Urban Survival Weekly Report: How we're Replaying 1929

Replaying 1929 ?
Updated February 20, 2003 - 7:15 AM AM Eastern
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This week for Subscribers: Prepared or Paranoid?

Maritime Disaster Watch

[Reader Note, added May 2003: Our watching for the "maritime disaster predicted by the web bot project was apparently fulfilled by the crash of the Space Shuttle. Named Columbia ("gem of the oceans") the space ship event met enough of our prediction parameters to be classed as at least a partial hit from the predictive standpoint]

Since about January 10th, we've been predicting a major maritime disaster, based on the information from the Web Bot project, run by our friends at the think tank we can't mention. In a December scan of the internet, which collect 55+ million 2048 byte snips of text around a specific keyword search, followed by a 2.919 million data point run recently, followed by multiple layers of processing to derive archetype-level predictions, we have heard continuing references to a "maritime disaster" and a "coup that will hold world attention".

As you know, we reported early this week on the three mystery ships sailing around the world's oceans that may be carrying Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Three freighters of the 600' class are being carefully monitored by American and British intelligence services. Then last night, as reported below, we received word the Coast Guard has issued a terror alert along the Mississippi River. Now, this morning, I receive the following curious email from a reader in Canada. Decide for yourself if it's important:

"Your site really has me thinking about the significance of Maritime
vulnerability.
On the news last night we got news that two very large ships running
with out running lights were spotted above Vancouver Island. The ships
have never been found. Canada the country which has spent 2 billion
dollars registering 10 % of the guns in the country cannot afford full
radar facilities North of Vancouver island.
Interestingly this news released last night was about ships entering
our sea lanes at the end of December. Why would the government press
let us know about this now? Why didn't they tell us this earlier. What
is the hidden message?
Next will come confiscation of guns which will provide a new industry
of running guns for criminals so they can pick on the defenseless
citizens.
We are so proud of our Prime Minister who will not join the US- British
assault on Iraq. He states we need UN approval. Nothing like respecting
the judgment of the world body which recently placed Libya in charge
of its human rights commission.
You need a big imagination to follow world affairs today- especially in
Canada
Thanks for your site." - BC reader.

Reading Materials: Ready.gov

If you haven't see it yet, there really is some good advice about home preparedness on the new government web site. Even absent a terrorist threat, you need to remember that the breakdown of even one critical computer can cause a cascading series of power outages, the very thing that occurred in the Northeast U.S. in the early 1960's. A point made by science superstar James Burke, in his series "Connections", "The Day the Universe Changed, and "Connections II" is simply this: As society has become more complex, the difficulty of making it all hang together in a functional way becomes more and more difficult. If you haven't read it, you might want to put it on your list. Take away electricity, or take away fuel, and the 21st century returns to the Stone Age pretty quickly, a lesson not lost on people who still live close to the ground and shoot at us.

On an only slightly less apocalyptic note, there's Joseph Tainter's book, "Collapse of Complex Societies" which goes one step further to draw the conclusion that society only hangs together so long as the margin rates of return is higher than zero. In other words, if you work harder and harder just to get even, no government on earth, at least historically, has clung to social organization. It's perhaps why Minoan traders don't dominate the world's textile markets today - and haven't for centuries.

Easy Comet, Easy Go ? We Hope!

Yes, there are two rather startling developments in the past several days related to comet Neat. Besides the early word from the think tank,. and the poignant note that a government official said if we were really headed for an "end of the world extinction level event, the best government policy would be to say absolutely nothing about it", an Eagle-eyed reader sends this note:

Ure,

The "Neat" Comet just passed 9 million miles (1/10 distance from Earth to Sun - AU) from the Sun (Feb 18th), thats closer than Mercury, and may potentially change direction (path) due to this and cause sun flares, kick up space dust, etc. No major coverage on any news channel. But M Jackson, and former mother in law, Prisilla Presley were covered. The comet is only twice the size of Jupiter, and the plasma tail makes it look larger than the Sun. See the links.

I get nervous when they don't cover these things on TV, but Presley's wife is pretty important though.

And remember not to stare at the Sun.

:)

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_c3small.mpg

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/

Play with comet's (original) path

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=2002+V1#ephemeris

Novel View of a "Fall Apart" Country...

Email this morning. which you can read for yourself:

Mr. Ure:

We are the publishers of Only in America, an independent-press,
critically-acclaimed novel by author John Soltez. We're writing to you
because we noticed your Amazon link, and believe our book to be of
considerable interest to your audience. ("Apocalyptically entertaining," as
one reader put it.)

The book's main character is a somewhat self-centered suburbanite whose
worldview begins with his stock portfolio and ends with his SUV (we believe
your readers would refer to him as a "sheeple"). [Yup-G] Everything is just fine as
he cruises through life -- until the economy slumps and there begins a period
of social unrest that affects even his calm, daisy-dotted community.
Unemployed, and saddled with credit-card debt, all this changes as he embarks
on a road lined with "angels and agitators, prophets and pontificators."

Only in America deals with topics we believe highly relevant to your readers,
such as:

•(sub)urban survival
•the decline of the U.S. stock markets
•racism and its effects on the community
•precious metals ownership
•loss of faith in institutions such as government and religion
•the growing discontent of "regular" middle-class citizens
•independent, third-party political candidates

Originally conceived in the '90s, Only in America foreshadowed (eerily, some
readers report) the extraordinary Presidential election of 2000. It was
featured this summer at the Small-Press Center in New York City. The novel
was well-received by the influential Midwest Book Review, as well as being
the cover feature of Dead Trees Review last November. We invite you to take a
look at it at

Gee, do you really think those kind of things could go on here? No, I haven't read it yet, but it does sound entertaining. You can read more by clicking on the book page link below - BTW: I'm especially partial to small publishers because I'm still looking to get my book, "Victims of Process, How Unwritten Recipes Run Your Life" published...Maybe I should send 'em a first draft... Anyway, here's the Soltez' link...sounds interesting...

By gosh, the age and the IQ keep getting closer together, Gifts of Cash, wine, CD's of jazz, etc are always appreciated. Speaking of cash, this weekend Inside Report will deal with the growing problem of counterfeit $100 bills. Apparently, they are showing up all over the place - and in some communities it's getting hard to get them exchanged for $20's and $50's. If you have a cash-stash, you might want to lighten up on $100's. Hell, send 'em to me!

Bookstore Section Added!

A lot of people have asked me, seems like time and time again, where can I get some books that go into more depth than the web site on things like the Kondratieff Wave and the chance that we really are entering into a Second Economic Depression that will dwarf the Great Depression of the 1930's? Well, I've decided to become involved with Amazon as a partner site - which means that if you buy something from Amazon, buying by clicking one the links on this site will help "pay the bills". Last week, 22,000 people visited this site - and I figure at least 2-3 of them, including maybe you, buy books online. Soi what the heck, right? To get there, simply click on the link at the top of this page or click to www.urbansurvival.com/bookstor.htm and you should get there. I've put in a number of searches, so enjoy the new page and let me know what you think (I mean other than the crass commercialism of it, but it will give a lot of readers starting points for their own researches. Putting up the books has been something I've thought about for a long time, seeing as I've spent a mid-sized fortune on books about the subject - no reason you should do some additional reading, too.

Not much new on the watching and waiting front, except that the think tank reports that some state agency people they bump into now and then are worried about hyperinflation taking hold before summer. The reason? Declining tax revenues and the major spending increases to pay for U.S. troops overseas. Still, it's not a certainty which way the inflation/deflation battle will break, but when it does, good heavens, it should be a sight to behold.

Give it till February 28

Well, the waiting game continues, although I expect the market to break one way or the other between now and the first of March. The reasons? Well, to begin with the web bots keep repeating the same message - the latest from the think tank this morning:

"I will say that the bots are clear. A war will come. Also
a great defeat. The defeat will be of the ones who move first
according to the bots. They also say the impact will require a
decade to shed. The description is (removing) from [Body -
populace - econ] (yellow blood){in the meadow} (weakens) the
(supplicant or applicant) and (ten years) {recovery} (before){able to
fight again}. "

But that's far from the only development. I think I might have mentioned that there is some work on the web about how the astrological line up on Feb. 24th is the same lineup that we have had prior to past crashes, something about Neptune square Mars, or some such. I will leave that to my friend Robert & guys who have public sites on such things, like Arch Crawford's site. Newshound Tim B. sent along a note pointing to an Arch Crawford interview on http://aegeancapital.com/freeservices/archives1/Guests/Crawford/crawford.asx suggesting that Sunday of this weekend could be significant - and remember - the market is closed Monday. So Crawford's expectation for Tuesday is for a very ugly opening on Tuesday and his clients were advised to go short on margin yesterday.

"We have the full moon opposing Uranus which will make people very antsy and like to do things they don't normally do, and the Mars conjunction to Pluto would make something exploding in a big way possible. And we think will be... this kind of attack, and we think it will affect our markets very determinedly. So we're set up for it here, being long the golds and the oils, and the CRB index, and short, double short, on the market indices or a basket of stocks, whatever you prefer."

The interviewer, Ike Iossif, asked if maybe this was really a huge rally shaping up. No, said Crawford, the full Moon opposing Uranus will make people crazy." So with three signs in the sky, per Crawford. You need to look into www.aegeancapital.com if you don't do your own trading - they seem to have a lot of good content - and because they listen to a wide spectrum of input, seem like they might be a good firm to deal with. Arch went on to note that the moon this weekend will transit the sky this weekend exactly where it was when George Bush took office, so the weekend will have a major impact on Bush.

I know, I know, what is all the hoopla about Arch? Well, he's repeatedly been able to hit way above market returns using astrological work. On the other hand, the web bots point out that the same structure is in place in the heavens over Bagdad, just after night fall, as was in place (if I recall this right) at the time of 9/11.

So if the web bots are to be precisely right, I would expect this weekend could be our maritime disaster, and that the markets will open badly on Tuesday, and that will be followed by the outbreak of the war the following weekend, with the market in a "crash" mode on the 24th, if, of course, we make it that far.

In terms of our personal account, I'm holding 75 contracts short the QQQ's for March at the money (today) and long thousands of Goldfields. Although I've had a couple of wild days of swing in these positions (net down 4% in the past week since I laid in the positions, I'm willing to put my money on the line. It's not often you see an alignment like this one with so much volatility potential. I'll give it till the 28th and be glad if the trades are wrong because that will mean either no war, or nothing of consequence, which would set up a chance to go long. But on the other side, if I'm right, I expect to exit the QQQ puts with a 300% gain and the GG with a 20-25% gain.

I don't advise this kind of position for anyone, and I repeat that I don't offer financial advise - just commentary. Still, look how many times Arch Crawford is interviewed by Barron's (and other financial publications) and ask yourself "Why?"

As far as specifics of a prediction short term? Only a small chance of being exactly right, but I guess I would refer back to the sinking of the Maine in Havana's harbor on January 25th, 1898, and how the death of 254 sailors (8 more died later of injuries and burns) led to the Spanish-American War. Although the cause of the explosion was never determined, the Yellow Press at the time immediately claimed it was the Spanish. Drawings in the papers at the time depicted Spanish saboteurs attaching mines to the ship. Given the mood of the country today, any incident involving a ship would be immediately turned into a rallying cry with only the smallest of official "encouragement".

I fear such an incident this weekend, which would certainly qualify as the kind of maritime disaster predicted by the bots. Have that kind of event in either the Gulf, or off North Korea, and you have the recipe for war the following weekend. Whether it would be caused by an accident, sabotage, or treason, can only be speculation.

All of this is hopefully way off base. But as one reader, a well-read MD pointed out in a private email, suppose the bots are right - and suppose we have a maritime disaster involving a naval ship carrying nuclear weapons, made of plutonium. Wouldn't that kind of explosion cause a massive pollution problem because we know that plutonium is about the most dangerous thing on the planet? Wouldn't that potentially poison a huge portion of whatever ocean the event happened in? Yes, of course it would.

"Well," he asks, "remember the part in the Bible about 'a third of the oceans will be poisoned?"

Still Waiting...

A lot of info has be crossing the desk as we wait for the next AQ outrage. Here's one from the think tank (which runs the web bots):

"Just wanted to discuss the al Q new surprise weapon. And that they
have a shi* load of zodiacs.... just guess what else the bots brought
back way back when with all the reports of purchasing zodiacs?
Well, I disregarded it at the time, as being totally misplaced
data....as I did not understand what it was, but they were interested
in or bought, fog guns. Like used in agriculture and in mines to
disperse aerosol droplets of water. "

The bots had picked this up in a previous run - it's not in the new stuff, and it's from a translation web site and apparently related to good purchased by or through an Algerian intermediary. Old news, but stuff to ponder.

Next, as if to underscore how bad the economy is in the real world outside of dreamland and Wall St.:

    I'm an electrical contractor north of the Chicago area.  During the last 5-6 years, I had more work than I could handle. At times, I was turning down more work than I was actually doing. I couldn't find 'good' help. I didn't recieve one phone call from an out of work electrician. Since the first of the year, I have had five calls from electricians with a decade or more of experience. I have been averaging 25-30 hours a week myself( A far cry from the 50 I averaged before). I havn't even had a lot of people calling for estimates. I have an office of interior decorators that have done over a million dollars a year in business over the last 4 years. I spoke with one of them and she said that it seems like their phones have been disconnected. The lady I spoke with was only going on one appointment that week. The guys at the supplier I use have told me that business is way down. My brother-in-law works for a machining company, his entire company just took a 10 percent pay cut. Everyone chalks the slowness up to war jitters. I think quite a few people are in for a suprise.

                                                                                Thank You,

                                                                                        Tim

And there's this from our eyes of the South (South Carolina):

It may not mean anything, but as I was sitting at Vic Bailey Ford earlier today, waiting for Debbie to pay for the brand new rack and pinion on her Windstar, I watched a train go by on the tracks across the street. I counted 125 flatcars (from when I first noticed them), all loaded with flatbed trailers, trucks or tankers. Guess what the paint scheme was: camo. Not desert, but woodland camo. Headed east.

So here we sit, waiting to see what's next...and wondering about the "maritime disaster" and city of 9-hills reference. Also I'm still long thousands of shares of gold stock - if things fall apart in the next few weeks, it could be one of the all-time whipsaws. However, who knows? Come to think of it, the Rocket Science Trading readers will want to be sure and read Bill Shepler's special intraweek alert sent out via email tonight. It will be on the subscriber's part of the www.rocketsciencetrading.com site tomorrow morning.

Totally off the subject: I've finished rebuilding my two prized old tube-type ham radio transceivers that I picked up recently. I think I will sell both of them as I have a new project on the table now - doing a restoration of an old HT-44 which has lots of problems. Neat radio, and made by Hallicrafters after Northrop acquired them back when. The HT-44 looks similar to the Collins S-Line gear..'bout that size. Anyway, if you know any hams, I have at least one of the NCX-5's with matching NCA power supply speakers for sale. If you're into collecting EMP resistant electronics, and either have or are working on a ham license, send me a note as I will probably put them up on eBay in the next week or so. Elaine's got her ham license now, but having...er....let me count....four complete HF single sideband stations is maybe a little much, even for me.

One last bit of news...I've suffered with eczema my whole life - and I just got a 100% herbal concoction with silver in it in the mail from the think tank today. Made of something up for me of 100% natural oils and laced with colloidal silver. The only time I get "over" my eczema is when I go to the beach on vacation for 2+ weeks and spend a lot of time in salt water and sun, but, you know how that is - not good. The stuff reportedly is close to a miracle cure from the itchiness...I will let you know how it works in a week or two. The theory is that the herbals and oil moisturize while the (fairly strong) silver migrates to the lower layers of the skin where the silver does something to slow the histamines that normally causes the micro-blisters that then itch, break, dry and get the whole itch cycle going. I liked "hardworker's hand creme" but it was paraffin and zinc - and the long term use of paraffin on my skin didn't sound appealing, and the tiamcinalone (triam) ointment I use thins the skin after n years of use - and it's not sun friendly. Like I said, I'll keep you posted.

Crudele Reveals: 11% Unemployment!

While we're sitting around waiting for the next terrorist attack, which our web bots figure will have something to do with a maritime disaster, there are little flashes of economic reality showing up in the conventional press. Take, for example, the wonderful article in the NY Post this morning by John Crudele titled "Jobs Data Twisted by U.S. Census". In it you find this little gem....which I've been ranting about for months now:

"The unemployment rate jumped to 11 percent in January, from 9.6 percent the month before, when you count workers who are "marginally attached" or only have part-time jobs because they can't find full-time work. That larger number also includes discouraged workers, plus regular unemployed.

(The government calls this the U-6 unemployment rate - but you really need one of those U-2 spy planes to find this unpleasant fact in the press release.) "

Yeah, I know, it's not the bankster-babble of the WSJ - but the Post does a better job of business reporting than 99.5% of media (and a 100% of telepander) - and is at the top of the heap in common folk reading material. Once again, hats off to Crudele for getting it right and his editors for letting him report it in a major outlet.

War of Religions: Imam's Target

In a report out this morning, which may, or may not, make it into the American press, the BBC is reporting the comments of Imam Samudra, who is reported to have confessed to involvement in the Bali bombing tragedy. According to the BBC, in an Australian television report, Imam listed 13 reasons for the Bali bombing attack last year, "including revenge for what he called "the barbarity of the U.S. army of the cross and its allies England, Australia and so on", and their role in the war in Afghanistan." The report continues:

"He added that: "Australia has taken part in efforts to separate East Timor from Indonesia which was an international conspiracy by followers of the (Christian) Cross," according to the ABC transcript."

In a paper written back in October of 2001, I explained to subscribers that the followers of militant Islam are trying to replay the Crusades, only this time, they are planning to win. You can see that attitude and motivation most clearly in the comments of Imam Samudra. Militant Islam is working to polarize the "have-nots" against the "haves" of the world. They are pushing for no less than a war between Islam and the Christian-Judeo West.

To the extent that the West fails to share wealth and bring up Third World standards of living, militant Islam will find converts at a faster pace than Christian mission work. Why? Because in a sense, television is making it difficult for the West to get its story out.

Picture yourself in a Third World slum watching television. What do you see? Very rich people with your native language overdubbed. Now consider the "sales pitch" of two missionaries. One, promoting the Christian view, says "Hi! Let's work together and raise up your community". The other, the militant Islamic, turns the television back on and says "How long you gonna sit back and take this, while these people rob your country blind?" Given the conspicuous consumption, gratuitous violence and images of drug use, and so forth on American television and in movies, it's obviously not a hard sell to label the West "infidels". Look at the images that we export!

Read the reports closely out of places like Nigeria, East Timor, and elsewhere. I think you might agree that this is what's being played out. Them against us. "Haves" versus "have-nots". Guerilla warfare by the radical faction of Islam to polarize and win control of the hinterlands that we depend on for natural resources and inexpensive labor & manufacturing.

Waiting for the Crash: Very Nervous

If this is your first visit to this web site, let me give you a thumbnail overview of 7-years of work here in order to lead up to where I think we are today.

This site started in 1996 when I was completing my Master in Business. It was a capstone project. It involved looking at the work of Nicolas Kondratieff, a Russian Economist who had successfully predicted the Great Depression of the 1930's by looking at commodity prices in Europe. He had data (and estimates) of things like wheat prices that took him back to the 1200's.

Along about 1997/1998, it occurred to me that when the next stock market crash occurred, it would happen in a manner would not be immediately apparent to modern day investors because of the changes in the market. You see, at the time of the Great Depression, the Dow Jones Industrials, the 30 leading stocks in the country, represented most of the industrial picture. Sure, there were the "technology stocks of the day", most of which were involved in that new-fangled "radio" technology, but in the main, about 80 percent of the economy was reflected in the Dow 30.

I reasoned that this was no longer the case in the latter 20th century. The Dow had, if anything, failed to reflect the transition of the economy from an industrial machine to one based on intellectual property and microelectronics and software. So I decided to build myself a new kind of index, which I call the Aggregate Index, in order to compare the economy of the 1930's with the economy of today.

My methodology started at the purely intuitive level. If there was a broadening of the economic measures, the reasonable way to begin would be to combine the Nasdaq as measured by the IXIC and the S&P plus the Dow 30 into a single number, equally weighted at some convenient event that was common to both the markets of today and the markets of the 1920's.

I decided that the market break in 1920-21 was probably analogous to the 1987 mini-crash here in the U.S. It was indicative of the high level of anxiety in the market, yet there was no long-term damage, and the market in both cases went on to wilder excesses. The Roaring 1920's followed the earlier case, while the Dotcom explosion followed the 1987 decline.

Today, the Aggregate Index looks like this:

If you would like to test the work, all you need do is get the weekly closes for the two periods involved for all the appropriate indices. Multiply the S&P times 5.82 and the IXIC by 3.88 to give them equal weighting with the Dow right after the Crash of '87, and you'll get the same results. There's a little more manipulation of numbers: You divide the total of the 3 now equally weighted indices by 3. and you synch up the 1920's period by multiplying the Dow of the 20's by the appropriate number (Dow of 20's divided into Dow circa 1987) to match the starting of the Aggregate Index with what it's modern analog would be.

How far could the Aggregate drop? Well, a decline to 1422 is possible if the replay is precise. While there's no reason to think we will go that low, there is also no convincing argument why it should not. "Oh, George, there are so many safeguards today that such a thing could never happen," colleagues chide me. Oh? Look at the bankruptcy runs we're having: United, Enron, heck, you know the list..

I was having a conversation on Friday with another colleague at the office and the question of timing more real estate purchases came up. "I'd be really careful until we see if there's going to be a collapse of the housing market," I counseled. "Yeah, but money is so cheap right now, I was told.

While there is no question that rates are low it doesn't necessarily mean they are inexpensive. While the media correctly reports that "rates haven't been this low in 40-years", they leave out the vital information that the last time rates were dropped to this level was at the beginning of the last Depression. So while it's been 40 years since, it's been more like 60-65 years if you measure from start-to-start of low rates, rather than the media's "end-to-start" measurement.

Of course along the way, we have been tracking some really important collateral events that are sure to make this Depression turn out much differently than the last one. Some of the items to keep watching?

A paper that Ehor Mazurok & I did ( www.urbansurvival.com/muc.htm ) has forecast accurately so far, that dropping interest rates and implementing tax cuts are exactly the wrong thing to do at this point in the economic cycle because the fundamental driver of economic cycles is long term debt. So this Depression won't be over, or even at its low, until there is significant transfer of the "pain of decline" from the borrowers to the lenders. You see, bad debts have their basis in bad loans and the bad loan scams are still going full speed, although admitted the bloom is about off the refinancing boom. As this chills out, you'll see massive changes in real estate. For example, just this week, one mortgage company announced a new loan - 6 3/4% with No PMI! And the new reports that went along with it explained that this was being introduced - and will no doubt be cloned by others - in an effort to pump consumer spending. No, it won't work, but it will keep the game going a while longer.
The much touted unemployment figures are at least several percentage points worse than reality. Why? Because people don't count after their benefits run out. Put another way, if you aren't getting benefits, but you are still unemployed, the government doesn't give a damn.
Speaking of cooking the books: The U.S. Department of Labor just last month decided to sto reporting of large-scale layoffs by major employers. "We don't have the funding for that program any longer," was the official "reason". Horse puckey. They don't want the facts out where the public can see what a financial collapse and political shennanigans look like in the light of day.
More governmental sleazicating? Productivity numbers. The underlying notion is that because I have a faster processor in my computer I can be more productive. True? Hell no. I still play phone mail tag most of the week, and although I use Dragon Speaking now and then, my tying speed is faster than speaking (yeah I type very fast - about 100 wpm) and the accuracy is a toss up. A faster processor doesn't increase by productivity beyond that. A real breakthrough in productivity has come from our friends at the think tank - something called machine assisted reading software which about triples your reading speed with no training. The first public release of the product can be seen at http://www.ebrainspeed.com/about_how-it-works.html but let me assure you that it is incredible - especially when you use it with something like www.gutenberg.org etexts of the classics. They will presumably also release the PC version which will "glom" web page content, which is the killer ap for home users.

Using this approach, we can make some startling inferences about the market's direction because when you match up the numbers, you see that if the 1929 high is made to equal the Aggregate, you'll find that the week ending September 6, 1929 matches up nicely with the week ending March 24, 2000. If you had decided to short the NASDAQ at that point, you would have been a genius. That NASDAQ was at 4963 back then and today the NASDAQ is at 1282.47 - a nice gain of 386% over 3-years. Now you can see why the study of history is worthwhile. It has been quite profitable.

So just how far is down? With the Aggregate at 7864, and destined for as low as 1422, it's a cinch that we will have a lot more down side. At least, if the replay scenario continues to hold us as it should.

If you look at the Dow to Dow comparison, it looks like this:

One way you could read this is that we're not even half way done with the decline. The other way to read it is that "things really will be different this time.

So what's ahead?

Well, if you've been following the think tank's web bot project, you know we're expecting:

Some kind of major maritime disaster, and within the next four weeks.
This will be followed shortly by and attack having something having to do with a city of nine-hills.
Based on another 2.919 million data samples that have come in since our last update, an event is likely around the 7th day - day of what we don't know, but one fear is the last of the 7 days of the Islamic Hajj. Which would place the event around Feb 13. However, the area around Feb. 24th looks extremely bad astrologically, so who knows.

The enigmatic web bots tell us that we (the U.S.A.) are in a "period of blind obstinacy which will lead to multiple levels of misfortune":

The nature of the attack will involve fire
and the target is -again 3rd run in a row with same
results set-indicates water based. In this run, the
references to salt water were less -proportionately
than in previous runs but the numbers of references to
water were up overall, so perhaps this is indicating a
bit more precision or narrowing as we get closer to
the attack. In this case, one may wish to interpret this
as meaning something in the range of marine -
estuary/port - fresh water/supplies. However, note
that in the first two runs, the marine influence
dominated, and now the shading is merely neutral in
favor of a general descriptor for water. In any case,
the target of the next attack on the US of A is a water
based entity.

Further, the bots describe other elements of the target
as including (Court) {of the King}, (one's own)
{City}. There are also curious references to the
following aspects with modifying attributes: (arms)
{at night and in the evening}; (security) {is found in
armor}. These dynamic aspects are certainly unique in
our runs and may only be present because of the
shortened range of this predictive run. We chose to
interpret these dynamic attributes as descriptors of the
target area based on the entity development.
However, an alternate interpretation would be that
these are descriptors of the actual attack itself.

At the core of the entity model for the attack we find
repeated references to fire from water and fire related
to water, including one of fire under water. Also with
this base is a large set of attributes modifying a
consistent aspect (the 7th day). Repeated references
seem to suggest even further, the evening into the
night of the 7th day -in local time to the target.

The model indicates that the attack will not be
successful or go as intended. In this case an individual
filled with {devotion} and {enthusiasm}, presumably
for the attack, will make a mistake in the beginning
which will lead to an unexpected setback. This
setback may lead to the capture of one or more
individuals involved, however, the model indicates
that these captives will escape using concealment and
will seize an opportunistic target, thus creating new
misfortune. Now, the model is not clear whether this
new misfortune is afflicted on the escaping attackers
or on the victims.
The model also indicates that this attack will mark the
end of a (period of decay). That this (turning point)
{away from decay}, will involve a change which will
take place in a day -likely meaning short term and not
literally 24 hours. This change is seen as affecting the
(devout) and will be instigated by the event which
(arises) {on the sight of light of the 7th day}.

The model is suggesting that should an attack take
place in winter, that things will go very badly. The
model suggests a stunning defeat though does not say
of whom by whom, however it does say that an attack
launched before the March equinox will result in
failure that will be so crippling as to take 10 years to
recover. Now, if the enemies of the US of A attack
before the US can launch an attack on Iraq, then a
safe interpretation would be that our enemies will be
severely set back. Of course, the converse would also
be true.

And that my friends is where we are this weekend. Waiting...and doing so nervously.

Instead of sitting around and moping about it, I'm planning to go do some shopping with Elaine today. I consider it my patriotic duty to keep spending in order to prop the game up as long as possible.

I wonder how much potassium iodide pills, bottled water, and MRE's will count?

I'm not saying that something will happen between now and the end of the month, but I won't be at all surprised if we see:

A major terrorist attack/international incident involving a maritime disaster.

Something big and ugly involving a city of 9-hills

A corresponding market decline with crash potential around Feb 24th.

It's not a certainty, but the odds are better than winning the Florida Lotto. Besides, Tom Ridge said it himself this week in the fine print. Now would not be a bad time to stock up on a few things.

Remember:

A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged;

A liberal is a conservative who's been arrested.

A libertarian is someone who's been through both experiences.

Write when you get rich...

George Ure

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