I am an idiot. We are giving away too much, again.
While much of the publishing industry is trying to figure out how little content it can deliver for another dollar, we’re determined to see how much thinking we can do for $40/year.
What’s on deck today?
We begin with the CPI numbers and what inflation means for Social Security and your actual purchasing power. (Peeps like us.)
Then the News Compressor section sorts the world’s geopolitical, energy, financial, and AI troubles into something resembling an understandable picture.
Then, our ChartPack — the technical market work, with the models, charts, and timing questions laid out for readers who want to see the machinery instead of merely being handed a prediction.
After that, we wander into a little Mao-style criticism and self-criticism, asking whether our approach to market forecasting might tell us more than traditional Elliott Wave counting.
Because we’re not just trying to predict where markets turn. We’re trying to understand why they change state. AI’s judgment is an interesting (and quick) read.
Then the CENTERPRICE! Another entire FREE BOOK today!
AI: Thinking on the Gallows tackles a question I suspect will haunt the next decade:
“If thinking gets cheap, who gets the Profits?”
Not a sample chapter. Not a teaser designed to make you buy the rest. The whole damned book, included for subscribers.
And here’s the part that makes this more than a pile of reading material: The news, the markets, the research, and the book are all exploring different sides of the same economic transformation.
That’s the Peoplenomics difference. We don’t just collect headlines. We try to understand what happens when they begin interacting.
Forty bucks a year. Eleven cents a day. Some newsletters charge more than that for a single issue.
We’re still trying to figure out how to fit another book into the next one.
Come see what you’ve been missing on Peoplenomics. Why, there’s even a five-month trial subscription for $20 bucks.
More for Subscribers ||| Master Index 2018 to Present ||| Master Index 2001 thru 2017 ||| Missing out? SUBSCRIBE NOW!!! |||
https://unknowncountry.com/whitleys-journal/russia-nhi-and-the-nuclear-option/
Good article – I liked the way he incorporated history / past lessons with todays’ world situation.
So, exactly when did we invade Iran?
I used to respect Whitley Strieber. He was a little “out there” but I could buy the “alien implant” and his tales of abduction as entertaining, if not completely probable. I haven’t looked him up in 10 years or so. In that 10 years, he has apparently become a blubbering buffoon, or senile, or both. He does a good job of weaving [a hugely simplified] history with fantasy and opinion to create a readable work of fanfic.
It always offends me to see nominally intelligent people lower their standards to where they purport to use fact, yet sell copy on fancy and falsehood. A stupid person might propose that Russia nuke Ukraine into submission, but can’t fathom the question, when asked why the U.S. didn’t nuke Seattle and Portland into submission during the 2020 riots.
If Russia were going to nuke Kiev or Odesa, they would have done it several years, and 700,000 men ago. The only way Russia will use nukes is if NATO or the EU deals themselves kinetically into the game. Russia can lick any nation in Ureup. It can not beat 28 of them at the same time without “equalizing the odds.”
Looking over the current iteration of “Unknown Country” is depressing. Whitley (and Art Bell) had defined a succinctly delineated lane, down which he could travel to fame, fortune, and success, as both an author and radio personality. Somewhere he strayed from the lane, the road, the direction, hell, even the country, into one in which he must fabricate “facts” to fit his dementia (not talking about just this essay. I skimmed his entire site.)
Based on the content of Whitley’s other recent writings, I’d bet he will neither edit, nor own his erroneous blather. 500 years from now, when we’re all worm-food, the Wayback Machine will still show that according to Whitley Strieber, the U.S. invaded Iran in 2026…
GU : “… et’s see how delusional I am on this …”
Oh George … the list is long matey.
The what will be, why is a journey, when? Unknowable.
Buckle up. Every out of channel thrust, up or down, ends eventually …
Usually the same out come unless, it’s different this time? Nah. Cycles.
About to stage the barn for last boat (pontoon) jerk.
Trying to tidy to-dos and go MN.
The Eagles are Coming!
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Return_of_the_King
Big Bird is ravenous, prepping for what comes next.
Got firewood? We do.
E ___ [flat-lander]
(Privately, we’re wondering if it will be cheaper to burn money or perfectly good oak firewood come 2029…)
I’ll trade you, pound for pound, for oak, ash, or hickory, if that will relieve the stress of your dilemma…
count me in there, red oak, white oak, a dash of mulberry and cherry for nose and some fast burning sassafras to start the show.
I could easily get hip deep in pole barn stuff but, after minor moves with the Cat I kept head down, waded out to the boat (remembering all but a towel) and took the drive of shame to our boat landing. Cheery big bearded local guy shows up, puts me on the trailer and $50 later (which works out to $50/mile) in the barn. Sigh. I don’t despise dirt, am quite fond of the family digs but … a land-lubber? It’s come to this :-/
My unsplit wood easily dwarfs split (which is large).
Lumberjack Song Lyrics: PALIN / I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK / I sleep all night, I work all day / MOUNTIES CHOIR / He’s a lumberjack and he’s OK / He sleeps all night and works all day
Monty Python
E ____
George I am in a pickle…I was informed there might be an old outhouse under the smoke house we had to demo on the property.
I probed easily ( 5′ -6′ deep ) the sub soils were disturbed. I did find the outhouse / bottle dump, I started to excavate just outside of the outhouse.
I started to unearth Hematite and Chert, broken pottery artifacts. possibly from the Frankston Phase or older.
I am trying to find the contact info for a Ham Radio Operator and Archiologist in your AO, ][redacted] -KD51[redact] ZV.
If you publish this comment, please redact his name.
No problem too hard in our AO, no sir.
You just go to the FCC ULS search page – that’s the FCC Unviersal Licensing System (ULS) and you put int he callsign.
Badda-bing!
Then google the name and/or have other ai’s do the work – and check for a linkedin ore FB listing
help? 73 ac7x
TY.
Post regarding a previous question/comment on COLA.., Yes, there is an ‘influence’ on the economy.
As the U.S. population ages, the influence of Social Security and COLA on aggregate demand becomes larger, not smaller. Even if it’s only one piece of a very large financial puzzle, it’s a piece connected to tens of millions of beneficiaries [ Including over 7 million disabled Vets.] making monthly spending decisions.
In other words, COLA may not move the S&P 500, but it may help keep a floor under a substantial segment of consumer spending. And in a consumer-driven economy, that is not a trivial effect.
dLynn : it’s my belief there are ways to deliver more to those in need by giving less to those who need not. It’s coming any way, some form of means testing. Bill Gates does not need his SS check. I don’t give a damn what he paid in nor does he. Those with the means should be encouraged to stick their hands in the air and say I’ll go without so others can have more.
I’ll go first. What box do I check to waive the increase? A rhetorical of course but … why isn’t there a way? We can do better. A million here a million there won’t retire the debt but could feed hungry. Am I a socialist? Hardly. Yet it’s my belief there are many who need to be nudged. Give a small tax credit nod to offset if we must.
We can do this.
E
Well…EXCEPT the spenders are not the best we have. IF the spending was more honest….
Reagan took his SocSec check, then donated it.
His reasoning was: I can direct this much better than government, and if I leave it to the government, they will just waste it. “Government” is the least efficient and most-wasteful agent for spending money…
every inflationary depression , turns into a deflationary one . hence the sayings of reflection . 1 we were living in it and didnt know 2 one day we were rich next day poor 3 we had to close the curtains when we ate so people couldnt see we were eating .
and thats where my most respect of G . sufficient good produced food . defense of self and family from Aholes . and most important no debt . especially connected to mal investment . prime example . luxury items and real estate
Can Russia, China, N Korea, Iran leave their various forms of totalitarian regimes? No. Are they all working together. Yes. What is goal? No constitutional government. Who figured it out? British Queen and Charles and Marcon. Is there a bait to do anything else? No
In “Hunt for Red October” the idea was ‘close fastest and weapon does not arm”. Trump is closing fastest. Idea is ‘bye bye BRICS’ and no economic system to support local populations.
“Can Russia, China, N Korea, Iran leave their various forms of totalitarian regimes? No”
I believe Russia can. They are evolving away from 75 years of communist totalitarianism. Putin is a stairstep, not a regression. As long as he can outlive the hard-line Stalinists who still hold a degree of power and authority in the Duma, Russia can rejoin the world of the living (provided, we in that world quit playing “the Russkies” as our villain and foil, every time a Western politician needs a scapegoat.)
The Iranian people have been held hostage since their 1979 coup, by a bunch of Arab Stalinist-communist, Muslim fanatics. Iranians are not Arab, nor necessarily Muslim. The Vast majority are Persian and Caucasian, and of Zarathustrian, Christian (including many ancient Christian sects), Progressive Muslim, and Jewish faiths. They can not cast off their oppressors without help, but will dump the totalitarian fanatics via civil war, when given a chance.
The Chinese and North Koreans are both hopeless. They will only lose their hard-line rule through an external war, which nobody wants, because no one wants to trade nukes with them. Now, if they could be induced to make war with each other…?
As for interfering with us? That is only the Chinese and Iranians at this point. They are engaged in a propaganda war to encourage the U.S. voting public to make bad choices. Chinese thought is: Given enough bad choices by voters and enough bad choices in office, the U.S. will vote themselves into socialist-communism, just like Venezuela did. My biggest diplomatic fear is, they may be right. As a voting bloc, American voters are easily swayed and programmed, and are rapidly becoming singularly stupid.
Once again, it took less than 28 days in 2008 for the entire voting public to “forget” that Joe Biden was the most racist member of Congress.
WE ARE A GENERATION STUPIDER THAN THAT, TODAY…
The Final War
https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/the-final-war-4851409
“You have reaches your free article limit. Please log in.”
Nope.
I tried to find a ripper that’d download that vid — couldn’t (sorry.)
It is well-worth watching, but not worth paying for (unless you can find Epoch Times $1.00 trial subscription link. Once it comes up for renewal (at $10 per), you cancel it and they’ll offer you a lifetime subscription (cancel any time) for a couple bucks per month.
The website is high on my list of info sites for China/Taiwan. (Oh, but they’re Falun Gong. The Chinese say they’re terrorists. The CCP also says the Taiwanese, Japanese, and Americans are terrorists. ISTM FG is in pretty good company…)
I’m in the ‘war’ of rehab now. It will all depend on the fight Sam has in her. She’s shown toughness always so I feel the battles she already won over the years will just be education for this one. It will be about pain and the acceptance that the pain is part of the healing. The fractures need movement and load, the surrounding musculature needs to be maintained and strengthened. None of the damage is severe, just temporarily very uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, the attacking dog is protected by the liberal mind of local government and could easily damage others. In my farm youth, a dog that came home with bloody chops was immediately dispatched, usually by my younger self. Grandpa says, “Get the shotgun and do it”, I did. No room for killer dogs.
Screw the dirt. I belong out there.
Stiks
Stiks : hang in Sir. For a decade now I start proclaiming “we can do this” to start then get beaten down by the medical industrial complex. Still, begin each day to win and know you did your best come what may.
A word to Care-givers : it’s easy to end up with your chin in the dirt and … now you’re no good to your loved one. Find a way to maintain sanity. Don’t let things you can’t change from changing the things you can. Release anger.
Take a stick Stiks and beat on another stick.
The dog? I won’t say much.
Not here …
E ____
(“A word to Care-givers : it’s easy to end up with your chin in the dirt and … now you’re no good to your loved one. Find a way to maintain sanity. Don’t let things you can’t change from changing the things you can. Release anger.”)
lol lol lol…there’s a little truth to that….years ago now.. maybe thirty… an ER trauma nurse in LA that had an exceptionally busy night.. got off late on her way home …called her kids to make sure they were up getting ready for school ..while she was on her way home in…. LA….where they stack trauma patients like firewood…. its illegal to be on the phone..( she should have pulled off the road ) two officers pulled her over and did the face drag Extra rough on her through gravel then high gives each other…..( it was caught on the burger king security cams)( worse than the veteran in a wheelchair one)
that hit the morning nursing report thousands of miles away… LA is one city I’d of hated to be an officer that day….got shot officer…room 6001 will get to you as quick as I can..lol lol lol
we had one the patient had violent episodes.. toss a bed pan full in your face or get beat up..the other patient in the room was a button pusher..
I played golf with the doctor the patient had….every Wednesday….lol lol
I would bring up having the patient evaluated.. the doctor would say…naw…its all in your approach… get your approach right and that wouldn’t happen..but doctor this needs to be checked before someone gets hurt….
then he was doing his morning rounds…went in to check the patient..sent the nurse to get the chart.. the patient went through a spell..beat the he’ll out of him..had him by the tie.. ( not a clip on it was the full hang mans noose) the dr.pushed the button in a panic..in a button pushers room.. The patient about killed him..he had the hang mans rash for a few weeks..as he was going up to the first… T…smart ass in me said..careful doc its all in your approach.. lol…the patient got the help they needed and the doc never played golf with me again…..one of my bosses at another job had surgery.. went to see how he was doing….as I was in there the aid goes to check the other patient.. ( I worked with her at my other job) and the boss said dam I’m in pain..I said oh just push the button the aides don’t have much to do at night….(all while knowing she’s in the tag your it category of the short shift job…) she sticks her hand through the curtain and calmly flips me the bird of paradise……
the land of infinite short shifts…. by design though …for a year it was just me..every night the nurse manager would say how sorry they were no one wanted to do that kind of work everyone I sent in to apply was saying..they aren’t hiring….my niece was born..( she’s thirty two)I was looking at all the employees and thought..your out of scrubs you truly don’t recognise someone in street clothes they look familiar but..so I thought how in the he’ll would they recognise me..huge turnovers of support staff..I went in and applied for my job..they said..we aren’t hiring..that night I get there the nurse manager goes into this apology.. and I said speaking about that..they hired new people the next day..now that was 32 years ago..I walk in to the hospital..head near the office where the pharmaceutical reps put up their tables ..and some kid comes out that wasn’t even born yet will see me..call me by name ask if they can direct me somewhere and shows me the coffee pot.lol lol I have looked several times to see if my photo was plastered somewhere.. beware smart ass…
I lost Dale last month…
I got Dale as a rescue in November, 2021. He was a Siberian husky, 14½, 70% blind, 40 pounds overweight, and at least half-dead from neglect (and an undiagnosed thyroid issue.) It was me, or the shelter, and the shelter would’ve put him down within 24 hours. I spent the first two nights, lying on the floor next to him, talking and petting, feeding him McNuggets and vitamin chews (’twas all he’d eat.) He never moved – had given up. After that first two nights he got up and toured the place, went outside and did his considerable business, and was a happy, functional dog until he suffered a couple strokes, earlier this year.
Dale was unbelievably tough. Once I got him past his melancholy and depression at being abandoned, showed him a household where he wouldn’t be beaten, and got some glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM, NAD, and thyroid meds in him (which started his weight down toward a svelte 56 pounds, his ideal), he began to run and play with my pups.
‘Point is, dogs have feelings and emotions which rise above their base instincts. If you keep her spirits up, she will likely recover with no permanent issues, and she’ll show you just how tough she is. Animals don’t think of pain or physical damage the way we do. They merely accept it as the way things are, and go on. Do remember, dogs can have prednisone, and they can have aspirin, but other NSAIDS (naproxen, ibuprofen, ect.) are exceedingly bad for dogs, and acetaminophen (Tylenol) will kill them.
Take a little time every day to pet and talk to her, and don’t let her do acrobatic jumps (IOW keep her off the furniture — she’ll try, before she’s healed) and she’ll be fine…
re: “Your Obedient Servant”, ‘Upstairs Downstairs’, S2E7, Dec. 1, 1972
feat: White Room
Welcome back from DJ George’s “White Room” from the ‘Wheels of Fire’ album by Cream. Apparently the song’s draft title read as “Cinderella’s Last Goodnight”.
Meanwhile as anecdotal accounts spoke of a military Starlink dialbacks in the Ukraine, that nation’s President sent a Tuesday evening Telegram to beleaguered citizens. “Please take care of yourselves…” before boarding his plane to London.
Upon arrival at Stansted, Essex, the President posted a clip of his welcoming committee. The King sent two representatives consisting of the current and previous Lord-Lieutenants of Essex. Ambassador General Zaluzhny and a uniformed Ukrainian officer attended from the Ukrainian Embassy. Apparently nobody showed up to represent the UK government’s party in power.
King Charles III greeted his Ukrainian Presidential guest in his opulent Chinese Luncheon Room situated in the recently refurbished East Wing of Buckingham Palace. Original construction of the East Wing extension dates to 1847. Curiously a Kilyn Clock acquired by King George IV in 1820 has been removed from the Chinese Room and placed in the Yellow Room next door following the recent renovations. The clock is constructed around two Chinese lion dogs purposed with bringing fengshui good luck when properly situated to those within range.
#10’s longest serving Mouser, Larry the Cat now 19 years of age, did not appear in camera frame with the Ukrainian President. Larry is serving his 7th Prime Minister at #10. He is understood to be “media savvy”. However PM Andy ushered his Ukrainian guest Upstairs to the White Room for statements to assembled journalists. The room saw first use in public service from 1735 as a domestic needs Sitting Room for Lady Walpole, the wife of England’s first Prime Minister.
The Ukrainian President signed off from his social media while in London with tv interview outtakes. His televised lamentations across UK airwaves were bounced off a certain Mr. Piers Morgan. One imagines the latter’s tradecraft on North American-based broadcasts is not forgotten.
Love the new book…and G2 is absolutely right..the American dream has been out priced by stagnent wages overall.
the Ai twist lose four add one…. For decades, the solution to maintaining profitability has been to reduce labor expenses at the bottom of the pyramid…. But AI doesn’t necessarily respect the traditional corporate hierarchy…. It can analyze financial reports, review contracts, process insurance claims, assist with medical diagnoses, and perform many administrative and analytical functions previously reserved for highly educated, highly compensated employees.
What happens when the technology that was supposed to protect corporate profitability begins replacing the very people who made those cost-cutting decisions?
And there’s an even bigger question. Who is going to purchase the goods and services these increasingly automated industries produce when the wages needed to purchase them are disappearing?
Consider Henry Ford he understood something fundamental about an industrial economy….. workers are also the consumers….. You cannot continually remove purchasing power from the economy and expect consumption to expand indefinitely……
We invent machines to make life easier, then organize the economy in ways that can make life harder for the very people those machines were supposed to help….
The American Dream wasn’t built simply upon corporate profitability…. It depended upon ordinary working people earning enough to purchase homes, raise families, and participate in the economy they helped create… we seen the effects that COVID had on brick and mortar…
Perhaps the greatest danger of AI isn’t that machines will become capable of doing our jobs. Perhaps it’s that we’ll continue using technology to eliminate the purchasing power that keeps the entire economic machine running….like outsourcing industry ..the money that was recycled through local economies was sent away..look at Detroit..the one side propelled into the stratosphere with gains..but the community suffered..
I believe when AI finally reaches the upper floors of the corporate pyramid, those who spent decades looking down may discovjer what the people at the bottom have been trying to tell them all along….
Ai will replace the jobs in an upper level of society..and replace repiticious manufacturing jobs….
Someone I know had a tela-health doctors visit..the physician he seen was an Air physician.. the physician has the final say.. but did the clinic replace the PA or nurse practitioner.. usually physicians were being replaced by pa’s in clinics leaving the more urgent cares for the experienced yet the doctor is the ultimate bottom line..just like my position..that has me doing things normally assigned to a registered nurse under her professional license..
like any science project An can evaluate and give you the best outcome of what has statistically shown as the proper direction from past results..
You just go to the FCC ULS search page – that’s the FCC Unviersal Licensing System (ULS) and you put int he callsign.
Badda-bing!
Then google the name and/or have other ai’s do the work – and check for a linkedin ore FB listing
help? 73 ac7x
So then why do hams put so much weight in QRZ?
A few times I’ve had “You must not be licenced because you’re not on QRZ!”
Ve’s don’t do MMSE or IQ testing