We have three stories this morning which can be broadly lumped under the “waiting for the wreckage” concept.
The first, as always around here, is financial in nature. This is because in the Grand Long Wave Theory of things, we’re getting down close to the bottom of the trough of long-term interest rates and we are nearly at Ure’s Paradox.
A chart in one of the recent Peoplenomics reports sums up the problem graphically:
What this means is that as interest rates fall, stock prices with stable earnings will go up.
But there is a boundary zone, because as interest rates approach zero then suddenly the value of stocks drops precipitously because confidence in the whole economy just got crushed by inflation.
And this, of course, explains neatly why a) the market is continuing to replay the spring-summer of 2011 so nicely and b) why the stock market fell on its butt on Friday.
This morning, has anything changed? Well, no.
The Market is waiting to open down about 50 on the Dow and somewhere in here we will begin edging down to the 1835-1840 S&P level.
Unfortunately, our Trading Model will have announced a sell signal somewhere before that (at least likely so) and that will set up further panic down to the next lower level, which is around S&P 1740, by Robin Landry’s calculations.
But if/when THAT fails, then we finally get around to an S&P with a target of 1,565 (my work) or as low as 1,540 (Landry’s work) as possibilities along in August, but perhaps earlier.
The next Biggie, in terms of market data, will be the Consumer (yoke of) Debt (credit to banksters) which will be released by the Fed today.
With M1 interest rates jacked up to 18.3% annualized (printing money is the apparent replacement for QE’s going away) we will be holding our breath to see if people are putting on the yoke of debt at high enough levels to sustain the economy going forward. The yoke is presumably very comfy if you’re a Fortunate 500 corporation, but the credit card money-changers don’t give a rip and so they’re still screwing people with 29.9% rates on delinquent payments.
And it is EXACTLY this spread (the 29.9% F.U. Consumer Rate – versus the 0.25% we love you bankster rate, that Her Yellinness doesn’t seem to be addressing.
Until that spread is narrowed (with a return to usury laws, perhaps?) it’s only a matter of time until the economy goes off to become the poster child for wreckage, also to be known as the Second Depression.
Our #2 Wreckage story after this shameless bit of self-promotion…
The Pinger-Dinger
The media hype machine is going full blast this morning. And once again, it’s the hunt for MH370 and reports that a promising signal has been heard.
If this is starting to sound a little suspect, I can tell you as someone who has worked on battery powered projects involving battery instrumentation (and yes, on patents for it) there is not a lot of reason to put stock in these latest reports.
Batteries, you see, are chemical and the colder they get, the less energy they put out. I don’t have the specs on the pinger’s battery in front of me, but a month, under cold water and “keeps on running? Count me skeptical, for sure.
Another reason to be skeptical is this note from a source:
Following my previous emails to you regarding flight MH370 going north and not south I wish to update you and point out to you that there is still no public technical evidence to support that the flight really did go south as the media reports. I am an expert in RADAR, RF, IP networking and Doppler theory/capabilities. You, I am certain are well versed in radio and RF theory. You will thus understand that the so called Rolls Royce Engine satellite pings that were received by the two satellites could only measure transit time and RF Doppler shift. Thus:
1) East/West relative direction could be determined for the plane by measuring message transit time and Doppler shift. I believe the MH370 flight path was certainly in the west side of the map ellipse depicted in map-1 below.
2) But the Doppler shift of the carrier frequency of the RF ping will not allow anyone to ascertain whether the plane went north or south, but only along with the signal transit time that the plane moved as far as the limits in the black arc on map-1. North or south cannot be known from this data
As you can see (look at map 1 of the 2 maps below) if the flight went north it would have ended up in one of the “Stans” such as Kyrgyzstan or Pakistan or very close to it. Terrorism in Kyrgyzstan has increased since the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban in 2001. Southern Kyrgyzstan is increasingly sympathetic to terrorism and radical Islam according to Wikipedia. Western governments would not want terrorist organizations to know that they know where the plane is now located.
The current detection of crash recorder audio pings at 37.5 KHz are probably false and from dolphins .( “… frequency range between 1 and 120 kc/s).China may need some positive PR to show to their people that they are being responsive to find their citizens lost on the flight.
I predict the real story could break by May 2nd……….. .That could be the payback day on the 3rd anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death at the compound in Bilal Town.
Map 1 (the alternate position) comes up in the area of the Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan frontiers. And that gets us to our third point of wreckage to discuss this morning….
Will Putin Stand Down?
Russians remember “The Great Patriotic War,” another one of my sources told me this weekend. They should. 20-million people died. And, for historians, the main difference between Stalin and Hitler was what? Stalin didn’t fight two fronts. Hitler did, and lost.
“The Five Party Treaty of 1997 runs out in 2020,” my source reminded me. “And because of recent events, China and Russia have moved up their military timetables. Remember that Putin is judoko shihan and Russians don’t do two fronts.”
Which means, if Russia is to face down China out in the 2017 period, then he needs to get as much industrial resource in Europe behind him as he can right now.”
Hmmm… I’ve been correct so far in forecasting that Russia would “go to the mat” on the Crimea, but pro-Russians are now declaring eastern Ukraine to be theirs in Donetsk.
But what comes into focus is “Will Russia stop?”
My circumspect source then noted that the Russian massive military exercises are due to end on April 21. But what if instead of dispersing back into mother Russia, they move West?
“And let’s not forget that Russian military doctrine is very public and clear: They will go nuclear first against NATO…”
The rest of our conversation turned to “If we were writing a Tom Clancy novel, how would it play?”
One thought was that you could strip out a 777-ER and put almost 400-men in it, along with equipment, paint it up in the colors of a friendly airline and simply fly it into whatever European airport you wanted to secure as your beachhead. Not a pretty scenario.
So the whole context of mess #3 this morning if whether Putin keeps his word and doesn’t go further into Ukraine. But if Russian troops cross the border west-bound, then it will be “game on” and not a pretty one, at that.
There are, my colleague reminded me, three militaries in some ways of Russian thinking: The legal, the media, and the political officers.
The legal has played Ukraine well, so far. And maybe moving in support of Donetsk might be stretched. But that becomes the line. Anything else and nuclear stakes are in play.
Two other worrisome thoughts as I read James Dunnigan’s Getting It Right, Second Edition:American Military Reforms After Vietnam and Into the 21st Century (Kindle, $4 bucks, it’s worth it).
America’s military is really very, very good. But as Dunnigan warns, whereas the America of the past always lost the first few encounters, we may not have the edge that we had going into Iraq. And certainly, once could worry, we don’t have the skillset the Russians have because they’ve just dumped a trillion dollars into military upgrades.
Dunnigan likens it to “Victory Disease” – we’re good, but the danger arises from believing too much of our own good press.
And our military is being pared down. Seriously. “Back to specialists in war in Napoleonic fashion? Something to consider,” said my friend.
The other concern is that at least once country – which has been caught in history’s big ping-pong game of European conquest that we just can’t seem to get over – has started sending out early call up notices.
I doubt too many people remember the headline from a couple of weeks back, but when Poland, a country which has been front lines going both east and west starts calling up reserves, its time to think more deeply about how all three of these patches of wreckage could come together in coming weeks and make following news headlines a real blast before May’s out.
The nightmare sequence to be watching for in the headlines in the next 45 days is this:
Wreck #3 first: Russian goes beyond Donetsk.
Wreck #2 second: The MH370 jet really landed in the Tajikistan area and is being painted and readied for a “ghost flight” as a kind of airborne Blitzkrieg. A Clancy kind of twist.
Wreck #1: The US and global markets collapse when the EU collapses, as it’s already starting to with the increasing number of independence movements including Scotland making noises now, too…
It would make a hellavuh Clancy novel. It would not be something you would want to live through in real life, however.
But wars can start because once first moves are made, a kind of momentum takes over.
“I’ve come this far, already, and the West has not pushed back…” might be going through judoku shihan Vlad Putin’s head right now. “ I could sure use those Czech and Polish factories if we’re going to be facing China in five years….”
Thus, our first thought of the week is Three Wrecks Theory. Everything else is likely to be just noise. With the republicorp likely to gain in the US Senate, Putin may have a timeline of before elections to slide Europe into his back pocket before his Big Match with China in coming years.
Passings:
Ponder of the Morning: 86.188.250.209
OK, we run reasonable security around here, but in case UrbanSurvival ever disappears some morning, remember I will post a morning update to the www.peoplenomics.com site. That’s our backup plan.
And why mention it? Well, an IP address that traces back to the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre just over the Westminster Bridge (and two blocks from Parliament Square) has been locked out for hacking attempts. Official? Likely not, but you never know…more likely spoofed.
Still, with friends like these, who needs enemies?
Another Robotic Warning
A Nicholas West Activist Post from over the weekend “Within 5 Years – Robot Replacement of Human Workers Predicted to Accelerate…” is worth your time.
Hmmm…now where have you heard that before?
Still: No answers in sight to the bigger problem: What do you do when the economy collapses in a heap because the consumers no longer get paychecks…
Wait! Or is that what the transition to a welfare state is about?