"Standup Economics"

This economy is a what?

  

    
   Updated:
   Saturday September 29,  2007

                            07:55 CDT 
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Hoisting the Earthquake Watch

The predictive linguistics from www.halfpasthuman.com seem to indicate that we can talk in public a bit about the coming earthquake that appears in modelspace.  Modelspace, of course, being the 3D workspace where Cliff and Igor (the 'time monks') look at language shift on the internet and seem to get a reasonable outlook as to what to expect in future (news/media/mainstream) development that intrude into consciousness.

 

We started watching this in modelspace some time back when it appeared that over late summer/fall, there would be a series of three major quakes - and by major, we're thinking 8.0 or larger.  The first of these occurred with the August 15th quake in Peru which not only hit 8.0, but lasted two minutes, and did considerable damage.  This started something of a 'timer' in modelspace, because the second quake would occur and then the third (possibly as a 'double quake' would occur at somewhere between the same interval, to something longer, but short of a double of time..

 

The second in the series came on September 12th, when an 8.4 hit the southern Sumatra (Indonesia) area.  Here, the damage wasn't as severe, but it was a major quake - larger than the first, by some measure.

 

The third quake, which linguistically is just ahead in the near future, should be at (or above) these kinds of levels, but the only question is where it will happen.  Again, looking at the linguistic shifts of language, there seem to be two cases.

 

The first is that the Big One will come in the Western archipelago of Indonesia.  If it is to hit here, it should occur before the 18th of the month, and it is likely to be a double quake.  The kind where people run outside when it happens, stay outdoors for a while, and then just as they are about to return to their homes, the second quake (around same magnitude) strikes and more damage is done..

 

The second is more problematic:  In this case, what happens is that a 'north of the equator' volcano pops off, and the impact of the plume from  that sudden spitting of ash and gasses is large enough to disrupt air traffic for about a day and a half (or longer).  If this happens, then the third quake in the series would like seem to occur in a region described as the northern USA West Coast, which might cover the range from Southeast Alaska, south to a region just north of San Francisco.

---

If you've been reading the fine print of the global news stream, you might be aware that there was indeed a volcano that popped off in New Zealand earlier this week, but it seems (no telling how accurate this new science will be on this) that it doesn't first.  The reason is that Igor, whose background includes a little military this and that, says the language vectors seem to point to northern hemisphere are route disruptions. 

 

True, we have a volcano spewing forth in Hawaii, but it's a lava flow event, and not the kind of thing that has disrupted air traffic for a couple of days.   If we see a major sudden and explosive event on the Kamchatka Peninsula, or in the Bering Strait, or Alaska, such that either Asian or European air travel with the USA is rerouted, then I would not want to be on the US West Coast late in the month.  But, no guarantees, and yes, I am still headed for Seattle for a quick in & out trip for my mother's 92nd birthday in late October. And strategically placed earthquake might cause me to pack walking shoes, outdoor gear, water, and change to a single-layer hotel accommodation.  Here's a link to bookmark for future reference: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

 

Speaking of Kamchatka

I notice the Russians are touting the energy potential of that region.

 

Investing This Week

I was just sitting here idly wondering how the market did this week and it was sure nothing to write home about.  It opened the week at 13,822 and closed at 13,896.  OK, that would be a 5-1oths of one percent gain for the week and maybe as high as a 28% annual rate - OK if we had a steady-state dollar. But, alas, we don't. 

 

The dollar went from .7099 Euro Monday down to .7049 today.  That's a loss of 7-tenths of one percent in a week..

 

Are you seeing the pattern here?  The dollar goes down in purchasing power, and the Dow goes up - as I have explained before, what's appreciating is not the real purchasing power of the Dow, but more likely, the repricing of the Dow as a financial asset, the same way real estate seems to go up in ap period of high inflation, when the truth is, it's just more dollars chasing the same utility value.

 

As a check of my theory, I would expect if the dollar went down 7-10ths of one percent this week that the price of gold would go up by some offsetting amount.  Kitco's chart shows gold was around $726.10 -735.90 on Monday of this week.  All things being connected in Universe, I would expect gold to be up between 5-10th's of 1% (vis the Dow) or 7-10th's of a percent (vis the Euro).

 

That would be $726.10*1.005 = $729.73 Friday (Dow and low Monday gold case) or $735.90*1.007= $741.05 (Euro, high case).   When you look at Friday's Kitco chart, you can see that the high case (vis-a-vis the Euro) is very close.

 

My personal conclusion is that whatever gains are being posted by the Dow and other paper assets this week, the real driver is the decline of the US Dollar.  I am waiting for someone to starting spinning up the "strong dollar policy myth' as a chance to really load up on metals, grains, anything of intrinsic (as opposed to theoretical) value.  Whatever: Gold is at a 27-year high.

 

Pakistan's Rioting

More pressure on the US-backed/embraced Musharraf government to step aside.

 

Bust the Monks

That's what the government of Myanmar (Burma) was up to on Friday.  Can't have people chanting about peace - especially when they can be great junior corporate producers if well-confined to strict political boundaries. No oil, no intervention.  Or is that the total story?

 

The Revolution Meme

It's breaking out all over the place.  I mean besides Iraq, Afghanistan, and Myanmar.  You've got continuing tensions in once-Soviet Georgia.  And the EU is wondering what to do if Kosovo goes independent?  Can't have them managing their own resources, don'tcha know.

---

Iran, meantime, is signing deals with Venezuela and Bolivia.  Why are these countries labeled as "Bush's arch enemy"?  Oil and gas, pal, oil and gas and sweetheart deals.  Not that we're against those, mind you.  $10 gas on top of a home foreclosure would hurt a bit much...so yeah, smack down those indigenous people who want true market value...We've got the world's leading economy to defend, here.

---

Did I mention the Islamic guerillas attacking the army in the Philippines? Or the rebels fighting government forces in Sri Lanka?

 

Brain Eater

A new amoeba in Arizona is killing young people.  Makes me NOT want to swim in Aridozona.

 

Useless News Department

Liz Taylor goes for #9?

Jena Bush writes a book and lands on 20/20.

 

Useful News Department

"Firmware update breaks hacked iPhones" reports PCWorld.  Say "Ooops!"

Microsoft has decided to keep supporting XP through July '08.  I wish someone had told me that when I joined the gray screen of death Vista crowd..

---

Here at UrbanSurvival, I "upgraded" to Expression Web this week and this morning's report is the first written on this platform.  The good news is that it has a feature or two more than what I lovingly call FlawedPage, and the reason was that MSFT was going to kill FP support anyway. "But how does it work?" you're thinking.

  • I have had two gray screens of death while writing this morning's column, but that OK because I am now back in the old DOS-days habit of saving my work every 12-seconds.

  • I type pretty fast, so when I slam out a long string of high speed copy and start looking for mistakes, I have time to step out for a smoke and a half cup of joe before the keyboard buffer gets around to putting the letters all up on the screen.  I'm afraid even with 2 GB of ram to think about what could be taking so long - I turned off most of the fancy display options I could think of, but who knows. 

  • When I went to the update link off the help menu, I got to a page inviting me to downlooad a trial copy of the very software I was trying to update.

 

Like Vista, I do like some of the features in Expression Web.  It would just be nice if they were not delivered in a semi-functional product.  Got any tips on a good WYSIWYG editor which runs under Ubuntu Linux?

 

Peoplenomics: Economic Redshift

There's a whole dimension of economics that's not taught to most people, first because they'd likely go to sleep during the class, but secondly because it's a very hard concept to explain - the whole notion of how international paper money exchange works. But you can short-circuit a lot of the boredom by considering economics as an analog to the well-established principle called "redshift". In interstellar space, a star moving away from us looks more red, while a star moving toward us looks more blue. That's called blueshift by the scientifically studied. This week, we'll discuss economic redshift, which as the term implies, is what happens to economic dreams of average folks when the purchasing power of their currency moves away from them. Rather quickly, at that.

 

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"No More, thanks"

To get your "No Incumbents in 2008" click here.  They're just $5.  And no, that would not keep Ron Paul from running for the White House - he is not an incumbent for that office - having never held that job before, you see.

 

Pass It On

If you find the alternative contexting of major financial and global affairs presented on this site of interest, please tell your friends about it.  That way, more people will become aware of what's going on in the economy, and with more smarts, maybe we can wake up America. Click here to shake them from their sleep.  Also, if you operate a website, a link is always appreciated and I will link in return.

 

More for Less

Order our handy ebook "How to Live on $10,000 a year or less - and learn to live like a Third World person now.  It's coming anyway, with big job layoffs this summer - and by ordering now, you can beat the rush...You may have more time to read this fall if the economy falls apart as I expect...

 

Last week's report is here.

 


Friday, September 28, 2007

Falling Dollar = Rising Oil

It's so simple when you think about it: The US prints up a lot more money than increased output requires - so lots more dollars chasing goods at the international level - so it takes more of the watered down dollars to buy the same thing.  So, when you read in the New York Times today that "Oil Prices Dip below $83" I wouldn't get too excited that oil prices are coming down for good.

 

Before this morning's flurry of economic reports, the dollar fell to a new low against the Euro.  Remember the linguistics on this:  "Dollar Death" or "Near Death Experience (NDE) for the dollar".

 

The "George Postulate":  One of the things we think we've learned from watching modelspace is that the larger an event is, the more lead time we seem to get.  In other words, if it's something like a couple of Olympic athletes being injured in a car/motorcycle accident prior to games in Greece, that might show up as a hot item (emotionally) perhaps only 2-3 weeks before the actual events.  But when something is really big (9/11 or the Banda Aceh quake), we get months of lead time.  And the dollar 'death' will be massively larger than even those events as we have a year and a half of lead time.

 

Now, go back and read what I was writing about in January of this year on 'dollar death':

"The "death of the dollar" has been kicking around modelspace for a very long time - which to my way of reckoning, means it will be a massive event. I think I've mentioned that the collapse of paper assets has popped up in the language, and certainly that part of the libretto would make sense. If the dollar goes, the government's going to be in the you-know-what'er. I've sort of penciled in November of this year for the event - there was a temporal marker to "November" that several runs back, and it seems like a fair guess...and it would certain fit, if you believe that governments engage in wars and conflict as a means of population control. A "limited" nuclear conflict come year end would be a major 'way out" for the banksters and the pols. But, the dollar may not last even that long."

Prescient of the time monks, eh?  With the dollar bouncing off 78.05 on the market basket and buying only 0.7037 of a Euro, it seems like the Big Slide is on.  Oil down?  Yeah, right...for a few seconds maybe.  Gold, meantime, as a 'truth detector' is up more than $9 as I write.  Did I mention reconstructed M-3 is running 14 1/2%?  Oh, my...

 

Personal Income

The latest economic fairytale for the markets to digest today are the Personal Income and Outlays report for August.  The Bureau of Economic Analysis would have you believe that:

"Personal income increased $40.2 billion, or 0.3 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $37.2 billion, or 0.4 percent, in August, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $54.8 billion, or 0.6 percent. In July, personal income increased $61.5 billion, or 0.5 percent, DPI increased $60.3 billion, or 0.6 percent, and PCE increased $37.3 billion, or 0.4 percent, based on revised estimates."

 

Private wage and salary disbursements increased $12.8 billion in August, compared with an increase of $22.4 billion in July. Goods-producing industries' payrolls increased $0.6 billion, compared with an increase of less than $0.1 billion; manufacturing payrolls decreased $0.6 billion, in contrast to an increase of $0.1 billion. Services-producing industries' payrolls increased $12.3 billion, compared with an increase of $22.2 billion. Government wage and salary disbursements increased $1.6 billion, compared with an increase of $1.4 billion.

Now, I've always watched the personal savings number - which as you will recall had put together a long string of four or five months of red ink, until the government about two months back decided to 'revise' that indicator so that it didn't look so bad.  As a result, things are just peachy - government says so:

"Personal saving -- DPI less personal outlays -- was $72.5 billion in August, compared with $89.5 billion in July. Personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income was 0.7 percent in August, compared with 0.9 percent in July. Saving from current income may be near zero or negative when outlays are financed by borrowing (including borrowing financed through credit cards or home equity loans), by selling investments or other assets, or by using savings from previous periods. "

I've got a bridge I'm selling....I'd guess the real personal savings rate is more like -1.7% using the old method - obsolete, of course, because the number was not good.

 

You can tell with a half a second of thought, that a 20% collapse of home prices in many areas over the past two years makes an increase in personal savings impossible - falling home equity (most folks biggest savings account) ensures that.  The statistical trick shot is this:  You only count underlying change in house values when its convenient - you don't want a 20% decline in home equity showing up because that would 'color' reports of prosperity!  See?  I'm a gloomster for even mentioning it. I'm so ashamed.

 

Home equity really is savings, in that with a refi you can pull money out.  But rather than admit to the decline in home equity, (which would make DPI more reflective of changes in personal net worth) seems the stats (at least as I read them) only look at home equity when a refi is done, and THAT was only changed when refi's dried up.  How convenient!

 

Energies From Space

While the earth has recently had a number of gamma ray bursts (GRB's) that began to fit some of the linguistic descriptors for the "energies from space"  that have been mentioned prominently by the time monks in their work, we've got more 'energy from space' stuff showing up in the headlines now - right on schedule.

 

"Scientists discover deep space signal" headlines ninemsn.com out of Australia.  Elsewhere, we read that the actual event happened about 6-years ago and was only 5-milliseconds in duration.  Nevertheless, its the news of right now because the discovery is just being sorted out from piles of data.   It reads to me like the Small Magellanic Cloud and the linguistic cloud of chatter around the internet which we study, might have something in common.  A case of 'as above, so below'?

---

A few other things are out their on the 'energies from space'  meme which are floating around under the perception threshold for much of the US sheeplery.  For example, a report out of "The Hindu" online (India) that suggests many human communicable diseases may actually get here froim space.

---

Then we have the follow-up reports on that Peruvian meteor impact about two weeks ago.  A team of Canadian and Bolivian scientists have done some research and yes, it was a meteor, and no, there apparently weren't really hundreds of sick people from it - seems it was more likely a local form of hysteria.

---

Did I mention the summer/fall quavers are grumbling along  - Those'd be the 5.5 and up quakes prior to the Big One I expect between now and Oct 17-18?

 

Food Shortages

Linguistically, the time machine run, fueled by language shifts on the internet still has the US arrival late this year and next spring, but already the term "food shortage" is appearing around the edges of the news.  Take for example "John Howard says Australian Food Shortage will Affect Prices."

 

Curiously a shortage of trained agriculture workers, too.  And good bye many small farms.

---

Mendocino, California has a water shortage developing.

 

Hola Lorenzo

That Category 1 hurricane, Lorenzo, quickly dropped to a 65-mile per hour tropical storm as it hit southeast Mexico this morning.

 

Meantime, the track for tropic storm Karen  looks like it will take a left turn toward the Bahamas by the middle of next week, so by next weekend we could be looking at a hurricane somewhere

 along the eastern seaboard.

 

Cancer-Divorce Link

Seems there are some statistical links between certain types of cancers and divorce.  Not exactly surprising, but interesting.

 

Feeding the "New War" Meme

We're also in the period when the "new war" should be making an appearance.  Not as out & out fighting, but the vague outline of future conflict should be slipping into the edges of the news.  And what do you know?  "Russia promises retaliation if weapons deployed in space" headlines a Russian news service.

---

Meantime, I've been waiting for word of one grassroots American response to the re-energized Russian threat to become public before talking about it; but now that it's out...

 

Check out what Huntsville, Alabama has done - they are bringing back basic Civil Defense capabilities for the community.  Although CONgress wiped out such funding in 1992, I understand that city officials (and those involved in the project) have been amazed at who little it costs to get prior Civil Defense capability retooled and operable again.

---

So that's the good news.  Meantime, in ham radio circles, a debate continues whether ham radio operators who volunteer for things like the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES), the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), or the Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS) should have to undergo a background check.  One ham writing to Steve Quayle that because of this looming requirement on volunteers. "I have dropped out of MARS, ARES, and RACES. I have worked about 60 different kinds of emergencies over the past 47 years, including Katrina, many fires, floods, etc. "

 

Having been a ham myself for 44-years (it's been that long?) I remember the "old days" when a radio operators license required disclosure of all felonies.  The current application form (605) requires a ham to certify that "The applicant/licensee certifies that neither the applicant/licensee nor any other party to the application is subject to a denial of Federal benefits pursuant to Section 5301 of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, 21 U.S.C. § 862, because of a conviction for possession or distribution of a controlled substance. This certification does not apply to applications filed in services exempted under Section 1.2002(c) of the rules, 47 CFR § 1.2002(c). See Section 1.2002(b) of the rules, 47 CFR § 1.2002(b), for the definition of “party to the application” as used in this certification."

 

Seems to me that simply adding a social security number to the application form, (I thought it was there) would let the FCC staff easily check on criminal history at the time a license was issued.  But then again, that would be too simple, huh?  Instead, we get talk of "background checks"
and other bureaucracy enhancing measures.  Enough!

 

If al Qaeda, or some other 'terrorist' organization, wants good communications before the  commission of a crime, all they have to do is buy disposable cells phones - you know, the kind that are made into IED's in Iraq.  If they want communications after an attack, they can buy FRS radios at a zillion places (no license).  The notion that some terrorist is going to sink thousands into a tower, beam, transceiver, and stick around to move health & welfare traffic after a serious terrorist strike, or some hurricane coming ashore, major earthquake, etc., for some nefarious purpose, boggles my mind.  But so does this:

 

Government/Security for Show

I suppose that ham radio background checks might be lumped into the same category as a lot of other government actions, which I file under "Government for Show" as opposed to my nearly empty file "Government for Results".  For example, has you read the Government Accountability Office Report on border protection?  Some highlights (my emphasis added):

"On the U.S.-Canada border, GAO found state roads close to the border that CBP did not appear to man or monitor. In some of these locations, the proximity of the road to the border allowed investigators to cross without being challenged by law enforcement, successfully simulating the cross-border movement of radioactive materials or other contraband into the United States from Canada. In one location on the northern border, the U.S. Border Patrol was alerted to GAO activities through the tip of an alert citizen. However, the responding U.S. Border Patrol agents were not able to locate GAO investigators. Also on the northern border, GAO investigators located several ports of entry that had posted daytime hours and were unmanned overnight. On the southern border, investigators observed a large law enforcement and Army National Guard presence on a state road, including unmanned aerial vehicles. Also, GAO identified federally managed lands that were adjacent to the U.S.-Mexico border. These areas did not appear to be monitored or did not have an observable law enforcement presence, which contrasted sharply with GAO observations on the state road. Although CBP is ultimately responsible for protecting federal lands adjacent to the border, CBP officials told GAO that certain legal, environmental, and cultural considerations limit options for enforcement--for example, environmental restrictions and tribal sovereignty rights. "

Seems that highlighted area would quality for my "Government for Show" file...

 

Peoplenomics: Economic Redshift

There's a whole dimension of economics that's not taught to most people, first because they'd likely go to sleep during the class, but secondly because it's a very hard concept to explain - the whole notion of how international paper money exchange works. But you can short-circuit a lot of the boredom by considering economics as an analog to the well-established principle called "redshift". In interstellar space, a star moving away from us looks more red, while a star moving toward us looks more blue. That's called blueshift by the scientifically studied. This week, we'll discuss economic redshift, which as the term implies, is what happens to economic dreams of average folks when the purchasing power of their currency moves away from them. Rather quickly, at that.

 

                    More for Subscribers      Subscription Information

 

"No More, thanks"

To get your "No Incumbents in 2008" click here.  They're just $5.  And no, that would not keep Ron Paul from running for the White House - he is not an incumbent for that office - having never held that job before, you see.

 

Pass It On

If you find the alternative contexting of major financial and global affairs presented on this site of interest, please tell your friends about it.  That way, more people will become aware of what's going on in the economy, and with more smarts, maybe we can wake up America. Click here to shake them from their sleep.  Also, if you operate a website, a link is always appreciated and I will link in return.

 

More for Less

Order our handy ebook "How to Live on $10,000 a year or less - and learn to live like a Third World person now.  It's coming anyway, with big job layoffs this summer - and by ordering now, you can beat the rush...You may have more time to read this fall if the economy falls apart as I expect...

 

Last week's report is here.

 


Thursday September 27, 2007

Was an Iran War Averted?

Probably the most interesting thing going around the 'net today is the report from Wayne Madsen's site (reproduced by the Oregon Truth Alliance) that claims those nuclear weapons on the B-52 about the beginning of the month really were really headed for Iran and a strike on Tehran's uranium enrichment project.  However, goes the report, officers in the Air Force didn't go along with the plan - and as a result the Israeli's struck (instead?) at the Syrian 'nuclear' installation - or so it seems to fit.

 

Sure, nukes are a little crude, especially when companies like Raytheon are pushing ahead with directed energy solutions for the Defense Department, but as I've explained before, the use of a nuke (or six) in Iran would be eminently deniable because any radiation released would simply be cited as proof that what was bombed was a nuclear enrichment site.  So simple, in PR terms.

 

Naturally, the whole picture/story is clouded from public view, but the idea of a procedural boner letting five/six nuclear warheads go on fly-about is pretty far fetched.  The US military doesn't have lax procedures when it comes to weapons that can touch off world war.  Sorry, the 'offishul' B-52 story is still fishy.