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Replaying 1929 "Standup Economics" This economy is a what? |
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Getting Tactical This weekend, as if you wouldn't expect it given the market's butt kicking on Friday, I'm working on some 'lines in the sand' for Peoplenomics subscribers. [Subscription information.] The reason? Next week, there's a chance one, or both, of these threshold levels could be tested and we appear to be only two technical lines away from the possibility of complete financial collapse. --- While there is still plenty of time to prepare for 'whatever it is' that's ahead for the balance of the year, an article in the Financial Post Friday demands a close read: "Forget oil, the new global crisis is food". --- Still, looking at some of the fast and slow stochastics, and the RSI's of commodities, it seems that a lot of the commodities are a bit overblown in terms of current pricing and we might be set up for a short but sharp pullback.
Although energy prices dipped on Friday, there's an interesting dynamic at play: Part of the price action will come as reaction to the oil market's workout of declining demand that accompanies a recession. On the other side, however, there's also evidence in numbers coming out that oil really did peak in late 2006/early 2007.
That's why headlines can be found saying "Oil prices remain at record high" while other headlines report that "Oil prices slip as US jobs data fans economic worries." This is oh-so-normal for a market seeking a new equilibrium point. --- While GW met with his economic players on Friday, and Wall Street was rocked by a jobs report, I couldn't help but notice that the Fed is increasing its 'special auctions' to $30-billion to keep the banksters in the black. Relief from the 30%+++ credit card bills? You're joking, right? No way the banker-class is going to do anything more than feather their own nest. You money doesn't have any friends.
Windifornia That rain and wind storm that blew through California left over a million people in the dark for various lengths of time, say reports. And further north, really crappy weather is due in Seattle through about Tuesday. Meantime, here in east Texas, mild low 70's weather is expected. It's weekends like this that I don't miss living on a sailboat at Shilshole. --- But speaking of Shilshole (the big pleasure boat marina operated by the Port of Seattle) , did you see that the Port is offering 50% off their wait-listing fee? Now, I ask you, if demand were really strong and the economy really cooking would boat slips need to be advertised and discounted? Not on any planet I've been on lately...
And judging by the posted rates, looks like there has been little movement in moorage rates since we last tied up to L dock in 2001...
So here's an economic thought for you: Are moorage rates (and the land-yacht equivalent RV park rates) a better sample of the economy than all kinds of other data out there for the asking?
The Runs While the Clinton PR machine is making the full court press in New Hampshire, and headlines abound like "Clinton Camp's Challenge: How Hard to Hit Obama?" at least a few voters are reading the headlines about how a fellow was just sentenced to three years for making illegal campaign contributions to her. I'd normally make some kind of snide remark along about here, but the facts are damning enough.
Medical Miracle A man falls 47-stories - and lives.
Arming Airliners Now, this goes back a ways, but I'm pretty sure El Al was the first airline in the world to deploy an anti-missile defense system on their passenger jets. Now, looks like some American carriers will be following suit.
DC Versus Constitution The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday on whether the District of Corruption,,, I mean Columbia, could simple legislate away rights guaranteed in the Constitution's Second Amendment to keep and bear arms. --- Couple this with trying to take away gun ownership rights from anyone even treated for PTSD, and you have what? The systematic government disarming of it's citizenry.
I suppose we could have a conversation about whether government should be afraid of its citizens (yes) or people should be afraid of their government (no), but you already have an opinion on this, and you're likely to be unmoved by anything I have to say...
Maybe that will change when you're life's retirement has been squandered by the banksters...ask yourself "Is there a fraction left in fractional reserve banking?" Hah!!! Is the word gullible in the dictionary? --- BTW, did you catch: "Forget Tupperware; it's Taser-party time"?
Software Wars
Here Comes the Sun From a NOAA email this morning:
----- snip & save section ---
Coping: Jobs, Cash, Levels Some interesting things to think about (and plan for) in varioius emails this morning.
The answer to #1 is that as far as I understand it, unemployment reports are only based on people who are actively getting unemployment payments. The logic is that if you don't have unemployment coming in, you will have found your way back into the workforce. Of course, the truth is, you may7 have taken to a life of crime or mooching off relatives, but that's 'corrected' out of the figures.
The answer to #2 is a little more complicated, but it's the ,surest way I know of to get hired in virtually any industry and regardless of economic conditions.
The approach goes like this: Most people looking for a job will go to an employer begging. "Hire me, please! I will do anything for you."
Of course, having hired lots of people, anyone coming to me saying this is immediately put into my 'this one is just hungry, and doesn't have incredibly high value to this organization' pile of resumes.
What does get you to the top of the pile is showing whoever is looking at your resume something like "I believe I can increase your companies profits by xx percent."
Everyone in business wants to make more money. So, in the interview process, don't ask them for money - be prepared to show how you being hired by the company will make ownership richer. Being Pavolvian (where the bell sounds more like a cash register) you will find that you quickly have your pick of jobs and once hired you move up the food chain - provided, oif course, that you really do your homework, research, and can deliver at least part of what you promise.
Whenever I was looking for a job, I always turned the interview from 'them' interviewing me to 'me interviewing them'. Why? Well, I'm an incredibly valuable player with lots of experience at making companies make money (or whatever your specialty is) and I always sell my value to their bottom line. It makes hiring me irresistible.
So, give it a shot. Take the five or six highest paying jobs you can find in the local paper, and then research the hell out of them. Find (if you can) some way that your experience will bring some hidden solution to the company doing the hiring. Solve their problem and believe me, they will line up to hire you.
It takes a lot of self-confidence, but if you do it often enough so that you get comfortable interviewing them instead of the other way around, you will get jobs offered; at least that's always been my experience.
Try it and let us know?
Cashless Coming Another move toward a cashless society as the Treasury plans social security debit card. Ah, remember a month or two back in Peoplenomics when I told you this would be the game? Mark of the what?
Leveling Levels When you're doing construction, here's a little known tip: Levels can be 'out of level'. The way you check is to line something up absolutely dead level (or dead vertical) and then flip the level over. If the level doesn't show the same (dead level or dead vertical) then flip the level both ways when setting a workpiece, or mark one end of the level and figure out the proper offset.
I've got a 2' plastic level that isn't dead vertical unless the bubble is at the line on one side. So, with the level marked, I can do good work.
Send along snip & save contributions to george@ure.net - anything you have in the way of a generally useful tidbit to help get through life a little easier is welcome.
--- end snip and save ---
Peoplenomics: A Defining Word for 2008 "Jumping Jehoozeldorf! That's the answer!" Why my subconscious had decided to use a middle 1960's Seattle fire house slang adaptation of "Jumping Jehosephat" to advise me that 2008 was in need of a new word to adequately describe it, while I was happily in the midst of bush hogging a new goat field Friday afternoon, will remain one of life's mysteries. But, remembering that the chief guru of predictive linguistics and I both failed to nail down the word "terrorim" in advance of the huge linguistic tipping point seen in mid 2001 (getting aspects of military and accident however), I had been rolling around what modelspace was predicting for our immediate future now. Simply labeling 2008 as the "Year of Manifestation" following 2007, the "Year of Emergence"... was not was not cutting it. That the lexicon was pushing 200,000, plus thousands of non-English words, meant the word to describe 2008 likely not been overlooked this time. Perhaps 2008 needed was its own new word - one that didn't exist until it condensed as a thoughtform, a few words before Jehoozeldorf's oddly timed return.
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The Gift that keeps on Giving! Here's a great 'zero-cost' gift exchange: I will keep getting up every morning at 5 AM to update this site so we can have our laughs and giggles at the absurdities of life, if you will tell everyone you know about this place. Fair? If you have Outlook/Express click here to send an email to someone you know telling them what a strange site you've found.
Trite but Right? What a DFQ (dumb ,freakin' question) huh? 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.
Guide to Living Cheaply 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...
Friday January 4, 2008 Beaten Brain Cells & 5% Unemployment Now that both brain cells have been beaten out of their overnight stupor by the special setting on the shower/massage head called "water cannon" I was sure I'd remember what I told Steve Quayle last night that I'd be sure and mention this morning. Was it how I was connecting the dots about the goings on at Citi where not only have ATM withdrawal limits been imposed, but we hear of more layoffs possibly to come? Was it that the linguistics team at www.halfpasthuman.com was looking for some $25-$50 up days for gold as a temporal marker as a good time to be getting (or already) out of paper assets?
Maybe it had something to do with turning some of our soon to be inflating cash into useful things - like a brand new washer and dryer, installed last night, causing me to oversleep a bit, so a super short report this morning... Or was it something else? No worries...in today's crockpot for crackpots that defines the paper asset soup we're all in, I'm sure it will come to me.
5% Unemployment Now The most important economic report out today is the employment report. But before parroting what's 'offishul' in the report, let's step back for a moment and see how the CES (current employment situation) birth/death model has been doing lately as an in-house, just between us-un's, 'reasonableness check'.
Going in to this morning's report, the CES Birth/Death Model - the government's estimate of how many jobs have been created for the year - showed more than 1-million jobs being created. I know what you're thinking: With all the layoffs in the mortgage, banking, auto, and residential construction fields, how could this be?
Amazingly, through November's report, 147,000 additional jobs had been created in construction.
But there are some dead giveaways as to whether we should believe anything in the CES report. Let's put on the thinking cap and I will show you what I mean.
Last month's CES report showed that Leisure and Hospitality were up 312,000. This feels absurd to me: People have been getting pink slipped right and left, foreclosures are going to new highs, and yet the BLS estimate would have me believe that a third of a million people found new jobs in leisure and hospitality.
How can I test this? The employment report for the previous month (Nov) said that 13,702,000 people were employed in the sector, and with 312,000 new jobs, we should see 2.27% growth in something like airline seat mileage because logically, there would be a high correlation between air travel and general activity in leisure and transportation.
The problem, however, gets murky from a statistics standpoint quickly. Having been an airline VP at one point in my career, while it's reported that "Revenue passenger-miles (RPMs), a measure of the number of passengers and the distance flown, were up 4.0 percent in the first nine months of 2007. In September, RPMs were up 5.8 percent." sounds dandy on the surface.
But, here's the catch: No doubt some of those RPM's were thanks to people burning off frequent flyer miles (which I'd assume would have to be reported as RPM's because they are not 'free' seats) and further, we'd likely see some additional RPM's flown because of bank card reward programs coming on line.
Further, the increase in RPM's has to be discounted by the average stage length which was up 1.2%, so of course, if all the butts in seats (RPM's) go 1.2% further in the reporting period, the RPM's are up 1.2%. You following this? I should probably quit this discussion and get to the point. while leisure and hospitality might look reasonable, an increase ion construction employment for the year looks dubious.
Maybe the stats are catching up to reality. For example, onstruction which showed a 3,000 job drop in November today shows a 9,000 drop in December. The body of the report continues:
Three key points to the unemployment picture:
Amazingly, I expect the Street to somehow spin this into a rally...or at least try.
Major West Coast Storm
The Runs Huckabee and Obama big winners in Iowa. John Edwards was 8 percentage points back and Hillary was down at 29%. Mike Huckabee was at 34% on the GOP side. The good doctor had 10% --- No snip and save yet...check back later for a possible update after the markets open - maybe around noon Eastern) ---
Thursday January 3, 2008 I've mentioned in the past about whether new restrictions on free inter-institution wire transfers might be a preemptive move to stem panic bank withdrawal under the guise of "security" concerns.
Today comes word Citibank has instituted new ATM withdrawal limits which although attributed to 'security' could also fit with preemptive moves in advance of more troubles in the CDO/CMO/derivatives meltdown which seems (linguistically) immediately ahead.
Cognitive Nightmare Today's caffeine-powered rap will start with the nickel version of cognitive dissonance: That's when what you 'see' is not the same as what you have been 'told'. (You don't get much for a nickel around here.)
The "What you have been told" is that the Wars are winnable and affordable, that government is looking out for your best interests, and that everything is all good and getting better including the war on inflation, poverty, housing and employment. Yessir, we couldn't be any more better off thanks to corpgov and reported by corpmedia.
On the other hand, there's enough floating around the 'net that goes contrary to the corpgov/corpmedia programming of humans that it's a little difficult to believe things are as good as 'told & sold'.
For instance, when we learn that a foreign defense contractor will be tallying the votes of the Iowa caucuses, we have to wonder why a USA-owned company isn't doing the job. Or why Iowans can't find enough people in their own citizenry to do the tally. Do we really need to outsource that? Yet, when I hit Google news this morning and read the headline:
A click the above the link earlier today offered that:
See? I don't know about you, but foreign-owned US subsidiaries doing vote counting and content control about that here in what I thought was a land of 'free speech' causes me some level of cognitive dissonance. And no, don't worry, I'd make the same point if it was a Japanese or Dubai owned company, too. The story is not about the country. This is a story about what? no paper trails. Again. I did find more about this has been reported at "The Daily Paul."
Let me say it one more time: Ignore the foreign ownership angle, my point is: No Immediate and Auditable Paper Trail from Iowa. Linguistically this is by our 'time machine' guys likely to be the leading edge of the 'unauditable' meme that pops in January. --- Still, the illusion is being sold that there's genuine 'choice' in Iowa. There's little mention of the amount of money raised by the political wannabe's, except to note that in Iowa they will be spending somewhere north of $200 per vote. $40-million is a lot of dough to spend on ads.
We have the best politicians money can buy so I suppose we deserve what we get.
Dow Drop A second front, for those suffering cognitive dissonance is the markets. In the same kind of 'happy talk' versus reality of it all,
Take the price of oil. Trading near $100 for a second day, and gold is bouncing up to well over $860 in the spot market, and maybe in a week or two we'll see $900 in the futures markets.
Now lookie here: Daimler-Chrysler just paid a $30-million in fines during 2007 for failing to hit mileage standards. Oil going up and becoming unaffordable, yet automakers are not getting the point that Americans want a decent mileage vehicle!
In the meantime, is anyone but me surprised that higher-mileage, cleaner air achieving Toyota is #1 in auto sales?
Cheekier still: When a state like California tries to get cleaner air oiut of Detroit-built vehicles, the central party (that'd be the corpgov power elite) put down their foot and say no, states don't have those kind of rights to sue over air standards. Again, while the US Civil War was nominally about slavery, an under-reported cause for it was also the matter of 'state's rights' - something which has been largely written out of history books. Central Powers don't want California to flex its muscles.
Inflation's Disconnect I could go on, too, about how the gap between 'what's real' and 'what corpmedia 'sells' is widening. I mentioned gold, and this LA Times is carrying the Bloomberg report this morning that "Gold run rolls on; nest stop $1,000?" Of course, our linguistic pals have gold going on to something more than twice that (linguistically, and no, this is not investment advice).
When I read that the "Fed signal greater growth concern, more rate-cut incentive" I have to note that all the Fed action on the planet is not going to still a boot up the butt of credit card companies that are pillaging 33% interest from those who can least afford to pay. And, when people can't, they seek nominal dollar-a-month payments in order to keep that cardholder from going into the 'nonperforming' column because therein likes economic disaster.
Don't worry, it seems linguistically to show up this year regardless.
Editorial pieces are all over the place suggesting things like "Rein in credit-card debt", and some lifestyle content demonstrates how some families are giving credit card debt the heave-ho.
But that printing press that Helicopter Ben and the Boyz are running is not bailing out the families of five who are losing their homes to foreclosures. Nope, they are bailing out the banker class. Screw those unfortunate souls who are now hide-bound to tougher bankruptcy laws and are being (this is harsh) screwed by a freight train with unrelenting interest rate payments. The relief goes to the upper crust and the whole middle class of America, judging by forum posts is being pressurized and pissed.
\This is all a battle lost 30+ years ago when the bankster lobbies systematically went around the country and defeated groups like the old Washington State Labor Council which had successfully (for a while) imposed a 12% usury law in Washington State. We can still put those back in place, if any state lawmakers are left who haven't gone to the banker trough and understand their real power and can hear their voter mandate! --- Whew, better let the blood pressure come down a bit after that...but this is VOTING time and we need to hold the tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumb parties accountable for the collapse of formerly Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and get back to the values of the Framers of the Constitution. This is the time for peaceful revolution via the voting booth to prevent the more dangerous kind.
Hosing Fall to Continue? While the mortgage banking association reports that the mortgage applications index fell 12% last week, the mini-bubble in New York City is still going strong, and since times are good there, what happens to folks outside the bankster bubble seems not to matter. --- Linguistically, the bad news about commercial real estate should be out in a couple of months.
Wind-borne Natural Disaster? Could it be bird flu? H5N1 reports are coming out of Binyamina, Israel, Vietnam, Egypt, and the list is growing. --- What you need to be reading to getg ready is www.pandemicflu.gov and read what the banking business is planning by reading the "Interagency Statement on Pandemic Planning. "
You need to be able to stay home for 10-weeks. 14-is better. Got a mortgage payment saved up?
(no snip and save this morning - check tomorrow)
Wednesday January 2, 2007 Special Update: Fed Notes, Gold, Oil OK, so gold has blown past its old $850 high as I told you it would. Now, it's a matter of how long to get to the inflation-adjusted plateau which would put the 'yellow dog' at $2100+. And yes, oil popped over $100 for a while in the futures and then market is not taking this and the release of the Fed minutes well: They are here.
The real dime-bet-on-the-side is which side of 13,000 the market will close on. And, if not lower today, when this week?
When I read headlines like "U.S. Manufacturing Sector Contracts" followed by the sub-heading: "U.S. Manufacturing Unexpectedly Contracts After 10 Monthly Gains, Lowest Since April 2003" I have to ask myself who can claim to be an economist and not have seen this coming? I mean any group purporting to be responsible economists would have to be collected idiots not to figure out that a) we're already in a recession and the only question is whether we get out of it by slipping into Depression first and blow up the whole paper asset bubble that has been the crack-pipe of global corporate cannibalism first.
But, hey, don't let that drive any of your personal decisions. Sheesh!! You go for all the paper you can eat. A few of our readers professing a preference for Gold, Grub, Gold and Guns (the 4-G strategy) seem unsurprised by the action, although our own 6-C strategy seems comfortable, too: Constitution, Computer, Crops, Consumables, Chow, and Chi.
Sinking Bucks? The buck bounced off the 0.68 Euro level this morning when I looked. Gold was briefly up $15. Silver traded briefly over $15. Are you able to connect dots coherently this morning?
One of the items that really sticks out in the predictive linguistics work from the mic shy fellows www.halfpasthuman.com is the notion that we are now wrapping up wave one of an economic decline, and we may get something of a breather in 2008, during which time we'll be recovering from natural disasters (wind-centered), and then (come fall) the rest of the world economy begins to decline in a synchronized global collapse. Whew!
This week, you can bet your last dollar, that the world's money peddlers will be watching headlines like "Dollar declines as report may show U.S. Manufacturing Slowed" with fingers ready to hit more sell orders.
At the same time, there are headlines that China's currency has just hit a new high against the dollar which leads to a couple of inescapable conclusions. First, the talk that comes from the politicos now and then about a "Strong Dollar Policy" is pretty much creative fiction and 2) anything coming from China is likely to start going up in price seriously - especially if the dropping dollar meme digs in as expected.
Remember, Denmark's Saxo Bank is predicting a 25% drop in the S&P and as much as a 40% drop in China's stock market. (Note the link is to a Middle East media outlet picking up the story...) So although it's not something we like to think about, it's probably appropriate to think about some of the impacts.
Coast to Coast AM Notes Click here for the pdf of the notes. I will be going over the 2008 outlook tonight on the Steve Quayle Show, too.
Gold Up With the weakness in the US Buck this morning, I don't suppose I need to tell you that gold is poised to take out the old $850 level.
Nor, should I have to direct you to the inflation calculator in the left menu, to figure out that since its all-time high in 1980 of $850,m simply correcting for inflation since there would put gold over $2,100 per ounce. That could be only the start of fireworks. If the dollar gets cut down far enough, no reason why $8-thousand, or more, per ounce isn't possible.
Is that advice? Nope. We've been in since $273 for gold and under $7 for silver, which I'm hoping to see spike to over $50 this year; again depending on how far 'down is' for the buck. --- A C2C listener asked me last night about whether I thought she should move some of her money out of this retirement account, or that. I don't give advice unless it's one-on-one consulting. But, I really focus on business model optimization for small businesses (companies under $10-million/year).
On the other hand, I don't have any problem telling you what our holdings are. Minimal debt, precious metals, farmland, etc. You've got to make your own decisions and own them. --- And speaking of owning your investments, take John Crudele's 2008 investment quiz in the NY Post.
I won't give you all the answers here, but everyone who reads this site knows the answer to question #2 has something to do with the old saying "As goes January, so goes the year..."
DUDAQ? Borse Dubai to acquire stake in NASDAQ says the headline. A double entendre might be to label this "Do buy us..." but it's too early for such humor, so moving right along....
Elections Delayed Pakistan is postponing elections in the wake of the Bhutto murder. --- Speaking of which, the conventional wisdom is that Bhutto was killed by extremists because of her ability to fight terrorism and because she was about to spill the beans on election rigging. Maybe. BUT here's a WOW! for you: In an interview with David Frost last month, Bhutto let on that Osama bin laden has been murdered.
If you have the "I didn't know that!" reaction, there's probably a reason: Without an Osama, the case for the WOT weakens a bit and the PTB have to keep that going because it's helping the economy muddle through current weakness.
Volcano in Chile Hot It's Llaima in southern Chile. --- Also, speaking of chilly: Snow in Daytona Beach? Maybe...
Defending the Paradigm
Chips Down @ Qualcomm Federal judge steps in to the phone chip maker fray. --- Also on the tech front - a good outlook on the fate of the open source movement in the coming year on a CNET blog this morning.
Laugh, You Monkey Orangutans, say researchers, have behaviors that are similar to laughter. Not sure if they exhibit that behavior when they are read reports about the caucuses and primaries, but we certainly do. --- If other, more widely read sites can peddle this candidate, or that, let me ask you to call everyone you know in New Hampshire and Iowa and put in a word with them about the good doctor.
The Libretto: Construction spending out at 10 AM, Fed minutes out at 2 PM (all times Eastern). The real issue is whether 13,000 can be held this week. --- I'm going back to bed - all night radio is not a normal human activity.
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Coping: Is that you, Herb? Best entry today is this super-short guide to some of the major herbs that you might want to have around the house:
The only problem I have with catnip is that after ingesting some, I feel compelled to push my mouse around... A few old hippie friends have told me it's like smoking the you-know-what, too, but I wouldn't know about such things and would never recommend it for off label use. Cats and tea only.
Around the Ranch: Fencing Lessons Either today, but more likely tomorrow, we'll put in another 30 (or so) steel 'tee' posts and get ready to open up another 3-4 acres of munching space for the goats. A couple of friends have offered that putting in fence can be darned near dangerous, especially if you're doing the installation with a sledge hammer.
An unsolicited word of advice? Don't use a hammer. Instead, what you do is run down to Tractor Supply or the local farm store and pick yourself up a "Deluxe Post Driver". This little gadget weighs in at around 20 pounds or so, and after slamming 20-30 posts into the earth in these parts, which is like John Henry driving steel into rock for blasting charges, you'll quickly develop an understanding of why desk-bound city slickers ought to leave farmers alone, especially if they're minding their own business.
The most common mistake I've seen made (regrettably even around these parts) is that people have forgotten how useful some plain old string is. When spacing out posts (every 8') or trying to set them all so that the bottom of the white top of the fence post is at exactly 48 inches for four-foot fence, a lot of folks carry a tape measure or a couple of sticks, one 4' and one 48".
This is really a lot of extra work. If you try an 8' string on one of the fence post pou7nder handles with a loop on the end, and a 48" piece ofa string with a weight on it to the other handle, you're all ready to drive posts without wasting all the energy that gets used up on measuring with sticks, tapes and so forth.
One other thing: When you buy that dream homestead some day, and get a weed whacker to keep grass down around your fence line, buy the largest spool of refillable bulk weed whacking line you can. Before you ever get a 1000' foot roll used up, youi ought to be able to put in miles of fencing. A spool I bought last year has been ideal for long runs, is bright orange so you can see iet - and strong enough so that it won't break.
If you ever get fencing done let me know.
There are two goat jokes worth passing along.
]First is the saying "If youi know a man with no problems, buy him a goat."
The second is how to build a proper goat fence.
You start by putting T post in every two feet. On the outside, you put in regular field wire. On the inside, you put in 4" goat and sheep fence. Then, after that's done, yoiu put in nine strands of barbed wire.
It may sound excessive, but to test it, youi get a cup of water and throw it at the fence. If any of the water gets through, so will the goats. --- One of Elaine's boys who's been visiting over the holidays came in and asked: "Is there any way to get the fence posts really perfectly straight?" Yup.
Practice. ---
OK, click here to send in your coping tips or send to george@ure.net...
--- end snip & save ---
Tuesday January 1, 2008 Spreading Risk in 2008 Although this is a holiday, and I wouldn't normally write a column, choosing to treat it more like Sunday and a day off, events suggest otherwise. I have gotten a large number of emails from people centering around a few main questions:
1) What time are you on Coast to Coast AM tonight with Ian Punnett: 11:30 PM Pacific, 1:30 Eat Texas Time. I think.
2) What was the best investment a person could have in 2007 and what do you think about 2008?
The answer here is a little complicated, which I'll get to as soon as I remind you that I do not offer financial advice. This site is about news analysis and projection of future events mainly economic in scope.
That said, a reader sent in this:
Yeah, I'm sorry to report that a lot of sites are showing the NASDAQ was the
"best" investment to have made a year ago. But, I too have been
punished by only seeing our gold holdings go up 31% for the year - and
worse, our commodity account opened at mid-year is only up more than 3-times
what we started with, and ag land has been a pleasant exception so far to
falling real estate prices in urban areas. I've said this before, but I'll say it again: "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got." In other words, if you see that paper assets are in the midst of a potential calamitous change, why not consider putting something away for the future that is non-financial in nature. In other words, invgest in skills, and things that can make useful consumables?
If you suspect that we will see horrific food price inflation, especially if oil goes to $175 a barrel, or more, why not put in a garden and grow at least some of your own food? For that matter, if you read about how oil could do a moon shot, why not change out your car to one that gets at least 30 MPG? Or, move closed to your place of work? Or, get serious about ride-sharing programs.
My point is that you actually are empowered to some degree to choose the kind of future you wish. The only thing you need to do is form up your own well-reasoned opinion about the future and what it holds and then act on it.
I'm not saying that stocks are 'bad'. It's just that many investment options today are not really 'investments' in the production of goods and services, so much as they are investments in other investments. I'm not sure when it happens, although it may be underway right now, but at some juncture we get to the point where the absolute last dollar has been printed and there's no more piling on of debt. When that happens, believe me, paper is the last thing you'll want to be holding. Food, water, a paid-for place to sleep; things like that can become vastly more important.
Meantime, not all financial media are reporting the NASDAQ as the Big Winner of 2008. The Financial Times reports that "Gold within Strike Distance of record."
Something I should probably mention to Ian tonight is that if we take the all-time high for gold and just ball park it as $850 in 1980, and then plug in the Fed's own inflation numbers (link to the CPI inflation calculator is over in the left menu somewhere), it argues for $2,128 gold.
Do I think it will stop other? ROFLOL - hardly. But, then again, I have a little different view of the future thanks to the predictive linguistics over at www.halfpasthuman.com If you need a simple explanation of how that works, click here.
3) A number of readers are asking how personal debts are likely to work out in 2008. Here's a sample:
This is an extremely important question. First, ifr there's any way in the world to get out of credit card debt, do it as soon as you can. Credit card debt is a life wrecker. Even with low teaser rates, most cards have triggers which put you into an unwinnable situation by imposing interest at a greater than 30% annual rate if you even miss a payment.
Until now, the banks and other credit card operators have been able to get away with this because they would pressure people with credit card debt to consolidate all of their debts and go bite off on a huge HELOC (home equity line of credit) which would essentially steal accumulated home equity to pay off the credit cards.
Failing that, they have phone rooms all over the globe which harrasss people day and night and deamnd payment be made. After a while, and when the debt gets large enough, they will offer to make a settlement with the credit card user, for whatever they can get.
The banks don't want to have you stop paying because if you do, your credit card debt goes into a category called "non-performing" and that has repercussions to the collateralized debt paper market. So, if you pay even a few bucks, technically your credit card bill is not 'non-performing' and they will keep trying to dance with you.
At some point, one they compound enough of those interest payments, though, they will have a large enough sum owned to them that they will come after your home, or anything else that you hold which has some value they can squeeze out of you.
While it's true that at some point, the banks will not be able to handle the flow or credit card payment refuseniks, at some point the system will be swamped, the whisper that $1 dollars payments are keeping huge amount of CDO debt from being repriced because so much of it has gone 'non-performing', that it will all become just another milestone in the 2008 crashcade scenario.
That's why I have taken the personal stand to get - and stay- debt-free, because in 2008, if we get into a 'crashcade' scenario as I outlined in the Peoplenomics.com report this week (click here for that) the whole US economy could 'go Argentina' and it won't be pretty.
Like the WOPR computer in the movie War Games advised: ""A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
Can't Say the D Word While I may seem a bit pessimistic on the surface, I'm really incredibly optimistic because with a collapse of a paper currency comes a one-in-a-lifetime chance to really increase your personal net worth. Bot in financial terms and in 'servi8ce to others'.
Curiously, even when people talk about what would in all likelihood work out as a "Greater Depression" or a "Crashcade" most mainstream economists won't use the 'D' word - as in Depression.
More typical is the Times Online headline: "Top economist says America could plunge into recession." Like we're not there , already? So, just how long, and how deep does a recession have to be before it's 'offishullly' labeled a Depression?
Global Whating? You might want to break out your copy of Robert Felix's "Not by Fire but by Ice": New Hampshire has just set an all time snowfall record. --- While the evidence continues to accumulate that much of what has been 'sold' as global warming is really from off-planet causes, you should realize that the next sun cycle may have started early... --- Record snowfalls and a Southeast Desert are not likely to stop the group-think on climate. But, every time you read headlines like "Harvesting carbon latest moneymaking farm crop", remember our dictum: "Follow The Money" (FTM).
Last time I penciled out the numbers, carbon credits weren't going to give individual farmers that much money - we reckon our spread here in East Texas would get about $1 per acres if we sold the carbon credits and were dumb enough to lock up the use of our land for 10-years.
So how much does a carbon credit trade for? About $4 per credit. And so, you're thinking, where is the other $3 going? Middlemen! Financiers! Profiteers! And other minions of the PTB that have been busily molding a 'group-think' about farming and warming. It sets the stage for an environmental/governmental/collectivization of food production. But, of course, all in the name of 'saving the planet'.
Like the satellite internet commercial says: "Is that cool, or what?" Just another way to gore the private ownership rights in corpgov/new think America.
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Coping: Composting Cardboard A reader sends this:
Oh boy, what a marketing nightmare: toilet paper coming 'pre-browned'.
Vista Issue? Another contributor offers this:
Sounds like this may be a Vista configuration issue. What I do with the snip and saves is copy them into a Word doc and then print from word. Word will (sometimes, no warranties here) switch to HTML and save the links and such.
Emergency Communications Another reader asks:
Simply solved: See my ham radio starter page: http://www.urbansurvival.com/hamradio/ The ARRL's annual Straight Key Night (SKN) is on until this evening, so if you hear AC7X pound slow speed CW with a straight key on the lower end of 20 meters today, please give me a buzz.
If you have suggestions or ideas that can help people cope with any kind of modern-day stresses, please click here to send them along or email them to george@ure.net.
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Around the Ranch: New Years Eve We headed up to the local honky-tonk to bring in the new year up at Bootleggers on the southern edge of Tyler Texas last night.
You know what's great about an East Texas country joint? Live music with $0.25 well drinks and $0.25 beers. Yessir, don't get much better than that. Your truly had presactly one beer though and spent the rest of the night sipping club soda, being the designated driver.
The Texas law enforcement people were at the door watching the partiers exit in order to pick off the most dangerous - a fine thing. But an incredibly well-behaved group and a pleasure to call the Piney Woods home.
Monday December 31, 2007 A Year End Present Partly because I was up late last night talking with a friend who's between 'full battle rattle' deployments (Iraq first, Afghanistan shortly), and partly because I seldom do it, I thought a nice way to wrap up 2007 with would be give away - free - this week's edition of Peoplenomics - the $40/year subscription newsletter I write.
Besides which, now and then I will get an email from someone saying "Hey! How can I get a sample of what goes on over at the Peoplenomics site, to see if I really want to subscriber?" Well, here you go. The good people who subscribe are what make www.urbansurvival.com, the mirror site www.independencejournal.com, and www.peoplenomics.com all possible.
If, after reading the the free sample you feel compelled to subscribe, please click here for instructions.
It may take a day or two for me to get it set up, so please be patient. Once into the site, there are more than 300 back issues to catch up on, so plan on spending some reading time...
One other note: I will be on Coast to Coast AM with Ian Punnett for a few minutes (late) tomorrow night. Cliff of www.halfpasthuman.co\m has given me permission to 'spill the beans' a bit about what may be ahead in 2008 - and I don't mean the beans of the house blend kind. So,. if you're up, please feel free (or at least low priced enough) to join us.
OK, awake yet? Here's this week's Peoplenomics report. Enjoy. Oh! And, should you end up voting early in 2008, remember where you heard it first... ---
Peoplenomics Free Sample Issue --- A Defining Word for 2008 "Jumping Jehoozeldorf! That's the answer!" Why my subconscious had decided to use a middle 1960's Seattle fire house slang adaptation of "Jumping Jehosephat" to advise me that 2008 was in need of a new word to adequately describe it, while I was happily in the midst of bush hogging a new goat field Friday afternoon, will remain one of life's mysteries. But, remembering that the chief guru of predictive linguistics and I both failed to nail down the word "terrorim" in advance of the huge linguistic tipping point seen in mid 2001 (getting aspects of military and accident however), I had been rolling around what modelspace was predicting for our immediate future now. Simply labeling 2008 as the "Year of Manifestation" following 2007, the "Year of Emergence"... was not was not cutting it. That the lexicon was pushing 200,000, plus thousands of non-English words, meant the word to describe 2008 likely not been overlooked this time. Perhaps 2008 needed was its own new word - one that didn't exist until it condensed as a thoughtform, a few words before Jehoozeldorf's oddly timed return.
Word Up If you've been fortunate enough not to let your schooling get in the way of your education, you might already know that a person's knowledge of words broadly defines the limits of their thinking. Just as a native from the interior of New Guinea might not understand Western high tech word groupings like "1080-P high def television", we would likely be just as ill-at-ease confronted with some jungle creature which is known to the native as a single grunted word carrying a whole ancestral body of knowledge of the critter. The technocentric Westerner would fall back on words they already know in order to generate an adequate series of descriptors. It might be "spidery-like grey thingie with 14 legs, 2 pincers, and what looks like a tail that could sting - I wonder if it would be fatal?"
We hold our high def TV language to be superior to the native fellow, but given a different setting, each of us - PC driver or jungle native falls captive to Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
So that's where I was with 2008: A good sense of the events that seemed likely, yet at the same time not happy with a term like "manifesting". It fails to take in the whole scope, breadth, agony, rebellion, famine, death, and depression of what's seemingly ahead. Manifesting doesn't even get close. Just too....tame; too manageable.
But a new word might. And, if events happen is just a certain way, the word could spread like wildfire. Or, as the Korn cover of the earlier Cameo song put it "Everybody say: When you hear the call you got to get it under way Word up."
Crashcade Complex systems are really robust - up until a certain point. I've referred many times to Joseph Tainter's theory that once past that 'certain point', things begin to fall apart rapidly. In Tainter's own words:
Tainter, of course, never used the word "crashcade" that I'm aware of. His studies were of mostly ancient peoples who ran out of things like water, food, or were hit with a succession of adverse events from which their societies could not recover. Although only 231 years old, most Americans would like to believe that we have finally built a society that will have historical persistence.
Other societies are not quite so convinced of their 'manifest destinies" as we are. Although the Chinese are at the moment ascendant in global affairs, they has been through enough rises, and falls, over some 5,000 years of history, that they harbor few such grand illusions. Beat-downs of historical proportions do teach people things. At about one twentieth of China's cultural age, we seem unwilling as a country to admit that any natural disaster could force a rethinking of our place in the world.
But what if 2008 bring multiple, simultaneous disasters?
A Hypothetical Crashcade How many 'hits' would the US be able to sustain at once and continue operating in a 'business as usual' way?
One, or two would almost certainly be sustainable, but what if we have four or five big events thrust on the country all at once? What might be those events? Are precursors to be found in today's headlines?
One candidate, which we've been over before, is the pending further collapse of the US dollar. Despite scattered optimism that problems will be solved, there's sound reason for concern. The US continues to spend more than it produces, and although the rate at which we are sinking into the quicksands of international debt have slowed momentarily, the fact is that we are still going deeper in debt at the rate of about 5.5% of our GDP each year. And that doesn't count private financial instruments that are blowing up.
Although you'll sometimes see headlines going to the idea "Will 2008 be a turning point for the dollar?" a cooler assessment would suggest that as long as we're spending more than we make, the pressure on the dollar will continue to increase. That's pretty simple, right?
Where we see the first beginnings of the 2008 crashcade, is that the collapse of the Housing Bubble in the US has already unleashed a further revaluing of the dollar - downward - that will pop into consciousness early in the new year. Last week, banks were borrowing $4.83 billion a day from the Fed to stay afloat.
If you think of the first round of the dollar's decline as being driven by excessive foreign trade deficits & the subprime mess, meaning the balance of trade and the printing up of government securities and CDO/CMO debt which were sold all over the planet to cover our bills, the second revaluation of the dollar will be driven by the Housing Bubble asset collapse forcing a further downward valuation of foreign held collateralized real estate (and other) debt.
Absent the bailouts that have been cobbled together since late August, we would already be in bank runs and failures of money-center banks in the USA. But, that may come anyway, since once the dollar passes some unknowable level against the market basket of currencies, its value could quickly be halved or even quartered as foreign debt-bond holders revalue their all their dollar-denominated holdings based on the combination of falling US asset values, illiquidity of more and more paper 'assets' and a falling exchange rates.
It has the potential on its own to spiral - sort of like a thermal runaway condition in a nuclear power plant. Once the cooling water in a reactor starts to boil out of control, things hit the fan quickly. It might be manageable in isolation, but the world isn't going to work that way in 2008.
The Energy Crashcade With all of these foreign-held debt instruments being repriced, and the pressure mounting on the dollar, the price of oil, at least seen domestically, will have to go skyward beginning early in the new year. Not that oil is going much of anywhere, except as dictated by Peak Oil and huge emerging market demand from consumer start-up economies funded by our outsourcing, anyway, it will just make headlines.
The reason oil goes through the roof (and beyond) is that if the dollar drops to 50% of today's values, we will have to give twice as many dollars (or more) to buy a barrel of oil. And that means the price of gasoline will double and, along with that, the largest component in food prices is what? Hint: Comes out of a pump. So, look for grain prices and what you pay at the grocery store to at least double in 2008.
Then positive feedback sets in: Higher food prices mean the rate of foreclosures will go up again, and as that happens, what do you suppose will happen to the value of housing debt instruments? They will drop!
OK, and as the value of the housing debt instruments drops - again - what will happen to the purchasing power of the dollar? Right: Down she goes again.
And that means what happens to oil? Well, it doubles again. Except this time it goes from $200 to $400 a barrel, and the rate of foreclosures goes up again, starting the cycle anew.
The Natural Disaster Crashcade As dire as it sounds, it actually can get worse. Lots worse. Suppose for a moment that rains don't fall again in 2008 in the quickly evolving desert Southeast.
Mussels, or not, the Chattahoochee River flow could be reduced to the point where a decision will have to be made whether to make power or have available drinking water.
Assuming that Atlanta's four million (or so) residents don't want to go thirsty, there's a fair chance that Alabama's Joseph M. Farley nuclear plant on the Chattahoochee would have to be closed down for a lack of cooling water.
So as that nuke plant and those 13 dams start coming offline, there's another crashcade for you: Energy. The power will have to be made up somehow, and either natural gas, or diesel-fired generation is one of the few candidates. And where does that money come from? Answer: It gets printed.
Printing more money/offering debt instruments dilutes what? It waters down the value of all the US dollar debt even further. Resulting in another downward pressure wave on the dollar as those overseas instruments are again repriced.
It's a cycle we won't be able to (stand by for bad pun warning) buck.
The Political Crashcade Noticing that gasoline prices are up to $12 a gallon, and the power seems to be going out more often, and people are moving out of the Southeast at record rates, while banks are still not selling vacant homes that have been foreclosed on, the national political picture begins to deteriorate as more and more people begin to see that neither of the two "official parties" will be able to quickly respond to the genuine needs of the people. Worried corpgov types quickly move to criminalize even speaking of dissent - already in the works with HR1955, which singles out the internet for government control:
Evidence will be discovered that the same people who couldn't get water to the Super Dome for five days are even less capable when it comes to coping with massive population movement out of the New Desert and quadrupling of food and energy prices. With or without the net, email and texting will provide end runs around government news control.
Two critical things seem likely at this juncture. The first would be another round of 'secrets revealed' wherein we might expect that some deep insider will feel compelled as a human to come out with some shocking revelations that could range from secrets about the Powers That be having a plan to bankrupt the country in order to steal the retirement wealth of Americans, or it could be something as outlandish as secrets about alien involvement with America's ruling class of so-called leaders; virtually all of which are owned by the same corrupt money masters that tried to screw the world out of its wealth after squandering what was once the world's juggernaut economy.
Neutered and broke, secrets leaking out all over, political figures begin to disappear. Resignations fly faster than secrets are revealed, until finally, in a bunker-siege mindset, what's left of the Washington DC control apparatchik tries to declare martial law to enforce the will of the bankers, who are sitting on all those foreclosed homes. But, they will prove no match for the millions who will be marching on Washington and state capitols demanding change - not at the November elections, but right now in mid-2008.
And So It Crashcades Once again, the people overseas holding American debt paper will be forced to look at their holdings and ask "Is this any more than paper with ink on it now that America is fraught with civil disorder and what sure looks from over here in (fill in the offshore financial center of your choice) like a country going into revolution?"
The answer coming into focus tends toward "No, this really is just paper and ink..." and again, the repricing sequence of American financial instruments renews. Only this time, it is now down to 10th of its former value and oil just passed $1,000 a barrel and gasoline is up to $60 a gallon, but of course no one can find it.
As the cities burn in early summer, I expect the remainder of the US government's powers behind the thrown will attempt to launch a North American Currency. Likely: It won't work. The country will be too divided by then. It will be Argentina, but less orderly, more firepower, and decidedly more dangerous.
Despite current efforts by the powers that be, sneaking legislation through Congress to disarm anyone who has ever been treated for post traumatic stress syndrome, using the bribes of PTSD benefit payments, while not disclosing that it's a reason to bar firearm ownership.
The Gunowners of America is the only national group I'm aware of that is actively trying to prevent legislation now pending which could disarm as many as a third of returning American soldiers. The /spinmeisters in DC, having taken the Virginia Tech massacre and spun it into the theft of rights from people who had nothing to do with the event. But, that too,. may come to the fore as still more secrets are revealed.. The anger spirals out of control.
With the political crisis evolving, tax payments slow and government at all levels find they no longer can provide regular services once taken for granted. Government attempts to seize the media amidst martial law.
The lights are now mostly off, the five states of the Southeast are infernos, the water runs in big cities only sometimes, garbage piles up, and early parole programs appear as prison guards discover they can't afford to work on their meager salaries. Those getting out of prisons will long for safer days back inside.
And now, once again, the asset repricing overseas takes place, such that this time, oil goes to $2,000, and then $4,000, and $10,000 a barrel. The dollar collapse is complete, the world in shambles and no one will sell anything to the USA. The last of the lights goes out. Starvation and genocide appear in urban areas.
As the violence is flaring out of control in all major cities, in Washington an alliance of foreclosed upon housing victims teams up with disarmed veterans and simply reforms government, vowing to return to Constitutional values, including sound money; the abandonment of which will be seen in retrospect as the fundamental reason for the country's crashcade.
A Crashcade Mindset This is not to say that such a sequence of events will occur, only that they might. You will please notice that I describe systemic catastrophic calamity on multiple simultaneous fronts including economic, energy, and environmental, without reference to pandemic flu.
If I had, we'd be set up for a crashcade just on the bird flu alone in 2008. The federal government has already telegraphed its fears in this regard:
Depending on where we are with the rest of the crashcade process, a pandemic, or plausibly denial deliberate triage of the global population by reengineered disease would just make things worse. Or would they? Sick people don't eat, don't riot, and a good portion of them die. Living in semi-isolation could become highly desirable. --- As we enter 2008, our mindset will continue to be watchful preparation and contingency planning to reinforce our self-sufficiency in order to be able to take care of those we hold most dear.
In the final hours of 2007, we're weighed down by the concern that each day it doesn't rain in Atlanta, or each time the power fails, or we read about another bank going to the trough for a multi-billion dollar bailout, that any of these events could be the final straw that kicks us over into the second Depression, coming sooner than later as the Great Crashcade.
But, Jumpin' Jehoozeldorf, we sure hope not. -----
The Peoplenomics Weekly ChartPack
Commodity Account: Closed positions July 6, 2007: Bought one December Gold Call GCZ7- $750 Call @ $450.00 July 20, 2007: Sold one December Gold Call GCZ7 - $750 Call @ $800.00 (Gross gain: $350) July 20, 2007: Bought two August Gold Puts GCQ7 - $675 Put @ $160 each ($320) (extremely high risk) July 27, 2007: Sold two August Gold Puts August 675's @ $470 each ($940) (Gross gain: $620) July 27, 2008 Bought 10 Oct gold $750 calls @$100 each Sept. 6, 2007: Sold 8 October $750 gold calls at $140 each option ($1120) (Gross gain: $320) Sept. 10, 2007 Bought 2 Mar 08 Corn 410 calls at $500 each. Sept. 20, 2007 Sold 2 Mar 08 Corn 410 calls at $950 each. (Gross gain: $900) Sept. 20, 2007 Sold 2 October $750 calls at $200 each (Gross gain: $200) Sept. 21, 2007: Bought 2 Gold $720 October puts at $130 each. (short term 'what the hell' trade) September 27, 2007: Gold $750 calls expired worthless. Can't win them all. October: In and out of Corn (still have to find the slips on this, but it was a gain of about $100 Week of December 17: Sold the wheat option for $3,500
July 18, 2007: Bought three December Silver Call SIZ7-$20 Call @ $100 each ($300) September 27, Bought three silver January 17 calls (have to look up the price later and post it) November 2, 2007 Bought one March 2007 $10 call option, Wheat at $631.25 (gross) Week of December 17, bought 4 July coffee call options - about $2800 in, some cash left in the account to load up on another one or two if prices fall. Or, maybe pick up an out-of-the-money summer gold option to play the possible continued/catastrophic fall of the US dollar.
Stock Account: Closed positions July 27,2007 Bought to open 10 WAG Aug 07 $45 Calls (WAGHI) @ $90/contract ($900 ex coms/fees) August 7, 2007 Sold to close 10 WAG Aug 07 $45 Calls (WAGHI) @ $80/contract ($800 ex coms/fees, $100 loss) August 8, 2007 Bought to open 1 SXYUM Sept 1365 S&P Put at $920 (ex comms/fees) August 13, 2007 Sold to close 1 SXYUM Sept 1365 S&P Put at $1,820 (ex comms/fees, $900 profit) August 14, 2007 Bought to open 2 SXZHI Sept 1445 S&P Call at $9.50 ea. (ex comms/fees) August 15, 2007 Sold to close 2 SXZHI Sept 1445 S&P Calls at $2.05 ea. ((ex comms/fees, $1,490 loss ) (Trading lesson: When web bots say "Panic is due" in a period, don't be long based on a track with 1987!!!) 8/17/2007 Bought to open 2 SPTUE September 1125 S&P Put @ $2.20 each (ex comms/fees) Barring a miracle, this ends the experiment in stock puts. Thanks, intervention! 9/21/2007: the puts expired worthless. Stock account empty for this go-round.
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Coping: Common Sense About Health Care A reader who is a chiropractor in the Pacific Northwest send along this guide, which I found to be just dandy:
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News from Elliott
Wave International
An explanation of this chart
Once upon a time, a long while ago, I observed during my quest for 'truth' in economics, that the powers That Be, the talking heads on the teeve, and the other information sources that actively engage in the programming of humans not to think, had conveniently swept several trillions of dollars that disappeared in the Internet Bubble's bursting (since spring 2000) under the rug. Surely, it wasn't unnoticed by the thousands of people who called brokers and said "Where is my money?" "Gone, but hang in there as you're a long term investor!" was about all they heard back.
But, the truth of the matter is that this chart shows what your account would look like if you have taken a few thousand dollars and invested equal amounts in the Dow, the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ Composite in the waning days of 1999. It's not a very pretty picture, and it sort of gives away the other side of the story. You know, the one that no one has an interest in telling, because it's a truth which shows the amazing coincidence of the timing of 9/11, the disappearance of naked shorting evidence and all, along with the impact of The Wars which have managed to keep the economy out of an earlier depression than the one expected by me by late 2008.
No, it's not a perfect replay of 1929, but history doesn't repeat exactly, it only rhymes. So think of this as the rhymes and the crimes chart:
Write when you get rich,
George Ure, The People's Economist
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Free Financial News updated daily except Sundays. UrbanSurvival.com is
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· Bulletins are posted as our work schedule permits and as events warrant. · We try to publish MondaySaturday by 8 AM Central Time/ 9 AM Eastern with 7:55 Central pretty normal. If you're easily offended by the occasional typo, then check about 8:15 Central we usually proofread and spellcheck after the first post. We've had some amusing typos in the past... · Financial and news judgments of the publisher are not to be considered "advice" · Please read and understand our disclaimer · All original content (C) 2007 by George A. Ure. · Copyright of all linked articles is cited under fair use as this is a topic specific site (long wave economics and humanistic economics, which we call "Peoplenomics"
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Figure
4.1. Diminishing returns to increasing complexity (after Tainter
1988). 
