Housing Increases Again

Just out from Case Shiller/S&P, but despite the first chart, this is a very solid report:

New York, August 26, 2014 – Data through June 2014, released today by S&P Dow Jones Indices for its S&P/Case-Shiller1 Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show a sustained slowdown in price increases. The National Index gained 6.2% in the 12 months ending June 2014 while the 10-City and 20-City Composites gained 8.1%; all three indices saw their rates slow considerably from last month. Every city saw its year-over-year return worsen.

The National Index, now being published monthly, gained 0.9% in June. The 10- and 20-City Composites increased 1.0%. New York led the cities with a return of 1.6% and recorded its largest increase since June 2013. Chicago, Detroit and Las Vegas followed at +1.4%. Las Vegas posted its largest monthly gain since last summer.

The chart above depicts the annual returns of the U.S. National, the 10-City Composite and the 20-City Composite Home Price Indices. The S&P/Case-Shiller U.S.

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Two-Part Tuesday

Hold the hash browns!  Our column this morning is the monthly two-parter because this is  when the monthly Case Shiller/S&P/Dow Jones (and whoever else) Housing numbers come in, so look for an update about 20-minutes past the hour when these come out and we get a chance to pencil out what it means.

While you’re sipping the burntbucks and waiting for the bean rush, the other Big Deal du jour is that this is the day of the average annual market high.

Yesterday, as expected, the S&P zoomed up to 2,001.95.  BUT the wimpy damn market couldn’t hold it, so maybe today or tomorrow…we’ll have to wait for the open.  And some of that may depend on the housing data.  Which I’m guessing will be good.

The NASDAQ composite also hit a new 52-week high (4,571.14) but again, wimped out at the close.

The futures are showing small gains in the pre-open, but like I said, a lot will depend on how the housing numbers look and some of the other data due out this week.

Durable Goods, for example, is just out: HUGE INCREASE…

“New Orders
New orders for manufactured durable goods in July
increased $55.3 billion or 22.6 percent to $300.1 billion,
the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This increase,
up five of the last six months, was at the highest level
since the series was first published on a NAICS basis in
1992, and followed a 2.7 percent June increase.
Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 0.8
percent. Excluding defense, new orders increased 24.9
percent.
Transportation equipment, also up five of the last six
months, drove the increase, $56.6 billion or 74.2 percent
to $133.0 billion.
Shipments
Shipments of manufactured durable goods in July, up
five of the last six months, increased $8.0 billion or 3.3
percent to $248.9 billion. This was at the highest level
since the series was first published on a NAICS basis
and followed a 1.2 percent June increase.
Transportation equipment, up two consecutive months,
led the increase, $5.6 billion or 7.9 percent to $76.3
billion.
Unfilled Orders
Unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods in
July, up fifteen of the last sixteen months, increased
$59.2 billion or 5.4 percent to $1,158.5 billion. This was
at the highest level since the series was first published on
a NAICS basis and followed a 1.0 percent June increase.
Transportation equipment, up ten of the last eleven
months, led the increase, $56.7 billion or 8.3 percent to
$738.4 billion.

As usual, we are seeing a bubbly market ahead of the holiday weekend.  After what could be a pop today and into tomorrow, by the end of the week, there could be some selling develop, which is the kind of holiday pattern to look for.  T?hree days of risk, instead of two, lead the big players to wet their pants.  They lighten up.

That leaves only the problem of how this fall will work out, but remember crashes never develop at tops.  This market could drop a thousand points before things would get even remotely interesting to us perrmabears.

So bring on the BBQ sauce…looks like we’re going to make it through summer without the world ending.  That’s what our Peoplenomics Trading Model has been saying for a couple of years… It has been consistently long in the face of my gnashing and bashing and it makes me crazy because I just know that the markets are going to collapse from internal corruption.  But they don’t.

My own work jeers me, taunts me, and makes money while I stew and curse its damn accuracy so far.  I’m sure the DSM-V has a name for this: SBD: skeptical bear disease, but it’s going around.

Speaking of which:  One of our readers sent me a headline and asked me what I thought.

“Did you see “Gold, & Silver UP  Dramatically As Citi Sells USD Positions Fearing Squeeze”???  What do you think?”

WTF?  I was the wrong guy to ask:  (language alert, Ure got pissed)

Are you shitting me?  Who writes this load of crap (or for that matter) reads it???

Gold and silver haven’t “jumped dramatically” at all…gold was up to $1320 a couple of weeks back and silver was over $21.

I looked this morning when I got your email – expecting to be a zillionaire based on the headline and what?  Gold was languishing $1,277 and silver?  Sucking wind at $19.42  ($1,286 this morning and I’m still not a zillionaire.)

My point?  Don’t be a frigging idiot – follow PRICES NOT HEADLINES.  Sheep and fools get led around by 72-point type….jeez Louise…”

I was going to CC: you on this, but I didn’t have your email handy, so I thought I would mention it in the column instead.  Pardon the direct language.  And thanks to our reader for asking…it was a fair question, but even more, an important answer.

Absent a solid academic footing and years of research, the doom-porn and gold-touts are always trying to stir up buzz on the net with nonstop End of the World headlines. 

Bad news:  It’s all bullshit vying for your eyeballs so the prophets of doom can make a buck until their ship comes in.

Silver and gold aren’t going anywhere – yet.  And as I’ve held (seems like forever) when the other shoe drops in the economic long wave bottom, we’re more likely to break below $1,000 before we break $2,000 on gold.  And $15 before $30 on silver.  We are still in deflation and (pay attention to Janet, you idiot!) we’re not raising rates because we can’t because this is dead economy (locked in deflation) walking.

BTW: Draghi went to Janet School in Jackson Hole last week  and is now pimping printing in Europe.  Born-again pumper…oh, pardon, that’s pronounced economic stimulus and job creation.  In other words Print!

The whole game of the Fed is to print money like a sonovahbitch while massive deflation is whacking us and hope the resulting “modest price of living increase” fairytale holds long enough for the powersthatbe to whip up another war or get another FF op going so we can artificially stimulate the economy which is flat-lined.  Is this so hard to follow?  FMTT

Will that happen?

No.

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Coping: With the Frontiers of Futuring, The Dallas Hit

(Gig Harbor, WA)  I’m pleased to report that I have finally figured out how to do more with our www.nostracodeus.com project than simply look at language and count words, see which ones are rising, and which ones not (and from there imply future).

The problem is (I can’t tell anyone (but chief programmer Grady and Chris McCleary who uses the technology as a tool in the forecasts from the www.nationaldreamcenter.com.

Reason?  It may be patentable.

After writing it up and sending it to Grady  (Can we code this?) the (greedy, capitalistic) thought occurred to me:  Is there a buck to be made in this?

I mean, of course, besides the obvious:  When we get tools of futuring built that really work, will we be able to make oodles of money by playing options?

That’s the obvious revenue stream, of course.  But, there’s another one:  Namely using the technique to forecast events on behalf of government.  “Here comes what looks like an earthquake is such-and-such area in this timeframe, and a revolution over in this country, in this different timeframe…”

It’s all Holy Grail stuff of seers through the ages, but I think I’ve reduced it to mathematical mumbo-jumbo, so we get to see how creative Grady is in writing math in a report writer (or as additional fields in the database, makes no difference to me where, just that the calculations are done).

So that’s pretty cool.

Dream Do Matter, But an Old Theory Problem Arises

Meantime, Chris has to be gloating about the “hit” from the National Dream Center’s forecasting efforts.  From an overnight email:

Non-PA Headline #13 said, “Chaos ensues in Dallas in wake of …Bomb threat at Dallas/Ft Worth Interntl Airport.”

Behold a bomb threat on a plane from Dallas-FtWorth on August 24th:

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Security-Threat-Diverts-AA-Jet-From-DFW-To-Land-In-Phonenix-272494291.html

http://avherald.com/h?article=4794b45f

You need to click over to this page and read the scoring discussion Chris put together.

We’ve known that something was coming with Dallas – as we discussed that quite openly in our Sunday Special: Quakes, Dallas, and Damn Futuring.

So is that it for the Dallas pop?

Maybe – but maybe not.

This is an old problem of futuring that I described a long time ago that may be thought of as “event masking.”  OK< two problems, then…

First:  Let’s say you have evolved a new way of predicting the future.  (There are several such techniques, including ours).

And let’s say that you see data that includes words like “subsidence” “coastal” “cities” and “water.”

And then you write up a futuring forecast that includes all these terms and reflects the dire nature of whatever the worlds subsidence, coastal, and so forth, conjure up in the mind of the analyst.

Then you issue a forecast, and when it’s wrong (insofar as it doesn’t occur exactly as forecast) people become highly skeptical of all such forecasts….humans don’t score well in the probabilistic thinking realm.  They love black/white, hard forecasts.

But the forecast was still good.  The language basis might be right, but the interpretation can still be off. 

So instead of states sinking beneath the waves, you might get a note from someone like our Winnipeg news analyst fellow who politely sends this:

Dear Mr. Ure,

It seems that Mexico City is not the only locale subsiding as groundwater reserves are depleted. Chinese researchers have released an open access paper this year that contends some regions in Beijing have shown accelerating rates of subsidence from 2003 to 2010 based upon satellite measurements which the researchers claim is due to excessive groundwater extraction.

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Markets and Quaketivity

(Gig Harbor, WA)   The 6.0/6.1 quake this weekend down in the Napa Valley area north of San Francisco is waking people up to a couple of things:

One:  Prepping with food water and ham radio isn’t just a theoretical pastime.

Two:  Energy from space and the Sun just might actually mean something on Earth.

Latest:

There was a 6.9 quake reported in Peru this morning which supports the idea that the eastern part of the Pacific Ring of Fire is now beginning to heat up in a major way.

As the workweek begins down in California, the damage totals are still be added up.

But more than 100 people have been treated for injuries and it’s quite the mess – state of emergency in place, and all.

Headlines like “SF escapes largest quake in decades with no disturbances” seem, well, a false sense of security.

When comes to the US West Coast, the Big One is only a matter of time.

               

Nipping at 2,000

The new all-time high for the S&P last week 1994.76 fell just short of crossing the big psychological gulf into the 2,000+ realm.  when I looked earlier, the S&P futures were up 7, so there’s a fair chance that given even modestly good economic news, we could hit the annual high this week, more or less on schedule.

A couple of things to watch on housing:  A key report will come out this morning and tomorrow will see the latest S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city housing data.

Driving around the Seattle/Tacoma area this weekend, we found no shortage of inventory.  Prices are firm, too.

The balance of the week had durable goods, Chicago purchasing manager numbers Friday, and other data *(like GDP) so the week has some upside potential for the bulls if the 2,000 barrier gets crossed today.

Hold on Syria Bombing?

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs is quoted as saying that ISIS is not a “direct threat” on the US yet, and is holding back against bombing in Syria to cut their options.

All of which runs a bit sideways to Chuck Hagel’s remarks of last week,. but in either case, it comes down to a simple matter of how you want to read Art of War.

Not that I am a strategic genius, but seems to me that when a bunch of upstarts in any location start announcing intent to harm America and follow through with a beheading (questioned as a false flag on conspiracy boards), seems to me we don’t wait for them to attack home soil.

Take the game to them, kick some butt, and that’s that.

This nicey-nice crap is just a little too Lord Chamberlain-like.  While I’m not suggesting Gen. Martin Dempsey change his first name to Neville, people in the sand pile respect only one thing.

Hey, Neville!  ISIS just took a Syrian air base this morning…wanna rethink your view?

And if we want a future when small groups don’t walk around kicking sand in our faces (and reports say ISIS has raised more than $125-million, thanks in part to European countries allowing ransom to be paid via “aid organizations” we need to consider these fellows are building a business model.

If you can pick a fight with the USA, do a beheading, and then have a waffling general, I’d say we’re likely looking at slip on the back-end for every day of delay on the front end.  There’s no point in having overwhelming force if you’re not willing to use it.

Seems to me that a few “tactical glass factories” would send the entire world a message – America is nuts and will go balls to the wall when pissed.  So let’s not mess with Uncle.

Of course, this will never happen: Because it would require political will and the ability to articulate being willing to “kill for peace.”  Which the upstarts know, and now look for them to attack American soil.  Not so much because they want to bring their fight here, openly, yet.  They are still infiltrating at all levels.

But what they can (and I expect will) do is something of an attack here which they will turn into a fund-raiser and we’re just growing the cancer bigger.  When it can be “burned” out right now. 

Hey Neville!  Russian APCs into Ukraine this morning….those cookie-makers at State sure set us up good on this one, huh? 

Waiting for enemies to get stronger is the height of strategic stupidity. It’s why we don’t have a southern border, except for law-abiding people.  No respect for law?  No border!  WTF?  Punish the law-followers, reward the criminals…that’s the Washington Cartel Way.

And it’s why ISIS will strike America in time – because the feminization of foreign policy and the disarming of ‘Merica is a methodical way to blunt the sharp edge of the spear.  It’s why Russia is rebuilding its buffer states.

Of course, with my “take no bullshit” campaign (TNBS 2016) solid, secure borders, gold-backed money, self sufficiency, and a labor equalization tax on all imported goods, I could never be allowed to hold office. 

But what about you?  (Where’s my meds?) Why can’t America elect strong, decisive leaders, anymore?

Oops…lead….Sorry!  That’s the word people can’t handle.  Change, transparency, mumbo-jumbo of slickster marketing?  Sure, people will vote for free apple pie and more welfare…what a surprise, huh?  But lead or (god forbid) Vision….ain’t hap-nin.  We are hopelessly screwed and you won’t run for office.

And why not?  Coward?

Notes from the Prairie

Up in the wilds of Winnipeg, our news analyst fellow has been hard at work:

Dear Mr. Ure,

Here are a pair of  links related to infectious disease that you may find to be interesting reading. There was the April 1 advice from the Saudi Ministry of Health restricting issuance of certain hajj visas although not mandated by the WHO. Secondly is the Internet Archive’s October 28, 2013 page capture of a WHO infectious disease ward design for Sierra Leone.

Also:

Channel News Asia, subsidiary of a Singaporean government-owned investment company, reported that a small shipment of Fukushima rice was being placed for retail sale in Singapore. The quoted price may have ensured brisk sales from the Japanese retailer.

The High Cost of Commercial TV

That reminds me:  Elaine and I were watching TV for the first time this weekend.  Yes, we get TV at the Ranch, but it’s free-to-air (FTA) TV from multiple countries and there are no commercials in it.  And, when we watch important content (Blacklist, Crossbones, Suits…) it’s only 43-minutes for an hour episode.

Work with me on the math here:  Most of the (standard def) shows are $1.99 per episode.

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Coping: Beware the Corporate Rumble

(Gig Harbor, WA)  One of our long-time readers is a hard working east coasterly fellow who works a good ways up in one of those NYSE-list companies that if I told you, you’d go “Sure, I use their stuff every day…”

He sent me an email last week that is more that sobering because it looks ahead to “America After””.”

After what?

Well, odds are fair that the S&P will crack 2,000 today or later in the week.  And that (trigger effect) means that we could be in one last parabolic stock market blow-off for a few months to come.  BUT then we expect the Mutha ofs All Crashes – the one that will dwarf the 1930’s and make us all broken and beyond.

Markets go Up and markets go Down.  It’s just no one in “modern times of the nanny state” really plans on the Down part.  Except for a few diehard preppers, like us, and the other 16 people left in America who live below their means and prefer being financial icebergs to being professional victims.

So read this carefully and think through what it means:

G- I was in the land of [redacted’s] Inc’s HQ the last week in meetings. Had several interesting things happen to me so I will number them in order.

1. Had a meeting with a Big Sales Exec here and told me that “They” fully expect economic implosion next year or so. I never ever heard that type of talk from someone here at [redacted] in my entire time here.

2. Met with a young sales rep that I recently placed with one of our [redacted] companies and she as a 27 year old was just as awake as me. Again I have never heard a [redacted]sales rep that was awake especially that young. She is actually prepping herself. Unheard of in the last 8 years of me glooming in this doom business haha.

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Sunday Special: Quakes, Dallas, and Damn Futuring

Damn, I hate futuring on mornings like this. 

One of our SF area readers felt that 6.0 quake in the Napa country this morning:

Hi George! 

A little wake up call from Mother Nature this morning. Felt like being in a washing machine down here on the SF peninsula. A good reminder to all to be prepped!

Good news – and bad – it was something that Grady had called from  our www.nostracodeus.com data…

“A week ago we told you Earthquakes are coming. Now they are here. With the recent solar activity, we already seeing quakes of larger magnitude around the planet. Expect more. And since writing this, the headlined the San Francisco has occurred. Note also the beginning of volcanic activity under the ice in Iceland. Aircraft are being warned to avoid the area. There will be more, including aftershocks in the Bay area of San Francisco.”

And like that’s not enough?  Chris over at the National Dream Center which is now using some of the linguistic analysis tools Grady developed for Nostracodeus (he calls ‘em DreamBots because he uses the tool to read language change of predictive dreams) – has come up with four possible future-headlines that center on Dallas.

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The Next BIG Thing: Authorpreneurs?

(Gig Harbor, WA) I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Subscriber Don, who’s a C-level guy in a securities outfit who I was bantering with about how Janet Yellen wasn’t going to mention the words automation, 3D printing, or robotics in her discussion of the labor market at the Fed Retreat at Jackson Hole this week. (As usual, I was right – she didn’t!) Me being an ERP/BPR jock, this is a huge deal (robotics is coming to own everything) and so I made some flip remark to Don and he replied to the effect that “Yeah, I have4 a gig until the machines come for my management job…” This morning I reveal how this “Next BIG thing” is driving my home recording studio project – and by the time you get done with this nice compact explanation, you will understand two critical concepts that aren’t in the textbooks yet. One is just showing up – long-chain business models.

Macro-Investing and the Micro-Minds

Both the S&P and the NASDAQ hit new records Thursday and while not rich, my long-term out of the money call options on the S&P look less stupid this morning than they did two weeks ago.

Before we get into the Janet Yellen FedSpeak this morning in Jackson Ho Wyoming, where the Fedsters run to confab in the summer when it’s miserably hot in most of the rest of the country (48F and rain there this morning), I thought we would push back with a cuppa and do some serious thinking.

Biggest problem in the world today?  Lack of jobs.

Biggest cause of lack of jobs?  Oh, try machines and automation.

Biggest cause of machines and automation working?  The Internet.

Solution to all the above?  Beats hell out of us – we just sit in a dark fugue about it and wonder why the world continues on present course, but then we review antidepressant medication sales figures and everything sort of falls into place…

This morning, Fed Chiefette Yellen speaks on Labor Markets.

When you are in charge of ‘steering” the Great Ship of Economy” through difficult storms, it’s useful, methinks, to keep an eye on the eventual destination.

Since we’re in the midst of a great economic storm (all the time, seems) it would be key insight into the captain’s mindset to see what they talk about in the middle of the storm.

Since we’re big into language, we went looking for words that might matter in the long-term labor outlook for America.  Words like “outsource” and “robotics” and “automation.”

When the speech is released (check here for it after 10 AM Eastern), you can look for robotic references and outsourcing remarks, but I don’t expect much, if any.

On the other hand, terms like “Market expectations” and “economic growth” ought to be all over the place…

As of press time, the market seems to be swallowing the pre-comments about her comments with all the enthusiasm of a cough-syrup addict.  Futures were about flat.

I am a total worrywart about robotics eating what’s left of the economy. 3D printing and archived software code.  But I’m a whacked-out ex-corporate rainmaker who views everything with suspicion.

And Janet Yellen isn’t likely to mention it this morning.  Perhaps that’s a defining difference between a strategic outlook at a tactical outlook.    Strategically, though, we’re in a heap-o-trouble and the people at the top of the decision-making food chain aren’t exactly inspiring confidence that they have a grip.

Like passengers on an airplane – which has lost all its engines at altitude, having the captain come on an talk about how nice and quiet the ride is, it sort of misses the point that a soft landing becomes a very important problem if the pilots would just look ahead a little further.

How far ahead is the Fed looking?  2016 or 2025?  It’s not an impertinent question.

More after this…

      

Drone Scoping

The Los Angeles Police Department is taking some heat from plans to use a couple of drones they got from Seattle.

Russia’s Peaceful “Invasion”

Oh the press’ knickers will be twisted up on this one:  All those aid trucks are now crossing into what Ukraine says is its turf in eastern parts of the country.

You ever see a war before where the first “shot” was a delivery of food aid to people ravaged by their own governments?

Watch closely, this may be a tactical first…

Terror in the Wings, Politics of Terror

Speaking of which, Chuck Hagel is expecting an up-turn in terrorism. 

The Secretary of Defense says the threat posed by ISIS is way beyond anything seen to date…

Of course, cynics may wonder how much ISIS has been helped by all that war materiel left behind in the sand box and all the aid given to AQ affiliates on the pre-text that they would help topple the (elected) government of Syria, which although we may not exactly love hasn’t declared war on us…We (the lobbied West) have been party to almost 200,000 killed on both sides in Syria’s ‘civil” war now.

The term “snookered” comes to mind and yes, I believe there’s some basis for federal criminal prosecution of US political organizations which have interfered with the orderly (non-political) operation of foreign policy development by Congress  under the Logan Act which says:

§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments.
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.

1 Stat. 613, January 30, 1799, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953 (2004).

I won’t name any particular Middle East country, but I don’t see any exceptions here and I don’t believe the people involved registered as agents of a foreign government despite multiple citizenships, if you follow.  But big political campaign donors are seldom prosecuted, in case you haven’t noticed.

See my earlier comments on the two kinds of justice in America:  Fast/Rich, slow/poor.

I believe we face peril as a nation when multiple citizenship holders are placed any elective or appointive office.  And the blowback from past lobbying around Syria is just a single current example.

Would we tolerate such influence from holders of dual-citizenship from Yemen, for example, or China?  Russia?  Oh-oh….there we go off on the egalitarian track, again.

Ah, but let’s spin up ISIS as having chemical weapons and hush-up the Western support for anti-Syrian efforts a year to three back…

As a nation we just awful memories.

Israel Losing Sources?

Hamas has executed 18-people accused of collaboration with Israel.

Date Night Note

ISIS has seen to a man being stoned to death for being an adulterer.

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Coping: 2:42 AM – I Solved ALL World Problems!

Have you ever wondered who invented Time Zones?

Well, I have.  And in the process, I have solved all the world’s Big Problems – like poverty.  Takes a bit of explaining, but follow along on this…

One week ago, Elaine and I took off on this adventure to the Pacific Northwest where we are living for a full month.  Mostly it’s business, but lots of kid time, too, including the dinners out with family and so forth.

And that’s where Ures truly turns into a wet dish rag party-pooper:  I am still getting up at 2:30 AM (local time, 4:30 AM (indicted governor time in Texas) to write my column. So (local time) I like the idea of going to bed about 5 PM.  Being married in this time zone?  Ain’t ever gonna happen.

Same guy, same country, same snarfy markets comments, and – as far as the circadian rhythms of the body are concerned, the same body clock.  UrbanSurvival is a more institution.  (Comments welcome on whether it would be useful any other time of day…)

People of the Left Coast don’t seem at all bothered by the fact that they (rather arrogantly) can’t tell Washington, DC time…and DC’toninians live (as a result) displaced from the prevailing reality of the Right Coast.  Ever place in-between (like Ferguson) is screwed up.

Is it any wonder we are a deeply conflicted country?

So, I got to thinking (in a moment of Dementia/Minutia Disease, perhaps), who’s the sonovabitch who decided we should have one voting country and  11 clock countries involved in the Superpower America brand of products?

Bet you didn’t know that US outposts Baker and Howland Islands are at one end of the US Time Zone conspiracy while Wake Island in the western Pacific and McMurdo research station down in the Antarctic are 12-hours off, did you?

Turns out, that “local time” has its roots in what else?  Industry…sayeth Wikipedia here:

Local solar time became increasingly awkward as rail transport and telecommunications improved, because clocks differed between places by an amount corresponding to the difference in their geographical longitude, which varied by four minutes for every degree of longitude. The difference between New York and Boston is about two degrees or 8 minutes, the difference between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, is about 7 degrees or 28 minutes. Bristol is 2°35? W(est) of Greenwich (East London), so when it is noon in Bristol, it is about 10 minutes past noon in London.[1] The use of time zones smooths out these differences.

The first adoption of a standard time was on December 1, 1847, in Great Britain by railway companies using GMT kept by portable chronometers. The first of these companies to adopt standard time was the Great Western Railway (GWR) in November 1840. This quickly became known as Railway Time. About August 23, 1852, time signals were first transmitted by telegraph from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Even though 98% of Great Britain’s public clocks were using GMT by 1855, it was not made Britain’s legal time until August 2, 1880.

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The Beheading Really Matters

The ISIS beheading of a western journalist this week marks a major turning point in militant Islam’s assault on the infidel West. The Financial Times reports that ISIS may be little more than a (violently rebranded) al Qaeda. And their influence in spreading. We noted this expansionism (which I dubbed The Global Caliphate) has begun its serious expansion phase in a June 18 Peoplenomics.com report, presented here earlier.

Coping: Is 80 Really “Old”?

I got one heck of a kick out of the reader comments in response to my recent notes on “Moving when you’re old…”

At 65 – and 66 within a few months – I’m just trying to keep ahead of the Game of Life a bit.  Admittedly, though, I often move 10-years early on most things…

As I read “Moving when you’re older” I had a good laugh as I noted it seems you think 80 is really really old and no one needs fancy tools and equipment because at 80 they are so far gone they can’t use them.
That IS true in some cases.  Not in mine.
I am 80.  I grew up on healthy home grown veggies and foods (organic too even at that early time).  I was raised on raw Jersey Cow milk so rich it had 6 inches of yellow cream on the top in the big bottles that came from Dad’s patients who were dairy farmers.  Dad was Chiropractor who did a lot of nutrition counseling so I had real natural vitamins at every meal and real bread Lima bean, Whole Wheat, Soybean from a specialty bakery in S Calif back when S Calif was paradise.
So my body is in good shape, I take two pharmaceuticals.  One for heart rhythm, one for pain of a back injury.  Not 10 or 15 or more like most old folks who ate crap food, did not exercise, never touched supplements. Drank and smoked. Surprise, they burned out their  bodies.  So at older age they get exactly what they deserve.
People who don’t know me take me to be 60 to 65.
So if I had a shop full of high end equipment I would be using it for quite a long time from now. 
And oh yes, I climb my own towers still, have a nice belt and harness.
So age depends on how you take care of your machine, not on some numbers.

LOL, totally true.

It is maybe – as much as anything – getting off sugar at an early age (and quitting smoking) that keep[s the age off.  That, some exercise and the right nutritional products.

Elaine and I are usually taken for 10-15 years younger than we are.  E’s age is classified but let’s just say she’s already crossed an official finishing line – and looks to be lying by 20 years about it.

I’ve told her to write a book about how she did it…working out, kettle bells, free weights, and stretches and so forth.  When she walks in a room most men think “Ah, had some body work…” but no, just staying fit.  Seriously fit, active, and 8 hours of solid sleep. Vitamins, no sugar…the healthy path.

Another hint?  Never go to bed mad – about anything.  Stress is terrible – stress kills both directly and by driving you to other bad habits like booze in excess and so on…

Moving/Full-time Renaissance Festivals?

A reader out in Hawaii chimes in…

Pardon me, George, but listening to you complain about ‘moving’ a month’s worth of travel gear to a second floor tells me…  “You’re a Wimp!”

Three years ago, when I was a young and spry 58 years old, I decided that moving just across the street was no big deal.  Wrong!  It’s STILL a ‘move’, and that’s when you find out you have way too much ‘stuff’.  Dumped a full 1/3 of my ‘accrued mass’ and moved into what I thought was a better, bigger apartment that allowed ham radio antennas!  Living on a steep hillside as I do, it still involved taking furniture down the driveway more that a full story, across, and back up a flight of steps to the new ‘ground floor’ across the street.

Fast forward three years.  My landlord sells out and the new owner wants to reconstruct the whole building.  I have a ‘breakable’ lease extension to December, but began looking for a new place immediately.  It takes time in this town.  Last week I finally found something in the lower end of rents here.  I’m going from $925/mo to $1400/mo for a slightly larger place… three blocks down the hill and still on the hillside.  Parking on the ground floor, and I’m on the second floor above.   So now I’m cleaning, painting, fixing, and starting to move the accrued crap of a lifetime yet again…

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Revisiting the “Deathidemic”

(Gig Harbor, WA)  A couple of Julys ago, a friend of ours lost a son to suicide – a problem which continues to grow in the world.  So at this time of year we reflect on what kind of world we’ve made that drives people to end life prematurely.  A look at headlines is only part of it, but an important part, I expect.

But here lately, with the problems of Ebola, the stress of Ferguson, and more, we begin to wonder if increasing socioeconomic pressures globally might be ramping up (generalizing, if you will) the human death rate.  Against this backdrop, might the methods and techniques of medicine be used to study socioeconomic issues in a new way by using patterns of analysis similar to those employed in epidemiology?

There’s animal research, human psychological research, and the evidence right before us with things like road rage and the like.

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Inflation? What Inflation?

The market has had a couple of great days leading into the CIP report this morning, so let’s ruin breakfast with that one, first if you went short.  (Here, let me turn on your camera on your computer…aha! You could skip a meal, or two…)

“The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.1 percent in July on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 2.0 percent before seasonal adjustment.

The all items index posted its smallest seasonally adjusted increase since February; the indexes for shelter and food rose, but were partially offset by declines in the energy index and the index for airline fares.

The food index rose 0.4 percent in July, with the food at home index also rising 0.4 percent after being unchanged in June. The decrease in the energy index was its first since March and featured declines in the indexes of all the major energy components.

The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.1 percent in July, the same increase as in June. Along with the shelter index, the indexes for medical care, new vehicles, personal care, and apparel all increased in July. Along with the index for airline fares, the indexes for recreation, for used cars and trucks, for household furnishings and operations, and for tobacco all declined in July.

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