With the bombing of Iraq back in place, and with continued fighting in Gaza, the key question to be asking ourselves this Monday is “How Much Longer to Humans Have?”

I really like the answer “ad infinitum” but the evidence isn’t looking good, in that regard.

]To be sure, there are reports (like this one) that continue to hold to the idea that airborne transmissibility is unlikely because (in  our sample story) “pigs cough and sneeze more than people do…”  Excuse me?

The good news, such as it is, is that the spread of Ebola will be a terrible human tragedy working out over perhaps a five year window.

We know, for example, that a glance at the replication and infection range for Spanish Flu (1918 to 1920) meant a roughly two year high mortality period.

Since the incubation period for flu in general is about 2-day, and maybe 4-days in some cases, we can look at how the timeline for a much longer incubation period would last.

Peak death from Spanish flu was spread over a 24-month period, but with the transmission rates what they are of Ebola (and comparing the course of illness, 7-10 days for flu versus 20-days for Ebola) we worked out this weekend (with help from my consigliere) that a 2x to 4X disease time of maximum death (reference Spanish flu) would be a reasonable guess. 

We settled on a factor of 3, which means that since Spanish flu was an 18-24 month Big Deal, the currently evolving pandemic won’t really be of known scale until 54-months (4.5 years) to 72-months (6-years).

This one is going to be around a long time.  Hopefully you and I will be among the survivors so we can commiserate.  I have no idea where I’m going to get the creativity for 6-years of headlines about this stuff.;..

Death at a NASCAR Race

“Why do people go to stock car races?” I asked one of the deans of Seattle newscasting back in the day, as he was rolling up cans of Rainer beer in foil as we were about to head out to a local speedway.

“Part of it is the sound, the presence of death, the danger of going fast…maybe the injuries…much like bull-fighting…” he told me.  This was back in 1966…

Fast forward to this weekend in upstate New York, driver Tony Stewart reportedly struck and killed driver Kevin Ward, Jr. who has gotten out on the track and was trying to confront Stewart.

Human’s don’t change much as to why they go to auto racing events, bull fights, or confrontation sports like football and boxing…..at least in the 65 years I’ve been watching for change…

More after this…

             

To Market, To Market

Nothing much on the economic horizon until the middle of the week, so the Dow looks to tack on another 70-80 points at the open today.

The reason news won’t come until we get to retail sales on the 13th and then on to producer prices Friday morning.

Looking at the global markets, The biggest gainer in Europe this morning in Germany which is up 1.75% and in Asia overnight, the Japanese market screamed up 2.38% overnight – that’s 350+ points and that’s a lotta sushi…

Silver is back over $20-bucks and gold could be lining up for another run, too…just remember what I told you about the periodic annual high for the market is usually set around August 26th, plus or minus a week, or so.  But if we roll 500 points up this week, Ures truly will be the least surprised guy in town.

Want to Skip Work?

There’s a new report about telecommuting in the Washington Post this morning about how the “Patent Office filters out worst telework abuses in report to its watchdog….”

All of which gets us back to the perpetual problem of management:  What gets measured gets done…and if telework (or any OTHER kind of work for that matter) isn’t measured and benchmarked periodically, what do you expect will happen?

You Know It’s Summer When…

Rioting with racial overtones shows up…. in the wake of the shooting of a black teenager in the St.

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First item up is a very short discussion of how science works.

When the alarm on the husband side of the bed falls off the nightstand and the battery is reinserted, the time may display differently.

As was the case overnight.

I had all kinds of strange dreams (attributing them to the moon being extra big and close this weekend) and despite all the dreams and feeling extremely rested, the damn clock insisted it was nowhere near “time to get up.”

Still, having a list of crap a mile and a half long to deal with (it is Monday, right?) I decided to get up at 3:24 AM and “get a jump on things.”

After the leisurely reboot process (coffee, a handful of vitamins and such) it was then time to look at the clock on the computer.

6:16 AM

Holy mother of pearl!  So this morning’s column may seem a bit strange since it is a product of a very well-rested, fast-typing sonofagun who is waaay behind schedule.l

But the dream overnight may have been worth it.  Elaine had ‘em too, so it’ll be interesting if lots of readers had dreams that were particularly vivid this weekend – and involving a disproportionate “dead relatives” doing walk-in parts.,  They showed up in both Elaine’s drreams and mine…which gets me to a question to post to Chris over at the www.nationaldreamcenter.com site…

Because?  Well, since the moon was closer and bigger than “normal” (whatever that is on this rock anymore) wouldn’t it be a book sci-fi plot for the moon to be where people go when they die?  A planet inhabited by spirits only…and in which case, the US might be willing to let China have it…and it would sure explain why we’re in no particular hurry to go back there with (remnants of) our space program.

Some movie plot, huh?

Planetary influences and “things in space” impacting the behavior of humans is a well-studied fact in the investment world.

For example, in Robin Handler’s Options Signal Service ( www.oss.cc )report preview today’s trades, there’s this little gem that I don’t think he’d mind my sharing with you in the assessment of last week’s market action……

The Planetary A-Index from NOAA tipped us off that there would
be strong selling on Tuesday. Bingo again. Take a look at the
graph on page 8. See how high the bar was for Sunday? On
Monday it went even higher, but the market did not sell off. Then
NOAA predicted an even higher bar for Tuesday. It was a nobrainer
that Tuesday was going to sell off. A nice play for the
Binary Option traders.

Last week was under a bullish planetary influence. The market
does not always move in the direction of these planetary influence,
but when they don’t, and can expect the date of the aspect to be a
reversal date. Mars Trined Neptune on Thursday.

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This morning – thanks to a reader accidentally finding some old personal budget information from 1989 – we have the opportunity to do a little “double-checking” of how inflation has worked out (in the REAL world, as opposed to the “hypothecated, seasonally-adjusted” world of bureaucrats.

So how close did they get it?  You’ll enjoy our research…

After we get  coffee…no point in trying to force the brain into action too quickly; it is summer after all…

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Hawaii’s getting its butt kicked this morning.  With the market set to tank further at the open we are wondering if the markets are discounting possible big problems in Hawaii from the two Hurricanes that are about to have a close brush with the place?

Step over to Mr. Ure’s whiteboard and we’ll run you through why the next three weeks will be key for the Islands.

We start with the report referenced in our unusual afternoon update Thursday that suggests (and this is per the NY Times so it must be true, right?) that changes in atmospheric pressure can trigger (gulp!) seismic stuff.

While I sit here and hit off the whiteboard marker, here, you go look up the barometric pressure range for the coming week at, oh, Hilo, for example.  That’s on the side of the Big Island that slipped in the 2006 quake, yeah?

(I’ll wait, another hit on this thing and I’ll be seriously ripped…)

Und zo… about 11 PM tonight, local time, that the barometric pressure will be about 30 inches of mercury.  That converts to 14.733 pounds per square inch of air pressure.  (You are following, right?  Wanna hit?)

And about sunrise this morning it will be 29.87.and that is 14.669 pounds per square inch.  Don’t be dozing off on me here.

So this 0.104 pounds per square in, or just a hair under 15 pounds of air pressure weight change per square foot.

And there are 27.8784 million of those per square mile…Which is 417 BILLION pounds of effective air weight change per square mile  and there are 4,028 square miles of the Big Island..

(One more hit on the market, here)

So that means roughly (exhale)  1.68-trillion pounds of effective air weight change in a period of, oh, 17-hours as the storm pressure center goes by.

All of which doesn’t mean anything at all will happen, but when Ma Nature puts 1.6+ trillion pounds of weight on a place were we just at a 4.5 quake yesterday, I wonder “”hmmm…wonder if anything could happen?”

Usually, when we run the numbers like this, it frightens the disaster demons off and nothing at all happens, but it’s worth keeping an eye on, never the less, and we’ll just keep an eye on barometric pressure gradients along the way.

Oh, we didn’t have our discussion of lateral loading of the 41 mile per hour gusts on the land mass, either, did we?  Hey!  Gimme that marker back!

Economic Fairytales

Before we climb into the next little gem, we have a thought experiment to perform.  Imagine that you live in a town of 10,000 people.

Overnight, all but one of them dies of a mysterious killer disease.  But the lone survivor?  She wins a super-doople-PowerBall for $21 billion dollars.

Now, how would a government statistician report this? 

Obviously, the answer is “Average income of small town climbs to an astounding $2.1 million per person!”

Of course, everyone but the lucky (and alive) Lotto winner is dead, and I’ll sell you her number for a price, bur you see the point, right?

With this dandy bit of mind-curl, you’re now ready to read this from the Federal Reserve:

“In its new Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households, the Federal Reserve Board provides a snapshot of the self-perceived financial and economic well-being of U.S. households and the issues they face, based on responses to the Board’s 2013 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking. The report provides insight into numerous topics of current relevance to household finances, including: housing and living arrangements; credit access and behavior; education and student loan debt; savings; retirement; and health expenses.

Overall, the survey found that as of September 2013 many households were faring well, but that sizable fractions of the population were at the same time displaying signs of financial stress. Over 60 percent of respondents reported that their families were either “doing okay” or “living comfortably” financially; although one-fourth said that they were “just getting by” financially and another 13 percent said they were struggling to do so. The effects of the recession also continued to be felt by many households, with 34 percent reporting that they were somewhat worse off or much worse off financially than they had been five years earlier in 2008 and 34 percent reporting that they were about the same.

If you have small children who are still awake, the story continues here.

If they’re still awake at the end of this tale, sing to them softly that old hymn from the Church of the Almighty Dollar Hymnal in C#:

Janet loves me, this I know

For the Fed, they told me so…

Lower interest rates will go,

Bright ahead when times are low…

(Chorus)

Yes, Janet love me!  Yes, Janet loves me…  (etc ad nausea)

(The Hymnal will be released in Linux as soon as we can figure out how to put spyware in it, presently x32 and x64 only)

Grinding On Down

And that, brethren, gets us to the collapse in consumer spending.  Revolving Debt (credit card wankers) are increasing their clutch on your life by only 1.3% annualized in the Consumer Debt report out yesterday.

Of course, that’s to be expected, unless you’re a female in a town of 10,000 where everyone died overnight.  No people, no jobs = no spending.  How hard is this shit?

Ah, the Hallelujah Choir from the higher ed sector is still heard chorusing away “Yes, Janet loves us…”  as nonrevolving credit (e.g. student loans) were increasing at an 8.4% annualize rate.

Dow futures up 36.

BUT WAIT!  THERE’S MORE!

Just out is the Labor Department’s latest sack of “good news”

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 2.5 percent annual rate during the second quarter of 2014, the U.S.

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The phrase that we consider in this morning’s report is “Ebola as a generalized exogenous shock to markets.”  We also refer to the October 12, 2013 Peoplenomics report “The Solution No One Wants to Talk About” in which the economic efficacy of a pandemic die-off as an ideal plot of the 1% to kill off mere peeps.  In purely hypothetical terms, mind you, but it’s resolving as shockingly close to the mark as headlines come out.

Key for markets, too:  We are down to just slightly below 50-day moving averages in a number of indices we track.  Although it’s axiomatic that “markets don’t crash from all-time highs” it’s also true that the American markets have backed off recent highs and are sitting at first levels of support, and may extend below them when the Dow opens down 50 and the S&P challenges 1,900.

Hence this morning’s outlook.  Not without coffee and headlines, and this begins with a discussion of how cyber security is coming around again – this time with 1.2 billion stolen passwords, and some notes on dealing with that problem.  If you’d read my ebook Broken Web The Coming Collapse of the Internet, you’d likely share my lack of surprise at what’s happening now.  And as a subscriber you’ll be comforted that Peoplenomics has no exposure because of a strategic decision make long ago…

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With the Dow set to open on the downside this morning, and with a possible test of S&P 1,900 out there, we have to scan the headlines  – as we do every morning – and try to anticipate what’s the BEST news that could happen to the markets and what’s the WORST?

It’s only in the testing stage at the moment, but Mt. Sinai in NYC is looking at a case where a patient came in last night who had recently traveled to West Africa.

Not like the US is alone:  Saudi Arabia is testing for a possible case.

In an absolute worst-caser, this person would have had a Ro of 3 to 10.  1.6 is what’s needed to cross the pandemic threshold.

So in addition to all our economic numbers, we need to add this little critter “Ro” to our thinking.

Probably one of the best/most simple ways to look at Ro is borrow this definition from the Medical Center for Public Health Preparedness where it’s explained that Ro  means the basic reproductive rate of a disease (which is generally secondary infection rates):

Ro is calculated using the formula Ro = C * P * D

• C = the number of contacts the infectious person makes per unit time (day, week, month, etc.)
• P = the probability of transmission per contact with the infectious person
• D = the duration that the infected person is infectious to others

And in tomorrow’s Peoplenomics.com report, we will be working out from Ro _I which would be the Reproductive rate over various incubation periods  (the sub i part).

All of which leads to some interesting financial possibilities, since growth is the Holy Grail of markets.  And, since markets generally try to discount prices as much as 18 months in the future (though some research says shorter periods like 9 months) we’re looking at a situation where we may see some market “information asymmetry” develop and that’s the kind of stuff that causes markets to act “out of channel.”

This would especially be the case when the markets are at nearly bubble-like levels.  What could be better for Wall Str. that for some plague, or other, to wander along just to be blamed as the latest “exogenous event” that will replace greed and avarice of the top 1% with a fine bastion of plausible deniability behind which to secret their profits?

Ah…but more tomorrow as we pass out the spreadsheets and ponder some of the other major problems ahead for the economy.  But economic impacts of a pandemic shutdown – gets to be an interesting modeling problem, does it not?

When the World Bank says it’s putting up a $200 million Ebola fund, I think you you can bet your bippy that the potential economic loss is at least ten – and maybe a thousand times – that amount if this thing gets out of hand.

If it hasn’t already…but we won’t know that for three weeks.

Meantime, the U.S.-African business conference is expected to hear how US corporate investment in Africa will be $14-billion….but plans can drift, as I’m sure we’ll find over time.

Truce or Consequences

72 hours of no shooting is supposed to be getting underway in Israel/Gaza this morning.  Israel has begun to withdraw troops, but we have to shy away from bets that this will last longer than another 10-seconds.

Peace is never good for the market, and true to form, the futures are down.  Down 55 on the Dow futures.

More after this…

              

Let’s Beat Up Putin

Yes, looks like yet another round of the media beating down Vlad Putin is ramping up.

Reason for the observation?

“Winging it: Putin has no Master Plan for Ukraine Crisis, Officials Say.”

Officials?  Oh, that would be the US officials, of course.

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We begin this morning by noticing that although a decline in the markets this week to the S&P 1,900 level might be graceful from a chart standpoint, it was almost magical how the decline last week stops adjacent to our Trading Model’s support line.

This morning look for a +40 (or more) opening to the Dow, but there’s still maybe one more leg down to go…and that will depend to some extent on the data this afternoon from the Treasury auction. 

I’d explain the mechanics of this, but that would turn this column into an academic thesis instead of a light-hearted look at global disaster…which is usually our intent.

Curious to note how last week’s Gallup study of consumer confidence eroding presaged the market sell-off.  Yet another indicator to watch.

The rest of the week is “busy” but not terribly important.  Until we get to Friday morning when we’ll be able to look over the Federal Reserve’s consumer debt figures and from this we can infer the PT Barnum of the market. 

“What’s the PT Barnum of the market, Ure?”

Uh…why that’s the “How many people, how much of the time” or, to play off another one of his famous quotes, we’ll find out how much of crowd has a silver lining.

There are plenty of other numbers to diddle with this week, like the Factory Orders tomorrow and International Trade data Wednesday as well as some government energy data.  But this gets us to another Barnum quote useful when considering such reports:

“Be confident, without pulling the wool over your eyes. A lot of people have remained poor, or ruined themselves, because of this destructive tendency. .”

Whole countries, now that I think about it.  I’m thinking even the Once-ocracy.

Water:  World

Remember that Costner movie?  Waterworld?

Is this another play on how long-term, the movie is the message?  That world was cursed with simply too much water.  And our world, contrary-wise, is quickly running up against the stops, being “tapped out” as it were.

Take Toledo (holy, or otherwise) where more than half a million people have been banned from drinking water after tests showed high toxin levels from an algae bloom.  If we didn’t have Ebola and Israel to distract us, this would no doubt be spun into climate change, but we wouldn’t put anything past the MainStream.  You can find a scientist who will say just damn near anything in front of a camera, so be looking for it.

Meantime, the water problems of California just keep getting worse.  A while back we discussed the matter of drought-driven migration from California in one of our Peoplenomics.com reports, but (as so often happens) we were not wrong – just way early – again.

T?his morning people in Santa Cruz are waking up to the toughest drought laws in the state, but it’s bound to get worse, I figure.  But when local thunderstorms open up over the parched Southland, what happens?  You get thousands stranded and at least one killed by mudslides.

The Southwest has a long-term history of drought, and if you look at the US Drought Monitor picture (over here) you can see that the lower left 25% of the country just about plain sucks.

We know this isn’t the first time this has happened:  The Anasazi People likely saw their civilization collapse in the Chaco Canyon area because of drought.  It’s an inhospitable place nowadays.

I’m not telling you how to shave your bets, but I wouldn’t has put money on their implementation of a climate tax would have changed the outcome…and only a damn fool would believe the lairs and….but I digress, sorry.

My point is (and it’s a frequent topic when I rant and rave to my consigliere) that the mislabeled “civilized world” has multiple “soft underbellies” that few people other than worrywarts like us consider:  With no water, there are no people.  No crops, no life, no tax base…and all the rest. 

It’s in that same category along with the grid failing, the arrival of a global pandemic (Ooops!) and all the rest of it.  We won’t like to think about it, we don’t really do much about it, and in the end, taxing ourselves to “cure global warming” is little more than a social vibrator.

You know who does get it?

“ISIS Seizes More Towns and Possibly Control of Iraq’s Biggest Dam.”

You can lead Americans to water, but you can’t make them think.

More after this…

              

Ebola Watch

Cautious optimism out of Atlanta where the first of the Ebola patients flown in is said to be showing signs of improvement.

Call me skeptical, but let’s revisit this in a month or two, shall we?

The latest reports from Customs and Border Patrol show the border leak hasn’t stopped this weekend (like that would happen, right?) and as a result people from all over hell & gone as sneaking into the US.

How many with Ebola?  Back in the days when we actually had a freaking border it wouldn’t have been such a critical issues, would it?

The Problem with Cease-fires

With the report that an Israeli airstrike has killed a militant leader just before (another) cease-fire in the Gaza fighting, it’s nice to see that (another) cease-fire is in the works.

Here lately, it’s been a little confusing to an elderly guy like me:  I’ve been working on what the definition is between “cease-fire” and “reloading time.”

Results of this deep ponder are inconclusive and certainly not aided by the news flow from the Middle East.

China Quake

Many dead (about 400 as of press time) as a major quake hit China’s Yunnan Provide and premier Li is out for a first-hand review of recovery efforts.  And big money is already moving – 600-million yuan which pencils to about $97-million is US money.

If I was going back to school for a second MBA I might consider a paper on “public cost per death” of different kinds of disasters.  Still might show up as a Peoplenomics.com research piece one of these days. 

Farts and the Art of Futuring

I’ve allocated a couple of hours to writing up Peoplenomics today which will basically be a note to Grady of www.nostracodeus.com and Chris of www.nationaldreamcenter.com who continue to push back the curtain on looking into the future using both web-scanning technology and dream content.

A note from Chis at the Dream Center is worth sharing: 

Head’s up: GOLD Crash perhaps 1-4 weeks away.

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As we would expect, the folks in Atlanta who are caring for the first arriving Ebola victim in this country are finding themselves on the butt-end of hate mail for the decision.,

While it’s true that medical researchers generally have a good handle on infectious disease control, I’m all about absolutely risk avoidance as the first step toward any containment strategy.

Not that my opinion (or yours) matters; it doesn’t.  The PowersThatBe are gong to play this out as they will, but we keep coming back to a terribly important question which we’ll be asking our kids up in the Seattle area when we’re up there later this month.

Does it make sense for middle income families to rent (in the city, near work) and then keep a place in the country as a back-up or bug-out retreat?

Just for the heck of it, I put search parameters of one bedroom, one bath, five acres, and a top price of $75,000 over at the www.unitedcountry.com website – a decent place to watch (and lust after) farm and ranch properties.

As you’ll see, most of the properties in this price class are in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, and other lower income states and they’re too far away to make sense to people living in Florida, Connecticut, Washington, or California.

Despite the aversion some people have to mobile/modular homes, it’s about the most bang for the buck you can get in  terms of square footage and there were a bunch of home on acreage in Central Florida for under $100,000.

Pennsylvania seems to be a fairly expensive place, with only a few listings, but even in NY state you can find a place that might be a useful bug-out location for less than $100K.  One in the vicinity of Spencer, NY was asking $78,000 and included these tidbits: 

  6.8 ACRES WITH POND & BARN

   3 TO 4 BEDROOMS

   1ST & 2ND FLOOR BATHS

   UPDATED UTILITIES

   NEWER ROOF & WINDOWS

   STREAM ON PROPERTY

   QUIET COUNTRY SETTING

   GOOD FLOOR PLAN

Not that I’d want to winter-over in Spencer, but it’s down toward the border with Pennsylvania and thanks to the Amish, there’s a lot of “other than paper” ways of getting by in that area.  

I’m sure the reason more people aren’t going this route is that it often includes actual hard work and people (me included, don’t get me wrong) are more interested in plugging in a power tool to make something happen.

Or, in the case of real estate, adding some leading numbers and just buying what you want where you want it.

Every so often, though, something like Ebola comes along (though it’s only here in a Petri dish, so to speak, presently).  It’s this kind of thing that makes me consider if I should be recommending to my son that he live in a zero bedroom, cheap as he can studio apartment and then put a actual money into something a couple of hours out of town where he could hunker down if necessary?  About 5/8ths to 3/4’s of a tank of gas would be ideal.

To be sure, there’s always something to do in the Big City.  But there’s always something to do in the country, too.  In town it comes down to which restaurant, which movie, which bar, which concert – and all that further reduces to “How much money do you want to spent on today’s experience?”

Out here in the country,  there’s not too many restaurants to chose from, movies are mostly streaming, though there’s a six-plex somewhere in town, and concerts are a rarity and always local talent, though some of it is good.  The community theater out here is especially good, however.  Shrek the Musical just wrapped up.

Probably, the best of all lives is finding something to do in a small to medium town and then living (ever so slightly) away from crowded conditions.  A few acres is all it takes to achieve self-sufficiency in a pinch, yet surprisingly few people thing about such things.

I happened to be watching a documentary about one of my favorite Japanese musicians while idly working on the studio here.  Genki Sudo (World Order), a martial arts expert turned musician and choreographer, makes a wonderful point when he said something to the effect that “Problems of the Environment are the manifestation of spiritual problems.”

That’s a sobering though to wake up to on a Monday, isn’t it?

As our Monday morning ponder, though, consider what your “ideal life” would be like:  Where would you live, what would it be like, and how could it improve even if you never made a penny more than you make right now?

We are our own prison guards.

Have a nice day…

If You Want to Leave America…

Why would you?  I have no clue, but I mentioned a while back that Uncle Sam wants his due even if you hit the silk.  (Reference to parachuting, as in “bailing out” if you didn’t follow, and it’s early, so no faulting you there…)

Hi George,

We had some communications last year regarding renunciation of citizenship after you had written that it was necessary to pay taxes for another 10 years after renunciation. This is only partially true. You’re making the same mistake in what you wrote today.

“Odd that we are welcoming people from such places, yet when people try to leave America, we hound them for at least 10-years of taxes…but I digress.  Just seems a bit one-sided and seriously denominated, if you know what I’m saying.”

This only applies to people who renounced prior to 2008. In 2008 the HEART Act was passed which changed everything.

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