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Published Monday through Friday about 8 AM Central Time Except Holidays Depending on my mood...
Updated:
Saturday, February 28, 2009
07:55 CDT
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The Short Versions For Aliens Sometimes I have to sit back with a large (adult) beverage at the end of the week and ask myself "Gee, I wonder how I'd summarize the condition of Earth if I were to show up as a representative of a distant alien civilization from 'out there' in the galaxy somewhere....". Especially if they happened to show up on a week like this one. Ah, here's the alien's weekly planet report now....
See you Monday....off to write Peoplenomics which this week focuses on the 12-year War Clock that may be ticking...
Throw Out "Rules of Engagement" A large number of readers have asked me to opine on 'home defense' during what shapes up linguistically as the 'summer of hell' just ahead and a whole bout of economic collapse to a larger degrees next fall and on into 2010. The requests take various forms, but typically proudly tell me that "I've just bought a (such and such) gun and (xxxx) rounds of ammo...is this a good decision/good planning? Maybe yes, but more likely no, unless you are planning a life of combat and violence in whatever comes. A far better investment for most folks would be Army Manual 3-90 of July 2001 (or later). Its title? Simply "Tactics"...
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What is better than a 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. ---- Last week's report is here. For back issues of this site, click here. (Goes back to 1997!)
Friday February 27, 2009 Bounce and Trounce Redux: Citi Going This Weekend? A short summary of financial news today because this morning's "Coping Section" is extra long and very important....but to start things off, how much do you want to bet that after the close of trading today the FDIC will have some news about Citigroup? Citi was down 40% in the pre-open trading today. Watch for the rest of the financial sector to be on life support today.
Meantime, the Washington post reports that FDIC has really be drawing down its reserves...
When I talked to my commodities guy (JB Slear) a few minutes ago, he told me the S&P futures were down hard and well under Robin Landry's 'collapse point" which will come once the intraday lows of last fall are taken out (e.g. under S&P 741...) So, seat backs and tray-tables to their upright and locked position. Might wanna have the barf bag at the ready. This is going to be a bumpy day. Gold was up $18 in the futures.
Come on, I've been telling you market crash possible anywhere in here...and with three plane crashes recently, isn't it just possible Universe is doing a little hinting? Wonder if 7,000 on the Dow will hold?
If the market does as badly as I fear it might today (500 point, or more down) then yeah, I will have a Saturday update tomorrow morning...a post mortem... Good news: Oh sure: If we drop enough (6,200 on the Dow is one way to throw the dart) then we actually might have a tradable low early next week. --- Light readings: IndyMac audit report. Stating the OBVIOUS: Quarterly banking report says people are saving more...and Q4 '08 saw banks lose $26.2 billion on a quarterly basis. So where did all that additional bailout dough go, one might ask? Just askin...
Gross Domestic Problem But, before we go there let's look at the latest from the Bureau of Economic Analysis...it may have you reaching for the aspirin:
Yikes! Can't wait for the numbers due out next week...
Meantime, economists are scratching their heads over the Obama budget assumptions.
Oh, they look fine to me...just as long as I wear these nice rose-colored glasses...otherwise things are worse than assumed and the tax icrease percentages are gonna hurt ever more....
New Media Strikes Again The venerable Rocky Mountain News is publishing its final edition today. This whole replacement of old media by new is something we have covered earlier this week, but hate to be right. Guess there's more than one kind of planetary extinction event underway, huh?
Torcha-a-Porsche? Anarchists have torched at least 29 luxury cars in Berlin this year - seems that the anger of the public is welling up and symbols of wealth are definitely NOT something to be paraded about.
Call Them "Irresponsible" Argentina not happy with the CIA's comments that Argentina, Ecuador, and Venezuela could be pushed into instability by the global economic crisis.
Yeah, like the alphabet agency types might want to advise, oh, THE U.S. CONGRESS that it faces the same risks per the rickety time machine outputs...
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: And Don't Forget "Diaspora" Yeah, the economy seems like the biggest story of the moment, and yes, this being Friday and all, it's easy to get distracted by the financial headlines - which we will got into above. Especially since the market closed at Dow 7,182 on Thursday compared with last week's close of 7,365.67. I mean there was enough rally action that it felt like the market might have been putting in a major bottom, but of course, even the appearance of one isn't due until March. If then. Besides, did I, or did I not begin this week's reports Monday with the headline "Welcome to Bounce and Trounce" week? Didn't need the 'rickety time machine' for that call: Just a look at my own technical analysis - and a couple of calls to Robin Landry - who still figures a breakout over 7,460 and subsequent rally back to the 9,100-10,000 range - is still premature and only a 20% probability. Downside action still weighs. --- But speaking of the predictive linguistics - featured in a nice in-depth article in the December-January issue of Nexus Magazine - we shouldn't become overly fixated on the 'summer of hell' which has been kicking around modelspace for about a year. Nope, there are other potentially life-changers, too, including Diaspora and global coastal event which deserve mention/attention now and then. --- We could begin by looking at livability of cities in the US Southwest. In particular, the cities which are nowhere near self-sustaining. Cities like San Diego and Los Angeles are essentially unworkable without huge inputs of 1) water, 2) power, and 3) almost everything consumed there, just as a for instance. Turn off any one of those and what do you have? (Remember how to say "Put it together and what do you got? Bippity-boppity-boo..."?)
And, of course, the webs of power and water are inextricably intertwined such that if enough water goes away, so does the food. If enough power goes away, so do the lights and without power in today's world, there goes cell phones, wifi hot spots and even the very servers than make up the internet in this region, or that, if the times get dry enough and dark enough. Bippity, boppity, what?
Here's a 2-by-4 to the headline: "Las Vegas Running Out of Water Means Dimming Los Angeles Lights." Of course, you recall that earlier this week I mentioned how the feds were considering turning off water up in northern California due to drought and how that's bound to impact the fruit and veggie business in the (once) Golden State?
BusinessGreen has a very much on-point article suggesting that "Businesses urged to "wake up" to water risks" and then goes on to subhead it: "Major new investor study warns wide range of industries already facing disruption as a result of water shortages."
This all reminds me of one of the i8nherent dangers of being a 'time monk' and being able to pick off key concepts (like Diaspora or 'summer of hell) six months to a year, or even longer, before they pop up in the headlines: We get to live/touch/and most importantly 'feel' the pain not once as it 'pops' into the global mainstream media, but three times: Once when it becomes a trend-slap in the data, the second time when trend/precursor stories go by (like the current news chorus of "How dry I am!") and finally, as the events go MSM. --- Pull up a second cup of coffee for a minute: I want to share some insight that Universe has decided to drop in my lap which is extremely interesting.
I got a call yesterday from one-time Idaho TV weatherman Scott Stevens, who I was telling you about back in 2003-2004 when he ran a website called www.weatherwars.info. Stevens, who is planning to return to a high public profile in March on the Genesis Radio Network, has been researching (with some PhD meteorological types) the whole chemtrail phenomena and what's going on in that regard.
As best I can explain it - and when Steven's show hits the air around March 21, I'm sure he'll get more into it, most of the industrialized nations of the world are pretty much 'hooked' on chemtrails which seem to be used as weather-modification tools. The problem with modifying the weather, however, is that once you achieve any level of success, for any period of time, you get used to the stable crop yields and quickly get past a point of no return. You either keep modifying the weather (and getting the high yields) or you stop and pay the high socioeconomic price. A kind of box that weather policymakers put themselves in.
The way Stevens, and other researchers into the chemtrail phenomena have it figured, the US Air Force study "Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025" is ot less fictional that fact and that today's chemtrailing is really the field work before the technology goes prime time. --- And that got us onto a discussion of how it works - and this is really interesting stuff because it gets us into a whole discussion of zero-point energy, magic, linguistics, and the many-world interpretation of quantum physics. No el Don on this one, this is a strong coffee kind of topic.
The short path for connecting the dots goes something like this:
It was an incredibly strange day Thursday. Universe was busy hitting me upside the head most of the day explaining (in simple enough terms for me to finally 'get') that:
And
then, as if that wasn't enough, I happen to know a PhD fellow
(unrelated field) who is quite knowledgeable about such things
as orgone. So I called him and asked him for a reading
list so that I could start on a little sniffing about the
aspect/attribute layers of language using a book Scott Stevens
recommended as a starting point: Loom of the Future: The Weather Engineering Work of Trevor James Constable
Turns out by PhD friend was busy standing in front of his poster paper at a conference where he had heard that some analysis or Morgellons fibers showed traces of chromium and nickel.
That got me back to thinking about using metallic suspended particulates - dispensed as chemtrails - and whether (weather?) that might somehow link in to chemtrails.
"So let me ask you something," I said to my friend, "You know how there's all kinds of research that has been done in the field of inorganic chemistry about precipitating out solids from high mole liquids, right? Well, this gets me to wondering if anyone has ever done a really in-depth cataloging or how inorganics could 'precipitate out' inside the human body? I mean think about it: What if that polio vaccine you received 50 years ago just sits around dormant until you ingest or inhale some new chemical introduced into the foodchain and that starts a slow-motion precipitation or either plaque on arterial walls, or maybe something like Morgellons is a precipitate-induced something...just a thought, but what do you think?
"I'll do some asking about... by the way, did you hear Joni Mitchell reportedly is being treated for Morgellons and it's in Billboard?" --- Crap. I've got two favorite composers of music - and Joni Mitchell is one of them. (John Williams is the other). Didn't need to hear that. Hey! Didn't the time monks say something to the effect that Morgellons might be an interdimensional kind of thing, at one point? Have to dig out my notes and back ALTA reports. There's a Coriolis effect developing around this topic in my office...wonder where it will lead?
One thing's clear: the information vortex swirling around my office Thursday that precluded much of anything else getting done, was probably Universe trying to tell me something - or get me to share some things, or get off my butt and get back to serious research...so there you go. "How My Thursday Disappeared." Wonder if I shouldn't reground my office roof? --- Send snip and save items to george@ure.net --- end snip and save section ---
Thursday, February 26, 2009 Obama Wants More! Why, this is more fun than dealing with a divorce lawyer, isn't it? Just when you see light at the end of the tunnel, it turns out to be a train....
Now that the Obama administration is talking about needing another $750-billion - another 6% of gross domestic product, as I figure it, the republicorps are raising hell saying "The Era of Big Government is Back." If you believe that, of course, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you because in point of fact, the era of big government has never ended but that's a story for another day. Just keep in mind that "back" is republispin that it left and the miserable state of the Nation's finances didn't just all happen since inauguration day. Well, no, not quite... --- In case you don't have a calculator fired up (at this ungodly hour) here's the damages for this year: $1.75 in federal deficit. Of course, that's not counting all the free-wheeling and dealing done over at the Fed which has been leveraging to levels that would have made Phoenix, Las Vegas, or California real estate developers green with envy - back in the day when people could buy houses. Remember them?
So I get out the calculator and figure the Obama spending plans (not counting the trillions at Treasury and the Fed) will mean the federal budget hole will be $5,833 deeper this year for everyone sucking air. Of course, those folks won't all be paying for it - only the nongovernment workers will, and there's only what, three of us left?
Well, it's not really that bad. But close. The latest Labor Department Employment Situation Report shows that in January there are only 20, 245,000 worker in the workforce of 153,716,000 workers. The rest? Services, farmers, and government.
So follow this: We have 20,245,000 people who actually make things and the whole country is fed by the 19,135,000 people who are in farming & farm-related employment. That adds up to 39,380,000 people left who actually make things.
SOooo: Mr. Ure - armchair economist/people's economist extraordinaire - figures that all of this additional $1.75-trillion will actually be paid for by the primary producers and this will further suck down money available from primary producers to buy services from the services sector, which means (ta-dah!) that the economy is not going to get better with this kind of heavy spending anytime soon. But, that was the point that Congressman Ron Paul was trying to get Ben Bernanke to fess up to in yesterday's hearings (see the special update from yesterday).
Let's refigure this: We've got an additional $1.75 trillion divided by 39,380,00 real primary-goods and farm producers.
CONGRATULATIONS! If you're a primary producer you're gong to get to fund an additional $45,595 worth of deficits this year and that's on top of the financial train wreck left over by the republicorps/Bushiecrats. Wowzer.... Repeat after me: BOHICA. --- By the way: There are some great people in the Treasury Department. Not necessarily working in the Secretary's ranks, but those folks at Treasury Direct have a cool page called the Public Debt to the Penny.
There's about $10.843 trillion of public debt already...and if we add the additional $1.75 trillion it means by year's end we ought to be in hock $12.593 trillion which dived by the 39.380 primary jobs producers (you'll love this) means the real workers will be responsible for $319,781 of debt.
Hell, let's just divide it by the people with jobs as of January: 142,099,000 workers and it still pencils out at $88,621 per worker.
And that's all before the unemployment rate goes up - as I expect we'll see on March 6 when the new unemployment numbers come out. And we just know they're accurate.
Bet that just sets your morning off in fine fashion, huh? Well, the alternative is a Greater Depression, so count your blessings I suppose. Until the Greater Depression gets here anyway and we've failed to keep enough powder dry...but that's what's the summer of hell and the collapse into 2010 will be about.
Cocktail party conversation-starter: "How does it feel to be a turnip?"
Sound Money and Sovereignty Department So while all the spending continues in Washington, on the theory that we can spend out way into prosperity, I notice the story out of Montana that "resolutions to affirm U.S. Constitution cause uproar." --- Elaine and I were talking about this kind of development earlier in the week and the best synopsis of it I could come up with is that the states (including Texas) are not trying to be particularly revolutionary. What they are trying to do is is apply a little basic 'contract law" to what many perceive as runaway central government. In other words, it's like suing for specific performance which Wikipedia tells us, in part, is:
Having lived in both the North and the South, I am amazed as the difference in recall of history. In the North, the U.S. Civil War is marketed/taught as an anti-slavery event. However, in the South, there's another angle: States' Rights.
What's interesting is that over a long period of time (140-150 years) the Union of States has gone from small central government to pretty much everything being dictated out of Washington.
I expect as economic difficulties continue to build, that so will the levels of tension as the strong central government's continued watering down of the purchasing power of money comes more and more clearly into focus. I bet if someone had told you when you were in high school that 'government and the bankers have a plan to keep watering down the purchasing power of our money - and that while prices may seem to go up, it's really the purchasing power of your money going down" you would have made different investments, than say a 401(k). You might even have purchased farm land, like I did. But that would be transparency now, wouldn't it?
Sop things continue simmering hotter and hotter. Not only do we see headlines that banks may turn down Federal funds (which might land them on some kind of 'list' don'tcha think?) but we're already seeing some State's Rights conscious states - like Georgia - becoming very wary of federal strings attached to dollars returned to the States by the Central Government (CG). --- From an historic context, it's important to note that the Central Government has been working this tax deal for a long time. A Wikipedia entry:
Of course, in response, corporations have largely become domiciled offshore to avoid taxes here and in other parts of the world. They have that option if they are 'multi-nationals' - something us reg'lar folks have a hard time doing. --- So if you are looking for a logical framework to understand what's going on as the bill for bailing out the economy continues to climb, think of it in terms of States trying to limit the central government to specific performance and only in areas where the states have ceded power to the CG. That's as good a starting point for 'getting it' as any.
As usual in most news stories, the 'truth' and 'right' which are value judgment probably lie somewhere between the extremes...it's just that periodically through the nation's history we get off-center and the getting back to the 'shared middle' can seem quite disturbing.
Speaking of Specific Performance The matter of the Mexican border continues to make headlines in all sorts of ways. For one, US federal authorities have made a massive series of drug raids which have netted north of 750 arrests so far in response to drug gangs bringing in dope.
On the other: Texas state government is worried about the potential for escalation of the conflict and now "Arizona college students warned about vacationing in Mexico" for spring break.
All of which gets us to this week's gem of a cartoon from Rebecca Price, which reminds me of a dinner long ago near San Antonio...
And you thought Alamo was just a car rental outfit....
Mass Layoffs Report The Labor Department has released its latest mass layoffs report:
Worth reading: "A planet at the brink?"
Sit On Your Wallet Department Are you as uncomfortable as I am with the suggestion by Decider Lite that a new 'tax-free' Universal Savings Plan might replace 401(k) plans? --- Just to show you how dumb the American Sheeple really are: I doubt one in a hundred has thought through the concept that you'd put money into the tax-free plan and the government would 'match it'.
My point? Where do you think the "matching money" is gonna come from? YOU!!! Your taxes!
Sheesh!
Sort This Out "China says U.S. Report on Rights Distorts Facts." Of course China squashes rights...but where is Gitmo? What are we doing in Afghanistan? Anyone else remember that advice "remove the log from your own eye before telling another of a splinter? Seesh^3
Is there any government left in the world which has "clean hands"?
They've Got a Secret "Rich Americans sue UBS to keep names secret."
Ure's Axiom 184: Poor Suffer, Rich Sue.
Markets Landry's outlook: If the market takes out above 7,460 (20% chance) then there's a real rally. Otherwise, patience...
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: Our Weird Science Project I've been asked not to go into too much detail, but the chief time monk is looking for about 5-6 pounds of scrap piezoelectric crystals. No, we're not going to take the rickety (software-based) time machine and get physical...something much more (how do I say this?) engineerable. But, for the project, we need 5-pounds of piezoelectric scrap.
Just as a footnote, in case you haven't spent a lot of time dinking around with ,ham radio gear and the associated crystal-controlled oscillators, there are all kinds of little quartz crystal-consuming products out in the world., Small quartz crystals are used because they tend to resonate at one (and only one) frequency (unless you are cutting overtone crystals, but I haven't had enough coffee to go into that explanation).
A simple explanation of how piezoelectricity works may be found here in Wikipedia.
Anyway, the electronic applications of piezoelectric crystals are really three-fold: First, if you connect a crystal up to a transistor or tube) in a particular way, you get a crystal-controlled oscillator. This is a highly stable frequency standard and it's been around inside of watches for decades. The little crystal vibrates at 'x' times per second and keeps your watch close to on-time.
Another way piezoelectrics are used is in transducers. If you apply an AC voltage of the right frequency and amplitude to a crystal, it will act as a speaker....just a variation of what the crystal in your watch does, except that on a scaled up version, you can make lower frequency applications than the radio-wavelength aps. And this will get you down into the area of sonar and in extremes, tweeters for extremely high-frequencies in stereo gear.
Going the other way, a piezoelectric microphone works by putting some piezo components between metal plates, one of which is a moveable diaphragm. Ceramic or quartz has been used in this kind of application as a microphone for human audible sounds, as well as being used at ultrasonic (think bats & dogs) as well as very low frequencies ((think LF sonar).
Yet another application has to do with how crystals can be used as a bandpass filter. If you shove a wide range of radio frequencies into a crystal on one side, you will only get signals near a single frequency out of the other. If you hook up a large number of crystals of just slightly differing frequencies, you can cobble up an extremely effective crystal filter. The more pairs of crystals are used, the steeper the sides of the passband become, until you can build an almost 'boxy-looking' passband. The ratio of the high rejection point to the flat part of the curve is the 'shape factor' of your passband - think of it as the ratio of -60 db points to 0 db points. A filter with 3 KHz between -3 (or -6) db points and 6 KHz -60 db points would be a shape factor of 2:1. All this is applied usually to the intermediate frequency of a superheterodyne receiver.
Now, if you happen to be a ham radio type (guilty!) you'd love to hang out at sites like Sherwood Engineering because they are probably the best filter designers/builders of intermediate frequency (IF) filters in the world. They turn out filters with shape factors like 1.8:1 (and better) and if you are looking for ultimate hand radio performance, this is where you go... Rob Sherwood's paper on "Roofing filters, Transmitted IMD and Receiver Performance" is not to be missed if you are into spectral purity...
I expect Sherwood Engineering uses commercial made crystals and doesn't cut their own. But way back in the days of kerosene powered radios, we actually did that. And if we cut too much off a crystal, frequencies could be moved lower a bit with some heavy marking with a soft lead pencil. Oh boy...is that ever a sign of being in my 7th decade, or what?
Where was I? I seem to have gone off into the weeds again...Oh yeah: Know where we can get 5-6 pounds of crystal leftovers? Send advise to george@ure.net.
Tool Talk Thanks to all the folks who sent in their contributions to my 'best places to buy tools online' page that I will be including in the new www.independencejournal.com site which is in development and may launch next week.
I'm pleased to be able to report two acts of intense self-control.
First, I have not opened any of the links sent it yet. Why? I have much work to do and believe me, if I start surfing some of these tool-hawking web sites, I won't get bupkis done.
Secondly, I got out of the tool show at the Palestine (TX) Civic Center only a few bucks north of $200. Best find? An oxy-acetylene welding rig for $99 including a good assortment of tips, regulators and so forth. I know, you're thinking: "What the hell does George need a gas welding set for when he already has electric?"
The answer is on three or four levels: 1) When I go out to weld on fencing, I don't want to have to lug a genset around. Figure I will just put a hook on the Oxy setup and lift the tractor bucket and off I go. 2) When the power is out and we run of the office / key services here on solar power, I don't want to suck down all the power that goes into welding. 3) A wire welder of the size I have is only good for 1/4" plate (single pass) and maybe 3/8ths (filleted). On the other hand, the gas rig will give me the ability to do up to 1/2" welds (single pass) and, since I am a gas-welding type anyway, my welds are much neater with gas and rod because I have much more control overs my puddling.
If you haven't done much welding, the idea is that you lay two pieces of metal together and puddle the metal between/including/joining the two pieces. The electric welder requires that you constantly move the wire-fed electrode back and forth to get things just so. BUT when welding there's material being added and that's the rub. With a gas rig I will be able to push around puddles of hot metal and not keep adding material. My finished welds tend to be much cleaner / "prettier" using gas.
I could mention 4) Gas welders don't throw as many sparks and that has some bonus points when working along the woods. And last, but not least, 5) is that the acetylene rig comes with a cutting torch. Lots of projects have stalled simply because cutting heavy metal is a bear without a plasma cutter, especially when you want to do something with like 1/4" plate that's too big to go into the power hacksaw. So there you have it: A really complicated set of justifications why spending $99 on the rig and then a further $450 on owning my own tanks actually makes sense.
In a 'that's how fishermen justify boats' and 'hunters justify owning a million guns' kind of way...
A reader asked a pretty good question yesterday in response to my article "New Media Wins Again" in which I explained how over time, I don't see any way for conventional newspapers to survive since technology is changing and the environment is in a huge dieoff, yada yada.
I figure this fellow wasn't the only one asking the question, so I actually put some thought into the answer and you might find this interesting:
I could go on...but just like writing on parchment went by the wayside, and how long-hand copying of Bibles in Latin was superseded by moveable type (the Gutenberg kind, not the content management system, LOL), the times, as Bob Dylan warned us, "they are a changin..."
"Proof This" Meantime, a reader asked me if I was aware that some of the comments in yesterday's column referred to what the read advised me was a "white supremacist website". Well, no, I didn't look at the site...I was looking at the discussion on stills and distilling things. See the previous comments about why newspapers do have some reason for multiple layers of copy proofing. One of the risks of the flattening of the org chart...mistakes will be made.
Wednesday February 25, 2009 Update Am I the only one that noticed that when Texas Congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul was trying to ask Fed boss Ben Bernanke something to the effect that "Now that you've committed $9-trillion, at what point would you consider admitting that maybe this was a bad policy?"
About half a dozen words from Bernanke (and no complete answer) and both CNBC and Bloomberg cut away for their top-of-the-hour breaks at 11 AM Eastern. Video of the cutaway portion here on YouTube.
Coincidence? Oh I'm just sure...it's just that it seems to happen to people who 'get' the paradigm change and doesn't seem to impact the old paradigm defenders. Coincidence...yeah, right. --- And why is no one but me worried that 401(k)'s will be rolled into new "universal savings plans"? That got almost no mainstream buzz going.
Sorry to ruin your day, but the market numbers may be trying to tell us something, don'tcha think?
Reports are out that the San Francisco Chronicle is in danger of closing. If it happens - and only a couple of weeks of miracle-level expense whacking seem to stand in the way - another 340-thousand paid circ paper could bite the dust. --- Here's a thought (which is just one tiny section of this weekend's Peoplenomics report) that will help you see how the Internet has played the same role in the current Depression that the evolution of the internal combustion engine played in driving (poor pun intended) the 1920's-1930's Depression.
According to researcher of the time (Richard Ely's work at Northwestern Univ, just to name one) the cause of the Great Depression was quite simple:
Now, let's zip forward to our evolving Second Depression or Greater Depression that we are now in because there's a sequence here that's almost identical:
If I had the SF Chronicle as a consulting client, there's a simple solution: Take the best news reporters and make an ultra-thin electronic model of news production. Then, go around to all the other failing papers in America and pick off a key writer or two from each one.
Next, you'd bundle up all this new talent and package it for a 'tomorrow platform' - like the wireless Amazon Kindles, for example.
Then you'd have something: A ubiquitous wireless information tool/platform which would have incredible depth: Anything from headlines news to best-sellers to the whole of the Gutenberg free e-texts collection, plus a kick-butt national reporting staff. Tariff it as some low fee ($7.50/month?) and have Amazon give out free samples to their whole customer base, cross promote the Kindles, and keep overhead extremely low. Have the reporters all work from home, and so forth. Cross-platform it to Blackberries and whatever phones could handle it.
That's where the trends seem to extend anyway. Why not embrace the change in a creative way? I know, too simple. Besides, this can't be sound economics: There's no formulas involved. --- Nevertheless, the Internet has - though few have noticed - left almost as wide a swath of social change as the Great Depression. A terrible commentary on the lack of aware humans. But I would think that stories like "Members of Congress Live Tweet Obama's speech" that ought to tell anyone in the print news business that the barriers to competition fell 10-years ago and they are awful frigging slow 'getting it'. While many blogs are a waste, some that provide news and analysis comparable to what you'd find in a national print publication are doing it on a shoestring and beating the giants.
I figure it's only a matter of time until that changes. Someone besides me is going to 'get it'. I'm already talking with a few really creative types about how to syndicate and grow the product. If you want a national editor for a new Kindle national news product, you can find my phone number on my consulting page.
Off Target A reader suggested that I start up a page which would be called "off target" where I'd list my 'missed predictions'. Like yesterday's report of a 1% chance that Obama could have said something about Iran last night.
While the speech last night was a decent enough one, the worry about Iran being bombed by someone (Israel? US?) is still there since this morning Russia says its nuke plant project in Iran is complete and "Iran tests first nuclear plant" is making headlines.
Free Sleep Aid Ben Bernanke's testimony to Congress.
On the other hand, if you want to stay up worrying about something, chose the Fed's latest credit card charge-off rates (6.3% NSA, Q4 '08) or the corresponding Q4 '08 delinquency rate on cards of 5.72%.
But scariest of all? Residential loan delinquencies are running just a tad under 7% in Q4 '08. That's using the NSA - not seasonally adjusted numbers - because I just don't trust 'adjusters'. ---- I have this theory that yesterday's bounce in the market was more because Bernanke didn't say anything particularly bad...except recovery may not be here until 2010 or even....so much as it was worded in such a slippery/Greenspanish way as to make accountability as elusive as the Loch Ness monster. Absent a good Nessie sighting, denial dug in and the markets loched and loaded, if you'll forgive the foggy metaphor.... --- The futures are looking lower as we go to upload, so don't expect much until we get back down to retest lows and see if that S&P 741 level will really hold a second time. My guess (and it's only that) is that it won't. --- While the "Big banks get ready for White House stress tests" I find myself wondering why the stress of us average taxpayers has faded into non-issueness? While Obama says "We are not quitters" I think he left out a tiny asterisk: (*we are mostly in denial and mostly all nuts".)
Banker Blowback I told you the other day that police/authorities in the UK were worried about the 'summer of rage' that was expected there. You may also have caught the headline that here in the US, "Urban warfare drills linked to coming Economic Rage".
What you may not have read yet is the James Slack piece in the UK Mail headlined "Yes, we are raging - against a Government that spies on its citizens while ignoring the crimes of greedy bankers."
Classic conflict as one paradigm falls and another is rising as its replacement.
Depression Era Crime Rates? One of the items I have on my LOSTD (list of stuff to do) is research into the crime rates in the 1930's. Why? Trying to line up present-day stories like "Retail crime grows with demand for discounts: NRF" with events back then.
--- snip and save section --- Coping: The Most Dangerous Mission of the Week There are times in life that are more or less normal and there are times in life that are just plain dangerous. Today, I will be facing one of the most dangerous things a man can do: I'm going to one of those traveling tool shows. Yeah, the kind where some outfits rents either the local civic center, or the ones that pop up in big parking lots in rural America under canvas tents with open sides. Think they're benign? Ha! Shows you what you know about being a male. --- There aren't too many tools we don't already have around the ranch. But, today's foray into the jaws of the beast will be on the flimsy pretext that a need one of those 12-foot long yellow poly lifting straps (might be a towing strap) with metal hooks on the ends for listing diesel drums off the pickup truck. I thought I'd pick up one ($4.99 according to a neighbor who went yesterday), but then again, you can never tell when you'll need another, so maybe two or three of them. --- But that's not the really dangerous part. It's all the other stuff they have on hand. You can usually get a little 5-speed drill press for $49. I know...with a good Craftsman (Sears has great tools) equipped with a laser for centering, why would I need another drill press. OK, I'll grant you that one. Maybe I don't need that. And yeah, we've already got a planer, a chop saw (w/laser), table saw, and just about anything else you can think of. Even late-model new goodies like the Rockwell Sonic Crafter. --- Since my little sister sent me a card congratulating me on entering my seventh decade, I've been wondering "What's missing from my web site that would be fun, productive, educational, and above all useful to other folks that would be a hoot to provide?"
This morning's review of the day planner (I can't run my life without Outlook, OK?) it slapped me upside the head: What the remake of the Independence Journal really needs (besides the other features in development) would be an "Ultimate Tool Website."
I mean somewhere that would have a directory of all the great tool websites out there and a couple of reviews of this tool, or that.
Sooo..... I'm getting to a point here.... If you have any favorite tool sites, please send them in to george@ure.net and put TOOL LINK in the header so my mail router gets it pigeonholed in the right place.
Some of my favorites (besides eBay where you can get anything) include: www.amazon.com (they have a surprisingly deep offering of tools both directly and through subs) www.sears.com (head for Craftsman tools)
Then there are the more esoteric kinds of hang-outs - this is where the amateur metalworker like me goes to just do things:
http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/ (get one of their aluminum melting furnace kits, refractory material off eBay along with some green sand. Then pick up the crucibles from www.mcmaster.com. You should be able to find lifting tongs and pouring shanks on eBay, but that's a whole other adventure.
Then, once you have cast an aluminum whatever, you'll want to either visit: www.taigtools.com or... www.cartertools.com or... www.littlemachineshop.com - another very dangerous place.
Almost as dangerous as reading (and rereading) about the Sears CNC wood carver...damn I want one of them. Wonder if I could adapt it to doing PCB work?
(*I assume you know about www.emachineshop.com if you just need the part and don't want to gear up for building the Queen Mary?)
Then, once you get all that done, you'll need a collection of projects. In this category, the David & Vince Gingery's books are wonderful. http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/index.html
The whole Gingery concept is about building tools - and things like a 35-foot tilt-over ham radio antenna tower - from scratch. --- Whew. Just get me even thinking about projects and I've got a million of 'em. Eventually, you will end up with a ton of tools, a list a mile long of 'projects I gotta get done' and the realization that life may not last forever, so projects become much more important that real/assigned work.
And, since the most important part of life are the adventures and memories locked up between our ears which do with us to the grave, it's easy to see why on my list of to-do items, putting the 80 cc gas-powered adapter on one of our mountain bikes holds a much higher priority than remodeling a bathroom, for example. I've remodeled bathrooms before...m ore than I care to remember...but I've never hand-built a cheesy 2-cycle motorcycle. I figure now that I'm 60+ I want to do the bike project while I can still fall off something without breaking a bunch of bones.
Elaborate justifications, no? Ah, such is the life of a tool connoisseur.
Which brings me back full circle: This adventure to the local civic center for the tool show is more dangerous than next week's rework of a crown, more difficult that an appendectomy, and more thrilling (or at least more legal) than a drive of a racing car. Yessir. Whether it's a good pocket knife or a full-up 9 X 20 metal lathe, or anything in between tools and tool shows are dangerous.
With government protecting us from damn near anything else that fun, I'm sure it will only be a matter of time till these too are regulated. Maybe I better take an extra couple of bucks with me. No telling what Congress could do...
A New Kind of Market Say, here's an interesting place to head if you don't have enough money to get addicted to tools: A new(ish) website called www.secondmarket.com has popped up which modestly describes itself as "The marketplace for Illiquid Assets".
So, you some company has gone bankrupt and you have a position in line as a creditor and want to unload that position (at a discount of course): how would you sell it? And, from our standpoint, how would you buy some of those kind of assets on the theory (probably a bad one) that you might be able to put a hell of a fine return together if you bought up distressed assets toward the bottom of the recession? Somewhat like buying expensive lottery tickets, in a sense, but with a little less leverage and a lot more data. Something to ponder/investigate if you really have any money.
(Since I'm going to a tool show today, I guess it'd be pointless for me to do much more than pass it along, huh? You know where my extra sawbuck is going...)
Speaking of money and such....
High Cost of Boozing I keep wanting to mention that many states are considering increases in booze taxes - which includes beer and wine. --- I assume you caught the recent article about the British banker who ran up a £37,000 plus a £5,000 tip last week? That converts to somewhere around US$60,000. Bet it was a million-dollar hangover, too... ---
But not to worry about such price hikes. The tool
connoisseur has just the project for you: One of those
darned Gingery books: The Secrets of Building an Alcohol Producing Still.
Maybe undrinkable ethanol for your car? Still, some folks are wondering in discussion groups like this one. --- But things like distilling alcohol are not very efficient. besides, there are other kinds of still which are far more useful like this solar water still from Mother Earth News' archives...
Paradigm Shifting An intuitive reader sends this useful construct:
What makes us all disposable (and pig food?) is that at some point when we get saturated in things then we will have no incentive to follow the 'marching orders of others' -- those in power. That's when things get interesting. Oh, I mean that's why right now things are getting interesting...
Pass me that book of esoteric economic formulas, wouldja? --- Send snip and save items to george@ure.net --- end snip and save section ---
Tuesday February 24, 2009 Just IN: Bloomberg is reporting the Case-Schiller house price index down 18.5% Dec-Dec.
Iran - Israel: Something in the Works? The conventional wisdom this morning is that the Obama speech tonight to a joint session of Congress will deal with the economy. No doubt there'd be plenty for him to talk about, like what happened yesterday with the market's "bounce and trounce" that I told you to expect. The market climbed nicely - for a few minutes, anyway - and then ended the day mostly at levels not seen since 1997.
While it's true that the close on Monday at 743.33 didn't take out the intraday low (e.g. the lowest point of trading while the markets were open), the close was nevertheless below the worst close in November of 2008 which is the technical analysis benchmark at the moment. The Yahoo Finance historical data shows the worst daily close back then was 752.44 on November 20th, 2008, so that mark fell by nearly 10-points.
What technicians are betting on is that somehow, the small technical lower intraday action on November 21, 2009, which got us down to 741.02 will somehow be able to hold the whole of the global financial system together. While I'm a great fan of various technical theories and use them when I'm trading myself, it's sort of like trying to get kite strike to hold up the Golden Gate. It seems statistically improbable that it will work. --- Now let's step back for a moment and consider how the "PowersThatBe" would look at all this: Clearly, the global financial picture deteriorated overnight. Headlines like "Renewed financial concerns hit world markets" are popping up on most of the financial sites at this hour. Along with that, oil has fallen to the $38 region which is not good news in most Middle East oildoms.
Now let's consider this from the perspective of the PTB: We need to first ascertain what the problems are (we can make a list of those) and then come up with a 'global solution' that will keep us nicely ensconced in power. So let's hit the problem list:
We should also not lose track of what has been going on in Europe...I mean besides the fall of the Latvia government last week and the billions needed for Eurozone bailouts. "European stocks fall to lowest level since March 2003" headlines a Bloomberg report. So besides the royals likely putting pressure on the U.S. to do something (even if its wrong) there would also be calls coming in from Asia because the "Yen weakens to 12-week low against the dollar as refuge role wanes..."
The outlook for the financial markets is pretty grim, too. I spoke with Robin Landry (rlandry@allegiance.tv) after the close on Monday and asked him what could happen once the collapse of technical support completes (if indeed it does) with an S&P 500 close under the old 741 level.
Landry's view is that there is some minor support for the S&P around 733, but then we could drop to 631, and then we start to looking at some really ugly numbers. As I explained in yesterday's report, there's a case to be made that Dow 6,300 is in the cards - at a minimum - and in a worst case, we could take out the Dow 4,000 before getting our long-expected bounce back to the 9,500 - 10,000 level.
Now ask yourself this: If you were 'ThePowersThatBe" what's the solution? --- I've come to the conclusion that since there is so much pressure building up on the social contract front - and it's worth repeating yesterday's link to a British forecast of a 'summer of rage' - that now would be a Jim-dandy time to start watching closely for 'events out of Left Field'.
We know from the various temporal markers from the www.halfpasthuman.com predictive linguistics work that we should be - right about now - in the middle of the Obama "test". We also know what to expect in this: At some point, he will have an opportunity to 'lose a battle and win the war" or, he could decided to "win the battle and lose the war". Unfortunately, the linguistics don't givbe much perspective on just what that 'war' will be about but the temporal markers involve oil and ships grounding, which I've been mentioning to you for several weeks.
It seems like we've had all kinds of grounding and shipping accidents lately: off Dubai, that tanker losing power at the Golden Gate, the Navy missile cruiser grounding off Hawaii, and now today one-third of the cargo of an 800-foot long oil tanker is being off-loaded about 22-miles out in the Gulf of Mexico where it ran aground last Friday.
So, it would seem that the linguistics coming from our little 'rickety time machine' have been met and now it's only a matter of figuring out which war the administration will be ramping up.
Obviously, if they take on the financial mess head-on, there will be all kinds of 'accountability' issues cropping up. Besides Fox and Bloomberg having to sue under the Freedom of Information Act to find out what's really going on with the public dough being handed out to bankers to stave off bank runs in America, there was an almost 'invisible story' that went by yesterday over at the Online Journal headed "Obama's DOJ quietly sought dismissal of missing White House emails lawsuit."
Not that transparency has ever been a strong point of the PTB; it's just that people who elected Obama sure had higher expectations than this quite limited interpretation of "change". --- Now let me switch gears for a moment and point out the latest move by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton...because I find it very very interesting: "Veteran Mideast Envoy Ross Named to Advise Clinton on Iran" says a Washington Post headline this morning. I'd call your attention first to this paragraph in the story:
The other thing to note might be Ross' Wikipedia entry which mentions this:
So he's quite expert in the Middle East situation. --- Now, let's take a look at what's going on in Iran: We begin with a Chinese report that a "Spokesman: Iran's nuclear activities have not slowed down."
What's more: One shouldn't lose sight of the internal political developments within Iran. While there has been some developing internal pressure for reform (which might be interpreted as a thaw with the West), another Chinese report informs us that "Iran's reformist candidates face uphill task in upcoming presidential election." And, that election is just about four months off.
Now let's look at some other headlines which bear on my thinking:
One can almost see pressure developing here: The incumbents in Iran would like to have their nuclear plant producing power before the election - it would give them a 'marketing tool'.
Israel, meantime, is not just sitting back and watching this all happen. For one, Iranian media reports "Israel killer drones to counter Iran S-300?" The Harop drones, as reported, are a fire-and-forget weapon designed to attack hostile radar sources.
Then I received an email this morning from a source in Israel which is worth passing along:
--- Now let's pop upstairs and see how all this shapes up for the 'globalist controllers/PowersThatBe's" perspective.
We know that war fills a certain economic function. I trust you caught the headline that the "U.S. to give $900-million in Gaza Aid" And no, that's not just an Al Jazeerah report, you can find it in the NY Daily News, too.
You see how the global controllers play? The US supports Israel with x billions of tax dollars, and then Israel busts up Gaza, and then we taxpayers are committed by our 'leaders' (term used loosely) to paying for clean-up. Just set that aside for later thoughts. --- The PowersThatBe really, really need a distraction from their economic disaster that's presently unfolding. So what would fill the bill? Something out of left field.
While it's a 99% probability that the Obama speech tonight will be focused on economic matters, I'd guess there's a one percent chance that something like an attack on Iran's Bushier nuclear plant could be in the offing within hours.
Not only would that spin world attention of the economic mess, but it would ensure the re-election of hardliners in Iran and that's precisely the kind of us-versus-them / bi-stable model that the global PTB need to keep rolling. Just like the myth that there's a difference between the republicorps and the democorps here in the USA. Seen any change lately? Banksters are still carting off dough and the purchasing power of your money is being religiously watered down.
By making people partisans... either religious or political partisans, the PowersThatBe can play the world like a fiddle. Divide and keep conquered. Nice work if you can get it.
Now let me drop into my Peter Falk / Colombo voice and say this "Oh...there's just one thing that's bothering me...".
Tonight is the dark of the moon...new moon is tomorrow. Those are the perfect conditions for high tech thermal imagery and night-vision warfare. Be a fine night to take an F-15 for a spin.
I know, I know...coincidence. All coincidence. Probably less than a 1% chance.
Just watch the price of gold toward the end of today's trading for hints. If you see gold pop up to, oh, $1,030 before the day it out? Maybe a clue... --- Meantime, "Black Swan" author Nassim Taleb says the US banking system is 'designed to blow up'. Good video...
Banker Writes Can't tell you who...but a fellow I know in the banking industry is not amused with the regulatory statement out yesterday from the Treasury, FRB, OCC, and OTS. (Should I mention EIEIO?):
Sure - once you're government owned, why bother?
Makes sense to me: Have bad banks fail and pay off insured deposits within days and let the good banks be good banks seems like it would be a lot cheaper than trying to let those trading desks just keep digging holes, but fortunately, my understanding of economics is limited. I start with the honest worker, honest dollar, honest government model and that's...well...let's just say 'obsolete' and let it go at that.
The hard part? Avoiding getting sucked into the fray. Key is to keep your independence (and a little wealth would be nice) in the coming/continuing/growing troubles.
Carbon Trading's Collapse? A good story out of The Hindu on how prices of carbon credits has plunged in the past year.
Markets When I looked, the futures were point up a bit. After yesterday's decline, I would expect a bounce. But, I will just wait on committing anything to my long commodity positions until I see something more concrete. And until I digest the Obama speech and related events.
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Coping: We May NOT Recall Congresspersons So much for recalling members of Congress or the Senate who don't follow the Will of the People. Seems that a reader has found the definitive document from the Congressional Research Center titled: "Recall of Legislators and the Removal of Members of Congress from Office."
If I'm reading it correctly, it seems to say that once elected to the House or Senate, removal except at regular election times wouldn't be recognized:
A couple of things of interest: Why was the opinion requested in 2003? Say, you don't think contemporaneous events have been on tap for that long do you? --- Nevertheless, much more interesting research to be done on the whole question of recall. What would happen, if for example, a Congressman was subject to STATE recall. In other words, what if a State recall action were filed and the Member's 'authority' to represent The People of a particular jurisdiction were removed? Seems under this 2003 opinion that the State's will would just be overturned or overlooked and whoever was previously elected would remain seated.
A curious cover note which accompanied this email from an anonymous reader offered this:
Have to agree on that latest sentence - of course those in power would not voluntarily agree to cede anything.
Me? I'll stay a voting box kinda guy. But, I'd also have to agree that it's interesting that folks in Washington, once elected, seem to have done a pretty good job of putting themselves in unimpeachable positions.
If you want to contribute to this research project, you might check out your state's recall laws/rules and send them along....
Street Level Reports Here's an interesting one - confirmation of the urban warfare training going on around the country:
Another offers this:
So's my el Don, thanks.
And some economic input from Oklahoma:
Cross Generation Contact I highly recommend signing up for The Urban Dictionary's "Urban Word of the Day" emails. Today's was especially good:
Ah, we live in such strange times. Think about it: In the past 20-years, I've gone from being able to talk to my Congressman and NOT able to talk to my kids to not being able to talk to my Congressman, but the kids and I are all good.
That, my friend is real change.
Tuned In If you have bandwidth: Video of a new song "Shutting Detroit Down" making it around C&W outlets, we hear...
"....Here in the real world, they're shutting Detroit down..." --- Send snip and save items to george@ure.net --- end snip and save section ---
Monday February 23, 2009 Welcome to "Bounce or Trounce" Week As you can see on the chart at the bottom of this page, there was a very interesting 'split decision' issued by the markets last week. On the one hand, the Dow has scored a decline of sufficient size to close under the November ('08) closing lows. Technically this would seem to 'open the gates of hell' on the short side for the Dow.
On the other hand, we see that the S&P 500 has not yet closed under the '08 fall lows and this is why it will be such an interesting week to watch.
So what's my best guess? I try to look for very long-term historical guidance. One of the indicators that a sage investor (one who has lost less than you, perhaps?) would be to look at the Dow Transport Index. We see by looking up the historical prices (on a weekly closing basis) over at Yahoo Finance that on for the week of November 17, 2008, the transports closed at 3,122.75.
Then we look at the Transports close for last week and what do we see? The Transports closed at 2,698.97. That's a whopping 13.5% lower than mid November 08 - and what this seems to suggest to me (although the coffee isn't fully saturating my brain cells yet) is that I would expect the broader market to drop to similar levels.
Which means what? Well, given that the Dow on a closing weekly basis was around (what does that chart at the bottom of the page have circled?) 7,548 times whatever the transport decline was. I'd put it around 6,523.681 (plus or minus a stick of chewing gum).
And here's the BIGGIE: That assumes the Transports are done falling for now. They very well could decline further and that occurrence should give anyone foolish enough to play the long side of this puppy a real Excedrin-sized migraine.
Oh, one more thing. While the S&P may not have broken the intraday lows yet, on the weekly data, you'll see that the S&P was at 800.03 the week of November 17th, so...
Armed with all this, and that some folks will insist based on a hundred point bounce today that the sky has parted and that 'good times are just ahead' I'll just sit here in junior curmudgeon mode, throwing back Mrs. Olson's as fast as I can to stay awake through another round of the "bottom picking" which is almost a certainty by, oh, 11 AM today.
Not that any of this is trading advise. Why, if you'd take advice from me you'd take advice from any old stranger on the street. Granted my track record is a little better than most fund managers, and come to think of it, most people on the street given three or four darts could do as well against most funds, but remember my position for many, many months has been what? Wait until the lows are really in.
I don't think they are, yet.
Could gold have one more head-fake to the $725 area? You bet! Would that be when ol' George loads up on a few commodity calls? Uh huh, sure. And the same on oil, which I reckon might get back down to the mid to lower 30's yet? Yup...that'd be my game.
But we never really know until the fat lady sings and despite the $53 pop in gold prices last week and what sounds like some singing off-stage somewhere, we're not there yet. Best advice right now? I don't give advice. I just throw dots up all over the place and it's your job to connect them.
Nationalizing Banks, Redux The second thing on my agenda this morning is to ask you to sing another chorus of "Rewarding Bad Behavior" while I somberly report that the federales may take as much as a 40% bite into flailing Citi. Of course, this would dilute existing stockholders values, which is one reason the stock has lost...hand me the calculator, wouldja?...roughly 96.45% of it's value from the 55 area down to a $1.95 last week.
I have to admit a certain degree of mixed emotions on this. Without Uncle / Obama putting zillions into these losers, we would almost have bank runs and bank holidays. Oh sure, there are still linguistic pointers in that direction anyway, but the theory is that avoiding bank runs will prevent the realization by the population that there's a Greater Depression underway right before our eyes. Which is why in Cliff's work at www.halfpasthuman.com, the linguistics keep using words like 'surreal' to describe the situation ahead for the next six months (and beyond).
Since you may not look at such things the same way I do, here's a grand little quote out of the Asia Times posting of Doug Noland's Credit Bubble Bulletin that illustrates the point:
The way I have it figured, by the time the competitive collapse of currencies world-wide gets underway (not later than late May) Noland ought to be able to safe eliminate the use of "almost" as a modifier of "surreal". --- Not like I'm the only one with mixed feelings on this. Nouriel Roubini who seems to have taken over Dr. Marc Faber's moniker as Dr. Doom, figures that the takeover and resale approach to banks is a 'market-friendly' solution.
Unless, of course, you happened to be in a fund which invested in Citi when the stock was in the 40's and rode it down to recent levels. In which case, it ain't so friendly, is it? --- As the International Herald Trib reports that "As doubts grow, U.S. will judge banks' stability" I go back to scratching what's becoming a much larger bald spot lately and wonder "If these clowns didn't see it coming and couldn't stop it, why should anyone in their right mind trust the now?"
Oh...wait! That's it! With over half the American population on some kind of coping pharmaceutical, there aren't enough people in their right minds to make a whit of difference! It's all starting to come into focus, isn't it? A little more fluoride, please, have another Prozac, a shot of el Don and this too shall pass.
Seems Everyone's Talking About Banks Here's a press release just in:
Huh? Did that mean anything? More coffee...I must be missing something...like details of where the money went and why Fox and Bloomberg have to sue to get details of what's really going on down at the public ledger level... So is this morning's statement like an anti-bank-run deal, or what? I am becoming way too cynical, I suppose. But now that I'm over 60 maybe this is what an onset of senility is like...Yeah, that must be it: Save the banks, wrap it up with apple pie and moms and see who salutes...got it!
FMTT (Texting Hint: may be related to an old Special Forces phrase which ends "...me to tears...")
Globalism Stew What if I had a new consulting client...the PowersThatBe? Why, if I were doing the morning briefings for the PowersThatBe, my report for today would go something like this:
See what a fine PTB advisor/briefer I could be? All that's missing is a couple of million a year in compensation plus a UBS account in Switzerland....
Bad to Worse No, not my writing; the economy, silly! "Forecasters: Economy worse in '09, better in '10." --- How about Housing Prices? Yaley Robert Schiller says house prices are still way too high. Case-Schiller Index due out tomorrow. Also: Consumer CONfidence. Me? I'm waiting for the mass layoff report this week...
And Really Worse? Glen Beck's recent War Room "Worst Case Scenarios" - three parts for now - up on YouTube here. Don't think he's done 'summer of hell' but give it time....
Pop Goes the Airline US Airways won't be charging for sodas on its flights. Now, if they'd just do the same with beer, I could get behind it... high fructose corn syrup and additives? My opinion? People should pay to poison themselves, but I'm not in charge of an in-flight department anymore - that was long ago...
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Coping: Summer of Hell So it's against this backdrop of political and financial ineptitude, made worse by CONgress abdicating on war powers, Constitutionally mandate control of money creation, and a longer than we have time for laundry list of omissions, commissions, misfeasance's and lobby-nuzzling that we can all look forward to the "summer of hell" as people global do a massive "WTF?"
The only solace in all this is that it won't be America only. It'll be a global event. The UK's Guardian headlines it this way:
Well, gee, gosh, look surprised. I've been telling you this has been in the linguistics for Summer '09 for how long? Go look at this Google cache from my Wednesday August 20, 2008 report which not only clearly predicts the October '08 meltdown but this stuff still to come that British police are awakening to: "This run is focused on events as far out as July 2009, which for labeling purposes in modelspace is called the "Summer of Hell" for reasons that you'll be able to catch up with in Part Zero which is expected to be posted around September 5th..."
I should mention in here that the time monks have subscriptions open for the next run ($280 for first-timers and $70 for returning subscribers) but if you are unemployed, about to lose your home, or whatever don't subscribe. There's not much point in getting serious hints about the future like we do unless you're in a position to do something about it. Besides, when really big stuff gets close, like the quake warning in May 10, 2008, we do put out free public notices in advance of events when immediacy values go really high and there may be something to be done to prepare for expected events.
This knowing even the broad brush of future events before they happen is not much fun...except that it takes most of the surprise out of turning on the news and let's one look at the future in a much more harmonious way. Remind me to point out when we get into the midst of the summer of hell that my weekly premium service, Peoplenomics, was going over strategies and tactics for getting through the summer four months in advance.
The Philadelphia newspaper scene may be changing since the owner of the Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News has filed for bankruptcy protection. Electrons continue gaining strategic advantage over cellulose, huh?
Bad Acting The headline in the NY Post this morning that the "Actors Union Seeking Pay Ad-justment" has me wondering if maybe that shouldn't be extended to Congress...
Coffee not kicked in yet? I mean how about if all any member of CONgress could get for any kind of speech would be union scale? That way, those honorariums would shrink and lobbyists would not have so much....What? You don't like it? --- Send comments and large stacks of $100 bills to george@ure.net --- end snip and save section ---
Before the chart, a little background: Once upon a time, a long while ago, I observed during my quest for 'truth' in economics, that the PowersThatBe, 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.
So one of our charts for Peoplenomics subscribers oughta be widely circulated - it shows that if you line up the peak of the Dow in January 2000 with the peak in early September of 1929, we're on a very very close replay track. Much closer than even the chart shows if you were to back out inflation, and put in the effects of 1929 deflation, but that'd be real work, and I'm sort of lazy if the truth be told.
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:
"George, that's only a coincidence!" your monkey-mind will protest.
Why sure it is...you bet. A 9½ year long coincidence...yessir....just a coincidence, I'm sure...
Write when you get rich,
George Ure, The People's Economist |
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A good stable, because I have Constable's other famous book on
UFO's which gets into a discussion of what? The link
between UFO's and orgone energy!
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You'll want to review the BATF rules first or potentially face a
bunch of latter-day
