 8:15 Central we usually proofread and spell check after the first post. We've had some amusing typos in the past... Sometimes a Saturday issue will be dropped due to projects & chores on our ranch. · Financial and news judgments of the publisher are not to be considered "advice" · Please read and understand our disclaimer · All original content (C) 2008 by George A. Ure except sources as linked. Very short extracts are occasionally used under 'fair use' but never entire articles without permission. That would be beyond 'fair use'. · Copyright of all linked articles is cited under fair use as this is a topic specific site (long wave economics and humanistic economics, which we call "Peoplenomics"
Our premium service, which contains more in depth reports is available on a $40/year subscription basis. Details at www.peoplenomics.com/subscribe.htm.
The "web bot project" indicates a reference to the time predictive technology embodied in the "Asymmetric Language Trend Analysis Intelligence Reports" technology pioneered and operated by Tenax Software Engineering for www.halfpasthuman.com. An intro to the technology is here. Extracts, when used, are with exclusive permission and any references on other web sites must contain a link to both this site and HalfPastHuman's main page: www.halfpasthuman.com.
Site Contact: george@ure.net
© 2009 Copyright Notice: The author(s) of this site requires that any links or use of material from this site include the author's name and a link to this site. All links included in our material must also be included in citations. Address questions to: george@ure.net. Copyright infringers will be pursued, and please note that Fair Use requires identification of the author/source and we require a link which when you think about it is really minimal recognition of our works and the works of those who are quoted herein.
|
|
|
which hits the street this week for $359 might somehow turn into
the 'savior for newspapers'. Time will tell, but count me
as a skeptic. Nor am I alone..
.
For you see, the future changes slightly each time we
looked at it but more importantly, each time our expectations
change.
