The Deflation Wobble-Boogie

Dow futures down.  Oil is Up….the Deflation Wobble-Boogie is on again.  It should be a song, really.

To accompany the dance (as in “song and…”) from the Fed on this whole business of whether to raise rates – and when – are a host of conflicted economic indicators.  10-year note creeping up, gold going down last week.  Copper sliding…ocean shipping sliding…all which employment goes up?  Vapes and ViseGrips for all hands!

The problem is, this week is unlikely (at least today) to see much clarification of matters.

Honestly, no one – including the Fed knows what to do – and as a result, a “lost in the wilderness” way of thinking has set in.   But we are far from “lost” around here.  We know that so far – since 2009 – the stock market has been doing a Jim Dandy replay of the lead-in to the last Depression.

As you can see here, we should have at least a year to run before the crap really begins to hit the fan so we still have time to prepare.  Our airplane is going on the market,. and I expect it will sell by April or May of next year.  That’s because there is a finite number of people who are ready to spend $25,000 on an airplane.  Not everyone is capable to learning to operate in three-dimensions and frankly, there are a lot of two-dimensional people who really should stay on the ground.

No doubt, there are people around with brightly colored projections and those whose tea leaf-reading skills are not as reliable as our sanguine looking at real data for 15-years.  But that doesn’t make getting up on Monday any more enjoyable.  It’s a grind and I hate it, too.

Except for the odd missile test (tell me was one of ours please), it doesn’t shape up as much of a week.

On the economic front,. we have some bond auctions today – which is good because the fixed income people have to go to work, too. 

Tomorrow there is import price data.  But, like the bond auction unless you’re a player, this is a terrible bore.

Things will not improve Wednesday, either.  Because it is a pseudo-Holiday.  Here’s an area where the pretenders in Washington could actually do something:  Since Wednesday is Veterans Day, could we all just take the day off and pay respects to Veterans.

The way things work out now is pretty simple – and I suppose it tells us more about the holiday than we would care to admit.  Here’s my short list:

1.  Private industry is almost universally being forced to work Wednesday.  Lose someone in the family?  In war?  Just, or otherwise?  Well, tough shit for you.  Come in and work for the factory owners.

2.  If you are a stockbroker, sure,. come on in an work, too.  This is so you can sell stocks to the people who are continuing to work for a living.

3.  If you’re a bankster, close the doors and screw everyone else.  Veterans have made it possible for you to sit home Wednesday and count up all the money harvested from the hard sacrifice of others.

4.  Similarly, most government offices will be closed Wednesday.  Which is both good – and bad.  The Good is that this is one less day government can gather to screw things up.  It is Bad in that it underscores for the aware people (group 1 – those who really work for a living) that gee, we can get along fine without government.

5.  Schools?   Well, most as closed.  As part of their social-programming role, teachers will make a big deal about Veterans Day.  Some schools will even have assemblies.  But when it comes to working, the school teachers (and unions) will take the day off because they have thrown in with other government workers (and the banksters) because they are part and parcel of “selling war:” to young people.  Teacher’s get the day off for their complicity in “selling continuation.”

[Sidebar:  University of Missouri teachers are pioneering a 2-day work-week this week by walking out with students upset with a lack of school yada yada, racism, yada, yada, intolerance…  All looks like a 2-day work-week from here.  I wonder if they will clock in and then whip up students and send them to…..oh, let’s not go there.

The linguistic contract of ABC’s coverage with these two sentences back to back (*emphasis added by the unruly George) was ironic:

Black graduate student Jonathan Butler started a hunger strike this week in support of the protest.

Gov. Jay Nixon weighed in Sunday, saying the “concerns must be addressed.”  

Has the coffee kicked-in here, or what?]

There.  Now I’ve put it out there.  But that’s how TRUTH is revealed over time.  I’m willing to bet that when Veterans Day rolled around in 1946 (that would be the year after WW II ended for the kiddies) you would not have found a brokerage, bank, school, OR BUSINESS that was open.  Total War meant total effort and great resolve of a nation acting as One.

Of course, that made us the most powerful country in the world,  A fact not lost on socialists and others, who have been doing a fine slow-motion job of dissolving the American Way.

To the point then:  I am planning to take a couple of hours off Monday to remember the lost “Way” of the country and remember several friends and colleagues who have died so that banksters can have the day off.  Stockholders, who live off the profits of others will not have to work either.  Not that they ever do (owning money and using it to make others work for you) but it’s just their banks will be closed.

Speaking of Which

My buddy (and economic whiz) Howard Hill ( Finance Monsters: How Massive Unregulated Betting by a Small Group of Financiers Propelled the Mortgage Market Collapse Into a Global Financial Crisis) passed along this way cool article over here “The Buddhist Priest Who Became a Billionaire Snubbing Investors.”

When you take the time to read the article, you will see how the guy who made a billion and some did it:  He specifically didn’t get in bed with the money grubbers and specifically worked with the workers to get the workers what THEY wanted.  Which makes me want to buy a bunch of Kyocera Solar panels to put in another array here at the ranch.  It also makes me want to go for an airplane ride on Japan Airlines, which Kazuo Inamori turned around.

Howard and I don’t agree on many things (mostly political) but we are in total agreement that there are better ways to run the American economy and a more worker-centric, less capital-centric approach is an almost sure-fire solution for change.

Inamori has a couple of books on Amazon you might want to leave laying around for your boss: A Compass to Fulfillment: Passion and Spirituality in Life and Business  and  A Passion for Success: Practical, Inspirational, and Spiritual Insight from Japan’s Leading Entrepreneur  or even his Amoeba Management: The Dynamic Management System for Rapid Market Response.

Just two problems with the “leave the book around” idea.  One is that Amoeba is not cheap;  try $52 bucks.

Second problem:  I assume your boss is bright enough to read.  That’s a wild guess on my part and many bosses can’t read, let alone think.  The goodly portion are suck-ups and brown-nosers.

Last but not least, you will benefit more.

Business Monk.  I like it – a lot.  A fine other way.

The Driveling Idiot’s Checklist

Tomorrow:  Gee, Oh, Pee comedy/calamity show time again.  As mentioned last week, the WaPo just can’t seem to get  enough of questioning Ben Carson’s background. Fundamentally, I think they’re worried that there could be a black president smarter than you-know-who and God help us if the brighter black man turns out to be a republican because that would just hose up all kinds of liberal narratives.

Retail Roulette

I will bite my tongue a bit (now and then) between today and Friday morning.  That is when retail sales are due out.

My guess is they will come in better than expected.  And when that happens, the market may move on toward new highs in coming weeks.

Still haven’t hear much from the Schmita Year “experts” but we did happen to get this fall call better than most.