George Ure

Time to turn you into a junior business report, green belt.

While we edge out the door this morning, I won’t be able to do an update including the latest on import-export prices, but if you go over to the www.census.gov website after 8:30 Eastern, you should see a headline to the effect “International Trade” report released.  If not there, try www.bea.gov.

Give it about 15-minutes, or so, and then click over here to look at the financial futures and we should have an idea of how today will work out in the markets.  (Over here, don’t you bookmark anything anymore?)

After running up 91-points on the Dow yesterday, a little profit-taking would be expected, but today and tomorrow could be somewhat stable because this is when options for this cycle come off the table.  Third Friday of each month, but as one of our readers (Sunshine) occasionally reminds me, my skills counting on a calendar leaves a little something to be desired.  I appreciate people checking my work. It’s a full-time job once you get into it.

As of “sliding out the door time” the Dow was looking to add a few points and looking at the markets elsewhere, everything in Europe was up about half a percent on the majors while in Asia both the Nikkei and the Hang Seng were hangin’ higher.

All because I told you weeks and weeks ago that the annual high in the market (on average, YMMV) comes within a week to 10-days of August 26th. 

The technical picture is a little dicey, after that, and it will all depend on whether the Dow and the S&P can bust through the .618 retracement from recent lows.

If we can do that, then the market could have a parabolic rise this fall.  If not, see you in the funny papers…because that’s about all that’ll be left after global economic collapse comes along.

As students of the long wave (and other cycles) know, that may not happen until next fall, which sort of hints at a the political future of the country, but you get to work out those finer details for yourself.  You don’t get the green belt in reporting for just sitting on your butt and nodding like you follow what’s going on.

Homework assignment:  John Crudele’s savory NY Post story  “Censusgate throws light on political ‘Right.”  Another aficionado of gub’mint statistics…we oughta start a club.

More after this…

              

Something Big Coming?

Want something to be (even more) paranoid than usual about this morning? 

President Obama is coming back to Washington Sunday from vacationing and that has led to speculation that he may announce some unilateral action on immigration, or perhaps a big name foreign leader (Vlad Putin?) will be paying a surprise visit.

Apple’s Consumer Ear

Don’t know if you have been following the reports about toxic chemicals that were being used in the product assemble of some Apple products.  Nevertheless, they have banned the use of n-hexane and benzene at its final assembly plants, reports ComputerWorld.

IT note:  Cisco is axing 6,000 jobs in a restructuring plan.  Remember our comments about the “hollow recovery?”

Ebola Business Models

Everything’s a business model is our editorial mantra around here.

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As we head out this morning on our latest/next adventure, I wanted to pass along a note from a doctor/read of ours. 

He sent in a marvelous note after reading one of our missives earlier this month.  I would have posted it sooner, but it got stuck under a pile of other emails – my bad.

George, thank you for your column today, especially the prepping notes, it was worth the annual fee just for todays information. (for my friends, see https://urbansurvival.com/coping-prepping-for-a-ebola/ )

However, there is some information on Ebola that you need to know and to disseminate.  If people don’t read anything else that I have written here, please understand that IF YOU TREAT A PATIENT WITH EBOLA OR GET NEAR THEM YOU WILL PROBABLY DIE.  You have no idea what it is like to take care of someone with this disease.  

Basically it is impossible without knowing a tremendous amount about disease transmission.  Even the doctors with all their disease transmission gear don’t have a clue.  

And toilet paper needs for someone with this disease?  You must be kidding George.  How about towels and towels and new mattresses?  How about lime and burning all used articles of clothing?  Is anyone prepared for that?  

These people infected are literally DISSOLVING from the inside.  Just to show you what you don’t understand, put some poop (your own or any animal, mix it with some blood (I don’t know where you’re going to get that lol…. local butcher?  I don’t know), put them in a bucket outside in temperatures over 90 degrees (the body is around 100 degrees), let it sit for about 5 hours, and go smell of it for at least a few minutes.  The odor is so overpowering you have no idea.  

Now imagine you have to be around that, and that the smell brings with it an infectious agent that will kill you in the same way.  Ebola is almost certain death.  The only people who have survived have access to high intensity care, usually hospital intensive care type care, and even then their odds are low of survival.  Now imagine hundreds if not thousands or tens of thousands of people infected.  Imagine your child infected, are you not going to try and take care of them?  

This is the problem, most parents and loved ones wont be able to stay away, and they will become infected and spread it on to others.  I have tried for years to break diagnosis of this disease down into a nutshell,  how to recognize, and be concerned that someone might have Ebola, and I came up with the following, if you see someone bleeding from the eyes and the nose, turn around and go the other way, 20 feet is minimum distance, otherwise you are at very high risk of becoming infected.  This is actual BLEEDING (not just red eyes).  Don’t touch anything they have touched, don’t stay in the area.  Whole villages have disappeared for not understanding these simple facts.

That’s it, for more at length, my qualifications are 30+ years of “practicing” medicine, I have participated in research at major research institutions (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston Mass.), have practiced in emergency rooms and urgent care centers, and I have a wide interest in socio-economics, politics, epidemiology, and the world in general.  I have logged over 250,000 patient encounters in my career. 

Ebola breaks down into 5 or 6 strains.  The most worrisome problem, detailed in the non-fiction book, “The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus” which details the “Reston” strain, which became air-borne in a research facility, infected humans, but apparently was only lethal to the monkeys, which died or were put down.

Stephen King said, at the time, that it was the scariest book he had ever read.  In other words, imagine a flu that is circulating that is 90% fatal. 

Currently, and apparently (there are multiple reports going about the current Ebola might be respiratory spread, although I do not see any hard evidence that that is the case), this Ebola strain is not spread by respiratory secretions.  Remember though, that a person with Ebola, is shedding billions (Billions with a B) of viral particles all the time in “body” fluids.  Vomit, diarrhea, sweat(?), saliva, nasal secretions (?) etc.  It possibly only takes one viral particle to infect you. 

Current fatality rates appear to be in the 60-90% range.  There is some concerns though about the “mixing” of the current Ebola strains, and just like the flu, possibly a renegade new strain appearing, that may be spread like the flu, easily, through respiratory secretions. 

The Reston strain (the Ebola strain that is spread like the flu through respiratory secretions…… it was found in at least one of the human researchers, but it caused no disease in the humans, but killed the monkeys) has been found in pigs (a known “incubator” for new flu infections that are then transmitted to humans) in the Phillipines, http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_02_03/en/ , and more on that here, http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/outbreaks/qaEbolaRestonPhilippines.htm . 

For a general big grouping on viruses look here (Ebola is under Filoviridae, with Marburg Virus), http://virology.net/big_virology/bvfamilygroup.html .

It is clear that the Ebola virus is evolving, see http://www.recombinomics.com/News/07291401/Ebola_Zaire_Guinea_SL.html . 

I’m neither a virologist nor an epidemiologist, but it is clear from above that this virus does have the ability to spread, and rather rapidly at that.

Everyone should take the precautions you mentioned in your newsletter, learn to recognize the very simple signs of possible Ebola I mentioned above (bleeding eyes, bleeding nose), and take care to stay away from any such individual.  

And to be clear, when I say bleeding eyes, I mean some droplets of blood coming from the eyes, instead of clear tears.  This is by NO MEANS an absolute positive sign of Ebola, or any other disease, or the only symptoms that might occur in someone with Ebola (early signs of Ebola can include fever and body aches, which can occur in about a thousand other diseases as well including common cold), but is meant to be a sign that might enable someone to live through this epidemic.  

Another tidbit, Ebola virus has been found in semen 61 days after infection and transmission can occur in this manner, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/,

more information here, http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/faq-ebola/en/

and other Ebola reading if one wants it.. http://govtslaves.info/ebola-virus-released-atlanta-sewage-treatment-plant/

…. I do not vouch for any of the above links.  Read it and gather information as you will.  One thing is clear, this disease is evolving as many viral diseases do, have some common sense, and prepare as you are able, but have no fear, which disables us all.

I apologize for the length.  Keep up the good work.

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Yes….and no.   And not quite.

We will still cut through a couple of news items, and we’ll update our trusty (so far) Trading Model, but then we drift out of our super-serious economics to ponder what it’s like getting ready to actually live in a different city for an extended period of time.

Once upon a time I knew what to pack:  Two suits and a credit card or three…good to go for however long.

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I’ve been telling you that thanks to Globalism and the Internet, wages are now falling faster than anyone would have imagined.  I also refer often to the “Mexification of America.” 

No such emotionally hot language in it, but the report out from the US Conference of Mayors about the Great Recession’s hangover Income and Wage Gaps across the US is pretty damning:

In 2008 and 2009 the US economy lost 8.7 million jobs (Figure 1). By examining the sectors from which the jobs were lost,
most notably manufacturing and construction (Figure 2), we find that the average annual wage in sectors (current wages weighted by number of jobs) where jobs were lost in the downturn was $61,637. A similar accounting of the jobs gains through 2014q2 shows average wages of $47,171 per year. This wage gap, at 23%, is significantly larger than that of the earlier recession and recovery, and implies $93 billion in lower wage income.

Long read, but meaty and worth it over here.

In other words:  Some of the jobs came back, but the wages didn’t.

The longwave economic cycle is coming up to one of its critical levels.  If the S&P doesn’t move through the 2,000 level in short order (a month or three) then there’s a chance that we could since into a “larger 4” as the Elliotticians would call it.

The short-term outlook isn’t exactly bad, and as we move on toward the calendar period when the market usually hits annual highs, there’s almost a hush as people try to grapple with “what’s next.”

Future’s earlier this morning pointed to a modestly higher open and then fell back.  The S&P could reverse to the downside any old time now that the 1,940 level has been hit with yesterday’s 1,944.90.

Fake-outs run rampant, when the bulls and the bears are battling and I still expect higher levels to come but this week’s numbers will be key.  Producer prices Friday.  Consumer prices next Tuesday.

I especially don’t like it when Federal Reserve Officials start to sound…well…almost like our view of things.  You see, Stanley Fisher did a talk Monday on “The Great Recession: Moving Ahead” which will reward you with some keen insights into how solid economic thinking works in times like we’re in…

Totally out of context:

The recession that began in the United States in December 2007 ended in June 2009. But the Great Recession is a near-worldwide phenomenon, with the consequences of which many advanced economies–among them Sweden–continue to struggle. Its depth and breadth appear to have changed the economic environment in many ways and to have left the road ahead unclear.

This pattern of disappointment and downward revision sets up the first, and the basic, challenge on the list of issues policymakers face in moving ahead: restoring growth, if that is possible. In some respects, we should not have been surprised at the prolonged hit to output growth following the global financial crisis. As Cerra and Saxena and Reinhart and Rogoff, among others, have documented, it takes a long time for output in the wake of banking and financial crises to return to pre-crisis levels.⁵ Possibly we are simply seeing a prolonged Reinhart-Rogoff cyclical episode, typical of the aftermath of deep financial crises, and compounded by other temporary headwinds. But it is also possible that the underperformance reflects a more structural, longer-term, shift in the global economy, with less growth in underlying supply factors.

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T’other day we were talking about a couple of topics that verged on World of Woo-Woo and a couple of the comments that came in were worth consideration.

On the topic of “hearing voices” a number of additional reader reports have come in, but floating up to the top of the reading pile was this from a reader who mentions that “voices” may signify a health condition developing…

Ever watch the movie “Phenomenon”?  It touches on the subject.  I had an engineer friend who retired to the Big Island years ago who didn’t like doctors, and chintzed it with no health insurance.   (Sadly, he was a millionaire!)  My friend began hearing ‘voices’ that advised him on various things.  He thought he was having an alien contact experience at times.   Well a year or two later he was dead of colon cancer.  The cancer had spread throughout his body, including the brain.  When it breaks down the sheath between the two halves of the brain, one frequently begins to experience “the other half” as an independent voice.    So your ‘silent subconcious’ half of the brain begins to speak in ways that other half ‘hears’ as voices.   Not to imply that everyone who ‘hears voices’ has brain cancer… but just be aware that is one mechanism.

Serious point to consider, except that it opens up another line of inquiry:”  Is the “health” of humans something that’s subject to (something akin to) “possession?”  We have to wonder about that one because of the role “voices” has been known to play in depression, suicide, and so on…

On the other hand, the jury is still out on the question of mass mind-control via just the “right” mix of radio waves.  Reader Lee has been sniffing that direction…

I’ve recently come upon something – which you may have already seen, though I have not seen it mentioned on your Blog… You have however mentioned the corpus callosum in the brain, which separates the two hemispheres of the brain. The item I’ve come across is tDCs – or Transcranial Direct-Current Stimulation.

Being an EE-Jockey, I’m guessing its something you’ve seen in some form or fashion. If not, take a look. There are more that a few medically-oriented vids on tDCs, and even more from the ‘dirty, uneducated’ masses who seem to be leading the charge… all from a 9-volt battery and $20 in gear from Radio shack…

/resistance is futile.

Clinical Applications of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation – This one goes into a few items in which they are testing tDCs to treat stroke damage, aphasia disorders, and other issues.

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With the bombing of Iraq back in place, and with continued fighting in Gaza, the key question to be asking ourselves this Monday is “How Much Longer to Humans Have?”

I really like the answer “ad infinitum” but the evidence isn’t looking good, in that regard.

]To be sure, there are reports (like this one) that continue to hold to the idea that airborne transmissibility is unlikely because (in  our sample story) “pigs cough and sneeze more than people do…”  Excuse me?

The good news, such as it is, is that the spread of Ebola will be a terrible human tragedy working out over perhaps a five year window.

We know, for example, that a glance at the replication and infection range for Spanish Flu (1918 to 1920) meant a roughly two year high mortality period.

Since the incubation period for flu in general is about 2-day, and maybe 4-days in some cases, we can look at how the timeline for a much longer incubation period would last.

Peak death from Spanish flu was spread over a 24-month period, but with the transmission rates what they are of Ebola (and comparing the course of illness, 7-10 days for flu versus 20-days for Ebola) we worked out this weekend (with help from my consigliere) that a 2x to 4X disease time of maximum death (reference Spanish flu) would be a reasonable guess. 

We settled on a factor of 3, which means that since Spanish flu was an 18-24 month Big Deal, the currently evolving pandemic won’t really be of known scale until 54-months (4.5 years) to 72-months (6-years).

This one is going to be around a long time.  Hopefully you and I will be among the survivors so we can commiserate.  I have no idea where I’m going to get the creativity for 6-years of headlines about this stuff.;..

Death at a NASCAR Race

“Why do people go to stock car races?” I asked one of the deans of Seattle newscasting back in the day, as he was rolling up cans of Rainer beer in foil as we were about to head out to a local speedway.

“Part of it is the sound, the presence of death, the danger of going fast…maybe the injuries…much like bull-fighting…” he told me.  This was back in 1966…

Fast forward to this weekend in upstate New York, driver Tony Stewart reportedly struck and killed driver Kevin Ward, Jr. who has gotten out on the track and was trying to confront Stewart.

Human’s don’t change much as to why they go to auto racing events, bull fights, or confrontation sports like football and boxing…..at least in the 65 years I’ve been watching for change…

More after this…

             

To Market, To Market

Nothing much on the economic horizon until the middle of the week, so the Dow looks to tack on another 70-80 points at the open today.

The reason news won’t come until we get to retail sales on the 13th and then on to producer prices Friday morning.

Looking at the global markets, The biggest gainer in Europe this morning in Germany which is up 1.75% and in Asia overnight, the Japanese market screamed up 2.38% overnight – that’s 350+ points and that’s a lotta sushi…

Silver is back over $20-bucks and gold could be lining up for another run, too…just remember what I told you about the periodic annual high for the market is usually set around August 26th, plus or minus a week, or so.  But if we roll 500 points up this week, Ures truly will be the least surprised guy in town.

Want to Skip Work?

There’s a new report about telecommuting in the Washington Post this morning about how the “Patent Office filters out worst telework abuses in report to its watchdog….”

All of which gets us back to the perpetual problem of management:  What gets measured gets done…and if telework (or any OTHER kind of work for that matter) isn’t measured and benchmarked periodically, what do you expect will happen?

You Know It’s Summer When…

Rioting with racial overtones shows up…. in the wake of the shooting of a black teenager in the St.

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First item up is a very short discussion of how science works.

When the alarm on the husband side of the bed falls off the nightstand and the battery is reinserted, the time may display differently.

As was the case overnight.

I had all kinds of strange dreams (attributing them to the moon being extra big and close this weekend) and despite all the dreams and feeling extremely rested, the damn clock insisted it was nowhere near “time to get up.”

Still, having a list of crap a mile and a half long to deal with (it is Monday, right?) I decided to get up at 3:24 AM and “get a jump on things.”

After the leisurely reboot process (coffee, a handful of vitamins and such) it was then time to look at the clock on the computer.

6:16 AM

Holy mother of pearl!  So this morning’s column may seem a bit strange since it is a product of a very well-rested, fast-typing sonofagun who is waaay behind schedule.l

But the dream overnight may have been worth it.  Elaine had ‘em too, so it’ll be interesting if lots of readers had dreams that were particularly vivid this weekend – and involving a disproportionate “dead relatives” doing walk-in parts.,  They showed up in both Elaine’s drreams and mine…which gets me to a question to post to Chris over at the www.nationaldreamcenter.com site…

Because?  Well, since the moon was closer and bigger than “normal” (whatever that is on this rock anymore) wouldn’t it be a book sci-fi plot for the moon to be where people go when they die?  A planet inhabited by spirits only…and in which case, the US might be willing to let China have it…and it would sure explain why we’re in no particular hurry to go back there with (remnants of) our space program.

Some movie plot, huh?

Planetary influences and “things in space” impacting the behavior of humans is a well-studied fact in the investment world.

For example, in Robin Handler’s Options Signal Service ( www.oss.cc )report preview today’s trades, there’s this little gem that I don’t think he’d mind my sharing with you in the assessment of last week’s market action……

The Planetary A-Index from NOAA tipped us off that there would
be strong selling on Tuesday. Bingo again. Take a look at the
graph on page 8. See how high the bar was for Sunday? On
Monday it went even higher, but the market did not sell off. Then
NOAA predicted an even higher bar for Tuesday. It was a nobrainer
that Tuesday was going to sell off. A nice play for the
Binary Option traders.

Last week was under a bullish planetary influence. The market
does not always move in the direction of these planetary influence,
but when they don’t, and can expect the date of the aspect to be a
reversal date. Mars Trined Neptune on Thursday.

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This morning – thanks to a reader accidentally finding some old personal budget information from 1989 – we have the opportunity to do a little “double-checking” of how inflation has worked out (in the REAL world, as opposed to the “hypothecated, seasonally-adjusted” world of bureaucrats.

So how close did they get it?  You’ll enjoy our research…

After we get  coffee…no point in trying to force the brain into action too quickly; it is summer after all…

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Hawaii’s getting its butt kicked this morning.  With the market set to tank further at the open we are wondering if the markets are discounting possible big problems in Hawaii from the two Hurricanes that are about to have a close brush with the place?

Step over to Mr. Ure’s whiteboard and we’ll run you through why the next three weeks will be key for the Islands.

We start with the report referenced in our unusual afternoon update Thursday that suggests (and this is per the NY Times so it must be true, right?) that changes in atmospheric pressure can trigger (gulp!) seismic stuff.

While I sit here and hit off the whiteboard marker, here, you go look up the barometric pressure range for the coming week at, oh, Hilo, for example.  That’s on the side of the Big Island that slipped in the 2006 quake, yeah?

(I’ll wait, another hit on this thing and I’ll be seriously ripped…)

Und zo… about 11 PM tonight, local time, that the barometric pressure will be about 30 inches of mercury.  That converts to 14.733 pounds per square inch of air pressure.  (You are following, right?  Wanna hit?)

And about sunrise this morning it will be 29.87.and that is 14.669 pounds per square inch.  Don’t be dozing off on me here.

So this 0.104 pounds per square in, or just a hair under 15 pounds of air pressure weight change per square foot.

And there are 27.8784 million of those per square mile…Which is 417 BILLION pounds of effective air weight change per square mile  and there are 4,028 square miles of the Big Island..

(One more hit on the market, here)

So that means roughly (exhale)  1.68-trillion pounds of effective air weight change in a period of, oh, 17-hours as the storm pressure center goes by.

All of which doesn’t mean anything at all will happen, but when Ma Nature puts 1.6+ trillion pounds of weight on a place were we just at a 4.5 quake yesterday, I wonder “”hmmm…wonder if anything could happen?”

Usually, when we run the numbers like this, it frightens the disaster demons off and nothing at all happens, but it’s worth keeping an eye on, never the less, and we’ll just keep an eye on barometric pressure gradients along the way.

Oh, we didn’t have our discussion of lateral loading of the 41 mile per hour gusts on the land mass, either, did we?  Hey!  Gimme that marker back!

Economic Fairytales

Before we climb into the next little gem, we have a thought experiment to perform.  Imagine that you live in a town of 10,000 people.

Overnight, all but one of them dies of a mysterious killer disease.  But the lone survivor?  She wins a super-doople-PowerBall for $21 billion dollars.

Now, how would a government statistician report this? 

Obviously, the answer is “Average income of small town climbs to an astounding $2.1 million per person!”

Of course, everyone but the lucky (and alive) Lotto winner is dead, and I’ll sell you her number for a price, bur you see the point, right?

With this dandy bit of mind-curl, you’re now ready to read this from the Federal Reserve:

“In its new Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households, the Federal Reserve Board provides a snapshot of the self-perceived financial and economic well-being of U.S. households and the issues they face, based on responses to the Board’s 2013 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking. The report provides insight into numerous topics of current relevance to household finances, including: housing and living arrangements; credit access and behavior; education and student loan debt; savings; retirement; and health expenses.

Overall, the survey found that as of September 2013 many households were faring well, but that sizable fractions of the population were at the same time displaying signs of financial stress. Over 60 percent of respondents reported that their families were either “doing okay” or “living comfortably” financially; although one-fourth said that they were “just getting by” financially and another 13 percent said they were struggling to do so. The effects of the recession also continued to be felt by many households, with 34 percent reporting that they were somewhat worse off or much worse off financially than they had been five years earlier in 2008 and 34 percent reporting that they were about the same.

If you have small children who are still awake, the story continues here.

If they’re still awake at the end of this tale, sing to them softly that old hymn from the Church of the Almighty Dollar Hymnal in C#:

Janet loves me, this I know

For the Fed, they told me so…

Lower interest rates will go,

Bright ahead when times are low…

(Chorus)

Yes, Janet love me!  Yes, Janet loves me…  (etc ad nausea)

(The Hymnal will be released in Linux as soon as we can figure out how to put spyware in it, presently x32 and x64 only)

Grinding On Down

And that, brethren, gets us to the collapse in consumer spending.  Revolving Debt (credit card wankers) are increasing their clutch on your life by only 1.3% annualized in the Consumer Debt report out yesterday.

Of course, that’s to be expected, unless you’re a female in a town of 10,000 where everyone died overnight.  No people, no jobs = no spending.  How hard is this shit?

Ah, the Hallelujah Choir from the higher ed sector is still heard chorusing away “Yes, Janet loves us…”  as nonrevolving credit (e.g. student loans) were increasing at an 8.4% annualize rate.

Dow futures up 36.

BUT WAIT!  THERE’S MORE!

Just out is the Labor Department’s latest sack of “good news”

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 2.5 percent annual rate during the second quarter of 2014, the U.S.

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