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Published Monday - Friday about 8 AM Central Time Except Holidays....many major typos are fixed by 8:30 daily
Updated:
Saturday,
March 14, 2009
07:55 CDT
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Crazy World, Different Day The US stock markets ended their rousing rally this week with renewed joviality and good cheer, since the popular delusion is flourishing momentarily that a bottom is in and 'good times are just ahead.' I don't want to sound like a gloomster, but I seriously doubt it. As I pointed out in Friday's report, it will take a couple of days over Dow 7,404 to make a believer out of me. In the meanwhile, I'll just sit back and let others play the game of 'catch falling knives'. I still expect lower prices before the bottom is in, if for no other reason than there hasn't been enough real fear expressed yet.
Part of the week's index hallucination may have been based on the theory that a global recovery could get underway in short order; something the World Bank told the G-20 meeting not to be so focused on. Instead, they're saying fix the broken banking system and then eye growth.
One other thing of note from the WB's Robert Zoellick: He's also warning about dangers of 'protectionism'.
This strike me as a curious thing indeed, since there has been essentially no protectionism anywhere in sight yet we have still screwed the pooch, so to speak, with rampant globalism. Zoellick and other globalists still point to the 1930's events while failing to acknowledge that Smoot didn't happen until the country was already deep in depression.
I'd argue that outsourcing most of America's core manufacturing (and a lot of services too, like computer help desks) to places like India, has actually contributed to the decline we're now in. The globalists won't mention that, however, since the straw man of 'protectionism' has worked so far and being able to work the wage rate differentials between countries has been hugely profitable, which in turn generates cash, which in turn greases the skids of politics, but I suppose you have that figured out already; it's impolite, of course, to give voice to it. A little honesty goes a long way...often, too far, in fact.
Seems to me that Zoellick isn't thinking things through or is speaking up on behalf of those who are desperately defending the present paradigm which we agree needs some serious retooling, but that'll be at the hands of the next generation...or two, or three...at the present rate. The PTB don't like change; unless they can make a buck at it, of course. --- About the only people about, who aren't completely nuts, are Canadians. They have somehow managed to develop some resources, preserve some environment, install national healthcare, a workable retirement system, and all this without crushing their banking system to the point where they were able to tell the G-20 the obvious: "Canada says US, Europe banking systems need repair." Gee, who'da thought? --- So, come Monday, the reality (or some variant thereof) of the G-20 meeting and a whole slug of numbers will test whether the markets have really developed a little spine, or if this is nothing more than a flash-in-the-pan; fool's gold, and a good running of the shorts. I'm inclined to suspise this last.
Monday we will get capacity utilization from the Fed. Utilization, that is, of what little the globalists haven't outsourced as their deification of 'free trade' only works as long as they can find someone, somewhere, who will do work cheaper than you.
Tuesday we get building permits and Producer Prices. Come Wednesday, there's the Consumer Price Index to deal with. Next come the weekly unemployment numbers on Thursday along with leading economic indicators.
My best guess is that the market will still work lower until the first week of April. Good Friday falls on April 10 this year and a bottom in the preceding week is my dart-of-the-day, but that's not investment advise. You go throw your own darts. --- Speaking of Easter, and since this is Saturday morning and a bit more mellow than a week day, I keep forgetting to mention that a late Easter means in some states, the fresh water fishing season will be delayed this year. It's traditional in many states to have the opening day of fresh water season the weekend after Easter, on the theory that (amazingly) there are some who'd find a fighting rainbow trout at the end of a 9-foot handmade bamboo fly rod a more rousing experience than a good sermon. No accounting for folks behavior faced with such choices, so that's why some states save us from ourselves and the trout for an extra few weeks this year.
Our favorite family freshwater lake opening day spot up north was often so crowded that Pappy once said he might be able to 'walk on water' from one side of the lake to the other.
Hard to explain the joys of fly fishing and 'single-egging' for trout to a bass fisherman, though. The main difference seems to be that lake fishing for trout is an early morning, coffee and sandwiches affair, while bass fishermen seem content to sleep in, wait till they can buy cold beer on their way to the lake.
Where was I? Oh yeah...not going fishing this year, so no gear to check, but no doubt millions will be. Read a study once that claimed fishing is a sport enjoyed by well over 50% of the population at some point in life and presumably a fair number of those are counting the days till the weekend after Easter.
With Friends Like This Department If you were expecting some kind of breakthrough in diplomatic relations with Iran, you might put your feet up and rest a spell: Iran is pushing OPEC this weekend to cut oil production and push prices back up. Maybe they haven't noticed that there's a global recession trying to turn into a Depression underway, or perhaps they haven't figured that the sooner the recovery gets rolling, the sooner they will have pricing power again; sometimes you just gotta throw a log on the fire before you get heat out of it. --- Speaking of oil, a big spill of it in Australia turns out to be 10-times worse than first thought.
Rounding Up Food and What Else? We're watching with more than passing interest the reports that "Obama sets steps to toughen food safety regulation" because food safety is one thing, but the agri-biz backed, power-grabbing moves, like HR 875 seem more the product of a chemical-farming/life patenting lobby's latest wet dream, if you read accounts of how it could destroy family farms and end farmers markets.
Government's answer to all problems is invariable more government. And since lobby groups actually run the country, I should probably hold my tongue. But between the shadow government and their checking writing lobbyist pals, I sure haven't seen much 'change' from the Obama folks, except the power-grab for basic rights seems to have stepped up. I can hardly wait for the next attack on the Second Amendment from this crowd...
More Layoffs Ahead Up to 26,000 teachers have received tentative layoff notices in California. Someone kinda missed that in the all the banker saving, didn't they?
Around the Ranch: Goats, Computers, Clients and Taxes If you read the blog-formatted version of this site, which seems a silly thing to do but some readers insist on it, you may have noticed that Friday's note was not posted due to the interruption of my normal routine by the arrival of a pair of goat twins born to "Sugar" and a set of triplets born to "Tinkerbelle". While that was going on, our billy "Dick Chinny" (for his fine beard, of course) was being an insistent interrupter, and of course this had to happen in a driving rainstorm. And it was then that we noticed the small hole in the barn roof was leaking a fair bit, so that meant up on the roof to make repairs. And it was raining enough to get flood warnings posted in our area.
All of which would have been fine & manageable, except that at about then my 'big pipe' onto the internet went down so we went from 5 MB of top speed and 3-hops from the backbone down to our satellite back-up system which is 750 KB down and only 56 KB up along with a mule train to the backbone. Sort of like getting out of a sports car and walking, or maybe crawling. And even that would have been fine, except that due to the aforementioned heavy rain, the satellite connection was up and down due to the thickness of the cloud cover. Satellite uplinks work best when the sky is clear.
Eventually, things got settled down and I got to working on various client projects just in time to get a call from my consigliore, a tax attorney who must have known I was about to segue into working on the tax nightmare, to tell me he had spied a new word somewhere on the net which describes America's new economic model. Ready for it?
The rest of the day went better: Elaine's birthday present (cool new laptop) arrived which meant four hours of configuring to rip the useless pre-installed software off and get my own favorite spyware and cookie manager installed (www.maxa-tools.com), amongst other things.
Today, life on the ranch may (or may not) get back to normal. There are still five more mothers in waiting, ready to drop kids...our herd seems destined to swell to over two dozen by the time my son gets here for a visit next week, and a tower crew is on hot standby to climb the 300 feet up to make repairs on our custom microwave link. I can hardly wait. --- Strange thing this morning: Zeus the cat is eyeing me in a funny way...keeps looking at the keyboard. It's almost like he wants to get at my computer. Boy, I must be imagining things.
What's Really Causing This Depression In 1938, the federal government held a series of hearings into the causes of the Great Depression of the 1930's. And, no surprise, the outcome of the hearings that made it into the history books was the Keynesian version of things which in effect said that "more government intervention and better intervention" was the 'right' course for government. Of course, since telling an already big government that more government was needed, this was very much like pushing drinks at a drunk. There was, however, a much deeper cause of the Great Depression - which I'll explain in a moment, championed by sound economic professionals, who just didn't preach the right Gospel to the big government choir. In case you haven't noticed, the 'bailouts' that have been passed have about zero job creation power; 3.5 million admits the Obama administration, of of these, some will be counted if jobs are just 'saved' - making accountability all but impossible. But, in case you haven't noticed, the "more government mantra" of the 1930's is being replayed in spades today. But what's really causing this Second Depression may come as a surprise to you...and it's not the move to make District of Columbia residents income tax FREE... But it's sorta related...
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"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 March 13, 2009 Buy The Rumors? An AP headline this morning reminds us that the "Global stock rally continues ahead of G-20 summit." As I sit back and wait for the next dip, eyeing a longer rally if we get a couple of days over 7404 on the Dow, I'm reminded of the rest of the old Wall Street adage: "Buy the rumor...sell the news."
Wonder if the G-20 will remember there's an inflation resistant form of money that's been around for thousands of years called Gold?
That inconvenient bit of history aside, when I read about how a "Nobel Prize winner backs world currency" I get really nervous...but it's another bubble, and more than ever, the folks at the top need another one of those... --- But there's also the little matter I'd have to call "The China Distraction". The US is now sending a war ship toward China. But, not to be outdone, China has,. in poker-playing terms, just given the west a big 'tell' about its intentions as headlines appear that China is worried about their (massive) US Treasury holdings.
But not to worry says our Commander in Chief - the economic situation is not as bad as we think. And if it isn't, goes our kick under the poker table toward the Chinese, those bonds are going up in value, not down.
As if to underscore that, headlines are about that the retail numbers out yesterday were not as bad as feared - which is putting a way more Happy Talk spin on it than I would have given it, but I only write headlines for my own little one-man e-paper. --- So is the bottom really in? Comments from readers are indecisive - which is a fine place to be. I've been awaiting a rally since December, but it feels to me like one more down leg should happen first. A couple of particularly good reader comments on point: One remind me of the old Bernard Baruch saying "I'll take my 60% out of the middle" - which gets to the strategy of getting in a little late, and get out a little early...very fine concept.
The other reader offered that some of the apparent rally in retail may just be consumers going out and having last-minute shopping flings - maxing out their credit cards - before going down to file bankruptcy later on. Yeah, that's possible too. Lot of tea leaves to consider in this environment. --- One this morning is the latest balance of trade report:
Gasoline on the rally fire: Improving Balance of Trade deficit. --- One way to look at the data on how stocks are doing that I picked up from genius-level economist Martin Armstrong's work (before he was jailed) was to look at market changes in colors. Red for down from the previous week and green if up. Doing this from the end of September 2007 we get:
Rally's happen, even when the bear's about. So even though this week looks like a slam-dunk to be higher than last week's 6,600 area close, the last time the market had back-to-back Dow advances was April of 2008. So let's see if the market can back up this week's advance come Monday, shall we? Structured Credit Investor's Counterparty Risk index hit a new all-time high this week...
Charges in the Smith Case If you thought the Anna-Nicole Smith case was buried, how wrong you are: Anna-Nicole Smith's boyfriend Howard Stern and two doctors are reportedly being charged by California investigators.
Gunning for Sheriff Joe? Reports are out that the Justice (Just-us?) Department is having a look into the border enforcement activities of controversial Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio . What's he guilty of? Oh, enforcing immigration laws, I suppose; something the federal government has demonstrated an inability to do...
Spot The Terrorists Department Here's a headline I keep forgetting to mention that came out this week: "Secret State Police Report: Ron Paul, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, Libertarians are Terrorists." Yup, dangerous stuff, this supporting of The Constitution. What's the old saying? Something about when the hour is dark, telling the truth is a revolutionary act? Must be that time, huh?
And that get's us to Rebecca Price's latest from
Toon-Republic: Does America Come to This?
Or, maybe we're already there....
--- snip and save section --- Coping: More - Free - Million Dollar Ideas This morning's first 'million dollar idea' came to me as Elaine was clicking through the 'thousand channel wasteland' on the electric Cyclops in the living room, and since we get the odd Gollywood type wandering through here, it's a fine idea worth sharing. The only thing I ask is that if you are able to turn this into a series, a credit "Created by www.urbansurvival.com" before the rest of the credits would be appreciated.
So here's the outline:
Show Title: "Three Minutes for America"
Premise: If we're going to keep moving forward as a country, we've all got to spend more time listening to the ideas of others, coming to a new agreement on how the presently tearing social fabric can be put together. This show is a new vehicle for public discussion of all issues that uses the best of reality TV and combines it with a variant of news 'man-on-the-street' married with Marshall McLuhan's 'everyone gets 15-minutes of fame.'
Operation: Each week, producers 'throw the dart' at all of the continental USA and select 8-people to interview. The people are told that they have been selected for the show and they may say anything they want to the whole country on any topic that they feel would be constructive. They're encouraged to write down and rehearse their comments. Three teams of cameraperson and interviews then fly to the cities involved and interview the people. The video is then produced into the best 6 (18-minutes) for air. With show open, cutaways and credits it'd be about 21-0minutes of content - and would fit in a half-hour slot in early prime.
A host could be used - and he/she could do an intro to each segment along with a few graphics and statistics if it would be useful background to help sort out what the person was saying.
People could dress for the event, but casual is encouraged...a kind of fireside-chat feel - but instead of being from the top-down, it would be bottom-up.
Sponsorship: Ideally, the sponsorship would be an airline, such as American Airlines, which for its part would provide no-charge travel (coach) to the video crews; the name tie-up would be dandy.
What do you think? Would you watch it? --- The second million dollar idea I've got is collecting anomalous magnetic behaviors with the idea of getting to the design of a low-cost 'zero-point energy' (ZPE device). While there are other efforts underway, if you've got any concepts you'd like to share, please sent them along.
I've recently been studying several thanks to Robert Nelson of www.rexresearch.com, where you can find one of the finest CD's of odd phenomena available anywhere. Of particular interest to me was the write-up on Hans Coler's work in Germany before (and during) WW II. Recreating/testing of his "Magnetstromapparat" and his "Stromerzeuger" is high, but I'm sure there are others, too, that hold (here comes a bad pun) great 'potential'. (The pun, if you didn't get a degree is engineering is that the word 'potential' if often used to describe voltage in archaic electronics books).
Of even more interest to me presently, however, is reading the field (I know about Tom Bearden's work) but I'm starting out down at the very basic level, reading the original works.
For example, Nelson was kind enough to supply me with an 1861 paper by the godfather of electronics, James Clerk Maxwell, where he explains that the phenomena that we think of as electro magnetism is really not just two forces (the electric and magnetic) but some third force that operates 'at right angles' to the E or M field - and which is what pushes the M field out in watermelon shape around a bar magnet. So that's what I'm after...harnessing that 'right-angle' stuff if it can be found.
The quest is not without risks. As part of my researches I picked up number of super-strong magnets from www.kjmagnetics.com and promptly discovered that the warnings about wearing goggles and gloves when handling ultra-strong magnets were well-founded. I can attest that these little neodymium suckers if carelessly handle can draw blood...which is what I was repairing and in the midst of stopping the bleeding from, which got me out of the office/lab/shop and over to the living room when the TV show idea appeared.
Once the bleeding stopped (still hurts this morning) I got back to tinkering with a possible ham radio application of magnets to transmit and receive RF fields, as seems to be implied in the Chauncy J. Britten "Atmospheric Generator" patent.
Don't know if you've ever tries to push high-powered magnets similar fields together, but there's a lot of force there - and harnessing that force seems to be the heart of the ZPE design problem, not to mention the possibilities of 'scalar' wave generation if someone could marry up the "Stromerzeuger" (substituting the earth/ground and antenna radiator for the plates shown in Cole's work) with the radio effects noted in Britten's work.
Since I've got darn near every tool known to man, plus a full up electronics bench with gobs of instrumentation (function generators, meters, scope, etc...), feel free to send along comments or designs... george@ure.net.
Retooling Indy Journal If you read these columns over at the www.independencejournal.com site, I'm slowly wading through a whole series of changes there. For one thing, you may notice the background color (very light gray) makes it easier to read than my main site. Drawback - or tradeoff - in web design, however, is that not all handheld devices do a great job of grayscale translation, so it's a matter of choice, which you now have.
More content (and some lost content will be restored) as I go through there. article submissions are always welcome. --- Send Snip and Save items to george@ure.net. I read all my emails, and answer those I have time for (which ain't many). But I appreciate all input. Even criticism...sugar-coated, please. --- end snip and save section ---
Thursday March 12, 2009 War With Mexico Closer? There's a report out this morning that the Obama administration is 'considering' a move of troops to the US-Mexico border because of the increasing level of violence and the huge amount of illegal arms and drugs entering the country.
I assume you were aware that Texas State officials have been worried about safety along the border for a long time, and thanks to the Bush administrations coziness with industries that benefited from cheap Mexican labor (like the housing industry, just for instance) the border fence which was supposed to solve some of the problem hasn't been aggressively constructed.
As the walls in Israel underscore, fences do work. Why US officials seem impervious to the obvious is no mystery: Lobbyists for exploitive industries and vocal 'rights' groups are hard to stand up to.
While it's not yet likely that a war with Mexico over open borders/ no borders, and even less likely that the Obama administration will stand up to the pressure groups, it's nevertheless and interesting development and actual action would be welcomed by folks from Texas to California. Not likely, though. Talk's cheap as the previous administration showed to those paying attention.
Retail Pails Latest from the Census folks today on the retail sales picture. Basically down, but up a tad if you don't count the auto sector:
You look at that right-hand chart? Autos down nearly 24% year-on-year?
Unemployment Building The expectation was that this week's un employment numbers would come in with just 640,000 jobless added to the rolls last week. We should be so lucky:
Since I got the monthly unemployment dart right at 8.1% last month, I think this month's dart will hit about (hold on while I throw it...) there....8.4%...we'll see, huh?
Markets Got my mid-session reversal on Wednesday, but the Dow still ended up a couple of points. Futures just a shade off this morning, but who knows how much is the PPT working the indices behind the scene? Most of Europe is in the red this morning...
Percentage Plays I'm starting to see stories popping up all over the place about how governments at nearly all levels and planning to increase their percentages taken by taxes of this sort, or that. Not to start off the day on the wrong foot here, but WTF?
The Hamburg, NY Sun reports that the village of Hamburg is looking at a 2.5% property tax hike. Philadelphia's mayor is floating a 17 percent property tax there. New Castle County, Delaware is looking at the same problem.
Care to make a bet that property taxes won't be going down as fast as property values? That's because things like time-on-the-market and houses in foreclosure don't figure in to how property taxes are figured.
But, it seems to me that if you had a half-million dollar home 3-years ago, that has dropped to being a $375,000 home in today's market, that your property taxes oughta go down accordingly.
of course, they won't: Governments are always fast to grow and slow to get their hand out of your pocket when times get rough. Even, arguably, going to far as to put their hand in deeper on the theory that 'more government' will fix things.
If a government wants a bigger percentage than they were getting at the height of World War II, when Tax Freedom Day was April 4, seems to me someone ought to stand up and say something about it. Especially when Tax Freedom Day was April 23 in 2008 and I wouldn't be surprised to see it move into May again in 2009...something that hasn't happened since 1999 and 2000.
Won't happen, of course. Frogs in constantly warming water tend not to jump out until it's too late. --- Speaking of which: You saw that foreclosures were up 30% in February? And there are tons and gobs more to come. For now, Banks don't have much incentive to clear those homes off their balance sheets that they've taken back. The thinking in most REO (real estate owned) departments seems to be "If we just hold out a while longer....maybe we can get higher prices..." Denial is such a fine thing, especially when bottom-picking has become a national sport and updated versions of "Good times are just ahead..." bombard us from the MSM.
The good news is that if they did clear their accounts, there'd be way more homes on the market. The bad news is, there's tons and gobs in the pipeline yet to come.
Diamond Auction Happened to click an ad when I was visiting the www.debka.com site this morning. I'm not much of an ad-clicker, but this one caught my eye: Seems the US Treasury is holding a big diamond auction in NYC next week. Don't tell Elaine - she's got a birthday coming up...
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: And the Next Shortage Is... Since we were able to tell you about the impending ammunition shortage about three years ahead of its arrival, you'll no doubt have noticed that I am really ragging on folks to get - plant - and begin harvesting their own seed supplies for future food crops from open-pollinated, heritage (non-genetically modified) vegetable seeds.
So it was very much on point that this email arrived today:
The reader was kind enough to send a link to a story headlined "The Multiple Ways Monsanto is putting Normal Seeds Out of Reach."
The linked story is doubly important because of two stories which are making MSM headlines headlines this morning: The first deals with how scientists think they will be able to create artificial life in the laboratory within five years, while the second advises us that yet one-more-worry for the year 2012 is that the world's population will click over to 7-billion. Both stories deserve special emphasis and a little head-space.
In the case of the genetically modified seed story, my problem with those companies which presently hold 'patents' on particular seeds is that they have no sense of morality and there has been woefully inadequate study of the environmental impacts of such seed. I'm sure you're aware of the Canadian farmer who had to pay damages to a chemical farming outfit because some genetically modified canola seeds from a neighboring farm blew into his field. The chemmie-company wanted dough, while the farmer took the position that it was pollution, not a lottery ticket to give the chemmie-boyz a piece of the action. But the farmer lost. It took from 1999 to 2008 and a battle in the Canadian Supreme Court before Percy Schmeiser won on appeal.
On the other hand, the UN Convention of Biodiversity has been pushing toward a ban of so-called 'terminator seed technology' and at the core of that monstrosity are seeds which would only live once and yield nothing edible in future crops. Sort of like fields of eunuchs.
Nevertheless, the seed companies are continuing to work both sides of the street. On tyhe one hand they are working on technologies which really can increase productivity under certain conditions for this veggie or that gain. The problem is that Ma Nature knows one hell of a lot more about running the world than does any number of PhD's the profit-driven boards of such outfits can hire.
In my recent readings of such books as Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)
The bottom line here? Just like I told you a couple of years ago that few things would have 'collector' or 'investment value' like ammunition and guns, and you see what's happening to price and availability on this front? So too, I expect that heritage/open pollinated seeds will be of increasingly high value.
Not that it will stop ThePowersThatBe from trying to put a stranglehold on the very food you eat, of course: It won't.
The problem which always faces those at the top of the socioeconomic heap is that they always maintain control of society through some pretty basic tools: They steal control of the money supply (a slow-motion process that started with the takeover via the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, or they try to control the availability of food, and as we know from the recent Iraqi experience, if people don't use government-issued seeds there these days, they can be jailed.
And worse, of course is the presently pending disaster called HR 875 and S 425 which would essentially end farmer's markets and small farming completely. Go watch this video if you have the bandwidth - less than 2-minutes worth. It's how the chemmie-food lobby is making sure that just in case some upstart like me actually puts together a case that GMO-food is really a form of pollution more dangerous than, say, fluorocarbons (which is well may be) they will have another way to control the food supply: By making all but their own sources illegal.
Of course, the design pattern in this has been around for years. That's why the liquor lobbies have been so down on the growing and sale of pot. While a lot of science says that someone who's partly baked can drive a car better than someone who blows a 'two-oh' on the Breathalyzer, the problem for the PTB is that they may not be getting their pound of flesh on pot which has about zero in the ways of barriers to entry for competition.
So that's why this morning's warning about the collector/investor value of NON-GMO seeds is so important: In order to have a society which has a high level of resilience to catastrophes other than the man-made variety, having things like GMO seeds, many bricks of .22 ammo, maybe even some 7.62 X 39 and a set of good hand tools are all so important to glom onto for the PTB.
A population that is well-fed, well-armed, and Constitution following is just not the easiest thing to rule if you're trying to transition to a socialist-centrally governed model of the world. It's like the PTN (and their shadow government minions) want all the power/authority benefits of a workable UN, but when the UN comes up on the side of smaller carbon footprints, or bio-diversity, well those things clearly need to be co-opted, which is how we come full-circle to beating the global warming drum loudly enough to kick off carbon-credit trading schemes and the like.
Think control and monetize...and you'll do just find if you ever get around the PTB. Thinking like them can also put you ahead of the game a fair bit. --- And that's the governance problem in a nutshell. As the old paradigm (cannibal corporatist globalism) collides with what Lessinger labels "responsible capitalists" and other call sustainable capitalism, we seem destined to see all kinds of frantic power-grabbing/control-freak kinds of thrashing about. Which is why banker bailouts and all manner of misnamed "patriot Acts" get slammed through CONgress without debate. Which means without dissent.
A few patriotic types (who actually read and live the Constitutional framework of the Founders) might ask: "Say, if no one reads the bills, isn't this 'taxation without representation'? And to carry the point one step further along, If a bill was passed by a previous generation, none of whom is alive today, shouldn't we have to reauthorize things like the Federal Reserve Act so that governance under our beloved Constitution is continuously renewed like it's supposed to be?
Well of course! But it's not likely to happen, even though it would make a dandy class-action lawsuit: Especially with recent, crystal-clear and undeniable, examples like passing the Bankster Bailout Bills or the Emergency Stimulus Bills without so much as anyone reading them. Sounds like taxation without representation to me. Oh, and what do you think those tea parties in places like Pennsylvania, Chicago, and California have been all about?
Of course, if you don't hear about them, or see them on teevee, it's not because they didn't happen: It's because the media is another tool of control used extremely effectively by the PTB and it's lobbyist cadre that pulls the strings of 'nominal government' on behalf of the real seat of power - the 'shadow government'.
Presumably, you know all this stuff, but it doesn't hurt now and then to slap ourselves smack in the face and wonder "What's to be done?"
Damn little, it turns out. You don't make progress by stepping on the 'tail of the beast' and getting all uppity about planning a "Second Revolution". We don't need to. It'll come along on it's own account without anyone firing a shot or doing anything else.
Because while folks like Kurzweil right about a dreamlike "Singularity" where invention will be instantaneous and we'll all be able to take the time to evolve into more spiritual beings" the track record of humans argues for the opposite. Kurzweil and other 'singularists' ignore that someone's gonna own those work-saving, instant-inventing machines. And they're going to exploit those who would seek to use them to they very limits of their power and authority, which need to be limited.
A much clearer vision of the "Singularity" comes from contemplating a world with an infinite number of lawyers, auditors, and police, enforcing an infinitely large set of rules, with worthless money at stake, and increasing less nutritious food.
History teaches us, if we take the time to read books like Joseph Tainter's "Collapse of Complex Societies" that complex systems eventually fail on their own when the marginal rate of return falls below zero for any particular group. Which is why we no longer bow down to the descendants of Genghis Khan, why we don't speak Mayan, and we don't write ancient Egyptian.
Militia? Paramilitary? No thanks. I'll just buy more seeds and put up more fencing, and watching the systemic instability from here in the East Texas outback. Guess I'm just a meat & potatoes kinda guy. But ya'll have fun. I'll be back later to pick up the pieces in, say, 2013.
Mine: Your Own Business? Folks in the mining industry are all worked up over new legislation which, if adopted as proposed, would shut down "All mining in the US'. Yup, geniuses back in DC - and no need to read this one, either, huh?
So I will add a couple of gold pans to my stores here... Wednesday March 11, 2009 Why You Should Pray for Inflation Guess I got my "Bully Tuesday, huh? But was it what I'd term an "honest" rally? Nope. Reason? A lot of it had to do with the bulls seizing on the remark by representative Barney Frank that the so-called up-tick rule should be restored within a month.
What the uptick rule does, essentially, is to force a short-seller to sell at a higher price (the 'uptick') than the previous sale. Of course, the reality of history is that the uptick rule, which was enacted during the Great Depression, is one of those 'shut the gate after the horse has gone' kind of things. Might make the public feel better, and it might even help the bulls when they are running the shorts like in Tuesday's action, but did it prevent the 1987 near-global meltdown? No. Did it stop the LTCM disaster? No. How about the Herstatt disaster in what was it...1974...a banking disaster that almost ended the whole financial world? That's the one most non-economists have never read about because it's pretty hard to find blame and it underscores that speculative bubbles, when they pop, make loud, ugly noises that sound like the end of the world. Mostly because they get us so close to that very thing. --- So there I was on Tuesday, pondering how far the absurdity of the rally would go and straightening out a few problems here and there for clients and what happens? The phone rings and it's my friend The Bond Dude.
hadn't heard from him for a while and what followed was about a 45-minute lecture on why my praise of Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz last week - remember Stiglitz is the guy saying that big banks were not really too big to fail, and that there were ways out of the present disaster in financial markets - was all wrong because I hadn't considered the Federal Reserve's Z-1 (Flow of Funds) Report.
Upon admitting I hadn't read it since the December Z-1 report came out - it's a quarterly - and why couldn't my scolding be delayed until tomorrow when the next Z-1 comes out, TheBondDude launched into his scary explanation of why Stiglitz is wrong, and why the big banks really do have to be saved. Virtually no one understands this mess better than TBD...maybe even better than Ben Bernanke and Time Geithner, which is going a fair piece....so I paid close attention.
I'll paraphrase best I can:
But Stiglitz, I argued, would do a better job of keeping Main Street's money whole and the public wouldn't be left holding the bag for the bankster's bad behaviors and gambling addictions. But TBD persisted...and he insisted that there's only one answer: Inflation, and just as fast as we can get it. If housing prices are down 20%, a bout of inflation would blow housing prices back up and fewer people would be 'upside down'. The problem with housing down 20% to 25% is that the people (that Rick Santelli has no problem with) are now essentially forced to default. You know, those responsible people that didn't lie on their applications, saved and made 20% down payments, and borrowed to buy their houses with a nice fixed monthly payment they could afford. The reality is that there are just as many, if not more, of these nice responsible people now defaulting than there were subprime mortgages defaulting at the peak of the subprime meltdown last year. How can that be, you ask? Simple, really. There are literally millions of those good credit responsible borrowers that have to sell their houses because of normal life events every year. You know, death in the family, lost job, divorce, new job in another city, whatever. That can happen to 5% to 10% of families every year. Sadly, now they can't sell their houses without writing a five-figure or six-figure check to the mortgage company at the closing table. So what do they do? Hang on as long as they can, and then default, that's what! With the Ure Memorial Layoff Festival really cranking up now, we could see as many as 5 million of these formerly excellent credit borrowers head down Foreclosure Road this year and again next year. That's the real reason Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are insolvent.... not the subprime mortgages. It's the prime mortgages with conservative underwriting that are going to kill them. That's obviously what all the spending frenzy has been about in Washington - getting all that money borrowed and spent into the system. But TBD is not impressed.
Since I don't sit on a trading desk, and I've had the good sense to be parked in Treasuries, I had to answer "No."
"Yeah...weren't option ARM's down around between 15 and 20 percent?"
Oh, boy, did I ever. "So the market rally on Tuesday isn't real because if the single A commercial yield translates to a market P/E of what, for the hot money? A P/E of 2 maybe on the S&P 500?
"OMG, so we'd be looking at an S&P down around 200 and at those levels, we might really be back in breadlines and our 401(k)'s and even phat public pension funds would be toast...is that it?"
"But that still means a price/earnings ratio equivalent for the major stock indices around 3 in order to compete with the fixed income gang! I haven't looked at the P/E of the Dow lately, but I'd bet it's still north of 15 since everybody and their grandmother has been whacking earnings forecasts. Have we, like, passed the point of no return where it blows up into Depression 2.0 no matter what the policrats do?"
"Hold it...Bond Dude...the last time you pitched me this idea a couple of months back it would only take a 5% mandatory wage hike. What happened?"
Sadly, he's probably right. If interbank holdings are large enough, then yes, maybe 'too big to fail' just might be true...
"In spite of markets like today's?"
I then asked The Bond Dude why his helicopter and Gulfstream class friends haven't sent him to DC to fix the problem. But I already knew the answer: Like me, he's probably offended both sides of the political aisle to such an extent that they won't return calls...even though more often than not, we turn out being right in the end. ---- Having gotten thoroughly bummed out by that call, I dialed my friend Robin Landry who manages his client accounts from his office sensibly located in Shawnee Oklahoma, to see how his trip out to Vegas was last week and to ask him is this our long awaited rally catching fire?
"So if that his how it unfolds, how soon would we be able to see it, and just how far down is do we go... I'm asking because the predictive linguistics guys are hinting that we may not see much of a rally this spring...and I've been watching since mid-December hoping to make a whole pile of money in gold and oil options in what should be a rally real quick, or to play some long-side stock index options..."
So this morning, taking in all the inputs: Frank on the up-tick rule, The Bond Dude on competing yields for 'hot money' going into fixed incomes, and Landry's system of analyzing markets which he's been perfecting since 1976...it all smells like a little follow through at the open and a run this morning toward 6,979 plus or minus a Happy Meal, and then I'd expect another free-fall.
Or, we could go to 7,404 before free-falling again. But, it would take a day or two over 7,404 to convert Landry - or me for that matter - into believing the alternate wave count that would label the last week or two's downside as a failed fifth and we are going into the long awaited (since mid-December) Fourth Wave.
If it turns out to be a failed fifth, I will have missed my ideal long side entry. But I don't think so...at least not yet. So I will sit back and watch and wait; glad I'm not in the business of giving investment advice on your own there. Mid-session reversals, anyone?
For what it's worth, Pacific Investment Management (PIMCO) has joined Warren Buffett and Dr. Doom Marc Faber is predicting an uptick for inflation.
But the problem is, like The Bond Dude explained, it's probably too little inflation to keep us out of the soup lines. So for now, you might be praying for inflation and be pleased when you get it because it will keep your home price from collapsing and (if you've been paying attention) that garden I told you to plant this year will hedge you against higher food prices when inflation arrives and might even get you a little exercise for a change.
Global Coordination? Meantime, keep an eye on the Fed's Ben Bernanke which is talking about the need for a new and powerful regulator. Notice how the standard banker and government answer these days is more bankers and more government?
Don't Hold Your Breath A report on The Hill site this morning says the Obama Budget may not have enough senate votes to pass. I'm thinking "inflation delayed means what?"
And more to worry about that the administration and CONgress are piling on new regulations as conditions for banks...
New Media Wars Several stories today on this front: "newspapers plan more cuts to cope with downturn."
In my former stomping grounds, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer looks to be on the verge of folding. If you're old enough, you might remember when the PI's bacon was pulled out of the fire by the Joint Operating Agreement with the Seattle Times. This one looks to be a job-ender for some fine writers... BTW am I the only ex-Seattleite who learned a bit about journalism from ex-writers for the old Seattle Star?
McClatchy is whacking another 1,600 jobs.
Handwriting is on the wall: "Internet sounding death knell for newspapers: Survey" says a MSN News report...
Shooting Disease? Say, couldn't help but notice that at least 11 people were killed today in a shooting at a school in southwest Germany today. This on the heels of the 12-dead in that Alabama shooting spree last night. --- Weird energy from space, cell phone tower programming issues, or a release of emotions to quell the market rally? Extraordinarily strange coincidence, don't you think?
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Coping: Attention....Deficits Reader who is staying up late watching the late-night Washington spending has been pushing some numbers around:
Uh...sure...little early, though....
So (very attractive) huh? What channel didya say that was? I might be (very attracted) to that kind of economic reporting...I already knew figures could lie and liars could figure, and even guessed that liars would lie, but now you've brought up figures figuring? Maybe it's not too early....
Questions and Answers Reader asks:
The answer's a bit complicated, so just in PowerPoint form:
Rising Waters I mentioned a while back that glaciers slipping off land and into the world's oceans (West Antarctic and Greenland come to mind) that we could see global sea level rise 50-180 feet . On the other hand, the latest from scientists are on the order of 1.5 meters over the next 90-years is all. But, since they don't have even a rickety time machine, they have no idea about the Patagonia volcanism coming, or the....(more for the ALTA subscribers). All this prompted a reader to send in:
The good news is it may not happen till the year 2100, so plenty of time to plan. And you know the CIA and a few other alphabet folks are already moving to Denver...which gets us to wondering "What do they know...or are they really thinking that far ahead?"
Wonder if it might also explain something behind talk that the Port of Auckland, New Zealand may be for sale?
Another Linguistics Hit If you read the ALTA reports about 6-months back, this kind of headline was predicted - now arriving in the MSM: "The coming evangelical collapse: An anti-Christian chapter in Western history is about to begin. But out of the ruins, a new vitality and integrity will rise."
My expectation is church attendance will fall significantly this year as people reconnect at an emotional level on the other six days of the week and in response to economic hardship, focus reconstruct families and gardening... --- Send snip and save items to george@ure.net. I read everything and respond as time allows... --- end snip and save section ---
Tuesday March 10, 2009 Bully For Tuesday After the market dropped about 80 points (Dow points, we're talking) Monday, I went to bed last night wondering "I wonder if the commercials will be able to suck the public back into the market again with another bottom-picker's rally before we get a real wash-out, fear to the point of wetting ourselves - panic-is-everywhere - bottom?"
Sure enough, despite headlines like "Asian stocks advance, but economic worries linger" I woke up this morning to a crawler that told me the Dow futures were pointing up more than 100 points.
There was a time in my speculations that I would have rubbed my eyes, gotten all worked up over this, and seen my blood pressure rise several points. But, since I don't have any trades on the table and have been on the sidelines since mid 2008 watching my 81-cents worth of cash collect dust while most 401(k) folks have taken major hits, my BP remained normal and I continued to collect data for my study of whether there's a correlation between the Dow and CNN anchor Robin Meade's jewelry selection on any particular day.
"Are you nuts?" I thought I just heard.
Well, yes, but that's beside the point. If stock market watchers have inferred a relationship between hemlines, winners of the Super Bowl, and a host of other coincidences, I get to look for 'em too.
Besides, if the whole truth be told, there are a couple of other things I look at. For example, when I log into my trading account I can see on a one day chart that the the S&P is toward the lower edge of their Bollinger bands and turning up a tad if I squint just so.
The slow stochastics have turned up from their most recent low (20%) and eyeball to be around 90-95% now. The relative strength index has been inching up and is at 50 out of 100, and the MACD has just turned positive.
What I think I have observed on occasion is that when the market is putting on a little bit of a rally, you'll often see things look pretty bullish first in the one-day chart, and then in the 3-day, and then in the 5-day; in other systems it might be the one-minute chart, the 5-minute, 15-minute, hourly- and then dailies.
On the other hand, when it comes to the Big Question (is this finally the bottom?) I don't think so. Not that I give trading advice - I'm mostly a coward when it comes to deploying money, but the advance decline ratio isn't looking well and the number of new highs for stocks on the NYSE yesterday totaled a whopping 5 while the new lows was 742. Not exactly the kind of thing that would inspire confidence among timid, risk averse, scoundrels like me who often play the short side, realizing the whole market is on a precarious path.
So yes, we might get a day (or even longer) rally in here, but is it the tradable bottom I'm seeking? Nope. m And if I miss the tradable event, t'ain't no big deal because there will then come a blow-off tradable high and I'm pretty much an agnostic about which way the market goes - up or down - I can make as much money in either direction.
What does matter is picking high beta stocks or indices. In other words, ones that will tend to run to extremes of optimism or pessimism. The farther they run, the more money can be made. leastwise on paper. --- The real problem is figuring out when the futures show some strength like this is "How high might they go?" So we look to coming news events, both short and longer term, for some advice.
Some stories have very, very long-term impacts. "Obama opens up stem cell work, science inquiries" might seem like a mover for the pharmaceutical and healthcare outfits, but will there be any 90-day stock wonders to be tilled out of this ground? Doubtful...
On the other hand, when there's a big flap being made over the showdown this past weekend between a US Navy ship off the island of Hainan, even if China claims the US ship was breaking the law, it should still serve to firm up the defense sector a bit. Was this the "test" for Obama, wonders a reader or two? Maybe, but it's more likely the economy... War, rumors or war, or just plain old expansionism & fear mongering (or another Iran has a bomb being readied report), all that helps 'defense' stocks which thrive on fear.
If we operate on the assumption that stem cell research will feature much longer pay-off times than the Internet Bubble, and you won't be able to find a start-up to compete with General Dynamics or Boeing, that leaves two other broad categories to go sniffing about: Food and Energy.
"Oil rises to near $48 as OPEC signals supply cuts" may sound constructive for the bullish case, but I'm watching something of a divergence between 'black gold" (oil) and the real stuff. Remember, we still have a linguistics set from the www.halfpasthuman.com team that suggests that a major gold holder (like an ETF or a private mint or storage facility) is expected to be found to have counterfeit gold bars which may have come from China and should be discovered in an audit by some branch of 'officialdom' over the next couple of weeks. If that call turns out to be true, then the divergence could become extreme and gold could take a momentary hit as holders of both physical and paper gold wonder about the honesty of gold's underlying value.
Since there's 2-thousand years plus of history that suggests gold is a real storehouse of value, that's when I may enter a bullish trade. In the meantime, I haven't taken the time to pencil out how a short-term bounce in public sentiment between perhaps the end of this month or early April and lasting until the Summer of Hell/2009 really sinks in to the public mindset would push oil around. It's all made terribly complicated by falling auto sales, countries playing liars poker with reserve numbers and who knows if the 'recovery' will get legs?
And that brings us to food. I've been looking at food commodity prices of late wondering is there were any 'deals' to be had here. After all, goes my thinking, once we see some of the inflation come along from all the bailout spending, surely food will 'pop'. But not yet. "Lower prices aggravate food crisis - U.N. official".
It all boils down to another day of being patient. The only food investment I can see that's a sure-fire, really worth a damn, pick is buying some seeds for a few bucks and putting them in the garden, but that's already in the works.
Ben Bernanke's recent comments that the Fed will 'Deploy all tools' to push along the economic revival plan may, or may not, be read as a 'good' thing. While Bernanke is expected to have more to say later today about this, legendary commodities trader Jim Rogers tells Bloomberg that among the 'all the tools' might be the Fed buying Treasury securities which, he figures, will delay the inevitable.
All of which might work for a while, just like the shoemaker buying the all the bread the baker can bake, while the baker buys all the shoemaker's shoes. The problems arise when, at the end of such a circular reference, the shoemaker or baker wants to sell product to a third party having bid up prices amongst one another. It's then that the truth slips out, that the circularly referenced deal was a sham, ands prices of shoes and bread collapse in a heap. Or, if we go down that slippery slow of buying our own debt from ourselves, how that will be viewed by the only folks that are keeping the world together right now: China.
The moment the Chinese wake up and proclaim: We want something of real value, not just more paper, then the U.S.A. has a serious problem on its hands. That's when our currency collapses, China becomes the world economic superpower and we drop to nth place as a third world country. But not to worry; the linguistics on this indicate it won't get underway until a particular part of May of this year and the workout will run from late summer out through 2010 and beyond.
So much for trying to spot a bargain...and yes, the concept of buy and hold really is dead except for one class of companies: Those that are domiciled in; use raw materials almost exclusive from; and have a market both inside the USA and overseas; and last nut not least, have a tangible product with decent barriers to entry for would-be new competition. --- If you don't have a cable or satellite linkup at work, you might be able to find a good substitute for the Comedy Channel by looking in on today's Treasury Budget briefing at 2 PM EDT.
I see where fellow realist Nouriel Roubini thinks the US recession coudl last for 36-months and could take the Dow to 5,000. That's the good news, I'm afraid. What if his 5,000 Dow is after 100% to 300% inflation when the trickle down from the print party comes home to roost in late '09 and '10?
Meantime, Ben Bernanke gets up in front of the Council on Foreign Relations this morning (quick, look surprised) and begins by saying:
Remain in dispute? (Is he kidding?) Too much debt, excessive leverage, malinvestment and a lack of regulatory oversight seem pretty obvious to the public. That and the lack of responsiveness from our so-called 'representatives' when calls and emails run 300-to-1 against bailouts. What's to dispute? The crooked trading desks lost their asses when the quant-models blew up and the publics taking the old 'bend-over' on it. What's to dispute?
But don't get me started. That's the lay of things this morning: I figure I can get some projects done around the house and out in the shop while I wait for the rest of the world to come to its senses. So "Bully for Tuesday!" Financial reality is being reframed before our very eyes.
Phone Troubles The report that North Korea has cut off its 'hotline' to South Korea has our Seoul brothers worried about what's going on up the peninsula. Did someone miss a phone bill, maybe?
Typo of the Day CNN news crawler earlier this morning: "Harry Porter book sells for $19-thousand". Porter? Think they might have meant this story about a fellow named Potter, but nice to see I'm not the only one who can make a typo.
Monkey See... The report that "13-students arrested in giant Rockland (NY) high school brawl" has me wondering if maybe this doesn't have something to do with the kind of media intake fed to our young.
Still Under-reported The thousands who showed up in California this weekend to rally against new taxes. Tea parties, anyone?
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Coping: The Faxes are Not From JB Got a curious call from my commodity broker JB Slear over at www.fortwealth.com. Seems someone has put out a fax - purporting to be from him - in which all kinds of accusations and comments on various financial situations are made. Except the fax is NOT from JB.
So, if you do happen to get one of these faxes that seems to be making the rounds, please see if you can get off either your fax log or from the header where it is coming from, since it smells like an attack by some folks who have an agenda items of smearing my broker. So far, these faxes seem to be targeted toward various investment professionals and even though they don't have a phone number on the cover page, you should be able to get it off your fax machine's incoming log.
Please send any information about the source of this to jbslear@fortwealth.com. Seems like the 'dirty tricks' folks are at play...
Thank you.
Today's Economics Lecture Reader asks a fine question here:
I checked with Zeus the Cat and he says most of it was debt going bad...which is why we are so screwed in the present instance. Like Stiglitz says, there's NO REASON WHY BAD BANKS CAN'T FAIL. All the government would have to do is ensure depositors are made whole.
But is that normal, rational workout what's going on here? Hell no!
Instead, there's this 'wishin' and hopin' stuff that we can let the air out of the banks-gone-mad-as-speculators bubble slow enough so that we get a 10-year economic collapse (as was the case in Japan from 1989 through present). So do you want all the rich kids to book their own losses and start over? OMG, why do that when there are still a couple of pension funds to loot, more 401(k)'s to destroy, and transfer the losses of the greedy SOB's onto the backs of taxpayers?
Running Away to Sea Our intrepid reader in Florida who's getting ready for his 30-foot sailboat adventure has checked in again:
Let me put on my "Barnacle George" hat here: Tobacco is not a good thing, and if you sail into foreign ports, the customs declarations are something to be taken seriously. I'd be more inclined to load up on fishing gear, since people have to eat but they don't have to smoke.
And forget ciggies. A good rum-soaked crook is a much better companion in a good blow. Cigarettes take a lot more work than a good stogie. Consider quitting except in Force 5 and above blows. You'll be healthier for it.
I'd toss the peanut butter. The concept of having a sick dog on a 30-footer just doesn't fit into any shaky framework of reality...neither does self-testing and then having to (surprise!) run up the dock to the head...so no, I'd deep-six the peanut butter. Old Health Department saying: When in doubt, throw it out" is very similar to the sail trimming advice "When in doubt, let it out" as most folks tend to over-do tightening of their sails when beating or reaching. Remind me to send along my 'basics of making your sailboat go fast" one of these mornings once you get that boat back in the water where it's supposed to be.
Know what you mean about liveaboards. Hale and hearty, friendly lot. Amazing liver power, too.
I still favor the backstay antenna. If you're worried about the integrity of the backstay, use the 'failsafe' kind of insulators where the insulator let's the two wires interlock, so that if the insulator fails the wires are still together. I enjoyed the Hustler whip on the HF bands, but didn't use it too much at night because the 3.8 and 7.1 MHz resonators (whip tops, civvie) were not too efficient because of their short size. The backstay really is a fine antenna and worth the trouble. If you're single-handing the boat (no mate, er, so to speak) good communications will keep youi sane, such as a liveaboard ever is.
Further Lessons in Denial's Power A reader in Oz sent this:
You've heard the joke with the punchline where God says "I sent three boats" right? --- Send snip and save items to george@ure.net --- end snip and save section ---
Monday March 9, 2009 Update I have added a tracking widget on this "Work tax-free in DC" idea...
Reward Bad Behaviors Department An INCOME TAX-FREE DC???? After seeing the market dump last week, I wouldn't blame you for being a little discouraged this morning. The Dow futures as the first cuppa joe hits is down >100 Dow points, the Libor is up a tad, and the reasons to step up and buy much of anything seem mighty few and far between. But it won't always be so. It'll just seem that way.
Just because Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's childhood home in Dillon, South Carolina was one of those foreclosed on recently, is no reason to think this crisis is completely out of control. Again, it just seems like it.
Then too, the reports that the World Bank has a 'dire forecast' about the whole world's economy doesn't mean that the Second/Greater Depression is here -- yet. It just means that for the first time since World War II the global economy will actually shrink in 2009. But again, it just seems bad.
Have I been touched by a chemically induced bout of optimism, or something? No. I just recognize that at some point, the market will make a bottom and we should get a bounce. It's just the timing of the bounce that seems fuzzy.
Despite some occasionally 'good' news for investors, such as the Merk-Shering/Plough merger out this morning for $41.1 billion, (6th biggest in pharma history, and don't count J&J out yet) there really isn't much in the way of good news.
The rest of this week looks pretty grim,: Wholesale inventory numbers tomorrow may show a decline...meaning business is not confident that consumers are ready to come back with their easy-spending ways any time soon.
The latest Treasury budget due out Wednesday should give some comic relief. I liken that particular exercise to throwing a Molotov cocktail and then trying to write the definitive history of the revolution while it's still in the mid-air. But, I'm sure it keeps a small army of spreadsheet jocks busy trying, but in the end, it's the actuals that matter, not the pro formas, right?
And speaking of those spreadsheet jocks who work for Uncle and live in the District of Columbia, here's what I want you read to jump-start your adrenals today: Read the text of a little special interest -- F/You for taxpayers -- sponsored by 11 out-of-touch republicans in CONgress who want to let people who live in the District of Columbia pay no federal income tax!
No, I can't make this stuff up.
House Resolution 1014, which was introduced by the following members on February 9th of this year, add insult to financial injury.
Sleazy doesn't even begin to cover this as the bill's title tries to hide the fact that the bill would make working and living in The District its own little federal tax haven. Outraged yet? Keep reading: On the surface it might sound fine, but as a long-time reporter who's followed the legislative process, I got really suspicious when the bill began by wrapping itself in all kinds of Flag, Mom and Apple Pie verbiage like this:
Whole lotta flag-waving - and nothing wrong with that - but then comes this part (with emphasis added):
Now, I don't know about you, but since our predictive linguistics pals over at www.halfpasthuman.com have already labeled what's ahead as the Summer of Hell/2009, it smells like the central government is trying to 'buy off' federal workers in the District to help ensure that when the public starts protesting en masse this summer (as food prices got skyward and shortage develop due to the unbelievable debt load/burden placed on the economy - coupled with all those freshly printed dollars to puff up the financial system) that the people who do the real work in Washington will not 'bite the hands of those who fed 'em."
This piece of you-know-what legislation was introduced by representative Louis Gohmert of Texas' first district and, I'm embarrassed to say, representative Jeb Hensarling of the Texas fifth district which represents (or so I thought) has signed on as a co-sponsor along with:
I will be calling Jeb Hensarling's office later on today to see if I can get some kind of written statement that explains how it is that these folks can co-sponsor a bill which would let, just for example, lobbyists living in the District of Columbia, to take their incomes tax-free!
Here's the detail:
Maybe it's just me, but when I stumbled across this abomination and passed it on to Peoplenomics subscribers Sunday I just got mad...mad as hell not only at the republicorps financial geniuses who would sponsor legislation like this, but I'm mad that the MainStreamMedia isn't making a big deal about it.
It underscores to me that the MSM is NOT doing its job very well and even if the bill has little chance of passing, the public at least deserves to know who is working this kind of agenda. Or, is it that CONgress just isn't reading anything any more? As Congressman Ron Paul noted, there were only something like three copies of the House Budget Bill.
Do with it what you will...but I figure a few phone calls and maybe opening up an OpenCongress.org account and posting some comments might help.
And maybe a check to the campaigns of whoever runs against this crop of financial geniuses. --- Although hundreds showed up in Pennsylvania for a taxpayer tea party this weekend, not much coverage in the MSM. Gee, imagine that.
And about those workers for Uncle in the District? Give them a representative and a couple of Senators. Make 'em suffer like the rest of us.
Run on the UK Reports are coming out that there was a 'silent run' on UK assets in 2008. A silent $1-trillion run? Quite a run, huh? Well, no, not really. Not when you ready how the current global whatever-it-is has wiped out $50-trillion of value.
What's UP? Plenty of high adventure as missiles seemed to frame much of the news out over the weekend. We had "North Korea intercepting 'satellite' will prompt counterstrike" as one story line. Another was about how Iran had fired a new missile, which in turn has wound up the "Iran has crossed nuclear tech threshold" stories.
Me? Heck no, I don't find either of these stories very interesting...at least not as interesting as asking what kind of data was moving around when that Iridium 33 collision took place February 10th over Russia...Say, wasn't that kind of a bad week for the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX)? My memory may be faulty, of course, but I keep wondering.......
Meantime, at the NSA... The government's cybersecurity coordinator has thrown in the towel over NSA's "grip" over cybersecurity.
Retool the Chief Here's an interesting bit off WorldNetDaily: "Wikipedia scrubs Obama eligibility Mention of citizenship issues deleted in minutes, 'offending' users banned."
Is Travel Necessary? Word that a task force from Washington is visiting Detroit today has me asking more of those 'simple and dumb' kinds of questions: This is a financial problem, so what's going to happen that couldn't be done via teleconference? Ya'll ever heard of WebEx or NetMeeting?
'Course this is not the same crowd that has to stand in line for security checks, now, is it?
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Coping: The Coming Bummer Religious leader David Wilkerson made headlines he posted an urgent message on his blog that said (in part):
Today, he's got some further thoughts posted, but the point of mentioning his post is that I get a really uncomfortable feeling when such diverse inputs as a religious leader and predictive linguistics start to line up on the period just ahead. From now through say 2013/2014.
We're at a changing of the guard, a 'turn' if you follow Strauss and Howe, a paradigm shift if you follow Jack Lessinger's work, and all the rest.
As we look around, there's a die-off going on in the environment, peak oil, all but forgotten for a while, is still lurking 'out there' and I agree the carbon dioxide levels (and corresponding drop in available oxygen for breathing) may have something to do with the increases we're seeing in respiratory problems.
And then there's the money corroding/eroding as fast as we can print it; we're at the curious point in a paper-money system when the long term debt compounding relentlessly behind the scenes sets up the final destruction of paper assets although it's an inevitable outcome that will still take most humans by surprise when it arrives.
So what are the action steps? I've got some ideas:
Probably the first - and most important is to get out of group-think. I'm coming more and more to believe in the value of unplugging for at least one day a week - and two or three would be preferable - and during that time turn off music, radio, television, and (gulp) even the computer and just be in the moment.
It's almost like a momentary sensory deprivation experience. When the sensors head back for overload, as when I fire off five monitors and a teevee on Monday mornings, there's a nice sense of momentary detachment from it all. Almost like stepping back from the ant hill from a while and watching all the activity.
Then I'd be putting in a garden - food prices and supplies sure seem questionable given th4e economic context.
Third on the list would be having a fall back place to live in the event big cities turn ugly.
--- One of the best brains out there in the investment world today (besides Jim Rog3ers) is Dr. Marc Faber who writes the Gloom, Boom, and Doom report. In an appearance on Bloomberg this morning, Faber has a couple of interesting points to make:
All of which is starting to line up with my own outlook. My best guess would be entry a week before Good Friday in a levered product (double Dow's come to mind) and then follow the old adage "Sell in May and Go Away". But only with money you can afford to lose. These be uncertain times. --- Send snip and save items to george@ure.net --- end snip and save section ---
Here's the latest from www.opencongress.org on the House bill which would let workers inside the District of Columbia work income tax free!
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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, what has become clear
to me is that optimizing a GMO plant has boundaries and
tradeoffs. Drought resistance might be improved, for
example, but at the expense of hardiness. Or, you get back
the drought resistance and the fertility/propagation potential
drops...that kind of thing. 
