First up we have the Challenger Job Cut report for February.  After having a train wreck in January, this one is just downright peachy:

CHICAGO, March 3, 2016 – After surging to a six-month high to begin the new year, downsizing slowed in February, as US-based employers announced 61,599 job cuts during the month, 18 percent fewer than the 75,114 in January, according to a report released Thursday by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.  

The February total was up 22 percent from a year ago, when employers announced 50,579 job cuts during the month.  

Planned job cuts total 136,713 through the first two months of the year, up 32 percent from the same period in 2015, when employers announced layoffs totaling 103,620 in January and February.  

Just as in 2015, the energy sector has seen the heaviest job cutting in the opening months of the year.  These firms announced another 25,051 job cuts in February, bringing the year-to-date total to 45,154.  Most of the cuts in the sector have been attributed to low oil prices.

The 45,154 energy cuts through February represents a 24 percent increase from 2015, when employers in the sector announced 36,532 planned layoffs in the opening two months of the year.

“Low oil prices continue to take a toll on workers in the energy and industrial goods sectors.  Since January of 2015, these two sectors alone have seen workforce reductions in excess of 200,000, the majority of which were attributed to oil prices.  The major concern is that the job losses in cities and towns that rely heavily on oil production will begin to drag down other parts of the local economy,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

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Markets are not falling apart.  The “usual suspects” will face off in November.  And Spring is slowly coming along, punctuated by the occasional earthquake.

That last point actually figures into this morning’s report of some serious personal woo-woo, so let me roll back to the beginning.

As long-term readers will remember, I am terribly prone to two rather unique things.  One is that I become tired before major earthquakes.  And I got the “earthquake tired” feeling on Tuesday afternoon about 2 PM Texas time.

The second unique thing that happens to me is that I have vivid dreams (and I mean like iMax vivid) on an increasingly frequent basis.  Often times, these dreams will either be about an event in the immediate future (by a day or longer, but sometimes just an hour or two ahead of events) while other times it’s like being at the scene of an actual news event.

Two Recent Example of Accurate Dream Content

I’m sure you remember the weird bus dream and how the actual event occurred in South Melbourne Australia.  (It was described in Dream #3 here: https://urbansurvival.com/coping-the-cool-part-about-aging/.) 

Less noticed might have been my note in the February 25 Coping section column about my motorcycle dream, down toward the bottom of this page: https://urbansurvival.com/coping-coloring-books-for-seniors/ 

One Other Dream Note

Damnedest dream overnight:  Kept dreaming about being on a motorcycle with some kind of throttle problem.  In fact, at one point, while riding, the throttle control simply fell off the right handlebar.  The inside of the mechanism was clear in the dream, too…

I don’t know if this means there is a recall coming, or if someone famous loses throttle control, or what.  But it was intense and I thought worth mentioning.  News scan at press time doesn’t show anything big.  Believe me, I’m on the lookout for this one.  It’s been 30-years since my old Virago 650 shaft-drive and no reason to dream of it now.  The bike in the dream was more like a moto-cross rice-burner…

Well, try not to look surprised or anything, but here we go:

February 26th (28 hours after the dream posting): “Recall News: 2016 Kawasaki ZX-10R Motorcycles.”

And February 29th:  “Kawasaki recalls Ninja ZX-10R and Ninja ZX-10R ABS motorcycles – The steering damper bracket mounting bolts may break.”

Hmmm…oddly timed and a bit if advance again.  It’s like riding a wild pony on this stuff.

So Here’s the Latest Dream / Adventure

Timeline:  I was dreaming this dream from about 3:07 AM until my 4:00 AM alarm on the morning of March 2.  I had stirred about 3 AM, glanced at the clock and scolded myself for leaving a dream.  This was the first time I can remember when I woke from a dream (which was making no sense), went back into the dream – figured out the story line and then followed the dream to its strange waking-state results.

The first part of the dream was on-going.  I was not myself.  Rather, I was younger, wearing jeans and only a very light shirt and I was in a kind of run-down restaurant or hotel.

There was a dog in the scene.  Pretty ugly mutt.  Looked like a cross between a dachshund and a Chihuahua.  The dog looked like a cross with all the bad features of each breed:  The temperament of the Chihuahua and its legs, and the upper body of the dachshund. 

The dog had been scooting it’s butt on the floor which was dirty.  The room was whites, yellows, and blues…lots of blues in the furniture.

I didn’t like dog and figured by the way he was biting on his personal parts that he had a bad case of worms.  The dog then wanted to get up on my calves (which were on something like an ottoman) but I remember I didn’t want anything to do with that damn dog because if he bit, I would get God knows what. 

He also had something white (like a kids white sock) in his mouth.

I was in a distinctly grumpy mood…and I woke up.

(checked the clock, a minute or two after 3 AM so I decided to return to sleep and without forcing anything, I dropped back into the dream)

In this recliner, I was still miserable, but after a while a fellow speaking Spanish came in wearing a kind of khaki-colored uniform.  Looked sort of like an old Barney Fife get-up and he had a brown clipboard and he was prattling on about the terms of my arrival.

He said that I should really have cleared into the country elsewhere instead of coming from the country next door directly.

I blamed it on my pilot, a local fellow from the other country, who had flown me in this rickety old Cessna 172.  The plain had landed on a dusty road nearby instead of the local airfield.

Eventually, after making me wait some more, so he could “show me who was in charge” the officer  who was something like a cross between Customs and a cop, let me go and I was free to seek out my friends.

I then experienced what a film director would call a “jump cut.”  One moment I was being berated by the local power-freak and the next moment I was in the company of a couple of other scientists and we were looking at something that looked like an artesian well that was issuing forth water across about a 50-foot face of an obviously manmade stoneworks around the fountain. 

In the background were mountains, but they were unusual because they had no trees on them.  What’s more, I knew this area was in the “crook” of the Pacific Coast of South America, even though I have only been near that part of the world once before.  That was 32 years ago on a flight to Guayaquil to Lima and that was in the middle of the night… a good ways north of the dream site.

The conversation we were having was quite animated.  The issue seemed to be whether “the earthquake would damage the water flow from this artesian spring…”

(loud obnoxious noise)

Damn, the alarm went off and I was back on this side of the dream again.  Shoot-damn, and just as things were getting interesting again.

– – – – – – – –

As usual, I got up, made coffee, fed the cat, loaded up on vitamins, and then sat down to digest the day’s news. 

Suddenly, while checking the USGS website, I realized the dream had a serious woo-woo angle to it because of what was showing on the US Geological Survey website:

Quickly, I started in disbelief.  Could it be?

The I looked at the official data report:

Time

1. 2016-03-02 09:49:53 (UTC)
2. 2016-03-02 03:49:53 (UTC-06:00) in your timezone
3. Times in other timezones

Nearby Cities

1. 52km (32mi) WSW of Arica, Chile
2. 92km (57mi) SW of Tacna, Peru
3. 131km (81mi) SSE of Ilo, Peru
4. 166km (103mi) S of Moquegua, Peru
5. 366km (227mi) SW of La Paz, Bolivia

HOLY CRAP!  Right as I was dreaming in the dream about the possibility of “the quake damaging the artesian flow THE QUAKE HAPPENED IN REAL LIFE.

A Little Too “IRL?”

Since it was Wednesday morning, I took my second cup of coffee out in the office and didn’t think much more about the incident until about 8 AM when I went back to the house to scout up some breakfast.

Elaine was running a bit late so I looked at the data from earlier in the morning.  I’ve had enough of this stuff happen that there were no cold chills running up the spine, or anything like that.

Instead, it was more of an acceptance.  Yeah, this had happened.  I took in the USGS map looking for landmarks.

Since I am real big on “sticking to the data” I decided to look and see what was on the internet about “artesian springs north Chile.”

I mean, how common would Artesian springs be in a pretty dry area, right?

Wrong.

I about froze when I found this as the second search result out of Google Books:

This is from a 1965 U.S. Department of Interior book titled “Geology and Ground-water Resources of the Pica Area, Tarapaca Province, Chile” by Robert James Dingman, Carlos Galli Olivier.

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Having taken on some causative economics, the difficulties ahead for food (with an important addendum this morning) and shelter, not to mention sizing up the possibilities of the government calling gold and silver, we come this morning to the problems of transportation in the Second Depression.

With the market performance again this week, the case continues to build that we are more likely to have a 1920’s style blow-off top later this year, and into next, long before we have a complete melt-down, but it will be at that precise moment that all your wisdom will be necessary to keep from being sucked into dangerous herd-following actions.

Before we dig in there, a look at our charts, the first of the week’s job numbers, and a quick sizing-up o the “super” Tuesday results at the polls.

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Yes!  At last!  Super Tuesday.  Don’t read this within 100-feet of a polling place, though.

You see, a lot of people vote for all the wrong reasons.

• They vote the “Party Ticket.”
• They vote “Conservative [or Liberal] Principles.”
• Many will vote today based on “Gender” and some hogslop about “Needing a female President.”
• A few will “Vote racial preference.”
• Others will vote “name familiarity.”
• A good number will vote “Based on promises of future action.”

In fact, as I will explain, ALL OF THESE ARE WRONG as I have it figured.

1. The Party Ticket?  There has been no major action of fixing the border despite the republicans having a majority in both the House and Senate.  In fact, there’s a story this morning about how Obama, et al, are quietly planning to increase the number of Syrian refugees coming into America.  Worse, there’s also a report that illegal southern border immigration has hit a new all time high.

Both political parties are responsible.

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I mean, shouldn’t this be a holiday, or something?

Who wants to get up in the morning, see the futures are down a bit on the Dow, figure we are due for Ure’s pullback here, and see the umpteenth rerun of “Republicans Acting Stupid?”

Wait!  Are you sure it’s an act?  Hmmm…

Ah, well, we will get to that but first a short summary of world markets:  Japan was down 1%, Hong Kong down 1.3%, the Shanghai was down 2.86% and Europe was a mixed bag.  The Germans were down 0.9%, the French were treading water, and Brits were making bank, up 1.18% because they have enough send to maybe get into Brexit Rehab, which should keep them alive.

Gold is up another $12 bucks when I looked and everyone seems to be anxious to splash pixels with how there are worries about the Fed raising (with good reason, they should) and there are worries about the impact of the G20 last week.  But the reality is that the G20 doesn’t want to blow over the house of cards more than anyone else, so it’s not going to happen.

As for the data this week, there are motor vehicle sales tomorrow, the ADP and Gallup on jobs Wednesday.  Thursday, Challenger jobs cuts come along with productivity and cost data, factory orders, and miscellaneous who-cares.  And then we get to the Offihsul (sic) Employment Data on Friday.

If that one comes in at 4.9%, I would expected the Federal Reserve to feel more pressure to raise rates.  Otherwise, people will begin to worry about wage-driven inflation.

Stoopabama

And speaking of Wages, just how stupid is Alabama?  “Ala. city raises minimum wage, legislature strips it.”  Seems to me that Alabama is at a crossroads here:  Let wages rise so people can get back a little bit, or be the ass-clowns of the corporates and keep people working for peanuts (though I guess that would be Georgia, so maybe a different phrase…you plug in something here).

The Poor South has sold out to the Rich Corporations as “Bentley signs bill blocking Birmingham minimum wage.” 

Just for fun, if you have some time, you might want to look at how much of his last campaign was paid for by small folks ($100 and under) and how much was paid by the Rich ($101 and up) money.

Just so we’re clear on this GovBob, here’s how things work:  Just like Alabamans may resent the strong central government in Washington, don’t you think cities passing their own response to local economic conditions would resent excessive government at the State level? 

You can’t have it both ways, dude. Unless you’re just trying to be “the man” for the whole state which makes you more of an overseer than governor.  Just because some lawmakers get reactionary, doesn’t mean you have to put on the dunce hat.

People just don’t seem to see things clearly.

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Although we’re going to talk a bit about flying, the FAA’s WINGS program, and all that “stuff” that goes into being a pilot, this is really a story about how to get really good at something over time; and how good hobbies help us live – and think – better.

A lot of people have hobbies, but there are those who take hobbies seriously and there are people who I would call the dilettantes; people who pursue something in a half-hearted and half-assed way.

You see it in all sports and pursuits, the people who take things on a so-so basis. At the end of the day they just sort of play-at whatever they profess their hobby to be.

It’s like the gun owners who don’t own a gun for a purpose (personal protection, hunting, or marksmanship) and instead just use it as a brag tool.  “Yo, moe foe I gotta Glock!”  So?  Step out here to the 15-meter line and hit that playing card up there on the backstop…call next week when you hit it.

Now, you take your 50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle:  I know people who actually own them and live in Texas.  But to them, it’s a tool – and this one fellow in particular I know goes back to the East Coast now and then as an instructor because he’s that good. I won’t tell you the “alligator at a mile” stories… but there are other folks who can’t hit the side of a barn at a thousand yards with the same gun.  You see the difference, I hope.  In the hands of my friend, it’s an art form.  In the hands of someone without serious training?  It’s a large noise-maker.

Or, as another example, during the time I lived on my sailboat and actually did serious sailing, there were those of us who went out and ran the mid-winter “Iceberg Regatta.” Then there were the people who were hanging around the bar when we got back from serious sailing to have a warm-up toddy.  The bar was always full of wannabes who wouldn’t know how to tie a bowline, let around behind their back, let alone at night, let alone on a pitching foredeck.  So you see what I mean.  Furniture boat crowd versus sailors.

This weekend, I had two days being deadly serious about one of my hobbies, which is flying the old Beechcraft around.  

Although I took one of my neighbors up for a quick bit of sightseeing on Saturday, the real agenda of this weekend was to make sure I was still “sharp” on the stick and a safe pilot. Although not required for another nine months, my biennial flight review (BFR) and more, is done.

To do that, there are three things that helped to make that happen: Training, rest, and vitamins.

First, I am a huge believer in doing advanced coursework – way beyond whatever the minimums are for any hobby.  Yes,  You can fly an airplane with 40-50 hours of flight time, a check-ride every two years and a third class medical.  Three take-offs and landings every 90 days and you can be “legal” for visual rules.

We get readers, now and then, who tell us they worry about our flying all over the country, which we do.  They express various safety concerns.

What most people don’t know (because I haven’t discussed it much, but will this morning) is that I go so far past the minimum requirements that it’s ridiculous.

That item above right, for example, is my FAA WINGS transcript.  It lists 30- courses and check-rides in the past four years.  None of this is required, but if you take the hobby seriously (and want to live a long time) you go the extra mile and continue education. 

As a result, I’ve been through such courses ad “Aging Gracefully, Flying Safely,” “Accidental Causal Factors:  Stabilized Approaches,” and certification to fly the “Washington DC Special Flight Rules Area.”  Plus tons of other topics covering positive aircraft control, loss of control accident analysis, gobs of weather, icing, and severe thunderstorm tactics and so on…(the best one is stay at the hotel, BTW.)

And I have what I consider the finest flight instructor in the world.  A ranked aerobatics competitor who’s a retired 767 driver.

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OK, you’re wonder, what is a “brain amplifier?”

Well, odds are good you’re reading this on some kind of a computer and they are definitely “brain amplifiers” but few people use them as they could be used to do things like, oh, make better stock trades and such. 

Instead, people tend to take off-the-net software, plug in some really basic configuration nonsense and call it “an application.”

While that works for Social Media and a few goodies like that, they are not likely to make you any richer financially and they will almost certainly withdraw a lot of your time from your life bank of that stuff.

So this morning a rap about “Bain Amplifiers” and how to apply a little Peter Drucker to the time we walk around.

So in order to really begin to take more control of our lives and outcomes, let’s bean-up and move along to some headlines and our charts…

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First and threemost, the new Gross Domestic Product figures are out from the Bureau of Economic Analysis today.  So let’s start with the press release:

“Real gross domestic product — the value of the goods and services produced by the nation’s economy less the value of the goods and services used up in production, adjusted for price changes — increased at an annual rate of 1.0 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, according to the “second” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

In the third quarter, real GDP increased 2.0 percent. The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the “advance” estimate issued last month.

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If you live in Texas, and if you enjoy Joe Paggs and all over at WOAI AM (1200) at night, please go to the WOAI website and sign the petition to protect regional AM stations that have large nighttime coverage areas.

The petition is here: http://woai.iheart.com/features/save-am-radio-1919/ 

We live in East Texas and depriving us of over-the-air listening to WOAI at night would prevent us from receiving timely news, information and in particular regional weather information.

As you should be aware, there are some streaming services that might represent they provide coverage out here in “fly-over” country, but this is simply not true. 

What REALLY happens is that the local telco carrier (in our case CenturyLink) puts in half-ass HDSL service and the proceeds to over-sell their service so that we are frequently victims of bandwidth exhaustion.  (We have complained to the Commission and the telco with no improvement in service.)  Welcome to responsive government.

Additionally, while we have a satellite system as well, in the Commissions “infinite wisdom” these are presently tariffed at extortionist rates that preclude casual streaming of iHeart or other services.  What you should also be aware of is that just when we need it most (as in bad weather) we find either the NOAA weather is down or the satellite is down due to precipitation wrecking the satellite shot. Power’s not perfect out in these parts, either.

So please, for God’s sake, don’t compound one act of stupidity with another and screw up a health AM broadcast band by freeing up additional channel space for marginal broadcasters and give the successful long-term regional AM operators have a chance against an increasingly competitive environment comprises of wannabes who don’t know the first thing about serving a region, let alone a community.  Narrowcasting with lots of small bad stations does not make up for genuine quality broadcasting by a good station.

Or, is that the point?  Is it that  because WOAI doesn’t carry the kind of politically-acceptable (liberal approved) content that the Commission promotes which is just sure as hell not in the public need, interest, and concern?  Economic Stimulus plan, maybe?  We seem to have the odor of politics in the air.

Or, as an alternative, tell the freaking telcos to put fiber out here to the woods so we can enjoy the public safety benefits of good broadcasters like WOAI.   Otherwise?  Mits off!

Thank you for your attention,
George & Elaine Ure (retied in East Texas)

I don’t give AM radio much of a chance in the long-term.  It’s just too useful.

Instead we will likely see it disassembled and then cobbled into local stations, none of which will have anywhere near the quality of coverage.  I counted the other night and already, nighttime AM radio here is not reflective of the region’s demographics.

We do long driving trips now and then and sometimes at night.  There’s nothing like a Noory or the latest weather from your destination to keep you awake.

Leave it to government to “fix” something else that ain’t broken.

Or, is there something else afoot?  With Agenda 21 and all, how about under-serving the rural areas even more?  Isolate and conquer is it?  And while telcos argue they need money for infrastructure out in the sticks (where the food and energy come from, remember?) when it comes down to investing in rural of sending dividends to shareholders, care to guess who wins?

Debate Fatigue

Please tell me last night was the last of it?  Not that I don’t mind watching the theater of people trying to “out republican one-another.” 

To my cynical eye, the only guy who talked an issue well was Dr. Ben Carson who didn’t get enough time to explain his healthcare ideas – and being a doc and all, I value Carson’s take.  He was also the most “presidential” in demeanor.

John Kasich gave a good impression, too, as someone who could roll up his sleeves and get something done.  As to the Trump remark that Ohio’s success in budgets was due to oil, Kasich had numbers to back up his claim that it was not a fracking festival going on although whose numbers to believe is like a choice between a pistol or shot of hemlock.

Ted Cruz, I think, did the right thing in terms of laying back one getting a few jabs in at Trump –who fended them off well.  But here’s the thing:  I thought Marco Rubio could have used an Adderall, or two because he was just way outside the kind of reserved, intelligent kind of discourse that would play well. 

And though lots of people think Trump won it, which is may have, I want him to start getting more into specifics and I got the impression that other than broad promises, he didn’t have a real (point by point) healthcare plan.

So at this point, even though it’s perhaps a “wasted vote” I will likely vote for Ben Carson because he’s likely the “smartest guy in the room.”  Trump will carry most of the states, maybe Cruz wins Texas, and Trump carries the convention.

But maybe a vote for Carson  isn’t wasted.  He’s thoughtful, smart, and knows how to “hit the books and learn” which is something I greatly admire.   Of all the candidates, I keep coming back to Trump-Caron as the best selection of brains and practical experience to fix what’s been broken by too many same-old-crats and same-old-cans.

If there’s one thing I learned from 40-years of news and business hard-ball:  Smart people count.  And while no one on the stage is a dummy, for me to comes down to doers and posers and Cruz’s lack of support from fellow republicans (*which Trump hammered on) does underscore the lack of team play.

Then again, that’s what this whole sordid mess has been:  No team play.  I heard the beginnings of a Carson plan with real meat on it.  Trump danced it, Rubio and Cruz had way too much testosterone going, although Kasich got across (true or not) that he is a roll ‘em up and let’s get ‘er done kind of guy.

Damn shame the democrats have been playing hide the sausage all this time.  I would love to see how Hillary would have fared in a real Shark Tank.

Payback for Holder, Et Alia

So now we see how to avoid freedom of information requests:  Hide the read name of the person do the official acts.

The story popped out in Vice on Thursday that former U.S.

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Before we get into the daily dose of data (DDoD) we should point to the story making the rounds this morning about how the Chinese are watching the evolving groundswell in the direction of Donald Trump’s presidential bid with some concern.

Specifically, according to the story over here, following the Nevada win by Trump, the Chinese have told the U.S. not to engage in currency shifts because that would be a bad thing in their view.

Yes, a change in currency valuations (like weakening the dollar) would cause the price of imported goods – not just from China, but from everywhere – to rise.

But here is how the current situation works – and this is really a “deal with the Devil” so pay attention as I run this down on the whiteboard:

As things are now, when we go to the store and buy something made in China, two things are going on:  First, we are buying goods that actually should cost a little more.  So the American consumer is getting a good deal at the checkout stand.  Chinese workers don’t charge as much for their labor.

BUT where the screw job comes in is that because the US has pursued a “strong dollar” policy, it means that actual goods producing jobs have fled American en masse.  So while the consumer gets a little “pay-off” in terms of cheaper goods, the penalty box is that industry flees from the USA, the Chinese benefit from this hollowing-out of America, and THEY get the factories and the increasing standards of living that go with production of real goods, not just the circularity of increased government spending on more and more…er…. government…  (Takes a lot of people to run the catch and release program and all.)

The problem the Chinese see with Trump is real:  I think he’s likely to actually DO something about the process which has been backed by the legions of lobbyists who ply Capitol Hill with threats and favors in order to set up favorable tax policies that allow big companies (like Apple) to make and park oodles of money in offshore accounts, safe from U.S.

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Naw…tell me it ain’t so…

This morning we venture into an area which I’m not terribly familiar with:  Art.

Maybe as Linkletter, Carney, and perhaps in a gallery, but that’s about it. I pride myself on being a cultural Heathen.

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Everyone likes a good story, especially if it is of the late Tom Clancy, high-tech genre.  But here’s an interesting problem:  What would a writer do if they came up with an idea which, for a specific part of our technological history, could do great harm to the country?

Would you publish?  Or, would you simply sit on the concept for a while…and wait until is passes?

This morning we roll out a very short story about how just such an attack on America might have been pulled off back in 2003.  But it’s no longer possible for reasons we won’t delve too deeply into.  Still, the key thing to be learned from the exercise is that if one simply looks around at the macro trends in society and government, one can do some pretty good scenario-building about the future.

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