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/

Asia Now: Rhymes on World War II

First thing I did this morning was ask “Is this the day I become a millionaire?”  Then the answer came to me:  No chance, fool.

Still, betting on the market doing down has not been an entirely bad thing for us financially although early on this morning it looked like the market would bounce a bit, but that would be fine. 

What’s got our attention, more than anything, since we don’t get the jobs numbers until tomorrow, is what is the reference to “the rose people” that keeps peeking out of our www.nostracodeus.com data?  Odd word to come floating up…so you might want to check the site later on this morning because Grady will be updating as soon as the overnight runs are done.

Which leaves us with the Baltic Dry Index as our next topic du jour.  This index has been flopping around at about the 1100 level recently and this morning’s reading is 1092, but only up 6-points.  Spring hasn’t exactly broken out yet and there ain’t no birds singing….

To put that in perspective, that’s about 1/2 of what it was just a few months back, and since the Baltic Dry tends to front-run the more staid economic indicators, it’s worth keeping an eye on where it goes from here because excursions below 1,000 become worrisome.

While the mainstream is trying to figure out how to come up with yet another useless Seahawks human interest follow-up story, we’re more focused around here on what’s going on in China.

China’s state-run media (as opposed to our corporate-controlled media) is playing a strong rhyme off of pre World War II events.  Seems the head of Japan’s NHK Broadcasting service did something of a denial deal about the Nanking Massacre.  Which, if you’re Chinese (or read Wikipedia) is pretty real…

The Nanking Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against Nanking (current official spelling: Nanjing) during the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. The massacre occurred during a six-week period starting December 13, 1937, the day that the Japanese captured Nanking, which was then the Chinese capital. (See Republic of China). During this period, hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants were murdered by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army.[1][2] Widespread rape and looting also occurred.[3][4] Historians and witnesses have estimated that 250,000 to 300,000 people were killed.[5] Several of the key perpetrators of the atrocities, at the time labelled as war crimes, were later tried and found guilty at the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal, and were executed. Another key perpetrator, Prince Asaka, a member of the Imperial Family, escaped prosecution by having earlier been granted immunity by the Allies.

And so this morning, Xinhua offers this: “Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said that such behavior is “a barefaced challenge to the international justice and human conscience.”

Since these events hark back to the middle 30’s, and since we are in a Long Wave economic Depression (which is why interest rates are zero, if you skip the money printing festival) there are even more parallels to the pre-WW II period to be found.

For example, the US-backed president of the Philippines, Benigno Aquino, has been saying harsh things about China lately, including drawing a parallel between appeasement of Hitler and current events in the Senkaku Islands area  (Okinawa, East China Sea area) and that, in turn, has pissed off the Chinese.

The US, knowing which side our bonds are buttered on (if China completely goes cold turkey on the Dollar, we’re all screwed and a few folks in Washington grok that) some we’re off placing the typical US two-faced game. 

The way this runs is we say (from the US voice) that the Chinese are acting professionally in their air defense zone that they have set up over the disputed Islands area (with oil and gas under it, which is why all this dance is going in the first place).  And we’re gently asking China to adjust some of its claims.

No, we don’t expect China to adjust its claims.  Besides, China could still be miffed that so few people have an understanding of history, including that a Chinese Fleet sailed around the whole world in the years before Christopher Columbus, but they get no creds, even now, for being a global civilization because it didn’t set with the made-up history of Europe, but that’s another discussion – probably left for the chat about the deep (and twisted) roots of American Exceptionalism.

So our money is on China continue to ramp up military spending while they public are talking about their “New Economy””.  I’m thinking iron fist in soft glove.

And this has what to do with becoming a millionaire?  Ever look for Chinese defense industry companies to invest in?

Rolling in Data

We have a number of incredibly interesting numbers to report this morning…and I bet you’ve been up since midnight just counting down the seconds until you could get the new balance of trade figures, haven’t you?

The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of
Economic Analysis, through the Department of Commerce,
announced today that total December exports of $191.3 billion
and imports of $230.0 billion resulted in a goods and services
deficit of $38.7 billion, up from $34.6 billion in November,
revised. December exports were $3.5 billion less than
November exports of $194.8 billion. December imports were
$0.6 billion more than November imports of $229.4 billion.

In December, the goods deficit increased $4.6 billion
from November to $58.8 billion, and the services surplus
increased $0.4 billion from November to $20.1 billion.
Exports of goods decreased $4.3 billion to $132.8 billion, and
imports of goods increased $0.3 billion to $191.6 billion.
Exports of services increased $0.8 billion to $58.5 billion, and
imports of services increased $0.3 billion to $38.4 billion.

OMG is that exciting, or what?  Well, how about the new Q4 productivity report…another wet spot for sure…

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 3.2 percent annual rate during the fourth quarter of 2013, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

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Coping: The Table Saw Connoisseur

You ever have one of those days when you wonder “Is the Internet developing a mind of its own?”

The reason for this is a bit weird, but I think you’ll appreciate the story.  Getting to it may be a little circuitous, but that’s what coffee is for, am I right?

So there I am, sitting around the house in a few free minutes from work (or what I tell Elaine is work that goes on over in my office) and I get to looking for a new table saw.  The one I got from Sears about five years ago has been OK, but just barely.  Nothing on CraigsList.

If you ever go shopping for a table saw (and people do) the BEST table saw on the market is called a StopSaw.  The things that makes the Sawstop CNS175-TGP36 1-3/4 HP Contractor Saw with 36-Inch Professional T-Glide Fence System including Rails and Extension Table (worth every penny of $2,000 at Amazon) is simple:

StopSaws have an electronic blade sensing  unit built in that can tell the difference between cutting wood and cutting fingers.  If the unit detects a change in electrical impedance of the material, it slams the saw to a stop in a (very small) fraction of a second.

Here’s a video, if you doubt the “finger-saving” capabilities of the tool:

PFM – pure freakin magic.  Gotta get one.  So yes, for someone who types for a living (moi) or someone who needs to ensure that their home workshop “home-handy-bastard” project don’t go…er…digital…like my buddy James the famous doctor (at least in Tennessee) this is THE only saw on the market to own.

I want one because the cheap ($250 Sears) saw that I presently have ain’t cutting it (so to speak) for a number of reasons:

1.  Insufficient table “run-in” space.  The cheap saws don’t have as large a “front porch” (area in front of the blade).  The more room in front of the blade, the more precision you can get out of cuts because you can focus on the cut alignment, not trying to hold the wood up just so.

Of course, the out-feed area (behind the blade) needs to be big, too, since there’s nothing less fun that having to press down on a work piece on a running saw.  Especially if I don’t take the additional 5-minutes of screwing around to set up my out-feed rollers and all that crap.  I’m that guy.

The StopSaw has bolt-on out-feed extensions that (at my age) are more appealing than most centerfolds.

2. Shaft wobble of the blade. My present old Sears saw has a lot of blade wobble.  In other words, if you push the blade (“Saw unplugged, Fool!!!”) left or right, you’ll see you can move my old saw between about 1/16th of an inch to maybe 3/32nd’s.

A real saw ought to have basically NO left – right wobble or looseness of the shaft.

3.  Cheap, small Arbor;  The normal (middle of the saw blade) hole size on a TYPICAL home 10” table saw is 5/8th’s of an inch in diameter.  Just about all saws use this.   But where saws begin to separate the “men from the boys” is in the length of the shaft that the blade goes on.  This measurement is called the “arbor” length.

Anyone with a table saw, and designs on building furniture cutting grooves in the wood to hold shelves, knows the cut grooves are called dado cuts.  Makes for strong, good-looking furniture.

Now, try as I may, I have never been able to get enough of my dado blades on this short-arbor POS to enable me to run a 3/4 in dado in a single pass.  I can get a 1/2” dado set up, but barely.

On a real he-man saw, you get an arbor long enough to allow you to put on up to 7/8th’s of an inch of dado.  Yet another reason I am saw-shopping.  I would like to be able to run a single-pass 3/4” dado on the table saw which is way quicker than setting up the router (which will do it in a single pass) because the table saw makes a smoother cut.

4.  Non-standard table guides:  If you ever buy a table saw (new or used) made damn sure you get a saw that uses standard 3/4” guides.  This old Sears POS of mine has some fancy keyed guide that is totally useless because it doesn’t accommodate standard-track accessories.

Let’s say I wanted to whip up a cross-cutting sled so I could set up an angle jig.  (Fabulously detailed shop drawing right.)  The non-standard track issue I have run into makes me crazy.

Yeah, I know, “It’s a poor workman that blames his tools, Ure.” 

Bugger off.  That’s bullshit and anyone who believes that a small table, wobbly blade, short-arbor saw with obscure keyed tracks can turn out the same grade of cabinetry as a big StopSaw doesn’t know a rip from a crosscut.

About here’s you may be thinking “OK, interesting rant about table saws, and you didn’t mention that to replace the blade stopping cartridge is about $70bucks, but each time you replace one, that’s cheaper than a visit to the emergency room….but what about the misleading headline on this story…something about the Internet having a mind of its own?  What was THAT all about?”

Aha!  There you go again, dragging me kicking and screaming back to the point.  Doggonit…

Well, all this (except for maybe all the shopping details about how to buy a table saw (which might result in enough Amazon commission to buy a can of catfood for Zeus) is necessary background to explain the Internet getting a mind of its own remark.

You see, one of the sites that I came up with (while looking for the PERFECT table saw CHEAP was this site called www.dhgate.com.  I didn’t know anything about the site…just that it came up in a good for “cheap table saw” or something like that in the goog monster.

Odd assortment of stuff on the front page of the site….

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Peoplenomics: "The Enterprise" and the MMMR Problem

I assume you know, if you’re web-literate, that the Enterprise is what the runaway group that pulls the strings of governments all over the world calls itself now and then. If you’re not aware of the group, a simple Google of the Black Eagle Fund Trust that has been swirling away in background should be enough of a clue to at least get you started on the path of discovering for yourself just how far reality has strayed from the “way things used to be.” But other than confirm that “absolute power corrupts, absolutely” – which we all kinda knew anyway – the trail we’re on today has more to do with whether systemic corruption is part and parcel of how great civilizations end; management of multiple matrix realities (MMMR) reaching simultaneous dysfunction. Heady stuff, and with 100+ pages of recommended reading as background, the stop at the coffee pot this morning will be a short one… Just think of this as a quickie course in stratification of conflicting economic realities resulting in conflict.

Turn-Around Tuesday

At least for a moment, maybe. But the early numbers didn’t look all that hot – 30+ by the Dow futures when I looked, but as Peoplenomics.com subscribers know, we’re laughing all the way to the bank on this latest slide.  And tomorrow, we’ll be doing some work on answering the next question logically arising:  “How far is down?”

But first the highlights:  Dow dropped more than 300 points.  Obviously, that East Coast bias against the AFC winning is more than just rumor.  And, since the next wave down in the Long Wave is due any old time, why not now?

I mean, what could be more graceful than a nice Wave 1 (or macro 3 down) starting over Christmas, going into April/May, then having a Wave 2 bounce, and then things collapsing in a heap at the end of the year?

No, it’s not cast in concrete and your investment decisions are your own, it’s just that the reason we study history is to find out new and exciting ways to make money without breaking a sweat.  Times like the present are what bears live for.

And when you look around, the reason for the decline is staring us all in the face:  The Fed has added more than $3-trillion to its balance sheet (in the form of mortgage debt mostly) so they’re about out of silver bullets.

Then there’s the drop in consumer disposable income because of gunpoint healthcare.  Which is not a criticism, except as one reader wrote during our recent healthcare poll:

Current policy is 5k deductible and 70% coverage with a few doctor visits (3 each) at copay of $30. Monthly premium is $550.

Under Obamacare, I will have a $7500 deductible, and premiums go to $1100/mo.

And that’s just one example of how one couple will be spending $550 a month less on things like dinner out, a movie, travel, and so forth.

Now, multiply that by a lot of people and what?  (Bipity-bopity-boo!)  The market drops.

Well, see, that wasn’t really so hard to see coming, was it?

And with all those people who got a one year stay of financial execution because they work for big companies that got the (crooked, illegal, but probably saving us from even larger, instant collapse) one year delay, we will be seeing even more downside over the next year.

You know, you don’t need to be a financial genius to navigate in the world.  You just need to wake the F up and see what’s going on in your own neighborhood.  As goes your income, so goes the country, if you have enough friends.  (*I don’t have any, so I have to study the headlines.)

Speaking of the headlines, the NY Times is blaming poor auto sales last month on bad winter weather.

Reality check!  Attention East Coast establishment media empire:  It was not snowing in LA or much of the rest of the country and the real reason is collapsing disposable incomes!  Hello?  Anyone home?  it snows last January, too, you know.  It does it every year, in fact.  Hello?  Anyone there?  FMTT

Another headline?  Sure:  Construction spending up.  Yeah, I know, how can this happen if it’s snowing so much people can’t buy cars, right?

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Coping: With Earworms (Ohrwurms)

“Have you lost your frigging mind?  What is an Earworm?”

Ah…well for no particular reason, every so often when my brain is working on various projects, I do get the occasional ohrwurm.  Song you can’t get out of your head that just shows up for no obvious reason…

This morning’s was the Christmasy song “O Tannenbaum.”

Not everyone thinks about ohrwurms….they just come and go. 

Like last week, because I was spending a lot of time over in the house (instead of out here in the office doing real work, thanks to the flu) Elaine and I had a ‘dumb music’ festival that we’d planned to surprise G2 with during his recent visit. 

We played such memorable hits as “Does your chewing gum lose it’s flavor on the bedpost overnight” and “One-eyed, one-horned, flying Purple People Eater…”   Songs you hate but can’t get out of your head.

Which ought to set off more than a few ohrwurms in the over-60 set, fo’ sho.

Oh, it’s a legit thing, this ohrwurm thing, says Wikipedia:

An earworm is a catchy piece of music that continually repeats through a person’s mind after it is no longer playing.[1] Phrases used to describe an earworm include musical imagery repetition, involuntary musical imagery, and stuck song syndrome.[2][3][4] The word earworm is a calque from the German Ohrwurm.[5]

Researchers who have studied and written about the phenomenon include Theodor Reik,[6] Sean Bennett,[7] Oliver Sacks,[4] Daniel Levitin,[8] James Kellaris,[9] Philip Beaman,[10] Vicky Williamson,[11] and, in a more theoretical perspective, Peter Szendy.[12] The phenomenon is common and should not be confused with palinacousis, a rare medical condition caused by damage to the temporal lobe of the brain that results in auditory hallucinations.[13]

All of which led to the first conscious thinking of the day.

I trust you know that  your brain has multiple memory types. In other words, I’m one of those people with semi-eidetic memory,  It’s a skill that most people have – to one degree, or another – but like so many capabilities of mind, it only works on two conditions:

1.  You have to give yourself PERMISSION to have a nearly flawless memory.  If you are bundled up in tension and self-doubt, your mind will provide exactly what you expect of it.  So, step one to a memory is to simply CLAIM it.

This has amazing implications in school and learning later in life, and if was while working on this improved memory stuff, that I came across my “everything is a recipe” method for learning highly complete material quickly.  (Another story for another day…)

2.  the second thing you have to do is use it.  Which seems obvious, except that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.  Go watch a lot of episodes of the BBC version of Sherlock (or the American series Elementary) and you’ll see that having an ability to process/recall huge amounts of information can also be a curse.

Which – at least as far as personal observation goes –  is why many really, really smart people over-indulge in either booze or drugs.  It’s a way of “turning off the damn machine” in your head now and then.  Sometimes it can be a major battle lasting through large parts of people’s lives to get a proper relationship going between the different levels of personality…machine on, machine off…but again, another topic for another day.

OK, first point was what?  That when you start actually using more of your brain than the “room temp IQ people” you find that complex…..everything…..becomes fairly simple.  It always has a recipe under it somewhere, and once you have the underlying rule set nailed, then learning anything is simple as pi.  (To a bunch of places…)

Second point is that as you begin to develop your (much higher than you’re trained to believe you have) mental abilities, you begin to recall other than pictograph or linguistic symbols.

You will find, for example, that you can recall (and play back perfectly, in your head) whole complete pieces of music without the need for an iWhatever and ear buds.

What’s more, you can change the music on the fly to whatever suits your mood.

Of course, this is not something in the way of commonly told (or discussed) mental capabilities because (for one) it would wreck the iWhatevering business.  CVan’t have too many empowered people around, now, can we?  Why, having people figure out that they can play back music in their heads, well, that’s quite a dirty secret.

And, besides, there are some aspects of iWhatevering that are superior to what most people can recall, because there’s the problem of the bass line.  And has a mental/physiological basis.

Key Point: Think of your mind as a constantly running multi-track recorder.  Except that the only thing our little 18-track here at the ranch all we can capture is sound.  The distinction is that the multi-track personal mental recorder (PMR) that is constantly running in your head is actually recording different “sensory tracks” and that makes certain kinds of “perfect playback” of music quite difficult.

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The Nonlinear Market Period Approaches

Peoplenomics this weekend was, if I do say so myself, one of the better ones in that it explained a curious bit of (simple) math that demonstrates the market tendency to become very nonlinear ultra-low interest settings like those expected in the period ahead.

The nonsubscriber way of thinking of it goes like this:  The closer interest rates get to zero, the more volatile the market becomes.  That’s because stock prices become cost-justified as infinitely high on an earnings basis just before yields hit zero, and then, once that barrier is passed, they become infinitely overpriced!

Yes, it’s a crazy way of looking at things, but the math holds up – and now we’ve got more research ahead to see how much of the market actually moves on the mathematical foundations laid out.

It’s like that Sunday football game.   Oh, sure, there were statistical indicators of what would happen, but there’s always that “emo component” – emotional component – that works its way into investment decisions and which team you support.

Just like I can’t understand how people get all wrapped-around-the-axle on a sports team, the answer is really quite simple:  It’s all about what goes on down at the archetype level that CG Jung wrote so eloquently about.  I won’t ask you to whip out your copy of  Memories, Dreams, Reflections, but transference behavior is oftentimes a “mother transference” and by the rule of “least resistance” the closest substitute wins.  Mass marketing of sports is what we get.

This is not to say that sports fans (and investors) are all idiots when it comes to manipulation of their emotions, but the reason that sports franchises have mascots is precisely because it enables and empowers transference that to the fan – at the experiential level – seems “normal.”  But to the aware (recovered sports addict or aware investor) the method is easily seen and stripped of its power to herd us blindly.

Just as the Seattle “Seahawk” in an amalgam of northwest First People’s myths, the bronco has it’s own Wikipedia listing, as well.  It’s quite ridiculous to cheer for any team, particularly one that may pay less (percentage-wise) in taxes than me or you.  Yet millions did it Sunday, not realizing they were cheering for either a…

… large raptor, reaching more than 60 cm (24 in) in length and 180 cm (71 in) across the wings.

Or, they were sucked into cheering for…

…an untrained horse or one that habitually bucks.

Raptor or untrained horse.  It’s insane, but only if you detach and looking for meaning.

My (How’s your hangover?) column this morning will not get into the depths of MMMR (managing multiple matrices of reality) as it relates to sports – and investing.  That will be discussed in more detail for subscribers in Peoplenomics Wednesday.

I’m just pointing out that people will cheer for the damnedest things (fish, birds, social or racial subtypes) and not realize they are being “worked.”

In similar fashion, the markets have not yet crashed (although, give it time) because there are many market players who are too dumb to figure out (as great sage Jimi Hendrix warns us) “Castles made of sand, fall in the sea, eventually.”

Which is why, after the silliness of the Sunday, it’s time to roll out our new mascot around here.  No, we don’t know how long he’ll be around, but already the Urban Bears are kicking the average investor’s ass in Seattle-like style.

We can report the Bears whipped the Nikkei’s by almost 2%, the Chinns by 106 points, and in Europe, the Bear was continuing his run for the gold by beating the Frogs by 18 points and ahead of the Huns by 66, although both of those games are still underway.

Also in play, the Bears versus the Queens with the bears ahead by 45-points. 

The US game will be getting underway shortly, but we notice the monthly unemployment report won’t be out until Friday as the Labor Department has been on the injured reserve list from the partial government shutdown last year.  They’ve never made it back into the action.  Instead, fans will have to watch slow car sales and dwindling construction as they look for a reason to bet against the Bears.

Down here at the old sports book, we notice the Bears have won three weeks running in the S&P playoffs.  And only the most casual fan of Reality Bears would overlook in the stats that the Bears have ruled since Christmas week.

As you settle up on those office wagers today, you might think about putting a little something on the Bears next.  They’re looking sharp and the team makes a lot more sense around here than washed out birds or bucked-up horses.

“Go bears, or go broke.”

I trust you know what the Seattle win means by the Super Bowl Indicator?

More after this…

(I have no idea what this means.  Usually Amazon ads make sense to OFs like me, but this one is included because it’s so…uh….mysterious.  No clue what it means, but I will try it later, since I don’t have any friends… Now, where we we?  )

Happy Times Ahead for East Africa, Turkey

Well, not quite.  Understanding this next story requires you have your UrbanSurvival concealed carry training card with you….which means you know what a man-portable air-defense system is (MANPAD) and that it knocks airplanes out of the sky…

Dear Mr. Ure,

Links are circulating to this “Armament Research Services” article of manpad related weaponry allegedly captured from rebels in South Sudan.  While the verbal focus is on the weapons, evidently the seizure was worthy of a photo-op. Perhaps one may deduce out of the picture link from “The East African” discussion board that a son of the president of Uganda could be present.

Regards,

Gold star for our Winnipeg news analyst fellow on this.  And while we wait for planes to start dropping, we also should have our eyes on Turkey, figures warhammer…

It is becoming clear that the U.S. retraction into isolationism, the reluctance of Europe to play a leading role in Syria and the perseverance of radical Islamic factions led by al Qaeda are collectively precipitating an increased likelihood for instability in the Middle East region.

Now Turkey finds itself drawn into the cauldron of chaos, finding itself having to defend its borders and territory from incursion with overt but limited military action.

As Turkey joins the fray, the regional dynamic intensifies, with the potential for larger scale armed conflict seriously escalating.

Instead of the West proactively infusing meaningful measures to encourage peace, such as deliberate enforcement of nuclear and ballistic missile arms control, naval embargoes, intensified economic sanctions, and the demand for the surrender and dismantling of Syrian chemical weapons, the U.S. and it’s allies stand idly by as the pieces click firmly into place for armed confrontation.

There are simply too many competing pieces in play for the situation to end with a completely peaceful resolution for all interested parties.

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Coping: WoWW and the SuperBowl

“OK, Ure, what does the World of Woo-Woo – WoWW – have to do with the SuperBowl?”

Damned if I know – for sure – but something hit me this morning.  And I think we ought to try it out as a kind of woo-woo science project.  Here’s the idea:

As I got up this morning and turned on the ‘net to see who won the SBG, I noticed a slide show on one of the side panels of the browser that had a title something like “30 hottest cheerleaders in the NFL”.  Hmmm…#23 was kinda cute…

Naturally, when I got around to writing about this, I couldn’t find that link, but there are lots of other, similar, photo galleries to be found.  Like this one that promises the “30 hottest Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders of all time.”

“So what, you chauvinistic pig?”

Oh, all in the name of science, I promise! 

Let’s suppose that Jung (and Freud, et alia) were right and there’s a high correspondence between what goes on in the external world and what goes on in the inside of our personalities.  Bear with me on this.

Let’s then imagine that we can connect the inner and outer worlds with the right tools. In this case, a cheerleader gallery.

Most people have an idea about how Tarot cards work, but today’s flash was that we could look at collections of pictures – like the 30 hottest cheerleaders – and by picking out the most appealing one, we may have discovered a new way to pick what?

LOTTERY TICKETS!!!

Hell yeah!  What a fun new crackpot theory to test.

Now, if you live in Texas, obviously you could use the “30 hottest” of the Cowboys and then for the rest of the lotto numbers, you could pick from the hottest picks from a Houston collection.

So you take a collection of photo galleries, find the pictures you are most drawn to, and then use the picture numbers as lotto picks.

Then tabulate your lottery results to see if they are better – or worse – than how much you didn’t win before.

Or, I suppose, if you have a deep-seated Loser Complex, you pick pick out the six ugliest (or however many numbers you need for lotto, PowerBall, or whatever, and see how that works.

I’m always intrigued with the notion “as above, so below”  or, since I’m deep in research in other areas that run parallel (sans cheerleaders, which would sure make it more interesting) the correspondence between “inner world” and “outer world” and this just struck me this morning as something worth mentioning.

If you have other ways of picking lotto numbers, please send them in.

And if you hit The Big One after trying this “pick from pictures” to get numbers approach, a 10% tip to the House is in order….

Our Healthcare Cost Poll

One of my friends left me a critical note (and voicemail) about my Obamacare/ACA cost poll.  He said a better poll would be…

“I became a year younger last year.

I became a year older last year.

There, now I’ve fixed your poll about health care costs.  Duh.  It’s an actuarial pricing model.  Think about it.”

Well, I have been…all damn weekend…and it still doesn’t make sense.  The Obamacare / ACA price experience is NOT a zero-sum game.  There appear to be more losers (people paying more) than there are winners (people paying less, and insurance companies).

So first our UrbanSurvival reader experience with the ACA:

Number Who Report Lower Healthcare costs:   17

Number Who Report Higher Healthcare costs:  52

I didn’t vote in this poll, because my healthcare costs went down, but only a couple of bucks.  Thanks to joining the ranks of the Olde Pharts (age 65 this month) I am now on Medicare which is a whole other problem.

Representative comment from someone whose costs got cheaper:

We (wife & I ) were on Minnesota care- low income. $48. Month. Now we are on medical assistance (MA) Free.

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Peoplenomics: Has the Long Wave Been Defeated?

With the departure Friday of Fed Chair Ben Bernanke and the elevation of Janet Yellen to the position of Fed chair, have we seen the demise of the long wave cycle in economics? Or, has there simply be so much “creation” of “paper money” that we can no long see the true scale of what’s going on? These are some mighty juicy morsels to ponder as we survey this week’s action in markets. Which we’ll get around to after a few headlines and coffee, as always… More for Subscribers ||| SUBSCRIBE NOW!

World Ending…but Which World?

Still saddled with this crummy flu/cold./plague/or pox upon me, I almost crawled back into bed this morning upon discovering that the world would be ending sometime in August of this year.  Yes, there’s a story out on the Turner Radio Network (no relation to Ted, so far as we know) that assures us that a “Professor gives coordinates of planet inbound toward Earth.”

Of course, the story’s cited source, a “Dr. Kaplan” (no first name given) seems to have a video up on YouTube, which would be terribly important except for one thing:  the UT Austin Astronomy Dept. doesn’t have any Dr. Kaplan listed on it’s personnel directory (here) and so it doesn’t look legit, so we continue our quest for how the world is likely to end this year.

The smart money is on the world ending because of financial destruction, instead of errant planets.  Errant financial policy is far more likely…

In the early-going today, the Dow which was up 109 points yesterday, is likely to drop more than a hundred-fiddy  around the opening, and as a result, we expect the week to end down around its lows, or under.  Remember, below the S&P 1,770 level is where Robin Landry and a lot of other experts in market analysis expect things to get really interesting.

While we await the market opening today, we can begin munching on a side order of quick-fried numbers – personal income and expenses.  Have your ViceGrips at the read as you read this one…

“Personal income increased $2.3 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) decreased $3.8 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, in December according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $44.1 billion, or 0.4 percent. In November, personal income increased $29.8 billion, or 0.2 percent, DPI increased $14.4 billion, or 0.1 percent, and PCE increased $74.8 billion, or 0.6 percent, based on revised estimates. Real disposable personal income decreased 0.2 percent in December, in contrast to an increase of 0.1 percent in November.

Real PCE increased 0.2 percent in December, compared with an increase of 0.6 percent in November.

No surprise, however I do have on my questions to ask BEA list this one: Are ya’ll counting healthcare tax in your accounting?

And then there’s personal savings:

Personal saving — DPI less personal outlays — was $495.2 billion in December, compared with $541.0 billion in November. The personal saving rate — personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income — was 3.9 percent in December, compared with 4.3 percent in November.

How they can come out with such stuff month after month is mystifying.  But the real numbers to wait for will be the January numbers (a month from now) after all the healthcare changes roll in.  Or, will they simply not count that as a tax?  Jokes on us.

But meantime, if there’s a decline in your standard of living, if you tear into their underlying spreadsheet, you’ll see they do things like count home equity as “savings” and such, you’ll see that the last YTD increase in personal savings for 2013 was 4.5% while in 2012 it was 5.6% and In 2011 it was 5.7%.

Gee, do you think this economic reality has anything to do with why the Dow will open down 150 this morning?

Which gets us to….

Obamacare Poll

I’m looking to collect actual reader experience with healthcare reform, so please click one of the following links and send me a note:

My healthcare become MORE expensive under Obamacare

My healthcare became LESS expensive under Obamacare

Oh, sure, there have been other polls out there, but I want to find out what actual UrbanSurvival reader experiences are.  If the poll comes in good – then fine – we’ll be pleased to report that.  However, if the poll comes in negative, well, that too will get reported.

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Coping: Flu Link to the Shaman in the Living Room?

This is getting old: That chest cold I was telling you about earlier this week has come back for “round 2” and although it’s bad, there may be some good to come of it.  Takes a little explaining, but here’s my logic:

As you remember, my son came back from Skydive Spaceland with a really hoarse voice and a bit of a cough.  Nothing serious, so I chalked it up to a “no risk” event.  Since then, he’s gone back to Seattle where he’s on the job for the health department and university up there and feeling fine.  He was symptom-free in 72-hours.

So I talked to him Wednesday and wondered why I was feeling like crap.  “Well, you know dad, since I’m a first responder on just about everything up here, I have not only the regular flu shots but also two kinds of investigational flu shots in my.  So I’m immune to bird and swine in all the variants we know of, at least as of when the studies started.  Have you broken into your Tamiflu yet?”

Could it be something as simple as that?  Could he have had a close brush with one of the new flu’s and I’ve simply gotten a version of one of those? 

One way to check on your temperature, if you don’t have a thermometer handy, is to run your blood pressure with a BP cuff.  G2 has me do that and it came in as 113/69 with a pulse of 74.

“Doesn’t seem like more than a degree, or two, dad.  The way we figure it on the fly is for every degree of elevated temperature, the heart rate can go up about 10-beats per minute.  Last time I had a bad flu and 105, my heart rate was up around 110-115 resting.  So you don’t have anything bad…at least not yet.  But keep an eye on the heart rate…”

One reason I am super-sensitive to chest colds is that as a life-long asthma sufferer, I remember the nearly fatal combination of cold, fever, and “seeing the blue light” and all from where I was very young and had been rushed to the ER for oxygen and treatment.  For the last 40-years, being aware of allergies has moderated that and between one pill and a puff or two on an inhaler every day or two (albuterol and QVAR) the lungs have been dandy.

Until this cold, this week.

So I went back through my allergy/eating habits and nothing had changed. “What is going on such that I feel like I’m being…..waterboarded?”

OH-OH…. I just solved my own question!!!

Last Saturday, Elaine and I ordered an Amazon Instant Video: Escape Plan with Sly Stallone and
Arnold Gubernator.  Hugely entertaining flick.  EXCEPT for one minor detail:  There are lots of scenes in the movie where the heroes are having all kind of difficulty breathing.  Such things as being underwater on the prison ship they’re on (“The Tomb”) and, in one scene in particular Stallone was being waterboarded.

Hmmm…

About here I began to play back a number of things we all know about television, starting with Pappy’s sage advice, issued while I was watching the early Untouchables” series:  “Don’t sit so close to the TV, you’ll get blood all over the place…”

Some where in there, he also mentioned that one of the rare games that his crew down at the fire house would do on the odd evening in the station when there wasn’t a fire or mayhem afoot, was the firemen would count the number of killings per episode.  I think the high was something like 31-deaths in a one-hour show.  I think a fireman named  Califano kept score, if I remember…

There was even some wonderment at the time whether the wildly escalating number of murders on television would spill over into “the projects” that were in pappy’s district, although it was a busy enough station they didn’t have time for full-on research like that.

Fast-forward: We already know (or at least presume you know) that sitting on lard butt in front of the tube is all kinds of bad for you anyway.  The reasons are simple enough:  No body movement, often accompanied by binge-eating and it’s no wonder heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and even Alzheimer’s are linked to too much butt-time in front of the tube.

But what there doesn’t seem to be too much data on is the shamanistic potential of the television.  Especially when a person’s normal “hard shell” has been softened or weakened by some kind of illness.

The roll of pain and suffering in shamanism is touched on in a 2005 article by Drs. John
Ankerberg and Weldon.  (two Johns)

This one quote in particular, to borrow a cite in their work, drives home my point:

The Salish shamanic initiation includes first a period of torture and deprivation: being clubbed, bitten, thrown about, immobilized, blindfolded, teased, starved. When the initiate “gets his [shamanic] song straight,” or the slate that is the mind is wiped clean, the guardian spirit or power animal appears [to possess the shaman].[

Oh my!  It all gets me to wondering if watching television which sick (or in diminished capacity) might have the same effects on the subconscious?  Could this be the mechanism by which young men under 30 are programmed to commit murder and mayhem?  Is there deliberate (or even inadvertent) shamanistic ritual included in certain shows that could make a person more susceptible to a more serious version of the disease (like my chest cold) than would otherwise happen?

The government’s (savory/excellent) www.pubmed.gov cites something like 76-pages of research into the effects of watching television.  We know that it’s linked to obesity,  it can be a management tool in epilepsy, eating while watching television increases energy uptake in women, so eating with the telly on may be a bad thing, too.

There is one paper in particular that touches on the more general mechanism that I sense around my Stallone movie experience.  It’s the paper “Media’s role in broadcasting acute stress following the Boston Marathon bombing.”

So what is the “learning” to be had from all this?  Perhaps this is too gross a statement, but it seems it will be borne out over time:

When you are ill – even so much as coming down with a sniffle – immediately institute television watching controls.  Limit television intake to those shows that are nonviolent and educational in nature.  Shows that are “uplifting” would likely be OK, too.

But steer away from shows of unknown content (like my watching “Escape Plan” where there may be subliminal permissions implied (drowning, waterboarding) that may expand the subconscious inclination to “fill in” details that might result in a more serious healthcare episode that the one you’re presently in…

There’s a shaman in your living room.

It’s a sad testament to the acuity of present medical thought that the link between content inputs versus clinical outcomes has been so poorly studied.  But, as I’ve said before, if television had to do an environmental impact statement (or video games, for that matter) there would be a lot better content (and games) around that what we have today.

Don’t hand me a pill in the future:  Hand me the remote, first.

DDT Polio Link

Oh-oh….something for reader George from reader/researcher Nancy who has been collecting data on the DDT-Polio link:

As your reader George was espousing the benefits of DDT, he apparently didn’t hear of DDT exposure being the real cause of polio

(See chart here) 

*Note the close correlation to the spraying of pesticides and the worst polio epidemic in US History. “…Before 1940, relatively small amounts of such chemicals as nicotine, rotenone, pyrethrum, and the aresenicals (sic) were used for insect control. During and following World War II a rapid changeover to DDT, heptachlor, dieldrin, TEPP, malathion, and related compounds occurred.” [5]

I have to admit I didn’t know about the polio-DDT/Pesticide link previously.  Related:  Michael R reports “The Epigentics Heretic” in Science magazine notes that pesticide damage can be passed to future generations.

WoWW:  Slippery Time

In Thursday’s column (I think it was, with cold meds, it could have been any time in the past six centuries) I mentioned a reader’s (Doug) experience with time dilation at moments of high stress like playing football.

More details about the phenomena from Big Al:

George

The time dilation effect is called Tachypsychia.

It’s in Wiki and Massad Ayoob writes about it in his recounting of gunfights.

It is an effect of the “fight or flight” dump of adrenalin, norepinephrine, dopamine, etc.

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Fed Aftermath: End of the World In Sight

The Dow Jones Industrials dropped 189 points Wednesday following the Federal Reserve meeting at which the reins of power (money) were handed over to Janet Yellen.  Hopefully, Gen Bernanke’s first task now will be to write a follow-up book to his Essays on the Great Depression.   However, I’d suggest a cooling off period of 4-5 years so he will have additional data about the now-emerging Depression Deux.

You’ll have to pardon my artwork here, since our art department has had massive layoffs and I can’t seem to train the cats to run CorelDraw, but the scrawl on the right shows how Fed policy since the 1999 peak of the Internet Bubble has been a series of serial bubbles over the valley of National Financial Death, through which the River of Ruin runs and threatens to take all with it.

You may recall a while back that IMF bossette Christine Legarde warned of deflation risks, too.  This is not a US-only problem.

But, at the same time, the Fed is discovering that quantitative noodle-pushing has its limits, too, and as a result they took $10-billion of free money off the table at their meeting Wednesday and were hoping that it would not cause panic.

Well a 190-point drop in the Dow may not seem like a big deal, but we can’t help but wonder what will happen when critical support at S&P 1770 breaks.  Will support around 1,725 and then 1,680 be in line to fall, too?

The Fed has a problem:  How to you put a whole country into economic rehab without blowing off another round of jobs?

The rational answer is, you simply can’t which is why – despite looking like a minor rally was expected at the opening of today’s trading – I don’t trust this market any further than I can throw it.  China was down another one half a percentage point last night,   And Japan dropped a further 2.45% and is now threatening the psychologically important 15,000 level.

In early European trading, Germany, France, and England were all down about a third of a percent, which would translate to the Dow down another 50, or so.  But the problem here is this:  Once we get a convincing close under 1,770, then the way for much larger declines open and that’s when you want to have the preps for whatever all topped off.

The Daily Happy Talks

While we wait for the rest of the market to figure out near term direction (bounce then hard down) we can’t help but share the latest GDP report, issued by the Hallelujah Choir over at the Bureau of Economic Analysis…  A quote from the Scripture According to Gubmint, please?

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 4.1 percent.

The Bureau emphasized that the fourth-quarter advance estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see the box on page 4 and “Comparisons of Revisions to GDP” on page 5). The “second” estimate for the fourth quarter, based on more complete data, will be released on February 28, 2014.

The increase in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, nonresidential fixed investment, private inventory investment, and state and local government spending that were partly offset by negative contributions from federal government spending and residential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.

All of which would be fine and you might even be able to swallow, except for the fact that year-on-year container counts coming in were DOWN at west coast ports in December.

“Gee, Ure, what do you think is happening, then?”

Oh, golly, let me think:  MAKING UP MONEY!

We will get fresh numbers this afternoon, but when M1 being printed up at a 9.5% annualized increase rate and M2 is printing at 5.8% annualized over the last three months, come on:  What do you think will happen to the paper GDP?

 

Drought: First of Four Million?

No, my estimate of the possible relocation impacts from the drought in California are only hip-shots based on the modern-day impacts from a Dust Bowl-sized relocation scaled up to present day, but already we see the potential for a few of the 12,000 people who live in 17 communities to start “getting mobile” in the next three or four months.

The reason is that 17-communities are on the verge of running out of water.

I suppose that the good news is that a bit of mist and some very light rain is moving through Modesto, CA at this hour, but that won’t last long – before noon it should be ending – and that will leave the area 2.4 inches or more short for the year to date.

On flip side of weather, the snow and ice that slammed Anchorlanta (Atlanbanks?) this week is being blamed for 13-deaths.  I’m not sure terms like “post apocalyptic world” are right.  How about “winter” instead?

Dark Shadows of the PowersThatBe

In yesterday’s Peoplenomics report I unveiled a new concept that I want everyone to be watching for:  the “Gentlemen’s War” between Russia and the West/EU which boldly told Putin in a press conference this week that the EU has expansionist designs that would extend its treacherous reach from “Lisbon to Vladivostok..”

I’m not the only one to pick up the innuendo from the press conference Tuesday…it’s showing up in Ukraine media, but few in the West realize the power grab in play.

While headlines this morning are still trying to whip things up (at the West’s direction) our consulting wargamer sees things similarly:

Putin is probably the most skilled at realpolitik of all the world’s current leaders, doing what is best for ‘his’ Russia vice doing what is morally and/or globally right. 

I like your ‘chess match’ analogy.  Putin completely understands the NWO agenda, while the PTB collectively recognize the formidable power that Putin wields from Europe across the Middle East to the Pacific Ocean.

Obama may be totally in the PTB’s pocket, but Putin remains a dauntingly defiant single-state force that must and will eventually be reckoned with.  That is when things will really get interesting

For those a little short of coffee, here’s the new West/EU global elite/New world order takeover plan:  Pick the “next country” wanted.  Recently, they trying Syria.  So the game was to support the opposition – even if al Qaeda-linked – in order to topple the government.

Now, we see the same smarmy attempt being made in Ukraine…Western dough coming in to agitate and steel influence from Vlad Putin.

Now, since the West is buddy-buddy with AQ (at least in Syria) Putin knows that his hands are tied until after the Sochi games.  But when those are done, look for Putin to start calling out the NOW’ers of the EU who fancy themselves able to steal directly elected government from people foolish enough to follow their crap.  Tossing one more good country (Ukraine) doesn’t turn their sack of crap financial picture.  It just makes them too big to fail…power mongering pricks.

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Coping: Notes from the WoWW

The WoWW is, in case you’ve forgotten, the World of Woo-Woo where we get lots of odd/curious things.

For example, one note from a female reader informed me that..

. So I’ve given up on reading past articles that i had tried to save and really, as I sit here with aluminum foil on my head (my husband took a picture to try and blackmail me, but really, no one I know would even care) all I wanted to find was that article you posted on wearing some aluminum foil ..was it on your head or another body part? I occ. wore a colander and that was long before the movie Signs came out. Last night the very high-pitch tone in my left ear (no hearing aids) was most bothersome and it reminded me to find your article. Long lead up to: what were your instructions in that article, and did people respond?

I politely pointed out that many of the past 13-years of articles on the UrbanSurvival site have been removed in an effort to keep our content down to a more manageable side.  But, back in the day I detailed  a number of experiments of the “foil hat” variety and yes, there does seem to be something of a “calming effect” of wearing metal on the head.

It can’t be just any metal, though.  It needs to cover from the base of the neck, over the ears, and under the chin and so forth.  Ideally, so only the eyes can see and some small holes for air serving the nose and mouth.

The Montana reader says she’ll get back to us with results. But if you try it, see if you don’t also experience  a sense of calm of quietness.  My thinking on this stuff is that it has something to do with the huge amount of radio frequency energy that we have been shoving into humans since shortly after Marconi. 

We weren’t designed with RF resistance in mind and I figure that being the case, if could expect a lot of the craziness of humans at a very deep (un or pre-conscious) level.

Was I Wrong on DDT?

Earlier this week I offered up a link to news reports of a link being found between the use of pesticides and development of Alzheimer’s later in life…

As you’d expect, some people said that sure squared with their experience in life…

Wow almost exact same story with my father, fruit trees, grapes, garden all sorts of sprayers, powders, liquids swirling around him throughout the 50’s.

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