Published Monday through Friday about 8 AM Central Time Except Holidays Depending on my mood...

 

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"Problematic" 2012?

Something caught my eye t'other day in an email from the time monks up at www.halfpasthuman.com.  They sent along this really interesting story out of  Belgium that began...

"20-tal Belgen vluchten" BRUSSEL - 8 januari 2009 - Een groep Belgische individuen zijn van plan hun maatschappelijke status en materiële verworvenheden achter zich te laten, en plannen een ultieme vlucht op het internet. De groep bestaat uit zowel mannen als vrouwen tussen de 20 en 40 jaar.

Which is their way of saying something like...

"Some 20 Belgians plan their escape" BRUSSELS - January 8th, 2009 - A group of Belgian individuals plan to leave their social and material status behind, according to their ultimate escape plan they prepare on the internet. The group consists of man and women between 20 and 40 age old."

Ah..bogslife (beyond organizational & governmental structures is going global...is that my point, you're thinking?  Or, that 'survivalism' is a contagious way of thinking?

 

Well, yes...and no. 

 

The 'no' part gets scary because the part that really dropped my jaw was this:

"Today NASA keeps precise track of the North pole traveling South, and they admit that the speed of the North Pole´s acceleration increased dramatically the last few years. Furthermore, NASA recently confirmed there will be a `problematic weakening´ of the Earth's protective magnetic field around 2012.."

Whoa, Cowboy!  Say what?  I started to scratch my head and wonder "What do they mean by a problematic weakening"?  "...around 2012..."???

 

Go with me on this:  This 'problematic 2012' weakening seems to be something the insiders know about and this could be just the leading edge of a disclosure of something much m uch bigger coming down the timeline towards us.

 

And then I about fell over today when I happened across the FoxNews story headlined "Powerful Solar Storm could shut down U.S. For Months".

 

I don't claim to be a 'dot connector' extraordinaire, but seems to me that this could be the tipping of the elite's hand a bit to the watchful observer.  Play it through as many times as I have in my mind, I don't see a solar event shutting down the 'U.S. For Months" as any kind of a happy, peaceful, vacation kind of event. 

 

I got to thinking about about the impacts on transportation, energy, and food production, possibly right down to the farm-level, and I thought "You know, this preparedness stuff makes sense at some level if you want to maintain personal independence doesn't it?"

 

For now this 2012 stuff is problematic (Which I'd take to mean debatable).  But, as we've seen in many disclosures in the past, this is how a leading edge of a big change-state could be introduced into the thinking of society, so we'll have some degree of focus on the way this rolls out.

 

Sure You Want Change?

We've been talking about how the tearing apart of the social contract for some time now, and there's an interest8ing rip going on in Oakland where an unarmed man was shot and killed on New Years...but not without leaving lots of video footage by onlookers which is showing up on YouTube and other fora.  In fact, the emotions of young people are running so hot that my youngest daughter called me to say "OMG, did you see the cops killing that guy on YouTube?"

 

The NY Times headlines that Oakland Simmers After Night of Violence...and as I read that, I got to wondering if Oakland would "Go Greece" on officials.  Or, maybe it has in a junior way.

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Another big change point - which the time monks have been warning subscribers to HalfPastHuman about -- is the possibility of retirement income taking a hit due to federal spending. Headlines like "Tax cut effect on Social Security weighed"  Right on schedule, retirement concerns popping....

 

Numbers.

Latest employment numbers (updated at 8:30am EST by the Labor Department) should be available by clicking here.

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The Fed released the consumer debt numbers on Thursday.  Consumer spending dropped at a 3.7% annual rate - these numbers being backward looking to November.

 

Know why?  We don't have enough money left ov er plus there's nothing in the way of 'new, gotta-have-it" product out there..

 

Feb 10 Doomsday?

The story about how the government has gone completely overboard on lead level testing is going viral.  Check out the headline "Is Feb. 10 financial doomsday for thousands?"  Don't be surprised if it is...

 

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Coping:  The "Next" Radio

Every once in a while, I come up with interesting electronic ideas that I don't have time to fiddle with, but which I know will result in a really cool technology should anyone ever get around to building it.

 

The last one I had was something I called "consta-com".  The basic idea was that two radio stations which really needed communications simultaneously would do so using single sideband transmissions that had been 'chopped' using a technique called time division multiplex.  Had the idea in about 1988 - never got to it, and then later on, Furuno came out (being smarter than me engineers) with a radio that embodied the technology.

 

Now, after reading tons of technical papers in the [public] parts of some of our National Laboratories, I've started to sketch out how a 'new kind of radio' could work.

 

Essentially it would rely on the fact that pairs of atoms have a kind of non-local synching up with one another.  The way you'd build the transmitter for such a communications system would be simple: You'd just cleave a complex molecule, which has already synched up at the subatomic level, in two.

 

One batch of the molecules would be put in a container at the 'transmitter site' while the other would be put in a container at the other.

 

What makes 'receiving' happen would be applying a few tons of processing power to  sensors in the receiver container.  Seems that there ought to be enough sympathetic state/change that a statistical 'blip' would be noted if you could figure out how to modulate the electrons over in the 'transmitter' molecule container.

 

While there's be tons of ugly technical hurdles to get past, not the least of which would be how to modulate the molecules on the transmit side, it would definitely be worth the effort (if I'm understanding the technical papers right) because what's you'd end up with would be the world's most secure/unhackable communications link.  Something as simple as iron dioxide (rust) might do the trick.

 

But that's not the kicker.  The kicker is the fact that such a  communications system would be non-local.  According to what I've read, elemental pairs - once synched up - continue their synchronistic state on a non-local basis.

 

Now that starts to get pretty cool.  Non-local means there may be a way to beat the traditional inverse-square law after all.  Distance doesn't seem to break the 'relationship' down at the atomic level.

 

Obviously, I've got way too much on my plate to whip one of these up...but it'd certainly be a cool project (for which there oughta be DARPA money all over the place for if you could demo a working prototype) if you've got the smarts to fill in all the loose ends. 

 

Oh, a cheap way of getting paired atoms might be useful, too.  Oh yeah, and throw in a good-sized budget for computational horsepower, too...this state-change stuff is pretty subtle.

 

But at least my time doing readings on zero-point energy may have a practical payoff some day... Might make a really interesting article for QST (the monthly ham radio magazine from the ARRL) too...  although from a ham radio standpoint, it would make DX'ing (distance contests) sort of meaningless...

 

Oh, and the throughput might be really low at first, too, because the statistical processor involved would be non-trivial, too...Still has me thinking and if you don't have anything on tap for the weekend whipping up a prototype that works would make you a gazillionaire.

 

Programming?

Try this reader email on...

"Hey George,

I work for Safeway grocery store in Maryland. Like almost everyone in retail, Safeway plays their chosen music in loops interspersed with commercials. Starting this week, I've noted that there is a new group of songs/music being played - WWII style march songs like "Your a Grand Ole' Flag". Is somebody trying to tell us something? "

Hmmm...early run up to President's Day and skipping Valentines music?  I dunno....

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Send snip and save ideas to george@ure.net

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Around the Ranch: Travel and More

This morning's column is up early because as you read this, I'm probably in an airplane.  Next interesting thing may be guesting on KLBJ (Houston) Saturday night from 6-8 PM....I think...

 

Peoplenomics.com 

The Crash Handbook Part 2:  What Nobody Wants To Talk About

Denial is powerful stuff, so our next task is to blast through some common misconceptions about how closely we are rhyming with events of the (First) Depression and other economic watershed events.  I refer to the study of cycles - the periodic waxing and waning of human events that may be driven by, or causative of change.  It's the topic "Nobody wants to talk about" in mainstream academics.  Using cycle studies, we might speculate about the date a coming World War. Or,  we may be able to see some repetition in patterns of malinvestment by 'common folks' in stocks and bonds over innovation cycles.  It all adds up to a viable alternative to "pure market dynamics" as those focused hypnotically on quantitative analysis would otherwise have policymakers believe. Invention and innovation, not the application of formulaic obscura, is what creates your future. Be warned that the trance of formulas and symbols is not about your prosperity....

 

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What is better than a Christmas  New Years  Valentine Card?

Why, sending an email to everyone in your 'contact' file and tell them about  www.urbansurvival.com of course!

 

"Live on $10,000" Updated

What?  You haven't ordered the ebook "How to Live on $10,000 a year -- or less"?  Suit yourself.  We're all going to live it shortly, anyway.  I just thought you might like a heads up by reading about how to do it before you get pink-slipped.  But, suit yourself OR visit www.liveontenthousand.com or, click one of the following button:

 

 

 

Yep - still possible.  I also took a bit of additional material that was pertinent from recent issues of Peoplenomics and included them.  The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the aforementioned dollar amount, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you make a little more than that and do some active savings...  Click here for the page with more details on it.

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 Last week's report is here.    For back issues of this site, click here.  (Goes back to 1997!)

 

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January 8, 2009

Coming Home To Roost

 I'm expecting the Dow to end the day under 8,776.39, the corrected close for the last trading day of 2008.  The reason is simple:  There's a kind of blind faith on Wall Street that if the first week of a new year ends on a sour/down note, then the balance of the month will end down, and worse, the whole year is likely to end down.  Why are we not surprised?

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My broker friend Robin Landry called last night and said "George, this may be the beginning of the Big wave down, and if it is, we could take out 7,200 on the Dow, and maybe go down as low as 5,800 before we get the big rally."

 

If you've been paying attention here, I'm expecting exactly that.  The absolute "George-perfect" scenario would be for the market to slide down until February 14th (a Wednesday), although it could slide down until the first of March, or so. 

 

Then, as I described yesterday, we'd get a huge "liquidity pulse" to try and kick-start the market into a rally.  And, it would work.  At least for a couple of manic upside months...targeting somewhere north of 10,000 on the Dow.

 

The problem is what happens after that?  If you step back from the charts, you can see that we would have completed an Elliott Wave "A" down, a "B" up, and then we get to an ugly 'rule of Elliott' that no one - and I mean no one I've found on the web yet - is talking about.

 

Remind me to send a note to Bob Prechter up at Elliott Wave International later on this morning on this.  The 'rule' which bothers me is that under Elliott Wave "C" must always be at least as large as Wave "A".  It's often 1.618 times the A decline.

 

Now, here's the guts of it - and this is what Landry and I talked about:  If we agree that the first move down works out to something like (round numbers here) 14,100 on the Dow down to Landry's worst case 5,800.

 

That brings up 8,300 points of movement.  So if we take that times the Fibonacci/Golden Ratio number 1.618, we get a potential bottom of 13,430 points lower than whatever our (I'm guessing here) Summer 09 high of 10,500.

 

Ooops!  That's a negative number. 

 

"George, you know the Super Cycle Bottom, if this is it, would be a Dow around 777?" 

 

Yeah, not very reassuring stuff from Landry, but I can read it the same way. 

 

The problem (more in the "Coping Section" to follow) is that under such conditions, the Dow might hit those kind of numbers, but even if 1) it happened and 2) you could be on the right side of the trade, would there be any counterparties left standing?

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Conversation with The Bond Dude this week was something to the effect that "Gee, in order not to make money on some of the real estate-backed bonds at these prices, you'd have to have conditions which would be something like four times worse than the Great Depression.  And that would mean something like 80-90 percent of all American businesses failing...and I don't see that happening..."

 

Well, er, 'scuse me - that's presactly the kind of thing that has been showing up in the predictive linguistics work for a couple of years at the outer end of the event horizon (which is drawing near and now due to start in May).

 

Don't know how much of the foreign press you read, but did you notice that little article in AsiaNewsItaly?  "Chinese Yuan set to replace dollar..."

 

When the Drudge Report splashes headlines like: "Let's Print More Money" and the McClatchy group carries "Just as Obama begins, huge budget deficit could hamper plans" and talks about that $1.2 trillion deficit, a sane person might wish to acknowledge ahead of being run over by events that U.S. paper  may not be the safest asset in the world.

 

The International Herald Tribune also writes of the same kind of 'can't happen' scenario as they pen "U.S. debt is losing its appeal in China."  Once China's middle class is large enough to be hornswaggled into massive consumer debt, the US market becomes disposable.

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Then there's the Bank of England this morning cutting rates to a record low of 1.5%.

 

Folks talk about how the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act somehow caused the first Depression to become bad.  But at least that tried to keep jobs in America.  In this Second Cloning of the Great Depression, the battle has all been played off stage by the banksters who are fighting with currency exchange and interest rates.  Might seem like a different outcome, but all paths end up to walking off the gallows at some point.

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Its disingenuous for "Obama to urge dramatic action to lift U.S. economy" and not acknowledge that we're a nation of crackheads on cheap paper who've lost both Yankee Thrift, Yankee Ingenuity, and the moral compass that historically used to steer us to the high road on moral matters. Further, that an international corporate elite is sucking the planet dry for their own personal edification beyond the law applicable to the common folks.

 

But why is it that's not surprising?  I can almost hear the chickens coming home to roost, at least it sounds like the distant flapping...

 

Filtered News Department

Our erstwhile Houston Bureau Chief, who's of late been doing coal, gold, and other kinds of development adventures & exploits down in Indonesia has been noticing that in his corner of the Muslim, the TV coverage is much more on the 'raw' side of the Israeli invasion/occupation of Gaza than is coming through 'filter' US outlets.  His report:

"George,

I am willing to bet my last rupiah that you folks over there aren't seeing the pictures I see daily on Indonesian TV of the atrocities Israel is committing against Palestinians. Not to say there isn't fault enough to go 'round, but the lopsided and wholesale killing by Israeli forces is not hidden here and is causing quite a row. I have taken to calling myself Australian in certain situations in order to avoid the inevitable backlash against America because of what is happening in the ME. Because America tacitly and implicitly supports everything Israel is doing, it is causing quite the uproar in the Muslim world. As if the Iraqi and Afghani debacles were not enough to stir anti-American sentiment, this current situation is creating an even greater problem for ex-pats. Throw additional economic flotsam into the fire and you have a highly combustible situation internationally. America could soon find itself fully isolated by world opinion and citizens abroad could soon be in imminent danger due to the insane policies and blind support of Israel.

It seems that a while back, the bots picked up on a gross mistake by Israel that caused the country to lose face. Could this be it?

Seems like there are a number of such mistakes (Georgia airfield adventures are reports of the Russians capturing documents sound familiar?)  But apparently, sometime in the next 90 days, the linguistics seem to be pointing to a serious reversal of fortune of a shocking/surprising nature.  But,  that's just one way to read/interp the data, so we shall see....

 

As the L.A. Times reports today, the "Gaza conflict has the potential to draw in Hezbollah" and that  could set up a 'squeeze play' on Israel's core.  Already, there have been a few rockets incoming from Lebanon...

 

Meantime, the Red Cross is accusing Israel of neglecting the Gaza wounded.

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Hmmm...An article on the Wall Street Journal site this morning titled "The Jews Face a Double Standard Why doesn't Israel have the same right to self-defense as other nations?" gets me to thinking that maybe they've got a point there: 

 

Best I can figure, more death and mayhem has come across the U.S.-Mexico border, than the rockets from Gaza (pre-invasion).  

 

That gets me to wondering how would the world would view a US invasion of Mexico -  killing thousands along the way (bigger border, bigger problem)  - to stem the incoming barrage of (take your pick) murderers, drugs, potential terrorists, and gang members coming in there?  Ever count up the illegal-related murders in the country?

 

And speaking of trans-border issues with Mexico: A Dallas Morning News piece in the Seattle times predicts "Mexico drug war likely to intensify."

 

And just to draw the point out a bit more, you did see where the "Narcotraffickers attack Televisa, Mexico's top TV network?"  Wonder if the country's #2 network (Azteca) will be beefing up its security?  Almost a foregone conclusion, I figure...

 

Of course we may not have enough troops to pull off a Gaza-like invasion in response to the low-intensity conflict with Mexico; most of our forces are off fighting the resource wars....but I'm certainly glad this 'right to invade sovereign lands' is now apparently legit for all nation-states.  India:  You want Pakistan?  Go get it.  South Korea tired of those NK's?  Go for it!  Venezuela wants Bolivia? WTF...no double-standards in George Land. Hell no.

 

And Canada better stop lobbing hockey players over the border, too.

 

Pirates or Patriots?

More on filtered news?  Or is that 'moron filtered' news...whatever...

 

The MSM headlines read like "US to Lead new anti-pirate force."  To balance up your thinking on this, you might flip over to the Huffington post article "You Are Being Lied to About Pirates" by Johann Hari that explains about how the Somali fishermen who've had nuclear and chemical waste dumped on their fishing grounds, which are also being swept clean by foreign trawlers, are maybe a part of the 'pirate' story being buried by the Western MSM which at some level act as accomplices/apologists for it all...

 

 

Who's Got Gas?

Russia and Ukraine execs about to meet on whether they will (horrible pun warning, turn your nose up quick) pass gas!

 

Sacrificial Computing Opportunity

There was a time in my programming years (1981-1991) when I was busily building databases down at the code level...remember Jim Knopf's  Buttonware  PC-File dB  out of Bellevue, WA?  If you're too young to remember, Jim's like the godfather of the shareware model, and in a sense, the progenitor of GPL and the open source movement.

 

Why do I mention this? 

 

Damned if I...oh...here it is:  "Windows 7 Beta Release Imminent".

 

I must be getting old (hmmm...).  Either that, or after going through the Vista early days left me with a bad enough taste in my mouth that I don't want anything from a computer except that it work, and somewhat securely would be nice.  Next time I beta something, it'll be for dough or for a GPL'ed product.  My clients would probably be 'disamused' if I tried to sell an excuse like "Well... I was running a beta of...."

 

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Coping:   Let's Kill...Generosity!

Here's a remarkable email from a reader/world traveler that goes a long way toward explaining how Mr. Ure manages to be cynical 16-hours a day (the rest of the time I'm sleeping):

"As a world traveler .. more than 90 . . and .. worker in 13 .. i have accumulated many friends and hangers - on .... mostly children of friends that i support in small and large ways ... this means sending money.

since many have little access to banking .. i send a lot with western union. yes the 10+ transfer fees are tiresome .. but i need to do it.

the first time i went in n 2009, to send $400 to Ethiopia ... [ emergency medical aid for a kid's HIV+ father in major terminal pain.]

there was a long delay at the shop. the clerk finally came out and started asking me a lot of questions. who is this person .. why are you sending money and so on. i said it was a student from 8 years and why was not their business. another half hour passed ... they came and asked more "security" questions.

eventually it was sent .. then .. it could not be cashed in ethiopia. the kid was frantic ... i called western union in usa. they went on and on ... about 'security' .. i went to a supervisor .. and then to another supervisor .. eventually the money was released to the kid in addis ababa ....

then yesterday ... i needed to send only $150 to another kid in ethiopia. .. same thing happened ... the clerk said that the message was that .. .. get this ......."i had sent enough money to foreigners" .. !!!!

anyway .. i sent some to nepal ... by wire transfer yesterday. lets see if that goes through ...."

Oh boy.  Let's make it illegal for human-to-human gifting.

 

Contradiction?

A reader wrote yesterday he was confused that I would even mention the possibility of buying a rental house.  If the time monks are right, he wonders, why would you do that?

 

All has to do with wealth preservation.  You see, if all the stuff about 'death of the dollar' is right, one of the few places a person could trade paper for a future income street of some sort) might be

 to rent out a house - or a piece of farm land - and ask a share of the land's output (or whatever) in return for the roof overhead.

 

Even buying a physical things may not be a haven forever as there are: in open government documents (if you know where to look) already discussions of a wholesale retools of 'private property rights' in the US as a response to environmental change.  In short, the case is being started that 'property rights' could be taken away in coming decades.  Yeah, yeah, unbelievable, but if you know where to look, that's the long term game.  Under the guise of 'government protecting the greater good', 'natch...

 

Speak Softly

Ah, just when you thought Echelon would be the top end of civilian surveillance program, along comes the Black Widow project.  And why are we reading more about this in Pakistani newspapers, not the NY Times and/or Washington Post?  Damn fine question...

 

History, Fiction, and Tomorrow's Headlines

Reader sent this curious note:

"Just in case crosstalk between the 'bots and popular culture from 45 years ago is possible, please be advised that season 1, episode 1 of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" describes twin earthquakes followed by a global coastal event, resulting in a possible takeover of Earth by a new world order.

See time index 00:05:57 (for the earthquakes) and 00:08:05 (for the NWO reference) on this stream:

Link to video (high bandwidth needed

And remember, "The Lone Gunmen" described 9/11/01 before it happened."

This could be a 'perfect' example of what Cliff's 'predictive linguistics' work is based on:  The notion that the future  'leaks' into the past - which is now our 'present'.  BTW, that little episode was quite the rush - I had forgotten the melodramatic theme from "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea"...sok thanks for the ohrwurm.  (It'll tick off the cats when I start hitting 100+ db SPL's here in a few minutes with some Scottish bagpipes followed by John Williams themes and a few from James Horner to drive it away...

 

There are lots of examples, though, of 'fiction' preceding 'fact'.  All has to do with harmonics, resonances, and so on in the 'time stream' best I can figure.  I assume you realize that time may be more a circular/rotational commodity and not a strict linear sequencing?  I think it's Chris Carolan who's the expert of such things, but recall that the Baktun/Mayan counts are circular in nature, which is why 2012 comes around as it does...

 

Seems like when harmonics, resonances, and cycles line up just so, things 'leak' across time.  Which is how you get to Mother Shipton (Ursula Southeil) , Nostradamus, and Jules Verne.  Curiously, the linguistic 'leakage' has not been codified as a continuum of future-viewing; it's vogue in Reductionist thinking to look at all things in isolation.  Like anything in Universe springing from the kalapas can be separate (including us'ns).

 

So no, there's not much risk of 'cross-talk'.  But when I read Verne, of Mother Shipton (who may, or may not be 'real') and find things like:

"Around the world men's thoughts will fly Quick as the twinkling of an eye. And water shall great wonders do How strange. And yet it shall come true.

Through towering hills proud men shall ride No horse or ass move by his side. Beneath the water, men shall walk Shall ride, shall sleep, shall even talk. And in the air men shall be seen In white and black and even green"

I pinch myself and wonder if we're not all looking at the same 'leaks' from the future, so some ultra long-term echo of history codes down into our 'junk' DNA...

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Send snip and save items to george@ure.net

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Around the Ranch: Traveling

The Friday morning report will be posted earlier than usual - so it won't contain the latest unemployment figures set for release at 8:30 AM Eastern tomorrow morning.  I will put up the link to the numbers, though, so you you can go pull them down for yourself.  I've got a short day trip...maybe more on that Monday...not Saturday report this weekend.  Peoplenomics, though right on schedule (I hope!).

 

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Wednesday January 7, 2009

National Layoff Festival To Be Ended By A  "Liquidity Pulse"?

Before we rolled into 2009 I had mentioned several times that early in the New Year we would likely see that start of a phenomena that would label the "National Layoff Festival.  It would come as companies which might otherwise have started their layoffs, to meet the recent downturn (partial collapse?) of the economy, played 'catch-up'.  Not the companies that had already over-extended, but companies that were well-run and profitable.  It would just be time to 'right-size' to use a somewhat antiquated term, in order to stay in business as well-run companies.

 

So, it came as n o surprise last night when Alcoa sent out a press release right after the close announcing an 18% production cut and a 13% people cut:

 

Not like Alcoa is going this alone, by any stretch.  The post-holiday belt tightening seems to be spreading as expected.  Even government jobs are being axed, as up to 3,000 non-permanent teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District are about to find out.

 

At Big Blue (IBM) there have been emails flying that come January 23rd, up to 16,000 could be pink-slipped.  The rumored Microsoft layoff plans for up to 15,000 have been labeled grossly exaggerated, still, something in high four-digits wouldn't surprise me.

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The problem with the National Layoff Festival is that once it starts, it's going to slosh throughout the economy for months and months.  The Obama team talking about unemployment hitting a 10% (or higher) level seems to me a foregone conclusion.

 

A Google News search of the term (click here for it) will bring you headlines about how various county governments around the country are feeling the same pinch as the rest of us.  And there are ripples because as auto sales come down, people are driving less, autos services are dropping, as might be inferred from the report that Les Schwab tires in the Northwest will lay off 4.5% of their workforce.

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The key thing to keep in mind is that in the study of economics there are primary jobs like the Automakers, Boeing, Alcoa and outfits like that.  Then you've got the service sector which do the housekeeping chores that keep the primary businesses going.  French nail salons,  dog walking services, massage therapists, and on and on...

 

The Alcoa, and whoever the big players are that follow, are the primary jobs.  The ripples out into the broader economy are the 'drag' on an economic rebound.  From a policy standpoint it's a bitch.

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I heard an interesting story the other day - no way to confirm or deny it.  It went to the idea that a certain small to mid-sized bank had it's board of directors meeting in December and that that time received a letter from the Fed marked 'not for public dissemination'.  With the letter was a check for about $30-million dollars.  The letter reportedly said that this bank was to take the enclosed check, go to the Fed window at some point in the next two or three months, and use that money to start making consumer loans again. 

 

At first, I thought my source was nuts.  Why would the Fed do something like that?  But then it dawned on me that if applied at exactly the right moment (a key inflection point) it might be analogous (in sailing terms) to putting the rudder 'hard over' so that the ship of state doesn't get 'stuck in irons" - the economic analog of which would be 'stagflation' - something that's quite possible from here.

 

What would the linguistics be that would capture the essence of such a move?

 

The best I could figure, such a strategy might be called something like a "liquidity pulse".  I haven't run the definitive multiagent studies to see how they might work, but I know from reading the Michael Youssefmir, Bernardo A. Huberman, and Tad Hogg paper "Bubble and Market Crashes" that as early as 1994 at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (XPARC) the multiagent studies about how the timing of market shocks (relative to the peak of a market) could influence the course of future events such as the aftermath of a bubble. (Click here and flip down to page 17.)

 

So if the simulations there are right, then I'd generalize that if a 'news item' could act as a market shock, then why couldn't a 'liquidity pulse'?

 

Don't mean to get off into the weeds here, but there are only just so many variables in the economic equation and jumping down hard on the accelerator to force a 'turning of the corner' would sure be an interesting concept to see tested come late winter or early spring as the need for an apparent 'kick-in-the-pants'.  Seems pretty clear to me that dribbling out bailout money could have a lot less impact that a big liquidity pulse.

 

If I were scripting out the next couple of weeks, I'd see the market decline renew next week, go down to Robin Landry's 7,200 kind of range by mid/late February.  Then pull the trigger on the 'liquidity pulse' and sit back and enjoy the rally that would follow for as much as several months.

 

If such a thing were to happen, then, how could it be played?  If you were thinking about picking up a new home - getting mortgage applications in line would certainly be one way.  Have that zero interest (or very low interest) car loan ready to execute.  Even things like collectable art and autos might put in  multi-month lows this winter.  Depends on your taste and where you are.

 

If you've got credit card debt, you might also want to be ready to pull the trigger on card balance transfers - I expect there will be a short window of real 'deals' should this 'liquidity pulse' concept prove valid.

 

Not guarantees, but it's an interesting notion, so keep your eyes open.  As a bonus?>  A 'liquidity pulse' would get houses moving again, and a 'pulse' of 20% inflation while it might push gas up 50¢ a gallon, would also put 10's of thousands of value back into homes; maybe even enough to stem the tide of foreclosures.  And with enough snipers (like us) out considering a rental, rents might be contained and some approach relative stability might appear.

 

The multi-trillion dollar question is "Would it work?"  We might get a chance to see.  Meantime, keep a sharp eye out for the words to pop up elsewhere if this resonates with Universe: "Liquidity pulse."  Could it be that's what the TARP is buying? 

 

Auto Thought Leaders

Thought leadership in the auto industry is sometimes impressive.  In product design, I'd pick Bob (Viper/Prowler) Lutz.  General management?  Lee ("Where Have All the Leaders Gone? ") Iacocca.  Reliability? Honda...and Subaru.

 

Marketing has a new 'thought leader' today: Hyundai.  What they have done is announce the "Hyundai Assurance program: Lose your job in the next year, bring the car back."  What's the old saying?  If you can't help people when you're rich, you won't when you're poor?  Hyundai got it right.

---

German car sales were down 6.6% last month, but if you read the fine print you'll see that the cars which are bucking the trend are the really small ones - like the Smart TwoFour, Renault's Twingo, which needs a big dose of Lutz to my eye, and the ugly (in a cute Citroen 2CV) kinda way Fiat 500.  Then again, I knew the SmartCar would be a winner: My skeptical of many things eldest daughter bought one back in September and just loves it.

 

Gold Right Again

As is almost predictable lately, a few disbelievers wrote to me earlier this week tell tell me something a little more direct that "You're so full of it, your eyes are brown" when I explained Monday that gold was weakening and which to me meant that  'peace is out there in the wings somewhere and someone's got the nod."

 

Israel is taking some time off from the shelling/bombing and shoot-em-up of Gaza today while a truce offered by Egypt and France is considered.  Like I said earlier in the week, this is a mess that's likely to keep throwing off headlines for the balance of the year.

---

Related:  I wonder how soon the Islamic world will roll out its equivalent to the World Union of Jewish Students 'Megaphone' desktop tool?  Might be considered an aspect of what a 2007 Rand report called "Strategic Information Warfare Rising."  The practices of "asymmetric strategies employed by regional adversaries" in the Gaza conflict ought to provide years of research data.  Everything from calling cell phones with warnings to desktop tools...the information warfare front is a continuum not a single 'place.'

---

Speaking of gold, Dr. Marc Faber's latest interview's have some pretty tasty morsels in them, in case you've missed them.  Anyone with a subscription service with a name like the "Gloom, Boom, and Doom" report can't be all bad.

---

Did I mention that I heard a few rumbles in the past couple of days that after all the portfolio re-balancing is done this week, some of the hedge funds are looking to reenter gold on the long side for the year?  Let's quickly scan a few headlines and see if we can figure out why. 

 

HA!  No sweat...

 

O's Trillions

Making up money out of thin air, backed only by the 'full faith and credit of' has been going on ever since Nixon closed the gold window.  But reading here how Obama is after States to expand their unemployment coverage, and how that in turn may lead to trillion-dollar deficits for years sure seems to build the credibility of the inflationary workout to this Second Depression.

 

Of course, timing is everything.  Already though, I'm hearing that the talk is starting up in retired military circles that housing prices are starting to look good down in Florida.  I haven't been pricing beach-front homes away from the larger cities, but they may have come down a bit. 

---

Although it might be tempting to some, I'm still waiting to find out how the Universe serves up it's 'global coastal event' later this year, however.  It may be that 'killer waves' like the recent ones in Europe and off Indonesia become widespread, or it might be something completely different.  Somewhere between mid March and the end of May, whatever that means should resolve itself on the Cyclops in the living room.

 

Sightings

People in the Morris County, New Jersey - including cops -- saw strange lights in the sky on Monday night.  But, linguistically, this is just the first of many for the year. So get used to it.  The real 'contact' language continues to ramp up through the year.  Remember, though, that this doesn't mean little greenies dropping by for strawberries.  Could just mean (or is that meme?) that talk of the not-from-here's will be increasing.  My bet's on the latter, real Stargate rumors and videos on YouTube aside, I mean. 

 

Killer Music?

A bar fight in Steamboat Springs, reportedly over the Jimmy Buffet song "Margaritaville" has resulted in the death of a Special Forces soldier reports the Denver Post's web site.  An indication of how thin-skinned folks are becoming?  For sure something that will go through my head next time I'm in front of a jukebox...

 

High Profile Departures

A real estate executive found dead outside Chicago.  Then there's the German billionaire who reportedly jumped in front of a train this week.  Financial stresses or something more?

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"Ramalinga Raju resigns, reveals shocking details" as the 'all-in' mindset of corporate paper-slingers continues to reveal itself...  Quick...look surprised.  Who made off with how much else?  Stick around...

 

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Coping: To Live and Die in L.A.

I'm a huge fan of L.A.  Why, if it wasn't for the rude pricks on the freeway, the idiocy of California law that won't keep the canyon brush trimmed down, so that every year after a good rainfall, there are huge fires, or the fact that it all sits on seismic Jello, it'd be a fine place.

 

I figure we'll get back for a visit one of these days if for no other reason than to take in a few sets at "The Baked Potato's" new digs on Cahuenga, not too far from the old digs on Ventura.  Yup, "Baked" and L.A. seem to go together...where was I?  Oh yeah....

 

So, a thoughtful reader sends along a link to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation's website and suggests I look at how the past year has been in the area:

• Unemployment up to 8.9%

• Single family home construction permits down 67.6%

• Median home prices down 31.2%

• Film production days down 8-10ths of one percent.

 

While health services employment was up (+5% YoY) I can't help but wonder if that maybe doesn't have something to do with a lot more people getting sick, rather than an existing population base getting more healthy?

 

Would I ever go back to L.A.?  To visit, of course, or maybe for a term-length project.  But to live and die in L.A.?  Let me get back to you on that one....

 

But speaking of gigs and such...

 

Island Job Anyone?

Ah, this one looks interesting if you're 'free to move about the country':

"George, I realize you aren't an employment service but I would appreciate getting the word out on this opportunity. May be a few subscribers that could use one of these jobs and, BTW, ride out the upcoming storm...... If you choose to include my comments, that is up to you... I posted this on a social site, Reddit.com and it got smashed...>>I hesitate to post this as it could screw me from going back myself but maybe I'll get some universe Karma out of the deed...(Not reddit karma cause A: I don't give a sh*t about that and B: I delete any Reddit account which reaches 100-300 karma points and if you don't believe me, I can give you my previous accounts if you want...)I have knowledge of Kwaj but nondisclosure prevents anything more. Great company, Island of a few thousand plus locals, absolutely great chow, great activities of the south seas, Golf, water sport stuff, mini vacations every few months with airfare paid. Serious cash depending on the job. Food and housing paid. (yes, some single women as well as families on site plus locals) Radar Operator makes 80ish K base +. Island fever sets in about every three months but Australia and Hawaii are a 6 free hour plane ride away every few months. Military owned facility but you would be a civy contractor employed like 95% of the rest of the folks on the Kwajellen atoll. I loved it and some of you might also...Good luck and, BTW, you're gonna need a NSA/FBI background check so any/most Felonies or drug offense convictions will fail you...Good luck

 

PS,, Employees are mostly US Citizens but many others from US allies, in case you're not from the USA.... If you absolutely hate it, you can cancel your contract and leave on the next plane out so it isn't like the army...

 

Edit: The downside? First, it can get f*cking HOT... Most times, you are in your air conditioned building or Dorm or A/C Tram, but hey, this is the south f*cking seas and humidity and heat can arrive, depending on the season, and if you are outside, it gets pretty warm. I don't care for the heat but the rest made up for it so I endured for a few years...Given that, I felt pretty comfortable most the time and I really hate the heat... Next, it can rain, sometimes for two minutes, sometimes for a day, sometimes its a fu*kin monsoon, another reason they pay and feed you so well....Get a friggin umbrella but most times, you're dry in 5 minutes... Shopping and social life: Some people can't handle the lack of malls and mega-monopolistic choice of shopping distractions. I liken it to living on one of the Hawaiian islands like Kauai or a hugely scaled down Maui. They got a huge PX, movies, bars and all that stuff but some people are city born folk. This is like living in a small town of 2-3 thousand. Girls, yes, lots of them; not so much but several mattress queens make up for the lack of serious quality women. Also, no personal cars to speak of: Bikes and trams take you everywhere. Bottom line, it was a Paradise for me, being an old bastard, but it may be something different for you. Your friggin choice and I look to go back in a year or so but this time, I'm sailing my boat back to the place for a visit...I made some serious cash, gonna semi-retire for a while and if things get tough, I'll go right back....The mission of the facility is to track space stuff, both that which is there now and that which will soon be there...

 

Link to check out: http://www.krsjv.com/job_ops_open.html

Damn fine sketch of the place....brings me back to my youth and adventures in Alaska for a defence contractor.  Yeah, if you're young (or just like Island life) and good chow, this seems like 'The Peach".  Have to think about it...but if you're young and looking to see the world (and pick up golf) and aren't concerned about Global Coastal stuff, well......is the income considered tax-free?

 

Fahrenheit 451º - For Real

We don't burn books, do we?  Well, er, sorry to tell you this, but yes.  Here's an email that explains:

"Hi George,

Read your site and enjoy it all. Have you heard about this new law going into effect around February 2009. Basically, it means that all products targeted to children under the age of 13, MUST BE TESTED for lead content.....this means books, clothing, and nothing is safe due to it's production date - everything retroactive to 2008. So if you've got a small book store, all your children's books, comics need to be trashed. Can't sell on ebay or even overseas without huge fines for each sale.

This is an extreme law and will put lots of small business owners out-of-business. I truly believe that our gov't passes laws that will bring about the destruction of our infrastructure and our country. The question I have is WHY???

Here's the article and all links: Click"

This all makes perfect sense in a kind of Orwellian way.  Besides, didn't I ask earlier this week "What will all those 600,000 new federal employees the Obama folks are hiring going to be doing?"  I'd guess this is a partial answer.  Ought to double the staffs or better once they can put this into next year's budget-justifier, huh?

 

This is presactly the kind of government half-think that doesn't pass 'the smell test.'  No, the books involved probably aren't going to hurt anyone (unless you eat 2-3 a day and then it'll be the dioxin levels in the paper) that might get you. 

 

OMG, what have I said???!!!  There's another reason to burn books!  Dioxin, Dioxin!  Everyone flee for your life!  A common sense solution (like "Don't eat books!") is beyond most folks comprehension, after all.  Protect us!  Save us!

 

Hand me another Britannica and the salt?  And keep the feds away until I get through the "T"'s.  Gag me

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Tuesday January 6, 2009

Hearing the "Silent Indicator"

My now much older (thanks to a birthday last weekend) commodity guy JB (the toll-free call and abuse JB line is 1-866-443-0868) uses something he calls his "silent indicator" - the price of copper.  Seems that whenever we've both waded in knee-deep deciding on this precious metals (PM) trade, or that, he'll often haul out his copper charts and look at its direction to help clarify whether the price movement of the PM's is real or just another head-fake designed to separate regular humans (like me) from their stake.

 

I mention this because the price of gold is down again this morning.  You may remember that yesterday I speculated that some kind of peace process might start up in the next couple of days - at least based on what gold was saying with its drop which continues this morning.  But, not so fast.  JB's 'silent indicator' copper has been showings modest gains, which leads me to expect that even if there's a short-term pause in the fighting in Gaza, the advance will likely soon turn into an 'cease-fire & occupation' and that seems destined to keep throwing off headlines through the year.

 

The relationships between different indicators is always educational to watch; a sometimes expensive kind of education at that.  While I tend to look at things mechanistically, extending upper and lower bounds (often called price channels or parallel price channels) and throw in what seems like the best Elliott Wave counts (plus a handful of more technical indicators (MACD, RSI, and OBV if you care) I often now start to look at copper. 

 

Best I can figure, copper is really useful for only three things:  Moving electricity around (with big gobs of the stuff used in new home construction) and as the major component of brass and bronze, used in military and marine applications, respectively.  Since we're in the midst of a housing collapse which several builder/friends (as opposed to builder/burghers) constantly remind me, I'm just guessing that any resilience of copper doesn't have much to do with housing.

 

Not to grind the point into the ground, although why not?  I often do anyway...  The story this morning off the AP over on the MSN web site reveals down in the fine print of the 'inverted pyramid" (a newswriting style) that about 45% of all existing home sales are now foreclosures and distressed properties. 

 

Nossir, that sure as hell doesn't seem to bode well for copper.  On the other hand,  it may explain why I got such excellent customer service at the local electrical supply house when I picked up the last of the parts for the solar power system here at the ranch.  Fair bit of copper involved, but not enough to move markets.  A small Brinks truck for the direct-bury wire was all that was needed.

 

While it's not boating season up north, Hurricane Ike may get a few boat sales going as the Houston Boat Show is hoping for 150,000 folks over the next week-and-a-half.  But again, not enough to move markets.

 

That leaves us with warfare as a possible driver of copper prices.  Lemme see here:

• We notice that the Israelis have expanded their offensive in Gaza which might increase copper demand a bit.

• India is saying that Pakistan 'must have' in some way supported the Mumbai attacks - so we might see some stockpiling of arms going on there.

• The fighting continues in Sri Lanka, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to the bigger hot spots around the world.  Still, more ammo than something like deer season in Texas...maybe.  It's been like Tet around here, but thankfully it's over...

• You just know that with another 30,000 US forces headed to Afghanistan that the use of copper could go up overt the next couple of months in that region.  Still, the militants killing of a cleric and three police in southern  'Stan wouldn't be noticed in copper prices.

• The 'spillover' into Pakistan where 'two US spies' were killed by the Taliban would also be too small to matter.

• The French have captured a few of the Somali pirates, so they're off the table; but again, in terms of global copper prices - they're small potatoes, too.

• We see in Greece that something called the "Revolutionary Struggle" has taken credit for killing a policeman as Greece's worst violent in 30-years seems to linger. 

 

Speaking of the 'globally/fuzzy/soft (outside Greece?) revolutions of 2009: My idea of a 'revolutionary struggle' is trying to twist a particularly slippery cap of a bottle of Bud; so context matters when we're talking revolution.  Revolutions is a concept that can be placed almost anywhere on a continuum from Bud bottle to clash of civilizations.  And here lately, it's been all along that continuum.

 

The discovery of a 'Royal bath in Shalimir Gardens' with copper piping wouldn't impact current-day copper prices since they were built in 1616 A.D. or so.  Being an archeological item, they would have come out of warehouses back when the warehouse numbers were honest.

 

And speaking of numbers, maybe the whole copper move to a 5-week high, is just a technical advance in advance of the annual commodity market recalculations.  Yeah, that's probably it. Or, the auto bailouts might be helping firm up copper.

 

Or is copper speaking in a voice 'too quiet to be heard in ordinary hours'?  Ask me in a week or two and I'll watch people dressing up in symbols and throwing lead at one another.

 

Election Leftovers

"Getcher popcorn!"  Dial up C-SPAN.  The show at the zoo's about to get underway.

 

Did I say zoo?  I meant Senate.  How un-PC of me!  Shame! Sorry...bad dog...yada yada...deal with it...

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Will the Crook County replacement for Obama get seated?  Will Al Franken take his seat, or lose it?

 

And will the aristocracy's latest offering replace what's her name be anointed or appointed?

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Bill Bonner over at "The Daily Reckoning" has a real gem of a column this morning that begins:

"Captain’s Log: Year of our Lord 2009, 6th day...

We have landed on a strange and wonderful watery planet – the third planet in orbit around the sun, a minor star in the Milky Way galaxy. Well, they say it is a watery planet. Where we are, it is icy. But the locals say it warms up and the ice melts. We’re suspicious;"

Bonner does get around to an economic prediction; that gold will top $2,400 this year, which would equal the inflation-adjusted level since the $875 for about 10-minutes in 1980.

 

As I said last week, when the motley crew/crue of lawslingers and free-lunchers descend on the public purse, no one is safe.

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Meantime, having completely abandoned the idea that money should hold its value over time (before figuring in interest from investing), it's better-than-Frankenhumor to watch the years-late arrival of self-righteousness over the Madoff case.  How do they keep just part of the paper assets Ponzi scheme from becoming evident?  Pass me the Orville Redenbacher, huh?

 

Sutton's Law Revisited

Bad-on-George:  I forgot to mention that bank robberies are on the rise in the ailing economy, something the smarter-than-me types at Channel 2 in Chicago remembered to put on the news recently.

 

Gee, now why do you suppose I would mention Willie Sutton about now?  Wikipedia?

Sutton is famously (and probably falsely) known for answering a reporter, Mitch Ohnstad, who asked why he robbed banks by saying, "because that's where the money is." The quote formed the basis of Sutton's law, often taught to medical students.

In his partly ghostwritten autobiography, Where the Money Was: The Memoirs of a Bank Robber (Viking Press, New York, 1976), Sutton dismissed this story, saying:

"The irony of using a bank robber's maxim as an instrument for teaching medicine is compounded, I will now confess, by the fact that I never said it. The credit belongs to some enterprising reporter who apparently felt a need to fill out his copy... "If anybody had asked me, I'd have probably said it. That's what almost anybody would say...it couldn't be more obvious. "Or could it? "Why did I rob banks? Because I enjoyed it. I loved it. I was more alive when I was inside a bank, robbing it, than at any other time in my life. I enjoyed everything about it so much that one or two weeks later I'd be out looking for the next job. But to me the money was the chips, that's all." "Go where the money is...and go there often." [2]

"Not like you to mention something that's almost a week old, George, what gives?"

 

Gladja asked!  Let me put on my be gangster voice here: "The way I got it figured, see, is this is a perfect cover for massive bulking up of the FBI because they investigate bank jobs!"

 

Headline: "FBI plans large hiring blitz of agents, experts..."

 

You know how a drop of food color goes massively chaotic when dropped in a glass of water?  That's how news works most days, too.  Plenty of complexity, sometimes just barely hanging together but in the end as an analog to hydrodynamics/hydro dispersion (or is that mixology?) it all sort of works out.

 

The Big Budget Dart

His president-electedness has thrown the Big Budget Dart.  It has landed on $775-billion.

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What do I think inflation could be like in 2009?  If I puff up the money supply by, oh, $4-trillion for the bankster class and 3/4's of a trillion for commoners, I get (rounding off $5-trillion).

 

Now, if I say the USA's economy is $13-trillion, then printing up another $5 would put us at $18.  So minimally, 38.46% % inflation.   Of course many things will go up much faster, so at some point in the next 6-8 weeks, I will be taking the few dollars I've had parked in US Treasuries and buying some things that might appreciate in the face of hyperinflation.

 

Gold, silver, booze, and a Porsche turbo come to mind... 

 

Bonus: That would put many homeowners back 'in the black' and not upside down on their mortgages!  Yee haw!

 

Bummer Avoidance

Yeah, if you don't want to be pretty much bummed out, don't click here and read the Sanders Research Associates piece "Walking Away from the American Dream." 

 

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Coping: The "Zero-point" Problem

A Peoplenomics subscriber sent an interesting email:

"Dear George,

I realized the other day that I have enough. Thus I am now a rich Taost. So I can write you.

Happy New Year. Finally we get to engage the future rather than sit and wait for it to hit! Like stages or playing fields, I find waiting for the event to begin to be the worst part.

As for the standing waves, when I went to college I had placed out of 15 hrs. of physics with an A (Self taught. Loved physics. Took the achievement test.) So I sauntered over to the physics department top see what was up. There I discovered what you have crafted into the Book of George's Law - Peer review and Group -Think are shades of the same thing. What made me decide to completely eschew any academic pursuit of science was when I asked an esteemed professor (whom I already found to be alarmingly smug) about the "canceling out" of electromagnetic waves which are of identical frequency, opposite polarity and are propagating at exactly opposite directions. My question was where the energy goes when they "cancel each other out". Was told in all seriousness not to ask stupid questions. Realized that a career wallowing in what you correctly describe as group-think in a field I loved would be like deliberately entering a bad marriage but harder to get out of. Majored in English instead, because it was the hardest subject for me to get A's in so I needed the practice. Fortunately, I write for a living now.

Do you or anybody you know, know what the heck happens when these waves "cancel each other out?"? Some say this is the basis of the early scalar weapons. I have no clue."

Did I ever mention getting kicked out of the double 'e' program at Seattle U back when for bucking 'the system'?  Two beer story sometime and it's early for beers...

 

I've heard two schools of though on this - both are problematic.

 

The first  goes to the idea that there are 'positive' energies and 'negative' energies and that when summed (as in colliding waves) they cancel each other out.

 

But, like you, I have always been troubled by this explanation, because if energy can be 'disappeared' in such a low impact/easy fashion, then it ought to be created (or sorted out into positive and negative) just as easily. And that would argue the zero-point case.  Nope, no one will talk to me about that, either.

 

I've tried to immerse myself in the completion of Heaviside's equations (or part of which was done by Maxwell) but the inevitable result is I end up dozing off.

 

As a broadcast engineer back when electrons were much fresher, I sort of picked an arbitrary point beyond Coulombs and labeled it either "There be Pirates" or that was the start of the "PFM" (pure frigging magic) in physics.

 

There's a good number of sites and tons of activity on the net focused on this zero-point energy problem and Tom Bearden's site is perhaps the best of starting points.

 

Or, I could lend you a couple of my PFM and "There be pirates" signs and you can just sit back and wait for the key breakthrough in "the new electrics" which linguistically comes along sometime late in 2009 but which may not go mainstream until 2010.  Seems Universe has the core insights about to be handed over, so we can all just sit back and relax.

 

Unless, of course, you're the one who's about to be tapped to deliver the keen insight in which case, please get off your ass and get back to work.

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Monday January 5, 2009

Oh THOSE Twin Quakes

Well lookie here: Twin Quakes popping all over the place lately.  There were the two around December 26th that affected 95,000 people.  Then we had the twin 7+ quakes  Sunday morning off Indonesia that touched off some small tsunamis in Japan.  Early, it seems, but not wrong on that linguistic set; still pondering all the 'financial earthquake' and 'financial market aftershocks of Madoff which made this all a very confusing stew...  Well, at least that's done...unless we have the BIG follow-on quake today or tomorrow.  That'd be a bummer...

 

And the largest of all bummers would be for these latest twins to be leading into something popping off at Yellowstone and there a,re some who are quite worried about what could be happening (or about to happen) there...noting as one author does, that the caldera is a little late for a major eruption.  About 40,000 years late...and yeah, that would sure fill in the dislocation/isolation/aid from foreign countries linguistic set, and maybe ruin enough food production down wind to bring along those food shortage and rationing descriptors.  But let's not go there...probably just petulant magma flowing. 

 

I hope.

 

Obama's (New & Improved) Free Lunch Deal

Let me see if I have this right:  The US is running a budget deficit right now thanks to (count 'em as we go) the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, miscellaneous wars and low intensity conflicts, bailouts for banksters, foreign aid, and pork for the gang that doesn't think straight inside the Beltway.  So much so they are pimping around a hike in the gas tax.

 

Fine.  That's America, warts and all.

 

Now, along comes the new kid and he puts together a speech which according to one headline will include 600,000 new government employees!  OMG, has anyone but me started to wonder "What are they going to be doing?" Jiminy Christmas - What'll they all do?  Spies to spy on the spies?  Auditors to audit the auditor's auditors? On my tax tab? 

 

Here's the Magic:  At the same time, there's talk that the prez-elect is looking at a $310-billion dollar tax cut.

 

I hope you understand that massive increases in the self-employment tax is not considered an income tax inside the Beltway.  Nope; the screwing of small business is how Big Business keeps small guys small. 

 

Only the rich get to have Boards of Directors and take the hefty part of their pay as stock options which are usually held offshore, which get taxed at a big fat zero when exercised in some tax haven and then the money wired back into the US tax-free.  These are the same folks that bitch about the 'commoners' who put in 70-hours a week, not counting soccer practice, but you knew all that, right?  Like I said, warts and all.

 

I'll start watching the wires for the 'walks on water' reports...

 

Bye-Bye Bill Department

Seems that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is pulling his nomination to be Commerce Secretary since a grand jury is looking at a little commerce related to how some of his key donors picked of lucrative state contracts.

 

Let me see here.  This would make Richardson the first "Soon to be ex Commerce (even before confirmation hearings) appointee"?  I'm sure they'll come up with some other ex-Clintonista for the gig...no worries.

 

The New York Coronation

What Monday would be complete without my usual rant about how America has its elected aristocracy which is why it's only a matter of time before Caroline Kennedy becomes Hillary's replacement.  The NY Times coverage is good.  But, I reckon it's as good as a done deal since what once passed as leadership in America  has evolved in the MSM to brand royalty, star power, and money-raising. Which (besides a state income tax) explains in part why I don't live in New York, huh?  Wonder how many trees have been killed covering this?

 

War Toll

The score is now Palestinians 531, Israel 1 with almost 2,500 Palestinians an d 55 Israelis injured, if I've got the score coming out of Gaza right.

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I don't know about you, but I am personally embarrassed that the US blocked a cease-fire call at the UN. Why the U.S. couldn't act like a genuine world thought (and moral) leader and draft and present its own cease-fire proposal instead of waiting for an Arab-drafted plan (unacceptable!) is just beyond me.  (Unless I follow the money, of course.  Then everything in Washington makes sense.)

 

At least the head of the UN has enough sense to keep pressing for international action to stop the killing.

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Now that Israel has cut Gaza in half, the end high profile warring is likely within a day or three says my best source on these matters. 

 

"Who's your source?" 

 

You really want to know?  OK: It's the price of gold.  Down almost $23  when I looked this morning and that means peace is out there in the wings somewhere and someone's got the nod.  Again, follow the dough and you'll seldom be wrong.  I'm gonna turn you into an economist yet.

 

Speaking of wars: 40 dead in a Shiite mosque bombing in Baghdad.

 

Markets/The Week Ahead

Auto sales and construction spending today (after the market gets its first cup of coffee) then tomorrow we get factory orders.  Along about Thursday  the Fed comes out with the Consumer Debt report - which they persist in calling consumer credit despite my protestations. Then on Friday the unemployment rate comes out.  I look for this one to be a big pop upward.  A sort of 'evening of the books' before the next crowd comes into office. 7% wouldn't surprise me, and maybe 7.1%.  In fact, we're in the position now where paradoxically, a high unemployment rate is good because it will stampede the Beltway Buffoons into spending even more of our money that they don't have.

 

Is this a great country, or what?

 

Be sure and see the new chart this week....

 

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Coping: Cheapskates Meeting

If you've got good bandwidth (and the boss is still hung over) drop by www.thepowerhour.com this morning at 9 AM Central as I'll be talking with Joyce & Dave (no relation to Sam & Dave) about the "How to Live on $10,000 a year or less" ebook...  If you're not able to drop by, at least remember "You can only spend it once" and your budget has two columns: Income and outgo...so if you want to get ahead, cut the outgo faster than the income goes down...

 

Toxic Thought Syndrome?

BBC reporting that detox products to drive them poisons out of your body may not do much more than drive money out of your wallet...

 

Taxing Thought

Oh, here's a goodie of an email:

"George, Looking at my 1040EZ there is indeed a line called Recovery rebate Credit, but it is described as follows:' "You may be able to take this credit only if: You did not get an economic stimulus payment, or Your economic stimulus payment was less than $600($1200 if married filing jointly)"

There are a few more qualifiers, but the bottom line is that it is phrased as an elective rebate (if you didn't take it last year) and is added to your line 7 "Federal Income tax withheld" figure, which in effect decreases the current tax due.

Still, I will need to see if they jacked up the entire tax table by $600, because if they did then i would appear that you are still correct."

Oh gee, imagine that!  Let us know what you find...but remember, they make up for it by screwing the self-employed people over pretty good in the Self-employment Tax section, too.

 

Oh, oh. I can almost here the inbox overflowing with comments now... I just keep coming back to my question which distills down to "If the 'rebate' ain't income, why are they asking about it on and income tax form, huh?"  I mean, if I don't report it as income do I get it again?  LOL, don't worry.  I'm totally honest on my taxes.  It is, after all is said and done, only paper calling itself money and you can't eat, drink, hear, drive, smoke or screw it (directly anyways...).

 

What a crappy thing to wake up thinking about...Monday's are bad enough as they are without adding this to it, eh?

 

Pop Culture

"Lawsuit: Cobb firm illegally distributing Mexican Pepsi in U.S."  "Coca Cola hits back over Fanta high pesticide level claims" (UK story about British pop tested in Spain...).

 

Coke Times Square billboard goes 'green' and in Flint Michigan, Coke just goes away.

 

All Purpose Box Department

We keep moving closer and closer to the ultimate 'all purpose" box in the living room.  Latest move is LG Electronics adding a direct internet surfing option to a like of its HDTV's. 

 

Of course you can get the same thing with a high end PC, with HDMI card and such, but this comes at the problem without the OS  being in view, it seems. 

 

Don't know if there will be a keyboard, but if there is, seems like email and www.docs.google.com could turn TV watching into work... hmmm...

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Around The Ranch:  Fish Tales

Congrats go out to my commodity broker JB Slear at www.fortwealth.com who, on his 48th birthday yesterday, broke a 5-year losing streak at the dumb end of a fishing pole and caught himself a couple of trout near his home in Arizona.  Offsetting the joy? Weather at the time was a mix of rain and snow.

 

But this reminds me to pass on one of Pappy's old fire house sayings:  "You can't generally catch fish in comfort." 

 

I won't bore you with a lot of old fire house sayings but the one about fishing seemed right on point.  I'll save the others for another time   ("Any worthwhile home remodeling or car repair project involves bleeding..." and so on...)

 

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