You gotta love it when the market has just run into overhead resistance in the S&P 1,686 level and just can’t seem to get enough traction, and then looks like it will fall back.  You see, because the S&P and the Dow have not been able to punch through the old highs set on August 5th and 2nd respectively, the doors of hell could open in the next couple of weeks because (repeat after me) Crashes don’t just appear out of thin air:  they occur often times 55-days, or so, from a major high (which is coming up soon enough) and along the way there, you’d expect (under Elliott wave rules) to see Wave 1 down, then a wave 2 rally, and the decline and rally would then give you some key insight as to what will happen next.

That’s because a “normal” decline might be expected to be 1.608 times the first wave down, and then a 5th wave down would be another 1.5 to 1.8 times, except that with high frequency trading, it could be 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 times that.  So we sit with our cuppa Kona roast this morning (thanks again Hawaii Hank for that!) and ponder our navels and next trading moves.

One more “up” is possible, to the 1720-1735 area on the S&P, but catching falling knives is not the smartest thing to do on Friday the 13th. 

A week or three back I suggested in one of my columns, with gold north of $1,425, that a move down to the $1,200 level and lower seemed to be in the cards, too.  And sure enough, this morning, gold futures are down to $1,312 and, once a potential sell-off in coming weeks in the markets gets organized (if it does, remember this is not financial advice) than as big players sell everything including the kitchen sink and any gold or silver laying around, we could see the bottom drop out from under gold.  Not yet, but the potential is out there.

Retail Fails – Saved by Cars!

OK, new report out from the Census folks this morning sounds like all sweetness and light:

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for August, adjusted for seasonal
variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $426.6 billion, an increase of 0.2 percent (±0.5%)* from the
previous month, and 4.7 percent (±0.7%) above August 2012. Total sales for the June through August 2013 period were up 5.4 percent
(±0.5%) from the same period a year ago. The June to July 2013 percent change was revised from +0.2 percent (±0.5%)* to +0.4 percent
(±0.2%).

What could be wrong?  Do I have to beat you on the head with this stuff?  OK, I snipped the year on year change chart and drew my squiggly line across what year on year inflation at the M2 level has been based on the Fed’s H.6 money stocks report.  Other than being “saved by the auto industry” are you still all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?

There, how’s that feel?  Yes, that’s why credit card use is down…people are sitting on their wallets.

Here’s comes more evidence of our deflationary depression in this morning’s Producer Prices report, too:

The Producer Price Index for finished goods rose 0.3 percent in August, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Prices for finished goods were unchanged in July and increased 0.8 percent in June. At the earlier stages of processing, prices received by producers of intermediate goods were unchanged in August, and the crude goods index fell 2.7 percent. On an unadjusted basis, prices for finished goods moved up 1.4 percent for the 12 months ended in August, the smallest advance since a 0.5-percent rise in April 2013.

When crude goods producers have no pricing power, their wages are flat to falling and that lights a fuse going forward for weakness.  Intermediate looking flat ignores that 6.8% watering down of the purchasing power of money, but let’s pretend that doesn’t mean anything and everything is coming up roses and lollipops for another week, shall we? 

Consumer prices next Tuesday…

Climate Change to the Rockies?

Normally, the backside of Colorado’s Front Range is a notoriously dry place.  Until this week, that is.  Over the past couple of days, 8-inches of rain has fallen, leaving some cities cut off by roads washed out. and more rain ahead today in the forecasts.

With our trip starting tomorrow, we’ll be sure to take pictures and route to avoid the worst of it. 

Boardwalk Disaster

A terrible disaster at the other end of the spectrum may be found in the fire which consumed more than a six-block area of the famous New Jersey Boardwalk which was just rebuilt in the wake of hurricane Sandy.  Governor Christie getting lots of face-time on the tube with this…

More after this…

Our Good for Nothing House

How useless and irrelevant has the US House of Representatives become lately?  Let me count the ways:  No constitutionally required federal budget, check.  No immigration reform, check.  No vote to contain presidential war-making powers, check.

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This is one a buddy of mine has been sitting on for a good while…since when it happened it was one of the most disturbing things ever is this fellow’s life.  It involves a very good daylight UFO sighting and his report (and accompanying sketch, with the object sketched in just to the size he saw it) is mind-numbing in its implications:

“May 26, 2013.

The day before this event I had heard the chatter of returning flocks of cranes or storks and it was happening again, so I stopped my yard work and took the time to watch them enjoy the thermal lift provided by the rising heat of the day. I have been watching them each year and look forward to their annual return. The birds have a distinctive chattering sound that is easily recognizable.

After the event, I looked up the height at which the birds fly when migrating. It’s approximately 2400 feet, so I am assuming that is at or near the altitude of the flock. My view of them was framed by the second story edge of my home (not in the picture) to the west and a tree in my neighbor’s yard to the east. I stepped back into the shadow of my home to get a better view of the birds.

As I watched, above the birds who were not disturbed, there came a circular craft plowing through the overcast from the west. It had lights turned on inside the turbulent bow wave it was producing in the cloud,

It was large and moving south east at (my guess) forty to sixty miles per hour.

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Yes, the book Another Nineteen: Investigating Legitimate 9/11 Suspects is likely worth your time to read, as is a visit to author  Kevin Robert Ryan’s website over here.  Getting traction…

Also:  Hat tip to reader Charles for the catch…and he thinks you might enjoy Project Censored’s “Exploring the Financial Core of the Transnational Capitalist Class” which gets more into those check-writing rulers behind the seats of power.

All of which, he notes, could be a nice series of backgrounders before you move along to the front-edge newsnipulations (go ahead, use it, my gift) about to come at the helm changes at the Fed.  So, go read “Failing Up to the Fed, a Reporters’ guide to the paper trail surrounding Larry Summers…”

Another futuring point, as long as we’re trying to look at things as they are, you might want to spend some time on the Mark Zuckerberg article over at The Next Web where he lays out where Facebook is going “to connect the next 5-billion people.”

Oh, and you mean social map them, too?

We may never know the extent of Facebook’s relationship with government agencies, but the LA Times article this morning where Zuckerberg says “The government blew it” on leaks, is interesting.

I prefer to sit back at watch things from my skeptical marketer/investor standpoint.  What I see as a kind of over-arching deal is that a further drive to connect people to social media, moves in the direction of getting more and more people to self-map into social media.  Which, figures Ure’s truly, is why everyone is so hot to develop killer aps for social media…so it will become so “necessary” (like CB radio, right?) that everyone will do it and as a result, everyone will self-map, self-confess, and self-leak all over the place.

Who needs a security state apparatchik when you’ve got social tied up?

So,  do I seem a bit skeptical?  I figure it’s only a matter of time before not having a social media account will be a cause for suspicion and eventually even arrest as an anti-social threat to society (because failing to self-map and self confess will definitely be found to be a telltale of something)!

Meantime, the danger of the net to the PowersThatBe peeks out from China where 500-retweets will land you three years in the slammah.

Carrying the thought a step further, Madison Avenue Mike (OK, Mish, but I call him Mike so his friends don’t catch on)  spied this really good article in the NY Times which lays out a good bit more about how  online confessional aps work under the headline “Free Apps for Nearly Every Health Problem, but What About Privacy?”

Yeah?  What about it?  So far, my answer has been simple.  Whenever I use one of those calculators which wants to email results (like body mass, heart/blood pressure, like expectancy, and things like that) I use Zeus the Cat’s email.  (zeusishot@gmail.com)

You’ll be thrilled to know that Zeus is likely to live to age 89-92, doesn’t have diabetes, and is now able to receive $250,000 worth of life insurance from just $19/month.

I don’t know how much longer I will be able to keep up this up, however.  I figure it’s only a matter of time until the Department of Homeland Security will turn identity theft from a cat into a class one offense.   Although so far, I’ve blown off the demand letters from Zeus’s attorneys about sullying his reputation and demanding I give him back his Gold Card that he recently received along with a bunch of hotel points.

Rotsa ruck.  No mice, no card.

Speaking of Petmail

Normally, I don’t read Zeus’s emails, but here’s one he didn’t mention from back in January from Reader Jimmy’s cat Mandy Sue..

Hi Zeus,

Ask your peon housemates whether or not they noticed that the recent quake in Alaska was coincident with the big outbreak of new sunspots.

Also, demand that they feed you raw organic meat like I get.

Isn’t it great that we felines rule the world! What other species can get humans to do anything we want and we give nothing in return unless we feel like it at the moment. Looks like the democrats are starting to copy us, though.

Regards,

Mandy Sue (sorry, too old for you, at age 18)

Near as I can figure it, Mandy Sue’s reference to democrats copying cats has to do with wrapping things up in kitty litter, but I can’t be sure.  I’m sure NSA will be keeping a closer eye on Zeus now because of provocative (and under age) emails like this.  I’m just wondering if he’s working for them and if they wouldn’t mind kicking in a few bucks toward cat food?

Reader’s Writes

Nice to see that a few folks have picked up on our new $20/five-month Peoplenomics.com subscription rate.  Especially Edward down under who’s been following our cubit discussion:

George,

First time I have written you as a subscriber (new $20 client) but have written you a few times over the six years I have read the “free side”.

The Cubit discussion isn’t my area. My partner is a long time “organite” maker. She makes a variety of pieces and a number of them incorporate copper wire coils of various lengths according to the characteristics the piece is intend to possess.

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Sometimes I just have to listen to the I-Ching inbox when it does something out of the ordinary, which it has in the past couple of days, and therein lies the tale.  There’s a bunch of disconnected parts to this story, so let me take it one step at a time…as it really will make sense, if discussed in stepping-stone fashion.

1.  The single organization tool in Windows 7 (haven’t looked at 8 on my other computer which is just for travel, but I assume it’s there, too) is something called “Sticky Notes.”  It looks like this on my left monitor where I have my never-ending list of things to do:

2.  Now, one of the notes on the monitor reads like this:

To understand this little project, all you need is an electronic function generator, about 30-feet of wire, and some knowledge of the Schumann Resonance which you can glean from Wikipedia over here.

Basically, the Schumann Resonance is that underlying 7.83 Hz frequency which is formed by lightning resonating in the Earth’s atmosphere.

What I’ve been thinking with is the idea of mildly overwhelming the Schumann Resonance with something locally generated at a slightly lower (or higher) frequency, in order to determine whether there might be biological effects.

3.  Where my poking around at Schumann gets interesting (research-wise, since nothing big seems to have happened yet in terms of reaction) is that there is a lot of ancient literature (Biblical and other) which gets to the idea of some kind of physical “connector” to Universe. 

Oh, sure, it’s dressed up in a lot of mumbo-jumbo, but seems to me that there really is something to the idea of sacred geometry and – when you go looking – you can even find ways to build your own “Holy of Holies”

You can go looking for visuals over on Google and there’s a ton of them, but notice they all seem to have an oblong shape to them and they have some “resonators” installed at key places.

4.  I can’t find the reference from when I was searching for the information a number of years ago (and found it) but as I recall, the resonators in this were the two kinds of cubits:  In each corner of the “Holy” there was a royal cubit, and exactly mid-way on each wall was a sacred cubit. 

I’ve been thinking over the idea that the Ark of the Covenant was some kind of ‘power station/transceiver devices which seems (from the design descriptions) to be akin to the Orgone accumulator units which has been built by Wilhelm Reich prior to the suppression of his work.

The idea is that IF you could build a “Holy of Holies” which would concentrate whatever that ethereal energy is, and then further refine/capture using an Orgone generator, you could seriously connect with Universe/Ruler of All, etc.

Except, of course, there are a million stumbling blocks, not the least of which is getting the dimensions anywhere near right.

5.  So off goes an email to Chris Tyreman, who’s the director of The Chronicle Project with a research request for anything they might have stumbled on to help better nail down the length of both the royal and sacred cubits.  It helps to know that the Chronicle Project is retranslating the bible using a kind of encryption system which is built into ancient Herbraic languages.  So this is what came back:

Unfortunately, the exact length of the cubit (Amaha in Hebrew, which means…to construct) is unknown and as time went on, different nations adopted different cubits. So it requires some work to reconstruct the most likely length of the original cubit but more, how it was constructed.

Since Babel was built soon after the flood, it is reasonable to assume they were still using Noah’s cubit.

Their cubit is as such: Babylon (old) “kush”

“2000 – 1600” BC 500mm (approx) 19.69 in

The one in Ezekial: Hebrew (Ezekiel 40:5) roughly 518mm 20.4 in The cubit for construction in Egypt…20.65

Which one was Noah’s? In 2 Chronicles 3:3, which reveals that Solomon used a long cubit in construction of the temple and in Ezekiel 43:13 an angel used the long cubit.

That aside, the question remains as to what was used to create the cubit. Once that is understood, which of the cubits the ark was built with will become evident.

Chances are, the Babylonian cubit is probably correct as this area was founded by Namarada (Nimrod) shortly after the flood

Knowing that the Hebrew language and lunar measurements were created as a perfect system by Creator, several things should be taken into account.

1.

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Before we roll in to this morning’s job numbers from the feds, a quick look at the Gallup Poll data on the payroll to population poll is instructive.  According to the numbers they released Thursday, the percentage of the US population actually taking part in “work” is down to 43.7%, which is nearly 20 points below what the government has been selling; generally in the 60’s.

The roughly equivalent number on the federal side is the Labor Participation Rate, which last month was at 63.4%.  There are always bound to be some differences in statistical methodology.  Why, even when I run exactly the number numbers, I often come up with different results – and that’s in my own data!  So no wonder, there’s a good bit of jobfusion.

Still, knowing that Gallup says 8.7% unemployment, it’s fun to read this morning’s job report:

“Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 169,000 in August, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 7.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment rose in retail trade and health care but declined in information. Household Survey Data Both the number of unemployed persons, at 11.3 million, and the unemployment rate, at 7.3 percent, changed little in August.

The jobless rate is down from 8.1 percent a year ago. (See table A-1.) Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (7.1 percent), adult women (6.3 percent), teenagers (22.7 percent), whites (6.4 percent), blacks (13.0 percent), and Hispanics (9.3 percent) showed little change in August.

The jobless rate for Asians was 5.1 percent (not seasonally adjusted), little changed from a year earlier. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.) In August, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was about unchanged at 4.3 million. These individuals accounted for 37.9 percent of the unemployed. Over the past 12 months, the number of long-term unemployed has declined by 733,000.

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