Korea’s December Nukes
As long as we’re sitting here waiting for a possible attack by North Korea on the South in December... (link to the week ending May 30th report, scroll down)
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Saturday December
19, 2009 07:45 AM: CST New
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Saturday Morning Note Peoplenomics this morning takes on global warming, gold's decline this week, and those 86 bank offices being reorg'ed by the FDIC this week. If you're like to subscribe for the additional content, please visit www.peoplenomics.com/subscribe.htm . Makes a fine Christmas gift, too....just tell me who it's for and their email address in an email to george@ure.net with the subject line 'GIFT" all caps so the email router will send it to the right place.
Have a great weekend shopping...six days left - or 1,098 days - depending on what you're counting to...
Gold's Secret and Splash of Port This weekend in Peoplenomics (our premium subscription offering) some insight into how gold is thrashing about - losing nearly $40 bucks on Thursday. T'ain't no big deal - yet. Sunday a look at one of the chart techniques to get some interesting insights into how bubbles bubble - and when's time to "Git Outa Dodge'. No, I'm not selling that one gold coin I bought at $265 just yet, if that's what you're thinking. In fact, my commodities guy JB has been buying the low points of the dip. --- What drove the gold up yesterday was in large part the strengthening of the US dollar. As I've noted several times we're in a market where strong dollars equal weak gold. Since we're in the midst of triple witching which again commodity guy JB says seems lately like it's been more and more a chance to buy at short-term lows. An interesting theory he's got going, although not investment advice - if he's right, then we might not see another low in this area until mid March of 2010. --- One thing that may help is the Bank of Japan saying 'it won't tolerate deflation'. True, it's sort of like saying "I won't tolerate gravity' but down in the bond pits there's a kind of any slogan in a storm. --- "What we really needed." said a large brain friend of mine, "Was a stimulus of about 1.5% of GDP to kick start the economy. instead, what we got was about 1/2 of 1% spread over 2-years and that's not going to do it..." Some mention of Krugman's prescription in there somewhere, too, but it's early and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet.
"Look at China - they did a 1½% stimulus and they got back-to-back quarters of growth..."
OK, so I go look at China and what's the first headline I see? "China property stocks drop most since August on Curbs". Seems that when the Keynesians turn on the presses there's a tendency for bubbling in real property (anything tangible that's an inflation hedge). Still, seems he's right about jumping out of a recession-verging-on-depression.
I figure we won't see much meaningful stimulus until we get closer to the 2010 elections and the slapstick government of the checkbook republic figures out that the "Vote 'Em Out" movement has legs. Maybe then we'll get more thank pork & arrows...but thick-headedness is endemic. --- I haven't don't my monthly Port Summary issue for this month, so shall we mosey down to the docks and get a reality check on the so-called 'recovery'?
I would reveal the Port of Portland's latest, but they haven't posted November operating results yet, although October YTD was down 37.8%. --- I have this really, really simple economic viewpoint: When we see outfits like "Shell shipping Houston jobs overseas" and at the same time port jobs are on the endangered list because of a continuing fall in cargoes both inbound and outbound, what does that tell you about "The myth of Globalism"? Maybe something like "It's imploding!"? --- Corporate globalism at one point seemed like a good idea; it allowed the US to export some of its least desirable industrial operations to third world and emerging countries. But a little bit of risk avoidance led to a lot of abuse such that now IT departments are being exported (still) and the US finds itself in relations like those with Indonesia tied to exploitive marketing like tobacco outfits. As a result, you and I can be 'outsourced'; such that we're competing with least-cost workers worldwide and to the extent that corporations have no moral strictures to deal with, regular humans in the US fall victim. The confidence bubble burst, housing collapses, and government wrings its hands yet fails to recognize the larger design pattern issues. --- To be sure, there are those who argue that folks like me are 'alarmists' and 'doom-sayers' yet the Ports data speaks for itself.
The next data point that should come into view by mid-January will be that Christmas this year was smaller than last. "Retail sales figures disappointing for November" headlines a report out of the UK this morning. Yet optimism is being served up even this morning about the domestic picture with stories like "Super Saturday Expectation High for U.S. Retailers". Stories about how "Chain stores avoid deeper holiday discounts" sound hopeful, but as always I'm asking "Where's the beef"?
If gold's got a secret it may be something as simple as this: We needed a larger stimulus with less pork &arrows to pull us out of our economic quagmire and congress has failed for the sake of political expediency. Gold knows that inflation will necessarily come along at some point, but the recent price action reveals the powerful forces of deflation are still lurking as revealed in the Ports data.
Of course all this is subject to change because linguistically we're due to see global context beginning to change in the next few weeks...so be watching watch closely as we go from reindeer dropping presents to bulls dropping something a little different and expect us to swallow it.
Merry Healthcare --- Think what you will about healthcare, I'm distinctly unimpressed with Christmas week legislation like...oh, just for example...The Federal Reserve Act which was passed on December 23, 1913.
Seattle Housing to Drop? Follow my logic on this: "Ryanair ends talks to by 200 Boeing 787's" Seems to me that would soften longer term Boeing employment in the Puget Sound area which in turn oughta to ripple into housing prices in 2010.
Climate? Say Wen "Obama, Wen offer no new emissions cuts at summit" comes the AP report this morning.
Meantime, multiple readers (both) have sent in notes suggesting that "Ain't Universe got a sense of humor dumping snow and blizzard-like conditions on the climate conference?" Communists and socialists were out marching earlier this week...wonder if they'll be out in the snow?
The Pen is What? Mightier than the sword, you say? Wrong: Not this year. "Journalist deaths hit record (68) in 2009: report". So much for killing the messengers...
Seasonal Dysfunctionality Department "Drunk 4-year-old steals Christmas presents." Quite a tale and commentary on families falling apart this time of year.
Stealing History This is an eye-popper: "Auschwitz concentration camp sign stolen." --- Mostly, I try to think humans are well-intentioned, good-hearted critters. Then I read a headline like this one and I'm reminded of the bitter truth. For all of our technical progress, I look at the kind of government we elect, the kind of of economics and moral system we embrace, and the individual actions like this one and I ask myself "We crawled out of the mud to do this?"
Pour me a shot of eggnog. Make it a double. No, triple...
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Coping: Thumbing Through the Inbox Apparently, I'm not the only one disappointed by looking at overall human behavior at this time of year and being disappointed by the results of the inquiry. Try this one on:
Enough of this hard introspection! On to lighter fare, please...
Down at the WuJo: Pyramids Come Calling Yeah, that sounds like fun...visit the pyramids....until, that is, the pyramids begin appearing in the sky over Moscow.
That's right: "UFO Pyramid reported over Kremlin." --- Got a theory why those recent "holes in the sky" appeared over Moscow and now this: They may not shoot at them every chance they get like the West seems to do.
While the predictive linguistics has lots of UFO activity due in this period, this is getting to be a bit much. That there's a hole in the sky one month - and two months later a pyramid shows up has me wondering if indeed this phenomena isn't somehow trans-dimensional in nature. In which case, a temporal displacement between early effects and the pyramid's appearance might make sense. --- I trust you saw the large number of scientists who looked at the Normal spiral light of a few weeks back and concluded (as anyone looking at it with untainted eyes would) This wasn't a rocket test gone awry...
We're left with three possibilities to ponder:
One thing that is creeping up in my Master Spreadsheet of Probability for Weirdness is this: What if the 'context change' on the 19th turns into a massive/undeniable UFO appearance over something like Washington DC and tons of video is taken to where it is total undeniable?
I figure that would have all kinds of economic impacts; I mean who would work if there was a chance that aliens would show up and save the day? But then that brings us to the discussion of whether they are coming to save us, or if we're not just some kind of (spiritual?) hors d'houevers...
Marketing Royalty Rant I just love watching the shills of the PowersThatBe market their bosses. You know....the stories that go to the idea that the real powerful are 'just commoners like us'. Toward this end here's another one of those stories that goes into that folder:
"Your (commuter) carriage awaits! Thrifty Queen catches ordinary passenger train on her journey to Sandringham for Christmas." Elsewhere the story includes reference to the "thrifty queen". -- Such stories are works of art in mind control. We get to capitalize the word 'queen" again, and we're remind that the trains regular folks ride are 'ordinary". It's the finest of bounding your thinking you'll find.
It carries over in language even to buildings. Take the headline that "King Edward: Crumbling hotel restores to grandeur". Great hotel? Sure. But subconsciously, it's a continuation of the notion that 'kings are grand /define grandeur' - but again, this is imprinting that requires a bit of consciousness to catch as it's sometimes subtle. --- As long as we're on it...and this is of interest if you overdo colloidal silver - check this out: "Study: Too much drinkable gold for king's mistress" reveals that drinking gold was once thought to preserve youth. Birth of conspicuous consumption? --- I'm convinced that one of the key acts by which we attain personal liberty is to recognize that regardless of the relentless onslaught of television, radio, and new media marketing to the contrary, you are just as powerful, you are just as worthy, you are just as demanding of respect as any member of 'royalty' - whether you choose to limit your definition to the castle or use the extensible form 'media royalty' in which case throw in Hollywood, sports figures, and political hacks of all stripe and all of self aggrandizing title.
To the degree that you are always able to look at any other biped as only your equal and nothing more, you achieve freedom from domination of your thoughts and behaviors by those who put on that they are your betters.
If you can't do it, too bad. You're royally screwed, regardless of the nominal form of government you're supposedly living under. In the end, governments all aspire to power over people and the more power they get, the less true equality among humans seems to result.
The Founders had it right: Powers not specifically ceded to the central government were reserved to the States. It's laughable how that's working out.
More eggnog? Wanna bet no commoners not in the entourage got on that particular 'ordinary passenger train' car?
--- Send your comments to george@ure.net The UrbanSurvival Mall: Peoplenomics This Week 13 Acres and Independence Part 8: Small Farm Economics A couple of readers have asked for a more detailed explanation of goat ranching, since that's our second cash crop; the first being a selective cut of timber on the property that netted about $14,000. "How does it work? Can you really make money at it?" The short answer is it's not too complicated, but there are design patterns behind the scenes that require a good understanding. This week, a look at farm business models, crop or output selection, and how to go about these things in a reasonable fashion. More For Subscribers To Subscribe, CLICK HERE Maxa-Cookie Manager Been a while since I've updated you on how many cookies and web bugs have been removed from my main computer by the Maxa Cookie Manager from Maxa Tools: 1,602 web bugs and 54,131 cookies so far. It's amazing.
Take it for a free test drive by downloading it. To upgrade to full functionality will set you back $35 bucks, but Christmas is coming... Is your privacy worth it? 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 nasty and highly intrusive 'non-browser specific' cookies. Bonus: You computer may run 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....so far. Given Jens and the other engineers time...
"Live on $10,000" A Year With another round of layoffs due to start later this month...a round which will start to axe many of the middle managers who have managed to avoid the HR grenades...might I suggest a preemptive tactical move? Voluntarily dropping your lifestyle back a bit, since we're all being marched down that road by either circumstances or some out-of-control-PTB types who write checks to Washington lobby and to anti-reformers in California! A good starting point, at least if you've still got $10-bucks is my e-book "How to Live on #10,000 a Year...or less!"
It's an automatic download. It's written in an information dense style: The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the cheap, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you have a little hustle left... Click here for the index and details.
MyGroPonics My commodity broker JB Slear and I have written a simple book to get you started on high density hydroponics. It's an example of how someone with a little creativity, access to a few 'dollar stores' and willing to try out some new farming techniques can grow an amazing amount of produce sin a very small space - like even an apartment balcony (if it gets some sunlight). Sound interesting? It's just $10 bucks here...
Pass It On The business model of this website is base Simply click here and send a link to this site to everyone on your distro list...Nothing more dangerous than sharp, clear-thinking upstarts who ask a lot of questions, eh? Unless you believe WTC-7 fell over on its own, of course.... ---- Last week's report is here. For back issues of this site, click here. (Goes back to 1997!)
Thursday December 17, 2009 Tears for Fears & Moody's Blues Why, it's positively an old geezer's version of a pop music festival from long ago today. Labeling aside, there are some dandy stories making the rounds and we'll start with Alan Caruba's "The National Anxiety Center Lists Top Ten Fears" going into 2010. Most of the fears are ones you have picked up around here already, nevertheless a good list to use if you're new at the fine art of meta-grouping data into edible lumps of...well...stuff!
Since we're talking about depressing subjects right off the bat, we might as well call this "Double Meds Thursday" since so many people will have the "Moody's blues" (or soon will have) when they do a search on what the premier rating group has been up to lately:
All of which seems a pretty balanced view until the 900-pound gorillas walk in:
By the way, it's not like this is a new concept, that is grouping countries by something other than GDP. In fact I was reading the new Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin earlier this week and it sports a nice list of countries and risks associated with the ratio of private to public debt. The US fared better but not my much -10th place if I recall. In fact their web site offers this grim assessment:
All of which would fit in nicely (OK, not comfortably though) with one of the two scenarios that Robin Landry has been talking about; namely that we could muddle through till March and then things turn ugly, or we could have an early in the new year decline and one more run through August/September of 2010. With Arch Crawford's outlook on an astro-econ basis pointing to rough spots in Aug/Sept. 2010 and the (still slim) possibility that the 'summer of hell" linguistics were a year early, by late summer 2010 we may be all glued to our teevee sets, mouth agape, wondering what the hell the world is coming to. Odds are rising it will be just that. --- Against this background, a number of readers have written in complaining about the Consumer Price Index numbers. Not only are prices continuing to go up for necessities like utilities and food, but now thanks to a higher deduction for medical, most folks I know will actual see their disposable retirement going down while their costs continue to go up. Why as I not surprised? --- When leading economic indicators come out this morning (10 AM) don't be surprised if they show a little optimism. Reason being that people are still in the "...think we muddle through this..." mode. Well, rotsa ruck. I'm skeptical.
One reason? I mean besides being able to lump meta-data into different piles like we just went through in the search for Moody's data? We're only a week or so from the next Case-Schiller/S&P housing report. Seems odd that no one made a big deal about last month's report. In case you missed it (to me it was like a missing version in the techno-trance dance tune of modern economics) it showed that nationally their 20-market average home was down more than 23.4% to a new post October '07 low and that worse, in Phoenix and Las Vegas, home prices have dropped on average about 40% - worse even than Detroit where homes are 'only' down a shade more than 32% from their peak.
When you tear into the data you notice that Detroit peaked a bit before the rest of the country and places like Charlotte, which peaked much later (in August of 2007 compared with Detroit's December 2005 peak). Using the same data series, Dallas has only dropped 3.8% from the national peak date but if you calculate from the local peak (July '07 versus the national peak in July '06), prices are down about 4.6% from their crest.
I guess that's the point - or near enough to it: One has to look at the spread of the data over time to get a real picture. While sure, lots of folks in the Dallas area are doing better than say Phoenix - you'd take a 4.6% loss over a 40.6% loss any day, right? - there's not a single market in the S&P/Case-Schiller 20-market data that looks healthy in terms of holding value. More in their next report, but it's a good touchstone/reality-check when the happy talk makes the rounds.
The public moody is being deliberately spun away from realities like looming foreclosures which will skyrocket in the new year. Right now there's a kind of wink-wink, non-nod thing going on where banks (I hear rumbles) are trading loser properties back and forth so they can book accounting losses which will turn into tax-loss carry-forwards. And then we see headlines like "Citigroup to suspend foreclosures for 30-days" which will get us into at least mid-January before they really get rolling again.
Throw in 30-90 days for the data to catch up and we're where? Back into the March-ish kind of window.
What's worse - and should become visible by February to the general public - is the story in the Chicago Sun-Times ("Foreclosure interest waning") that goes to the idea that people are losing their interest (a poor pun, sorry) in acquiring the foreclosed homes. Which means what? Anyone want to take a stab at this?
OK (I have to do all the work around here, don't I?) : Home prices will have further to fall in 2010.
I have no idea how many 'home sales' have arisen then disappeared using this method, but here it goes: Suppose my brother in law is a banker and I want to help him out. Elaine & I would go out and buy a home from him and he would book a 'pending sale' at his bank. Then we drag our feet and the loan sits unprocessed for a couple of months - maybe three or even 5 months. Then we just drop the application to sell. The loan never impacts the real economy, but it looks like a pending home sale for months on end. Slick, huh?
The idea being that if enough people saw enough headlines to convince them that the bottom really was in, they'd step up and buy. Turned out that varies by market. While people in Boston seem a little skeptical - "Foreclosures lose luster among average buyers" - and they may have kin in suburban Chicagoland where "Local foreclosure activity spikes in November", the Frederick (Maryland) NewsPost headlines that a "Survey shows buyers of foreclosed houses are looking to 'trade up'. Not that Frederick's results should be surprising because that's only...lemme see here.... 42 miles outside of Washington. Of course people there would be thinking about trading up while the rest of the country craters, know what I mean?
So pardon me if I sit here humming a few bars of Tears for Fear or Moody's Blues into the coffee cup this morning, but frankly the green shoots/bullish consensus sounds a little suspect. But then so did the swine flu vaccine, the reasons why WTC-7 fell over, and the reasons to go into Afghanistan, and the promise of "change". I'm a 'nat-chull- born' skeptic who is very much afraid of the herd. Should come into focus over the next 90 days whether it's a herd of bulls - or sheep. Meantime, a pullback of gold to the $900-$950 area by mid 2010 would be no surprise at all as government tries to delicately keep printing our way through this very delicate mess.
Santa Rally Dead At least that's what the futures indicate, early in today's session. See here? Dollar up, gold down $22 takes the averages with it. Can't win for losing. The Grinch did it, I'm sure.
Lawless Country OK, think about this: who's going to arrest the whole country now that the "U.S. national Debt Tops Debt Limit"? Toss me that ink bottle, and help me load some more paper, congress is sure to come through. --- Speaking of ink, president O has signed the $1.1 trillion spending bill into law. --- And those little darlings in congress have approved a $155 billion spending bill that seems to me may save more public jobs than private....but don't mind me - I just mailed IRS my Q4 payment this week. Ouch.
Speaking of Lawless... Something that's starting to get traction around the 'net is that in his West Point speech a while back, president O may have effectively declared war on Pakistan without going to congress first. Example: "Did Obama Declare War on Pakistan?" --- Someone (still munching the hook, line, and sinker) might say it's only drones, but last time I checked when a military begins attacking sovereign soil that's a 'war' don'tcha think? --- "No, but it's the right thing since we are supporting the government..." would be the next rejoinder. Well, yes, that's because they seem to have control of their nukes and the next government might not be so cooperative...which leads to a three six-pack discussion best held for the weekend when there's no garden or field work to be done. Like that'll ever happen.
End of an Era "White Americans' majority to end by mid-century." I think this means we've been out-screwed although the polite press would never put it so directly. The harsh reality is that it's likely the payoff for the Johnson-era Great Society that made staying home and 'babying' a workable option compared to working. Which is not to throw rocks at the Great Society and entitlements - they are not inherently bad and become more desirable the poorer you get - but when are those on welfare going to have to take drug tests like those of us who work for a living? What's good for the tax goose that's laying the eggs ought to be more evenly applied. Better: Get rid of drug testing for everyone except that it has now become an industry unto itself with not only testing and so forth but counseling, remediation, detox...oh what a complex stew, huh? I know, "Stop whining Ure..." OK - hand me that clip, would'ja?
Everyone's a Critic "Copenhagen summit veering toward farce, wands Ed Miliband". Gotta hand it to Mr. Ed for his ability to state the obvious. --- Big headlines like "Hillary Clinton tries to save Copenhagen" seem to upstage her boss's effort, but that's what being a media darling is about, I suppose.
More scary - although it's not her first attempt to hijack taxpayer money - is talk of the "US ready to join $100B climate fund." Like EPA declaring CO-2 a dangerous chemical isn't enough of a problem for our flailing economy? Why can't a shade-tree mechanic build a 75 MPG car and get it licensed for us on public roads? We all know that one - power & control by central government which has seized those powers not otherwise delegated from the States of course! You go Clinton...and keep going....going.....
Healthcare DOA? Nancy Pelosi is giving off hints like no healthcare bill this year. Which will give members of congress time to strong-arm more dough out of the corpgov-pharma crowd to fatten up their campaign treasuries to keep real change from being elected.
"George you don't really think members of Congress would do that do you?"
Are you so dumb that hints like "Zebras and their stripes" and "Do bears - you know what - in the woods" needs further clarification? How much Prozac you on, again?
Something Up NK's Sleeve? Ask yourself this, if you're a good teevee detective solver: "Why would "N.Korea to temporarily ban foreigners: reports"? Remember a long-ago predictive linguistics report about NK doing something (possibly nuclear) in mid December? Hmmm...ponder that one while you change out the batteries in your field survey meter...
Skeptical of predictive linguistics? Sure, me too. Except once again go back to my May 27th report from this year where I said... OK, sure, they haven't attacked, but the point is that predictive linguistics to get some flavor of events right and we'll be sitting back watching what they do next. It bodes Il.
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Coping: With the Year Ahead I'm starting to pull together the "Other" view of the economy - the one that will make it into next weekend's "Annual Forecast Issue" of Peoplenomics. A couple of interesting points to ponder on even if you're either broke and can't afford to subscribe (or you're just a chintzy chiseler at heart always looking for a free lunch in which case it's folks like you that lead to governments like this...).
The new Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin, the latest from Gerald Celente's work, and others are certain good grist for the mill. But two really important items to ponder I think are the "Special Report - Year Ahead: Can You Handle The Truth?" from David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist up at Gluskin-Sheff. (www.gluskinsheff.com).
After correctly noting that there's a developing consensus about what 2010 should be like (and worrying quite correctly the consensus will be - surprise here -wrong) he then makes this very 'George-like' observation about whether we're in a recession or something worse...you know...the "D" word...
If you don't rush off to sign up for Rosenberg's weekly briefing ("Breakfast with Dave") you probably shouldn't be investing more than Monopoly Money, or Zimbabwe Dollars - he's that good. --- Young people today have no concept of what the phrase "sound like a broken record" means, since many have only heard that such things once existed. A more proper term might be "At the risk of hitting 'repeat' again...I nevertheless have to point out that wading through a fair bit on today's economy I am yet to be convinced that we're in anything other than a retooled Depression.
The differences with the 1929-1943 (or arguably even beyond) event are starting to stack up in pretty stark relief:
One upon a time - and maybe still true today, I don't hang around with radio station programmers much - program directors of rock & roll radio stations in Canada had to place so much content on their airwaves that was done by Canadian musicians. And some damn fine ones, at that. Like who? Oh, the Guess Who, for one. No question, Undun and American Woman were great tunes, but it didn't hurt having the government decree that some X percent of music on Canadian radio stations had to be home-grown.
No one cried "foul!" but the recording industry at the time hadn't gotten as slick as corpgov is here lately. They were still living under the cloud of payola and when people in the industry made jokes about this record company (or that) getting the Award for the best use of Thai stick in album promotion it wasn't entirely a joke. (Don't ask.)
To be sure, corpgov is a lot slicker. these days. When tobacco companies get run out of the US for killing people with tar and nicotine, what do they do? A few bucks here, a headquarters move there and Tah-Dah! Huge market in an emergent country like Indonesia. In a sense it's like payola that would have been OK, but only in the smaller markets. Arguably, the ascension of global business probably necessitates global regulators but that all happens under the catch-all of 'anti-terrorism'. The most real terror most Americans face is the check-out counter at the store.
We've learned from Madoff and his ilk that the Bigger the Criminal, the bigger the skate. The one story I haven't seen come out of that case - and likely never will - is the list of people that Madoff gave money to. You know, like Enron's bosses contributed - that kind of thing. Oh well... --- The next story that seems like it will have a huge bearing on next year's socioeconomic play is the announcement that the "Gulf States Take steps toward Monetary Union, Joint Central Bank."
If you think that the Gulf states have figured out that a paper-backed fiat currency - in other words a currency worth something only on some government's say so really would be more credible ifs it had a commodity behind it (like oil) then give yourself a gold star. That's what seems to be in play.
Not that the idea is new by any stretch; commodity-backed currencies which were harder to debase were once the norm, not the exception. But that was long ago.
All of which is happening close enough temporally to make me wonder if indeed, the falling status of the Dollar may not be the beginnings of our context shift on the 19th of the month, but I won't even hazard more than a wild guess on this front until at least mid-next week.
Oh-oh...getting on toward serious; I need to get over that.
Survival Beers I mentioned a couple of days ago (or was it last week? Damn, it's early, huh?) that a reader was storing beer as the ultimate barter stock. But then someone brought up the point that beer doesn't store so good and it would mean a lot of rotating of stock - and no problem there - never a shortage of volunteers for that since we're in the South...then Wham! My email got slammed with comments.
Never seen a beer last that long, but I didn't get the moniker "The Human Spnge" without cause, I suppose. Next? (to the sound of a beer top releasing pressure)...
Still more? Sure...
Now that we have the important stuff out of the way...we can all go mount the gerbil mills for another day remembering that we thankfully not on daylight Miller Time. Or, if you've given up the alcohol, O'Doul's Time. Better living through beer chemistry.
Wednesday December 16, 2009 Special Update Pass the Tea Leaves: Fed Statement: No surprises here:
Gee, shocking, huh? Market's dozing off on it, too... What they don't say is that shortly after their emergency interventions expire next year, they'll probably need them again, but then again, that's just wild-eye speculation on my part -- till it happens.
Day of Numbers Maybe you're thinking Book of Numbers...but go with me on this, trying to build an image here - this Day of Numbers seems likely to be the same old testament to the so-called recovery. The Number of Numbers comes out this afternoon - which is 99% certain to be the same interest rate the Fed has had all along when the FOMC returns its verdict. Reading the Fed statement is kind of like scrying entails of small animals to rate watchers. --- But, until Ben (et al) come down from Rate Mountain with the tablet for the coming month, we have to be satisfied a whole parcel of press releases starting with the Cost of Living /Consumer Price Index pronounced by the Labor Department:
The 'all items' index was up 1.8%, sayeth the report but against this folks on Social Security get what? Bupkis. No point going there, however. Next number, please? --- Current Account Deficit report? Sure, glad you asked...
Yeah, yeah...but let's skip down to the section called "Foreign-owned assets in the United States" because this is where the action is if you're watching the great game of international financial brinksmanship:
Interesting stuff, no? Next....Hmmm...what's this one...ah...new report on newspaper revenues declining because any damn fool can buy space on a web server and rewrite the same government handouts that...ooops...giving out trade secrets here...
I'd like to end the senseless speculation that Elaine and I are going to buy the Times or Post. Next? (Will this ever end?) Trust you saw yesterday's Industrial Production report from the Fed?
The point I'd make about this is that if you take the Production numbers - down 5.1% for the year and measure this against the (recently falling) M-3 as Trader Bart reports it over at www.nowandfutures.com,. down around zero percent presently, there's no way the Fed can even think about raising rates yet without throwing the world into another economic contraction. And then last, but not least. we have this morning's Housing report from Census:
I wasn't kidding about this being the Day of Numbers...here, you keep reading while I go find a new battery for the calculator...OMG What's THIS???!!! Time Picks Ben Bernanke as Man of the Year. Wonder if the major polling organizations have measured to see if Bernanke is more popular than president O? Shows what my endorsement of two weeks ago is worth, though, doesn't it?
Grand Jury Picks Raj NYPost has good coverage on the grand jury indictment of a hedge fund manager who is accused of trading on inside information.
Consumers Pick Electronics "Philips sees pick-up in Consumer Electronics sales". So what else is there?
Pick a Peak for Twitter? "No pick-up in Twitter's U.S. traffic in November" says the WaPo. --- Gotta wonder if someone besides me has figured out that 99.9% of texting is a waste of time that doesn't qualify under one of Ure's Tests of Worthiness against which all activities are measured...which are?
Except for the odd hook-up (on this last and in both senses of the word 'hook-up'), I don't see the use of texting, but hell, I'm an old fart. My list of things to do is pretty simple and I suppose Pavlovian; old dogs, tricks, etc...
Truth In Labeling "SF Mayor backs radiation labels for cell phones" says a report this morning. --- What I find bizarre is that people will refuse an untested vaccine yet when the science is still being debated on cell phones, people spend hours a day with them. Strange damn rats, we is...it's a-maze -ing, if'n you know what I mean.
Climate Change is a Riot Story in the NY Times this morning goes into some detail about hundreds arrested at the Copenhagen Climate meetings. So once again, the buzz on the net proves prescient.
Cool Ramblings, 2 Hmmm...we'll start with a dandy reader email:
Got to have been a typo by the one-world-government crowd, don'tcha think? --- Several people wrote in and told me "George! George! You're wrong! There is a sunspot and it's part of Cycle 24! You must confess the error of your ways!"
Well, no, not just yet thanks. You see, if you look at some of the older forecasts for Cycle 24, we ought to be having all kinds of flares at the same time by now - easily five but more like 10- or more going off. Except that the predictions keep sliding back. So until I can 'work the world on 10-watts" on the 10-meter ham bands I haven't been in a particular hurry to get my 55-foot tower and tri-band quad antenna up. What's the point, know what I mean? The only two points about watching sunspots are a) ham radio gets better (to a point) when sunspots are active and b) has something to do with the weather cooling on earth which leads to mass starvation and such, but of course that pales in comparison to the ham radio implications. (Me? Obsess with my hobby? Moi?) --- Technical note: This all presumes that you know that in radio propagation, the MUF (which stands for maximum Useable Frequency) goes up during the Solar Maxima, not to be confused with a yellow Nissan product, yeah? So ham radio types maybe will find a good opening on 21 MHz here and there, but 14 MHz is about all the better things get. When the Maxima gets here, then 28 MHz and above 'get hot' and working the world with about the same power levels as a large flashlight becomes real doable and fun. Till then, if I want to talk to someone in Tahiti, it means getting up in the middle of the night and pounding out Morse code down on the low end of the 40-meter band around 7.025 Mhz or so. Ham radio is an entirely cool hobby so run over to www.arrl.org and find out more about it - and no, Morse code is not required for a ham license anymore, but if you try it and like it, hit www.fists.org which is the International More Preservation Society and tell # 13,106 sent you. Where were we? Oh yes... --- Hold cool is being Canadian? Well...er.....let's not go there...let's go to Calgary where we can say -32.4 which breaks a record from 1893 and let it go at that, shall we?
I remember the old days when an American could make fun of Canadian politics, but it seems perfectly reasonable anymore. Especially compared to what we have here lately...
Constitution Free Zone, Redux I told you yesterday how as part of the plan to close down the penal colony in Cuba that Gitmo detainees were being moved to Illinois (a kind of punishment of its onw)? Well, now the ACLU is asking - in effect - "so if they're on US soil tell us again why they don't have Constitutional Rights which include trials and so forth?"
A lot of people don't like the ACLU, but they have always been really clear that they defend Constitutional Rights being taken from those least able to defend those rights. It just hasn't gotten to most of us Middle Class types yet, so they get marginalized. Remember "First they came for the Gypsies, then they came for the...."?
Duck! The J-Post says the "US to drill Iranian attack scenario". The idea is that the test would see how a particular weapons system (the Ground-based Mid-course Defense - GMD) system would do. --- The way I have it figured, if the economy keeps headed where it is, there'll be no point to nuking or bombing pretty quick - we'll do ourselves in with a financial implosion. But then again, maybe Tehran and North Korea have figured that out.
Going for 18, Maybe? Fox has this "Report: Tiger Woods 'On the Edge" As New Mistress Named". I was only kidding about 18 holes but seems to me that we're waiting on the 15th tee now...
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: PH Tampering Been meaning to mention - since several readers have asked - what ever happened with Elaine getting diagnosed with acid reflux? Kind of an interesting story. As I think I mentioned, she was referred to a conventional doc by our dentist, who's a great guy. Then, after he looked - mistaking it for thrush and a couple of weeks of anti-fungal, he gave up and sent her on to a local eyes/ears/nose/&throat doc. About 5-minutes and the diagnosis was made.
Apparently, the number of people who suffer from nighttime acid reflux is on the order of 12-million (or so our research on the web has claimed). He gave E a list of most of the foods she loved and said "Get off these and everything ought to clear up" and sure enough, the blisters on the side of her tongue and side of her mouth are about gone, along with the clearing her throat more often than most and so forth. he offered to put her on some prescription antacids, but being the au naturel kind of person she is, the choice was made to stick to over-the-counter and diet. So....a week later, she's noticeably on the mend.
Of course, there's been a price to pay: Gone are the quick-fix meals of tortillas with veggies and hot peppery sauces with cheeses and tomatoes with a glass of milk. Like I said, this does involve some sacrifices on her part.
Along the way we stumbled into a really interesting product at one of the local health food stores called "AlkaMAX". The idea of the stuff is you take a few drops of it in whatever kind of liquid you want and it will move your body PH back toward neutral. Elaine's up to her elbows in research at the moment, but turns out that a lot of bad, bad, bad illnesses are linked to having ones body go strongly acidic over a fair period of time. We got the drops, not the powder, just to experiment with.
So now, along with 'approved' foods, she's doing that and interestingly, we're not pretty much on the same kind of diet. Since I've been taking the stuff (10 drops of the liquid in my morning cu-p of coffee) it's cut the acid sufficiently so that I don't have that gnawing hole in the stomach demanding food. Styill hungry by the time breakfast rolls around, but just there's not so much a dull pain associated with drinking acidic coffee and sitting for three hours.
Meantime, the eczema on my hands may also be improving because of it, but "Shhh!" - Don't want to jump to any conclusions, but it's turning into an interesting little experiment.
One other thing about nighttime acid reflux: Apparently helps to elevate the head of the bed about 5-7" so that (you-know-what) will roll downhill. Also has me pondering whether I should go looking for one of those Craft-matic adjustable beds for us; although sleeping in my man-chairs (side-by-side leather recliners in a TV seat/couch with drink holders etc) would do the same thing and I wouldn't be tempted to get another TV...
One other item: I've ordered some litmus paper and one of our friends up in the Dallas area recommended a particular type of enzyme regimen. Don't know as I'll go that far, but I feel as good at almost 61 as I did at 40...which can't be a bad thing.
I thought in the name of science I'd run a litmus test on myself before writing one of my columns and then run a second test after to see how much venom I actual expend writing about the economic policies run amuck in today's print-prone world. I'll keep you posted.
An Apology from Indonesia After thinking about it a bit, our Indonesia bureau has issued an apology:
Meantime, we happened to catch a mini-documentary on the English-language Al Jazeera satellite channel yesterday...a quite revealing appraisal of how American tobacco companies having been regulated in the West were now trying to get as many people in Third/Emerging world countries like Indonesia hooked on smokes and their report claimed 7 out of 8 adults in country are smokers with resulting health consequences. I've asked our Indo Bureau to double-check that and get back to us.
Rogoff''s Boundary I've
only started to dig into former IMF Chief Economist Ken Rogoff's
book This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly
The main one early on is that when it comes to financial excesses, there's some kind of a 'boundary layer' - a kind of tipping point - or point of no return - which is when economies tip into inflation, depreciation, or debasement of currency. It's one of those dandy 'obvious as hell - hid in plain sight - things that once you grasp the concept slaps you upside the head and you think "Wow! So that's what's going on...wonder why I hadn't noticed before?"
The answer, of course, is simple" You ain't supposed to get it since it's your behavior that makes it all possible for the mantra "this time is different" and traditional valuations get thrown out the door.
Particularly direct, by the way, is their description of 'fiat' money which they characterize as only having value so long as people accept the government's decree that paper has value. Like I tell the folks at the local liquor store every time I go in "Ain't this an amazing world? I can trade you pieces of dirty paper for perfectly good rum..."
They look at me like I'm nuts - and there's a good case for that, too, I suppose.
Sorry, Larry - Sort of....
A number of readers with the highly esteemed name "Lawrence" told me they were offended that I would point out their 'Larry-ness."
Sorry to offend, but the way humans work is there's some kind of odd tribal pecking order. The longer the name and more distinguished the title, the more 'respect' it's supposed to buy amongst people who are not consciously inspecting everything that gets pumped into their heads. The sheep have names like Dick instead of Richard, and once elevated part Richard it upscales to Dr. Richard, Sir Richard and eventually the deification is complete with Lord Richard Somethingorother.
But rather than gush an apology to all Larrys on earth for this highly obvious statement of facts, I'll simple raise the bar a little and see if I can offend even more people who allow their names to be short-changed.
If your name is "Bob" and you're trying to build credibility/power switch to Robert. If it's Mike, try Michael, if Jim try James, if Sue try Susan, or if Cathy try Katherine. See how it works? --- Short names and the use thereof is best reserved for familiars (to borrow a Middle English/slander of theWiccan concept). Which is why in my sales career I always tried to use longer proper names until I had established some rapport with people and then ask "Say, Richard, may I call you Dick?" or "Robert - may I call you Bob?" Four out of five times they actually preferred the longer name.
Seems that at some preconscious level people want to be upgraded to long-name and they tend to like people who give them the upgrade. Which is why - if you're in the #3 business employing sociopaths you figure a way to issue upgrades to buy sales, eh? I assume you know this: Sales places third to politics and law employing sociopaths, but they already have their coding with words like "Your Honor", "Senator" "Congressman" and so forth... --- Let me give you my personal example of how successful this strategy can be: For a long time I had people yelling at me "Hey you! Dumb sh*t!" I've actually convinced a few to call me George and it makes me feel good.
Outlook Entry Our Luxembourg reader has been tinkering with dates and meanings of 2012 and suggests something worth considering:
Here's the deal: Way I have it figured is that as long as I can be bilked into handing over 33% (or more) of everything I make to people who want to "rule" me - and then go pick fights so they can 'defend me" and then make me sick so they can "medicate me" and then wear me our so they can "retire me" they'll keep me alive.
Gotta be at least a few among the PowersThatBe bright enough to figure out that if I'm not working and paying my tribute, they go down in flames, right?
Downer Under Reader from Oz asks:
Yep: Try http://72.52.163.140/ for UrbanSurvival and http://72.52.172.133/ for Peoplenomics. Peoplenomics also has a secure layer: https://72.52.172.133/ and yes, it's safe to continue to it. --- I will be setting up email addresses with auto-responders so you should be able to write to ip@urbansurvival.com or ip@peoplenomics.com and get an automatic email back with IP addresses.
Wouldn't surprise me to see the PowersThatBe figure out that in order to keep a critical mass of humans from getting together and questioning Paradigm Control that they will need to turn off the easy/convenient way of surfing the net, so by going to fixed IP addresses they could no doubt buy themselves time. Until, of course, forwarding thinking people figure out how to get around that and direct IP addressing may be one way...anyway, a lot cost high potential payoff to be implemented here anyway. Might consider it for your company web site, too, if your income is web-dependent. I like fixed IP's a lot.
The Eternal Optimist See how optimistic that last bit sounded? Why, every so often I get ill-advised emails from people who say "You're/Ure a doom and gloomer!" No, I am not.
I'm more like the guy who - in the middle of an airplane falling out of the sky towards a horrific crash - will look at you from the seat to yours and says "Great! We're landing early for a change..."
There's no excuse not to have a good attitude. Unless you're out of booze and pills, of course.
Tuesday December 15, 2009 Financial Atlantis Department Yuppie I, I Owe, PPI Day It's ONLY a 23.8% Annualized PPI increase so git along, little dogies... but lets begin at the beginning or somewhere near the middle, shall we? --- The notion that gold is making a correction after busting through the $1,000 barrier and shooting up briefly to the $1,200 range is certainly reinforced by the numbers in the pre-open today. Futures are down, the dollar is up, and gold is down $14 bucks early on although it should bounce back a bit. Early today an AP story noted that "Stock futures weaker as dollar rises" which shows, perhaps inadvertently, that the dollar has been the reason for a rising market. It more or less proves the point that equities have been viewed as inflation hedges on what I can only assume is the [errant] notion that owning a big chunk of the American market in something-or-other has value regardless of the economic outcome.
The error of such thinking is the unstated assumption that American consumption of stuff will always be at some kind of baseline level under which it is not likely to sink; at least for very long.
To be sure, some kind of economic change happen at sub glacial speeds. Cars, for example, got better mileage in 1908 than they do today. Think I'm kidding? Nossir: "Car Mileage: 1908 Ford Model T - 25 MPG 2008 EPA Average All Cars - 21 MPG"
Why if that isn't the one of the biggest con jobs in history, I don't know what is: 100-years and we lost 4 MPG. Yeah, sure, nav systems, air conditioning, iPod docks, surround sound, air bags, coffee warmers and if you get really creative, you can install a mobile microwave with a cheap 1.5 KW inverter and a small oven, so whoever is in the back seat can toast up bacon-wrapped scallops while they watch a 7" DVD screen and assault their ears with 1,000 watts of high-powered audio sitting atop body-jarring subs is nice and all, but.....
Maybe there's something wrong with George. I mean, that's is worthy progress for 100-years of development ain't it? Surely this kind of stuff is why people buy equities instead of gold, right?
To my way of thinking it really isn't much to show. I'm looking for the real progress that I can point out to the kids and say "See! Are we cool or what? Clean cars that get 50 MPG and have Jenn-Air grills and 65" wide-screens. Would even that really be progress? Because when I project out 100-years of industrial trending, that's where we're headed! Seriously (or nearly so). --- All of which is not to beat-down the car industry. Times have been tough enough and the head of Ford is cautiously predicting a slight rise in sales in 2010. Will that be part of a general recovery? Maybe...or it will just be replacement sales picking up. That's where projecting ahead gets to be such a fool's game. Except, of course, for seeing that government will be printing up more money and any way you cut it, that is inflation/watering down on existing dollar's purchasing power, so gold, silver and the rest of the precious metals and other hard assets make sense. Even buying stocks because of the book value of their plant and equipment makes sense at some level. Be nice if some of the book value was located domestically, however. --- What's clear however, now that we've got our Magic Zoom-Out Glasses on, is that the ascendancy of China is continuing at break-neck speed while the West sinks slowly into the sunset; a kind of modern financial Atlantis. Headlines like "China auto sales close to doubling in November" aren't all that hard to find.
Most investors don't take the time to frame the biggest investment decision of all correctly; most hear a 'tip' or get sucked in to a mutual fund salesman's spiel and don't recognize high commission loads even when they are disclosed.
Instead, the right first decision to make might be phrased something like this:
Seems to me like that would be a pretty simple thing to answer - and if the US dollar gets a decnet-sized bounce for a while, the currency swing could magnify offshore purchasing power, which would then be a genius move if the US dollar only drops a bit, since in multinational trading, you can make double-returns by playing currency swings and market directions. --- Sorry, didn't mean to get off on a tangent. Let's all open our hymnals here at the Church of the Almighty Dollar and turn to page 1215 and sing together "How Great Thy PPI?" Hummm...
And so another morning begins as we all hotly anticipate even better news in the Fed's capacity utilization and industrial production report in about 45-minutes.
But that's nothing compared with the CPI and Fed (non) decision tomorrow. Till then podnah, "Yuppie I, I Owe! Git along little Ovies..." Sure don't want to read how "Dairy, Meat prices will spur food inflation, Wells Fargo says..."
Poll Drop, Redux Ah, we're down to just 24% of the nation strongly supporting president O. Darned fools are probably looking for change or something...
Sickly Health Care that Joe "Lieberman resists Medicare buy-in plan" could torpedo the healthcare reform bill. Granted the program might redistribute healthcare costs, but pardon me if I just sit back with popcorn and watch the street fight from up here in the balcony seats.
Shutting Down Gitmo Department The feds will be announcing transfer of detainees at Gitmo to a facility in Illinois. given a choice, I'd opt for the warmer weather, but no one asked. Again.
The Washington Post story on this has an interesting quote:
Not sure how moving from Gitmo to a super-max security prison in the land of Blagojevich is going to someone be less of a recruiting tool, but I'm not in war marketing. But I could never have pulled off the peace prize/troop deployment, either
Tomorrow is Riot Day? At least that's the sense of things around the net as Copenhagen is turning contentious and headlines like "Copenhagen climate summit progress 'too slow'. You'll probably want to move the TV back away from the dinner table tomorrow night so as not to have high def tear gas get into your food. --- Pappy used to insist we sit back as kids at least 6-feet from the TV in the early "Untouchables" episodes back when, so as not to get blood splattered on us...I have a similar theory about demonstrations and war coverage.
Out from Under the TARP I see where Wells Fargo is about to repay their TARP money. I assume you have figured that Wells, BofA and others are paying back so quickly is so they can get bonuses out from under the fed's microscope, yeah?
Shady Regulations You see where "50-million blinds recalled as strangulation hazard"? Hell, I shocked any Venetians survived, know what I mean?
Airline Crash No, not planes - the balance sheets. "Airlines in Deeper Trouble than Forecast". I figure a hike in Jet fuel will put 2-3 more big ones under in the first half of '10, but then again, I worked that biz for a while and know that the single biggest problem is the fuel bill... and as it comes up and loads stay light due to low disposable income despite reports to the contrary, something's gonna have to give.
Oh and here come the price hike justifications. --- snip and save section ---
Coping: With Those Signposts Up Ahead For about 40-some years now, since I started trying to 'sneak up on the Truth' of life after doing a stint as a 'wunderkind' for a military contractor, which I image is a fair label for a GS-15 equivalent and equivalent rank about major at age 19, I've been developing a theory that among people on honest and good hearts/souls there is no conflict; that it's only a marketing game by a few in 'power' that divides us from one another to keep themselves phat and skimming off the top.
I think I've mentioned before my favorite analogy of religion: It's like driving around Mount Rainer up in Washington State. One religion will view Universe (or God) from one promontory and declare theirs to be the only "correct" view of the mountain, while another group will declare with equal certainty - yet from another promontory on another side of the mountain that no, only their view of the mountain is correct.
As a result, near as I can figure, more people have died over this kind of 'mountain-sight-seeing' than even gold or food. It's a condition of humans that I've studied enough to become deeply skeptical of those who pretend to lead the rest of us since without 'leadership' we might progress better as a species; if consensus-building, sharing, and unconditional relationships were more honored.
Such thoughts are foolish, of course, since we're all marched at spear-point in some sense whether economically (which is what this site is about) or in a political or religious way. Going one's own way through Life is distinctly frowned upon without so much tribute to Caesar, so much in tithing, and the biggest portion for "Call now, operators are standing by, this is a free call."
The essence of such a personal expedition was neatly summed up in Rod Serling's second season opening of The Twilight Zone:
Fact of the matter is -that upon closer inspection and a bit of thought - we are as humans not watching the show - we are the show itself. We've been divided - and conquered - in such manner as to erase the key memory that we're all brothers and sisters, and as one religion notes "petals on one flower, drops of one ocean." --- All of which gets me around to a new book just out, "Darkness Folding Inward, light Emerging" by Deborah Harmes, PhD. At her web site, the book is available from Lulu as a hard copy of smashwords as an e-book.
Harmes is luckier than most of us, near as I can tell, in that she's had a life-long relationship with a being she refers to as "The Dreamkeeper". This is a being she actually physically saw until puberty, which then receded for a while (the visions, not puberty, you dolt!), but the 'presence' of whatever has returned in the form of automatic writing (some of which was included in her Masters thesis, and more recently as she's worked with it, the ability to flip between her native mode of thinking and the more 'connected mode' seems to have evolved.
I won't spoil the book for you by given you the George Notes version, except to make two other observations. One is that from her first best-selling book, she got a lot of questions about the nature of time and she states the same kind of thing that Cliff has found in predictive linguistics work:
The second note in passing is that somehow Cliff's work and mention of UrbanSurvival ended up on pages 117 & 118...in a chapter (perhaps aptly) titled Enemies of the State. Although probably anyone who questions the ruling paradigms can wear the label, t'ain't just us. --- The visions in the book are pretty interesting, too, in terms of the look behind the time/space experiments that have apparently been going on for years...which may explain why people with Gen3 nightvision see all kinds of oddities in the skies.
My problem with the book - and it's why I got nearly nothing done on Monday was because after reading it, I got into deep, deep, deep ponderings about where the boundaries are in language in how humans get information from 'other than self' sources.
My friend Cliff, for example, is an archetype 'purist'. In other words, when he says archetype what he means is a collection of behaviors. However, there are a lot of people who go to various psychological associations (many Jungians) who hold that folks can work with their archetypes in a 'guided meditative state, while still others go about it 'unguided' and more of less channel information.
Of course this starts setting off all kinds of 'calls for research' since purely 'touching the stream' (without an intermediary/guide/archetype [broadly as an avatar, not just a behavior collection] seems to yield some useful information although the 'stream-touchers' who go there directly (mano y mano, or whatever the female gendered equivalent of that trite phrase would be) note that Yogic teachings are quite specific that in [archetype meant as avatar or channeled] information, you can't be as confident as personal (unmediated) contact with outer fringes of Universe directly.
Which is probably just as well, except that if 2012 comes along as there's more to 'colliding Universes' and we really could suddenly materialize anything, fly, teleport, or whatever, then a high degrees of personal ethics would be needed and are we ready for that kind of world?
Anyway, I found Harmes book is very interesting material, especially her observation than people who believe in woo-woo seem to be just as pleased (or more so) to follow the 'ones' who are fraudulent even more so than ones with a decent 'batting average'. Not a really long book, but sets off a lot more research...
The Judge of Judges Call "George - you better look again on The Judge," began the call. "Yeah, you can get The Judge (that .410 shotgun shell slinging pistol I mentioned in yesterday's column - G) for under $500 but odds are that if you do, you'll find it's for the small frame - 1½ inch barrel. They are not nearly as good as the medium frame with the 3-inch barrel..."
Point noted. Always preferred something with a bit of 'heft' to it - one reason I like my Ruger over my Glock - doesn't kick up as much when I'm double tapping.
BTW, the JoJ (Judge of Judges) wanted to know from yesterday's reader where he could find a beer that would be good after storing for a year...seems they all have issues there. Don't know as it's an issue, though...maybe the reader just rotates stock through his own kidneys, just didn't get enough detail.\.
Like Pappy used to say "Folks don't buy beer - they rent it." I've seen beer last 5-minutes, but rarely more than a week, especially when the weather is hot. In this part of the South, the notion of beer lasting a year is just incredible - by both definitions of the word.
Spec's & Cash A number of readers wrote in to tell me that Spec's policy (discounting for cash, mentioned in yesterday's column) was nothing new. Most surprising of all was that one correction came from our Indonesian Bureau Chief (former our Houston Bureau Chief) who explained:
Dang. Seems even people in Indonesia know Spec's policy...how I could be so far out of the loop is boggling; although not mind boggling because there's some argument about on whether I have a large enough one to be 'boggled'...but that's another story for another day. Meantime, however, here's an update on things down in that part of the world...
Except for the idea that people here don't get personally engaged (since everyone is scrambling to hold onto a job if they have one, or too busy being worked to death if they do) it doesn't sound that much different than here.
Tomorrow, there are rumors of a massive demonstration (or several) in Copenhagen and when one reads the reports from around the world and interesting question about social context changing comes up: Could the 'context change' due come week's end and over following weeks be something of a 'grassroots uprising planet-wide'?
Seems possible (although not likely since it would definitely be a way out there on the fringe kind of event) that while the PowersThatBe in individual countries have been able to 'keep down' the indigenous and working peoples at a spontaneously connecting global level.
Shouldn't have too much longer to wait to find out how all this fits together, but if the internet suddenly gets disrupted toward the end of the month and only 'official news and information' is allowed to flow, then the maybe it would indicate that the PTB are getting worried about losing their status as 'global controllers'. Time, as always, will tell.
A 2012 Note: Another Underwater City Found Bothered by Implications: Been meaning to mention the Herald de Paris story in the last week that goes to the idea of a 'Previously undiscovered ancient city found on Caribbean sea floor".
The story goes on that this find is much shallower than the large sunken city found off Cuba in 2,300 feet of water and that there's evidence of post & beam construction; something that doesn't happen without humans, far as we know.
True, the story doesn't mention 2012. However, if you've been reading books like Patrick Geryl's
How To Survive 2012
Easy enough to dismiss out of hand, especially if you hold to an 'It can't happen here' mindset. yet, there's the ocean and there are not one or two but now multiple cities that have just sunk beneath the waves.
Takes a fair bit of reading to come up with a personal strategy for such things. For example a reader wrote in recently and asked "If our part of the US does slide down toward the equator, doesn't that mean that we'd be on the top of the new bulge due to centrifugal force - so no worries?"
No, not exactly. You see if Geryl's got it right and he's done a lot more reading & research on this kind of thing that I have which is what it takes to get three books on topic out), when the earth axis shift occurs, there could be all kinds of unknown effects. I seem to recall the sun standing still in the Bible somewhere - and when coupled with The Flood, an open-minded researcher might be asking "What's the strategy to get through this?"
Cliff and I are both 'boat people' in that we've both been around boats all our lives. He's working on his survival pod boat and I'm still looking around at options, hoping to hear back on one of them in a week or so. Failing that I'll be looking for a modest sailboat on a trailer (26-27 feet) which could then be reinforced into a 'survival pod'.
Clif's got a dandy page on his research which goes into some of the hyper spatial geometry of it and so forth here. While its possible (heck, even statistically probably) that nothing will happen, I nevertheless love sailing or I wouldn't have lived on a sailboat for 10-years.
Doing a restoration/reinforcement project on a trailerable boat so it can withstand rolling in violent oceans (which entails changing out the rig and rigging to something where the mast can be stepped at sea) may sound crazy, but in a worst-case situation it would be useful to take on the canals of Europe some day, where only low craft can make it under fixed bridges. Tabernacles aren't just in Salt Lake, as it turns out; it's an ancient way to step masts on ships. (A good discussion of mast tabernacles here.)
I look at having a sailboat on a trailer as a kind of insurance policy. If 2012 turns out to be a non-event (maybe a 51% chance) then worst-case I go sailing on some of the large lakes and reservoirs here in East Texas. On the other hand, if there's something to it and the timing really is 2012, and Texas (not to mention other large chunks of real estate drop below the waves and the Herald de Paris story points out has happened before, then we'll at least bob around for a while before running out of food & water...OR we get the ultimate in do-overs. And if this part of the country rises then we can lug the boat on its trailer to somewhere near to whatever the new coastline is and be ready to start up my next business as a coast-wise sailing captain since massive geophysical changes would end the high energy dependency world as we know it.
As always, the idea is not to play to 'win' everything; it's to be in a 'not going to lose' position. Or, in this case, an unsinkable position. Ought to be a good exercise in engineering and rigging at a minimum. In 1,102 days I'll have my answer and in any event I'll go sailing. The only variable will be the sailing conditions in that time; Will it be simply a large Texas reservoir, or something much bigger and more dangerous?
This latest reported find seems to underscore the cyclical nature of human progress; many steps ahead and then a geophysical beat-down of continent-sinking size: Tales of Atlantis now being under the South Pole, the underwater 'highways' in the Bahamas, underwater cities in the Caribbean, the Pacific, and elsewhere. In the Black Sea, perhaps.
But it's still a gamble. Sure, there's the much talked about Eltanin antenna story in Wikipedia:
I go look at the picture of what sure looks like an antenna (here) and I ask myself: "You buying that's a sponge?" More imagery here.
Makes me wonder if there's any down-side to planning for a trailerable boat, you know what I mean? Monday December 14, 2009 Violence Against Leaders? Not sure how to frame the attack against Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi who was attacked - suffering a couple of broken teen, minor nose fracture and more. Since this is definitely the 'flavor' of coming events in the predictive linguistics, one could either view it as the starting of physical conflict between the PTB (the powers that be) and 'the people' - or it could just be a lone event carried out by a mentally disturbed person. We ought to find out in the next month or two. --- Nevertheless, imagery of people suffering on television is evident, too, in the video of a Climate expert in Copenhagen having an apparent heart attack live on TV. --- And as long as we're talking about PTB/media role changes, might as well mention that the UK's Telegraph is reporting "Prince William to assume more of the Queen's public duties." --- As youi may recall (if you've been a long-time reader), the predictive linguistics out of www.halfpasthuman.com don't focus on celebrity or PTB names since they are so emotionally 'hot' all the time that deriving something meaningful from 'celeb name stew' is rather pointless, but there's a shift going on in celeb-hood - if that's a word. A kind of turning that may be starting.
Besides all the headlines of today there's the last week or so of Tiger Woods misadventures being reported and now the commercial fallout as "Gillette to limit Woods' role in its marketing" on the heels of NY Daily News shock headline "Accenture drops Tiger Woods; Jamie Jungers says she had sex with Woods the night his dad Earl died". --- All of which is not to say that celeb-hood will figure into the context change which begins starting Friday, but the aware person can almost sense that there's a lot more 'people' aspect to the contemporary news content than 'normal' (whatever the hell that is). But seems to me there's just a lot more high-level people/big name/PTB'ish kinds of froth in the headlines of late. The Rod Blagojevich layering that draws in names like Obama, Rahm Emanuel, and Valerie Jarrett fits the naming names context. To be sure, there are still a lot of names on the sidelines, but before the week is out I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of other 'big names' (Buffett and Schwarzenegger come to mind along with heaping helpings of sports figures and tinsel town types) if there's to be some kind of 'blow off top' in the cult of personality.
Trend or blip? Just can't say; it's too early. But, it certainly bears watching, loathe though I am to play 'the name game' slash 'cult of personality' that attempts to steal our attention from the gravity of underlying facts of modern complexity and instead weaves it into a tapestry of people which is somehow more interesting to most Ovis Aries.
The generalist's generalization is the general public can't generalize, generally speaking.
The 'big names' in contemporary mass-communicated society are sort of like 'stick figures for the universal subconscious mind' if I've got Jung's Red Book right. However, I've only gotten as far as the art in the front half of the book. The translation in the second half might require a little actual work. You'll please xcuse the use of that four-letter word this early on a Monday. Next?
Gold Plated Tungsten Bars, Redux Here's an interesting report on YouTube. Can't vouch for the content, but worth a listen.
Government Stonewalling Department Remember a while back Bloomberg was trying to get a bunch of documents on the banking panic/bailout? Well, out of the limelight (since they aren't in New York, I suppose) I see where the Seattle Business Journal is also trying to get some documents out of the government's Office of Thrift Supervision and with about the same results.,..next to nothing.
I know this has to thrill the people who voted for change and were promised heaping tablespoonfuls of transparency. Welcome to the change from republic to imperial governance, I 'spose.
Economic Cognitive Dissonance Now that we're down to just 10 shopping days until Christmas or 1,103 days until 12/21/2012 (or 697 days until 11/11/11) I'm struck again by the fractured/discontinuous nature of economic opinion.
Take for example White House economic advisor Larry Summers who is expecting 'job growth by Spring' in an ABC report. On the other hand, WH economic advisor Christina Romer says "of course the recession isn't over". All of which leaves a lot of us small-time gamblers who would like to strike it rich in the markets with a little bit of a problem:
We're trying to figure out a hugely complex multivariate stew here. One question is "What's the official outlook" where we get either conflict or a thread-the-needle of definitions; and that's before we get to the real core issue which is "Do these people have a clue themselves?" --- There are a few numbers out this week which may help illuminate what's coming; but by their nature economic numbers are rear-view mirror driving. Sure, the PPI numbers tomorrow may come in around 0.8% higher in November which would build the case for inflation kicking it, because over a year that kind of spike might imply something like a 9-10% annual inflation rate at the producer level and they will get it out of our hides at some point.
But, the Consumer Price Index will be out Wednesday with an expected 0.4% increase, which would annualize out to 5 point some percent. All of which ought to really anger people on fixed incomes, social security, and military retirements where the adjustments for cost of living lately have looked more like goose eggs.
Not at the stores, of course. "Fastest food inflation since riots means milk up 39%" says a Bloomberg report. I read that and thought "What riots? Did I miss something?"
Well, the story refers to:
Hmmm...somewhat missed by the US MSM these are now being recalled. So could global food shortages be one of the context change points instead? Sure! We ought to see it in a few weeks once we get past the 19th of this month (not January 19th as some have suggested). --- All of which happens while the leaders back in Washington keep themselves distinctly out of the healthcare and medical plans being foisted on the general public. But then again, what's good for the goose is not fit for ruling ganders, is it? --- There will no doubt be some speculation about the Fed rate decision due out Wednesday afternoon, but the odds of the Fed moving rates is about as close to zero as you can find. Who would be crazy enough to try and move rates either way when the mission of the Fed has drifted far away from maintaini9ng sound money which I don't think was ever really mentioned anywhere) to the blatantly obvious "economic stability role' - which I suppose if fine because ain't gonna be no revolutions as long as the stores are full, even if the prices may limit consumption.
While look ahead trying to figure what's up, unanimity of forward opinion from WH wags seems less significant than figuring out how inflation will be impacting the country, since while we're seeing headlines like "Democrats plan nearly $2 trillion debt limit hike" there's little mention of how the republicorp got the spending rolling into the record books during the Bushistas term at the printing presses.
If my suspicions are right, at some point the real estate investment trusts, gold, silver, and other traditional inflation hedges will really sparkle. It all boils down to timing, however, and I guess bottom picking is a fools game. So dollar cost averaging in over time is something to be considered. I doubt any unit of government will hold up a flag and say "OK, on this date we are going to revalue the currency this much, so you all make good decisions in advance."
That'd be asking too much, I know, but damn what a fine Christmas present that would be for the Middle Class. I must be hitting the eggnog a little early to even imagine such clarity. --- Free White House marketing advise department: Tell Larry Summers PR wonks to reposition Summer to "Dr. Lawrence H. Summers" for all his public pronouncements. I think there are just too many of us late bloomers and early boomers who at some inner level associate the name "Larry" with the classic video game "Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards" for anyone going by simply "Larry" to be taken seriously. The connection between economic policy and a subconscious recall of the game's Larry Laffer character is, oh, you know...just something to be avoid, don'tcha think?
Then again, being old school as I am, maybe it's me who should reposition to something like Georgie Economic Porgie". Following this?
Oh, and Bin Laden is Dead Something that's making the rounds in the EU today and getting traction is a report that Osama bin Laden really has been dead since 2001 which was printed recently on the "Veterans Today" web site.
Having made him a major bogeyman, and sporting a $50-million reward, the marketing problem is "How to 'disappear him'. Seems that he'll just be faded out into the background... --- Then there are the headlines out of the UK that "'Sycophant' Tony Blair used deceit to justify Iraq war, says former DPP" but this is somehow not exactly surprising, is it? --- On the other hand, more warring in that part of the world to come since a "Secret document exposes Iran's nuclear trigger." This may be a build into the 19th, too...
And a reader note:
Yep, that'd be 'ill winds' alright. You can't read this site and be surprised, though...we may be off now and then on timing but the general flow of what's in the public consciousness? Seldom...
Hard to Read but Worth It "China's nuclear missiles hidden 'underground maze". Reads like it might be a machine translation, but very interesting info about Chinese nuke survivability planning.
Chillin' "Canada freezes as snow storm strands thousands" is making headlines. Record cold not really a surprise since it's what? Winter, maybe?
Just one lousy sunspot...at this point in the cycle ought to be 8-12 visible. I expect we'll be back to zero shortly as Solar Cycle 24 is taking its own sweet time getting started.
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: The Dallas Drive By I never say in advance when members of my posse are going somewhere. No point telling whoever can read the net when someone's not going to be home, despite the presence of a sharp-shooting neighbor who packs a Judge. Don't know if you've seen them, but The Judge is a pistol that fires .410 shotgun shells and you can find 'em for under $500. Quite cool and on my shopping list...but then again, I'm a kind of gunnoisseur (which would be a connoisseur of guns, get it?) much to the disdain of my unarmed friends who live in the city and don't live in fear of meeting an angry wild hog in the back yard. Where were we?
Oh yes...so Saturday morning Elaine and I drive up to Dallas for lunch with one of her boys & wife who flew into DFW. We spent about five hours driving here and there checking out Christmas decorations, eating, chatting. Quite fun.
We dropped 'em back at the airport in late afternoon and that's when the troubles began.
I made the mistake of using the navigation system in Elaine's car which I seldom drive, preferring the practicality of the pickup for most events, although showing up at the Hilton Anatole Dallas for breakfast with four people squeezed into a single front seat in an old farm truck would have been fine by me. Sometimes, you got to make sacrifices, though.
So on the way out of the airport I absent-mindedly plugged in our home as the destination. Didn't look at anything for the next hour or so....we were chit-chatting about the day, breakfast, later lunch and so on when suddenly I began to notice that the silky-voiced silicon wench-in-the-box had led me to some totally unfamiliar territory. Lack of attention to details; my bad.
Seems that instead of routing us toward Palestine, Texas, the WITB (wench-in-the-box) had decided that no, for reasons of her own, we needed to head for Mesquite, Texas instead.
All of which has me determined NOT to ever use a GPS nav system ever again. Seems they give you a false sense of security. You just end up following the car ahead of you in strange towns and disconnect your thinking faculties.
Without the GPS, I would have gotten onto I-20 and then looked for Texas 175 which leaves Dallas and heads down toward Gun Barrel City and points south. Once on 175 it's really hard to get lost except in Athens, Texas, where by local tradition, the sign indicating where to turn south on Highway 19 to Palestine is on the other side of the intersection, so you are actually past the turn by the time you see the sign.
This is all part of a small town's sense of humor, I suppose, but once you understand that's how signs work, you look much further ahead and maybe that's a good thing.
Eventually we got home, but not before I resolved to spread the word of the inherent danger in using navigation systems. I wonder how many people have had the same experience...trusting a GPS system only to find themselves marooned far from their original destination? --- Once upon a time in my airline days we had a case in the Bahamas where another airline (not ours) landed on the wrong island. I remember thinking at the time "Gee, how stupid...what kind of piloting is that?" Now I know...and another layer of the arrogance of youth has been removed.
Peoplenomics Follow-up
Meantime, if you were wondering about big business hijacking the seed business, try reading "Monsanto Squeezes Out Seed Business Competition, AP Investigation Finds".
Reminds me to put might sign up over the monitors today: "If you ain't paranoid, you ain't payin' attention!"
Self-Fulfilling Prophesy? A "Missouri billboard warns Washington: Prepare for War" The sign's along Interstate 70.
Street Level Economics Heck of a report here - can't vouch for it, but sounds real enough:
A number of weeks back Elaine and I went shopping in Tyler for furniture. negotiated what was about 25% off asking prices by holding out cash. Old sayings like "Cash talks, bullsh*t walks" don't get to be old sayings without a reason...of course now I have no money, but that's a different problem. Is 'married' a synonym for 'broke'?
Back at the WuJo Once again, letters to the sensei at the Uretopia Ranch WuJo (where woo-woo meets the reality checks of science) are continuing to bring us new and startling news. Like this one:
As long as we're on topic, one other note from the WuJo: My order of two 7" plasma ball lights to do some gravitics experiments in my home lab was mysteriously canceled. Reordered three from another supplier...still thought it was odd. Maybe plasma lights are a 'big deal' for Christmas...what'd that sign say again? Oh yeah...
"If you ain't paranoid, you ain't payin' attention!"
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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(with Carmen Reinhart) and already love some of his concepts.
,
you'll quickly figure out that one of the core tenets of the
'earth change/crust goes walk-about in 2012" crowd is that this
kind of thing has happened multiple times in earth's past and
that when the crust breaks its stead, humans get dead.
