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Thursday July 2, 2009       07:55  AM CDT     

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"The Recovery" and Other Tall Tales

The US jobs report came out a few minutes ago, but before we delve into the 'offishul' report and details thereof, some appropriate 'contexting' seems in order before the first cuppa Joe kicks in.  Remember: The jobs report is 'just a number' and, as such, is bound to be somewhat 'noisy'.  It's for this reason that a sane person looks at broader statistical data than these 'single points of light" (or darkness) when trying to make what former Fed deity Sir Alan called "judgments" about the economy.

 

For example, yesterday's report on the S&P/Case-Schiller housing numbers is a fine example because we're able to look at how far down housing equity has come since its statistical high in July of 2006.  Home equity is down almost a third in that time.

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One of a 'conspiratorial bent' could come up with a very interesting question about here, as a friend of mine asked me late Wednesday:  "Don'tcha think it's kind of strange that so many Americans are first going to be forced out of their homes by declining home values, just before hyperinflation that would have (otherwise) made it possible for them to pay off their homes for pennies on the dollar when it comes along next year?"

 

Yeah....very much coincidental I'm sure, I told her, as I applied another set of ViceGrips to my left arm, since pinching myself in today's economic climate has become a full-time job with an increasing amount of overtime, of late.

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Similarly, while the Obama administration has been heard whistling in the graveyard about the chances of the national unemployment rate going over 10% before 'recovery' sets it, the MainStreamMedia (MSM) has give scant coverage to the Metropolitan Area Employment report released by the Labor Department on Tuesday.  Care to  guess why?

 

Mine guess is simple:  It plain old sucks, especially this part:

"In May, 112 metropolitan areas reported jobless rates of at least 10.0 percent, up from 6 areas a year earlier, while 97 areas posted rates below 7.0 percent, down from 333 areas in May 2008. El Centro, Calif., recorded the highest unemployment rate, 26.8 percent, fol- lowed by Yuma, Ariz., at 23.3 percent. Among the 15 areas with job- less rates of at least 15.0 percent, 7 were located in California, 3 were in Michigan, and 2 were in Indiana. Bismarck, N.D., registered the lowest jobless rate in May, 3.5 percent, followed by Iowa City, Iowa, 3.7 percent, and Ames, Iowa, 3.8 percent. Overall, 148 areas posted unemployment rates above the U.S. figure of 9.1 percent, 215 areas reported rates below it, and 9 areas had the same rate."

So now, back to the broader context of this morning's report. In advance of it, we saw that unemployment in the Euro zone has just hit a 10-year high this morning, so don't be surprised by today's data  from the Labor Department:

"Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in June (-467,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Job losses were widespread across the major industry sectors, with large declines occurring in manufacturing, professional and business services, and construction.

Unemployment (Household Survey Data)

The number of unemployed persons (14.7 million) and the unemployment rate (9.5 percent) were little changed in June. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has increas- ed by 7.2 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 4.6 percentage points. 

In June, unemployment rates for the major worker groups--adult men (10.0 percent), adult women (7.6 percent), teenagers (24.0 percent), whites (8.7 percent), blacks (14.7 percent), and Hispanics (12.2 per- cent)--showed little change. The unemployment rate for Asians was 8.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted. 

Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who com- pleted temporary jobs (9.6 million) was little changed in June after increasing by an average of 615,000 per month during the first 5 months of this year. 

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) increased by 433,000 over the month to 4.4 million. In June, 3 in 10 unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more."

You may wish to pinch yourself here, since there seems to be little connection between economic reality on Main Street and political expediency in Washington where most of the recent 'stimulus' spending won't even kick in for months.  But that's because the democons and the republicorps want to pull out all the stops to ensure that some air of optimism can be pumped & pimped just ahead of the 2010 CONgressional elections.  But I digress; back to the fine points of the unemployment report where my favorite pair of numbers must be considered.

 

The first is Table A-12 U-6, where in the "Alternative Measures of Labor Under-utilization" section we can see what the more 'real' unemployment number is - this is the PhD's flipping burgers and former IT Directors working as Census takers type people: That's pegged at 16.5%, up another tenth of a percent for the month.

 

The other part of this morning's Tall Tale that most people don't get to is the CES Birth/Death Model.  This number is where some statistical 'mighty tall' estimating goes on, trying to guesstimate how many jobs were created that government didn't actually count, but knew must be there by statistical inference. 

 

If you click over here (link) you'll see the job creation in June was 220,000 and we're led to believe that 77,000 of these jobs were created in leisure and hospitality.  If that doesn't have you chocking on your coffee, consider that since the first of the year the CES model says more than 110,000 jobs have been (statistically) created in construction.  Cool numbers, huh?  Net year to date job creation in the CES model is 338,000, but more like 694,000 created if you back out the January drop of 356,000 in the model.

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Mainstream economists (you know, the guys who have been so spectacularly wrong so far?) might correctly argue from their thought-constrained perspective that none of this really makes the case I've been arguing since 2000 - that America is really in a second economic Depression and whether we label it Depression 2.0, The Greater Depression, or something else that will emerge next year isn't the point.

 

What matters is that my view keeps being reinforced by inconvenient truth which continues to leak out and suggest that fleeing paper assets and buying tangibles hasn't been a bad strategy so far, and that further, when the next leg down for the economy becomes publicly visible late next month, it will again be too late to move assets around and batten down for the Bank and Trading holidays of the fall which keep popping up in the predictive linguistics work.

 

If there was one 'investment' I'd recommend to people of any income level right now, it would not be gold or silver (although you can imagine how they will do in the hyperinflation to come!).  It would simply be enough cash-on-hand to keep your household with basics like water & power, and lay in a six months supply of food, if you don't already operate the rolling-inventory supplies.

 

When oil gets up to the hundreds of dollars per barrel, the dollar has collapsed, goods from overseas have dried up, and troops back from 'the wars' will be protecting banks and supermarkets, a little hedging against that kind of world seems a reasonable 'insurance bet' particularly if you've studied the often recommended Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects by Dmitry Orlov, or more recently, Michael Panzner's When Giants Fall: An Economic Roadmap for the End of the American Era.

 

Granted, we may not go down either path, but given the likelihood of higher  taxes and government spending levels that will be 'required' to eventually pull the country out of its depreciated condition in a couple of years, buying creature comforts (like food) now and learning how to grow more, is the be-all, end-all of no brainers.

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My friend Robin Landry whose outlook I share with you now and then, and who is another student of longwave economics, often reminds me that "What flips a good-sized recession over into a full-on depression is drought.  Which brings me to an even more important 'big picture' story than even this morning's 'jobs report.'

 

I talked to some friends in agriculture around the country on Wednesday and several things popped out of the conversation as big Red Flags that we should all be building contingency plans around:

• Not only has Tulsa, Oklahoma has "June '09 Hottest Since 1990" but....

• "According to the National Weather Service Office in Tulsa, temperatures have not been this hot in June in Tulsa since 1936. Only the summer of 1980 was hotter than that year."

 

This has me thinking back to the Dust Bowl of the 1930's Depression:

The Dust Bowl or the Dirty Thirties was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936 (in some areas until 1940). The phenomenon was caused by severe drought coupled with decades of extensive farming without crop rotation or other techniques to prevent erosion.[1] Deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains had killed the natural grasses that normally kept the soil in place and trapped moisture even during periods of drought and high winds.

Something to watch, since the prairie grass - and pretty much everything else - is shriveling up in much of Texas and Oklahoma. 

 

On the other side of the weather, several community supported agriculture operations in the Northeast have been sending out notices that tomatoes and potatoes are at high risk from blight this year.  One headline "Blight outbreak threatens Jersey tomatoes"  is reinforced by another that "Late Blight - The Irish Potato Famine Fungus - Is Attacking Northeast Gardens And Farms Now."

 

Yet more reports that cause worry?  Wells drying up...or reports of flows dropping - are starting to pop up in netversations.  And parched south/west Texas, "More communities impost mandatory water use restrictions".

 

No doubt, the drought will be taken by global warming promoters as further 'evidence' that global warming is a peril to humanity (like politicians are not?) and they'll put on a fresh stampede to tax farm animals in the mistaken belief that taxing cow methane emissions to hire more government workers is somehow an answer.

 

The bottom line comes down to the obvious: America has gotten too big for its resources, along with the rest of the world, yet we're stuck in a death-dance of advertising inspired excessive consumption which is required to sustain a failing globalist business model.  But those who would point the obvious must be either silenced or marginalized.

 

And those of us who are - and have already undertaken the personal transition to a different kind of life are investing in a few sacks of grain, a few acres of land, a few rounds, and a few books; not to mention soar panels since "You'll pay more for Power, study stays."  Of gee, who would have thought?

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But don't let me get you down.  And try not to think through the implications of the White House 'pre-screening" questions for the Obama administration "Town Hall" meetings.  Ah, such choreography of the MSM...despite the efforts of a few to open questions up to more than whatever screeners pick.

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There's an important dynamic at work in America right now - and it deserves, I think, some careful consideration as you head off for your Long Weekend whatever...best explained by using an analogy from medicine.

 

We begin with a description of how "shock" works.  Medically speaking, it comes in four stages and we're going through the socioeconomic equivalent of it right now.

• INITIAL Stage of shock.  This is the part where the body (or in our analogy, the economy) discovers it has been mortally wounded and begins to react.  This was October 2008's first financial panic.

• COMPENSATORY Stage of shock:  This is the stage we're just coming to now.  The body (politic) has done what it can to keep the patient (country) alive and 'living.'

• DECOMPENSATING Stage of shock:  This is the part where the patient (public) and the body (politic) begins to sense that "oh-oh - this is not working..."  This is the part that starts up at the end of August and rolls through till year end and beyond...

• IRREVERSIBLE Stage of shock:  From Wikipedia: "At this stage, the vital organs have failed and the shock can no longer be reversed. Brain damage and cell death have occurred. Death will occur imminently."  Seems the Western profits before humans global paradigm will go down this road, too.

 

On this last point, seems we get to that part in 2010...but those details will be in next predictive linguistics run from www.halfpasthuman.com due out about July 20th, or so.

 

Meantime, Cliff and I are tentatively scheduled to be on CoastToCoastAM with George Noory the night of July 21/22 to talk about the road ahead.

 

Just guessing here, but we probably will have plenty to talk about.

 

Wars and Rumors

"Report: North Korea test fires two missiles" says a CNN blurb. US Marines deploying to Afsmackistan.  (

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Got a better name for the world's biggest heroin producer? Maybe Afgassistan for those pipeline routes?

 

Under Pressure

Find myself humming the David Bowie tune to this development:  The Obama administration is trying to pressure the new government in Honduras to bring back their old presidente.  Which Honduras so far has declined.  So next the "US suspends military relations with Honduras."

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As I've been saying: No oil, no poppy fields, and only bananas and coffee?  War down there doesn't pencil out, especially since the US travel budget is being eaten alive my CONgresspersons who are gallivanting around at 10 times former rates.  Power from the People!  That's right...not to the people anymore....

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Wonder how many of those congressional overseas trips were a cover for safe haven offshore bug out locations to insulate them  from the socioeconomic turmoil ahead...oh, let's not go there, shall we?

 

--- snip and save section ---

 

Coping: What's Write, Doc?

Reader sent in this:

"George,

You've danced around this and mentioned it for the past couple of days, but the solution is still sort of dangling out there. Might I ever so humbly request we come to closure on this Vaccination thing and put ourselves collectively in the best position we can?

What we need is a sample template for our doctor to sign with the most bullet proof wording possible saying that we cannot take any type of vaccine or flu shot. Certainly there might be a couple of medical and/or legal wizards in the group that can offer up a suggestion or two on the wording?

To open the discussion, I got a letter a couple of weeks ago signed by my doc that says:

"Mr Tin Foil is a patient of mine at the UFO Clinic in Roswell, New Mexico. He suffers from a compromised immune system and is unable to take any kind of vaccine therapy.

Feel free to contact me with any questions about Mr Tin Foil's treatment.

Signed Dr Zeta Reticula UFO Clinic, Roswell NM"

Perhaps the qualified and knowledgeable medical/legal wizards in the community can do a better job of wordsmithing, and make sure we have a statement with all the buzzwords and medical jargon necessary to send the ever so dedicated Gub'ment bureaucrat running for cover?

From reading your previous posts in the past two days, it seems like there should be something specific in the letter relating to a previous reaction to a vaccine, or a reaction to eggs, or a reaction that caused Guillian-Barré syndrome (GBS), etc.

I would sleep easier if we did a bit of collaboration on this and came up with a well worded letter template. There are several dozen insomniacs in my neck of the woods that eagerly await the results too. I even have Dr Zeta Reticula standing by with the anti-gravity pen, ready to sign!

Thanks,

Hmmm... good point.  My doc's note says:

"Our Patient, Mr. George Ure, is extremely allergic to many of the common components found in vaccines and is at serious risk for an anaphylactic reaction if exposed to them.  He should avoid all vaccines as they are life-threatening to him. Thank you for your attention to this important matter."

So there are two ideas you may wish to consider.  But the reader's right - what would be the 'right' words?  Submissions are welcome.

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Of course all this mandatory vaccination stuff has caused me to open a larger "sticking it to us" file...and say, here's a good email about one fellow's experiences up in the Pacific Northwest:

"When my son was less than 2 he had a seizure that lasted for 30 minutes and was hospitalized for 5 days with a fever as high as 106. They could not (would not) tell me what it was. Then I remembered he had a vaccination a day or two before. After he got out of hospital they wanted us to give him phenol barbital everyday until he was six in case of more seizures. I didn't want to but the wife was scared. After two days he woke up screaming with red welts all over his body. The end of their attempt to make a toddler a drug addict. After that I refused all vaccines for him and his younger sister. Every year before school enrollment they would send notice saying vaccines were required and they did not have them and could not attend if they didn't get them. I replied fine, then they won't attend. They always let them in anyway. This was Seattle public schools. My son never had another seizure or any of the diseases the vaccines were to prevent. He is 25 now and quite healthy and rarely gets sick with anything."

All of which gets me around to this note from a pharmacist who wanders by here now and then...

"Hi George--

I'm a pharmacist by trade, and very interested in prevention of illness--

It is likely that just taking Vitamin D3 supplements when Flu arrives in your area could be enough to prevent catching the flu!

I highly recommend reading the entire fascinating discussion at the Flu Trackers website.

You may want to recommend that your readership stock up on Vitamin D3 (not D2) prior to this Fall.

---

Vitamin D appears to be essential to build one's natural immunity (cytokine immunity), that _prevents_ us from getting sick. This is why, for example, most 'common colds' are caught in winter; No sunlight--> No Vitamin D--> Low immunity--> more viral infections.

Here's another link to document what I am saying (see paragraph 6 in the link);

Personally, I take two 2000-unit Vitamin D3's (4000 units) per day for 5 days when I feel a cold coming on. It seems to prevent illness. I took one 2000-unit Vitamin D3 per day from about October to March, and had no illness, despite many of my co-workers coming to work with colds and other illness. People with heart or liver disease should talk with their physicians before taking high doses daily for months, but the 5-day course should be safe for most of us.

Constant use at that level during the sunny season may not be a good idea, especially since the skin makes its own Vitamin D with sun exposure (ie., Summer). Too much Vitamin D3 for a very long time can lead to heart or liver toxicity, though its not often seen (not as often as that caused by alcohol!)

Again, I strongly recommend to you and all readers to stock some Vitamin D3 before this Fall. If Flu comes to your town, start taking 1000 to 2000 units of D3 a day (If you have heart or liver trouble, consult your Dr first). Let me know if you want more information on this topic (or anything else related to medication issues).

--name withheld  RPh, CGP (*Certified Geriatric Pharmacist)

Yup, got our 1,000 IU bottles of D3 ready and a take a little sun every day - easy enough to do in near drought conditions.

 

Ure Who?

Another interesting email:

"Hi George, I`m from Ausie and enjoy your humorous slant on the current horror show playing at places all over. I do a little trading 'futures" have we got one, and I`m a sailor something in common. I have a great book on Ocean Navigation by a Charles Ure wonder if he may be related to you somehow he was the first Ausie to solo the Tasman [au to nz] round these parts, an army surveyor, very good sailor and exceptional navigator-educator. He was living at Mooloolaba Sunshine Coast Queensland, Maybe the Ure`s have a little salt in their veins."

Yep.  The Ure family was rumored at one point to be a sort of Scottish equivalent to the Don Corleone's of Sicily, if you follow my drift.  Penchant for Scotch and running guns in the lowland, stories have it.  And, since there weren't enough jobs in UK government to be had, a fair number were simply exported to Oz as criminals, while others went voluntarily.

 

A few ended up in the Dakotas and from there a branch moved to the PNW, while another 'division' headed to Utah and from there down to Phoenix. 

 

Most families have pretty interesting backgrounds when you get into some basic genealogy study - a worthwhile pursuit and it actually has helped me understand my kid's behavior better, LOL. I figure at least some human behaviors are hard-coded in our DNA firmware.

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I'd love to read Charles' sailing exploits - will go snoop around Amazon for it - thanks.

 

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Send comments to george@ure.net

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The UrbanSurvival Mall:

Have a blindfold and cigarette handy? The next year or so will see lots of people and entities being 'marched to the wall'. (Thanks; gotta light?).  Our biggest problem is who to march out first, but that easily solved thanks to a source of mine that keeps track of the Gnomes of Greenwich who have California lined up to march out next.  California defaults, the Gnomes make billions, and guess who is left behind to mourn?  Then shortly thereafter will come 'small investors' who can see the wall, but can't break out of the lock-step march towards it, either...  Ten-hut!  Forward march!

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MyGroPonics

My commodity broker JB Slear has nailed a great solution for people who living in apartments and condos who want to become at least partially self-reliant when it comes to raising food:  An ultra-high efficiency micro-hydroponics system using readily available local parts. 25-pages and plenty of pictures to turn you into a farmer no matter where you live (Great if you have back problems, too...)...or if you just want to fill up the back yard with MyGroPonics trees and feed the neighborhood... $10 bucks here...

 

       

 

Maxa-Cookie Manager

Maxa-Tools has provided us with a free demo - which you're welcome to try - of their dandy cookie manager tool that I use here on all my computers.  It shows both the browser-specific and the newer browser-independent cookies.  Quite happy with it.

 

Here's the download link for the free demo:

 

www.urbansurvival.com/setupMCMstdGU.exe

 

Once you try it out, click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those pesky 'non-browser specific' cookies.  Bonus:  You computer may run faster.  I took over 1,000 cookies off my son's machine that he swore was clean.  It ran much faster.

 

Attn: Mac Drivers:  MCM does support the Safari Browser, but that does not mean it is compatible with Mac OS. Maxa-Tools only support the Windows world.

 

Help US Go Viral

UrbanSurvival has a dandy growth rate, but sadly, it's nothing like swine (hybrid) flu's growth rate.  However, if you'd like to sicken the PowersThatBe, just click here for a tool that may help.  (It'll pop up an email window if you use Outlook (or a few other email programs) then simply send a link to everyone on your distro list...

 

"Live on $10,000" Updated

What?  You haven't ordered the ebook "How to Live on $10,000 a year -- or less"?  Suit yourself.  We're all going to live it shortly, anyway.  I just thought you might like a heads up by reading about how to do it before you get pink-slipped.  But, suit yourself OR visit www.liveontenthousand.com or, click one of the following button:

 

 

 

Yep - still possible.  I also took a bit of additional material that was pertinent from recent issues of Peoplenomics and included them.  The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the aforementioned dollar amount, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you make a little more than that and do some active savings...  Click here for the page with more details on it.

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 Last week's report is here.    For back issues of this site, click here.  (Goes back to 1997!)

 

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Wednesday July 1, 2009

Home - Not So Sweet - Home

A reality check about the economy seems in order here.  The headline that "Home prices post 18.1 percent annual drop in April" got me to looking at the S&P/Case-Shiller Report (you'll need Excel to get at this) in a little more depth.

 

A couple of really happy places pop out of their data.  Seems that in Denver, house prices are down only 4.92%, Dallas is down only 4.98% and Boston's only down 7.71%.

 

But the screaming (don't jump out the window here) places include drops of  35.26% in Phoenix, 32.18% in Las Vegas, 27.27% in the Miami area, while what's left of Motown was down another 25.43%.

 

Sometimes I curse Excel for making bad news reporting so easy.  Sorry 'bout that. But it gets even worse.

 

The data in their spreadsheet goes back a fair distance and looks to have peaked in July 2006 (cell W238 if you're following along here).

 

Since then the biggest losers have been Phoenix where homes are have lost 54% of their value, down 52.1% in Vegas, Miami homes are down more than 47% while Motown's down only 43.2.

Searching for Nirvana?  Try Dallas down only 9% from the peak.  I'd give you Houston, too, but it's not in the sample.  Nationally, though, down 32.5% since the peak.

 

Next time you hear someone tell you that a home is the 'best investment you'll ever make' - kick 'em or at least point them in the direction of the good work of S&P/Case-Schiller for putting the numbers together.  They're a whole helluva lot more believable than numbers out of 'gummint' lately.

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Construction spending figures are due out this morning. About 47-cents if my calculations are right.

 

Not to Be a Bear, But...

(Damn fine pun, that, huh? Or are you still asleep....)

 

A buddy who's a serious trader in EU Land caught this in the latest from Comstock Partners: "From this point we will see either continued recession or a recovery so weak it will still seem like recession."

 

How about that?  Someone besides yours truly is skeptical.  They have a solid take on things here and it's updated on Thursdays.  Try to overlook that more and more places are sounding Urban-like in their open skepticism of 'the paradigm'. 

 

Although it's a bit rickety, our time machine does allow us to groc the future now and then better'n most.

 

Markets

The market (as I expected) began the week higher, then turned lower yesterday mostly on that bummer of a consumer confidence report.

 

If you understand fractals here, let me point out out what's going on:

 

The decline from October of 2007 until March of this year was one leg down, and we are in two up, and then we get into three down shortly this fall till next spring then a bounce a bit at some point in 2010.

 

The market this week from the Monday high to the Tuesday low was also a downer, then a bounce should pop this morning, then another down when numbers hit tomorrow and then maybe up next week.

 

Now THE BIG SECRET.  The market is inscribing a whole sequence of what I call "Memorial W's"  Got it?  You remember "W" right?

 

Now We Can Leave Department

"Iraq approves BP oil deal, rejects other bids."   Of course, we all know this war was never about oil and the temporal association between oil deals and withdrawals of forces from cities is purely coincidental - you do understand that, right? 

 

Here's another glass of fluoride-laced water and some Prozac.  No connection at all, right?

 

More water and drugs?  Speaking of water....

 

MSM's (Mis)Adventures on the High Seas

Answer me this: How is it that the MainStreamMedia can report every course change of a North Korean 'suspect vessel' yet the stories about how Israel's naval blockade of Gazan's food aid gets about zip in the way of coverage by the MSM?  Agendas, agendas....tisk, tisk.    Paul Craig Roberts' article "Pirates of the Mediterranean" seems to be on point though...

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BTW: We're still on for Israel bombing Iran in late October, though, right?

 

Why I don't Write Comedy

Headlines like "Jackson body going to Neverland" has me itching to write "It'll meet the economy, which left for Neverland a couple of years ago when the Bushies were still in office..."  But I won't, since it wouldn't be tasteful and I have to look at the Man in the Mirror...

 

Reason #2

"What to do with out wayward Governor" on the SC Now web site about the recent adventures of the miss(tress)ing guv has me wondering if the waterworks machines that put fluoride in SC's water could maybe be converted to inject something more useful...like an anaphrodisiac?  If you missed Organic Chemistry, that's the opposite of an aphrodisiac.  (I remember Anna...just said No!) [rimshot and groans from the audience]

 

Reason #3

With Al Franken now officially the Senator for Minnesota, I wonder if the other guy will have to hand over back pay or something?  File under Franken'sTime politics.