Since it will be a major factor in how the stock market rolls today (and we’re addicted to day-trading since we won’t be in a real casino until next week), we have to start this morning’s jaundiced review of digital spew with what matters most to the wallet. Ergo, the Consumer Price report just hawked:
“The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.2 percent in February on a seasonally adjusted basis after being unchanged in January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 1.5 percent before seasonal adjustment.
The indexes for shelter and food increased, and the gasoline index rose after recent declines to result in the seasonally adjusted all items increase. The food index rose 0.4 percent, its largest monthly increase since May 2014, as both the food at home and food away from home indexes increased. The gasoline index rose 1.5 percent in February, following three consecutive monthly declines, resulting in the energy index rising 0.4 percent despite declines in the electricity and natural gas indexes.
The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.1 percent in February after rising 0.2 percent in January. Along with the shelter index, the indexes for personal care, apparel, and education all increased. The indexes for recreation, medical care, used cars and trucks, and new vehicles all declined in February.
The CPI is always a tough one to wrap your head around: In theory prices will go up (or down) based on supply and demand. Yet, the Fed keeps making up money (at about a 4.6% annualized rate) based on their money-stocks measure.
And yeah, that seems to imply that real inflation might be figured by taking M1 growth year-on-year and subtracting the CPI. But now comes the difficulty because there’s a) a domestic birth rate to factor in (0.7% ?) and we have not one freaking clue how many people who snuck into the US via the porous borders… (0.5% or more?)
Meantime, the National Federation of Independent Business Survey is just out today, as well:
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index improved modestly in February, increasing 0.5 points to 101.7. Views about future business conditions and the current period as a good time to expand improved as did plans to make capital outlays. Earnings trends weakened, as a million laid off workers and others affected by the shutdown cut back on spending. The loss of sales falls right to the bottom line. Worker compensation and selling prices were lower in February than they were in January, but job openings rebounded remaining at historically high levels. The Uncertainty Index fell 1 point to 85, a small decline but still showing a lot of residual uncertainty from the government shutdown.
And, after the data, Dow futures were down 70, while the other indices were flat.
Despite the campaign promises, even the Border Patrol (ICE agents) is going on “silent burn” (except not so quiet as you will read over here) about the Waller-in-Chief not walking his talk on the “Catch & Release” game.
Swamp Détente?
Ok, roll with me on a couple of points here: Not only has Trump backed-off some of his “hard-liner” talk, but now comes word in one of the big East Coast print rags that Nancy Pelosi has taken impeachment off the table.
As a result, we can now almost make out a path for the market to follow to have a huge “one more up” between now and the traditional let-down in May when the (pardon me, Vanna) “Big Money! Big Money!” rolls out to the Hamptons or Martha’s.
What’s driven the dems to change-up their bullhorns from the barricade spiel?
Nomrinally, lah-lah Peloser says Trump’s not worth it. Which telegraphs (writ-large) that Donald Trump didn’t do anything in the election in the forthcoming Spatial Counsel report that would hold water with the American Middle. “Not worth it” being code for “No collusion,” more than likely.
When Boeing stock dropped at the open Monday as a result of the 737 Max 8 crash in Ethiopia – but then the market roared up – we took it as a tea leaf reading that says Trump may be out of the woods (in congressional impeachment moves) but we gotta wonder “At what cost?”
All will be revealed in time, but seems to us both parties to the illusion of democracy understand that there are millions of super-pissed people who are seeing through the massive network charade of “making up stories” to keep the American public from genuinely focusing on the many huge drivers of history that are likely to pound us in the coming few years. Which are?
- The Internet (as I wrote in my 2012 book Broken Web) will have to be licensed and mood-altering software that re-posts and re-tweets will have to be made illegal. Just like free-for-all radio was made illegal by the Communications Act of 1934. (More on this in a sec.)
- There are at least two (count the flashes!) regional wars that are due in the next two years due to the 71.916 year War Cycle. The Indo-Pak War and the “Israeli’s Existential War” which will be along by 2021, if the cycle holds. Taiwan by 2022, too, if you’re into futuring as an extensible code problem,
- Until we evolve some consensus (people are dim-witted and easily led around by stupid memes on the ‘net) about how long the end of the Modern maxima (the Sunspots, not the Nissan, right?) we will keep lying about “global warming” because you can go outside and throw all the money you want at “The Weather” and it won’t get warmer, colder, or stop raining. (A better idea is to mail us all that money you’re willing to toss down that rat hole. Drop me an email for the mailing address…)
- And event if we navigate ALL that, humans are still ‘screwing the planet into a resource depleted cinder” because we let ourselves get roped into the “bleeding heart” slogans of the 1960’s and 1970’s about how we just had to help all the third world countries grow so they could buy 5G product and fatten corporate bottom lines… Except, corporations want money, but “if you feed, they breed” is the reality of humans. In many way’s China was correct by limiting family formations. Now if we could toss that into the Middle East and South/Central America thinking… oh boy.
Point by Point, then:
Internet Breaking:
I trust you know it was Tim Berners-Lee (*not climate profiteer Al Gore) that invented the Internet, right? Well, here’s an AP report that says Berners-Lee in onboard with the kind of skepticism of the web we hold for your consideration. “WWWorries? Inventor of Web laments coming-of-age woes…”
In the CNBC version of the story the word “dysfunctional” pops up in “The man who invented the web says it’s now dysfunctional with ‘perverse’ incentives.”
One of the reasons for “dysfunctional” in context of the web being so important is that language shifts like this explain (in advance) what’s in the works for us’n sheep.
Still more as the Agency-France Presse version of the story focuses on the disappearance of Privacy: “Web inventor urges users to seek ‘complete control’ of data.‘”
It’s almost like these folks are writing my book Broken Web II for me.
Two other little points (so’s to understand I’m not blowing smoke up your butt): I was doing “data over the air” experimentally in 1983…so yeah, I’ve got some perspective and pedigree on what’s ahead. Second point is one of the key questions of Public Policy that isn’t on anyone’s radar yet is whether there is now is any privacy left at all.
Trust you saw the story the other day about how TSA was planning a big facial recognition drive at 16 or 20 top US airports? Any resistance to the public seizure of personal privacy will no doubt result in “terrorism” and/or “false flags” in order to drive us to the outcome.
Which is? Social credits and social control (ala China) because that will solve the big eugenics problem Hitler was (wrong-headedly) working on:
The Global Controllers (been to Davos lately?) have a toughie ahead figuring out “Who among the “useless eaters” (global pop) will provide the “highest return on investment?” as the world runs out of resources?
What we see if how limited, regional nuclear wars will work out as a massive “culling.” And the coming wars will bring a side-benefit: End of “climate change” on the heating side. Plus, with a third fewer humans, or so, there will be few mouths to feed, a slower depletion rate on fuels, time to run the compact fusion program, and time for AI to partner with the Elites while the richest will be bringing in their desperately-need resource from asteroid mining.
“Ure…you’ve flipped out!!!!”
No, Asteroid Mining Laws are real. Dear God, take the time to read the whole law – passed by Congress and signed, sealed and delivered it is embodied in “42 U.S. Code Chapter 159 – SPACE EXPLORATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND SCIENCE.”
I know, too busy to read that Pacific Council piece, too, I suppose: “Regulating International Space Mining, an Enormous Industry.”
OK, that’s just some of the data on what’s coming. Just my POint #1.
Point #2 Blowing Up India
Although, in my personal view, The Atlantic is a bit left-of-center in US political coverage, their outlooks on International Affairs are just dandy. Especially when we see and contrast their views with how the neocons are reacting.
To grok the gap, start with “Pakistan Says It’s Cracking Down on Terrorists, Again: International pressure and an economic downturn are forcing Islamabad to take anti-India militants seriously.”
Then, for the neocon footwork, see how Big Bad John “Bolton says Pakistan committed to easing tensions with India.” On the same side, eh?
What’s the real globalist agenda? Strange you would ask. But I have one more data point to throw in your face: Reports The International News today “‘China not to pick sides in Pakistan-India dispute’ .”
OK, what fits?
This is definitely a “fit” but it’ll make Ure skin crawl. Goes like this:
India and Pakistan come to their 72-year point this summer. When they do, India is going to get its ass-kicked. Let’s line up why Globalists want things to go down this way:
- From the standpoint of the US, India is not a huge import partner. But they are also not addicted to American products.
- From China’s standpoint, India is on the same continent and so it could be a real expansion problem down the road.
- For the Globalists, India is 1.28 billion people. Pakistan is just 205-million.
If the Globalists long-term outcome is implementing a “gentle culling” there’s a case it has already begun. HIV in Africa? Some conspiracies point to this. Culling via the Indo-Pak war? Then some regionally devastating pandemic in other population-dense enclaves.
All horrible stuff, and I’m not predicting it, but we can already see many ways that the observed data could be construed as fitting.
I’ll let you work on supporting and denying details for my Point #3 (Climate is a global government tax plan) and Point #4 (Space-mining to support the uber rich) but you already know the Billionaire’s Boys Club is running operations to get into space, right?
OK, enough…back to eyeing the breakfast menu and working on a more uplifting Peoplenomics report for tomorrow that documents one of the most overlooked – yet incredibly impacting – trends at the great-historical level.
I dare you: Send this to 100 friends with a link here. People deserve to know how the deck has been stacked.
As we say, moron the ‘morrow…
My new trend Trading system indicated 2 buy trades from my list of stocks today. 1 oil & 1 tech. Trades placed. Now I have the rest of the day off until the 4:00 pm closing.
Hey George, your asking people to mail you money. Do you remember what happened when Soupy Sales asked kids to mail him the “green pieces of paper” from their parents’ wallets?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a-OGy3Kh7yM
So you are traveling next week. It will be spring break in Oklahoma. Just sayin’.
RE: China and India vs Pakistan . . . India harbors the self-exiled Dali Lama. DL’s homeland of Tibet is now a possession of China. In fact, China has declared that it now owns the Dali’s soul, as the communist regime will determine the next incarnation for the DL when the 83 year old current version recycles himself, not the traditional consort of Tibetan monks and Lamas.
China would no doubt love to see Pakistan kick India’s tail in a short and brutal conflict. India’s current allies include the Russian Federation, Israel, Afghanistan, France, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and the United States. It is doubtful Russia would join any fray involving China. The rest of the aforementioned Indian allies might be enough to give India a chance against Pakistan. Plus, India also has nukes. In that area of the world, a handful of nukes targeting urban centers is all you need to inflict complete and utter annihilation against one’s enemy.
A little correction of an error most of the English speaking world has adopted as being correct. Our language sets human beings apart from everything else. We refer to things as “that” and humans as “who”. Therefore the sentence, “Bob is the boy that is walking down the street.” is incorrect. It should be, “Bob is the boy who is walking down the street.” is incorrect.
I know I know…..it’s a minor thing, but being a geezer I feel compelled to correct such things and nag offenders and teachers of English. ?
George,
The Atlantic is traditionally a right wing publication, having supported the Neocons’ debacle in Iraq and the Right’s (failed) supply-side economics. (Think David Frum who invented ‘Axis of Evil’ for the Dimwit.)
Recently they have been calling out Trump’s unrelenting propaganda and lies — which I suppose it is a ‘liberal bias’ to try to get the facts straight in this day and age. Shows how extreme Conservatives have become.
BTW, with the deficit/national debt literally exploding!, a topic which you must be saving for future columns, why the big surprise about rising inflation? The Conservatives deployed massive deficit stimulus at a time of near full employment. (Even Rand Paul too.) Around 92% went to the big dogs on Wall Street, with Main Street left to scramble for the current crumbs and pay the future debt.
So much for the value of the US dollar. Best, Mike.
Media Bias Fact Check sides with me…not your (again, off-base) ideas:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-atlantic/ “Left-Center”
Tthis CRIMINAL GANG (Fed) keeps making up money (in order to steal from the general populace at about a 4.6% annualized rate), and our elected representatives seem to be just as helpless as anyone of us. Sad!!
“Not only has Trump backed-off some of his “hard-liner” talk, but now comes word in one of the big East Coast print rags that Nancy Pelosi has taken impeachment off the table.”
I say good for him.. why should he continue to go through the misery and humiliation at this point. He tried and failed there is just way to much control over our legislators at this point. instead sit back and enjoy what is left of his life… at this point give in to them stop the endless attacks on him.. there has been enough attacks on his credibility that anything he attempts at this point in time is questioned and shot down instantly.. let Nancy get the legislation that is being written or has been written by those that influence congress passed to allow illegals to openly come to america.. basically opening the borders to any and everyone.. then after the disaster strikes like it has every other place that has done this.. its on record that they passed it.. took national security off the books to allow illegals the right to enter and be taken care of by the citizens who will have to give up jobs for them.. that they won’t pay taxes of any kind be taken care of..
on the roller coaster of events.. we are nearing the top to make the great dip in my opinion..
George,
Your entrainment to the American culture has made you an optimist.
ZeroHedge was just banned by Facebook. Wonder why?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-11/johnstone-revolution-has-no-hollywood-ending
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-11/schlichter-has-nervous-nancy-lost-control-her-crazy-party
…The same reason George’s sites have been 86’d on a number of subscription firewalls.
Bitcoin: The bottom may be in and a bull market starting. Millenials think of bitcoin as the new gold. They would rather buy bitcoin than gold, & there are 93 million of them in America alone. With interest rates steady & low, a finite supply (21 million), & an increasing # of millenial buyers globally, equals an increase in Bitcoin price. There are 21 million bitcoin available, 17.5 million have been mined, so only 3.5 million are available & @ 1,800 are being mined a day. At some point when the supply of cheap bitcoin is sucked upped, then when the demand comes in, prices will skyrocket.
This would apply to Bitcoin only. I haven’t researched the others.
I will miss the bull market because bitcoin makes me nervous, sort of like Tesla. I like the stock but Elon Musk makes me nervous.
Re: Al Gore’s rhythm and the Internet–
I remember reading a half-column article in either Popular Science or Popular Mechanics, possibly 1978, that Senator Al Gore had put a bill through to fund development of an ‘information superhighway.’ He may have intended it only as a personal money-making scheme, but he did have a minor role…
Re: Weather–
As kids, my friends and I used to make it rain in the Summer using what we called ‘Beer-Can Bazookas.’ You had to use steel beer cans or pop cans with a seam on the side. Aluminum isn’t strong enough–although sometimes we used steel spraycans instead.
**For informational Purposes Only** This is what we did; Remove the tops and bottoms of 5 of them, and tape them together with masking tape to make a tube. bore a hole in the bottom of the fifth can 1/4″ diameter, and use a church key to add 3 or 4 more holes to the top. Then tape the top end onto the tube. Voila! Beer can bazooka–
We would put three squirts of lighter fluid in the top, and a half squirt in the firing chamber, then put a bald tennis ball in the top and agitate it for about 5 seconds to mix the air. Light a candle and stick it on the black top. Holding the BCB straight up and at arms length, hold the touch hole over the candle.
There will be a thunderous bang, and the tennis ball will go hundreds of feet in the air.
Here’s the curious part–
No matter what the weather was like, after about 25-30 shots, black clouds would arrive and it would thunderstorm. Not every time, but like 5 out of 6.
If you get a dry Summer George, you could probably make one and try it out with no problems from the Authorities.
I plan to try it up here in BC Canada, but will likely have to get a sign-off from the Fire Dept and the RCMP, demo it in front of them and hand it over when I am done. Stupid I know, but worth the hassle if it prevents another forest fire in our area.
Final note– Resist the urge to improve the design. The masking tape is meant to break with overpressure. Longer tubes guarantee overpressure. Line up the can seams and hold them away from you. And of course, since this is ***FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY*** I am sure that neither you nor any of your readers will try this at home, as it reeks of danger, engineering and loud noises….
“As kids, my friends and I used to make it rain in the Summer using what we called ‘Beer-Can Bazookas.’”
LOL LOL.Boy does this bring back nostalgic memories of my child hood… because of my curiosity.. my parents got me one of those old mad scientist lab kits thinking it would keep me busy and out of their hair….
the one in the cnet article looks like the one I had as a kid..
https://www.cnet.com/news/old-school-chemistry-set-mimics-one-made-in-1936/
I grew something that resembled a dandelion turned to seeds once using mold off of a vegetable…it was beautiful.. but when I said hey mom look what I made and blew the spores around. mom was saying oh thats nice honey.then as a cat laying there on the floor by where I blew the spores started to act real funny and it died .. It killed the cat…. my mom freaked out and took my official mad scientist lab kit away.. it was never to be seen again.. and I felt horrible that one of my cats paid for my stupidity..
I personally felt that same fear my mother felt when I thought I was going to be brilliant and teach the kids how volcanos worked and to make lava using the sun’s rays .. heck I was afraid they were going to burn down the house they were melting everything around.. LOL LOL LOL….
the kids at MIT are using a similar idea to what I was trying to show the grandkids by building cooking stoves for villagers in africa.. it came up when a friend brought some students by to install some panels and we got talking over lunch.. pretty cool idea a solar grill.. shoot you don’t need thousands of degrees just three to five hundred.. I keep thinking I want to make one for myself I got the stuff..
instead I made my solar beer chiller instead of showing the heating properties of the sun show the cooling properties its a whole lot safer ….which I finally gave away last year so the wife could use that space for her car..
darn it I digressed again.. nostalgic memories of child hood..
As far as the cannon.. goes..
my grandson came home from school a few years ago with his friend and said they needed to build a potato gun for science class..
I said.. you can’t do that.. they will boot you out of school if you drag a cannon in.. his response is no it is a class project they split the class into groups and that was theirs..
I called his teacher.. yup.. that is the project.. are you sure.. yup.. how else will they learn the physics of this.. You do realize that is a cannon.. we don’t see any harm in it.. it is their project..
I called the Principle.. same response.. then the superintendent.. the same thing.. so we went and built his cannon.. we used a grill igniter as the trigger..
they took it to school.. it became his most favorite toy.. they were shooting spuds as far as three football fields away trying to get them to land in the back-end of a moving pickup truck.. the school officer was out with the principle and the superintendent and the teachers shooting the dumb thing with them..
eventually mom took it away from him.. seems they could go through a can of propellant (antiperspirant) and twenty pound bag of potatoes in about en minutes.. LOL.. when mom came home to make supper and the potatoes were gone.. that was it..
my ova trap was another thing another of the grandkids made for science class project that made a huge impact.. I built that thing out of necessity.. as a fat boy.. bugs and other biting pests just love me.. so I had to design a way.. got one of the mosquito magnets.. great but the company has a really poor service department and after a year or two it was trash without having anyone that could service it and they don’t sell replacement parts some but nope it just sucked big time trying to get it serviced a total waste of money in my opinion..it worked great till it broke down then decided there has to be a cheaper alternative..
I tried the ova trap ideas that is the most common.. they sucked as bad and I got bit up so I had to come up with my own idea it became quite a popular item and one of the grandsons teachers said he should use that as his project.. this year I will add solar powered uv lighting to it to see how it works then.. I doubt it can be much better than it already is. I do think it will look cool..
Addendum–
George could try it because he lives in Texas.
The rest of us– well, local laws may apply.
Want privacy? Get PGP and don’t post on social networking sites.
PGP was ONLY brute-force crackable, back in the ’90s. We figured, using 100% of all the computing power on the planet in 1999, it’d take around 4 quadrillion years to crack one file, and such a crack wouldn’t necessarily enable the cluster to decipher either a backdoor or create a map through the encryption.
‘Thing is, Zimmerman was socked with several hundreds of years of potential prison time, then allowed to walk, which tells me he backdoored PGP after v2.6.2 (or perhaps one beta RC before), so unless people have an old DOS or *NIX box laying around, PGP is off the table, and the only “privacy encryption” in town is furnished courtesy of the U.S. Government.
As for social posting, if’fn you have, it’s probably already too late. It doesn’t take them thar ‘puters long to map out a “web of connectivity” when others post stuff, then FB-“tag” you. This is the other thing I do with unsociable media in general, and FB in particular — any time an image of, or reference to me shows up (when it’s “tagged” or “liked,” FB tells you) I insist upon its deletion. Do FB, Goog and the alphabets have dossiers on me? You bet’cha! And everybody else, as well! For the latter, I earned my clearances, for the former, let’s just say they have almighty thin ones, and I intend to keep it that way…
Lolz! If you are not playing along like the rest of the herd, they will flag ya as a person of interest.
Trust me on this.
I dont mind, personally. doesnt bother me one bit. I think many people just monkey mind this stuff to oblivion.
Oh, I know. The gummint knows who I am, and with my permission. I just don’t want the folks who agglomerate other people’s info and sell it, to sell any of mine.
You know old dude, why i havent read your books, since i read how to live off less than $10k a year? Which i am currently practicing as close to as i can get. Rent and utilities (including internet) $500 a month, cell $80, car insurance $80, food $400, gas $350, etc. $1250 a month and i make $2500 a week take home.
The reason is, The same as why i dont read every letter my mother sends me through snail mail. She knows i only read like 4 out of every 5 letters. I have a box of them with her name on them. She is 73 years old. I save them so one day after she had passed into the great “unfolding” or “Quickening” i can read them with delight and savor every word as if She is present and still with me.
I have every book you have ever written old dude, and one day after you have passed on, i will take a long vacation on a dunny beach and read them, or perhaps rent a sail boat for a month… and spend the sunrises and sunsets with alone with you, my friend