Coping: Thursday in the Mail Bag–National Security

Sadly, there has been a decline in World of Woo-Woo events in recent weeks, so we’re fresh out of those kind of reports for you.

But the mail keeps coming in covering points on this and that, much of which is interesting and worth sharing.

For example, without going into the larger context, I mentioned the speech by President Eisenhower on the “military industrial complex” in Wednesday’s Peoplenomics.com report. And that prompted reader Atom to send in his little-know fact:

military industrial complex. the actual written speech, per his daughter, was “the-military industrial-congressional complex”, but because he was enjoying good relations (not sure who was on top) with congress he omitted the congressional reference. The military-industrial complex can not exist without a funding source…congress.

Thanks for listening.

And speaking of which (the military) I can’t keep but mentioning several other military-related items while I’m at it.

I often take the Obama administration to task for failing to follow through on the campaign promise to close down the penal facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  In fairness, however, the administration is not entirely to blame.

The record shows it was the US House (yep, the republicorp dominated House) that blocked administration plans to close down the detention facility there.  It’d be hard (not to mention an ugly crapstorm) for the president to unilaterally move against specific legislation.

The problem this brings into focus is that both political parties love to play dirty and switch sides on issues.  In this case, one can see how the republicorps are holding up the agenda.

All of which is not to exonerate the Administration, however.  They get other things wrong, as I see it.

For example, this Bill Gertz piece in the Washington Examiner note how the Obamanistas keep “tuning” on the rules that permit (under specified conditions) US military involvement in ther enforcement governance on American soil.

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A Broad View of Socioeconomic Revolution, I

This morning we present the first of two parts of how technology seems to exhibit a 35-37 year periodicity, which has tremendous social and economic implications. The process begins with a discussion of how media “hems in” decision-making by policymakers, compares media density and rollout times between radio, television (and cable) and the Internet and proposed what’s likely ahead. Next, we consider analogs between the 1929-1932 decline and more recent events of the Housing Bubble collapse. And from here (in part 2 Saturday) we will stir it all up and see what the ongoing socioeconomic revolution looks like. But before we dig in, some lighter fare in the form of morning headlines and a check of how our Trading Model is doing (just fine, but with additional details.

Summer of ‘29? The “Vomit Comet” Economy

Elaine thinks I was being lazy this weekend,  Lounging in my overstuffed leather recliner, staring at the big screen computer display once in a while, I can see where that might be the impression.

But the reality is I’ve been doing a lot of deep-thinking on the application of neural networks to markets.  Multilayered feed-forwards, and other such tools, as gaming the market takes a lot of time.

Today, the Dow figures to tack on 50-points in the early going today  – ostensibly for any number of “headline reasons” including:

Election in Ukraine is behind us.  Still, this could blow up again this week as dozens of pro-Russian fighters died in Donetsk.

The right (small /EU/ groups made gains in European Union voting, but it could have been worse.  Global world government lite seems to be the fallback chatter.

And oh, another mass/outrage killing will spur more gun control discussion.

Fine, on the surface.  But there’s something much more serious going on.

Math.

There’s a dirt simple equation for rising markets and it works out thisaway:

Say you have one share of a stock and it is earning $1.

If the prevailing investment environment is giving people returns of 10%, then you would own $10-dollar stock.  The markets are competitive like this.

But, suppose that you still have $1 worth of earnings and the prevailing yield of competing investment choices drops to 5%.  What happens to the stock price?  It  tends to rise to $20.  (Ceteris paribus, all other things being equal.)

Now suppose that the same $1 worth of earnings exists and the prevailing interest rate drops to just 2%.  What is the stock price likely to be (again, cet.par.)?  $50!!!

So the Big Story that no one is explaining worth a crap behind the headlines is that the reason stocks could hit new highs is that rates are heading toward deeper, lower, lows!

If this was only a US phenomena, it wouldn’t spell global economic disaster down the road (when rates rise).,  But look out!  When rates do begin to rise, then things will turn exactly the other direction and what has been the “virtuous cycle” will turn into a vicious cycle.

And that gets us to the most important financial lynchpin story of the morning:  “Europe’s deflation threat may be growing” says the Boston Globe.

Provided companies can hang on to at least some earnings, record Dow highs are just ahead, as are highs in the S&P.  The NASDAQ has some catch up to do, but we could be in one of those “Summer of ‘29” events shortly.

I don’t say this lightly.  The greatest challenge the Federal Reserve will have to face over the next three years will be how to manage the eventual “turn” in rates.  Put simply, rates will have to reverse as some point, or the world collapses in a heap.

But if they get it even slightly wrong, as happened when rates were being raised in 1929, things can collapse – globally. 

Here’s a snip from a San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank Economic Letter “Monetary Policy and the Great Crash of 1929: A Bursting Bubble or Collapsing Fundamentals?”  (From 1999):

“Price-dividend ratios continued to fall until July 1929, but then prices began to take off. In August, the Fed raised the discount rate by another percentage point to 6%. The stock market peaked in the first week of September. It is worth noting that at its peak the price-dividend ratio was 32.8, which is well below values reached in the 1960s or 1990s. Share prices declined in a more or less orderly fashion until the end of October, but then the market crashed. From its peak, the price-dividend ratio fell roughly 30%, to a level roughly similar to that prevailing at the beginning of 1928, when the Fed began to tighten.

In the immediate aftermath of the crash, the New York Fed took prompt and decisive action to ease credit conditions. When investors attempted to liquidate their equity holdings, many lenders also called their loans to securities brokers. With the encouragement of officials at the New York Fed, many of these brokers’ loans were taken over by New York banks, who were allowed to borrow freely at the discount window for this purpose. The New York Fed also bought government securities on its own account in order to inject reserves into the banking system. In this way, they were able to contain an incipient liquidity crisis and prevent the crash from spreading to money markets.

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Coping: Automatic Writing II & “The Franchise”

Last Friday I told you about my fascinating experiment with “automatic writing” and offered a few comments on it.

As you might recall, the “main character” in that even referred to an entity called “Hundspine” (or “Hudspine”) and I found it curious that the name of the entity speaking was carefully avoided.

So then comes a note from Chris Tyreman, who you’ll recall is the head of The Chronicle Project up in Canada.  It’s a group of young Jewish scholars who are busily reconstructing the contents of Old Testament.  Turns out, they discovered something called “Self-Defining Hebrew” (or SDH).

The guts of the idea is that each of the letters in Hebrew translates to a motion, position, or posture of a human. Which is like finding an “error correction system” in a language; a way to keep straight on the original meanings.

And of course, what they’ve been finding is that much mistranslation is present in the modern Bible, as well as the story of Creation which, in the SDH translation of Bible sounds more like angels & archangels do a “terraforming planet” project for Creator/Source who’s in charge of things.

And this ties in to my automatic writing experience, how?  Read the note from Chris…

Hello G

Everything has a name. In ancient Hebrew (using the SDH restorations) the word forname is which means to locate.

“To project to raise up (think of sticking your arms out and then putting them over your head)

The reason There is no name given by the thing speaking with you, is because a name gives location. Location can then be “located” and they will not give their location because they can then be commanded and controlled, hence the B.S. About names.

The name given (to you in the session) is Hudspine, ruler of the Earth.

The actual name it says is in another language. Again he won’t give the real name.

Try ancient Hebrew: Using the sounds closest to the spelling It becomes “Hadashapan”

Using SDH it can be broken down multiple ways and each way will point to the main concept.

To most people, this would be nonsense, but not if you know who this applies to.

In Genesis restored using SDH page 26 on our website
http://thechronicleproject.org/PDF1/supremehistorymaster.pdf

“Ch 2 v1 And the overseer of the creation was to be opening all which represented the field, those that Creator of the Originators made to establish (the earth).”

This is the Nakhash, the overseer of Earth’s terra forming that legally stole control of the planet from Creator. The bible has him as a snake talking to Eve. 

He was the one in control of the production of all life developed and spread out over our planet.

Now look at the words again:
The (one) therefore to grow, to look to
The (one) to put across, to expel, to follow (following his treason, Creator expelled him from his ranks))
Therefore to flow out, to decide, define (who that is)

Freaking out yet?”

The thinking point (off automatic writing for a moment) is the implications of the Nakhash stealing control of this region of space-time from the Creator using law.  Is this telling us that at some grand/divine cosmic level lawyers are forever trying to screw one another out of things – even whole worlds?  Doesn’t say much for Law, does it?  Back to point…

I haven’t had the urge to do any more on this “contact writing” – besides, there are a number of problems with continuing.

First, dabbling in any of the “magickal” arts is frowned upon for a couple of reasons.  First is the possibility of doing unintended damage to the “higher self.”  In other words,; while messing about with such stuff may not produce negative effects on the physical body, there may be impacts on the higher body (spirit/soul levels) that may not be apparent until long after the fact.

(I define “magic” as stage tricks and illusions, differentiated from “magick” which is working with the spiritual quicksilver.)

A second reason is that those who profit by mistranslation (and going into the “fear sell” (hell, fire, brimstone, etc. if you don’t offer enough in the collection plate) aren’t very tolerant of newcomers who might impact franchise revenue.  It’s also useful to remember than just 400-years ago, we were burning people at the stake who got in the way of “The Franchise.”

But mostly, I just don’t have time for such sidelights and indulgences.  A email from reader Tom is on point:

George,

Interesting bit that automatic writing experience.

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Is Bitcoin Back from the Dead? A Technical Note

There’s a Lazarus story to be told in the charts this morning, and since other media are reactive (not proactive) here we go again looking into the future ahead of the pack.

Yes, I am still a skeptic.  But an honest one at that, and we can see in the latest chart I’ve drawn up for you to look at, how the Bitcoin revolution could be back – with a vengeance and new highs – over the balance of summer.

But it’s not a sure thing, by any stretch, because we don’t yet know whether the decline from all-times highs was impulsive or corrective, in nature.

What I will mention is that Bitcoins are now closing in on the $600 (dollar) range again, and a break out over the $700 area will likely mean a fresh run of Bitcoins to the $1,700 to $2,100 area.  For those who have been patient, this gets to be pretty nice prospects.

However, the cautionary note is that it could still collapse before the $700 level and go down to fresh lows…it all depends on how the markets work out.

Let me run through the chart I’ve cobbled up – based on a chart from www.bitcoincharts.com which is a fine source for the underlying data.

First, a discussion about how I draw charts.  It’s my own kluge of a system, but it works well for me.

You begin with a major decline and draw a line ‘a’ down the successive tops on the way down.

Next, you copy this line and slide it down to the bottom of the first major spike down.  This is labeled line ‘b’ in my chart.

The next step is to use a graphs tool to draw a line indicating the distance from line ‘a’ to line ‘b’ and we call this line ‘c’.

Now, you copy line ‘c’ and place it above line ‘a’ so that you can then copy line ‘a’ and place the copy (line ‘e’) equidistant from the ‘a’ line.

In other words, you have ‘b’ the same distance down as ‘e’ is on the upper side.

This defines a price channel.

No, it is not as mathematically precise as crunching the 2-standard deviation trend channel, but it’s easy as pi and it’s easily shown to the visually oriented learner.

You will see that I have also labeled an Elliott wave 1 down, a 2 up, and 3 down on the chart.

The impulsive/corrective question devolves to estimating whether this is a wave 4, which implies a 5 (and new all-time lows) or whether it is a major fresh move.

A more aggressive way to draw the chart suggests that the breakout is already in play and took place around the $525 area.  But that doesn’t end the daunting problem of the Elliott wave 2 peak which will define the current move as a wave 4 (with 5 down to come) or a new C move to the higher highs.

There are two “deal points” implied by the charts.

First is that either the $700 range will be critical or the breakout is well underway already, depending on how you draw charts.

The reason is simple:  A move above $700 will infer that the price of Bitcoins is “going out of channel” to the upside and that may be time to climb aboard.  Or, the move over $525 or so, was the breakout and it’s now game on.

There’s time to be thoughtful.  Remember in Elliott wave theory, the new highs (that $1,700 to $2,100 kind of range) is not entirely “in the bag” until the old decline peak (2) has been exceeded.  That would be in the $920 area, approximately. 

If Bitcoins break above this level, then it becomes a (relatively) lower risk to acquire some and settle in for what could be a 3-6 month ride to new all-time highs.

No, I’m not a buyer of Bitcoins yet, but I’m watching.

Also, don’t forget that according to IRS, in an advisory published in March, Bitcoin “profits” are taxable:

IR-2014-36, March. 25, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today issued a notice providing answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) on virtual currency, such as bitcoin. These FAQs provide basic information on the U.S. federal tax implications of transactions in, or transactions that use, virtual currency.

In some environments, virtual currency operates like “real” currency — i.e., the coin and paper money of the United States or of any other country that is designated as legal tender, circulates, and is customarily used and accepted as a medium of exchange in the country of issuance — but it does not have legal tender status in any jurisdiction.

The notice provides that virtual currency is treated as property for U.S. federal tax purposes.  General tax principles that apply to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency.  Among other things, this means that:

  • Wages paid to employees using virtual currency are taxable to the employee, must be reported by an employer on a Form W-2, and are subject to federal income tax withholding and payroll taxes.
  • Payments using virtual currency made to independent contractors and other service providers are taxable and self-employment tax rules generally apply.  Normally, payers must issue Form 1099.
  • The character of gain or loss from the sale or exchange of virtual currency depends on whether the virtual currency is a capital asset in the hands of the taxpayer.
  • A payment made using virtual currency is subject to information reporting to the same extent as any other payment made in property.

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Peoplenomics: A Few Memorial Day Socioeconomic Notes

Markets being closed for the holiday, our comments today will be brief as we’ll be considering the key metric that any customer of any organization gets to ask – any time and anywhere. Sure, we pour untold billions into defense, and yeah – maybe you can’t put a dollar value on it – but this being Memorial Day, we ask anyway: Are we getting our monies worth? I think I can show you convincingly that military might doesn’t come from the checkbook. It comes from what’s between our ears.

Fine Line for Preppers: When Does It Become Hoarding?

I don’t often mention my little sister who retired from Boeing HR a few years ago, but she’s got an absolutely fascinating job in her “semi-retired” state working with people who have serious hoarding issues. This week, we had a discussion of what makes a hoarder, and what does not, and we’ll discuss the economics of it and outlook this morning. While it’s true that “not everyone has to be a Minimalist” hoarding dysfunction comes in all kinds of flavors and with it (and here’s where it gets interesting) comes the question about where prepping fits. So pull up some coffee (and your breakfast MRE) and sitcherbuttdown. Gonna do us some housekeeping between the ears.

A World Changing Weekend Ahead?

This morning it’s a little hard to call….we don’t know how it will work out.

But the election this weekend in Ukraine could set all kinds of balls in motion (or under the chopping block) depending on how orderly, believable, and acceptable to all parties the results of the Sunday polling turn out.

The rebel government in Kiev (the Western media won’t call it that, but it was a coup, let’s at least be honest, shall we?) attacked the OTHER rebels (those in the eastern part of the country who want nothing to do with Maidan and who are closer to the Russians than they are the European Union.

Since peacefully settling things is not happening (yet), the answer is gunfire and at least two died in overnight fighting in the Donetsk region this morning.

But a few dead bodies about may be the least of the world’s problems.

Prince Charles recently likened Vlad Putin to Hitler, and mentioning the Germans when the Russians lost something like 20-million in World War Two (going from memory, fact check that) is not what you do if you’re trying to build bridges and friendship.

So it’s not surprising that the Russians are demanding an explanation for what the Kremlin is calling outrageous remarks.

The West is doing its best to do a replay of Ted Mack’s  The Original Amateur Hour with the Russians so far pivoting on Ukraine and signing a nearly half-trillion dollar gas pipeline deal with China.

And, as if that’s not enough, the End Timers will be running to Scripture to see how Russia and China holding naval warfare drills this week might fit into where the world is going…beyond to hell in a handbasket.

Not to give any hints, but Isaiah 11:6  (KJV) goes something like “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” But it doesn’t mention naval exercises.

What’s more, many of the End Timers refer to “lion laying down with the lamb” as a major marker of [whatever] but that phrase doesn’t appear in the Bible.  Just so’s you know…just a marketing deal, near as I can figure it, but it stuck.  Like “…things go better with…” or “Quality is job…”  Positioning, marketing, sticky words for soft minds.  “Oh, oh, oh, what a feeling…” and so it goes.

Back to point ( I know…do we have to? Yes, I need breakfast at some point.)…

Besides Ukraine, the other biggie the market is trying to overlook is the existing home sales were still lower than year ago numbers and we may see that in the Tuesday report next week from Case Shiller/S&P (etc.) on 20 city home prices.

Why, I can hardly wait, for these things to work out.  It’s the same kind of “can’t hardly wait to see how this ends” that went through my head as a kid when I was racing on my bike, hit some gravel and was falling, falling, falling toward the ground wonder “Gee, I wonder how this ends?”

We should get some answers next week, but the markets so far this week seem to be hitting the holiday sauce a little ahead of schedule.

We usually get a run-up into major holidays, but this is nuts.  Therefore, I’ll go out on a limb and predict new highs in at least the S&P before Memorial Day.

Any forecast I make is sure to drive a silver stake into the market, so plan on down a hundred by the close.

Maybe.

Speaking of this Ad

I don’t usually comment on ads, but just so you know, tomorrow wraps up National Dog Bite Prevention Week.

And I’m proud to report that I have made it through another year without biting a dog.

Hagel Said WHAT?

“21st Century World Order” being built.   On The Pentagon Channel:

May be a bit slow due to millions of pings on the site…

Playing Your “Hot Buttons”

It’s what sells ad space, after all, so let’s see what gives this morning:

On the other hand, and to re-center a bit:  We note that Boulder, CO has moved a rubber duck race Monday to an inflatable pool.  This is fallout from those record rains last fall up there.  Somehow, won’t be the same….

Auuummmmm…….

Iran:  Defending or Warmongering?

We have to wonder when “Iran publicly boars of attack plan against the US Navy…”

And this comes amidst this other “don’t miss” report.

Russians may be additional (8) nuclear reactors for Iran.

Interesting discussion of the Saudi role in what’s going on may be found over here.

Driving: US Crazy

With the arrival of the summer driving season next week we are seeing a lot of headlines about trends in the auto world, and this year’s crop of pre-summer reports is less than encouraging.

Detroit, for example has become CarsJack City, says a report over here.

And if the carjackers don’t get you, gas prices might:  They’re at their longest stretch ever at over $3 a gallon.

I used to be really pissy about gasoline prices, blaming the oil industry for the holdup.  But then I got to looking at the tax load placed on gasoline.

California and New York are both in the 50-cent range with state taxes alone.  Hawaii is about 47-cents.  Here in Texas, it’s 20 cents a gallon of state tax.  Look up your state on the Tax Foundation website over here.

And then you read how the governor of South Dakota is looking at this goldmine of government tax money.  South Dakota is presently ranked 28th in gas taxes (24 cents a gallon) but political types just can’t keep their hand out of your pocket, can they?

When you toss in the 18.4 cents of federal tax on gasoline (24.4 cents on diesel) you can quickly see how the first 25 to 70-cents a gallon of gas price is really taxes.

Most people bitch about the price, but 20% of price is tax, darned near (depending on state).

Where There Is Growth

Three of the top 10 fastest growing spots in the country are in this here state:  Texas.  Also, Houston is now about 938,000 bigger than Dallas.  But Dallasonians can count Fort Worth, so the battle over who is biggest in Texas will continue.  San Antonio (1.4 mil) is bigger than Dallas, too, but don’t tell J.R. that.

Jobs:  Helps to be a Foreigner

You can’t make up things like this from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

The unemployment rate for the foreign born in the United States was 6.9 percent in 2013, down from 8.1 percent in 2012, the U.S.

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Coping: “Automatic Writing” in the WoWW

World of Woo-Woo time, again.  So gather round the coffee cup and follow this morning’s adventure into places people don’t go…

I mentioned in Thursday’s column that I was planning to conduct a little experiment with “automatic writing” and we talked a bit about what that is (psychography).  One of my undisclosed (until now) motivation was that occasionally when I am writing (which I do a fair amount of) I occasionally “connect with my Muse…” 

Turns out there is more than one Muse to connect with, because when you Wiki Muse, you find this:

The Muses, the personification of knowledge and the arts, especially literature, dance and music, are the nine daughters [2] of Zeus and Mnemosyne [3] (who was memory personified). Sometimes they are referred to as water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and with Pieris. According to Pausanias in the later 2nd century AD,[4] there were three original Muses [5] , worshiped on Mount Helicon in Boeotia. In later tradition, four Muses were recognised: Thelxinoë, Aoed?, Arche, and Melet?, said to be daughters of Zeus and Plusia or of Uranus. In Renaissance and Neoclassical art, the dissemination of emblem books such as Cesare Ripa‘s Iconologia (1593 and many further editions) helped standardize the depiction of the Muses in sculpture and painting.

Which one of the “nine daughters” I connect with (now and then) would be interesting. 

Still, it gets to the idea that writers (after a long stretch of writing) may be more inclined to “tap” automatic writing.

When my “Muse”  shows up, words appear in my head that lead writing off in one direction, or another, often in directions that I hadn’t expected to go.  But until Thursday afternoon, I hadn’t really tried to hold a “session” with these words.

The process is simple enough:  There’s a kind of dark gray LCD “screen” in my mind’s eye and all I need to do in order to tap into new thoughts and ideas is glance at it once in a while.  That’s it.  Mind’s eye, gray screen, black letters in no particular kind of font, and words appear.  Odd?  Sure.  Useful?  Well, I never run out of words to write, if that’s the question.

But what would happen if I just shut down the rational side of brain for a while and wrote the words that flowed onto this “screen””?”  Would they make any sense?  My conscious words (self-directed) are contained in brackets.  The responses from “the screen” are in italics.  Here’s what happened….

[ So write something for me…]

This automatic empirical contact within the topic hangover ordinarily shuts down conversation. Whenever you’ll find truculent happiness, and lust, overhaul your thinking.

Potatoes carrots and beets gardened in season in order for truffles to grow persist, emulation of humanity flourishes.

Hundspine overflows archetypically within/between the world, spiraling through the cosmos.

[Hundspine? Who is Hundspine?]

Hundspine is overlord of this planet and he is Gettysburg. Resourceful convincing and oppulent his savings are resources shared among peoples of Earth.

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Thai’ing One on: Now it’s a Coup

There’s a battle on for your mind, and you’re losing.

That’s OK.  If you’re married, in a relationship, or been there, done that, you’ve already lost your mind, anyway, but this morning’s headlines remind us of just how powerful little words are.

Take “coup” for example.

When the mobgov, with US and EU backing staged a coup in Ukraine it was called a “change of government.”

When the government went from democratic to taken over by the military in Thailand, well now we haul out the words military coup.

It isn’t funny how this stuff works.  It’s BS.

Meantime, if you’re following the Ukraine lingo-jingo, you’ll find headlines like “Ukraine rebels attack soldiers as Russia says troops withdrawing.”

Fine, except what’s not explicitly defined is that the “soldiers” being attacked are (themselves) rebels who seized power in the Western-backed coup.

I don’t mind people in Ukraine having a vote this weekend.  But what I do mind is when “computational statecraft” dictates that our tax dollars get committed to keeping the gas flowing to Ukraine. 

Big Trouble in China

How to you say “Regional insurrection in China?”

Well, you don’t.  If you’re western media, you paper this one over and chalk it up to terrorists because to do anything else would hint that the worker’s paradise ain’t such a happy place, after all..  Can’t have that.

The pot simmers, but none dare point it out because you know who buys our bonds and keeps us afloat.  Yep, thems must be terrorists, indeedy.

Happy Talk Rallies Markets

OK, so the Russians may not have left their border areas completely, just yet.  Still, the very prospect of such has buoyed markets.

Yesterdays bear-side fleecer-gasser was a 158 point gain in the Dow.  But today the markets are about flat, awaiting things like elections this weekend in Ukraine and the Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) which we chuckle about, knowing it’s an anagram.

The Reasonable Fed Guy

A serious economist, Stanley Fischer is about to sail into the Vice-Chair slot at the Fed after the requisite rigmarole in Washington.

The reason I call him the “reasonable Fed guy” is he’s one of the few who sees the xx trillion of excess liquidity that’s sloshing around the banking system and worries about it turning into ‘snap inflation’ when demand picks up.  Or if rates turn too fast.

He may have missed my notes on how robotics, 3D printing, and business process computers are likely to wreck any recovery before it really gets started.  Or the ones where I’ve explained how the impact of the LBGT movement is to seriously reduce housing demand by making “shared space” a lot broader than it used to be…

Still, he’s as reasonable a fellow as you’ll find in DC, here lately…

Commie or Context?

Here’s a fine puzzler for your second cup today:  What exactly did a democratic congressoid mean when he said “We’ve proved that communism works?”

NextWar: Electronic Pearl Harbor

Note from warhammer this morning is thought-provoking:

George,

Of late we’ve been privy to some information people ‘in the know’ have understood to be reality for quite some time – China is comprehensively engaged in industrial espionage against the U.S., among other nations.

What has been made very clear is the scope of China’s cyber sleuthing, and this is the information that should send a shiver down John and Jane Q. Sixpack’s chubby little spines.  The limited data released regarding key targets of Chinese cyber espionage, most of them aimed at U.S. nuclear power, heavy industry, solar, communications and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) dedicated companies.

The short of it is this:  China is deeply embedded in many of our critical national infrastructure supporting companies.  Most of the American public has no idea of the breadth of Chinese hacking.  We worry about the NSA having our personal information, yet the chances are very good that the Chinese military knows far more about any one particular U.S. citizen than Uncle Sam does.

Several news outlets nailed it, especially the Wall Street Journal, when they called the Chinese actions out for what they really are, “a state-sponsored act of aggression.”   

I call it “prepping the battlefield.”  The critical infrastructures and supporting corporations compromised by the Chinese are vital to keeping information and services flowing throughout the nation and among and between our top government, industry and military leadership.  In a time of war, compromising these data and services pipelines would give any opponent a serious edge, a “cyber-Pearl Harbor” if you will. 

For years, those who were warning of a cyber-Pearl Harbor were chided as modern day Chicken Littles, guilty of making self-fulfilling prophecies and turning China into the enemy that they did not really intend to be.  Regardless of the how and why, the China news is a calculated news release of what would surely be classified data, done to prep the public at large that the fox is in the hen house and nothing good can come of it.

This situation bears watching.  Indeed, the news could be a tactic strategically employed by the U.S. political leadership to defuse the damage caused by the Snowden leaks and justify a continued domestic cyber-vigilance on the part of the U.S. of A.  But several well placed independent organizations and other national governments have publicly reached the same conclusions in the past several years.  

My question is: “why did the U.S.

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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.

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