Suconomy: The Go Nowhere Economy

It has not been particularly difficult to figure that the economy doesn’t have much of anywhere to go.

The market fell 200 points for a while yesterday, although it wasn’t that bad by the close.  So for that reason, if nothing else, we expect to see a further dump in today’s action.

From a longwave perspective, this is till a Tuesday morning in 1928 and the Fed is still caught between a rock and a hard place.  Consequently, a one year view of the bond market (10-year note) is less than encouraging.

I suppose one could look at the first two blips in the bond chart and argue that we are going to the 2.6% area on the 10-year.  But I sense some resistance around 2.441% and honestly, that would be a dandy place for things to turn back down again.

You know, a lot of information is contained in how market’s move – its just people would rather ask their friends instead of learning to make reasonable projections on their own.

Laziness will cost you.  Just remember, the financial markets are not there to may you rich. That’s one of the big lies.  They are really there to make the rich richer and the poor…well, that’d be you.

Meaningless Data?  Deflation on the Waterfront!

No:  Absolutely not.  Because this gets to the heart of price deflation which I have been going on about (*almost) endlessly.

Import and export prices are hot off a press release – key point is in yellow:

“U.S. import prices declined 0.5 percent in October, after falling 0.6 percent the previous month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Lower prices for both fuel and nonfuel imports contributed to the October decrease. Prices for U.S. exports fell 0.2 percent in October, following a 0.6-percent drop in September. Imports

All Imports: Overall import prices decreased 0.5 percent in October, continuing a downward trend for the index in 2015. Prices for U.S. imports previously decreased 0.6 percent in September, 1.8 percent in August, and 0.9 percent in July. The price index for overall imports declined 10.5 percent between October 2014 and October 2015, after decreasing 2.1 percent for the year ending in October 2014.

Fuel Imports: Import fuel prices decreased 2.0 percent in October, following a 5.4-percent decline the previous month. In October, both a 2.1-percent drop in petroleum prices and a 2.5-percent decrease in natural gas prices contributed to the overall drop in import fuel prices. Fuel prices declined 46.6 percent over the past 12 months. Prices for petroleum fell 48.0 percent for the year ending in October, while natural gas prices decreased 30.3 percent over the same period.

All Exports: The price index for U.S. exports declined 0.2 percent in October, following decreases of 0.6 percent in September and 1.4 percent in August. Lower prices for both agricultural exports and nonagricultural exports factored into the overall decrease in October. Overall export prices also declined over the past 12 months, decreasing 6.7 percent after a 0.7-percent decline for the year ending in October 2014.

Agricultural Exports: Prices for agricultural exports edged down 0.1 percent in October, after decreasing 1.3 percent the previous month. A 2.7-percent decline for meat prices led the October decrease, although lower prices for vegetables and nuts also contributed. In contrast, prices for wheat and corn rose in October, partially offsetting the declines. Agricultural export prices fell 11.8 percent over the past year, driven by declining prices for meat, soybeans, and wheat.

Sets you all a-quiver, don’t it?  General level of price deflation  – just like I’ve been telling you and skeptics still argue the point.

Amazingly, the market LIKES the number.  Greedsters will pocket more spread – what’s no to love?

Bad Winter Coming and Watt-Not

No one in the climate change crowd seems to be making much of the colder- and earlier – than normal winter which is settling in over Siberia.  It’s almost sure to cause an especially cold winter in the Northeast.  But that will quickly be brushed off by the climate change propaganda department as being a yo-yo effect.

As a species, we have become lost and confused in our quest for Truth. 

Take the CNN headline:  Climate change could create 100 million poor, over half a billion homeless.

II have terrible news for CNN:  The problems of the poor yet to come can be laid at the feet of runaway crony-capitalism, multiple unjustified wars,  soil and resource depletion, and un checked birth-rates that (to my cynical way of thinking) line up the world’s major religions which don’t support birth control as purveyors of crimes against humanity.

However, that is opinion and I’m sure you have plenty of that, so let’s whip out some data, shall we?

Here’s is the latest update from NOAA’s Solar Weather Prediction Center. 

I assume you can read a chart and understand some of the basic science?  To begin with, the reason it was so hot in the years immediately following 2000 was (look at the left side of the chart) the Sun had just gone through a very energetic phase.  People will remember the Sun actually looked almost white during this period.

Well, surprise, surprise kiddies:  Every other planet in the solar system experienced warming as well.  but you see what happened in the 2013-2014 peak?  We got stiffed.  Almost a 50% reduction in solar activity.

And what do you see now?  The “trend line” is still hopeful that we will have a real bout of sunspots, although it’s not looking likely to me.  And as a result, there are some very smart people who think the Sun many be entering something like a new Maunder Minimum which brought some of the coldest temperatures on record because we didn’t have thermometers back in the Ice Age proper.

The Sun is a huge economic driver.  Only a complete idiot would claim otherwise.  There is even a case the 11-year economic cycle is more or less directly related to what?  The length of a sun cycle!  (Come on, this ain’t that hard to follow!)

The Climate Promoters have some good points – and I certainly don’t endorse the high pollution lifestyle.  But to deny the central role of the Sun is flat-world thinking at its finest.

Looking at this total solar irradiance chart, it should be a little warm now, but the next couple of years will be cooler.

It is just a matter of how much science you really want to consider because total irradiance really is a meaningful metric.

Are refrigerants bad?  Sure.  Fossil fuel burn?  Of course.

But now inspect the chart to the right borrowed from the Judith Curry Climate Etc. website over here.

As you can see, yes, sea level at the time of the last Ice Age was a lot lower and yes, things have been melting for thousands upon thousands of years.

But we are not all going to sink into the oceans from it, at least not yet.

I know you hate it when I point this stuff out.  I won’t last another 40-years (statistically) but in the meantime, if there is anything I can do to help you pull together a little longer-term perspective than whatever today’s End of the World ratings hype-driven bullshit is, I’m here to help.

If you really want to end global warming there are some very simple things that would fix the problem in a heartbeat:  Turn off the heat in your home.  Turn off the air conditioning, too.  Turn off your computer.  Take out electricity.  East only foods grown on your own property so transportation systems aren’t needed.  Quit jet travel.  Sell you car and walk everywhere.  Walk to work and find a job that doesn’t require people or electricity to gather and is transportation free because there is a price from everything we do.

You go first.  I;m an old fart and I’ll move on soon enough to make room for one of those Yemen babies that are popping out faster than popcorn  and angrier than hornets.  In the meantime, leave my thermostat alone and remember UrbanSurvival has been solar-powered with our 3,500 watts of panels since 2008.  We’d rather walk the talk than bullshit everyone.

Hence forth, I will only discuss my climate view with people who have more solar panels up than I do.  So if you own MORE THAN 3,500 watts of grid-interactive panels, we can talk.  Otherwise, you’re just another climate bullshitter like the rest of ‘em – always unloading on the guys who walk the honest path, like me.

Put some money on the table (yeah, means getting a job and saving or investing) or STFU on climate till you get some skin in the game and buy a stake.  And if you attend a church that actively promotes more-than-replacement reproductive rates, you’re part of a terrorist organization and you might want to distance yourself from it.

UMo Idiocy Day 2 / Coup d’ Streets

The president and chancellor of University of Missouri have now resigned.

Now, to a logical person like me, it would seem the groups upset about racial (whatevering) have accomplished their objectives.  Look for black and/or Latin replacements to be named any minute.  Toss in a gay or lesbian double or triple-counter, while we’re at it.  That ought to make everyone deliriously happy!

Hey – here’s a great idea!  Let’s put students in charge of hiring the replacements so we can run schools on a popularity contest basis, too!

But here’s the thing:  Why aren’t classes back in session now that the goal has been reached?

Oh-oh…Mr. Cynical says this is the leading edge of social anarchy coming to ‘Merica.  All that needs to happen is some institution gets attacked on racist grounds and a coup d’ street takes place.

Marvelous ain’t it?  Anarchy without having to call it that.  Whew.  That’s a paradigm saver, ain’t it?

If I was attending MSU, I’d be demanding a 100% tuition refund.  The school has failed to maintain and deliver a quality education.  Cancel the student loans, while you’re at it, too.