George Ure

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/George-Ure/e/B0098M3VY8%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share UrbanSurvival Bio: https://urbansurvival.com/about-george-ure/

Sleep Till Thursday–or War

Like every Monday, this one started as all Mondays do; looking with disbelief at how transient the weekend was and wondering “What the hell did I really get done in two days?”  and “Where’d the weekend go???”

A check of the sky, the radiation survey meter next to my desk, and noticing that the sky was still devoid of glowing mushrooms, led me to conclude that War didn’t break out this weekend over Ukraine and thus, predictable, the market ought to rally this morning until the next turd-in-the-punch-bowl shows up in headlines. 50 up at the open, call it.

I figure about Thursday the punch will turn undrinkable.

Here’s Ure’s Impeckerble Logic:

    • The only major economic news this morning is a “Who cares?” housing number on pending home sales.  This ought to be down, but figuring out “How far is down?” is hardly worth the calories needed to fire neurons.  So there goes Monday.
    • That gets us (still snoozing) to Tuesday when the Case-Shiller/S&P/Dow Jones (and whoever else wanders by) 20-City Housing Index comes around. This one ought to tell us we’re still stuck at 2003-2004 prices, but, as usual, only the top 2 percent of the assembled multitude will wonder what $100 in 2003 would buy today.  (The correct answer is $77.82 worth, since to hold purchasing power of a $100 bill printed in 2003 you’d need $128..15 today.)  Yes, dear, that really means something but not to the nation’s lamebrain financial press which can’t adjust inflation to save their sorry souls.
    • The other tell-tale tomorrow is Consumer Confidence (emphasis on the “con” parts.  More than anything, an economic realist, such as you-know-who, will use this to calibrate “Kentucky Windage” on how slow-thinking the ‘Mercian public is with all these pills in ‘em.
    • You’d need to be a subscriber to Peoplenomics.com in order to hear the blood boil about the advance GDP numbers coming Wednesday.

    Then we get to Thursday and by about here, we ought to figure out what “Mayday!  Mayday!  Mayday!” is all about because…

      • Challenger job cuts come out.
      • Personal Income (always a giggle) will be released along with it’s hysterical side-kick “personal savings rate” which includes (you’ll love this…) paying down credit card debt. (Honest accounting would book the depreciated value of the crap you bought, but that’s a longish rant you are too busy for…)
      • This all comprises something to do with Personal Consumption Expenditure tables, which is sort of like the trauma doc’s notes on why your wallet (OK, or purse) is bleeding red all over the place.  (“Change!” remember?  Which, in turn, is kinda like “One born every minute” but with a voting lever.)
      • Construction spending (down on single family is my bet, up on chicken coops for the poor and disenfranchised to keep ‘em in hock to The Man, I figure).
      • And if that’s not enough, once the morning’s tears have been wiped away, along with come auto and truck sales just in time to ruin an otherwise pending Miller time Thursday after the Fed Money Printing Festival Revelations are disclosed.  (Seems like I’m the only guy saying “Holy crap!  Printing M1 here lately at almost 19%…where’s the inflation?  None?  OMG that means DEFLATION has really started to dig in!!!”)

      To wrap up the week, we should get the unemployment rate, hourly earnings and factory orders (What factories?  They’re all in China, FCOL).

      Now, perhaps this is a somewhat elongated soliloquy to get to my first point:  But here’s the deal, plain and simple:

      Since we talked Friday, a story came out that US factories are gaining on China.  In longer versions of the story, like this one in USA Today, what you read is all about how productivity is increasing in America.  Which, no doubt, it is.  I mean, the Boston Consulting Group is shooting straight, right?

      To me, however, this is one of those good-news, bad-news kinda of stories.  Why?  Well, I’m sure all the productivity stories are true and yeah, sure, you betcha there will be jobs building the factories.  But what’s going to be inside? 

      Machines.  Automation.  Robots.

      And it sets the baseline for a deeper discussion which I’m going to keep harping on you about until you want to puke:  Productivity reaching the mystical 100% means no jobs for humans.  And that’s the bugger in the whole equation of modern capitalism.  One of two.

      T’other?  If you’ve been paying attention, it is that even with lower interest rates, we have falling behind the power curve, so that compound interest still eats the global economic system in short order, which is why the New World Order clowns are all scared shitless because they know that periodic global economic depressions don’t end happily. (Look around you for signs and portents.)

      While we wait for the unhappy ending (which some prescient/RV/seer types figure will be 2015-2016, the Big Slide is on and this year’s “Sell in May and Go Away” could be one for the record books. Just a hunch, mind you.

      There’s no point in worrying about it this morning:   This is still Monday.  And like the headline this morning said in just five words and a punctuator:  Sleep Till Thursday – Or War.

      We’ll get to that next…

      War!  (Of words, so far)

      President Traveler is taking time out from his Asia cuisine to announce “New U.S. Sanctions on Russia over Ukraine.”  (I had leftover spaghetti this morning, but the national press seems to have overlooked my side of it.)

      Poor move. On Sanctions, not my spaghetti.   No, make that really, really dumb move for two reasons that ought to be obvious.

      1.  If you tell Russia what we’re going to do, before it is in place, then Russia will hit the push buttons on their programmed response and the net gain is nil.

      2.  Secondly, Russia made it through the weekend without going into eastern Ukraine, so now is NOT the time to be slapping on sanctions.  Unless you’re trying to pick a fight, of course, and in that case, must be some really bad news about the economy on the horizon because the #1 reason for most wars is socioeconomic…

      3.  Third:  Putin will be really pissed when he reads in the NY Times how the US/West is after his personal hidden wealth around the world, figures our tipster Madison Avenue Mike.

      So with this (mild, restrained) analysis, let’s see what warhammer sees as he polished his spectacles and oak leaves…

      George,

      It is vital that leaders in the West examine all the viable motivations for Russia’s annexation of the Crimea and its apparent intent on safeguarding the bordering Eastern Ukraine. While I do not agree with all the points laid out in the article by the Guardian . .

      Read More

      Coping: Monday in the WoWW

      Ure’s Grand Universal Theory of Reality (GUT-OR) was shaken from the ether at exactly 12:56 AM this morning.  A time that will live in infamy.

      There I was, laying in bed as a huge lightshow appeared outside and a few minute later the rains arrives, part of that weather system that’s now killed about 20-some people as it meanders up the midsection of the country.

      A few minutes on from here, the soft “splaht, splaht” of rain on the screen porch metal roof changed to “ting, ting” as barely pea-sized hail began falling.

      “You’ve got better hearing that a dog sometimes,” she offered.  “Why is it you can’t hear me when I ask you to…”

      Oh-oh…Quick!  Time to fake a ‘snork’ like I’m only half awake.

      But I was more than half there.  My brain was working through the arrival of UFO’s over the Roswell NM area in 1947 only about 94 miles from the Trinity Test site where the first atomic weapon was exploded that eventually was credited with ending World War Two.  Would something like that happen, oh, about now?

      The mind was working through the odds of a UFO being brought down in one of our fields in the Texas Outback.  You’d assume they wouldn’t crash at an airport or in a big city, if possible.  But there was something about electrical discharges involved and my mind then went to work on whether that indicated that antigravity was ultimately going to be solved with a static discharge system like the Biefield-Brown experiments, or whether it would be broken with the rotating B-field theory that my buddy Vince and I keep working on.

      Somewhere about here, the B-fields (turned so as to make a spacetime vortex pulled into the lead as I thought back on an email that had some in Friday from reader Warren.

      Warren, in case you’ve misplaced the memory, was the fellow who took his lawnmower out a while back, mowed a BIG yard, and put the lawnmower away.  He then discovered (later) that the mower had use no gas.  Zero, zip, nada. 

      That was Warrens first face-off with the World of Woo-Woo, but his note Friday revealed it was back…

      Has anyone else been ‘gaining’ or ‘losing’ time? e.g., take a look at the clock and it’s 12:30 PM, look at it again an hour later and it’s 11:30 AM. That sort of thing? That’s happened to me several times over the last week or so…

      Nope. No ‘free’ mower gas this year…not yet, anyway.

      And that got me back to the lightning storm going through here overnight.  Will be have an uptick in WoWW reports this week because of so much “static” around with the tornadoes and such, or at the WoWW events more likely because unlike 1947, when they showed up too late, are the UFO drivers making a baseline survey before 2015-2016 when some of our remote viewing readers have run into a “road block?”

      WoWW 2

      And that gets us to another intriguing report…this time from reader Dana…

      Dear George,

      Your reader Mark, whose books and almond butter disappeared/reappeared, asked if anyone else had two or more items go missing at the same time. A couple hours after I read that post in your blog, I had a WoWW of my own:

      Working at my home office desk Friday, having a cigarette while doing a writing assignment.

      About 11:30, went downstairs to replenish coffee cup & get a new pack of cigarettes.

      There were two packs in the pantry. I took one, removed the cellophane & foil, grabbed coffee cup

      and returned to desk.

      Read More

      Strategic Living Deal Points – The Wait for War

      This morning a few “notes in the journal” about how life (finance/tech/rural) is changing and how our strategies may change as well as aging shows up and world conditions are anything but stable.  Think of this morning’s notes a waypoints along the path. 

      Worthwhile thinking points with the world at the edge of global war. The attack on Net Neutrality, in this context, is my long-predicted replay of the government seizure of the radio waves via the Communications Act of 1934 come to life.  You might remember, my friend Gaye at www.backdoorsurvival.com and I wrote a short book titled “11-Steps to a Strategic Life” which is available on Amazon.  But times are changing so we’ve begun thinking about an update because stability in life is starting to hit the fan. 

      Changes in conditions are likely to change the definition of “the good life” in large and chaotic ways.  Some notes on where that leads makes sense. After we get some coffee, of course.

      Read More

      No Point Thursday, the Headline Circus

      There are times I wake up, look over the headlines, and am convinced that the news media has invented a three (maybe four) ring circus judging the crap called “news.”

      And that the markets basically went nowhere Thursday, is just icing on the cake.

      I’ve always been suspicious of the fourth workday:  Not quiet or optimistic like Friday, so a long lunch if off the table.  No rejoicing in the halfway mark that accompanies “Hump Day” the day before.  Monday is always a fiasco, and most weeks Tuesday is when any real work gets done.

      You don’t see this very often in markets: Back-to-back identical Dow closing prices: 16,501.65 on the Dow Jones Industrials on both Wednesday and Thursday of this week.  Is it a sign of something? 

      Maybe so.  Maybe the market is just plum tuckered out.

      It has happened before, like 1995.

      That should change today because in the latest Money Supply figures out from the Fed last night, the annual rate of printing up money was 15.9% basis the most recent three months.  Eventually, someone besides me will start screaming “Here comes hyperinflation!”  Still, people are a little slow and we often run 6-months to 6-years early on things.

      The Michigan Sentiment Indicator is due out this morning at 10 (Eastern), but since Americans take more mood-altering drugs than anywhere else on earth, as long as no one makes any loud noises between 10 and 10:30 this morning, the slumber should continue.

      Still, we are a big perplexed to learn that a 700-page economics book has surged to the #1 spot on Amazon.  Thomas Piketty’s book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century is $24 bucks (with paper) or $22 bucks without.

      Speaking of books and Amazon and such, Howard Hill’s masterpiece (Mortgage Market Mayhem) is being updated and should be released this time.  It is the finest bit of financial writing I’ve read in a long time and I’ll let you know when it’s ready.

      700 pages on economics?  #1?  Perhaps there’s hope in the world after all.

      But Elaine and I were having the discussion yesterday about “What’s the right length book?”

      The topic came up because I just tried out a free Audibles.com book.  Even though the book I chose was abridged to three hours and something (a geeky business book) it was still boring as watching paint dry.  Elaine, who was out mudding the sheetrock in the sun room, came in and asked “How many times are they going to say the same thing?  How ‘bout some tunz?”

      Point taken.  So I wondered off to www.summary.com where I’ll be trying their sample/freebie later today.  (“The Power of Habit”).

      Now that the Obama Administration is emerging this week about having lied about Net Neutrality (see the New Yorker piece “Goodbye Net Neutrality; Hello Net Discrimination” in today’s editions) figuring out your preference when it comes to information density will become evermore important.  High density will be high cost.  Hard to beat paper for some things.

      Oh, and if you don’t like the internet being stolen, you can change your name to Ben Dover, try to out bid the cable industry (cable is toast, topic of our Peoplenomics report tomorrow) or ask your family doctor for meds…You know, the one you got to keep, right?

      None of this is what’s driving the Dow to open down 50 this morning…we’ll deal with that next.

      More after this…

      Center Ring: Mobgov Under Pressure

      [We begin with some theme-setting music, over here, to get you in the mood for this..]

      Let me see:  Since 1999 the US has pumped $5-billion in your tax money into Ukraine and in return for what?  A rhetorical question at best, unless you are a gas pipeline owner in Europe.

      So this morning, SecState John Kerry accuses Russia of “destabilization” (spelt Englishwise as “destabilisation” over here on the BBC site).

      While this may be the case, we wryly note that Russia, not NATO/the EU, or the US has had a naval base in the Crimea for a couple of hundred years.

      Against this backdrop, the New York Times is reporting this morning that “Ukraine says it will ‘blockade’ pro-Russian militants.”.

      And if they do (remember where you heard it first), Russia will intervene to protect their homies. Except instead of the usual “Whassup, homie?” It’s more likely going to be “Here, take this AK homie, and stand behind our “humanitarian assistance…”

      As I’ve told you previously, we instigated a coup, things didn’t work out right, now Russia is pissed, and the US has enough sense not to send troops to Ukraine since Putin’s objective is Poland’s industrial capability prior to the 5-year out standoff with China over Siberia land and resource at about the time Peak Oil will be in-your-face (*and walking more).

      Investors are a fairly cowardly lot.  Always thinking about returns and surety of the deal.  With the weekend ahead full of Eastern European question marks,  a drop today of a couple of hundred points toward the close can’t be ruled out.

      Read More

      Coping: With Idiocy – It’s Alive and Well

      Here we go again:  Another “Planet X” claim.  The inbox (and the recycle bin) usually dispose of them without me so much as getting a look at them.

      But the catchy headline this morning “Midwest quakes surge caused by Planet X/Niburu, not fracking!!!” strikes me as a new low point in mental acuity.

      A few facts, if we can? Not to ruin the doomporn business, but let’s face it, the end of the world from a runaway planet is not something to be taken lightly.

      So we look at the latest 30-day map of 2.5+ earthquakes around the world, zooming to North America and what do we find?

      This is not particularly hard shit to figure out:

      There are a whole bunch of quakes that are going on up and down the west coast.  No scientist in his (or her) right mind would place the burden of that on Planet X.  No, this most assuredly has to do with the long-term activity of the Pacific Plate which has something to do with mountains running into it – like the Sierra Nevada and back a ways, the Rockies.  And more importantly, current times coastal ranges.

      And that explains everything from the Continental Divide and west.

      The little cluster of quakes down in the area of Puerto Rico is (again) plate making mountain ranges.

      Maybe this hasn’t been widely explained enough in school: Most of the Caribbean islands are sitting on top of undersea volcanoes.   If you buy that – and the idea that the earth had more wrinkles on it than the average 100-year old, then we are left with what?

      A gob of quakes in what Midwest state that has fallen ass-over-teakettle for what?  FRACKING!

      I will go so far as to admit that the link between fracking and earthquake is maybe only 95% probable.  However, even in states like Oklahoma if you read this 2011 report, you’ll find admissions like this (highlighted part):

      What’s going on right now is a clever (more or less global) move by the Oil & Gas industry to “negotiate” an acceptable level of earthquake increases in order to address the problem of Peak Oil.

      Oh, that.

      Yeah, well, as I pointed out in this past week’s Peoplenomics report, the USA is consuming about 6-billion barrels per year and we are only producing 2.8 billion per year (in spite of the BS about “unlimited oil” which is a pantload).  At best, therefore we only have about 12-years of domestic US oil reserves left.

      It’s not like the US is alone, either.  The British Parliament has a report that says, in so many words if you understand the playing field, that the Brits will bend over as much as needed not to be the “first out” in the oil depletion wars that are forming up now.  (Like Ukraine is the gas war, right?):

      The Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering have reviewed the risks associated with fracking. They concluded that the health, safety and environmental risks can be managed effectively in the UK, by implementing and enforcing best operational practice. However, they made several recommendations including calling for more research on the carbon footprint of shale gas extraction.

      So that’s where life is going:  More and more drilling.

      And last night, I politely explained to the folks who want to drill some 60-foot deep seismic wells on Uretopia Ranch lands (and load them with 2 1/2 pound charges for a 3D survey) that I’ve turned that whole matter over to my attorney to deal with.

      Believe me, I understand the game here, I know the problem, and I am not amused to find that virtually everyone in Texas (who doesn’t own their subsurface rights) is, in effect, a squatter on a problem waiting to come by and make demands that their (superior) subsurface right not be infringed.

      My friend Howard mentions a horrifying reality – far more urgent than Planet X:  “You ever look at the red/blue maps and the oil/subsurface rights maps?”

      All of this, no matter how you cut it, is going to come down to a process and the object of the game is always a deal because the supply of oil is NOT unlimited and Big Oil knows this and doesn’t want people to figure out that over time we’re going to be moving (more and more) into a world of trading seismic impacts and surface rights for energy consumptive lifestyles which are marvelously profitable for Big Oil.

      So if someone sends you bullshit about Planet X being the cause of Oklahoma quakes, suggest they go back to wherever they went to school and demand their money back:  Clearly they got conned.

      You might also suggest, if they can handle something more than a picture-book, that they pick up a copy of  Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.

      Still, if you insist on demonstrably stupid ideas, I’m sure the Oil & Gas trolls will be along with another whopper next week, rather than explain the real trade-off in play. 

      “Second Gunman on Grassy Knoll Responsible for Quakes…”    Way more probable…

      Meantime, I’ve penciled out a budget for the pending “My attorney is better than your attorney” if reason doesn’t prevail. 

      I figure to cut the checks and watch the floor show.  Sometimes in life (oil exploration and divorces come to mind)  delegating to a good attorney the least stressful way to approach things and they’ve been trained in the art…

      But I have mentioned that  an effective radiated power of 5 kW at 14,300 MHz is not the kind of power you want to be mindlessly using electric blasting caps around.  Just sayin…

      The Friday Twofer Woo-Woo

      Reader Mark has been vexed by missing almond butter and reference books, in our latest tour of the world where things just happen that shouldn’t:

      “…when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” – Sherlock Holmes, from The Blanched Soldier

      Hi George, 

      This is a twofer woo-woo. 

      Case #1. About six weeks ago I was working on a client project and needed to access a couple of my writing/marketing reference books. I have an ordered library system, where my reference books are always in the same place on the same shelf. I went to get my two books and they were gone. There was also an empty space where the books would normally be. So I’m thinking that I must have pulled them out and used them previously and left they somewhere else. 

      George, I literally pulled my office apart looking for these books, not once, but three times! Nowhere to be found.

      Read More

      What Happened to Home Sales?

      I don’t know if you’ve had enough coffee yet to be able to form up a question at this ungodly hour, but did you happen to catch the data out Wednesday from the Census and HUD New Residential Sales report?  This is the poster child for “Train wreck…”

      Sales of new single-family houses in March 2014 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 384,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 14.5 percent (±12.9%) below the revised February rate of 449,000 and is 13.3 percent (±9.9%) below the March 2013 estimate of 443,000.

      The median sales price of new houses sold in March 2014 was $290,000; the average sales price was $334,200. The
      seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of March was 193,000. This represents a supply of 6.0
      months at the current sales rate.

      This was followed by today’s report on Durable Goods:

      New orders for manufactured durable goods in March increased $6.0 billion or 2.6 percent to $234.8 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This increase, up two consecutive months, followed a 2.1 percent February increase. Excluding transportation, new orders increased 2.0 percent. Excluding defense, new orders increased 1.8 percent.

      Year-on-year, the data shows non-defense growth of 3.7% which might SOUND all peachy-keen, but remember the scoreboard is cockeyed:  the report is in dollars.

      And this matters HUGELY because there are 6.1% more dollars sloshing around the US economy than there were a year ago, according to the Federal Reserve’s money stocks report.

      Next Tuesday, we’ll get the Case-Shiller/S&P housing figures.  But unless I’m completely out to lunch (which is a real possibility, by the way) what’s happened to housing numbers is something called “deflation.”

      And while we’re getting ready to unload federal land onto the Chinese, who have been bailing us out, the ugly truth is that Russia is rubbing our noses in it.

      Did you see where Vlad Putin has just come out with a HUGE silver coin to mark the Russian conquest of Crimea?  At this morning’s prices that’s a $675 coin in silver.

      So while Russia gloats and we’re swimming in our sewer stuffed with bad paper, the Russians are eyeing more land and China’s gotta be looking at more land deals.  And in case you haven’t figured out that you people are smart enough to see the big pix, that’s what’s happening to home sales, I’m afraid…

      More after this…

      FDA:  Blowing Smoke?

      Electronic smokes are in the sights of the Food and Drug Administration.  As the agency points out on its website:

      E-cigarettes have not been fully studied so consumers currently don’t know:

      • the potential risks of  e-cigarettes when used as intended,
      • how much nicotine or other potentially harmful chemicals are being inhaled during use, or
      • if there are any benefits associated with using these products.

      Additionally, it is not known if e-cigarettes may lead young people to try other tobacco products, including conventional cigarettes, which are known to cause disease and lead to premature death.

      Read More

      Coping: With the Oily World of Woo-Woo

      Sometimes, I mean like every so often, you have to look at coincidences and ask “What does it all mean?”

      Yesterday morning ( 8 AM) I posted an article for Peoplenomics subscribers called “What Ever Happened to “Peak Oil?””  Pretty interesting article – and it supports what both comments here (and from Oilman2) have been saying: Peak Oil isn’t gone, it’s just a jagged peak.

      So there I was, outside, working on the Never-ending Project (the sun porch) and who calls?

      A man identifying himself as being with an oil exploration outfit who wants me to sign off (for $10 bucks an acre) permission for the company he reps to come through and set off seismic charges to see if there’s oil under the property.

      Of course there is.

      1.  This is East Texas which has already been mapped pretty well.

      2.  I mentioned a couple of years ago that we have friends who pioneered an electromagnetic pulse system of oil exploration so we already know what’s “down there.”

      Well, now, this poses certain “difficulties.”  I mean yeah, sure, it’s a kind of an odd thing:  Write article and within 8-hours, here comes a seismic crew.

      But the difficulties go beyond the World of Woo-Woo (WoWW) come-a-knocking. 

      We didn’t buy our little place in the woods to be disturbed.  In Texas, if you’re a surface rights owner (we are) the holder of the subsurface/mineral rights does have the right to develop their property.

      That said, they have to do so in a minimally invasive way and compensate the surface rights owner for any damage.

      Since our property is a tree farm, if any trees are cut down, then that would be an economic loss for us. 

      But here’s the delicate part:  I’m an extra class ham radio operator and I don’t take kindly to the quiet enjoyment of my hobby being disrupted.  And I operate (at times and as conditions warrant) at power levels (on all the HF bans) that go up to 1,8-29 MHz. 

      And yes, the property is posted with signs that inform people that RF fields here may at time exceed the maximum recommended for the general public. 

      And that’s the problem:  Electric blasting caps.

      Typically, these kinds of seismic studies are done using ammonium nitrate explosives placed about 25-feet down a 3-inch diameter hole.  Then a web of wiring is stretched out and off goes the shot. 

      So besides the “normal” issues of surface owners, I’ve got a tree farm and I have radio equipment which may interfere with electric blasting materials.

      Is there an alternative?  Oh course.  There are various “thumpers” that can be used, along with the new electronic pulse technology.

      But this is one of those situations where I have to trust someone besides George:  So I will have my (local) attorney send them a letter informing them that I don’t take kindly to disruptions, potential damage to property (as had been experienced many places) and I sure wouldn’t want to have any blasting accidents.

      Sometimes, it’s better to let an attorney do the talking.  Not all the time, but now and then…

      What Cost of Living: Canadian Style

      From a reader out on the great flatlands who’s enjoying the “negligible change in the cost of living” than Canucks hear from their hype-monster, just like we get here:

      So as per usual we are being told that our inflation up here is negligible.

      Here’s my list of negligible

      Gas is now over $6 a gallon

      Packs of cookies have dropped 50 grams out of the packages and are still the same price as the 350 packs

      Cheese Whiz was $10.39 a 900 gram jar.  I bought it on sale last year for $5

      This is just a skim of the increasing food prices around here.

      Apartments are over $1000 for a two bedroom

      Cheapest crappy war time house is over $250,000

      Minimum wage is $10 an hour for comparison.

      Apparently, our reader has a serious addiction problem:  Eating. Near as I can figure it, governments have worked out “quantitative squeezing” to cure us all of that one.

      Speaking of the World Oil Picture

      Got a nice lead from a subscriber in response to Wednesday’s report:

      George,

      This is related to your post today on Peoplenomics. It’s an article describing talks between Gazprom and Turkey about expanding the capacity of the pipeline to Turkey.

      Notice the name of the Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee … Alexander Medvedev. 

      I believe I saw a quote by someone in Congress saying Obama is playing marbles while Putin is playing chess.

      I can’t swear to Putin playing chess, or not.  But I am bright enough to figure out that our “Golfer in Chief” is just playing a round…

      Example:  The president is skipping the funeral of an aunt to play golf, reports The Daily Caller.

      Oh…and if you’re looking for a real conspiracy to dig your teeth into this morning, how about this one:  Why is it the “Obama Golf Counter” site hasn’t been updated since February, huh?

      But except for the occasional mention (in articles like this one) the press seems to be giving our favorite duffer a pass.

      On the OTHER Weight Loss Program

      While I’m presently at a new, lower, weight this morning, a note from Doc Zero came floating across the desk:

      Saw your link to the Mega One Meals.  They look pretty good. I have read The Gabrielle Method years ago after he was on Coast to Coast.  Didn’t help me lose weight.  But in the last couple of months I heard one nutritionist on Coast (Who’s name I can’t remember) say, the way to lose weight was easy.  Take your weight in lbs.

      Read More

      Peoplenomics: What Ever Happened to “Peak Oil?”

      10-years to dark is about it. Maybe less. By my reckoning, depending on the resource wars. Your not hearing about it because some greedy bastards are planning to bend you over, but good on the way to the reality of Peak Oil. Peak Oil is real, so if you’re patient, what is going on with the stock market is just marking time until really bad impacts of a modest economic recovery show up.

      Money Management: This is a Casino

      You ever walk into a casino?  There are carefully controlled aspects to it you seldom think about.  But, just as one example, there is never a clock around.  That’s because (for obvious reasons) casinos don’t want you knowing what time it is.

      Similarly, in the financial markets, the little matter of “What Time is It?” is of more than passing importance.

      If, for example, the stock market is headed for new highs, which some of the data would suggest (like the stronger than expected leading indicators), the people who run the markets (the commercials) would love nothing better than to load the boat ahead of time – buying when stocks are cheap.  That way, when stocks run up, they will sell at higher prices and keep the casino going.

      On the other hand, if the crap is really going to hit the fan in eastern Europe,; then there would be a massive re-ordering of the world’s economy and that would run the other way for casino owners.  They would be dumping stocks, going to cash and letting the public take the bath.  They’d wait patiently for a good bottom to be put in, and then buy again.

      Normally, the Long Wave is pretty clear.  We have been in a period of declining interest rates since about 1980’s, so with all parties, things are going to have to end some time.

      The problem is When?

      We’ve been following a particular “replay” of markets in our Trading Model over on our subscribers-only Peoplenomics side of things.  And without giving away the whole plot, we can see a scenario where one or two and maybe even three more weeks of up markets are possible. 

      But as explained in yesterday’s report here, Vlad Putin has a couple of firecrackers strapped to his behind, so I’m cautiously looking at adding to a short position going forward.

      The market – somewhat conflicted – has edged back into a long position in our model, but the size of the reading is not very convincing.  There’s a lack of conviction developing.

      That might improve later this morning when a couple of housing numbers coming in and tomorrow we get the new home sales figures.  But the rest of the week – save Dural Orders – isn’t very exciting, unless the Michigan Sentiment Indicator turns your crank.

      Sure, imports are up (and it may be bad for the balance of trade) but as we explained to subscribers recently, the increases in foreign military sales will likely offset some of that, regardless of the karmic implications.

      If your life savings is on the bullish side of things, and if your idea of “long-term investing” is two weeks, then you should be in good shape.

      Just remember casinos don’t have clocks.  And the reason for it is so you won’t think about how late it’s getting.  And in economic long wave theory, closing time comes along pretty soon.  It might be a couple of years, but again we ask rhetorically:  If you had money in the market in 1927 or 1928…even ‘29….how close do you think you could have plated it then and what do you think it’s any easier a decision now?

      Dow futures are up 9 whole points.  Got the time, buddy?

      About Those Firecrackers

      Veep Joe is off whipping up the folks in Ukraine saying the US will support them.  Presumably, this will mean more than passing around cookies, but we shall see.  As stated earlier, “exercises” with 150 soldiers are not likely to scare Putin.

      Since we just got done last week, putting in our payments to the FedGov, you may be wondering how much money the US government has piled into the Ukraine bet:  Well, according to his article in the Kyiv Post, “Nuland says US spent $5-billion to back democracy in Ukraine.”

      Ures truly, being dense, and all thought backing democracy would involve elections.  But to be clear, the amount admitted by former Bush turned Obama Stater, Victoria Nuland, that’s the tab since 1991.

      Why, that’s only $15.97 per American – and spread out since 1991, it’s all budget dust, right?

      Of course, its more like $35 per worker, since retired don’t pay as much tax and kids, well, they’ll eat you out of house and home, not earning their deductions.  But it’s something to think about.

      Just put it on the list of other “change” including Gitmo (still there), Stan (still there), keep your own doctor (uh….)….

      When the list of promises broken gets long enough, you end up with militias talking tough, but I SUPPOSE you figured that out by now.

      Grab Some More

      But, in case you haven’t, keep an eye on the Bunglers of Land Management who are now trying to scoop up another piece of property – this one in North Texas.

      In this latest fiasco, BLM is trying to rewrite generations of actually deeded land.

      Ron Paul’s comments are worth seeing, if you haven’t.

      More after this.

      Maudlin America

      Continuing a theme from a recent Peoplenomics report, we can’t help but be dismayed at the number of people buy in to stories that fill important air time and don’t call politicians to account by asking hard, obvious, and not “pre-filtered” questions of newsmakers.

      Instead, the Mainstream media is full of useless stories that are heart still pullers but nevertheless will have little (likely NO) impact of your life, or those of your offspring going forward.

      Just, for example, the latest string of stories out of Korea don’t mean jack:  You weren’t really going to take a Korean ferry anywhere in the next, oh, hundred years or so, were you?

      Or, take the matter of MH370.  This one is dragging out longer than a bad TV show with no plot and the obvious need for “filler” material, since news departments have doubled down with huge bets that those trip expense reports will be justified by live action of the first body being recovered, if it ever is…

      Definition: “Maudlin: self-pityingly or tearfully sentimental, often through drunkenness.”

      ‘Cept instead of drunkenness, how about through that feel-good pill haze?  Tell your doctor.

      Making Up Law

      Oh, sure, there’s LAW on the books that say illegals in America get deported.  But care to guess who is making up WHEN to enforce the law, pretending the rest of the time it is NOT THE LAW?

      You go read this story and figure it out. 

      See William Chambliss’ “Vice, Corruption, Bureaucracy, and Power” (circa 1971).  What works at the city level (where I covered it as a cop shop reporter and the federal grand juries) seems to have grown up and gone national.  Now seems to be untouchable.

      We’re either a country or full-time, always equally applied law, or we’re corrupt.  It really is THAT simple.

      Tolerance policies are selective enforcement dressed up in pretty clothes for political hacks.  “That law doesn’t apply to me…I’m special.”  Then you ain’t in America, by the law books I’ve read.  But that only works if the Courts aren’t packed…

      Why isn’t the press calling bullshit on this and calling people out on this with questions like “Aren’t you selectively breaking the law here?”  “Where is the right to break law delegated to you, sir?”  FMTT.

      Seen equality around anywhere? WTFU

      Over Russia

      The US and Russia are flying spy missions over one another’s countries.  Gee, that sure makes me feel safe, doesn’t it you?

      Lights Out

      Note from warhammer:

      George,

      What exactly might the PTB be prepping John Q. Citizen for with the release of this bit of ‘duh’ EMP news.

      <http://watchdog.org/138940/solar-flare-emp/>

      From burned retinas, blindness and scorched skin for those struck by the sheer awe of a nuclear HAB (high altitude burst), a “new sun” for all intents and purposes, who are drawn to stare at the fireball for too long, to the frying of every non-hardened circuit followed by months to years of trying to survive without power, gas and water, the ramifications would surely be civilization altering (and for many, life ending).

      On the other hand, perhaps NASA expects a grand CME on the scale of the 1859 Carrington Event, similarly sending the sun-facing side of the planet back into the pre-electric agricultural age. Were such a CME to hit N. America, most people lack the land, free flowing water, seeds, tools and general know how to provide food for themselves and their families. Millions would certainly perish.

      Whether for a HAB or a CME, the news release is definitely most curious. Ure thoughts?

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      Coping: Diets and the Future of Liquid Food

      Mr. Ure is seriously losing weight here lately.  I won’t be so dumb as to put up numbers but I will say that our recent visit here at Uretopia Ranch with my friend Howard Hill was instrumental.

      How so?  Well, Howard recommended a book… The Gabriel Method: The Revolutionary DIET-FREE Way to Totally Transform Your Body…which I had loaded on my Kindle in no time at all.  I mean seriously…in like 4-minutes.

      What makes Jon Gabriel’s book so cool is that it doesn’t start with calories, sitting around and being a slug, cutting our sugary drinks, or any of the “normal” starting points.  What he does that’s different is he starts with the psychological reasons why some people “turn on their fat storage systems.”

      Sure enough, when I started doing some of the exercises in the book, what came through were some leftover mental thought fragments (the kind that can “program” you, if you don’t consciously dredge them up and smash them with full-bright thinking and dealing with them.

      I won’t ruin the book for you, but let’s just say that a lower-middle class to middle-class upbringing in my youth included a lot of food-related programming.  Sitting around the dinner table was where a lot of family sharing/caring/learning took place.  And thus, sitting around associating (food with sharing/caring/learning) in a sense programs you to seek weight via food since it must be associated with what was going on at the dinner table, right?

      And while there, eating (early on) involved serving portions that were laid out by adults.  Not wanting to shore-change their kids, got more than adequate portions of food.

      But we also got two other things that worked into an eventual predisposition to being (how to say this?) less than featherweights.

      Aha!  Gabriel’s book is all about the psychological stuff which – in my case – involved two of the most powerful/destructive (yet not intentionally so) commands from parents.

      From dad there was “Be a clean plater, or no desert…:” and from mom  “No ice-cream unless you eat all your [fill in the blank].  Well, hell, turns out the answers are always in plain sight…just Gabriel has tons of good sense in his book about finding it.  My thanks to Howard, again, for recommending it.

      Oh, and no harm/no foul on the parents…they were just doing what they wanted to guard against from their childhoods in the Great Depression – being hungry.  Many marvelous “D’oh!” moments reading Gabriel’s book.

      The Liquid Food Connection

      “OK, so how does this get to a discussion of liquid food?” you’re wondering about here.

      I got to thinking about other “food programming” from childhood and one of the messages back when was “Don’t drink too much water with your meal or you will fill up on water, not food.”

      But, in fact, because young boys don’t drink a lot of liquid during the day (play was hard work) they really needed more with meals.  And that’s where I got into reviewing the kinds of food that I really like.

      Things like homemade clam chowder, a bowl of chili, or that lunchtime treat: cream of mushroom soup and a fried cheese sandwich.

      In the early sixties, I think it was, my mother tried dieting (briefly) and there was a place up in Seattle called GovMart which was a kind of early-day Costco, except it was for government employees only.  Since dad worked for the city, we’d go there for bulk foods now and then.

      It was from there that I had my first taste of a liquid diet called Metrecal which lives on in memory in the pages of Wikipedia:

      Metrecal was a brand of diet foods introduced in the early 1960s. Though its products were criticized for their taste, which newer varieties of flavor tried to improve upon later, it attained a niche in the popular culture of the time. Created and marketed initially by C. Joseph Genster of Mead Johnson & Company, it was eventually replaced in the market by competitors such as Slim Fast.[1]

      Mead Johnson had a long history of creating nutritional supplements for infants and invalids, and Metrecal was seen as a logical progression into weight loss for the general public. Genster was the group director for nutritional specialties at Mead Johnson, which launched the product in September 1959, though it was unclear who conceived the original concept.[1] Food innovator Sylvia Schur‘s company provided consulting work on the product’s development.[2] The name for the product was generated by an automated IBM computer system as a blend of the words “meter” and “calories”, referring to the measured caloric intake of the Metrecal diet.

      Needless to say, Metrecal worked, but only so-so for mom. This was ‘61, now that I think about it.

      Remember, my Danish grandmother who came over on the Lusitania (last successful westbound trip) earned her keep in Denmark as a cook for some minor nobility in Odense.  As a result of this, deserts were one of the really great kitchen outputs at our house:  A twisted deep-friend cookie (Kliner from Klejner)  [recipe here] or the accompanying citronfromage ( a Danish lemon mousse) {yeah, try it sometime].  Lemon custard tarts, Danish pastries of all sorts.  Cinnamon rolls and bear claws and….oh, my, the joy of it all.

      Not that the kitchen didn’t turn out low-calorie main dishes, either.  Danish frikadeller (with a rich gravy with dill) was not exactly weight-loss food, either.  Half a dozen red potatoes and here, more gravy?  [recipe here]  Pronounced: FRACK-a-dillah.  29 million calories per serving, plus or minus.

      The taste was very similar to the Swedish meatballs you can get at some Ikea stores. except that it was patties, each big as your hand, and eating two was considered a compliment to the cook.  Eating only part of one?  Dissing the cook!  And you see how this programming stuff Gabriel talks about works, right?

      Still, because mom wasn’t too thrilled with the early Metrecal, she shared it with us kids.  It was chocolate, and damn good, we thought.  Kind of like cocoa, but thicker.

      Now to the point:  I have through about rotating through some cases of Ensure as a prepping food, but that one didn’t really grab me because I have always thought of it as “old or sick” people food.  I’m  not that guy.

      So bingo:  A couple of weeks back, along comes a note from Amy at www.preparewise.com and guess what they have? 

      MegaOne Meals are the ultimate in emergency meal replacement shakes.  Made from 100% All Natural Ingredients and 28 Super Foods, these tasty shakes are high in protein, daily vitamins and minerals, and are gluten, dairy, and soy free, as well as non-GMO. Just add water for the perfect addition to your survival supply

      Total Servings: 15 Hearty / 30 Light Servings 

      All Natural Ingredients Made from 28 super foods including Chia, Acai, Goji & more

      Incredibly Delicious Long Shelf Life: 10+ Years 

      Just Add Water and Shake to Prepare Perfect addition to emergency food storage

      Raw 

      Vegan 

      Gluten Free 

      Non-GMO 

      Low Fat – Trans Fat Free

      Complete Amino Acid Profile

      Dairy & Soy Free

      High Protein (30 grams per hearty serving) 

      Low Sugar 

      Complete Vitamin B Complex 

      Good Source of Fiber

      Immune Booster

      Cholesterol Free

      Great for breakfast, weight loss, nutritional supplement Great for hiking, camping, disaster supply & more – 

      See more at: http://www.preparewise.com/food-storage/megaone-vegan-meal-replacement-shakes.html

      Amy’s accompanying note was pretty encouraging, too:

      On a personal note:  This really is an amazing product, I have never been one for protein drinks, but now I am drinking this daily, as the ingredients are pretty impressive.    

      So, care to guess what goes on my prepping list? 

      Total replacement for general prepping?  No.  I mean, as long as the garden is putting out, and my rocket stove is firing (a review of my new one of those maybe next week or the week after) there are still a specific set of uses (hikes, don’t want to start a fire, and things like that) having liquid meals around is a darn fine idea.  A dozen per person in the car makes sense, for example.

      Read More

      Flash Goggle Monday

      No, I don’t joke about serious matters like WW III.  And I’ve been telling you for a good long time because it when when our “killing cycle” research suggests that we’ll be due for some truly gory headlines.

      This idea of a cyclical “clock” to news events is hardly new:  The idea has been around since men were walking around without iPhones and the whole business of astrology was a well-established fact of life long before electricity.  And if figured into all the major “monumental projects of history” – things like Pyramids, and Machu Picchu.

      Besides, Wednesday of this week is the anniversary of the birth of us Julius Caesar Scaliger (born April 23, 1484) who’s son (Joseph Justus Scaliger) was key in rewriting much of history into what is broadly accepted today as “how things were” since the Middle Ages scalawags destroyed as much source material as they could get their hands on.  No point leaving the evidence around, but I digress.

      April 23 may be something of a turn date in human affairs, because remember the Russians?

      They were planning to wrap up their “military exercises” by April 21.  At least, so went the storyline until this weekend.

      This weekend, that all (somewhat predictably, I’m afraid) started going to shit.  For one thing, the Russian foreign minister (the Lavrov dude) accused the Kiev government of violating the terms of last Thursday’s deal in Geneva.  The upshot of that was both sides would disarm the people who were shooting and taking buildings and so on.

      Ding! Ding!  Ding!  Not happening.

      Even more worrisome for the US/West/EU, which passed out doughnuts in December in Kiev and started tipping what was otherwise a semi-stable “front” between Russia and the West, is that just when the “massive exercise” in Russia was supposed to be ending, out pops a report from “The Voice of Russia” website that “Russian Eastern Military District getting ready for Strategic Exercise.”

      The key quote in the article cites a big cheese in the rus.mil ranks:

      “More attention is now paid in combat training to long-distance redeployments, to marches with heavy weapons and regroupings by combined methods, to training marines and paratroops for beach landing, to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles and long-range precision weapons, and to other tasks,” he said…”

      Also this weekend, the Russians said in no-uncertain terms, that they would move their own troops around their own country however they damn-well pleased, and THAT might be construed by the borderline paranoid as bringing up the possibility that those Eastern District Troops might make a run toward the West (NATO/EU frontier) and that’s about when a week of leave for the just-exercised border troops would be up and suddenly you’d have a huge force sitting at Ukraine’s border. 

      Which the Russians don’t recognize as having a government right now, so logically (to them) no legit border…

      But the Russians are keeping up the pressure on the PR front too.  Announcing this morning that NATO dolphins will soon be “patrolling” the Black Sea, which is – in Russia’s mind – its back yard.

      The Western response?

      Well, there are some, like senator Bob Corker who are calling for even more sanctions on Gazprom and Russian banks.  Unfortunately, and with all due respect to the senator, the Russians are much better chess players and I would bet dollars to doughnuts that the Russian money has been gone for a week, or longer.

      They’re not idiots, although that seems to be hard for the West to understand.  Try to remembers Tesla didn’t come from Tennessee, Bob.

      As I pointed out previously, the Russians can also count.  Which is why scheduling a US military exercise with 150 soldiers is a joke.  The Russians have 766-thousand active in their military.  While it’s true that the USA has many more (1.37 million, in fact, so twice as many) the Russians are mainly in one country and ours are spread out all over the place: Africa, Asia, Europe, and the list was well over 100 countries when I looked.

      We’re still wondering who cooks up the name for US exercises, like the ongoing US/South Korean exercise dubbed “Foal Eagle.”  One’s a bird of prey (that’d be us, I suppose) and the other (foal) is a newborn horse not yet able to fend for itself, if I remember my biology right.  And gotta love this: the US is off “exercising” in Cambodia with (the punchline): 139 US troops.

      If I wasn’t such a straight-laced guy, I’d be lighting up a joint (in solidarity with Denverites this weekend) and wondering: “If the US is trying to scare Russia with troop exercises, do you think they will notice we have 11 more men scheduled to exercise in Poland than in Cambodia?  Who dreams this shit up?”

      But the further point of this morning’s note is to suggest that Putin has a pair of firecrackers taped to his ass:

      Firecracker #1 is the plan for elections in Ukraine.  Right now, there’s some question about whether Ukraine will be stable enough for those to be held next month.   We’re one month and four days from that one going off.

      Firecracker #2: is the Chinese are holding military exercises with the Pakistanis.  This one (“Peace Angel”) would worry Putin sick because he’s worried about the long-term outlook for his whole Siberian region which is within walking distance of China.

      Ure’s School for the Geographically Impaired:  Step over to the map for a second:  Russia’s best port on the Pacific is likely Vladivostok.  Do you have any idea how close that is to Beijing, capital of the people Putin fears?  Try 838 miles by air.  That’s a short ride for mechanized forces.

      Now, by comparison, you see how far off Moscow is from Vladivostok? 4,020 miles.  That’s as far as getting on an airplane in Los Angeles, flying to Atlanta, and then without stopping, turning around flying all the way back to Los Angeles. 

      When it comes to war (with the exception of the push-button nuclear kind) size matters and so does the calendar. Oh, and (like our real estate friends insist) location, location, location…

      So regardless of how the markets to today and tomorrow, it’s later this week that we’ll find out just how smart world leaders are.

      My bet?  Not especially….

      I enjoy the study of longwave economics.  But it’d be nice next month if we still had an economy to discuss and debate.  A global economy with a series of “glowing holes in it” just wouldn’t be the same.

      Forever.  But then we’re half Fuk’ed already, douzo.

      Climbing the “Wall of Worry”

      I’m not the only one who is pessimistic in this period.  My friend Robin Handler over at the Options Signal Service sent me a note, that sounds about as glum for prospects this week as my own outlook:

      Well, George, here we are facing the worst week I have ever seen from my spiral forecast. On top of that we have the astrological Cardinal Cross.  More earthquakes this last week, and another event that had to do with the sea (Korean Ferry). Situation in Ukraine will get worse.  Other aggression/war events may surface, and the chance of another mega quake like Japan in 2011 is very possible.  With “water” and “sea” being themes at the present, a tsunami has a strong chance of appearing.

      I have decide to make the Spiral Forecast report available to the general public this week.  Read it, and share with you readers if you wish.  It can be found on the home page.  Look for the red text. Contains the Spiral Forecast for over 100 stocks.

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      Coping: Monday in the WoWW — Keys to the Future

      Remember last week, we had that reader in India who had gone bike riding…and whose bike lock key had disappeared?  Looks all over the place, but it’s like the missing key dropped out of our reality?  Well, guess what’s back…

      Hi George,

      The missing bicycle key turned up, carefully disguised as a dust bunny under the desk in the room NEXT DOOR to where I had emptied my pockets.

      Cheers,

      Jean-Philipe

      long-time reader in sunny south India

      This “thing” about keys is really interesting.  It’s because they have HUGE significance down at the archetype level.  You know, the one Jung was all over?

      Here’s the thing:  In about one-third of the reports that we get about “things disappearing and then reappearing where they weren’t” there is some obvious archetypical “gruel” (to borrow a Dickens term) that binds the person filing the report with the object that has “gone missing.”

      And, as if to prove the point, check out this report from one of Southern California’s finest…

      George,

      I am an avid reader and enjoy your analysis of current events. I had an interesting WOWW incident recently.

      I am a full time police officer and am in charge of a mounted police unit in southern California. I went to work, with my truck, trailer and horse.

      I prepared the horse and placed my ‘work keys’ in my saddle bags. I used them off and on all night at a rave concert because the key ring had a handcuff key.

      At the end of the shift, I reached into my saddle bag to retrieve the keys and they were gone. I returned home the next morning after working over 15 hours on horseback.

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      Is Putin Threatening OPEC?

      Own energy, own the future: I was sitting around Friday, trying to noodle out what is likely to happen in Ukraine next week and how that would play through in global markets when a novel thought slapped me awake. I do some of my best thinking in semi-snooze mode, you see. Sure enough, when I looked back on a Peoplenomics report from 2001, the pieces began to click into place…how it all fits together:

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