Does “1929” Begin Next Week?

Our future could fall apart next week.  Other than Summer ending on Monday, the 23rd being a bit later this year, the other key date will be the close of trading one week from now.  That’s because current markets have some similarities to the 1929 blow-off period.

To derive this view, we built an equal-dollar weighted Aggregate Index of U.S. markets.  And we compare this with the Dow Jones Industrials of the pre-Depression lead-in.  Use of multiple indices today makes sense:  There are a lot more companies and there are sectors today that didn’t even exist back then.  Tech, for example, to point out a big one.

When you line up the indices, scaling for differences in price, from the 1920-21 lows, when compared to the 2009-2010 lows, you get a view that looks like this:

There is no assurance that a top is imminent, of course.  The Kool-Aid may never run out.  Even the Federal Reserve – in lowering rates, an exceptional move with no evidence of decline yet in hand – seems unclear on how to proceed.  To be sure, there is some dandy work by former Fed Boss and Depression Economics expert Ben Bernanke that says Lower (rates) For Longer (L4L) is the right medicine.  Yet, J. Powell also doesn’t want to get into the  negative rate mess the European Union is now in.

Essentially, what has occurred is what we’ve described for years as the  Discontinuity Zone.  Namely that “normal” economic controls begin to  operate backwards.  Indeed, as you can see in the current Velocity of Money (at M2), the Velocity (think of it as  “inventory turns” of money) has flat-lined.

Worse, the latest “tick” was back down to levels never-before seen lows.  The result of this is “money piling up in dark pools” of capital.  There’s a mechanistic reason why this occurs, especially in the dead-end, dark alley of long wave economic periodic rate collapses.

Pretend you need $10 of interest income to live.  In the 1980’s when times were admittedly in something near hyperinflation, a $100 bill would generate almost $15.  Rates were so high president Ford had to pass our buttons saying “WIN”  – short for  whip inflation now.

The problem with whipping inflation is that when rates get down to the effective zero bound, it can take an almost  infinite amount of money  to get that $10 bucks you need.

In fact, with rates  negative, you need to  pay out money just to hang onto your original hunsky.

There are two choices (vastly simplified):  You can implement  negative rates, as the EU has.  And that’s the bet that money will come flying out of dark capital pools and will look for new investments.  Growth ought to result.

The American Fed choice, at least so far, has been to attempt a mix of shaming, maintenance of low rates, and effectively stealth quantitative easing.  The thinking is that eventually, money will find a way to get “back in play” and then the “virtuous cycle” can kick-in and we’re back into an  economic expansion.  For now, the stock market is bubbling more because its the only game in town.

You can see the Fed’s predicament in this week’s H6 Money stocks report.  The most recent window (Table 2) looks like this:

As is evident, the Fed’s annualized print rate is increasing and with rates low, the thinking (and prayer in the  L4L models) is that business will invest, capital formation will work toward higher returns, the sun will come out and the birds will sing again…

The problem is the Fed is operating as though times of semi-normal.  I would propose they are  not.  Consumers are super-saturated.

Regrettably, most people don’t “tie the news” to financial affairs.  But when you look at the European Union, it’s pretty clear that it would have already imploded from its runaway, half-ass, bureacrat-laden government were it not for the Muslim reconquest of Europe.

As huge numbers of Muslims came to Europe, they created an artificial boom.  Just as the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989 had been accompanied by predictions of disaster, there was so much real pent-up demand (and skills) waiting in Eastern Europe that Germany was able to re-incorporate East Germany with only modest disclocations.  And then came the immigrant, as save the burning of Paris in riots a few years back (and certain districts of major cities no longer safe for police) the overall economy hasn’t been bad.  EU officials owe immigrants a lot.

This didn’t escape the notice of US policymakers, and in particular the unelected levels some call the Deep State.  Unchecked immigration is just the ticket to building bureaucratic empires.  And with no real breakthroughs to fund massive employment (since UHD monitors and phones aren’t made here, anyway and longshore jobs are full up) what we needed was a growing under-class to swell employment and demand across the economic spectrum.  Even the lowliest of drug mules has to park their head somewhere at night and they’ll need a meal the next day.

And that’s what we’ve been seeing in our present day replay of 1929.  Lot of people come in from “The New Old Countries,” the evolution of gangsterism which was largely Scicilian last time around, but more Sinaloa and MS-13 this time around, as well as an unchecked explosion in communications.

Remember that The Radio Act came along in 1934 (after things fell apart) because The Radio Bureau  was just not enough bureaucracy to keep a lid on.  Which is precisely why you’re reading headlines today questioning the role of “social media” and why I was able to predict in my book Broken Web in 2012 that it was only a matter of time until there is “licensing of the Internet.”  We’re still on track.  Patience, please.

Just as Hitler came to power in the period of turmoil as the global economy of the late 1920’s was hitting the rocks, we see an echo in how the leader of China is now the “leader for life” and we see China’s continued militarization  (not to mention Moon-grabbing plans) as no more than the rhyme off German expansionism of earlier economic cycles.

Events are also changing the view of economic Long Wave.  As presented to Joseph Stalin by Nicholas Kondratiev, the Long Wave ought to run 48 to 66 years (depending on which limits you want on the boundaries).  But now, we see the “long wave” with a decline in 2020 possible as being 90+ years in length.

What has changed?

There is a long shopping list.  I’ve been drawn to the extension of life expectancies due to improvements in medicine.  My  consigliere likes longer cycles and is very fond of the interplay with the 72-year  existential war cycle that’s due to lead to conflict in coming months between Pakistan and India.  Also, with attempts to draw the US into a showdown with Iran, remember Israel hits the 72-year marker next spring.  So, if an  existential war breaks out, remember who gave you the “Avoid tourism in the Middle East next spring” advise.

All of this is highly useful on background, but what does it tell us about markets?  When do we run out of “greater fools?”

We’ve been tossing out charting ideas the past few weeks, but as of the early futures pricing this morning, thing looked like this:

Leaves the way open for 5 up.

The market traded (intraday) down to the black “x” up there on the right, which lets us redraw the trend channel slightly, and you can see why we COULD have one more blip up.  Should it occur, the size of the rise could lead into mid fall, but remember last Christmas and the slaughter of the elves.

Curious thing about last year was most think of the December Washout as a one-time event.  We anxiously await sleigh bells to see if the reindeer will be doing the  SlipNSlide again.

Normally, this is the kind of thinking that shows up on the  Peoplenomics side of the house.  But, without all the charts and other stuff (like my book “ The 100-year Toaster” treatise on obsolesence which has another chapter tee’d up for tomorrow) I felt compelled to mention how things are laying out for the weeks and months ahead.

Fundamentally, we have 7.6 billion people and in America we’re not seeing any brand new “gotta have it” inventions.  The few we see (and like) are actually not “job creators” at all.  They are job destroyers.  Like our 3D printer.  Once you own the software and order some filament….

When presidental wannbe’s like Yang start spouting off about how “climate change” (which is a lie, but most people can’t do the math to see it) and how private car ownership may need to be banned, I wonder what he thinks will hold his Marxist world together?  Can people not comprehend that in order to pay taxes to fund giveaway governments, they need jobs to fund tax payments?  And how many jobs in America depend on private car ownership?

Yet Yang and other socialists in the fray are hot on the trail of monetizing anything not nailed down.  Personal rolling stock in America amounts to what?  $20,000 per family?  Climate scams are a great way to stampede people into losing that klittle bit of personal equity, the same way the “no doc loans” resulted in bidding up real estate and the eventual crash of net worth that resulted.

Yang is just anothe socialist.  He doesn’t have any more answers than us.  Decreasing car ownership means fewere highway department jobs, fewer convenience stores, fewer shopping experiences, fewer gas stations…OMG the list of hammered jobs is long.

How many?  Well, the Auto Alliance figures there are a shade under 10-million jobs at stake.  So “no private cars” would directly result in >10 percent unemployment. Take ripples and 25% unemployment follows.  Yeah, sure…you vote for that.  And come back here when you dry out.

Software people seemm to have a warped and twisted view of life here on “The Outside” of their screen worlds.  Life is not effectively modeled anywhere in Silly Con Valley.  We’d love to see Yang’s improvements to the Federal Reserves DSGE model that would support such Dystopian environmental free lunch programs.

Should any of the Yangsters wish to check out how an approximation of reality (out here) works, we would suggest Wikipedia:

“Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium modeling (abbreviated as DSGE, or DGE, or sometimes SDGE) is a method in macroeconomics that attempts to explain economic phenomena, such as economic growth and business cycles, and the effects of economic policy, through econometric models based on applied general equilibrium theory and microeconomic principles. “

And should the  miracle recode of supply and demand work, and a mythical way to give away free lunches without killing society in the process is tested, send a copy of it over to Ben Bernanke at  Brookings.  The grown-ups would love to see what kind of mirages play on Oculus.

In the meantime, pardon our skepticism.  America’s only kidding itself; We’re scraping the bottom of the barrel making-up new Dividing Political Industries.  Except no one calls it that, so let’s lay out a few:

  • The Gender Industry
  • The Weather/Climate Industry
  • The Pollution Crisis Industry
  • The Gun Grab Industry
  • The Marxist Economics Industry
  • The Open Border Industry
  • The Trump hate industry

As we’ve been  preaching for years:  Everything’s a Business Model .  Once you see it, you’ll be appalled.

And you have only to open your eyes and see the Digital Mobsters who are moving in for the kill.  Waiting for a crash because that’s what the kiddies with the Molotov’s want for their own selfish ends.

Madness of End Times.  Anymore, you don’t even need a religion to see it.

Just a working bullshit detector.

Whistleblower or Traitor?

We see again how the  NY Times is on another Trump-attack expedition with stories like “Whistle-Blower Complaint Sets Off a Battle Involving Trump.”

A couple of points here:  Trump can say what he wants to foreign leaders is the first.  He is what you call a “president” and as such can declassify (and say) whatever he needs to in order to carry out his plans.  He won.  Deal with it.

Second point is if the “whistleblower” is keeping secrets, what the f*ck is the story doing all over  Drudge?

Seems to me there’s a ticket to Leavenworth around here somewhere.  I know only the basics of clearances, though  I still honor the requirements of my security clearance – and that goes back more than half a century.  Who the hell are these people?  And since when do the agencies that work for the President get to judge and convict in the press?

No, it’s crystal to us that there’s an ongoing coup attempt and the papers (and networks) promoting it don’t seem to hold the same values or believe in the same Constitution as previous generations.

Anymore, you only need to read a few headlines to figure out who’s in bed with who politically.

We’ll stick with economics and things we know (like reporting).

Oh, and breakfast.

Write when you get rich,

george@ure.net

48 thoughts on “Does “1929” Begin Next Week?”

  1. -FED is Deep State Controlled, and NOT Federal at all.

    -Trump is at WAR with Deep Sate (constant threat of SNIPER (s) to his Family), JFK was casualty of one these battles. Today’s sniper rifles are deadly accurate at over 1 mile out – with right phone app ANYBODY can be this deadly.

    – Global CB – Fin System will be taken down (we are in midst of rear guard action currently)

    How do U plan to make transition over to new System – while minimizing the disruptions to global commerce ? The answers are the future opportunities..and this deplorable plans to thrive on ensuing chaos and reset – whats in your plans G?

    • Next week don’t be surprised if we see another 800 point drop in the DOW. The fuse has been lit by Iran on one side & Trump on the other side burning toward the middle. Maybe another cruise missile firing to push Trump over the edge. Islam needs a Trump military response to justify retaliation in a major way. Spend the weekend cleaning you AR 15. The US, Israel, & Europe would be the major targets. Saudia Arabia was just handy at the time. If they hit Israel with that cruise missile all hell would have broken loose before they had justification (Trump response) to begin a major bombing parade.

      • Strange that Russia would so willingly let anybody buy their stuff (then we can dismantle it, and copy their designs?)

        Russia offers to sell their missile defense system (since the U.S. defense system did not protect Aramco) to Saudi Arabia.

        https://www.newsweek.com/russia-saudi-missiles-same-iran-1459510

        p.s. dreamologists, G & E paid me a visit at my apt (which was much bigger in the dream than it is in real life)

  2. George, yours is still the best column I read each morning. Couple of points.

    A cowardly snitch inside the President’s office is BS. If you have a job and don’t like the legitimate activities of your boss, for God’s sake QUIT. Then take it to the media, write a book or do whatever you have to do to feel like a hero but don’t continue to bite the hand that feeds you.

    Also, I am reading Blake Harris’s book “The History Of The Future” and wondering where AI is going to leave us all. What happens when anyone can flip on a headset and be part of any adventure in any part of the world without leaving your easy chair? No travel agents, no plane flights, no expense except the software.

  3. One area that’s not yet legally monetized outside Nevada is prostitution, and that’s regulated to the point that it’s overpriced and mostly not worth the grief.

    Decriminalizing and NOT regulating beyond any other business would work well for both prostitution and “professional girlfriends”. This is a genuine unmet need in the USA and is exacerbated by the “poundmetoo” movement and other cultural confusions.

    I won’t pass judgement morally. I just think it’s best for all involved to let the market sort this situation out and provide another option for those with resources, talents, and needs. It would provide access to police and courts by both/all parties in the same way as any other enterprise. If any legal entity is to crowd out an illegal one, it must provide a superior service, lower price, or both.

  4. Ding Ding – looks like the bell has started ringing on Oil Derivatives blowing up – Mitsubishi first one up to admit “rogue” trader lost a couple hundred mill. on bad oil bets..bwahahahaha

    Yeah yeah the middle east is in high state of alert..read Tension! but I’m going bet oil prices stay depressed..while Saudi Aramco is getting ready to launch IPO and needs much higher oil prices, as do Russia and Iran and Iraq.Geniuses..

    QUAD Witch means greater opportunity for the coot to take MOAR money from the computers. Wonder what the market will be willing to pay for a Share of an Oil Major paying 5% dividend yield and sitting on millions in proven reserves? A better question is how much Premium one is willing to pay for the right to own afore mentioned Oil Major at a later date and set price ?

    Got PMs, Streamers?

    • “Wonder what the market will be willing to pay for a Share of an Oil Major paying 5% dividend yield and sitting on millions in proven reserves?”

      Are YOU looking @ XOM ? ;-)

  5. G – thoughts on how 1929 surveillance fits into the 2019 rhyme.

    Yesterday Detroit police voted to allow Detroit police to continue using facial recognition in the city, even though Detroit citizens decided against the Detroit police using facial recognition. Detroit police did say they would only use the facial recognition to catch violent criminals.

    I think this means everyone gets recognized, but only certain criminals will be picked up.

    Since most suburbs don’t get fed-bux at the scale of Detroit, they can’t compete with surveillance. Therefore, I see a future where Detroit (surveillance zones) is “safe” and everyone outside of the surveillance zone will be in danger.

    There’s going to be a flip-flop from the suburban build-out back to the cities.

  6. ? Who took down the repo market? If germany, aka 1929 overseas took down stocks (US); then repeat? Why? German/france army… why? No German buys F-35s.. Why? Turkey getting along? Why? US food issues (early winter, no crops). Why? US shale over?

    • Ditto — “You do realize that we will need you to run for office.”

      So funny, because that’s what I said to DJT, long ime ago, while he was still working for real in NYC.

  7. Speaking of Home Depot scanning everyone’s face.

    Yesterday I was at Home Depot and noticed all the cash register jockeys are gone.

    The front of the store including Pro Services had been converted into U-Scans. There are two U-Scan station monitors (people) monitoring all the stations.

    One cash register remains in the garden center.

    The future is happening.

    • there was a store that had tracking devices in the tags so that they could tell where their lines of clothing were sold for advertisement purposes..

  8. George,
    Technology has always been perceived as a job destroyer every decade since the industrial revolution. French economist Frédéric Bastiat wrote in his 1850 essay That Which Is Seen, And That Which Is Not Seen. What is seen are the jobs that are disappearing. What is not seen are the jobs that will emerge. Because we don’t know about them yet. Because they will appear in shapes and sizes that aren’t familiar to us, that don’t resemble 20th-century work. Because the ways money circulates will also change, as will money itself.

    As far as Andrew Yangs vision of no ownership of cars…read further. Unless you pay cash, do we really own our cars now?

    Based on a new car bought for $33,560, at 5% interest will cost $3,703 over the cost of the loan…add $800 for sales tax and just the car payment itself costs $38,603 ..add down payment of 10%, depreciation costs, fuel, insurance, maintenance and tires, licensing registration and taxes, cost of ownership is:
    * Year 1: $9,756
    * Year 5: $7,517
    * Year 10: $5,914

    So, that $33,560 car costs $61,250 over 5 years…just in time for things to start breaking down in most cars…adding higher maintenance costs. Yangs proposal will make transportation costs a fraction of that.

    What Yang is saying is that… “What we’re really selling is not the car, it’s mobility,” he said. “So if you have mobility that’s then tied into a much more, if you had like, for example, this constant roving fleet of electric cars that you would just order up.

    I grew up as a kid in the late 50’s and 60’s. 80% of families then had one car garages and one car. All over the Bay Area, there are many of these post WWII homes with one car garages on large lots are being torn down and remodeled into elaborate modern homes. My mom didn’t even get her drivers license until I was in third grade…We got our second car when I was in 5th grade. To this day, my mom only puts on maybe 2,500 miles a year on her car. Does she really need one?

    My point is, where are we really going with our cars that we need to own two, three or four depending on the size of the family? Looking back, As if it were the future, I would have been less stressed if my kids had a subscription to order up a car to drive them to school and sports practice, rather than worrying about them driving recklessly with phone in hand to their destinations. As it stands right now, at the ages of 28 and 30, living on their own, they mostly take Uber Or Lyft to after hours events, sporting events like Giants, A’s, Sharks Or 49er/Raider games…as do my wife and I. I only Uber to the city because parking sucks there. Urban people like me are already open to the idea. And it’s not only urban…my oldest at 35 years old, lives in a medium size Midwestern City and he does the same.

    Does it kill jobs? Not really… cars still have to be made…software to run those autonomous vehicles still has to be written…the World Economic Forum states..”The advancement of robotics and artificial intelligence will make 75 million jobs obsolete by the year 2022, according to a new report. Sounds dreadful, but the same report goes on to predict the creation of 133 million new jobs over the same period.”

    This is the circle of life as it relates to our economy. I have seen the Bay Area evolve from the dot com crash of 2001 and rebound with a flourish. Then 2008 happened…and it didn’t faze us too long as the technologically savvy Bay Area rocketed to the 17th largest economy in the world if it was a country at $878 billion GDP. 2019 projections have it topping $1 trillion. Technology is the future of this country.

    So, is Yang a socialist or capitalist? Seems to me has been trying to do what Trump can’t…create jobs in the heartland with his Venture for America push. VFA’s strategy was to recruit the nation’s top college graduates into a two-year fellowship program in which they would work for and apprentice at promising startups in developing cities across the United States. Yang’s book Smart People Should Build Things (2014) argues that the top universities in the country cherry-pick the smartest kids out of small towns and funnel them into the same corporate jobs in the same big cities. VFA’s goal is to help distribute that talent around the country and incentivize entrepreneurship for economic growth.

    After 2011 VFA grew, reaching a $6 million annual operating budget in 2017, and operating in about 20 U.S. cities, adding Kansas City, Atlanta, Baltimore, Birmingham, Charlotte, Cleveland, Columbus, Denver, Miami, Nashville, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, and St. Louis. VFA began running a “startup accelerator” in Detroit and launched a seed fund and an investment fund for fellows.

    • You missed the entire point. You are arguing for the asset stripping of America to continue.
      Right now, Elaine and I own 2 vehicles. We drive less than 5,000 miles a year on them total for both., Since we maintain our stuff, the Lexus and the Dodge pickup are assets.
      Our cost of ownership is $ 74.25 a year for the tags on each and insurance plus a $4 inspection sticker. Call it $160 bucks. We can drive this way for another 10 years and 50,000 miles.
      There’s no way on God’s green earth Yangsters will deliver on such crack pipe dreams. Not and with the other key variable: zero time delivery.
      You see, since George 2 drives for Uber and Lyft, he knows that when we use them add in a half hour wait and maybe an hour plus if raining.
      uh-uh.
      We have been sold GM’s “right now” freedom of the American Road.
      Your accounting works for people with high incomes, and who are “urban dense” as it were. But middle America has been asset stripped and swindled enough.
      Or so those of us who still value freedom pray.

      • I agree with George on the need for fully owned and amortized vehicles when living away from the city. If I go there, it’s a minimum of a 200 mile round trip and I need to not only carry a lot of stuff, but I need to have it available all the time I’m there. I’m not just transporting myself, I’m transporting an office, tools and materials for many different and unrelated errands. I’ll be loading up for the backhaul too. When a vehicle returns here, it stays largely loaded.

        It’s necessary to have at least two vehicles per household(even if you live alone) in a rural setting since walking is a really bad option. Generally one(at least) is a heavy hauler and the other is an economy car. Such mission profiles are ill suited to a “multirole” vehicle such as what might be available on a use basis(F-35, anyone?). I know people who live in urban areas that could never do with less than two vehicles without cramping their style completely. We’ve not even begun to cover trailers and other equipment.

        There are a few things that I’ll rent. Very few. The same goes for insurance.

    • One other point: automation does kill jobs. You are just more easily swayed by people who write what your internal bias is attuned to.
      Model it.
      When you do, there’s tiny growth in technology overlaps. But when the overlaps are gone, net employment drops.
      Remember TV repair shops?>

      • Remember typewriter retail stores? Remember Blockbuster? Remember Polaroid? Remember gas station attendants? Remember horse and buggies? All of those industries were gobbled up and 10x more jobs were created to replace them. Come on George. We have 3% unemployment. Think progressively. Those that hold onto the past, have no future. Opportunities exist with every change…those that refuse it will lose it.

      • Automation definitely kills jobs, but for some reason it never kills work. People today are busier than ever keeping up with and feeding the automated system. Unfortunately, most of the time they don’t get paid.

        There is ROI for work you do outside the monetary system and it’s still legal for the most part. Other work, such as using the self-scan units in stores are just you doing the work of the cashier for free.

      • Also remember that Netflix jobs on average pay up to 5x more than the Blockbuster jobs they replaced. Most of Blockbuster jobs were minimum wage. Netflix engineers make tons of money.

        Apple, Samsung etc jobs employ 20x that of the Kodak and Polaroid jobs they replaced…pay is more than triple.

        I could go on and on and on. I have charts too. Those jobs and salaries is why the average cost of a home here is $1.6 million and no matter how much we build we always have a housing shortage.

        You really need to take a trip out here to see the growth and craziness. There are more high rise cranes in the air than my hometown had completed high rises.

      • Mark- Do you really think that Amazon and Walmart really provide more better jobs than the other retailers and service companies they crowded out?
        I would like to see the source of the Netflix pay statistic you are quoting. That sounds made up.

      • OH MY MARK..

        I WANT TO SEE THEIR EMPLOYEE RETENTION RATIO..

        Another company but similar use to have a tech center close by me.. all of them hard working and pushed by the company to the limits.. even expected to be in two places at one time.. ( one of the kids.. that was affected had three kids and was caught off guard.. he was one of my xmas presents to myself to help through his crisis long story but a good one)
        anyway every year just a couple of weeks before xmas.. they would have a big meeting.. their xmas party.. and during that meeting every year the company would let go all of the employees not in management except a couple of them.. that they would retain to train.. these employees would usually get the ax the next year..
        so seriously what is their retention ratio for laborers.. DJT his company can boast 80 percent.. that is unheard of even in very good companies.. sure the pay was great but should have been viewed as a part time gig..
        I would usually go into a place and then have coffee.. sit back and listen visit with the employees.. it doesn’t take long to get the true view of the management of a company..
        What I told the kids is..
        go into a company and sit down and have coffee.. fill out an application in the breakroom.. if they do all their hiring from an outside firm.. the find out where the workers of that company congregate.. each one has one.. then go in and have coffee or a cold beverage and bring up the fact that you are considering applying there..
        when in the interview.. question the interviewer as to why they are seeking employees.. first off you will hear having coffee how management really is and be able to judge from there.. you may not have to ask the interviewer why..
        ask the employees what the average turnover rate is.. they will tell you.. god we just can’t keep help..
        if the retention rate is 75 to 100 percent.. then you could have a great future with that company.. they value their employees..
        if the retention level is 50-75.. well its a if if company.. usually good pay good benefits but a little shoty in management they expect the world for nothing in return..
        Look at the cars.. all management park in one area.. if they are driving cars that exceed their highest payed employees .. then it is about ME not the company or the employees..what does the CEO drive.. I remember working for a retail outfit and the kid( now ceo)drove up.. he was driving a car that at the time sold for about sixty grand.. his old man who drove my dads car lectured him on not showing off to the workers..smart man I would have gone through fire for him.. the kid.. NAA he isn’t worth my time..
        If the retention level is 40 – 50 percent.. LOL LOL oh well if you really need the job take it but keep looking see if the management on staff have brown noses or slightly liberated sexually because management is only one sided and could care less about anyone working for them….
        If the retention level is lower than that.. run for cover that management sucks the big walley and isn’t worth your time.

        Now my walmart story as it was told to me… a young lady that worked with me at a grocery chain took a job there when they were first building their first store.. the manager a suck up bastard.. chewed her azz all the time single mom she was trying to make it.. and this guy just loved to ride her like a cheap trick… one late night she was stocking the shelves this jerk had just finished his daily ride.. and she started to cry.. the old guy stocking the shelf next to her said what is the matter honey.. she told him the story about this jerk.. the man got emotional and said oh honey he isn’t walmart quality.. the old man.. was sam walton the owner of the walmart chain he came to work and just started to work.. bosses like that are few and far between.. I had one that would pick one of his stores every thursday night.. the one with the arrogant spoiled child..go to work help finish up the day then sit down on the steps where we took our breaks have coffee and a doughnut and visit about our jobs and lives etc..My father worked for the colonel.. he was a man to be admired took care of his employees and had to almost force people to retire.. with tens of thousands of employees world wide.. my guess is he knew who the family members were and their lifes struggles were.. a great man.. I knew him personally the son of a delivery boy..and he knew everyone in my family..
        Now walmart is owned by china.. or a firm in china.. but even with that.. they stick by their employee’s is there a jerk running around absolutely.. does management kick them out like sam would have.. I doubt that.. just look at the retention level of any store and you will get a good clue.. but the pay is higher than average.. they stick by you when you are sick..( I worked at a hospital well two of them one was a little more pro active but both wouldn’t stick by you if you got sick.. you are to be there working.. if they could get a bus and load up on refugees they would because they can get two for the price of one)
        Most of the jobs I had were suck jobs.. no real future.. the more you made the worse the employer treated you.. the really good jobs don’t hire.. their employees what to stay there for life.. it was a dream to work for one of them..
        One place the guy took the whole plant on a two week cruise.. started busing service and a sick daycare for employees that had sick children.. he has since died and it isn’t any longer like that.. and they don’t see that parents have to be home if the child is sick..
        anyway that is the view from someone that has been at the bottom his whole life..the catfish of the crowd..

    • “… but the same report goes on to predict the creation of 133 million new jobs over the same period.”

      With matching intelligence to fill these jobs whlle many graduates today cannot pass tests, unless they cheat.

      Sorry, Mark you are too optimistik, IMHO

      • Which is why we have to import Chinese and Indian engineers on H1-B visas to fill the gaps. They don’t cheat.

      • “Which is why we have to import Chinese and Indian engineers ”

        GEE MARK..

        That is just about the

        dumbest thing I have ever heard you say……

        Why not train our own using the engineers we have here today as the teachers..

        we have the talent it is usually right there where they are working…….

        we payed for the education of those they want to import yet shove our own children into positions limit education when we use to be the ones to be looked at for our engineering skills and talents our drive..

        god I must be feeling feisty today..

      • I am a bottom feeder..
        ask any employer I ever worked for.. I was one of their best employee’s.. (its how I was raised) they had a program where if you gave them a suggestion that would save the company at least ten grand a year then you could go out to the country club with the boss once a month… I went every month for over a decade and still had six lunches with the boss left..
        My thought was.. show them that I don’t need a piece of paper written in crayon.. to be of value.. I was to good as a grunt.. and even now can tell you the part number to everything in their catalog and how its made..
        when I left.. ( I went to a surgery for my daughter and was gone four hours.. they knew it well in advance had their permission to go.. but they went by the point system and ten years before I had had jury duty.. I quit because of that) and when I left the boss ran into my new boss and told him.. if we knew how hard he was working we wouldn’t have ever did that.. it took six people to fill my shoes.. even today I know for a fact that I could walk in and they would snatch me up even with all the physical issues I have..
        there is unrecognized talent in every field with the intelligence to match or exceed what any college grad can come up with they were taught by experience and working with it day and night.. the only difference they didn’t have the money to buy a piece of paper….

    • @ mark

      If you do not want to own a car…Avis , Hertz…uger, fyft…

      Freedom of Choice…by individuals …not some jerk off in DC…dictating what you can or can not do…maybe since you live in a ‘nanny’ state you like to be told how to live your life…some of us do not.

    • You lost me at the $33,560 new car BS. Millions of us wouldn’t put our key in a new car/high loan & insurance clap trap if you gave us the down payment. The rest of your theories are all gonna fall in a muddle when they drop the dollar. Your constant bloviating is so tiresome, go write your own blog.

    • Mark, “Does she really need one?” Your basic philosophy appears to be summed up in those 5 words. My main question is whether she gets to decide or do others decide for her? You obviously are in favor of others deciding for her. Yet, you don’t want people deciding things for you that you don’t like or agree with. That is a fundamental conflict, but you may overlook that because you may believe that you know more/better than others, i.e. are superior, smarter, etc. If so, that is a false belief. Beliefs that are inconsistent with reality lead to misguided speech, actions and ultimately poor outcomes. Reality is not conned.

      Another question is whether we really need anything? Maslow addressed this subject pretty well. Much of what we have we don’t need per se, but what we possess can begin to allow our attention to focus ever higher on what is sorely needed – to honestly face and understand ourself.

      If you haven’t plumbed your own depths and faced your deepest fears and flaws, your opinions of others and what they “need” are very incomplete. You may like it that way because it allows you to continue your folly. Most do. My guess is a part of you knows this and it gnaws at you. Only you know for sure.

      Those who are afraid and unable to solve their own problems have never solved the problems of everyone else.

    • “My mom didn’t even get her drivers license until I was in third grade…We got our second car when I was in 5th grade.”

      Since your younger than I am.. that would put that time frame real close to the time of all the deregulation’s and NAFTA…

      When mothers were forced to leave home and seek employment to help with the cost of low income jobs while the good paying positions and industry started to be sent oversea’s.. I will never forget my car insurance.. I was paying 120.00 every six months.. deregulated it and it shot up to six hundred every six months.. get a ticket and it doubled or tripled if there was an accident involved.
      (never pay a fine right away.. wait a week.. really long story but it is wise suggestion)

  9. George,
    We see the same problems, just (maybe) different solutions.
    Middle Class demand drives the economy. It’s trickle-up, not down.
    It’s a falling birthrate now mostly depressing the economy (see Japan), but with the Great Automation Job-loss Recession about to hit full force in 5 more years, there will be even less spending circulating. And we agree that all the same conditions that fueled the 1930s ‘populists’ will repeat to assault democracy even further.
    So how do we put more money into the hands of the people that actually spend enough of it (on a macro level)? Now, that’s the ticket, laddy.
    Giving more money to rich guys (like me an you) doesn’t work, as has been proved repeatedly starting with Reagan tripling the national debt, (otherwise the recent tax cuts wouldn’t have put another $2 trillion on the national debt and the bump would have lasted more than 6 months). And immigration to substitute for low birthrates is not going to happen.
    But it’s still trickle up, not down.
    You suggested a ‘robot’ tax; Yang suggests an ‘Amazon’ tax. Very similar concepts. But, no matter the means, someone has to start thinking about how to get money into the hands of the people that actually spend enough of it into the economy. Would that we’d have put that wasted $2 trillion on the national debt into infrastructure and all those good middle class jobs, instead of tax cuts for the rich, but like the conservatives breaking the Middle East or motivating the denuding of the Amazon by exporting the soybean market, that’s now spilled milk.
    Best, Mike.

    • No personal or private vehicles means no food production. What will the green genocide crowd think of next?

      Ignore the stooges and have a happy Saturday, Bruno :)

  10. Let me see if I understand you. Anyone who questions the President is a member of the deep state and is part of a coup – even if the person in question is bound by their oath to the constitution? Now Trump’s lawyers are making the case that the president cannot be investigated for any reason and that he is above and beyond the law. Are you sure you want this? You’ll be happy with President AOC being above the law and not answerable to any congressional oversight? I was with you and everyone else when Obama pushed the bounds of executive power, but there is nothing to see here? Why all the lying and hiding? The blowback from this and other buried scandals will be huge, and what we’ll get next will be worse.

      • Unless it’s an [redacted] like Trump George. That’s where I and other people with integrity draw the line. He is unfit and people are fed up. Isn’t it a sign that Kelly, Tillerson, Mattis, Scaramucci and now Bolton have said Trump is an idiot out loud and are not holding back. Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said last month that he’s assembling a team of former Cabinet members to speak out against President Trump. That’s the bombshell coming out soon.

      • No.

        People who “draw that line”

        HAVE no integrity.

        One of the biggest problems the United States has, is a bunch of people who believe laws, rules, and regulations don’t apply to them, and if caught in violation, believe punishments for the above should not be vested upon them.

        If there IS a whistleblower, and I’m not yet convinced the underlying story was NOT propagated by someone in Elizabeth Warren’s camp, to force Trump to call for an investigation of Hunter Biden, and subsequently, Creepy Joe, that whistleblower should be identified, then relocated to Fort Leavenworth, or the execution cellblock at Terre Haute.

  11. Sometimes I feel that I might only have few days left. Probably explains my posting a few comments today.

    To GU — it was, IMHO, the best essay that you’ve posted ever. Thank you!

    Btw. SPY looks to me like a “double top.” We’ll see.

  12. I too only know the basics of clearances, but ISTM someone would have to be in the room during such a phone call, to overhear a portion of a conversation. All such conversations are classified at least “secret” so any leak of any part of one is a felony.

    The pertinent conversations were held between Giuliani and Ukraine officials.

    Giuliani conducted them at the specific request of the U.S. State Department.

    State Department officials were kept completely in the loop at all times.

    At least one conversation may have involved Hunter Biden:

    VP Joe Biden was in charge of financial aid disbursement to the Ukraine.

    Hunter Biden, with his partner, Devon Archer (A former senior advisor to then SecState John Kerry) were awarded seats on the Board of Directors of Burisma, Ukraine’s largest private energy company. The Ukrainian Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin, began an investigation into Hunter Biden, because Biden had no relevent experience in any facet of either a Ukrainian business or an energy business, and his appointment bore the appearance of impropriety.

    Creepy Joe contacted Ukraine officials, on record (he brags about strong-arming them, now) specifically Yanukovych and Mykola Azarov (who’s now on Interpol’s most-wanted list) and informed them the next $1bln aid payment from the U.S. would be delayed until Shotkin was fired. The prosecutor went away, Hunter’s “issue” went away, Ukraine got its payola.

    Shokin later applied for a visa to come to the U.S. and testify before Congress. His visa application has been repeatedly denied.

    For more information on this, and information that’s not been tainted by the mainstream propagandists over the past few days, start with:

    https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27403003

    and then hop to:

    https://esade-business-school.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-biden-familys-strange-business.html

    I know they’re blogs, and I don’t usually cite the blogosphere, but piecing this together from actual news (it IS out there, if anyone needs a new hobby) would require dozens of links, and frankly, I haven’t the time, today…

    BTW, it is my carefully-considered opinion, pending further information of course, that the NYT article is both a fabrication and a hitpiece. Hey, it worked last time (when fabricated crap was leaked to the NYT, and its publication used to justify a FISA Warrant), so why not try it again…?

  13. “But now, we see the “long wave” with a decline in 2020 possible as being 90+ years in length.

    What has changed?”

    George… IT DIDN’T CHANGE… it was delayed on purpose..

    The change should have happened during the eighties.. and it was on track to do just that..

    https://www.cannonfinancial.com/uploads/main/aefcausesandconsequenceskondratievs.pdf

    Each Kondratieff cycle ends with a general crisis.

    Read more at https://knowledge.insead.edu/strategy/the-next-cycle-of-capitalism-5226#5i67Hp2ofuDO0LFw.99

    It was delayed during the 80’s by seizing the SS funds of what 4 trillion which would have gained from that point if it had been left to increase by compounding to now fifty trillion.. ( rough guesstament taking into account of the incoming funds along with the outgoing funds.. SS would be totally secure if not given to congress to squander away on banks and wars that we should not be involved in )

    The journal.. ( before I started to discount it as being biased) had a really good article on the K-wave and how it was delayed..
    If..totally my opinion here we had followed the plan that Jimmy Carter had suggested and put into action what he had suggested.. the wave would have bottomed and we would have suffered through the 80’s and early ninety’s and be coming out of it at this time to start the new wave.. and would have suffered less it would have sucked.. it did anyway because the middle class and poor was tossed under the bus. With the new spending bill passed a few years ago.. the bottom eighty percent is tossed under the bus.. congress has squandered any hopes of easing and the delays that were made are going to start happening..

    https://www.academia.edu/36117858/The_Future_of_the_Global_Economy_in_the_Light_of_Inflationary_and_Deflationary_Trends_and_Long_Cycles_Theory

    https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1612/1612.09189.pdf

    https://www.sociostudies.org/journal/files/jogs/2014_2/152-173.pdf

    https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2997978_code1315922.pdf?abstractid=2997978&mirid=1

    https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/48356/1/MPRA_paper_48356.pdf

    Ok.. I could probably give even more reading material.. but they pretty much all say the same thing with a slightly different perspective.

    take rent…for an example.. in the seventies.. it was twenty five cents a square foot for the average wage earner to pay for rent of a modest apartment or home.. My first home contract for deed was forty five dollars a month for payment..
    Todays rent.. for a modest apartment with aproximately seven hundred square foot of space is about a dollar and a half a square foot per month..for an upper end close to two dollars a square foot. Wages from that time to now.. while wages has gone up for executive branch the wages at the bottom has stalled.. they maybe go up two percent while inflation is four to eight percent per year..
    Each year the number of people seeking assistance is growing.. the amount people are saving is declining.. most like myself live paycheck to paycheck.. I am pretty fair when it comes to budgeting and maintaining our quality of life.. and can tell you it is becoming a real nightmare to do without seeking assistance. I told the wife we should move into an apartment.. the cost factor of renting an apartment at two dollars a square foot.. is so much less than what we pay in our own home..( I even thought about moving to the outback of Texas since their taxes are rediculously low and the cost of housing is cheap there) ( if it wasn’t so damned hot there.. it would be a real issue being argued to the wife)
    anyway.. its all in play.. it was just delayed by the way President Reagan handled the situation. by taking the future security of the elderly and using those funds to bail out the banking industry..
    Now if DJT goes after the worm with the Iran conflict and gets us involved in another war that I view as a black flag event.. then we will fall.. he will take the blame for the crash of the century worse than any in past history..
    The question that should be viewed and isn’t is.. during the gulf war.. the Saudi nation just to stop a could be attack on their well and refinery spent over two billion dollars.. without anyone going into their country at all.
    Now my question is if this was a direct attack.. why aren’t they paying for the conflict that eveyrone wants us to get involved in.. if they spent over two billion dollars to defend their borders over a possible attack.. you would think they would be scrambling to get the job done.. what was it they said during the gulf war.. NO MATTER WHAT IT COSTS…..
    the biggest mistake DJT could do is have us walk in.. let the democrats send us in if they want a war so bad..

    • I don’t want to belabor the point too much, but this is exactly the point.

      The real drivers of the massive shift up to $1.50 a s/f for rent in big cities is really a combination of things, buty it comes down to pernicious watering down of purchasing power, effects of compound int. on the fed debt PLUS the asset stripping of Americans.

      That why the NooLefties are hell-bent on asset stripping of cars, for example, as one of the few remaining personal asset classes or any size left to be stripped by “climate taxers.”

      It’s all about a wealth transfer into the pockets of the Masters of the Left (Obama and Gore types and their ultra-rich owners who buy policies from the K Steeet mobfia) from the working people. And innocents (or so we delude ourselves) like the mobster head of the Yangsters, all fail to see how their noses are so far into the purses of their masters they can’t see it.

      It’s a phantasmagorical contortion to behold: Heads up asses only so far as to only leave a bit of their noses in purses. Damnedest vision y’ever saw. But, who said Reality was pretty when in focus?

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