Month: January 2016

Today begins to look like an interesting day to think about getting back into the long side of the market.

Not that we will actually be so silly as to do that; the tools over on the www.peoplenomics.com side of the house are not giving us a green light yet and I invented those tools to keep our personal finances out of the ditch since I am one of those people who tends to fall in love with positions.

Still, we have to look at some of the factors that could lead to rational exuberance – and one of them slapped my yesterday on a drive through Jacksonville, TX.

The price of gas at one of the off-brands on the main drag through town was selling Regular for $1.499 per gallon.    

The Triple A National Fuel Gauge Report shows $1.813 nationally this morning against year-ago prices at $2.044.

Since it seems like most of the cars being sold are getting reasonable mileage, it gets me to wondering whether car travel might be poised to make a recovery this year.

While it’s a bit early for thinking about driving vacations this year with the weather still kind of Itchy and Scratchy for a while yet, it is something to think about when the boss isn’t around.

There is a technical problem:  Even with a strong rally today, the market will not have really gone anywhere this week.  Remember that last Friday’s S&P close was 1,906.90.  So the markets need to “put on some beans” today just to get back to break-even.

Even so, the Futures are kinda pointing this way.  Some reasons?

Well in the Pacific, Japan and China were both up over 2 1/2%.  In Europe, France and Germany were coming up on 3/4% increases, but the Brits were up 1.25% already.

If that kind of EUphoria carries West, that would pump the Dow up 200 and something by the close.  And more important, that would breath live back into the S&P and pop a gain of 20-something for the week.  Any port in a storm.

Still, there’s a long ways to the close and being in cash means we can focus on the important part of life:  Trying to figure out who we pissed off in some previous lifetime to end up on this planet for this time around.

And trying to figure out what really matters besides health, heart, and pocketbook.

GDP’ing All Over Ourselves

Hot off the press release:

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 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

In the third quarter, real GDP increased 2.0 percent. The Bureau emphasized that the fourth-quarter advance estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see the box on page 4 and “Comparisons of Revisions to GDP” on page 5).

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Everyone loves a bit of mystery in life.

Since everyone is working (and who has time to call the old folks?) it was a pleasure to catch up a bit with youngest daughter on the phone last night.

Yes, this is the one that got married a few months back after the World’s Toughest Mudder at the MGM Grand.

Turns out their marriage is off to a great start, since they are both into trivia and games.

In the Ancient Book of Ure, there is a set of instructions that says Sex is good for a while, brains are good for a very long time, and the heart is forever.   Mystery keeps everything lasting forever.

As it turns out, daughter (who is a serious gamer) and hubby love to “do mysteries” for one-another.

Since the daughter picked up the latest symphony tickets, she’s having fun with a local mystery she cooked up for the other half.

He has to find his concert ticket.

Gamers have a marvelous sense of play.  So her “mystery for the hubby to solve began with an email from a non-existent spy organization.

He bit.

So a subsequent email explained there is a missing document and he’s being run all over the house and around the neighborhood trying to follow clues that he hopes will get him to his concert ticket, or the daughter will go with a friend of hers.

The game must has consequences, apparently.

I can’t spoil it all, but one of the clues that has been found was in a water bottle with a secret compartment.

Water bottle with a secret compartment?  Oh sure, she explained.  See Amazon and pick one up: Bottle Safe – Dasani.

When introducing the prop, you can get really surreptitious and mix it in with a case of real water, if you want to.

This left Dad with an increasingly familiar “Well, I’ll be dipped and rolled in it…” feeling.  So, there is a glimmer of playfulness and some intelligence in these 30-somethings, after all.

Another clue was on the backside of a picture in the living room.

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Not to ruin breakfast, but check out the latest not-so Durable Goods Order just released by Census:

New Orders  
   New orders for manufactured durable goods in December decreased $12.0 billion or 5.1 percent to $225.4 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today.  This decrease, down four of the last five months, followed a 0.5 percent November decrease.  Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 1.2 percent.  Excluding defense, new orders decreased 2.9 percent.       Transportation equipment, also down four of the last five months, led the decrease, $10.1 billion or 12.4 percent to $71.3 billion.   

Shipments 
   Shipments of manufactured durable goods in December, down two of the last three months, decreased $5.4 billion, or 2.2 percent, to $235.8 billion. This followed a 0.6 percent November increase.  
   Transportation equipment, also down two of the last three months, led the decrease, $5.4 billion or 6.7 percent to $75.1 billion.      

Unfilled Orders  
   Unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods in December, down following two consecutive monthly increases, decreased $5.6 billion or 0.5 percent to $1,187.6 billion.  This followed a 0.1 percent November increase.  
  Transportation equipment, also down following two consecutive monthly increases, led the decrease, $3.8 billion or 0.5 percent to $795.2 billion.

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I can’t count the number of emails making their way around the net in the past 24-hours with provocative headlines like “Fed’s Murdered (the vic) at Roadblock…”

Toss onto that the flurry of emails on the Fed action (not raising rates) at their decision meeting Wednesday that sent the market down more than 200 points before the close.

And with that, we have the “debate” tonight with up to 80-odd percent saying they won’t watch it because no Trump, no audience. 

That and the water heater in Panama’s apartment blew out yesterday..mind you it was covered by a six year guarantee so it failed at 75-months.

Time to do some “cool head” exercises.

Talked to Elaine.  “Dear, you know that porch and desk paint we put on (and discovered after the fact that it said not for exterior use)?  Well, it’s flaking in one spot…:

Yes sir, this was one of those days to be sure.  “Chill, dog,” I told myself.

I don’t have a hot temper  If I did, I’d been doing box time by now.  Seriously.. In fact, I’m more toward  the other extreme:  I like to maintain a kind of Raymond Reddington personality; 5-jumps ahead and ready for whatever.

So this morning a couple of ideas on how to maintain a good attitude so as not to screw up the weekend.

1.  Yes.  One of the people involved in the stand-off in Oregon is dead.  Sorry about that.  BUT you can bet there will be a ton of lawyering on the part of the family members who survived and we will see a ton of videos on Youtube,  Ultimately, though, both sides are partisans.  The demonstrators were distinctly anti BLM and, by extension, anti-government.

I’ve worked in some fairly regulated industries in my time; higher education and broadcasting.  Without exception, I’ve never seen a government auditor get angry.  They don’t have to.   They have the power to tax, the power of a standing Army, and a damn fine Navy.

And, did I mention the government has outlived all of us and can make up money to boot?

I used to tell my kids it is always smarter to run away from al fight you can’t win.  Only an idiot picks a fight where the outcome isn’t certain.

Look, I don’t think BLM land should be off the tax roles.  Since the Feds have some much land, only those areas that at unfenced and open to real public access should be called “public lands.”

Anything else is a real estate operation – and what is the Fed Gov running a real estate operation in huge areas of the West?  State could likely do a better job of it and would certainly meet the test of government closer to the people which is, to my way of thinking where it belongs.

I am sad for the family’s loss, but it was not a fight where there was a clear set-up to win.  The only way to change government without risk of death is at the polls or in a courtroom.  When people forget this, which does happen when wrapped up in a serious grievance, the first rule of fighting is broken.

Never pick a fight you aren’t certain you can win.

There is a word that people often forget, especially when emotions run high and a crowd of people becomes self-reinforcing in their views.  That word is pragmatic.

It means acting in accordance with the data, not theory; high-minded or otherwise.

It’s all about living in the world that is, not trying to live in a world that may become.

The Oregon group was, in a sense right:  Why does GUS (government, U.S.) hold claim to so much land?  I mean other than it’s power and requires taxes to run, and a big supporting infrastructure?

The key is the manner of change:  Confrontation with a government (see Army, Navy,a Air Force and ownership of the Courts) is very unlikely to result in a long-term change to a world without BLM.   Because we live in the world that is, and in this world government is self-reinforcing, self-perpetuating, expansionary, and armed to the teeth.

Sure victory for the 98-pound weakling doesn’t come from getting in a ring with a prize fighter.  Rent lawyers and send them into the ring. 

2.  The Fed is trying to do the right thing on rates, but it isn’t working out well.  See the top story in the news section (when I get to it).  The markets are not likely to call apart today.

Again though, while I don’t think there should be a) a Federal Reserve and believe Congress abdicated by giving private banksters control of the nation’s money and b) the Fed rents us our money and has systematically watered down its purchasing power to only 4.2% of what it was when the banksters got the vault key in 1913, we need to remember here that the same observation about keeping cool applied to the banksters, too.

Like BLM, the Federal Reserve has what it has (power) and by extension, they are backed by Congress (crooks of a feather?) and they, in turn, are backed by a damn fine Army and a first-rate Navy.  (I haven’t mentioned the Air Force, but count them and the Coasties too.

See the previous rule:

Never pick a fight you aren’t certain you can win.

Bitcoin isn’t going to win, unless its part of some negotiated lay-down.  And gold and silver and cash are slowly being criminalized.

It may be too early to pop learned questions on you, but I don’t suppose you know who Mohamed A.

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As expected, a pretty good housing report today from S&P/Case-Shiller:

New York, January 26, 2016 – 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 November 2015 show that home prices continued their rise across the country over the last 12 months.

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Monday was spent, much as Sunday, on the back of the old Kubota as spring clean-up time is here.  The brush has been beaten back by Winter and it’s easier now before the creatures come out in Spring.

For those who have never lived on a large piece of land, keeping it up involves a tremendous amount of work and no small measure of diesel.  So far, about 10-gallons into what will be a 20-gallon project, about half of the open part of Uretopia Ranch is looking very much like a state park.  Or will when the tractorfying is done.

There is a lot to go, yet.  And the “burn pile” is still smoldering after three days of fire.  It is astounding how much wood comes down as “deadfall” around here.  Plus, this year we had three old trees, perhaps late victims of our drought several years back, that needed to come down. 

The test is simple:  I put the tractor in compound four-wheel low and smash into it with the loader bucket at about 7-feet off the ground.  If it survives 3-4 whacks, then I figure the tree remains are good for another year and not likely to come crashing down on us.  But this year, we had some trees that we’re up to tractor abuse.  I look at the process as training sessions for an auto accident.

Broinlaw Panama and I hold differing views on old trees.  He’s a fan of leaving them for the wildlife.  That’s fine, if the residents were restricted to some neat bird species, but once they fall, things like snakes winter-over in them.  And to my way of thinking, the fewer dead trees within 500-feet of the house, the lower the odds of snakes.

With the brush slicked off, the hawks and vultures can see anything heading for the house and do their jobs.

Every year about this time, I get started on the project.  It’s time and diesel and while the diesel prices are nice, the time is a real pain.  And that’s our jumping-off point for this morning’s discussion.

It’s about our shrinking future.

I sometimes think farmers may be the most intelligent people in the world because there is not a lot of interruption when working the land. Uninterrupted thinking time abounds.  I spent the tractor-back time working out the next Peoplenomics report.  It will cover seven essential skills for the future.

I wanted to get you started thinking about this today with a few reflections on space – the kind of square footage that makes life good.  How much is enough?

– – – – –

To begin with, there is a simple calculation we can do to begin “bounding” the problem of so many people but only this much land.

We look up the amount of land on the planet and divide among the number of people.

A quick Google (because my calculator and I aren’t on good terms until 10 AM, or so) and we find this:

The total land surface area of Earth is about 57,308,738 square miles, of which about 33% is desert and about 24% is mountainous. Subtracting this uninhabitable 57% (32,665,981 mi²) from the total land area leaves 24,642,757 square miles or 15.77 billion acres of habitable land.

Since we know that there are about 7-billion people in the world, we can guestimate that each human has (in theory) a little over 2-acres per person.

If we were alert enough to remember there are 640-acres per square mile, this would mean averaged out, about 300-people per square mile would be a reasonable shot from the hip.  You take the arid Nevada country east of Reno which is technically habitable; we’ll stick with the 90-foot pines and 60-odd inches of rain in East Texas, thanks.

Of course, even the land mentioned by the cite is not all useful.  A lot of it depends on whether the land gets enough rainfall.  A lot of land up in Nebraska or the back-side of the Rockies is pretty dry and not exactly warm and inviting.  Not desert, but not fun.  Even for those of us with modest means an only a single-engine, this is fly-over country.

That’s why although Tornado Alley has a bad rap in terms of mobile homes being blown around, it also is generally where there’s enough rain to where a family could make a stab as living off the land.  They did…and then came Phillips and then came fracking, but another diversion from point.

East Texas, and the huge areas north of the Southern  coastal states and south of the Appalachia and west farm lands, is really great property to hold.  Although places like Mongolia have amazing grasslands, the climate is less friendly.  And except for the mountains east of Salt Lake (the Wasatch) a whole bunch of Utah, Nevada, ands even Colorado and Wyoming is hard-living country.

Eastern Montana, the Dakotas, Wisconsin and Minnesota are pretty good, too.  Except they have this beast called Winter up that way.  Gentlemen don’t do winter.

The mind plays things back when your only job  is to turn the tractor around and cut another swath and cast an occasional eye at the burn pile.

The haunting question always comes back to this:  How much space does a human need to live an optimized life?  And who is doing the optimizing?

The space question is pretty easy to answer.  Prisons have that down to something of a science.  A really minimalist lifestyle in a 6-foot by 8-foot cell can be done, especially if it comes with bedding and meals done elsewhere.

The interesting thing to note is that humans, like all animals, get to range.  Even in prisons, inmates are usually allowed to move around a bit.  The showers, the meal areas, the “day room” and so on.  Plus a decent exercise yard,.

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Our weekly chart reading, not to be confused with fortune-telling, on our subscriber side (www.peoplenomics.com) holds open the idea that as the week dawns, we are really in “make or break” time for not only the Global markets, but for the U.S. as well.

Friday, thanks to a couple of good rallies on Thursday and Friday, we were left sitting exactly on the bottom of a long-term trend channel which spans from 2009’s low through present day.

The fact that at first glance the Dow futures were down around 50 points is hardly conclusive evidence of what’s ahead for the week; stocks have moved that much in an hour (or less) recently.

It’s in situations like this (with the import/export data as presented on the subscriber side) and with Housing figures due out tomorrow morning, we expect that the bottom is in.  Should any of our offspring call to wonder if it’s time to get back into stocks, we would only send them the trend channel chart which has a look of “completeness” to it if this is the fourth move since 2009.

The other big deal this week (as if housing data is not enough) is the Federal Reserve begins two days of meetings tomorrow.  Although it is not getting too much press yet, in our long wave economics studies, there’s about an even-money bet that the Fed will raise again.

Not to sound like the Proverbial broken record, but in our parallels to the 1921-1929 market run-up, we estimate our position on the present timeline as somewhat analogous to the week of 10/27/1927 at the earliest, although it is more likely the week of 7/12/1928.

Admittedly, this is a fairly long stretch of history, encompassing a 9.5 month window, but equating the fiscal policies of one era with another is never exactly precise for numerous reasons.  Not the least of which is that what was used as “money” through the 1920’s orgasmic peak was still being marked to something of underlying value:  Gold and Silver.

The fiat (paper) money of the day was largely Silver Certificates which featured a promise of convertibility at any Federal Reserve Bank.  The Wikipedia entry on the Silver Certificate gives us some other interesting background:

Silver certificates are a type of representative money issued between 1878 and 1964 in the United States as part of its circulation of paper currency.^[1] They were produced in response to silver agitation by citizens who were angered by the Fourth Coinage Act, which had effectively placed the United States on a gold standard.^[2] The certificates were initially redeemable for their face value of silver dollar coins and later (for one year – 24 June 1967 to 24 June 1968) in raw silver bullion.^[1] Since 1968 they have been redeemable only in Federal Reserve Notes and are thus obsolete, but still valid legal tender and thus are still an accepted form of currency.^[1]

Large-size silver certificates (1878 to 1923)^{[nb 1]} were issued initially in denominations from $10 to $1,000 (in 1878 and 1880)^[4][5] and in 1886 the $1, $2, and $5 were authorized.^[5][6] In 1928, all United States bank notes were re-designed and the size reduced.^[7] The small-size silver certificate (1928–1964) was only issued in denominations of $1, $5, and $10.^[8] The complete type set below is part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History

While we don’t expect the physical size of the U.S. Dollar to change, there is, nevertheless, a major campaign against paper as government ramps up its attacks on holding cash.  The outsized mania to enforce total “accountability” on the transactions of citizens is nothing short of economic slavery combined with warrantless search, but the public’s attitude toward what “money” is has gone completely off the rails.

As evidence consider this:  In the UK recently, following the death of David Bowie, some 38,760 Brits signed a petition to put David Bowie’s face on as unit of Kneeler currency.

From the exchange of nominal paper for a measurement of long-term precious metals to a simple pledge of value from a government which buried a ton of tax hikes in the Affordable Care Act to a suggestion in England that a note which we’d call a Bowie…it all serves to demonstrate the drift encountered when trying to make sense of one Economic Age versus another.

To be sure, while this looks like the week of June 28, 1928, the pre-Depression Fed raised rates in February, April, and July. 

Since the Fed raised in December just past, the greatest chance would be that they will not raise at this meeting, but will wait until the subsequent one to raise again.  Still, in terms of the “being on our schedule” another rate hike this week is not out of the question.  The current Fed is running a tad behind the ‘28 Fed.

The first hike (in December) began to have its expected effects, as explained for subscribers.  If you’re not one, you can click over here for the Fed H.8 report and see where the money has already started to move.

I would be blowing my own horn if I sent an email to my local serious bond trader-friend Don and reminded him that this is the first part of “Where will the money come from to blow the top off the Dow to an explosive Fifth wave finish?”

These things take a while to wind through the bowels of money-changing.

That noted, when you see that banks were running from the theatre after the last Fed hike, screaming that they were giving up on cash, trading assets, and interbank loans….well, the money has to go somewhere.  And that somewhere is likely to be the stock market which is why I put it “out there” in a recent radio interview that we would likely see new all-time highs before Summer.

Seriously:  Where else is there to put money?

Oil?  Who wants to play “catch falling knives” although big players like the Saudis will likely use the period of weakness to roll-forward from some of their domestic assets into those of other countries, like the U.S.

Real Estate?  Watch the home prices tomorrow morning when they come out.  Although some markets are hot (SF, Seattle) others are not and the angle of the dangle begins to wangle.  Childless coupling means smaller homes work.  The Ure progeny are zero-for-three passing the mid-30’s…

Which also reminds us that the macro-trend to micro-homes and an all computerized life is driving, too.  Who needs a computer room, or a library, or a den when you have a tablet with Win-10 and all spreadsheets synched, a zillion eBooks, and Tinder?

Put your life savings in Bonds?  You mean here at the end-stage of a decline in the long-term yields that has been underway since 1981?  You’d have to be mad.

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Welcome back from a really cool weekend.  (Sorry, just trying to be current with the weather mania going about…)

While we are sitting around waiting for markets to open, we have one item on the agenda that, while not life changing,  in an of itself, is nevertheless extraordinarily interesting.

It is a learned report out of the Australian National University that may explain why we have not been having aliens lining up to knock on our doors and save us from ourselves.

They may all be dead.

Gist of the idea?  Well, aliens may not have been able to save themselves, any more than we look like winners in that department yet, ourselves here on Earth.

“The universe is probably filled with habitable planets, so many scientists think it should be teeming with aliens,” said Dr Aditya Chopra, lead author on the paper, which is published in Astrobiology.

The thing is:  It doesn’t seem to be teeming at all. 

The statement from the Australian National University continues this way, and throws in a climate change zinger in the process:

“Life on Earth probably played a leading role in stabilising the planet’s climate,” he said.

Dr Chopra said their theory solved a puzzle.

“The mystery of why we haven’t yet found signs of aliens may have less to do with the likelihood of the origin of life or intelligence and have more to do with the rarity of the rapid emergence of biological regulation of feedback cycles on planetary surfaces,” he said.

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