Published Monday - Friday about 8 AM Central Time Except Holidays....many major typos are fixed by 8:30 daily

Friday, January 1, 2010  07:55  CST  New here?  Visit our FAQ     

 Subscribe in a reader         

This site is supported by subscriptions:  For additional content, please subscribe to Peoplenomics. .

Content mirrored at: www.independencejournal.com,      Kindle (.MOBI) version here

 

Happy New Year!

Since it is Friday, the report for today & tomorrow will be posted on the www.peoplenomics.com website.  If you are interested in addition/weekend content, please consider subscribing via www.peoplenomics.com/subscribe.htm .  $40/year.

---

Today's report includes the latest from Robin Landry on the timing of P3's arrival.  If you don't know that in long wave economics that would be Primary Wave 3 to the downside, then you need to click over to the free archives of this site (here) and do a ton of catch-up reading.  Some good papers might include my 1997 paper "Social Causes of Periodic Depressions: When does empirical data become sufficient proof?"

 

Once you wrap your head around the idea that economics is a cyclical business driven by big drivers like sunspots, intergenerational change and the effects over time of compound interest, you'll want to catch "Death By Dot Coms: When Barriers to Entry Fail". A nicely timed paper on the imminent collapse of the Dot Com bubble 3-months before the absolute top.

 

If you haven't fallen asleep, the next paper is probably "It Maybe Wasn't Nixon" - an early 2001 paper on the math underlying what we call around here the Mazurok-Ure Correlation...which was amplified shortly thereafter in "We're on the Titanic and that's a DEBTBERG©"

If you are still reading then you'll want to read about the 9/11 tipping point in a then new concept predictive linguistics and the 'web bots' from July7-15, 2001 which foreshadowed the 9/11 attack.  And early paper with highlights of how the web bot project works may be found here under "Web Bot Technology" - a summary of where things were for an early Coast-to-Coast with Art Bell interview from early 2003.

 

Then, to round out your education and get you up to speed on where things are going, I'd suggest a visit to www.halfpasthuman.com and buying the latest "Shape of Things To Come" report ($10) and reading it - although it will take a while since it's about 50-pages as a PDF.  Don't trust the freebie downloads of this that pop up on the net from time to time since they have a way of getting altered.

 

There...something to start the new year with if you're not ready to part with $40 for the rest of the content...but that's a couple of thousand pages of reading and seeing the evolution of some long wave economic theory over time, the evolution of predictive linguistics and where we're likely to go next.

 

And that's P3 Down...which is what subscribers will get to read today and then a paper "Tactics for 2010" which will be tomorrow's in-depth report.

 

See you Monday morning for the next update here...

 

 

Unemployment Drops Unexpectedly

Latest figures this morning:

"In the week ending Dec. 26, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 432,000, a decrease of 22,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 454,000. The 4-week moving average was 460,250, a decrease of 5,500 from the previous week's revised average of 465,750.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.8 percent for the week ending Dec. 19, unchanged from the prior week's revised rate of 3.8 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Dec. 19 was 4,981,000, a decrease of 57,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 5,038,000. The 4-week moving average was 5,101,000, a decrease of 122,250 from the preceding week's revised average of 5,223,250.

The fiscal year-to-date average for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment for all programs is 5.621 million. "

 Whether this will lower the official unemployment rate under double digits in January's report might make an interesting bet.  But it certainly adds to the possibility of a continuing bounce toward March or so and maybe even into early summer. 

 

It's Over

Well, not quite, but 2010 is about toast. Fireworks, parties, and folks like us who will be quietly spending New Years at home with a couple of good steaks and a good movie.

 

I'm surprised by a couple of things this year.  First, that the Nobel Prize committee didn't pick the young man who was at the core of the story The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope instead of giving it to president O.  That signs have been sighted in America reading "Free Nobel prize with oil change" shouldn't come as a surprise.

 

Next is that despite the 'vote 'em all out' movements, people in Washington are still running deaf to what the folks back home want and it isn't another $3.8 billion for GMAC.  Damn, Americans are generous, huh?

 

While stock promoters are busily pointing to the 22% range gain of the Dow and the 24+ percent gain of the S&P, gold held its own, too, and for me at a lot lower stress level.

 

Speaking of which "Bonus tax may drive financial firms out of the UK, BBA says".  So let me see if I have this right:  The British Bankers Association says taxing bonuses is bad?  What on earth would you expect bankers to say about their own bonuses?

 

Iceland, at he heart of the 2008 financial mess, "...approves £3.4bn Icesave loss deal".  I'm trying to figure out why average citizens in Iceland are having to pay foreign savers in the UK and Netherlands.  Like getting into the EU is worth it?

---

A good sense of the future can be found in John Crudele's NY Post piece this morning listing "Here's what's not gonna happen in the new year..."  which includes predictions like " You won't get much of a pay increase unless you cry in front of your boss."

 

Deadly War

Eight Americans said to be CIA employees have been killed along with others in Afghanistan.

---

Oh, and I see where Nigeria is planning to use full body scanning at their airports now.  A little late, but better than never.  My guess is the scanners will be bought with foreign aid, a/k/a/ your tax dollars.  Just thinking through the money flow in all this.

 

Elsewhere in Nigeria "Bomb plot arrest highlight Nigeria's Islamist militancy."

 

Locked Up

The Palestinian Authority says Israel has 7,500 Palestinians jailed.  All building to a possible swap for an Israeli soldier being held...

---

Meantime, there's a report two opposition leaders from Iran may have fled the country fearing retributions for recent rioting & civil disorders.

 

Carbon Tax Nix

The constitutional court of France has thrown out the planned carbon tax there - too many loopholes for special interest groups.  Government says it will come back with new rules.  Quick: Feign surprise.

 

--- snip and save section ---

 

Coping:  With Welding Stress

It started off well-intentioned - as most such adventures do.  I had hauled out the electric welder to throw together an outside welding table that I'd cut the pieces for about 2-months ago in order to get them out of the way in the shop.  New broom sweeps clean, kind of thing, start the New Year off right, yada, yada...

 

So just as I am welding the second leg on the table I hear this noise off in the distance.  Turns out to be our most spendy/valuable goat - our billy Dick Chinney had jumped the fence (4' worth) and was out of bounds trying to open a garbage can full of feed with his horns.  Aha!  So that was the odd noise heard 300-feet away.  Mystery solved.

 

Now the problem:  How does one convince an ornery goat back into captivity?  3-minutes later, lured with the prospect of food denied, Chinney was back inside the fence.  Problem solved?  No.  He had managed to mash down the fencing so time to install a couple of runs of four-barb across the top of the fence in the vicinity of the feed troughs to discourage him.

 

This first 'surprise task' wasn't too difficult since welding gear turns out to be dandy for working on barbed-wire fencing.  Not only are the gloves full of padding to keep intruding barbs out, but I also wear 18" split leather sleeve well up my arms.  If you don't have a pair, they're only $2.99 at Harbor Freight.

 

Of course, that also meant getting the tractor out to drive a couple of additional fence posts and stretch fencing, but even so, 45-minutes later - but no injuries - it was back to the welding project/
 

So there I was, welding happily along on this jury-rigged welding table and I was thinking "Gee, why is my welding so crappy today?"  I was like the prince of spatter, although it was not entirely unexpected since this project had multiple flaws from the get-go.  No, I hadn't cleaned off all the metal with the grinding wheel first.  No, I hadn't tightly clamped everything.  No, I hadn't changed out the .030 wire up to .035.  No, I wasn't using the high heat since for some reason (another project) the "A" and "C" settings on the only slightly used Lincoln wire welder weren't pushing wire out....hmmm.....

 

Welding happily nevertheless I made mental notes on what I'd need to fix/pull maintenance on and not do again on another project.  I ran out of listings just in time to look up from the last leg tack welding to see - as the welder quit - fire spewing out of the electrical box in the shop where the welder was plugged in.

 

"That ain't normal..." I thought.  Then about 2-minutes of rising panic since it was the outer wall of my whole office which was belching smoke although the fire quickly abated once the welder went off.  First response: Kill power.  Normally this shouldn't be too hard, but that meant not only pulling the subpanel breakers but also killing power from the uninterruptable power supply that can power the office indefinitely since it's hooked up with 1.7 kW of solar panels and a 4 kW peak inverter and 480-amp-hours of 24 volt battery bank.  Checklist.

 

Then it was a dash into the shop to snatch one of the fire extinguishers, screw driver, rubber gloves to deal with potentially live wires if I missed something on the checklist and tear at the outlet to get whatever was smoldering under control.

 

Gloves on and 5-seconds plus five screws later the outlet/switch cover and the outlet revealed showing the smoldering the remains of what had one been a serviceable 110 V outlet shown here.

 

A couple of interesting thoughts crossed my mine while all this was going one - the most significant was some personal learning about how I physically reacted under high stress.  There was a rising sense of panic to be dealt with.  Visions of "OMG: There goes the office...what's the plan?  Do I call 9-11 before I get the outlet cover off?  No...flames were not visible and the wall wasn't hot above the box.  Besides, I had 2-ten-pound dry chemical extinguishers ready and an axe should I need to rip the wall open.

 

The most curious thing though was a slight "tunnel vision" effect that set it...not sure how to describe it - a slight graying at the extreme of peripheral vision...an old friend, my body's reminder that I'm entering an extremely stressful situation.  I've noticed it before in other extreme stress situations - like inadvertently spinning an airplane while doing light aerobatics, for example - and the best way I've found to 'work through it' is to consciously act and do what's needed.  Act, think, act.   Takes discipline, but it's the stuff that makes the difference between surviving, or not, say the studies.

 

Hard to describe but when someone says they know how to perform under extreme stress, odds are good they haven't been there.  Many people only encounter "Is the office going to burn down?" or "Is the airplane going to crash with me driving?" stress a few times in a lifetime, some never.  A few hooked on it and beating back panic becomes a skill...which is where sky divers, hang gliders, paramedics, firemen, and police come from, I suppose. 

 

When you see the ground spiraling toward you in an airplane, or you're trying to get inside a wall to see if fire has escaped from the confines of an electrical box and you know the fire response would likely be 10-minutes and during that that it'd be you, a couple of dry chemical extinguishers and a garden hose...well, that's real 'stress' testing.

 

It's easy to see - aside from the slight graying of extreme peripheral vision aside - how some people can get stressed into inaction.  Bad thing, that...deer-in-headlights...but it also explains why some people didn't get off the beach when they first saw that tsunami coming at them:  Learning how to perform consciously  under high stress is incredibly important.

 

As turns out, I was reminded that I do OK under stress, going back into my core learning and pulling out the right action.  In the 5-seconds it took to get the extinguishers and screw driver, plus  5-seconds to kill power, I had a plan, action thresholds set and so forth.  If I had opened the box and seen any fire, then 9-11 would have been called on the spot.  Action threshold: If you fire an extinguisher, you need to have called for backup first.

---

About 15-minutes later, the faulty outlet replaced and absolute certainty that only the ends of the wires were flamed, I had the cover back on the outlet/switch box and the welding was finished just as we started loosing daylight.

 

Besides a Universe handing me a reminder of how to deal with high stress, it was also a reminder of why building codes require use of 'firestops' and why back in the days of 'real solid construction' - unlike like today's cheaply made homes, horizontal firestops were not uncommon in all walls.  Just a horizontal 2 by 4 between each stud pair at chest height.  The idea was that in event of fire (as from an electrical box) the fire would not 'run up the wall' inside.  It would be slowed significantly at the firestop.

 

I had a maintenance item on our sailboat when my 30-amp shore power inlet did the same thing about 10-years back.  Once again, a flame resistant box saved the arcing turned flame from setting off the rest of the boat. 

 

Many fire departments recommend changing batteries on smoke detectors at least once a year and twice is better.  New Years and the Fourth of July is a great time to do it...

 

Since I know a fair bit about electricity, I've decided to do what I did on the boat following out shore power inlet adventure:  Pull power, go around to each outlet and retighten all screw connections. A couple of hours worth of work, but worth it.   If you don't know what you're doing with electricity, hire an electrician to do it.

 

When copper is annealed to make it workable, it also continues soft such that over time screw-type copper fittings loosen.  On the sailboat I was able to get a quarter-turn on almost every connection on both the AC and DC panels.  And, it's why I religiously check every screw connection in electrical panels whenever I have them open.

 

Since Universe insisted that I do some recurrent training in 'high stress mode' I thought I'd pass along the information.  A couple of hundred bucks for an electrician every 5-10 years - even if you don't know the working end of a screwdriver - is a whole lot less hassle than tearing a smoldering electrical box open.  Trust me. 

 

On the other hand, learning how you personally function at extremely high stress levels is a good thing, too, although the circumstances can be challenging.  Best if they come when you're not expecting them.  It's somewhat like martial arts with deadly force - a chance to develop the 'plan and execute under fire' reactions that can mean the difference between life and never having to pay taxes again. 

 

Oh, and if I ever get around to building a new house?  Dual fire stops 2 feet above, and again 5 feet above, every electrical outlet.  Over engineering?  No such thing.

---

OK, that's it.  I'm taking the rest of the year off.  Suggest you do the same.

 

---

Send your comments to george@ure.net

---

The UrbanSurvival Mall:

---

"Live on $10,000" A Year

With another round of layoffs due to start later this month...a round which will start to axe many of the middle managers who have managed to avoid the HR grenades...might I suggest a preemptive tactical move?  Voluntarily dropping your lifestyle back a bit, since we're all being marched down that road by either circumstances or some out-of-control-PTB types who write checks to Washington lobby and to anti-reformers in California!  A good starting point, at least if you've still got $10-bucks is my e-book "How to Live on #10,000 a Year...or less!"

 

 

 

It's an automatic download.  It's written in an information dense style: The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the cheap, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you have a little hustle left...  Click here for the index and details.

 

MyGroPonics

My commodity broker JB Slear and I have written a simple book to get you started on high density hydroponics.  It's an example of how someone with a little creativity, access to a few 'dollar stores' and willing to try out some new farming techniques can grow an amazing amount of produce sin a very small space - like even an apartment balcony (if it gets some sunlight).  Sound interesting?  It's just $10 bucks here...

 

       

 

Pass It On

The business model of this website is base Simply click here and send a link to this site to everyone on your distro list...Nothing more dangerous than sharp, clear-thinking upstarts who ask a lot of questions, eh?  Unless you believe WTC-7 fell over on its own, of course....

----

 Last week's report is here.    For back issues of this site, click here.  (Goes back to 1997!)

"If you ain't paranoid, you ain't payin' attention!"

 

---

Wednesday December 30, 2009

Iran Watching: Fly Bye?

Much is being made on the 'net today about the headline from Radio Nederland that "Ayatollah Khamenei's jet put on standby..."  Typical is the interpretation that this means Khamenei's jet might be used for the Iranian leader to flee the country.

 

My interpretation is a little different, since I've been watching this more as a chess game than a well tweetestrated Western effort to promote regime change in Iran.  First, Khamenei would not doubt want his jet gone through with a fine-tooth comb now and then because the West would love nothing more than to see him gone...if you know what that means.  Moreover, if there's any trip to Russia in the cards, it could just as easily be to see intelligence and 4GW (4th generation warfare) skilled to battle on tweetestration being called in from the West.

 

Containing America

Meanwhile, I see where Russia's "Vladimir Putin calls for more weapons to stop America doing 'whatever it wants'". 

 

Quick - get Vlad on the blower!  Tell him that America's been taken over by checkbook wielding special interest groups and all the rest of the world needs to do is monitor our elections and stop all interstate campaign contributions to senate and house elections...stop the problem at its source.  Oughta be against the law for ANY money to be raised outside of a congressman's home district or senator's home state.  Which gets us to our...

 

You Can Tell Elections Are Coming When, Department

"Sen. Dodd, D-CONN., slashed aviation security funding for pet constituency".  Quick!  Look surprised! 

 

Absolute power does what?

 

Depends What You Mean "Aware"

I've doubled up on medications this morning after learning the "US aware "Nigerian prepared for terror attack".   Aware?  WTF: Is that like "Aware of the stoplights" and cutting the brake lines anyway before going for a drive?

---

Along the same lines: "Analysis: Many question 'system worked' comment".  Really?  More fluoride over here, please!  Does that mean the system depends on heads-up alert passengers?  What's all the money going for, then?  And who was that sharply-dressed man who got this guy on the plane without a passport?  WHO WAS THAT?

 

Biting BARC...

A major chemical lab fire at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) is now being studied as a possible terrorist incident.  Two dead and the perps may have links to China or Pakistan goes theorizing.

 

Checkbook Journalism

The RTNDA - is blasting what they call checkbook journalism.  As usual, the conflict between the newsroom and the ad sales department comes quickly into focus, especially if you caught yesterday's piece on how free teevee is in trouble.

---

I only had some minor skirmishes in my news management career, but the dance between the checkbook and the newsroom is complex.  Most 'outsiders' don't know, for example, that airlines (just to pick one industry) have 'crash policies' such that if there's a crash on the news, their advertising plans are modified for some period.  Such policies are fairly sophisticated in some cases; what to do with an emergency landing, what to do if a crash/no loss of life, versus crash/with loss of life, our plane or someone else's...and so on. 

 

I assume you know traffic/continuity departments schedule ads, right? The traffic/continuity office was always telling the newsroom it was our responsibility to monitor the ad policies and keep the station out of hot water with he ad agencies.  But the push-back was we have enough to do when there's a plane crash, so the continuity/traffic department should try listening or watching the news once in a while...  round and around we went.

 

With growing complexity, more and more ad clients demanded this, that and the other thing out of the traffic department.  Many auto dealerships (to pull back the covers on a second industry) want so many seconds or minutes of commercial content separation from competing product.  In some cases, a new car company wants to be the only car company in a commercial break ('stop set' in radioese).

---

It's tempting to get off on a tangent and explain that what was once a simple log/schedule-generation problem in the traffic department has evolved into dandy station-wide scheduling coordination/programming/traffic/billing/automation/ and video on demand systems like BroadView, but I suppose if you really wanted to learn how media works, you'd go back to school and get a business or marketing degree, right?  You ought to at least know there are ERP-like back of house systems and politics over policies...

 

All worth learning at a cursory level because once you lift the curtain on what goes on in real media settings, it's very complex, interactive, and challenging.  Especially if the news department wants to own its own helicopters and advertisers are sliding their payments to 60 or 90 days....  Toy's & tools in television particularly ain't cheap...You priced what an ENG setup costs?

 

Off-Planet Talks?

If talking to Iran about their nuclear ambitions is interesting, it certain pales next to the concept underlying the story from Examiner.com  that the "U.S. military is liaising with extraterrestrial life according to independent sources..."

---

You want a great plot for a novel?  A kind of cross between poly-sci, sci-fi, and adventure? 

 

How about this?  The aliens really did come to Washington DC and other world capitols in 1952 and said something like "Ya'll have an interesting little rock here, and we might be able to help ya'll with development...but first you have to put together a single world government because we're not going to have a separate deal with this country or that.  We do one-planet-deals only and that's non-negotiable.  So here's an Arc of the Covenant powered hyperdimensional cell phone device and when you get effective one world government in place that can speak for the whole planet, ya'll give us a hoot and we'll be back to dump off the Stars Capable Civilization Starter Kit...So try to grow up a bit, huh?  Oh, and straighten out coverage of our last visit with your descriptions of ascending into Heaven..."

 

Right there is your "Million-Dollar Idea of the Day".  Go write the movie script, sell it, get John Williams to score it and invite me to the opening.  Oh, and put me down for ½ of 1 percent - since I have copyrighted the plot line...and fair's fair.

 

Not to mention that this particular plot line makes nearly 100% of available data about the NWO and UFOs fit...  Why someone hasn't already gotten this laid out in book or novel form yet is beyond me, but there you have it.  Email it to Holly &  Bollywoods and cc me, right?  Got some kick-butt dialog to contribute...

 

The $2.3 Billion Dollar Second and other Calculations

Numeracy strikes!.  Small number first: Still just one lousy sunspot visible which means Cycle 24 is very much delayed and that means we're in for more global cooling.  Got that?  Cooling.

---

Bigger number?  The Federal Reserve has done 14 'enforcement actions" month to date and 188 for the YTD.

---

Not big enough?  Census Bureau figures we will start 2010 with 308,4-million people in the US.  More I assume if we were to count the occupied territories in the ME, but that wouldn't be proper-like, would it?  Key:

"In January 2010, one birth is expected to occur every eight seconds in the United States and one death every 12 seconds.

Meanwhile, net international migration is expected to add one person every 37 seconds to the U.S. population in January 2010, resulting in an increase in the total U.S. population of one person every 14 seconds."

Since we're all law-abiding citizens, I figure the most patriotic thing we can do is keep that one birth every eight seconds going.  Schedule more nooners in 2010!

---
But seriously (or nearly so):  Any damn fool with a calculator (played by me) can look at the 'add one person every 37 seconds in 2010 and look at last year's Census news release on the same topic and learn that going into 2009....

"Meanwhile, net international migration is expected to add one person every 36 seconds to the U.S. population in January 2009, resulting in an increase in the total U.S. population of one person every 14 seconds."

OK...follow me on this:  The Border Security * Immigration budget was up 19% this fiscal year to $12.14 billion which was a 19% increase over the previous year.  So what did $2.3 billion more buy us?  One second pushback:  From one illegal every 36 seconds to one illegal every 37 seconds.

 

Now some math:  The old illegal immigration entry rate penciled to 2,400 a day.  The new rate is 2,335 per day. Woo hoo!   Net improvement: 65 less illegals per day, which is...hold on....23,725 fewer illegals per year.  Gimme a 'Hallelujah!" fellow taxpaers!

 

Those 23,725 cost us...er....$2.3 billion.  So that's $96,944 per illegal stopped from entry using the government's own figures.

 

Now let's get creative:  Which do you think might work better:  Standing at the border and giving out $50,000 checks to everyone who turns around and go back where they came from for a year, or arming the border to the teeth with sh*t that never gets finished?  See how simple America's problems are if we focus on results rather than posturing and playing checkbook politics?  

 

Why, hand out $50K checks to 23,745 people at the border and guess what?  They'd go home, be rich and actually build a middle class and services industry in Mexico.   First thing you know, there'd be more jobs and people would rather stay home than come north.  Why bother?

 

As the next move, we legalize weed and tax it in the US leaving no reason to come north and balancing our budget. 

 

Give me a backpack full of ganj and $50K tax-free for tequila and I'll be chillin at Puerto Aventuras south of Cancun in no time.  Fishing, swimming with dolphins and soaking up fine times.  There's be a line at the border to exit the US on those terms in no time...shoot... it would back up into Colorado in no time.

 

Damn, I should be a foreign policy consultant.  Even have a positioning phrase for the State Department under Ure Control for A Change:  Don't make war -  party!

 

Markets

Buck up, dude!  Which means gold down and with it other inflation hedges.  Like stocks.  Simple.

 

--- snip and save section ---

 

Coping: With Media Trends

A reader - prompted I suppose by talk of a fall-off in internet use in the predictive linguistics post 2012 OR just wondering in general asks:

"...did it ever occur to you that the internet is a luxury item and in time of extreme hardship people let the luxury items and services go in order to keep absolute necessities in order to keep living. how many telephones actually worked during the depression of the 1930's."

Yes, actually, many times.  Here's the thing to keep in mind:  When times have been tough/in recessions before (1980-83 in particular) a lot of folks like me in marketing realized that TSL/TSW (time spent listening/watching) media went up - not down. 

 

The reason we surmised at the time was that people tend to gravitate to the highest return/least cost media as a form of escapist entertainment during an economic decline.  That's why people (like me) who were doing direct response marketing (call now, this is a free call...) were doing much better than institutional/print marketers.  Magazine - even newspapers - cost money and when people don't have any, they congregate around free media.

 

If you're a grad student in media studies, here's a killer paper for you:  A 2-5 year study comparing how different media use works out from here forward.  Might be a stretch to get real data - much might need to be inferred - but the key thing to measure is cost versus time spent. 

 

Most high bandwidth internet connections are in the $30-$70 range per month and for that you get some video, some telephone (Skype, et all), instant messaging, news and information, and if you want some bootlegged .MP3's, there's that, woo.  By comparison, satellite TV and cable are at least that much and you can't make an outgoing phone call, rip MP3's, play interactive games, get into virtual reality...and the whole rest of it.

 

So if there's any media trend to look for, I'd predict based on previous experience and the level of interaction possible with a good solid internet connection, that the 'net should actually experience growth.  The kinds of systems which might falter would include things like cell phones - many of which cost $200 a month by the time you add texting (and remember from a competitive standpoint, email is a freebie on the 'net) not to mention the upcharges for bandwidth for surfing.

 

What we found in marketing in the mid 1980's was that people who were unemployed actually ended up spending a larger fraction of available income on media since it was akin to the 'opiate of the people'.  Things like movies out were much more expensive, not time-flexible, yada, yada.

 

So when the next leg down hits, or as the second Depression lingers, I'd look for the ISP's to do just fine.  Until the power is shut off, who'd want to get involved in something like mass protests - calling for revolutionary thinking in government; at least not while good reruns can be had streaming.

 

Go figure.  Kinda like the frog being slowly brought up to boil and then bitching if the heat is turned down.  Then again, who said consumers were rational?  Which gets us smoothly along to the next item in the inbox today:

 

Voting With Your Wallet

How long have I told you to live below your means and screw the banksters over by not paying them usurious interest rates?  Well, over at the Huffington Post there's a dandy article under the headline "Move Your Money: A New Year's Resolution" that's right on point.

---

Key thing to remember 24/7:  Every time you open your wallet - you're voting.  I figure Elaine and I will be able to participate with, oh, about 'fiddy-cents'....

 

---

Tuesday December 29, 2009 

UreGent Humor Update

Major Government Spending Breakthrough!

I don't know whether it's because I am taking a couple of days of 'down time' this week (working less than my usual workload) or what...but here I was sitting staring at the pictures of full body scans and it hit's me like a bolt of lightning!

"We turn all TSA screeners into doctors!  That way, we can all get scanned and prescribed while traveling!"

I know you'll think the idea is crazy, but obviously the Obama administration has thought all this through and by simply adding a few more fields to the No Fly Database, they could put in height, weight, body mass index, blood pressure, and save the scans they make at the airport as backup.  Money's there - let's do a roll-up and 'git 'er done'!

 

Since the government can't be sued over 'security' look at all the money this will save.  Why, already we've got TSA folks specializing in new diagnostic equipment like the TSA CastScope project pictured at left and written up on the TSA web site here.

 

Why with the cost of the "CastScope" and a little tweaking on penetration of the imagery we could have an actual measurable improvement in healthcare delivery.

 

Get the  tie off that screener, quick!  Give him a stethoscope.

 

Broken bone doesn't look like it's healing right?  No sweat.  I can hear it now:  "Mr. Ure, since you're going from Dallas to Seattle you'll have about 5-hours to do this leg raise exercise.  We've arranged up upgrade to first class so you can work on it.  And here, take these Vicadins, too.  We've arranged to have them dispensed onboard by the new flight attendant practitioners...."  God, it's beautiful.  No more drinking on airplanes - we'll pipe nitrous to each passenger and have flight anesthesiologists.

 

And what's ingenious about this is that since security lines will now take as long as the waiting room at the doctor's office, no one will notice the difference.  And all that National Healthcare bill spending?  We just send all TSA screeners to medical school.  Since we'll have to pay them more, since they now become doctors and physician assistants, they'll all get loaded with tax dough and some of that will get spent on new cars --As a BONUS this plan rescues the auto industry.

 

Seriously!  (Or nearly so.) Why for openers, we'd put proctologists and OBGYN's in every airport outside the US to inspect underwear for clues right there on the spot.  "Little bulge in your shorts partner, better let us take a look at that...."  I'm telling you, this will work!  "Have you had a stomach problem or have you just swallowed 3 condoms full of smack? If you'll just step out of the line for this flight and into our laparoscopic special to New York, we'll get you quickly on your way..." 

 

Please feel free to forward this to everyone you know including elected officials in the event you're lucky enough to find one that's not deaf, dumb, blind, or bought, too.  I'm proving that we can solve all America's problems if we just stop looking at the same old problems the same old way.

 

Consumer Confidence Up

Latest from the Conference Board just in the past few minutes:

"The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index®, which had increased in November, rose again in December. The Index now stands at 52.9 (1985=100), up from 50.6 in November. The Expectations Index increased to 75.6 from 70.3 last month. The Present Situation Index, however, declined to 18.8 from 21.2 in November.

The Consumer Confidence Survey® is based on a representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households. The monthly survey is conducted for The Conference Board by TNS. TNS is the world's largest custom research company. The cutoff date for December’s preliminary results was December 21st

Says Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center: "Consumer Confidence posted yet another moderate gain in December as expectations for the short-term future increased to the highest level in two years (Index 75.8, Dec. 2007). The Present Situation Index, however, continued to lose ground and remains at a 26-year low (Index 17.5, Feb. 1983). A more optimistic outlook for business and labor market conditions was the driving force behind the increase in the Expectations Index. Regarding income, however, consumers remain rather pessimistic about their short-term prospects and this will likely continue to play a key role in spending decisions in early 2010."

Consumers' assessment of current-day conditions declined further in December. Those claiming business conditions are "bad" increased to 46.6 percent from 44.5 percent, while those claiming conditions are "good" decreased to 7.0 percent from 8.1 percent. Consumers’ appraisal of the job market was mixed. Those claiming jobs are "hard to get" decreased to 48.6 percent from 49.2 percent, while those claiming jobs are "plentiful" decreased to 2.9 percent from 3.1 percent.

Consumers' short-term outlook improved in December. Those anticipating business conditions will improve over the next six months increased to 21.3 percent from 19.7 percent, while those expecting conditions will worsen decreased to 11.9 percent from 14.6 percent.

The outlook for the labor market was also more upbeat. The percentage of consumers expecting more jobs to become available in the months ahead increased to 16.2 percent from 15.8 percent, while those expecting fewer jobs decreased to 20.7 percent from 23.1 percent. The proportion of consumers anticipating an increase in their incomes decreased to 10.3 percent from 10.9 percent. "

Talk like this makes it hard to be a bear - but I manage, somehow.  As one reader noted in an email this morning, isn't anyone in economics able to figure out you can't have an exponential resource growth curve forever and at some point it all hits the wall?

 

Not today so far...

 

Home Prices Still Sliding - but slower

This should come as no shock - the latest from the S&P/Case-Shiller Housing Price index:

"Data through October 2009, released today by Standard & Poor’s for its S&P/Case-Shiller1 Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show that the annual rate of decline of the 10-City and 20-City Composites improved compared to last month’s reading. This marks approximately nine months of improved readings in these statistics, beginning in early 2009.

 

 

No, dear, this doesn't mean prices are actually going up...they are only down 4% compared with month ago levels.  But hey!  Any port in a storm, eh?

"“The turn-around in home prices seen in the Spring and Summer has faded with only seven of the 20 cities seeing month-to-month gains, although all 20 continue to show improvements on a year-over-year basis. All in all, this report should be described as flat.” says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s. “Coming after a series of solid gains, these data are likely to spark worries that home prices are about to take a second dip. Before jumping to conclusions, recognize that the one time that happened at the beginning of the 1980s, Fed policy saw dramatic reversals, which is very different from the stable and consistent Fed policy we have today. Further, sales of existing homes – those included in the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices – have been very strong in recent months, working off the inventories of houses for sale. At the same time, housing starts remain weak, fears that the market will be swamped by a wave of foreclosures are heard and government programs aimed at the housing market will expire in the first half of 2010."

More on real estate roulette in our Coping section today...

 

Is It ALL About Money?

Of course, it is!  This is one of those mornings when the "Coping" section of the daily column has a lot more effort and thought behind it than the "news" portion.  While it's fun to put on the 'news analyst hat now and again - like yesterday's review of the M.E. chessboard which was interesting to write (and hopefully read, LOL) today there's not too must real grist.

 

We'll start with the Dow which popped up 27 points yesterday - normally a reason for rejoicing in the streets in NYC and Chicago.  But the real kill-joy was the Dow Transport Index which dropped more than ½%.  My friends who are better traders than me (at least as measured by bank account size; I'm winning in the 'enjoy it department which I always figured was the whole point) instantly recognize that when the Transports start acting sketchy, that could indicate a turn is in the neighborhood under Dow Theory.

 

Of course, the idea that the Transports were the harbingers of things to come dated back to the time of rail lines hither and yon as the key to how much product would be coming to market.  To a certain extent, that's been modified by the internet and that brings us to eyeing the NASDOG with some suspicion since it was down quite a bit in the second half of Monday's session before scratching and clawing its way back to a shade over break-even for the day.

 

Then there's the Joe Granville followers of On-Balance-Volume; a theory that says if more people are getting out than are getting in and this goes on for some number of sessions (skryed by entrails and tea leaves to get it just so...) than the market should turn down in general.  OBV is watched over time, so a bullish signed with yesterday getting 50% up volume on the NYSE and only 45% seeing down volume is just a one-day sample and not a case to get long or short in and of itself.  But with the transports down and the NASDOG with it, makes it hardly time to be committing the widow and orphan funds; so I'd speculate while muttering "This ain't financial advise...this is counseling for your gambling addiction."

 

Check back just before the open (8:30 AM Eastern, corrected for wherever you are) and I'll writer up something on the biggest number due out today: The Case Schiller/S&P Housing Price Survey.  If you're looking for good news, don't hold your breathe for reasons that will become chillingly clear when you read today's Coping section below.

 

Pay To Watch

America's not the land of opportunity anymore.  It's now the land of revenue streams.  I faced up to this fact a few years back when I was one of those software company six-figure types and I was working the problem of "How do we keep getting paid for the software once sold since ongoing development work is required?"  Won't bore you with the answer, but what was once a dandy model use by free television (advertising revenues did all the work) the appearance of the internet has scuttled about half of all revenue streams from two decades ago and the changes are still overwhelming us.

 

Just for instance, take the report that "Broadcasters' woes could spell trouble for free TV Assailed by cable and the Web, broadcast TV looks to build a new business model."

 

Over-the-air/free TV has a problem.  Simply stated, they only have one major revenue stream - the one from selling advertising.  Their competition whether cable or satellite has two revenue streams.  One from the advertising and one from the payment for delivery.  In other words, when you watch TV (unless you're a nutjob like me) you pay twice for most things and sometimes three times.  You pay to get cable or satellite (1), then you pay with your attention to ads (2), and in a few cases you get stuck a third time (3) by having commercial material shoveled into your face on a 'premium channel'.

 

If someone were really serious about promoting America as the 'land of opportunity' they might ensure that Americans could get access to some basic media without having to go figure out how FTA satellite system work and watching free offerings (not even commercials) from outfits like Russia Today and Al Jazeera, Iraqi TV and even English-speaking KSA Channel 2 in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  Don't mean to haarp, but until America consumers stop being frigging sheep and starting putting value on their time (and head space) the heaping of 18-minutes an hour of radio commercials and 12-15 minutes per hour of television just won't be enough.

 

Some has to pay for all those roll-ups in radio (and television) and guess who's gonna pay that bill?  [see your mirror for details].

 

More Money in Trees?

Having had some logging done on our place here in the East Texas outback three (or was it four) years ago, I found the headline that "Plan to turn farms into forest worries Obama official" downright amusing.  We did a selective logging of 24 acres and it netted us $14,000 and change in 2005, or so.  That was before housing collapsed and paper consumption was higher.. and that penciled to $583 per acre after 16-years of growth and some was holdover first growth.  So is there more money in trees?  Please. 

 

The real economics are you put in trees, do a thinning cut at 7-10 years and then a real harvest at 17-20 years and you're lucky to break-even on trees - which is why landowners like picking up dough from hunting leases and so forth.  Or, they'll run another crop (goats in our case) and let them be the groundskeepers.

 

Can carbon-crazies...sorry, carbon credits... change that?  Well, if they was to buy carbon credits that approximate real opportunity costs, give 'em my number.  But so far the only people I see getting rich are the (new word here:) carboneers.

 

Picture This

With the headline that "Calls for full-body screening devices grows after terror attempt" I wonder how long before Playboy or maybe Penthouse runs the "Best of Chicago Scanners"  spread? And who could call that porn?  I mean it's protecting the national interest...yessiree...

 

To Their Credit

Say, here's a shocker: "Al Qaeda takes credit for (airline bomber) plot".  Like there was a one in a quintillion chance they'd say "Us?  We didn't do it!"  Right.

 

Iran Clock Running

Latest from Iranian media is that "Iran mulls over producing research reactor fuel..."  Like they might not?  Would everyone in government globally stop trying to BS the peeps?  This is so frigging ridiculous....

 

Greasy Terms

Ukraine and Russia have agreed to new tariffs on energy movement quieting down tensions there; at least for a while.

 

Calculus Problem

The story that "Employers see uptick in hiring in 2010" sounds hopeful because 20% of employers are planning to add f/t workers in 2010.  Problem:  Same data showed 14% were planning to add in 2009 and look what that netted us: a 10% + unemployment rate.  So you figure out the math, my head hurts just sizing up the problem.

--

How about a class of economic math called "differential hosing"?

 

GPWhere

I was bemoaning a couple of weeks ago putting the wrong city in Elaine's car's GPS and being driven 25-miles out of the way before figuring out that "Oposie!".  I'm not alone.  You see where a "Couple stranded 3 days after GPS leads them astray"?  We are not alone...That's why in a recent bout of flying I renounced GPS in favor of VOR navigation.  And dual ADF's would be even better...  Look!  Up in the sky!  It's...it's...it's a Flying Luddite!

---

This morning while driving back from the airport I found myself snickering that E's nav system features POI.  No, not the beat-up fish goo...points of interest, but I found it amusing to use the other definition of POI.  Acronym disease is up 26-times since 1949 as I ,calculated in Peoplenomics last weekend....

 

--- snip and save section ---

 

Coping: With What No One Wants To Say

Every so often, a group of major real estate developers get together for a conference where folks try to look ahead. In order to protect my source, I won't tell you which real estate/developer conference it was, but I've been given permission by my source to post this high-level view of what the people who put up real dough to develop properties are seeing.  This is the info that I talked about with Jeff Rense on his radio program last night -- Read it and weep:

"This week I attended the [serious players] fall conference. [serious players] is the top real estate industry group in the world. All the most senior people in the industry.

1. Not one expert was willing to predict what things will look like in 3 years other than they think it will be better.

2. One top economist said if you are a developer find another career for the next 3 years-there is nothing to do and it may be 5 years.

3. Recovery will be slow. Unemployment will not drop back to more normal levels until 2014. First they will bring back people on 4 day weeks to 5 days, then they will increase hours form the average 33 hours now, then part timers will become more full time, then they will start to hire.

4. Real estate values are down generally 40% and there is a huge need for value reset to occur.

5. Nobody knows what debt will look like when it returns other than it will be far more conservative. Nobody knows what securitization will be when it does return.

6. The rating agencies will operate differently. There is a discussion among some of us that there needs to be an agency probably of Treasury that collects fees of some sort from issuers each time there is an issuance of debt to be rated and that agency will then hire a rating agency to be a analyst firm to determine the quality of the issue. There will definitely not be a continuation of investment bankers hiring the raters and paying them directly. There needs to be a rule that the I bankers cannot talk to the raters. There was far to much threats of withholding fees, and other inducements to the raters before making ratings about as accurate as appraisals which were also paid for by I bankers who needed high appraisals to justify the over leveraging.

7. Housing in some bad markets is still bad and the first time buyer credit is making it a somewhat phony market. Phoenix has 45,000 housing lots so there is a literal lifetime supply of lots. Land prices in Phoenix, S CA and other markets are 50% of the cost of the infrastructure installed on finished lots. The land has zero or negative value. In most areas it will be at least 5 years before any of this land will get built out in any quantity.

There are still 2-3 million too many houses in the US.

8. This time is really very different than any recession in the past

9. The US is no longer the world economic leader and will not lead the world out of this mess.

10. Real estate will once again be an investment and not the trading vehicle it became which is what led to this crisis.

11. We will go back to financing real estate with long term debt, and not the short term floating rate debt used to all a quick flip.

12. The Internet completely changed unemployment trends. Instead of just pumping up the US economy and bringing back production jobs, the Internet has caused the entire world to be competitors for many jobs in the US. It ranges from call centers to research, financial analysis, medical research, and on and on. This may be one of the most historic changes in history and one everyone needs to be aware of. It likely means wages in the US will be reduced below where they might have been were it not for this competition.

As several economists put it, the young in China and India and other Asian countries are hungry to get ahead and enjoy the good life, while US kids feel entitled and poorly educated. Those of us who built businesses were very hungry. Today there are still some like us, but many are too comfortable and unwilling to really sacrifice to make it like we were. The Asians want to learn. Our young people think they already know it- whatever it happens to be.

13. The 3rd Q GDP number is inflated by clunkers, home buyer subsidy, etc.

Growth next year will be more like 1%-2% in the first part of the year.

14. Inflation will return in 3-4 years

15. US corporations are sitting on record cash balances way beyond any they ever had. They will be doing more acquisitions.

16. The best market in the US is Washington DC. For obvious reasons

17. Investors fled real estate -- completely fled real estate in the early 90's. This time they see the long tern opportunity to create wealth and will be back as soon as the opportunity to buy appears

18 There is an enormous amount of cash on the sidelines

19. The Fed is intentionally holding rates at zero to try to force investors to invest in longer term riskier assets instead of collecting nothing on money market or CD's.

20 The banks are still weak.

21 All values are still dropping and we have only gotten to 80% of the drop so far. Office and retail are only 80% there, industrial is only 60% and will be hurt by further inventory liquidation and lower levels carried going forward. Rents are only 75% of the way to the bottom.

22. In the 90's it was easier to fix the problem because the damage was much more confined to a small number of large new buildings which were revalued and then rerented. Now the damage is widespread and covers a lot of older buildings so it will take a lot longer to solve. Quality really matter now. The best buildings will return, a lot of others will struggle.

23. Office vacancy will hit 18.6% nationally, retail 23%, and multifamily 8%.

24. The unwind of the massive Fed stimulus is critical to how it goes. Everyone thinks Bernanke is great but nobody ever did this before -it is truly uncharted waters. Then there is the politics and what will the rest of the world do.

25. As you will read below there will not be the massive foreclosure and asset disposal we all expected. The lenders are going to hold on. When assets do come to market prices will be higher than they should be due to very few deals being chased by massive dollars. There is already evidence of this in the multifamily market.

26. Mobile phones, and other devices are now becoming all sorts of tools and multiple use devices. Social networking is growing faster than anything anyone can imagine. The growth rates are beyond comprehension. This is where everything in the world is going from ordering food or reserving a car on Zip Car, to reading the news or anything. If you are over 30 you can't grasp what is happening and how fast. The growth in usage is by tens of millions in months, and it is worldwide. You can't get your mind around this. There has never been anything in modern times that even is remotely like this. The growth rate makes the growth in TV usage look like it was glacial. This is the biggest transformation of how the world functions in maybe hundreds of years. You need to learn all about this or get run over.

Here is the real stunner. A senior person at Treasury said to a small group of us that it is now official Treasury policy to extend and pretend on real estate loans. In other words, the policy statement from last week says, if you can make an analysis that says even if the current value is less than the loan, if you can do a spreadsheet that shows if you extend for 3-5 years, and if the economy gets better, and if the loan can be amortized down to where the loan is no longer more than the value, then the lender does not have to take an impairment -write down. Loans are to be modified by rate reductions, deferral of reserves, deferral of amortization or what ever.

Just NOT principal reduction. This is just like they are doing in housing.

Giant make believe. The free market seeking an equilibrium price is no longer economic policy. In short, the working of the free market is suspended. She went on to say it was administration policy that they will create new employment and by doing so they will boost the economy, and so then real estate values will return to old levels. There were 50 of the most senior and smartest real estate people in the room. They ripped her to pieces. It looked like one of the town hall meetings of August, except everyone there was a very senior, polished professional. At one point everyone was calling out or moaning at her. It was clear to all she had been given a few talking points and she was told to stick to them no matter how foolish she looked. The group told her in no uncertain terms this is terrible public policy. They said for jobs to be created you need to lower rents so the cost of occupancy was at a level to encourage more hiring. If the loan is kept at old levels and building values not reduced, then landlords can't reduce rents to where they need to be to make taking space by tenants economically viable. Retailers costs remain higher than they should be making it harder to lower prices to induce sales. So there is a massive make believe going on. When I pressed the issue of political interference she said -what do you want us to do, bankrupt all the banks.

That is the choice.

What does this tell you?

A. The problem is going to take much longer to solve than it should,

B. The banks are still very weak, so lending will not return anytime soon,

C. A massive refi problem is getting deferred to 2013-2015.

D. The administration is playing politics with the economy to a degree that is dangerous. There has to be a massive value reset for real estate. We are deferring the inevitable.

I think we captured a lot of what was said in various panels and conversations. We have a long way to go and the government is making it harder to fix the problem."

Although one of the reviewer - a senior fellow at a firm I can't mention thought it was a tad 'too negative' it sounds about spot-on.  This actually fits in with the model that I've outlined here multiple times.  Specifically, that the country is in a modern re-run of the Great Depression and it's going to be a decade (or longer) event.  No mistaking it, however: There are key differences:

• In the Great Depression (I) people lost about $475 per capita (constant dollars) in the first three years of the event.  The losses since the initial decline from the top in the Internet Bubble has been much less but the Dow has never regained its once lofty heights since then on a purchasing power basis.  The bank bailouts of 2008/09 cost each person about $680 per capita ex car bailouts.  More if you toss those in. 

• FDIC has prevented bank losses from being immediately realized, however FDIC is ought of dough.  As evidenced in the senior-level talks most aren't privy to, Treasury and the Fed are trying to do whatever they can to get real estate other than residential to 'pencil out' so as not to have to cope with more balance sheet erosion.

• Since the problem is moving at glacial speed on the way down, with everyone pushing actually addressing debt liquidation as a "Yeah, some day maybe we'll get to that..." it means that we could have another 10-20 years of misery ahead.

• At some juncture it will become clear to the PowersThatBe that while a global internet/electronic consciousness may initially sound like a good thing, the blowback is significant:  national borders and national employment agendas have been thrown under the rails.  People everywhere are bidding on all kinds of jobs and that could throw the power structure into unanticipated chaos.

• Just as WW II provided - ultimately - the end of the first Great Depression, the end of the Second Depression is likely to involve war as a means to bind humans together under national banners and causes, which can once again be orchestrated by the PTB.  Foremost among the agenda items will be removal of manufacturing capability ('scarcity builds price') and control of resources.  Which is why the Middle East and the Pakistan/India conflict are such important flashpoints, along with the Georgia/Azerbaijan regional stresses along the Muslim leaning Former Soviet Union (FSU) southern tier of states.

 

While the Dow picked up 27 points Monday amidst happy-talk about retail, I expect once we get a few weeks into the new year that reality will intrude, and that means reconciling declining earnings.  And that means an ugly spring for stockholders, if my bead on things is right.

 

Damn, I'm bright & cheery, aren't I?

 

More Harsh Reality Checking: Who Bought Tea

And then there was this email - which makes me seem Pollyannaish:

Remember that I told you the web URLs's and "tea party" names and the strategy was set up a year earlier (mid 2008) by some old-line Republican Party operators?

Now the accounting is getting done, and guess what? Millions of dollars donated by righteously angry Tea Party suckers was spent on -- you guessed it -- paying the Republican consultants that set up the scam in the first place.

Here's the stuff on the Tea Party Express, who managed to siphon off over two thirds of the donations right back into their own pockets as "consultants" to the Tea Party "movement" Majority Of Tea Party Group's Spending Went To GOP Firm That Created It.

This blows away the petty crimes ACORN is accused of, and strangely enough, never has been convicted of.

George, it's time for you to get the joke:

They (the right/left parties of corpgov)  are not equally guilty. One of our major political parties, (and just one) is an organized crime syndicate that murders American soldiers for profit and sets out with the intention of stealing as much as they can, as fast as they can from their fellow citizens.

The other one is a loosely associated bunch of people that includes quite a few shoplifters...."

You know, this is a hellava lot of reality for one sitting.  Up late last night doing the radio show, up again at 3:15A AM to get my son to the airport for his flight home to Seattle, and then to have to face all this harsh reality.  Oh my...  You want MORE?  OMG you're sick.  But since I am, too...

 

More About Post-2012

A couple of people asked for clarification about my comments the other day about the coming impact of 2012 on 'net traffic.  What I was trying to get to was that come 2012, internet traffic tanks (for reasons unbeknownst at present since the linguistics give us the flavor of future events, not specifics).  But there's not much 'recovery'......if any.

 

Cliff of www.halfpasthuman.com was kind enough to explain this latest case of "George-foot-mouth-entanglement" to a concerned reader this way:

"George has stated the situation incorrectly. The data levels return in 2013 to about 5 to 6 % of what they are now. So no, they do not recover. And that may be strictly an artifact of processing that the data exists in 2013 at all. Remember these are projections of linguistics, not any actual measured data from 2013.....

So, no i am not showing data levels to what we have now."

If you got the most recent of the "Shape of Things to Come" you can pencil in a huge number of possible solutions such as pole shift, geopolitical events that curtail energy so as to effectively shut down 95% of the net, or even something like alien wars.  Remember that since predictive linguistics is by definition reading things down at the 'noise floor' of human discourse, the residuals past 2012 may be the linguistic equivalent of a tight DSP (or even analog) filter circuit "ringing" when the filtering is too tight.

When I talk with Cliff about things like 'after 2012' data and then write something about it here, I just assume that you understand rudimentary DSP.  Well, when once you don't even give a second thought to ringing in DSP, then the similar phenomena in language processing is a given so I apologize if I sometimes don't take time to write out the whole background.

 

If you didn't have a regenerative radio as a kid, where the sensitivity and bandwidth are controlled by bringing a radio to the verge of feedback (another linguistic processing trip wire, too, long as we're talking about it...) then this Wikipedia graphic which explains "settling time " captures the concept nicely (click the graphic for more):

 

 

For a really, really good time, you can either get a ham radio license and figure out ultimate bandwidth/ringing limits for fun, or just go with me that post 2012, data sucks and whether it's a pole shift, government shutdown, energy disappears, massive CME/EMP outcome, nuclear war, etc. doesn't matter so much as to understand that "Hmmm....so the post 2012 data could be we wake up telepathic one morning and no longer need the net, the net's off, or there's no one left around...just be the linguistic equivalent of settling time...Oh.  That sucks."

 

Even with data persistence, a huge drop-off in data post 2012 requires retools (kind of like resetting deadbanding & rescaling) and since no one is offering us checks and party favors, screw it.  Got boats to build, gardens to plant, yada, yada...and a slice of huckleberry, please.

 

Then you get up and go to work anyway.  Or, in my case, I go take a nap.  Cliff's the guy laying cloth & resin down between bouts at the pie oven.

 

---

Monday December 28, 2009

Update

Coffee Working Department

Oh yeah!  Forgot to mention I'll be on with Jeff Rense tonight - think it's around 9 PM Pacific, midnight Eastern and 11 here in the heartland.  In addition to the Middle East chessboard and what's up there, we'll no doubt get into which investments have performed how well for the year, the outlook for taxes, prosperity, hyperinflation...you know...the how many hours for how many calories kind of thing...

 

The Mideast Chessboard

Since the botched terrorist event onboard the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit this weekend, there's now concerned being expressed about the possible impact of additional security measures on business air travel.

 

What conspiracy theorists will find especially interesting is that there are reports out now that the family of the alleged terrorist says he had cut off family contact with them - and there's even talk of an accomplice. Another report claims the "...suspect's family warned authorities of his Islamic radicalisation..."

 

Another bit for the conspiracy theorists, who  was the sharp-dressed man in the shocking MLive report "Flight 253 passenger: Sharp-dressed man aided terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab onto plane without passport"?  One of the PTB's fix-it types?

---

Meantime there are a large number of events all seeming to 'pop off at once' in the Middle East.  For example, Yemen has announced the arrest of 29 al Qaeda suspects after a raid.  Related to this is that the "U.S. military attacks al Qaeda in Yemen for second time" over the long weekend which raises an interesting Constitutional question in my mind.  All in favor of busting up terrorism, but isn't going into Yemen's territory and Act of War and isn't there something Congress is supposed to be involved in first?  Just asking...you know...like a declaration of war/hostilities, maybe?

---

1,300 miles north/northwest of Yemen, it's now one year since the Israeli attack on Gaza - the one with the reported use of white phosphorus, remember?  Time Magazine has a review of the situation in "Once year since Israel's offensive, Gaza still suffers."  Not that anything is going to change anytime soon, despite "UK protesters blast Israeli blockage" since the Israeli attack was not without provocations like missile firings and such.

 

The continuing controversy over Israel's border expansion has spilled over into the US with some very good perspective is available in "Changing the Jewish State and the State of Jews: J Street and the Future of Israel " at the Religious Dispatches web site with regard to the philosophical differences between J-Street and AIPAC.

---

So let me see here...scratching on the back of an envelope, we have the US warring in Yemen to some degree, a developing schism over how far Israel should expand borders and whether a two-state solution is a solution at all, and then we have the messes in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Now, toss into that demonstrations in Iran where a round-up of anti-government protesters is expected, and

 the report in the Jerusalem Post that a "Maverick Iraqi politician claims Iran could go nuclear within weeks" at a time when the "US to push for Iran sanctions in January."

 

The question is pretty simple:  With Iran having trouble at home and with a schism developing on territorial expansion, how long will Israel wait?

 

My guess is not very.  Reason?  Little noticed in the Western/corpgov press is that Israel is holding a first-ever ambassador's conference in Jerusalem.  While on the surface, one agenda item is to talk about tense relations and whether Turkey could moderate talks with Palestinian leaders, I'd bet there's another item being discussed in background:  How will Israel's diplomatic corp respond when Israel moves proactively against Iran?

 

From putting together a few more stories, like the most informative one in the Jerusalem Post today under the banner  (foreign minister) "Lieberman: No peace deal in next 10 to 20 years" we learn that Israel has "the country's 140 ambassadors and consul-generals who are participating."

 

Was it worth flying most all of the Israeli diplomatic upper crust to Jerusalem to hear a headline grabbing speech about "no peace deal in 10 to 20 years"?  No, since some foreign media have noted this is the first ever  meeting of it's kind. 

 

Best guess:  Israel isn't going to wait for US sanctions which will no doubt be a long time coming and hotly debated even then.  Especially when the pro-bomb-Iran groups now have a headline that claims Iran will be nuclear capable 'within weeks."

 

If I were a betting man - not just a nut-job in the outback of East Texas, I'd wager that the Iranian - and rest of world - response to an Israeli launch is the real agenda at Jerusalem and that this is a planning meeting for how to communicate Israel's regional security concerns.  Especially if, as linguistics have previously suggested, there's more than just political fallout from the attack.

 

The intrepid investor, faced with a mountain of detail, may be able to watch the two indicators this week that should foreshadow military action against Iran:  The price of oil - which seems to be holding over $78 a barrel today and the price of gold, which has popped up a few more dollars.

 

Should I mention that the "Iraqi and Iranian forces stand off in oil well row" sets up the Iranian army invading Iraq if Israel throws bombs its way?  In the linguistics there have been references to massive military casualties and an Iranian army move into Iraq 

 

One more indicator?  Sure...I'm having an after-Christmas special on them, LOL  Copper is up more than 2½ percent in early trading.  And you know what copper's used for making, right?

 

Oh - all this is not lost on the Iranians.  Iran's Press-TV headlines it as "Israel summons envoys from all over the world" and then notes in their story:

"This is the first time a conference for all of Israel's heads of missions has been held."

And that would include the Six Days War, a couple of oil embargoes and more.  Is it wise to expect fallout shortly?  You get to decide how to define 'fallout', but my expectation is yes to at least one definition and soon enough. I think Israel is unlikely to accept sanctions as an alternative, especially when Iran has been running the clock for over a year.

 

The reason I expect and Israeli launch on Iran would go nuclear from the outset?  The US may be running the clock a bit as the Iranian press is also reporting that "Financial problem delay new US bunker buster bomb"  while other headlines advise that deployment is a year out - next December.

---

Oh, and I expect the house will move up it's Patriot Act vote which had been about to expire since that allows more government spying on you than was permissible before 9/11. Which gets us back to the MLive report of the sharply-dress 'helper' doesn't it?

 

And the Next Terror Item is...?

The UK's Sun headlining today that "COPS fear that 25 British-born Muslims are plotting to bomb Western airliners."  Is it all a build up to our topic above?  Or, do the Brits have anti-terrorism laws that need renewing, too?

 

Airline Woes

All this circles around to a very interesting investment question this morning:  How long will people keep flying with the lines are getting longer and longer and "Ramped up US airport security deepens holiday travel misery."?

 

Back in my airline management days it was axiomatic that "Airplanes don't make money on the ground" so if you're looking for an easy way to analyze airline financial performance, look at how many hours a day the average plane is flying (12-13 is nice) versus how much time they spend on the ground.  Then, if you have a decent revenue passenger load factor (75%+ is nice) the airline has to almost work to loose money.  But as PLF and block times drop, well - things get ugly about there. 

 

Something to ponder if you're playing airline stocks short today...

 

Bacchus or Baucus?

I assume you recall that Bacchus one way Greeks referred to the god of wine/intoxication.  Now, go over here and watch the video of senator Max Baucus and tell me if he shouldn't change his name to senator Dionysus...

 

Arsonist

22 fires and counting as an apparent arsonist is on a binge in the Houston area.  Authorities doing what they can to smoke 'em out....

 

Here, Spot

I see only one sunspot on the SpaceWeather update at the moment.  We should be holding at the 5-10 level or else that puts the unthinkable into the cards...protracted inter-cycle cooling between Cycle 23 and Cycle 24.  Yes like the weather over Christmas.

---

A curious post blizzard piece in the Utica Observer-Dispatch:  "Motorists advised to use caution on slippery, now roadways."  I try not to write stories like that, preferring instead to let people figure out for themselves as they slide sideway into an oncoming tree at 50-miles an hour that they may wish to modify their behavior... Besides, if they were reading the story while driving...well, you know, good as the web is, it ain't radio...

 

The Weak Ahead

Santa is welcome to stick around with his rally for another day - take the wrappings out when you go, though.  Tomorrow we get the Case-Shiller/S&P 20-city housing numbers.  No surprise if they are down 7% or so.  Then consumer confidence is reported tomorrow, too.  After that a kind of uneventful-verging on boring week until Thursday night.

 

Planning, Always Planning

Which reminds me, just time to hop over to Amazon and order a BreathKey Breathalyzer: The Digital Keychain Breath Alcohol Tester with Professional Features.  Don't forget to click overnight shipping if you plan on using it New Years Eve.

 

Cheaper?  Find a local A.A. meeting.

 

Do we look out for you, or what?

 

--- snip and save section ---

 

Coping: With Excessive Optimism

A kind reader sent me a link to a fine article in the Fairfield Weekly headlined "We're Screwed!" which then gets into an interview with ShadowStats.com founder John Williams explains the rick of hyperinflation.  Worst case scenario?  Rioting in the streets and devolution to a bartering system..."

 

While the scenario he paints is not only possible - but somewhat likely given that healthcare is the new CCC and WPA for this depression, the actual worst case that has popped out from reading the predictive linguistics runs is actually far worse than what Williams gets into.

 

Hyperinflation doesn't just lead to rioting in the streets and devolution into a bartering system...there's a whole breakdown of the Western business model that could go on along with that.  Some of the highlights of which would also include:

• Energy supplies by foreign countries to the US would be shut down due to collapsing value of the dollar.  While you might be able to hedge by staying home and reorganizing your life to cope, it wouldn't be more than a year before frozen pipes were busting all over the place and there'd be no spares for repairs since that's all petroleum based.

• Of course whatever food you had would be either canned, freeze-dried/stored, or fresh harvested since without power from largely imported energy, how are you going to run a refrigerator?

• There won't be any work, since work would be paid for with nearly worthless dollars.  And it's not like you'd be the only one walking off the job.  The cops, firemen, prison guard...how many of those kind of folks are going to keep working without money that actually buys them something?  More question to ponder: Do the guard keep all the bad guys boxed up, or are they all released on humanitarian grounds into the general population where they get to take revenge and whatever else?

• Also since there's no power, there'd be no way to pump gas and that means for the rest of your life, you may be constrained to traveling whatever is in your tank right now.  Oh, and did I mention that 3-months is about it for storage life of ethanol laced fuel?

• Of course with no cops, a kind of 'frontier justice' returns and along with starvation, medical deaths (no meds or means to transport...) we all move back into the mid 1800's.

 

A fellow I know, Dick Browning (The Texas Book of the Dead) has written an interesting (short) ebook type treatment what it would be like in a big city trying to survive and get into a stable/survivable position.  Pretty horrific stuff, but as the pressure builds in the Middle East and as the PTB ratchet up their mechanisms of control, what Williams lays out in the interview is not the whole weave of the terrible clothe woven of system breakdown.

 

The big horrors are the mass deaths from trapped militaries that become unsupportable without a working tax base and monetary system, the disease and deaths over food, and so forth.

 

Still, it's a worthy read as long as you don't look too far out ahead and ask the really scary questions like "Why does the predictive linguistics data fall off to almost nothing past 2012?"

 

Last Monday

But wait!  Who was that muttering about the grim/sober tone of this morning's report?  Why, I'd cheerfully note this is the last Monday of 2009 that you'll have to get up to go to work. 

 

Consider yourself privileged if you still have a job to go to...More than 15 million 375-thousand Americans aren't so lucky, so no whining.  If the work doesn't make you free, are you working on the right things?

 

---