Updated:
Friday February 27, 2004
"News with a
twist of money..."
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Bush's Hooverville: Dignity Village
In Portland, hard hit by unemployment, and if I recall right, punished with no extended benefit plans because the state didn't back Bush in the last presidential contest, now has a Hooverville: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAJNDS46RD.html. Got to wonder how many towns have as many unemployed, but don't organize like the folks in Oregon. Such tent cities are just another leading edge of the Greater Depression marker.
Grocery Strike Over
Good thing, too. Because it was about to crawl up the West Coast from California: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=509&u=/ap/20040227/ap_on_bi_ge/grocery_strike_1&printer=1mn
Buying the Cuban Vote
I can imagine the conversation now: "Jeb, how do I get your State without a court fight this time?"
"Easy, bro...just tighten up travel to Cuba. Heck, Alpha 66 and everyone else will vote for ya..."
Done! http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2004/feb/26/022604696.html
New Dimension to Flight Fright
What could be scarier than a terrorist at the airport? Answer: divulging your real weight! Push is on to weigh people for small commuter planes. Safety Issue.
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAMF6E16RD.html Not a worry on bigger planes where weight & balance is averaged.
Librarians for Liberty
This won't make the thought police happy: Librarians and booksellers are demanding changes to the mislabeled :Patriot Act" over the powers of government to start surveillance of folks who read forbidden books like the Anarchist's Cookbook: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAZY5S06RD.html.
Speaking of the Cookbook, you might want to read how the author of what is now an infamous book has published quite a disclaimer on its contents. See:
...and scroll down the page to the author's comments.
Osama Headlines
There's an interesting poll being conducted by the al Jazeera news agency. It says:
Why are we hearing so much now about the hunt for Usama bin Ladin?
US election purposes : 42%
Good publicity for Pakistan after their nuclear scandal : 7%
Both the above : 41%
Unsure : 10%
Number of pollers : 17,783
Park Pollution
We haven't had much nice to say about Denver ever since all those secret levels under the new Denver Airport were built without explanation. Granted, the story is a bit "out there"... But we were not endeared to the region when urban sprawl resulted in one of the most severe water shortage ever. Nor are we now any more fans of Denver now that word about pollution pushing into Rocky Mountain Park is out: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGADZ33Z5RD.html.
English in Decline
Oh Great! National Geographic reports that English as a first language in is in decline: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/02/0226_040226_language.html. There are no doubt a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is that our 'Merican virgin of the langwage don't make much cents (scents?)... Joins the dollar in declining.
Thursday
Greenspan: Cut Social Security!
It's unbelievable, but true. Your head of the privately owned so-called "federal reserve" wants to cut social security because of the firestorm of spending by the spendthrift Bush administration. That, and he wants Congress to put in regulations limiting the kinds of mortgage refinancing available to common folks. All fits with the "steal jobs and tax 'em" philosophy of Bush, who have turned into the biggest disappointment since Herbert Hoover. The details at http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAE7OES4RD.html but the long and short of it is the Knight of the Printing Press is worried about the dangers of the deficit. Another version at http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040225/D80UF7OO1.html
Hold on a minute: If you didn't catch it this week, George Bush, who you can vote to throw out if elections are held in November, announced he's going to appoint Greenspan to another term - which would make 16-years of Greenspan monetary machinations. Organized crime would have to come up with something better than drugs, prostitution, and gambling combined to match the nature of the Federal Reserve's theft by inflation, to call it what it is.
Although I consider myself a young 55, I actually remember when a person could save a dollar by putting it in a bank, and the next year, get the same purchasing power when the money was withdrawn from the bank. Those days are like a crack-pipe dream with government spending running amok.
What Greenspan, and by extension, the Bush clan, doesn't understand is that we Baby Boomers have a contract with the government when it comes to Social Security. Our part of the bargain was to work hard and pay hefty amounts out of every paycheck to build a sound retirement system. The government's contract with us - the people who run this country, or at least used to through the electoral process [till the courts hijacked that in 2000] - was to put our hard-earned money into the Social Security Trust Fund. I know you're already aware that money has long since been spent, replaced with nothing more than government IOU's based on the endless printing of money with declining value.
Repeat after me: Inflation is theft of stored value. Put another way: it's a banker scam..
Long and short of it: Time for Bush to be removed - and time to recall Greenspan. Regrettably, Bush will have appointed Greenspan to his next term in June, long before we voters have a chance to change things at the polls.
Oh, about my remark "if elections are held in November", I believe that some yet to be clarified event will "happen" thus preventing elections. And, as we saw last time around, even if they are held, the courts have demonstrated a willingness to throw out the will of the people anyway. Truly it's not the same country today that I started saying the Pledge of Allegiance to when I was a kid. Being a strict Constitutionalist is a rarity - but I confess to being one. As best I can figure, Rep. Ron Paul, me, and a few fellow souls that read this web site...I guess that makes about a dozen of us.
A Dream
What if someone started a new political party and it was called the Constitutionalist Party? Think how utterly subversive that would be. There would go "quotas", Congress would have to get back to declaring wars, and sound money would be the order of the day. A Constitutional Republic, not a socialist democracy...a country based on non-intervention in the pursuit of happiness, rather than our present Nanny State.
What am I saying, have I gone mad?
Israeli Bank Stickup
We told you yesterday that the Israelis, having learned a thing or two from the Bush gang about how to wage a "War on Terror" have invaded and robbed Palestinian banks, apparently on the theory that if it's a Palestinian bank, it must by extension be a terrorist group. Reports from al Jazeera are that between $6.7 and $8.9 million was taken: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/FE8DEF3F-E671-42EB-A93E-12ED29E9F642.htm.
The U.S. response has been to publicly decry the raids as potentially destabilizing the Palestinian financial system http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3488962.stm, but we all know that with the strength of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington it will be a few harsh words but a sly wink of approval. Nothing will come of it.
What Happened to June Elections?
If your memory isn't gone from Mad Cow, you may remember last year there was talk of elections in Iraq by June of 2004. Well, here we are speeding toward June and it looks like our original forecast of a U.S. installed government, effectively operating Iraq as the 52nd State (I'll let you figure out which country nearby is the 51st) is definitely The Plan. That said, and obvious to any clear thinker, the clerics of Iraq are demanding the UN guarantee that elections be held before the end of this year http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3488846.stm. Not that their demands mean much, but the Bush administration didn't have an exit strategy going in, and it looks like a quagmire to us.
Rotating troops out and sending new ones over (including one of Elaine's sons who's an E-8 going within days) doesn't qualify for the word withdrawal although the spinsters will paint it so. I can see the headlines now: U.S. withdraws 150,000 troops! Unprinted, 150,000 rotate back in country.
Malaria Drug Related Suicides?
Very interesting story in Military.com today about the anti-malarial drug Lariam's possible involvement in the higher-than-expected rate of suicides among troops in Iraq: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_lariam_022604,00.html?ESRC=eb.nl. Key quote:
"Developed by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Lariam, known generically as mefloquine, is one drug used by soldiers in Iraq to prevent malaria, which is of particular concern in hot summer months. The Food and Drug Administration warns that Lariam can cause psychosis, aggression, paranoia, depression and thoughts of suicide. The FDA also warns of rare reports of suicide among Lariam users, although it says a link has not been established."
Bush's 9/11 Secrets
You've no doubt been following the 9/11 Commission sham, right? The White House is not releasing documents in a timely manner, and the commission is being told there will be no extension of time to come to what is already a foregone papered-over conclusion. But check out the latest - and no surprise - Condi Rice is not going to testify at a public hearing next month.
Here's our question again: What's Condi Hiding? What is it that Our Lady of Chevron doesn't want to be asked about and be compelled to answer?
Currency Games
The price of gold is down a tad over the past few days because of the recent strength of the dollar. But the currency games won't hide the inevitable outcome later this year of a high inflation rate. (No, the BLS has not been able to release the January PPI numbers yet, because they would show an annual inflation rate what over our modest 13% forecast.) The games latest moves at http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/040226/markets_forex_2.html but our take on it is that gold's retracement to the $385 level would be fine with us as it might make a good accumulation point. What's more, if leg one up is $260 to $413, then leg three up ought to be to something like $540 gold over the next year or two. We can accept those kinds of returns.
Wednesday
Greenspan and PPI -- Classic Pump and Dump?
One of the joys of not being in the options market since last year has been that I can still do my old "scenario building" - but lately, if wrong, it doesn't cost me any money. So here's the scenario of the day, if I were an options trader:
You know that the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not to be confused with a gathering of fiction writers (they make more sense), has not been able to release the Producer Price Index, right? If not, you can still read the "delay excuse" at the BLS web site at http://www.bls.gov/ppi/delaynotice.htm. Put nicely, they either a) don't know what the hell they are doing, or b) they are hiding something.
I'll choose b) - they're hiding something. What's more, I will tell you exactly what: China has been gobbling up steel, iron, and scrap metals faster than you can believe. As we've noted earlier (and below) word is that steel prices are up 140% to 170%. What that means is that if you are planning to buy a major appliance, say a freezer, you'd better do it in the next 90 days because after that, its price is almost certain to multiply - perhaps doubling before the year is out.
Say you don't buy those reports. How would you feel if you got an email like this to go with your morning coffee?
Moanin' (i think that's Texican for good morning)
In my line of work I visit manufacturing plants, including wire drawing. Wire drawing has been going through tough times the last few years of course with markedly decreased orders and some plant closings, bankruptcies. Recently, their business has been expanding (? and I've always considered them a leading economic indicator) nearly all are experiencing a recovery of sorts.
Here's the kicker. There seems to be a problem with scheduling the orders right away because of a shortage of raw stock.... because China has been sucking up and paying top dollar for scrap steel and iron. Couple this with China's stockpiling of other raw materials, oil, coal, gold, and now steel, this Polaroid photograph is developing into a rather ugly picture right before our eyes.
OK, steel may be up a little bit. If you really believe it's up a little bit, report for drug testing because it's up a lot.
Now here's the scenario: Alan Greenspan is up before the House this morning to talk about the economy. His fuss-budget crap on yesterday about GSE's was simply a grandstanding turf war with the GSE's. St. Greenspan wants to pull the strings, and refi's have taken the real out opf real estate - effectively, people are leasing a lifestyle with refi's and that means the Fed's not in such tight control of the money supply. The Fed's answer? Regulate GSE's into real estate, not allowing them to package refi's in such a way that people's lifestyles become refi dependent. (They already are.)
So Al gets up today, says one or two well calculated pump statements, the market soars. Then, in the shadows of this rally, the PPI is slipped out. People go "Of my God...inflation is back..." and the market falls - right to about where it was at the close yesterday.
Anyway, that'd be my scenario if I were trading options. Fortunately, I've got more sense than that. Not much, but a bit.
Counting Gitmo Inmates
Arab reports put the number of Prisons of Presidential Conquest at 800. Prisoner's of Presidential Conquest? Yeah - that's what I call captured combatants when the Congress (which is the only body able to declare wars) is simply ignored by Bush and Vice President Oil. Not that I don't see their problem, running out of cheap oil, mind you. But let's call it what it is. And as long as we're at it, let's count the locked up: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9782E04E-B761-4C24-987B-E8AD259BAA40.htm
Freezing Banks
The Israeli's know how to spot a good thing when they see it. Take for instance the "War on Terror" labeling of bank funds as "sources of terrorist support." Why that would give a country carte blanche to raid whatever banks were around and keep whatever they want, right? Let's try it at Ramallah, shall we? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3485376.stm
Slavery in Jeb Bush's State?
Gee, here's a "dug, really?" story: The Bush Brother State is rife with effectively slavery involving the import of illegals to work on the cheap so fat cats in Florida can give more money to Jeb and his cronbies: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-human-trafficking,0,5065286,print.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines Oh, I get it! This is why George Bush is so keen on getting all those illegals to be documented! Sure - all fits now, thanks. Yeah. Don't need Congress to declare wars, don't need anything but paper to declare "legals." Gee, ain't power fun?
OK, off to work on the house....
Tuesday
Waking Up to No Oil?
There's a worrisome report this morning in the New York Times that speaks to an issue we have been tracking for several years - much to the consternation of the happy-talk crowd: The world is running out of oil and it must be so because now it's in the NY Times:
We expect the dawning of the decline of oil will take a slow-motion path, rather than waking up to a single morning when half the planet says "Oh my God, we're about out of oil." Instead, you'll pick up pieces of it - and as the consciousness of the problem spreads, you'll start seeing bits and pieces of it in the media when youi start looking for it. Some examples:
There's a report, noted by my Debtberg work colleague Ehor Mazurok, that says upper income Americans are starting to shift their thinking about jobjacking - more politely called "outsourcing". http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-02-23-free-trade_x.htm
The political changes in Russia, including the dismissal today of the government by Vlad (dictator in training) Putin may have its roots in the decline of oil and the state assertion of control of that key asset: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=518&u=/ap/20040224/ap_on_re_eu/russia_prime_minister_fired_3&printer=1
The emergence of new web sites, such as www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net are coming to the surface as motivated, caring humans, recognize what's ahead.
I want to share this bit from an interview with Matt Savinar which we put up for Inside Report subscribers last weekend. I asked him:
2. On Urban Survival, we’ve predicted a 13% inflation rate this year, as the world readjusts to a non-US dollar (we call ‘em WalBucks) dominated world. Do you think the new version of stagflation – 13% inflation for goods and deflation from things like eBay and jobjacking (the real term for outsourcing) continues unabated – is the leading edge of the horrors of genuine energy depletion come to reality, or do we still have any breathing space between we hit the wall. Put another way, will it be a 5 MPH collision test or a head-on at 70 MPH into the wall?
Barring any cataclysmic events like another terror attack, massive earthquake, etc . . it will be more akin to a continual 5 mph slowdown.
Say you and I are driving from L.A to San Francisco. At 70 MPH, it's going to take us 8 hours.
Imagine we start at 70 mph. Every half hour we slow down by 5 mph. At first, it won't seem so bad - hey 65 mph will still get us there, right? 60 is kinda slow, but we'll get there eventually. 45 - okay this sucks but at least the game is on the radio, so it could be worse. At 30mph were yelling at each other - why didn't somebody fix this way back before we left. I'm blaming you, you're blaming me etc. . ..
Finally the car stops dead in Bakersfield or Fresno, at which point we get out and are now at each other's throats. One of us gets a bicycle and continues on the trip. I don't know what happens to the other. . .
That's pretty much what we have to look forward in the years to come. Its not going to be like bam, production peaks and were all rioting in the streets like English rugby fans. Rather things just get worse and worse and worse. So first its like the recession of the 70's, then it turns into the Great Depression, then the post 1991 collapse Soviet Union, then modern day Iraq with some modern day Liberia thrown in. Finally things stabilize and start to improve, albeit in a much different society then we are used to.
As far as how fast were going right now, I'd say 65 - 60.
So when we see the rest of the world's news, like Parmalat USA filing for bankruptcy, http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/040224/food_parmalat_bankruptcy_3.html, it really has to take a back seat to the overarching fact that we're running out of resources. In the final days before the mass consciousness shifts, we're bound to see all kinds of scamming come to the surface. I don't know about you, but there's something very peculiar going on with the economy if we can have massive bankruptcies and failures of companies like WorldCom, Enron, Parmalat, and who knows what else, without feeling any real pain. Doesn't that strike you as a bit odd? What it says to me is it's all being papered over and the pain of liquidating the debt is still wound up in the system like a spring waiting to unravel, perhaps later this year.
Morocco Quake
300 or more may be dead: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040224/D80TLH700.html. We expect increasing quakes in late March into the first week or two of April based on Cliff's work with hyper spatial geometry:
It took the pressure of the horizontals until today's window to show up as a quake. This is not good. The Morocco quake is part of this effect that I see building up. If I am right then there will be an echo quake in one of three spots. Either CA, or Midway, or China. I suspect that it has a higher likelihood of being Midway or China than CA as that would be Opposite vertex - 1....which means that the effect of the pull is jamming the continents toward each other as we rotate to the west. This is not good as it would mean the March windows, and maybe the first April window since there is the delay of manifestation until the first window following the maximal pull, are going to be 'pulling' to the east within the largest maximal pull window so far and all of those windows but one will have the USofA right smack in the middle of the pull (i.e. facing the sun when the angular pull is maximal). As the March pull is so much larger than the December one, it would suggest much larger eq's....but the magnitude is obviously not calculable.
I would expect the echo quake within 3 days (m/l)
really off by a day...item number 3 here http://www.halfpasthuman.com/HPHUE_QRT1_04_EQ.htm
Stay tuned, the world is gets nuttier....
Chemtrails: Smoking Gun?
Last night, Elaine, Panama Bates & I were invited over to our neighbors place (a couple of blocks distant out here in East Texas) for a bowl of venison chili. I left early due to asthma from the cats and rabbits so I walked home. After I got my inhaler, took a puff, and sat down at the computer, i figured I should bring Panama & Elaine a flashlight. Panama, being ex Ranger & SF could sneak up on a coyote in the dark, but Elaine was tired and so I figured I would bring them a light.
So I set out from the house and about half way across the field in front of our home I started noticing that there was this "stuff" floating in the air. I didn't think much about it, as I took it to be haze. it was just starting to try and mist.. and has been most of the day. So I dropped off the light, put in a request for a piece of chocolate cake. and turned on my light to head home. (On my first trip, I had stumbled in the dark, which is what got me to thinking about the need for lights in the first place.)
I was now walking with the wind and as I moved my flashlight around, I got to looking at this "stuff" that looked like small spiders floating around in the air. Only, it wasn't spiders. I looked at the stuff all the way home and then called my colleague Cliff. "Yeah, I haven't heard any reports of that kind of chemtrail spraying for several months..." he observed, but I was quickly off on the mission to photograph the stuff.
I was shooting with a Fuji 2.3 mp digital camera, real-time flash mode and auto focus. The post processing (to make the "snow" more visible was done in Corel Photo 8.0 and I bumped up the contrast, brightness and intensity to make the stuff more visible. I then resampled for 72 lines because the resulting size was about 3 mb - too big for the net. Still, here's a very good example of what this tuff looks like to the naked eye - although when it's blowing past a flashlight it is much more "in your face":
I plan on being very careful with health over the next few days as there are some reports that must be taken seriously, that suggest this dander-like substance may cause health issues. I plan not to find out.
But if you live in the East Texas hills, about halfway between Dallas and Houston, and midway between Waco and the Louisiana border, this is what rained down last night at about 9:15 in advance of the weather front.
Let me pose a question: What IF the Pentagon is not only talking about climate fears (story below) but has already set off on a program to create precisely the kind of weather problems they are talking about as contingencies today? That's a scary thought, but I'm not sure who to ask - or who would give an honest answer to the question!
An Ice Age or mini-Ice Age would certainly seize the initiative from America's "enemies" and would be a simple road to world domination. Interesting scenario, eh?
Monday
Special Update
Hush-Hush Pentagon Climate Fears!
Forget bin Laden and Iraq - start figuring out how to survive climate change...Our eyes in Denver spotted this amazing article this morning in the U.K. paper the Guardian: Basically, the Pentagon has warned the Bush administration that over the next 20-years - and perhaps immediately, climate change could become a huge driver of international developments including wars. The full story is at http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html but the bottom line is simple: Climate change will get us a lot sooner than we think - and it may not be warming - it may be cooling. Chilling details. Report highlights at http://www.rense.com/general49/key.htm.
Wall in Court
It is probably significant that Israel is not on hand at the International Court of Justice at the Hague today as the legality of the Israeli erected barrier wall is being aired. On the Palestinian side, the argument is that the wall has little to do with keeping out terrorists and a lot to do with keeping occupied lands: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BB55C223-B1ED-4D63-8797-4BFDB0958453.htm This is one of those cases where regardless of what the ICJ says, the wall's going to stay, and it will continue to grow as a point of contention in the region.
MSFT Standards Battle
Good coverage of the developing battle over a set of extended XML (extensible markup language, for the not geek) standards at http://www.iht.com/articles/130732.html The simplest way of putting it is: Open Standards (the UN approach) or the MSFT standard, or a competing IBM standard.
Earth Changes Update
Well, look at this: Surprise, surprise. England is looking forward to more cold weather - which you and I know may be related to the slowing of the deep ocean heat conveyor called the Gulf Stream: http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-12998831,00.html
I received this fascinating tidbit in the mailbag this morning:
Hello, Thought I should give you heads up for Monday, David Booth and Wayne Green Monday on C2C w/ George Noory, and will talk about Planet X, Yellowstone and goodbye USA in 2004. later...
Whether or not the USA survives 2004 is not the issue to us, but the kind of condition it will be in come the start of 2005. We're very thankful that we're out of the big city rat-race for at least a little while because it gives us a chance not only to rebuild the fire-damaged house, but also put in a sustainable garden. To the right, you'll notice that one of our neighbors was kind enough to take a disk to a 50' by 50' chunk of land slightly upgrade from the main house. We're planning to put in from 2X4 wire mesh for the big animals (deer) and a couple of runs of electric fence at 3" and 6" off the ground in order to humanely discourage the local critter-life from dropping by for snacks. I'll let you know what I find about pricing of the solar-powered electric fence systems. I think it will be fairly inexpensive.
Hateful in Haiti
The short run outlook is that Haiti's rebels will soon attack the capitol: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAG8YCG0RD.html In the event you haven't followed Haiti's past, we put the present government in power what, 10 years or so back with the idea that it would hold elections. Well, they never quite got around to that and now the locals are seizing power if they can. Fine example of "ignore-'em-if-they-don't-have-oil" diplomacy.
Zero-point Energy?
While 99.99% of the world is off shooting for oil, a small fraction of true believers keeps searching for "free" energy. One reader sends along a link to a page where there's a description of what appears to be a device that puts out more power than is put into it: http://jnaudin.free.fr/meg/megv21.htm. Not that I'm saying that it works. But I will go so far as to say if it - or successor designs - work, the oil wars will all have been a tragic war over nothing.
Space Center Fire
In India, at least six people have been killed by a fire at the Indian Space Center: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3513841.stm. We look at this as a possible accident, but the thought runs through the mind could it have been sabotage?
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All contents (c) 1998-2003 by George A. Ure, MBA, except authors as linked or noted
