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Published Monday
- Friday about 8 AM Central Time ....some typos are fixed by
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Subscriber Weekend This weekend's report for Peoplenomics.com subscribers (info) describes how the oil mess in the GOM may be our 'left field event' that collapses the post March '09 bounce. It's called "George Is Short". The free site here will be updated around 8 AM Central time Monday per usual.
Friday's Dart Throw After the market dutifully closed yesterday extremely close to my expectations, emails like these started showing up:
And...
Purely luck, I tell you! Zeus The Cat slept through it all. OK, off by 11-100th's of a point is close...I'll grant you that... but blind luck.
On the other hand, if it looks like the market will close today anywhere from 11,235 to 11,250, I will be the guy buying another small block (30 contracts or so) worth of puts on a certain big-name financial stock with long expirations (Jan '11). Over time then, I might be able to roll some of them forward, depending on how the stock trade over the next 7-months, or so.
Now, all we would need would be some gasoline to throw on the rally to give the perfect weekly finish...and what might that be? Aha! Here you go...
GDP Highlights Newest peak at GDP is out:
Even before the story was released, stock futures were floating upward.
If the market is up 76.68 points today. it would be a second lucky guess in a row. Not likely and no, this is NOT trading advice...we have already exceeded that 11,244 number intraday, so a rollover to a lower close is also possible...it's just that a weekly close of 11,241-11,244 would be oh so cool chart-wise.
SWAT Teams? Several (more or less inept) MainStreamMedia have been headlining about how SWAT Teams are being sent to the Gulf to deal with the oil slick.
Of course, anyone with 13¢ worth of brains would have done a quick Google search and figured out the term was being used euphemistically.
But, oh no! Alarmist, polarizing, over-the-top, fear-mongering types immediately jumped on the idea that there must be some kind of terrorism involved. Gee: Couldn't be a pocket of ultra-high pressure oil and gas at extreme depth blowing off could it? Naw....
Fine example of how to take a careless euphemism can blow up into conspiracy, though. Cute.
Big Brother & Your Checkbook "Bailout bill would require banks to track and report personal checking accounts to Feds..." And you thought this week's article "Goodbye to Money" was kidding about the take-down of person-to-person money. There go garage sales, huh? Clear attack on the underground economy is there ever was one.
Nossir, I stand by the report "Goodbye to Money" from yesterday's column: Der Uber Plan is to make every penny transit government traceable computers because that's how control happens. No one seems to get this, yet it's the elephant in the news these days. All this left-right crap is disinfo or stupidity - or all of the above - you figure that out....
Crush the economy this fall and tah-dah! 1WG (one world government) speaking of which...
Hints from the PTB Here's the real deal: "Trichet calls for corrupt BIS to Boss Global Government in CFR Speech".
And you wonder why linguistics keep pointing toward more rebellion/revolution kinda of headlines yet to come? And a summer of hell, too?
The BIS is as qualified to run global government as I am to do brain surgery with a chainsaw. Equally messy outcomes should be anticipated, in either event.
With Friends Like This... Word out of the UK that "Tony Blair denies Gordon Brown has 'failed' is about as fine a back-handed endorsement as I've ever seen. --- How much gold was it that Brown sold at $265? Wonder if his masters will pump enough dough into his campaign to buy another round? We see on May 6th, yeah?
China's Kids Turns out that dozens injured and four dead in a school knife attack in China the other day is part of a string of such things going on there. --- A little time on your hands? Correlate HAARP beam headings and operations to the events listed in China, maybe? I don't know how that kind of thinking works...but as long as you're at it, toss in satellites overhead in conjunction with HAARP. Course, you can't get within a zillion miles of those ephemerides...but still....
Constitutional Question Trust you read (or saw) the CBS story about how "Cities Threaten to Boycott Arizona..."
Let me ask you this: Is it constitutional for cities to go off and become political entities as it relates to other states? City voters probably never thought they were voting on such wide-ranging authority.
Seems to me it oversteps legal boundaries city authority to act in a pejorative manner outside its geographic boundaries. Scaled up, Texas could declare war on North Korea, right?
Certainly, voters in such towns never envisioned that relations with Arizona would be a distinguishing feature in the local city elections...So slapstick government? Or just more runaway government government in play?
Gambling Lesson, Anyone? A reader in Canada has a good question:
This is where the (nominally) Federal Reserve FOMC statements are probably as good a guess as anything when it comes to where rates are going: I am NOT a fan of variable rates. My preferred approach is to get a fixed rate and then IF rates decline enough, refi at the lower rate to a new fixed rate. However, rates have to drop enough that the savings offered by the lower rate refi can pay off the cost of the refi in a year or so.
A person, seems to me, would want to lock in rates every time they go down a good bit, so that you 'win' no matter what happens:
Variable rates seem like a good thing, under this condition, or that, but a world-changing event, however improbable might leave you out in the cold. For example, say you have a 6% variable and rates pop to 8% and concurrent with that, lending requirements for fixed notes become much tighter. You might find yourself locked into a higher rate by any number of Life's dirty dealings. Say, you happen to be unemployed at the moment that the variable rate is going up...in that case, you might not qualify. Or, if home values have dropped, you may not qualify and you're then stuck in every sense (including the bend over sense) of the word.
I'm sure that there's a financial planner out there who will disagree with my ultra-conservation (common sense) approach to such things. But, it's like walking into a casino, near as I can figure. The Casino will always let you have access to more money, as long as you can get it because the more they let you tap, the more they eventually win.
Banks and casinos operate along the same lines. The spins are just a little slower in one than the other. But trust me, in the end, both are more interested in winning (for) the House than being grand humanitarian least-cost providers of credit. They're not in business for fun. They want every dime they can get.
The main difference? Banks get bailouts. Casinos don't...at least so far. --- I have a mental bit-bucket which is labeled "Untrustworthy". Variable rate anythings go there along with anything Gordo Brown does, phrases like "We're here to help", "It's for your own good..."...and you got the picture?
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Coping: With Changes of Fortune I need to clarify some thoughts concerning upcoming events around May 6 which will mark the turning zone from which we (the planet we) will start to really feeling 'building tension' going into July 11th. It will likely not be a single event. I know I don't need to say this, as long-time readers know that often the 'change of fortune' area in linguistics are not so much a change wrought by singular events, but rather by a change of fortune - which better describes things.
I was reminded of this in a brief conversation with Cliff on Wednesday who's been (thankfully) kind enough to notice when my monkey-mind simplifications of an incredibly complex future run out ahead of the data. Yes, a change of fortune and of course, the aware/astute person will notice the change of the 'feel' of events, but a single thing in a headline? Likely not.
The November 8-12th period, on the other hand is so big that it appears as a tipping point in data, after which things are really different, IS likely the kind of thing which will make headlines, bulletins, and maybe the cover of Time as story of the year kind of thing. --- A fair number of people are already sending in their guesses about what the 'events' of November will be. One referred to the long-standing (and perhaps a year or two early) prediction of a 'summer of hell' and wondered if the deployment of an Army unit inside the US around election time might somehow be connected. We don't know...we can't get that precise in predicting events.
Deploying military within the country would not come out of a sense of fun, sport and amusement. It would either anticipate events, or be in reaction to them. The ultimate failure of the US dollar, pegged for a November a year or two back, showing up this year, would qualify. And that might explain the Army troops to keep order if the financial system was to break down. But whatever this November period is seems to come out of the GlobalPop entity and be global in nature, so a global unhappy ending to the financial/derivatives madness might fit. Although it would be an unfortunate series of events, it would be far preferable to global war.
Any telltale signs to point in that direction? Depends what you think will happen when "More Than a Million in U.S. May Lose Jobless Benefits" this summer. A reader points out this key paragraph:
Let me think...hmmm: "Could 1-million people losing benefits result in the "summer of hell" which has been in modelspace for a couple of years? Might it precede the collapse of the US dollar forecast 4-5 years ago in November?"
Answer that (as I have) and while it will bring GlobalRev and Global Depression Two along with it, it may also be a turning point for capitalism in general; time to renounce the Church of the Almighty Dollar and seek something a little less predatory.
Since folks
like Jack Lessinger have written thoughtful books about what the
other side of such a massive global change of mindset would be
like (e.g. his Transformation Fall of the Consumer Economy Rise of the Responsible Capitalist
Getting there without WW 3 and without Alien Wars would be nice. Not that going hungry and having a global financial collapse would be a walk in the park. It's just that going into the weekend, I like to keep things on a cheerful & optimistic note. So yeah, tensions are going to build through July and then we should get some modest 'release events' - a series of headline grabbers over summer that will feel at first like big change is afoot, but the real game-changer comes in late fall.
I'm laying this all out in advance with the warning that if you send me email on May 7th demanding "Where's that change", I won't answer. May be too subtle for the unawares to catch. Might even be an event that happens bgut doesn't become visible or known until some time - weeks or months - after the change to building tensions. --- News stories that wander off without conclusions happen all the time. Like that sinking a week or two back of a South Korean warship in contested waters. Even now - after the burial of victims this week - we're still reading that a "Stray S. Korean mine could have sunk warship" and the fallout from the event is still swirling as "N. Korean Denial on Sunken Ship Clouds Lee-Hu Meeting" and "N. Korea expels most S. Koreans from resort".
Want another example of "news echoes that can foretell future developments"? That that (still developing) environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico comes to mind.
This is one which (to me) started with my curiously timed dream under the heading "Coping: Irwin Allen's Dream" (archived here, scroll past 3/4's of the way down) that preceded the event by about 30-hours. And it's been building as a news story ever since that 10 PM explosion.
You saw the CBS report where the COO of BP said they'd accept military help if offered...and that the rate of flow of the leak could be higher than first thought?
Fine example of a news story that seems to start small and then evolves over some period of time...in what you can think of as the 'news incubator' and then grows to immensely impacting size to where USA Today is headline that the "Oil spill could have broad impact on Gulf Coast". Or, like I said earlier this week, y'all might want to invest in shrimp if you've got a gumbo habit...or maybe switch to chicken.
Just an example of how a small event (oil rig accident) can blossom into the prime time lead 2-weeks later. Yet at the time (or before if you had Irwin Allen's Dreams going) it seemed almost 'routine' but my, oh my, how fortunes change over time.
Spend some quiet time this weekend and do a thorough 'gut check'. See how you feel about things in general, your general level of stress and so forth. Then come Fourth of July weekend, do the same process again. Modelspace seems to say you may notice increased tensions. But the reason? Not likely to be a single event...just how fortunes change. But, of that much, we can rest fairly well assured: they will.
Proof! Slapstick Government I trust you're using these as postage, right?
This have been out just over a year, but there's a wide enough range of expression (emotional intonations) that I've got them on my shopping list again. If you lead a laid-back lifestyle, you can match the facial expressions to where your letters are going.
Bill Moyer's recently asked "If the US at the Mercy of an Unstoppable Oligarchy?" noting that six banks control 60% of GNP. That government could allow, no encourage that kind of concentration of power is beyo9nd slapstick.
For me, the stamps are a reminder to 'stamp out' bad government. --- In a culture that lacks the discipline of a tea ceremony, or the grace & energy balance of tai chi, I figure these stamps are symbolic and that's the least we can do. Until elections roll around...
Around the Ranch: Weather Theory Word that Washington DC will be into the 90's this weekend, while here at the ranch in East Texas we won't even make 80 until Monday has revealed the ugly truth once again: Washington is full of hot air. --- Here at the UrbanSurvival
news desk, we have been anxiously awaiting rain to try out the
new
Oregon Scientific WMR80 Pro Wireless Weather Station WMR80
Previously, if I wanted to know if the rain was going to be a short passing shower, or something more persistent, I would just look at the goats. If they headed for the goat barn, then the rain would last a while.
Now, I can correlate the weather radar, a half dozen overlays (lightning strikes, etc) the wind direction and speed on the tower, rainfall amount for the day, and maybe...just maybe...some day be as accurate as the goats.
Send your comments to george@ure.net Shop Till You Drop Department: Peoplenomics This Week Alternative Endings "Holy crap, George! What is going on with Cliff's latest post "Wolf and the other Biltzers, the new War Season, a terrible choice" that begins "World War 3 is here..." That particular email then went to some lengths pondering whether Cliff's taken to heavy drinking (no), or if there was maybe something else going on (yes). While there isn't a lot of evidence, except a few places where molten glass from sand appears as evidence of ancient warfare, the anecdotal, written, and verbal traditions largely point in that direction. While it's fair to claim we haven't found any evidence of higher social development, I'd have to ask how much 1/4-inch magnetic tape you've see last more than 10-years, let alone a several thousand. This week, we skip past the philosophical/religious part (did that in last week's report anyway) and simply skip ahead to the ugly borderland between econometric modeling, common sense, systemic incentive bias, and oh....alternative endings. Grab your lab coat, goggles, and dosimeter while we play the exciting new game "Runaway competing economic systems armed with nuclear, chemical and biological incentives... More For Subscribers To Subscribe, CLICK HERE Need Logon Assistance? Click here. Cookie Video The folks at Maxa Research have put together a short video (sound track by guess who?) that shows the Maxa Cookie Manager. You can see it here.
I don't usually get all whipped up about software, but this is one of those dandy tools that just simply works great. First thing I put on my new computer when I got it was Avira Anti-virus and Maxa Cookie Manager (MCM). Either follow the on-screen download instructions of simply click:
Once you try it out, to upgrade to the fully functioning version, just click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those nasty and highly intrusive 'non-browser specific' cookies. Bonus: You computer may run faster.
"Live on $10,000" A Year Having a hard time making ends meet? (Like who isn't, right?) A good starting point to better match up income with outgo is our $10 e-book "How to Live on #10,000 a Year...or less!"
It's an automatic download. It's written in an information dense style: The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the cheap, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you have a little hustle left. A bonus section called "How to Build Anything" should instill confidence if you've never taken on a home improvement/home creation project before, too..... Click here for the index and details.
MyGroPonics My commodity broker JB Slear and I have written a simple book to get you started on high density hydroponics. It's an example of how someone with a little creativity, access to a few 'dollar stores' and willing to try out some new farming techniques can grow an amazing amount of produce sin a very small space - like even an apartment balcony (if it gets some sunlight). Sound interesting? It's just $10 bucks here...
Pass It On A different take on things - that's what you'll find here most mornings. If you know of anyone who might also like our content, simply click here and send a link to them. Or, if you hated what you read, send the link to all your 'worst enemies'. Like they say in Burbank, "Ain't no such thing as bad press..." ----
Thursday April 29, 2010 Let's roll back to the 1930's for a minute and reconsider the impact of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, since it's modern analog is important to understand here in the Second Depression. Back then, the world had a fledgling version of 'globalism' going and the SHTA became the whipping boy of Inflationists who argued that America's slowing of consumption from 'overseas' was a major contributing to the severity and depth of the first Depression. Hogwash, of course. Irrational insanity in pricing and then tight credit...there's your real villains.
The Wikipedia entry on Smoot Hawley's Economic Effects is worth some clear-headed thinking even today:
Seems to me that this is a pretty even-handed way of looking at things: Smoot-Hawley brought some American production back home and in the end, it was the tight credit policies of the Fed - that trickled out into the secular economy in the form of 'no money to lend' that kept the Depression going as long as it did. Where people don't a seem to appreciate the upside is that the return of business to American factories helped to build the manufacturing juggernaut that led to the creation of the greatest fighting machine ever and folks like Kaiser and his Liberty Ships kept us all from speaking German or Japanese today.
From a strategic planning perspective, the long Great Depression (#1) was not exacerbated by tariffs to the extent claimed; real causes included the Merchant Marine Act that started to move cargo to American bottoms (ships), payoff from the 1920 Jones act which kept foreign bottoms from hauling cargo between US ports, the tight money policies of the Fed despite contrary claims, and a number of other strategic moves that put America in a position to prep for WW 2.
Now, fast forward to present times and review the picture:
America has outsourced a huge amount of its manufacturing, customer service and back office (IT) functionality elsewhere. And, to be sure, there are a very few voices in the wilderness like (yours truly) who believe that in order for growth to limit be evenly spread around the world, we need a modern analog to Smoot-Hawley which would impose a high tariff on outsourced jobs (and products) to rebuild America's crumbled manufacturing, customer service, and IT base.
What's more, I've observed that we have a synchronized global currency devaluation regimen in place which explains why China is such a lynchpin in global economic manipulation plans since they are the new international 'reserve currency;; taking up that mantle albeit in slow motion, from the US dollar.
A number of US businessmen are pulling up stakes and headed to China, including one reader who sent his advisory to us yesterday which reads:
Strategically, China is building a Middle Class while America seems dead-set on destroying its Middle Class via a shift in tax burdens that punish - rather than reward small business entrepreneurship through a soaring self-employment tax regimen designed to kill small business formation and drive entrepreneurial types to government or middle corporate suck-up jobs.
Even the modest benefits these seem to offer are being quickly erodes, since the implementation of a social(ist) healthscare plan will result in current IRS functionality rolling into a healthscare collections bureau on the one hand, while another portion of IRS seems destined to become the new Tax Police of the National Sales Tax at Every Level, misrepresented as a VAT.
Not that the
motivation of government is unclear: We have entered the
nonlinear portion of spending on Healthscare and the money has
to come from somewhere and I'm not the only guy to report that
in a few years, because America rents its money from the
Bankster Class (an absurdity laid out in G. Edward Griffins's
The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve
It's particularly apropos given the machinations between the Fed and the IMF which involve promises and counter-promises in the trillion dollr and up class, all without direct congressional oversight, merely a carte blanche expectation that the Uber Banksters will do what's 'right for America' in keeping with their new mandate to create 'economic stability' rather than sound currency.
The takeaway is that by 'cleverly' (or so they think) manipulating international exchange rates, the central bankster class can delicately balance the global economies to perform this way - or that - at their whim, and thus meet their economic stability goal.
Of course, going hand in glove with this is the effort to get real money out of the hands of regular folks and turn as much as possible into digi-dollars which can, in turn, be manipulated far more easily than that nasty oild paper money you may have left, let alone things like check-writing which is going through it's own snuff film presently.
Almost no mainstream coverage of an April 19, 2010 Treasury press release which outlined the attack on 'cash in hand' which will occur as a three-pronged attack - cleverly wrapped up as part of Earth Day to make it virtually unassailable by the weak of mind:
Let me emphasize the key points:
This may not seem like a big deal, but it really is because it's a direct attack on the unofficial 'underground economy' which will work its magic by simply eliminating cash. I expect that part of the long-term migration path in electronic moneyland will be Treasury Direct setting up online payment systems or simply (in time) buying PayPal...so that everything you make - and everything you spend - will go through a government-controlled monitoring process. --- So let me lay out my 'nightmare' scenario of 'next steps' in the bankster coup to take over the whole word:
I'm not saying this is bad - only that it's coming. Mandatory RFID/Biometrics? A report this month in WorldNetDaily notes "Microchips in Obamacare? Not yet Analysis: While not explicit, law opens door to future possibility..."
And know what the really graceful part of all this is from a strategic planning standpoint? Just as millions get moved into this new electronic world, along comes an 'out of the blue' [limited] nuclear exchange with electromagnetic pulse weapons and suddenly everyone is broke and owing the government with no way to pay since electronics are then down - and that in turn gives ownership of almost everything...and the great social re-engineering of the planet will be underway.
Oh - also - as I'm working on the report for Peoplenomics this weekend, we'll also likely see the end of widely accessible air travel - but that's for subscribers.
Not a pretty picture. but sure as I told you yesterday that the market would bounce back over 11,000, it seems likely to decline shortly. We it declines down to the levels of March 2009, say in the 6,600 Dow range, it will then become necessary again (as it was in 2001) for their to be some kind of 'attack' as a great public distraction to keep the masses of sleeping sheep from realizing that corporate feudalism is here and that it comes concurrent with a global economic Depression. Except this time, it will be more like the Modern Dark Ages.
So, as trading gets underway today, we see China was down 8/10ths of one percent overnight again and now Japan dropped almost 2.6%. But with Europe rallying, follow-through to the upside may be anticipated in the US markets. But, in the bigger scheme of things, this is likely just noisy trading.
But a rally to close tomorrow over (or at) Dow 11,241 (Landry) or 11,244 (Ure) will get me my short entry point.
With futures up a bit, I've been penciling out what a perfect Fibonacci bounced *(61.8%) of the recent decline should be.
Monday, around 11,308.95 (Landry's target and mine were hit on a daily basis) down to a low of 10,938.48 on Wednesday is a total drop of 370.47 Dow points.
That means a .618 bounce should add 228.95 to the 10,938.48 low so around 11,167.43 would be just perfect, although I'd just like to see 11,244 for a Friday close. 52 points over yesterday's high would be a fine turning point, although yesterday's intraday high was a 47.8% retracement and 50% retracements are not uncommon, so a rally at the open and a mid-day reversal could easily be in the cards.
We could speculate all morning on how this Big LaBounsky will soar, since anything from 11,167 to 11,244 would be fine with me, but I sense the top may be in...though time will tell and this is not trading advice, o'course.
Where's That Damn Recovery? Latest unemployment weeklies:
No, I didn't back out all those Census workers...you think I'm mean-spirited, or something?
Invest in Shrimp! --- Not sure what this will do to gulf shrimp, but I'll be loading up the freezer a big just in case. Can't go without gumbo forever, you know?
Look, Up in the Sky Department Several readers have sent me this NASA photo and asked "What's that big bird-looking thing in the upper right quadrant reflecting sunlight? (*About 2:30 position in this NASA photog...) Beats me...Superman, maybe?
Marsaforming Project? So if Earth was terraformed (newest read using Self Defining Hebrew - slooow loading) then what would you call it if a bunch of humans figured out that colonizing mars might make (limited) sense now that "NASA: Evidence of life on Mars" is out?
Marsaforming is what I'd call it, although if you don't like it, you could always rate the idea marzipan.
Fine Times at the FDA You see where AstraZeneca got popped with a fine of more than half a billion dollars apparently for pushing off label; use of Seroquel?
Not alone, Genzyme was hit with a $175-million fine and fines of $15,000 per day if they don't do other compliance work... --- Just seems with he SEC going after Goldman and the FDA going active that federal regulators must be getting testosterone shots...that may not be all bad.
Countdown to WW 3 You see the Debka.com headline? "Iran, Syria, Hizballah gear up to provoke summer war"?
Why is this an issue? Well, if they could just hold off until November 8-14, there'd be a chance that whatever happens then won't be equivalent in terms of global impact of global thermonuclear war. On the other hand, if they go at it this summer, then total war by mid November has to be even more seriously considered.
Good news? Most of it should be over in four days, like that's good, huh?
Packaging Pelosi Nice air brushing lessons here...
Hate Kids? Probably not as obvious about it as this guy who purported stabbed 28 kids in a Chinese nursery school. --- So I go over to the English language pages of Xinhua - China's government-run news operation and Lo & behold...no coverage. See how convenient a national news organization is when run by gov't? Nope, their kid story on the front page was "Toys banned from kids' fast food in California County".
Point? I mean besides an oblique reference to W.C. Fields' kid's quotes ("They're also very good with mustard...")?
Each country has its own version of the MSM. China's may underplay kid killers while ours may overplay "Recovery!" (72 point bold it!)
You can spot the MSM anywhere if they treat thinking folks like kids.
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Coping: Red Herrings for May Day I see where MSM is touting "Arizona immigrant law energizes Hispanics, Democrats" into May Day demonstrations planned in multiple markets.
What the national agenda-driven media forgets is that the law passed through democratic processes in Arizona. Or, is that the problem, states having rights? I see where Texas may clone the law, or nearly so. And in Alabama, a gubernatorial candidate is making English-speaking a major point. --- Why is it my Danish and Scottish ancestry (or America's Italian, French, and other immigrants' native tongues) didn't get separate curriculum? Why, seems to me that I must be part of a damaged class that should sue under equal protection statutes for past transgressions including being forced to speak English. It's linguistic oppression I tell you! Now, where's my settlement dough? --- But seriously, or nearly so, look at the large immigration of people from Asia during and following Vietnam. All gone into the melting pot that is America. I haven't seen a big push for Laotian-language textbooks. What I have seen is a helluva lot of Laotian and Vietnamese students with a wonderful work & a kick-ass & learn study ethic working quickly up the social ladder.
That Canada has a fairly vibrant publishing industry I attribute in part to the doubling of language to English plus French there. Sorry to all the people in British Columbia who said (and some are still saying) "Huh?"
This is another fine example of how the national media creates an agenda, takes it to market, and then uses it to further divide and distract the majority of Americans. You can bet that talk radio shows will be railing on this side, or that, of the equation - like it matters.
Arizona passed its law because our federal government wasn't enforcing its own laws that are already on the books. There's just too much money in super-cheap labor exploitation and coyotes running drugs as well...and the payoff of this out-of-touch political incorrectness is that the good people of Cuidad Juarez (south El Paso) now live in a war zone.
What a fine twist of corpgov: Oppose super-rights for a minority and you get painted as the bad guy when in reality you're actually helping end exploitation of the fine citizens of Mexico's borderlands. Spin at its finest on both sides. And one more reason why the MSM is being turned off by thoughtful people: The MSM thrives on divisive while the America of the Framers was a country of unity.
Am I the lone nutjob who sees that when we don't enforce our own laws that we become the laughing stock of the world? Exploitation of cheap labor is what NAFTA, soft borders, regional currencies, and out-sourcing are all bring forth. In a nation of laws, legal immigrants do have rights as I see it, but illegal immigrants don't. Or, is that just too damn simple? Tolerance policies accompanied the gangstah days of the last Depression, too. Except then it was Capone instead of MS-13 and host of newbies. One of the hallmarks of Depressions, this kinda stuff. --- I don't have a problem with ESL programs - don't misunderstand me on that. But they should be transitionally oriented rather than a whole separate curriculum through college unless on par with Chinese or Russian studies programs, just to keep things balanced.
Is common sense that uncommon? I'd better tell my kids to start speaking Danish or Gaelic at home if they ever get around to having children of their own.... Guess we'll have to see how a referendum and a lawsuit go in Az. first. Velkommen. ---- Oh and the NY Times seems to be writing about how important it is to save languages. Way I figure it, the best part of America is Americanese is a melting pot language and America's now got one of the most diverse palates in the world.
BLS BS Department Oh, I missed this one: Press release from the National Inflation Association:
Preaching to the choir around here, but this isn't choir practice on Thursday morning's?
Wednesday April 28, 2010 Fed Speak OK, the Fed FOMC Meeting has wrapped up and like I said, no change. Here's the long version of that with a doubler ,scoop of happy-talk:
Way I've got it figured is this: The market (picking any port in a storm) will believe this for a few days, I will get my long term entry point to short financials and everyone will be happy. The rally from yesterday's decline should pop up to at least 11,120 or so, and as usual, this is not trading advise.
I just remember when maintaining the value 9in purchasing power) of the US Dollar was what the government was all about. Now, it's about economic stability in places like Greece and the other PIIGS and in China.
Guess that why we invest in precious metals now and then...hard to print more gold & silver. Zeroes? Way cheaper.
Depression Finance Class Before we get to how the market is going to drop again, I don't savor doing this, but time to slap you upside the head about this being Depression 2.0/Second Depression/Greater Depression, or any of the other host of terms I've used here since the Dow hit its nominal (purchasing power top) in early 2000. Yeah, that's right - the Dow's high if you count goods and services 'the Dow' would buy came and left more than 10-years ago.
What that means, if you major was in something other than business, is that if you took the Dow in early 2000 which was 11,723 - and turned it into cash money it would have bought you more goods and services then than at any time since. Yeah, ugly, huh?
In fact, when the market was making much hyped (by predatory promissory product pimps) claims that the Dow high was in 2007 (14,066 or so on a weekly basis, what they left out was this important 'lil footnote:
Absent that little revelation, a show of the S&P-Case Shiller Home Price 20-Market Index on a percentage basis out on Tuesday got a oodles and gobs of happy-talk press because of the chart that looks like there's a definite upswing underway... look for yourself!
Mui spledido, si? Well, NO, actually. This is what I call "A Terminal Velocity Chart". You're atop a 100 story building, you jump off and for a while the rate of change looks really bad as gravity gets hold. But then...as you reach Terminal Velocity - which takes a while, the rate of change chart looks like the inverse of the latest zig in the housing chart. Easily envisioned if youi remember that after you jump from this tall building (borrowing from Wikipedia here) "...a speed of 50% of terminal velocity is reached after only about 3 seconds, while it takes 8 seconds to reach 90%, 15 seconds to reach 99% and so on."
In fact, jumping off high buildings (or being pushed if you know too many nuclear secrets, but that's an old story) is dangerous...it's the stop at the end that kills...very much what I expect out of global finance not later than November, but more likely by mid-late summer. Shall we say starting in earnest around that July 11th hot date in linguistics?
More importantly, what the chart unveils - to those who didn't doze through finance classes - is that there has been very little recovery (2% or less) from last year's tragic levels. But wait! More revelations in the price chart. But before I tell you how that sausage hides, please review, class, the S&P Chart from their press release...
I can hear it already: "What's wrong with this, George? You are SUCH a screaming bummer to read sometimes - don't you get it? Housing prices are back UP to 2003 levels! - you're overstating the bear case, as usual!"
Oh really? Yah need more coffee: See the trick? (Look really hard - even you're not completely awake yet...)
Don't see it? (This is why my friend Howard Hill grumbles about 'numeracy' amongst the financial press corps - a lack of 'gettin' it in math...)
A hint then: Looks to me like the 2003 20-City Index was (being generous) $145,000'ish. And with this latest report, the price is back to again, about $145,000'ish.
What's missing is....an Inflation adjustment. --- Forget Numbers - What Will Your Dough Buy? When we're in a period of history where financial acumen means something, you need to put away delusions of zeroes and think like my friends Hill, Jas Jain, Robin Landry, and other deep-thinkers on the direction to invest. Reduce everything to "purchasing power equivalents" - otherwise, you'll miss the whole point of inflations and deflations. Need an example?
CNNMoney reported the price of gasoline in March 2003 at $1.72 a gallon. So if I'd taken $145,000 (the 2003 price of a 20-City Index home back then - and bought gasoline - instead of the house, I could have bought 84,302 gallons of gasoline.
Fast forward to the present: the price of gasoline - even here at the ranch which is a one lane county road from a 600 acre oil production patch, and we're paying $3.17 a gallon for premium. But let's use apples - to -apples and apply the Triple A $2.87 a gallon this week.
If I had the $145,000 from a house sale I'd get only 50,522 gallons of gas. In terms of purchasing power of gasoline, I'd be down about 40%.
OK, about here you're thinking "Ure - you've taken things completely out of context - you can't use gasoline as a proxy!" Why not? Whose column is this? But let's say I grant you that. So, instead, how's about we use the Minneapolis Fed Inflation Calculator? Happier?
That little goodie says the $145,000 home in 2003 would need to fetch $171,478 worth of today's play money just to have kept even with inflation - and the government is prone to understating inflation, as anyone getting a military paycheck, or Social Security Cost of Laughing Adjustment, knows full well. Slapstick government at its finest, but I digress...
Hats off to S&P/Case-Shiller for putting real numbers out. Fine service they render us thinking people. AQt least we have ho9nest starting numbers for things like housing inflation studies and to Triple A for putting real fuel prices together. --- Inflation is a Gas Sidebar: Market down 213 yesterday? Cheer up. On an inflation-adjusted basis, that's only have been a drop of 168.56...in early 2000.
Of course in 2000 gas was only 1.27 a gallon so a 168.56 drop would have cost you 132.7 gallons worth. Yesterday's little 213 point Dow drop cost a merely 70,7 gallons worth of gas.
Is government lying about inflation? (Who will rid us of this irksome data?)
Just because finished energy at the pump is up more than double since 2000 out here in the real world, the Fed inflation calculator shows (more or less "offishully") it should be retailing for only $1.60 a gallon based on inflation. Your mileage may vary. --- I've got my mouse finger twitching to hit go on dozens of additional just out of the money long term put contract on big name financials when the moment feels 'right'. I may be a fool and this is not financial advice. I'm just guessing that a Big LaBounsky will get us back near 11,0000 before I yell "All In...Bull's to the Wall."
Fed Day: Maybe Not Today "Contagion" is a word being bandied about and world markets are mostly tumbling says this AP story. No rocket science necessary when the markets in Europe are bleeding all over the place.
Where this is going to get to be a horse race, though, is to see how "flight to safety' buying works out amongst 'hot money' players. the UK was only down 0.7% when I looked, whereas the turkey of the day was Brussels' (^BFX) Euronext Bel-20 which was down almost 4% at one point.
The (partially) Federal Reserve ought to be out with its policy report (bet on no change) around 1:15 Central Time - I'll post it as soon thereafter as I can - but smart money says no change is rate will be announced - just more delusion happy talk from what is now one of the world's biggest holders of mortgage paper, directly and otherwise.
Canadians are reading "U.S. deficit unsustainable, Bernanke says" but how it crumbles at the far end of unsustainable isn't explained... My vote's on WW 3, since that would reduce head counts and take production capability offline, but we shall see... (Not that I'm for war, except that we don't have an alternative to fulfill its economic main economic function - which is to zero-reset for the PowersThatBe with no pitchfork-wielding hordes at the gate. Just so's we're clear on this stuff...) --- Ure's Latest Axioms: Take the change in the Hong Kong (Hang Seng) and multiply that times the Dow to estimate the next Dow close. Since the Hang Seng close down 1.47% overnight, that means the Dow could easily drop 161.58 points for the day.
The usual disclaimers apply; This is not investment advice, but I figure since Obama bagged a Nobel Peace Prize, I oughta get one in either Economics for my 'economics by its victims' crusade, although a Nobel prize in Literature for my landmark work "Normalized Pun Saturation Levels in Non-MainStream Media" might qualify, too.
Oh, I have a burn barrel full of old no-longer-working axioms...been trying to sell 'em off as fortunes to a Chinese restaurant near Wall Street - with no success so far.
But then again, also no luck with my mind-bending Zen Koan's for Wall Street collection either -- the one that begins "Gold man has value"...and ends..."Can there be theft from a thief?" Or my other favorites: "What is the sound of one bank closing?" and Huìnéng asked Hui Ming: "Without thinking of good or evil, show me your original balance sheet before your bailout was born."
Or the ever-popular: "A monk asked Zhàozhōu, "Does a bull have Buddha nature or not?" Zhaozhou said, "Wú." ("Zhaozhou" is rendered as "Chao-chou" in Wade-Giles, and pronounced "Joshu" in Japanese. "Wu" appears as "mu" in archaic Japanese, meaning "no", "not", "nonbeing", or "without" in English. This is a fragment of Case #1 of the Wúménguān. However, note that a similar kōan records that, on another occasion, Zhaozhou said "yes" in response: Case #18 of the Book of Serenity. Essentially this koan is a reference to that which has no name, but lip-service is pointless here, thus the Zen emphasis on trading. At the same time do not construe of Mu as meaning, "no," as advised in The Three Pillars of Zen).
Or, as electrical engineers chant: "Ohms!" Where was I?
Germany's Leverage
What an Endorsement "The Hill" headlines that Goldman boss Lloyd "Blankein supports financial reform legislation." I have this theory that if big banksters are for a piece of 'financial legislation (like bailouts before it) we oughta run as fast as possible the other way...corporate feudalism ain't what the Founders had in mind, I don't believe.
A friend calls it DEAFicits.
Sunny Day Ahead Hmmm...no one seems to be making a big deal out of the complete lack of sunspots again. Don't look now, but I think is this 14 sun spotless days.
Longest persistence in linguistic modelspace I think is "sun disease" which has been around for 12-years at least...have to ask Cliff for sure, but just in case, here's a toast to the Sun with hopes we don't get 'toasted' back.
Madness on Bordering Department Texas will be the last state border state to get a Predator drone aircraft. --- Just eyeballing
things, the reason Texas is dead last to get a surveillance
plane becomes clear when you look at Microsoft Streets & Trips (2010)
New Mexico has only about 170 miles or border to patrol, Aridzona has about 370 miles, California has about 135 miles worth. And Texas? Biggest of all with something like 780+/- miles of border to patrol.
Since I've always assumed that Border Patrol below a certain level is sincere in its "secure borders mission' but above that, politicos get so much money & campaign contributions from beneficiaries of illegal cross-border traffic that effective borders are not good for profits, or campaign contributions, near as I can figure. Where is that border fence?
Demonizing Our Rights Department You read where an "FBI agent short on details on militia inquiry" up in Michigan where nine people are being held? --- Sometimes I wonder how much danger local militias pose, ...I mean compared to making headlines that demonize those who still hold to the Constitution and Bill of Rights?
Lingering deal-breaker question is what was the role of the undercover agent in this tale? We'll know in the fullness of time, I suppose...
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Coping: Reader's Writes Day The inbox overfloweth, so we start this morning's review with a letter from the far side of the pond...(once) Great Britain:
Thanks for the note - 25% of Brits being crazy sounds about right and as luck would have it, about 25% of people here in the Colonies are crazy, too. Stupidity seems to be pretty evenly distributed these days, perhaps it's because so many Cretins actually believe that crap on teevee....
Next? Hmmm...
Not to worry...let me explain why I don't put as much on, as often, as I used to: Cliff & I only talk every couple of days about what's going on in the model. he's working his game to be ready, and I'm working mine. The easy ones are things like May 6 (I favor May 5 'cuz it's a Wednesday, but he's the s/w modeling dude). On the other hand, July 11, and Nov. 8-14 don't seem to be too drifty, but I'll ask him next time we chat.
Being in Arkansas, you're at a major advantage. There are relatively few strategic targets, it's a widely spread out population area. Of course, that your elevation is only 207 feet isn't very high. I'd be keeping a bass boat handy just in case Nov's WW3 is a misread of the data and instead we get glaciers pushing up sea level a couple of hundred feet. Why, in such case, the Mississippi would come to you, rather than t'other way around...
Next? Oh, yeah, this classic from Monday:
Well, yes, now that you asked, try these:
And last, but not least, this exchange:
My answer
To which...
Actually, this spurs what might be my last creative thought of the day: You don't suppose that the real root of all the world's problems is a lack of sharing and laughter do you? I mean, don't people who are stoned/drunk often give away things that they later regret, but which felt good at the time? Or, is is just possible that those behaviors (exhibited while under some influence or other) are true aspects of our collective self? Not to say that drugs & alcohol don't cause problems, wield death, etc. BUT the situation underscores that the most significant extinction level event I have noticed since my youth is people don't laugh much anymore. Laughter is pretty much extinct because everyone takes everything so deadly frigging seriously... There's a global real shortage of mirth, humor, good cheer and positivism. Which is why I try to write lightly (and absurdly) to cheer up your day a bit...because the alternative is to cry at the great loss of our humanity for we have lost sight of what's holy between humans. A good story, an adventure retold, and wild chicken roasted on a stick in front of a fire in a cave - along with some fair knowledge of natural hallucinogenic - made for a passable life once upon a time. Despite all of our so-called progress, for tens - if not hundreds - of thousands of Americans, a few millennia of human progress has simply made the caves off-limits (restricted as many are on misnamed public lands) so the rest happens under freeway overpasses, hidden and harassed from the eyes of a public that demands so little of what we jokingly call leaders, who in turn work an agenda of the PowersThatBe, the new and improved money centric version of sociopaths. And you know they would never mislead any of us...right? Go ahead, click that link. Tuesday April 27, 2010 Top Time? A reader dropped a note yesterday wondering if the intraday high Monday of the Dow at 11,2558.01 would be sufficient for me to stand up and scream "The Top Is In - Run from the Street!"
After patiently disclaiming that this site doesn't offer financial advice (although I am short a bit of financial stock options in my personal account and may add to that position this week) I told this person that I'd address the topic in this morning's column, so here's the answer.
Yes, it's sufficient but a much better case would be made if we could have a weekly print close over 11,241 (Landry) or 11,244 (Ure) or toss your own darts as you will. I moved money from bank to my trading account this morning and may dollar cost average into more put options (the kind of option that can become profitable when the underlying security drops in price.
Oh, sure, futures are down a tad...but what do you expect? Could they continue to rally? Maybe, but AGAIN: "Old sayings on Wall Street like "Sell in May and Go Away!": don't become old sayings because they're full-o-crap, know what I mean?
We're also only 9-days from the predictive linguistics 'hot' date of May 6th which may present a pre-echo of things to come. Or, maybe British voters will come to their senses that day and turn out Gordo the Gold Seller and his ilk...although that's doubtful.
The British Isles are known for sheep production, or so I thought. But a quick glance at M.L. Ryder's work "The History of Sheep Breeds in Britain" doesn't mention Gordo's Labour cronies for reasons I can only guess. --- Another reason the futures may not be so chipper this morning is that the so-called Financial Overhaul Bill looks to be stalled. Gee, golly, couldn't have happened to a nice bunch of people. NOT. --- Then there's the thoughtful Eric Sprott piece (from Sprott Asset Management) that explains how problems like Greece propagate systemically: "Weakness Begets Weakness: from Banks to Sovereigns to Banks".
Can't help noticing the latest cover of Martin Armstrong's latest post "the Paradox of Solution" also features this circular reference problem.
CBS-2 In NYC has coverage of how "Hundreds camp out for job opps in Queens" in case you've forgotten that we're in the Second Depression despite the slew of manufactured numbers that try to convince us 'It ain't so!". You're lying eyes will tell you the real story and sautéed digits aren't very filling, no matter how often blessed by words like "Official" and "Recovery". --- Reader sent me a note yesterday saying (in part) "I don’t know if the economy is recovering or is just taking a breather before plunging again, but I do know that you are in danger of succumbing to Prophet’s Disease. PD, as you no doubt are aware, is the irresistible compulsion to reaffirm one’s prior prophecies in the face of any data whatever."
I report the data best I can while keeping things in perspective. Most people have noticed a decline in their standard of living, their retirement nest eggs and so forth since October 2007, near as I can figure.
Not like I'm alone: CNNMoney headlined "Economists: The stimulus didn't help." Unless you were a bankster, of course.
Oh, and as BusinessWeek notes, emerging-market stocks have been getting creamed the past week or so.
Dude!
Ain't Prophet's Disease - it's "Diseased Profits":
China was down 1.5%
overnight. You take the losses in the Hang Seng, toss
in a handful of globalized
Pai Gow
strategy, and presto: Liquidate US paper to cover Hong Kong.
"bu kuh CHEE" ("You're
welcome" in Mandarin...) Of course, Europe is on its butt this morning, too. So a 1.3% decline in the Dow today would pencil to where? A close around 11,059 but only if the sheep missed their fluoride.
GlobeRev Continues Nothing like a good old-fashion brawl.,..in Ukraine's parliament, eh? Russia Today television has splendid video of how politics is every so much more enjoyable when there are smoke bombs, eggs, and tomatoes being tossed about. I particularly like the umbrella as an egg shield.
Why can American politics be a little more passionate, like this? --- Hmmm... Paraguay is sending 1000 troops and police to suppress a rebel group to the border area with Brazil and Bolivia, and why, you wonder? Well I reckon it's because the guerilla group may be near the reported Bush family property down there?
Shaken California Not a great big quake, but another 4.7 down in Southern California early this morning...which continues to haunt me ever since my dream a while back reading "Wednesday - Los Angeles". Next time I'll try to get a date, since the odds of being right on the next big LA shaker are 1 in 7...although something like a biggie late May 5th would fulfill my dream and be close enough to the linguistic hot date...oh, let's not go there.
Why Was Europe Closed? Here's one for youi to ponder: Why was all that airspace in Europe closed a week or so back? Important question because it's coming out in headline "Remember that ash cloud? It didn't exist says new evidence".
Answer me this: Why would Eurozone officials do this? Some off-planet demand for a clear area? No matter how bizarre the potential answers seem, nothing seems to fit with the facts on this...
Tempest in an iPot Remember that iPhone 4G case? Turns out this may set up some interesting legal precedents on whether people who write on the Internet for a living are protected under freedom of speech laws from search & seizure like the old-fashioned media are. "Computers Seized at Home of Gizmodo Report er Who Wrote about iPhone, Gawker says..." is the story that lays the groundwork in the NY Times.
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Coping: Old Radio, New Radio Having spent about 20-years (in all) in the industry in broadcast engineering and as a newscaster/news director in major market radio, I've been continually fascinated by the subject. I suppose at some level I must be addicted to radio frequency (RF) energy, the way some people are addicted to candy; how else to explain feeling no guilt about having a decent-sized ham radio tower, large beam antenna and getting a rush out of talking to someone in Belgium, or rural Peru without a telephone or internet?
Anyway.... on to the first point: Congrats to Dr. Ron Klatz, friend, president and founder of the American Academy for Anti-Aging Medic (A4M) who has launched a new show on the Progressive Radio Network.
Every so often, I mention the adventures of "Dr. Ron" including his web site, www.worldhealth.net where they cover topics like "Green Tea Extract May Promote Weight Loss" and "Sleep Apnea Elevates Stroke Risk."
From what I've been able to pull together, this whole business of anti-aging medicine isn't going to be a single lifestyle change (silver bullet seekers), but rather a whole bunch of minor changes which add up to a longer life...on average. --- Speaking of which: In my personal quest to stop aging, I noticed something really interesting which you may find useful if you ever grow up. A little set-up:" I took Panama Bates' visiting daughter from Ohio for a ride in 'the red car' yesterday. Not that I'd ever admit to pushing the old wide-body over the posted speed limit in a rural (verging on deserted) area of East Texas, but like most people, she enjoys fast cars and.... Anyway, as I was drifting a familiar corner on a narrow twisty hunk of local back road, I noticed that I was over-correcting my drift recovery to the point of near 'losing it'.
Pulled over...tire pressures were all fine and the only thing out of place was the fuel was really low and since the tank is in the front, the car gets a tad 'more squirrelly ' due to suspension load rate changes. Was this what caused a less-than-perfect (closer to the ditch than planned) drift and a wobbling (over) recovery?
Nope! It was me! I got thinking about it later in the afternoon and discovered (thinking back) that the over-control of Porsche drift was a different expression of the same phenomena I experienced when I started a biennial flight review 6-8 months back (and still haven't gotten around to finishing, such are time restraints). I was tending to over control the airplane a bit, too. Little things but noticeable...like a slightly more aggressive turn rate, not really smooth roll-out of high bank turns (back to level flight) and flaring out into a slightly nose-higher attitude and having to drop the nose a bit due to overshooting perfect attitude for landing configuration.
Sharing Point: Big moment of self-discovery...connect all the dots and there's something to be kept in mind before high-performance whatevering... "Don't Over Control!"
Maybe it's because I hadn't touched and airplane for years, and honestly, I drive the 'red car' maybe once a month - it's main use has been as an enjoyable money-substitute which yep, has gone up in value.
But this certainly bears more investigation as it may not be age-related so much as "motor skills over time over-compensate to make up for memory effects." So, next time you're using a skill you haven't used in a while - skeet shooting, fly-casting, or whatever - watch out for over control. Fine learning moment...every day should have one. --- New Radio: Every so often I turn on a radio and spin through the AM and FM bands and what slaps me upside the head is how utterly frigging boring most talk radio is. I can't wait to turn it off because talk show hosts bore me to tears, the exception being CoastToCoast AM where they get into some very interesting topics.
So I got to thinking recently: What would make Talk Radio a more interesting format and more refreshing to listen to? Then it struck me: Have hosts who are comedic instead of self-righteous...and what better host or hostess than someone who is a professional voice actor/voice actress who does cartoon & character voices?
That'd be fun...since the people calling in would never know which character voice might respond and things could get a lot more off-the-wall and we might be draw to a more humorous taken of contemporary events.
I've started to seed the idea into Universe and it may take a while, but the main function of Talk Radio seems to be cleaving the country into audience segmentation with the right-wingers listening to this, or the lefties listening to that. That's nuts. Where's the Big Middle? The people who just want to find America in Balance and have a good laugh along the way?
Instead, we have what I'd call lowest-common-denominator talk shows which divide people - and the odd humorous host that comes along usually8 ends up doing 'insider' stuff because everyone misses the main point of good radio which is theater of the mind. That theater needs to be rebuilt and some cartoons brought in.
I don't care who you think the world's best 'best talk show host' is today (there's only least worst to my sensibilities) I'd drop any of them in a heartbeat if a modern analog to the legendary Mel Blanc (who was the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote, Woody Woodpecker, Barney Rubble, Mr. Spacely, Deed Buggy, Captain Caveman, Heathcliff....well his credits go on and on...
I mean, wouldn't you love to hear Yosemite Sam on gun rights, or Heathcliff on animal rights, or Porky Pig on politics?
I guess that's why I write - ain't enough on MSM radio to keep me interested & occupied, likely you either. People don't listen to radio to be converted to this way of thinking, or that: They listen to be entertained. Problem with talk radio (as one major market program director admitted to me this week) "The TSL's goes up (time spent listening) and pretty soon you've got stale radio.
Like now in most markets. But, I have hope.
Home Handyman Department Here's an interesting one:
Two problems here. First, I'd get a different safe and figure out somewhere to put it...
Second: They make a PVC pipe which has really thin (like razor thin) horizontal cuts around it for the base piece of wells. You drill the well slightly oversized, stick PVC (with a cap on it so it doesn't fill with mud) down in the hole, then fill around the PVC with washed pea gravel. Bring the 4-6" PVC about 2-4 feet above the ground level and head over to www.simplepump.com where we got our manual pump (they work down to 350 feet, ours is only about 50' down, as it turned out). Not cheap...but water's kinda important from a survival standpoint.
On the other hand, you may wish to fill in the hole in the floor and put the pump outside in a small pump house. I hate water in basements - I'd fill that hole up and dump in concrete (with a half bottle of bonding compound) and get back to having sealed basement.
Alternatively, dig down 6-feet, put in the right well casing, haul pea gravel down to your basement, put in a small 12-volt marine pump and power it all with some batteries and a couple of solar panels. Ought to be quite the conversation starter if it's in the middle of the room.
However, if you plan to cocoon in the basement, you may have water, but then comes the matter of sewage disposal (and far, far down slope from the water source...) See how these damn projects cascade? Why, next thing you know, I'll have you taking back the safe, using the money to rent a bulldozer, and level the house and start over again. I mean, as long as we're gonna pour concrete...
I'm only 99% kidding - you see where "Flipping Houses is back in South Los Angeles"?
Simple Answers The report out that seems to link chocolate consumption with depression has a really simple explanation, as I've got it figured: People eat chocolates, put on weight, weigh themselves, and get depressed. Come on! How hard is this stuff?
Occam's Hershey bar, is what I call this kind of logic.
Speaking of Answers - Word Up? Here's an email on Cliff's search for "the word" that will sort of reptiles from those who aren't:
Sounds kind of Irish, "Kininigen" doesn't it? Oh, and our source on this remind: YUA-TAH-HEY - a Navajo greeting for "Walk in beauty".
If you hear people in Washington or state capitols yelling "Zin-Uru!" you might look around for the iridescent vest-wearing reptiles ....if this is indeed the word...
Monday April 26, 2010 Cheerleader Monday Several readers have asked me to be a little more upbeat about the economy finally being in 'recovery' and a few point to thinkings like the Association of American Railroads report on rail traffic as 'evidence'.
All of which would sure sound like an economic recovery, right? Well, only so long as you don't follow back to the equivalent period for traffic in 2007 which would be the AAR report of April 19, 2007. This reads in part:
While I'll grant you that things up up vis-à-vis last year, remember that in studies of longwave economics, one year does not a Depression make, but that applies to recoveries, as well. The most recent rail traffic numbers are still down 12.4% compared with where things were in 2007.
More coffee?
Intermodal traffic was 209,903 containers in the most recent report versus intermodal of 223,126 in April of 2007...which is only down 6% from which sounds a lot more optimistic, but how much of that was Made in America? And how many were empties? And this is before I start throwing in corrections for the larger population of the country now versus then, yada, yada... --- Are we out of the woods? Is there maybe not really a second economic Depression underway as I've been telling you?
A glance at a New York Times article Sunday which begins by painting a rosy picture of the docks in the Rose City (Portland, Oregon) this way: "The docks are humming again at this sprawling Pacific port, with clouds of golden dust billowing off the piles of grain spilling into the bellies of giant tankers." sure makes it seem like Mr. Ure is wrong - dead wrong.
Yet, once again, I go back to the data (helluva thing to do, ain't it?) and look up how Portland is doing this year compared with 2007 which was the previous high-water mark.
Port of Portland official data shows that in the first 3-months of 2007, the number of ocean-going vessels coming to Portland totaled 217. The same report shows the number of ocean-going vessels to make Portland a port o' call was 139. Check me on this, but isn't this a reduction of 35.94% in number of ships dropping by?
Far be it from us to question a headline like "From the Mall to the Docks, Signs of Economic Turn" so prestigious a newspaper as the NYT, but the visit of 45 ships to Portland in March, compared to 46 in 2008 and a whopping 69 in 2007 is still down 34.78%.
To be sure, the Times may be onto something: break-bulk tonnage has more than doubled but break-bulk means less-than-contain sized shipments and of course, you'd expect break-bulk to be up if containers were down.
Although Portland's container traffic peaked in 2008 at 22,443 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU's) March of this year is down 44.6%.
Not like the NYT is alone: The National Association of Bsuiness Economists is sounding effusive lately, too:
I gotta start popping uppers, maybe. Futures are up a tad, but then ramping up Monday with market rallies is almost as reliable as the sunrise the past 5-6 months.
Oh, and I don't mean to pick on Portland, but we're all trying to see through the smoke and mirrors of economic data and a long-than-one-year perspective is needed. And, maybe the malls around Portland are selling more than they did in 2007 and have higher traffic counts...I just don't know.
So here's what let's do if you're a Rose City/Portlander: You go up to Rose's Deli and have a bowl of the chicken noodle soup and have a "Traditional" Reuben sandwich today and think about it.
I'd love to join you -been getting hungry just thinking about it - but I'd look ridiculous and you wouldn't want to be seen with me: I'm trying to put on a cheerleader outfit and it's not going well at all. Don't forget to top off with the cheesecake though... --- Since I won't be joining you, Matt Taibbi's article "The Lunatics who made a Religion Out of Greed and Wrecked the Economy" is a nice read about the foundational years of the Church of the Almighty Dollar.
Crackup Boom for breakfast?
Treasury Selling Citigroup Hmmm...press release from Treasury this morning:
From it's March 2009 low around $1-buck a share, Citi was knocking on $5 last week - might be interesting to see what the stock does from here.
Picture of the Day
Cake and Eating It, Department, Redux The financial headline that "Muted Expectations Accentuates Strength Relayed by Positive Data" caused me a loss of five minutes this morning as I did a sentence diagram and tried to figure out what the hell that meant. As luck would have it, a reader figured it out first:
Being the prince of grammar, I sent a hard show back admonishing the reader for starting back-to-back paragraphs with the word "Now..." but at the same time also explaining that this is all symptomatic of govthink and pointing toward today's Coping Section where 'taxatite" is defined.
What I consider
to be one of the best indicators of all comes out tomorrow
morning (9 AM Eastern) when the Case-Shiller/S&P 20 city housing
survey is released. This will be a 'biggy' but I'll
discount it just a tad because I don't know how much
house-trading is going on between banks in order to book losses
and trade them around to clean up balance sheets and engage in
creation of tax-loss carry-forwards. Saving Globalist Banksters
It's Greek to Me The docks are quiet in Greece today where a massive dockworker's strike is underway while interest rates in that country have risen north of 9 percent and Germany is trying to sell it's share (€ 8.4 billion) of bailing out Greece to political types in country.
WW 3 Ahead Dept: Missile Tow Everyone once in a while we drag the headline searchers for odd words that strike my fancy like "missile". We find, using this dragnet, that the US is using new, smaller missiles in Pakistan, wonder if they cost any less? --- Iran has been busy test-firing missiles - five different ones is the word. you know they're not doing this for fun, sport, and amusement alone. --- Looking more and more like the PTB may be trying goad Israel into action against Syria now that the Lebanese Army says there are no SCUD missiles there. But wait! The report came from the US? Gee... 'magine that? Niger uranium, anyone? --- The US meantime is working on a missile system that can hit anywhere in the world in 1 hour. And we wonder why America's image overseas is a tad tarnished? --- Iran missiles could have the US in range by 2015 says a report. Wonder if defence contractors or intel sources are dropping this? Just tinkering around with the Official UrbanSurvival Desktop Targeting System, looks like the closest US City to Tehran of any consequence might be Boston. --- And you've been following how the Russians are getting to be nervous Nellies about those Patriot missiles the US is planning to deploy in Poland next month. Gosh, with no president etc (coincidental plane crash) this oughta to go smoothly... --- Since WW 3 is a linguistic threat for this fall, we might periodically drop a spider or so and do another missile tow again one of these days.
George, the Dunce I must need a
LOT more coffee. A reader sent in this note saying "New
toy alert! Looks interesting! Points me to the new Ooma Telo Free Home Phone Service
But then I go
scratch my head and ask "If it's free how come Amazon
wants $199 for it? One of those Mondays, know what I mean? Maybe it's magic, Jack...
--- snip and save section ---
Coping: More Words for the Lexicon I won't do a huge/long/boring dissertation on this, since if you wanted the whole report you'd be a Peoplenomics.com subscriber, but this week you may wish to add a couple of words to your personal lexicon because they might just help you cope with (and more effectively think about) some changes about in the world that are hard to get your arms wrapped around and think about in a compact fashion.
The first of these is "Taxatite". Taxatite is just like 'appetite' and describes the increased appetite for tax loading that governments worldwide suffer when they have been through a long period of (as in the present case) a long general uptrend in the standard of living since, oh the early 1950's say, and then because practical limits of an economic expansion begin to fail.
Growth is a nice, easy to describe function that - when added up on a cumulative basis - tends to form a nice pattern called an "S" curve and this quite neat describes a lot about the peaking processes of everything from the number of miles of highways built in America, to the number of new airline routes opened each year, to the replacement of jets over railroad travel, and tons of other phenomena. My friend Cesare Marchetti, whose works I have pointed to many times, is the world's guru on "S" curves, but understanding how "S" curves works is important because real change happens when a growth curve runs out of steam.
Since government has expanded on the way up, it hasn't stopped increasing its appetite for revenues, and the overshoot between the top in the 'standard of living' experienced by humans peaks long before the ultimate top in taxing requirements since government continues its expansion even after real growth (and the ability to keep puffing up government) has passed.
So write it down and use it: taxatite. --- Second word(s) of the day involve the concept of "revolution" going global. In Peoplenomics this weekend we discussed "GlobalRev" which can be foreshortened to "globerev" to make it just two syllables.
Our correspondent in Indonesia sent in an interesting note about how tensions of a racial sort are rising in that part of the world, it's almost like people everywhere are dividing up and turning on one-another:
As you read about how the Earth's magnetic field is changing about/drifting/wandering, it may be useful to note how people's moral compass seems to be drifting about a fair bit, too...and the result? What feels like "GlobalRev" or simply "GlobeRev". --- I'm a huge fan of making up words since figuring out some time back that if I couldn't find a word for something, I couldn't very well think about it, could I?
Down at the WuJo: Retooling the 10 Commandments The work of the small Jewish studies group in Canada has continued to yield interesting information. You'll recall I have pointed you at the efforts of www.thechronicleproject.org (slow loading due to graphics intensive content) previously, and one of the most often asked questions the group has received is "What are the 10 Commandments like when retranslated using the Self-Defining Hebrew System?
How about it isn't 10 Commandments, but 11 for openers? Which are:
A bit different than earlier translations and a lot more emphasis on the importance of taking a whole day off which I found interesting. Along with the "become marred on the inside" by desires for things. Interesting way of looking at things.
You Like Oldies Music? REAL Oldies? Reader sent along a note about music from 1950 BC to 300AD period here. Sample streams are here...kinda cool, not the Rolling Stones, though. Paean's pretty nice. At least you'd have the oldest of the oldies in your collection, eh?
Alien Wars Almost forgot to mention Dr. Stephen Hawking wanrts not to talk to aliens as that might be dangerous.
No, he doesn't mention Ciudad Juarez...
Before the chart, a little background: Once upon a time, a long while ago, I observed during my quest for 'truth' in economics, that the PowersThatBe, the talking heads on the teeve, and the other information sources that actively engage in the programming of humans not to think, had conveniently swept several trillions of dollars that disappeared in the Internet Bubble's bursting (since spring 2000) under the rug. Surely, it wasn't unnoticed by the thousands of people who called brokers and said "Where is my money?" "Gone, but hang in there as you're a long term investor!" was about all they heard back.
So one of our charts for Peoplenomics subscribers oughta be widely circulated - it shows that if you line up the peak of the Dow in January 2000 with the peak in early September of 1929, we're on a very very close replay track. Much closer than even the chart shows if you were to back out inflation, and put in the effects of 1929 deflation, but that'd be real work, and I'm sort of lazy if the truth be told.
No, it's not a perfect replay of 1929, but history doesn't repeat exactly, it only rhymes. So think of this as the rhymes and the crimes chart:
"George, that's only a coincidence!" your monkey-mind will protest.
Why sure it is...you bet. A 9½ year long coincidence...yessir....just a coincidence, I'm sure...
Write when you get rich,
George Ure, The People's Economist
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),
I have to assume the ultimate outcome might be nice, but it
could be a 'bumpy road' getting there.
.
They're a tad under $100 and do wind speed & direction,
rainfall, and temp/humidity all wireless. Peak wind gust
20' over the back yard on the ham radio tower was 15.2 MPH
overnight. Figure the wind, rainfall, and other data (like
chill factor) must be useful for something. Just
can't figure out what.
which is now in its 4th edition.
appear on the market and some buzz about the differentiation
of security between the original net and Internet 2.0/cloud
operations.
as we tend to - often - to see what priorities really are.
.
