|
|
A One Man Economic Daily Newspaper about the Second Depression in near real-time...
Powered
by subscribers to
Peoplenomics.com
|
Friday
July 22, 2011 07:55 AM CDT
New Here? Visit our
FAQ This site is supported by subscriptions: For additional content, please subscribe to Peoplenomics. Content mirrored at: http://www.independencejournal.com/, View as Blog (.MOBI) version
Bernie's Bombshell (Snowflake, AZ) Oh oh, Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont's lucky) has issued a major statement on how the Fed engineered $16 trillion to bail our not only US but also foreign banks. His website reports in part:
"The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Wall Street reform law passed one year ago this week directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct the study.
"As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world," said Sanders. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."
Among the investigation's key findings is that the Fed unilaterally provided trillions of dollars in financial assistance to foreign banks and corporations from South Korea to Scotland, according to the GAO report. "No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president," Sanders said.
The non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress also determined that the Fed lacks a comprehensive system to deal with conflicts of interest, despite the serious potential for abuse. In fact, according to the report, the Fed provided conflict of interest waivers to employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the same financial institutions and corporations that were given emergency loans.
For example, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the New York Fed's board of directors at the same time that his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed.
Moreover, JP Morgan Chase served as one of the clearing banks for the Fed's emergency lending programs. In another disturbing finding, the GAO said that on Sept. 19, 2008, William Dudley, who is now the New York Fed president, was granted a waiver to let him keep investments in AIG and General Electric at the same time AIG and GE were given bailout funds.
One reason the Fed did not make Dudley sell his holdings, according to the audit, was that it might have created the appearance of a conflict of interest. To Sanders, the conclusion is simple. "No one who works for a firm receiving direct financial assistance from the Fed should be allowed to sit on the Fed's board of directors or be employed by the Fed," he said. "
If this hasn't raised your blood pressure high enough, how about clicking over to the offishul GAO report which suggest that "...opportunities exist to strengthen polices and processes to manage emergency assistance..."
A nice way of explaining we've been screwed again by the privately controlled not really Federal Reserve and it's about the most disgusting account of financial raping and pillage as you'll find.
Yet, Congress, on the corporate dole, especially with the growing "throw the bastards out" cries increasing around the country, is unlikely to do anything more than weasel and waffle. But, come to think of it, why am I not surprised?
Gold star for Sanders for being forthright..bit he's got 99 colleagues left to work on....
Now to see how the financial universe REALLY works, couple in this next story...
TARP and the Great Circular Reference We're all supposed to be happy as hell that banks are paying back their TARP money, right? All the hype and hoopla about what a grand and glorious thing this is just won't stop.
You got it: Take TARP money, they borrow more money from the Fed, then pay back TARP (cue the spin machine to rerun Happy Days) and while the public attention is distracted, they borrow from el Fed and pretend the situation is fixed.
Ah, the foxes are still in the hen house just the same. But, I repeat myself too much. We need some financial Charmin to clean such bs happy talk up... --- Depressions are like enemas for the rich and it may be getting on time for one to clean up the malinvestment, now being papered over with promissory notes which indenture our children and their children, too....
Is repudiation of debt to manipulative dishonest scum a bad thing? A good ponder for the weekend, for sure. --- Got gold? More critical: Got a plan to click out with gains before it gets called this time around as it may be?
In Washington's Center Ring... ...meantime, we keep hearing about how compromise is close. Or not.
Much more useful than getting whipped up in the media frenzy is the Fact Check discussion of the federal budget mess.
It spending 24.1 percent of GDP against income of only 14.8 percent sustainable?
My, what math majors we've got looking after us in Washington.
Happy Outlooks Dept. How about that press release from The Conference Board on Thursday. The one that said:
"The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the U.S. increased 0.3 percent in June to 115.3 (2004 = 100), following a 0.8 percent increase in May, and a 0.3 percent decline in April. The largest positive contributions came from money supply, the interest rate spread, and building permits.
Says Ataman Ozyildirim, economist at The Conference Board: “The U.S. LEI continued to increase in June, but the strengths among the leading indicators have been balanced with the weaknesses in recent months. The Coincident Economic Index, a monthly measure of current economic activity, continued to increase slowly. The leading indicators point to slowly expanding economic activity in the coming months.”
Says Ken Goldstein, economist at The Conference Board: “The economy faced some recent unexpected headwinds, including a shortage of auto and electronic parts from Japan after the earthquake, and damaging tornado and flooding activity in the U.S. Another potential headwind is the debt ceiling issue, which could result in a financial crisis in the near term if not resolved. If these headwinds subside, the underlying trend of slow growth, as suggested by the LEI, should become more apparent over the next few months. "
Thanks, but I'll just wait for another look at the Housing data from Case-Shiller/S&P next week and some improvement in harder metrics like the next unemployment report, or two, before I throw in with believers in the LEI which I've often worried may be an anagram....
This Sounds Familiar Say, did you happen to catch the CNBC story about how the corn crop could be whacked with the summer heat wave and prices rise? What a novel thought...
The Social Contract is in Trouble When, Dept. Cases to study:
But, no worries...Department of Homeland Security (sic) is warning that the dangers ahead may come from middle class Americans. You mean like voters? Or, like people who won't stand for their Social Security being held hostage or military retirement being screwed with? Help me here! Who's the real threat? --- Fine book title here: "How 500 camel drivers conquered America using asymmetric warfare techniques to evoke a totalitarian response through clever media manipulation..."
Speaking of Which Media, etc: Latest in the Murdoch case(s): James Murdoch's pronouncements are being questioned by a legal advisor's statements.
And while Murdoch papers may lose some kind of 2012 Olympics deal, CBS is reporting subpoenas are being readied.
Finally, if you're following our S-curve of News Corp resignations (not sure how to class the two dead whistleblowers, but I'll toss them into the count, too) the speculation continues to build that Brit politico David Cameron's doing enough double-talk to make people wonder what he's hiding.
Be a nice capper to our curve, don'tcha think? Doggoneit science it great, huh?
EMP To Go Guess what the Chinese are working on? Yep: EMP devices which could wipe out all electronics, except (maybe) tube type gear. We're just sort of assuming this is not a new Christmas toy being developed for Wal-Mart? --- All of which is why we keep a small manual starting diesel generator (offline at all times, but ready) along with old tube type ham radio equipment like the really old school HT-32B and SX-101. Our newer tube type gear (like the Drake R-line and L4V amp might survive EMP but they have a large number of solid state diodes and such...
Of course, there may be no one to talk to, afterwards, but that's a different problem.
Jackboots Coming Department Trust you have been watching the vids on how the Gould, Arkansas's city council is trying to ban meetings of private citizens, even in their homes, to discuss government matters. Government wants to regulate what can be said at the dinner table.
Wonder if I've got a brown shirt and maybe a black tie to go with it, next times I got through Arkansas.
EPA or CDC wanna get up there and check on the water supply?
(more after this...)
Coping: The Case of the Disappearing Bracelet After writing most of this week about the "WuJo" stories, we had one of those damn curious little event critters show up in our car yesterday.
We'd just come out of "power shopping" the Rainbow Forest and Painted Desert National Park which lays about 20 miles east of Holbrook, Arizona. I was in a smug mood, too, since while Elaine thought she had lost the cover for the big camera (a not too cheap Canon) I had found the lens cover when she got out to take a picture of Newspaper Rock. Bunch of different web images of it here.
That solved, I remember thinking consciously "None of the WuJo stuff disappearing on us..."
After exiting the park and heading down highway 180 to Holbrook, AZ, then turning south onto Arizona 77 to get to Snowflake where someone's class reunion is going on tonight, E suddenly exclaimed "My bracelet...my silver bracelet....it must have fallen off back at the park."
Sure enough, right arm in plain sight, there was no bracelet. So E started tearing apart the passenger side stuff (cameras, snacks, garbage bag, sun glasses...the usual....but no bracelet. Of course, I wasn't thinking WuJo at this point since it was unfamiliar territory.
After concluding five miles later that a new silver bracelet would be on her shopping list, we let it go and that was that.
Until about 12-miles down the road. "George! Look! My bracelet is on my arm!"
Damn! Sure as hell, it was...which still didn't register for a second until she said "You don't think this was one of those things like the Rabbit story this week, do you?"
Elaine insists that she wasn't playing me...and if she was, at least an acting award is in order. The events didn't get the hairs on the back of my head up, or anything like that, just a "Hmmm..." since I'd seen the bare arm not five minutes earlier. --- A reader email that's related:
"Hello George...UK calling.
I have only recently found you site, and I have to say it's most interesting. I have dithered for a while over actually contacting you, but recent posts have made me feel that I am not actually going mad, other seeming sane people are also experiencing blips in time and space. I would like to tell you about my tea pot.
Usually I am a tea bag in a cup kind of woman but when we have guests it's easier to make a pot full, so out it comes and off we go. I made a pot of tea, poured it into cups and with someone else supplying another pair of hands carried all four cups into the lounge. My father-in-law asked if he could have another cup, obviously I said yes and away he went into the kitchen. "I can't seem to find the teapot" he said a couple of minutes later. I shouted back it was on the worktop by the kettle. "no it's not" he said.
The second pair of hands who had helped carry the cups went off into the kitchen, went over to the worktop near the kettle and dad-in-law was right no teapot. We searched that kitchen but it was gone, we even checked the waste bin..nothing. Three weeks later, furtling around at the bottom of the freezer, I find my teapot, 1/4 full of frozen tea. Now I keep my freezer pretty full, I CANNOT work out how the tea pot got there, it was underneath a 5 lb piece of beef and a couple of chickens. This was 20 years ago!
Nothing that odd happened for years, then 18 months ago I bumped into a friend on the high street. "How the hell did you get here?" he said going very pale. "By car" I answered. He seemed confused and I was a bit worried. He had his mobile in his hand and was talking to his wife when he spotted me...she had apparently called to tell him she had bumped into me (a full mile away) did he want to join us for coffee!
Now I am no size zero, I am, as Granny used to say, built for comfort not for speed, but there sure as hell is not enough of me to allow me to be in two places at once. I would have said it was mistaken identity but she recounted our conversation that included things that had happened since our last meeting, things she could not have known as we have no mutual friends who could have told her of these events.
Having a 28 year background in accident and emergency and operating theatres I am considered to be quite calm in emergencies and generally not certifiably insane, I therefore tried to reason it out and decided that we had all become involved in a kind of group illusion/mini mass hysteria type event. Maybe, maybe not.
By the by I have several handbags similar to those your wife owns, the only difference being with mine money goes in and a new pair of shoes come out."
E's got some like that, too...
Names of Places Along our latest adventure route, this time around, I've been finding out some odd things about city names.
For example, when Elaine was a wee thing, growing up in Arizona, the word Albuquerque was pronounced, and often written with an additional 'r' in it so as to sound like Alber-quer-kee. --- I was even wrong about the name of Snowflake, Arizona. A rational person confronted with such a name might immediately (with some good reason, too) jump to the idea that winters are cold here. Which they are, but it has nothing to do with the name of the place.
Turns out it's so named because of the Snow and the Flake families which were among the prominent pioneers here abouts. --- We ate dinner at Show Low, Arizona last night. A town which was actually named after a famous poker game between C. E. Cooley and Marion Clark. Story goes that the two men didn't think this part of the Territory was big enough for the two of them and the agreed, all civil like, to decide the matter with a game of cards rather than a gunfight.
To this day, the main street in Show Low is named Deuce of Clubs Blvd. ---- One other note from that hunk of road: While we were having dinner at the local steakhouse down on Deuce of Clubs, Elaine raised a good point that could be applied to a lot of restaurants that do an "antiquey" kind of interior.
"Doesn't it strike you as odd that people would put things like lariats, whips, bridles, reins and other implements of control on walls? And you know none of the stuff was ever sterilized, because no one would think to do that...just strikes me as strange behavior by humans to put up monuments to control and power while eating its victims..." --- A poignant point...but along the same lines came this reader note:
"You wrote: "One of our first airplane trips is likely to be Mount Rushmore. Not just to behold one man's dream being evolved. Want to see if there's room left for me."
Upon first visiting Mt. Rushmore as a teenager, It was covered with clouds and socked in with heavy fog from the viewing area . A sudden breeze lifted the fog and dissipated the clouds and there, suddenly, was the monument before us, much bigger than I had anticipated.
My mother summed up the trip by observing that future crowds would say: “They had strange Gods.”
And so, a fellow name of Art over in Huntsville, gets our daily award for keen perceptions and insight.
I've changed my plans, thanks to him, and I'm now trying to sketch up a proposal to chisel out a $100 bill at Rushmore. Seems to have more meaning here lately than those flimsy concepts crafted by free men... His mom got it right and we still do.
Reader's Writes Some samplings:
"Hi George: Two days ago, you brought Pane Andov into my consciousness and what a ride that's been. I was so engrossed in it (along with a bad stomach bug), I completely missed your yesterday's post. What's interesting to me is that I can usually push a "doom and gloom" prediction like his aside; but there's something very sticky about this report. It resonates with several other reports including, as you said, Clif's "Shape of Things to Come" prediction of an internet blackout around March 2013 and something that's been out there a while now called "The Horizon Project". And the sense he seems to make out of all those beautiful Crop Circles, which are often located next to windmills (to give the spinning message) as in learning the protective Merkaba Mediation and doing it with (hopefully billions of others) by the crucial hours, which are only a little over a year away. EGAD! Talk about fast-tracking Spiritual Awakening. This is it. Are you personally joining with Pane and learning the Merkaba Meditation (not an easy task from the looks of it), or moving to the safe spot in central Australia or just planning to do a fly-by in your new plane as the Nexus wave, as in cosmic DNA reshuffler whips across earth and awakens us all to our true twelve-stranded DNA selves (which is the good news of the Andov information)?
Somehow, this email has turned out a little tongue in cheek; but I can asure you, I'm quite serious and am curious as to your reaction to Andov. After all, I'm now on my third week of the "Four Hour Body" eating program, and have lost 8% of my way over the limit, body fat number, which demonstrates I do pay attention to your recommendations...."
First, serious congrats on the weight loss.
Secondly, I'm not sure what to expect in 2013, but driving through the
Painted Desert and just eyeballing the lands of the Southwest and having
seen things like the gorges that feed into the Columbia river and having
played on the fallen rocks at the edge of coulees as a kid, I was finally
able to put something together yesterday, which will have me back to
studying my great, great, great grandfather
Andrew N. Ure's book
"A New System of Geology
What strikes me after lots of staring at rocks this trip, is that the erosion by water theory doesn't hold guess what?
In order for it to do so, there would be a helluvah lot more rounded off rocks at the edges of the grand coulees of Washington State, or the rock formations elsewhere.
No, instead what would fit the observed facts, is that somehow the earth's crust got subjected to extremes of gravity - perhaps by a near-miss with a passing (comet, brown dwarf, wandering planet, or whatever) and this would not only account for the upthrusting (which mesas appear to be) but it would also account for the tilting which may account for the sloped strata visible along parts of I-40 in both New Mexico and Arizona.
The "consensus" view (which goes to tectonic driven upthrusts) might explain some of the sloped upthrusts along the West Coast, for example, but the phenomena is widespread in the Southwest and ain't no plates colliding here of sufficient magnitude, near as I can figure.
A more holistic view, like the passing of a space object might easily account for all observed phenomena, and if you're a trained geologist with a penchant for heavy math, I'd wager a steak dinner that if you map upthrusts (and subsidence's) worldwide, you could go so far as to estimate the massive "Land Tides" that would account for both the rips as well as the upthrusts and come up with a proposed orbital sequence and proximity.
I'd do it myself, but I'm comfortable just sitting around waiting for my Nobel Prize in Economics for dogged application of common sense to the irrational love of paper products.
Send Ure comments to george@ure.net Reader Action Department: Visit: The UrbanSurvival Amazon store. Books, computers & S/w and outdoor gear.
Now on our premium content site: Peoplenomics.com Outsource Government! Cityware, Stateware & Guvware There was a joke that circulated on the internet a while back which went to the idea that the US government (and major portions of many state and local governments and even the Presidency) could be outsourced to India or other lower labor-cost countries while still delivering the same service levels. Most people dismissed that as a fanciful joke an moved on. But around here, we're slow to dismiss humor, knowing that one of its elements is embarrassment. This 'joke" is 'funny' because it contains a large kernel of a truth that we - as a semi-free country and people - are unwilling to look directly in the face. Except in Peoplenomics, where kernels of truth are honored and planted along the pathways to an improved future for everyone. In doing so, we discover that what passes for Business Progress Engineering (BPR) in business school may, indeed, have a counterpart which we'll label "Government Re-engineering" [GR] and table as something all American voters ought to think about.
More for Subscribers To Subscribe, CLICK HERE Need Logon Assistance? Click here
Cookies Are Dangerous If your computer runs slowly, you may have a problem with cookies. These little code snippets are how some websites (and spyware) recognize you, track your movement on the web and so forth. Here lately, as new class of super cookies has been evolved by the admen (and worse) that are resistant to normal cookie deletions through your browser's interface. Flash cookies, persistent cookies, and super cookies...all easily managed with the Maxa Research Cookie Manager.
Take it for a test drive by clicking here - and it you like it, activation is easily done. If you're a heavy web user (who ain't?) you may find like I do that you've accumulating a hundred or more cookies per day. Only a handful need to be white-listed, like your brokerage account or your bank. The rest? Software designed to spy on you that robs you of computer performance. Been using it for several years and pleased as the Dickens with it.
The "Do Drop Inn" Amazing gardens in about 2 square feet of floor space: www.mygroponics.com
Strange Dreams? Post your weird dreams to help our research along:
"Live on $10,000" A Year Having a hard time making ends meet? (Like who isn't, right?) A good starting point to better match up income with outgo is our $10 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. A bonus section called "How to Build Anything" should instill confidence if you've never taken on a home improvement/home creation project before, too..... Click here for the index and details.
Pass It On Please pass along word of this site to your friends by simply clicking here to send 'em a short email. - Thanks! ---- Last week's report is always here.
Thursday July 21, 2011 The Drought of '11 (Albuquerque, NM) As we looked out the window of our hotel room here last night, it was a rare feast of 'eye treats' as much needed summer thunderstorms came down from the north, played around with the mountains east of the city, and eventually getting around to delivering much-needed rain here. Not a lot - and in fact it was only 14-100ths of an inch, but it was better than nothing.
For the year, Albuquerque has had a mere 0.33" of rainfall against an annual average of 4-inches at this time of the year.
Where you could really see the impact of the drought was back up I-40 a ways along the route we traveled from Amarillo down into the valley that ABQ rests in. The cattle are trying to subsist on next to nothing, and the feedlots along the way ("That's money you're smelling" offered a hotel worker in Amarillo as we headed out) were bringing in unusual loads of anything green and nutritious that can be found up north where weather has been a kind of perverse opposite: Too much rain early on, and now it's flipped into parched up there, too.
The nation's power grid, because of the heat and resulting air conditioning loads is teetering 'on the brink' of failure - and some portions of the country are already experiencing the short, 20-minute to hour long outages that attempt to 'spread the pain around' for utility customers who have connections that allow for some load shedding by suppliers.
It's not the biggest item in financial headlines this morning, but the markets are paying some attention with news coverage. But the longer term impacts - reduced herd sizes this fall, soaring protein prices - those things will be along this fall and will start really cutting into the pocketbook then.
The outlook ahead is for seriously hot weather in places like Washington - already plagued with super hot air around budget talks, and New York, when hot summers and short fused tempers that go with it are an annual affair. Not that 116 degree temps will arrive in Washington, DC in absolute terms, but the NOAA 'comfort index' will be up there.
But at least Wednesday night, under the courtyard veranda here in Albuquerque's Old Town, people took their drinks outside, watched the rain pour off the roof. The winds, coming down from the mountains were colliding with valley heat and the relief from the 15 degree drop over the course of a half hour's time lifted spirits as the spirits were lifted at cocktail hour.
Elaine and I smugly looked at one another. Just two hours earlier, we'd gotten the car washed at the Soap & Suds at the corner of Rio Grand Blvd. and Central.
Budget Talks Don't hold your breath - the talks are continuing in Washington, but for most observers, the real 'finish line' will be a few more days out, more than likely. If the talks break down this time, the odds of public payments to Social Security may turn from being hot-air rhetoric to something of a possibility.
For now, I'd place the odds of the checks being late down around 5%, or so. But that can change in a heartbeat.
There's an old saying in Washington State politics: No man's property or livelihood is safe when the state legislature is in session. That goes double - and maybe triple - for this Congress.
Port Check If you want a pretty good sense of how things are really going on the economics front - I mean past all the hyperbole from talking heads - a good place to start is with port data on the West Coast. It's the kind of thing any first-year Longshoreman knows, but it's often hidden from public sight.
Loaded inbound cargo at the Port of Long Beach was up 11 percent last month, compared with 2010 data, so things have picked up a bit there. But loaded outbound cargo was up only 9.7% and that doesn't bode well for the balance of payments hole we keep digging as a nation.
Still, Long Beach is not the universe, so looking at the Port of Los Angeles we see loaded inbound was down 11.2% while loaded outbound was up 5.5%.
It's only an impression but the total looks like the 'recovery' has flat lined and the odds of a 'double dip' that accompany things like Fukushima which has dropped Japanese exports hasn't been fully realized, yet.
Since Seattle is closer to Japan, seeing their June cargo handle drop 10.4% for the month says that Asia trade really is down some. Port of Oakland imports were down 5.2% for the month, as long as we're on this.
A look at the Baltic Dry Index, which is a good measure of global demand for shipping, shows the expected: A drop is underway of some significance and again - blame it where you will - Europe (Greece, Ireland, Italy or whoever) the result is the same when you look at the five year chart here.
The BDI which dropped precipitously prior to (and during) the 2008-2009 global decline is showing interest in oceanic shipping down around where it was at the market lows of 2009. Not a good thing, at all.
What's more, it gives some suggestion, though maybe just that, that the future of the jobjack, outsource, and ship business model which has dominated corporate boardrooms for almost 20-years, may be coming to an end.
It's the global version of the economic pendulum, and its inevitable
consequence, was outlined in Barry C. Lynn's book End of the Line: The Rise and Coming Fall of the Global Corporation
I won't spoil the book for you, but the 'upside' (such as it is) at least from the perspective of Japanese carmakers, is more product coming from American factories and might help cushion whatever's ahead, even if to a small degree, should the second dip show up this fall, as I expect.
Good Times, Brother The 1930's "Good times are just ahead" saying may come briefly back into vogue as Germany and France seem to be cozying up to agreement on how to deal with the debt problems of Euroland.
However, as the world is a finite place - and what helps one place may hurt another - the result could be some of that 'global hot money' leaving US denominated assets, which might press downward and precious metals and drain some of the backbone out of the US financial markets if it gets leg.
Post Dated The idea of the Post Office dropping Saturday delivery is making the rounds, again.
While it makes good econoic sense, sometimes I think we need to look beyond the dollar signs. For example, in the event of a serious attack of US banking infrastructure over the internet, wouldn't having a viable (which means well-staffed) Post Office provide for the possible return to paper?
Then there's the matter of 'ripple effect' on the advertising business. Although direct mail has been dropping it's luster due to email, there's still a place for it both in marketing plans and in keeping the public informed. Something to weigh carefully, as I see it.
There Goes Space - For a While Although the Space Shuttle has ended 30-years of missions, the dream of space isn't completely gone, at least just yet.
The future of space exploration may very well be the so-called "space elevator project which is an ambitious plan to essentially put a "tether" out in space to where the centrifugal force of the earth's rotation would hold the 'string' verticle and then any number of devices could crawl up the tether and go directly into orbit around the earth.
Not that this will be anything which could develop into patentable intellectual property, you understand. Near as I have it figured, it'll just be obviouis refinements of what Jack in the Beanstalk laid out in our childhoods.
Which gets me to wondering whether the 'space tether' is actually what the legendary of the Tower of Bable was about on the one hand, or who's the Giants who show up, on the other.
Guess we won't know till the beanstalk's built. Got any seed money?
Coping: With Thinking in "Transforms" About here, with the first bit of coffee working on the dendrites, we begin our real thinking project of the day.
This morning's ponder is: What does Howard Hill's latest insight, a fire fighters observation of a rabbit. and a woman's purse have in common?
The answer is non-apparent but most instructive in light of our looking at space-time oddities crossing the WuJo's desk this week.
First, in order to understand how Howard Hill got to his latest insight into economics, it helps to understand that murky area of math called "transforms". You can either read about it (in application to Fourier transforms) in Wikipedia, and be assured of a headache to follow, or you and accept my 'dime store' description of it as being the "mathematical study of the shadows cast by things" in order to understand them.
James Ckerk Maxwell and Oliver Heavisides's burial of many extensions come to mind, as related. A fine example of seeing the hidden transforms, though that force which operates perpendicular to magnetic lines of force - which likely is "the zero point" has remained hidden and is just now being addressed.
Howard, being the well-schooled math head, looks at numbers, and somhoehow 'sees' transforms and then magically graps how (the common casting of shadows) can lead to sometimes counter-intuitive, but nonetheless mathematically provable, conclusions. It's a fine art and I envy him greatly.
Just as important as solving the policy duality, was his reminder that we can sometimes solve problems by working the shadows, not necessarily the directly beheld problem. And that made something click. ---- Which circles us back into WuJo Territory and this report:
"George: I don'' know if you remember me (the crazy fire captain: LMAO), but I may have an addition to the wujo: Very early morning while on duty, I was having coffee behind the station, enjoying the sunrise when I noticed a full grown cotton tail rabbit frozen and staring at me. The Rabbit was about 10 feet away. I continued to marvel at the little critter as it hopped its way to the 4 foot high chain link fence another 20 feet away.
It stopped at the fence, then it hopped again, but this time it was on the other side of the fence.
I was amazed, but thought there must be a hole in the fence. I went to the fence and located the paw prints where the rabbit hopped to the other side, and I didn't find any holes. I couldn't even find any hair fibers caught in the fence. My Engineer (equivelant to a lieutentant) came outside and I cautiously explained what I saw. I then took him and showed him the track prints (same spacing as before the fence) left by the rabbit. He then looked at me & blurted out; "What; did the rabbit just hop through the fence?".
I just laughed while saying "you got me, I was just double checking". I know that rabbits are very agile, but that size of a rabbit going through a 2.5" x 2.5 " link. Good thing this remains between me and my Engineer. (or did - g)
BTW: (COMMUNICATIONS) All Fire Departments are supposed to have all their VHF radios "Narrow Banded" (by the year 2013, mandated by the FCC). My Department (CA) has converted all our radios. Since the conversion: Communications have been crap. Communications prior the conversion were way better, though somewhat inconsistant. Just thought I would give this a mention since to me this relates to clif's forecast. I hope none of us fire fighters get severly injured with this sub standard communication or rather lack thereof. Have a great day.
Remind me to invite our consulting city/county/state radio tech to address this point on 'narrow banding...'
That rabbit case smells suspiciously like the "time-space rip" reports posted earlier this week here.
And about that "woman's purse" problem...sort this one out:
"Dear George,
Years ago, one summer between semesters (which was the only time I allowed my aging eyes the luxury of reading non-school stuff) I read a book by S. M Stirling called Island in the Sea of Time -- and then read the rest of the series because I wanted to see how he worked out the problem -- the rest of the series wasn't so grand but the first book, where the modern day Island of Nantucket is sent back in time to roughly 1250BC. Flash forward to 2004 and Sterling releases sort the sort of mirror image of the Nantucket series wherein he discusses what happens here in the first of many books called Dies the Fire.
I as a WAG, I surmise that Clif, even if not you read at least this one because of the Space Goat Farts... one of the characters keeps referring to what happened to the world as something only the "alien space bats" understand ... I know it is a stretch.... and a long intro to get to the point.... Stirling's world in Dies the Fire is one where physics has screwed us... things like fire, gunpowder, the internal combustion engine, and other physics oriented things just don't work or don't work the same way any more -- bye bye electricity, guns, cars, airplanes... etc. Even if you don't read the whole book the first chapter when "It" happens and airplanes fall out of the air and such is worth it for the scare factor alone -- oh and one of the hero characters is a small plane pilot, in the air with passengers at the time.
As far as the rest of the series -- I've read most because again, I want to see how he works out the problem... Stirling is a bit of a sexist writer and so his some of his characters (the particularly sexist males and the impossibly idiotic females) are hard to take although he makes up for it with some strong females too.
Why I am writing about this to you... because your WuJo entry for today brought up "Or, trying to control a plane which is in distress versus the alternate reality version where everything is plodding along all nice and normal-like? What a frigging mess that'd be!"
I just wanted to say "no shit" and someone else has been thinking about physics fu*king us for a while now.
Currently, I have a small black hole in my purse.
Now I know most men think that all women have a black hole in their purses, but I really do.
Several things go missing in there. However, it must be a looped black hole because days later they reappear.
Bear in mind that to avoid the black hole of a large purse YEARS ago I switched to a purse that basically would hold a wallet, a very small medicine bag, a pen and a couple of pill bottles.
When my spouse asks me to carry his wallet, it makes the purse look stuffed. And yet the wallet disappeared into the purse for three days and then reappeared.
I have written of several wonky things to you many of which you have kindly published ... guess I am just sayin' I think we are doin the Funky Fisiks Now (boom boom boom).
Anyway, thanks for reading my current rant...
Not so sure about the purse and disappearing things report, since Elaine has a purse, or two, or 10, and I have noticed that no matter how much money I put in it, it disappears never to be seen again. So if you figure out how to shake it, just so, I'd appreciate the tip. The prospect of such recovered wealth is incredible! -- But seriously, or nearly so, these reports - and others - like that set of keys that apparently fell through the floor of a guys upstairs bedroom only to be found on the floor below, or the historical data of a runner bewing watched as he ran - and sank into the earth, never to be seen again....these all seem to be part of a class of anomalous behaviors with no ready solution in physics - at least as we know them.
I assumne you know enough to avoid bus rides in Bennington, Vermont, lest you just "poof" out?
What's the answer? I expect the insights will come from the study of the "shadows cast" by the this class of strange events, rather than trying to grasp a specific case too tightly.
Figuring out the "common shadow cast" might point to the Ultimate Transform which, in turn, may with a single sweep, brush away the veil that keeps us from seeing more broadly, but which different groups already purport to know - and have made many rich business modeld gtom by pretending to rent out their particular answer to people not willing to press on to directly to directly seek the heart of things.
So we press on in our quest for the "hidden Master Transform" down here at the WuJo.
Ramblings in Old Town While I'm trying to track down bits and pieces of how 'reality works' aided by coffee and the early morning cogence it brings, Elaine's been thumbing through the publications from the tourism apparatchik here in Albuquerque. Among her little gems:
We hiked around the historic district a bit on Wednseday afternoon ahead of the rain by an hour, or two. Plenty of different things to see, and in particular women's fashions and jewelry.
It's make a fun book sometime, to write up "Historical Districts of America" and include things like Old Town here, Pioneer Square in Seattle, South San Francisco, old Savannah, and the Atlanta Underground. Someting with a photo section, a list of what to see and what's a rip. A kind of "Now that you're retired, or are just taking a time out, here's the really cool stuff.
One of our first airplane trips is likely to be Mount Rushmore. Not just to behold one man's dream being evolved. Want to see if there's room left for me.
I keep thinking in my next lifetime, I'd like to come back as a travel writer. If I could be assured such a thing, I might even agree to use a spellchecker once in a while. And let's toss in Elaine 2 while we're at it. I have damn little common sense and adult supervision helps.
Wednesday, July 19, 2011 The Rally I Missed (Amarillo, TX) I am an idiot. But then again, you knew that. 'Bout the only thing that has really changed this morning is why I'm an idiot this time. The answer? Remember in the column yesterday morning when I dutifully reported "I may go long at the open..."?
Damn, damn, and triple damn. I saw it coming, knew it was coming, and I chickened out since I'd be traveling and wouldn't be able to click out. Crap!
Futures are up again this morning - partly because Apple blew out estimates - and so entry yesterday in a triple bull (or better, the day before when I saw it coming) might have put 5% - or more...maybe 8% - back in my pocket by the time the run reaches it's zenith. Maybe more...
And how far up mgiht that be? I don't rule out Dow 13,200 on the upside, but for now, I'll just be patient. What goes up (and further today seems likely) the more it will come down...in a while.
Budget Brinksmanship Continues (yawn...) Very interesting to read up on how the (more of less repulicorp) House has passed a budget whacker that will not only trim $6-billion from spending, but would also send out a Constitutional Amendment requiring a balanced budget to State Legislatures.
We continue to watch the calendar for that August 3rd date for Social Security and other payments people have earned. I hold to the view that Mr. Obama will be Mr. One-Term is they're late. And even by a single day. --- That's not the kind of change we were promised. If they're late, Throw Them All Out coming voting day, says me. Arghhh...
But wait: Lemme take off my pirate hat for a sec and be constructive. Maybe there's a good Stimulus II idea in here: How about rebuilding the trough in Washington where all the corporate lobbyists slop favors to feed the political power hogs? Big as it is anymore, it could take years and it would emnploy, near as I can figure, an unlimited number of accountants and lawyers. And that might free the rest of us up to do something more productive....
Like make appliances in the USA again? Which gets me to....
Howard's Lightning Bolt Of course, fixing the country's economy is a rather simple thing, provided of course, that you've put together a Grand Unified Theory of Economics. Which, until earlier this week, no one seeded to have.
That is, until my friend/co-author Howard Hill got hit with a major lighning bolt of the kind that can only tough down on a genius-level economic brain with a side order of common sense...a rare enough combination. (There may only be a half dozen who qualify and I'm not one of them...)
If you really give a damn about saving America, the key thing to understand (and I'm simplifying this incredibly) - is that the kind of stimulus the national economy needs varies by where we are in economic cycles.
His full on sketch up of it is in his post at the Mind on Money site here.
Of course, once stumbling into the insight, the solution though obvious and demonstrable depends on recognition of some basic realities of economics which have been shoved off in a corner reserve for nutjobs and wingnuts.
Namely, as we kicked around earlier this week, it means that you need a firm grasp of how economic cycles work, and as Howard proposed, his Grand Unifying Theory of Economics might even work down to the shorter economic cycles, which could really level off the boom & bust built into the 'free-running' model of capitalism which while it does wonders on the growth side, manages to crash periodically.
Of course, once you read it, and have the accompanying "Aha!" moment, some portion of the stress in your life will evaporate because your expectations about the future can be 'dialed in' by estimating the distance between the "right" things we ought to be doing about now versus the "actual" things we're doing right now - which can be found on any old news site you please.
Heat Wave People in the east are about to get a taste of what summer has been like in the South this year - a dose of serious heat today. The Pennmsylvania Health Department out with a list of do and don't things to keep in mind:
So far, the death toll from heat is placed at 13, or so. Bound to see a lot more about this as the heat wave slides east which is where the 'center of media consciousness' in America is. T'ain't a story till it hits there, and when it does, you can rest assured it will be overblown to those of us who've been in a string of 100+ temps for weeks now.
The economic aspect of this to keep an eye on is what it could do to the Corn Crop in places like Iowa...and so a check of a story like this one on the Drover's Cattle Network might have you reaching for the phone to call your commodities guy... JB, How's corn looking, dude? I know the metals got jumped by the manippers last night...
Not Comet Driven... But still, a number of readers are looking at FEMA's planned November test of the Natgional Emergency Alert System with some concern that "It sure is awful close to the late October passing of Eleinin, ain't it?"
Chill - we have bigger issues - see this morning's Coping Section.
Marketing in the Depression Emergent economic reality in this - about how people don't have the kind of disposable incomes they used to as K-Mart is sgtarting up a "Money Can't But Style" campaign for its clothing offerings.
"In fall 2011, Kmart will debut an unexpected advertising campaign, titled "Money Can't Buy Style," -- aimed at empowering customers to embrace their individualism when approaching fashion. Rather than focusing on brand names or even trends, the ads will emphasize self-expression in fashion by featuring real people in Kmart looks they've created themselves. "
Nice to see someone gets it...
I'll skip the academic sounding explanation of the underlying Fourth turning changes in play. I'll just let it go with "Before retribalization can take place ion response to economic calamity, there must first be a differentiation of individuals from the mass media hive mind, which will then be ready, after the individuation process to contribute in a meaningful way to new tribes which will emerge as economic coping mechanisms..."
Oh - and that sets up some pondering which resulted in this weekend's shocking Peoplenomics report/proposal...but more on that this weekend.
Cellphone Drivers While I was thumbing through press releases this morning, this one from the Harris Poll/Harris Interactive folks was pretty interesting:
"Three out of five (60%) drivers with cell phones use them while driving even though almost all adults (91%) know it is unsafe to do so. This is particularly common among younger drivers with cell phones. In addition more than one in five (22%) drivers with cell phones send or read text messages while driving. However, the percentage of drivers with cell phones who use them while driving has fallen over the last two years, from 72% in 2009 to 60% now. And, the numbers who text while driving has fallen a little from 27% to 22%."
Which explains a lot of bad drivers on the road...met one on our road yesterday who was off side and not even conscious - tied up on the phone. Didn't even wave - phone in ear, head in butt, I figure. Accidents always happen to the other guy, right?
Coping: Service Pack for Universe? Some SERIOUS wujo to report this morning, so listen up!
I didn't know what to make of the following email received last night from a normally reliable reader who's been around for a while, but it sure seems to support the idea we've talked about before which is what? That the whole UNIVERSE as we know it may be what's going to go through changes in how it works.
Before we get to the first-hand report, however, here's the thing that's troubling: In Clif's predictive linguistics work, we seem to have a period where people will be struck dumb - gobsmacked, if you're British - by the whole underlying operating system of the Universe going through an "update" which may involve quirks in reality like we've never seen before.
Which in Clif's work shows up as people left "drooling" "staring" needing other humans to help them around, and so forth.
So much for foreplay - now, trying wrapping your head around this:
"G’mornin’ george Heres a new one from the odd and unusual for you. Apparently dogs are not immune from the weirdness of the wujo.
Yesterday I was throwing the ball for my dog. I threw the ball out into the yard about fifty yards in front of me. As I watched her run out to it, I heard a splash from behind me. I turned to see her in the pool.
Turning back to the yard she was running back while also in the pool. Then she was only in the pool. But there was about a quarter second or less when she was both in the pool and running back. I yelped WTF? I’ve seen a lot of weirdness, but this one takes the cake.
My neighbor cindy was out with her dogs and asked what just happened? I asked what she meant and she said it was like a glitch in the matrix. Her words, not mine.
So, a wujo moment, with an external witness to the event.
Thanks for the free morning column by the way. You always have something in there that strikes a note with me.
Per the plane thing, have you ever considered a two seater ultralite? Cheap, fuel efficient, and land anywhere….store it folded up in your own garage. And thanks to clif for the horrific shape reports.
Peace brother..."
Holy smokes! You see what I'm talking about?
What we're left with is the question of what the hell is going on here?
One of the options that comes to mind is that as we pass through some warp or fold area of space-time, the Universe has to figure out which course reality will take, since, as we all remember from Schrodinger's Cat, the observer state determines whether the Universe occurs this way, or that way.
Still, if it were to happen freqently enough, I think you can picture the results in, oh, I don't know, morning rush hour in LA or something like that? Pilopt of short final landing on this runway, or that one, never being sure until he's on the ground. Or, trying to control a plane which is in distress versus the alternate reality version where everything is plodding along all nice and normal-like? What a frigging mess that'd be!
Still, it's only one report and I've only had any sense of syrupy time when we were lving on the boat out in the South SF Bay area back in 2001 when Lawrence Liv erdudes were firing off super magnets and we don't know if that was a reason or just a parallel kind of thing.
Still, we CERNtainly have questions about ditzing around with the operating system of space-time, and even though we've had hints frolm other readers that space-time (& gravitics) are really easily manipulated by organic light emitting diodes with just this particular frequency set applied and in this kind of arrangment over here, which might have some spillov er effects to those not in the know about how anti-gravity work, there has been some recent work in time cloaking which is showing up in the literature for us 'reg'lar' folks".
In fact, as coinkydinky would have it, this morning NPR's got a piece on how it's all "Hidden in plain view: The physics of clocking time, space, and experience."
Oh, and the more important names in the future of the world may be Moti Fridman, Allesandro Farsi, Yoshitimo Okawachi, and Alexander Gaeta who have been working up at Cornell and have demonstrated Temporal Clocking in this paper posted just this month to the 'net.
So, now we're left to wondering: Are there effects at a distance (like the reader report from this morning) which may not be readily apparent to the researchers?
Consider this: There may be some underlying time clock which keeps reality happening in just a certain way, because without it, everything which could happen, might happen and it would be to the observer to figure out which 'fork in the time road' is the 'right' one to get on to the happily everaftering of Life itself.
So what IF this dinking around with time-space, even at this small level, could interfere with the underlying timecode of the Kalapas? As a student of religious insights from antiquity, you're assumed to know that this is the finest level of the matterium and in quantum physics, that'd be like 'riding the wavefront' we call the Eternal Present. Seven trillion times per second, huh?
Reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode "A Kind of Stopwatch" (episode 124, season 5). Which, along with the episode "A little peace and quiet", ought to be madatory watching for anyone trying to screw around with time itself.
All of which - in case you've lost track of it - has been percolating in the back of the collective unconscious until here lately. What we see is humans cobbling up high order tools (CERNtainly obviously) which may allow us to tweak more than we're supposed to. Or, has the mass consciousness just been 'thinking on it' the same way Jules Verne's fiction set the public mind to creating a future where the Nautilus happened>
Not to go on about the implications of this - tres cools to "Oh shit!", but the real story is probably the one on the backside. which is?
If you think tghe UFO's showing up in large numbers within a couple of years are the first atomic tests in New Mexico (measure the distance from Alamogordo/Trinity to Roswell sometime...) set your clock now for, oh, about 2013, or so, when it's out there on the fringes of the possible that a space-time faring society will send in the Angry Parents.
We are...sadly...perhaps like children left at home unsupervised and we're playing with matches...
Bet me?
Improved Vacationing Unlike our trip to Detroit a few weeks back for the National Solciety of Newspaper Columnists hoedown in Motown, our present adventure is of a much lighter tone and far less planned down to the nth degree. The reason being we've made this trip out west a fair number of times so more than anything, we're into optimizing rasther than discovering new countryside.
Travel, it is said, is mind expanding for those who partake of it, and to as great an extent as I can afford, travel is quickly moving up my priority list because the America that is now will likely disappear in the not too far distant future.
In fact, it's already changed a fair bit, just in the past year, or two.
For example, there's an Exxon station on Highway 287 in Waxahatchie, Texas that we stopped ti fill up at tuesday around 10:30 AM. Great place - clean restrooms (a disappearing art in some areas) but the shocker was as soon as I emerged from the car to fill up, I found myself watching TV at the pump.
Didn't catch the name of the show, but it was an interview with John Travolta about his marriage to Kelly Preston, and how great it was and how he works at keeping it that way.
Nice, but I just came by for gas, not to be subjected to the mediastream, but it was interesting, nevertheless. --- We made up a couple of sandiwches each, before leaving on the trip and bought one of those styrofoam coolers for the purpose of keeping things well-chilled. Worked great. We will have the second round of sandwiches this morning along about the Texas/New Mexico border, but not to late as to screw up up dinner in Albuquerque's Old Town, which is on the agenda for this afternoon. --- Talked to a nice gent who was pulling his new fifth wheel at one of our gas stops on the road up to Amarillo. "How do you like it?" I questioned.. fellow loved it. Then I asked "Where you head?"
"Away from this..." he said with a gesture all around.
The Texas drought is the worst many folks have ever seen - and by some reports is about to get worse, before getting better.
But that's fine with me. Even if it is 103 outside, I'll be the guy stopping every hundred miles or so to top off the tank, use the restroom, and then standing at the pump for a while.
Donb't want to missing anything on the teevee. Figure it I can do it another week, or so, I might get a full-on media hypnosis going, sign up for tranks and starting brushing with heavily flouridated toothpaste again.
Wonder if that'll make the time-space wrinkles better, or worse?
Plane Adventures Well, here we go with another two day delay on closing on our airplane. turns out the title company needs a form completed by a previous owner called a "Heir at Law" form - which, along a certified copy of a lien release - may still get done Friday.
Still, it may all work out for the best in the end. Turns out there is a new system of getting near real-time weather to airplanes beyond Serious/XM.
What I'm actually waiting for is to see what the iFly GPS has coming in the way of add-ons. Already, the 7" touchscreen (VFR) unit at under $600 is a price-performance leader. Only questions is how close they are to adding the new ADS-B (subscription-free) weather and wondering if that might be announced at Oshkosh...
Of, do I get the SkyvisionXtreme add-on for the PC and or use the BlueTooth in my laptop...and get the iFly for the yoke?
Eventually, if present trends continue, my engine will be putting more energy into cockpit avionics displays than into holding the plane up, but that's the nature of toys, I suppose. Sure like the idea of a traffic overlay plus weather plus moving map plus the traffic avoidance announcements, though.
A short intro to ADS-B weather is here - should have lots of applications.
Tuesday July 19,07:43 AM CDT Lights Out by 2013? Lead item in the news this morning is really simple: Go read the John Cassidy article coming in the July 25th New Yorker under the heading "Mastering the Machine here. In it, Ray Dalio who runs the world's biggest hedge fund (Bridgewater Associates) lays out the idea that economic collapse is just around the corner - say 2013'ish - due to printing of money at runaway rates to paper over our current mess.
Of course, around here, we know it may not last that long and maybe gold and silver will just keep going, you think? Which would explain why in the predictive linguistics work, the biggest wealth transfer in history is looming.
Housing Data Just out from Census...
Initial read? Up from last month, up from a year ago - could be gasline on a market that has bounced off short term lows and may be ready to rock & roll upward. I may go long at the open...
Timing the Next War Oh-oh...starting to look like more Iran demonizing is being whipped up. And phrases like "readiness for Iran" are popping in military news lately.
Say, how about the next war in fall to distract people from the collapse of the economy? Nothing like a good war to spin people away from recognizing a Depression, eh? Happened in 2001 and if it worked once.....
Disappearing Rivers A couple of rivers "gone missing" recently has us wondering "Hmmm...someone cornering the market on fresh water - often a popular concept with fiction writers including Clive Cussler, if I recall right?"
Quake Watch A couple of readers have pointed out the real-time ionosphere F2 map our of the Oz Government (here) and are wondering if the notion of ionospheric heating before a major earthquake (thinking 8+ kinda thing) might be about to pop over in either Indonesia or South America in northern Chile, perhaps?
Not to me, but I have mild red/green perception problems. Still, looks more like an HF DX propagation aid for the ham radio and shortwave listening (SWL) gang. Still, if Chile slides into the ocean, sorry 'bout that.
Applying Marchetti to Murdoch
I posited earlier this week that the resignations/firings over the Rupe d Dupe
case might describe an S-curve growth function of the same sort pointed out by
my friend Cesare Marchetti in his 1996
paper "Looking
Forward – Looking Backward A Very Simple Mathematical Model for Very Complex
Social Systems." Marchetti has been applying S-curve theory to everything, including some early work where the evolution of industry - and transportation in particular) could be described as a series of partially overlapping S-curves over time, which meant evolution/replacement technologies might be somewhat predictable, based on how the current S-curves were doing, but I digress.
Just making the point (eventually) that word this morning that a New Scotland Yard official may be investigated in the Murdoch/phone hack scandal certainly seems to fit the expectations of continued growth along the resignations/firings curve nicely.
Nothing personal intended for anyone involved in this, just a neat real-time application of news story column-inches growing along the S-curve, as well as the implicated humans growth s-curve. --- Pondering whether we put the phone hacking whistleblower being found dead in the data...think he counts on the curve, though...cumulative body count we'll call it. --- So is Brooks the "wild Colleen?" Gotta ask Clif....
Plane Speaking So here I sit, waiting to close on our airplane and along comes this dust-up over corporate jets. On the one side, Warren Buffett defending corporate jets (video).
What's interesting to me is how the Obama administration doesn't seem to be applying the same kind of logic to airplanes that are paid for by us taxpayers.
Goose versus gander? Gov jets are good, corp jets are bad? Guess which costs the taxpayers the most?
And so we're now left wondering if it's time to call the WH and ask "Who pays for the press plane for the MSM to ride around in when the president travels?
Wanna bet a beer on that? Someone has to know someone at AOPA who could ask...
Coping: With Product Migrations (Flash Me, II) Old joke in our family was (is) "Don't ask George what time it is, because he'll build you a watch..." This morning, we go to watch-making school., since it's a topic I'm well versed in and can whip out in mere minutes since we're getting on the road as soon as this morning's column is done. Here goes... --- In our discussion of Photon flashlights the other day, I forgot to mention that the default 'on time' of the light is about 3 seconds. For many things, you don't need light longer, especially at night, red LED, and not wanting to wreck your night vision.
Reader I mention this is a reader got to wondering...
Problem I have with headlamps is when you're really working at something and don't have a hard hat (or helmet) on: Doggone things slide down your forehead with enough sweat.
I didn't realize how heavily developed this whole 'high tech night lighting' area was, but back at Cruising Equipment, years back, we had many discussions of a general marketing sort about how in the age of consumer supersaturation, how "nichy' markets could become for consumer type equipment. Like flashlights.
If you're a futurist in training, you can see a broad swath of how product evolution paints the way toward the future by looking at how products evolve (as a class of good, generalized) over time:
As someone who has worked with the "manufacturing on demand" concept, we can sketch out the 'design pattern' of where things are going this way:
But where does that leave us? Well, that's when life takes a really, really big change into the whole "off in the distance" concept of Manufacturing On Demand.
And this is where custom manufacturing is starting to evolve and is in a ramp up phase. For example (disclosure: past clients) there's a really neat company called www.emachineshop.com and a related company called www.pad2pad.com.
The world's first online machine shop lets you download free software and design any old thing you want; the software even prices the finished parts. So, for example, say you're building a custom XYZ part for your motorcycle hyperdrive. Download the software, design part, hit send, and a week or four later (speed costs money in custom metalwork) the parts show up at your house.
With Pad2Pad, same thing, except what shows up is a ready to stuff printed circuit board. You put the parts in (by hand or machine) and then solder the components to the 'pads' on the board.
And it doesn't stop with circuit boards or metal parts (Want that in an anodized 6061-T6 aluminum with alodine, or are you going to "1201" it yourself?? No sweat...).
There's this whole other class of technology which we've been using for almost 15-years called "3D Printing." This is where you can either use a couple of lasers - shooting light into a special plastic 'goo' and where the lasers intersect, the goo solidifies into a hard plastic which means you can make any kind of plastic part you want (see stereo lithography or SLA) or the also emergent fused deposition modeling (FDM approach.
So, I reckoned, where we're going - eventually - somewhere down the road when we get past the economic depression 2.0 phase, will be to a new world where "instant custom manufacturing" will come along.
What most people don't know is that it's here now.
In fact, you can go buy a reasonably priced custom plastics unit from your choice of www.desktopfactory.com or www.statasys.com.
Here's where I leaped ahead a couple of years back in a Peoplenomics report when I discussed where the custom manufacturing future was going and - as part of the Peoplenomics report, actually set up a framework for the 'next' problem that will come along as we move in that direction (custom manufacturing) in the future...
Where are the designs all going to come from?
Well, just like "open source" in computing, I figured why not set up a "Public Design Library" so that folks at home can simply go to a file download area and download whatever they need in the way of parts to make whatever strikes their fancy? Or, if they don't want to use open-source/public designs, they could buy the intellectual property already developed and set to plug and play with various instant parts manufacturers.
Restoring that 1931 toaster? Need a special part? Hit the public design library, download the part from the 1930 design and press send....
But eventually, as computer continue to flatten everything - including manufacturing - some day, our grand kids will be sitting at home asking questions like "How long does that light stay on?"
And instead of spending hours figuring out what which manufacturer in complex marketing space has what product, is it explosion-proof, and so forth...they will simply go check the Public Design Library (PDL) select the feature sets for the product they want, hit the "MAKE" button, and that will be that.
And, if they press the right design, uploaded by an optimizing company from the 2000's, maybe they can select the Photon feature set, in which case, under the concept, the IP creators would still get some revenue as royalties due could be incorporated into the system, of structured into 'design plan rental' charges if a generic design is not selected.
Long answer to the question, but just to put it into context, the real answer is "How long do you want it to last? because that's where the world is going."
Second Depression, aside, by 2020 the world will be seriously different if it's here at all...
Computerizing Governance, Redux Of particular interest to Peoplenomics readers who waded through last weekend's report on how government could be largely replaced with a massively multiplayer game online (which would certainly contain costs, huh?) a reader send in this from the gameosphere:
Yeah, but the cool thing with games/gaming, is we can develop (and participatoryly model) improved forms of governance!
A couple of readers expressed concern "Who runs the game?" and "Wouldn't government take it over, if governance really was computerized?"
Well of course but that's going on right now in slow motion in front of your face anyway, so let's open up our heads a bit and put in self-limiting subroutines like limited voting where there's a vested interest in outcomes! Come on, people, life's only game at some level anyway....
Oh, and don't ask me what time it is....
Dimension Collisions Say, here's another quirky thought: What IF when we pass the Galactic Ecliptic we run into an area of space-time where travel between dimensions becomes possible?
No chance? Well, not so fast bucko. Here's a reader email to ponder:
Again, we would toss all this into the email shredder, except that it ties into this email quite nicely...
Hmmm....Mel Fabregas Show has an interview with Andov on Youtube here.... --- That ought to give you enough of a brain candy fix for one morning. Problem with getting all kinds of new ideas going is keeping the day under control long enough to do something with all the new thoughts that come along....
Being an "idea junkie" isn't a bad thing. But it sure is addictive as hell. --- Say, you don't suppose intelligence is a disease, do you? A Marchetti paper of interest is here. Or, is the use of brainpower just a strategy to live longer? Oh, my...time to take a vacation. More tomorrow from...lemme see...Amarillo.....wonder if we will see a sign like this one?
Monday July 18, 2011 $1,600 Gold!!! The Tightrope Problem We begin the week casting a jaundiced eye toward Washington, where once again, the Budget High Drama continues like a never-ending rerun of some TV game show, with about as much plot. If there was any question about why the rush to gold has busted out to the upside, a look at who's who in the District of Contention and the cratering purchasing power of paper ought to explain most everything.
I assume you have gotten the conspiratorially worded emails about how defunding of the plunge protection team might cripple the markets, but I think not. The Economic Stabilization Fund, as it's known, is not what has been keeping the market up: easy money is. "Don't think - Ink!" is how DC is playing it.
While we could see some downside pressure early this week, I expect that as soon as a budget deal makes its way into the investor's outlook, the market should roar upward through August. Which is when I plan to load up on the short side again and await the decline in the fall. Market forecasts hint at hope by week's end.
One reason the trends in place should continue into late August/early September? The near-term dollar outlook, which had been pretty good, is now weakening on the one year chart here.
When you look at the very long-term dollar/Euro relationship, and notice the Euro peak in 2000 (1.1787) versus the low in 2009 (around .6335, or so) that would pencil into a decline of about 46%.
So we then look at the 11,722 (or thereabout) Dow high back in 2000 and the the March 5, 2009 low of 6,594 of the Dow, you'll see the drop was how much? About 44% so yes, as I see it, that's close enough for armchair economist use to call the pricing of the Dow to the valuation of the Euro is a definable/durable relationship over time. --- Which gets us to the question of what will happen early this week: Since the Euro Markets are already in a snit this morning, down between 1.7% and 2% at the big players, we would expect that panicked money managers will be looking for a safe haven.
Still, the US markets are in the middle of their 2-standard deviation trend channels and crashes don't happen from the middle of a price channel they happen when the bottom of the channel is busted, so I'm in chill and play mode for the next month. A rally through August would suit me fine, but whether to play going long SLV to catch the silver catch-up move, or the triple bull FAS is a decision I won't make till later in the week.
When means...just a wild-ass guess here...that at least today and tomorrow we can expect:
Since're hearing $55 silver by September, but that's just talk till it happens. Just don't be surprised when it happens. ,A one month 40% gain seems tempting, but a Dow pop to 13,200, or so, from 12,400 this week might yield 19-20% using the triple bull, but I usually do better day-trading, so the real question is whether I want to be "lazy' or actually work at trading. That's an easy one, huh? But not till later in the week, in any regard: I try to avoid trading in the opening hour - especially on Monday - since that's the amateur hour.
Using some general expectations about how the Fall Decline should arrive, we will simply await a good low spot along about Wednesday, when we could be testing down around 12,300-12,400 and see if Robin Landry's proprietary indicators show an optimistic turn, or whether there will be enough inertia built up to crash through the 12,000 level, test 11,500, and if that's breached, we get into the "turn out the lights" part.
From an historical standpoint, the report in The National Memo about how a "Former top White House economic advisor compares Obama to FDR, Calls for More Stimulus" is somewhat predictable. Since Stimulus One was not large enough, and contained too much pork & paybacks, what the country really needs is a massive investment in infrastructure, which would require raising the debt ceiling, but that's a tough political nut.
So, in the course of things, the economy has to get bad so that people will be forced by events to put aside their petty political BS and actually do some governing for the good of the country.
The 'shock and awe' problem of spending 1.5 to 2 percent of GDP to fix the underlying economic problems is not yet acceptable to officeholders, but that's what's required. So look for a crash/crashlapse/debacle to show up before genuine foresightful governance.
Market Sez If some of the look-ahead data on the markets is right, then along about Thursday we ought to be hearing another round of (temporary) good news about either the US debt mess, or Europe, or both. Moody's is suggesting that popping the debt ceiling up wouldn't be that bad a thing to do now...
How Dry We Am Not to sound like a nag here, but remember the old adage "What turns a recession into a depression is a drought? Well, here we go with "Drought cripples southern farms" and with it, wildlife here in Texas is being abandoned on a large scale.
In our part of the outback, we're just about 12 inches under normal, and although it's been bad like this in the past ('98, some locals tell me) it hasn't been this bad in a very long time.
Bankruptcy and Food Riots ...are not here yet, but... Alabama has a county in trouble which could land it in bankruptcy. "Why that's shades of the Great Depression!" you say? Tisk, tisk...you must be one of them dangerous nutjob prepper types, ain'tcha? --- Concerned reader in Minnesota sent us this last week:
Sure enough, it's been popping up if you know where to look - like this bit in the Atlantic which explains how "Minnesota Govt. shutdown may force Coors, Miller off shelves."
If there's a silver lining to any of this, it's that the situation in Minnesota may finally resolve a question which has been bugging me for some time: "Which is worse: The hangover from booze or the hangover from bad government?"
We could be about to find out. Which might hurry along the Paul-Frank weed bill. Say, since our land has been pushing up goat weed this year, wonder if we could get a field or two into wacky-tabacky when this Prohibition comes apart? --- Still, Minnesotans are between a rock and a hard place, with one of them telling me (in part)...
Attached was a link to a map (here) which has various state rankings to it. Whether or not your state is in deep budgetary doo-doo is simple to figure out: When you click on the state, look at the rankings. If the 'ranking - tax burden per capita' is higher than the ranking 'Government spending per capita' then your state may be on a sensible course, or at least what passes for it, these days.
Texas, for example is 35th in the country in tax burden, while ranking 45th in government spending per capita.
California, on the other hand, is 9th in tax burden but 5th in spending. So that explains why they are in trouble.
Yep, lot to be said for the chart, although it's on rank, not absolute budget soundness, which means it's still likely all states have FLD - free lunch disease - to one degree, or another.
Connecticut is looking at grounding ferries...
Moron (sic) The Weak Ahead With the Euro markets in free fall, the Dow should drop, at least in the early going. The Long term TIC report is about the only item of interest till 10 Eastern when the National Association of Homebuilders report comes out. tomorrow with get 'offishul' housing numbers and home sales on Wednesday. Leading Indicators come out Thursday and there's so little on the books for Friday, that skipping work seems like a fine thing. (But I won't, being a nutjob and all...)
O's Senior Moment? President Obama is apparently having as much trouble reading a calendar as he is reading the mood of the public. This ABC report on a presidential senior moment is er....what were we talking about? Oh yeah...
Road Show Hillary's in Greece. And they thought they had troubles before? Keep her!
Rupe d Dupe Say, in the Saturday Peoplenomics, I laid out the S-curve growth rate of people losing jobs over the phone hack scandal suggesting that we are maybe halfway through it. And sonavabitch, look at this! Here's the head of the London Police resigning over it. Wowser! Awesome powers of S-curves showing cumulative growth, as applied to headlines/breaking stories, huh? --- Gotta write a cross between an economics and current affairs course which I think I'll call 'Newsculus" - calculus meets news headlines. Calcunews didn't pass the focus group out back, which consisted of two deer and a squirrel.
Carmageddon In the wake of the closure this weekend of the 405 on the west side of L.A. fallout is coming fast: Some people want to see the closures made a monthly event. Only in California.
Quote from Sam Rubin's column: "Staying home is the New Black." Fashionese for camp, hip, and in.
Bad news for raspy bastard recluse types like me (and Clif, who's even raspier): That immediately makes us outback free-thinking curmudgeons trend setters. OMG...maybe no one will notice, yah think?
Coping: Travel and Other Unpronounceables The trouble with travel is what? Keeping 'life on the road' and 'life in the office' all working together seamlessly. Because, sure as hell, when I don't, that auditor in the back of my mind will wake me up in the middle of the night and issue reminders about undone tasks. Some examples:
Even though I wasn't able to find it, through, the auditor in the back of my
mind (ABoMM) dutifully woke me up an hour early on Sunday to remind me
I still owned him an email, but what's more, the loss of an email is a problem
which the ABoMM proposed a solution for: Laplink Gold
As long as, that is, you realize the quirks of Microsoft's way of hiding the OIutlook .PST files (different places on the laptop and home computer, despite using Win 7/64 on each) and then unblocking the protection software just right to allow the serial (null) cable to connect and handshake.
After realizing that the Outlook .PST file would not integrate individual emails (which took some testing time) I finally got near perfect synching which can happen in just a few minutes - and just in time for tomorrow's Big Adventure, II which involves the cute ,blonde lady going to a reunion in the uplands of Aridzona, but more on that along the way.
Meantime, will the author of that missing email from a few weeks back, please resend? --- Was this enough to make the ABoMM happy? Nope.
I keep trying to remember to jot down one of our "kill time while driving" stories from the Texas-Arkansas-Tennessee-Ohio-Michigan (and return via St. Louis) trip: Trying to spot words that are difficult to pronounced.
The standout from that trip was the Harpeth River in Tennessee. Oh, sure, the locals don't have any trouble pronouncing it, when talking about the local bridge replacement program, or things like that. But to a couple of child-again nutjobs wandering through, the word {"Harpeth} allowed us to develop a completely unpronounceable combination of words.
Lemme step back for a sec: You do remember I was an on-air newscaster for 13-years up in Seattle, right? And, since I've taught at broadcasting schools, universities and such on the proper speaking of the language, tongue-twisters are a kind of high art form.
"Peter Pipers picked a peck of pickled peppers" is child's play.
The one from our trip which caused almost 100 miles of laughing so hard we had tears rolling down was?
Good as I thought I was as speaking da' Ing-lish, saying this three - or more - times in quick succession left both Elaine and me thounding like Sylvethter Puddy Tat. Path the thufferin' thuccotash, pleath. And the Kleenex; it's that much fun. (Or, I really am that eathily amuthed.)
If, as I expect, law enforcement takes this one up as a field sobriety test, I'm afraid we're all going to jail. "What'sa matter, sir? Can't talk?" --- Then there's the Photo Light note that work me up this morning. If you remember, while on our last trip, we somehow got to talking about flashlights when those hurricane force winds and sideways since went through Oak Ridge, TN in the midst of our visit and Elaine had to borrow a flashlight.
Well, when I got home, one of the folks at Photon Lights sent me an incredibly neat flashlight which is just the ticket: It's the tiniest, coolest, high power flashlight I've ever beheld.
What make it so neat is that it a) had two colors - white and red, so you don't wreck your night vision and b) it's brighter than the Dickens.
True, the LRI PPRO Proton Pro White/Red, 2-Colors-in-1 LED Flashlight, 1-Pack
The cool ;thing about the light is this: If you hold the button down, the red LED fires for night use and the longer you hold it down, the brighter it gets. The white light (which is incredibly bright) is fired by giving a quick click and then, while it's on, holding the button a second time to dim to the desired level.
Way cool - and the light has an auto-off function in a few seconds which is why they get such great mileage out of a single AA cell which powers it. --- Sometime while we're on this trip, and hopefully, as early as today, our airplane purchase will close. A few reader question have come in like:
Actually, I have plans in that regard, but one thing at a time. Yes, I have lots of hood time in both real and simulators, but I need to do the whole course start to finish and do the 25-hours of time. But, to do that, I want to have an airplane of my own. Instructor time is only $40 locally, so my own (low operation cost) plane will likely be cheaper than renting an IFR a/c and right seat occupant. --- But this gets me up to my next point, which emerged from 13 hours and 13 landings in the simulator on Sunday: I pre-flew the a/c delivery route from Ohio three times, using the Microsoft/Jeppeson live dynamic weather and found not counting pee-time on the ground, but counting refueling and such, the aircraft block time was between 8.3 and 8.6 hours with pretty consistent hazy conditions/ marginal weather over southwest Ohio as the various fronts come through.
But that's not the point the ABoMM is insisting on: One of the reasons that flying makes sense for us is that hangar space is cheap ($125/month) and fuel is dirt cheap if you watch prices. 100 octane gas can be had for $4.92 within 50 miles of us - and the new (to us) plane will carry 920 (statute) miles of the stuff. In Dallas, if you don't look out, you can pay $7.80 per gallon, which is a hell of a difference, since they both move the plane the same distance....
Makes the difference between a $44/hour operating cost for fuel and almost $80 an hour. Pays to shop around. When you rent from someone else, the cost of the plane, instructor is you're luck is $120 and up, per hour, so even with maintenance reserves, I'll be under that. Plane's just 3-hgours out of annual...
Cut Rate Cattle Don't know if you remember that far back, but some time ago, I mentioned that one of the cheapest ways to get into the 'cattle business' was to pick up a "milker cow" from the local dairy. Around here, they're going for $60-$75 and they're the male calves of dairy cows.
Reason I mention this is what? New issue of Countryside & Small Stock Journal
($18/year)
Always enjoy Countryside and if I had to recommend one magazine that covers the gamut of housing, farming, and the 'back to land' kinds of topics, this'd be the one.
Notice how good I am this morning at spending your money for you?
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 11-year long coincidence...yessir....just a coincidence, we're like SO sure... (Shhh...don't tell anyone that major Depressions are two-part coupled affairs like the linkage between 1920-21 and 1929, OK? Damn, dude...don't spoil it for the sheep...)
Oh...don't forget to "Write when you get rich!"
George Ure, The People's Economist |
Member: National Society of Newspaper Columnists
Be Sure to See: Bots: NE Power Outage Our Favorite Tool: Minneapolis Fed Inflation Calculator
Our Suppliers: Commodity Trading
Web Hosting
Emergency Food Stores
Tequila
Organic Heirloom Seeds:
| |||||||||||||
|
This is a Free Financial News and economic information site updated daily except Sundays. If you can not get to http://www.urbansurvival.com/ from your corpgov workstation, please try our mirror site: http://www.independencejournal.com/ . This site is also available at www2.urbansurvival.com and www3.urbansurvival.com which may not be blocked. Hey www.urbansurvival.co works, too! · Bulletins are posted as our work schedule permits and as events warrant. · I try to publish Monday-Saturday by 8 AM Central Time/ 9 AM Eastern with 7:55 Central pretty normal. If you're easily offended by the occasional typo, then check about 8:15 Central we usually proofread and spell check after the first post. We've had some amusing typos in the past... Sometimes a Saturday issue will be dropped due to projects & chores on our ranch. · Financial and news judgments of the publisher are not to be considered "advice" · Please read and understand our disclaimer · All original content © 1997-2010 by George A. Ure except sources as linked. Very short extracts are occasionally used under 'fair use' but never entire articles without permission. That would be beyond 'fair use'. · Copyright of all linked articles is cited under fair use as this is a topic specific site (long wave economics and humanistic economics, which we call "Peoplenomics"
Our premium service, which contains more in depth reports is available on a $40/year subscription basis. Details at www.peoplenomics.com/subscribe.htm.
The "web bot project" indicates a reference to the time predictive technology embodied in the "Asymmetric Language Trend Analysis Intelligence Reports" technology pioneered and operated by Tenax Software Engineering for http://www.halfpasthuman.com/. An intro to the technology is here. Extracts, when used, are with exclusive permission and any references on other web sites must contain a link to both this site and HalfPastHuman's main page: http://www.halfpasthuman.com/.
Site Contact: george@ure.net
© 2011 Copyright Notice: The author(s) of this site requires that any links or use of material from this site include the author's name and a link to this site. All links included in our material must also be included in citations. Address questions to: george@ure.net. Copyright infringers will be pursued, and please note that Fair Use requires identification of the author/source and we require a link which when you think about it is really minimal recognition of our works and the works of those who are quoted herein.
|
|
" closely. Warning: Archaic language, tiny print in this beasty.
($19 Amazon). The GlobalRev which we know to have major
economic dimensions, could just be a flip in which business model dominates.
which for $70 ensures that everything is 'synch'ed right' between the home
computer and the portable.
will set you back $45, or so, but it's an amazing light and we're going
to get a couple of more. There is nothing like a dependable
flashlight when you need it.
has a "How to" article on topic and if you've got 5-acres of grassland per head,
you might be interested in raise a whole beef for what will likely work out to a
couple of hundred bucks each by the time you're all in.
