Year: 2015

Ivar Haglund, who for years ran the famous Acres of Clams on the Seattle waterfront, nailed the best fish and chips recipe on the planet. 

But he was better known for saying “Keep Clam.”  No matter what the occasion.’’

A folk singer in his earlier years, he had the kind of spirit we seem to have lost track of.. which means its getting on time toward George and Elaine making our summer trek for fish and chips in the Pacific Northwest again, later this month.

We will be in the Seattle area from about the latter part of June to the midriff of July and then off to Alberta and so on, weather permitting, of course.

As your mind clears, it might occur to you to wonder “What the hell does Keep Clam, a trip to the Northwest, and travel plans after, have to do with investing?”

Just everything.

I will lay out the reasons on the subscriber side again Wednesday, but with the market set to open down only modestly this morning, Haglund’s “Keep Clam, you chowderhead!” rings as good as anything put out by a major brokerage firm, here lately.

If you’re trying to make a few clams, the only way to work it is with determination – and a clam shovel.  This latter point being often missed by the free-lunchers, who often forget that making clams involves digging in.

Speaking of chowderheads, though, we note that on Friday, Fed Bossette Janet Yellen was saying the Fed would not turn over information about Feral Reserve meeting notes, which showed up in the hands of an investment outfit one day before public release.

This all deep-fries into a crispy “we’re probing that ourselves” on the Fed side to local Congressman Jeb Hensarling’s  wondering why we would swallow that bait?

Conspiracy theorists are going to love this one:  It also gives the republicorps something they haven’t had for a while…a real story.

But in the meantime, we’ll keep clam for another day…as there’s not much on the calendar.  So we will  sit back, amused and amazed at Ms Yellen’s other side show, preemptively saying last month that stock prices were too high and saying how we can’t afford a stock market bubble.

While some of our work points to a Dow soaring to 30,000 (when people figure out how much money has been printed by the FedGov) we note that Chris Legarde of the IMF has also signed on to the “No rate high club” as a leading member.

Still, little is likely to happen today.  The market usually likes some kind of news story to blame for any major move…so absent a Russian invasion of Ukraine (which itself is violating the peace agreement right and left) we have some boring bond crap and another quake over in Japan to think about.

I’m off to audit some media now, since the 5.9 quake report sure looks like a 6.1 on the USGS site.  Reality seems to drift now and then…

Hardly enough to ripple of cup of clam nectar, though. so we will clamly think about travels and profits to come.

And remember, when someone asks if the chips are down, don’t forget to ask if the fish is, too.

Oh-oh….the French fry warnings are back…

Problem for the Lab Rats

So, in this morning’s inbox is this gem from Madison Avenue Mike, scion of the NYC Fashion Jewelry set:

Binghamton University reports “Brain’s reaction to certain words could replace passwords.

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Often in our early-morning sit-downs, we cover light, different, and a little bit of the “out-there.”

But this morning, we begin with the serious side.

There are two items which you really need to think about because they both involve aspects of freedom – living in the democratic republic – for which we stand.

So there I was Saturday morning, relaxed and half-snoozing when the phone rings.

It was a long-time subscriber to Peoplenomics® who is a public official in a large governmental unit.  And elected official, whose name I won’t give, this man’s one of the watchdogs of freedom…

He’s the sort of elected official who actually reads proposed laws, thinks about them, holds them  up to the measure of his state and the federal constitution.  In other words, exactly the kind of fellow you’d want in office representing the general public:  He’s open to all sides of issues and conscientiously votes what he finds in his heart to be in keeping with core American concepts.

In short, a really good guy.

So why was he calling me to chat about a law-making issue?  I’ll paraphrase…

“George, I wanted to see what your feelings are about chest-cameras for our police officers.  I’ m wrestling with this one…

Not exactly the kind of thing to wake up from a Saturday morning snooze with a sharp answer for, but I rolled through the pros and cons as I saw them:

On the pro side:

1.  The presence of a chest-cam protects the officer from charges of excessive force, charges of abuse of power, and is a pretty good record of how a suspect is reacting and behaving.

2.  In the event of violence against an officer, anyone committing violence against an officer would likely b e captured on video along with critical other evidence…so it protects the officer again.

On the con side, however:

1.  Who will review the video tape?  Will entire shift content be videoed, or will only initial responses?  What is policy on when to “roll tape” and to go cameras off?

2.  One that video is in police custody, what is the likelihood that the video will be scanned in the future using facial recognition software and a “potential criminal file” started, even if the police questioned a suspect (* you for example) and then went on their merry way? 

Would this kind of uncertainty over future disposition of footage outweigh the improved safety (and quality of evidence) that the chest-cam provides?

The police right to take and use video in public places is pretty well established.

But suppose a neighbor of your says (lying of course) that you are growing six marijuana plants and calls the cops because of the smell and your grow lights keeping the neighbor awake.

The cops show up, cameras running, but knowing your neighbor is a prick, you’ve killed the lights and turned on the exhaust fans.  You really have 17-plants growing.

Opening the front door, you have a chat with the officers, who video the encounter…but since you have the fans on and they don’t have a warrant, that’s the end of it.

Except, when they get back to the station, a video operator uses the newly developed THC fluorescence filter and notices a tiny spot on the carpet in the background on the floor while you were chatting.  Shouldn’t have dropped that dutchie, boy. Ja’maica mistake?

“OMG, the THC Filter says there has been weed in this house.  This is grounds for a warrant!”

The cops them come back, impound your plants and you’ve off to jail along with a perfectly good chain of custody to back up their case.

We chat about the Constitutional balance for a while,. but I eventually come down on the side of the police chestcams, because a couple of cameras rolling on crime would possibly prevent future “people acting badly” cases like Ferguson and Baltimore.

And please note that I didn’t say which people.  Just, people because there are racists of all colors and power and positional authority abusers of all colors – I’ve met representatives of most.

My called continued…

“The other problem we have is that if we download the camera footage to a government-owned server, under the public records laws of this state, that video is all DISCOVERABLE for two years.

So not only could a lawyer for a defendant secure all the footage about a partcular crime but they could also go fishing through all the video ever recorded by an officer and fine unrelated cases which might then be cast as showing an officers predisposition to act in a certain way…”

I figure the way to prevent this kind of lawyering would be to limit lawyer access to only the case video where the lawyer’s client is involved.  Otherwise, the lawyer could conceivably also drag in people with no criminal record (those questioned by an officer whose character the lawyer is trying assassinate) and they have no business being privy to that.

Moreover, when would the chest cams go on?  I think at the officer’s discretion or when they arrive at the scene of a call…their discretion.

The reasoning here is that an HR department or internal investigations would have a field day with off-hand remarks between officers between calls.  I have many friends who are cops – damn good professionals – but some of the sh*t you see in the field can and does get reduced to hardcore language which wouldn’t pass PG-13, if’n you follow.

“If you have any more ideas, George, let me know?”

Well, as it turns out, I did.

Toss it out for readers   (that’d be you if the coffee is still perking) to comment on and pass along the comments to my elected official friend as soon as possible.

Chestcams on police don’t bother me.  Adding a requirement that timecode be inserted so there’s no “after-the-fact” editing, would be a good idea, too.

Your comments welcomed…I will pass them along…

How We Lose of Freedom:  Virtualizing the U.S.A.

The second serious point (before we wander into the less serious stuff) is to recount the simple revelation in this weekend’s Peoplenomics report because it explains how Trade Laws are going to be used to Trump Civil and Constitutional Law.

It’s all there for the reading on the www.wikileaks.org site.  It is contained in the Chapter Four contents of TPA and the TISA b.s.

Simply it works like this:

Under present law, if a trading company out of Taiwan, or example, has a beef with a US company, it can bring suit in the U.S.

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Before we get into the Department of Labor jobs report, just out, a look at the macro picture is in order.

First, consider the Challenger Jobs Cut report out Thursday (graphic right) and ask yourself “What is so bad about this?”

Look, as I have been telling Peoplenomics™ subscribers for a long time:  There is a chance that the normal “Sell in May” won’t happen this year (it didn’t, by the way) and we could see an increase in markets in the summer rally to come.

So one economic data point was the job creation report (ADP) up around what was it, +205,000, or so?  And the Challenger number was down a lot compared to previous months.

And the Fed is unlikely to raise rates until next year?

Gimme a break:  Those Harbingers of Doom who cite manufacturing data are being a little insincere, I think, as well.  Production may be down, but it never seems to occur to these geniuses that inventories had been building. 

In real business, when inventory build is sitting in a warehouse, somewhere, it represents money at rest that’s not producing something of value to a company.  Hard to sell “availability.”  So orders come down.

So now we’ve worked around to the main economic issue – for people who own stocks:  Is there a reason to believe that this is a sell the rumor, buy the news kind of set-up?  Designed – with yesterday’s decline) to smoke out as many bears as possible and then have them for lunch today?

Hand me the envelope, now, please?

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 280,000 in May, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 5.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Job gains occurred in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and health care.

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Seems like every hobby has an “emotional hook” that people get caught up in.

Playing hooky Thursday morning, I flew G-II – my son if you weren’t following this – down to Skydive Spaceland.  Wonderful facility, nice people, well-maintained equipment and a great group of folks.

The picture right was snapped on initial climb.

But on the two hour ride down, maybe a third of it was me thinking about skydiving and wondering why people do it.

Sometime in the wee hours this morning, the light came on (in my head) and I figured that the kind of hobbies we choose are probably defined by the perception/identification that was programmed into us (imprinted if you will) at a very young age.  Or, we have been commercially imprinted, which is a whole other deal, indeed.

Take hunting for example.  People who own guns, in particular, seem a good illustration of how the mind works.   And how this imprinting stuff works.

Damn few people I know pursue hunting for the original purpose – which was to put meat on the table. 

There are damn few folks, except maybe our friends in the castle up near Weston Colorado, who genuinely like harvesting an elk, or two each year, for example.  With the closest real “store” some 50-miles down the road in Trinidad, Co. (pretty town, BTW) it makes sense to bag an occasional elk and freeze it.

It’s also an insurance policy…the area gets cold and is remote as heck.  Should there be any failure of services, or just a road being impassable due to drifts, a gun and local wildlife can keep our friends alive indefinitely.

Now, let’s take the other side of it.  A bunch of friends of mine this weekend are piling together down in southern Washington, where one of them is building a serious bug-out place. 

He’s a meticulous doctor-type and my friend the retired army officer is there along with a couple of other friends.

Sure, a lot of work on the bug-out building will no doubt be done, but there’s also enough firepower on the trip to outfit a combat squad in the sandbox. They will be sighting –in their collection of AR-15s and what-have-you.

Guns, “marksmanship” and testosterone often seem to show up about the same time.  When it’s in a setting like this retreat in Washington, it is “fun” and there is an element of skill since as far as I know, all the participants are retired or former military and do take pride in their gun handling skills.

What do I know about the imprinting process with these people?  A couple I can speak of with  clarity.  Hunting, and living away from the main/crazy-stream in life just makes sense.  Castle in the hills, or trailer in the woods, being out of the way of other humans just makes sense.

Living in a big city, it is argued, puts you closer to emergency medical care as you age, that’s for sure.  But the flip side is the stress of being in a large city might force you to need it sooner.

Big cities are like living in the center of a fast-flowing river.  Everyone in mid-stream is in a hurry and generally oblivious to that waterfall up ahead that everyone is rushing toward.

Hence, living to the side of the main current (as we do here in the Outback, or our Castle friends do) just makes good sense.  The shallows along the bank of the river flow slower.  And you have a chance of avoiding the waterfall.  Oh, and no first-strike nuclear targets near.

The imprinting of the Washington crowd is different:  At least two out of the four were military (one a spec ops type) while my friend the retired officer has an older brother who is very talented in many areas – including duck hunting and reloading.  Some imprinting from family and childhood and some “commercial” imprinting, which is how armies work.

In the retired officer’s case, I can see back to the “imprint” of duck hunting in Eastern Washington and keeping up with the older brother.  The spec ops fellow lived in the world where only a damn fool wouldn’t have a gun under the pillow.

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