George Ure

My ramble Thursday about thrift – and being in the critical habit of saving money – rang a loud bell with quite a few readers, including my buddy Hank  out in Hawaii.  In addition to Hank’s tale of reality television, we also have some keen insights from a reader who’s a CPA.  Both offer incredibly good insights into how this “recovery” is going.

Here’s the note from Hank:

Aloha George!
I’m not the writer that you are (neither am I – G), but I thought I might blog a bit about my experiences as the ‘recently unemployed’. 

Your article about saving money and jettisoning unneeded ‘stuff’ and expenses was right on!  That is something that has been ongoing here in (one of) the most expensive cities in the country to live in… Honolulu. 

Housing is the most expensive item on the monthly list here.  Recently I have also been selling off parts & test gear no longer needed on eBay for some lunch money.

I am 63 years old and have had a secure tech job for decades as a Television Broadcast Engineer.  I have built, rebuilt, moved, and maintained TV stations for decades.  I always read your articles about robots replacing humans in the workforce, and figured I was safe because I was the guy that had to install and maintain all sorts of electronic automation stuff for broadcast.  Stuff breaks, and someone has to fix it… rapidly and on short notice, usually!

The large national media outfit that owned my TV station sold it this past summer to a ‘management’ company that is a notorious ‘strip & flip’ outfit. 

This new company had come through town a decade ago and nearly destroyed what had been the #1 news station and sold it again within two years.  Their business model (everything is a ‘business model’, right?) involved installing robotic cameras in the studio and other tech automation to allow the entire newscast to be accomplished by ONE technical director (with seemingly octopus-arms) sitting in a cockpit surrounded by monitors, keyboards, joysticks and audio sliders to switch the entire live newscast. 

This assumes the fresh-out-of-Journalism-school ‘news producers’ wrote and scripted all the moves correctly on the interface from their news-automation servers into the ‘production’ TV automation.

The new owners of my TV station wasted no time in announcing plans to install the same automation stuff and let go a bunch of people (many part-timers) who helped produce the newscast for air. 

I figured I would be safe, as I am the maintenance engineer who installs and maintains all this tech stuff.   Then both of my engineering department managers left… they could not stomach the new management’s slash and burn tactics.  The company brought in a half dozen company engineers from the mainland to install the new automation… they were experienced at this, apparently.  And shockingly, I was informed that my job was to be chopped before the end of 2015. 

It seems the ‘business model’ was structured for only ONE maintenance man for the entire station, and I was #2 on the seniority list, so… sayonara!   It is hell on my attitude when I know I am fated for dismissal.  Meanwhile, the company engineers were hell-bent on installing the new stuff with little or no regard for keeping the station on the air during the transition.  It made it real hard for the people who knew their jobs were fated to keep working and on-air in the mean time.   There were blunders and outages on air.  Morale was in the septic tank.

I was presented with a severance package of three months pay and termination package.  Although they expressed interest in keeping me on for another month or two while the conversion engineering was finished up, it became unbearable to work among the corporate monkeys along with my zombie workmates who were also fated to lose their jobs.  I took the hard termination date in Dec. and left.

The whole experience was stunning for someone like me who has worked hard and reliably for my entire life.  I didn’t even put up a Christmas tree this year!.  Had I just been forced into an unwanted early retirement before I could afford it?

In the past few weeks I have navigated the local Unemployment Insurance website and jumped through all the hoops to apply.  My weekly UI benefits are about half what I previously earned, and barely enough to pay my monthly rent… assuming I don’t eat during the month!  Severance pay continues through March.  UI benefits are good thru June.

Mandatory healthcare is shockingly expensive.  If I keep my union membership up ($55/month) I can join the union health plan for $550/mo.   COBRA offered from my previous employer is $570/mo. 

I looked up the healthcare.gov “Obamacare” plans and found that with my limited present income I qualify for tax credit assistance that covers nearly two-thirds of the monthly premiums. 

I got a decent plan that is similar in coverage to my previous employer-plan for out of pocket expenses of only $254/mo.  If I use it, it will cost me more, though.  The deductibles are high on these plans before they begin to pay, so you have lots of out-of-pocket expenses if you use it.  Catastrophic expenses that go beyond the deductible are covered.  So first you go broke…. THEN they try to keep you alive so you can live to pay some more!

When (IF ??) I find gainful employment, I will have to notify the healthcare plan of increased income, and that will reduce my tax credits for the year… so what is the point of trying to find work?  I get the income, only to have to pay it back into healthcare and reduce my tax credit.  That is what will happen if I find some intermittent ‘contract work’ in my self-employment.  

The only savings will be if I happen to find some full-time employment with benefits.   In Hawaii, employers are required to provide qualified healthcare plans to employees who work more than 20 hours a week.  Then I can dump Obamacare and go with the employer plan.   But those costs are rising to the employers, as well.  There is also a great lack of available jobs in my specialty… TV broadcast engineering, especially for an over-qualified 63-year old. 

The only thing keeping me from considering suicide when the benefits run out is that I have some life savings/retirement funds as a buffer. 

I had planned to work until age 70 to maximize my social security payments, put my savings into a home and retire in the Hilo area of the Big Island of Hawaii. 

Now I am looking at trying to buy a cheap home (cash, no mortgage) on the volcano and rent it out for some monthly income while I try to continue my late-in-life working career. 

I want to have a place to land, rent-free, when I can no longer try to work.  Still hoping I can muddle through until age 70 to maximize that social security payment. 

There seems to be some longevity in my genes, and I’m betting I will beat the actuarial tables. 

With my luck, social security will go bust before I get there.
Such is the price of  living in “Paradise”… or trying to, anyway.    Hey!  I have no winter heating bills!

—Hank… shopping for Hot Properties on the volcano lava flows.

Hard as this is for me to write, I’d advise Hank against taking the the rental ownership route.  Get homestead exemptions and senior tax breaks as soon as you can, while they are still around.

Oahu, in particular, has a huge homeless problem – we’ve been tracking it for months.  It’s the kind of thing we reread when we see employment figures.  The rollover in play seems to be axing highly skilled senior workers, like Hank and bringing in 3-lower paid kids part time.  Employed headcount goes up, and the main victims are the “million Hanks” in every skilled job from Wall St.

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We could be really screwed next week….if we panic.

BUT:  There’s a saying attributed to one of the Rothschild’s (another low-income family, lol) that said when people around you are panicking, to “Buy when the blood is running in the streets…”

While we don’t make specific financial advice, we know people who do  – like my friend Robin Landry.

He and I have been going back and forth about where this decline will stop. 

Without getting into a technical discussion, which we will save for our Peoplenomics.com subscribers, the two most likely stopping areas are around the 1,885 level on the S&P and around 1,760 with a spike down to perhaps 1,740’ish.

That’s when we get the base in from which we should begin a fifth wave rally that should last a couple of years.

Ideally, I’d like to see the high come in around June-September of 2017 and the real collapse of the market starting in October of 2017.  Robin’s thinking was that it might go longer.  But in any event, it should set new highs.

Still, there is a major asterisk to be watched.  That is a phenomena called a fifth wave failure.  You can search on it and read up on it, if it matters.

Unless you’re actually trading the market yourself?  I wouldn’t bother.  If your retirement fund is in a telephone switching system, you would likely be in bonds while the market is going down *(they often go up in value in major declines) and when you sense the bottom is in, then back into big stock pools.

If you are trading a few bucks aggressively on the side, you can have as much fun as the slot machines and maybe you can get your spouse to dress-up as a cocktailer – and pretend you’ve gone to Las Vegas.  Except the odds are better.

Since Elaine and I didn’t win the PowerBall last night (there were three winners, details over here) it looks like we will have to keep living life without servants.

Early on, the stock market was looking at about a 50-point gain on the Dow.  But we’re starting to see a few articles that are suggesting – as we have – that the end is not here for China.  There are some possible bargains to be had there.

While the following press is writing about ways to China-proof your investments, (“9 Dividends Stocks To China-Proof Your Portfolio”) the Leading press is writing about how Starbucks is making a big play in China.

One of the things we quietly do with our www.nostracodeus.com project is to quietly “{keep score” between leading article and lagging articles.  Over time, you can get a sense of which bucket to put which stories in.  Then, like a good farmer, you weigh the buckets and make market judgment’s accordingly.

China was down almost 2% overnight (again) and Japan was down 2.6%.  In Europe, Germany and France were down almost 2 1/2% while the Kneelers on Fleet St were down 1.5%…

While the U.S. market may stage a technical (*and options-related) bounce for a day or two, next week seems like a good time to look for a washout.

When it comes, you’ll want to be wearing good lug-soled boots…things will be slippery with all that blood running in The Street.

Import Prices Down 8.2% in Past Year!

There’s a new report out from the Labor Department that is worth a good bit of study:

U.S. import prices declined 1.2 percent in December, the U.S.

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I can’t believe it.

Here we are, in a monumental market and I get an email from someone asking me what they should do.

Yeah, times seem worrisome, but they are now.  But it’s easy to be swept up in the stampede of fear and go off and do stupid things.  I know people who sold at the top in 2008 and some who sold at the bottom in 2009.  So how does a person avoid the traps?

The short answer is:  Learn to think.

Once you have THAT underway, then get some good economic perspective from outside the box and consider longer-term historical views based on basic market fundamental analysis with an appreciation of long wave economics.

But don’t write in – as a non-subscriber to our www.peoplenomics.com service and expect me to drop everything to issue personal pearls of wisdom.  I don’t do that.

The fact is, this site costs me a bundle in expenses and getting up at 5 AM to explain how the world is NOT ending.  Along the way, I might mention what we would would have done  if we’d won the PowerBall last night.

The second fact of life is that people only value information they pay for.  If I were to lay out the next 6-years of global economic history, handing it over on a silver platter (with a side of French toast) would you pay any attention?

No.

More than likely you’d whine that I misspelled something…

Don’t get ne wrong:  I like that you reading UrbanSurvival – that’s what it’s for.  I especially when people post thoughtful comments.  The future is a dance, and every time we speak or interact with others who help create the future, we take part in shaping it.

But if you write to me seeking personalized advice or comment, and you’re not a subscriber, I quickly infer (since you can’t afford $40 bucks a year for our newsletter).  Now, since you can’t afford $40-bucks, is it worth my time to answer a financial question? 

In a word: No.

There is a class of exceptions – and this is part of our economic education mission:  If you are either retired on fixed income and are already set in your ways, or you haven’t figured out how to start the “saving $500 per month” habit.  That is another matter.

I can’t tell you often enough about the importance of setting up a regular savings habit.

Most people have stupid vices that come up to t$500 a month.  Hell, I know people whose bar tabs come to this – and more.  .

Consider this:  How many people have season tickets for sporting events.  Or, they will go out to dinner twice a week.  They buy humungous Cable packages and  have phone bills are $250 per month.

There is another way, honest to God. 

Think about this.  Let’s pretend that when Elaine and I got married (which we did in 2000) we had zero in savings. 

Reality check:  We owned a sailboat and that was about it.

But think about this:  Saving $500 a month,  run the math. 

$6,000 per year, 16-years,.

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A short note to begin with:  Both Grady (chief coder and guru at our www.nostracodeus.com project) and I are wondering why the words “Washington” and “flash” have started appearing around one another lately?

Here’s a note from G this morning:

Sent 5:17 am 12 Jan 2015

Houston case sign break golden position education state ready Washington bay

Obama break explosion position law state money Washington flash police dead

This is not the first time “flash” has popped up in our data…it began to build a couple of weeks before the NK bomb test.  But we were both thinking it would be tapering down thereafter.  

It hasn’t.

“State” and “break” are showing up, too.

When we get word clusters like this, I tend to try and make sentences out of them.  For example, something like “Washington state flash break” could mean something like a major power intertie off Grand Coulee getting attacked, or who knows what.

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Oh, no.  Not again.

Why, hell, I can almost hear reader Bruce down in Vilacabamba, Ecuador reaching for his keyboard and laughing.

No doubt, he will send something to this effect:  ‘George, you stupid P.o.S.  – How many times do I need to tell you:  Buy a Mac and leave the world of Windows hacks behind…’

And he might be justified for writing so because we got hit (again) this weekend.  If Monday’s column sounded a bit ethereal, it may have been because it took a day to shake off the four-letter word strings that have been ready to drip out of every pore…

On the other hand, Bruce might have missed my note on the $160 Windows 10 convertible notebook.  That’s my iRULU Walknbook 10.1 Inch Tablet PC, 32GB Hybrid Laptop, 2-In-1 Tablet, Microsoft Windows 10 OS, Quad Core,1280*800 Resolution, Detachable Keyboard With Stand (Grey).

I don’t know if you have priced Apple products lately, but unless you want a 1998 computer, they don’t have anything remotely at my price point: cheap.

And, besides, outfits like www.avira.com do an OK job of catching stuff – and with Windows Defender (deep-ender), as long as you don’t mind losing a couple of hours of work while the system scan slows the computer to a snails pace, it’s just one of the things that goes with computing.

I did look at Apple products before I bought the Win 10 machine, and while I can afford anything, a $500 bill for a well-kitted out Retina display iPad was just not making sense to me.  Could be a function of aging.  Number 67 comes around next month.

Even if I had been willing to pop the $480 for a Apple iPad with Retina Display MD510LL/A (16GB, Wi-Fi, Black) 4th Generation that would not have gotten me a wireless keyboard.  I have no idea what an “official” Mac wireless keyboard would run, but the cheapie for the Win 10 box was $29 bucks.

The capper for me, though, was rereading the stories about how much CASH Apple has parked offshore. 

To be fair, a good bit of that is the US (corrupt) Congress’s fault for keeping corporate taxes so high, but since Apple’s fattest market is here in the USA, it would be nice if they stashed their dough in the U.S. where their taxes could help pay for more Syrian military-aged men coming to hate us and not assimilate.  You and I don’t have an “opt-out” on that, so why should Apple?

(slowly, I warm to this morning’s point)

What got me started on the anti-virus discussion was when I looked to see if anyone was ripping off my novel DreamOver yet.  Well, sure as (pardon this) shit, it’s out there on .PDF’s but on at least two of the download rip-off sites, there’s a hijack page.

Interesting part about this is revealed a security flaw in Win 10 #Edge# browser functionality.

Here’s what happened:

I went to the rip-off site. 

As I was there, a fake BSOD popped up and over it was a “Your computer has a virus and call this slime-line 800 number to pay money.

Well, pappy didn’t raise no fool, at least on some of this stuff.  So I killed the browser and tried to re-start it and close the tab.

This is where that age thing worked against me.  It didn’t work.

In fact, on this particular browser hijack, if you’re not smart enough to kill the session and get to an uninfected computer, there’s no way to get back on the Internet again.  Unless you already have a copy of Firefox installed.  Which every sane computer user does.

What you have to do (turns out after a lot of research and several failed attempts) was to log into the c:/windows/system32/user file and drill down to Favorites and kill everything there.

Finally, I was able to get back into the MS Edge browser.  (They left the “cutting” off it, with good reason…)

But since I’d been to a rotten MF’ers site, I also got hit with the current variant of PUA/PUP OpenCandy.gem.

A PUA is a potentially unwanted application and a PUP is a potentially unwanted program. 

So while that was being repaired, and the system rescanned, off I went to other computers on this network and one of them had it too…which makes me think it was an emailed thing, but regardless of the source, I wanted to pass on to you a periodic reminder that…

A.  If you have not updated your antivirus in a while, take the time to do it.

B.  I like to keep passwords in a special text file so when I need them (they are long and impossible to remember), I just CTRL +c to copy them.  The CTRFL +v to paste.

And if a keystroke logger wants to send CTRL+c keystrokes to someone in Ukraine, they can do that all day long, so far as I’m concerned.  I haven’t seen a key logger yet that sends clipboard contents.  (My have to ask Pedro the American about that, however.  He’s an IT super-star.

C.  Always have (and use) Firefox for a browser if something is mission critical.  I happen to run both browsers but that’s me. Belt and suspenders, that’s me.

While Bruce is no doubt now rolling on the floor, doubled up with George’s latest Windows whine,  I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Thunderstrike 2 is a Mac virus than can wreck things.  And there’s a bunch of others.

And if you’re an Android user, laughing at all of the above, the DroidDream rootkit has been found in some 50 applications now.

And just to make sure you see how serious and widespread this “online terrorism” is, remember that Java which is run on about everything these days has a bunch of viruses of its own including Ransom32, at least so it says over here..

A couple of reasons for mentioning this to you this morning.  first, don’t buy my book from free download sites.  Go to Amazon.  You put your computer at risk.

The way I look at it, people who rip off torrents of novels, .mp3’s, and videos are just as guilty of online terrorism as the people who code hacks.

Secondly, set your antivirus program up to scan everything on your computer, not just a heuristic scan,.  Do it all.  It takes more time but reduces risk further.

And you can find a lot of ways to speed up your computer.  I am big on CCleaner, MalwareBytes, Wise Registry Cleaner, turning off all live content tiles in Win 10 and turning off idiotic level sharing of hotspots and so on.  Why sharing information about where I am with social friends would be a “feature” is between God and someone at MSFT.  Not that it matters: I don’t have any social friends.  Or anti-socials, either, come to think on it.

Smart computing is a bunch of work.  And yes, we have our own cloud storage and that’s even more work.

But you know, I’m sort of coming to view a well organized, highly secured computer not as a symptom of a sick mind, but as the necessary combat armament to work in today’s battlefield that the net is quickly becoming.

And it’s going to get worse, that much I can assure you.  The predictions I made in Broken Web about internet licensing?  Early, but not wrong.  Watch, wait,  and while you’re at it, update your damn antivirus.

Houston:  “Worse than 1984”

I don’t suppose you have figured out the sequence going on here, but Houston (and the Woodlands along the freeway north of there) is dying. 

Look at the rig count data from Baker-Hughes (from their investor relations site) and you can connect the dots without help.  Rig counts have collapsed and we will under-drill, then have a price spike, and then send kids off to do men’s work.

The men will have wandered off says “Screw this…”  Can’t say as I blame ‘em.  Oil was trying to bounce of $30 this morning on the futures market.

Had a short heart-to-heart with Oilman2 yesterday.

Now, here’s a guy who has been the onsite drilling engineer, onshore rigs and off, who has designed and machined drill bits for about every country in the world (Afghanistan, Columbia, Ecuador, and China recently).  He owns a small, highly-specialized company that will custom-design drill  bits for whatever your strata.  A genuine oil patch holey-man, so’s to speak.

But Globally, things are unwinding.  Bit orders are drying up.  Worse than ‘84.

There are several things to infer from this.

One is that the Saudis will be in a heap of social trouble as their “royal welfare system” is in trouble and things are going to get worse.

For them to keep internal dissent down, they need an enemy.  That will be Iran.  So look for the M.E.

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The best news of the week, if you’re a humanitarian, is that the price of copper has just busted two-bucks.  The futures are saying this morning that the demand for copper has continued to decline.

I mentioned long ago that copper prices are one of the “pet proxies” around here for the odds of war.

The reason is simple:  Copper is the main ingredient in Brass (copper and zinc with sometimes 2% lead to improve machining characteristics) and brass is used to make shell casings.  Unless, of course, you happen to be firing polymer-coasted steel casings from  the USSR because they’re cheap for your AK-47 and SKS collection, but that’s a side point.

So with the price of copper down  under $2-bucks, we are able (at least for this morning) ruling out a nuclear war firing off this week in the Middle East.

It also tells us that later this month we should look for softening in Housing Starts because another big use of copper is housing wiring.

See how useful the study of markets can be?

OK, let’s move on to some of the more “doomly” reports making the rounds over the weekend.

Here’s a story, for example, about how there were “no ships” moving in the Atlantic because trade is collapsing.

True – but only in part.

In fact, if you zoom-in on the map over here, you’ll find that there is plenty of coast-wise traffic.  And let’s think about what’s going on:

If you were a ship owner, would you pay crews to work over New Years?  I would try to scale down operations, that’s for sure.  And since people didn’t come back to work on the first, many came in on the fourth.  And when a ship has been shut down, there’s loading time for cargo, and you don’t just put the hammer down and go like an airplane.

“What about the collapse in the Baltic Dry Index?”

Well, what about it?

I mean sure, it’s at 429 and that’s pretty damn low, but look at the biggest cost in ocean shipping:  fuel.  And then go back to the commodities this morning where you will find oil is making at least a double-low and could drop into the 20’s.

When energy is dirt cheap and when cargo is slowing, there’s no end of ship operators who would rather operate at break-even and keep in motion, or even at a small operating loss in order to avoid bigger losses…

I will tell you what is concerning:  That is the Harpex Index *(Harper-Petersen container shipping index) which is at 363 when I looked this morning and which bottomed in 2009 down at 275.

But does the world end today? 

Not a chance.  (You can safely go back to bed, read a book, or screw around because you won’t miss anything…)

For one, we have both the Dallas Fed and Atlanta Few presidents out on the rubber chicken circuit.  They can be expected to say things are good and only getting better.

What we don’t know is whether anyone will pay any attention to them, but for now it’s too early for them to talk rates – so I would expect a word like “robust” “firming” or maybe “solid” to dominate headlines.

Later in the week, the Fed will launch additional talking heads to jaw-bone up the market.

Not that they need to, however.  Let’s be practical here, for a moment.  There are plenty of “End of Worlders” who will buy put options (and no did last Tuesday) about when our Trading Model went to the short or cash side.

But think about this:  There is no trading next Monday and we have an options expiration this week.  Do you really think the owners of stocks who pad their returns with a dose of put-option writing really want to have their stock called away from them?

Why, hell no, they don’t.  But since the market is down from the last third Friday in December when the S&P was at 2,005 and change, do you really think the put option-writers want to pay off on 1925 puts?  Or 1950’s?  Or even 1975’s? 

Of course not.

So what we have this week is oil setting up to touch the twenties.  Fed-Heads saying how marvelous this is, and a bunch of option-writing capitalists not wanting to lose their money.

In those charts I showed you last week, we can see what should happen next according to our work (rally) but we shall see what we shall see.

This morning we notice that Shanghai was down another 5% and then some last night…but Europe is starting a small rally and it looks like that will carry over into the US.  One of the great really short-term trades today might be to buy the oversold Shanghai with the happy-talk around the world is setting up for a huge recovery.

What people tend to forget is that a year and a half ago, the Shanghai index was a third lower than it is now.  So does that mean anything to us?

Sure:  China is having a slow-down.  But we can also see by looking at the Shanghai stock market, that they have just been through one hell of a stock bubble bursting and reality could be 30-40% lower from here, still.

You’ll have to pardon me if I don’t get excited about the world ending just yet:  Shanghai is going back to 18-month-ago prices, the Fed-heads will speak (*you may not even see the strings) and the put-option crowd really doesn’t want the 1,975 puts “in the money.”

Can I be wrong?  Sure.  But how often is Big Money wrong?  So this will be a fine dance to watch this week.

Passings:  David Bowie (corrected – coffee sinks in)

David Bowie Dies at 69; He Transcended Music, Art and Fashion…

18-month battle with cancer.

Those Changes are coming for all of us…and I’m not sure which hurts more:  The loss of his great music or the realization of ch-ch-ch-changes come for us all.

“…and these children that you spit upon,

As they try to change their worlds…

Are immune to your consultations,

They’re quite aware what they’re going through…”

Ch-ch-ch-changes….

“I said that time may change me, but I can’t trace time…”

But we keep working on it…

A Serious Question Being Asked…

A quote this morning from an article in The Week gets to a very poignant point we’ve been riding herd on:

“Does Germany’s leadership class secretly want to destroy the European Union? I’m beginning to wonder.”

Not only is is the Michael Brendan Dougherty article worth a read, while we wait for someone in the MSM to ask the follow-on question here for Americans:  Does the Obama posse secretly want to destroy America? 

Obama the Idiot (II)

Maybe someone besides me should be asking “WTF are we ending the Iran sanctions for?”

OK, I mean besides a dim-witted president, screwing the Saudis, and so forth…Oh, and should we mention the Iranians aren’t follow the “deal” PLUS they still hold four American’s hostage?

Quick.  Someone send Barrack Hussein a copy of the “Art of the Deal.”

And we’re bringing in all these military aged Muslim men to America on cargo planes for what reason exactly? 

And that brings us to this from our oak-leafer and military affairs expert “warhammer”

Good Monday to you and Ures, George.

It seems the Saudi’s can play a deft, real-life game of Stratego, throwing up a deliberate domestic smoke screen with the execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr and 46 others to hide the kingdom’s mounting economic woes. Iran reacts as expected, becoming the kingdom’s new designated regional nemesis (as Israel breathes a collective sigh of relief).

<http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/international/mideast-africa/2016/01/10/saudi-provoked-iran-standoff/78359480/>

If any of Ure readers are of the opinion that democracies, particular the U.S.

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This morning’s column  was going to be an email to Chris McCleary, who operates the www.nationaldreamcenter.com site and who is working on his fourth or fifth Masters in  dream-related work.

But, instead, I want to throw out a wild theory, or three – and get some feedback from you – to see what we can evolve on the coming art of Co-Dreaming.

There are two bits of important background to have before we delve into the concept – and then on to why we need crowd research on it.

The first point is that  my novel  DreamOver is based on some very personally “real” dream work I’ve experienced.  Specifically, parts of my first novel are autobiographical. 

The part where the fisherman or worker personality was wandering around what seemed like a marine hardware store in a former Soviet client state on  the edge of huge lake or arm of the sea…that was objectively “real” to me because I dreamed that dream.  So was the small child who dreamed about walking down out of the hills in South America, only to be chased through the edges of town by a group of bullies/toughs.

The title of that novel gets to the idea of dreaming-over and finding ourselves experiencing other people’s lives.

So, let’s set that concept aside for a moment.

Next to the second bit of data:  I see my wife Elaine every once-in-a-while in dreams.  But only as a glance.  She’s doing one thing, and I’m doing another in the dreams.  Seems that I’m also a passing apparition in hers, as well.

I look forward to sleep because it’s like going to I-Max – the dreams are that real and all encompassing.  Not a sense is untouched.

In last night’s vivid dream, there were two major plots going. 

One the plot involved a neighbor of mine who was just moving into our area.  In my dreamland, Elaine and I have a modest (but still sprawling/large) home on a saltwater beach area.

In this dream, there was no fence between the neighbors house and ours (until we worked out our differences).  He had a yapping dog as well as a miniature camel (about 5-feet high, two humps, who spits and tries to nip).  We got the fence issue sorted out, though, and that would keep his Michael Jacksonian menagerie off our slice of heaven. Chain link in dreams…who’d have thought?

The second plot to the dream was there was evidence of a criminal being down in our boathouse.  In our dream-home, there is a covered boathouse that zigzags out into the water, you see.  There are six or eight slips that are covered – and out at the very end is our big family yacht.  Nothing to pretentious:  110-feet four-engines and the finest interior ever. 

But that’s not the point:  A police officer showed up and said he’d like to check out our boathouse.  There’d been a crime of some kind.  So, being a cooperative fellow, I led him to the boathouse where there was a Coast Guard RIB boat standing by.  The Coasties had spotted this partially submerged car in one of my slips.

The car was a curiosity:  Bobbing slightly, it was a four door blue Hillman or Citroen 2CV-looking thing.  Although it had a rear engine.  Somehow (this is a dream, remember) the car was floating.  It was kept afloat by air trapped in the large wheel wells and by the fact it was remarkably waterproof.  Oh!  The Engine of this floating car was also missing.  The cop and the Coasties were not sure how the hell that happened.  And I was wondering what this car had to do with what was supposed to be my dream…

I was with someone who was there are a different matter (off-camera guide, perhaps) but we had been down to the big yacht earlier and there was no blue floating Hillman/Citroen and that meant (in the dream) that the floating car had been placed there sometime after our jaunt to the big boat which would have placed things around 3:30 to 4:30 in the afternoon.  (It was another perfect day in Dream Land…filtered sun, 75, or so.  Elaine was doing something up in the house while this was going on, etc..)

Hell of a backgrounder, huh?

At last, we’re to the interesting bit of speculation and why we need some crowd research done.

I awoke from this dream with a burning question:  Why aren’t Elaine and I spending more time together in these dreams of mine?

And this leads directly to the matter of what I call “Co-Dreaming.”

The idea of co-dreaming is very simple:  You have someone who is your “soul-mate” and you go into dreams that are cooperative in nature. 

I’ve already “dropped in” on enough other personalities that accessing those in a dream state seems possible.  And I’ve had enough of those real woo-woo moments that I know with absolute, unshakable, unquestioning belief that there is real knowledge transferred around in the dream state.

But, as we’ve noted in past commentary, it’s not every dream, every night, or any of that.  Proper dreaming requires the right vitamins, health, personal energy levels, quiet in the emotional background of the dreamer…and who knows what else.

Then you need to do a fair bit of dreaming.  That includes things like learning to intend in dreams.  It goes without saying that we each have a super-power or two in dreams.  They turned out, in my experience, to be a little stranger than I’d been expecting.

For example, personal flying:  In order to do it there are two or three major “deal points.”  First, it doesn’t work as an experiential dream with me if there are more than one or two heart-level-connected people around.  In other words, flying in dreams is not something that can be done in front of large crowds or, interestingly, as an exercise of ego. 

When you fly in dreams, there is also a kind of buzzing in your chest and one other thing (I don’t want to ruin your dream work by telling you my experiences…).

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A longish report this morning.

And update on our Trading Model.

A number of possible resolutions to the present decline.

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The first thing we get to straight is that the market should end the week within a few points of the target number I mentioned in yesterday’s column:  1960.48.

As any damn fool can see (yes, I qualify) the end of the world has not come over the horizon yet.

In fact, far from it, I am still sticking with my prediction of new all-time highs by mid-May.

Be advised, as always THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE.  That would involve me trying to sell you something.  Other than a subscription to Peoplenomics.com, I offer only commentary and things to think about.

Which is why – unlike George Soros, who is becoming somewhat famous lately for talking-his-book – we have to sit back and watch the Madness of Crowds.

This is a none too obscure reference to?   Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds.

Granted, the book was published in 1841, but we don’t like to be too aggressive in our reading recommendations – besides, we wanted to see if the book would remain popular.

The original work was done as a three volume set and in volume two the topics included the witchcraft madness the world went through, the Crusades, and other such cases.

The good news (*you can find it on Gutenberg, too) is that voting in a neighborhood organizer as president for two terms may not be the craziest thing crowds have done, after all.

OK, well close, but there are other examples to consider.

To my way of thinking, here is the Kindle eBook that is probably the single best value in the field of investing out there:

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds: Volume 1, 2, and 3 (Illustrated and Bundled with Psychology of the Stock Market and Irving Fisher on Investment)   That’s a whopping $1.19 on Amazon.

Fisher is the fellow who called for perpetual rally at exactly the wrong time in 1929, but his notes on how to ride a bull market are useful for review.  Especially when the market looks oversold and when good news comes along to stampede the herd  t’other way.

Jobs Picture Improves

Well…sort of.  let’s run through the press release and then focus on a few specifics:

“Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 292,000 in December, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.0 percent, the U.S.

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This being Friday, and all, the futures were indicating a modest rally today – which should land us very close to my “number” for this week (1960.48 on the S&P).

So to mark the occasion, I’m now working on my next career:  As a comedy writer…  Since life “is-what-it-is” there’s no shortage of material.  And that’s before hitting politics and economics.

I’m guided in this endeavor by one of the finest collections of bad jokes out there; the Federal Register.  Allow me to elucidate.

So there I am staring at a project that requires a super good, durable paint job.  And it involves aluminum, so the paint must be preceded by either Alodine or Zinc Chromate ( to MIL-DTL-5541) to prevent a future paint flaking issue – a couple of clicks and it’s on the way.

Then I come to paint selection.  I know from past experience that white kitchen appliance epoxy enamel is a fine match for the paint I have in mind. 

I make the mistake of reading the fine print…

Hold the phone, Jackson.  I think we have crossed over into another dimension.  A dimension not only of sight, but of bureaucracy.  There, at the signpost up ahead:  California!!!

I have never been out to Catalina.  But in order to perpetrate a potential act of civil disobedience (which would be labeled domestic terrorism for budget and narrative purposes), I am considering importing a can of this illegal spray paint of this epoxy appliance enamel to Catalina.

I can see it now:  Getting on the boat at wherever the boats to Catalina come in…facing down a body scanner or having some Gestapo agent frisk me, looking for cans of….spray paint!!!

Is ALL spray paint illegal on Catalina?  I frankly don’t know.  What I DO know is I’m not the first to notice this.

It seems highly paradoxical that one of the most unwrecked places on the planet has to be one of the most regulated.  It’s like there is an unwritten formula of life that says something like “Pollution times regulations must always equal this value.”

Under this formula, highly polluted places in Asia are under-regulated (they sell cigarettes like crazy in Indonesia, says our correspondent down in the Dark Side).  But if a place is “pristine” the only way to make the “formula” work is to regulate, regulate, regulate.

How insane is this?  You have to keep the past couple of weeks of headlines in mind as you read about these thoughts of defiance.  I assume you know that California has a HUGE MOTHER of a natural gas leak going on – big enough to cause all the global warming in the world by the sound of it.

Yet verily,  the righteous are protecting Catalina. Oh, freaking, goody.  But the “secret formula is intact.”

I am happy for the sea lions, whales, and whatever else the greens are protecting out there.

But here in  different state (Texas) of mind, we find outdoorsy preservation projects are sometimes helped by a good coat, or two, of dangerous amine-containing fast curing epoxy enamel.  (Baked in the oven for a couple of hours at 180-degrees when Elaine goes shopping when I have time to air the house out afterwards, is better…usually the cardboard I set things on for curing doesn’t catch fire.)

Turn about is fair play.  I’m putting the imperialistic greenocrats of California on notice:  When I get elected County Commissioner here in District 3, one of my first acts in office will be to promote a 100% ban the sale of Sea Lions and whale meat in Anderson County, Texas.

And to show my sensitivity to environmental issues, I will also press for a ban on whaling in the county, as well.  Perhaps an environmental tax on new cars made in Japan as punishment for their past sins against whales could be passed, too.

My First Campaign Contribution Arrives

My buddy Jeff from the local ham radio club has become the first person to step up and contribute to my campaign fund.

My campaign fund now stands are precisely $1 U.S.

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I began with, a nice dish of organic chicken stroganoff over (also organic) Yukon gold potatoes for breakfast.

Then, for dessert, it was a hot peppermint cocoa…

“Hey!  Ure!  WTF with the culinary crap?  Where’s my insightful look at where the market is going today?”

Easy, there big fellah.  I’m making a point.  Pay attention….

The point is the market is in the process of making a January low that may have a 50-50 chance of being the low for the whole year.  With options expiration next week, who cares if we are down another 400 points on the Dow today?

In my world, things look very far from grim – we’ll get to that in a sec.  But first, even if I pencil in a 44-point further loss in the S&P today, that still doesn’t get us out of my “target” green circled area for this week – and in fact, with even a small rally at the close tomorrow, we are likely to be right in the green, so to speak:

Sure, it would be more graceful if we could get down into the yellow circle, but that’s just wishing and hoping.  The deeper the pullback, the more upside money may be made…everything has a gold or silver lining to it.

How can I blithely not buy into the current doomporn outburst?   Let me count the ways…

1.  Man With Knife Shot Dead After Trying to Attack Paris Police Station – which means that we could be rounding a corner where force is met with force in Europe when people start misbehaving.

2. In the Middle East, Iraq is offering to mediate between Iran and Saudi Arabia.  Depending on how this goes, we could see a chill-down in regional tensions.

3.  The ADP Jobs Report yesterday was pretty good, really.  And this morning, we have the Challenger Job Cuts report just clearing:

A strong economy, coupled with what appears to be a growing reluctance to announce layoffs during the holidays, contributed to December experiencing the lowest number of monthly job cuts in more than 15 years, according to the report released today by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

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The fact of China shutting her market again last night has many readers nervous and uncomfortable.  One of our Peoplenomics subscribers, in fact, sent in this:

“Mr. Ure,  It is now Midnite MST.  China is shutdown again. US Futures and oil commodities are down.

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