George Ure

While the S&P is off into record setting territory and our Peoplenomics trading model is showing its stuff nicely, we need to consider the impacts of a left-field event that may lead to a California Exodus:  The quickly evolving Drought.

As you can see in the latest report out this week, the map has a big ugly spot that’s located right over the Central Valley and that’s where a good chunk of the nation’s fresh (and frozen) veggies and fruits come from.

According to the data released with the report, and I don’t think there’s an issue sharing this because it is BIG news and of public concern:

“There seems to be no relief in sight as the calendar flips over to 2014. Persistent ridging has kept precipitation at bay for many, leading to record-setting dryness for many locations in California and Oregon; this has become more of an issue of late in Washington as well.

Even though California sees no changes on this week’s map, more deterioration could be coming soon given the weather pattern, or lack thereof, and concern for water supply, fire and other impacts grows each week the rains and snows don’t come. In fact, many locations in California reported the calendar year 2013 as being the driest on record, smashing previous record dry years (including 1976).

One such example is Shasta Dam, where only 16.89 inches was reported in 2013, more than 11 inches below the previous record low of 27.99 inches in 1976. Shasta’s calendar year average is 62.72 inches. Upper elevation Sierra station snowpack and snow water equivalent (SWE) values in California have been abysmal for the Water Year (since October 1) as well. The historic low precipitation totals haven’t just been confined to the upper elevations either as dozens of locations have shattered their previous record low calendar year totals.

In the Pacific Northwest, D1 has pushed northward across western Oregon and into western Washington up to the Canadian border this week. Both snow pack and snow water equivalent SWE levels are very low as we move deeper into the wet season. In Idaho, D0 now covers the entire Panhandle and has pushed into more of extreme northwestern Montana.

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The price of oil is heading down, even more.  It has taken out $92 on the futures this morning and it is yet-another reason why in about three weeks, I don’t expect the Fed to do much more than sit around and announce further assaults on the public’s hearing, as they continue to attempt what’s never been done before.

Which is?  Oh, as we’ve been telling Peoplenomics readers:  Stepping on the gas (printing/inflation) just slightly faster than the underlying (deflation/collapse) that has been ongoing from 2000.  That’s when things hit the round-rotator, but since the End of the World doesn’t do much for ad sales, the networks have not been too keen reporting on it.

So we are being bludgeoned to death by media reports of the innocuous.  So yes, as this Monday in the mines begins again, Ariel Sharon is still dead, Dennis Rodman is still talking about North Korea, and we see bread and circuses in full bloom as we arrive at the silly-season of football.

Here, take one of these-here cynical pills, and lets get real, or at least honestly transfictional, shall we?

1.  The death of Ariel Sharon is a key loss for Israel.  But the next “biggy” related to the story will be finding out if the Rabbi Kaduri prophesy (of a Jewish Messiah announcing himself in Jerusalem) comes true.  Not likely today.  You’ll need your “Date the Messiah Shows Up” app running for that one.

2.  The adventures of Dennis Rodman are telling us something about the future:  Expect all US Secretaries of State to henceforth be required to pass a singing audition, as well as produce a certification that they have played at least one season of professional sports.  The only question is whether wresting ought to qualify, but we already know the answer is “Hell yes!”  That way the truth-slinging Jesse Ventura would be a candidate.

3.  We will also be watching for officials of CERN to load up all their equipment and arrive at Super Bowl XLVIII.  The reason?  They may learn something about how time-warps really work since nowhere else can you see one-hour morph into four-hours and 100-million people don’t notice.

But hey, this column isn’t about cynical coverage of the news in general, except that everything is connected to everything else. 

It’s really all about finance.  But if I simply told you modest gains occurred overnight in Asia and Europe, which means some of the “hot money” will leave the market this morning, but the week should end up…” that wouldn’t be very exciting, now, would it?

The good news about deflation (which is there is the data) is that a $10 stock when rates were 5% is now a $50 stock when rates are 0.5%.  So the market is still going up.

Until, of course, it doesn’t.  In the meantime?  It’s Yawnday morning.

Later on today, transfictional arrives full-force with release of the monthly Treasury budget.  Tomorrow there’s retail sales which will give us a belated “Ho-ho” or another “Oh-0h…”  Wednesday brings PPI  (producer prices) and the Fed Beige Book. And that will lead up to the CPI data Thursday, before we wind up the week with housing starts Friday.

I’ll be sure to set an alarm.  In the meantime, relax.  The world is in for another day.

More after this.

Quakes:  Not the Big One / Quaketans

Since we are popping cynical this morning, we might as well get this one out of the way.  Yes, there was a 6.5 earthquake down off Puerto Rico overnight, but NO it is not a Big One or any kind of “I told you so” that I’m sure quake predictors will claim it to be as fulfilling of this forecast, or that.  Crap.

So let’s look at the data, shall we?  This is down in that area where there has been a lot of minor quake action over the past couple of years.  But calling it a “big one” qualifies for a place in my Charlatan’s Hall of Fame, since the data is really clear, but the Quaketans know the public is pretty dumb.

Earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 (or larger) have been in decline since 2011.  And, in fact, there were only a half-dozen, or so, last month.  Since the normal on 6+ quakes has been running up around 13-15 per month, you can predict a 6.0 or larger quake and always be right within a week,  and often 2-days at least until here lately.

But, if you consider the Sun’s output is at many-hundred years lows, even here on the backside of the peak,  it would make sense that matter condensation as crustal expansion just went to lunch.  Which is what earthquake predictors are out to, if they claim this quake had any significance.

Get back to me when there’s a 8.0 or larger, please.  And not predicted in general terms like “soon” or “just ahead.”  I want a date and without it, fortune-telling is just that: A tax on the statistically inept.

The “Short Course on Robust Statistics” from David Tyler of Rutgers, is online here and worth review if you’re rusty.  I’ll be the guy waving the “How big is n?” sign.

On the other hand, if this is the morning that a massive undersea earth slide happens off in the Canary Islands, and sends 57-foot rollers slamming ashore along the East Coast, well then, maybe the doomsters get a pass.  But, in the meantime, that’s going to happen anyway, and just like a broken watch that’s right twice a day, one of these eons, they’ll be right.  Their larger problem is living the 6,343 years to have a good chance of calling it.

See what I mean about Yawnday?

Except for China’s First War, Of Course

Say what?  Yes, “Chinese troops to seize Zhongye Island back from the Philippines this year.  The Chinese say the Philippines stole it and they’re going to wage it as a “contained war” for it now.

With this ramping up in the background, we see state media is out with “Xinhua Insight:  Silent revolution of “made-in-China” is being put out there.

No doubt a none-too-subtle nudge to remind the USA that we couldn’t even build the F-35 fighter without Chinese parts..  And yes, Honeywell’s being investigated over that, but the messaging is pretty clear, don’tcha think?

The whole world is noticing this, and unsurprisingly, it shows up as big news on Iran’s state run news site.

War Gaming

Just between us, you should enjoy this Yawnday morning because next Monday is when the Iran nuclear plan is supposed to go into effect.

Read Time Magazine’s sketch of the plan over here, and then ask yourself how much breathing room Israel will offer in the event of delays getting the plan implementation rolling?  Months or minutes?  Bets in, please.  Flash goggles optional.

Is This Really News?

Golden Globes.  Weird speech of the event?  Jacqueline Bisset.   Ronan Farrow’s dump on Woody Allen is not really news, unless family laundry is your ticket.

Better: Deseret News’ collection of Christie quips…worth a smile.

CES: Coming for Your Job / Crop Circles

Yes, 3D printers are quite the rage at the Consumer Electronics show (more in Coping).  Oh, and a Peoplenomics subscriber as this gem of a footnote…

Hi George, spent three exhausting days at CES last week. I cornered a rep at the nVidia booth and asked him about the “crop circle” near Salinas.

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Yet another indication that the US (and world) are headed for a terrible economic outcome is piled high with extra ‘relish’ this morning:  A company called Momentum Machines has been developing a machine that will displace the last retreat of the marginalized and unemployed:  The burger-flipping job.

To be sure, it almost sounds like a Popeil ad: slices things like pickles and fries up to 360-burgers per hour.

All of which gets us to commiserating with you on the whole “Damn, it’s Monday and I don’t want to get out of bed” thing.

But maybe not for much longer.  According to Wikipedia:

The United States has the largest fast food industry in the world, and American fast food restaurants are located in over 100 countries. Approximately 4.1 million U.S. workers are employed in the areas of food preparation and food servicing, including fast food in the USA.^[11] Worries of an obesity epidemic and its related illnesses have inspired many local government officials in the United Sates to propose to limit or regulate fast-food restaurants. However, some areas are more affected than others. In Los Angeles County, for example, about 45% of the restaurants in South Central Los Angeles are fast-food chains or restaurants with minimal seating. By comparison, only 16% of those on the Westside are such restaurants

About here, one of two things is likely to happen.  If you’re over 50, you might remember the cartoons from the days of yore that included robo-restaurants that were called “automats” and many a cartoon was built around this notion:

Originally, the machines in U.S. automats took only nickels.^[1] In the original format, a cashier would sit in a change booth in the center of the restaurant, behind a wide marble counter with five to eight rounded depressions in it. The diner would insert the required number of coins in a machine and then lift a window, which was hinged at the top, to remove the meal, which was generally wrapped in waxed paper. The machines were filled from the kitchen behind. All or most New York automats also had a cafeteria-style steam table where patrons could slide a tray along rails and choose foods, which were ladled out of steaming tureens.

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As we expected, based on the reports out earlier this week from ADP and Challenger, the jobs picture does not paint a country on the verge of financial collapse.  Quite the contrary, this morning’s report from the Labor Department is positively ducky…

The unemployment rate declined from 7.0 percent to 6.7 percent in December, while total nonfarm payroll employment edged up (+74,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment rose in retail trade and wholesale trade but was down in information.

The number of unemployed persons declined by 490,000 to 10.4 million in December, and the unemployment rate declined by 0.3 percentage point to 6.7 percent. Over the year, the number of unemployed persons and the unemployment rate were down by 1.9 million and 1.2 percentage points, respectively. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (6.3 percent) and whites (5.9 percent) declined in December. The rates for adult women (6.0 percent), teenagers (20.2 percent), blacks (11.9 percent), and Hispanics (8.3 percent) showed little change. The jobless rate for Asians was 4.1 percent (not seasonally adjusted), down by 2.5 percentage points over the year.

Of course, before we get too worked up, there are the usual couple of checks we need to run through.

The first being the CES Birth/Death Model which is adjusted each January, so while the December data out this morning looks good, remember the annual confessional is due in the coming month’s data to be reported in mid-February.

This morning, the CES model estimates actually removed  246,000 jobs, but that was likely because of last month’s (wet dream) 476,000 estimated into being…

There was no improvement in the alternative measures of labor underutilization portion of the report.  Stuck at 13.1% in the PhD’s flipping burgers part of the report.

And, of course, no mention of jobs is ever complete without eyeing suspiciously the labor participation rate which has been falling.  It was down two-tenths of a percent in this morning’s report from 63% down to 62.8%

How do you spell train wreck?  These are 1978 participation rate levels.  Is Back to the Future in play?  Or, is people coming out of the workforce what depressions really do?  I leave discernment to you.

As we’ve pointed out, the collapse of the both-in-couples-working model is upon us (thanks to robotics and all those much-touted “productivity” improvements which are burning up available jobs.

The math behind the scenes is not structured to be particularly transparent.  So here’s how it works.

You begin with the population of the USA (north of 317-million at the moment) and of this, you come up with a civilian labor force number.

If you’re ready to believe 347,000 fewer people needed work in December(as the workforce shrank in the report), light one up for me and pass it over.

Now, obviously, if you roll down the workforce, the unemployment number can be moved around pretty much at will because that’s how the math works out.

Still, as anyone can see, TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) didn’t show up in the morning’s report so yes, our Trading Model is still long, as it has been for more than a year with a one-week exception.  Which is flat-ass amazing to us bears, but what can I say? 

All of which will lead to come discussion tomorrow in Peoplenomics about how I am playing this market asymmetrically (along with the pending end of California, but that will wait for tomorrow).

Whether the market will be able to mount a major breakout to the upside is the issue now, and going into the Fed meeting , Janet Yellen is not likely to “mess with success.” I don’t expect the Fed to do much more than talk tough and saber-rattle a bit when all’s said and done for this month’s meeting on the 29th/30th.

As Wikipedia notes:

The U.S. Congress established three key objectives for monetary policy in the Federal Reserve Act: Maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.^[10] The first two objectives are sometimes referred to as the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate.

As we read in this morning’s report they’re running three-for-three at the moment, although the fly in the ointment is that Fed doesn’t have a sound money mandate which is why, over the 100-years the Fed has been around, the purchasing power of the dollar has been watered down, on average 3.24% per year.  And that includes the deflation period of the Great Depression.

That bakes inflation into the cake at some level, but when your country is teetering on the brink of a long wave economic abyss, a little inflation is actually a good thing.

As you may know, from a year ago, the amount of money sloshing around the system (but not landing in either of our pockets, sorry) is up 6.1% while prices are (on average, yada yada) up only about 3% which means we are still in what?  Underlying Deflation!. 

Without that massive money-printing, Depression II would be obvious instead of just annoying and painful at times.  Whether the Fed’s print just faster than deflation ploy can work and be eased out of with any kind of ballerina-type grace remains to be seen.  Stay tuned…but for this morning, what’s not to love?

Market reaction:  Dow dropped to flat at the open and gold popped up $10.

More after this…

Police State Notes:  ASBOS Loses…but….

“OK,” you’re wondering, “What the hell is an asbos and why should I care?”

To begin with, it’s not an abbreviation for (pardon this) ass monkey or some other term like that.

It means Anti-Social Behavior OrderS and it’s the latest scam in kneeler-land to dig in and take root as England grapples with the uber-rich wanting to legislate inconvenient truth from the public view.  The softer, kinder, totalitarians.  The ones with accents and soap boxes.

So yes, the bill in the UK House of Lords is a menace to self-expression and yes, it ruins freedom of peaceful assembly, and yes, it’s anti-human rights.

For now, the Houser of Lords in the UK has turned down this [horrible, sucky] idea.  But, you can bet, like any other power-grabbing police state / garrison mentality, that it will be dressed up a bit and then weaseled through.

The way this will be done, naturally will be to “dress it up in a flag” and toss in a side of “anti-terrorism.”  Those are almost automatic pass phrases anymore.

And yes, I’m pleased that this is going on in England and it’s proof (yet again) that rising up against the royals was as good an idea in 1776 as it is today.  It’s just that the moneyed types own the press and the politicos.

They’ll make another run at it, you may rest assured.

Then There’s the French

President François Hollande says he may sick the lawyers on a magazine that alleged an affair between him and a 41 YO hottie/actress. 

Not sure why he didn’t deny the allegations directly, and is going off on the privacy angle, but anyone who is president of a country, for crying out loud, ought to have the brains God gave chickens at least:  When you go to high office, everything is open book.

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Over the past week I’ve been working out a new concept called V-1-1 – which aims to use smart phone video to fight crime.

Please go over to the www.v-1-1.org website and have a look at the idea.  And, if you like it, pass it along to folks in law enforcement, cell phone companies, and to app builders.

Most people who see the idea immediately grasp its importance.  A few have expresses concerned about more “security” but I’d much rather trust my peers /fellow humans to make the decisions on when to feed video to law enforcement, than to use the dragnet approach.

Safer than guns,  everyone with a smart phone is already potentially “armed” with the crime deterrent – and all it will take is a push from the public…

Thank you…

WoWW: Repeating Numbers

In the World of Woo-Woo this morning, we have another one of those oddities that has to be mentioned:  I woke up at 2:22 AM this morning.  Noted the triple number and carefully went back to sleep, taking care to smash any thoughts about working out the odds, so I actually could get back to sleep.

Wasn’t going to mention it, until this note from Michael K popped in:

Subject: (That damn number 8 again)  I know you don’t watch TV, bujt did you watch Jeopardy tonight?

The Final Jeopardy category was Magazines. The guy in the lead correctly questioned “What is Fortune Magazine”, and became the new champion.
With a bet of $8888.

So we must be in one of those areas of space-time where repeating numbers live.  And THAT, in turn, might make today an auspicious time to buy a lotto or PowerBall tick.  Don’t forget to send 10% as a tip if you win.  Tip the house…   Which then gets us to serious crack piping…

The Gambler’s Life

If you’ve ever wondered about how much money you’d actually take home when you win that PowerBall lotto, you can click over to this page spied by reader RBS who pulled our coat to it:

Happy New Year
I stumbled upon this while trying to check some old lotto tickets.  This is very interesting information. It gives tax penalties and annuity schedules for taking the full long-term payout or the upfront “cash me the hell out now before the system all goes to shit!” option.  You can navigate around on a state by state basis to determine how much they will steal from you and then find out much the Fed will rip you off.

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The longwave economics perspective is, at its core, skeptical of much of the HS&J (hype shuck, and jive) that passes in transfictional media as fact.  Despite my membership in a couple of journalistic groups, I don’t see much being able to change at the public perception level because when you start writing about how the game really runs, eyes glaze over, people nod off, and snoring is soon heard.

To counter this, I hereby create my news job title around here:  NewsJay.  Click here for the moodsetting music.  Let it roll in a new tab, speakers up, and stay with me.l…

Now we can ramble:  For the aware person, nothing is more exciting that figuring out “the truth” (whatever that is) in advance of the rest of the herd.  It gives us (thinkers) time to reflect, consider bargains before prices run up, and so forth.

Oh, sure, anyone can made simple long-term decisions and win over time.  Buying a “hard asset” like gold (when the Fed has been diluting purchasing power of the dollar by [on average] 3.25% per year since its founding in 1913.  Or, simply buying stocks in companies with the largest “proven oil reserves” and waiting for the world to burn through the declining resource.  Sure, those are likely winners long term.

But every so often, it helps to take the blinders off. And we will do that very publicly this morning by comparing two simple charts from the Federal Reserve that (together) reveal in stark ugliness why, if there is an economic recovery, you don’t have more money.  It’s so simple even Ures truly can figure it out.

Step 1:  Our first chart du jour, courtesy of the Federal Reserve of St. Louis excellent research resources, is to look at the the mortgage-backed securities PLUS the US Treasury securities held by the Federal Reserve.  In other words, the asset side of their balance sheet:

OK, what does it mean?  Well, it looks to me like at the lows of the 2009 post housing collapse, the Fed held about $500-billion of treasuries.  Plus about zero in the way of mortgage-backed securities.  Maybe as much at $600-billion (just over 1/2 a trillion) worth, if you want to be generous.

Fast forward to the latest data:  We can eyeball that the Fed is (*much as a snake swallows its own tail) holding more than $2.2 trillion in Treasury assets plus the MBS portion is now pressing $1.5 trillion.

Time for simple arithmetic:  This is rough and only the first cup of coffee, but looks like $3.7 trillion in Fed ownership of debt instruments.

Step 2:  Next, we look at the Gross Domestic Product through Q2 of 2013, and we can estimate that the reason that it feels like there has been no economic recovery is the simple reason that the increase in GDP has been directly proportional to the combined growth of Fed Treasury and MBS.  Say, how about that?

Which gets us to our great ponder of this morning ( or the groB fragge heute for our Swiss gnome-schoolers):

What is the Fed’s exit strategy?

In other words, is there some logical limit beyond which the Fed cannot keep buying up all the pieces on the Monopoly board, now that the Chinese are not buying enough US Treasuries to matter nor enough MBS for us to play the game of “hot potato” with them?

There may be no technical reason that the Fed can’t continue to increase its holdings in an effort to maintain the illusion of recovery which includes a stock market that just had a “paint the tape day” this week, trying to bust out to the upside, and when that failed, reality snuck in following.

This  (newsjay: living in the background) “How do we clean up after ourselves?” issue was mentioned in the December Fed minutes that came out this week that read in part:

“Further, participants noted that ongoing asset purchases could increase the difficulty of managing exit from the current highly accommodative policy stance when the time came. Many participants, however, expressed confidence in the tools at the Federal Reserve’s disposal for managing its balance sheet and for normalizing the stance of policy at the appropriate time. Regarding the marginal efficacy of the purchase program, most participants viewed the program as continuing to support accommodative financial conditions, with a number of them pointing to the importance of purchases in serving to enhance the credibility of the Committee’s forward guidance about the target federal funds rate. A majority of participants judged that the marginal efficacy of purchases was likely declining as purchases continue, although some noted the difficulty inherent in making such an assessment. A couple of participants thought that the marginal efficacy of the program was not declining, as evidenced by the substantial effects in financial markets in recent months of news about the likely path of purchases. “

I believe the Fed has made a “deal with the Devil” that will come back to haunt us within a couple of years.  Yes, this is a long-term view, but what the Fed faces is really a two-part problem which has an analogy in drug rehab treatment.

The first problem is:  How to ratchet down the quantitative easings to zero.  The first step.  If they mention slowing their asset-buying largess, the markets will tank.

Then, the second problem arrives: How to divest of those assets…or do all mortgages eventually belong to the government and say, isn’t that how the Soviet system ran?  Or, with an ex-Berkeley Fed chair is this the new plan?

As we look at the Challenger job cuts report (next item) it strikes me that as busy as sitting members of the Federal Reserve were, back in the day, getting their fine academic credentials, they may have missed the 1968 musical Oliver! which asks the question in music that we are asking ourselves this morning. (Go ahead, play it in the background and keep reading…)

With declining disposable, the LBGT movement getting traction (thus reducing birth rates) and bringing the “new coupling” plus the arrival of additional robotics and workplace automation, no to mention 3D food printers like the ones being shown at CES in Las Vegas this morning, and what about New Minimalists?  Just who will buy all those assets piling up on the Fed’s balance sheet?  The public with its collapsing disposable income driven to the gutter by the healthcare tax?  Not bloody likely.

But that’s easily solved, of course:  We’ll just pretend (for statistical purposes) that healthcare is not a tax and that buying healthcare is optional.  That way, it won’t appear that we’re in trouble.

“There’ll never be a day so sunny,
It could not happen twice.
Where is the man with all the money?
It’s cheap at half the price!

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