News

The market this morning looks like the rally will continue.

Hell of a thing.  Because, most unfortunately, in my work on long wave economics, we seem to be stuck right in the midst of a replay of the 1921 market drop and the subsequent rally that led to the blow-off high on September 3, 1929.

I have a pretty good idea of when that high will come.  We’ll cover that for our www.peoplenomics.com readers tomorrow.  But it is all kinds of fun to see the future even hazily compared to the rest of the lost-sheep.

Here is the chart which will no doubt be copied, cloned, and ripped off, which is why I don’t put a lot of material on the free site:

Futures are up another 160…and 200+ today should surprise exactly no one…not among Peoplenomics subscribers, anyway.

Tomorrow, we can start laying up dates, but the war cycle in the 1930s followed the Great Depression – and in many ways was the final tool to force the nation into recovery.

One of the tenets of long wave economics is that periodic massive destruction of human capital as well as infrastructure is required in order to set the groundwork for the next major economic advance.

The peculiar problem of the next global war is that it will likely have a terrible outcome since nuclear, genetic, and computer warfare (NGC) are likely to kill more people that have ever been killed in a spree, before.

What will likely drive it is the resource depletion issue.  And that has quite a rhyme with events leading up to WW II.  But this time, instead of people collecting aluminum  and hoarding tires, look for software and critical elements like lithium and oil to be at the heart.

The good news is there is much time left to figure out the details of how to hedge this, but keep in mind there is an expiration date  on humans, every bit as much is there is an expiration date baked into every continuously depreciating (fiat/paper) currency whose value is submit to whim and compound interest.

The horrific reality that no one else is talking about on the net right now is that the National Debt of Russia is a shade less than $246-billion. while the US National Debt is presently $18-trillion and it’s only less than $20-trillion because of fancy/slippery, marginally honest accounting footwork at the Treasury/Usury Department. 

Put another way:  The Russian debt-to-GDP ratio is about 18%.  In other words, 18% of one year’s worth of Russian GDP would pay off every plug ruble of their debt.

In our case, the current debt-to-GDP ratio is about 101%.  And when the debt ceiling gets raised in a week (or five) the debt ratio will move up to 102-104%…and as you can see, we never come in from that ledge.

That is why the US Federal Reserve is likely lying when they talk about “raising interest rates.”  It may have a short-term salutary effect on the market (see the 1928-1929 period) but when all is said and done, the GDP collapses and we return to the basics of hard work, sharing, and working through the resource depletion mess.

Our only real fear is that one side in the upcoming collapse of the globalist troika is that one of the countries (US, Russia, China) COULD opt for the “war sooner than later” option.

That might mean that instead of a much longer build-up to global war, it could be actually moved forward (closer to the present) and that would be a real bummer.

Someone’s models besides the ones we run around here should be hinting that the time to take on the USA is NOT when we have a screaming market rally likely for the next year, or 18 months.  But rather when spirits are low and heading lower.  That clock, however, is constantly ticking,  And what makes the “taking of America” key is our natural resource base, namely all weather agriculture and petroleum.

So if you are around in five or six years and you notice European descendants dying off from a genetic disease, remember where you first heard the approach considered.

SuperCane

It’s called Patricia and it is about to solidly kick the booty of Mexico down south of Baja.

If the USA was really smart on this border problem, we would be working with Mexico that offer them rebuilding aid and perhaps some property redistribution when this thing goes through. 

The idea being that properly monetized, a natural disaster can be turned net positive – if you don’t weight the human suffering too heavily into the equation.

Give Mexico a recovery loan, have them create recovery jobs, and then to pay off the debt, have them build a wall?

Trumply, for sure, but it might work…

Defense Bill Veto

The partisanship never stops, does it?  The Borderless in Chief has just vetoed the Defense spending bill because it doesn’t give him free enough rein. AND He says it has gimmicks.  Which is rich, huh?  When the other party puts spending earmarks on things, is that somehow different?

The Corporate duopoly rules, as always.

Shoving Ryan On Us

For the secret trade bill?  Check.  Open border guy?  Check.  Democrats endorsing him?  Check.

Now comes the corporate-aligned Wall Street Journo with another my, ain’t he special article.

Like this will keep him (or any other put-ups from the Obama wing of the GOP) from being a bad idea?  Where’s my ViseGrips.  A big enough lie, oft-enough repeated…

Another “Dual Citizenship IS BAD” Example

Yeah – familiar rant here.  My position is pretty damn simple: The U.S.

Read More

The first rain of the season hit at 3:21 A.M. this morning. 

I know because it was the muffled sound of a few drops on the roof.

It didn’t last very long – about five minutes.  And then it was passed.

But it reminded me that we are into the seasonal change in how humans operate and a short discussion of how your body chemistry works is definitely in order here.

The first thing that happens with the onset of cooler weather is the gray skies.  That means that your body will not make as much vitamin D3 as normal. 

“Sunshine vitamin D” needs what?

A shortage of this critical vitamin has been associated with many diseases, but the main focus for us is the subtle effect of Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD.

From Wikipedia, SAD is…

“…also known as winter depression, winter blues, summer depression, summertime sadness, or seasonal depression, is a mood disorder subset in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year experience depressive symptoms in the winter or summer.^[1]

In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV and DSM-5, its status was changed. It is no longer classified as a unique mood disorder but is now a specifier called with seasonal pattern for recurrent major depressive disorder that occurs at a specific time of the year and fully remits otherwise.^[2] Although experts were initially skeptical, this condition is now recognized as a common disorder.^[3] SAD’s prevalence in the U.S.

Read More

Sounding ever more like an UrbanSurvival reader, Donald Trump is telling USA Today that Janet Yellen and the Fed should have already raised rates.

But, the Donald thinks they are being held low for political reasons and might not be raised until the next president is in line.

Although such sound thinking is not about to be listened to, and the market is likely already off on another bullish run (with the asterisk of a pullback likely around Thanksgiving), the thinking is sound, nevertheless.

What happens in wildly deflationary times is that the government prints oodles and gobs of money in order to maintain the delusion that inflation is still out there.  As long as working people can be hoaxed into that, they will keep up their free-spending ways.

On the business side, though, there is little incentive to build new plant and equipment – after all, it’s Cheaper in China, so who needs American workers.

So the cash piles up.  Not just for the bankster scree, but also for the 1% because they have few alternatives other than putting money in bonds.

What ends up happening is low rates beget lower rates and the first thing you know, deflation is a worldwide phenom with the Megalomaniacal Central Bank –a/k/a the ECB – is forced to hold rates at record lows as well.

PRESS RELEASE

Monetary policy decisions

22 October 2015

At today’s meeting, which was held in Malta, the Governing Council of the ECB decided that the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.05%, 0.30% and -0.20% respectively.

The President of the ECB will comment on the considerations underlying these decisions at a press conference starting at 14:30 CET today.

Damn/…that’s during my nap time…  Next week the Fed here will either QE or hold.  Dow 25,000 in 2016 has been in our work for a long time.  Might ask the doomers where that market collapse is… Futures up another hundred.

Point is that we are still in deflation and it is being covered up by huge money-printing world-wide and that’s just how things are going…sliding sideways until the general deflationary facts become undeniable…and the stock market will explode as it did leading into 1929 and it will be bubble time, once again.

Read More

We might as well jump right off into the weird  this morning – because I had one of those “waking moment” insights that are often quite valuable

The idea goes something like this:

When I was a kid I was bounced around between regular and accelerated math classes.  Some damn fool thought I had a brain but didn’t realize that I didn’t come with a single ounce of attention, discipline, or will to study.

But curiously, my second-highest scores in school were in English.  Not spelling, not proof-reading, not syntax…just English.

Fast-forward to this morning’s life review.

Long time ago -In one of those “accidents” that happen to kids, I was up the street at my life-long friend’s place and we were (age 11 or so) messing about with a tape recorder as I recall, and as I got up, a #2 Yellow Pencil fell out of my shirt pocket and I stepped on it as precisely the moment it was pointing straight up.

Naturally, it didn’t remain standing up and promptly broke off with about one-inch of pencil point broken off inside my right foot.

So off to the emergency room, doctor fishes out the left-over pencil parts, puts a piece of surgical rubber tubing in, and for the next three weeks, I pull an 1/8th inch of it out every other day, or so…

The foot healed find and that was that.

Until this morning.

At which point, something in the brain finally fires – 55-years after-the-fact – and asks a very profound question:

“What is the one skill that pulls about all of your work experience together as a common thread?   Writing, right?”

Well, I sit there pondering this-here little gem for a couple of minutes and sure enough what is it that on-air broadcaster, newscaster, management geeks, and financial writers (and did I mention airline VP and college president) all have in common?

They have to write like maniacs.

And grad school…what was that?  Again, more writing.  In fact, what I learned in grad school was how to write for an audience – my faculty advisor.  The more and better I wrote, the higher the GPA until when all was said and done it was a 4.0.  But not necessarily on quality – I think it was more the quantity that blew ‘em away.  2000 word essay?  Two hours flat.  Hell, that’s only 17 words per minute…

Education is comprised of two parts.  There’s the rote/parrot part – and I know people who excel at that.  Then there’s the logical analysis, problem identification, recipe formula, and eventually the implement of the problem-solving.  But we don’t score the latter highly.  Modern education is still trying to figure out the topology of intelligence but the way is slow.  Way slow.

This pencil-breaking-in-foot story got me to wondering how many people get “inoculated” in some manner into what will become their life’s work?

I have seen bits and pieces of it:  A young man who falls in with bad company rises to become a Raymond Reddington criminal sort.  A woman who was always playing with her dolls as a child, who then ends up in the fashion industry.  The boy fascinated with chemistry and fire as a child grows up to be a firefighter…Kid breaks an arm or leg and is captivated by medicine – hears mom and dad talk about how expensive health care is so he grows up to sell malpractice insurance, lol.

When I see kids who are playing with video games (to the exclusion of much else in life) I can’t help but suspect that these ‘inoculations’ are in some manner about to appear as our future.  The video gamer is now a drone driver and they m ay have a bright future as remote vehicle operators.  In an earlier time, the gamer might have been good fodder for the nuclear power industry which does a good bit of remote-control work.

When you get a few minutes, it may be productive to think back on your youth. 

If my nutty idea du jour is correct, there may be a pivotal moment when something happens that forever locks you onto a path in life.

It also places huge importance for parents on tracking the activities of kids to see what the ‘inoculation’ happens to be.

Daughter who is getting married next month, for example, had a serious brush with celiac disease (wheat allergy) when young – and that put her on the path to a career in the culinary arts…that kind of thing.  The ‘inoculation’ was a food issue and the career just followed down that path.

You’re welcome to report any experiences along this line in the comment section below.  I’m collecting a few and what comes out of it is a very interesting question about exactly how these childhood/prepubescent events form us throughout the balance of life to follow.

OK, on to practical matters…

Self Reliance:  Death of an Air Compressor

My 10-gallon air compressor is finally giving up the ghost after about 8-years of service. 

I was cutting up some 10-inch wide galvanized flashing for the deck with my nibbler (similar to the Neiko 30067A Pull Type Air Nibbler $57) and the compressor started to scream (belt slipping) and the cylinder head completely overheating.

Read More

Recipe for “How to Control a Population”:

Take a bunch of numbers.

Put them in the number/blender.

Frappe for one minute.

Read More

My novel  (“DreamOver”) should have been appearing on Amazon about now.  But, if you’ll notice, it isn’t there yet.

The reason?

Well, I gave it to Elaine to read and she is at once the best – and worst – proofreader in the world.

Cuts me no slack, whatsoever.

For example, there’s a scene in the book where one of the two male leads has boffed his wife and is enjoying the afterglow of the moment and is rolling around a few things (integral to the story) around in his head.

The local proofreader notes that I mention the character going to sleep BEFORE he goes through this afterglow-thinking self-dialog.

“You can’t do that.  Your character is asleep and you’re saying ‘he thought to himself.’  Want to explain how that thinking while sleeping part works?”

Should I explain the miracle powers of the male mind, or…..Well, dear, that’s poetic license.

“No, that’s confusing.  You have to fix that.”

Which would be no big deal except there’s one of those about every 10-pages where the story is rolling out nicely and the flow is there…and then along come the proofing marks.

Here’s another one. 

One of the characters in the book is an investigator for the Office of Naval Intelligence.  In proper style, I spelled it out the first time so no problem, right?

“Not so fast” points the proofreader.  “Page 154.  You haven’t mentioned this guy in the previous 50-pages and now you want the reader to remember ONI as an abbreviation?”

Well, crap.

Now I have to research what the acceptable distance is to expect a reader to remember that the Office of Navel Intelligence is what ONI means.

Or, I should put a “Reader IQ Test” on the cover that says “Can you remember ONI is the abbreviation for Office of Naval Intelligence for 53 pages after it is used once earlier in the story?  If you can, then you may purchase this book.  Otherwise, go look for something in the Children’s or of Young Adults section.”

Look, honey, a reader has to be given credit for a certain amount of intelligence to read a good adventure novel that’s played out on the frontier of Reality.  So why waste words?  I’m at 96,000 words already.

“Three more won’t hurt.”

Office of Naval Intelligence is four words.

“Not when you drop ONI and leave it on the next page, as you have.  That’s a net of plus three in this section.”

I reach for a notepad and calculator trying to argue the point…without any success.

“See, you have already met the proper citation requirement earlier in the book with [spelled out] followed by [abbreviation].  After that you can take a few liberties…”

Me?  Liberties?  Language?

Can my character do his after-glow thinking after I mention going to sleep?

“No.”

Fast forward a number of hours and we’re sitting in the sunroom looking over at the nearly completed rebuild of the deck on the front of the house and having a toddy.

Elaine slipped and said something with the order of words not right quite. She’s blonde – and these things happen now and then.  I have dirty blonde hair so it happens to me a bit, too.

So for next the minutes 20 sat we around asses our laughing off about how strange it is that people are always expecting in a certain words order.

Otherwise, sense don’t they make.

See you my point?

Language spaghetti is like a lot.

Point the whole communications is.

It matters doesn’t get you how there, it does?

There so:  A clear perfectly of explanation book why the ready isn’t quite.

It’s matter a simply communication of.

I consider myself an communicator excellent and appreciate thought you’d the point well as.

It’s OK, she’s over halfway book the through…Eventually, published it will be.  I can wait hardly.

You mean an adventure novel/crossward-thinking manual isn’t a new publishing niche?  Dang it.

Smithing the Hack

This gets me to the second point of the morning.

There’s a problem with what to call politicians these days.

I think it was Don in Odessa (Texas, not the File)  who posted a comment: 

“Repugnican?”

No, no, no…

Read More

The real economic truth is that we don’t have a new consumer product that will result in lots of employment, unless you’re an app builder and already there are signs and portents that’s a kind of peaky thing.

But that doesn’t stop more conventionally-minded economists from wringing their hands about the possibility of a U.S. default later this month.  It’s one of the hot items as Congress gets back to work today.

Besides the potential for a budget crisis, we note that Paul (secret trade dealer and open border believe) Ryan is still floating around as a possible Speaker of the House.

This is turning into all kinds of fun to watch, since the Repugnican Corporate Committee is being forced into the unenviable position of reveal just “whose bitch” it really is.  My money is that it will eventually be revealed as the all-time sub for the K-Street mob (always a top).

But, like whether the gay old party is going to come out as lap-puppies for corporations over time, is not the issue.  It’s TIMING that matters.  Status quo is a hard drug to kick and the Repugnicans will no doubt try to talk themselves out of going to rehab until the party is all but dead from overdosing on financial favors…the current political drug of choice.

You see, there are two ways this can work.  One way would be for the corporations to install a moderate who will keep the harness gear on and thus, maintain the corporate quo.  The other way (if we don’t get 50-shades of crooked) would be for the Republicans to re-emerge as the party of small central government and states rights and, as long as we’re at it, a balanced budget.

The repugnicans have suffered a curious kind of slow-onset values rot that has been going since the Reagan days.  You’ll remember that radio bloviators have been doing their best to deify Ronald Reagan as the best Republican ever.  Yet a liberal friend reminded me this weekend:

“  Reagan holds the percentage record for debt growth outside of WW2.

Read More

I’m a black and white kind of guy.  Something is this way, or that way, but not both ways.  Ambivalence makes me nuts.

Living in a world of gray has not been a good experience, for the most part.  Yes, it’s a crime to kill someone.  But the old “eye for an eye” is gone if someone is crazy, were under the influence of drugs, or just has a better lawyer than the State has prosecuting its case.  And,  it works the other way around, too:  The federal government is not “more right, more often” in prosecutions – although that’s what their conviction rate infers.  No sir – they just have unlimited resources and that’s what courts have become about, seems mostly.  My law fund is bigger than your law fund.

Gray – instead of absolutes has watered down just about every angle of the moral code and fabric of society.  What passes for a “good” person now would likely have been judged a morals-deficient, mealy-mouthed, double-talking, half-thinker just a few short generations ago.  Land of data pervs and lazy spendthrifts would be the call a century back.

Hell, I’m still suspicious of photons when they can’t seem to make their minds up whether they want to be particles – or waves.  Something else is going on – Universe is not ambivalent.

That’s enough about how much  “I hate wiggle room”.

Up until recently, I had developed the same kind of attitude toward robots.  This has been at every level except medicine, where I have no doubt that a machine (backed by oodles of code) just might be able to do a better job of surgery than a shaking-hands, overworked pure human.  Especially if they have not been so “pure” lately, if you follow my drift.

Assuming the robo doctor has a back-up power supply so you don’t bleed out during a brownout – that kind of thing.

The suspicions go well beyond the simple definition of “robot” and also includes drones.

As a pilot, every time I take off, or land, I am exceptionally nervous until I’m either on the ground or safely up in the sky in what we affectionately call “Indian Country.”

That’s 3,500 feet up to about 17,500 which is where the Warriors, Apaches, Cherokees, Comanche’s,  and so on hang out.  Those BTW are aircraft brands of Piper Aircraft.

[About here, we could launch into a side discussion about Beechcraft.  What does a  Skipper, Musketeer, Sundowners, Debonair, or Bonanza have in common?  Piper marketing made sense.  But that’s a distraction from my point which is about the possibility of 10-pounds of drone killing me as it smashes into the propeller and than into the pilot’s face at 80-miles an hour.]

Drones should ALL (including law enforcement) be limited to 250 feet above ground or the highest charted obstruction or it’d be off to jail.  How hard is this shit to figure out? 

Let’s toss in other rules, too, like no operations what-so-ever within 5-miles of a charted airport. This includes the private fields like Skydive Spaceland or any of the other jump airports.  

How would YOU like to free-fall (slowly, like 170 MPH) into a 15-pound package drone that some is off joyriding?  Thanks, but no.

It hasn’t happened yet, but we know that “Big Sky Theory” will run  out of statistics one of these days and aircraft will start falling out of the skies and skydivers will keep diving – all the way to the ground – incapacitated by drones.

See how this gray stuff works?

Then in comes an email from Oilman2 this weekend:  Had to do with putting 15 pound drones on top of package delivery trucks and having them “make deliveries” while the driver….well, here’s OM2’s point:

I saw this today, and being an engineer, my mind said, “Why?”

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2015/10/15/workhorse-drone-company-tests-package-deliveries-ohio/73978646/

OLD WAY:

!) Stop truck

2) Look at clipboard and find package

3) Carry package to door

4) Place checkmark on list

5) Retrun to truck and route

Training Required – CDL & reading ability

Failure Points – truck

NEW WAY:

1) Stop truck

2) Find package

3) Scan bar code on package

4) Position package for drone

5) Engage drone

6) Fly package to door

7) Offload Package

8) Return drone to truck

9) Enter delivery successful in scanner

10) Return to route

Training Required – CDL & drone operation license & scanner software & reading ability

Failure Points – truck & internet & drone & weather & scanner

The claim is $0.30 per mile with the electric truck and drone versus $1.00 per mile with gas truck. Just looking at the operations required says some things are hidden in the analysis, in particular training, permits, electric truck cost and drone cost. In particular, the order of operations tells one that the actual mechanics of delivering the package will require more time.  Payout is likely far longer due to expense of this equipment.

Read More

Post-Collapse Operations Part 2 this morning as we go through a personal checklist of things I have gotten wrong in 17 years of prepping.   Brought to my attention a couple of ways in the past week or three.

Once you have achieved your SORR (state of reasonable readiness) the problem changes from getting ready to maintaining readiness. 

And, of course, we will update the markets which are acting in curious ways, but not unexpected.  Analysis of what’s likely ahead is always a good thing.  To say that the end of the world crowd got present times wrong turns out to be the height of understatement.

But our work has consistently indicated it would be.

Read More

The futures are flat.  Yes, the market is still being held by by free money from (we assume) the back room at the Fed.

Still, a sober-headed look at the markets would lead to the question “when the whole nation is wandering toward default on federal debt, why would the market rally?

The problem is not a new one.  I have been pointing a lot in recent weeks toward the Federal Debt to the Penny which has been stuck at the statutory debt limit for months now.  Eight, roughly.

Most recently, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew has announced that the country only has until November 3 and then it all comes tumbling down – the US will have to begin sorting how which debt instruments to default on.

This is very unhappy news, but the expectation that we should see one very violent drop in the market in this period, was based on exactly the kind of “left field” event that could begin a major decline into coming weakness which we see as possible between now and December 15th.

Another reason?  We are likely to see pretty good tax selling this fall, too. 

For now,. it’s a mystery how this will sort out:  Conservatives will assign blame to the Spender in Chief, and while the repugnants may threaten to close down government on funding of Planned Parenthood.  There’s also a good chance that the demoncorps  could respond by simply choosing the freeze social security trust fund payments, or something equally sleazy.

Expect the sleaze in American politics?  Sure: When comes to politics, no one has clean hands.

Today may be the closing high for a while (or they may have already been put in this week).  Options expiration is over at the close and depending on weekend events, the market might come back from rehab this weekend with a much more sober outlook (and lower trading) next week.

Sure, it’s possible the party will continue but until this week I expect Lamar Odom was thinking the same thing.

Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization

Since we won’t do a special update for it, simply click here after 9:20 AM Eastern and you should find the latest update.  Markets may move, depending on what it says.

Russia and Iran Take Syria

With headlines like this: Syrian army launches Aleppo offensive with Iranian support.

While China says it is against forces in the region, and in addition, China says it will not send ships.

Nickel side bet on that one?

Power in Labels

There’s an old firehouse story I remember from my youth.  As Pappy told it:

‘When a Battalion Chief makes a mistake it’s an oversight.

When a Captain make’s a mistake it’s a miscalculation.

When an Lieutenant makes a mistake, it’s a stupid blunder.

When a fireman makes a mistake, it’s an inexcusable screw-up.

Lies are scaled much he same way.  We cite from today’s headlines:

“In reversal, Obama says U.S. troops will stay in Afghanistan until 2017.”

Hillary Clinton’s FBI email probe is reportedly looking at “gross negligence.”  And here we have comment on how it looks like president Obama is trying to save Hillary’s bacon.

Wayne Simmons, a Fox News commentator, has been arrested for (allegedly) lying about his past involvement with the C.I.A.

Does this mean the Agency will be cracking down on those who try to “trade on its name?”  And might there be others?  I keep wondering about these “CIA Insider” email campaigns and who is profiteering on that stuff, for example.

How you interpret the scale of these things is important.  All of them might be described with the simple word (lie) but we see how positional power works out – and the correct answer is?

Whatever is chosen, it’s usually to our detriment.

No Mo Dough

Jeb Bush seems to be running out of money.  Couldn’t have happened to a nice aristocrat.

“Treating” Belief in God?

Yeah…so here’s a report that by zapping people with high-powered magnets the belief in God can be tuned out of humans.  Oh, and the same treatment can change your views on immigrants, too.

What’s likely going on?

As any reader around here knows, the brain is an incredibly precise electrical system.  When you move a wire through a strong magnetic field, what happens?  It induces an electrical current to flow.

Strong magnetics will induce current flowing in blood so……

So what these blockheads seem to be reinventing is nothing more than a higher tech version of electroshock therapy.

The amount of people’s lack of  understanding of electricity and magnetism is frankly shocking…. no, make that astounding.

New World Order In Trouble

In case you hadn’t figured it out yet, the way the New World Order is planning to come to power is by screwing up individual countries so bad that we will all embrace extra-national authority as the new savior, yada yada.

Except their timing hasn’t been so good.a  Oh, sure, the open border scam in America is still being played out by globalist promoters like cartel running the District of Corruption, but in Germany revolt of the majority middle class is at hand, says this report.

Wait…are German’s smarter than ‘Mericans?

The Islamic State meantime has declared the European Caliphate and is scrawling “convert or die” graffiti is places like Sweden.

Which is why (for the especially dim-witted) we are so hardcore on our “Anyone is welcome to America as long as they are in for the language and the melting pot but not weaseling in illegally.”

See Sweden for a current example of how that works out.  And ask the Obama posse how it is that non-citizens get Social Security and SSI?

Read More

We begin this morning by noticing that there is not much out there in the way of true innovation., anymore.

In order to get a handle on how global economics will play out, you can look at “the innovation problem” as a great predictor.

Take Television for example:

It started off as black and white.  Then it evolved to Color.  Then came rear projection.  Next DLP and Plasma.  Then LED, and the current battle is raging over ultra high resolutions, like 4K.

The problem that television has is simple:  A lack of fundamental innovation.

From a systems perspective, television was first and foremost, a “remote picture” concept.

Then color picture.

Now it’s higher quality picture.

And then will come 3D picture, but the core breakthrough will always be “pictures at a distance.”

When you see decisions that prevent live television from being streamed, what you’re really seeing is defense of the old paradigm for economic reasons.  The country is not yet ready for the local VHF TV station to sign off – there would be no web site in Milwaukee, for example, with a news helicopter.

Or will there be?

You see?  That is how innovation works, and few books are more revealing that Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition.

Remote pictures are just one of the framing concepts of today’s world.  Another is “portable music” – and that’s behind more software (players), devices (iPod, MP3 players) boom boxes, blue teeth – the list never stops.

The fundamental insight, however, was what?  Portable Music.

Cars – which are holding up the entire economy if the retail figures out this week mean anything – are another fine example.

The Wikipedia entry on the “History of the Automobile” over here, is a fine read.

Viewed through the viewport of the systems engineer, we see that the evolution of cars has been painfully slow.

Four wheel cart gets a steam engine.  Four wheel cart gets internal combustion engine.

Now, on a recent trip, we come to discover that the major differences in most cars these days is “how the mouse works.”  The mileage, performance, suspension, automatic transmission and air conditioning are pretty event across brands.

I wanted to remind you of this fundamental versus incremental stuff because it has everything to do with where the global economy goes next; up or down.

I remember hearing a speech back in the 1980-s by Craig McCaw.  He articulated a wild (for the times idea)  we will move into a world where everyone will have a phone number.  Radical claim when there were pay phones on every corner and wireless was a dream.  Yet here we are in the global smartphone village.

Companies and brands rise and fall by their innovations.  General Electric rose on heavy industrial electrical goods.  Microsoft on its operating system.  Apple on its user interface,  and Lexus on absolute quality.  Campbell’s soup is still what kind of good?

If you want to rock and roll – soar in your professional life and investment decisions, a little time spent on the weekend thinking about where your choices are in terms of innovations and how you participate, is likely time well-spent.

Oh, and right now the world desperately needs a “keen new insight” that will – Like McCaw’s vision – be totally obvious once stated.

Find that company and invest all you can, even yourself if you can land a job with ‘em – because that’s how giants of the future are born and the best way to live is growing up with a giant.

The reason we have Minimalism taking off is we don’t have any new sizzle and we’re serving 20 to 60-year old steak.  Minimalism can crash the economy.

Political Crap is just That

No you don’t.

This is the time of life when being a serial victim of politics is really no fun.  Yet we are.

We are retired (at least on paper), over 66 (unfortunately, also on paper), we own our own home, and have some disposable income.  We is fodder for the political machine.

That uniquely ‘Merican political money machine.  So in response to the first email of the morning:

Dear Demoncratic Wannabe:

I charge $250,000 for an appearance, but that includes 10-minutes of speaking.

My 20-minute speech option is only $50,000 more – and it will all go to my campaign.

It goes without saying that private jet travel and a limo are thrown in, 6-bottles of water on the podium and links to my fun-raising campaign.  Medallion de Beouf over noodles with a wine and sour cream sauce after.  Dom, of course.

Oh.  Unless you are planning to hire me, take me off your damn list.

Ures truly

(Next email, please?)_

Dear Emily’s List

Ya’ll are playing the sex card.  Sex belongs between consenting adults, not in fund-raising emails, as I see it.

Personally, I don’t like all kinds of discrimination (racial, sexual, religious,  preference, etc.).  I find it disgusting and counter to the goals of unity and equality.

Since you are playing Divide and Conquer – another lowlife approach to politics, remove me from your list – second notice.

Ures truly

Lest you think I am picking on the Clintonistas, I am equally cynical when it comes to the repugnant party.  You have to know someone’s campaign is in the deep doo-doo when they start endorsing moon bases as a campaign ploy.  Look, it’s a MoonJeb.

We live in a country where we are basically facing the same problems we faced in 1945.  Russia was a threat, China was a question, we had mounds of federal debt, and a burgeoning depressionary feel to the place.  Lack of jobs and on and on…

Fast-forward 70 years and we are what?  Facing the same damn problems:  Russia, China, and a mountain of federal debt.  Plus we have pissed off so many countries, I’ve lost count.

Since what we have been doing hasn’t worked, I will again wheel out the white board (sniffing some marker fumes on the way) and offer a way to clean up the systemic corruption that has afflicted America like a political version of H. Pylori bacteria.  You know – the bacteria that causes ulcers…

1.  We need to reform the vote.  In the early days of America, the  landowners were the only ones with the franchise.  Problem is:  When you throw the electoral process open to those who don’t have to pay for it, you stand in harms way:  the free lunchers will vote working people into unemployment through higher taxes in order to pay for their laziness.

In Ure’s world, only working people, or those receiving Social Security after working some years would be allowed to vote…and no foreign immigrants would be allowed to receive Social Security or SSI unless they meet the same work requirements (x quarters of work) in order to receive benefits.

Ures truly figures that if coming to America meant land of opportunity, but only if you jump in the melting pot and work hard (like it used to) a lot of freeloaders would simply leave.

Sadly, the number of illegal immigrants deported and returned has collapsed under the (illegal) executive amnesty and sanctuary cities nonsense which will – over time – break the US budget as explained in the lead story this morning.

2.  We need to turn off election money machines and kill political action committees.  This would be simply done by a) barring any out of district money for any office and b) no campaign contribution more than $10 per named person for the national office of President.

Throw out Citizens United by law.

3.  End the two party system such as it malfunctions now.  In the early part of American history, the President was the fellow who got the most votes.  The Vice President was the number-two vote-getting, regardless of party.

That worked for the longest time…

4.  Either do away with the Electoral College, or bind them to the popular vote of their state because right now, Electors are not bound and that’s as crooked as you get.

As Wikipedia points out:

Prior to 1913, U.S.

Read More

In  ‘rithmetic, that would be the reciprocal…When things are going good, they spiral up.  Virtuous Cycle it’s called.  But when things go badly, they can really spiral.

As of this morning, we’re at a toss-up point.

Note to the reader who was all over my case for mentioning deflation all the time:  TODAY’S REPORT is why I have been screaming deflation.  We operate in advance of, not in reaction to current events when possible.

Und zo?

New Consumer Price Report is hot off the press release:

“The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) decreased 0.2 percent in September on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Over the last 12 months, the all items index was essentially unchanged before seasonal adjustment.

Read More