Month: November 2014

Millions of people (including us) did online shopping on Turkey Day rather than wait for the click festival and parking brawls of Black Friday.  The rest of our holiday giving will be made as wire transfers and checks.

When I write that, it sounds like a big deal, but the average transfer size is $100 with a larger check to the local food bank.

There are no numbers to speak of yet – the real deal on that will come out next week, and this morning the market is worried about whether protests over Ferguson will continue or spread.  Fear is about, so look for the online e-tailers to make out like bandits.

As we have opined previously, much of Ferguson has nothing to do with “justice for Brown” so much as it’s a chance for would-be revolutionaries to try out their street corner organizing skills, something America has about had it up to here with. 

As an Associated Press story reveals, Brown’s hands were not up, at least above shoulder height.  But unlike some of the protesters, they actually took the time to read the facts.

I’ve even had my liberal friends calling me to argue that it’s too easy for police to justify shooting of a civilian in Missouri.  That may be, and in which case it’s time for their legislature to address the problem, no doubt.  But underlying it is the matter of “rule of law” and is America going to be intimidated by latter day lynch mobs. 

If it wasn’t Brown’s death, it would have been something else.  There is a class of people in ‘Merica who are spoiling for a fight over just about anything.  So they will line up for the free lunch.

Yet the terrible truth is, suggested one reader, that if we pulled out the police and fire services that put their lives on the line in Ferguson (and elsewhere) and just left the community to show us how enlightened they are, many more square blocks would have been burned to the ground.

Another reader asked:

“Why do these people insist on burning down their own neighborhoods.  Can you please answer that?”

The answer is simple, I wrote back,”Because when they do, we build them new ones.’ 

It’s part of America’s Do-Over industry.  You have to understand how dissention and war is an industry.  In order to keep a country motivated, you need periodic wars to build a national mindset.  Adolph Hitler made this point in his second book – the one following Mein Kampf – the one that no one but me seems to have read.

It works at all kinds of levels, too:  We could have left Japan in ruins to fend for themselves after WW II, or the whole of Europe, too.  But we didn’t and the reason is part altruistic and part blood and guts finance.  The bloody hands of finance are simple enough:  It’s a chance for Americans to get a better style of life while “committing rebuilding.”  Thank you Sony, Honda, Toyota, and Nissan.  And Kubota.

To be sure, I might be accused of racism for having a decent memory, but when I use the term “revolutionaries” to describe the outside agitators who have gone to Ferguson (and elsewhere) to incite, there is ample support in the literature to back up my contention.

For example, in a forward-looking paper in 1996, a scholar in the Foreign Military Studies group of the US Army made some very good observations:

Many misunderstood the LA Riot of 1992 as predominantly a race riot. As witnessed by the California National Guard Field Commander, the riots were seen as a case study in urban warfare.¹⁰ The Guard’s counter-riot operations tell of the increasingly dangerous nature of military and police operations in the urban environment.

Black gangs (Bloods and Crips) met a few days before the riots to establish a truce so that they could devote their efforts toward killing Los Angeles police. The riots allowed them to assert their influence on the streets.¹¹ Later (on about 7 or 8 May, during the transition to normalcy), the organized gangs circulated a document calling for $3.726 billion to be spent on a Bloods/Crips law enforcement program, an educational program, a Los Angeles urban renewal program, and a human welfare program. The gangs suggested that Drug Lords would reinvest their funds in the city, and they would provide matching funds for AIDS research and awareness. “Meet these demands and the targeting of police officers will stop,” the gangs advised. By no means were the LA rioters all from black Bloods and Crips gangs. Over half of those arrested during the riots were Hispanics, and over a thousand of those were illegal immigrants, attesting to the inter-ethnic dynamic of the riot.¹²

The paper “Combat in Cities: The LA Riots and Operation Rio” is still available online, here, and is worth a read.

When I contend that the aftermath of Ferguson is one part local rage and five parts revolutionaries trying to get a foothold, the only item up for discussion is whether the FergRevs get traction.

If you wanted to toss in one or two parts white guilt, that’d be fine, too.  But to attempt to derail (ironically timed) Black Friday shopping, as this report suggests, may be yet-another desperation move by the would-be revolutionaries in an attempt to make Brown more than what it is:  A tragedy in Ferguson, MO.

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While this will be a fairly short column this morning, there are a number of important items that come up for discussion that warrant your attention.  We’ll get to the high-holy uses of leftover turkey in a moment.

On the more important list is doing a half-dozen Amygdala clicks first.

“What?”

Oh, yeah.  Maybe I don’t mention it often enough, but if you want to really be a Superman (or Superwoman) (or a Super-Can’t-Quite-Be-Sure What which is now fashionable) there are about a half-dozen ways to turn-on your brain, connect higher and lower selves and toss off the chains of turkey lethargy.

One fine book on the topic of Amygdala clicking is Neil Slade’s Tickle Your Amygdala which runs about $20-bucks on Amazon, although you can find lessons and discussions of it on YouTube over here.

On Slade’s website over here, you can find additional how-to information.  But if you wonder how I can get up at 0-dark-thirty every morning and be in a great (not to mention productive) mood, here it is.

The set up for all this is that you need to have decent nutrition and a good deal of sleep in order to be well-rested and ready to “turn on your brain.” 

OK, the second part is your vitamin regimen.  While I take (and have tried) literally dozens of vitamins as part of con centration experiments, the one vitamin taken twice a day is something called  NOW Foods Adam Superior Men’s Multi, 90 Softgels while Elaine takes  Now Foods Eve, Women’s Multi Vitamin, Softgels, 180-Count.

On either one of these, two per day will get you just about all the nutrition you need, although for us, additional vitamins for eyes, blueberry extract for its anti-aging properties and other things we can go into some other time, are good reinforcers. . 

Last, but not least, is my favorite brain-charger:  Huperzine –A gives you almost Adderall powers of concentration and recall.   And example ($17 bucks worth of example) is Source Naturals Huperzine A, 200mcg, 120 Tablets.

Don’t mean to start off on a health kick the day after turkey, but this and a couple of cups of half-caf and you should be well on your way to taking over the world.

Send us a small province when you get done.

Seriously:  Slade, some good vitamins, and some practice.  That could be all that stands in your way to greatness so I highly recommend it, all ages, all IQs. PG-13, and member FDIC.

(Re)Ode to 13 Coins:  The SST Sandwich

Now we get around to the truly important part of this morning’s  report, although giving “smart for Christmas”: isn’t a bad thing.  Most people are already over-stocked on stupid…

What follows is the one best way to use up whatever is left in the way of turkey, based on a “sandwich” which used to be served by 13 Coins, a 24-hour restaurant in Seattle, catawampus  from the Seattle Times building, which serves as a kind of mecca for the broadcasters, writers, and theatrical types who made Seattle a happin’ place in the 1970’s and 80’s.  Still is, come to think of it.

‘Coins is still one of the top 5 late night food joints in the country and with good reason:  If you sit at the counter, you can watch the flaming cooking of your meal on the big gas stoves (and gas fired broiler ) of the sort most people can only dream of having at home.

It was here that the SST Sandwich was developed – at about the same time Boeing was building a mock-up of what might have been an American supersonic transport to complete with the Concorde. I always wondered if the selection of turkey as its main ingredient was so much a matter of taste or an aeronautical or economic assessment…

By far, the SST is the best use of turkey I’ve ever seen – and to my palate it is almost as good as fresh roasted turkey with all the fixin’s.  Maybe better, too, since if you can find precooked turkey in a deli, there’s little kitchen mess. Anyone can make good food in an unlimited kitchen with clean up staff.  When it’s me and/or Elaine and KitchenAid, it’s a different equation.

The inventor of the SST used a Béchamel sauce (white sauce) but for those of us who scored above average in the laziness department, I find a can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup works almost as well as is a lazy-man’s substitute.

Also, in the original SST, if memory serves, the toast points had the crust cut off, but again, this seemed like an awful amount additional work that could be dispensed with.  I mention this to make sure you get the flavor of the original dish.

Buttering the toast points?  That’s up to you and your cardiologist.

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Call me a damn fool (the line usually goes around the block) but this morning I got up early and started working on my 2014 taxes.  One reason?  I’m one of those people banks must hate because I still get paper monthly statements and cancelled checks.

Since a reader sent me a note, I thought I’d explain a bit.  But first the note:

“ummmm…..and how much time did you waste writing that e-mail to the bank?  ….and how much time did all of us waste reading it? …and why are you still writing CHECKS?!!???!!???

I haven’t written a check since I moved to the PRC 5 years ago………..I don’t even know anyone who uses them over here.

Regards,

Expatriated

I trust computers, the internet and the Russians and/or the Chinese not to preemptively strike us with cyber attacks or EMP, about as far as I can throw them.  It’s hackers galore out there.

And, when comes to the Sand People who are trying to hack American interests in case they can’t find a head to slice off, it ain’t politically correct, but I don’t trust them, either.

Since  I don’t trust people, I don’t trust banks. Haven’t since the 2007-2009 collapse.

So hell yes, I write checks.

In courts of law, there are still people who remember about “wet signatures” and other niceties of law and custom.  I NEVER want to be in a position to where someone could accuse me of Photoshopping a phony check.  And I never can be:  I have my original check, the banks real stampy stuff on the back of it, and I meticulously write what the check is for.

To be sure, there’s been this simmering deal about whether real estate transactions recorded electronically are valid.  Seems, so, but depends where, who, which judge, and all that.  Electronics, like people can be fooled and we all remember MERS.

First thing this morning (after shower and coffee) will be a run to town to take care of the annual property taxes,  It will all be paid for on one check, but the parcel ID’s are noted on the check and along with a copy of the payment receipt, the whole thing being scanned, I’ve got a solid “evidence trail” that the money has been paid as due.

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Black Friday Deal announcements are flying thicker than the snow in Buffalo, this week.  I’d remind you that it used to mean something else, no, not Bellevue Fire Department.

Already, investors can hear the tiny hooves beating on the roof…a cute acoustical trick on a glass-topped high-rise.

And St. Nick?  Jolly as ever with his “Ho, ho, ho, Happy Earnings Amass!”

This morning, I’ve got an early Christmas to get you in the mood:  Music for the News this fine frosty start to a 3.5 day workweek, which is really what we oughta  have year-round.

In keeping with the mood of the season, we have asked our musical librarian to join us this morning (who looks sort of like Elaine, but with go-go boots at this ungodly hour on a Monday?) and pull some tunes to accompany this morning’s servings of depressing SameOMeal for breakfast.

Ready to dig in, then?

Iran Talks Fail

Ah, but George Claus pulls this oldie out of the bag to summarize John Q. Public’s take on the Iran talks in general.  Click here and Dancer will play it for you…

Naturally, the talks yielding bupkis leads Israel to threaten to attack Iran and then them a thing about glass-making.  Dancer, cue up a fitting musical ditty…ah here we go…

Economic Prospects

Tomorrow, the Case Shiller/S&P/Dow Jones, and a parade of other PR departments will be out with the monthly housing report.  Dancer suggests a House is not a Home.  (Dancer’s been into the eggnog a bit earlier than usual this year.  Still, there’s a reindeer shortage because we haven’t opened the Canadian border fearing fallout from the Antlerslan movement.

Futures are up just a tad and Dancer offers this Beatles tune as consolation for the dyed-in-the-fur bears.

On a more serious note, the EU will be looking at data this week showing what Santa-George has been telling you:  No real growth since 2009.

Dancer figures this is why ECB boss Mario has been singing Spinal Tap.

Speaking of Tunes

Mr.

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In one of the great twists of history (or irony), we arrive this week at the peculiar time of year when a religion founded on a savior gets geared us to be a savior of a different sort:  Saving the Economy.

For those who don’t know it, the reason Black Friday is called what it is because of the old financial term “In the Black.”   As opposed to “In the red.”

Many consumer products companies operate “In the Red: (losing money) until this time of year.  In shopping mall leases, for example, it’s not uncommon to have one rental rate for other parts of the year and a differential, higher rate for November and December.  In some leases, there’s even some juice for the mall owners – a bonus if sales hit some threshold, which is why you might here shopping center ads starting any old day, now, if they haven’t already.

The whole point of such ads is to get you down to the shopping center, where presumably you’ll wade through horrific traffic (things like flaring tempers over a primo parking slot are not uncommon) in order to pull out the credit card and load up on useless crap.

Not everything is useless: New phones and lingerie are two that come to mind.

Christmas season shopping is something we don’t do much of around here, anymore.  Somewhere out in the storage room we’ve got a lighted 12”-high ceramic tree that will suffice if we’re not too lazy to dig it out.  Seemed like too much work last year.

As for the Big Gifts?  Waiting for Christmas is for kids.  There’s no point waiting when a click can produce most goods in two days and time you can really afford it.  Most families we know don’t have any more money at this time of the year, so other than entertaining the kids, the big presents for mom or dad are more likely around landmark birthdays.

What’s more, although there has been a pretty good attack on Christianity all ‘round, with many crusaders forgetting that things like the Pledge of Allegiance remind us to be “One Nation, under God…”  the blowback is this:  If you attack Christmas, you also attack revenue.  Ooops~

With a GDP coming in around $17.5 trillion for the year, against accumulated public debt of $17.966 trillion means we are about 2.4% bankrupt as a country.  We haven’t learned a damn thing from the Housing Bubble collapse, so it will happen again…Not much reason for a merry anything, if you ask me.

A little resurgence of Believers at the checkout stands, buying big ticket items, could certainly help matters.  But with holiday-specific decorations banned many locales, nativity scenes cast as inappropriate for public places, and too many Christmas lights an affront to the conservationists, who’s in the mood to spend?  God help you if you have a liberal HOA that tells you what you can do with your own property this time of year.

Around here, we’re not planning to buy a single thing this year for one another.  $100 checks for each of the kids, a bigger one for the local Food Bank, but the real things of value we already have:  Each other, health, and no mortgage.  Gifts that keep on giving.

Tomorrow, I’ll go down to the county office complex in town with a check for another year’s worth of property taxes.  That’ll end our spending for the year, except for food and unless the car conks out.

The whole point of most religions was summed up in that great line from the movie “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure”  “Be Excellent to One Another.”

It’s the one gift that can’t be handed down by government decree, won’t show up on Amazon or  at the mall.   It can’t be wrapped, nor is it particularly durable as divorce rates show.  It’s something that can be hoarded, saved up, put away, or resold.  Yet as those wiser than me have said, if you have all that click and mall stuff and you don’t have this, you ain’t got squat.

If you do have this one precious thing, none of the other stuff much matters, as it pales in comparison on any sane value scale.

The great conundrum of ‘Merica gets worse every year.  The sales hype becomes ever-more shrill as millions get twisted up into forgetting that “excellence to one another” is the point.  It’s the point in public, in government, and in private behind closed doors.

It may be what Common Core intends, but excellence to one another must be modeled, not storyfied.  Ruin enough families and there goes the modeled behavior part, eh?

This weekend, we talked about something I call the “Invention Horizon.”  It has application during the Christmas season. 

While each religion markets (often in exclusionary ways), underneath it all is this “excellence” gem…that’s the concept worth holding onto and sharing.

And if – as the anti-religionists demand – we do minimize the trees and wreaths and such, are we not fools for throwing the Baby out with the credit card receipts?

Seems to me that if we’re ever to advance off this lousy rock, we need to step back for a moment and embrace best of class human values and begin to generalize Christmas carols into what we might label People Carols…songs about the core values that transcend cultures.  *(I’d nominate this song from Bill & Ted’s as an example.)

Unfortunately, we aren’t yet able to cross that divide, except when it comes to a few bits of lyric in pop songs…but maybe that’s enough.  Well, at least it’s a start anyway.

As for Christmas saving the economy?  Yeah, might happen once again.

Ask me on December 6th.  That’s because there’s been a big increase in dream content over at the National Dream Center site that seems to be referencing of “employment” and the next employment report is due December 5th..  A week from Black Friday.

Three plus weeks of lead time on a news story?  Yeah, what a hoot, but remember there was about that much time on the last “biggie” like this – the Dallas/Houston worries that preceded the Ebola panic in what’s feeling like the same way.

But don’t mind the introspective Monday around here.  Just jump in the Cars and spend like there’s no tomorrow because, guess what happens on this track?

Just in is a press release come in from the Gallup Poll folks:

Gallup’s November measure of the total amount Americans expect to spend on Christmas gifts suggests U.S. retail spending this holiday season will increase by roughly 3%, better than last year but still below pre-recession levels.

Take it as you will.

Banks Have Got to be Kidding

Had a note pop up in the inbox from my Big National Bank we do business with. All because last week  I called their automated service (which was screwed up) so I ended up talking with a human.  Simple check order.

That should have been the end of the story. 

But then four days later this weekend up pops:

Tell Us What You Think   – Your Call on November 17

I politely told them:

Dear Big Bank:

Please note that I called and ordered checks on Nov. 17 (arrived before your email, by the way).  Then on Nov. 21 you ask me about my phone call experience.  I got to the email on the 22nd as you work for me, I don’t work for you.

Let me see:  The events took 10-minutes instead of 2.  Wasted 8 minutes of my time.  At my age, 8 minutes is a big deal. 

Since my time is worth $100 and hour (a bit overpriced, but what isn’t these days?) you wasted $13.33 of my time. 

We’ve had this time-wasting discussion before so I won’t hold my breath waiting for the compensatory deposit.

Let me get to the point, however:  I am 65.9 years old.  This means I have been around for how long? 24,053 days roughly.

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You may get sick of me talking about government’s “creative accounting” but here we go again.

With president Obama’s new amnesty plans out last night, we have to wonder how quickly these folks who are in the US illegally, but not now being deported, will show up in unemployment figures?

It’s not a pointless question because 4.5 million people will have to show up somewhere…or not.  Perhaps a good sleuthing reporter (like John Crudele at the NY Post) could find the answer.

So what will five million additional workers look like when tossed into the jobs hopper?  I suspect it will improve the unemployment rate, but that’s just a guess. We hear that 8.1 million are already in the workforce and unemployment data, so who knows?  Mexicans in the US is dropping while OTMs continue to climb. 

Questions about “how the numbers work” are fairly straightforward with publicly traded companies.  I found Disney’s 10-K report an interesting read this week, for example.

When you’re dealing with government, though, it’s a more difficult problem. Take the little matter of how many people have signed up for Affordable Care Act coverage.

The original story (thus, the one most people will remember) is that 7-million had signed up by August, or so.  But, it turns out, 380,000 signups were for dental plans, so the real ACA number was smaller and did not hit government goals.

While the republicats and democans battle out another point of minutia, what we have is a larger problem of lack of government candor.

And even width the election behind us, that’s a problem that’s not going away.

If you were facing an airline flight on a plane with the same kind of safety record as the government (both parties) have, I’m sure you’d walk, drive, or take a train.  And I’d be right there with you.

Executive Amnesty

Oh, sure, it still ignores the law, but it could have been worse.  Besides, when comes down to it, doesn’t a president have the ability to grant pardon’s?  Just think of it as 4.5 million of them all at once.

As the WaPo reported this morning, last night was a mix of celebration and disappointment.  And, oddly, I’d offer that this is what America really has become, thanks largely to the folks in Washington:  A “mix of celebration and disappointment” but shading more to the disappointment side here lately.

Wall St.

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I was sort of surprised this morning when the USA Today folks did a piece on the disproportionate number of blacks arrested by police in the US, especially when the article didn’t get into the more important number: Conviction rates.

Don’t get me wrong, the USA Today story that can be found online over here makes some fine points.

And yes, blacks really are arrested more frequently.  But that’s could change due to illegal immigration being made suddenly legal.

Quite telling on the conviction rates point is this Wikipedia snip:

Various studies have shown that, in recent decades, there has been no noticeable disparity in black vs white conviction likelihood for those accused in black-run vs white-controlled cities, say Atlanta vs San Diego. In the largest counties, the rates of prosecution for accused blacks was slightly less than the prosecution rates for whites, for example. “…the only hint of racial disparity was to the advantage, not disadvantage, of blacks accused of crimes.”

There may some disparity in the arrest rate, but I suspect that if the arrest rates were really different than the actual perp rate (which is not measurable) that conviction rates would be different.  They are not.

Which gets me to the first ponder of the morning in the area of Peoplenomics:  Do cops tend to “go fishing” where they catch the most fish? D’oh…

I hold that Americans are a lot less biased that guilt-peddlers would like to admit.  I would also suggest that when black “leaders” like Bill Cosby are getting hounded on date-rape accusations and where black urban music features lyrics about “popping a cap in yo ass” every drug ref in the PDR and such, that the drug underculture and “do overs”  conspire against black culture.  It’s been largely destroyed by well-intended welfare overseers who drove black male heads of households from homes with the inevitable outcome from parentless upbringings.  What the hell did the nation expect?

More trouble.

Do you think I’ll give reporting like this arrests story, which seems incomplete and polarizing in what could be two of the toughest days in America’s history of trying to get race relations right a “gold star”?

Think again.  I’m not that guy.  But it likely will sell newspapers.

While we await Ferguson  and Executive Amnesty, seems to me we ought to look to the sources of the real problem – which is all that money spent on social programs since the Great Society has not significantly changed poverty in America or the injustice that breeds what?

More after this…

Consumer Prices

Say hello, again, to deflation…

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) was unchanged in October on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 1.7 percent before seasonal adjustment. Gasoline and other energy indexes declined, offsetting increases in shelter and an array of other indexes to leave the seasonally adjusted all items index unchanged.

The gasoline index fell for the fourth month in a row, declining 3.0 percent, and the indexes for natural gas and fuel oil also decreased. The food index rose slightly in October, with major grocery store food groups mixed. The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.2 percent in October.

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