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daily about 8 AM CDT - hit refresh on your browser for the latest) New Jersey Shock &
Awed & Etc. I don't hear much on the war-pandering mainstream media about how the fires in New Jersey this week was likely touched off by a flare popped by an F-16 on a training mission. The New York Times goes a bit further by saying this kind of thing happens now and then. Today, the Jersey fire is 90% contained, but not out. --- A week from Monday, the US will quietly start talking with Iran directly about ways to chill down the situation in Iraq. I heard about a report this week - still haven't had time to track it down - which said essentially that when a war is short, it has a salutary impact on the economy - but after some period of time (5-6 years) the role of war reverses and then comes the serious loading down of the economy. Let you know if I can dig it out... --- The bigger eCONomic picture seems to support that notion. You noted, I hope, that the Conference Board this week said the economy would slow.
Selling Out America While the evidence mounts that there is only one political party (democorps and republicorps having equally voracious appetites for money/votes/favors from the corps) we're pleased to report that Tom Tancredo and Newt Gingrich are all over the immigration bill as bad for America.
And I'm proud as a Texan that John Cornyn had the balls to confront John ( prez wannabe so he's going for votes) McCain on the issue.
But, it's all show. The Powers That Be have the merger of Mexico, the former USA, and Canada 'in the bag' and when we read how Rudi Giuliani fits into the merger, it's ever more clear. Make that "More Everclear!" -- It's enough to drive a patriotic supporter of the Constitution to drink.
Unintended Consequences Coming? As you know, our friends the time monks, www.halfpasthuman.com, have been warning about the "employment crash" to come later this year - and I've been advising you to start some kind of a personal training plan to get yourself a couple of more skills that might be marketable in rough times coming. --- While IBM moves forward with plans to layoff as many as 150,000 employees, the company this week touted plans to nearly double earnings over the next three years.
Now to the unintended consequences part: What if - and this is a huge if - someone involved in the layoffs decides to release on the 'net some of the IBM code which would allow a supervisor of a government agency to more or less 'enter' whatever number they wanted for statistical purposes, and which would then backfill supporting numbers accordingly? I'd argue that if taxpayers footed the bill for writing the code, it's public domain...unless, or course, there was a .mil / contractual / appropriate reason for secrecy (like national defense, not like why attorneys general were fired). --- Another ponder: What ever happened to Dan Quayle? Well, seems he - and a lot of other former Bush folks, like former Treasury Secretary John Snow, are active in Cerberus Capital Management. And those are the folks that just this week seem to have wrapped up their Chrysler acquisition. With Cerberus buying up companies (like Remington Arms, acquired earlier this year), we have to wonder if the Chrysler deal might be paid for by laying off workers - and that says one report - would be big troubles for the UAW.
Seems to me that Cerberus may be following in the footsteps of the Carlyle Group - another highly successful acquisitions group, and occasional lightning rod for Bush administration critics/conspiracy theorists, that managed to attract many high profile/political types, including George W before he ran for governor in Texas.
Speaking of Cars Speaking of Cerberus, sounds like Daimler is holding onto that new product. The reason for wondering is that the SmartCar (now touring the country) has gotten a convert in the person of my friend JB, president of Fort Wealth Trading - who took one out for a test drive this week and sent me a review...
Hmmm... only an 8-gallon tank, huh? Look, I wish manufacturers would wise up and put in tanks which would give folks a 500-mile range. Why? Suppose for a minute that the power went off in all of Southern California. (Seems likely at some point - terrorists or a super-quake.) I'd want the cruising range of a Cessna 172.
Trumped With "The Apprentice" not doing well - and off the new NBC schedule, The Donald reportedly tells NBC "You can't fire me, I quit". I hear there's a shock jock opening...
Chavez Supports First People I was mentioning to you earlier this week about how both Spanish and English are squatters on First People Lands. Now, I read with interest that Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is asking the Pope to apologize for claiming the Church somehow "purified" the First People.
Sleep Lightly New technology which could get you better sleep is being reported by the BBC.
State Losing Flower OK, will climate change really rid Kansas of its sun flowers?
Booty No, not the kind gangstahs rap about - the kind ships lose at sea. A treasure hunting outfit has apparently come up with 17-tons of gold and valuable what-have-yous.... Quick! Where's Dirk and Al?
That You, Bob? A conversation with Texas Wildlife has pretty much convinced me that what I saw this week - trying to make time with Ms. Pusscilla the recent mother cat back in heat again - was a bobcat, not a lynx. "Too far south," the local biologist told me. "And, just like people, you get a lot of variation in appearance." The thinking is that he's made a home in one of the wood piles left over from our logging/clearing last year and he's not a major threat to local ranching animals (chickens, goats, etc.) and he's an opportunistic predator - not unlike M&A firms, I reckon.. So, as long as he's well behaved, "Bob" as we've named him, is welcome to hang around. Although Elaine saw he had left a pile of his you know what in the front yard...
Peoplenomics: The "Ugly Problem" of Quality Elaine and I were in the kitchen on Saturday and I don't remember exactly how the topic came up, but we somehow got onto the problem of "quality." There are lots of "quality issues" facing us as consumers every time we go shopping, whether for a car, big screen HDTV, or even breakfast foods. When I got to thinking about it, I concluded (and I may be a genuinely subversive sort of fellow for even writing this) that capitalism as we know and practice it, is actually based on planned obsolescence and crappy quality. In short, quality could kill capitalism.
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Friday May 18, 2007 Immigration Deal Defrocked: Corps vs. Humans Unless you have been living under a rock since 1913, or thereabout, you may have noticed the disturbing trend which I whine incessantly about - corporations having more rights, influence, and raw power, than just regular 'go-along-to-get-along' humans.
A good case in point is the much publicized immigration reform deal which has been struck in the District of Corruption. In typical half-thought, Edward Kennedy is quoted as saying that the measure is "the best possible chance we will have in years to secure our borders and bring millions of people out of the shadows and into the sunshine of America." And the fellow in the White House says "people who live here in our country will be treated without amnesty "
Here's the real deal: The immigration bill is a way to ensure the continued exploitation of illegal immigrants for corporate profit and without regard to the Constitution or prior laws. As one commentary puts it today, Washington is "Dropping the I-Bomb."
Please don't misunderstand me: America is a wonderful country and I cherish the melting pot of cultures, but what's been lost in political silly-land is that what made America great was our bonding through a common language of many cultures. The Poles, Danes, Scotsmen, Irish, Italians - all learned a common language when arriving here - and I'd argue that being able to communicate with a single language is an incredible strength to this day.
Immigration reform was shoved through in the name of corporate (labor for meat packing plants, housing construction, and so forth) expediency, In a resource depleted world going forward, I don't think we can afford the higher cost both in time and resource than pseudo-biculturalism brings. America is - at its core - a melting pot, fondue, call it what you will.
A Frosty Wooldridge article today notes "I traveled to Los Angeles recently. I felt like a stranger in my own country as few spoke English. Whole areas have been turned into city-states of foreigners where Americans are not welcome. " Remember? Earlier this week, our British reader who said about the same thing visiting Las Vegas? --- What's not quite mysteriously lost in the (corporate back-door funded) moves to "Decolonize American" is that those who speak Spanish seem really eager to ignore history and that none of the First Peoples in the Americas spoke Spanish or English.
They were various Indian nations: Aztec, Peruvians, Athabascan, and so forth. The first Spanish speaker was that 1492 guy. If you want to get down to first-cases, let's at least try to get it right. The Spanish and Europeans are both squatters on First People lands. We're mostly all Second People.
Now, that's an inconvenient historical fact. Yet, I don't see anyone among my Frist People friends getting grants to figure out how to kick the Spanish and Europeans and Blacks - all Second Peoples - out of America. No back-door corporate funding / grants for them, no sir.
And the proposed bill ironed out is, as I see it, just an amnesty / corporate exploitation continuation bill with different words. At least the 1986 Amnesty for Illegals was more honestly named. But, I suppose I expect too much.
Fine. But it doesn't engage the core problems in a meaningful way and these are:
The First People's language in the part of Texas where we live is Caddo-Wichita if I read the maps right. If you look at the real "Who was here first" history, you'll see no Hispanic names on the map of Texas. That'd be Comanche in Dallas and Tonkawa or Karankawa, depending on which neighborhood you're in down Houston way.
For Seattle, that'd be the Duwamish. In New York, that'd be the Manhattan Indians. In New "Mexico", that would be Mescalero Apache. Till Coronado and his band of squatters showed up, El Paso was Tigua Indian. You are getting this, right?
Sadly, the truth of things seems to be that corporate/government (corpgov) and corporate media won't come out and remind the masses of the full history of events and their fuller context.
Instead, we see "lawgivers" busily legislating difference between peoples, so we can be kept divided and easily exploited by the Powers That Be and their minions, the banksters. We'll be so busy bickering with one another over things like whether the national anthem should be sung in Spanish, English, French, or German, that we won't notice corpgov is robbing us all blind.
Seems to be working right according plan, though, doesn't it? I mean, sure, it's insulting to First Peoples that bands of squatters (Spanish, English, and whoever) have run them off their lands, but it sure points out again, how lazy today's media-hypnotized Second People's - of all stripe - are intellectually. When I read headlines that the "Immigration Deal Cheered, Questioned" I think to myself "Is everyone nuts, or is it just me? Did everyone have their memories wiped out after school? Is critical thinking....oh forget it...no one seems to care"
G-8 The Powers That Be are sending their money minders to G-8 this weekend. As we mentioned before, Hank Paulson is sitting this one out. I expect Climate Clash to be a big headline. The U.S. is in active denial, and with a cooler April than average, it's easy to understand why. With Paul Wolfowitz out at the World Bank, maybe he can pass out resumes?
Wallet Watch Hmmm...Crude trading higher on refinery shutdowns. You are awake enough to figure out what this means for gasoline prices, right? Nothing in the way of relief seen from OPEC.
FedSpeak Good article about "Fedspeak's new nuances" to read, if you get a minute.
Saudis Get Plastic Looks like Saudi Basic Industries Group will buy $11 billion worth of GE Plastics - a record for the Gulf region.
Discovering Job Cuts Discovery Stores Cutting 1,000 jobs and closing stores.
Bobcat Tales II Well, I'm glad I showed Mr. Mossberg a bit of constraint yesterday, because what I thought was a bobcat has turned out to be more likely a lynx. He's a dead-ringer for this picture, except the coat is two shades darker.
Great! So, now what to do? He didn't come by last night, but I did call the Texas Wildlife folks and ask them about it. "He shouldn't be here" was the answer. No, I reckon not. But, we have had cooler than normal weather, and the snow in early April is proof enough of that.
I've got a call in to the local Game Dept. biologist and we've made casting of the fellow's paws...so we'll learn more at some point. May have been just 'passing through' but he's quick the animal - a little bigger than a Schnauzer. About 30 pounds if I were to guess...
Thursday May 17, 2007 About Shortages and Drought One of the problems with management in general, and economics in particular, is that you're always looking backwards to figure out what's ahead. In other words, when a report comes out this week about Consumer Prices in the US, there's a temptation not to consider what you just bought at the store today, but rather to look at a compilation of where things were last month, arguing (rightly or wrongly) that last month, having a larger spread of data, is more important that a smaller -- but more current -- sample derived today.
As an example of the rearview report, we find that a key quarterly report from the Bank of England suggests that they will have to raise interest rates a bit more, perhaps to 5.75%.
On a more recent note, I'm saddened to report that our "Shortage Indicator" (where we measure the number of daily hits on the term "shortage" in the Google news search engine, has just popped up to its highest level since we began tracking this metric when the web bot project said "Look for shortages developing" in March of 2006:
A scan of the headlines which come up under the search term shortage seems like it's a generalized global phenomena:
These are just a few of the scads and scads of "shortage" news items. If you are worried about the future of your job, by the way, and are looking to build a second or third fall-back skill set, you might consider that utility worker shortage - there's no way to outsource local work to foreign lands, and with licensure requirements and unions, it's not like half of Mexico will be knocking on the doors of utilities offering to do three-phase industrial power installs.
In fact, if my son were to ask me about where he might go looking for work, I'd point him to the local IBEW office and suggest he go see if they have any openings in an apprentice program. My grandfather made it through the last Depression just fine as a teamster driver for the old Puget Sound Power, herding a Dodge Power Wagon through the hills of the Pacific Northwest stringing up the wires to get power to new areas. --- This whole "shortage" meme is also [linguistically] tied in to "drought". Think about that Australian doctor shortage -- what else does Australia have? Drought.
I have to call your attention to some of the finest illogical thinking I've seen attributed to a politician in the form of comments from Australia's Peter Beattie who says he does not expect mass job cuts as a result of the worst drought in Queensland's history. While Beattie and pols are 'whistling in the graveyard' on jobs, we see headlines that "Concern drought will bring mass job losses" in other media.
And it's not like 'drought' is a limited occurrence word in Australia. Consider the recent torching of the Hollywood Hills in LA and the fire one Catalina. As the L.A. Times notes, "Drought, the sequel, is here."
While the crop reports have been fairly good -- so far -- we continue to watch them very cautiously because it's possible that any faltering in America's food production this year could have catastrophic results.
The Coming Employment Crash I think you can see what the www.halfparthuman.com reports of "employment crash" by late summer seem to be pointing toward. But, in case you're not quite awake yet, let me sketch it out for you.
We begin with a look ahead to what we know is in the works. The rumors that IBM will be laying off 150-thousand workers has led to a 15-minute work stoppage being called by IBM's union employees.
We can speculate when looking at the pending Chrysler sale, which got approval today by the Daimler board in Germany, that there may be lots of layoffs to come when Cerberus takes over because, as Jim Mateja notes in the Chicago Trib this morning, "Chrysler out of excuses for sales problems".
One UrbanSurvival reader from the UK, after returning from a trip here, says he senses something:
This all adds up to one of those "perfect storm" kinds of things for this fall. Picture continuing droughts, escalation of prices for food while housing crashes hitting at the same time that IBM is belt-tightening, and all the recent merger activity results in huge layoffs, which is typically how M&A deals are penciled out to make sense -- cutting employees to become more efficient. Remember, if productivity is high enough, no one has a job.
A Curious Unemployment Example The headline says "Wolfowitz seeks deal for World Bank exit" which simply astounds me. If you or I did some breach of faith like a sweetheart deal (literally and figuratively) for a girlfriend at work, we'd be bounced out on the street at 'internet speed'.
I'm perplexed over there's a lack of balls or brains (and possibly both) on the World Bank Board.
Update on the LIC I've offered many times the idea that here in the Second Depression, we're seeing marijuana trafficking as the modern analog to Prohibition (1920 - 1933) which was a prelude to the Depression. Anyone who has watched "The Untouchables" and any of a zillion mobster movies, can remember events like the St. Valentines Day Massacre.
So zip forward to present day (remembering that a LIC is a low intensity conflict - a sort of half war in military terms) which is raging along the US-Mexico border, but which (as Lou Dobbs has noted uncountable times) everyone seems to be in denial about at the corpmedia/corpgov level because there is some damn much money being made exploiting humans in this.
Appearing now are the estimated 20-dead (so far) in gunfights and abductions south of the Arizona battle yesterday. I expect in a few years - a decade at most - we'll see movies based on incidents like this week - which might be archetypified (if I can invent a word for us) as a hybridization of "Hell's Angels takes over Hollister" meets the Untouchables. Speaking of which...
Biker Gang/Club Notes We read that in New Hampshire, a member of the "Outlaws" has gotten 45-90 in a murder case.
In New Zealand, several members of the "Mongrel Mob:" have been arrested for the attempted murder of a Hell's Angel club member.
In Australia, things are edging closer to Thunderdome because along with the drought ( a scene-setter) Australian police are trying to sort out the gang/club war involving some 3,500 "outlaw bikers".
Seems the clubs have gone global like everything else.
In Seattle, the trial of 'Smilin Rick' is nearing completion - and if you don't know about that, you probably ride a rice burner. Background.
Me & Mr. Mossberg Pusscilla, the part-time spouse of Tom, Tom, the cat outside, has taken off, apparently in heat, and bored with mothering to resume her tramp-about ways. All of which wouldn't be a notable event here at the ranch, except that Tom, Tom, the cat outside (he insists on full name references) is now raising the kittens and last night a 25-pound bobcat followed Ms Puss home looking for dinner and more. Result? Me & Mr. Mossberg have been roving the grounds this morning - Mr. Mossberg being anxious to introduce himself to said bobcat and me trying to figure the right/moral balance of affairs.
Don't know if you have ever tried to track one, but bobcats are pretty wily little guys, faster than a speeding cat and apparently able to leap pretty good, too. I know how to start a fire in the woods using a chocolate bar and pop can (if you don't, click here to learn how, OK?) but tracking a wild Texas bobcat is a little beyond me. Mr. Mossberg has suggested the red dot night sight & SKS (a good idea) and a head-mounted night-vision rig.
Hardly sporting. No doubt that would work, but it would not be fair to the bobcat. He only gets dispatched if he goes after the kittens, chickens, or wanders toward the neighbor's rabbitry. If he lays low, south end of the property and doesn't cause problems, he's welcome to hang around and keep the rodent population in the woods down and go after the wild pigs next litter. No rodents means no snakes.
Wednesday May 16, 2007 Fighting Back Against High Gas Prices Another one landed in my inbox last week: Periodically, I get emails telling me that some marketing genius somewhere has come up with a great way to punish Big Oil Companies for their "excessive mark-ups" of gasoline that have driven prices lately well over $3/gallon almost everywhere, and over $4/gallon many places. And, if you read the details in yesterday's consumer price index (no snickering, please, although it's only tangentially connected with our reality here in the real world), you would have noted with fear I expect, that the transportation index is going up at a 17.4% compound annual rate.
OK, so what can we do about it...or should we worry? That's what UrbanSurvival is all about.
First a couple of basics. Yes, the price of oil is back up tapping on the door of $70/gallon, but it depends where you're measuring price. This is all driven by gasoline inventories, which in turn, in turn, is driven by demand. All driven by driving, so to speak. --- One way to reduce your cost of transportation is to buy a bicycle or ultra high mileage moped for just getting around town. I have three kids and they're all between 25 and 30 - and between them they have one moped, three bicycles and zero cars. They pay next to nothing to insurance companies and they are all in pretty good health because they exercise a lot - by riding their bikes around Seattle which is (if you haven't ridden a bike there) hill hell. Worst hill from my riding days there? The hill from the Vashon Island ferry landing up to Vashon City. --- America has been corporatized to the point where we home tinkerers are actively discouraged from applying much home-grown creativity to solving problems like this gas mileage thing. A while back, I was looking at putting together an ultra high-mileage car for going back and forth to town. I was thinking about something which would be bike tires in front, a small lean burn engine of maybe 10-15 HP.
Could I do it? Nope. I was told that in order to get a license plate here in Texas, I would need a VIN number. And, while I thought about buying an old VW and getting after it with a plasma cutter, the truth was quickly coming into focus: The auto/safety lobby (I suppose, aided and abetted by the insurance companies) don't want us common folks taking the bull by the horns and welding up our own locally built versions of the SmartCar.
Speaking of which, my friend the Gold and Commodities Trader, JB, is scheduled to test drive one of the new SmartCars later this week in the L.A. area - and he's promising a report on Friday morning. He's a Karman Ghia/high mileage car kind of fellow who keeps a hot-rodded/nitro'ed '67 Cougar around for the occasional relapse of 'muscle car fever', but he seems to be getting over that. Age and studying commodity charts tends to ground one a bit. --- All this got started by another "head-on collision" with bureaucracy: I now want to simply buy a kit and build my own ultra high-mileage moped. Someone sent me a link this morning to Golden Eagle Bike Engines http://www.bikeengines.com/index.htm and I said to myself: "Aha! I can buy the 35 CC Robin Subaru engine and kit for $600 - and weld up a super lightweight rack for carrying a few groceries back from town! Hot diggety! 200 miles per gallon!"
Well, not fast, buckaroo: The Texas Department of Public Safety is a bureaucracy, too. I don't see anything on their web site about putting my own cobbled up motorized bike on the road, but if I want to manufacture them (which I don't) there's a convenient affidavit form to fill out...and a list of "certified" mopeds. Hey! Wait a minute: Aren't I 'certifiable'? If you live in Texas and have figured out how to cross the Bureaucratic Gorge, please let me know. Yes, I'll get the "moped license". --- I happened to be chatting with a friend/colleague Vishal in India this morning (consulting business related) and chanced to ask him about moped prices there. He offered that such technology is dated, even in India and that most people buy 100 CC motorcycles. The price range? R28,000 to R35,000, he tells me. The price of gasoline there is presently running 45-50 rupees per gallon.
So if one gallon is 3.785 liters, he's paying 190 rupees for a gallon of gasoline. That works out (with the current exchange rate) to $4.64 a gallon for gasoline in India. And about diesel? Somewhat cheaper in India. Runs $3.21
Wait! He can buy a good quality motorcycle for US$855. Why are motorcycles so much more expensive here? Answer: Imports. More layers in the distribution channel and everyone has their hands out for a piece of it. And then there are the bureaucrats. EPeeA certifications cost money and lots of time. Tell me where I can get a pair of 100 CC new motorcycles at $1,800 for the pair and E and I will buy 'em. But, it has to be a reputable manufacturer and parts must be available and we want 4-cycle, not 2! I sure don't see anything like that, which is why the lower powered moped, with better mileage anyway, is so appealing. Except that now we're into bureaucratic crunch time. --- On another front, I chatted yesterday with a PhD student, who's part of a group at a major California university that is about to bring a new electric car to the market. We talked about battery instrumentation a bit, and manufacturing issues and such, and I asked him "How are you going to deal with the licensing issues and the damn bureaucrats?"
"We're going to build a 3-wheeled vehicle, because that way, we can get around the National Highway Safety Administration requirements for crash testing because it's a three-wheeler, it's considered in most states to be a motorcycle."
Ah, this made sense - Some of America's best and brightest have seen the Bureaucratic Gorge which would swallow up his team's innovation, and they have figured the workaround. Makes sense. --- All of this is a long way of saying that I think my kids got it right: walk, pedal, or ride with friends. The corporate monsters and government bureaucrats have managed to kill genuine grassroots level innovation in America by hundreds of thousands of home based inventors and tinkerers. If you want innovation, I'm sad tel tell you, "It don't live here anymore, leastwise if we're talking ultra high-mileage vehicles."
Elaine summed it up really well: "They've set up the rules so that an individual can't compete with a corporation." Scares out of me - but seems she's right again. Corporations do have more power and rights than us peons by virtue of their size. "They are entities, we're just people." Elaine lamented. All cleverly done under the guide of 'protecting us' I'm sure - and only costing us only our freedom. But, what the hell kind of trade is that?
Check out Jory Squibb's "Moonbeam" a homemade car that gets 100 MPG.
Road Rage Rudest city in the country to drive in? Miami. Most courteous? Portland, Oregon.
Lessons For the Fed Hardly a day goes by that I don't bemoan the destruction of purchasing power which masks that fact that although it set a new all-time-high yesterday, the Dow's performance is meaningless, because it is still less in purchasing power terms than it was in the spring of 2000.
So why should today be different?
Today, I will note that the Chinese, headlines the Wall Street (maybe it will be sold, maybe it won't) Journal "Beijing Looks to Rein in Money Growth." Hmmm...a lesson for Chairman Ben in there someplace, perhaps? --- --- Casablanca's stock market has plunged 20% in the past week. Sure to be the talk at Rick's Café Americain"
Hark! An Ark! Greenpeace is planning to build a replica of Noah's Ark to draw attention to global warming. As we told our Peoplenomics.com subscribers a number of years back, if all the glaciers melt, we could see sea level up 243 feet, plus or minus a neap tide.
I'm reminded of the old Bill Cosby monolog which went something like this: As God is chatting with a reluctant Noah who's not sure about building his ark on a sunny day, God asks: "Noah, how long can you tread water?"
If a recent report is right, we only have a 5-year window left to answer that question and many more.
A huge piece of ice - size of California - is melting in the Antarctic --- Given my encountered with corporations, I am already designing my goat-draw cart project for next year. I will put a female goat in front of a male goat - and sit back and enjoy the ride in my hormone-powered vehicle. Being sure not to step in the small carbon footprints, of course. --- Not that I am too worried about climate at the moment: April was slightly cooler than average reports NOAA. Chemtrails working?
Gotta Smoke II With Catalina under control, along with the LA fires, our latest place to grab a smoke is New Jersey.
Tweaking Iran and Whoever Department As the US ponders how to deal with Iran's going full-bore into enrichment which leads to bombs at some point, there's an interesting history lesson coming to light. Seems that the 1967 Israeli Six Day War was engineered by the Soviets as a set-up move to bomb the Israeli nuclear program at Dimona. Makes a fine read of "shoe on other foot" when you get a minute. --- Fast forward to today: America is trying to set up a strike at Iran...ex ambassador John Bolton being today's pitch man de jure. --- Japan says North Korea is building a new missile which could hit 3,100 miles out. Better hope & pray NK doesn't put them on freighters and get them within range of the USA...
Tuesday May 15, 2007 Inflation: 5.7% Now I'm one of those off people who believes that at some point, markets, consumers, and even politicians are forced to revert to fair valuations of investments, consumer goods, and issues, based on an ugly collection of facts. It's with this in mind that we see a number of facts on the table - some good, some bad - which represent change/drift/forward motion of the economy, and from which we can infer perhaps a taste of what lies ahead.
We begin with the CPI report, released a few minutes ago by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While most of the "talking head/rip & read" mainstream media will come up with a headline and then fill it out with the "offishul" news release verbiage, there's a lot more to it. But, so you won't suffer the shock of taking the economic "red pill" (if you're still a 'blue pill' economic fairytale believer), we'll go along with the herd about that far and offer the "sound bite" news release:
Know what's crazy? Despite the reports of the housing bust,. the most recent three month annualized rate shows housing still going up 3.4%. Transportation costs are going up 17.4% and you know why, I assume:
With gasoline up to $4 (and more) in a lot of places around the country, the mainstream in the recent past has been touting something they call the "core rate" of inflation, which is the CPI sans foods and energy. If you haven't taken our red pill, you can make an easy transition into the economic matrix by simply going without food or energy for a month - two if you're impetuous - to get a sense of how much the core rate pertains to the rest of us.
Meantime, we are watching the headlines put as good a face on the numbers as possible with things like "Consumer Inflation Moderates Slightly"
So what dropped in April, compared with March? Education and communication, and energy which I figure is a statistical blip. In the depths of the report we see energy as a national crisis still denied:
Gosh, what good news, huh? Report seems to have helped gold...
Oh Crop So if that's how the CPI is going, is there any genuinely good news? Maybe. The Crop Report came out yesterday and many are nearing completion. But is it "good" or "bad"? I asked my friend, Gold & Commodities trader "JB" (www.fortwealth.com) to give me the quick summary:
I take all this as a pretty good report. Here at the ranch, despite hail, unusually heavy rains and the late frost, our garden is looking pretty good as seen from the chicken moat - that's our chicken run surrounding the garden given the hens a chance to gobble bugs before they get into the garden. I'll have to admit this is all due to Elaine's hard work/diligence and not mine. I push bites around.
So much for the good news; never let it be said I am blind to it, though.
Economic Curmudgeons Department Feeling curmudgeonly? There's a great article in the Financial Post this morning on "How to Spoil a Good Party". Asks writer Jacqueline Thorpe, "These bears see financial Armageddon around every corner. What would happen if they are right?" The quotes attributed to James Turk, on the future of the dollar, are especially on point. But, we don't look for anything big until after G-8. Speaking of which...
G-8 Preps We can't help but noted that Der Spiegel is headlining that "Neo-Nazi Mobilizing Against G-8 Summit" The phrase that got my attention the most was the part "Neo-Nazis are using anti-capitalist rhetoric " which seems to paint skepticism of capitalism as something bad.
There's nothing "bad" about capitalism, per se. But, isn't it a little odd that corporations can seemingly get a cell phone into everyone's hands in the emerging world (and a monthly bill, too), yet the delivery of health care, sustainable living, and good educations (including where babies come from) has faltered? --- The G-8 is the economic Who's Who pow wow - although oddly, US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson won't be there because he's getting ready for talks with China. While I noted that World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz was planning to attend, but he may, or may not have a job after today's World Bank meetings, reports NPR.
Pressure for Iran Strike We read the report in the Washington Post this morning that "Atomic Agency Conclude Iran is Stepping Up nuclear Work" and that means enriching on a production run basis, as yet one more reason for the administration to proceed with a 'first strike' against Iran.
Newt to Run Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich warns that there's a good chance Hillary you-know-who could win and by the sound of it, that could get him to toss his hat in the ring.
Where's Our Big Quake? Last week, the world experienced an extremely long and out of the ordinary gamma ray burst - which drove us to ask if we might see a linked/related earthquake this week. One of our most knowledgeable readers about such things was promoted to write in and set the record straight:
If you experience a big (I mean 6.9 or larger) kind of quake this week, then maybe the GRB's set off things. On the other hand, if there's no big quake, I'll have to admit the case presented here looks more solid. BPL Alert Oh, oh: If you're a ham radio operator, you don't want to hear this, but the emergent BPL industry is trying to sell DirecTV on a test delivering video over power lines. Why the "oh, oh"? BPL has been notoriously prone to interfere with ham radio and other HF spectrum uses. The technology was testing out in Japan, which turned it down - and if it's not good enough for them, I sure don't like the prospect of what it could do here. The American Radio Relay League (www.arrl.org) has been doing a fine job of defending ham radio's interests, but the BPL people have huge budgets and when vested interests line up in Washington, you know what happens...corporations buy laws, lawmakers, and outcomes - facts be damned. The ARRL backgrounder position paper is here.
Monday May 14, 2007 Past Tipping - Undeniable Denial Much is being written about the climate changes these days, although there remains debate over whether man is the cause or off planet issues (the increase in the sun's output since first measured) might have more to do with what's coming. Part and parcel of the discussion is the role of CO2 - carbon dioxide - and a report out this weekend suggests that a 10-year 'warning window' for humans to do something to reduce carbon footprints is either closing, or worse: past.
As we survey the reports about what's soon to appear (Terra intrudes and such) from our linguistic pals the time monks, we are seeing all kinds of projections about the impacts of climate change. Here's one story, headlined "Climate change could leave billions homeless" which has us wondering which will do the most damage to home ownership: the predatory subprime lenders or killer heat & drought?
At the same time that CO2 levels are zooming to millennium long records, it's interesting - and it would be laughable if everyone on the planet wasn't potentially a victim - the U.S. is trying to weaken a pending G-8 climate declaration. Now, why do you suppose we would do that?
The answer is the notion that if the world turns the fatally serious issue of coping with climate change into yet another investment bubble - setting up carbon credit trading - that somehow everything will work out OK. Besides exchange trading of such credits envisioned here in the US on the NYMEX, on India's MCX, and elsewhere, we read how "Carbon Credits must reach Indonesian Forests": and how a "Timber group joins debate on carbon credits to protect forests." --- The situation is like this: Upon discovering your house is on fire, instead of calling the fire department or grabbing a fire extinguisher, you instead opt to set up a fund trading pool with your neighbors and begin trading futures on your house. Your thinking is that at some point, if an investor in your housing pool is really interested in securing their position, they [not you ] will call the fire department or actually do something. Something misses the point, don't you think? --- It's not that everyone is going along with the corporatist dominated "government for hire/bribe/influence/campaign contribution" approach to acting like caring humans. I'd point to the 30-state effort to address climate change as evidence that what Washington DC does is seriously disconnected from the goals of humanity in general. --- So what will change human behavior and specifically large carbon footprints? Gasoline prices might have a positive effect figures the Arizona Daily Star.
I'd say "That's a horrific answer." Why? The problem with soaring gasoline prices (and/or jet fuel prices) is that it simply enlarges the economic gulf between the "haves' and the 'have-nots'. The 'haves' still have plenty of money for their gas guzzlers and private jets, while the victims of high energy prices have nothing left over at the end of the month to make the mortgage payment, or put food on the table, and so they go even deeper into debt as the recent combination of Consumer Credit reports and Retail Sales report show.
If you don't yet see that "It's the End of the World As We Know It" (TEOTWAWKI) and carbon fuel use and climate change collide, consider the most recent comments of energy expert (Author: Twilight in the Desert) Matthew Simmons. In a presentation a couple of weeks back to the "Investment Advisor Association annual conference in Austin, TX, Simmons pointed out that only nine states (Wyoming, West Virginia, New Mexico, Alaska, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, and Montana) in the US are net energy exporters while the other 41 states are what he calls energy parasites.
The biggest "parasite states? California, Ohio, New York, Florida...and hate to tell my neighbors this, but Texas produces less than it makes, too. We might be able to get back to slightly higher levels of production (a slant drill rig just went in about 1,200 feet of our south property line here at the ranch last year) but that - sadly is just a finger in the dike, so to speak.
If you're trying to get a bead on what life will be like in 20-years (if you make it that far) I'd offer that given the delusional nature of proffered solutions, that you might consider adding Countryside Magazine and Mother Jones to your reading list. It's one thing to trade energy credits and here comes another chance to strike it rich - and quite another to actually walk the talk.
Elitists For President We can't help but wonder about the credibility of those who would pretend to lead us as there's no sign of the present pack of wannabes turning over their income taxes so we can see who is buttering their bread. Once again "Do as we say, not as we do" huh?
Local Immigration Battles Farmer's Branch Texas has passed a municipal ordinance making it illegal to rent to illegal immigrants. Meantime, the 'deaf-to-the-will-of-the-people' folks in the District of Corruption, namely the Bush administration, the republicorps and the democorps are trying to come up with a compromise immigration bill that will get each the most money/votes/favors from their respective constituencies.
Best government people
can buy? Signs of the Times A good collection of gas price signs here.
Hostages? Al Qaida says they are holding three missing troops. The US is highly focused on finding them before harm comes their way.
Cost of Living Week Get ready for another round of high comedy this week as we (and the markets) stand by the for the latest on Consumer Prices. Especially hilarious ought to be the "core rate" - which denies the necessity of food and energy consumption to live - in order to get more palatable numbers. We'll have the numbers up in tomorrow's report, or you can click here at 8:30 Eastern tomorrow morning if you're that anxious to see them...
News from Elliott Wave International
Write when you get rich,
George Ure, The People's Economist
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