Year: 2015

Coping: Timing Our Exit

(Tacoma, WA)  the sun comes up this morning for the last full day of Pacific Northwesting.  Tomorrow’s Peoplenomics report will be posted this evening – and will be a discussion of the charts, Greece, and so on.  But, in passing, I notice the world hasn’t ended…just as some of reprobate codger suggested would be the case.

One of our friends up here asked about the flight homed.

Because of expected weather in the Rockies. this is quite the planning game because there are three big “humps” and a lot of high country between here and low altitudes down along the bottom of the Midwest.

Wednesday morning, we will leave the hotel at 4:45.  Arrive at the airport at 5 AM.  Load the airplane, and while I top off fuel, Elaine will drop the rental car at the local transient aircraft emporium.

About 5:30 after a thorough check of all systems including inspect mirrors and fuel testing, we will wind ‘er up and take off.

We’ll “shoot the gap” between the north of the JBLM (McChord Field) airspace to the south and the floor of the SeaTac low approach to the north where permissible flight level drops to just 1,800 feet.  By staying a bit south, we can bump along at 3,000 and below.  More altitude means more options.

The first part of the morning, about 6 AM will be climbing up to 7,500 feet and over Snoqualmie Pass.  Sun will be in my eyes, so flight following and a new hat are ready.

Around 6:30. we will have passed over Ellensburg, WA and will be turned Northeast and coming up on Ephrata where Boeing does a lot of flight test certifications.  Shortly thererafter, Spokane International will pass by/.

The first tactical obstacle is Mullan Pass Idaho.  The top of the radio beacon there is at about 6,073 feet and we’ve been watching the weather there like a hawk for a week, or longer.

Current weathers forecast may be found here.

Since we should pass there about 8 AM, we would expect (as of last night’s read) 30% cloud cover and a layer of clouds above.  We can estimate about 3..5 degrees per thousand feet in this area.  So with the Dew Point at 52 and the air temp at 66, we will see a spread of 14-degrees.

Divide the 14 by 3.5 and we would expect the cloud bases to be about 4,000 feet.  But remember when flight planning that cloud heights are above terrain.

So when we get 6,073 of elevation and about 4,000 of clouds, we will be comfortably clear of clouds.  To be sure, Thursday does look a little better, but two problems come up if we delay until then.

First is that on Thursday, while the skies will be clear, there is also a drop in air pressure.  Airplanes like high pressure air.  Easier to fly in and makes the effective altitude density lower.  The drop isn’t much, but again, it’s something to think about.

We UPS’ed two big boxes of clothes back to the ranch which will reduce our payload by a lot (try 68 pounds!) and that directly translates into higher or faster, or both if needed.

By the time we fly into Missoula, we should be at 12,000 high clouds and nothing down low. 

Thursday morning, we will get up early again (the column may be a bit wonky, depending on how closely we can pull off the schedule.  Thursday forming was forecast to be clear and nearly idea except for the low barometric pressure.  Again, all subject to change and we have live weather/ADS-B in so we can work around thunderstorms if needed.

This gets us to the second Big Bump on the way home:  Going over the pass outside of Butte, Montana.  Again,.

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Global Financial Stupidity

(Tacoma, WA)  Yes.  The Dow will probably drop 150 points at some point during today’s trading session.

This after the Greeks voted this weekend to kick the moneychangers out of the Hellenic temples and send ‘em packing.

The problem Greece has is pretty  simple.

There are three kinds of money in the world today:  One kind (admittedly rare) .is backed by a hard asset like gold or silver. 

Our analysis is that there is room for a food and energy currency, too, but the rest of the  world (RoW) doesn’t read this column and so we don’t have that yet.

The second kind of currency is the kind backed by politicians.  They simply promise the moon and conduct accounting operations that would land civilians in jail.  What we call the National Debt, for example, would be called “check kiting” if you or I were doing it.

And then there is money backed by industrious people who work hard. 

In Friday’s note, I explained how the world was crazy:  If Greece is such a bad credit deal, the European markets should rally on the departure of such a huge financial sink hole.

This morning, it turns out, that was only the tip of the financial stupidity making the rounds right now.

The add-on today is the US market is going down…as has China and much of Asia and  Europe.

Huh?

This makes no sense at all.

Perhaps, if the Greeks are wily (they generally are), they will set up a huge duty free port zone, suggested one reader.  Build a massive container operation and run up a Chinese flag over it.  Then let Chinese goods come into Europe and yes, I suppose that would scare the hell out of Europe.

But that hasn’t happened yet.  No one is talking about it, except for genuinely Machiavellian UrbanSurvival readers.

Well, not all Urban readers, just a fixed income guru who offered this idea:

“If I were running Greece – I would re-submit the last compromise they offered which is I believe a 75% haircut and a repayment schedule of 1% for 30 years on the balance – and give them 24 hours – that’s our negotiation. It would be turned down at which point I would inform them that they the EU will be sued in the event they try to kick Greece out – there is no such mechanism for them to do so. Then I would arrest Papandreou (sp) I think he was running Greece back then and all members of his Gov’t that worked with Goldman to cook the books to gain entry into the EU.

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Coping: Grandpa George & Chicken Shock

So there we were on the kid’s patio and the grandchild (almost 3) was playing with chalk that the other grandparents had picked up at a dollar-store on sale. It made me crazy. Ever watch a 3-year old with chalk?

The Case Against the Cashless Society

(Tacoma, WA) This morning we’re reeling from credit card fraud out here in the PNW.

So we take another look at credit cards and the dark side that none of the advocates of the cashless society seem to be able to resolve.

But first a look at the Trading Model which is telling us….well, we’ll get to that.  After a couple of headlines and comments, and coffee, of course.

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Handicapping Greece, Financial Date Rape

(Tacoma, WA)  Also known as handicrapping geese.

You may have figured out that I’m fairly skeptical of the “World’s gonna end ‘cuz of Greece” talk.,

There was another attempt at getting last-minute talks going, but they went approximately nowhere.

The Greek people are getting screwed, with cash withdrawals from ATM’s limited to 50-Euro now as cash runs out.

But that’s what happens if you let a megalomaniacal foreign government (The Ure-a-peein’ Onion) control the currency of your country.

Once the meglo’s are bounced, as this seems to be one outcome to the polling to take place Sunday, Greece could issue its own currency and from there either “go Iceland” and have a nice life.  Or, they could go down the more government than sense road, in which case the Nuevo Drachmas (or whatever they call it) can quickly becoming like the currency of Zimbabwe.

Pick your poison.

European Insanity Revealed

There is a logical inconsistency of Biblical proportions to all this which about 100% of US financial reporters seem incapable of grasping.

Let’s me ‘splain you, Lucy.

Factoid 1:  Greece is a financial sinkhole.

The country has been doling out dough fasters than the Great Society under LBJ.  Free lunch for all, seconds and thirds if you want it.

Factoid 2:  The EU lends money to the sinkhole.

Factoid 3:  The sink hole is getting deeper and needs even MORE money.

Factoid 4:  When it looks like the sink hole might actually go away and no longer be a drain on the EU, the European markets decline.

Now, I only scored a 4.0 GPA in my MBA program from a no-name school (which could be because I attended) BUT it sure seems to me that if “rational market”theory were true (and it’s often not, by the way) then European markets should have put on one hell of a what?

“Greeks are leaving and taking their sink hole with them” rally.

But look at the major European indices.

The German market closed last week at 11,492.43.  When I looked earlier this morning it was at 11,099.    Is that a 3.4% decline? 

Now I ask you, why would that drive a market down?  Mercedes sales gonna fall if the EU doesn’t lend money to Athens?  Help me here!

By the same token, France was at 4,819 when I looked.  A week ago it was 5,059.17.   Uh…is that a 4.7% drop in a week?

Would the loss of a Greek sinkhole really screw France out of that much Champagne and Citroen sales to Greece?

This is why we sit bank in an immersion chamber full of decaf and try to view “world-ending problems” from the highest level.

I also generalize countries as a thought tool.

When I think Germany I remember my old 1986 930 whale tail and Heidi Klum.  I don’t see Angela Merkel.   I think BMWs.  Excellence pops to mind.

Ditto France.  I see a massively cool cultural heritage from Bridgette Bardot to Chateau Lafite Rothschild.  I See the Citroen 2CV – one of the most basic cars in the world.  The original earth-car…with less than half the horsepower of the original VW Bug.  Style is the word here.

And when I look at Greece?

There’s not a word for it.

I see an Onassis who married the Widow Kennedy.

I see a country which blew the Gyro marketing opportunity.

And yes, I am not a huge fan of Retsina.  Think  of it as tasting like a nice California blush wine with a side of pine tar.

Somewhere, deep down in the darkest caves of the unconscious America, imagery like this holds sway.  We are all mostly unconscious, right?

The sink hole may go away and yet people are upset?   Makes no sense.

Poverty – the fertile ground from which inventiveness springs – is what we’re talking about here.

Ever notice how all the major inventions in world history seem to come in the temperate zones of the Earth, not in the Tropics?  Four seasons drive humans to greatness.  Plan a little or die is a good thing.

Oh, sure, Pyramids and fine and all, but functionally useless.  That’s tropical thinking.  Egpoic, pure and simple.

I’ll take me one of them moveable type Gutenberg things, any time.  Was Edison in the tropics?  No.  Tesla?  No.

See many root cellars in the Bahamas?  Nope.

Remember, the high culture of the Aztecs was up at the four-seasons elevations.  Been there, done that, and Cusco is cold.

Point being?

Humans thrive in adversity.  Give us a problem and we’re bound to fix it.  It’s why we love robotics and app development.  Single sideband, SR-71s and ‘vettes and M-16s.  Beechcraft and Skunk Works.

Greece is facing a marvelous problem-solving opportunity.  A gold-backed Drachma would be a fine thing.

But instead, they want to stay in bed with a currency that’s coyote-ugly…the Euro.

So no, I don’t get it.

Somebody is conning someone and my money is on the odds that this is another ”Too big to fail con” run by our old friends the bondies.

If truth in labeling really mattered, we would file this all under Leachcraft Holdings and not worry so much.

The Swaps and Derivative types don’t want an “event” because there wouldn’t be enough money on Earth to save us from the damage, is the chant.

Fact is, we could stiff them all and teach ‘em a lesson once and for all that the world won’t be held hostage.

We won’t,. of course.  And big money will buy the best talking-head sock puppets they can to scare us all into higher taxes and whatever it takes to run the herd again.

But think about tomorrow: Independence Day.

Independence nowadays is a highly personal thing.  You either think for yourself, or you go with the herd to the financial slaughter house.

But don’t look for that to be “In your face” anywhere, especially the Mainstream Media.

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Screaming Jobs, Twisted Stats

Yeah, short column.  You have a party to get ready for. 

Or a BBQ, trip to the lake, or the river, or the hook-up joint, or something, right?

So right to it, then:  Hot off the press is the jobs report:

”Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 223,000 in June, and the unemployment rate declined to 5.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Job gains occurred in professional and business services, health care, retail trade, financial activities, and in transportation and warehousing.

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Coping: Rural Versus Citified Life, Trippin’

(Tacoma, WA)  A short column this morning, since I know you have a lot of important things to do…including getting ready for the Independence Day weekend.  A Potpourri of writer’s notes, though, since travel always puts things into perspective.

These are a few things I found interesting.  No useful as pick up line material (unless you’re trolling nursing homes) but these are the twisted thoughts that come from travel…

Media Distortion Lives

So Elaine and her son go off for some food and a beer.  And Elaine starts going into the big-city dangers of pedophiles and crimes against children and how are the kids going to protect the grandchild and so on.

But the son-in-law – while recognizing the threat, maintains it is minor – and yes, they don’t do stupid things in terms of child safety.

But what’s really going on?

Is grandma nuts?  The son irresponsible? 

Well turns out, none-of-the-above.  After some questions from Ure erstwhile reporter-type, what we experienced was a fine example of media distortion.

You see, Elaine and I live in something of a media bubble..  Sure, we will go on a couple of cruises this year and we’re vacationing right now.  But mostly, our view of the world is shaped by media reports.  We se maybe a couple of people a week, but most of our input is media.

On the other hand, the views of the kids are more experientially based.  They have lots of friends, workers, coworkers, you know the breadth of big city life.  Everywhere there are people and they have a much different slant on things that 10-hours a day of stream video and satellite input.  While different ratio.

From the viewpoint of the kids, worries about the risk of anything in media (dog bites, pedophiles, bad nutrition, Fukushima radiation, etc.) are certainly there in consciousness, but not to the degree that we see them from sitting out in the woods in near-total media emersion.

Pretty interesting to see it work out, first-hand.

The Decline of Style

Next social observation is about the ongoing decline of style. 

I mentioned this when we went on our cruise in February…how no one dressed up, anymore.

You know:  Gone are the days of regular seatings on some cruise ships.  It’s being replaced with a “when you feel like it” approach.,

I worked in the airline business, for example, as a kid when I was a radio and electronics mechanic way back when (IAM Local 751, I think it was).  Airline employees had to dress to fly.  Minimum was a shirt, tie, and jacket.

People used to do that…and dressing was an important part of the economy.

Not so much – hell, hardly at all, anymore.

We went to dinner with the in-laws and the kids last night and I don’t think there were more than half a dozen people out of a hundred plus men in this waterfront bistro who were wearing long pants.as  Everyone else was wearing cut-offs.

The women, mostly, looked like they had planned about as well:  Several I saw looked like they had walked into their closets, closed their eyes, and put on the first thing their hand landed on.

Not to say that it matters, but it does.

One of these days, I will pen the Great Ironing Exposé.

People no longer seem to care about wrinkles, and I may be the only person north of the Oregon border who appreciates a starched shirt.

And shoes that take a good shine?  Forget about it!

Yards as Signs

I mentioned to you the lack of rain up here.

A lot of yards are brown.

Sure sign of a person who is not flat-busted and who has some sense of pride-of-ownership is a well cared-for lawn.

I haven’t done it, but I’m tempted to go door-to-door and survey on this.

The Pet Theory being that people are on the inside, very muck like they surround themselves with on the outside.

If you see a neglected yard?  Almost a sure sign of people with a bad attitude, the way I reckon.

Card Declined

This was embarrassing:”  I went into the airport FBO after going flying with the father-in-law yesterday.  Off from Tacoma Airport and up to Bremerton (KPWT) where the Airport Diner more than proved itself the best fly-in breakfast joint around.

Came back (sight-seeing over Hood Canal and South Puget Sound) and needed a couple of quarts of oil for the return home.

Card declined!

Say what?

Yes, I could literally put a new Camry on my card but this largest Bank in America decided that it was suspicious and so my card was declined.

So a good part of the morning went into fixing that rat maze.

And this was after I had gone online before the trip and put in a travel notice.

A couple of hours later I was in a branch getting a big wad of cash and the teller was wondering “Huh?”

I explained that my card had been shut off, even though I’d gone through the bank’s hoops and I was not going to be Shanghaied in Bozo, Montana, or wherever, with 360-pounds of fuel I couldn’t  pay for.  So hand over my money.  I’m pissed.

“Oh, I’m sure that would never happen sir.”

“My butt!  It just happened with two quarts of oil.”

“Oh.”

This is the first time we’ve gone on a trip with (mostly) plastic only but there’s a keen lesson here about why the transition to a cashless society scares the hell out of me.

I don’t trust banks and (remember: I did their travel alert deal) they are not trusting me back.

Cash still talks and plastic walks.

Next time I will know better than put my nuts in the Bankster’s vice.  I’m am in charge of my life and my money – which gets me onto that whole other problem of banks don’t think it’s my money…just an asset for them  to move as they see fit.

I was fit to be tied and just thinking about it raises my diastolic 12-points. 

Ure just renewed his old axiom “Always have enough cash to use as get-home money.”

Somewhere in Fed Region 10 there is probably a Suspicious Activity Report  (SAR) with my name on it.  For any one who cares, it wouldn’t be there if banks did their jobs right.

(Ever wonder what would happen if someone came in and wanted to get $5,000 of cash for a drug deal and told the truth up front?  Or “I need to buy some C4 and caps to blow some stumped up”?)

We have rolled from being a country where the Founders ruled to one where Kafka and Orwell got it more right.

The gap between theory and practice if you’re an optimist.  Denial don’t last long, if you’re a pessimist.

Well, so much for Mr. Cheerful’s Trip Report.

We will have a somewhat abbreviated report Friday because markets will be closed, but show up anyway, because you never know what happens when the gentle outback farmerly-type goes to the land of slickers and bumps into the New Reality.

Mostly it’s been fun and highly edjumacational.

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A Response to Deagel

(Tacoma, WA)  This morning we take on one of the more interesting sites on the web –  site which is has military/strategic planning roots and which has a very scary forecast of what could happen to the US population in the next 10-years.

Along the way, we will bump into a whole crop of conspiracy theories and we’ll kick the tires on things like the supposed pending announcement of a Planet-X/Niburu disclosure for this fall.

But alas!  As always, by sticking doggedly with the data, we arrive at a truth

Not one we were in a hurry to get to, but one to be included on our Threat Board, nevertheless.

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Housing Sags a Tiny Bit (Updated)

Hot of the Press Release:

New York, June 30, 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 April 2015 show that home prices continued their rise across the country over the last 12 months.

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To Hellenic Hand Basket

No, this is not a Crash.

Yes, the market will open down.

Yes, Europe is looking Grim.

But some simple truths about Greece and the global economy may set your mind at rest.

1.  Greece is in a world of hurt.  Banking is limiting people’s withdrawals from the financial system to only a few Euros per day.

2.  The Greek problems have hit markets around the world, but presumably you’ve discounted the problem in your own accounts.

So, no, I don’t expect the Greeks breaking with the EU will hurt anyone in the US except those chasing yields with high bond promises/lies.  Greece will have to liquidate decades of free lunches, pretty much all at once.  That’ll be an owie.

Bond holders will scream bloody murder about how they need to be made whole.  But the truth – for the idiots at the helm who seem to have forgotten basic accounting – is that interest has two components:  rent of money which is basically the borrowing cost and risk of default which the bondies (who have come to believe they are deities) can’t seem to remember how that works.

Bondies argue everyone else should buy their free lunch.

As a sage reader posted in the overnight comments section:

People need to be reminded that the Greek shut down of the Banking and stock market is nothing new. The US did that in 1914 (shut down the stock market from August to December), and shut down ALL banking for a week with a bank holiday in March, 1933.Only a fool would believe it would never happen here again, or that everything is contained in Europe, or wherever.

Ah…reminders, is it?

Well here’s one to bear (or bull_)  in mind this morning:  Crashes don’t happen at the top.

Yeah, sounds idiotic to mention a little detail like this, but remember just a few trading sessions back, the NASDAQ was hitting new Post-2000 highs.

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Coping: Depression-proofing Your Family

(Tacoma, WA)  In theory, we are supposed to be “on vacation” up here in the PNW this week until a week from tomorrow.

But the reality is that there is no such thing anymore, at least for 80% of Americans.

The reason is that we have stretched the rubber band of economy so tight, that it takes either coupling with anything that walks in order to make enough money to live with some modicum of comfort, or there’s a need to master multiple job-holding, or start-up entrepreneurship.

Among our kids, we have one set that will be launching a well-schooled daycare facility,  Another has recently started working at a second job (in sales this time) and another will be looking for professional growth opportunities.  And my son?  He’s happily working two government jobs, assistant managing an apartment, and providing for emergency medical assistance at various public events. 70-hours a week allows him to save a lot to money toward whatever he will need to “buy right future.”

I hope you can see the pattern here:  All of the kids are being introduced by either economic necessity or Ures truly’s  cajoling, to the notion that the 40-hour workweek is terribly out of date.

The reality is – as I told you it would – is that the Mexification of America is well underway.

You see, in the real “best of times” one person working could provide for a livable wage.  Can’t do that, anymore.

While it would be nice to have a higher minimum wage (and $15-bucks is about the lowest number that makes sense) the facts of economics argue that will will not work because of one condition U.S.-style capitalism doesn’t do well with, namely:  Economic Depression.

No, we are not there yet.

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Our Future: Wahalaylias and Mind Maps

(Tacoma, WA)  A longer than usual report this weekend (don’t expect more than a brief update Wednesday) but more complete than most in that today we will not only embellish on our rather dismal outlook for the coming 10 year period, but we shall also share a few thinking tools and how we use them for analyzing complex situations.

And then we will get into the weird stuff – which after we work through a number of levels of analysis won’t seem all that weird, at all.

And that’s where we will discuss the Wahalaylia – a new kind of percussion device – that arrived as a dream while consorting with future spirits in a post EMP, post-DNA war world.

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