Sometimes it’s the little things that tell you where the market is going. Because of one of my seldom-mentioned indicators, I think we’re still “game on” for a market high later this month and maybe even new all-time highs to come with it.
And to what do I owe this onslaught of bullish sentiment? I mean after all, I’ve been the head cheerleader for the bears ever since September of 1999 when I dared to suggest in a report called “Death by Dot Coms” that the market was getting a little pricey.
OK, here’s the secret.
Every time we come through Amarillo, TX on our way to (wherever) we stay at the Holiday Inn Express West.
As a result, a couple of times a year we get to see “what’s shakin” with regular people.
This morning I noticed that the main TV in the restaurant, which has been religiously on Fox and Friends and such in the past, was now on CNBC.
So has Art Cashin developed a huge fan club in Amarillo? I suspect not. (Sorry, Art, I’m here, though….just don’t have time to start a chapter today….)
I think what may be going on is that people are getting used to the idea that despite the occasional hiccup. the stock market going up and down is what stock markets do.
Before the PPI came out (which we’ll get to in a sec) it occurred to me that the hotel television channel setting may be telling me something.
When a hotel turns off Fox News and puts on CNBC it tells me that CNBC may be doing something right.
As it dawned on me that I’d grabbed strawberry cream cheese, instead of plain, for my bagel, I watched the people very closely. They were back to glancing at the CNBC screen and they weren’t paying much attention at all to the ESPN sports channel on the big screen at the other end of the room.
Amarillo, for the most part, is a cow town. And the old boys coming in for breakfast (and the slickers coming to meet with ‘em) have a pretty good eye for bull.
While reading tea leaves, charts, the Greeks (all those mathematical/computation thingies) and even Elliott works some of the time, other times you just have to look around. And judging by the mood around here, it’s rally ho!
At least for another few weeks…what happens after that will depend on if breakouts to new highs start showing up.
OK, the PPI Number…
Pardon the press release copy (which is about as interesting as a stranger’s hemorrhoid, also overheard at breakfast…), but here we go…
The Producer Price Index for final demand rose 0.1 percent in July, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This increase followed a 0.4-percent advance in June and a 0.2-percent decline in May. On an unadjusted basis, the index for final demand climbed 1.7 percent for the 12 months ended in July. (See table A.) In July, the 0.1-percent increase in final demand prices can be traced to the index for final demand services, which also rose 0.1 percent. Prices for final demand goods were unchanged. Within intermediate demand, prices for processed goods advanced 0.1 percent, the index for unprocessed goods dropped 2.7 percent, and prices for services moved up 0.3 percent.
The next big deal to come down the pike will be Consumer Prices next week…but for now, ut hasn’t been a bad week, so far. Dow futures up another 44.
More after this…
MO: Security State Blowback / Life Enforcement
Free people who don’t lose a lot of rights have passively accepted the growing militarization of local police departments a lot easier than people on the receiving end of federal brutality.
In a way, the racial strife in Missouri is an echo of what was going on in pre-War Germany where an authoritarian government under Hitler had begun its crackdown on Jews.
The difference this time is Jews were a reasonably identifiable group. In America today, it’s anyone who stands up for their rights past an poorly defined line in what government demands in human behavior.
That said, we recall that Fusion centers a while back put out “Constitutional material” I think was the phrase, as something law enforcement should be looking for as a tip to “domestic terrorism.” But is that not a self-fulfilling prophesy?
Fast-forward to the Michael Brown death in Missouri and recent rioting and notice that even the national MSM have started to take notice of the ongoing militarization of local police departments with stories like “Pentagon Weaponry in St. Louis County.”
What’s missing, of course, is continuing around the loop, to how NSA and other alphabet agencies have already built huge files on virtually all Americans..which makes it possible for law enforcement to cross that new and improved, high-tech, thinner blue line even faster and without detection or recourse for the former citizens who are now all “subjects.”
At some juncture law enforcement stops “enforcing law” and instead begins to “enforce their own paradigm” and we can see the the confrontation in Missouri an outline of what the new paradigm might be labeled: Life enforcement.
50-years of government attempting to enforce its own vision of how lives should be lived is in process of going down in flames. Having a black president has nothing to do with it.
What’s more likely going on is that a nation which has systematically passed “welfare laws” that literally force male heads of households out of low income homes so their families can survive is coming back as a bitter harvest.
People in Washington have had their heads up the butts of the K Street mafia and the growth-angling “grass rooters” they can’t hear The People anymore. The People just want equality and families rebuilt. Sorry, but there’s no persuasion blocks of voters in that, is there?
No we feed the welfare moms and turn them into political blocks…sick, but that’s the deal. And we militarize the cops instead of solving what drives people to crime (poverty and a mass media that sell unrealistic lifestyles. Sorry, the world is not American’s Most Eligible, Stars, or Kardashwhatevers.
We gotta get real.
Current poverty rate statistics generally show the same portion (15-17%) of Americans living in poverty today as were when President Lyndon Johnson launched his post-JFK assassination war against it fifty years ago this year. But the rate for Blacks has been nearly cut in half from 27% in 1964 to around 14% today; so liberal Democrats are out in force claiming success for the spending of over nine trillion on food stamps, Medicaid, subsidized housing and other welfare programs.
About here, you may be asking “So where have our taxes been going then?” The answer is simple: Into wars. Big money killing overseas instead of here. When we’re not there war breaks out here…you tracking on how this works? Business model, pal.
That’s so we can continue to profiteer in the Third World and Middle East (third world with resources we want) without having to get our shit together at home.
And, by God, we’ve done just a bang-up job of that and instead of trusting our government, we’re in a statistical free-fall of mistrust.
Tax burdens are up, results are down. And if you vote for almost any incumbent, I question your mental acuity
Exceptions? Sure. Like Rand Paul calling for the demilitarization of police.
Go look at how much money your Congressoid of Sinator gets from the home state and home district and you’ll see that the myth of local control is just that.
In an earlier time, US Congressmen were named by State legislatures…a way better deal.
As I’ve told you before and I’ll say it again: We might as well put political offices up for bid on eBay because that’s effectively what’s going on now.
And in Ferguson? People are pissed and not without cause. Michael Brown, sadly, was the trigger. The disease runs much deeper. It’s systemic.
But watch closely now to see how the Mainstream media will put on a Band-Aid on Missouri in coming weeks and go on ignoring the fundamental decay of America.
And rebuilding inner city families torn apart by bureaucrats? Why that never happened did it?
Even though it has, thanks to six corporations owning 90% of what people think, you’ll never read it elsewhere, except maybe in a book in 10 years long after the time for action has passed.