The first bit of Woo this morning was that after working for about 8-hours on Thursday, I decided to take a 2-hour nap. 

This is not common for me, at all.  Usually I’ve got more pee & vinegar in me than a SaniCan outside a salad bar.

This was odd in that it felt like a phenomena we have talked about before:  something I call the “earthquake tiredness.”

It doesn’t happen all the time, but the sequence of events seems to be something like this:  I’ll be going along with the usual energy levels, and then at no time in particular, there will come this wave of dog tired over me. 

It usually passes after a nap – anywhere from 2 to 12 hours will do the trick – and then all the energy levels are back to normal, if not higher.  Thing is, there is usually a 6+ earthquake along in the 48-hours after the nap.

For sure, you could make the argument that 6+ quakes are frequent enough that I should not be surprised by the proximity of one.  And I’ve been through all the math.  Still, it’s a different texture of tired, if that makes sense.

Doesn’t seem to be health related.  I’m smart enough to check blood pressure on the spot and take a second baby aspirin and 500 mg of turmeric, but it doesn’t seem to be related to a health issue.  BP 68/127 with a serious load of Folgers.

My pet theory is that some people – millenniums back – somehow got an “early warning” about quakes to come down at the DNA level.  By warning the Neanderthal versions of Ure to sleep in advance of a quake, we could be out of the caves and such.  Those who didn’t have the gene were at higher risk.

To tell the truth, this is an absurd projection on my part.  But, here in the past 10-years or so, I’ve seen even dumber things that this turned into a 10-minute set of talking points and a big name publisher book and a 300 page book.  ISYN.

Besides, now that I have explained the theory, there should be no quake for a while in order to make a fool out of you-know-who.

Which isn’t that difficult, just so’s you know.

The Case of the Flipped Battery

There is one other minor woo to mention and this is a lot like a scene from The Adjustment Bureau, which is one of my favorite flicks.

I have a cheap Sony portable radio on the nightstand on my side of the bed.  (Specifically it is a Sony SRF59SILVER AM/FM Walkman Stereo Radio which I bought for $18.98 on May 7 of last year and which is presently selling for $37 something here in the land of “No Inflation” but that’s not my point…)

The thing about the radio is that it runs on a single AA battery and that will last several weeks of intermittent, got up to pee and can’t get back to sleep, kind of listening.  Half the time the radio gets left on.

Anyway, I have a routine with the radio.  When I am about to sleep again, I simply lower the radio to the floor next to the bed by way of the headphone wires and then lower the headphones as low as I can and drop.

Every “next morning” the radio is there and ready to work again.  If I forget to pick it up, the Elainamator will ensure nothing is on the floor not properly authorized.

So one night last week, the radio wouldn’t work.  “Well, fine, battery is due…”   So I went out to my media chair beside which there are two shortwave radios, a Sony SWF-7600 and a Tecsun PL-660.  Swiped a single battery and put it in.

Nothing!

Then, on a hunch, I flipped the battery in the other way.

Presto!  It works.

But then so did the battery I took out…

Naturally, I figured the spousal unit had “helped”  but she denied ever having touched the radio.  I got the short “I don’t pick up after you…” reminder.

Now this has been bugging me since last week.  Who the hell turned the battery around?

Elaine didn’t (she can be taken at her word).  The cat doesn’t usually get the right batteries – he says the AAA’s are easier for him to paw.  And that’s it.  We’ve been home…no one else comes in the house.  No cat stations around here for Z.

I know this may sound like a trivial thing to mention in a column, but I am worried that this could be a sign of early onset dementia with my too quickly advancing age.  Only a couple of weeks until 66 disappears into the sunset of memories.

Which get’s me to wondering:  Is one of the signs of early on-set aging putting batteries in radios backwards while sleep-listening?

There is no logical answer on this one.  Other than the Philip K.

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We begin with the daily reading of Gospel here at the East Texas Synod of the Church of the Almighty Basis Point, which my buddy Howard founded.  Please open our Hymnals to Page 317 and read from the book of Fortune.   

“And thus, there came a Miracle on the street.

Lo, the market dropped 300 points.  And verily, the quote of the flaming Dollar fell with it.  And by the arrival of the Faithful’s tears, it had fallen from 91.50 to 90.03 Europe.  The archangel Angela was blessed.

So the Son of Profit spoke to the assembled Multitude:

“Yee see?  The dollar dropped 1.6%!

And this means, from it’s low in the Session of the Almighty, that the daughters of Profit Dow and Profit NAZ should rise according to their effort.

And it was So!

The Daughter Dow, who had Fallen to her (15,960) knees was immediately healed by the 1.6% currency swing and rejoiced to the close up 183.

And the People were Amazed and fell silent. 

“How can this be?” they beseeched. “Is this Fall of purchasing power also connected?” they wondered…

And the Son of Profit spoke again:

“Yea verily, it is so.  More paper is needed when the underlying value fails in the judgment of Global Eyes.”

He then continued:

“Yea, though we walk in the Valley of Rate Hikes, certain asymmetries will arise that will call Your Faith into question.  Remain faithful to the Basis Point.

Fear not.  For the Archangel Janet shall pump you and please you, and make false profits arise unto you and give you some peace.

Amen.”

Somewhat sated, the crowd wandered off.  Still Dazed and confused, for they knew not in their Hearts why a Fed rate can go up and  the 10-year Treasury rate fall in massive disproportion.

So as they left, the Son of Profit called after them:

“You ain’t getting this shit, are you? Come back here!”

And so, with another turn of the Orb is upon us, we stand well-satisfied with the currency exchange-rate bump which goosed the Dow that propelled the Gold that expanded the Silver that lived in the House that Jack built. 

And all traceable to the Burning Bush, which we all know is powered by gas seeps and sitting on a Queen or Jack-sized formation in the land of Profit.

We now return you to the un-sane world to continue the dispensation.  Gimme an Amen and drop something in the collection plate.  Thanks, Bubba.

Related?  This Is How the National Prayer Breakfast Got Its Start or Ben Carson: Evangelicals should think twice about Ted Cruz.

Or These Are The Most (& Least) “Sinful” Cities In The U.S.

Dollar is down a good bit today, ergo gold is up…

With futures down 79 are we the only place on the net that understands it takes more paper to buy value and stocks should rise later today?  After the opening – which we call the amateur hour…

Note from the Alternative Reality:

This is some discussion about how artificial intelligence may really be working the markets.  But I prefer the first version this morning.

That’s because in the AI version of markets, only the big dollar AI crowd can do the pump and dumps leaving the rest of us (not running a Yale endowment) to be the dumpees.

Sons of Job:  Cuts up 218%

Keeping with our light-hearted (or light-headed) view of things this morning, here comes the Challenger, Gray and Christmas (so as not to be confused with Challenge, Gray and Chanukah) Job Whack Report.

Oh, wait, the press release seems to read more politely:

“Last month represents the highest monthly tally since July 2015, when cuts reached 105,696.

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I was about half-way through an interview with Jake Fox at Black Tower Radio up in (is that you?) Rochester when the global, repetitive nature of the human condition hit me like a ton of bricks.

Jake had made the mistake of asking a logical question and I’m not sure he was prepared for an answer of the length delivered.

I don’t do a lot of radio interviews lately – just enough to get back into my “talker mode” from the broadcasting days now and then.  Heck: One question and I can go on seemingly forever, or until the engineers turn the transmitter off at 3 AM for maintenance.

I figure this ought to make me a marvelously popular radio show guess because with one well-chosen question, a host can send out for a pizza, detail their car out front, or take a good nap.

But it wasn’t the length of the answer so much as the image the flew by as I was speaking that I caught and wanted to share with you this morning.

The answer I was giving morphed into a rap on why the planet is (more or less) screwed.

Went something like this:

The reason that kids today aren’t buying homes is so many are looking at the world around us and asking “Why would I bring an innocent child into a world in these conditions?”

So demand for Housing ain’t what it used to be.

Except everyone in government knows that without growth, the whole economy implodes because growing an economy is the one thing that (crony) capitalism actually does well.

Knowing this dirty little secret, government does what it does best:  Makes up money and grabs more authority.  The attack on cash is just a convenience for government to grab every nickel they can.  Little to do with terrorism or crime, but you knew that…

The growth problem is why there is a new real estate loan I heard about the other day:  It would allows first time home buyers a chance to buy a home with 3% down.  97% of the purchase would go on an ultra low 30-year mortgage.

Off site reference read about Conventional 97 Loans here.

Don’t have a down payment?  Fine.  This new program will give you 3% for a down as a second mortgage.

But now here’s the making up money part.  After making your payments on the second for some period (like 3 to 5 years) then the second is forgiven and you effectively would have gotten a new house on something right next door to zero down.

Except  that I’m not too optimistic about this since people today are not likely to actually have money for this because of student loan debt. 

I trust you saw the note the other day about how student loan debt was heading for the 20-trillion range in a few years and will collapse the economy on its own weight?

But that’s the way things are because so many people have been pushed at gunpoint (If it’s an IRS declaration, it might as well be) into buying Health Care Insurance./

So we begin to see the awful pattern start to emerge here:  We are not able to sell a lot of whatever the Next Big Thing is because people don’t have homes and home equity.

They don’t have homes because their money is going to insurance companies.

And even when that’s done, there is the series of student loans that have millions buried. 

And once all that’s done, we’re back to realistically looking at the world and seeing infinitely increasing taxes, continuously watered-down money, and now let’s toss Zika virus into the the great testicular roulette wheel of Life.

Somewhere, I paused for a breath and the topic went on to other matters.

One of the “learnings of the day” was that all of the rally in the stock market Wednesday can be attributed to the drop in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar.

Yeah, I know…that’s not supposed to work that way…”strong dollar” has been one of the silliest political idiocies ever uttered.

What that does is means we have been paying artificially low prices for imported goods, which in turn has resulted in cheap energy and cheap goods from China (and a lack of plants to make things being built in America.).

There is, under the hypercomplexity model, not end of clever ways to apply economic patches, work-arounds, and hot-fixes.

But, in the End, all we are doing is trying to keep a Swiss-cheesed inner tube pumped up by putting on patch after patch after patch.

No one is talking about how the layer of patches is now several feet thick all over the inner tube.  Instead, they utter even crazier ideas like how a Constitutional Convention might be able to “build us a new tire…”

Sadly, when we talk about things like building a new tire, the odds become nearly 100-percent that it won’t be as good as the old tire.

When you step back mentally, far enough, what fades into focus is this idea that the whole World is evolving like a Microsoft operating system.

I mean, the idea is great…but it’s going to need a few patches, maybe a service pack or three, a heaping side-order of hot-fixes, and for those terminally incapable of thinking life a software engineer, a bevy of Mr. Fixit’s to attempt to put things right.

I’m pretty sure if Bill Gates, or whoever is running the joint up in Redmond these days, was running the World, that we would be on Service Pack 2 with at least 3 patches for security features and a whole bunch of new drivers to install.

And that’s why the presidential election is such a disappointment on the republican side.  The R’s don’t even have a Release Candidate yet.

And have the democratic Release Candidates could be indicted and taken off the table.

We live in a world where, like God, we’re busily creating computers in our own image.

As we look around the sorely F/U’ed world today, we can’t fault the Jews, Muslims, and Christians going off on their end times search for one very simple yet profound reasons:

The World needs a major Update not just a pile of new hot-fixes.

Why heck, everyone who’s sane is “looking for an update” and can’t say as I blame ‘em.

As for religions as business models, have you ever wondered how they only release a service pack every 2,000 years or so?

– – – – – – –

There.  A short column for a change.  One that seems to make sense.  Don’t look for that to be a trend…

I’m off to work on  the next chapter of “Peoplenomics:  Second Depression Handbook” while there’s still time.  It’s appearing for Peoplenomics subscribers one chapter at a time as written.  The book will be along one of these days, but a month or three near as I can SWAG.

Getting Older – Ham Radio is still a Pleasure

Late this month, I will be having a birthday as #67 shows up.  Been a fine ride and I am in no hurry to leave.

Most important thing about Life I’ve learned, by the way, is this:

If you live a life where you’re honest with yourself and color inside the lines of society, you don’t have to every look back over your shoulder.  And you can keep an eye on what’s ahead.

Yesterday, my friend the retired Major who’s been a pal since we were both age 3 and some fraction sent me a marvelous book:  Reflections Transmission Lines and Antennas (Radio amateur’s library).

He’ll be coming down to visit around the first of Tax Month, or so.  Since we are both fairly serious about the hobby, we will likely be putting up a few antennas, taking the tower down for fresh cable up to the beam antenna.  Yes, even LMT-400 ages and I need to do some welding on the tower, too.

We didn’t get into ham radio until age 13 in any serious way.  In 1963, however, we were busily assembling ham transmitters from kits.  For me an Eico 753 kit with factory-made Hallicrafters HA-5 VFO.  He was more a Heathkit man; HR-10 receiver, DX-60, and the matching VFO.

Over the years, we’ve had different ham radio adventures.  But some of them are really pretty neat.

His son (driving C-17’s for Uncle presently)  married the daughter of a construction magnate who lives not far from Gig Harbor, WA.  And being a smart fellow, he’s picked up a ham ticket to keep a  handy-talkie for prepped for  “…in the event of an actual emergency…”

The construction magnet and my bud were able to use little handy-talkies as the CM pre-ran an ultra-marathon course a while back.  That course was from Ellensburg, WA down to Yakima along the Wenatchee River.  The radio only had 50% coverage though because the ultra-marathon course was hilly and there weren’t a lot of repeaters around.

Fast forward to this weekend:  the construction magnate will be running a warm-up marathon up in the San Juan Islands of Washington State.

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For one thing, the price of oil is back under $31 basis the West Texas.

Oddly, Asia was not in the crapper and in fact the Shanghai market was up better than 2%.

Europe, on the other hand, is doing its damnedest to drop that much.  In doing so, the U.S. will like fall 1%, or so, and that should set up a decline in China overnight.  Back in serious trading days, set-ups like this would have me eyeing Asian ADRs (American Depository  Receipts, stocks traded by proxy here).

Well, gee, ain’t this gonna be fun.

I suppose you wonder what’s going on.  The answer is simple.

As you know, we recently hit a major trend channel bottom and we have bounced off that to the upside.  The market now should march a ways up the slightly climbing trend bottom for a ways while everyone comes to terms with the idea that a Wave IKV bottom is really in.

From there, we should make a major move up to about the middle of the trend lines, then pull back, and then go on to new all-time highs.

BUT (and this is a big booty of a BUT if you know what I mean…) IF the market slams down through the bottom of the trend line and stays there for a while…only to come up to the bottom of the trend channel, then we will have to renumber the wave count.

In the “Nightmare on Wall Street” version of the future, we would discover that what seems to fit as a Wave IV was really the beginnings of a I down.  And the recent decline to the trend was just a (1) of I down.

And if that’s the case, we would have to brace for THAT in turn forming an even larger 1 down…and pretty soon my friend Robin Landry’s work, that looks for a sub-1,000 Dow over time shows up sooner than later.  Until the wave structure delivers some new highs, we are still in the danger zone where a Failed V could occur…so we will sit back and watch the herd to see which way they’re going to stampede.

No point trying to be in the middle of the stampede, is there?

Zika virus is a terrible new “left field” event.  A few technical details from the WHO – which has declared a pandemic now:

Key facts

Zika virus disease is caused by a virus transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes.

People with Zika virus disease usually have a mild fever, skin rash (exanthema) and conjunctivitis.

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(Shreveport, LA)  So, you’re wondering: What are George & Elaine doing in Shreveport?

Answer:  I have made a resolution to keep our old Lexomobile until the eventual arrival of “self-driving” cars.

We will also cover the world’s most convoluted accounting problem, too…but in due course.  It’s going to take a bit of explaining.

There is a piece from a while back (maybe a year?  One loses track of time at this stage of life) about how such machines will change the way we live.  By the time the analysis was done, it was almost too good to be true.  The only part that is not-so-good is the price.

Still, consider what it’s going to be like to have a car which…

• Will find its own damn gas station with the cheapest price.
• Will wash itself when it needs to be cleaned.
• Will schedule and keep its own maintenance appointments
• Will potentially END any concerns about drunk driving.
• Will allow you to completely relax and watch the scenery go by…
• And, in the twin bed version of the driverless, you can actually nap, snooze, or sleep all the way across the country on trips. 

To be sure, the media has taken a kind of delish delight in reporting the occasional mishaps that the driverless Googmobiles and others have run into.

Still, it smack of an “anti-future media” and what I mean by this is we have (as a country) lost some of our native ability in American to (language alert) make really cool shit.  Sure, some things like the silicon dolly voice come out of Cupertino, and elsewhere.  But the minute it hits production levels that make sense for the American market “Poof!!”  The manufacturing goes offshore and the money (in Apple’s case) that piles up from huge success hangs offshore too.  No point paying taxes on it, I suppose.

Since we may only buy one more vehicle in our lifetime (assuming someone doesn’t offer me a trade for the old airplane that involves a 911 or Cayman), we sometimes have to leave Palestine, Texas and venture out into the noisy world in order to get certain things done.  For reasons that should be apparent to any free-market economist, the largest Lexus dealership in the world is not in Anderson County, although there’s a good Toyota dealership.

The new dealership in town can’t make a Lexus key.  Lexus here in Shreveport can do so, but only barely.

Lexuses (Lexi?) from the mid 2000’s had one weak spot in their key design.  The plastic that should protect everything has a weakness right where the key stem attaches to the plastic body holding the electronics.  For all we know, there may be a ham sandwich or bag of cat food inside there, too.

Anyway, ours broke on the last long road trip and Elaine didn’t like my idea of repairs.  It involved an assortment of Duco Cement, Super Glue, model airplane cement, and electrical tape.  T’wasn’t pretty, but it did the job.  Until last month.

I ordered a replacement key online – I thought with the push-buttons, but no,  I got the valet key instead.  It will do everything the “special key” will do…it’s just you can’t do it from across the street.

Naturally, the valet key from online needed to be cut and “programmed.”  Which was done for $50-something.  But the dealership didn’t have our old-style key in stock.

After a turn around the dance floor trying to figure out how to solve this, we noticed a display for something called an “Eternity Key.”  Basically, it lets the dealership take the old electronics and key stem and put it into this new “military grade plastic” housing. $117 and change.

Don’t even ask what a military grade of plastic is.  In my short exposure to product design, we just used glass-reinforced injectable goo and it worked fine.  I suppose a stronger binder and a different ratio of glass filling has been assigned a “MIL-STD” but the display either didn’t mention which standard, or I was too dumb to find it.  Regardless, no one in the waiting area was able to inform us on point, either.

After going through the chairs a while longer in the waiting room (1-hour 10 minutes and by now 4 pm) everything was done.  We had two keys that worked and look good. As opposed to a blank part  and one gob of goo with push-buttons when we walked in.

Cost of the repair?  A shade over $187.  But with a “special” key, you really don’t have too much choice.

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A fiery cup at the speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a mighty “Where goes Silver?” echoes across my front yard as the Sun tries to figure out where Texas is.

This may sound a bit melodramatic, but it mat have been the highlight of the day.

You see, Japan was up 2%, the Shanghai was down almost as much, and this morning the mumbletards of Eurabia are down over one percent.

That doesn’t bode well for ‘Merica , formerly a land of borders and common sense.

The Dow will open down a hundred and something and oil has been kicked back under $33 for West Texas and EU oil is down too.

In fact, if there’s anything good in this morning’s review of the futures, the price of copper (a fine little indicator of war jitters because countries are reloaders, too) is back down.  So all the crap over the weekend about South China this, and new islands that is just filler between Iowa stories.

Say, Ted…

-Not to get off onto a side track so early in our morning cuppa, but did you see this Times of Israel note?  “Now deeply Christian, Cruz’s fervor once wasn’t so obvious.”

And there’s this headline, too: Bible prominent in final Cruz pitches to voters.

So here’s the thing:  I get that Ted is trying to work…I mean appeal to…the religious right.

I must be a little off, though, because Ure’s truly was under the impression that America held to the separation of Church and State.

Here’s the thing:  I don’t have any problem with Ted being a Believer and all, BUT when politics and religion mix, its something to keep an eye on. 

Seems to me the only difference between Christians and Muslims getting mixed into politics is which book they reference. 

I’m sure the Texas senator has done the calculus on this, but  beyond a certain point, there may be more moderates to be gained than Born Agains.  Something to ponder, although it’s really too late.

I just go looking for where the church and state have merged and I come up with places like, oh, you know:  Tehran.

Admittedly, on the other side, a large portion of America’s younger voters have no clue what “core values” are…but can we keep ‘em in separate buildings?

Our Lady of Teflon

Meantime, that 22-emails from the Clinton private server have been deemed too classified to be made public.

No worries for the Teflon Lady, though.  A former Inspector General says there will be no indictment.

You and I are not above the law, you see.  But there are “somes that is”…and it’s what keeps America a bad joke in more mentally-honest countries.

I’m trying to work time into my schedule to write a book which might have a title along the lines of:  Masters or Organization:  Gotti and Clinton.  You compare organizational geniuses you want, I’ll pick my own.

Side bets on a low-level bit of collateral damage will be all she wrote?

Personal Incomes and More Fairytales

Just out:  Personal Income and Expenditures….a nearly incomprehensibly discontinuous report where the math never works out.  Here:  Hot off the press release:

“Personal income increased $42.5 billion, or 0.3 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $37.8 billion, or 0.3 percent, in December, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) decreased $0.7 billion, or less than 0.1 percent. In November, personal income increased $44.3 billion, or 0.3 percent, DPI increased $33.4 billion, or 0.2 percent, and PCE increased $59.4 billion, or 0.5 percent, based on revised estimates.

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Being a (semi) retired management & software “slinger” it’s fun every so-often to see if one “still has it.”

So there we were, Sunday morning, coffee on the deck… and we hear noise at the local gravel crushing site down the road from us.

Crap!  It was supposed to be closed by now.

Here I was, thinking I would not really have to go through with my promise to run for County Commissioner if nothing was done to improve the state of local roads.

So far, nothing has changed but I was cool with “letting the clock run.”  Until Sunday morning at a quarter to 8 when heavy equipment noises including the obnoxious back-up beepers started going, again.

What to do?

Well, off to the web services provider.  Bought a website domain name and the cheapest possible hosting plan I could find.  $27 and change for the whole thing. First month of hosting included and $8 a month thereafter.  Works for me.

From there, it was a matter of…

1. Installing the publishing framework.
2. Writing some content
3. Going out and taking some road pictures
4. Adding the pictures to the website  (which meant optimizing and various  monkey-motion)
5. Finishing the optimizing process  (Ure, the speed-tuner)

The result of 5-hours of “Ure-time” may be seen over at www.fixandersonroads.org. 

Not like the local powers (that want to) be aren’t in the dark about what’s going on here.  In fact, I sent a nice email to the County Judge advising him (and the editor of the local paper) of my intentions to get serious on the campaign. 

None of which matters a bit to anyone outside of Anderson County, Texas, except it explains why everyone hereabouts drives a pick-up truck:  It’s slightly faster than driving a Caterpillar D-6 into town, although that’s really a better choice, until you get up to the noisiest piece of road ever driven, which is the local Farm to Market road.  Abbreviated in Texas as an “FM” road, as opposed to a County Road which goes as a “CR.”

But there is one little item that slapped me in the face yesterday as I was screaming through content-generation.  In the tradition of Barrack Hussein O, let me quote from myself here:

“The Ure Vision

Pronounced “Your Vision”

1. Money should be spent based on numbers of users.  Busy roads should get more, quieter roads should get less.  Businesses that damage roads (overweight trucks) should be required to post a damage bond.  The County should allocate funds on condition and traffic counts.  Ever see a traffic counter in Anderson County? I’ve been looking for one for 12-years now!

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Today begins to look like an interesting day to think about getting back into the long side of the market.

Not that we will actually be so silly as to do that; the tools over on the www.peoplenomics.com side of the house are not giving us a green light yet and I invented those tools to keep our personal finances out of the ditch since I am one of those people who tends to fall in love with positions.

Still, we have to look at some of the factors that could lead to rational exuberance – and one of them slapped my yesterday on a drive through Jacksonville, TX.

The price of gas at one of the off-brands on the main drag through town was selling Regular for $1.499 per gallon.    

The Triple A National Fuel Gauge Report shows $1.813 nationally this morning against year-ago prices at $2.044.

Since it seems like most of the cars being sold are getting reasonable mileage, it gets me to wondering whether car travel might be poised to make a recovery this year.

While it’s a bit early for thinking about driving vacations this year with the weather still kind of Itchy and Scratchy for a while yet, it is something to think about when the boss isn’t around.

There is a technical problem:  Even with a strong rally today, the market will not have really gone anywhere this week.  Remember that last Friday’s S&P close was 1,906.90.  So the markets need to “put on some beans” today just to get back to break-even.

Even so, the Futures are kinda pointing this way.  Some reasons?

Well in the Pacific, Japan and China were both up over 2 1/2%.  In Europe, France and Germany were coming up on 3/4% increases, but the Brits were up 1.25% already.

If that kind of EUphoria carries West, that would pump the Dow up 200 and something by the close.  And more important, that would breath live back into the S&P and pop a gain of 20-something for the week.  Any port in a storm.

Still, there’s a long ways to the close and being in cash means we can focus on the important part of life:  Trying to figure out who we pissed off in some previous lifetime to end up on this planet for this time around.

And trying to figure out what really matters besides health, heart, and pocketbook.

GDP’ing All Over Ourselves

Hot off 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 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

In the third quarter, real GDP increased 2.0 percent. The Bureau emphasized that the fourth-quarter advance estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see the box on page 4 and “Comparisons of Revisions to GDP” on page 5).

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Everyone loves a bit of mystery in life.

Since everyone is working (and who has time to call the old folks?) it was a pleasure to catch up a bit with youngest daughter on the phone last night.

Yes, this is the one that got married a few months back after the World’s Toughest Mudder at the MGM Grand.

Turns out their marriage is off to a great start, since they are both into trivia and games.

In the Ancient Book of Ure, there is a set of instructions that says Sex is good for a while, brains are good for a very long time, and the heart is forever.   Mystery keeps everything lasting forever.

As it turns out, daughter (who is a serious gamer) and hubby love to “do mysteries” for one-another.

Since the daughter picked up the latest symphony tickets, she’s having fun with a local mystery she cooked up for the other half.

He has to find his concert ticket.

Gamers have a marvelous sense of play.  So her “mystery for the hubby to solve began with an email from a non-existent spy organization.

He bit.

So a subsequent email explained there is a missing document and he’s being run all over the house and around the neighborhood trying to follow clues that he hopes will get him to his concert ticket, or the daughter will go with a friend of hers.

The game must has consequences, apparently.

I can’t spoil it all, but one of the clues that has been found was in a water bottle with a secret compartment.

Water bottle with a secret compartment?  Oh sure, she explained.  See Amazon and pick one up: Bottle Safe – Dasani.

When introducing the prop, you can get really surreptitious and mix it in with a case of real water, if you want to.

This left Dad with an increasingly familiar “Well, I’ll be dipped and rolled in it…” feeling.  So, there is a glimmer of playfulness and some intelligence in these 30-somethings, after all.

Another clue was on the backside of a picture in the living room.

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Not to ruin breakfast, but check out the latest not-so Durable Goods Order just released by Census:

New Orders  
   New orders for manufactured durable goods in December decreased $12.0 billion or 5.1 percent to $225.4 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today.  This decrease, down four of the last five months, followed a 0.5 percent November decrease.  Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 1.2 percent.  Excluding defense, new orders decreased 2.9 percent.       Transportation equipment, also down four of the last five months, led the decrease, $10.1 billion or 12.4 percent to $71.3 billion.   

Shipments 
   Shipments of manufactured durable goods in December, down two of the last three months, decreased $5.4 billion, or 2.2 percent, to $235.8 billion. This followed a 0.6 percent November increase.  
   Transportation equipment, also down two of the last three months, led the decrease, $5.4 billion or 6.7 percent to $75.1 billion.      

Unfilled Orders  
   Unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods in December, down following two consecutive monthly increases, decreased $5.6 billion or 0.5 percent to $1,187.6 billion.  This followed a 0.1 percent November increase.  
  Transportation equipment, also down following two consecutive monthly increases, led the decrease, $3.8 billion or 0.5 percent to $795.2 billion.

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I can’t count the number of emails making their way around the net in the past 24-hours with provocative headlines like “Fed’s Murdered (the vic) at Roadblock…”

Toss onto that the flurry of emails on the Fed action (not raising rates) at their decision meeting Wednesday that sent the market down more than 200 points before the close.

And with that, we have the “debate” tonight with up to 80-odd percent saying they won’t watch it because no Trump, no audience. 

That and the water heater in Panama’s apartment blew out yesterday..mind you it was covered by a six year guarantee so it failed at 75-months.

Time to do some “cool head” exercises.

Talked to Elaine.  “Dear, you know that porch and desk paint we put on (and discovered after the fact that it said not for exterior use)?  Well, it’s flaking in one spot…:

Yes sir, this was one of those days to be sure.  “Chill, dog,” I told myself.

I don’t have a hot temper  If I did, I’d been doing box time by now.  Seriously.. In fact, I’m more toward  the other extreme:  I like to maintain a kind of Raymond Reddington personality; 5-jumps ahead and ready for whatever.

So this morning a couple of ideas on how to maintain a good attitude so as not to screw up the weekend.

1.  Yes.  One of the people involved in the stand-off in Oregon is dead.  Sorry about that.  BUT you can bet there will be a ton of lawyering on the part of the family members who survived and we will see a ton of videos on Youtube,  Ultimately, though, both sides are partisans.  The demonstrators were distinctly anti BLM and, by extension, anti-government.

I’ve worked in some fairly regulated industries in my time; higher education and broadcasting.  Without exception, I’ve never seen a government auditor get angry.  They don’t have to.   They have the power to tax, the power of a standing Army, and a damn fine Navy.

And, did I mention the government has outlived all of us and can make up money to boot?

I used to tell my kids it is always smarter to run away from al fight you can’t win.  Only an idiot picks a fight where the outcome isn’t certain.

Look, I don’t think BLM land should be off the tax roles.  Since the Feds have some much land, only those areas that at unfenced and open to real public access should be called “public lands.”

Anything else is a real estate operation – and what is the Fed Gov running a real estate operation in huge areas of the West?  State could likely do a better job of it and would certainly meet the test of government closer to the people which is, to my way of thinking where it belongs.

I am sad for the family’s loss, but it was not a fight where there was a clear set-up to win.  The only way to change government without risk of death is at the polls or in a courtroom.  When people forget this, which does happen when wrapped up in a serious grievance, the first rule of fighting is broken.

Never pick a fight you aren’t certain you can win.

There is a word that people often forget, especially when emotions run high and a crowd of people becomes self-reinforcing in their views.  That word is pragmatic.

It means acting in accordance with the data, not theory; high-minded or otherwise.

It’s all about living in the world that is, not trying to live in a world that may become.

The Oregon group was, in a sense right:  Why does GUS (government, U.S.) hold claim to so much land?  I mean other than it’s power and requires taxes to run, and a big supporting infrastructure?

The key is the manner of change:  Confrontation with a government (see Army, Navy,a Air Force and ownership of the Courts) is very unlikely to result in a long-term change to a world without BLM.   Because we live in the world that is, and in this world government is self-reinforcing, self-perpetuating, expansionary, and armed to the teeth.

Sure victory for the 98-pound weakling doesn’t come from getting in a ring with a prize fighter.  Rent lawyers and send them into the ring. 

2.  The Fed is trying to do the right thing on rates, but it isn’t working out well.  See the top story in the news section (when I get to it).  The markets are not likely to call apart today.

Again though, while I don’t think there should be a) a Federal Reserve and believe Congress abdicated by giving private banksters control of the nation’s money and b) the Fed rents us our money and has systematically watered down its purchasing power to only 4.2% of what it was when the banksters got the vault key in 1913, we need to remember here that the same observation about keeping cool applied to the banksters, too.

Like BLM, the Federal Reserve has what it has (power) and by extension, they are backed by Congress (crooks of a feather?) and they, in turn, are backed by a damn fine Army and a first-rate Navy.  (I haven’t mentioned the Air Force, but count them and the Coasties too.

See the previous rule:

Never pick a fight you aren’t certain you can win.

Bitcoin isn’t going to win, unless its part of some negotiated lay-down.  And gold and silver and cash are slowly being criminalized.

It may be too early to pop learned questions on you, but I don’t suppose you know who Mohamed A.

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