For those who missed my FB/G+ post this weekend, I need to post it here so you can follow the latest developments. (If you read the G+/FB note, skip past this first indented part:) A reader sent in an interesting reason why this might be the case: Hi George: I hope you have time to look into this one – Today you say What if 2012 was a year off?
Say, here’s an interesting one to keep an eye on: Competition in the wings for Bitcoin: Scharmbeck Worldcoin Financial Services launched live beta testing today of an online platform that will streamline the buying, trading and use of Cryptocurrency (Cryptocoin). Beginning with the worldwide launch of Worldcoin’s new user-friendly system in February, the general public will not only be able to directly purchase Worldcoin instantly, but processing speeds for using Worldcoin will be 20x faster than Bitcoin. That means businesses will be able to process Worldcoin payments as effortlessly as accepting a credit card.
From the “What IF Department: Remember what was going on a year ago this weekend? The world was supposed to end when the Mayan calendar flipped over. Yet, if your eyes are open, you’ll notice that things are still here. (If not, I’d be interested in how you’re reading this…) HOWEVER, whether things will still be “normal” come February, well, that becomes a matter for a bit of speculation.
Editor in Chief, Zeus the Cat, suggested “Paws then Claus” as our opening headline this morning instead of our obscure reference to the drop in markets in order to build a base for the “Santa Claus Rally” that often happens at this time of the year. “What the hell do PAWS have to do with the market” I asked. “Scratch profits, you idiot!” he meowed back. “What goes with PAWS is CLAWS in my world and that would be a nice play off the other fatso – the one in the red suit.
“Dot connecting class is now in session. We have a whole string of dots, but do follow along and you can connect them as we go…” In an article back on Monday, November 25th, I had a crazy dream described in “Winds of Noumenon” that related to Harriers on carriers, sitting on the deck. I thought it was a goofy, although potentially revealing dream at the time about what’s ahead. Two days later the news stories begins to increase around the word Harrier. As in “Harrier by Jonathan Glancey, review” and lots of others.
OK, corporate wage slave, up at an ‘em: Time to jump on the treadmill like a good little hamster and press your nose toward the cheese for another week…all so we can pay interest which will accrue to the Uber Klassen so they, in turn, won’t have to work and can reinvest their money in continuing to buy corrupt politicians who don’t listen to the people, preferring instead the poison lies of the lobbyists instead. Boy, am I ever a motivator, or what? The good news, such as it is, holds that we are likely to see a 25% decline in the Dow and other major indices when people figure out how bad the economy really is. If you didn’t catch it, the UK Telegraph article “Europe repeating all the errors of Japan as deflation draws closer” is a real eye-opener.
Sometimes it’s a joy to be a writer – and this morning is one of those times – because stories are floating about that are just screaming for comment. And before we get into the Grim (credit card) Reaper report, it’s important to hear just how disconnected much thinking on the economy is. Let me explain what I mean: We begin with a report (over here) in which former Fed Deity (Sir) Alan Greenspan sees no bubble in the stock market even though we are at never-before-seen highs. Does the word Ludacris mean anything outside of Atlanta?
No, I won’t often put in two Amazon ads, but this is Black Friday and already the whole fate of the nation seems to hang on how much money you spend over the next few days, or so news reports make it seem. Hell, I’m just doing my part to help try to save the Republic, right? To be sure, a lot of people did venture out after turkey looking for deals, but here in the East Texas Outback, most of the stores in town were closed. Family values (like spending time together) are still important in this part of the world. Even the local Lowes was closed.
As we assemble, once again, to watch the sun rise over the cuckoo’s nest (it’s clear in Washington DC this morning), we can’t help but be somewhat bored with the lack of substance to the day’s headlines. Why, you’d think in a world full of terrorism, nuclear weapons, climate change, pandemics at every turn, not to mention Planet X, that something more than an unfortunately ‘routine’ bombing outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut killed 23, and there’s no winner yet in Mass Media’s current contest to see who can report the earliest date that the Obama administration knew their website wasn’t going to end happily. Both stories, however, are worthy of some elucidation while we wait for markets to do more than noise trade pending data later this week. We can start with the more pleasant of the two: Fox snooze is leading the “early warning” pack at the moment, revealing HHS warned about the website issues in March, but please!
The trading indicator, which Peoplenomics subscribers see twice weekly, has really ticked me off this year. I am *(as you probably figured) a dyed-in-the-wool bear who loves to make money on the short side of markets and who does extremely poorly when ‘gut trading” in a rising market. The Indicator, however, with a single weekly exception, has been resolutely bullish since last December and continues its long position, even now. Historically, Fall has been a great time for markets to pull major dives and yet, at least so far, we haven’t exactly gone off the high board. While there’s a chance of a decline come Wednesday, we can’t help but wonder if some of the “enduring optimism” (financial snort) hasn’t been due in part to the busting up on regular economic reports thanks to the government shutdown when 83% of government couldn’t even get the regular statistics turned out… I mention this because the Cost of Living report which has been previously issued around the 14th of the month won’t be out until Wednesday..
If you like Obamacare, you’re really going to love the details coming out about the Trans-Pacific Partnership plans which have been outed by Wikileaks. They’ve issued a press release: The TPP is the forerunner to the equally secret US-EU pact TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), for which President Obama initiated US-EU negotiations in January 2013. Together, the TPP and TTIP will cover more than 60 per cent of global GDP. Both pacts exclude China.
A number of readers have taken me to task for mentioning the reader strategy of not signing up for Obamacare and just paying the penalties later. That’s not me, but there are a lot of people who do want the option of considering that. The biggest problem with signing up when you think you might need care in the future is that it doesn’t work: If you’re in a traffic accident – one that makes local headlines, for example – you won’t be in any condition to sign up. Then there is some delay until paperwork finalizes and money is paid.
It’s been an article of economic faith that with any solid recovery, America ought to be seeing a major jump in home demand. Not only should the housing prices see a 2.3% (or whatever price inflation is), but it should also seem to pressure to the update from a) all that quantitative easing, and then b) by all the Federal Reserve M2 printing festival which has bumped up M2 by 6.4% over the past year. So, with this (unfortunately sobering) view, we flip over to this morning’s press release about the Case Shiller/S&P Housing Index which blew away just keeping up with inflation: