Year: 2015

(Deep in the Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa Triangle)

We find ourselves this morning wondering if someone would be kind enough to prescribe some major league anti-psychotics for this market.

The problem is this morning’s Job Report which we will get to in a moment.

It’s the set-up of market psychology, however, that causes us concern.  You know markets are in a precarious state when news “flips.”

In other words, when “Good” news is taken as bad, and “Bad” news is taken as good, then trying to make sense and reasonably investments using other than purely technical trading tools because something of a mind-eff.

Here is how the Job report looking from the “flipped” perspective.

Say the Jobs report comes in stronger than expected.

In as normal (non-psychotic) world, this would be good news and the market would go up.

What’s not to love?  After all, more people working means more tax revenues for government, so pressure comes off there.  Fewer people would be “on  the dole” and we would have an increase in savings and investment, which could get us thinking in terms of the Virtuous Cycle in economics, once again.

But that may not work out this way.

Instead, the market could be thinking:  “With more people working, the Fed would be more likely to raise rates in the coming months.  This would increase business costs because money would be less free…and that, in turn, would mean less money available to shareholders as dividends.  So that means that when the Fed raises rates, we would see stock prices come down, and we would not make as much money…”

Oh, and let’s not leave out that a recovering economy is press oil back up…

It’s wrong-headed, of course.  The fact is that a slow, rounding bottom to interest rates is coming, like it or not, and the fact that a return of the “I” word (inflation) would kick sales (buy before prices go up) and give a major boost to Housing (buy before rates do up) is completely missed.

So too the impetus for some of the dark pools of capital to edge out of bonds, which would then drop in price, and into stocks, which should rocket moonward, is also missed.

The battle between the factions – believers on both sides – is what makes a market.

Markets are only rational in a limited sense, and only some of the time.

This may not be one of those.

The Jobs Data

Which gets us to the Hot off the Press Release:

“Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 142,000 in September, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care and information, while mining employment fell.

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(From within the Iowa-Wisconsin-Illinois Triangle)   We have arrived for the annual assembly of “good looking Beeches” here west of Chicago with the market looking pretty good (maybe through today and early next week) but going into options expiration, we expect things will hit the crapper.

Maybe it will be more Glencore revelations or some other foundation-shaker, but we still hold to the view that the S&P will drop below the 1,800 level within the next two’ish months.  After that, the Rally Before the End ought to be here.

It is likely to be your last chance to prep for Depression II.  Like 2009, but worse, by the look of it and we all know how much fund that was.

Other than the employment numbers being a driver, another factor which we have been pounding on is the problem of long wave economic  “trough wars.”

You see, in these 40-90-year economic long waves – and there’s more to it than the Kondratieff Wave – wars tend to cluster around the peaks of and valleys of economic activity.

There are only three “powers” in the world who have to be eyed in the same context as the aggressor Germany was in WW II when it comes to kicking off WW III.

One is China – which is building an island in the South China Sea to project a bit of power around itself, but also we notice that Chinese war ships have come into the Syrian theater, as well.

That Russia has been operating out of the naval facilities at Tartus has been an on-going talking point for me, for several years when this matter of “Where does the War come from?” arises.

In a way, the pending Russian and Chinese operation is vastly different from the pre-WW II alliances between Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Unlike the Germans, the Russians are mostly self-sufficient should those choose to be – and the Chinese have been better students of warfare than the Italians, without a doubt.  Sun Tzu is only one example.  When  a nation has 2,500 years of history, the style of thinking becomes a bit different.

Maybe I worry too much (almost certainly true) but I would summarize the thinking processes of these potential antagonists by simply looking at the most popular “board games” of the parties.

Here in the USA, of course, the two most widely played games among the young (*not electronic) would be checkers and Monopoly.  Good games and a fair bit of fun.

When comes to articulating mental acuity and learning the arts of advanced thinking, however, seems to me the Russian idolatry of chess speaks volumes.

The Chinese may (or may not) actually play Chinese checkers, but that game is more instructive in many ways than the single-front American board games.

On the other hand, there may be a migration path from Monopoly to the White House, at least if Donald Trump continues his ways.

As often stated, I figure we have on the low side 18-months more before this phase of rally and market recovery will end.  Ideally early 2017.

That’s time when America could be regrouping and rethinking how we “wage peace.”  But the reality is we don’t do that well.  We tend to go waging peace that turns into projectiles and bases…but haven’t I warned you “The Magic of America is that we monetize EVERYTHING”??

How closely the Chinese will interoperate with the Russians is not clear.  Reports this week have been fuzzy at best, although this summer of things is pretty good

A note from our oak-leaf cluster source, warhammer points out something else of interest:

George,

Some claim the recently announced Russian draft of 150,000 men is a mere coincidence, happening just as Russia begins prosecuting attacks against Syrian Rebels and/or ISIS.

<http://www.hngn.com/articles/135738/20151001/putin-oks-drafting-150-000-conscripts-russian-military.htm>

I don’t believe in coincidence. That’s a word often used when we can’t see who’s pulling the strings from behind the curtain.

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(Springdale, AR)  I am up in the middle of the frigging night in order to jot down a few notes about our most interesting sit-down with Chris McCleary of the www.nationaldreamcenter.com project.

Long-time readers will remember that site was founded by Ures truly some years back (try 2008) but I simply didn’t have time to do the site justice and Chris acquired it.

He’s really moved the ball forward, too.

Not to steal “future thunder” from his work, but he is chasing down a very interesting concept.  Namely that the best dreamers – in terms of having dreams with predictive content – may be those people who have trauma (and or) substance abuse in their backgrounds. 

The sample isn’t large enough yet, but the data (still small) has a damn interesting “bump” there.

OK:  Obvious question is whether trauma is caused by a person having predictive capabilities.

No,  at least in the small sample size…a 4-5 year old child can not cause trauma in the family setting (for example), at least in any way we can readily understand.

The role of substance abuse in making predictions was also an interesting train of thought.

It is fairly well-reported that Michael Nostracodeus did many of his visions while staring into a pot of dark oil.  And then there’s the matter of the Oracle at Delphi, who did the work in a case which by some accounts has a leaking hydrocarbon gases issue.

Follow this along with me:  Is there something about oxygen deprivation that drives people into a mental state where the persona withdraws into a quieter place?  And might the “place” be more accessible when DMT is beginning to be released as the “near death” appears?

How then does substance abuse figure into the picture? 

Well, isn’t it really part of that continuum?  I mean moving the consciousness around so as to go to other places where it can “connect” with other forces?

We know full well that alcohol didn’t get the classification “distilled spirits  without cause.

Substance abuse gets us along the same path, as well.

By the end of the evening, I was pretty amped (unable to sleep well) since this opens up so many vistas for further research. 

While Chris is working on the “triangulation problem” – I find myself working (in background) on mapping all the ways the future announces what is coming.

While some of Chris’ clients are (as a group) reporting dreams of “tornadoes” – which has me thinking that when the weather turns to fall tornado season early this coming week, we can expect to experience one (or more) major tornadoes with headline-grabbing damage, dreams are not the only channel available.

Grady over at our www.nostracodeus.com  website has really been refining the use of “indicator words” that can tell the future because there are certain phrases  that all by themselves hint at future developments.

One such phrase that we “go fishing” for is “talks broke”. 

This is the kind of predictive phrases that might mean that “talks broke off” in the case of a labor dispute that could lead to a strike.  Or, more worrisome, it could be used in politics as the “talks broke down” framework, in which case war chances thus increase.

As war chances increase, other indicators  (like “reserves called up”) would then further increase the odds of an unhappy ending.

Since we know that “indicator words” and “dreams” are how the future announces itself, are there more?

Why yes!

Wed know the future appears in works of literary fiction as well. 

Perhaps the two best current examples would be George Orwell’s 1984  and the many science “fiction” (now largely fact) of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  What he missed was that saw-like appendage on the submarine sail, used in the old movie version of the tale turned out to be wholly unnecessary as long as you had a 26” torpedo tube and a cruise missile to shove in and fire.

In all cases, however, there’s the future leaks into the present, although being fragile – or incompletely comprehended – it may be damaged a bit.

While Chris continues his research into which substances and which histories of abuse seem to offer karmic benefits in terms of being able to see future, we will keep looking at the collection of on-ramps and distortions that keep us from having a more precise handle on what our deeper selves are trying to warn us of.

Why would people in Arkansas or Missouri dream of tornadoes is the hanging question?

Is it Hurricane Joaquin which is already being mentioned as a possible Super Storm Sandy (and possible an Andrew as we read it) the object of the dreams?

If so, the lead time on the dreams is 3-5 days. 

But if when the high over the central U.S. breaks up next week, do we really get the more localized tornadic winds that people in this area who are sensitive would be dreaming about already?

We’re pretty sure that there is a declining curve (log of exponential, not sure from the data yet) that precedes event.

Winds next week in this part of the Midwest will be from almost every point of the compass…so it should become clear whether dreams are localized, and if so how northern Arkansas and Missouri fare will be a fascinating data dart to track.

Only In America

I really don’t know how to classify this one. 

But for the first time in memory not only have I had to spam-list Hillary (and that Emily’s list) damnocrat fund raising email, but this morning I got this for a former U.S. president:

I was going to send a note right back.

Well, Billy,

I guess you’d be the expert on passionate women in the White House, wouldn’t you, now?

No on the pandering.. 

Please remove me from this list and cease all future sleazemail.

Ures truly,

But instead of hitting send, I got to thinking that there might be some law on the books somewhere that would make it an offense to send such a note to a former whatchacallit.

He has, however, managed to earn a Spam designation in Outlook…joining what’s her name and the whozzits list.

The stranger part?  Haven’t gotten a money-raising email from the repugnicans, yet.

In an odd way, though, it helps me believe in ‘Merica again:  Where else can a person feel free to block emails from presidential office holders and arguably the worst secretary of state ever?

Flying Notes

Since we are off adventuring:

Longhorn restaurants are growing like a weed.  We sampled one of their early ones in Georgia a couple of years back (Ellijay, in the foothills north of Atlanta) and it was great.  So was the one in Fort Smith which is just two traffic lights from TACair, which provided a free courtesy car for the lunch run.

About 25- miles north of Mt.

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What could sound more boring than “An investigation of waveform similarities between the current Wave 4 and the previous Wave 2?”

But I bet if I mention the potential for a 30-50 TIMES return in a trade of less than a month’s duration, you’d be interested.

You see, there is hardly anything more satisfying than wandering down the banks of a fresh water river that is running cool and clear, then enticing at monster trout to take a fly and playing him well on 5-pound test with nothing more than skill and 11-feet of hand-wrapped bamboo rod to help.

Well, maybe there is one thing that it equally rewarding as stalking the wild trout (or steelhead in winter):  Finding new relationships in the stock market.

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Hot off the press release:

New York, September 29, 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 today for July 2015 show that home prices continued their rise across the country over the last 12 months.

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I have a new “conspiracy theory” to throw out there this morning.

It springs from an odd intersection of developments in life and specifically my weird dream the other morning about a problem with an electrical switch in a bathroom.  We’ll get to that in a moment.

The main tool we’ll fire up this morning, however is our purely hypothetical Directorate 153 that we’ve used many times in the past in order to gain otherwise obscure insights into odd situations.

The theory behind Directorate 153 is that it is extremely likely that in the wake of the Cold War’s latter days, the U.S. Government had major incentives to install a “government continuity” operation that would be able to provide independent counsel (and action) to a President and or Congress in the aftermath of the unthinkable – global war.

Directorate 153 would be a ‘special-purpose tool’ – the kind of thing you only take out of the drawer when you need it  – which hopefully is not more than once per decade, or so.  And then, it is for only the most dire of circumstances.

The kind of dire circumstances?

Well, the most recent one that comes to mind is the 9-11 “terrorism” event.

In that event, the purely hypothetical use of Directorate 153 was to recruit the 19 Saudi Nationals who perpetrated the events of that dark day.  Then, ensured that not only was it “pulled off” but that when things went wrong, key back-up personnel were in place to ensure that the desired illusion resulted, nevertheless.

So, for example, when passengers on the Pennsylvania crashed passenger jet stood up to the “hijackers” the result was that WTC-7 (widely discussed as the untouched tower that would have been  this plane’s target) was then “pulled”.

Functionally, Directorate 153 would have had to count this as a huge victory:  Not only was a major decline in global stock markets halted in its tracks, but in addition, government seized unimaginable powers in the form of the pre-conceived, pre-drafted “Patriot Act” and still enjoys those powers to this day.

You can see in this section of chart (which is updated in our bi-weekly Peoplenomics.com reports, how back in 2001, the market was fast-approaching a breakdown level in long-wave economic analysis where without 9/11 we would be in a huge Depression.

As past experience of Depressions informs us, massive economic displacements are dangerous to government continuity.

We have two “danger zones” where a super-computer powered “dark agency” moving only at times of maximum systemic stress to America’s foundations might be able to provide latitude for the president to operate in order to “save” the country.

The most interesting part of this is that the details and actual events seem to fit “theory” exceptionally well.

For example, this theory (of a dark agency) would conveniently explain why the U.S, never attacked Saudi Arabia, which was indeed home to the Wahhabi movement of Osama bin Laden fame.  It would also explain why it took so long for bin Laden to be found and dispatched.

Moreover, it gave the Presidents and Congress necessary time to work with the Bankster class to “invent a new bubble” – the no-doc loans – that allowed the decline in the economy to be stopped short in 2002-2004 from thence which sprang arguably the biggest Housing Bubble in history.

A genuine conspiracist would then speculate that when we were, as a nation, at the bottom in 2009, something happened which turned things around.  I have not figured out what cause the bottom to “be in” – it’s one of those infinitely debatable economic problems.

Of course, the conventional wisdom is that things had simply “run their course” but there was something else.  It was almost as if for a short time America touched her roots for a moment and we collectively made a decision to move the country “Onward and Upward!”

Was that a subtle psychological change in atmospherics, or was it just “how the herd behaves”?  It could be argued either way, I think with good points on either side.

Nevertheless, I believe there is much too high a level of congruence between operational policies of presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, to at least give some support to the idea that there is quite possibly a “continuity of government” shop, perhaps an arm of CIA, NSA, DIA, or maybe custodianship of the operation simply “floats” to make it more difficult for auditors to nail down.

As such, it could remain small, perhaps not more than 100 people, and each with a nebulous business card identifying them as “special agents” or representatives of this never-before discussed agency.

A few years back, I suggested that it could float around in Cabinet-level agencies, too.  And if I were President, I’d probably park it somewhere like the Department of Agriculture where I’d dress it up as “food chain security” or other cover story.  Sometimes the best place to hide things is in plain sight.

Would a sitting President ever be able to give the order to turn such an operation loose on America?  That’s a difficult one.

Has Directorate 153 Been Used?

If this is such a “black ops” group, we know that it would have almost unfathomable computational horsepower.

There was a video I watched recently about how much can be known about how a person’s reactions reveal huge amounts of their inner “stuff.”

We have, in the last 20-years, into the world of augmented intelligence.  A good historical perspective on this revolution in human-computer relations comes from Quid’s Sean Gourley.  This is worth the 17-minutes of your time.

We can only imagine what the mood was like in the White House in mid 2001.  The stock market is tanking and in comes the director of this (hypothetical) Directorate 153. 

His briefing goes something like this:

“Mr. President: As you know our Directorate is charged with ensuring the long-term survival of these United States.

In order to accomplish this goal, we have developed the most advanced computer modeling capability in the world.  And using it, we maintain an ongoing outlook for America’s future.

Right now, things do not look good, sir.

The stock market has peaked, and there is a collapse in the tech stock sector that we expect will remove $8-10 trillion dollars of wealth from this country in  a best-case.

Unfortunately, sir, without your approval to implement a “special operation” we will likely see the following in the next five years:  The tech stock collapse is only what we call a Wave 1 down event.  We expect a very small Wave 2 sideways movement of the economy of the U.S.

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I ended up doing actual hard physical work Sunday, so I didn’t have time to run out the data that I told Peoplenomics readers would be important to get prior to investing in a potentially sharp rally in here.

However, since the market is gracefully providing a nice decline at the open this morning, I can  run over to the office after breakfast and do a couple of hours of serious number crunching, which we will review on Wednesday for subscribers.

In the meantime, a reader was wondering what I thought of the latest description from a certain unnamed financial pundit that the End is Near.

Not to blow the bubble here, but this fellow hasn’t been particularly right in anticipating major moves and getting people out of the way.  It’s been a mix of gold going to $3,000 any minute and stocks collapsing in a heap…

Neither of which is likely correct, although we sort of know that before Christmas we will slide under 1,850 and maybe touch 1,820 or even lower.

But that ain’t hardly a “world ender.”

We shall see, of course, over time.  Remember, I’m the guy who has been saying Out to Cash or outright short since early July.  Where, oh where, were these other oracles back then?

Data and Such

Personal income was up 1/2 of one percent in the latest reporting month according to new government figures out this morning.  That is a little better than the consensus which was for a 4-10ths increase.

You’ll want to vape up before this part:

Personal saving — DPI less personal outlays — was $615.6 billion in August, compared with $623.6 billion in July. The personal saving rate — personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income — was 4.6 percent, compared with 4.7 percent.

Still hasn’t solved the market’s jitters, futures down 100 on the Dow when I looked.

Tomorrow we get the monthly housing report from S&P/Case Shiller.

Which means a two part report – the first part at the regular time and the update about 8:20 Central with the new housing poop.

There’s also a worthwhile speech from one of the Fed governors today.  Daniel Turullo was speaking in Paris this morning where he said…

My purpose today is not to offer specific proposals, or even a comprehensive conceptual framework, but instead to propose an approach for thinking about the purposes of capital regulation across types of financial intermediaries that will suggest appropriate starting points for shaping–or reshaping–applicable capital regulation. This seems to me a particularly important effort at a time when the financial system is undergoing significant change.

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Aha! 

Astronomy delivered what was massively over-hyped as a “Blood Moon” last night.  Even the mainstream got into it with stories floating about Oooing and Ahhing.

I regret to inform you, however, that if you actually stayed up for the celestial sideshow, you may have missed an opportunity to work with some very interesting energies that come by during events like this.

Although I am mainly a “science guy” numerous personal encounters with “other than this world” energies and communication leave me in the awkward place of believing both in the here and now of hard science.  But also in the other-worldly with equal certainty.

Where many people get confused is the well-marketed idea that the two realms are mutually exclusive.  If you believe in an Almighty Ruler of All, you obviously can’t be a serious person of Science, goes the thinking.

Yet statistics and experience argue something else.  You can, actually, embrace both views because they are (and I’m not sure this is a word) “co-valid.”

We know that people think differently under full moons…so they are already something special.  Lunatics.

But in terms of scientifically interesting observations, the moon has been photographed countless times and staying up late to photograph a Blood Moon is not likely to show any new or heretofore unseen craters, or anything of that nature. With home equipment?  Virtually no chance.  Period.

On the other hand, going to bed in a proper mood to be receptive to whatever comes along in the way of dream content during this time is highly productive.

So that’s what I did.  And the results of the effort were marvelous.

I may have mentioned that when in the dream state, many humans can “tap-in” to resources that are not available in every day, ordinary, waking hours.

What we don’t know though, is how the process of dreaming works.  At least with a high enough degree of specificity that it has yet been recognized for the wealth of opportunity for scientific advancement that it holds.

My first Blood Moon dream involved “The Classroom.” 

No  one knows where or what is the source of its material.  One idea is that “spirit matter”
really does communicate with Mortals in order to deliver information that the world needs.

The anti Bigger Intelligence Than Us crowd is drawn to something else:  That because we ask difficult questions in our waking state, these problems will be processed by the brain in background when  we are asleep. BoB – balance of brain is there are working all the time, after all.  It’s just those neurons are the Thoughts traveled less often.

Since the logical waking brain (of most people) doesn’t connect with the unconscious well in the waking state (people get labeled NUTS), there is a simple way for communications to take place – and that is to allow the unused part of the brain to communicate with the dumbed down (sleeping) conscious brain through “the dream channel.”

Wednesday afternoon, Chris McCleary and I are planning to sit down over a cold one (or three) to discuss this.  Chris, as you will remember, is the director of the National Dream Center and has a deep and abiding interest in dreams.  Besides being a retired Lt.

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A simple (and short) report this morning as we conclude our outlook for Q4.

I could go on about how other stories will impact our outlook, depending on the news flows and the like, but the fact is we have made far more money (and resultant net worth increases) by simply playing the big long-term waves than we have ever made on short-term noise trading.

Geared toward people with retirement nest eggs like ours, playing the short side is always tempting in declines.  Fast, easy money is always tempting.  But we tend to enjoy the sound sleep that comes with long side plays and holding cash in the a TreasuryDirect account.

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Yeah. 

So like I told you on Monday of this week (I hate to quote myself, but here it comes…)

“In the meantime, there is little point to getting worked up about the news this morning:  The futures were up about a hundred on the Dow when I looked, but by Friday, says our model, we should be flat to down a tad for the week.”

Behold the data:  The S&P, which opened Monday at 1,960.84.  By my reckoning, we should end today right about where we closed Tuesday (which would be a perfect down a little) at about 1,942.74.

Yes, the S&P experienced a momentary melt to 1,908.92.  But I’m holding to my expectation that the market will close today somewhere between 1,940 an d 1,950 that I told you about four morning’s back.

Please don’t take umbrage if I point out that the S&P closed yesterday at 1,932.24 or at my mention of the futures being up almost 27 points.

“Ure going to be off!  That would put the S&P almost at 1,960 or better!  Ure an idiot!”

Hahahahaha!  No, my friend, remember that this is Friday and a little money will come off the table, more than likely, since traders have bar tabs to pay like everyone else.  I’ll stick with my outlook, thanks.

Now that I feel like I have the markets comfortably “dialed in” it should be interesting to see if I can make a few bucks on next week’s big rally.

“What big rally?”

Come back and I’ll tell you Monday.

The point this morning is that after 40-years of occasional investing (money-sniping) I believe I may actually be getting the hang of this market stuff..  Tomorrow’s Peoplenomics.com report will be the second part of our Q4 outlook.

In the meantime, the only advice left to dispense this week is to remember that in markets, there’s a lot of “false drama” (*which made this week and next so predictable) and that means that yes, People are predictable, too.  At least when averaged in herd-sized groups.

Which we as a country is.

GDP/Spaghetti for Breakfast

Quick!  What is move convoluted than Hillary trying to slither and snake out of her email lies?

Why it’s the government GDP report just out and hot off the press today…

“Real gross domestic product — the value of the goods and services produced by the nation’s economy less the value of the goods and services used up in production, adjusted for price changes — increased at an annual rate of 3.9 percent in the second quarter of 2015, according to the “third” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 0.6 percent.

The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the “second” estimate issued last month.

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This is an odd one, for sure:

From the Adventurer’s Notebook:

I am looking at the possibility of a trip in our our Beechcrate to the Bahamas next year.

Not that we have  to do it, but it would be a lot of fun.  It has been years since I’ve been to Eleuthera, one of the longer islands in the Bahamas.  We might even hop-skip down to the Dominican Republic, depending don time, money, and markets.

Studying a bunch of maps, as one does at this stage of adventure planning, it looks like the easiest route would be from West Palm, or maybe Boca Raton, and from there a short over-water hop (with all the recommended safety gear) to Freeport direct, or go further south and take a shorter hop over and clear in at South Bimini.

While part of the agenda would be sun and fun, and maybe a buck of three into the slots at Freeport or Nassau, the small matter of preparing to deal with the Bermuda Triangle comes up.

If you’re think “Ure’s gone nuts…that’s just all hype…”  I can assure you it’s not. 

I may have mentioned before a marvelous book written a while back titled  The Fog: A Never Before Published Theory of the Bermuda Triangle Phenomenon.

There’s a very good (and lengthy) description of what’s in the book, written by Rob McGregor involving the flying done by  Bruce Gernon.  From the Amazon  extract:

“Gernon was piloting their new Bonanza A36, a stable and smooth-flying aircraft. Even today, more than three decades later, the Bonanza airframe remains relatively unchanged and is one of general aviation’s finest performing airplanes. If he had been flying a slower and less stable aircraft that day, Gernon believes that he may not have survived the flight.

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A while back, I managed to drive off a fair number of (then) readers by telling them the truth about Bitcoin.

I’ve managed to hold my tongue (mostly) since my last big discussion of this mania in September of last year when I penned “On Circularity, Bitcoins, and “Demand Crumple.”

The reason for scrutiny now is so you can play along in the Home Version of Idiotic Manias.

Not that Bitcoins are alone:  We have also been watching Gold, the Iraqi Dinars mania, and any number of others. 

Reason?

Such manias have pretty good “under stories”.  In other words, people want to believe something fantastic even if it is demonstrably untrue.

Our outlook for gold (spectacularly right so far) may turn around in the future, as detailed in our Peoplenomics.com report Wednesday.  But the outlook for Dinars and Bitcoins is far more cloudy.

Any REAL currency needs to be malleable, divisible, transportable and lots of other requirements for widespread adoption.  I must be the only person around who either sees the risk of EMP, or who appreciates that a computer to “mine bitcoins” is now being promoted for November shipping.

A good article or two has appeared surrounding the The 21 Bitcoin Computer.

The idea is that here shortly, you’ll be able to get a Raspberry Pi based computer that will go off onto the internet to “mine” Bitcoins.

Well, maybe not quite.  You see, the real expected returns will likely be only a fraction of a Satoshi and only now and then. 

Once you crank in the power to run this “money machine” there is also the cost of bandwidth, and lots of other problems.

Still, there will be a few True Believers out there who will plunk down whatever it costs to buy this latest “golden goose” and pursue the dream of unlimited wealth being automatically created.

And it might work…except that Bitcoins this morning are still stuck at $231 and change, and as soon as people figure out that more miners will mean more Bitcoins, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an even further decline.

In most versions of the story, we see references to how the Bitcoin ecosystem could be used as a micropayments structure that could do away with online advertising. 

Huh?

Let me see if I follow:  I get one of this mining machines, use it to mine micro slices of BTCs and I put them into my PC with a browser add-on (never mind that it doesn’t exist yet) that will give websites I visit my micro-slices of BTCs in return for not subjecting me to advertising content?

Holy crap!  Sounds great.  Except for one or two major problems:  Like the numbers don’t work and websites with real advertising (including this one) are not supportable on the few micro-slices that such a system would involve.

Still, like the Iraqi Dinar becoming the biggest currency in the world, there is a certain visceral Free Lunch aspect of all this. 

Me?  I’m going out in the woods today and see if I can scare up one of these golden geese I have heard so much about.  The ones that lay golden eggs and don’t eat.

If you’d like to spend $400 bucks to prove me wrong, have at it. 

If it works, you’ll know it when I put up a daily reading fee that can realistically generate more than 350,000,000 Satoshis per month replacing advertising. 

Until that glorious day (and when Dinars are worth megabux) the $400 might be better spent on remedial math classes.

Think Sink, Flat and Shrinking Back Orders

Durable Goods are just out.  So hot off the press release:

New Orders      New orders for manufactured durable goods in August decreased $4.8 billion or 2.0 percent to $236.3 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today.  This decrease, down following two consecutive monthly increases, followed a 1.9 percent July increase.

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