Yes, the power is still off for a fair number of readers in Maine and Michigan.  Not that power going off during a winter storm is totally unusual:  It has been going on for over a hundred years on a semi-annual basis, but we still (being I suppose, infatuated with electricity, here on the toddler planet) manage to find the lack of electricity as somehow unthinkable.

Yes, it happens.  And it happens from weather.  And media has now gone completely over the top by naming every breeze a “named storm” but it makes sense, if you run weather sites, channels, or are looking to build the case for warming, cooling, or whatever.  Winter storm Gemini, indeed.  It’s winter, for crying out loud, and we made it through how many hundreds of thousands of years without putting marketing monikers to it?

Christmas delayed is Christmas well played, at least among the online retailers.  Which is why UPS and FedEx are both working off point and clicksmas leftovers.

About the only economic news around is that the world didn’t end, and that’s reason enough for the market futures to tack on another 40-points, or so, at the opening.

Perhaps one reason is all the people still on vacation.  Fearless Leader himself is out for 17-days, which means he won’t be back in Washington until well into the New Year.

With so many missing from Washington, the markets are in a “What could go wrong?” mode.  There are no Fed meetings, no hearings, no tax plans afoot.  And, so hard is it to find anything domestically to report on (other than the usual murder and mayhem) that the press has taken to just naming stories like “Hawaii Vacation: Day 5.”

Having ultimate confidence in the deeply insightful capabilities of the MSM, I’m expecting the bulletins to come breaking this afternoon:  “Hawaii Vacation: Day 6.”

Can I go back to bed now?

Wars on de Nile

The biggies that are in play this morning in the Middle East, although not entirely focused on Egypt, sure to have a lot of geographical emphasis on the word “Nile.”

For one, the biggest development in Egypt, which has been popping up in our word-frequency research for more than a week, is the announcement on Wednesday at the Muslim Brotherhood is now being called a “terrorist organization” and has banned it.

This gets to be an complex stew:  You’ve got the military government trying to run Egypt in a middle of the road way, you’ve got the Saudi’s off in the background, who are pumping something like $2-billion in aid into the place, yet at the same time, wasn’t it most Muslim extremists from Saudi Arabia, who were the purported perps in 9-11? 

And then you’ve got US foreign policy in play which is just incomprehensible, and has been since before Benghazi, but wait, I tripped, so I can’t testify.  *(I may sound just a wee might cynical on this stuff).  To deduce America doesn’t know you-know-what from Shinola would be a reasonable assessment.

Of course, Benghazi has nothing to do with Egypt, except as a symptom, and that works for us.

The other symptom (more recently and more importantly) is how the upper Nile district of Sudan is now in play.  From Wikipedia:

Upper Nile is one of the 10 states of South Sudan. The current governor of Upper Nile, and its first governor in the independence era of South Sudan, is Simon Kun Puoch. The White Nile flows through the state, giving it its name. The state also shares a similar name with the region of Greater Upper Nile, of which it is part along with the states of Unity and Jonglei. It has an area of 77,823 km². Malakal is the capital of the state. The town of Kodok, the location of the Fashoda incident that ended the “Scramble for Africa“, is located here. Upper Nile seceded from Sudan as part of the Republic of South Sudan on 9 July 2011.

Well, except that Sudan is not about to give up claim to an area with great mineral wealth, petroleum, and oh yes…water!

Despite what the governor of Upper Nile  (Simon Kun Puoch) thinks about rebels not being in control, the rebels have missed that email, and so fighting continues.

Other Fronts

In our Manufacturer’s Resource Wars framework include Iran where it’s been a bombing festival in Iraq. 

An d its musical government in Turkey where three cabinet ministers have quit charging corruption so it’s the old “Let’s do the shuffle” among the powersthatbe in charge there.

If you were thinking Santa would have brought the world some Prozac, we are pretty sure the whole of the Middle East was missed.

Hunger for Good News?

The tempering news is that according to a Gallup Poll, most families still routinely dine at home (sometimes even together) which is what may be holding the last bits of civilization in place.

Honor the Dead:  Wrong Dead

Yasukuni Shrine is not something you probably knew about until this morning.  Wikipedia says…

It was founded by Emperor Meiji to commemorate individuals who had died in service of the Empire of Japan during the Meiji Restoration

And that Meiji period was what?

The Meiji Restoration (????, Meiji Ishin^?), also known as the Meiji Ishin, Renovation, Revolution, Reform or Renewal, was a chain of events that restored imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under the Meiji Emperor. The goals of the restored government were expressed by the new emperor in the Charter Oath.

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As 2013 draws to a close, we come to the start of another year, and with it, perhaps, a change in how the world operates.

There’s so much going on, it’s hard to all take in at a single sitting, but there are two points of interest which intrigue me.

One, of course, is the Nordic legends of Ragnorok, but the good news is he holds off on the world-ending until a few days after my birthday, which I very much appreciate.

I’m tempted to put a countdown timer (Days till Ragnorok) on the right panel of the site…

Then, coincidentally we have 2012 researcher Patrick Geryl who’s on the track of major quakes and a possible poleshift in 2014 (or beyond) because the literature is just so very clear.  Clearer in fact than the calendar, which if you recall from past discussions, doesn’t include a “Year Zero” – which can mess things up.

If you were anxiously awaiting a massive global quake and coastal events in 2012/2013, don’t give up just yet.

Which gets me to Patrick’s latest observation that there has been a real lack of major quakes now for more than a month:

Hi George,

We had only 3 quakes with a magnitude from 6.0 or larger the last 30 days…

Link to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquakes_in_2013

Link to USGS (large link):

According to my findings, this is unprecedented the last 11 years… I searched the database from USGS since 2002, and found only 1 time period that is less or more similar…

http://quake.geo.berkeley.edu/anss/catalog-search.html

2002/06/30 21:29:36.30 -22.2010 179.2500 620.40 6.50

2002/07/03 23:00:18.47 -5.0320 147.3360 31.20 6.20

2002/07/19 06:43:55.10 -56.6230 -140.6900 10.00 6.10

2002/07/30 06:55:07.78 -57.8890 -23.2420 33.00 6.20

So my question: what is going on? At least this is something quite unusual… Is the pressure building up in the volcanoes? Or is it the prelude to the start of the real Mayan end date?

Question: Can your ‘Quake’ friend do some research around this?

Cheers,

Patrick

I will forward this to him for his consideration – you bet!

But, in the meantime, this none-too-cheery Youtube video popped up:

So we will keep an eye on this, not expecting anything to come of it, but it does make for interesting viewing while we await the completion of the blow-off top in markets which is underway and which should reach a crescendo by, oh, the end of January, or so.

We’re watching with a kind of morbid curiosity – and keeping the old airplane ready to launch for high ground.

A further reason?  The recent quake swarm in the Canary Islands  and other Atlantic locations.

The chief producer of Coast to Coast AM invited me to come on and talk about what’s ahead and why I am on a new kick about taxing robotics.

I’ll be publishing a short e-book on the topic (free).  I expect to whip it out in the next few days – the first part was on Peoplenomics yesterday.  Part 2 will be along Saturday.  e-b ook to follow next week.  Nothing big – 10-15 pages is what it feels like, for now.

But it all comes back to the fact that the people who own machines do not pay adequate taxes on their machine’s outputs and government actually incentivizes companies to “de-human” their workforces by subsidizing machine purchases while penalizing hiring of humans.

Depreciation and other incentives don’t apply to humans.  But HR regs out the ying-yang, taxes on incomes, workman’s comp…well, you can add those up all day long.

Of course the subtle part of this is that the MainStream gets so overloaded with the (made-up) right-left battles, that the greater reality of how the machine owners (*and their bankers) ending up with all the marbles, is lost.

“Little wonder,” notes my wife Elaine, “So many people are lost and without purpose or direction today.  People don’t seem to understand that we’re now living the part in the movie “Metropolis” where people mindlessly go to work without point or purpose…yet that’s what the film was about…in 1927!”

And as usual, she’s exactly right.  It was a mighty prescient film.  You can watch a pretty good version of it on YouTube here although budget 2 1/2 hours for the project.

Turkey Hangovers, Child’s Play, Wii be Fine

Not much of a Christmas this year at, both at a personal level and a kind of group-gestalt level by the look of things.

It looks like the online etailers may have had a much better year of it than the brick and mortar crowd, based on the report that UPS (and Fedex, to some extent) has overloads from too many people pointing and clicking.

Most of “Christmas delayed” should be cleaned up by the weekend, and them will come the onrush of the January clearance sales events.

At a personal level, chili isn’t my personal favorite Christmas eve dinner, but the turkey yesterday more than made up for it.  What soured things was personal issues between a couple of my kids, which resulted in BS phone calls during Christmas dinner.  I chose not to answer until after dinner, and by then – as tiffs between people in their 30’s going on teens tend to do –had spiraled into turmoil that the UN would be well-advised to avoid.

It was a harsh reminder that the “Only person you can be responsible for is yourself” and that when people under 90, or so, begin trying to preach and teach one another, things often end up in the ditch.  This was their “often.”

And when it becomes apparent to the drama perpetrators, the old “soldier gathering” ploy kicks in and then come attempts to drag others into the drama…hence, my phone rings. 

I’m sure you’ve seen that psychological “play action pass” run if your family circles, too.  It seems the outliers of common sense come down the chimney over the holidays and emos run high..  This was our year and chimney, I suppose.

Other than the disruptive calls from the kids (Me?  Bitter?  Which is why, at near-enough age 65, I can still call them kids…) it was a fine turkey and lots of sleep followed.  My after-dinner snooze lasted from 5:15 to about 7:45, and then the sleep from 8 PM to 4:30 AM.

Armed with a can of cream of mushroom soup, several bacon strips and toast points, I’ll be the guy making an SST sandwich imitation for breakfast.  (The recipe was discussed in detail after Thanksgiving.)

Panama and Elaine got into a Wii festival.  We bought the game console (on sale, natch) about five years ago and  we drag it would every now and then.  But after not playing for a long time, it’s surprising how much fun they are.

Which gets me to the learning point that maybe be really people don’t need to buy much (going forward) when comes to giving and gifting and such. 

Maybe Christmas is best spent rediscovering “the old toys” like our aging Wii.  It’s just as good a time-sink as ever and the cost was nearly zero, save a fresh dose of 8 double-A batteries to bring the balance board and the controllers back to life.

Looking ahead to Christmas 2014?  We’ll start thawing the turkey in about mid September.  And we’ll have our phones disconnected for the month of December.  Then Wii’ll be fine.

In a “crack-up” boom, you might be well-advised to counsel your kids to consider jobs in the shrinkupational pursuits: 

The more crowded and less directly dependent we’ve become on another another in the virtualized world, the more emotional issues result. Stress in the feedlot.

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{Reader Note:  Coping with a cranky computer this morning so our usual formatting may not be as crisp as usual.  You may need to use your back button to read the whole column this morning until the problem is resolved.  Early this morning it was be a writer or computer geek.  Guess you can tell which one I picked.

Not to worry, computers live in fear of me and I will beat some respect into this i7-920 POS as soon as this morning’s report is done…for now, now computers were harmed in the making of this morning’s report.  That is, however, subject to change.}

Oh, sure, nice rally yesterday in the market.  But this morning, Santa’s apparently going to step out for a toke and a dram, at least that’s what the futures are hinting at.  One reason?  A press release from ShopperTrak has us wondering if the Old Fat Feller has lost his sway over the instant gratification crowd.  Why wait for one day a year, after all?

“Last week was the last chance for procrastinators to finish last-minute holiday shopping, but the weather prevented many from getting to the stores. ShopperTrak – the world’s largest counter and analyzer of retail shopper traffic – reported that for the week of Dec. 16 to Dec. 22, GAFO* in-store retail sales decreased by 3.1 percent from the same week last year. Retail brick-and-mortar shopper traffic decreased by 21.2 percent compared to the same time period in 2012.

“Bad weather throughout the country kept some shoppers away from stores,” said Bill Martin, ShopperTrak founder. “This past week was their final opportunity to complete their holiday shopping before Christmas – and though many did finish making their purchases, retailers did not see as many shoppers as last year.”

Despite more markdowns and promotional efforts from retailers, “Super Saturday” (Dec. 21) saw a decrease in retail sales by 0.7 percent compared to 2012. In-store shopper traffic decreased 18.1 percent from the same day last year. ShopperTrak predicts after-holiday markdowns to drive robust retail sales and store traffic days to come, particularly the day after Christmas (Dec.

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I have to imagine the biggest part of “coping” right now is all the last-minute holiday activities, so I’ll keep this morning’s comments short and to the point.  (yeah, right…)

As of this morning, it looks like the weather is not exactly cooperating:  There are plenty of reports of delays traveling around the East.  As usual, the mainstream media will be pointing out how serious the situation is, but a more relaxed ‘tude suggests that it is winter after all, so what’s the big?

The latest Triple A Gas Gauge report (over here) offers that the current price of regular (nationally) pencils out to $3.258 compared with a year ago when it was running $3.247.  That does tend to back up the recent assertion that there’s little inflation in the economy, so perhaps that’s something to be thankful for.

Around the ranch, we’ll be putting on a turkey later on this morning.  And, about 5 PM, or so, we’ll sit down to a Christmas Eve dinner with all the fixings.  But we’re not doing presents this year.  With the exception of recapturing more of our youth, and planning more travel, there’s not much left to want.

The kids, on the other hand, are getting their checks in the mail and all seems well with that.

There are a few people who contribute greatly to the content around here, who I’d like to personally thank for their help over the past year.  These include:

• Grady at the www.nostracodeus.com project which is where we look at word frequencies of various things, since there have been many instances where words arriving, fresh into the headlines, indicate bits and pieces of the future to come.
• Stephen, my consigliore/ (a real-life) attorney in the upper-Midwest, is on the mend from a skiing accident a week, or two back out in Colorado.  He’s going as fine as can be expected with a plate in his foot, and I just know he’ll be looking forward to future air travel and conversations with TSA about why he’s setting off alarms.  Our wishes for a speedy recovery.
• Bernard Grover of our Jakarta Bureau deserves thanks for the many fine reports from the Dark Side.  That’s where many of the jobs that used to reside in the US have gone. SE Asia.
• No list would be complete without mention of JB Slear over at www.fortwealth.com who always offers keen insights on how commodity markets are going.
• So, too, the comments (particularly on Elliott wave counts) of Robin Landry up in Shawnee, OK are gratefully accepted.  They may get snow for New Years up in Oklahoma, according to the forecasts.
• And then there’s Oilman2 who (right about now) is back offshore on a rig 200 miles out in the Gulf.  Hell, if I was making his day rate, I guess missing some of the meals shoreside would be worth it.  His insights into the real oil picture are very important.  Without oil, without gas, we’re toast as a civilization.
• Our News Analyst fellow up in Winnipeg (David) contributes greatly.  He’s got a sharp, investigative streak and not only knows what the good questions are to ask, but also how to use the wide-open web to find the answers.
• And then there’s Warhammer, our war gamer/expert who’s no longer flapping with the B-52 crowd, but instead if able to share his insights from the (relative) safety of East Coast academia.  Although, I wonder if the Air Force isn’t safer (in some ways) than the battles in higher ed.  Especially with the Student Loan Great Reckoning still ahead.
• And last, but not least Gaye Levy up at www.backdoorsurvival.com. Between our two sites, there’s a carefully planned (sometimes, anyway) symbiotic relationship:  UrbanSurvival is about right now, get it done aspects of news and current events.  BackdoorSurvival offers the longer, more considered prepping plans with plenty of “How to do its” for when you get (properly) freaked by the headlines.

There are many more contributors, of course, but those folks have been like year-long Christmas presents for us:  People whose word you can “take to the bank.”  In their individual fields of expertise, they are great thinkers, with keen perceptions, and it helps us to have the “steady hand on the tiller” look toward the future.

And on days like this, when there’s not a cloudy in the sky and the chance of snow down in this part of Texas is way off to the right of the decimal point, we reflect on the things that matter:  The making and holding of memories.

And the realization that we’ve been living in that place that’s “Over the river and through the woods…”  But we’re not old enough for the rest of what’s in that song.

Have a very Merry Christmas.

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Every month about in here, the Bureau of Economic Analysis pipes up with a “Personal Consumption & Expenditures report” which, while it ain’t no Clive Cussler novel – (Set of 4), still makes for some interesting reading.  Even if this is the time of the year to drift off from non-fiction for some mental escapism.

The set-up to this morning’s report is that Gold is teetering on the brink of dead and the underside of $1,200.  If you remember, last week (and it’s difficult, I’ll grant you that), I was hand-wringing about the price of gold and how once is sunk into the upper 1100’s, it might not be long (a month or four) before it could sink even further.  Like into the upper 1000’s on its way “Who knows how low?”

The Price of Gold (POG) is an important truth detector around here.  I look at it as a way of seeing-through government reports that insist how peachy keen everything is.  Yet, when the housing sales fell on its nose in the most recent read, one could think of a parallel between the price of gold’s decline and the ongoing correction in the housing market.

I could go on (at some great length) about how the Fed policy of “Print just a bit faster than the rate of deflation” is working and that hope no one notices their decline in lifestyles.  The trick is to keep things appearing normal  while the public’s actual standard of living it ratcheted back.

If Santa Claus leaves you a smaller collection of goodies this year, don’t feel bad.  It’s baked in the deflationary cookies.

It’s all because lifestyles are coming down (on average, YMMV) and that’s because of a lack of growth.  And that’s because of consumer super-saturation.  You probably have two, or three, of everything you need already, anyway.  Except for the latest darling phone from Apple, and for those, people will turn violent.  )Why, even in Berlin, raiders drove a care into an Apple store, so valued are their trinkets.)

Alas!  We live in a world which has done an ugly transition without most people knowing it.  We’ve gone from quiet, romantic dinners, to food & texting festivals; from looking into each other’s eyes to looking at an super-hi def display. Mark my words, the birth rate is in trouble.

And we’re gonna solve that one with immigration?

This is progress?

But enough social commentary from the old reprobate in the woods.  Like he was saying, there’s this personal income and expenditure report which is as near a present as the Public on Main Street is likely to get from government’s Grinch…

Personal income increased $30.1 billion, or 0.2 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $16.2 billion, or 0.1 percent in November according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $63.0 billion, or 0.5 percent.

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For those who missed my FB/G+ post this weekend, I need to post it here so you can follow the latest developments.  (If you read the G+/FB note, skip past this first indented part:)

A reader sent in an interesting reason why this might be the case: Hi George: I hope you have time to look into this one – Today you say What if 2012 was a year off?  Well it could be if the allowances for our calendar were not correct.  I have noted this for many years – where is our year 0 ie zero?  Between BC and AD – or whatever the PC crowd call it now – there is no zero.  Would that not screw up the counting of the big round rock? See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_%28year%29 Historians have never included a year zero. This means that between, for example, January 1, 500 BC and January 1, AD 500, there are 999 years: 500 years BC, and 499 years AD preceding 500. In common usage anno Domini 1 is preceded by the year 1 BC, without an intervening year zero. So astronomers and archeologists/historians count it differently… Best regards, B. So with this in mind, I asked 2012 researcher Patrick Geryl about it and his intriguing answer is this: Hi George, I am aware of this possibility… However there is something more. When the Spaniards invaded South America, they destroyed almost all the books. Also they lost the conversion from the Mayan calendar to ours.

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From the “What IF Department:  Remember what was going on a year ago this weekend?  The world was supposed to end when the Mayan calendar flipped over.

Yet, if your eyes are open, you’ll notice that things are still here.  (If not, I’d be interested in how you’re reading this…)

HOWEVER, whether things will still be “normal” come February, well, that becomes a matter for a bit of speculation.

Let me run through this for you since I received a fascinating email from 2012 research & writer Patrick Geryl.  This email was titled “Mayan Doomsday = Ragnarok = February 22, 2014”

Hi George,

This will interest everyone… Finally somebody who was able to find the real Mayan Long Count formula! Sorry if it is quite long…

The Mayan Long Count formula decoded at last!

Read down through (and including) the part of the post that begins “The Mayan Long Count is at most a good approximation….”  Once you’ve nibbled on that, then let’s pick up with Patrick’s email of this morning…

There will be a grand cross alignment on January 1, 2014… Uranus and Mars will form a straight line perpendicular to the alignment made by Jupiter-Pluto-Venus-Mercury-Moon-Sun-Earth!

Let me add to the alignment on January 1, 2014. Earth will be “crucified” by planets at four corners:
Venus, Moon, Sun, Mercury, Pluto on one corner with Jupiter at the opposite corner.
Perpendicular to the straight line alignment above, Uranus and Mars will form a straight line, with Uranus at one corner and Mars at the opposite corner.

Doomsday Sunspot Formed on 360 day Calendar round!

January 1, 2014 + 3 days = 357 + 3 = 360 days

This day is January 4!

= day Mayan doomsday sunspot is formed! See my publication on Facebook. Go to December 4: Solar Superstorms and Plantar Alignments.

This sunspot will start to grow rapidly from these Triple Line Ups:

January 17 – February 19, 2014: Triple Line Up Jupiter – Earth – Pluto

January 19 – March 21, 2014: Triple line Up Venus – Jupiter – Pluto
January 22- February 4, 2014: Triple Line Up Venus – Earth – Jupiter

26 – February 9, 2014: Triple Line Up Pluto – Venus -Earth

Conclusions:

1.Carrington event possible from end of January 2014

2. Pole Shift somewhere in February 2014…

Pole Shift Date:

Adding 3 days, starting from January 1 we find 357 + 3 = 360 = formation Mayan Doomsday Sunspot.

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