Coping: The “Vacation Home Alternative”

Elaine and I had been kicking around the idea of moving.  Back to the Pacific Northwest to be closer to the kids.  Yet our home here in Texas has become more of an anchor than we thought it would ever be, thanks to the huge remodeling and “fun” we’ve put into the house.

Sure, it’d be nice to be near the kids and all, but  buying 30-acres of heavily treed land in  the Northwest would involve more bank robberies than we could fit on our schedule for the next 30 years. 

Worse, vacation homes are a financial  nightmare.  Having a place in the Northwest for 3-4 months (which it’s hottest in Texas) is something only the financially overweight can contemplate.  Washington state doesn’t have a state income tax, so they make up for it with property tax highwaymen.

Oh, and the property here is free & clear and we haven’t heard a peep from the seismic survey guys since the lawyerly fellow sent them a 6-page “Here’s how blasting caps might be set off my Mr. Ure’s ham radio if he doesn’t know you’re lurking about” letter.

Luckily, we found what looks like a dandy answer using www.airbnb.com.  This a a marvelous online service that lets people who have a room, level of their home, or detached property (the mother in law apartment kind of thing) and rent it out.

In our case, we found a one-bedroom condo unit which comes with wifi, cable TV, all utilities, a kitchen, queen bed, has its own private entrance, BBQ and more and all for $1330 a month.  There’s also a shared washer and dryer, it’s close to the kids (20 minute drive,k 7 minutes from friends) and it will give Panama (the brother in law) some peace and quiet around the ranch here.

He’s back to his ornery/spunky self… a good thing, indeed.

Second homes do have their place, I suppose.  But they are also god-awful expensive.  I’ve run the numbers and they just plain suck.  Worse, there’s the crime and squatter angle.

Hotels are nice, but our favorite haunt on the Tacoma waterfront is $200/night which means given the same amount of money the choice comes down to seven nights within walking distance of the best fish and chips in the Northwest, or 30 nights and a 20-minute drive.

The hotel, admittedly has a workout room, but besides the weight machine, about all it has is a treadmill, and that’s why God created shopping malls.  I figure Elaine will remain perfectly fit by going to South Center, Auburn, Tacoma, and Silverdale malls.  I expect to see weekly circuit training between ‘em all. 

Like anything else, you’ll need to p[ick up some of your own supplies.  TP, Kleenex, and such.  Maybe a small jug of Dawn for the dishes and some olive oil, butter, milk…you know that one. 

The Air BNB site has a number of filters, depending on your budget.  You can pick up a shared room (pass, but cheap), a private room (no thanks, but if you’re on a fixed income and still have some wanderlust and don’t mind a shared bathroom…) or you can get the “entire place.”

It seems to work even in resort areas.  Branson, Missouri has a couple of listings for $100 a night.  Hotels in season up there run more.  Again, it helps to study the pictures closely and shop a good bit.  Also, seasons matter but if you’re beyond kid-dragging, it’s worth exploring.

If you don’t have a lot of money to play with, and you want to fix some of your own meals, most of the units come with coffee makers, microwaves, basic stoves, utensils, and so forth.

No points or free air travel miles, but I sure like recycling money to regular folks instead of shareholders.  So thought I’d mention it. 

Between the discount cruise tips from Gaye over at www.backdoorsurvival.com, and this AirBnB thing, plus finally getting “this old house” near the finish line, there might just be a few years of grown-up fun left before the Big Sleep.

It’s almost too good to be true…so I expect someone will find a way to tax it away from us, yet.

Automatic Writing Project in the WoWW

We do lots of crazy stuff around here:  Chase the market (which often turns and chases us), play with ham radio, airplanes, gardening (but not this year – – yet – another story for another day) and lots of other fun, adventurous stuff including the odd vivid dream to report.

Oh, and let’s not leave out looking for the Bigger Contexts of life – those megatrends that are coming along which will toss us all about like unemployed ships in the storm of life.  3D printing, business process re-engineering, and all that.  Like yesterday’s report on “computational statecraft.”

Still, life doesn’t allow us enough time for all possible avenues of research that catch our eye.

The latest sparkler that’s calling to me is something called “automatic writing.”

Not too much is “hot” on the web around it right now, but automatic writing has a long and interesting history:  A bit from Wikipedia to set the stage:

Automatic writing or psychography is an alleged psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without physically writing. The words are claimed to arise from a subconscious, spiritual or supernatural source

Once you read that article (interesting stuff here) you run into another idea which has been largely debunked by psychology of the respectable (or at least peer-reviewed sort): Ideometry:

The ideomotor effect is a psychological phenomenon wherein a subject makes motions unconsciously; for example, the body produces tears in response to powerful emotions, without the person consciously deciding to cry.

The experiment is simple:  Just sit down in front of a keyboard and start typing.  But now something coming out of your mind (leastwise, directly):  Just let characters flow and see what comes out of it.

Some would argue that it’s a gateway to evil spirits, while others claim that there’s only subconscious trash to be taken out this way.  Yet, I can’t help but wonder if automatic writing has, chosen a very few to bless with knowledge of the future.

Another way to considered it is that ideas come out of your higher self and automatic writing simply reduces these to comprehensible content suitable for consumption by others.  Charity, chastity and oblong boxes of content come through, report some.

For now, it’s just a concept, something of a refreshing break from computational madness that seems to be overtaken society.  Let me know if you try it…and I’ll do likewise. 

I know the saying about a thousand monkeys with typewriters ought to be able to turn out  the works of Shakespeare over time.  But we don’t care about that.  Just a few good stock tips and lotto or Powerball numbers would be fine.

WoWW 2: Vortex in the Mower Shed?

Reader Warren (disappearing measuring tape and perpetual self-filling lawnmower) updates us on some lingering questions:

Yes, the mower lives just a few feet from the shelf where the tape measure lives. Not enough room for a cot, tho’. It’s a small shed, about 10′ x 10′ sitting on a concrete slab. I’ll start paying attention and see if I notice any ‘vortexes’ or electromagnetic effects and whatnot. 

Aside: One way to identify ‘vortexes’ and ‘grid points’ on ley lines is to see if any nearby bushes trees or saplings have trunks or limbs that are twisted in a spiral. Some dowsers look for the same things in their work. Apparently, they use this visual guide to help find underground streams or water sources.

This is an older house. At least several years older than either of us.

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The Quiet World-Changer: Computational Statecraft

A couple of really neat ideas – concepts at this stage – to kick around. But they may be very useful thought tools in the future. And they lead us to an evolving area of research that will likely lead the world in some unexpected directions, or the sort falling out of headlines even today. It’s the hidden dynamic of corporate computational feudalism. This “world-changer” came to light from studying the problem of “making money” and how almost everyone on the planet has been harnessed, one way or the other, into a global financial system.

Boring Markets: Hand Me a Scapegoat, Please?

Depends who you ask, of course. But my friend Robin Landry who manages somewhere north of $100-million, is just marking time. His proprietary trading indicator hints that any upside will be very limited, for now anyway, and despite the recent surge, the market in the past week has given up on one blast-off attempt. The Nikkei overnight bounced a tad from the 14,000 level, and China was up a bit as well. But in Europe this morning, there’s a modest pullback, and it is almost as though the world is marking time for this weekend when “official” elections come up in Ukraine.

Coping: The Matter of Predictions and “Slop” (CalQuake)

When one makes “predictions” about the future, the reader or analyst is faced with a terrible statistical problem.

While a perfect “hit” would be an event – exactly as described –  there is the matter of “effective fulfillment” of a prediction.

When on pokes around the Internet, for example, and  offers various insights into future events, there is often (accompanying) a kind of disclaimer.  It says, in effect, that because the net is so large and impacting on mass consciousness, the ACTUAL fulfillment may not occur but a QUASI fulfillment would have to be counted.

When, for example, one writes about “massive flooding” to come, it is argued that “flooding” anywhere – even if just in headlines – would constitute fulfillment of a prediction.

But here’s the problem with that:  Flooding goes on regularly (and worldwide) every year.  So I can make a prediction of “flooding” and it’s bound to come true.

In eastern Europe, Serbia in particular at the moment, there is a worry that more flooding will come.   No doubt, somewhere on the net – in various dream, prediction, and channeling sites – someone will in the past month have mentioned a prediction of “floods.”

Yet, here we are this morning, with flooding persisting in Serbia, and now it’s even threatening a power plant that serves about half the region’s electrical needs, says the NY Times.

Now comes the problem of  whether “headlines” about a story qualify as fulfillment?

This is a long conversation that Chris McCleary at www.nationaldreamcenter.com and I will be having one of these days – as schedules permit – because we’re both finance guys (at least to the MBA level) and thus, both victims of statistics.

There’s no doubt that N (the number of data points) isn’t huge in any of this stuff, but the problem  which we might call Anti-N is hard as hell to track for comparison purposes.

So yes, if you find 3 predictions and one of them “hits” it might look like a very good success rate.

Suppose, however, that the number of predictions was much higher – and you took into account the totality of all predictions – not just those having to do with floods.  Then what?

CalQuake

This problem is far from theoretical.  And I mention is this morning reference my “CalQuake” dream that I wrote up in yesterday’s column in (amazing, even for my iMax-like  dream detail level).

Here the are on Monday and out comes the heading that says the SF Bay Area is due for a huge release of energy.  But will it come as one mega quake, or will it be a series?  The article “Bay Area’s future earthquakes: Knockout blow, or combination punch?” begins to ask the question and sketch out answers.

You see the problem, right?

The dream was of a much higher level of specificity and yet – by the very definition of some who make outrageous claims about predictive ability – my Monday morning post, followed some 10-hours later by huge headlines about involving exactly the area (the high tech hub) and earthquake risks, would have to be scored as a “hit.”

It’s an odd problem, for sure, but I’m not sure that the pseudo-hit is really legit. 

Remember, in the case of the plane/emergency landing dream, we had a “near hit” within a day of the dream posting.  Yet the actual (and rather precise “fill” didn’t happen for fully 10-days.

So while it’s interesting that the report came out, I’m skeptical, even though by past metrics I might have counted it as a hit.

Instead, I’m looking further out for a real big quake.  And let’s toss in the report of more than 70,000 fish dying in Marine Del Rey.  There are times when fish die-offs precede quakes.

About the only thing missing now would be a few dead oarfish this weekend off of Monterey and the stage would be perfectly set.

We shall see.,..but the problem of N and anti-N is a vexing one.  And it gets to the core of discernment or mental “slop.”  The poet in me says score it.  The numbers guy says nope, not enough data because anti-N hasn’t been calculated.

Twofer Tuesday in the WoWW

A couple of dandy reports on the ongoing trouble with reality becoming Swiss-cheesy of late.  Think of it as a Tuesday Twofer from the World of Woo-Woo (WoWW).

Remember a week or three back, we had a report about the woman who heard a mysterious female voice while taking a shower?  Well, she’s got a friend, apparently:

Hi George!

I wrote a couple of weeks back about hearing a female voice requesting she come into my bathroom while I was in the shower – and no-one there, of course.

Well, last week while at home alone, I heard a male voice (not a basso, but a deeper-pitched voice), briefly say “Hi, I…” and the transmission was interrupted by traffic noise from outside.

Since then, my husband and I have been hearing loud bangs around the house, and when we investigate nothing seems to be out of place. In fact on Friday night after I had gone to bed (I was still awake) there was an outrageous bang and a the sound of the table leaf hitting the table outside the bedroom door.

I have four cats so I suspected their involvement, but, no sign of anything out of place or cats in contest. I said out loud “ For heaven’s sake, I’m tired and trying to sleep. Just cut it out!” and since then it’s been quiet. Guess I opened a portal when I invited the female in, but it has seemed to have settled down since Friday night.

Keep up the good work, love what you are doing!

Somewhere in here, you might want to be nailing crucifixes up over all the exterior doors of your house, call Dial-An-Exorcism, have the rugs cleaned with holy water, run a few censors of incense through the place with all the doors open while chanting “I renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways”  and other commands to get out.

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Can the World Afford “Peace?”

The Russia stock market is zooming ahead this morning on news that the Russians will be pulling their troops back from the Ukraine border area.

But the US futures were a lot more measured about it, down about 30-points and no sign of rapture in the Church of the Almighty Dollar just yet.

Google Trends, when you look at the data, shows a long-term decline in the use of the word “war.”

This may not be a good thing.  The reason being that industry is sort of running out of “new things to sell” and short of a batch of 4K TVs and (yet another zero down) new car, what exactly is it people are supposed to be buying?

Food?  Sure, but with the natural food movement, there has been an increase in food at home and processes foods are not the hot ticket they once were.

What’s more, real estate has changed.  The New Minimalists don’t need 500 square feet in their homes for a bookcase:  Everything they need is in software and that ruins the tree-killing and it’s certainly had an impact on the pulp and paper folks.

Used to be when you needed something, you’d print off a copy of the email, or whatever, but now you can just drag it to your phone…

So the coming problem (*other than an iPhone 6) is figuring out what the next Big Thing will be.

It’s more than a rhetorical question:  Robotics and 3D printing are coming to get another 20-million jobs and hot on their heels will be a further 10-million as self-driving cars and trucks come along.

Against this background, other than lots of jobs and PRE (people replacement engineers) what’s left.

If you see a growth industry that’s in the “gotta have” category, please send it along.  We’re always on the lookout for hot new growth prospects, but organic growth and fundamental breakthroughs that become consumer must-haves seem to be in short supply here lately.

Which is why I’m aghast are big business stories like this one:

Let’s Make a Deal

We’ll be doing a quick IQ check of AT&T later today, since plans were announced to acquire DirecTV for almost $50-billion.

If they were a little closer, I’d might consider parading around with a simple placard that might read:

“Fiber?”

As the NY Times Dealbook report points out (after you read who’s got their hand in the deal-cookie jar) this may be more of a “marriage of convenience” than something which makes sense in light of where the future is going.

“Fiber?

Veterans a Potential Terror Threat?

You have got to be kidding me:  Here we have the most loyal group of Americans you’d ever want to see and the gubmint is talking about US military Veterans as a threat.  Who are these policy wonks, anyway?

Contributor warhammer is equally appalled:

George,

First this report the local police are preparing for armed conflict against returning veterans.

I’d place this in the “self fulfilling prophecy” column. As the article notes, our military is trained to recognized a authoritarian banana republic when they see one. The U.S. Government trained them to fight and decapitate such atrocities.

Between the shoddy medical care for returning vets and the decaying principles of democracy they come home to, these heroes know ‘Merica ain’t living up to its historic standards. They are the quite possibly last line of defense for the Constitution as handed down from the Founders if John Q. Public continues to fall into a trance every time the current administration preaches condescendingly from the mountaintop, throws handouts their way and twirls shiny trinkets before their dazzled eyes.

Next, former VP, Darth Vader, er, Dick Cheney stated the obvious when he stated President O has demonstrated a consistent ability to be pushed around on the international stage.

IMO, it all started with inaction in Syria after the ‘red line’ was crossed when chem weapons were undeniably used by the Assad regime.

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Coping: With the WoWW & Another One of “Those” Dreams

No, I have no idea how all this “dream stuff” works, but for sure – as soon as I get the usual load of crap done around here this morning – I’ll be uploading this one to the www.nationaldreamcenter.com site.  Definitely a case of the world of woo-woo (*WoWW.)

It’s another one of those dreams that has the same “syrupy reality” feel to it that other dreams (with some precognitive content to them) have had.

And, what makes this one so interesting is that the amount of detail in the dream is very high.

Let me run through it, and then you can decide what to make of it:

I was not “George” but rather a younger version of “me” although a different personality, completely.  And, I was seeing the dream through the eyes of someone employed in a high tech firm which was doing something at the intersection of artificial intelligence, the web, and maybe (this is the weakest impression) something with remote (and possibly 3D) printing.

The day was going along fine, although time was not too clear.  The company was in a building which had previously been occupied by another high tech firm and it was a big building.  Lots of dark glass.

The building was also tall – got the impression that it was a high-rise of some sort, but couldn’t be sure.

About the company:  It had been in the software/business/invention area for a long time and a while back (5-years?) had a pretty good hit with on e of its products.  Everyone knew, however, that the money made in that success would run out at some point, so there was a major press on to finish the new project.

The company also had a “sister company” which was located in the Los Angeles area, and the direction from the company where the “dreamer” was located was “south”.  Which means the company I was dreaming about what up the coast a good ways, either Bay area or Seattle.

The reason for “knowing this” was really odd, too.  I was talking to someone in human resources (a female who was with a colleague of hers) and I was complaining about the lousy piped in music.

Specifically, there were four channels from which office workers could select and they were all universally bad.  Oh, and loud, too.

“Do you have anything more relaxing?  I mean like soft jazz, or something?  I can’t get my work done under conditions like this….” I complained to the “boss lady from HR.”

The answer was quite surprising:  “No, we used to get a feed from our company in Los Angeles because we had some leased data lines, but since they were acquired, that feed has gone offline.  Besides, we needed the data lines for the project.”

Hmmm…feeling slightly frustrated, I wandered off to my workspace which (oddly) had a strange printer with it that was capable of being used online.  Although it didn’t make sense in the dream, upon waking I figured out it was likely a 3D printer as it was that size and I was making adjustments to it.  In fact, I was only pretending to work because the HR ladies were still around and I needed to look busy.

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Financial Prepping, 3-Hour Finale

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been working around to some of the deep, dark secrets of how the economy really works.  The stuff that doesn’t make it into the 5-o’clock news shows.  The one that explains how, rather simply, the Fed can print money like a house afire, and still not have inflation running through the roof.   All fine theory, of course.  But what’s the point, right?

This morning you’re going to learn to think in an unconventional way about what I call “The America Platform.”  Just like major software management tools, we can look at our own future, and that of “The America Platform,” with the same mindset as a software implementation team on a BPR project (business process re-engineering).  In this sense, “financial prepping” is a series of “use cases” in software design.  Or, you could considers it a personal financial stress test.

After some coffee, we’ll wrap it all up and make soup of it.  Included is a PowerPoint that you can share with your spouse and family members, too, if you’re so inclined.

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The “Three R’s” of Depression II

We’re reliving the 1930’s – although it’s just not obvious to everyone.  No, It’s not “stagflation.”  There’s plenty of stag but no flation – in or de – apparent in the data. Financial rigor mortis.

Thursday’s Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization figures showed that the total index was up 3.5%. 

Given this, and a money supply that is up 6.2% (M2, year on year) we know that there is still deflation around, but the lack of other (normal) sources of money creation (loan originations and rising velocity of money) has kept gold and silver from making major advanced. 

This morning we have some new figures on housing to ponder, but again, nothing to write home about.  Good, but still in catch-up mode.

BUILDING PERMITS
Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in April were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,080,000. This is
8.0 percent (±0.7%) above the revised March rate of 1,000,000 and is 3.8 percent (±0.9%) above the April 2013 estimate of
Single-family authorizations in April were at a rate of 602,000; this is 0.3 percent (±0.8%)* above the revised March figure of
600,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 453,000 in April.

HOUSING STARTS
Privately-owned housing starts in April were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,072,000. This is 13.2 percent (±13.6%)* above
the revised March estimate of 947,000 and is 26.4 percent (±11.8%) above the April 2013 rate of 848,000.
Single-family housing starts in April were at a rate of 649,000; this is 0.8 percent (±10.8%)* above the revised March figure of
644,000. The April rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 413,000.

HOUSING COMPLETIONS
Privately-owned housing completions in April were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 847,000. This is 3.9 percent (±10.1%)*
below the revised March estimate of 881,000, but is 21.2 percent (±13.6%) above the April 2013 rate of 699,000.

And then, there is where America is in the economic long wave.  Nearing a long term bottom in interest rates. Between now and 2020.

We already know from looking at a maximum zoom-out that 10-year Treasuries have been falling since 1982, or so.  And this has fueled a rise in stock prices since lousy earnings don’t matter if everyone else has crappy real returns.  Average thrives and CEO’s are cutting a fat hog on stock benefits they had nothing to do with.  They largely have been lucky.

So, just how sick is this economy? 

Well, you have to keep your comedy-writing mindset in place, notice that earnings and jobs are so tight in America right now that a headline mentioned how “Hospitals reach out to attract affluent immigrants:  Hospitals compete for affluent immigrants with premium menus, revamped rooms, other extras.”  Truly WTF running wild.

That’s almost like saying “Help the economy: Get sick.”

Ever read the Lincoln Star Journal?  “Meat prices lead higher inflation” was their take on Consumer Prices. And we’re likely to keep heading down this road through 2015.

Driving it is the national drought.  As you can see in this week’s National Drought Monitor.

Oh, sure, the drought continues in California which means higher veggie (and almond) prices.

But the biggest area hit now is turning to the Dust Bowl area of the New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and Oklahoma.

A couple of months ago, I alerted you to my expectation that we would likely see human relocations beginning this year from California.

But maybe I’m wrong:  So far, only cattle are migrating, along with truckloads of salmon.

What’s worse, when you read the local news out of the Bay Area, you’ll find the drought is being used to roll back protection for endangered species of salmon, and whatnot.  Thanks to senatress Diane Feinstein.

To be sure, managing through times like this are difficult.  But migration of humans and settling in other parts of the country makes sense.  Yet, our real estate sources say people are still moving to the Bay Area is good numbers.  Lemmings are alive!

And so it goes with humans in  denial:  You can read the numbers all day long to folks, yet few will take them seriously, let alone act on them.  It’s a subtle difference, but the difference between survivors and victims.

While one of my consulting clients in the East Bay is still several weeks out on a drilling rig to punch in a water well on his (large) property, officials are already billing him for the increased valuation of his property if he gets his well in. Sending him forms of well equipment cost, you can almost see the tax slobber on the forms.

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Coping: With People Who Aren’t Dead (WoWW)

The Universe, apparently, jumps tracks now and then.

We’ve chronicled a lot of it around here:  Keys set down upstairs just fall through the floor when no one is looking.  A red vintage Cadillac you’ve been following (and admiring) turns into a Toyota Corolla when you glance away for a fraction of a second. 

And one of our favorites around here, things that simply “disappear” and then “pop” back into existence a few minutes, hours, or even months later.  All without explanation.

Taken as a whole, it suggests that the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics is not only real, but that the film The Adjustment Bureau may be another subtle example of what ThePowersThat be have discovered (and might be using for personal gain):  That there’s a ‘force’ out and about that sets things right.

This morning, we have the odd case of radio superstar Casey Kasem wandering off into the World of Woo-Woo.

To set the scene for this:  You may remember that Kasem – the long-time voice of cartoon character Scooby-Doo – was reported to have Parkinson’s.  Then some kind of family beef popped up and there were allegations that Kasem has been spirited out of the country.

One thing led to another, but the latest in the story is that he’s fine and that he and his wife had been visiting long-time friends up west of Seattle in Kitsap County.

Sorry to hear about the uproar; glad things can now settle down again.

Except for one small thing.

At least one of our readers was shocked at the report that Kasem was still alive.  One of our readers sent this…

Okay, I read his obit to Kim several months ago.  We all commented on who is now doing the voice.  Then today he’s alive.

WTF

All of which gets us to that odd borderland of human recall (or is it serious Woo-woo?) of people who are alive, yet folks remember them as being dead, or, in the reverse case, people who are dead yet are remembered as still being alive.

I’m not sure exactly how the phenomena works, but another case that comes to mind was that of Sid Caesar.

Now he actually is dead (says Wikipedia, passing February 12th of this year) but a lot of people thought he died years and years ago.  But just to make the point, you can find discussion groups posts on the web (like this one circa 2013) where people thought he was already dead, and wasn’t.

How we recall “fringe famous” people is apparently different than the “normal” kind of recall.  The people who slide into this gray area of memory aren’t usually the Super Stars (like an Elvis or a Kennedy).  Instead, they seem to occupy a kind of second or third tier of fame.  Household names, perhaps, and maybe even good trivia questions.

A number of radio stations (mostly adult-contemporary) have run features over the years with names like “Dead or Alive?”

In the schtick, listeners call it and are offered a prize is they can correctly guess 10-in a row of semi-famous people who are either dead or alive.  Damn few winners.

Is the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics the only possibility?  Why, no!

If you look around, you’ll find videos like this one (with just 12 views on YouTube when I found it) that goes off on an interesting mass deception track which (hate to admit it) would fit with some other conspiracies floating around the web.

All of which might be readily dismissed except for a couple of things.  And one of these is Project Blue Beam.

Back to point:  If you’re going to play the game of “dead or alive” might I recommend this site?

Hell, I would have sworn Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. was dead years ago.  But he just died two weeks ago.

Dead ort Alive?  Eventually, we all get to be contestants.

Thank You!

To all the people who sent in their comments on the FCC net-jack for corporations which are trying to slice up the internet and make it two different animals.  FCC Chairman Wheeler oughta resign.  His insincere insistence that “there’s only one Internet” smacks of the same dishonesty we’ve seen from politicians who support toll roads.

This slime will look you in the eye and say “Oh, toll roads [paid for with taxpayer money] are all part of the national highway system.  Which is a pantload:  It’s only part if you have money for the tolls.

Wheeler is a corporate apologist of the worst stripe.  It’s another example of how a “high bar” will be set (at first) and then lowered on the public when the corporate con artists finally leave office after doing irreparable damage.

If you like Toll Roads, you’ll love where the FCC is going with the Internet.  Beyond malfeasance, it’s corporate theft.  Which is why I won’t pay the king of Spain’s minions, or whoever else in the way of foreign beneficiaries operates toll roads, either.  I’ll take the FREEway that is really free.

Oh, wait….can speeding tickets be issued on a toll road?  I mean if the state isn’t the financial beneficiary….hmmm.

The real agenda:  Can’t have the Internet being too free, or too self-organizing.  Otherwise, what would the point of ‘government’ be if people could really govern themselves?

Why Does the USDA Need Machine Guns?

Another WTF moment here as we read through the US Department of Agriculture’s supplier query for 40-caliber submachine guns.

From the solicitation docs:

The U.S.

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Steal The Internet Day

We begin this morning with a simple request.  Invest a couple of minutes to click over to the AVAAZ.org site here and send a message in support of NET NEUTRALITY.

In a nutshell, some big corporations want to be able to set up a “fast lane” for their big streaming plans and to do that, they propose to throttle other internet traffic.

That really means block or make slow enough to be useless.  Unless the slow users step up and pay the corporate highwaymen fees to be in the fast lane.

If you ever valued freedom and actually want to do something about it, this is where the rubber meets the road.  Either the arms of the PowersThatBe steal the net today, or they don’t.

President Obama has been a lying sack on this.  Stack a Court with people who will also let corporations BUY ELECTIONS and what do you expect?

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s wrong with America.  The country has been hijacked by corporate bandits who have taken over government via their K-Street lobbyist shocktroops and this turnaround on net neutrality is only one example.

So please, before you do anything else today, please take a minute or two to fill out the form and send your own note.  Mine was:

This is an outrage!  Obama promised net neutrality.  What is his (or any other political promise) worth?

Zip.  I reckon 90% of people in office are guilty of bait and switch…this is another classic.

The corporate “fix” is in, again.

And with the Courts (stacked with pro-corporate appeasers and fund-raisers)  we’ve just about put “America on eBay” – available for the taking by the shock troops of K-street.

Government has become a big pop machine:  Put money in,  and out pops corporate policy.

Is that what the Founders envisioned? Is that what our Service members fought and died for?

Or are ya’ll getting a few sips of the pop?

George Ure
United States of America  

Thank you.

The Internet is the one bastion on resistance to the Corporate takedown of World which is already well underway.  The FCC is holding a sham vote today and freedom is going….going…without a huge groundswell calling bullshit on the corporate takedown, the Net is in serious danger of being stripped of reasonable, questioning, non-corporate views.

The hopeful news is that the Senate may vote this summer on overturning Citizens United v. McCutcheon.  In other words, the Senate may be wondering if the public’s anger balance against corporate influence is changing.  Duh.

What genius, huh?  How much BS do we take before a good housecleaning comes to Washington.  Term limits for all, I say.  One term.

F’ing With Your Mind:  The “Narrative”

Also, please notice that in the process here lately, corpmedia are re-hiding the sausage linguistically by by delivering  “narratives” now instead of “stories” because “stories” can be too easily construed as lies, as in “he’s telling a story.” 

If you’re not brain-dead, or haven’t had your lobotomy yet, you know that when a politician is speaking, it’s sometimes (occasionally) a story although often a lie.  Sometimes it’s a bid request, too.  But, sure as shit it is not “narration.”  Unless you swallow the blue pill several times a day.  In the famous words of Morpheus:

“You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

The term blue pill means someone not aware; who doesn’t grok the Matrix.  Or you can price politicians by looking at who’s buying them over on www.opensecrets.org. Shows how much they cost, if you want to go shopping.

A narrative is associated with narration — as in the sound track that goes with a documentary,.  Ergo it must be more true.  Because no one is telling us a story.  Wrong, wrong, and bullshit.

Narrative is the media’s blue pill.  Constipated corporate communications consultant spew. C4S.  Take the red pill. GFR.

Consumer Prices

Now, onto some hard data:  The Consumer Price Report is just out:

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.3 percent in April 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.

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Coping: Financial Prepping/Card Skimmer Pandemic

Saturday, our Peoplenomics content will wrap up a look at the issue of “financial prepping” as we look at a number of future scenarios and try to figure the best way to have a little money (and maybe make some, in some instances) when the old crapperoo hits the fan.

One of the biggest trends to deal with is the “War on Cash” which involved everything from the civil asset forfeiture laws being abused to government accountability for income taxes.  And yes, for the paranoid with bank accounts outside the US, there will be some (upper income) fallout from the new bank reporting rules, FATCA, July 1, but it won’t bring down the financial house.  At least not likely.

I’m not the only one to see it.  Reader RD offers this:

“Specifically, as the transition to transition to “cashless” happens, how do you think you’ll ever be able to take those gold and silver coins you might have and roll them into needed fiat/scrip when you actually need to spend it?” – make up your mind – are we going to get an EMP?  or go “cashless” – and will either be in our lifetime (I’m now three score and 10) – with the EMP perhaps more likely.  You forget – ALL of US are not on computers nor do we have smart phones – and many don’t have the bank account/cash to run them if they did – I suppose the Socialist Merican government will supply that as well.  AND – as long as the Fed/Treasury – keeps printing dollars and stamping out coins – I’m not to worry – it’s when they stop – then I’ll begin to worry. – and so will all the business that are going to go belly up.  (( PS:  I seldom carry more than $20/$25 cash – but cashless – not usually.  You used to could get locked up as a vagrant if you didn’t have about $25 on you.  Of course – you could get locked up for a while for ‘adultery or homosexuality’ too.)

In yesterday’s report we got into some interesting territory and no doubt more will come Saturday.

Meantime, a couple of areas that you need to be aware of when it comes to personal wealth preservation.

The first is that the number of high tech thieves working credit card reader “skimmers” is going through the roof.  Just this morning we have headlines like:

And there are other reports from almost all overs the country.  So it’s really just a matter of when, not IF, you’ll run  into one of these things, looks like.

The way these skimmer operations runs is usually pretty simple:  You run your card through what you think is a card reader to pay for gas (or whatever) and a small device picks up your card information.

The best means of defense is really two-fold here.

First:  Whenever you scan a card, make absolutely sure that there is nothing around the card readers that you don’t understand.  If the key’s seem to be a bit odd, that may be because there’s a new skimmer tool which is picking off you zip code (gas) or PIN (retail, general) and collecting it and matching it up with a card skimmer. 

Given your card (and your PIN) you might as well be carved up and served for Thanksgiving since you’re now a turkey dinner in card circles.

Some readers go inside of regular readers, so inspect things carefully.

Second thing to do is grab yourself an RFID protected wallet.

Minimally, invest in something like the men’s  RFID Blocking Men’s Bi-Fold Leather Wallet and Removable ID Holder-Two Tone Black and Tan by Access Denied  $48 at Amazon, or, in the same price category for women there’s a RFID Blocking Womens Leather Wallet and Checkbook by Access Denied (Navy Blue) and they have other colors, too.  $53 bucks that sounds like a worthwhile investment.

This whole credit card skimming thing is no joke and if there’s a risk to the digital age that is actionable, this is certainly one of them.

You would never even consider having a 4-character password for your checking account online, but an amazing number of people have super short PINs which just amazes me.

Government Tracking

Speaking of electronics and Coping, and having watched the season-ender for Person of Interest  last night (which gets seriously into how Machines can take over the world especially in light of our near-PTB friend who reminds us “the movie is the message”) we can help but pass on this note from reader Claudia who has just come face-to-face with “The Machine” in here present job quest:

Greetings from the working world,

I started a new job this week and when they gave me the I-9 to fill out I almost lost it.  The Federal Government now requires your e-mail address 

and your phone number.  Now I am thinking the NSA already has it.  I live close to Fort Gordon and they house the communications center, NSA and the Cyber Command is making it’s way south to this base.  I thought about giving out phone numbers I no longer use, e-mail addresses that have fallen aside but fear I would be in trouble. Crazy, huh!  I am attaching a screen shot so you can see the form.

If you watch Person of Interest, you might ask them if the results will be fed into Harold’s “The Machine” or the (former Cigarette Man’s) “Samaritan” system.

If they don’t have an answer, or can’t differentiate between the two computer systems, then our advice would be along the lines of “Use them and lose them…”

In other words, go ahead and work for them for a while, but keep looking for better job.  If they can’t see the prospects of what’s ahead in the computer world, they may not have the brain cells to keep their company running in the future.

Use and lose, dear. 

If they ask, refer them to the TV series Person of Interest and send them a link to the Freedom Output post “Former VIA/NSA Director Michel Hayden: “We kill people based on metadata.”

Our two most important personal survival tools around here are the axioms:

Everything is a business model and The Movie (or TV series) IS the Message.

Now, take your pills and off to work with you…

Serious Denial

OK, now we’re into an interesting discussion…about how smart people (and consequently, their employers) are.

“Average Americans think they’re smarter than the Average American” says a new report.

Talk about narcissism gone to egoism gone to delusional….there’s your path for you.

But it’s exactly this kind of mental lack of “due processing” that makes average people cannon fodder for sales, marketing, and management consultants like me.

Using phrases like “You want to do the smart thing, right?” sprinkled all overs the place (along with getting people to talk about themselves) is probably the shortest path there is to high pay and getting people to believe you really are smart.

That, and the “take-away” (or “reverse sale”) and you’re definitely “C-level” material.

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A Course in "Financial Prepping" (Pt. 1)

How much financial prepping you can do is obviously limited, especially if you’re a “small fry” and you’ve been used to moving money around seeking a good rate of return. But a funny thing happens in this morning’s report. We dig far enough into the financial underpinnings of the economy to discover why gold and silver have not yet taken off to the upside…something that all by itself would be worth this morning’s column. After coffee and crumpets, ‘natch.

As I was Saying: War on Cash

We’ll get to this morning’s retail sales numbers in a moment.  But before we do, a couple of key trends to be thinking about that may take precedence over the short-term news blips:

Over the past couple of weeks I have been mentioning to our www.peoplenomics.com subscribers that there is a “war on cash” in progress and that more and more, the press is on to get everything you do in an electronic money system so even the slightest deviation from “the herd” can be spotted as aberrant behavior.

Right on cue, along comes a CNBC story this morning when you need to read which goes into the trend with more data.  The eye-opener is that one-in-ten Americans don’t carry any cash, anymore.  And 78% carry less than $50 in paper money.

I’ll now say publicly what I’ve been telling subscribers for a while:  It may be true that having more than a small amount of cash (like $2,000) around your home might turn you into a suspect of some kind of criminal conduct, but it gets us to a couple of topics which very few people kick around.

Specifically, as the transition to transition to “cashless” happens, how do you think you’ll ever be able to take those gold and silver coins you might have and roll them into needed fiat/scrip when you actually need to spend it?

And more to the point, on the flip side of the “how much on hand?” question:  Who is crazy enough to turn over their whole future to computers, networks, the powers grid, and hackers?

Which gets me to mentioning that “Personal Financial Data Backup Plans” is the top of tomorrow’s Peoplenomics report.  Just so’s you know it’s coming…

Delightful (But Delirious) Markets

Our second point is that markets are continuing to set new highs, no doubt due in some measure to the Fed keeping up the slow QE process along with the large increases in printing of money down at the M1 and M2 levels.

All that money, virtual or printed cash, is bound to “leak” into the economy somewhere and the markets are one of those “wheres.”

To be sure, there are a few reasonable souls out there, like Jeff Kilburg of KKM Financial is quoted as saying as we get closer and closer to 1,900 in the smart thing to do might be to “lighten up” a bit.

From a longwave economics standpoint, this is a very good time to revive the debate over what drives the ultra-long cycles in the economy.  Whether you believe in the 49-64 year Kondratieff (Kondratiev) wave theory, or variants that work out to 73-85 years, the key dynamic which not too many people seem to get is how demographic shifts play into things.

The thumbnail sketch of the problem goes something likes this:  After World War II we had a huge Baby Boom.  And most of us Boomers are at, or near, retirement age right now. 

As some point, we will be taking our life savings, much of it in stocks, mutual funds, 401k’s and the like, off the table.

When that happens there will need to be young people who are ready to step up and buy stocks.

Well, just like things were hitting new highs right up until September 3 of 1929 with the Dow, I think there’s at least an even-money chance that there will be a decline of stocks because over time there may not be enough buyers.

I’ve penciled in some time to look at this more deeply in coming weeks, but the long and short of it right now is that markets COULD be living on borrowed time.  People who are seniors are holding onto their stock (for now) but when the markets begin to turn – even modestly – there could be a whole wave of unexpected “demographically driven selling” and that’s the kind of thing that Great Depressions are made of.

Still, we might also see a major run-up.  Remember, from the market break in 1921, there was an 8-year period that led to 1929.  So, if we’re in that kind of a blow-off,; aided and abetted by excessive money-printing, then we might make it as far as late 2015 or even into 2016.

Once there, however, and with robotics scarfing up the manufacturing jobs, the old paradigm will be in a whole heap of trouble, especially with China’s outlook.

On that, the Hang Seng is back on the positive side of the psychologically important 22,000 level (22,352 overnight) but it has been below that level several times in recent weeks.  Part of the reason for China knocking at our door as the leading economy in the world is that they’ve been printing money like crazy.

But theirs is a circular process, which means they are rolling money as fast as possible into home mortgages.  While they are facing an 18-month low in GDP growth, the Chinese are leaning on banks to “wash” more money into home loans.

All of which has us wondering if former Fed Boss Alan Greenspan’s Bubblemeister of the real estate market might be reprised by the Chinese Central Bank.   Is that odd?  You bet.  But in today’s world, what’s normal?

Maybe America has finally exported the one thing China was lacking:  The concept of home ownership for the middle class.  Just as ours is being tossed out.  Again, though, what’s normal, anymore?

More after this.

Retail Fails

We sort of knew from looking at the Fed’s Consumer Debt Reports recently that people didn’t have a lot of disposable income.  In fact, the one category where there has been continuing growth in the Fed data is student loans.

Unanswered, though, was what the cumulative impact on consumer Retail Spending would be with people trying to “buy more smarts” to get out of dead-end jobs, and all the while trying to pay for ever-increasing healthcare costs.

This morning we get some additional insight as the Retail Sales figures are just out:

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for April, adjusted for seasonal
variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $434.6 billion, an increase of 0.1 percent (±0.5)* from the
previous month, and 4.0 percent (±0.7) above April 2013. Total sales for the February 2014 through April 2014 period were up 3.3 percent
(±0.5) from the same period a year ago. The February 2014 to March 2014 percent change was revised from +1.2 percent (±0.5) to +1.5
percent (±0.2).

Retail trade sales were up 0.2 percent (±0.5)* from March 2014, and 4.2 percent (±0.9) above last year. Auto and other motor vehicle dealers
were up 10.5 percent (±3.2) from April 2013 and nonstore retailers were up 6.5 percent (±2.5) from last year.

From the charts in the news release, we see that auto sales are up 10% but general merchandise and ex-autos were both stuck at sub 4% levels.

Remember, as the fine print says the data is “ adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes…”  and about here, any good forensic economics student would look at either M2 (which is up 6% in the past year) or my friend Trader Bart’s fine M3b Reconstructed (up 7-9%) and wonder (*in a Goofy) kind of voice:

“Ah yup, Garsh Mickey, whatddah yah think happened?”

Lack of vision, national dream, and …uh…change.  I may have to start referring to Obama as Bush III. Headlines like “American shoppers take a breather after March retail sales surge” certainly put a much for ebullient light on things.  The phrase “sales surge” is what is designed to stick, not the “take a breaker.” 

File under “HappyTalk” or take it to the throne room.

Tomorrow, the Producer Price Index will be released but the biggie of the week will be the Consumer Price Index which we’ll serve up (with a side of ham) Thursday morning.

Dry Ships/Baltic

Looks like the odds of the bottom falling out from under markets is almost passed.  The Dry Ships *(Baltic Dry) index had bounced back up over 1,000 for a while now after dipping into the (worrisome) 900’s for a while.  This morning’s reading?  982…so not out of the woods yet.

Stock futures are about flat.  Option expiration is in two days…

Still Waiting on War

As expected, the anti-Kiev voters in eastern Ukraine are not getting any respect while the rebel leadership in Kiev remains blessed with EU/Western/US money and the hype continues.

Undeterred, however, the eastern groups are now talking about unification.  Missing?  The ultra-right thugs who changed governments in Kiev.

Not making headlines in the Western media is this other story out of Russia’s Novosti news service that “Ammunition for Special Forces airlifted for Slaviansk Operation.”

So let me complete the picture a bit for you:  Ukraine Denetsk region is asking to join Russia.  Others are likely to follow.  Russia is airlifting ammo into the region.

The story of pending war may be off the front pages of most sites, but don’t put your flash goggles away just year.

MERS Hits Orlando

Oh, sure, only one case, but it’s enough to get CDC uptight about the spread of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome which has come to America from the Middle East.  First case was up in Indiana.  From the CDC press sheet:

A second imported case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was confirmed late night on May 11 in a traveler to the United States. This patient is a healthcare worker who resides and works in Saudi Arabia. This case is unlinked to the first U.S.

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