The headlines are an odd assortment this morning: One of the big ones features the Dow showing a 119 point rally in the works, per the futures, as we hit the pixels.
But beneath it all, we see some signs of weakness not to be under-estimated. While it’s too early to talk about damage from Irma, the Harvey toll on the public side of the ledger is coming up on $200 billion. I penciled out that the private insurance and un-insured losses will likely come close to that, so between the two storms perhaps $750-billion to $1-trillion which are is said and done.
At the macro-economic level, that’s like having 5-percent of the US GDP splatter.
(Continues below)
Short term, average news readers are still on “news flow overload” yet we see a few stories that are more thoughtfully economic in tone.
To be sure, some of it looks like silly/happy-talk. Take this story, for example: Global shares return to record high as Irma loses strength.
The British Footsie, for example, trading 7,410 this morning is a good distance from the 52-week high at 7,599. Germany’s DAX was 12,437’ish this morning vis a 52-week 12,951. The French CAC-40 was circling 5,170 today – a long shot from their 52-week high of 5,442.
Asia? Well, down-range Japan was nibbling 19,546 against a 52-week high of 20,318. This leaves the only major market we track that’s even close: The Hang Seng (*Hong Kong) which was rolling 27,955 overnight against 28,128 for a 12-month high.
This is not to say that the Reuters story is wrong, after all they cite the ACWI-MSCI – an index measured by Morgan Stanley.
My point is simply that in our Aggregate Index view of things, we have a good bit of trading to the upside before we will get all “gushy” about global records. In the meantime, if you like a 47 country index that includes places like Pakistan, Philippines, Columbia and several others we find less than inviting for any number of accountancy reason, and you want the Kool-Aid of “Happy days are here, again!”?
Then have at it.
As in sports, we’ll keep our eyes on the majors. There’s a reason the farm clubs are called “the minors.” Batting .350 in the minors is a little different than batting .350 in game 5 of the Series, right?
You tell us the number you want to hype, and let us pick the markets, we can deliver reports foretelling everything from the End of the World to the Second Coming. Not free, however.
U.S. Department of Funny Money
Our Canadian news analyst, who we hope we’ve not offended by failing to admit Winnipeg is the Center of the Universe, offered this on the comment side that is worthy of your attention, particularly if you have “miner league” syndrome:
Sir,
Chinese open internet thinkers are banding together in an effort to free us from global metadata oligarchs. Exodus has begun; the serfs are chafing at the chains.
https://tronlab.com/en.html
Speaking of which, Apple has reversed course and so far allowed the Bank of China to place a blockchain payment app on iTunes. Perhaps if the mandarin version is well received, an English version will follow for the Babel of indentured masses?
Always a polite people, we don’t usually ask our Canadian correspondents to use the formal “Sir” greeting. “Your Ultimate Royal Highness and Prophetic Galactic Principal” will do fine.
Please note that our previous preferred method of address, Financial Deity Incarnate Composer was halted by counsel on the grounds FDIC sounded like it might infringe on another mark.
Blockhead’s Delight?
Not hardly: Bitcoins were down to $4,181 when we looked this morning and that looks perilously close to the back-side of the hyper blow-off could be at hand.
We will see how this works out, but gold and silver were soft metals, rather than hard currencies in the early going as well.
Another reason we’re wondering how long the Irma’s gone buzz will last…
Trump-Bashing
What with the hurricanes receding onto back pages, or at least they will shortly, the U.S. Media Empires will need to resurrect their fave bogeyman.
Roll with the WaPo‘s “Bannon: Trump firing of Comey was the ‘biggest mistake in modern political history’.
America’s Nazi Clones?
If we are, as we hold, in a replay of the end of the Roaring Twenties in America and the early 1930’s of Germany, all rolled into a big knish, then here’s a story that will wrinkle your brown shirt a bit: Antifa throws smoke and projectiles at police at Portland rallies; 7 arrested.
Sounds more and more like a criminal tribe of wannabe-be revolutionaries, does it not? Got a better description of ’em?
Meantime, Portland PD is showing it’s led by idiots as Portland police reportedly scrap gang database over fear of labels. WTF…whose side these ol’ boys on?
Football and Guns Don’t Mix
COWBOYS PARTY CHAOS 8 dead, including gunman, after shooting in Texas. Time to register fans?
16-Years After
US commemorates 9/11; thousands expected at ground zero.
Why I am Not a Doctor
Docs are supposed to keep up on stuff, continuing ed units (CEU’s) and all that. But sometimes you see stories that would leave you scratching your head, regardless of how many years of practice.
Take this pair of stories:
Respiratory tract infections in young children linked to asthma and worse lung function.
Versus Children with asthma are being prescribed unnecessary antibiotics.
So, don’t give them antibiotics and risk asthma and worse? Huh?
Zeus, get me CDC on the phone…maybe they could explain. Zeus! No, the number is not 1-800-CYTOKINES…
Three Suckers a Minute?
No, P.T. Barnum didn’t really say “There’s a sucker born every minute…”
Besides, when the phrase was working its way around, the USPop was one-third of what it is now.
Updated for population, therefore, we project there are now three suckers born a minute. And you know how we can prove this? Open up the NYT this morning and behold:
“With a $1,000 Price Tag, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold.”
If P.T. Barnum didn’t say it, could Tim Cook?
Seattle UFO?
Son G2 called me from Kirkland, Wa this morning to report a UFO out over the Redmond, Wa area. Since he’s got almost 500 skydive jumps and has been around airplanes a lot, it isn’t like he doesn’t have some idea of what he’s looking at.
The screen snag off Skype didn’t come out good, but it was low to the horizon and sat there for 45 minutes spinning off small swirly things. Police are looking into it…
Meantime, there are reports cropping up in the National UFO Reporting Center run by Peter Davenport of several very long duration sightings this month.
Winslow, Maine on the 2nd. Then in Lewiston, Illinois for 52 minutes, same night. A one-hour sighting in Billings, Montana on the 7th, Stoney Creek, Tennessee for “hours” same night,
Lyons, Nebraska for 4.5 hours on the 8th. And now today from my son in Kirkland, Washington visible for 30+ minutes.
Could be a “morning star” but doesn’t seem likely. One police officer said after checking his star app, “Likely Venus…” to which another cop said “Does it move like that? Did you see it move? Planets don’t move left and right…”
We will go with Cop #1’s take. Venus rose today at 3:59 AM and will hit transit at 11 AM. Still, Seattle has been a hot spot for UFO sightings since 1947…
Your note on the cost of the hurricanes is right on the money given my limited involvement in the Katrina recovery and some follow-up research. Also, the forecast on GDP is appropriate as well although the MAGA goal seekers will air-brush this away. How many more dreamers will be required to do the jobs Americans won’t do.
On a lighter note, maybe one of your readers could clarify if the governor’s sign language person was delivering in the Spanish or Haitian version? It’s hard to find floating bodies without Bryan Williams.
“As in sports, we’ll keep our eyes on the majors.”
Ha ha ha ha. :D Ever since the Dreamers and Eagle1 had the victory in the Superbowl with the Pats over thw Seahawks. I will never hear the end of it!. Ha ha ha ha!
That was super fun. I was literally standing on my chair yelling run the ball! And everyone was looking at me like i was crazy! And what did they do? Fricken pass it and The Dreamers and Eagle one got the victory. Me against all of them and all their data. And they were right. “Brady on top”. And I was wrong. Ohhh but it was a nail bighter down to the last seconds of the game! I could imagine the look on their faces. Priceless! Like I said it’s good for me to be wrong sometimes. Ha ha ha ha!
Sooooo fun! You know I HAD to pick the home team.
Thanks for the smile george!
As was stated, Onward and upward! And the video/song “mommas don’t your babies grow up to be Cowboys” I posted that video what 2 months ago?
(Chuckle)
Off to grab 18 gears. In Redmond as well. Have a great day!
I didn’t read your testing comment or I mean you’re testing paragraphs until afterwards but dumb I checked my radiation meter and nothing spectacular is going on but what I did notice is in my fertilizer bucket because it’s like you know normally around here 12 on the scale and of on the bucket it went to about 40 and tipped over into a above normal Zone temporarily so what this is telling me is the artificial fertilizer that were using comes from places that have radiation in them so now I’m starting to wonder if by putting that on the plants weather the plants will that we eat will have radiation in them
I did a urine radiation test I peed in a old can and in Hobart my tester over top of it and it jumped over 10 times the normal rate which would make me believe that we are constantly being bombarded between the water and the foods we eat and through our skin the radiation and throughout the 24 hour. Or maybe even 12 hour. We filter and expel that radiation through our Urine and also through our sweat glands
I no from experience I have bad underarm respiration and my girlfriend who used to be an Avon agent gave me some of the Avon deodorant for men and that stuff really works great you know leave it on and for 2 or 3 days and you don’t smell anyway like I said my odor is pretty strong so I took an old toothbrush wet it it dipped it in baking soda rubbed it under my arms and then the rest of the day I sniffed and sniffed and it smells pretty good and also baking soda mixed with some water gets rid of your acid indigestion and also it changes your pH from alkaline excuse me from ass sicity to alkaline and which Cancer Cannot grow and the old Cancer Society doesn’t want you to know that their billion-dollar industry of killing people with chemo is upset just by taking a salt solution which like I said before the oceans are very very high and alkaline and if you take too much of course it’ll kill you that’s why you can’t drink with X-Men a certain amount of salt water and that’s why people that have survived in their boats stranded in the ocean if they had a tarp it would collect water wood underneath the tarp and run down and you can collect enough there to survive as George knows he’s probably experimenting around since he was out there for what 10 years so he didn’t die and the alkaline is the solution
I guess people could survive you know with their sailboats because in the early mornings to do would run down from the top of the sail all the way down you can collect it into a bucket which would be freshwater
I tried to repeat the urine test and it must be a fluke because it didn’t do it today so I guess you can delete
Mr. Ure, I am ‘only’ in my mid ’60s, but I recall W.C Fields making that comment in a movie.
Even so, ‘recall’ is the key element here.
Keep on keepin’ on, Sir….
I was referring to the ‘sucker born every minute’ phrase.
Sorry I didn’t clarify that.
So,folks who bought Tesla’s extended range model for $9,000 thought they were getting an extended range battery, when all they got was an extra line of code.
Everything IS a business model.
Sheesh!
this someone out of the blue just said hey the sky is falling
And then I go outside to see if it’s falling and I don’t see it falling
so I have friends on the west coast and friends on the east coast and I call them up and ask if the sky is falling and they say no
Then I have relatives that are in the middle of the United States and they say yes to something very strange going on with Sky it’s falling things are falling from the sky things are in the sky it’s really weird here let me send you a video of it and then video is cut off they can’t communicate except through telephone
what’s the next step where do we go from here to find out what’s true and what’s false who else can we call or contact on the internet and I email or a blog or a twit or a Facebook do they really have those resources to cut everything off in sections at a time
the only thing that really matters is you can be alone all your life and never communicate with anybody but when you do communicate and you find out the communication has been broke that’s when you get a little worried what’s going on did they die how come the communication was broken and that is one of the greatest things that’s going to happen whether it’s a hurricane tornado or War or some great catastrophe like a kill shot from the solar or could be something else like camps what are those things called FEMA camps so people in the country like where I’m at stay in touch they’re always calls each other several times a day to find out what’s happening that’s how we know who’s dying around here and all these old people are dying so unless you’re in contact with your local community people you don’t know what’s happening around you and unless you’re in contact with reliable people in other states and around the world you don’t know what’s happening there either so yes you do have to have a reliable source when you put that out
But as every detective knows there has to be a trail something there to follow if not then how you even going to get the first lead if there’s no Trail.
That is called devoid of Merit
And doesn’t last too long it’s Horarious
I’m pleased that Trump had a vacation from the MOM during the past 3 weeks, but I’ll bet that comes to a close here shortly. And I would also bet that some of the first Media attacks have to due with the president involvement / conspiracy with the Russians and their manipulation of the weather that caused these devastating storms. (Never underestimate the mechanitions of the press)
An article foretelling the Second Coming timing would be nice to read.
Portland has a habit of not solving problems, and foisting solutions on people who cannot remember last week.
We allow “homeless” to camp in parks and streets because we have a “housing crisis”. It’s official, so since the city is the only arbiter of this situation, of course the “crisis” will never be declared over, and the “helpless” will forever fill our eyes with their shooting up in public, poop and pee, and trash. It pays to have a crisis!
Or what about how they rebuild “crumbling” infrastructure, i.e. bridges, without doing any additions to capacity, that would be a crime against nature to allow the passage of more cars!! “oh please hand us the bill” says Portland. There will always be a traffic crisis, it pays to have a crisis!
Or the time they blew 23 million on a sewer/water billing system, only to report “it doesn’t work, can we have 27 million this time? we have a crisis on our hands”. It pays to have a crisis! (never mind the library can keep track of millions of things, and many thousands of customers, right down to the nickel, 23 million just doesn’t sound like too much, does it?)
This gang thing: How can you effectively have a crisis if you solve the problem? It could take millions of dollars, endless re-training, social program after social program, to solve “gang-ish” behavior. Better take a step back, get out the calculator, and decide just how long this problem can be a benefit to local powers. I sense a decades long effort, and a few 20-30 million dollar “projects” coming along, before we even understand a) what is wrong with these people and b) why are we such horrible people that we called them “gangs” to begin with. [self flogging ensues]
Actually about the ‘gangs’ – Portland has ‘officially’ stopped labeling people as belonging in a gang . . .
As to the rest – if you are so ‘down on Portland’, why live here?
And if you don’t – enough said!
So are all those hurricane evacuees in shelters gonna take Uber’s back home? Walk? Hmmm…
da bear
George II’s unexplained object sighting reminds me of your daughter’s ufo observation that I think you told us about in 2015. Do you want readers to file these events in the “coincidence” folder.
I think it’s an oddity, for sUre