Reader Note: ECB Rates Unchanged

From this morning’s ECB meeting:

7 March 2024

The Governing Council today decided to keep the three key ECB interest rates unchanged. Since the last Governing Council meeting in January, inflation has declined further. In the latest ECB staff projections, inflation has been revised down, in particular for 2024 which mainly reflects a lower contribution from energy prices. Staff now project inflation to average 2.3% in 2024, 2.0% in 2025 and 1.9% in 2026. The projections for inflation excluding energy and food have also been revised down and average 2.6% for 2024, 2.1% for 2025 and 2.0% for 2026. Although most measures of underlying inflation have eased further, domestic price pressures remain high, in part owing to strong growth in wages. Financing conditions are restrictive and the past interest rate increases continue to weigh on demand, which is helping push down inflation. Staff have revised down their growth projection for 2024 to 0.6%, with economic activity expected to remain subdued in the near term. Thereafter, staff expect the economy to pick up and to grow at 1.5% in 2025 and 1.6% in 2026, supported initially by consumption and later also by investment.

Global inflation (until it all breaks) looks like the winning hand for now.

US futures up a bit more, gold firm, silver moving up a bit, and BTC kidding $67,138…

Write when it blows,

George@Ure.net

30 thoughts on “Reader Note: ECB Rates Unchanged”

  1. This is for ANDY… and George too.

    Soooo… for the last fifteen months I have been working on a project to save the world. A long time friend from sailing is also a welding engineer at the highest level of titanium fabrication, him being the ONLY human who has been able to successfully execute the hot forming of mostly hollow panel structures that are 1/10th the weight of plate with the same strength and characteristics as the thicker metal. That time ago I asked him how Ti was for sealing away radioactivity, and he said “Fantastic”. So that began our quest to create containment vessels that will last a thousand years, since Ti is the most corrosion resistant we can use for this purpose. It has been a journey of government agencies, legislator’s offices, rad labs, and research and writing. The cost to get this going is peanuts in a billionaire’s world. The big issues are in regulations and specifications, but the ‘thing’ is totally real.

    Soooo… here’s the woo woo. And this is where Andy comes in, because he is the only one of two people I know of that have had personal contact with Elon Musk. And he needs to hear this because he’s Andy, and you, George, because you respect the woo.

    I’m a DREAMER in the other world. My hands are there, doing things, and I have dreams in dreams and see myself dreaming, asleep. In the last two months of I have had three explicit Elon dreams, each getting more and more personal. Conversations and reactions kine. In the one previous to last night I wrote down my phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to him. But last night prompts this message.

    I sleep on my right side because of left shoulder injury pain. In the dream i rolled onto my left side and hung over the edge of a low rail of some kind. The Elon came by and tugged me away and into a small room with a bed and a sink full of dishes. He looked me in the eye and said, “Why are you always getting after me?”
    So i wanted to talk to him but my mouth was so dry I couldn’t make words, and grabbed a glass and filled it but by the time I could drink it, the water leaked out, twice. So I gave up and bent to the faucet and drank and then could speak. I gave him the two minute pitch about this amazing material process, how it works, and the incredible worth it would have to the world, and even to SpaceX, since it is the stuff that space ships should be made with. He had on a green shirt, which I found unusual because he is mostly always in black, and he listened politely.
    So here’s the real deal. I was totally aware of this speaking, and thought I was awake. My wife, who I woke up with the talking, said I was completely coherent and heard it all. But I wasn’t there with her, I was in the room with Elon. Then the ship’s clock rang two bells, it was 1:00 a.m. and I woke up.

    Soooo… Andy… George knows how to connect with me. Tell Elon I know how he can help us save the world. And get him in touch with me. I am 77, my buddy is 72 and his entire motivation is to pass his skill and knowledge to others so it won’t die with him.

    You and the DUDE, who I speak with lots too, can be in this game should you choose to help us all out.

    All one.

    Stiks

    • It seems Elon has his own account on ‘X’ where Andy reached him. Perhaps you could address something directly to him there and avoid all the middlemen?

      • Then i’d have to X. My dog had a twitter account, but Elon never listened to her. And even when she had some good shit to offfer.
        I’ll look into it.
        I still like the fact that Andy got contact.
        Mahalo
        Stiks

  2. “The Governing Council today decided to keep the three key ECB interest rates unchanged.”
    .
    I disagree with every number / percentage that they issued in their statement.

  3. State of the (what ?) Union ? Prices of eggs I bought this morning vs. one week ago @ Trader Joe’s are up 20.08 percent. !!! Do I need a SOTU, or what ??? :((
    Definitely NOT !! Biden could shove it up, IMHO.

    • Locally Winco is the place to go for bargain staples. Trader Joe’s is fun, and occasionally you will find something there priced right, but not normally. They have some French-origin Swiss cheese and specialty frozen items that I like to get sometimes.

    • Every thing is up… gas just went up another twenty cents today.. that is almost a dollar now in a really short time frame.. lately I have been filling the tank daily.. just in case.. I filled it yesterday today I didn’t get nearly as much and spent almost as much..Eggs should be following suit real fast.. my guess is they will wait until after easter.. since eggs is a big loss leader around easter..

    • “Biden could shove it up, IMHO.”

      My Walmart was out of my usual spray deodorant, so I bought a stick deodorant instead. The instructions said to remove cap and push up bottom. Well, I did. Now when I fart the room smells wonderful for an hour or more.

      • olfart:

        Is that a NewFart … or an OlFart?

        Inquiring minds would like to know ….
        (ok I’ll retreat to my cave now)

    • I’ve had excellent results from eating my oatmeal with a half teaspoon of Hersheys baking chocolate. My arteries stay clear as a bell according to my Dr.

      I ate that everyday for a week, then twice a week since I started.

      I don’t know how it works but it does.

  4. Just Watergating (listening in) for > a week.

    Rather more than desired the chat here is about Armageddon potential. I stay out of that, mostly, knowing we aren’t going anywhere so?

    It’s very concerning Gov. Hochul decided to bring in the National Guard for “safety” in the subways. Really? NYPD can certainly handle that. It must be something else.

    Millions of illegals and especially the got-a-ways leap to mind. That also dovetails with decision to search bags. Really? There is a reason for that and we are in the dark.

    Add in this action runs counter to typical Left routine. Troops? Searches? Admitting Crime is out of control? All atypical. There is a threat. Hope white hats prevail.

    Who can read these riddles?
    Write when Clairvoyant.
    Or, with good guesses.

    Egor

  5. and a rudder thing:

    Security is fencing off the Capitol Complex before SOTU.
    Maybe this has become std. protocol but methinks not.
    I am not overfond of the Fed Gov’t but hope for safety.

    Something’s up.
    E

    • what is going on is main topic in the second grade.. the kids are talking about it.. my grandson
      asked me if we were all going to die from a nuclear war.. don’t worry about it honey.. they are not all that stupid. He said that was good he doesn’t want to die yet.. I sure didn’t want to tell him the country is being run by the stupidest morons on planet earth.. You don’t have to be a genius to know that history repeats itself and if it repeats itself now.. we are in for a very rocky ride.. that our administration totally appears to be one of the worst and most corrupt in history.

  6. Have any of you guys & dolls ever succeeded open up your “pineal gland” or is this reserved just for the extraterritorial species ?

    Reason I ask is, because I’m probably > 20 years older than the oldest member of our crew; I have recently developed a problem with nightly sleep.

      • George, If I ever fall asleep I wake up after 1hr. and feel that the night is over. I dream like real life experiences with people I’ve known in the past, sometimes frustratingly, but content vanishes within few minutes after awakening.
        Btw. I had been experimenting listening to assorted frequencies. It may have done more harm to my pineal gland than being of benefit.

        • None of this is health advice, but just things that you may wish to consider.
          1. Has your nightly meal time changed? There is a balance to be struck here. Too big a gap between the last meal of the day and going to bed and your body will get used to not having enough energy to sleep a long period. On the other hand, if the time is too short (or meal too big) then you run the risk of refluxing (puke and gag) in sleep which is very bad (and risky) at our age.
          2. Has any off the content changed in your food? Sometimes a manufacturer will decide to toss in a new ingredient. For example, I get muscle cramps in the middle of the night if I eat even a very small amount of high fructose corn syrup. It has an allergy-like impact, also leads to increased sensitivity to dehydration, so very close attention to detail.
          2b. Do some research on what your specific meals may be doing to your blood chemistry and for this, few people have even heard about the https://iffassociation.org. International functional foods asso.
          3. Again, balance point with liquids. Too much and you will need to pee an hour (or two) into sleep, too little and now you are in dehydration realms and that, in turn, can lead to muscle cramps. If you cramp one way it’s a lack (from memory here) calcium and the other is potassium…calcium, magnesium and potassium need to be proper ratios.
          4. A lot of the body repair work is handled in the first 4 to 6 hours of sleep. Chris Tyreman and others have remarked on how useful melatonin is. See, melatonin, even a small sublingual 3 mg tab dissolved under the tongue will increase the body production of HGH (human growth hormone) which will facilitate repair work. Elaine and I will periodically do our “run the clock backwards” with a bedtime mix of 5HTP (precursor to melatonin), berberines which are a natural “workalike” to the prescription blood sugar medication metformin, and DHEA is I like to think of as a broad spectrum hormonal adaptogen.
          – – –

          Now let me put on my “Frequencies Hat” because that’s an area I know a fair bit around.

          When working with frequencies in the aural spectrum (in theory from 15HZ up to 20 KHz, but as we age, more like 20-25 Hz up to 10-12KHz) the frequency matters, but also the specific wave-form AT the frequency, and also the playback mode.

          The short explanation is: Yes, frequencies can (and do) stimulate key parts of the brain and in doing so, you can “fire differently” which will change emotional responses, etc. Binaural Beats can be downloaded and various tones and combinations of tones may be applied.

          (BTW this is a key part of my time machine work ongoing, so this is really important stuff that follows…)

          First, understand that when you have a tone, say 1,000 Hz – 1 KHz – that’s not the only tone you will hear. There will be harmonics. So, for example, the primary frequency is 1 KHz, but you will have a second harmonic (2KHz), a third harmonic (3 KHz) and so forth.

          As the waveform transitions from “pure sine” (short for sinusoidal) to another form such as triangular (saw tooth) or even blocklike (square wave) the specific harmonic ratios and mixing products will change, as well. I’d go into how this is critical to the time-bending process, but not ready for prime time, yet.

          The last point – and it really impacts the work in the lab here (time machine stuff) is that the speaker output from most sound cards are also pulsed – which results in underdesired mixing products.

          Most sound cards are able to engage in “duplex” use. Which is to say, they can output sounds while also, at the same time, receiving input from a line or mic level input. The design problem in this area of circuitry is that in a pure/analog world, when the input (listening/mic gain) is up high enough to be heard, the output (analog now…) will feedback into the input. That blasphemous howling noise occurs.

          There are two answers (as every time machine building knows!) one of which is an analog hybrid circuit. This continues to use analog inputs and outputs, but uses a passive (transformer) so that the harmonics are oppositely phased. In other words, when the + terminal of a speaker is high, the input side (mic or line) is low. This cancels out feedback. Sadly, only to a point.

          You can see how the transformers for an analog hybrid are set up in this Wiki entry here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_hybrid (yellow boxed area). These were widely used in ham radio to connect the ham station to a phone line for the running of “phone patches). The hybrid made it possible for a person on the phone to talk while the ham station was (at the same time) feeding signal down the phone line to the intended person, without causing feedback.

          The problems (into time machine designs here) included that the frequency response of the hybrid is nonlinear and this is problematic. Also amplitude distortion may be objectionable depending on resonances of the chosen magnetics.

          Second solution that is to use a “hybrid chip” commonly, what happens is the introduction of unwanted mixing products. Many hybrid chips are really TDM (time division multiplex devices). Imagine the sound card has processing bidirectional sound as though it is a “loaf of sliced bread.”
          Every other slice (at very high frequencies, like 20 KHz, for example) will be spent outputting the sound. But the pieces in between are where the microphone is turned on for listening.
          Because this is happening so fast (20,000 times per second) the human ear doesn’t notice the bat-frequency switching transients, but they are very real. Sure, you will still “hear” the “sliced” voice coming out of the speaker or headphones. But it will have very high frequency mixing products. A good hifi aficionado will recognize sounds above their normal hearing as a kind of “pressure” which is more felt than heard.

          And so, many avenues of inquiry into the sleeping issues, but I’d be looking back to any changes in life operations (food, exercise, timing, content) and changes in frequency (or playback modes) when doing your sound work.

          Please keep us posted because I have a very deep, current, and intense interest in this level of sound engineering because the work in my book Dimensions Next Door led me along this path. Which should be useful research indeed, unless this old sound device comes out of the closet in coming weeks. It would be the sounding of the Egyptian “War Trumpets/”

          And therein lies an incredible tale: https://youtu.be/zr_olu7chEY The Lost Trumpets of Tutankhamun.

          There is a legend – though we have no way of knowing how objectively “real” it is, but the sounding of both trumpets at the same time is said to have been the basis of Egypt’s rise to ancient power. The “War Trumpets” they were called.

          In my work there may be something to it all. All that’s missing is just the right light angles, suspended particulates in the sound medium, and knowing what to do when interdimensional forces are summoned.

          Not this weekend, however. I have a lawn to mow and too many projects, already.

    • Don’t watch network television before bed and you will sleep sounder.. watching the morons gives one nightmares because we totally know that what they are saying is not quite on the up and up and probably just the opposite of what they say.. I watch the Hallmark Channel.. every show is the same actors.. and the same script.. they switch it around.. the only issue I have is everyone lives in a mansion has great jobs and income and lives an unrealistic life..

    • Unfortunately it looks to be temporarily unavailable … I wonder if they have any display models left just sitting in the warehouse.

      Interested in a couple … power supply no problem. Hear they are available via an Israeli contact, they have so many laying around that I understand they are going to destroy a few.

    • I built a mock-up years back and installed it in the TV station master control room on a blank panel… next to a big red button labelled “Master Reset”. A favorite of the crew when they F**ked something up On-Air.

  7. (“Why are ‘they’ still running Nikki Haley?”
    Because (that ubiquitous “they”) run multiple games, all the time, in every arena in which either policy or public opinion can be made.”)

    I was thinking about that.. and why did they pull the funding.. then thought.. about Stu’s thoughts on Nostradamus.. and the Alois Irlamair.. hmm.. could that be..
    if no one else is on the ballot.. they all collide into one forward potential future..

    https://www.crystalinks.com/irlmaier.html

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