The Date-less Fed, Brain-Dead Country

If you’re wondering why the market blew through 75-points yesterday, you don’t have but one click to go to find the answer:  The Fed Rate decision which can be read (if you’re a little too amped for your own good) over here.  The highlighted parts below tell it all:

The Committee is maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities and of rolling over maturing Treasury securities at auction. This policy, by keeping the Committee’s holdings of longer-term securities at sizable levels, should help maintain accommodative financial conditions.

When the Committee decides to begin to remove policy accommodation, it will take a balanced approach consistent with its longer-run goals of maximum employment and inflation of 2 percent. The Committee currently anticipates that, even after employment and inflation are near mandate-consistent levels, economic conditions may, for some time, warrant keeping the target federal funds rate below levels the Committee views as normal in the longer run.

Don’t look now, but that’s FedSpeak (depending on how well you did in our “Read Between the Lines Class”) for “No rate hike in sight, deflation has scared the hell out of us.”

It’s just they can’t say that. 

So instead they mumble, use high falutin wordsmithing and don’t have a clue.  Except, the now linked central bank backrooms have it all wired, of course…

It may take a while to get organized, but “Sell in May and Go Away” is just a day away and there’s a fair chance that by June, the 10 year will be lower, the Dow will be lower, we will finally get our goal line stand at S&P 2,040, and gold should be back down to $1,150.

That is, if there isn’t something else coming in the way of a major distraction to keep the economic picture from being front and center.

A couple of press releases to chew on this morning:  Bureau of Economic Fairytales first:

“Personal income increased $6.2 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $1.6 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, in March, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $53.4 billion, or 0.4 percent. In February, personal income increased $66.4 billion, or 0.4 percent, DPI increased $61.2 billion, or 0.5 percent, and PCE increased $20.8 billion, or 0.2 percent, based on revised estimates.

(blah, blah, blah till we get to the punch line…)

Personal saving — DPI less personal outlays — was $702.6 billion in March, compared with $758.6 billion in February. The personal saving rate — personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income — was 5.3 percent in March, compared with 5.7 percent in February.

And I’m the Pope.  Next?…La Bore Department…

“Compensation costs for civilian workers increased 0.7 percent, seasonally adjusted, for the 3-month period ending March 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Wages and salaries (which make up about 70 percent of compensation costs) increased 0.7 percent, and benefits (which make up the remaining 30 percent of compensation) increased 0.6 percent.

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Coping: Dreams and the Showdown in the Afterlife

We’ve had bits and pieces of this discussion before:  You remember that our early work on dreams was embodied in a project called the National Dream Center, which Chris McCleary has picked up and expanded at the www.nationaldreamcenter.com site and which continues to sniff and whiff major news events in advance… You may also recall that I have shared a lot of interesting dream experiences, including dreams that can be interpreted as having major precognitive aspects to them.  A recent example was the January 13th dream about a coming major (west coast) earthquake in April.  The specifics were wrong, but with 4,000 dead (or whatever the toll is this morning), I’d say that’s pretty interesting.

Likewise, before the Offshore Horizon drilling platform blowout and fire, I posted a precognitive dream about that one a full 18-hours before the event.  Posted at 8 AM, rig problems showed up about 10 PM that night. Then there was the dream about a closed road, detour, and traffic signs due to an accident – dreamed at 8:30 Arizona time and then “lived out” by Elaine and I on a trip to visit one of her boys.  To say I get lots of precognitive content (and occasionally  “teaching material”) from Dreamland is an understatement. It may also be of interest that I’ve got a novel about 3/4th’s written called DreamOver which goes into the mechanics of how Dreamland seems to work. When a strongly precognitive dream comes along (like one I had from last night, which we’ll get to in a moment) there’s a certain quality to the dream which unmistakable for its clarity and vividness of detail. The most interesting aspect of the Dreamland connection, is that it is much more accessible than people realize.  Just yesterday, in popped this email which proves the point:

“A small data point for your dream research: This morning, before waking, I had a dream that I was on stage in a large indoor stadium full of people. It was odd, because most of my dreams involve few, if any, people. When I checked my email, I had dozens of new followers and “skulls” on hackaday.io. Today, my project was featured on the hackaday blog: http://hackaday.com/2015/04/29/hackaday-prize-entry-ground-penetrating-radar/ fwiw,  glenn

Yes,  it’s pretty darn interesting how the dream states work…now we’re ready to get into a possible reason why dreams work as they do.  Fast forward into the dream I had last night which was spectacular and possibly meaningful – which is why I share it this morning….

– – –

A man and woman of indeterminate age was on a car trip through the western states.  They had been through mountains, had stayed at several resorts, including at least one which was a casino.

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The Economics of Anarchy

This morning we visit the smoking ruins of Baltimore and see parallels to an earlier period of economic history in America.

We will also recount how sequential bad decisions by government have “piled on” the woes before us, using the behavioral economics approach.

But first, we’ll sample a few shorter term stories and sit back amazed, again, at how our Trading Model has managed to navigate the present economic uncertainty with amazingly good success…

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Housing is Hot

Denver and San Francisco were the hottest of the Hot in this morning’s S&P Housing report just out:

New York, April 28, 2015 – S&P Dow Jones Indices today released the latest results for the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices. Data released for February 2015 show that home prices continued their rise across the country over the last 12 months. More than 27 years of history for these data series is available, and can be accessed in full by going to www.homeprice.spdji.com.Additional content on the housing market can also be found on S&P Dow Jones Indices’ housing blog: www.housingviews.com.

Year-over-Year
Both the 10-City and 20-City Composites saw larger year-over-year increases in February compared to January. The 10-City Composite gained 4.8% year-over-year, up from 4.3% in January. The 20-City Composite gained 5.0% year-over-year, compared to a 4.5% increase in January. The S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, which covers all nine U.S. census divisions, recorded a 4.2% annual gain in February 2015, weaker than the 4.4% increase in January 2015.

Denver and San Francisco reported the highest year-over-year gains, as prices increased by 10.0% and 9.8%, respectively, over the last 12 months. It was the first double digit increase for Denver since August 2013.

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Coping: Happy Trailers & National Parks 2.0

In Monday’s column I was bemoaning the fact that most RVs out there seem to be long on glam and granite, but aren’t really set up for well as long-term survival platforms.  I was wrong.

As happens, there’s an outfit in Utah called Timberline Range Camps that makes the real-deal survival platform suitable for bumper towing…  (I hope they don’t mind I borrowed a picture off there website – this is a free plug for them…)  They’re not cheap, but they’re also solid, come with a good wood stove and are designed ground up to be a real platform.  This is really cool stuff and you need to visit their site over here…  As you’ll figure, Timberline’s roots are in the sheep camp and commissary business and so they are used to the real outdoors environment.  Not some drive-in posh glam-on-wheels.  Real deal “out there” vehicles. Just the ticket.

No carpet to get dirty…I think the only change I could find would be a two-basin sink in the kitchen.  I’d sacrifice a drawer for that… Put a portable rack of panels for power, a covered 4X4 half-ton shell to load up with supplies and gear…yep, gone for 3-to- 6 months and no problems…Fishing gear, hatchet, chainsaw for the lazy, and yee-haw, pahdnah…

But Where?

Insert my bad John Malkovitch impression of “…there is that…”

I was whining that it would be dandy if America would just re-invent itself into a new kind of place and put a certain portion of the population on wheels with truly innovative mobile homes (I’ll take the Timberline with my one mod)  so that those who want to could enjoy the country a bit more.  Bumper pull is just dang practical.  5th wheels lose gear space…

Think of it as “The Digital Tribe” to borrow a concept from America’s first occupants.

It not the Timberline right, then what I’m thinking of would be something like a 30’ RV that has been made from 50% (or more) recycled parts.  A cut-down old Greyhound or school bus chassis would be another way to skin the cat, or maybe retooling a bumper-pull.  Ought to be a special part of vehicle laws to exempt such homemade efforts from the miles of government red tape that seem go with selling a vehicle, these days.

National Parks 2.0 then?   The government would go into some of the under-priced counties of the South, say in a few miles from the Gulf Coast and from about Houston all the way over to the east coast of Florida.  But up; under utilized land.

In the zone, government would buy up as much land as they would, paying top dollar if necessary – after all, they’ll just print up whatever money they need anyway.

Let’s say we have a strike 3 miles wide and 30 miles long to begin with as a “proof of concept.”

And then do the same thing up in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Of course, some of this land will already have buildings and roads and such on it, but that would provide thousands of jobs for planners, architects, not to mention zoning attorneys, and that alone would be a huge economic stimulus.  Give it a deadline of 18-months for plan completion for the southern parks and 6-months after that for the northern parks.

Each of these parks would be divided up into, oh, let’s say 3-acre parcels.  There would be a community water system, but the waste would all be composted in those composting toilets.  And there would be a requirement that half the food consumed would need to be produced on the property.

At three acres each, and 640-acres per square mile, our 3 by 30 miles park would measure in at 57,600 acres, which plots down to about 19,000 “units.”  Plus or minus a grocery store and firehouse or two with emergency medical personnel.

A lottery would be held annually to see who “wins” a chance to go homesteading for a year – or as long as they want.  Give ‘em a homesteader medical card, too.

The government would have a tough time with the concept, obviously. Since it’s government land, and comes off the tax rolls, a person who steps up to this lifestyle could get by with little in the way of outside expense:  $100 a month for the ground (and water for domestic use) and farming using natural methods (dry farming in a pinch) would be attempted.

In a sense, it would be like setting up a Neverland for people who don’t like the way the country is currently heading.

The fun part of this experiment is what people would all have access to a free website where all the functions of government would be parsed down to scheduled participation by everyone in this nomadic community.  The folks with doctoring and medical skills would work 8-hours a week at this or that, a dentist would be provided an office and 8-hours per week there, and so forth. 

There’d be volunteer (but scheduled) cops and other services.

It’s an appealing experiment in economics – which would not be currency-dependent.

By that, I mean when you step back far enough to view Sim-’Merica, you see that we use money as a convenient substitute for real labor.  This just cuts the middle men (the bankster class) out of the middle where they have weaseled into total domination from.

The lucky (or crooked) few who figure this out have no end of fun living the High Life.  The others, like us, who are not so good at the game, live the Low Life on whatever is leftover in the way of table scraps.

As a result, over time we have seen the government slowly taking over everything.  Government is basically now a money game. 

History says there is another way.  We know from the data that civil servant jobs used to be among the lower paid jobs, but the compensation for that was very good job security.

Today, since government has elevated its position (which is being kinder that saying megalomaniacal control freaks stealing everything that isn’t nailed down, through mechanisms like the crooked and process-free civil asset forfeiture game) government is now the place to be if you really want to make a killing (so to speak).

I tell my kids all the time:  Work for government – it’s where the money is.  You want to be on the tax-getting end of things.

The purpose of National Parks 2.0 would be to enshrine in public policy the notion that People are Free in America.   We’re not, presently.  Takes money.  Boatloads of cash.

For example, people get kicked off “public lands” all the time.  I would offer that if you’re a member of “the public” then if it is  really “public land” then you have rights to it,.  You don’t.  Getting kicked off public lands proves the point they’re not public.

Oh, this gets all wound up in environmentalism and legalisms and there’s much harrumphing about the public trust and benefit…but show me the books.

It doesn’t take a steel trap mind to see the game:  What was once PUBLIC land is now GOVERNMENT land.  And the key difference is that in the past government ruled by permission of the People.  Today, we are peopling with permission of the Government.  Stinks to high heaven.  Jefferson would be spinning in Monticello today, but he’d be on a no-fly list and a Fusion Center would have his number.  Domestic T-word, know what I mean?

Setting aside some portion of America as a frontier, where experimental democracy could use the basis of this great nation and update it to current software (so we could allocate community resources by other than gunpoint tax collection) seems like it would be a worthwhile thing to consider.

Wrapped up as a mobile living experiment, perhaps for seniors, these could be national retirement centers, or simply a place where people who are sick of the heavily dollarized way of running the remnants of America into the ground could go, begin to form a breakaway civilization, and live by a code of living freedoms respected among likeminded people.

Sure, it would be hard to start, harder to do, and impossible to estimate in terms of results.

But at least the exercise of wondering “What an attempt at government-sponsored communal living be like” opens us up to examining the missed opportunities that bind us to an unpleasant future by opening our eyes and realizing we can each make a conscious choice to do better and different.

Or, maybe we can’t?

Sitting out in the sun room Monday, kicking this around, Elaine made a sound observation.

The problem is the Dreamer’s aren’t in charge in American anymore.  The Moneymen are…

Good point:  Why would they give up title to anything when they have the upper hand?  That chilled my optimism…but only briefly.  There may not be a choice other than think in new ways.  Which gets me to a second point.

One of the reasons Islam is growing faster than any other religion lately (sort by growth rate, right column – 2000-2010 – over here) is because they are marketing a different system of land ownership.  We catch this stuff on the FTA channels now and then.  Thank-you Galaxy 19 Ku.

At the core of it, their (Islamic) view is that all land belongs to God and people are only stewards of the land.  From there, according to this essay

Generally, under Islamic tenure systems, land is classified into four main categories: mulk (individual ownership with full rights); miri (state owned land to which individuals may gain use rights); waqf (religious foundation owned land “stopped for God”); and musha (collective or tribal owned land) (Payne n.p.).

The US/Western view has a different heritage that harks back to Kings being divinely anointed by God to rule… and so, here lately, government has become somewhat enamored with it’s local representatives of God role…  See the Wiki on Divine Right of Kings:

The divine right of kings or divine right is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving the right to rule directly from the will of God. The king is thus not subject to the will of his people, the aristocracy, or any other estate of the realm, including (in the view of some, especially in Protestant countries or during the reign of Henry VIII of England) the Catholic Church. According to this doctrine, only God can judge an unjust king. The doctrine implies that any attempt to depose the king or to restrict his powers runs contrary to the will of God and may constitute a sacrilegious act. It is often expressed in the phrase “by the Grace of God,” attached to the titles of a reigning monarch.

Kings may have lost some of their pizzazz (and some heads along the way) but “government” stepped in and stole the King’s shoes when came to declaring primacy over property.  It wouldn’t be so bad, but you can NEVER really OWN property, even when (like our place) it’s completely paid for.  It NEVER IS.  Property taxes are the scam to steal it all back and allodial  title is mostly a wet dream, thank you.

The SWOT Analysis is simple:  The smaller an individual’s “skin in the game” the more appealing the anti-Western (Divine Right-based taxation by government né kings of property) mantra sounds.

It’s an article of faith to us that government isn’t intentionally bad in the USA, but sometimes it works out that way.  Hard to prove in Ferguson, Baltimore and a bunch of Middle East countries, though…

Which gets me to the point of the thought experiment (Hallelujah!  A point finally!) on a new kind of National Parks:

If the US/West is to enter its Second Renaissance period, and make the kind of progress represented by the Industrial Revolution, to triumph at a moral level in the Age of Reusable Software and Disposable People, we need to be looking at viable alternative organization charts and seeking best of breed ideas and trying them out to see what kind of things we can learn in order to better fulfill the American Dream.

To do so with conscious de-emphasis of dollarization?  We’ll that’d be a hoot, too.  (We might have done better to study and lean from Native Americans, but that’s the old Divine Right of Government problem…and it worked for the railroad barons.)  Faster Progress doesn’t always mean Better Progress.  Slow can be good.

It wouldn’t be the first time the West has had an opportunity to study a challenging set of ideas and rip off….er….optimize some of the best practices found by others.

We’ve done it before (Think Algebra – Etymology.) and with a strongly branded challenger in mathematics.  So maybe it’s time to review our product line in keeping with presenmt market conditions and if necessary, t–o tune up the brand a bit.  If we don’t, the anti-interest and anti-ownership positioning of the challenger will appeal to more people and that will lead to increased systemic instability in the world.

Could government do something if so inclined?  Oh, sure.  But dollars, not common sense rules the day.  As an example of Elaine’s Moneymen in Charge theory…..

Off in the background, government is quietly re-slicing the pie in 11 states out west under something called the “Final PEIS of proposed Section 368 energy corridors.”  Not that we can do anything about the process now, because as the project website notes:

“Following completion of the consistency reviews by the governors of the 11 western states, any approval of the selected land use plan amendments will be documented in agency-specific Records of Decisions after a 30-day waiting period which begins on Nov.

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Fed Week

(Quake stuff in the Coping section, Item 2)

If you thought things were shaky in Nepal, this weekend, how about this being Fed week?  The meetings start tomorrow with a rate announcement Wednesday:  No change, but playing the game of “Spot the New Adverb in the Fed Statement” is always fun.

The market is set to open higher this morning, but what I’m getting to is the possibility of a buy the rumors sell the news kind of week.

Tomorrow sees the Housing Data and then the Rate Decision Wednesday and then comes the Jobs report next week.  All kinds of fun and games ahead.

Strong Dollar Blues

OK, you’re a major corporation.  And since you like to keep taxes down, you pile up money offshore.  Oh, and those foreign sales are so delish, too….

Problem:  When the dollar rises, the value of the offshored cash stash sinks and  exchange corrected revenue sucks….

How do you solve that?  Uh…ask Apple, maybe?

Bundler Bye-Bye

One of SOWWDS’s key bundlers has reportedly stepped aside because you-know-who hasn’t answered a bunch of ethics questions.  Solid dude.

A reader called me out on my reference to the Hildebeast and said reader may be right.  I should have used a more polite term.  Does Brunhillary pass?

[I would have shared the whole email with you, but I couldn’t find it on my server…]

Not That the R’s are Any Better

Since we hold both corporate parties in equal disdain, it’s fair to mention that George W. has laid into Obama before a group of Jewish donors in New York.

I thought there was a kind of gentleman’s agreement among Ex’es that they didn’t bad-mouth one-another. 

Meantime, the WaPo is reporting that W. won’t be out campaigning for Jeb…trying to avoid the dynasty charge.  Which would apply to the C’s as well, just saying.

Am I the only one who would support a One President Per Family Amendment?

Meantime, a poll shows J would beat H in Virginia, but any poll that puts Christie ahead of Rand Paul just confuses and befuddles me.

If the R’s don’t run a woman, Hill would win…so the only strategic move would be a Bush the X and Carly ticket.  But that would make sense strategically, so we rest assured republicrats won’t let it happen.

Which means None of the Above could win if It runs.

50’s,  Shade Of…

Oh, fine, now Google is getting into the fashion trend business.  And, if my eyes don’t deceive me, the lady up the street wore almost the same exact thing pictured in this article in the late 1950’s!

Terrorism or Budget Time?

Much was being made by the LEOs this weekend about an ISIS terrorism alert for this weekend – which thankfully didn’t happen.

But, say, isn’t it about budget time?  Nothing like a spritz or two of “hot warnings” when interdepartmental budgeteering is going hot and heavy in background, is there?

California is Sinking

As water is drawn from down under the surface, land sinks.

I figure since water also lubricates fault lines, it could build up….oh, let’s not go there.

Making Up Climate Change

This article in The Telegraph is a must-read.  There’s been so much data-fiddling we could start a symphony.

Waiting for Global War

All of this stuff is really pretty boring when compared with a flash global nuclear war.  And if you’re not following the foreplay closely, you might have missed the head of the Iranian Guards calling the Saudi’s traitors to Islam.

Lumping the Wahhabi supporters in the same batch with Israel is not subtle and we’re guessing it may be worth a megaton or two when things light off.

Around here, it’s an article of faith that the Iran talks won’t make progress – or if they do, it won’t pass the Senate – so this whole deal is basically D.O.A.

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Coping: Saved by the To-Do List

I call it my LOSTD (list of sh*t to do) and it gets updated every morning after this morning column is done.

I also do a “master list” of things I want to fall into place this week.  One of these is get the airplane finished (a designated engineering representative has the ball on that while we ask for a minor/trivial variance from an airworthiness directive (AD) which is just another way to turn an annual airplane inspection into a money-sucking pit. The payoff is a safe airplane.

The week’s master project list includes the 6-month, 50,000 chew tooth inspection.  I have to remember to floss for the next couple of days.  Easy to do when dieting, so no food in means no clean-up…

Then there are lots of real work projects…all of which need to happen and it’s just a matter of putting them on the list and then knocking them off one at a time.

My point is (ah, one of those, huh?) No matter what your age or station in life, a to-do list is a great stress reducer.

When I find myself worrying about this or that in the middle of the night, I’ve been known to write it down on the LOSTD which then allows me to promptly get back to sleep.

The second point about the list is a little harder to implement…but I find it’s the most important part of To-Do listing:  Do the things you hate – first.

Remember our conversation about laying brick (or concrete block)?  Do the brick laying and then drink a beer.  Do another course of bricks of block and then another reward?

The same principle applies to the LOSTD:  Do the thing you have been delaying – first.

If you don’t start the week off with some kind of agenda, the week will drag on aimlessly.

Of course, it will anyway, but having The List will make it even more apparent.

{Premonitions}  + {Personal Noise Floor}

OK, I thought to myself on Saturday morning, upon reading the early reports on the massive earthquake in Nepal, definitely some Buffalo Springfield stuff going on.

Explanatory note to troubled youth:  Roll the video from 1967 of For What It’s Worth and maybe (just maybe) that remark will make sense.  Or, not….

If you’re late to the party, go back and re-read my January 13th about the big April earthquake.  Or, the piece about it in Friday’s column.

All of which was before the ground started jumping in Nepal.

Reviewing the data on this “quake which I knew was coming at some level” is a very frustrating thing.  Yes there was a big quake in April and west, relative to the US, and big but not a 9.

What went wrong?

Near as I can figure it, people have all kinds of “extra-sensory” abilities, but we don’t do well when comes to being able to pick out the “right signal” from the high background noise.

I’ll give you an example:  Last night (*between lightning strikes and downpours) I had a most peculiar dream about “missing a train” which was in aq Latin country.  The “train, missed” was going back to a safe country (presumably the USA). 

Myself and one other figure were going to be on the train, but we’d somehow become lost in this foreign station and our train – with our friends on it – pulled out before we were able to get aboard.

The next train through was reserved for government officials and their families only.  It was an open air affair and the officers/officials worn black pants, red short jackets and had on caps that looked almost fez like.  Bandoliers, too.  Not the kind of characters to wander through a dream all the time…

A conference with the stationmaster turned into a real ball of yarn because he kept insisting I was George with a last name that was spelled hyphenated something like Alloyicious-Hibernia.

After the second train with the officials came through, my companion and I got on the third train just as it was getting to be mid to late morning.

And now comes the problem:  First, what is the train stuff about and secondly, was there a hint about a train accident in Spain to come?

www.dreammoods.com has a pretty good dream dictionary.  And it says of missed trains:

To dream that you miss a train denotes missed opportunities. It also suggests that you are ill-prepared for a new phase in your life. You may be procrastinating or putting things off that should have already been completed.

Which is interesting because I had recently gotten out of the habit of using my To-Do list regularly and perhaps there was a “stub” of thought that needed completion.

Another possibility is that it’s a mix of a thought-stub and a premonition about trains.  There didn’t seem to be any qualifying news stories on the wire…but I wouldn’t be surprised if we did have some big train story in the next day, or three.

The problem of serious “dream work” is to find ways to reduce your “personal noise floor”.  Effective precognitive or remote viewing work is like trying to tune in to a very week AM radio signal in a big city.  Lots of noise.  You can tune around the signal, a little this side, or that, but it’s still not going to come through perfectly, no matter how you fiddle with the dials.

Still, to get “bgi quake in April” back in January wasn’t a bad hit.  But it’s not that good since we get a major quake like this once a year, or so, on average.  So a 1 in 12 chance of getting April right was baked in the cake.

Longtime reader (and master data-cruncher) Tony R. keeps us posted on his periodic updates on the trends in quakes.  As you can see in this chart (of 7.0 and larger) quakes going back to 1963 that there has been a gradual rise from a period of quiescence that ran (very roughly) from 1977 to 1995.

The reason this is so interesting is that one could take this view of things and hypothecate that Einstein’s E-MC2  is not a “one-way street” at all.  It’s very possible/likely that the output from the Sun (or some other source) condenses in the center of large planets.  This being the case – which we don’t know for sure – builds an interesting model of energy/mass relationships which as the Trinity Test in 1945 conclusively showed, works in the other direction, too.

As if this isn’t enough grist for the mill, here’s a couple of emails from our news analyst fellow up in Winnipeg that are really interesting…

Dear Mr. Ure,

Randi Zuckerberg, an elder sister of the founder of Facebook, delivers some messages in her book, “Dot Complicated: Untangling Our Wired Lives”, that will surprise you. She hones in on the notion of being connected, but still remaining in the moment.

With a tip of the hat to woo-woo, or the current edges of neuroscience, “Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior” by Leonard Mlodinow is an enlightening read of how our conscious minds can be manipulated subliminally.

Spoiler alert – the title when the cover is held to a light reads “Psst…  Hey There.

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The War On Cash: A Threat Matrix

We get a real kick when a “new” topic wanders around the internet.  Sometimes memes (thought viruses) are little more than bad colds.  They keep getting passes around…

So as background before delving into this morning’s report, subscribers may wish to look at our rather comprehensive historical views of the present “attack on cash” outlined in some of these articles in the subscriber reference library:

12/20/2003   Cashless Society: The Banker’s “Way Out”? Just add zeroes and who cares about debt?   (Kill the power and you have instant revolution, too…)

9/27/2009:  Competing Uses of Cash:  OK, so government’s been corrupted by special interests and there may be a war across time going on.  Now what do we do with cash?

5/29/2011:  The Last Days of Cash – if the paradigm is going to survive, regulation of the net becomes key to defending coin or the realm...  

5/7/2014: Notes on the ongoing attack of personal cash.  And jitters about carriers are building in data sets

1/5/2015:  Cash and Equivalents – if the world hits the skids, do you have the necessities of life and comfort lined up and ready?

Although it has been in the works for a long time, there have been recent rumblings in large banks recently on this very point.  So, if you wake up some morning and discover that banks are no longer dealing in cash and checks, absent government action, don’t say you didn’t see it coming, since I’ve been ringing this bell for well over a dozen years.

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Random Walk or Manipulation?

Manias are funny things.

After a while, when you watch the news flow and look at how markets operate, little bells begin going off now and then, especially when the market is on the verge of breaking to new 52-week highs, as was the case on Thursday.

First the set-up:

We were close to a breakout.  The S&P hit 2,120.49 during the session but closed at a modest 2,012.93 giving up a lot of its “gains” in the final hour of trading.

The Dow was more constrained: With a 52-week high of 18,288.6, the best the Dow could muster was 18,133.03 Thursday. 

And the NASDAQ, which hit a new 52-week high of 5,073.09, gave a chunk back by the close to finish at 5,056.06.

It’s when markets are at potential break-out points, like these, that we sit back and study the news flows carefully.

For example, there was an outflow of some ETF money that crossed at about 11:53 Eastern time and you can see how that (paradoxically?) seemed coincidental to a bump up in the market.  Funds redeployed, or?

And then there was that story from the A.P. about Russia claiming US forces were in eastern Ukraine.  That likely chilled out the final hour of trading. 

This morning, in the early going, things were relatively flat, but I mention this to you because once the market really breaks to the upside, we could run several hundred Dow points in a session, or two.  As we’ve been telling our Peoplenomics™ readers, the Trading `Model, which has been invariably bullish, seems to be doing far better than “gut trading.”

What this does is something else – if you’re planning on the end of the world any time soon in financial terms:  Since we know that historically, most major collapses don’t get organized until 55-days past a top, and since the odds of an upside breakout are very high, the earliest possible date for any kind of “collapsed talk” gets pushed out to 55 days some now, which would put us at June 18th or later.

No guarantees, and this isn’t financial advice.  It’s just that it’s worth noting this morning that barring lobbing of nukes or bunker-busters in the Middle East, no major earthquakes or other natural disasters, and assuming the Iran talks drag out past their next/latest rubbery “deadline” the prospects for a 1929-like market peak in the first week or two of September is starting to appear ever more likely.

For now, we’re content to watch for news flashes and study their timing and message. 

What is clear is that the global quantitative easings continue with China speaking today of further accommodations…and that should allow the global market binge to party on – dragging the US market up to stratospheric levels, along with it.

The hesitation would be that both China and Europe are still in the doldrums and that could mean a “sell in May and go away” event, with a break around June 18th.  Too early to bet on that, however, so just keep the fund switching numbers handy.

The “happy zone” for the 10-year Treasury seems to be about where we are and so regardless of what you may think of the Fed, the rally holding together is actually good news for any sane person who understands the costs attendant to global financial collapse.

If it comes, these are the good old days, so enjoy them to the fullest.

Durable Goods Data

Yum-yum.  Just the thing to go along with the cornflakes:

New Orders
New orders for manufactured durable goods in March
increased $9.3 billion or 4.0 percent to $240.2 billion,
the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This increase,
up two of the last three months, followed a 1.4 percent
February decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders
decreased 0.2 percent. Excluding defense, new orders
increased 2.6 percent.
Transportation equipment, also up two of the last three
months, drove the increase, $9.5 billion or 13.5 percent
to $80.3 billion.
Shipments
Shipments of manufactured durable goods in March,
up following two consecutive monthly decreases,
increased $2.7 billion or 1.1 percent to $246.7 billion.
This followed a 0.2 percent February decrease.
Transportation equipment, up three of the last four
months, drove the increase, $3.2 billion or 4.3 percent to
$78.0 billion.
Unfilled Orders
Unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods in
March, up following three consecutive monthly
decreases, increased $0.3 billion or slightly to $1,156.4
billion. This followed a 0.5 percent February decrease.
Transportation equipment, also up following three
consecutive monthly decreases, drove the increase, $2.3
billion or 0.3 percent to $734.5 billion.

Hey!  Wake up!  the clever writing resumed.

Apparently that didn’t have an effect:  The futures were singularly unimpressed with the data.  The Baltic Dry cargo index continues to hover around 2009 levels – 600’ish.

Vatican Attack Foiled

As Italian authorities raided a terrorist cell with designs on attacking the Pope’s place.

Silly Season

Say, here’s a fine problem for critics who don’t like the Clinton Cash book that is making waves.  It will make it tough for the SOWWDS/Hildebeast supporters to target the reporter/writer when his next book – one rumored to be about Jeb – comes out.,

G. Warming Notes

Winter is back with snow as far south as New Mexico.  (Does this mean chemtrails are working?)

Coming to Their Senses?  Ure’s Right Again!

Our long fore4cast merger blowup arrived!  Comcast has called off its big hoopdy with Time Waning.

Tooting Our Horn Alert!  Remember what I told you when this PoS deal was pimped to to very gullible  announced in early 2014?  Lemme refresh Ure memory:  From our Feb 13, 2014 report here:

Buyers and Sellers

Big Story in the Wall St. Journal this morning about how Comcast has agreed to buy Time Warner cable for $45-billion smackeroos.

Despite my high-powered consulting operation, somehow they overlooked calling me – either side.  Which is a damn shame because whether this merger makes sense comes down to one ugly/nasty:  Technology shift.

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Coping: Life & Death — Past the Dream State

If you’ve been around any length of time, you know I am as fascinated with dreams as predictors of future events – as I am with the ability of software to pick up coagulation areas in language and infer something about the future from that.

So let’s rewind to our vivid dream about an April earthquake – which hasn’t happened yet – and see if there there is anything to be learned.

The original “An Odd Earthquake Dream” was posted January 13th back here.

At the time, part of the quake was the description of a 0+ quake, West Coast, and in April.

Well, thankfully, the hot date for April has blown on by.  But not before leaving us a gift to ponder..

The premise of the dream was that there was a series of quakes up in the  Lakeview Oregon area and that when the 5.5 follow-on quake came, it would point to where the epicenter of this massive quake would be.

Well, here’s the interesting part:  On April 23 we had a 5.5 earthquake.  And this, was interpreted in the hours after my odd earthquake dream back in January, this way:

“One (and they are possibly a pairs) are in the 5.3 and 5.6 category and they connect with “Thursday” or “Friday” and after this, people who are involved will be going back to the city (this happens east of San Francisco).”

Well, there it was – April 23 – and a Thursday, so that leads me to draw some lines on the map and they point to the area 200 miles north of San Francisco.

One of the returning news crews will be stopping (on the way back to the city) to have something that’s like an apple fritter or apple scone – as a place somewhere in the area that is famous for those.

There were other oddities about the story too:  Lot’s of dog references, a kind of map of a state or national park area (it was shown as a kind of green glass layer under the area.

Obviously, the news crews and pie doesn’t make sense (now/yet, though perhaps in the future).  The dog reference is still “out there” too.  As to the maps of state parks, the line from the Lakeview area quakes through this one (on the 23rd, on a Thursday) gives us several.

First this is the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park, Humboldt-Redwoods State Park, and the Trinity National Forest all in the area described in the dream (lining up the quake swarm in Oregon with the 5.5).

All of which draws out focus to Cape Mendocino, but honestly do I expect a 9+ quake over the next 7-days in that area?

Statistically, No.  But the dream still haunts, so what was it about?

That’s a tough one to answer because it gets us off into the spiritual/metaphysical realms. 

Anyone who had studied the Electronic Voice Phenomena, would have good reason to believe that there is a possibility of some kind of communications with the “other side of the veil” of what we call life.  Seers know it, and so do we parents who have had “remote knowing” experiences with our children.  Vivid, undeniable knowing when it is possible no other way than through some undocumented communications channel.  And that channel may transcend death.

On the evidentiary side, we also have to look at data starting with Ray Moody’s book “Life After Life” that came out back in 1976, I think it was.

And let’s not overlook religions (as a group) because so many of them are predicated on some kind of afterlife (bardo, etc) and on the idea of reincarnation.  There’s also a “rewards program” that covers the waterfront from passing out virgins to eternal bliss, immortal pleasures and you know that list.

Yet there are a lot of interesting groups that have shown an interest in (to use the electronic voice phenomena as an example) contacting the “other side.”  Here’s a Wikipedia note on groups focused strictly on the EVP approach to what I refer to as “the veil…”

The Association TransCommunication (ATransC), formerly the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena (AA-EVP),[57] and the International Ghost Hunters Society conduct ongoing investigations of EVP and ITC including collecting examples of purported EVP available over the internet.[58] The Rorschach Audio Project, initiated by sound artist Joe Banks,[39][40][59][60] which presents EVP as a product of radio interference combined with auditory pareidolia and the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Biopsychocybernetics Research, a non-profit organization dedicated to studying anomalous phenomena related to neurophysiological conditions.[61] According to the AA-EVP it is “the only organized group of researchers we know of specializing in the study of ITC”.[62]

Parapsychologists and Spiritualists have an ongoing interest in EVP.[63] Many Spiritualists experiment with a variety of techniques for spirit communication which they believe provide evidence of the continuation of life.[64] According to the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, “An important modern day development in mediumship is spirit communications via an electronic device. This is most commonly known as Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)”.[65] An informal survey by the organization’s Department Of Phenomenal Evidence cites that 1/3 of churches conduct sessions in which participants seek to communicate with spirit entities using EVP.[66]

The James Randi Educational Foundation offers a million dollars for proof that any phenomena, including EVP,[51] are caused paranormally…

The oddity that jumps out at me as a real IN YOUR FACE lack of focus is that humans as a group/species have not done a very good job – at all – of looking at the death barrier and figuring out how to get more effective communication going between this side and that.

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Lifestyle Collapse 101–A Dot-Connecting Lesson

A recent report by the Center for Immigration Studies has shed a lot of light on a topic most people aren’t even aware of. So let’s break it down for you this morning in simple terms: Immigration in the new Housing Bubble. Let’s back up a bit: First on the Immigration numbers.

Coping: With Sustainability Modeling / Eco-George

,A buddy of mine out in Hawaii – a genuine TV engineer – sent me a really good email. It’s a translation guide for Californians, who may consider moving to Texas, because of the drought, or just to get out of the Republic of Brown. A couple of examples to girt this framed right: Where a Californian may speak of an “ARSENAL of weapons” here in Texas that’d be a GUN COLLECTION. Similarly, “DELICATE WETLANDS” of Brownifornia would be called a “SWAMP” around here.

The Ultimate Prepper’s Low Power Stereo FM Radio Station

…for the end of the world. 

Sick and tired of the MSM?  Who isn’t! 

Tired of the crumby playlist you’ve head for the zillionth time on your FM station?

Want some information, so MP3’s aren’t ideal?

The radical prepper’s answer (and we have ours on the air) is to build your own radio station!

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