George Ure

While you’ve are enjoying the weekend, the brain cells here have been working overtime on various aspects of the “Futuring” problem that was discussed in Peoplenomics Saturday.

Without giving away the whole story the problem for most of us is how to collect and assimilate sufficient information (when making investment decisions) so that we are not investing our life savings in a crooked game.

Let’s just say the term “crooked” means investing where:

a)  Insiders have significant advance information or

b) When pending orders are used by high frequency trading outfits to “front-run” trades and skim a bit off every legit trade or

c) When significant information asymmetry is involved in release of information such that only certain classes of investors know about pending price moves, management decisions, or other key variable before us “dumb” investors.

Grady (chief coder guru of our www.nostracodeus.com project) and I have been slapping this problem back and forth this weekend and we’re coming up with some novel ways to approach the knowledge engineering side of things.

One way we can do this is to “bit bucket” all currently scheduled events by using time domain statements in news stories to sort them.

Let’s say we took all news stories that have the words “this Wednesday” in it.  We already know from our news “tickler file” what some of the items will be making headlines by the time you get done with work Wednesday.  Hell  – half that newscast on Wednesday’s drive home is in the can right now.

For example, the Fed decision will be announced about 1:30 Texas time.  And that will be preceded by the release of petroleum reserve data a few hours before that, the Case Shiller Housing data on Tuesday morning.

But it goes deeper than that:  We know, for example that  Bernie Sanders will have a Washington State meet-up and both Calloway Golf and Facebook will report earnings Wednesday and that will give us additional insight into how people are spending their spare time these days.

Of course, the art of the future is being right over the long haul. Ures truly warned in December of 2014 (back here) that social media wasn’t going much of anywhere.  and sure enough, in April of 2014, SOCL went to near present levels, then again in July of 2014, and then in November of 20914, and quick- look surprised – we are there again…

Which makes it hard to just park some money – you are being squeezed into a trade to win regimen and that, in turn, makes you hamburger for the high-frequency traders.

All of which is why we spend so much time pondering the future and working on how to beat it.

We’re thinking about an adaptation of the Delphi Technique for a limited set of participants (like Peoplenomics.com readers) because there seems to be some magic in using feedback to develop a keen sense of what’s going to happen – before it does.

But even the Delphi Technique, which is described in Wikipedia this way…

“The Delphi method (/?d?lfa?/ DEL-fy) is a structured communication technique or method, originally developed as a systematic, interactive forecasting method which relies on a panel of experts.^[1][2][3][4] The experts answer questionnaires in two or more rounds. After each round, a facilitator or change agent^[5] provides an anonymous summary of the experts’ forecasts from the previous round as well as the reasons they provided for their judgments.

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Forget about UFOs, ETs, life on other planets, or putting a few bucks a month into a SETI fund.

Not that these aren’t fine ways to spend money, after you have saved for retirement, paid off your car, student loans, and don’t owe anyone a dime ands have burned the mortgage… I mean they’re nice and all.  But where’s your priority?

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I don’t make the future.

I just report it, although often before it gets here.

Easy enough to do:  All you need is proprietary software (as used on our www.nostracodeus.com website), a sense of how to read charts using just three main tools:  Trend channels, MACD, and Elliott wave theory.

And a long-term commitment to working the problem every day, looking for big changes in how the world operates.

Oh, and the next time Janet Yellen says “stocks are over-priced” – or words to that effect – realize that Janet may not be speaking just for herself.  She may be announcing something on behalf of the G20 central banksters.

The whole world is adrift when it comes to values, of course.

You can see that in the sale of fetal tissue, in the mass marketing of gender change, and in the pabulum called politics where the only person with normal testosterone levels seems to be The Don.  (And maybe Lindsey Where’s my hammer Graham, now…)

So how has gold done since our column last week when we warned of a serious move toward $1,000 gold?  (You can read last Thursday’s forecast piece here.)

As you can see in the chart over here, gold was around $1,143 when I made the prediction.  Immediately thereafter – a day or two – every pundit in the world jumped on the bandwagon and started throwing gold darts all over the board.  Including one who (stupidly I think) called for $250 gold.

As of this morning, the spot market was around $1,080.  In other words, since my prediction of a decline 8-days ago, gold has dropped a little more than 5%.

We can look at some of the other commodities out there *(yes, gold is a commodity kids) to see how other goods are fairing.

Bitcoins dropped from from the $288 range down to $276.  That’s worth mentioning because this is the only planet in the known universe where a digital signature performs better than a precious metal with a 10,000 year history.  And Bitcoins are bouncing strongly this morning…up to the $284 range.

On the other hand, copper is tanking in a serious way.

My consigliore called t’other day and suggested I line up the S&P and the price of copper over the long-term because there is a relationship there. 

I would do that for you this morning except a) I am too lazy and b) everyone knows that an imminent collapse of the economy is NOT why copper is dropping.

“OK, wise guy, why then?”

Two reasons:  First is that growth is falling.  Well, I guess we really can’t call it growth then, can we?  Seriously?  The imports through our ports and the latest rail traffic data, which we summarized for our Peoplenomics.com readers, showed there is no growth in physical goods to speak of.  Like none.

The second reason for copper’s decline is Iran.

That’s because one of the major commodities used in wars (hint: think shell casings, please) is copper. 

You may not like the Iran deal, and I think it’s stupid beyond belief to sell inspections with 21-days of notice so they can play “hide the centrifuges” is absurd,  but Barack Obama is determined to do for foreign policy what he’s done for trade (with that secret disaster) and what he’s done for the border (that other disaster).

The fact is that this is not a Treaty per se.  It’s a “something else” and the occupant of that high rent place on Pennsylvania Avenue is going to implement whether the Fools on the Hill like it, or not.  And that’s just the way it’s going to be, kiddies.

You see, we don’t live in an honest country, anymore.  That’s why The Don is so popular.  He’s calling BS where he sees it…which means he’s got a wide variety of targets that people are ticked off about.

And the phony corporate parties?  You know…..the ones who buy and sell favors for campaign contributions from the sleazy big law firms in Washington infested with lobbyists?  They are being cast as losers – which they are – and when the peaceful revolution in America back toward clear thinking happens at the polls, the mainstream media will bemoan the loss of their paymasters.

Except, of course, it will never happen.

Voting machines.  Right?

The Real Battle is in Austin

There, Dr. Laura Pressley lost a contested city council race a while back.  Thinking December of 2014 was when this first popped.  And she is appealing a court decision that sided with local elections officials who produced an electronic record, but not statutorily required images of ballots in the contest.

Pressley’s June 15 press release on point explains it this way:

When Pressley asked Travis County to produce statutorily required “images of ballots cast” from the Hart InterCivic voting machines for the recount, the clerk was unable to produce the ballot images that voters saw in the election booth. Instead, what she received were Cast Vote Records (CVRs), which are computer-generated templates of tabulated votes — not the statutorily required ballot images required for manual recounts of electronic voting machines.

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Things were about flat when I checked this morning.

Gold has clawed its way back up to $1,100.   Everyone and his uncle is now playing the stupid game of “who can make the most inane forecast” now.  The winner says $250 gold is out there in our future, but so is the Sun blinking out.  Just not in our lifetime, in any event.

Oil is back up to almost $50 on the international markets.

When oil begins to firm, I look around for ISIS hype and sure enough, there it is this morning in the report that “ISIS Poses a Bigger Threat to U.S. Than Al Qaeda, FBI Chief Says.”

Yes sir, we’d like to thank UncleGov for such generous funding of these dangerous start-ups.  People don’t like to be reminded that we funded AQ to fight Russia (and oh, by the by so Western mobs could get the heroin crop) and ISIS was funded to bring down president Assad in Syria.

And SecState John Kerry is facing some questions about reported “side deals” with Iran as part of the woefully bad Iran deal.  I mean a 21-day notice for a snap inspection?  Who’s kidding who?

I expect some big breaking news will have to happen not later than the early east coast news shows today, though..

That’s because Barack Obama is where?> Off to Kenya…ancestral homelands.

Which leaves us where?

Well, going back to bed, frankly.

Global markets are acting nicely and even the Athens composite is up, and that’s a market which lost half its value in the last year.

The Greek parliament has completed a second round of “stick your head in the noose” for the bankster class.

Meantime, the most influential  think tank is Greece says thanks to all this hosing of consumers, look for Greece to fall back into recession.  I should send these guys my resume…since that’s been clear since round one of the bankster demands and hold-up.  Figure they could use my help.

New weekly jobless claims hit the lowest level in 40-years today.  Didn’t move the market though, since everyone and their pet cat knows this is a terribly noisy data series.

When in Doubt, Legislate

I love stories like the one about how a bipartisan bill has been introduced to make it more of a crime to mess about with .gov internet assets.

Just one problem:  We’ve already seen 22-million OPM records hacked, so WTF?

Leading from behind, eh?

The Daily Distractomat

Lemme see:  Sandra Bland is still dead.  But no one has figured out why she died in jail, though there’s this voicemail now…

Cos in L.A.

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Oh, it’s still coming, alright.

We’ve talked about this before.

Should software be immortal?

Got a fair bit of personal history with this, too, so let me explain what’s going on.

It All Starts With Software

In 2002-2003. Ures truly was part of a turnaround team at a better-than-decent software company.

It was in the higher education space; we increased sales from 6-million when I started to about 19-million when I left, and I got deeply enmeshed in the problems of growing a software company which is in the workflow solutions space.

Let’s begin at the front-end.

In 1980, or so, almost zero companies used computers effectively.

When I was running a broadcasting college, circa 1986, it occurred to me that a huge reduction in paperwork could be accomplished by building the “Electric Railroad” around the office.

Up until that part of history,  everything ran on paper. 

When you called the college to find out about classes, it went onto a piece of paper called a “lead slip,.”  This contained the name, phone number, age, and a few other basics about an applicant for school.

When the applicant came to the school for a tour and to meet with admissions staff (the sales part of school, dressed up so as not to scare people off) there was more paper.

Then there was testing, financial aid, student tracking of satisfactory academic progress, graduation, and placement efforts.  It all ate up an amazing amount of paper.

In 1986, or so, I built my first “electric railroad.”  Doing a gob of hand-coding and writing for one of the earliest Novell networks, thinking began to transform with amazing speed. 

Someone calling the school was entered into a database.  No one could delete records.  Honesty in sales increased 10-fold as did performance.

At the front desk, since the name and such was in the computer, the manual form was quickly adapted to the computer, and next thing you know, we were graduating students that we could track all the way through the program.  This was back in ‘89, or so.  I mean right down to which TV commercial on what station had gotten them to the school.

Fast-forward to 2002 and Ures truly is working on the design of such “electric railroad” workflow process software in the higher education space.  SQL, student loan processing, the whole process online.

That’s where we ran into the “hard reality of software” and it’s something not too many people talk about.

You see, when you’ve invent new – first ever – software, there is a large investment in the intellectual property development.  You need computers, architects, business use cases, implementation teams to replace the old paper system and so on.

The problem is, once you are done, there is no way to pay for development of the next big thing.  People who buy your software product want to own it outright so you get hooked – just as General Motors did – on something like the annual model, complete with planned obsolescence.

Advertising goes up, cost of software customer acquisition goes with it.  Saturation looms.

As always, I was exceptionally lucky.

The software program for the higher education sector had to include a substantial update each year because the US Department of Education was forever and always adding this, that, or the other requirement to their reporting.

I mean let’s face it, once upon a time, and it wasn’t that long ago, schools couldn’t tell you anything about the number of Pacific Islanders attending their school.  Now, thanks to computer software, there are reams of such reports available.

While trying to articulate where the business would have to go (which it did and still flourishes) I came up with the idea of the Evergreen Software Model.

This essentially says “Every year we will add this feature set (or in the case of education DFBMS software, we continued compliance and added features) in order to justify a recurring expense to the end user or client.”

Now, fast-forward to the release of Windows 10:  Sharp-eyed Bruce the Expat down in Ecuador, who is one of our best critics, sent me a cryptic note of warning about what’s in Windows 10:

You do know that windows 10 includes a feature that allows software vendors to charge annual fees for using the software installed on a windows 10 computer.

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Oh, sure, you’re thinking “One of those places where old people go to die?”

No.

I’m  talking about the average American couple who has looked after their health a bit, has a paid-for home, and wants to live out life there for as long as possible.

What will in take to make a home “work” well into the 80’s and (with any luck) beyond?

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Allow me to begin your week with a discussion of what really matters in this life:

Relative Value.

Remember last Thursday?  I headlined “Gold Heads Toward $1000.”

As is often the case, just a few days later it was like every pundit in the world had picked up on gold’s pending weakness…

It came back this morning, too:  Down to about $1,105 on some quotes I’ve been watching.

Not that it is anything to worry about, but it is terribly interesting on the theory side.

As you know, the U.S. currency has failed several times in our nation’s illustrious past.  We’ve seen the Continentals, the Greenbacks, the Silver Certificates, and the current Federal Reserve Notes, to name some of the major currency swaps.

In more normal times, Gold would not be in decline.  The U.S. Dollar, as you know, has been denuded of purchasing power to an embarrassing degree.

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Time to think about doing away with insurance companies, I’m afraid.

Any time we have government telling us we MUST buy something, under penalty, whose bright idea was it to keep the middle-men involved to scam fat profits from the public which is REQUIRED to buy something?

That’s where our bottom line goes this morning, but along the way we will look at everything from Donald Trump’s rubbing shoulders with mobsters to the problem of exploitation of first people in Bolivia.

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Here’s a good reason to get-thee’s arse to work:

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.3 percent in June on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Over the last 12 months, the all items index rose 0.1 percent before seasonal adjustment.

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