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The Bitter Smell of War For better than six months, the web bot project over at www.halfpasthuman.com has been advising subscribers (and through their generosity, our readers in the vaguest sort of way) that we would turn a corner in August of 2006 and we would roll into fall with rebellion, revolution, and plenty of bullets and fear crashing about.. The next "peek at the future" is expected to roll off the hard drive next weekend, but if you look around the world with blinders off, you can smell war/rebellion/revolution growing. Because it will have a huge impact on all investment decisions and most of our lifestyle decisions, we're paying extraordinary attention to the quiet building of events.
2½ Current US Wars An active duty military friend reminded me in a conversation this week that the US is presently engaged in 2 1/2 major wars. One is Iraq where this week saw a special one-day curfew in Baghdad and the brother in law of the 'hangin judge' in the Saddam Hussein "trial" was killed. Amidst this, al Qaida labels George Bush a failure and liar.
Then we have Afghanistan where a suicide bomber just offed another 10 people overnight. While we have The Decider has been claiming there has been progress in Afghanistan (and Pakistan), our money (if we were inclined to bet on the worst traits in humans) would be placed as a "correctness bet" on the comments of former Afghan interior minister Jalali who says the country was the last battle front of the Cold War and the first battle front of the War on Terror. He might soon be able to add WW IV to that list.
The "half war" that most Americans don't think about is the one going on in the Philippines where Abu Sayyaf is killing moderate Muslims and anyone who gets in the way of their efforts to take over the place. American Special Forces have been in country for several years, and the efforts there have been stepped up since 2001. Still, the Abu Sayyaf bombings continue.
Not that anyone in America notices, as the average media consumer's vision of the Philippines is limited to "Isn't that where Art Bell lives now?" and "Gee, did you see about that typhoon that killed 60 people in the Philippines this week?" The country has much deeper problems than getting power turned on for Art Bell and the occasional global climate change driven typhoon.
But that's just the major points of conflict for the US where we have significant numbers of Americans on the ground. Beyond this, the rest of the world is heating up quickly, too.
Archduke, Korea, or Nuke Flash? The problem with history is that it rhymes. And so, as we seem to be setting up for huge amounts of global conflict (per the bot runs), I'm watching three potential flashpoints at the moment - any one of which could escalate into full up nuclear war which might actually interrupt your watching the slop on television that passes as reality.
What I will call the "Archduke" scenario is the one the crawls out of Eastern Europe. This is where the West is trying to gain influence and take capitalism to the steppes of the Kremlin, in a manner of speaking. The Russians this week are making what are described as "pre war" moves amidst a claim by Georgia that Russia was spying on it.
Russia has been simultaneously holding major war games now - so major in fact that US and Canadian forces were scrambled this week when a couple of Russian jets started making practice bombing runs toward Alaska.
What Russia is doing is pretty clear: They're sending a message to Washington not to get involved in what's going on in Georgia - which they consider their backyard.
With the rest of the former Soviet Europe potentially hanging in the balance, the corporatists who run America (through campaign contributions to both side of our "political system" to buy influence) don't want to yield without a fight. They've already tasted the joys of loans to Georgia - and in a world where money is everything (at least to this crowd), new markets are worth fighting over.
So, as a result, large portions of Eastern Europe - from Hungary to the Russian border - are tense and in something of a pre World War One state. It only takes a match - just as the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand started WW-I. . And as I wrote to a friend Friday, the worst case/ nightmare escalation path might go something like this:
The next tinderbox/flashpoint is the Middle East where Israel is reportedly moving today to a "war footing" as they expect Syria - at some point soon - to make a major move on the Golan Heights. No point in writing much about that scenario, which has already been written about in the Bible for 2-thousand years with sufficient clarity. Again, all we need there is a match.
But wait! There's more. Here's a nuclear flash scenario that you may not have thought much about: The border between India and Pakistan. Here, we have two major developments this week which could press on future events. One is the Bush - Musharraf Summit. The key US foreign policy agenda item here has to be keeping a government in power in Pakistan that will listen to Washington's "cill" directives when it comes to the use of nuclear weapons. A strongly independent (and one leaning more toward the Islamic Jihadist view) government in Pakistan would be a nightmare, because the Jihadists are already trying to whip up war with India through such deeds as the recent Mumbai train bombings, or so figure Indian authorities.
I don't suppose I need to remind you that both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, or what the impact of global food supplies would be if/when we get a full up nuclear exchange beyond the damage that the clouds of depleted uranium dust that are floating around already thanks to our (and Israel's) reported use of such shells in the Middle East over the past 10+ years. --- None of this is meant to bum you out or burden your weekend. Life goes on. OK, maybe with diabetes from the DU use, but it goes on anyway.
So when you open the last Cheaper than Dirt catalog and wonder about all this talk of an "ammunition shortage" (box, page 5 last catalog) , remember we've been telling you about it since March. The world is arming and packs of soldiers and those who would exhort them into battle are milling about and that's not good.
Foley Quits Another republicorp has bitten the dust from what looks to us like another case of "do as we say, not as we do" syndrome. Sexually explicit email/IM's with underage staff is the issue and Foley has resigned over the matter. You know the old newsroom saying? Where there's smoke, there's an investigation. Still, compared with the pre WW-I tinderbox conditions in the world presently, the story is an also ran. And yeah, heard about the Amazon plane crash, but that's not going to change my world or yours most likely. The Big Picture is the one that matters.
Q3 Window Dressing Ends The Dow picked up 170 points or so this week. But with the end of third quarter window dressing, we expect the markets to turn down - perhaps even severely over the next couple of weeks. That's not advice. Just a sharp dart at the board.
Peoplenomics: Fallout Shelters Revisited This weekend, a report for subscribers to our $30 a year premium service http://www.peoplenomics.com/subscribe.htm, that revisits fallout shelters. With all the talk about nuclear terrorism (and watching the movie "Dirty War" last week, we thought it would be interesting to shovel through the data. You'll dig it.
Pass It On This site thrives on new readers. Why? Because some portion of new readers are quite intelligent and choose to subscribe to Peoplenomics. And then there's you - if you're not a subscriber. So the more folks who visit, the more subscribers, and you see how that works. OK, so it's not as slick a Ponzi deal as the Federal Reserve has going for it, but this is a back woods/ back yard enterprise. Regardless, tell all your friends to visit UrbanSurvival every day and maybe some day I too will be able to afford a good printing press. Click here to send them an email. You don't want me to resort to a color laser printer, do you?
If You Don't have $30, you say? Spend $10 at the Peoplenomics Bookstore and buy "How to live on $10,000 a year, or less." And once you cut your bloated expense line, the second book to buy (for another $10) is "The best book ever about Sales" which will give you enough basics of how the sales profession works that you may be able to land a sales gig. Sales, if you haven't figured it out by now, is where you can make the most money, for the least amount of work, of any profession out there, with the possible exception of the "world's oldest profession" - which sales remarkably parallels.
Friday September 29, 2006 War in Eastern Europe? Well, we've been telling you for how long now, from the web bot runs, that the US would be drawn into a mess in Eastern Europe late summer/early fall kind of time frame.
Now, we're sad to say, it looks like things are headed into the fan quickly in once Soviet Georgia - now the main battle line between the resurgent Russian Nuevo Capitalists and the Western Old School/ Old Banksters who want their powerbase to extended to Moscow's doorstep.
Russia's daily online Kommersant reports Russians are being evacuated from Georgia and:
Mosnews.com reports one Russian has been released but four are being held on espionage charges.
If you want to spend a few minutes to background yourself, in the event this blows up into a full-fledged media event, the CIA World Factbook listing is a good place to start.
I'll be watching gold and the markets at the close today for clues as to what's ahead. --- Reminder: Subscriptions to the new future predictive web bot run from www.halfpasthuman.com are open.
Life Beyond Zero More sleight of hand in a new government report out today. The Bureau of ECONomic Analysis reports with a straight face that:
They conveniently don't draw your attention to the chained 2000 dollars which showed income up 0.2 and expenditures down 0.1%. Here's the other fun part: Personal Savings are negative - again -
The Peak Week Papers Just as Charles Dickens Pickwick Papers is more known for the development of its characters than the smoothness of plot line, so too the market today is becoming better known for the characters rather than the soundness of their judgments.
A friend of mine - equally amazed that levitation is now a daily occurrence in financial markets - sent along this handy dandy chart of the Monetary Base and Consumer credit along with some notes:
I'm afraid my friend (who I'll call "Bruce the C" who also looks for Japan to hit 2-3 years of the downward skids now) is, I think, merely prescient. Another email in about the same time from "the fractal dude" (Gary Lammert) advised us to watch for a key reversal in today's US trading:
But whether we'll actually see sanity return to the valuation picture after the close of window dressing (the last day of trading Q3 is today) remains to be seen. But back to our Peak Week Papers character list:
The net effect of all of this is to continue the corporate move against the Middle Class and transform us all into debt shackled wage slaves. Ummm...that doesn't sound much like what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
Ugly Americans Karen Hughes, ex-White House, now State Department spinmeister says it may take decades to clean up America's overseas image. Gee, I wonder which administration's spinsters (and their corporate pals) orchestrated bombing of people back into the stone age, and might therefore be responsible for the majority of that image drop? Can you say "Hegelian dialectic?" (e.g. Create the problem then sell the preplanned solution. )
Fleeing Iraq A quarter of a million people in Iraq are missing the arrival (at gunpoint) of democracy, says a new report. Well, maybe they didn't put it in those words exactly, but a quarter million have bugged out of the country. --- Don't get me wrong, though. I'm all for the war! Without the massive War on Terror we'd all be staring into the post Internet Bubble's harsh realities of the Greater Depression with no one to blame it on but ourselves. This way we get an echo Housing bubble and when it derails, we can blame "them." When comes time to pay the piper, where the piper looks surprisingly like China, we won't have anyone at fault in the District of Corporations - it will all be blamed on "them." --- 2/3'ds of Americans say Iraq is a Civil War. (Another Duh!) --- Care to bet me a beer that gasoline won't pop up a buck a gallon right after the "election?" --- And on that CBS reports CONgress is questioning the reliability of voting machines. How about that? Republican CONgress wakes up to voting machine issues when they're down 11 points in a new Fox News Poll. Wucking fonderful.
Understanding Media Thailand's new government wants US media to understand why their coup took place. I think we already knew money, power, greed, popularity treachery, and the PM being out of the country had something to do with it. I'm not sure the ratios matter, do they?
Secrets Revealed Down here in Texas (or up here in Texas, if you're reading this from Mexico) there's been a huge cry of "Foul!" from those of us who pay taxes, only to have the dolts-at-the-trough in Austin hand over publicly funded highways to private interests to run as toll roads on the flimsy (nonsensical) claim that "private industry can run 'em better."
But let's not get into a discussion about how crooked that is because my blood pressure won't handle it. Instead, let's read the WOAI story reporting that some "secret provisions" in a toll road contract are about to be made public. I can hardly wait.
George's New Battery UrbanSurvival is created on a Toshiba wide screen laptop - which has been a pretty good platform for the past year and a half, or so. It may soon be better as Toshiba is recalling 830,000 batteries made by Sony. Also piling on: Lenovo, formerly IBM's Think Pad group, with half a million batteries plus.
Typhoon Damage Almost 50 reported dead from Typhoon Xangsane in the Philippines (not to be confused with a popular network marketing drink).
Thursday Sept. 28, 2006 Chilling: GDP Growth Halved GDP was about halved in the second quarter of 2006 by figures out this morning from the Bureau of Economic Analysis:
The big gainer in personal expenditures was for "services" which booked along at a 3.7% annualized gain rate. The service economy lives.
So with GDP growth whacked in half for the most recent quarter, you should get some idea that the nose of the airplane is likely to point down - and then comes the question in 2007: Hard landing or soft?
Meantime, Life At the Top I received a delightful email from a reader this morning that tried to reassure me that the imminent danger I sense for the stock market in coming months is overblown and unjustified. In fact, the email reassured me that...
That sense of "everything is dandy" is running rampant these days among investors and anyone (like me) who questions their euphoria is immediately classed as a "doom and gloomer" - which I'm not. But, what I will own up to is being mightily afraid of what will happen when we leave our momentary perch at the "double top" in the Dow which has taken six-years and 20% inflation to recreate since peak #1 in January of 2000 - and especially what will happen when a whole generation of set-to-retire-people figure out that the average 401-K in America contains a whopping $28,000!
The danger of collapse is a lot closer than most people think. I spent the better part of an hour on the phone yesterday with Robin Landry who runs the Raymond James office in Shawnee Oklahoma. (office: 405-275-6162. Email: rlandry@charter.net ) discussing the very real possibility in Elliott wave terms that we really are at the end of "the fifth-of-the-fifth-of-the-fifth."
If you're not into Elliott waves or fractals, here's the 10-second brief up:
To folks like Landry, who follow this stuff minute by minute for a living, if you step back from the BIG Dow picture, there's a good case for 1 up being from about 1975-1987, 2 down being the '87 mini crash, 3 up being the boom into '97-'98, 4-down being the Asia Contagion, and then 5 up completing with the Dow peak (and the internet bubble crescendo) in 2000.
Since then, if you stand far enough back from the chart, we have seen wave 1 down from 2000's highs to the low in 2002. Wave 2 up has been from 2003 to now, and if you look at 5-year chart just so, you can make out that we are now completing the Big 2 up from the 2002 decline, with 5 up since January 2003.
And, if you look at a 5-day chart, you can see 5 waves completed yesterday from Monday morning's 1 up, to Monday's 2 down, then 3 up completing early Tuesday, with 4 down later Tuesday, and then the 5-th of the 5th completing in mid-session on Wednesday.
The only question at the one year view is whether the big Wave 2 bounce from 2003 has completed, or if there might be a bit more to run. Not that it matters.
The first of the "fighting lines" that Landry is looking at is 11,335 (plus or minus trading noise). If we break down through that, the next "fighting line" will be the 10,000 level.
Once through 10,000, the next "do or die" point would be 9,500 plus or minus about a hundred points - and if that fails, then down we go to 7,100.
Landry figures that 7,100 will be an interesting test because it's the level from which the Big Wave 5 started up from in the 1998 Asia Contagion area. In other words, that's the first stair step down to an eventual Dow of (you're really not going to like this) 700-1,000.
The way we get there is a rally from 7,100 to perhaps 8,500-9,300, and then a huge decline to the 3,500 range. That gets us back down to the 1987 kind of range. And then a good bounce back to maybe 4,500-5,500. And then the final swan song to the 1,000 range - which would put us back down around 1970 levels in the market.
What's Landry looking at today?
Landry also offered some other observations:
Landry doesn't think that a collapse will happen overnight - or, to put it a little differently, he doesn't expect a collapse would happen overnight during ordinary circumstances. But, what's ordinary? A Reuters story this morning goes into some detail on how credit derivatives trading has doubled - an eventuality which could throw "gas on the fire" of any counter-party failures.
The international headlines speak of a need to beef up international derivatives rules, but meantime, here on the Titanic, the words of the Mogambo Guru were ringing in my head as I talked with Landry. In his column this week, the Mogambo offers this momentary flash of genius when he writes about how the Fed needs to pump up the money supply to keep history's biggest craps game going:
Which Bill Bonner and the folks at Daily Reckoning (The Main Mogambo Haunt (MMH) haven't allowed because the Mogambo Guru doesn't have a vote at the Fed and because if he did, that might result in runaway inflation! And when THAT happens, guess what happens to the price of gold and silver. Of course, it could still happen anyway, which gets us back to my bet with Jas Jain on which whips us first - runaway inflation or deflation.
But I digress.
Landry is a lot less excitable about such things. He thinks the work-out of any large-scale decline when it arrives will be over a period of years, and he'll make some money for his clients along the way. But even he admits that's if things remain "normal." So he's willing to forego some higher returns now to lower client risk.
The concern nagging me is that there's not much of anything "normal" anymore. While I hope like hell Landry's orderly workout occurs, with terrorists of all stripe about (and who runs them doesn't really matter if the global system of paper assets blows up) and with energy and national economic growth over in the imponderable column, I'm pleased that at least one reader is able to remain sanguine about events.
After reader the web bot runs, talking to Landry, reading the Mogambo, and scanning the headlines, I'm not. The house of cards could blow over in weeks, not years.
Tsunami What's reported as a high 6's to 7.0 earthquake generated a South Pacific tsunami today.
Another Pile of Bodies
Instant Summit Israel's prime minister is trying to whip up an "instant summit" with Palestinians.
Georgia Tensions We've been reminding you not to take your eyes off of formerly Soviet Georgia. Today we notice the arrest of some Russian Army officers in the country and the Russian Army HQ being surrounded. As we see it, this is a front line in the battle for international power between Russia and the US. That Russian air force exercise being the counter to the Georgian pressures on Russian interests in their back yard.
China Shots Satellites Not getting much US MSM play: China has fired lasers at US satellites in an attempt to blind us to what's going on in Worker's Paradise #2.
Carter on Terrorism While Bill ("depends what you mean by...") Clinton and George ("gunpoint democracy") Bush have been sparing about who did what on terror threats, we notice that Jimmy Carter has weighed in on the issue. --- I notice that Carter's son Jack is running for the SINate - another American political family dynasty in the offing. Spare us!
Kiss off Constitutional Rights I don't have a problem with the administration getting tough with foreigners who are planning acts of terror. But if a person is a US Citizen, I'm old fashioned enough to still believe in the Constitution and Bill of Rights and open judicial processes. Obviously, that makes me some kind of whacko as the bill to hold "terror" suspects is being green lighted by republicorps just weeks before the election. -- I'd offer to Dennis Hastert that folks opposing the bill were not "coddling terrorists" - more bullcrap republicorp spin. They just believe that Constitution is more than "just a piece of paper." We're either a Constitutional republic or soft dictatorship when you get all the buzz words out of the mix.
"Independent" Joe Well, now that republicorps and democorps are falling all over themselves to keep anti-war Ned Lamont from winning in Connecticut, Joe Lieberman is up in the polls. While big headlines are coming out about how much Ned Lamont is spending out of his own pocket, I haven't been able to find a report on how much the corporate boyz and gurlz are throwing and "don't push Bush on intel" Joe. --- Want to hear some antique concepts? "Election reform" "Lobbyist Reform" "Term Limits" How about "Real time spending reports by source" so we can see who's buying who for how much?
Monday at the Ranch So, I hobbled out of bed, gulping down the vitamin, crackers and precisely 2-cups of coffee (made with one Folgers coffee bag) and I run out to the office and discover that yes, the trading system I put together for Peoplenomics subscribers is doing its thing. A subscriber dropped in an early email saying he liked warning about the dangers of using the new system:
Still, I find myself thinking about slithering back into options trading using the system. The 15-18 week cycle seems intact, and the only thing that keeps me from jumping in right now is the word slithering - which reminds me that options trading is like playing in a snake pit. Another writes..
As you know, or maybe you didn't, there are two sections to Peoplenomics most weeks. In the ChartPack section I review the trading picture globally and in the "in depth" section I delve into something that has my immediate attention. For example, here's what's up this week:
And from there this week, we go on to develop "timeboards" and the exciting game of "Noosball" which is pronounced "newsball." If you'd like to stretch the gray matter out a bit (and have some fun along the way), click here to subscribe for just $30 a year. Next week's report - by request - is rethinking fallout shelters. Gee, doesn't that sound like fun? Wednesday September 27,2006 Dow: Record or Wreck? I wrote to you last week in some detail about how NOT to be conned into believing the stock market is at new all time highs. It may be worth rereading the reason why inflation since the previous all time high (ATH) in January of 2000 means an equivalent ATH today of 13,785 using the government's own - possibly understated - inflation figures and ignoring year-to-date inflation for 2006. A real all time high today - on a purchasing power basis - would be north of 14,200.
Still, if you insist, let me compare January 2000 with today in a couple of indices besides the Dow, then you tell me if the economy is really in record territory. Ready?
With numbers like these, it's hard to make a reasonable case for an upside breakout, unless you happen to believe in Dow Theory which suggests that as go the transports, so too goes the world. The transports are screaming more optimistically than a Seahawks football fan. In the same week of Y2K, the Dow Transports were at 2891.63. Last Friday they were at 4452.72. That's a 54% gain and more than enough to make up for the impact of inflation and slap a fat capital gain onto your tax return - Hallelujah!
The folks over at Contrary Investor ("When everyone thinks alike, there isn't much thinking taking place.") have been eyeing the same problem and me - and they've done a masterful job of pulling all the pieces of the 'message from the transports' question into a detailed report which you owe it to yourself to read.
My present take on it (subject to change on a moments notice if the Russell and the Wilshire zoom to inflation-corrected new all time highs ) is that the Transports we see today aren't the same index we were dealing with in January 2000. Airlines, a key transport component then have been changed out, bankrupted, and pensioned down. Trucking and the FedEx and UPS type services have been great - but these reflect longer social trends: The increasing number of "knowledge workers" like us who have fled the big city in advance of The Troubles, and fueled also by America's insatiable thirst for goods from Asia which get around most of the country by truck and train.
As you may notice by looking at our Aggregate Index Chart, it bears a very similar look to Microsoft's long term performance, which lately, I think it a pretty darned good proxy for the US economy overall. It used to be "As goes GM, so goes the market" but I think we're in a new time when "As goes Microsoft, so goes the world..." At least, looking at the charts, I sure hope so.
Is Number Word from the World Economic forum that the US is 5th - no make that 6th - in global competitiveness should have US business leaders alarmed. It's also one more thing to consider when shading your bets which way the Dow will turn once we tie the Y2K ATH.
Not So Durable, Not So good The durable goods orders were released this morning and the demand dropped 1/2% overall and by about 2% when you back out transportation equipment (aircraft). Back to back declines now.
On release of the news, the dollar dropped, gold and silver romped, and the Dow futures dropped from the plus column to minus. Oh well, it's only rock & roll.
Silver Bulls Lots of talk about silver at a gold conference this week. Worth noting since we bought in July of last year around $7 an ounce and mentioned it several times for your interest. And no, we haven't unloaded either of our coins with the recent weakness...
Money in Pain The $6-billion in Amaranth Advisors hedge fund losses have been a golden moment for some of the big brokerages on the Street. Amaranth, says a Bloomberg report today, was told their problems were coming - and the SEC is now looking in.
Same October Fears This ain't no surprise. What? The ad war that has broken out between the me too republicorps and democorps and making headlines in the NY Times today. I'd sure like to think that some "secret sauce" ad cooked up by Karl Rove is the "October Surprise" the republicorps has ginned up, but I don't think so - I think there's more to come.
You may recall last week that I mentioned my fear of an "October Surprise." A number of readers took me to task calling me (let me look at my notes here) everything from paranoid to a "republican hater). Today, here's another fellow who might get a few similar emails from his readers, but hats off to Bob Moriarty of 3-2-1 Gold for spelling out a similar set of fears. A quote to ponder: "If Bush is stupid enough to attack Iran, it won't take months for Americans to realize we have lost the war as was the case with Iraq, we will be able to figure it out in a couple of days." --- Bill Gertz of the Washington Times writes in today's editions that Tehran is denying that it has come to a secret nuke deal - which would certainly fill the bill of surprising if true. --- The [partial] release of the National Intelligence Estimate by the Bush administration is blaming the Iraq War for an increased global terror risk as "Jihadists" propagate. On the other hand, the NY Sun reports on an al Qaida letter that says the Jihadists are losing in Iraq.
Off point or is it? The real national intelligence estimate is the 31-year low in SAT scores reported earlier this month. --- 20 more dead as Afghanistan woes grow (or is that woe grows...more coffee!).
Kurds in Trouble I mention Bob's comments from a reason that goes beyond self aggrandizement. Check out the Debka.com reports that Iran and Turkey are both eyeing the Kurdish area of Northern Iraq - causing all kinds of jitters. Reason? Our brave sons and daughters who are stuck in the middle of Iraq's civil war could be collateral damage. See gold's action today as people begin to figure out this might be the real deal shaping up for this fall?
Fueling Iran Russian is planning to send nuclear fuel to Iran in March. So, if you're wondering when the US / allies will attack Iran, we'd put it well ahead of the web bot project's Ides of March date when the "tension building" we're in now turns into the "emotional release events" that are likely to make bigger headlines than Katrina/Rita.
Report Barred Word's floating around about how while the administration doesn't have a problem releasing the positive parts of the National Intelligence Estimate, they do have a problem with release of a scientific report on hurricanes/weather because it backs up the idea that global warming is real - million year high temperatures real.
No Night at the Opera A Berlin opera house has deep sixed a Mozart opera performance because of how it portrays Mohammad. Artistic freedom collides with political/religious sensitivity.
Israel's War Crime?
Brush With Evil In Britain, some artwork (only by virtue of the "artist") was sold yesterday. The art was painted by Adolph Hitler.
Border Clash Details One of our more astute news junkies spied an AP story from last weekend that ended up on a Craig's List rant out of Dallas. It confirms in spades what my paramilitary friend was talking about Monday when he called the developing low intensity conflict (LIC) along the Mexico border as the most dangerous place in the world presently. This from a regular visitor to energy company assets in places like Baghdad and Afghanistan...Now here's detail that is somehow not making the lead position in US news broadcasts as the election nears.
Thai Rumbles In power what, a little over a week now? The Thai government is dealing with arson fires against schools and signs that the "Coup Killed Democracy" which are popping up.
Sizing Up Clinton The University of Northern Colorado headline strikes us a worth a read: "Clinton continues trail of falsehoods." All this while the Bush administration defends against Clinton finger pointing on terror...
Guvernator 2? Der Arnold hast made headvay in de polls.
One for the Belly Just something to think about for breakfast: I figured out a way to make a "30-second blintz". I put a teaspoon plus of strawberry jam on a flour tortilla and then some ricotta or cottage cheese on it and roll it up. 30-seconds later a faux blintz with no dough, no baking and no mess. OK, not exactly close, but not bad... I'm as excited about this one as I was about figuring to put two shots of Bailey's into the French toast batter... I gotta pass this one on to my youngest daughter, the sous chef for a Pacific NW cooking show.
Monday at the Ranch So, I hobbled out of bed, gulping down the vitamin, crackers and precisely 2-cups of coffee (made with one Folgers coffee bag) and I run out to the office and discover that yes, the trading system I put together for Peoplenomics subscribers is doing its thing. A subscriber dropped in an early email saying he liked warning about the dangers of using the new system:
Still, I find myself thinking about slithering back into options trading using the system. The 15-18 week cycle seems intact, and the only thing that keeps me from jumping in right now is the word slithering - which reminds me that options trading is like playing in a snake pit. Another writes..
As you know, or maybe you didn't, there are two sections to Peoplenomics most weeks. In the ChartPack section I review the trading picture globally and in the "in depth" section I delve into something that has my immediate attention. For example, here's what's up this week:
And from there this week, we go on to develop "timeboards" and the exciting game of "Noosball" which is pronounced "newsball." If you'd like to stretch the gray matter out a bit (and have some fun along the way), click here to subscribe for just $30 a year. Next week's report - by request - is rethinking fallout shelters. Gee, doesn't that sound like fun? Pass It On This site thrives on new readers. Why? Because some portion of new readers are quite intelligent and choose to subscribe to Peoplenomics. And then there's you - if you're not a subscriber. So the more folks who visit, the more subscribers, and you see how that works. OK, so it's not as slick a Ponzi deal as the Federal Reserve has going for it, but this is a back woods/ back yard enterprise. Regardless, tell all your friends to visit UrbanSurvival every day and maybe some day I too will be able to afford a good printing press. Click here to send them an email. You don't want me to resort to a color laser printer, do you?
If You Don't have $30, you say? Spend $10 at the Peoplenomics Bookstore and buy "How to live on $10,000 a year, or less." And once you cut your bloated expense line, the second book to buy (for another $10) is "The best book ever about Sales" which will give you enough basics of how the sales profession works that you may be able to land a sales gig. Sales, if you haven't figured it out by now, is where you can make the most money, for the least amount of work, of any profession out there, with the possible exception of the "world's oldest profession" - which sales remarkably parallels.
Tuesday Sept. 26, 2006 Just in from the Editor's Desk: Ten Signs that U.S. Elections are Near As the editor of this news site, maybe I'm grouchy today, but the signs of the elections being "almost here" are all over the place: Here's my "Top 10"
I don't suppose it worries anyone but me that when Jackass Number Two is the top grossing movie at the box office that it screams a huge freakin' warning about the future of America.
Aheader or Behinder? New figures out from the Bureau of Economic Analysis today:
So, are you getting 1.7% more for the quarter or for the year? Here's the "Official" answer:
Time's up: It's for the quarter. Yet our checkbook sure isn't reflecting this. Bet yours isn't, either.
The yellow/maize/light burnt umber/goldish/rusty color states are the most "suckish" in terms of income growth, if I can cut through the goobledeguck for you.:
The dream is alive in the dark blue states. In the yellow/maize/light burnt umber/goldish/rusty color states and the white states, the dream is more mythical.
Tours Extended Something of a non-surprise this morning, as we wait for the CONsumer CONfidence numbers to come out and tell us how peachy everything is later this morning: The Army is extending another unit's tour in Iraq. Latest to have another opportunity to vote absentee is a brigade of the Ast Armored Division says the Washington Post. We pray for their safety and their appearance in their home polling places in 2007 and especially 2008. Especially then. --- Meantime, in the country which hasn't yet embraced democracy - preferring civil war apparently - the "hangin judge" in the Saddam Hussein trial/theatre/and probably someday mini-series has kicked Saddam out of court again. I especially like the part where the judge turned off the microphones in the press gallery so reporters couldn't hear the 20-minute statement Saddam read to the court. Wonder what he said? Wonder why we probably will never be told?
Goes On My Reading List "Jacked: How 'Conservatives' Are Picking Your Pocket" Yup.
Another Realist Heard From Read what Fred Hickey is telling the Boston Herald.
Web Bot Run Plans I'm pleased to report that our "future scanning department" and www.halfpasthuman.com is busily tweaking code and getting ready to do another sweep of the internet to see what linguistics can tell us about what's ahead. We already know about the October earthquake meme and the attack on Israel (water supply) imaged for December...
The first time subscriber page is here. Previous run subscribers were sent an announcement email. --- A couple of readers (new to this site), who haven't read the simple induction to web bot technology, invariably ask "What can you possibly read - without looking at emails flying around - that would give you such a good sense of what people are talking about? Well, we don't need to look at email because the real focus of the bots is how everyday people write when they post on internet discussion around. As of this morning, Google's list shows 54,743 such discussion groups to read. And that's before we get into foreign languages, and such, so yeah, there's an incredible free/open access place for Cliff and Igor to go munching on how people are talking - WITHOUT ACTING LIKE GOVERNMENT WHICH DOES MONITOR ANY EMAIL IT FEELS LIKE - snooping snooping email on the fly. -- Which reminds me of a great saying I stumbled over: "It's not paranoid if it's true." --- On my personal watch list now: A report I forgot to mention last week about how a huge part of the Artic is now an open lake... Maybe, if we had stayed living on our sailboat another 10-years, we'd have been able to sail north to Europe from Seattle...
From a Friend in Mexico You may recall that yesterday morning, we talked about how the Mexico-US Border is becoming one of - and by one account the most dangerous place in the world because of the border traffic. It's OK if the fog hasn't lifted behind your eyes yet, yesterday's story is here. As one report put it Monday, the Mexico border is becoming an area of LIC - low intensity conflict. --- A friend of mine in Mexico sent me a note taking issue with my claim that Mexico could benefit with more democratic (e.g. less corporately/300 rich family influenced) government.
I would love to agree, but there's a little problem with the RULE OF LAW. It'd be GREAT if America was still being run under its original law (Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other Framing documents). But it's not. The Law (as noted in the web bot story) is pretty much whatever an entity with more money and influence than "just plain folks" wants it to be. I offer the WOT's "revisions" of Constitutional rights (PATACT 1, 2) as Exhibit A..
Housing Slips The headlines on Monday about housing sales dropping 0.5% and the decline in sales prices, demands we apply some inflation adjustments, which aren't being done by more boxed in mainstream media.
For example, the median price of a home fell 1.7% to $225,000 last year at this time. In other words, to walk you through the math here, $225,000 is .983 of last years price was around $228,891. Fine.
So now we go to the Minneapolis Fed's inflation calculator (link in the left column) and we put in 2005 and $228,891 and then solve for 2006 and we discover that the price of the home (just to keep up with inflation) should be $237,329 if it were to maintain its 2005 purchasing power parity. A sneaky concept, that: Basically, in many numbers like year-on-year housing, government relies on media not telling the whole truth because it would hurt the game.
What we can see is that $237,329 divided by $225,000 gives us 94.8% of last year's purchasing power. And that means in purchasing power terms, correcting for inflation, the average home equity was down 5.2%!
A few of the folks being interviewed on MSM yesterday were mentioning that they saw indications that the economy is headed for a bit of a "harder landing" recession, and perhaps not the "soft landing" scenario. Overseas, our housing price decline is being noticed.
It's Not Election Rigging... But, the price of oil continues to retreat modestly, but then again, it's election time, and because of (How do I say this?) the "oil patch friendships" of the current administration, it comes as no surprise that gas prices are coming down well in advance of elections. Still, LA's Daily Breeze has the good sense to run the Brad Foss/AP story that says yup, 42% of folks surveyed see the connection with elections.
While those in power would convince try to convince you that it's "Just market forces as work," we have to wonder whether that's the market for gasoline, or for friendly ears for the energy industry on Capitol Hill? I'll agree though, it's markets forces on one stripe or the other.
If you heat your home with gas, it will be the winner as long as gas prices stay low. However, my fear is that as soon as the real cold weather arrives and the elections are over, they'll pop back up, too. Why? OPEC is likely to talk about production cuts at their December meetings - which come (tah-dah) about 3-weeks after the US elections.
Rearview Economics Ahead We should get a peek at August Consumer Prices on Monday. But between now and then, You might want to pause and ask yourself, "What do I remember about consumer prices last month?" I expect, if you're like most, you think they went up a bit (4.2% year-on-year). And that's likely the end of your thinking.
Enter the great folks at Business and Labor Reports. In the single most cogent, honest, no BS report I've seen, these folks lay it out that inflation adjusted average weekly earnings fell by a half a percent from July to August. That would pencil out to a 5.7% annual drop in purchasing power projected out over a full year at that rate.
Hats off and thanks to Business & Legal Reports for getting it right! I don't feel like the lone voice in the wilderness!
Tough Times to Hedge OK, so you don't run a
hedge fund for a living. But, consider yourself blessed, at
least for this month, that you don't. Seems that some of the
big hedge funds were hedged against major hurricane damage to the US
this year - I'm sure you remember the dire forecasts before the
season began, right? Well,
with the season about half way over, the lack of hurricanes is
hurting hedge funds that placed their bets wrong, reports the
financial times of Germany.. Another reason not to be a hedger: We told you about JetBlue and hedging yesterday. Well, today it looks like Ryanair is tasting the lash of hedging fuel at a higher price than what's coming along because of the lower oil prices. Doesn't anyone remember what happens in election years?
Toutmail Madness Worst offender in my inbox this week "L INTL COMPUTERS IN (Other OTC: LITL.PK)" How many have you gotten for this one? On second thought, don't tell me.
Monday, September 25, 2006 Mexico - Bordering on Disaster Over the past several years, one of my sources whose information I have learned to trust (because it's invariably spot on) is a reader who is a paramilitary type who writes in from Afghanistan and the Green Zone in Baghdad regularly in his travels. (Which is one reason that I was comfortable calling Iraq a "civil war" long before the mainstream.
I mention this because I've received an email from his again - and it's not from the Middle East:
Most Americans have gone ostrich on the border question. The Politicos running for another turn at the trough have effectively buried the issue. Yet word about the deteriorating condition of the border is leaking out. On Lou Dobbs last week, for example, there's word of a town in Georgia that found out the impact of illegal immigration:
We read this morning how one of Mexico's "Most Wanted" was captured by the US last Friday. Was he anywhere near the border? Nope: Try Dublin Ohio!
Mexicans who believe there was widespread voter fraud to slide in Felipe Calderon to push forward the corporatist and US government backed merger of Mexico and Canada into a North American Free Trade Zone (more like free fire zone lately) held a protest in a Mexico City Wal-Mart on Sunday. We note they're being labeled "leftists" rather than anti-corporates.
I won't be the first to call the US - Mexico borders the "Tortilla Curtain" but I will venture that as we get into the fall, the revolution/rebellion meme now spreading will engulf both sides of the border in conflict. As "Counterpunch" headlines it, it's about the "Unrepresented poor" and thanks to a crooked system of financial repressive governance, Mexico's leading export is still - Mexicans.
The government efforts to merge Canada, Mexico and the US - on behalf of their corporate paymasters (who are buying the pending CONgressional elections here in the US) are being deliberately hidden - and presented as "Agreements" - not subject to CONgressional approval as Treaties are.
I don't want to split hairs, or anything, but this is almost exactly the same kind of "fine line of legality" which brought us the "depends what you mean by sex" statements from the last corporate representative occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
America, I'm sad to report, has devolved into a one-party system. If it weren't so, corporations wouldn't give to both sides of campaigns. But by doing so, they assure there will be a friendly ear, come favor time - and voice - in matters that could impact their bottom lines.
America would clarify matters for voters if corporations and PAC's were limited to buying only one candidate per race - this giving money to both sides is a farce. --- My personal thinking on Mexico lately goes something like this: If the US really enforced its Mexico border and sent every illegal worker back to Mexico, the pressure would be so intense on the existing (corporate-backed) poor people exploiting government, that a revolution would occur. Obviously, that would upset the corporate applecart, so what we see in illegal immigration is really keeping genuine democratic reform from occurring in Mexico by preventing a peaceful revolution. --- But there's money to be made and growing commercial potential from the 10% of Mexico that is now in the US. As one major bank puts it: "You can send funds from your Bank of America personal checking account, and usually in just a few hours, your loved ones can pick up the money in Mexico." and Citibank touts a new "ATM card [that] facilitates money transfer to Mexico."
Until Americans turn up the pressure, the corporate sponsored merger of America and Mexico seems a fait accompli, --- Few have noticed how smart countries like Switzerland are limiting the entry of unskilled workers into their country, even if they claim "asylum." Say what you will about Mel Gibson, his comments on America's decline aren't far-fetched.
Short Takes
Osama Rumors The rumors have been flying hot and heavy over the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. We don't look for clarity on this till toward the end of the week.
Web Site Roulette I'm always amazed at the breadth of material on the net and what readers pass along via our news tip line - thinking we'd find it interesting. We also get short pithy comments that we assume will somehow enrich our lves. Like this one:
As I've told you, perhaps a quintillion times, the Universe plays with me - it's escalated now to nearly a non-stop ribbing because as soon as the reader asks "Where is the Avian Flu when we really need it?" the very next email says:
I swear to you, I couldn't make up my life if I tried - it's that strange sometimes. Anyway, back to Web Roulette:
News from Elliott Wave International Instead of our customary chart, this week you get a free peak at one of our other charts from www.peoplenomics.com - this is our "Global Markets Equally Weighted" chart:
Write when you get rich,
George Ure, The People's Economist
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