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Published Monday - Friday about 8 AM Central Time Except Holidays....many major typos are fixed by 8:30 daily
Saturday June
27, 2009
07:25
AM CDT
This site is supported by subscription to Peoplenomics. For additional content, please subscribe. Content mirrored at my other site: www.independencejournal.com,
Life In Depression 2.0 I've been doing the research for this week's Peoplenomics.com Report (Meet "The Wall" Archetype) which deals with two very curious kinds of 'walls' that will become apparent over the next two months, or so. The first 'wall' is the one California is being marched to on the budget front while the second is some discussion of what some investors - even though they can see the crapstorm on the horizon - are frozen behind their mental 'walls' (paradigm constructs/boundaries) to the point where they are frozen and unable to act in advance of events. The story of 'deer-blinded-by-headlights' in the face of approaching disaster that kept people in Banda Aceh standing on the beach looking a the 'big wave' coming toward them... --- The astute investor realizes that the 'dance' between the inner and outer realities is often best considered by looking for memes and archetypes in play. As, for example, the concept 'Diaspora' in the www.halfpasthuman.com predictive linguistics has been forecasting showed up in the mainstream financial press this week as the Wall Street Journal, no less, headlined how the "Unemployed hit the road to find jobs."
At the same time there have been numerous moves afoot in Washington to sell 'climate change' / cap & trade as 'solutions to what ails us.' Overnight, the House passed the energy-climate bill, which was strictly along party lines between the democons and republicorps, which in turns both are financial boot-lickers to the lobbyists who really run the country. One has to wonder who'd be left to run the country were it not possible to go to Washington poor and return a few years later not only rich, but set up for life.
As Fox columnist Glenn Beck's article headline "Cap and Trade is about Power and Control" certainly comes as no surprise, since that's what Washington politics always has been about, at least since the bankster coup of 1913.
And speaking of which, you saw where Ben Bernanke is getting a bit afraid - to the point of making what one could interpret at veiled threats, should the move to audit the (not really) Federal Reserve come to pass? Dandy video and coverage over here. --- Despite how you choose to interpret the chief moneychanger's comments, it's already too late. The inexorable forces of greed are about to push us into the second leg down beginning sometime between two weeks hence and mid-September.
Not that it should come as any surprise when it gets here, since a one-year-running total of bank offices and ATM's closing is certainly running at levels that are actually above the Great Depression rates with five more banks taken over by the FDIC on Friday of this week.
In fact if you look just at the closures since the National Bank of Commerce failing in January (the first of 2009 to bite the dust)( you will find a total of 45 banks have failed this year which doesn't sound too bad until you count up the number of failed offices: 323 to be exact, and since we're just barely 6-months into the year, that pencils out to 53.8 bank offices per month failing.
Comparative Depression Studies To be sure, the Second Depression is more difficult for most people to perceive, through no particular fault of their own. It's that time really are different, which is why it's said that history doesn't exactly repeat itself; only that it rhymes.
Consider some of the data I've presented previous - and try to take all these factors as a 'whole' so you can wrap your head around what's going on:
Bank Failures: This is an almost impossible number to meaningfully compare because of changes in technology between the 1930's failures and the 2008-on collapse which arguably is still picking up steam. Back then, online banking, ATM's and such didn't matter. Still, there are banks failing all over the place and this week's closures/reorganizations impacted 13 bank branches. How does that compare with the roughly 3,000 banks that had failed in the first 2½-years of the first Depression? It could be argued that when both online and in-person plus ATM's are added, we're doing about the same. Or, worse.
Personal Impacts One thing is true of Depression 2.0: You're going to feel it later than your parents (or grandparents) did in the 1930's. Just considering the $200-billion in bank bailout money spent (and not even considering the draw-downs of FDIC, the average cost in constant dollars per capital was around $483 (2009 dollars) then versus $650 just in bank bailout money (not counting AIG, GM, and other printing press adventures) this time around.
Why isn't it widely acknowledged yet? Simple...
Immediacy of Impact The main difference is that by 1933 (when $3½ billion call it) had disappeared in failed banks, the money was immediately gone. That caused people to immediately stop spending because the losses were both personal (bank shuttered) and devastating (since business accounts also failed).
In today's disaster-in-slow-motion, FDIC is simply arranging shotgun marriages/takeovers, and where necessary printing up dollars from their 'insurance' funds to cover the losses. However, whether FDIC can survive with enough money to keep up the paper issuance is arguable. At some point, FDIC will likely be forced to go to (guess who?) The Treasury or Fed to make ends meet and that, in turn, will fuel inflation.
Credit Cards As Relief In the 1930's event, there was something called 'relief' - think of it as a forerunner of the modern welfare system. We don't have 'relief' per se, but we do have unemployment insurance, and for people who have been 'caught out' with jumbo mortgages and falling home prices, the credit card has been providing food on the table for millions.
Except now, we're seeing that banks are quickly lightening up on credit card limits - while at the same time increasing their interest rates, which will have the net effect, from a public policy standpoint of reducing the amount of relief available. Bad policy, as I see it, but then again, no one asked George. The alternative would be to declare a federal usury cap on credit card operations and take over that set of money-changers and implement a digital currency system parallel to the paper system, with tight controls and convertibility to either a gold & silver, energy, or calorie standard. But, again, no one asked.
Taxation Issues As was the case in the 1930's, we're about to run into a major slide in tax revenues to run government. The problem in a nutshell is that property tax revenues and income taxes (Did I mention sales taxes? You get the idea, right?) are all going to fall over the next few years and as they do, the wet dreams of a federal budget anywhere short of hyperinflationary levels becomes unreachable.
Housing prices are going to continue to fall. Just for example, I talked to a couple of know in southern California this week who had to file BK last year - the $650,000 home they had at the peak sold for about $283,000 a year later. Guess where those losses go?
From a tax standpoint, 100% inflation could push it back up to $566K, so you can see why hyperinflation from a policy standpoint is actually desirable.
In fact, 200% inflation would be even better, and my guess is that's how all this will eventually work out with everything costs 3-04 and maybe 10-times what it costs now, such that bankers will be able to remain whole in their loans and government will continue to increase spending.
The trick, in all this, is that us regular human's aren't being filled in on these underlying pressures. Yet, I do have a number of friends who also see it coming. One of my local acquaintances and his wife are building a brand new home right now because they figure that within a year (or three at the outside) the inflation to pay for all of what's going on right now will massive increase their net worth.
Same reason that I bought an old collectable sports car; in times of inflation prices of things down go up - the Big Lie covers up this simple fact: The purchasing power of money gets watered down.
If you want to get a good handle on the future, consider what things will be like when inflation to 10-times current prices comes along.
Gold will be up around $8,000 an ounce. Silver at least $150. A new car will be up in the $200,000 range. A home that may be had now for $100,000 in some areas could pop to $1-million.
While that's going on, oil will be up around $700-$800, Gasoline $20-25 at the pumps and milk could touch $50/gallon. --- The biggest danger to the Fed's money monopoly (a power reserved in the Constitution for Congress, which abdicated in 1913) is that if they can't print money fast enough, and push it out into the financial system, there comes a point where incipient deflation comes in. And that's bad for everyone.
Inflation works because it destroys cash savings, and promotes the power-crazed political agenda of concentration of government control and actively says "Rent your lifestyle, don't own it outright - you'd have to be a fool to do that!"
You can see how they are trying to keep their foot just lightly on the gas by studying the reconstructed M-3 rates here at Trader Bart's site, which is based on John Williams 'Shadow Stats" work.
By the way, John Williams (Shadow Stats) called this in 2008 with his report you can read here that says - among other things, that "Hyperinflationary Depression Remains Likely As Early As 2010" --- There's some theoretical work that says governments maintain power and control by the application of force. Sometimes it's control of food, other times control of money, and yet others, through the invention (creation) of an external enemy - whether it's warring hordes from somewhere or the designer flu/diseases.
Whether it's all somehow orchestrated by secretive groups that meet once a year for the most elite of Bohemians or building-burger insiders, or whether it's just how chaos in a competitive financial blender works, is not something we need to agree on this week.
All we can do is look at the numbers:
And since I'm not writing Saturday columns any more, I think I'll hit the shower and then head down to the local ham radio club's Field Day outing and see if I can't score a breakfast burrito.
Independence of thinking, independence in communications, food, water, seem like worthwhile things to invest in, along with independence in energy and most everything else.
One closing point as Saturday's coffee gets cold: You work for 'the man' during the week. I'd ask if you're working as hard in your own behalf toward a personal long-term vision is your 'spare' time? If you are, you're among the few humans to do so.
See you Monday morning...(unless you're a subscriber, in which case, I'll explain how California going broke is another likely windfall for offshore hedge funds. It's cute how they do it...it really is...)
--- Send comments to george@ure.net --- The UrbanSurvival Mall: Peoplenomics: An Update From Directorate 153 Back in the
days when my6 friend Cliff's 'web bot project' was known only by the
moniker 'the think tank' we were able to piece together a really
curious concept. Bear in mind that this was in the weeks
following 9/11, the American 587 crash and the attack on 'house or
assemblage' which was all a 'done deal' by the time Issue #6 of
Peoplenomics put bytes to screens on 6 December 2001.
That report (
which is available to everyone free at this link) was
significant because of a couple of things. First - based on
the linguistic clues available to me at that time, I was able to
posit the existence of 'action arms' of the PowersThatBe, and
secondly that whether its foundations were as a renegade directorate
of Britain's MI-6, makes very little difference. The powers at
the very top of the economic food chain are orchestrating a whole new
world and you're on the verge of being deemed a 'useless eater."
When John Perkins' book
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
More For Subscribers Subscription Information
MyGroPonics My commodity broker JB Slear has nailed a great solution for people who living in apartments and condos who want to become at least partially self-reliant when it comes to raising food: An ultra-high efficiency micro-hydroponics system using readily available local parts. 25-pages and plenty of pictures to turn you into a farmer no matter where you live (Great if you have back problems, too...)...or if you just want to fill up the back yard with MyGroPonics trees and feed the neighborhood... $10 bucks here...
Maxa-Cookie Manager Maxa-Tools has provided us with a free demo - which you're welcome to try - of their dandy cookie manager tool that I use here on all my computers. It shows both the browser-specific and the newer browser-independent cookies. Quite happy with it.
Here's the download link for the free demo:
www.urbansurvival.com/setupMCMstdGU.exe
Once you try it out, click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those pesky 'non-browser specific' cookies. Bonus: You computer may run faster. I took over 1,000 cookies off my son's machine that he swore was clean. It ran much faster.
Attn: Mac Drivers: MCM does support the Safari Browser, but that does not mean it is compatible with Mac OS. Maxa-Tools only support the Windows world.
Help US Go Viral UrbanSurvival has a dandy growth rate, but sadly, it's nothing like swine (hybrid) flu's growth rate. However, if you'd like to sicken the PowersThatBe, just click here for a tool that may help. (It'll pop up an email window if you use Outlook (or a few other email programs) then simply send a link to everyone on your distro list...
"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 June 26, 2009 Two Word Jokes Friday Been really getting into one word jokes lately. Word's like "normal;" and "transparency" go into my Book of One Word Jokes which features other, older jokes now pretty much in the scrap heap of history: "Peace." "Equality." "Freedom." "Progress."
The top financial story this morning has me contemplating expanding into "two-worders". Like this pairing: Personal Income.
Although it should prop up the markets a bit, the problem with personal income is something we call in statistics the 'spread' of the data.
Quick lesson in how spread works. Say you have 10 families and each one makes $100,000 a year. Average is what? $100k. Simple. Now, let's change that. Let's say we have 9 families utterly poverty-stricken and living under the freeway bridge, but the 10th person is making a million bucks. Guess what? The average is still the same. And that's why data without a close eye on the underlying spread is such a lousy number to get preoccupied with. But, financial markets are not especially 'deep thinking' on this kind of stuff.
It's also why when we read earlier this week how Goldman was planning some record bonuses I found myself wondering how many underpass homeless that would cover-up as the data spread widens and the crisis deepens? Strike up the cognitive dissonance orchestra, if'n you please?
Got a reader who's in the the people/job placement world and he offers this longer view of what's still to come:
One other thing - in the 'looking ahead before the train wreck rolls over us: I mentioned to the chief time monk yesterday that at least we can still "help people wake up to what's going on."
His answer was kinda startling. "Dude, we passed that point a couple of days ago in the data. If someone's not already awaken, they're not gonna be when all this stuff shows up later in the year."
Guess that puts me back in 'shut up and watch" mode, huh?
Not so quiet is my friend The Mogambo Guru who despite an increase in his meds is still writing about things like "Worthless Money from the US to Zimbabwe..."
Another Two-Worder Also in the same report was this about "personal savings"...
Once again, the phat bone-us payouts in the financial services may make averages work, but no one I know saved 6.9% of their income in May. Maybe I just don't know enough folks at Goldman?
Famine On the Way Mentioned in Thursday's report about the US Drought Monitor, updated here. Never mind that part of California's water problems are caused by federal court decision to protect a 3-inch fish in irrigation ditches that were never natural in the first place, but don't get me started.
Meantime, I see where CNN is reporting how "India's farmers cursed with severe drought." So, let's see here: California, India, good-sized chunk of Texas (We had 102.1 in the shade here at the ranch yesterday with no sign of a bake break until Monday when it may only get up to 94º).
Gee, think that adds up to higher food prices and aren't you glad you have a garden?
Shortages On the Way Another reader spied this story in the WSJ Online this morning and thought you'd be interested: "Retailers cut back on variety, once the spice of marketing." We knew that was coming a year or two back when Wal-Mart started reorganizing its shelves, wider aisles and such...leading indicator kinda thing...
Ark to Spark? Seems like the Ark of the Covenant is supposed to be unveiled later today in Ethiopia, where as any well-informed reader knows it has been quietly protected for years.
So, if opened, would it really do a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" number? I'll just shut my eyes tight, just in case.
Health Care Summary Rebecca Price of www.toon-republic.com has simplified the Obama administration's health care plan...
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Coping: With Passing Icons Three notable deaths this week deserve at least a moment of contemplation: Those of Farrah Fawcett of cancer in the LA area, 30-year "Tonight" show vet Ed McMahon, and making an even bigger splash (depending on demographics) Michael Jackson at age 50.
Each, in their own way, was a cultural icon, and according to the linguistics, this is just the start of what will be a lot more icons passing away shortly; all part of the world running faster & faster till we all run out of time at some juncture, or till we get past whatever now through 2015 brings us, since one possibility is that there is something big, quite possibility life-altering, depending on your study and interpretation of markers like the Hendaye Cross.
That, however, is a ways off. My musing today is along the line of "Who will fill these voids?"
Beginning with the Wikipedia entry on 'cultural icons'...
Most people have 'icons', people that in the outer world project some of the common mind of humans down at the archetype level. McMahon many times player the Tarot/Jungian role of The Joker, a role also played by legends like George Carlin, but often also as a not-too-foolish "The Fool" when being a foil for Johnny Carson's jokes & bits.
It's possible that Farrah Fawcett's public life could be viewed as either the High Priestess card, or as half of the Tarot "The Lovers" card, where I imagine a fair number of 40-70 something males would fancy themselves.
We could speculate most of the next week over which card (or cards) of the major arcana would best suit Jackson, although I lean toward "The Moon". Not so much for his 'moon-walk' part, but because what little I knew of him seemed to paint him as caught between two worlds - on on some kind of personal quest that seemed disoriented/disorienting at times.
It's described quite well at a site you may have never visited, but worth the click: www.aeclectic.net which has a fine quick study of the major and minor arcana and this bit about "The Moon" in the major arcana seems particularly Jacksonian, especially when one recalls the publicity surrounding Jacko and Diana Ross:
Not many folks turn off the infostream long enough ponder a bit about the important role of the archetypes and icons, how they form and frame us, let alone study how they work down at the preconscious and subconscious levels forming and co creating the physical world we share in 'waking' hours perhaps better described as social sleep.
Still, if you've forgotten Socrates "Allegory of the Cave" the Wiki entry on archetypes of this sort (here) is about the best short-form description of how those little buggers work.
Might be easy enough to pass off the time monks and me (the local East Texas goatherd & management consultant) as whackos, but it's hopefully a little harder to pass off the likes of Socrates and Carl Jung in their assessment of how archetypes work...
It's possible to do direct & personal work with your inner archetypes, although it's not exactly easy, since it's a kind of meditation that requires some degree of personal purification before being undertaken -- not even a glass of wine for several weeks beforehand, and certainly no prescription meds -- since they alter how folks work down at the core level in incredibly complex - sometimes subtle, though sometimes not - ways. If you're up for it, my old
friend Ed Steinbrecher's book The Inner Guide Meditation: A Spiritual Technology for the 21st Century All of which gets us back to the point of all this: A lot of people who read this site are members of the Baby Boomer Generation - the folks who were born of parents who participated in some way in World War II. Born between 1945 and the early 1950's, we 'ruled the roost' with a long-running series of icons which you may remember by their names: Monroe, Kennedy, Crosby, Khrushchev, Disney, Bruce. And then we rolled to Farrah, Jacko, and Johnny's Ed. We seem to be entering a period between now, and perhaps year's end, where we'll see a growing 'turnover' of the icons and archetypes, as the Sexy, the Sidekick, and the Moonwalker are just the latest cards to be turned. It'll be interesting to see what Fate deals over the coming half-year as it shuffles along. Not too often I've seen three Grim Reapers turned over in a single week like this, but perhaps Fate has stacked the deck due to what's ahead. I have some worries: Will a modern Hierophant be called out? Or may we lose a modern icon for Temperance, who reminds us that: "Objection!" you may be inclined to protest about now. "In the storyline of Tarot, that's what Temperance said to the Fool on his Journey." Yeah? Do I need to remind you who we all play? Thursday June 25, 2009 PTB Global Management Ending Troubles with a "Honey Pot" If an informed reader has any memory at all, the adventure of the 'disappearance" of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and his re-emergence after admitting to an affair in Argentina, brings into focus a very interesting question. Are we seeing another application of what in the alphabet agency/spy business is called a "honey pot" operation?
If I were looking at one of my computer reference books like Head First Design Patterns
"Honey Pot" operations are a marvelously efficient way to clean up messy loose ends and opposition. Defined in Wikipedia as:
Now, let's see here, can I make up a list?
Just ask yourself the simple - and obvious - question. (I mean besides who was it that conveniently tipped the Miami Herald in the Gary Hart affair?) All victims of 'testosterone poisoning'?
Another question is where's that missing bank finance chief in the UK that police are looking for?
There are two answers: Either there's a class of politician that is so smart in politics as to make it into high office, yet dumb enough that along comes a good looking woman and they wander off following their pechusezelwhackers (* it's an old fire house term analogous to "Johnson") in a testosterone fog OR if you want to get a hot affair going, all you need to do is be in a position to challenge the PTB paradigm and hotties will be sent in to take you down...and then...er...take you down.
Testosterone or tactic? Hand me a dart, would'ja? I throw, you decide.
Sleepless in East Texas Speaking of "you decide" I vaguely remember listening to a newscast overnight where the last story reported in a network newscast was about the "Four dead in Arizona plane crash."
But, what got me (and caused lost sleep) was the newscaster followed that story immediately with the news slogan which went something like "We report...you decide." A little research turns up that's the Fox News Network's word mark trademark (see filing 76433533 here). (No, I didn't infringe, since I did not bold two words or use the same punctuation and I referenced the public record...)
I mention it because it kept me up a good part of the night. I kept asking myself "Decide what?" That the people were, or were not, dead? No, I think Arizona authorities decided that one already. Well, how about whether the plane actually 'crashed'? Nope, thought it was impractical that this was an accident while taxiing.
I wish I knew someone at Fox so I could ask "What am I supposed to be deciding in all these stories?" I got to wondering if this a news department version of a Zen koan or an incomplete haiku? I didn't see the kigo... I mean I get the "We report" OK...but I'm just stumped on the other half. I must be incredibly stupid. Yeah, that's it...
Mass Layoffs: I Chart, You Decide Is the Mass Layoffs picture ugly? I chart. You decide, LOL.
Does the term "nonlinear crapstorm" mean anything to you?
They Owe You's Don't have a Treasury/Fed relationship in the Golden State, huh? So sorry. Well, instead of going Zimbabwe and printing up money with just a few more zeroes, California is set to print up IOU's to cover its budget crisis. Printing up money is so useful though. Here's an example...
Buying a Revolution Here's an interesting story: "CIA has distributed more than 400-million dollars inside Iran to evoke a revolution" says a report.
I realize this is not going to be a popular viewpoint to express, but has anyone besides the time monks considered what the failure of regime change in Iran leads to? The bombing of Iran's nuke facilities, which would presumably vaporize a bunch of plutonium and other weapons grade nuclear materials which Iran denies interest in, which in turn poisons millions?
Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not backing the spending of our tax money to buy revolutions, but if (or when) this buying the tweets campaign runs out of steam/cash, all that's going to happen is the government in power in Tehran will be more radicalized than ever and that sets up the (October 26th?) bombing of Iran by Israel and that potentially gets me to dragging out my radiation survey meter and my NIOSH N100 masks.
GDP'ing First Quarter estimates are out: The gospel according to gov't is...
Translation: The airplane is still crashing, but the ground is coming at us slightly slower. Woo hoo! Good times are just ahead!
Wasted Effort Department Reading here this morning how "NKorea threatens US; world anticipates missile" gets me to wondering what is Kim Jong Il's point.
Just seems like wasted energy, what threatening to annihilate the US, since we're doing so nicely on our own. Who needs nukes when bankers have ink?
Joining the New World Order Not gonna be optional: Ah, seems the Obama administration is trying to fast-track RATification of the UN's Convention on Rights of the Child - the CRC for short and that has alarm bells going off all over the place, especially at the ParentalRights.org's site.
Think you'll be allowed to home-school or say no thanks to mandatory vaccinations (that may be linked to autism)? LOL, what country did you think this was, anyway?
Spare the parenting and spoil the child, says I....arrrrgghhhh....
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Coping: With the 'Leaky' Future "You are what you think" and "We is what we vision" is certainly one of the lessons that has come from almost 10-years now of hanging with the time monk(s). Predictive linguistics that some of my 'far out' forecasts are based on seem to have an inconvenient way of coming true shortly after they are presented as 'fiction' hereabouts. So much so that lots of readers have been starting to become aware of how down at the archetype level, what we 'image/vision' as a society does seem to have a nasty way of coming down the track.
This is a pretty good observation, except that in a couple of the programs that process the language 'reads' for the web bot project, there are specific techniques to take out references to movies. But, having said that, you can take the output of that filter and see how concepts like "Impact" or "Day the Earth Stood Still" could skew emotional descriptors around a meta entity (like 'space goat farts' - the linguistic meta set for 'unknown whatevers connected with space/upstairs/planets/galaxy and yada yada). --- You don't need to limit your scope of research to movie titles, however. All you need to do is set a few Google News alerts to pick off a few of the keywords that Cliff research has come up with and you can get the 'flavor' of how the future 'fills' the expectation sets.
Just for example, there's a whole meta layer of data that goes to an increasing number of 'shortages'; food, water, honest leaders (LOL) and so on. Just to keep an eye on the 'shortages are coming along in here between now and 2010, mostly in food price/availability, I've set a Google Alert to the word "shortage" and this morning's update brings me word of:
Now, in order to develop your own 'sense of where things are going' you can get down to your own archetypes and without running through the whole Maslow, Jungian, or Tarot spectrum, you can 'name that fear' and start to watching maybe half a dozen keywords that are specifically not event-driven because that's where the MSM plays - and why so many radio and television news directors report the same boring crap day after day, news report after news report: They listen to scanners for 'events' rather than looking at underlying trends (as Gerald Celente does) or the work around www.halfpasthuman.com on shifts in language.
So you can take archetypical worries (shortage versus abundance, just to use one pairing) and occasionally get a glimpse of what the big stories will be coming down the road.
On an ad hoc basis, one can take out of the 'shortage list' the concept of food - and compare that with a list of 'abundance' stories - like "Abundant rain now enough to ease water restrictions" in Winter Haven, Florida, to as least spark one simple search in the direction of water/food, rain/drought.
So when you query 'drought' you get a story like "Drought spurs Valley visit from DC" in the California Central Valley...which produces in more normal times, a large portion of the nation's food.
Scrolling down the results for 'drought' we find that "El Nino could signal drought's end in California, but it reads a bit like a 'wish'n & hope'n' story...it's not raining yet.
Meantime, the drought is still going strong in Australia, and with droughts about, Monsanto is promoting a "Drought-tolerant seed could book corn crop."
That reminds us to look at the US Drought Monitor (linked here) which is updated on on Thursdays, so a recheck this afternoon may be useful.
Taken in concert with the NOAA Seasonal Drought Outlook for the rest of the summer, we can expect that California (vegetables) and Texas (cattle/haying operations) will suck this year. Which, coupled with the linguistics, gives an image of this fall's coming food price increases being driven by veggies, cows, and wild-eyed /desperate money-printing in Washington.
Back back to the reader's point? Yep, with triple digits here in the East Texas outback, it sure is a good time to go to the movies, isn't it?
Environmental Breakthrough! I just had it. The greatest environmental breakthrough ever. See, here's the deal: "Many sharks facing extinction" reports the BBC.
So here's what we do: We get 'em all new jobs in government! Is that a great plan, or what? Homeland Security, IRS, yeah...great plan, LOL. Hand me that barrel of ink, too, please.
Wednesday June 24, 2009 Fed Holds - Sees Improvement in Rate of Descent OK, no surprises to speak of here - as the Federal Reserve's non-decision came out. I mean, let's be frank here (and I'm not talking Barney, thanks) - they don't have any choices to speak of since they are already buying Treasuries to keep the economy ('this puppy') afloat...
See that highlighted part? Buying our own debt to keep this music going? Pinch again, would you?
Remember the sage advice of (I think it was my friend Rick Ackerman) who said "When the Fed decision comes out, you'll often see a break in the right direction, then a bounce the other way, and then the real action in the direction of the 'first break') gets going."
But the rumor sells the news? Vee shall see von't vee?
But no question the central banksters are agitating (or using their position of power at the moment is maybe a little more polite way of putting it) to try and gather up more power for - who else? - themselves. --- Forgot to mention in this morning's report that the hunting down of banksters (and coconspirators who ripped off the public in this financial house of cards) are now being hunted down and tortured - as the first wave of real 'going after 'em with pitchforks' has surfaced under the headline "Pensioners torture financial advisor..." In Euroland - for now.
No worries here in the (once) Land of the Free, though. All we need to do is add duct tape to the list of terrorist items along with voting for Ron Paul, reading non-sheep media and...oh...buying more ammunition than you could justify to a bureaucrat...
The "Oh-oh" Department I've been telling you for months now that around mid-July, or so, events will be starting in background which although they may not be publicly visible right off the bat, will - nevertheless - set things in motion for the second leg down in the financial markets; to be driven by the commercial real estate paper collapse along with the start of 'death of the dollar' and derivatives as the quick road to hell.
The two main reasons for this line of thinking and expectation setting has be - up u8ntil now - the predictive linguistic work out of www.halfpasthuman.com and my friend Robin Landry's market work which suggests either a battle shortly at Dow 7,800 (and possibly as low at 6,626) and then one last huge pop up over 9,000, or if those levels fall quickly, a trip down to Dow 4,400.
Dire sounding stuff, to be sure, but now it's looking like before we get to Thanksgiving that we could be in that latter - worst case - outcome as the Prison Planet web site this week carries a story about a possible "Bankster "Holiday" Plan for September?" Their source is Bob Chapman's International Forecaster newsletter.
As we sit around waiting for the Fed decision this afternoon, the whole air "surreal" has settled in. Most of us who watch the Fed figure that they don't have much of any choice but to leave rates on hold for now, but what will be fun reading will be how they spin the steaming lump of an economy into a silk purse (as in 'from a sow's ear').
As a really cautions type, I'd probably plan to have a month's worth of operating cash (food and such) on hand before September first. Checks oughta be fine for the regular bills (water, power, house payments and such) but who knows about credit cards should there come this 'holiday'? Whether it's in September (or linguistically shading more toward early November) this is one of those 'better five weeks early than one minute late' with personal planning. --- Our second 'oh-oh' this morning has to do with the 'disappearance meme' that I explained in excruciating detail in Tuesday's report. The reason I mention this is that with all the uproar about the 'missing/disappeared' South Carolina governor, the story about the "French yacht Actuel found - crew missing" is right where it should be, temporally speaking.
This is the kind of headline which causes us all kinds of headaches in modelspace because of something we describe as 'print through'. Let me see if I can describe the issue for you because as a junior time monk in training, it's really instructive and interesting.
Let's suppose that you had a software system figured out which sifted through huge portions of public comments on the internet and gave you descriptions of future events. But imagine what happens when you have two events which share language/descriptor sets that happen in serial fashion. It's like if you line up bowling pins one after another in a line (instead of standing up across the line) so that the ball coming down the alley would one pin, knocking it out of the way and revealing another one behind it, and when that goes, the next one behind that is revealed, and so forth.
Linguistic descriptions work something like that and it became obvious to us as a technical issue in August of 2004 when the predictive language project was forecasting 'earthquake' with a strange and wide-ranging set of aspects and attributes that ranges (on the grim side) from 300,000 dead, land driven back to a previous age as well as 'prison/jail impacted, courthouse abandoned on the 'lighter' side.
As events turned out, what we were staring at (not knowing it at the time, of course) was the September 2004 Redwood City California earthquake (think it was 5.4 or 5.7) during the widely watched Lacy6 Peterson trial where the trial was interrupted by the quake. At that point we were going "Ah, 300,000 dead and 'land driven back to a previous age' was just a processing artifact.
Until, that is, Banda Aceh came along right after Christmas in 2004 with reports of 300,000 dead and land driven back to a previous age. sucks to be right, but we learned about 'print-through' when descriptors line up similarly between sequential events. --- So we fast-forward to the disappearances meme. We have the 'missing' aspect in the Air France case, the 'missing' aspect of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford who may return to face reporters today, and then the French yacht case, which would seem to fulfill the 'yacht' going missing.
Except, we're not sure that this is the end of it. Seems there's still enough unfilled language about that a much larger yacht could go missing later this summer - somewhere north of 100 feet and perhaps one of those ultra mega yachts/small ships of the rich in the 100 meters category; again we're somewhat numerically challenged in data sets.
So, if you hear about a mega yacht story like this between now and maybe the fall equinox, remember, we don't make it happen, any more than traffic reporters cause freeways to clog up. Just how Universe has things working at the moment. Processing artifact or events to come? Ask me around mid October, just to be on the safe side. --- Then a reader asks:
There's no such thing as coincidence...why do people have such a hard time with that concept? An d that life is school?
But in answer to the question, another reader sends this analysis:
--- But time matters and times are at best...surreal.
Which gets me to the last of my oh-oh's for now: "The Surreal Life of the U.S. Dollar" over at Motley Fool this week is worth study. When the dollar rally ends, so does the Consumer Economy, and if you don't believe it, just hang around a year or so... ---- If the Fed is buying up Treasuries, you think they wouldn't be buying up the market through proxies, too? Here, have another blue pill and try not to think too much about it. As that sage investment guru Morpheus advises:
Look...here comes another rabbit!
Dueling Outlooks The World Bank's somber assessment and weak housing sales earlier this week are being balanced off today by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development which has raised it's outlook for the first time in two years.
Want the market to go up? You'll read the OECD report and be pleased. Laying on shorts? Read the World Bank report.
Is everyone frigging crazy? (Yeah I know the answer to that one already, sorta became obvious when we spend money to bomb the moon looking for water, you know what I mean?)
Already this morning, a reader named Paul noticed this surreal contradiction and informed me he's off shopping for ViceGrips to pinch himself, too. Might even make ViceGrips jewelry for Elaine...start a whole new kinda green-speak bling movement. Less painful than piercings, too.
Durable Delusions Durables orders up in May - unexpectedly. Likely driver for the gold pop this morning.
Unmentionable Who do you know (hint: He's a Commander in Chief) that can give a 55-minute speech about wide range of topics and not mention Iraq and Afghanistan? Ah, that Washington press corp - all focused on....er....well, maybe they're not so focused after all.
Good thing I haven't had a White House press credential since 1972...I expect I'd be a real pain in the you-know... Might even ask questions about "Change" that the democons and republicorps were both promising prior to the election. --- You may remember my one-word joke easier this week ("Transparency"). Here's another one:
Change. (Can I tell 'em, or what?)
As one reader email reminds us "Never have heard of a country taxing itself into prosperity, have you?" Nope, can't say as I have... --- The CiC did, however, mention that Iran's nuclear policy weighs heavily on the US. As indeed it should, since when Israel bombs the Iranian nuke sites this fall, it will set in motion all kinds of disastrous consequences, not the least of which will be vaporizing plutonium, which will then cause deaths (both quickly and long term worldwide) and that seems to hold potential for unbelievable 'blow-back' against Israel. Fallout, blow-back, yup, good time to have a couple of those disposable NIOSH N100 masks about.
Oh look: CDC has a whole list of where to get disposable N100 masks. How handy. Fine for swine as well as non-swine events to come.
Other Ill Winds ...would have to include hurricane Andres which socked the Mexican states of Colima and Michoacán.
Worth Reading "9/11 FEMA Videographer at Ground Zero (in exile, BTW) goes public." More confirmation of the worst you were afraid of...
Defective Accounting Department Reading how Italian prime minister Silvio "Berlusconi: 'I've never paid a woman' for sex" has me wondering about his accounting prowess. --- In George-Land, everyone pays for sex. It's just that it's often not in 'coin of the realm'. But everyone pays. Example: Have you ever added up the 'cost of courtship'? OMG: Dinner out, a weekend get-away, presents, flowers, and the list goes on.
And even after sex, most of us keep paying, sometimes for decades as I'm reminded every time one of my kids calls the National Bank of Dad looking for a loan on terms that would make AIG-FP envious. And we pay, and we pay, and we.....
So if Berlusconi really has figured out how not to pay for sex, he oughta get a Nobel Prize. On the other hand, if he hasn't, maybe I could pick one up for my long term cost of sex work which I reckon has cost me about half a million after-tax so far.....in fact, so complete is my work, that I now estimate the cost of sex at about $10,000 for every year since puberty...y
Your costs may vary.
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: With The Metal Overcast (Warning: If you don't care about crazy ham radio exploits, skip to the next time...)Finally got the Texas Monster Loop ham radio antenna put up on Tuesday afternoon. Nothing special about it, other than being 565 feet of CopperWeld up an average of about 30-feet.
The adventure part was the first attempt to put it up. My assistant on the project was just lifting the last section into place when one of the ferrules on the fiberglass poles let loose and down came 42-feet of antenna pole, guy wires, feed lines, VHF antenna, insulators, and so forth. Missed us, but as it hit the ground, it busted 4-more sections of fiberglass and a dual-band J-pole antenna.
Being a genius, however, I figured out that the somewhat weathered old poles with the reinforced ferrules had not broken so we put the whole she-bang (minus the broken VHF antenna, back up and I've got a bit of work to shorten up the open-wire feedline.
So does it work? Oh my, does it work. Second contact on 20-meter sideband was chatting with VK2ZF (Rick) down in Australia with 100-watts and marginal band conditions. Oh boy...this was gonna be fun.
Checked into the Texas Traffic Net last night, and again, more wonderful reports. Turns out a two wave length loop works well on 75 meter, while the four wave lengths it works out to on 40-meters works just dandy, too. --- Ham radio, like so many hobbies, doesn't seem to have a reasonable cost accounting standard attached to it. Let me explain this a bit.
Pappy made it a goal of his, in his late 40's, to 'catch the boat's weight' in fish one year. Which we did, by the way, back when salmon were more plentiful. It was only an 8-foot boat. But to him, there was an important ratio to the hobby. The kind of thinking like 'how many hours go into the hobby for what kind of returns' kinda thing.
In ham radio, there aren't too many of us who apply 'rigorous' accounting to the hobby. However, at the same time I was talking to the fellow in Australia, another ham over in the Atlanta area was also in the conversation and his antenna set up was just fantastic. Not one, but two 150-foot towers, each with wide-space Yagi's, one pointing at Europe listening for a friend there, while the other 6-element wide-spaced Yagi on an 84-foot boom was pointed out over Texas on the short path to VK2 land.
The minor satisfaction I got out of this was that here was a fellow who had presumably some tens of thousands of dollars in the ultimate antenna farm and yet I could get just as far (although not as strong, admittedly) with $165 worth of parts from The Wire Man.
Curious thing about hobbies - seems like everyone has a different way of measuring 'success". For my Atlanta friend, being able to get through to distant stations under even the worst of conditions with super antennas is a measurement of success. For me, dollars per contact seems a decent metric. And for people in the low power side of thing, how far can you get with 1-watt is the challenge. (anywhere in the world, is the answer, with time, sun spot cycles right, and a bit of luck, by the way...)
All of this gets me around to the point of this morning's note that the ARRL's Field Day is this weekend and if you're a ham, please listen for our local club, and don't forget the most important outdoors gear there is: A portable soldering iron and a spare antenna. SPF and insect repellant is somewhere way down the list after the digital voltmeter and antenna tuner...
Which may be why Elaine looks at my radio preoccupation more as a disease than a hobby...
Microsoft AV Free? I see where "Microsoft debuts free antivirus software beta." Wonder how long it will be free and how hard it'll be to untangle if you chose to try it?
Net Censorship Going gangbusters in China where the "Green Dam Deadline Remains Unchanged Despite U.S. Objections."
Spammer Slammer Spammer Alan "Ralsky spam gang guilty: 24 years jail, $2,135,000 fine." Haven't noticed any drop in the amount of junk email I get, however. Sure there's not a few more like his crew out there? You want a place where some government employment might be useful, seems spam would be a good start....why I bet the Fed would even notice an increase in productivity if we didn't have to wade through so much of it...
Trees In Trouble The ChannelWeb story headline "5 Reasons Why HP Web-Connected Printer Will Be a Hit" should actual be 6, not 5.
The 6th reason it will be a hit is it will keep loggers employed. --- Doesn't anyone besides me remember that computer horsepower was supposed to reduce, not increase the amount of paper/printing? We got earth going dead and humans haven't figured out there might be a connection between cutting down trees, degradation of spawning grounds for fish, and on and on?
I'm guilty of owning a printer, too. Wireless laser so any computer on the ranch can print to it. But most weeks nothing gets printed. How come EPA doesn't charge a penny-a-page print tax? Or buck-an-ink cartridge tax? ($5 bucks for high volume laser cartridges?)
Another Maxa Review Reader followed my advice about use of Maxa-Tool's Cookie Manager program:
Download a free trial from the Mall section below. I clean about 300/day off my machine. Cookies are mostly evil and a huge number are hidden. But you knew that.
Tuesday June 23, 2009 Wither the Markets? Had a nice conversation with my friend Robin Landry who manages well into 9-figures from his office up in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Robin, you may recall, got onto the short side early a number of weeks back, and actually had a small loss (his first in the last eight trades, which is so far above most of us as to not even be funny). He's patiently watching for the Dow's drop further after a bounce/possible entry short today. Here - paraphrasing as best I can - are some of the main points he made after the close Monday when we talked....
So that's how the market sets up this morning. We're likely to see a little pop early as the bulls try to rally things back up. Landry's hoping a decline will halt around 7,800 which would set up one more fling up over the 8,800 area, although he admits that the size of the present advance has already filled minimums, so there's no technical reason for the market not to go down from here. --- About the only number that has significant weight is the Existing Home Sales which comes in an hour - half hour into the trading day. The problem with this number, like so many others, is that it's an imperfect indicator. I've been hearing stories, for example, that people who are not putting 50% cash down on homes are still writing contracts, but the banks aren't closing on those.
You can see how that can distort things: The people think they have purchased a home, but then the financing sits on the bank's desk and eventually peters out. Statistically it is a 'sale'. Reality: don't bother asking. --- That the forces of deflation are still out there in a meaningful way hasn't escaped Landry. He's still expecting one more big push down on the precious metals (which I take by extension to include things like oil and other commodities, too) before the big you-know-what kicking hyperinflation digs in. His target for gold? $660 an ounce in his work.
But, I'm not selling my gold coin in any event, since deliveries are still hard to come by without - in some cases - weeks of waiting. I don't do buy now delivery later on anything. Someone gets my money, I want my product. Simple as that.
With headlines about like "U.S. credit rating a "solid triple-A": Moody's" it's easy to see how a run on the gold investors could be shaping up over the next few weeks. That would set off another round of 'good times just ahead' which could get the market to bounce of 7,800 and rally into August, which is Landry's ideal count.
While the dollar is making one last advance, and that might push gold down some, the longer term outlook is for gold and silver to make a moon shot, along with commodities and energy issues. But these things never move as fast as I'd like them too...I just want it all to pop now and get 'er done.
Landry, being more patient than me, and managing well into 9-figures for clients, just follows his indicators and trades accordingly. So we should get a 'dead cat bounce' today in the market, a possible short entry, and sure enough, "Stock futures up modestly ahead of home sales data" reports an AP story out in the last half hour.
To me it's like watching a slow-motion train wreck.
The Other Train Wreck Meanwhile, speaking of train wrecks, the death toll is up to 9 in the DC rail mishap of Monday.
Election Stands Gee, Iran is not going to throw out their election results in spite of all the 'tweeted together' demonstrations. Shocking...just shocking. NOT.
Cops & Robbers French police have rounded up 25 people in connection with a $118-million jewel heist last year. Quick! Get the movie rights to this one...
Passings Ed McMahon, long time tonight Show sidekick of Johnny Carson, at 85 in LA. --- I must be one of 300-million Americans who held hope in the 1980';s when McMahon was doing the Publisher's Clearinghouse sweepstakes, that McMahon would ring our door bells. Wonder if St. Peter has a doorbell at the pearly gates?
The old Irish toast:
--- snip and save section --- Another Bot Hit Emerges: How's our rickety time machine working? Well, gosh darn it anyways, here we go again with those predictive linguistics hitting on another major archetype event in the mediastream with the disappearance of South Carolina's governor. First a little background about what we've been looking for in the data.
In the predictive linguistics out of www.halfpasthuman.com, [link to HPH and this site required if this is quoted elsewhere on the net] we have been waiting since the January 31 ALTA 1109 report for a summer filled with 'disappearance kinds of headlines to start making itself known. With exclusive permission to quote from the report, you'll see that while we hit on the disappearances theme, as usual the way things look in modelspace and the way they turn out in the headlines is somewhat different. Nevertheless, remember this is from late January:
Even earlier, in the opening days of January in the data analysis, there was reference to the 'disappearing' meme:
And, since the February 7th publication of ALTA 1109 Part V, we've been eyeing this odd conglomeration of data points in modelspace {disappearances} as something that will come along in late spring and into early summer as something which will be coming around again in the fall:
Since this early 'taste' of what the archetype impacts would be, there has been some further insight along the way including this from the ALTA 1309 report which came out on March 14th of this year:
Subsequently, Cliff mentioned in several radio interviews, and in one of my columns I think, that reference to the ship/royalty incident/disappearance at sea as involving 'something like 50 people' since the number 50 popped up a few times. Often, numbers are an artifact of processing, or we get the number off by a decimal point one way, or the other. Still, 50 was in there.
Now let's fast forward to the events that have come along as BIG headlines in the MSM and see how this is lining up.
The first thing we have was the crash of Air France 447 June 1st which was an air ship crashing over the ocean and which had a key anti-drug, a serious international banker, and a far distance descendant of the Brazil's 1800's royalty aboard. And, somewhat uncomfortably for us, the number of bodies recovered has recently been sitting at guess which number? 50 in many reports such as this one.
This is the vexing part of the {rickety} time machine. We get some of the vital essences of future events, and even the odd specific number [50 in this case] coming through, but there's this ongoing difficulty in language where the vernacular around ships at sea and aircraft, airships, and spaceships is very similar and hard to sort at the archetype level. Another word that commonly pops up is 'crew' which, like references to 'land' is difficult to ascertain since boats, spaceships, and AF 447 all carry/ied crew.
You might recall we had the same problem prior to the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003 where we were expecting a 'big maritime disaster' and there were specific references to 'gem of the ocean lost' and that kind of thing. OK, space ship not ship ship.
It would be a lot easier to get to another level of precision in the linguistics if humans of the Western/English-speaking type would be more precise when they make references to their moving about/going on trips. You know, like the Pacific Northwest first peoples who have a dozen or so, words for types or rain, or further up the coast, over a dozen words for snow; each describing a particular kind/taste/sense/feeling/tactile set. Ah, but no such luck; humans have been busily dumbing down how words related to transportation are used to the point where even cars have 'luxurious cockpits' and compare themselves to aircraft, as any [ford mustang] Mach 1 driver will attempt. Or, even the odd East Texas 911/930 pilot.
This has been a continuing vexation because there are so many archetype references which can be applied either in the sky, or can be applies to matters at sea. Consider that small craft (as in warnings) and small (air) craft are linguistically close. So when something happens to a 'craft' and there's a reference to 'land' it's hard to distinguish in the data whether we're talking landfall as a ship would make, or whether its a landing as an aircraft would make. It's trying to sort through often contradictory uses of language on big events that drive my colleagues to distraction and wanting to take some time (sorry for the bad pun here) off. --- Now, we've been reading headlines for the past day about the 'missing governor of South Carolina" with headlines from outfits like ABC asking "Where in the world is the governor of South Carolina?"
Not to worry about republicorp governor Mark Sanford though, at least that's the story this morning, since a "Spokesman: SC governor hiking the Appalachian Trail" is the word.
However, so far as we know in reading the reports this morning, the governor hasn't actually spoken to anyone since last Thursday, so we'll just wait for him to reappear in the flesh.
The reasons for this? Sanford has been a real thorn in the side of the PowersThatBe; not just in modelspace but also because "Sanford predicts stimulus will result in "A thing called Slavery" and "SC gov signs stimulus request, criticizes program." And then goes 'missing' three weeks later? --- In the temporal stew of things, we are now in an area that leads into markets coagulating, an outbreak of some kind of UV disease, exposure to the sun problem, and dying oceans, which right on schedule started appearing shortly after the missing [air]ship at sea with headlines like "Our troubled country: Killing Our Oceans" and "Is ocean's acidity killing sea life?" other such headlines contemporaneous to the disappearances meme coming along. ---- While the linguistics often err on the side of over-stating the impact of future events, since the exact emotional temperature of the arriving events is hard to quantify (like predicting the future isn't?), we nevertheless have our latest reads on the economy lining up with a slow death-of-the-dollar (which means hyperinflation here domestically) shaping up as something that will be a kind of November '09 to November '10 affair.
We'll continue sharing, as we go along, little peeks and pokes (to put it in the vernacular of a Commodore-64 programmer) into future memory, as we all hope to be fast enough moving sprites to keep our own crews safe for uneventful landings a few years hence.
Reader's Writes Our story Monday about NASA's plan to 'bomb the moon' elicited several responses, including this one:
Okey Dokey: Throwing down the gauntlet, are we? My reply:
And another reader offered this:
Now that is a really cool idea. (Argghhhh...call the pun police!)
Different topics: On Maxa-Tools:
Did I, or did I not tell you? Less than half way through the morning's news gathering and 97 cookies were planted - poof, all gone now, thanks to Manfred and Jens...(Jens is their CTO)...
Ah, here's another letter:
Naw. I have other plans. I'm trying to build this site into a monster-mother-giant of a site so that I can do an IPO, take the cash and retire in the style to which I'd like to become accustomed. Either that or run for office and get really rich. --- Last, but not least, a dandy song about TFH's - tin foil hats.
Has your Prozac & coffee kicked in yet? I gotta roll, pee, and snooze so like most Americans I can be up, down, and nowhere all at the same time....it's magic I tell yah. Is this a great country, or what?
Monday June 22, 2009 TFH Monday "So," you're thinking to yourself as the first hit of caffeine causes the first twitch of the week in your left ventricle, "What does this TFH stuff mean?"
Tin Foil Hat Monday. Yessir, those darned time monks and their warning that by summer, or so, things would begin to feel, well, surreal to the point that people would be pinching themselves asking "Is this real?" turns out pretty much right. I've taken to wearing ViceGrips on both arms lately, such is my state of disbelief at some of the headlines crossing. --- Goldman Sachs, for example, is about to make a record bonus payout to its employees because they had such a spectacular first half of the year. What's more, Warren Buffet who put five billion dollars into Goldman in January of this year is already up a billion on his investment, reports the UK's Guardian.
Not to sound grumpy here, but don't I recall that...
Nice that Goldman paid back $10-billion in TARP money last week before word of the bonuses leaked out. That's a good thing - nice that they made money. But the core problem - banks that are too big to fail is still present and CONgress sits on its duff. Structural reform has been a talking point, not an action plan.
Want to hear a great joke? "Transparency." (I can sure tell, 'em, can't I?) ---
Let's play George the Broken Record: "I want our taxpayer money back for AIG - with interest.
And it would be refreshing to have people in Washington who
would at least vote on behalf of their constituents." A patriot might hold that the American Revolution back in 1776 (and before) was based on "No taxation without representation."
Fast-forward to these past couple of years: I'd propose that we have done sufficient back-sliding that we are in that same position again, since not a single human I know here in East Texas swallowed that "too big to fail" spin that was shoveled out of Washington's spin mills. Those supposedly representing the people overlooked 99 to 1 calls against handing over what remained of America's financial resources to the bankers, and got stampeded into the group-think of "too big to fail". Which they will pass on as the yoke of taxes onto the next generation.
Is there an answer? Of course! As I pointed out in a column last week, there is a fine model for how to handle companies when they get uppity to the point of 'wagging the dog" or is that 'wagging the Congress'.
Bust 'em up. Just like AT&T was busted up. Phones still work - and I'd bet the farm that if these 'too big to fail' banks were busted up, there'd still be community banks doing what they've done forever - serving their local communities. Local money, local loans.
Network computing has leveled the org charts of all kinds of companies. Yet that 'leveling' hasn't taken place in the banks, which continue to concentrate more and more money in the hands of the fewer and fewer. Concentration of wealth is a sure-fire spark for revolution, as any student of French history knows. Just like tea taxes sparked a revolution once upon a time here. --- With Goldman out from under government restrictions, they seem likely to take the position that government has no business deciding on bonus levels for private companies. True.
But when banks tell government what to do, and government tells people what to do, the America of the Founders is toast. So we're clear on this: People tell government what to do, government tells banks how to operate, and any variance from that is simply anti-American.
The lone nut-job in East Texas sees it this way: Any bank that took TARP money qualified in my book as 'too big to fail." Bust 'em up and put 'em back in their place. We did it to the phone company and I notice phone rates have become incredibly cheap. Why not with banks?
I expect busting up super-banks would lead to the same kinds of improvement in service and consumer choice we see in telecommunications.
As long as Big Banks (and the handful of credit card companies) can 'wag the Congress' the middle class will be stuck doing what it has done best. Making the rich richer.
Bombing the Moon Our second TFH story comes out of that radical, conspiracy rag "Scientific American" well-known for it's fringe political viewpoints and aliens among us coverage. NOT.
Nevertheless, the story that "NASA's Mission to bomb the moon" has me reaching for the Harbor Freight catalog to see if they have more ViceGrips on sale. I need to start pinching more than my arms nowadays.
The story goes that by hitting the moon with a kinetic device, enough junk will be blasted off the surface to get a better sense of whether there is water on the moon.
Has anyone besides me stopped to run a cost/benefit calculation on this? Just how important is the answer to that question? I mean, think about it: Of all the questions that we could be asking and spending taxpayer money on, where does this one fit?
Just going out on a limb here, I'd say that answering questions like "How can we help the 2-billion people who living on less than $2 a day globally might be worth considering. Or, since the oceans are dying, how do we fix that? Or, "UN report shows oceans are choking under pollution."
Nope. Bomb the moon is the best NASA seems to be able to come up with is we desperately need to answer that 'water on the moon' question that it's worth the expense.
Of course, since everyone knows the rumors of ancient relics from a prior civilization on the moon - and the NASA codeword for 'Santa Claus' refers to things on the dark side of the moon" this 'bombing missions' sounds more than a little bit surreal.
Fortunately, in the predictive linguistics work, we should only
have a month or two to go before an 'insider' comes out with
some huge 'secrets revealed' stuff which may shed light into
areas beyond what's in Richard C. Hoagland's book Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA
We'll let you know when that takes place, since the 'safe' window for that is about to open. --- You see where ground has been broken for "Spaceport America" in New Mexico?" Must already be on the intergalactic maps since the 1947 Roswell Crash, huh? --- Ponder of the day: So we bomb the moon in October. How long before the intergalactic police show up responding to the moon-dweller's "Help! We're under attack" call? I figure a year, maybe two at the most. As one writer notes "NASA moon bombing violates space law & may cause conflict with lunar ET/UFO civilizations..." More tin foil?
Meantime, The Second Depression Continues No, it's not much in the MainStreamMedia, but Depression Two continues to unfold in its own sweet time, avoiding the bale of Depression most places, since that's not what the PTB want you to realize. "States turning to last resorts in budget crisis" reported the NY Times on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the "Numbers on Welfare see Sharp Increase" says another report.
And, just in case you were still holding out hopes that things would bounce back quickly, the World Bank has cut its forecast for developed economies. That used to include the US but I haven't checked lately, LOL.
So here we are in the Second Depression and banks run politics and we're bombing the moon. Got a coupon for tin foil?
How This All Ends
China rules the world. My assertion? Nope. My
friend Michael Panzner, who wrote When Giants Fall: An Economic Roadmap for the End of the American Era --- Gives me a great idea for a TV series: We get some NYC/Wall Street refugee and chronicle his wanderings through China whipping up on bad guys with swift moves in derivatives, and beating them to death with high interest rates. Skills learned at the ancient temple of New York. A sort of flipped-over version of Kung Fu. Maybe call it Bank Fu or something.
Un-Pronounceable Trouble Yep, there are days that I fall to my knees thankful I made the decision to leave being a news anchor on radio. Here's one of those stories I wouldn't want to trip into in morning drive time:
"Troubles in the Russian republic of Ingushetia as president Yunus-Bek Yevkurov escaped an assassination attempt according to spokesman Kaloi Akhigov."
Try reading that aloud - cold read, no rehearsal - especially if you're not a student of Russian...and before the coffee sinks in.
Whipping Up Iran Quiet in Tehran this morning according to VOA reports. But with reports of hundreds arrested, I have to wonder how long before tweeting becomes a terrorist act...
Bounced Severe turbulence injured 7 people on a Hong Kong to Peter Australia Quantas flight. You see why I walk?
Grin Tin Tin In keeping with the tin foil hat Monday theme, here's a dandy headline: "Obama: Can't let U.S. be "foil" for Tehran." Is he talking Reynolds, or Alcoa?
Grin Tin Two Supermodel Heidi "Klum dresses in tin foil for New York Fashion Awards." Earlier: "Jennifer Aniston's Tin Foil dress made her look slinky?"
Next time someone says "Curses...foiled again!" It's a compliment, at least on TFH Monday.
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: Going Off Grid No, it's not cheap, but word is that a new small wind turbine from EarthTronics/Honeywell will be hitting Ace hardware stores this October, or so. The price point is not cheap: About $4,500 according to reports.
Still, for those who live in windy areas, wind power is a dandy way to reduce the monthly power bills.
A number of people have asked me "Why did you opt for solar power instead of wind?" The answer is that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (www.nrel.gov) has done a dandy job of researching average wind speeds and has come up with a national map that shows where wind power makes the most sense.
If you click here to the map, you'll see that anywhere that's blue - and the darker the blue, the more power you can get from wind - you'll see that East Texas is pretty much a 'wind free' area. Now, of course, that doesn't mean we don't get wind here, as all of us who remember Hurricane Ike will recall. It's just that most days - like yesterday - we get sunshine and 95 degrees and hardly a breath of wind.'
Even though the EarthTronics machine may start producing some power at as little as 2-miles per hour, it's not enough to run my 'cold-enough-to-hang-meat in here' air conditioning in the summer. But, there's enough solar now that I can run a/c to a comfortably level (76) and not buy power to do it. And that's on top of running the multiple computers, satellite and microwave gear and the wireless routers, etc. I'm in a terrible spot for wind power.
But the EarthTronics machine is really cool from a design standpoint. What makes it different is that the energy is 'harvested' from the fast-moving blade tips rather than transferring the energy via a slowly rotating shaft at the middle of the turbine. Like I said, cool design insight, which is why it produces power at lower wind speeds. --- I keep plugging away at my 'how to go off grid book' (keeps getting longer) but its something to be aware of: The idea isn't necessarily to just make a decision to jump into solar willy-nilly. A little common sense and some comparisons of cost per watt-hour based on where you live should go into the equation. Live on the shores of Lake Michigan? I'd be first in line to get one of these goodies...at 2000 k/whrs/year they make sense.
Personal Computing: Firefox 3.5 RC 2 Maybe you haven't been around computing long enough to know what RC2 means. It's softwarese for 'release candidate'. Faster than previous versions and some review notes here.
If you want to download the release candidate, it's here.
Around The Ranch: Deer Us When last we checked on farmer George, the (23) goats were doing fine, but the garden was a mess, having been destroyed by fire ants and now I'm waiting for the heat of summer to pass so I can put in my Garden 2.0 which will include diatomaceous earth and other ant-foilers.
So in the meantime, Princess Elaine, having a greener thumb than I (we gotta have it looked at one of these days) planted a whole bunch of tomatoes in both regular pots and hanging baskets.
Guess what we now have? Deer coming up on the deck to eat tomatoes. They like them somewhat green...and Elaine is not too happy about it.
Me? I blame the cougar which is still wandering about, for getting the deer to come closer to the house (on the north deck is plenty close in my book).
Zeus the Cat has shown himself totally worthless at keeping deer at bay. I'm trying to work a deal with the cougar. He gets the deer and in return, I'll stop thinking Yosemite Sam thoughts...
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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came out in 2004 I recommended it most strongly at that time, since
it turns out that while my supposition of a rogue element in world
governance may not have been specifically British (or MI-6), there
were nevertheless long-term economic powers manipulating the world's
over-structure for - what else? - personal power and gain.....by
unelected manipulators of raw power which the Founding Fathers had
tried to structure against. So sorry it hasn't worked
and with Constitutional rights fa9i8ling right and left and the
various 'czars' for this problem of that being appointed, the scope
of the power grab now underway has become so large that most people
can't wrap their head around it. Which is how good sheep are
supposed to behave. The rest of us though? We have a
problem...
is a dandy starting point and still available from Amazon.
Whether your 'Inner Guide" is your 'guardian angel" or is
labeled something else, depends on your spiritual orientation.
Regardless, the direct encounter with your own personality
aspects and attributes is one of Life's experiences not to
be missed - an opinion you may not share, however, since there's
real work down at the inside the core of your being work.
Meeting and exchanging things with specific aspects of your own
personality in a quest for better balance can have its rewards,
at least it has been so for me.
,
I'd have to at least ask the question am I seeing a dandy way
for the PTB to put those who get in the way of the globalist
agenda to single out and destroy opposition? Why, it'd be
far more efficient than assassination or disappearances,
although there's enough
.
has a dandy post on his web site under the heading '
