There are three very troubling observations in our data, today.
The first is the outsized influence of the “Magnificent Seven” stocks on the indices. While “the Q’s” have been smoking, we are seeing telltale (long-lead time) speculations like Are the Magnificent Seven doomed to underperform in 2025?
With the Fed meeting today, and a rate decision tomorrow, we judge it about an even-bet as to whether the much ballyhooed quarter point cut can be allowed.
The Fed misled (OK, lied, then) about holding out for a 2 percent core inflation rate before cutting rates. Which gives financial policy a cast of pure political BS to support the “old paradigm”. Code for the constellation of democrats, serial wars, excessive government, open borders, and that whole SynGro (synthetic growth) business model of national survival that is beginning to take down Europe.
A Fed surprise (like no cut) would, as we see things, slash markets and give the war party talking points about “How dangerous Trump is...” for whenever they find a viable candidate to rep their own party.
Canada on the Brink
Modern Authoritarian Governments haven’t been doing well lately. For most Canadians, the policy train wreck revealed in the Trucker’s Strike – and the disregard for people’s rights to protest – has an eerie harmony with the US War Party Jan 6th political repression.
What’s moved Canada to “the Brink” is people (globally) are beginning to use Power of Big Numbers to say “We won’t stand for this, anymore!” The Internet is the new Tower of Babel.
Canada has a problem – and with the naming of Trudeau to lead the G-7 – incompetence is becoming contagious. Elon Musk calls Justin Trudeau ‘insufferable tool’ and we all, I suspect, know he’s an authoritarian lefty.
But it doesn’t take a judgment call from Musk to make Trudeau the tool. Canada’s finance minister resigns as Trudeau deals with declining popularity | AP News. Already, there is talk of elections and by our reckoning, Trudeau would likely lose. The GlobalPop is wising up to lying leaders. And for the Liars in Place, people who talk freedom and deliver the whip, we may be seeing additional ripples leading to more GlobalRev actions.
Achtung! Revolution is in the Air
Were Canada alone, that would be one thing. But, it’s not.
German Government Collapses at a Perilous Time for Europe is going on right now. With stories about labeling Olaf Scholz labelled ‘the low point in history of modern Germany’ amid confidence vote, we are going to have to get a bigger “toolbox” to put on the recently outed “tools” in.
The German “control paradigm” collapse (Germany’s Scholz loses confidence vote, paving way for elections) comes shortly on the heels of a failed inside coup attempt in the past few weeks in South Korea, as well. We trust you saw South Korean President Impeached by Legislature After Self Coup Attempt?
Next as we ‘pull hot turnovers’ out of the oven, there’s the Syria mess to inspect, as well. Another government falling in the past two weeks. Syria after the Assads: What’s next for dictator and his family wealth. How the Russians were involved is covered a bit in The secret talks between Syria’s new leaders and the Kremlin. Just remember, Russia wants to keep Tartus on the northern Syrian coast; they don’t have much in the way of warm water ports.
The U.S. (runaway) National Security State continues attempting to goad Russia into first use of a nuke. Latest is to kill an important Russian general in the vicinity of Moscow. Igor Kirillov: Russian general in charge of nuclear protection forces killed in Moscow explosion – BBC News.
And let’s not forget Georgia (the country): Georgia is Russia’s legit area-of-interest: what is the EU trying to do there? The answer is simple: It’s the US National Security apparatuswith the EU trying to open another front because Ukraine is not going very well. Add victim countries or die financially.
Somewhere, along in here, you ought to be seeing that we have the makings of a GlobalRev. People want their countries back and, squinting in just a certain ay, you can see the local tribes of humans around the world pushing back on the One World Order which includes the neocons, the National Security State, the WEF’ers, and the U.N.
Line it all up: Canada, NATO, Germany, Ukraine, Georgia, Syria, South Korea and severe governance issues for the EU. Sure, there’s the war angle to all of it. But I’m sensing something else. A global connected rising consciousness which will – shortly, I fear – lead to strict governmental controls of free speech which is already “dead and buried” in Canada and the UK.
What becomes predictable? G.A. Stewart has spent decades deciphering Nostradamus works, Clif High’s work on “alien” sightings has been useful, as well.
We seem to be “down-gapping” right now. Where the space/delta between the lookahead tools and the flow of headlines is narrowing.
New Jersey Down-Gap
Skeptics of “look-ahead technologies” can say all they want. But Donald Trump canceled a trip to New Jersey and we see how there is some “dirty bomb fear” floating as what are likely NEST teams have been looking for some missing radioactive waste material.
That doesn’t stop the buzz, of course: Strange lights and ‘drones’ reported in West Virginia and Virginia.
The most credible idea, to date, is government looking for lost radioactive materials, though. Radioactive material went missing in New Jersey shipment, Nuclear Reglatory report shows. As coincidences go, this was pretty interesting in its timing of release, too: New IAEA Publication on the Security of Nuclear and Other Radioactive Material in Transport | IAEA.
Still, lots of unexplained.
But the Global Disruptions with all the “shakeups in country government” have our attention now as a possible battlefront between regular, freedom-seeking humans and the Security State Cooperative (More than 5-Eyes).
In general economic terms: Compound interest is piling up on authoritarians and they need additional power and control to exact more tribute (taxes). What they miss are two points from my recent book The 100-Year Toaster. We live in a global economic system based on low workmanship, high resource depletion, and useless activity under the guise of “useful work.”
In such a world, it’s easy to get confused. But no, “work” behind Bitcoin is not transferable, divisible, and durable. It’s a secret number made up to stuff more “play money” into an economic system already past its Popping Point.
What happens next should be amusing, to say the least.
OBV and Mag-7 Jits
Let’s begin with the Retail Sales figures just out from Census:
“Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for November 2024, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $724.6 billion, an increase of 0.7 percent (±0.5 percent) from the previous month, and up 3.8 percent (±0.5 percent) from November 2023. Total sales for the September 2024 through November 2024 period were up 2.9 percent (±0.5 percent) from the same period a year ago. The September 2024 to October 2024 percent change was revised from up 0.4 percent (±0.5 percent)* to up 0.5 percent (±0.1 percent).
Saved again by the Auto industry? Well, yah…
If you’re wondering how this game is played, look at car prices over the past several years – they have been screaming ahead of inflation. So it makes “retail sales” pop, following?
Just ahead of the Census press release, the markets were braced for a bit of downside:
In light of these, we have to discuss some of the Old School ways to invest in stocks. Dow Theory is one. Under it, the Dow Transport Index (^DJT) tends to collapse first, leading the rest of the market down. The Dow Transports have been falling since Thanksgiving.
Another theory (Joe Granville was the champion of this view) is called On-Balance Volume. More money is flowing out of Dow equities than in, presently. The bubble stocks of A.I. in the NASDAQ and S&P have so far been slow “getting the word. When they do?
Oh, and we should remind that the Dow was pricing around 43,550 early based on futures. Which is down 1,464 points from it’s all-time high December 4th of 45,014.06. More than 3 percent down on the Dow and roughly 7 percent down by the Transports., so let’s see what follows.
We own a nice selection of late March put options so we shall see. (This is not trading advice! Are you a fool? (or Canadian Trudope smoker?))
The Murder Cycle
As you may know, we have been tracking “soft stats” of a possible Murder Cycle amongst mass shootings. If this falls into the genre, brace for the next one around May 7th next year. But with three dead and six wounded, this incident is unlikely to make the list here.
From the analytics perspective, the tough call is whether to use total number of people killed (as your counting threshold) or whether to use column-inches of news coverage (or prime time minutes on a sample of four networks, say). Under the hard numbers rule, the attempt on Trump, for example, would not count but under the column-inches/minutes of prime, it would be the biggest of 2024 shootings hands down.
Scrolling Stops
The Pacific Plate continues to act up. This time in the South Pacific: 7.3 magnitude earthquake damages US Embassy in Vanuatu.
Don’t be surprised that a democrat stacked court issued a political opinion: New York court refuses to overturn Trump’s hush money conviction due to presidential immunity.
The Damning evidencer of COVID shot damage keeps spooling up: Santa Clara County Saw 50% Increase In mortality In 2021 | Principia Scientific Intl.
And Reverse Discrimination is being called out again: Civil rights complaint filed against NIU for programs that appear open only to black students | The College Fix.
At the Ranch: Honey-Do Day
This is “Honey-Do” day for me. One of my “better time management” ideas. Just like only checking emails every 90 minutes to 2-hours. Reduce the interruptions and get more (what Cal Newport called) Deep Work done.
Deep work isn’t done in 2-hours. We’re talking blocks of time – like 6-10 hours – to where you can really get your nose down into something and hack away at it until actual completion.
What keeps people from getting more Deep Work done is the interruptions.
Like Elaine’s bathroom sink is going down slowly. By itself, this is a 30-40 minute problem. By the time you get the tools out, make sure you have new gaskets, clear all the crap under the sink, get a buck, take out the trap, clean, reinstall, test, dump the bucket, dry and put away tools…blah-blah-blah. We all go there.
Thing is, if that comes along as a task 3-hours into my after-the-column work (the first 3-4 hours of the day) then it doesn’t leave me a Deep Work block. Where I can get into a deep writing trance or super research mode.
Today? A repair to a screen, installing more anti-cat plastic on the porch, tightening of the dryer vent hose (still leaking air) and the slow sink issue. They will all be “put down” right after breakfast. The Deep Work for the week was Monday.
I guess the point of mentioning this is to remember that in order to get more done than most people, it helps to be working more tasks than others. Which you’d think would be obvious, but it isn’t.
I can’t tell you the number of times in my life I’ve heard people bitch and moan about how they will change and how they will “get something done” while in reality spending more time whining than the actual work itself would take. Crazy, ain’t it? And the work never goes away on its own.
Write when you get rich,
George@ure.net
Trudope already lost last election. He got 26% of votes only to be in Gov with coalition with third party NDP. Both losers to Cons!
Oh come on man – more toilet paper ? What is it with youse guys, down south the mason dixon, and mass quanities of TP? Must be a water conservation thing?
“nice selection of March Puts”.. bet they stick to Ure ass like the cheap stuff – https://youtu.be/-croskvxY3U?si=0iDMl_HTTDyhmpQG
I know unbearably soft TP is hard to resist, but resist you must, otherwise you could fall prey to the dreaded Dingle Berry Disease.
Nobody wants a bunch of lil biden balls stuck to their Ass____s, let alone little balls of sore assed claus squab. I just cant imagine what a foul mess that would be..NARSTY.
? Does Syria become the new Trashganastan ? Damascus used to be the “spookiest” place in all ME back in the 80″s. I mean you could feel the tension in the air. You know back in day when US had tech for remotely detonating IED’s..just drive down the road, turn it on – and shit started detonating down the road. Tested it for about a week, then never heard another word about it..poof.
Janet said she was sorry about the $15T in debt and the RRP funds they used to front run equities but now that she’s leaving they’ll shrink the balance sheet and leave to Jpow to further fuck up the markets for President Musk.
This seens to me to help drains and septic systems:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KT8JRSJ/ref=twister_B0CMYMPPF5?
1960s Roto-Rooter Plumbing & Drain Services Commercial
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YC6ErD7KRyc
Here’s the weasel.. we paid a lot less for it when we got one.. but for those little hair. logs.. its a real winner..
https://www.amazon.com/FlexiSnake-Remover-Rotating-Handle-Micro-Hook/dp/B08ML7VMZH/ref=asc_df_B08ML7VMZH?
Cameco McArthur River Virtual Tour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_cYEBotDBo
The radioactive mine that America should
never have opened: 500,000 tons of this energy.
Russia opened an extremely strange mine:
It’s brilliant, huge and dangerous.
re: bathroom sinks
Instead of using a bucket, try using a cat litter pan (yes, a new/clean one…).
It is lower profile, doesn’t get in the way, and you don’t have to worry as much about alignment under the drain to catch stuff.
Started doing this a few years ago when changing out faucets and feed hoses, and it made the job a bit more tolerable.
YMMV
If the Yen gives up 153 should be quite the show
All in One G,
(editor,copy,proofing,writer)
You know as well I do and every other shade tree mechanic-homehandy bastard does, that Es’ sink issue (s) are all about ze Hairballz.
Hell I got so much hair issues at Casa BCN that it routinely clogs the beater bar on the vacuum cleaner. This on top of 2 Burds worth of feathers/seedhulls/nutshells and assorted other scheisse the Burds throw around, plus 2 JackRussel (RoughCoats) Terriers’ worth dirt/hair/toy stuffings regularly strewn about the casa. Not to mention a 2 year GrandDaughter, who can do no wrong, regularly blows things up around here
Solution: HomeHandyBastard DIY drain snake. Cheap & Handy lil tool just long enough to go all the way around and down from drain elbow joint. Like clock work around here – hairball build up which I consider a “bad benefit” as Mrs BCN has some gorgeous Hair..oohlala!
Ohhh Honey Bunny..
As someone posted the other day:
Jake Blues: “You lied to me.”
Elwood Blues: “It wasn’t lies, it was just… bullshit.,”
.
.., and there is an enormous amount of bullshit flying around out there lately., it is mind boggling..,and some of it is even creeping onto this site.
Please.., think about it, ‘before’ you post someone else’s rumors and money grabbing hysteria-theories.
Agree. If we follow George’s lead, he always brings receipts like a link to the data. It is hard to take serious anyone who says “they say” or “I heard” or “it seems.”
Without the data, it’s only an opinion or a rumour or just plain bullshit.
Here ya go d, you axed 4 it..https://youtu.be/TZg51h3x5bw?si=c6sbnbEyCVe0MWon
Please, dont say I never gave ya nothing, honey.
G, Principia Scientific Int’l scores high on the pseudo science /conspiracy chart:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/principia-scientific-international/
I do appreciate the recent Mother Jones article you posted on how elitish Democrats missed most of LA’s voting shift to Trump! Duh, didn’t Homer/Harris notice 2023 record setting strikes by U.S. workers (Europe too) lol!
U.S. Strikes:
https://www.epi.org/publication/major-strike-activity-in-2023/
Europe:
https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/en/resources/article/2024/labour-disputes-across-europe-2023-ongoing-struggle-higher-wages-cost-living#:~:text=Nationwide%20general%20strikes%20were%20also,Italy%20(national%20general%20strike).
Pluto in Aquarius, Billionaires and greedy CEOs are in trouble:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYGQjcw4d1o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYGQjcw4d1o
“while the Q’s have been smoking” talk about an understatement of the year, make that 2 yrs … since Oct 2023 the rocket ride has been straight up (all while gloom and doom of wars, market crash, etc) …… the “do nothing” (long side) strategy would had been the perfect multi-generational wealth set of several life times … oh well, its always fun to dream and “what if” …… be safe all , good luck
H O D L
As I posted last night, the drones have been pretty well identified as new military hardware, built by PteroDynamics, the model X-P4 is the size of a small car, electric, and has fold-out wings that can transition from drone to a winged aircraft for more speed.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/12/invasion-drones-breaking-truth-behind-mystery-drones-new/
From the pictures, the FAA registry of one is: N563PD
https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/NNumberResult?NNumberTxt=563PD
Apparently a large fleet of them has already been built. Now obviously this is a top secret mission. What are they doing? My opinion is they are ‘sniffing’ for something… maybe something radioactive. But they are not alien craft. Definitely military, and on a mission they are not telling us about.
I have been following PTERODYNAMICS INC out of Colorado Springs for a few years. Interesting aircraft – and they just proved a long range autonomous aircraft can land on ship at sea.
What better way to sweep up those black hats that crossed the border BuyDen, A little facial recognition. IR mapping and some radio interferometry all driven by AI assistive screening. Trump is filtering the swamp. LOLz.
White House says drone activity is ‘Legal and Lawful’, but goes on to obfuscate details.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/white-house-official-claims-drone-activity-legal-and-lawful
I note from the FAA registration that the X-P4 drone is equipped with a Mode-S transponder for collision avoidance, but military aircraft frequently turn off Mode-S when they do not want to be tracked.
Where is Ure mothership for these said drones ?
Being seen all over the world ? Thats some highspeed scheisse or a there are a bunch of motherships out there somewhere..Sure.
Shutting down Mil bases ? Airports ? Sure – Ure drones never been seen in action before – where all new tech is tested in real world conditions like the “campsite” in ME- but testing instead on US Pop.? Sure
Cant catch one, cant shoot em down, cant track em..yerp must be some super secret majestic scheisse flying around the world.
Im guessing here you still think Lahiana was of natural cause (s) ?
No worries , dude should be along any day now to straighten out all this scheisse and make everyone feel high!
One good way to scare the bee-Jeezuz out of everybdy is by conducting a frantic (expensive) urgent search for Something Terrible in Deep Secret — And then arrange to be discovered by some apparently innoent random actor.
And then clumsily and unconvincingly deny it.
If the product desired is fear, acting strangely will often be enough.. Once everybody is scared enough, you can offer The Solution! They will do what they’re told.
I’m not sayin’…..
(Compound interest is piling up on authoritarians and they need additional power and control to exact more tribute (taxes”)
that’s beyond scary at this point.. it has a life of its own…..
Power or not, there’s an absolute limit to what authoritarians can extract in tribute. If individuals feel that they’re losing money by working longer or harder, they’ll stop. If they’re forced to via forced services(taxes, garbage, insurance, etc.) they will still prioritize food and other essentials, and let the despot hammer drop at some time in the future. Our country has thousands of little taxes and some big ones, and all in, we’re taxing about as much as we can while still maintaining the incentive to work at all.
The ‘imminent’ threat of quantum computing and Bitcoin.
– Interesting article. [ Two of them on-line this morning.] Don’t ya just love advancing technology?
– “If I had a large quantum computer right now, I could essentially take over all the Bitcoin,”
.., and it looks like Googles “Willow chip” is the introduction. Google’s Willow chip announced last week promises to eventually complete computations in five minutes that would take the most powerful supercomputer today 10 septillion years. The power of the technology has stoked optimism in some., and fear in others.
Unraveling encryption codes could take mere minutes – rather than multiple years. Nothing connected to a computer, or on-line would be safe from attack. Nothing. Not even the launch codes.
.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/bitcoin-would-need-over-300-days-of-downtime-to-adequately-defend-itself-from-the-imminent-threat-of-quantum-computing-research-finds/ar-AA1w17vg?rc=1&ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=56c55057170d448ead037fc47d1f5f69&ei=25
“Googles “Willow chip””
A Google worker posted –
“Google Quantum AI founder Hartmut Neven wrote in his blog post that this chip was so mind-boggling fast that it must have borrowed computational power from other universes.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-says-quantum-chip-indicates-192059739.html
I think there’s an old time murder defense that includes multiple universes but couldn’t be proven at the time. When/if multiple universes are proven new laws will be born.
Hal 9000
.., so – a large mainframe quantum computer “with” A.I. – would get us…., what?
Coloussus: The Forbin Project!
“The most credible idea, to date, is government looking for lost radioactive materials,”
Just more questions.
.gov has been hot on the trail… ‘The sightings began November 18 near Morris County, New Jersey, according to the FAA.’ …for about a month.
Let’s add it up. The search has been going for a month now. Is that a reasonable search time for radiation? If you had the dirty bomb would you let the target find the bomb or explode the bomb? And if there is a box of radiation out there people would be showing up in hospitals with radiation sickness by now.
Are the drones searching in an intelligent grid pattern/any pattern or random? Seeing how the drones are sometimes seen in the East or West or Southwest the pattern seems random.
Recall the olden days. During the 2002 Afghanistan war a rumor of the Kandahar giant started. Internet posters were overlapping making claims they fought/saw the giant.
No military/ex-military has said they worked on the drone project.
The story is the source of all these drones and where they come from.
US stocks fell on Tuesday, with the Dow on track to log its biggest losing streak in 46 years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) slid roughly 0.73% in afternoon trade, coming off an eighth straight day of losses for the blue-chip index.
The last 9-day losing streak for the Dow was Feb. 1978. Prior to that, the index suffered an 11-day losing streak in 1971 and then another in 1974.
The Dow Jones Industrials have lost over 1,600 points since it peaked on Dec 4th. Down over 320 points today alone.
Dow Jones Transportation Index [ DJT ] is down even sharper at -1.28% / it too is closing in on the worst continuous decline since the 70’s.
It does not look like a sell-off – but rather, profit taking ahead of the Federal Reserve’s announcement tomorrow.
“A global connected rising consciousness which will – shortly, I fear – lead to strict governmental controls of free speech which is already “dead and buried” in Canada and the UK.”
The United States is the only geopolitical turf on the planet where “free speech” is a guaranteed Right. (Y’all see how that’s working out lately, right?) In every other nation, “free speech” is a privilege granted by their government. “Free speech” is becoming expensive here, because the Leftists don’t wish dissent to their policies or ideology to be freely-aired (or even discussed.) I can’t imagine how careful people have to be in other “free nations” to keep their tongues from putting them behind bars…
“Skeptics of “look-ahead technologies” can say all they want. But Donald Trump canceled a trip to New Jersey and we see how there is some “dirty bomb fear” floating as what are likely NEST teams have been looking for some missing radioactive waste material.”
Not waste material — 0.267 millicuries fresh medical grade Germanium — also not significant…
Except it gives the NRC cover to sniff for other stuff.
WHY did a drone swarm shut down Wright-Patterson yesterday, and why was it even permitted to do so?
“It’s back…Female suspect, 15, kills student & teacher at Abundant Life Christian School & wounds 6 others before dying by suicide.”
Biggest thing no one will mention is it happened in Madison, which is the only place in CONUS east of the Mississippi that’s nuttier than Berkeley…
George, you probably save alot of money if you don’t shop random stores. I just went to Hobby Lobby to buy a dozen or so ornaments (60%off) for my woman’s group for next year. There are dozens of things that caught my eye in the Christmas section and there are these 4 sided displays just loaded with interesting/tasty items along the long check out line. I ended up buying a Santa hat, a Santa candy dispenser, and a chocolate egg with a toy for my granddaughter, and 2 bags antique hard candy and a butterfinger for me. Impulse buys really add on the dollars.
Clif said that there will be a year without Christmas maybe 30 years ago. Every year I wonder if it will be this year.
Wow – there went the eggnog buzz, huh?
re: “Shrek!”, 2001
feat: Snowbirds in Florida
Folks,
Finally the finer goings-on of dinner a couple of weeks ago between ‘the Governor’ and ‘the Don’ at Mar-a-Lago are emerging. It seems both ordered steak and mash potatoes from the club menu. President-elect Trump multi-tasked handling dj duties via his iPad. Apparently selections included two versions of “Hallelujah!” by the late Canadian artist Leonard Cohen. At a guess maybe one version was an original celebrating a 40th anniversary since release. A second apropos one perhaps could have been the 2001 movie version where Shrek cleared out the swamp.
With the passage of time, it seems unfortunate that the PM did not have space on his jet to include his finance minister and famous Trump foe, Mrs. Freeland, in his retinue since threatened American tariffs were topic #1 of the dinner.
Hopefully there will be time during a future visit for the delegations to play a round on the Jack Nicklaus redesigned links.