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The Saturday Tout:

This being Saturday all the fresh brain squeezings are served up for subscribers to www.peoplenomics.com.  This weekend, we will get into counting our winnings on Wall St. for the week - the marketing doing close enough to what I was expecting this week that we made beer money, a bucket of fried chicken money, some very good champagne money, and even several very very nice dinners out to boot.  With enough left to pay taxes & tips on all that food.

 

On a more serious note, Sunday afternoon about 4 PM or so, I will be posting "The Diaspora Handbook, Part Two: Bug Out Plans".  As it turns out, there really are a few things more important than money in this world.  Love and planet-killing oil spills are two extremes that come to mind.

 

Anyway, if you don't have the $40 to spare for a full year of the additional writings, ya'll come back Monday for a little more free stuff here. 

 

Also, if you had any weird dreams in the past week, don't forget to share them over at the National Dream Center, www.nationaldreamcenter.com.  - Thanks...

 

 

Crash Window, Day Five

Those skeptical of my 'crash window' are welcome to remain skeptics.  However being on the short side of the market has been a nice spot to be this week and the Dow is down nearly 300 points for the week so far...that was until today's action.

 

Having sold some short-term put options on Thursday (one position gained 22.2% for the week, the other up only 14.6% for a two week turn) my prayer is that the market puts in a test down around 10,050 or maybe even down to 10,000 on the Dow today and then sees a several-hundred point rally on some nonsensical news late in the session today.

 

Not sure what could drive it...maybe a surprise to the upside when the University of Michigan releases its consumer sentiment reading.  Why if that had some signs of a more spendy consumer sector, that might reverse the short-term Bear decline on the street, which would then let me re-enter put options for what I expect will be more down side next week, perhaps to the 9,930 level.  Just hoping and no, this is not investment advice or swimming lessons.  On your own for both.  The futures were down a bit earlier, perhaps wondering about Boeing grounding 787's while a problem is sorted out, or maybe it's China's current zooming ahead before this weekend's G20 prayer meetings....speaking of....

 

Money, Storm Troopers, Terra Comments

As you probably know, the G20 finance types are all huddling this weekend up in Toronto.  Besides the obvious rights-crushing crap that regularly accompanies such events - over-zealous 'protectors' of the power elite demanding normal rights be suspended and such - we note that Terra may be expressing a bit of planetary disgust uninvited.

 

No, I'm not just referring to the Toronto-area quake on Wednesday, but also today there are thousands of people without power after a rare Ontario tornado.

 

Not like I'm the only guy to notice this co-inky-dink.  We pass out a green star for awareness of the Bigger Picture to David Ljunggren and Peter Cooney of Reuters for noticing, too.

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Wonder if they pat down the G20 reps for super glue to keep the global economy from imploding?

 

GDP Report: Still Alive...or....

Bureau of Economic Analysis out with another estimate of GDP this morning:

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 2.7 percent in the first quarter of 2010, (that is, from the fourth quarter to the first quarter), according to the "third" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter of 2009, real GDP increased 5.6 percent.

The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the "second" estimate issued last month. In the second estimate, the increase in real GDP was 3.0 percent

The increase in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), private inventory investment, exports, and nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by negative contributions from state and local government spending and residential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.

The deceleration in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected decelerations in private inventory investment and in exports, a downturn in residential fixed investment, a deceleration in nonresidential fixed investment, and a larger decrease in state and local government spending that were partly offset by an acceleration in PCE.

Motor vehicle output added 0.40 percentage point to the first-quarter change in real GDP after adding 0.45 percentage point to the fourth-quarter change. Final sales of computers added 0.09 percentage point to the first-quarter change in real GDP after adding 0.01 percentage point to the fourth-quarter change.

All of which would be just peach except for the BIG UGLY DEFLATION BEAR hiding in the closet.  Or, hiding in the Fed's latest money stock figures called the H6 report out on Thursday. 

 

Cynical Mr. Ure scrolls down to where it says M1 for May of 2009 and it's what?  $1.593 trillion.  Then he scrolls down a bit further and....lo and behold, this May it was $1.7053 trillion.

 

Putting on a flowing black cape of a refugee from academe, he pronounces his findings:  "Dividing this later by the former results in an M1 growth rate of 7.05% Year on Year.  Thus we may take the today's GDP report (not adjusted for currency) with several gains of sodium chloride and a couple of aspirin."

 

A Lehman-Sized Problem?

I think it was my friend Howard who mentioned that the way the spreads were working earlier this week (Libor to dollar kinds of things) it was almost like there was the barest whiff of a Big Player maybe being about to get into trouble. 

 

I don't think something like AnchorBank reportedly facing possible delisting because its stock price has fallen under a buck recently would be it.   Not that it's a trivial bank (73-branches plus two loan origination offices) and an enterprise value of nearly $450-million.

 

Nope, not likely big enough.  Maybe it's nothing more than noisy trading, but just a whiff means that in coming weeks we might see another Big Player in trouble if there's anything more than a scent in the wind for now.

 

Wild Colleen Watch

A couple of readers have sent in video of Gulf Coast resident Kindra Arnesan's moving talk on YouTube that was also on PBS t'other night.  If you haven't seen it, click over here with 16 minutes of boss-free time.  "Wild Colleen" candidate #1.

 

#2 candidate?

Hi George....Been keeping an eye out for the "wild colleen." Red-headed Julia Gillard, the new Aussie PM, was born in Wales (close enough to Irish?), and her surname originates from Normandy (northern France). It also means "hard desire." She has links to Labor and arose quite suddenly, being newly elected just yesterday. Wondering if she could be a temporal marker that bears watching. Also, Australia is a "new land" to the Brits and is close to Indonesia........

Zeus (the cat) who I consult on such matters (what's a black cat for, other than to be a jr. time monk consort, right?) who said no, the lady in Oz is part of that whole blue-blood regimented bow-to-the-queen kinda crap that doesn't seem to fit.  He opted for Arnesan or whatever comes along with curtain #3.

 

Overhauling Money

Seems to be the gist of the Financial Reform Bill that's been cobbled up. Being a skeptic, I will wait till I read the 2000-page document, and then wonder how anyone can vote on something like this without many weeks to read it and look up at the references.

 

But we certainly don't want the illusion of progress to be impeded by judiciously considering and reading, now, do we?

 

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Coping: Wires in the Woods Weekend

Tomorrow and Sunday, as you're out and about, you may notice an unusual number of ham radio hobbyists out in the woods with all manner of strange antennas up because this is Field Day weekend.

 

The  American Radio Relay League (which yep, members) officiates and the objective is to see how many ham radio contacts can be exchanged during the contest period.  Each time one ham station makes contact with another, basic information and pleasantries are exchanged.  Each contact is go for so many points, depending on the amount of power used, and location.

 

Operating from home is allowed, but a home installation doesn't get as many points as someone who's gone out, stung up solar panels and used half-full water bottles to launch a wire antenna 40-feet up into the trees.  Low power (called QRP, meaning 5 watts and less) and powered by battery is a Class A station.  Along about Class C you come to mobile stations, Class D is a home stations, and since I've got the solar system here I'll be running Class E which is home stations, emergency power. 

 

Neat thing about the contests is that it's a good time to dust off the Morse code key and bang out some code (although it's not required to get a ham license anymore).  Each CW contact is worth 2 points versus voice contacts which are one point each.  Same thing for digital modes...which includes things like slow-scan TV.

 

And, there are bonus points for 100% emergency power, and the list goes on.

 

You might easily ask "Why are these people doing this?"  Lotsa reasons; public service during hurricane relocation and major disasters is obviously one of the main ones.  The idea is that by encouraging ham radio types to have robust back-up communications handy, the whole community benefits.

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Ham radio's a misunderstood hobby by some.  There've been numerous court battlers waged where the interests of ham radio have been at stake, most recently a string of victories to stop a technical boner called Broadband over Power Lines (BPL).  Not that hams are against broadband, but the bulk of systems proposed would have created nightmare noise levels which would have not only wiped out the HF ham radio bands, but in addition the interference from such technology would serious impede (if not outright destroy) shortwave radio listening.

 

Other ham radio legal battles have involved things like ham antennas.  To me, there's nothing prettier than a 60-foot high wide-spaced 4-element beam pointed at Europe and a Morse key along with a glass of Italian vitamins and good band conditions. 

 

Certain Home Owners Associations (HOA's) and some local/county governments have disagreed.  By enacting unreasonable restrictions on ham radio, local government and HOA's managed to provoke the FCC to issue PRB-1 more than 20-years ago.  Its main point was that "PRB-1 states that local governments must reasonably accommodate amateur operations, but they may still zone for height, safety and aesthetics concerns."

 

A simple common-sense approach to antennas might be something like "It must fall on your property" or, if you live on a hillside and you have dreams of a 200-foot crank-up tower, it's probably not a good idea to put it right in front you your neighbor-up-the-hill's picture window of the whatever.

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For its minor visual impacts, ham radio provides a lot in return.  I remember running 'phone patch' traffic for hours with the neighbor (W7IMF, SK) during the Alaska Good Friday earthquake back in 1964.  A phone patch allows a ham radio operation 'out there' (in this case it was around Anchorage) to talk to a stateside/outside ham in Washington state, and be connected to the local telephone system via a devices called a 'phone patch'.

 

This let hundreds (if not thousands) of people in the quake-stricken area to talk with relatives and loved-ones and pass on personal information.  Moving 'health & welfare' traffic in an emergency setting is a cornerstone of the hobby....which brings us around to this weekend.

 

If there was one thing that I think would help increase the value of Field Day, it would be to put in a category for point-to-point phone patches.  Seems to me that if a ham can hook up someone on their local telephone line so they can talk to someone far away, that should deserve special recognition and encouragement as a contest objective. 

 

I'd suggest to the ARRL  (as a member, if I ever got around to it)  that a contact which hooks up someone on a phone-patch  at one end oughta be worth 10 or maybe even 20 points, while a phone patch involving phone patches at both ends of the conversation be ought to be worth 30-40 points each.  But that's just because maybe I'm an 'old timer' who keeps a complete 2 KW tube-type SSB setup alongside the higher performance solid state/digital equipment.

 

If your curious, the ARRL has a Field Day locator, where various radio clubs around the country are setting up operations over the weekend.  Besides an earful about the hobby, seeing equipment set up and in use in a simulated emergency setting, you wouldn't be the first to score a cup of coffee or a hotdog or beans.

 

There is nothing (except maybe a summer clam bake) that comes anywhere near the feelings that come up when sitting around a campfire, toasting marshmallows and comparing signal reports with someone at a different campfire on the other side of the country. 

 

Something about fire, smoke, radios, and stars that plays well down at the archetype level.  In a reflective moment, it occurs to me that despite all our worldly possessions, the only thing we take with us from this Life to whatever is next if anything) are the indelible memories.  The notion that....hey wait....was that the G3 calling again up about 2 KhZ?

 

Readers Watching Markets

Here's a dandy:

"George - Since we know there are no such things as coincidences, and we are anticipating a temporal marker in the next few days I offer these facts that align with what the Universe may have in store for us: (Perhaps on the 26th?)

1. A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole could reach Earth as early as June 26th. Credit: SDO/AIA

2. BIG LUNAR ECLIPSE: This Saturday morning, June 26th, there's going to be a lunar eclipse—and for many residents of the USA, it's going to be a big one. The eclipse will occur as the Moon is setting, causing the "Moon Illusion" to magnify the event to truly beautiful proportions (Spaceweather.com)

3. Comet McNaught: Tomorrow (26 June) the comet will sweep within 15.8 million miles of the sun and continue glowing until Monday.

To all of us inhabitants on this traveling sphere!

name withheld (Serving In Iraq) "

Right now, the one that's got the most of my attention isn't any of these, but rather the Bradley turn date in August - 10th or so.  If you're interested in other views, a good place to start might be the Foundation for the Study of Cycles.  Reason I suggest you consider them is that a recent TechSignal report laid out an interesting case for a continuation of the current decline till around July 12 and then a rally up to around the Bradley date in early August.

 

IF this is the way markets work out, declining to under 9.950 in the next week or three, and then rallying into the Bradley date, then it would make sense because the Bradley (while not perfect) often represents a secondary high turning point.  If that was the case, and if we get down even lower on the Dow (like 9,000 over the next two weeks) then I'd be a screaming bull from mid July to 10-days into August.  Then I'd load the boat short (again).

THIS IS NOT TRADING ADVICE - JUST MARKET MUSINGS!

Right now, that's my thinking...

 

"Touching" Trades

Remember our discussion earlier this week about using "boy energy" as a trading tool?  Depending what you think of it, consider this woo-woo or just a simple application of 'body knowledge' of events and circumstances that your conscious mind is so busy with that you can't filter the  body's hints from high levels of background noise...

 

Anyway, this is a kick-ass furtherance of that discussion topic:

"This is my first communication to you and since I don’t subscribe to your longer report I realize this may not get read. However, the subject line may catch your attention.

I am a retired Ph.D. clinical psychologist who developed some methods for working with Applied Kinesiology in the psychological realm and I wrote a book titled Psychological Kinesiology: Changing the Body's Beliefs ($49.95 at Amazon - GU)

I presently trade currencies, and of course, I use every bit of cultivated expertise at my disposal to stack the cards in my favor. Working with kinesiological muscle testing to enhance one’s trading or enhance anything in one’s life is considerably more complicated than what you might suspect. One gets more accurate results with the examinee supine and even better with the head tilted back. Then you often have to clear adaptations. When the body is exposed to an environment that is not healthy, it will first give weakened responses to testing, but if nothing changes it will shut down various systems and continue functioning and it will give a positive or strong response to testing. The toxic environment could be psychological as well. This fits in with what we know about exposure to obviously false information. Example, if we are bombarded with the propaganda that 19 Arabs with box cutters hijacked planes and flew them into buildings, the body will eventually distort itself and give a strong response upon testing.

After clearing general adaptations, we must clear adaptations regarding the goal to be achieved, i.e. to generate a certain amount of money, or to generate that money through trading. This is probably the most challenging step, but after this step is cleared, the process typically flows. You don’t have to repeatedly test for each trade.

A few years ago, I went for 10 weeks staying up all night and trading intra day. This is when the best action occurs for currencies. Out of 56 trades, 51 were profits and I increased the account by a factor of 25 times. At 10 weeks I was exhausted and took a few months off to get myself balanced out again. In recent months, I have been trading much more gently. In the past 3 months I have doubled the account with 13 profits out of 14 trades.

I have taught trading with a company that would set up the classes and fly me in to teach these 6 day courses. I taught at several locations in this country as well as Singapore, Toronto, London, and Dubai. The last one offered me a job to stay there and teach full time. However, I prefer small town and rural settings and places that are green, so I graciously declined their offer since what they have is a huge city in a desert.

I worked with the company for a year and a half. I didn’t teach kinesiology, just fundamental and technical analysis, but I have developed a lot of techniques that are quite robust. Even though I was working as a contract employee, the company wanted me to sign an agreement to the effect that they would own my intellectual property. I wished them well and parted ways. I enjoy teaching but I am in a position where I don’t require that income.

You and Cliff are doing great work.

Way cool, huh?  My bottom line here?  I will be trying out this method of trading and see how it does.  Wonder if there's any way to continuously optimize a group of experts which could holistically integrate all these non-blessed-by-established-academia approaches into a single integrated whole?

 

I for one would love to see a service which took the best of Astro, best of Cycles, best of Kinesiology, and best of Elliott and wrapped it up into a single decision-maker.  Kinda like wanting the Golden Goose, huh?

 

No EMP Goes Unpunished?

A very (repeat: very) well-informed source who is in a position to know such things passed on some thoughts about an EMP attack on America would signal and the American response that's already 'in the bag':

"First, an EMP attack against our nation is without question viewed as the first stage of an impending nuclear attack, whether from a nuclear high altitude burst (HAB) or an massive non-nuke EMP detonation. Russia and China are aware of this U.S. strategic stance. Once an EMP attack happens, determining with certainty 'how' it happened takes too much precious time, time not afforded national leaders intending to reciprocate with any measure of effectiveness.

Therefore, after an EMP attack, no further warning (radar or satellite) is required for 'national command authorities' to give appropriate retaliatory execution orders (nuke, conventional or both). Then, might as well pull out the burgers and weenies, crack a cold one, sit back and enjoy the fireworks.

But here's the rub -- if the EMP attack is done via a covertly militarized space satellite, determining precisely 'who' did the dirty deed and how to retaliate becomes problematic.

So my educated guess (based upon years of regional and global war gaming, regional history and associated trends) is that Israel will almost certainly strike first, and strike convincingly using high yield Earth penetrating conventional 'bunker busters' AND low yield Earth penetrating nukes. Using both provides the cover of plausibly deniability for the nukes, wherein a large conventional blast simultaneously occurring with small yield nuke masks the immediate detection of the nuke's radiation release.

Recall that low yield Earth penetrating nukes vent only extremely small amounts of atmospheric radiation. Masked by huge conventional bunker busters, any radiation eventually detected could, as you postulated some months ago, be fingered on the Iranians (i.e., coming from the nuke reactor area targeted in the attack).

Nations deciding to pony up with Israel must be ready for any and all possible consequences of such an attack, namely all of the horrific consequences that war ultimately brings to the Jane and Joe Sixpacks of the world.

As always, enjoy the column!"

Yeah, that was what I was getting at:  EMP burst over international waters, no obvious signs of 'who done it?'.  What an ugly policy question, eh? 

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A couple of readers have asked if I am going to write anything about EMP hardening of individual homes.  Frankly, not much point in it unless you have a generator or a big solar installation like ours.  The main failure mode will come down the wiring into your home and simply over voltage the power supply of your computer, television, or whatever. 

 

Protecting it only makes sense until you figure that most of the utility SCADA systems would be toast so the system for controlling the grid would likely go down.  Yes, you might be able to fix things on the home end, but the odds of power coming down the line to your house drops to somewhere around zero if EMP ever really happened.  Think horse-drawn toaster and you'll get a sense of it. 

 

Good solar installations include overvoltage protection with Schottky or ceradiodes and such, since when we have lightning go through our area, there's a lot of EMP just from lightning nearby.  Similar to the back-EMF problem when an alternator under load is suddenly disconnected - and lots of discussion of that in cruising sailboat forums (example here).

 

Send your comments to george@ure.net

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Reader Action Department:

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"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.

 

Yet Another A Gardening Pitch

No time like summer to do the work to get ready for bountiful harvests in the future, regardless of what the economy does.  My friend Gary Seman, who's been an avid 'make do' gardener for years has put together a 70-page ebook on survival gardening using things like old tires to make raised beds and it's really worth the $15 bucks, IMHO:

 

     

 

What makes his ebook so interesting is that it is all based on a few hand tools and he has this back-friendly "no tilling" approach that saves a whole bunch of effort...to get there, he's big on kill mulches and such, too.

 

Also not to be missed is the vertical hydroponics work of 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...

 

       

 

You may get sick of me saying "Learn to Garden!" so much, and I'm certainly no expert on the subject, but short of running out of water, which is why you want to live on a creek or river if you ever have the opportunity to make a choice, gardening and full stomach is extremely important.

 

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..."

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Last week's report is always here.

 

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Thursday June 24, 2010

Mass Layoffs Drop

Latest from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is just out...and Mr. Spreadsheet looks at it this way:

 

The Labor numbers seem to have stalled the decline in the market....at least for a few moments.  One reason?

"The number of mass layoff events in May decreased by 444 from the prior month, and the number of associated initial claims decreased by 65,081. In May, 266 mass layoff events were reported in the manufacturing sec- tor, seasonally adjusted, resulting in 22,577 initial claims. Both figures declined over the month to their lowest levels in program history. "

Arguably, there's a case to be made that because 14,118,379 people have been laid off since January of 2003 that there's no one left to fire in mass layoffs, but the market's grasping at anything in this crapstorm of bad news and spew in de Gulf.

 

War Arriving: Then What?

Not that it gets all the attention it deserves in corpgov media/ the MainStreamMedia, but we're up to where we can now refer to Iran as being 'at war alert' levels as the "US and Israeli concentrations" build in Azerbaijan.

 

What's key here...and this takes a little thinking to follow....is that the whole world could (unfortunately - literally)  'blow up' from this region come fall. 

 

On the splintering western side of Georgia which the US/West has been quick-to-back in South Ossetia, you have Russia trying to keep a lid on Georgia. down toward their nuke buddies in Tehran, who bought all that gear from them.

 

The apparent shift in focus now to Azerbaijan may be due to the recent deterioration of Israeli relations with Turkey.  There went plans for  the "...Planned Iran attack from Caucasus Base."

 

Since Georgia is such a key piece of Russia's buffer zone with militant Islam on its southern tier some reasonable speculation would be that in order to 'keep peace" (and whatever cash flow from drug/smuggling operations in the region) Russia would not take kindly to Israeli use of a Georgia airfield - something inconvenient now that relations with Turkey are faltering.

 

It's like watching a big chess game in slow-motion.  Israel doesn't have the manpower to militarily fight, occupy and conquer Iran - they're simply much too big: 545,000 active and 350,000 in ready reserves, versus Israel's IDF which has 176,500 active and 445,000 in ready reserves.

 

The wild card (to be played this fall?) might be a longer-term Russian expansion in the area to align Iran even more closely with Moscow, which along the way could be a pretext for Russia taking Georgia - and we're talking something much bigger than South Ossetia.  Another concept to ponder, what if Iran were (with Russian support) take Azerbaijan and Georgia in a deal with Russia...which could lead to the kind of global tipping point/nightmare in predictive linguistics for November 8-12.

 

The key thing to be pondering when you stare at a map of this part of the world is not whether or even when Israel will attack Iran's nuclear infrastructure.  Kind of a moot point since they are within a whisker of having nuclear weapons now.  A reader email on point:

"George, I wanted to send you a quick note about the Washington Post story you referenced today on the Iranian enrichment of uranium to “medical grade” (~20%). Apparently hoping that the sheeple will drink the Kool-Aid and go shopping, the article states that this “is far below the more than 90 percent required to build a nuclear weapon”. While this is technically true from a straight percentage perspective (they still have to enrich from 20% to 93%), it is complete B.S. from a nuclear physics perspective.

As a Ph.D. nuclear physicist, I can assure you that this is a most grave (though not unexpected) development. The enrichment of uranium is a non-linear process, which means successively higher grades of purity are easier to achieve than previous levels. Going from 20% to bomb grade 93% U-235 is dramatically easier than what they have already done, and in fact, from a time and effort perspective this milestone takes the Iranians approximately 97% of the way along the enrichment path towards a nuclear device. If all their centrifuges were to continue operating balls-out as they have been up to this point, they can have enough U-235 for a simple bomb within 30 days. Apparently this tipping point has not been lost on the Israelis, who are reported to be secretly massing bombers in Azerbaijan.

Batten down the hatches, July should be very interesting indeed."

No doubts on that one.  With a hot date in linguistics out of www.halfpasthuman.com point to financial change Monday/Tuesday-ish of next week, we have to start asking the really hard questions about the planned Israeli attack.  Not with an eye to just the event itself.  But, more importantly, the larger historical context: Will this be a larger modern analog to the Archduke Ferdinand assassination that tipped Europe into World War 1?

 

As I ponder this, my sense is that Russia will not sit idly by and let the US or Israel attack Tehran's interests without asserting their regional power.  If you have friends in the business of US "national technical means" you might keep a keyhole or two open to watch for Russian troop and equipment movements over summer anywhere south of Stavropol.  They might just clean up Chechnya insurgents, too, in a larger-scale Turkey/Iranian/Russian pinchers move that could squash US/Western/Israeli interests in Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.

 

Naturally, Russians being known as good chess players would not give any quarter to the West - which is why a preemptive EMP attack  on the West along in about November has drifted up near the top of my expectations list.  An EMP device exploded in international space (100 km, above the Kármán line) but nominally over international waters would disable perhaps 50- 85% of US electrical & computer  infrastructure and would contain the US desire to respond, at least conventionally.

 

Problem is, that the US likely would likely respond (in push the Big Button fashion) with all those naval assets we have in the region now, which gets me to thinking I should schedule an old-fashioned BBQ for Christmas.  May not be power if things were to stumble along in this direction after what the linguistics call "the Israeli mistake".  That wouldn't be taking out Iranian nukes, but the fuse to other events of a more Revelation scale.

 

We're In the Wrong Business

Thinking about making a killing becoming a gang leader or outsourcing the last 26 jobs in America to India?  Forgitaboutit:  Sounds by this report like there's more dough to be had by being part of the Afghan Warlord payoff system.

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Out: As expected, General McChrystal is out and General Patraeus is in as head of the US war efforts in Afghanistan. Yesterday's Obama/McChrystal meeting was short and to the point - 30 minutes to decide the General's out...but as Newsweek points out "Replacing McChrystal doesn't change anything."

 

Now that he's got some time on his hands, first round of golf is on me if General McChrystal makes it to this part of the East Texas outback. President Obama and Tiger Woods haven't taken me up on my 'let's go play some golf' offers yet, either.  Hope springs eternal among golfers.

 

Crash Window, Day Three

Let me see, here.  From last Friday when the Dow closed for the weekend at 10,450.64, we are now down only 152-point plus or minus a stick of gum.

 

One thing sure to weigh on the market today (which is fine, as a Bear) is the report from Deutsche Bank that the US financial conditions are now back at crisis levels.  Gee, gosh, golly, how about that?

 

Headlines like that are one reason why the Dow is headed for a lower open, at least in early futures trading.

 

Part of yesterday's action is being blamed on the weak housing data.
 

Cap On - Quakes On?

Note: Not to be confused with capon.  The oil catcher is back in place over the spew in the Gulf.

 

The haps in the Gulf are interesting, but I think the real story is that 5.5 earthquake up in Ontario that was felt in much of Ohio.

 

Just a wild-ass guess here, but just suppose for a minute that all this oil coming out of the Gulf is allowing the North American plate to slide down toward the Caribbean plate a bit.  You won't find any reputable geologist to speculate on this - yet - but if you think about it, the underground oil balloon is being deflated and who knows what will start moving around.

 

I'm going to file this with my theory that the Haiti quake was somehow responsible for the higher-than-expected pressures BP encountered.  Under "irresponsible speculations that might actually make sense" - a very phat file here.

 

Ure's Confusing Gold Outlook

A friend of mine (we'll just call him The King of Miami) called yesterday a little confused over my personal expectation for gold in coming months.  Good discussion point!

 

A couple of things have been weighing on gold lately, besides what some argue to be blatant manipulation in the futures markets.  For one, there's end of month pressures.  For another, as China's Xinhua headlines it "Gold tumbles on bleak new home sales report".

 

I explained that where it gets confusing in a deflationary environment is that you can have gold go down in price, yet up in purchasing power.

 

So, while Robin Landry and others who think gold will head under $1,000 before going to $3,000 may be right, the purchasing power of gold seems destined to go up.

 

Consider a $500,000 house. Right now ($1,220) that would take about 409 ounces of gold to buy.

 

suppose now, that the home falls over the next year or two to $200,000 (losing 60% more of its 'price' in nominal dollars as the double dip arrives and banks foreclose in order to resell).  Also suppose that Gold drops to $900 an ounce - a reasonable expectation in that kind of deflation.

 

See what happened to gold's purchasing power?  The price of gold went down yet its purchasing power went up, such that it would, under these new conditions cost only about 222 ounces of gold.  About half as much gold to buy the same house.

 

While this makes a decent case to buy nothing but gold, there's also the matter of whether it would be accepted in trade, or if government might try to repo it at some screwy level - you know, for example that the gold in Fort Knox is only valued at $42-something an ounce?  What if gold was confiscated again?  Tough one, that.

 

Thus, until there really is a national resolve to spend money to actually create jobs rather than feather the beds of special interests in Washington,  we're keeping part of our dough in a TreasuryDirect account because  Whereas it would take $500 K now to buy a house, the decline to $200K in the future would also mean the dollars saved would gain purchasing power.

 

Except that gold would gain 47.7% in purchasing power while cash would gain 60%.  Thus my one foot in each camp approach.  This is NOT investment advice (or medical advice either, come to think of it...).  Just how we plan to cure ourselves of needing to work at some point in the future, hopefully on this side of the lawn.

 

Clear as a drilling lease?

 

Thunder Storming

We just had a dandy little thunderstorm come through this part of the East Texas outback this morning giving us 0.87 inch of  rain in the digital flood victim.  Doesn't seem to be much on the NOAA outlook page for this to build as it goes northeast from here, but things chance so a click here once in a while might be worthwhile.

 

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Coping: National "Correct George" Day

No shortages of critics and second-guessers in the world, at least this part of the world.  Here's an example from the overflowing inbox:

George - I have held back for Thursday - correct George day - to let you know your thesis regarding Jersey was all wet.  You wrote:

 

Protecting the Elites

Say, I don't suppose you're dumb enough to think that the elites can't buy public opinion, are you?  No?  Didn't think so.  But, people of New Jersey may be as a N.J. Millionaire Tax Plan has failed.

 

Now watch closely here:  This was done by the republicrats not the democons.  This is what happen when you have a county with a two-party corporate-paid system of government.  The reason we need third party candidates is to push the two biggies away from the trough for a while.  Or, to put it another way:  Those who created the problems of today ain't likely to fix 'em...

 

This was a left over jab from the Corzine administration George - letting the next Governor, incoming Chris Christie, deal with the tax.

 

Christie campaigned on and has remained true to a no tax increase pledge.  I believe they shaved $11B off a $39B budget through, who'd a thunk it, spending cuts!

 

Next they are going for a state constitutional amendment to limit property tax increases to 2.5% annually (so only the voters could increase their prop taxes in future).

 

Next?  Public pension entitlements.

 

Chris Christie is on the crest of the wave irt new thinking and would make a fine President (for either / any party).  Sadly, he wants to remain Governor.

Thank you...knowledgeable input is always appreciated. 

 

Other readers are not so police.  One tried to shame me for reading the books by Dr. Hawkins I mentioned the other day telling me "That's eight-year old sh*t..."  But when a reader sends a note like that without a better substitute or alternative it ends up in the scrap heap/recycling bin.

 

Million Dollar Idea Department

As any long-term reader of this site knows, periodically I give away million dollar ideas...and today I've got a dandy.  It's really simple, too. 

 

Adjustable appliance beep levels.

 

This struck me this morning while I was sitting in the king's throne room (ahem...) and I heard how damn loud the beep on the microwave was.  Ear-shattering.  That as the stove's timer make me crazy. Elaine, too.

 

When we're both cooking in the kitchen (prepping food is a team sport, best played with red wine and chit-chat) the timers going off on either appliance is incredibly rude.  I just want a very soft (barely audible) chime...not that 115 decibel 28¢ surface-mount part that sounds like someone blowing a whistle in your ear.

 

We've got fairly recent appliances - and none of them seemed to come with this simple customer-friendly concept built in.  You go pay $500-$1,000 for a stove and how tough would it be to put an adjustable noisemaker on it?

 

About here, I lapse into my 'marketing guy' mentality - "It's just a few lines of code, isn't it?"  That usually gets me run out of software developer offices with programmers yelling and blood in their eyes.
 

So there you have it...a simple, useful, easy to implement idea.  Just watch the code geeks along the way.  If it's not their idea....well, you know....

 

Reader's Writes

Here's a good one:

Hello, George- Do enjoy reading your website. Found it interesting that some people are wondering IF this nation has stepped upon the slippery slope of totalitarianism. Must truly be asleep at the wheel, if anyone actually needs to ask this question they are most definitely in need of removing their blinders. What is more important is WHY would this nation be rushing into the arms of totalitarianism.

 

The short answer is that our nation has actually invented a new sect of fascism for itself. This sect is somewhat different from previous fascist states in that it finds it useful to pander to the traditions of a dead republic, yet as a fascist enterprise, it cannot help but gobble up every impediment to absolute power. The long answer is that our ruling oilogarchy long ago chose war to fuel the economy, directly and indirectly.

 

The racket of war has been praised by every president since Jackson, and war in the dead republic is all about the enrichment of well connected corporate "contractors". The oilogarchy chose war to control the social order. It chose war to enrich u.s. corporations at the expense of invaded and decimated lands. Only one little problem with the total war mentality of the dead republic, despite all the hubris, the dead republic cannot win any more wars. In fact, similar to most military first, aggressive fascist states, the way to the fall is through military defeat.

 

Thus, the Iraq debacle, where the occupational forces must hold up in their fort to be safe. Thus Afghanistan, where indigenous, poorly armed and trained warriors are defeating the shining army, one day at a time. The greatest ruse of the dead republic is the false claim of rule by the people, for the people. In our fascist state, it is the corporation which stands supreme, and government which is the corporate boy.

 

Obama does not dare remove BP from their leadership role in murdering our oceans, he must be a good little messenger for the giant multinationals, and look, indeed he is. The chapter we are facing now certainly appears to be summarized by the old proverb-what comes around goes around.

 

Going now on 200 years of devastating nations and taking their wealth, is it any real surprise that the PTB would finally focus their jaded eye on the nation that hosted the slaughter? Of course it is inevitable that the cannibals who are slaughtering our nation must lean toward totalitarianism. The propaganda network can only hold the masses in check for so long once the beer, food, and shelter disappears into the pockets of the fascists.

 

Well, we've seen the war on Communism, the war on poverty, the war on drugs, and the war on terror-which by the way is absurd-Terror is a tactic, not a person, place, or thing. It is a functional impossibility to wage war on a tactic. Perhaps the latest unleashed by our fascist elite should be called the war on U.S.

Well said.  Freedom isn't free anymore.  I wonder if any of the Framers would approve of how far government intrusion & control have gone?  One of the joys of East Texas is that out here on farm-sized property, a fellow (or fellettee) can do pretty much as they please.  In more Nannyish states, there's a Department of Everything, such that wells, septic systems, wiring, framing, plumbing and even surface water runoff has whole bureaucracies built around them.

 

Thursday at the WuJo

Here's an interesting report from a 'shadow people' watcher:

I had written to you before about shadow people running around my house for a day…. in front of my kids…. Anyways I had an interesting thing happen to me a couple days ago.

I was out by our greenhouse (hoop house actually), kids running about as usual, when I caught an interesting shadow/ movement out of the corner of my and I turned to look and see what it was. What I saw can be best described as a “reality hole punch”. I saw a “hole” in the air, Imagine a circular picture frame suspended in the air about 4 to 5 feet off the ground. In the hole was a sphere/ oval with elongated triangular points on top and bottom. These points had some sort of mechanical bracing structure to them. The shape was in 3D but far off inside the hole. As the hole moved from right to left I could see in the background it passed by a moon (that’s what it looked like) with a back drop of distant stars. So not only did the shape move within the hole, but the hole itself moved about in its distance from me, then I lost it. I did not get a feeling of lost time or any other sensation. My kids were still running around, but they sounded far away from me. The experience lasted, maybe, 10 seconds.

Damn time space bubbles!

This may be the backyard version of 'hole punch clouds' recently explained in a Wired article here.

 

Or, it may be the kind of thing that happens in certain kivas of Southwest US native peoples - next time one pops, go over to it and call out something in Anasazi and see if you hear anything back, wouldja?  I think that's what Louis L'Amour would want...ask about Mike Raglan's dog, too...

 

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Wednesday June 23, 2010

Fed Decision

Hold & Hope

Fed decision on rates is out and it hints at raising to come:

For immediate release

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in April suggests that the economic recovery is proceeding and that the labor market is improving gradually. Household spending is increasing but remains constrained by high unemployment, modest income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Business spending on equipment and software has risen significantly; however, investment in nonresidential structures continues to be weak and employers remain reluctant to add to payrolls. Housing starts remain at a depressed level. Financial conditions have become less supportive of economic growth on balance, largely reflecting developments abroad. Bank lending has continued to contract in recent months. Nonetheless, the Committee anticipates a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization in a context of price stability, although the pace of economic recovery is likely to be moderate for a time.

Prices of energy and other commodities have declined somewhat in recent months, and underlying inflation has trended lower. With substantial resource slack continuing to restrain cost pressures and longer-term inflation expectations stable, inflation is likely to be subdued for some time.

The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.

The Committee will continue to monitor the economic outlook and financial developments and will employ its policy tools as necessary to promote economic recovery and price stability.

Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman; James Bullard; Elizabeth A. Duke; Donald L. Kohn; Sandra Pianalto; Eric S. Rosengren; Daniel K. Tarullo; and Kevin M. Warsh. Voting against the policy action was Thomas M. Hoenig, who believed that continuing to express the expectation of exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period was no longer warranted because it could lead to a build-up of future imbalances and increase risks to longer-run macroeconomic and financial stability, while limiting the Committee’s flexibility to begin raising rates modestly.

Hoenig's remark (again) was particularly significant in that it shows the board is not unanimous in its expectation that gradual/eventually will work.  That even one board member could be thinking about inflation in a time of jobless recovery should (and may) scare hell out of markets.  But in this market, who knows, maybe it will be party hats and whistles?

 

I put this in the context of 'anything we do from here is bound to be wrong..."

 

Bot Hit: McChrystal  & The Clash

Today's the BIG meeting between president Obama and general McChrystal who was caught out in a Rolling Stone interview in which (as some read it) he was disrespectful of president Obama's handling of the war/mess/call-it-what-you-will in Afghanistan. Or, he was telling it 'like it is' - depending on your predisposition on such matters.

 

Since the time I had allocated for thinking about this was from 04:30 to 04:35 hrs local time, & and I was waiting for the blood pressure hit from the coffee, I flipped over to YouTube looking for musical accompaniment to this part of the rickety time machine libretto. 

 

The Clash's video "Should I stay or Should I Go?" video seemed to fit...perhaps because it was on their "Combat Rock" CD...but then again, maybe not.

 

For the dozens of people who caught it, yes, this is what we alluded to in the "Shape of Things to Come" report of March 22, 2010 (page 36) in which this expectation set was laid out:

"The [panic (visible) in politicians) will escalate over Summer and Fall, and will include some [faux pas (mal mots/bad words)] on the part of a [ranking general] here in the USofA.  This will be a very very very important temporal market for the aware observer.  Following this [visible] marker of [bad words]. significant [displacements[ can be expected to begin occurring for large parts of the [populace/usofa] due to several manifesting circumstances.  If there was ever a need for a 'bug out bag', the days following this temporal marker will be it."

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While second-guessing presidents is a kind of national pastime, I think the best outcome would be for the general to go in with a "You want some of this?" attitude and lay it out hard & real.  Might do some good. 

 

Oh well, 04:35 now, back to videos...Hmmm... hot water, generally, GOOD bag time...maybe Faces Going Places (Jose Vanders) might fit in a few days to few weeks, huh? 
 

China Floods : Three Gorges Worries?

Not the second-biggest story in the USA, but keep an eye on this one:  "Nearly 200 dead in China flooding, government says".  We could look at this as a leading part of the huge/global Diaspora about to visit humans, since as the Insurance Journal picks up, "...Millions homeless in China floods..." 

 

While yep, millions is a bunch of people, it's nothing compared with where world will be late this year, but we shouldn't let out too much into the wild about the molten pools of glass in the Middle East.  I figure if you really wanted to get a grip on humankind's possible future, you'd read a SOTTC report first-hand.

 

Still, the flooding is a nice temporal fit and that leaves only the Middle East to flare up in the next week or two (going hot) before we get to the flash/blinding lights point of things.

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By the way, I did check the date-timing on that 'prophesy' board post about Three Gorges busting 333 days after Walter Cronkite's death. Using Excel's date/math'er, it F9's to June 15th.  Missed.....

 

One thing I've learned from nearly a decade of serious 'futuring' with the predictive linguistics project is that trying to nail precise dates is the hardest part of the forecasting.  No doubt the prediction on Three Gorges was wrong on the precise date, but if we were to get a mega-quake in the region later on this summer and Three Gorges, it would come as no surprise.

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One last thought on bot predictions and such, did you catch the piece on how massive dams (3G for example) are messing with global sea level increases which otherwise might be quite apparent by now?

 

Waiting for War

With the US deploying all kinds of naval power to the international waters near Iran (being sold as coincidental in the more conventional media), another item which I figure as a 'leading indicator' of war to come this year is the Israeli launch of a new satellite in the past day.

 

When you add up all the factors (naval deployments, Saudi green light, new eyes in the skies and such) it doesn't add up to a love-in.

 

And just to up the ante even more, we read how Israeli settlers are threatening to evict East Jerusalem Palestinians. So much for love thy neighbor...make you wonder how that kind of thinking ever existed, doesn't it?

 

Quick!  Run up those headlines about Iran enriching 17 kgs of medical-grade uranium! 

 

"Lemme hear you brothers & sisters: Put your hand on the missile buttons and say it!  "War....war....war....war...."  Good is good, war is gentle, war is good for the economy....  Surely you can believe all this?

 

Obama/Salazar vs. the Oil Industry

So far the administration has not had to deal too much opposition to its policies, especially after the Medicare payment fix, and so forth.  But things are about to get really interesting as they face the oil industry over the "moratorium' on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.  In a decision out Tuesday afternoon (which trimmed the market also 150-points) a federal judge stopped the drilling ban.

 

The judge was pretty direct in his decision, implying the federal government appeared to mislead the public.  The AP meantime has due out that the judge in the case has held some investments in the oil industry, but at less than $15K in Transocean, to make an issue of this is (not to be too crass here) pointing out budget dust.

 

On the other hand, the energy secretary is likely to come out with a new ban very shortly.  But underlying all this is a continuation of a troubling trend:  How much executive fiat is a president to be allowed in areas of banker bailing, auto czar'ing, and now contract ripping? 

 

Seems to me that in all of these things is the balance of the public concern (on such matters are oil in Florida's front yard) versus the rule of law under which the oil companies bought offshore leases and deployed millions in exploration equipment.

 

Oughta be a civics class project in every high school in America to argue both sides of this...since in real-life that's what lawyers on the oil industry side and government are in the process of doing in prime time.

 

Wonder who's really got the deeper pockets to buy lawyers?

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What's really nuts (at least at first blush but this may change with more coffee) is reading the reports out of WDSU that the federal government has just barred further sand berm dredging to keep the oil out of sensitive areas.  Go figure.  Does the right hand even know the left hand back there in Washington?

 

Whale Killers Delight

You saw where talks to cut whaling by Norway, Iceland, and Japan have fallen apart?  This is no different, as I figure it, than leaving the management of buffalo herds in the wild west in the hands of hunters, or for that matter, the management of wild elephant herds to ivory poachers.

 

But since we're killing the Gulf, our 'moral standing' may be a bit weak on anything 'save the planet-ish' for a while...juss sayin'  Hey!  Wanna buy a 9 MPG SUV?

 

Afternoon Fedlines

Yes, as soon as it comes out, I will get the Federal Reserve rate (non) decision posted.  Key is how long they hint low rates will be around.  New home sales meantime will be out shortly  (like in a few minutes) here.  check the dates and see that it's for release today, not the May 26 report which was up earlier.

 

Global Banking

You see where JPM is moving more emphasis on oversea operations?  Gee, lemme see here: interest rates in US flatlined, no growth in sight, pressure to grow their business...no moon colonies yet...so yeah, what's a profit-driven bank to do?

 

Bankrupt Cities Department

Maywood, California, population just under 30k, is planning to lay off city workers.  Not talking a few folks in the parks department - we're talking dismantling their police department, bye-bye mayor, the whole shebang.  LA County will take up the slack and bill for services, but think of the precedent this sets:  A whole city has just been outsourced!

 

Barely Containing Ourselves

We note that Maersk and others (Mohawk/Global Logistics) are talking about the shortage of ocean containers.  to think: Just a year ago we were looking at buying one of those large containers (40') to put on the property as a storage unit for goat feed and what-have-you.  Didn't do it, but a couple of folks around here did and are well satisfied with 'em.

 

Now I wonder if people will be able to make a buck selling 'em back?

 

Shake & Bake

Talk about the nightmare "plane ride from hell"...try this one on.

 

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Coping:  Trading & the Science of Mind Reading

Time to throw some woo woo into trading.  Nothing like a little odd-science to spicy up an otherwise boring day of trading.  All starts with an ABC piece revealing that "Now scientists can read your mind better than you can" brings up some interesting thoughts.  Does my brain know something about a particular trade that my mind doesn't? 

 

We assume here that you know the brain is like the computer hardware platform and that you have at least a Pentium 1 equivalent to read without drooling.  Mind on the other hand is very much like the operating system and various programs. Since I spent an hour & a half with Microsoft on tech support yesterday, the analogy fits because most problems in complex computing (or complex thinking) turn out to be mind, or software in our analogy, related.

 

And, just like W7 seems to run slower some days, so too our mind has its good days and bad...

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This gets into an area of mind/body research which has been floating around lunch and dinnertime conversations here at the ranch for several days.  What's been driving it is Elaine's currently reading Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior by Dr. David Hawkins.

 

One of the things he touches on is the whole matter which might be described as 'body knows, even if conscious mind does not'.  And its of the same stripe as the UCLA research.  Apparently the body knows things down at the preconscious level which aren't able to travel into consciousness.

 

And example of how this all works?  Sure.  My life long friend, the retired major who works on subtle-energy fields turned us on to this technique, but interesting to see Dr. Hawkins also is aware of it.  It takes two people, but if you want to have some really quick insights into how your brain works and how much (unconscious Sssshhh!) knowledge your body has, try this little exercise.

 

Begin by clearing your mind and relaxing while standing up.

 

Next, put your arms straight out level from your shoulders.

 

Now have your helper in this experiment press down with two fingers on your right wrist...saying "Resist!" just before pressing down.

 

Have them note how much resistance you were able to muster up.

 

Now, either hold a clear mental thought about something you want to answer two (Hawkins' book goes into a lot of important detail about how to form this up).  Or, if you're doing food allergy testing - for example, with your other hand, hold the item being tests about two inches below your navel, or above at the solar plexus.

 

With either your properly formed question in mind, or with your test food held hold your arm out and have your helper say "Resist!" and again press down with two fingers on your outstretched arm.

 

When you run across something that is really bad for you, the amount of resistance you're able to offer falls dramatically.  And, if you don't know what foods are really good/bad for you, it's a simple way to go through a 'body knows' exercise and figure out your questions.

 

As I've gotten older, for example, I know (from testing) that my body has grown to dislike milk products.  What I do with the information is up to me:  I can either not eat milk products, or I can whip up a batch of Kefir and get my body back to where it should be processing those proteins.  A copy of Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods may give you some additional insights on managing internal flora, fauna, and whatevers, too.

 

You could (and I'm thinking about how to do this) maybe apply this as a new form of day trading regimen.  Since we are positioned aggressively for a major downside move, our little portfolio is only up 10.4% YTD.  Better than a stick in the eye, but I wonder "Gee, could I use this same "body knowing" as a trading tool?"

 

I might give it a whirl.  If you try it, let us know your results.

 

I guess I should add to my usual "This is not trading advice...just what we're doing in our personal account" an additional medical disclaimer: "See your doctor of healthcare practitioner before doing this kind of exercise...member FDIC, operators are standing by, this is a free call...What are you waiting for?"

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Obviously, the drawback to this kind of trading regimen would that it involves two people - the trader and the assistant.

 

Personally, I'm drawn to less human-intensive approaches and in particular my consigliore and I are working on figuring out if some Tesla field experiments could be adapted to trading, and if I can get the results out of the lab I expect, then we'd be able to patent an interesting (and quite literally) 'black box' answer to the trader's prayers for a plug & play moneymaker.

 

For now, I'm going to try using Elaine as my assistant over the next half-dozen trades and see how it goes.  If I report (a month or two out) that I am suddenly looking for a Cessna Citation jet instead of the more modest C-172 or Mooney, that'll be why.  Especially if Elaine gets a newer Lexus.

 

Moving On?  We'll See...

We've decided to put our ranch/survival platform up for sale.  Price is $499,000 firm and you can read the basic brochure here.  Yes, that's more than the basic cost of the land & buildings alone, but we decided the real value of the ranch is that it's turn-key:  House, buildings, goats, tractor, shop, tools, solar power, and even the pickup truck to haul things around in, library stays, most computer infrastructure (a couple of servers & the laptops go with us along with our clothes) but that's about it.

 

Not sure if anyone will be interested, but the drive to be back with our kids in the Pacific Northwest is there, so if someone in the Gulf is looking for a backup plan, here's on that's turn-key.  Whether it happens or not?  Well, that's up to Universe, I suppose...  Most houses don't come with a year of tech support, LOL.

 

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Tuesday June 22, 2010

Crash Window, Day Two

(More in this morning's Coping section):  The heads are out there...like CNBC's headline wondering "Another 'Flash Crash' coming?  Some market pros think so..." 

 

Looking at the foreign markets overnight, we saw most of Asia was down, and maybe in response to that, Japan is out with some serious happy-talk: promising a higher growth rate (no mention of the Easter Bunny) and Europe, unphased by the hype is also down a percent or more for the most part.

 

Against this background, we note that the mortgage centerpiece of helping regular civilians make it through the financial collapse has been distinctly less successful than, oh, say the TARP program has been for the bankster class.

 

A reader today wonders whether the next move will be government invading food wholesalers to collectivize food distribution; seems Hugo Chavez is doing just this in Venezuela, which we've taken to calling "The Other Worker's Paradise".  The Chinese prison labor being the first...

 

To build the mental framework of the times: the rich are still getting rich, the poor getting poorer, and the drumbeat to march to war is looking more and more like a release event around July 11th when, oh look, the Iran aid ships are due off Gaza.

 

We'll be passing out life jackets on Thursday but more on that a ways on...

 

Sounds Familiar...

Wasn't it was just yesterday I was mentioning how it's troubling that the Obama administration is taking private dough from a public company and putting it into a fund to pay claims?  I'd recall that one from history/civics, but a lot has changed since....er...let's not go there.

 

BUT it turns out I am not the only one with such thoughts.  A thoughtful Thomas Sowell piece "Is U.S. Now on Slippery Slope to Tyranny?" wonders:

"Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere."

Sowell's recall of Lenin's words "useful idiots" sure has the ring of truth to it here lately just as a general context setter...

 

Warring, Badly

Not only do we have a top general from the Afghanistan conflict in hot water for calling it like he saw it in comments to Rolling Stone, but we also see (as suspected) that US funds are being used to pay Afghan warlords, who in turn run the smack poppy biz...oh this is such a clusterfrack...

 

Boys and Their Toys

Uh...lemme see: We're greasing the Gulf and taxes are going through the roof (sooner than later) to pay for Healthcare and whatever else and what do we get served as headlines?  Here's one to ponder:  "White House mocks BP CEO's yacht race, depends Obama golf".

 

Yesterday's lead headline deserves rereading about here "We are soooo screwed..."

 

But on the cheerful side: The chance of that tropical depression in the central Caribbean turning into a hurricane is only 50%.  See?  Told you I was an optimist.  Odds seem to be that three could hit spill waters.

 

Gulf Bank Exposure

The comments by IberiaBank (Lafayette, LA) an SEC 8K filing may be the first of many to come.  It says in part:

"Three industries that face the greatest perceived impact of this event are fishing and seafood, seasonal beach tourist businesses, and the energy sector in the Gulf of Mexico. The Company’s total loan portfolio of $5.7 billion at March 31, 2010 is geographically diverse with limited industry concentrations, particularly as related to those three industries.

First, the Company’s exposure to the fishing and seafood industries (NAICS codes 1125, 114, and 3117) was less than $10,000 at May 31, 2010.

Second, the Company has essentially no credit exposure to seasonal beach tourist businesses. The Company has no branches or lending activity in the Panhandle of Florida or on the Alabama coast. The Company has 36 commercial bank branches and two mortgage loan offices in southwestern, southeastern, and northeastern Florida. In aggregate, approximately 26% of the Company’s total loan portfolio at March 31, 2010 was covered under FDIC loss share protection. Of the Company’s Florida loans outstanding, nearly all were covered under these FDIC agreements for losses incurred over the next five years for commercial loans and 10 years for residential loans. The Company believes the FDIC loss share agreements and the substantial purchase discounts on those loans provide comprehensive loss protection.

Third, energy and energy transportation-related credits (NAICS codes 211, 33313, 3366, 3369, 4247, 4831, 4832, and 4883) totaled approximately $183 million, or 3% of total loans, at May 31, 2010 (aggregate loan commitments totaled $284 million in this portfolio.) The Company believes some of these clients may have varying degrees of impact, positive or negative, to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and associated clean-up activities. Based on a preliminary review of these energy-related businesses, the Company currently estimates clients with a direct impact had aggregate loan balances of approximately $67 million (1% of total loans), those with an indirect impact totaled approximately $17 million (less than 1% of total loans), and those clients with no perceived impact totaled approximately $99 million.

I'm really impressed with the management of IberiaBank for putting it out in an 8K filing.  What will be interesting is how long it will take other institutions (with presumably large exposures, too) to come around to discussing possible impacts.

 

Remember:  I've contended from the get-go that the rolling impact of the spill on property values of all kinds, including commercial and residential mortgages, will be the real monster-in-the-bushes to be wary of.  Dead sea birds being sad and all, but dead pension fund assets through Gulf related collectivized debt?  Yee gads!

 

Rats & Ships

No surprise than Rahm Emanuel's going, but now the WH budget boss is planning to exit.  Wanna bet before Nov. 8 or so?

 

Say, maybe he'll go on to a great writing career, since the Federal Budget is so much fine fiction at times...

 

Protecting the Elites

Say, I don't suppose you're dumb enough to think that the elites can't buy public opinion, are you?  No?  Didn't think so.  But, people of New Jersey may be as a N.J. Millionaire Tax Plan has failed.

 

Now watch closely here:  This was done by the republicrats not the democons.  This is what happen when you have a county with a two-party corporate-paid system of government.  The reason we need third party candidates is to push the two biggies away from the trough for a while.  Or, to put it another way:  Those who created the problems of today ain't likely to fix 'em...

 

Stop - for Revenue

California is looking at digital license plates which could spray your eyes with ads from the car in front of you at traffic lights.

 

I can hardly wait for some Madison Ave/Madmen type to come up with free (or discounted) navigation systems if you'll just watch an ad every once in a while when driving.  Wanna bet it's not already in the works somewhere?

 

I remember trying to patent putting ads over urinals and such in the early 1970's - was gonna call the company Pisseur Persuasion Principles.   Point being not that I was (am?) an idiot, but rather than I once in a while see things coming that show up...  Nav ads gotta be coming....

 

SupCo Green Light for GM

You see where the (very, very corp friendly) US Supreme Court has rules that Monsanto can sell GM seeds before safety testing is completed.

 

So much for bastion of protecting the people...make me wonder how much does the GM food lobby spend, anyway?

 

Prison Boast, Or More?

NY Post has a story that Bernie Madoff salted $9 billion away  - or so he boated to a fellow inmate.  Would that surprise anyone? Hell no...

 

Google "Woes"

States are banding together to look at what Google may have 'sniffed' when doing their drive-arounds to map...well...whatever they mapped and snapped.

 

What's more, Googsters may have have botched French privacy laws, too, by snapping pix without permissions..  Key an eye on the searches for "Google woes".

 

Or, you could see where Apple is getting dinged for sharing iPhone users precise locations...don't know if they're doing it in France, but if you send tickets, we'll go check.

 

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Coping: With Investor Ego

A coupler of readers wrote about an hour into the Monday trading session to ask "Are you still in those short positions, or did you sell?"

 

No, I informed one, I'm still in them because this is one of those cases where I think "George is right and the market is wrong."  I stayed in and at first blush the overnights tend to support that decision, but a deal is never done until the positions closed and funds delivered.  Then we'd have something really big to talk about...but not yet.

 

Meantime, though, the hardest parts of investing are:

 

1.  Dispassionately looking at the Long Term Picture:  Before I make any kind of trade I look at what the larger trends might hold in the way of hints.  Righty now, if you look at a five-year chart of the Dow, for example, you'll see there is an undeniable peak in the late summer of 2007.  Then we have move one (or A depending on how you use Elliott) down to March of 2009 where we touched that way scary 6,727.  From there, the Dow has climbed back up to over 11,200.  But here recently, the little wave 3  (or C) down has started with a small 'a' (or i) which was our early May lows, and now we have completed the small 'b' (or ii) corrective bounce and we seem - to my way of looking (which is NOT investment advice!) like we're now going down for 'c' (or iii) which will be from 8,650 down to as low as 8,300.

 

This decision is always made before figuring out what to play on the short side.  Obviously, if you think playing the short side of markets is the province of doom & gloomers, you're welcome to take that stance, but remember bear money spends the same as bull money.

 

2.  Figures which groups are vulnerable.  This is easily at phi/pi/ and pie: Since there are heads about hundreds of 'troubled banks' out there and since more than 90 banks missed TARP payments for last month, a boy surgeon (or is that a brain genius --- I forget...anyway) I'm just wild guessing here that banks and financials are gonna get whacked.  But again, what I'm doing, not investment advice, seek counseling.

 

3.  Invest When you Know you're right.  This is a hard one and it's here where the lessons come at the expense incurred for getting things wrong.

 

Stocks, bonds, derivatives, commodities - all go up and all go down, but never at the same time. Without going into a long discussion of useful tools like the MACD, the 2-standard deviation Bollinger Bands, or the relative strength indicator (RSI) the simplest of all numbers to use is On Balance Volume.

 

Take yesterday's volume numbers:  the up volume was lower than the down volume.  That means more downers than uppers - an indication of tone in the market.  At the risk of sounding too woo-woo about it, just remember that major peaks and turning points are often marked by high volume.  A ,rally on declining volume just screams "Come place a bear bet on something going down because we got downers over here".

 

4.  The Trend is your Friend.  Learning to let your winners ride - and take a little money off the table along the way is one of the hardest things I've (slowly) been learning to do.  Howard Hill's got the great mindset:  Whenever possible, play with House Money.  To get there he will sometimes use vertical call spreads, which works great in some markets, or going the other way, vertical put spreads.

 

But even without doing anything more aggressive than buying some close-in put options, or buying one of the bear ETF's, the gains that may materialize could dwarf anything you've ever done if you get the timing right. 

 

It's hard not to blow out of a trade, but whenever I make a trade, I have developed one hard & fast rule:

 

4.  Bow out when a trade is 10% upside down.  This is the one that tends to hold losses in the 10% -15% range.  If you just invest with a dart board and follow the 'let winners ride' and blow out the 10% losers, you'll probably do a lot better than most.

 

Just some things to think about in coming weeks.

 

Worried Readers

Think there's enough going on that's out of control that vaping up[ before work crosses your mind lately?  Here's another 'reader on the edge" who writes:

"Dunno if the return address came up correctly, but I'm the guy that had the "stress wave" theory about the San Andreas. You may fine this thought exercise to be useful.. or not. I can't make that determination.

With regards to the BP oil spill, I'm sure that you have heard the "worst case" scenario, you know, where the cracks in the casing allow erosion of the supporting sediment and the 250 ton LMRP falls over, taking way the very thing that holds the drill pipe/casing down against the horrendous pressure pushing up on it, it comes shooting out like a spitball and the flow and sand erode the borehole into full on breach of free flowing crud all the way down to the 18,000 foot pay area. At least that how I understand it. The "bottom kill" race is on to stop it before this happens, and I REALLY hope they succeed... but I spend most of my day fretting over this and stocking food/usable skills.

I hope you have a clean pair of pants handy, because this might just make you soil to ones you have on.

Recently, I've noticed what appears to be more natural gas in the plume. In the bot feeds, you'll notice what appears to be bluish white clumps in the billowing plume. I can't say for certain that is what it is, but the dispersant I've see shot into it looks more like a milky white substance.. not the same as this stuff. I am also under the impression that the gas has the easiest time of getting out of the sand in the pay area 18,000 feet down and sine we were to the point where most of what you saw was just brown gunk... it would seem that most of the gas had come out. Sure, it could be changes in the composition of the formation as the pressures shift around... but what if the gas is from somewhere else?

17 Hand and Rigel are natural gas fields in that general area. I have seen at least one reference to a Rigel well in Mississippi Canyon Block 252 over at Rigzone in the past news articles. What would happen if fluids from the BP well's leaky casing have breached that natural gas pay area? I don't know the extent of 17 hands or Rigel... but if one or both are contributing to the flow... good luck with that bottom kill. It won't work. There has been some discussion about the loss of drilling fluid (mud) when this thing was being made, recent documents from the Congrasional SHOW TRIAL point to that. BP could not do the top kill since the mud went somewhere... but evidently not where it was supposed to go. One drill guy stated that they had more than enough mud to do the kill... but they didn't.

Call me paranoid, but I think we are 100% totally horked.

It's all OK....nothing happens without a reason, although karma may have left the building and we're just now getting its effects.

Tuesday at the WuJo: Dam Watch

A reader reminded me of a key date to be watching this Friday:

Almost one year ago I set up an alert for this week. In a yahoo group I received a message including a prophecy made on June 26th, 2009 by a native-American called Raging Wind Blackfoot, regarding Walter Cronkite's death on July 17th, 2009. Also, in the morning of July 17th, he said he was convinced Cronkite will die that day. The first news on his death were made public that same day by 8 pm.

Ok, we cannot be sure of this. But his prophecy had a second and a third part. It said that 333 days after Cronkite's death there will be a total crash of Chinese dam The Three Gorges. The date for the crash is June 25th, 2010. In four days, on friday.

The third part states that the crash will mark the beginning of the answer of Mother Earth to the evil of mankind...

Normally, I wouldn't pay too much attention to such things, except that there was a story recently in the UK Telegraph that in "China: cracks in the Three Gorges Damn, so 300,000 people can wave goodbye to their homes..." and then we have the troubling linguistic reference on Page 8 of the new  "Shape of Things To Come" report.

 

OK, a small confessional:  It's easier to be a bear market player when you have hints about overwhelmed dams and the date references on pages 14, 18, and 24 of TSOTTC report.

 

Given that linguistics are subject to interpretation, my monkey-mind has been focuses on Three Gorges at some level for months.  Even a serious breach of the dam would leave China in economic disarray, and that would ripple planetary.

 

While it's only a prophesy, a linguistics run, and some monkey-mind, let's see where things go in a week or two.  Small/low probability outcomes have the highest payoffs, whether you're talking horse races or August put options.

 

Astro Looks Iffy

A UK reader (deep into stars) sends this:

"This Saturday is 6-26-2010 which = 17 = 8.

Why is it a Very Big 8?

Well on Saturday there is a Lunar Eclipse and the start of what is known as a Grand Cross in a Grand Square in the Geocentric Sky (i.e. from Earth). There are 5 planets, Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn, Pluto and Mercury PLUS the Sun and Moon all taking up the points of a cross with the Earth slap bang in the middle. Just like this:-

"And only 2 weeks later there will be a Total Solar Eclipse and that is on July 11th!!

We all know about how the Moon affects the tides and the gravitational pull from the Sun which keeps us in orbit. Well we now have another 5 planets lining up in opposition and square on to each other around this planet.

This goes on til August so I guess the physical Earth changes will start to ramp up quite a bit this summer.

Worse?  We all know about crashes in proximity to eclipses, right?  More about the stars here somewhere...ah yes....

 

The Movie is the Message Dept.

A couple of reader reviews of recent films:

"1. In District 9, when the alien is trying to produce a drop of 'the fluid' in the beginning portion of the film, you see the liquid momentarily break into a non-equilibrium state that looks shockingly familiar. The alien also states that getting a successful drop of the fluid is very difficult because 'so many things can go wrong' (dependent on external parameters, maybe?). Also, if you look at the chest plates of the human military forces, you will see the horned goat. Go figure.

2. The plot of the Super Mario Brothers live action movie is this: A highly intelligent, lying reptilian overlord in a parallel dimension, who has the ability to manipulate evolutionary processes and also seriously hates humans is attempting to conquer the entire world by bridging the gap between our dimension and his. Quick, jump on his head!"

I pay attention to things like this because as anyone connected with the TinselTown Glitz Machine knows, there's often profound truth behind the movies. 

 

One school of thought is that it's how the cultish PTB announce their plans to the world because (as I've come to appreciate from reading the Self Defining Hebrew reinterpretation of ancient Hebrew over at www.thechronicleproject.org ) there's this really interesting aspect of "law" in the behaviors of higher/other beings.  They have to issue law (or warning first) and then killing and maiming is justified all 'legalwise, like so..."

 

I can here your being perplexed already:  "How'd the lawyers end up in charge even on High?"  Look around...it's obvious, isn't it?  Why I don't know many lawyers that don't think they aren't already....well, you get the idea..

---

Best I can figure is there's some kind of high order contract law that says something like 'You can't do anything to humans without telling them watch what you're going to do - a warning if you will' first.

 

This all seems to go back to the relationship the Malak (world-making entities, contract terraformers) had with the Ruler of All; the malak meaning roughly 'employees' or maybe 'contract workers' is more like it.

 

Regardless, the point is that we have seen enough foretaste of things to come (as in the 9/11 album cover and such) that I may have to watch the new Super Mario movie just to better understand the reptilians.

 

Or, I'll skip it and  just stay away from the halls of politics and power where the reptos seem to have particular powers over humans.... 

 

---

Monday June 21, 2010

Why We're So Screwed

While the market is looking a tad positive this morning, based on the Chinese announcement that they will let the Yuan/Renminbi rise a bit, the small rise in the futures is little more than mindless optimism on the part of the bulls.  A few readers are not following the happy-talk about this and are sending in requests for help...like this guy...

I don't know much about it but from what I understand the Chinese had their money pegged to our dollar. If our dollar looses value and they didn't want theirs too, they "unpeg" it? I wish I was a bit smarter all I seem to have is gut feeling with a tad of common sense, as I told one of my bosses one time "If I didn't know it was wrong , how would I know it was wrong" hence I did this or that cuz I didnt know any better.

Anyways im digressing a bit lol

In macro econ, China raising Yuan will make Chinese goods a bit more expensive here.  Wall Street will party on the prospect of rising prices because it will help offset 9% incipient deflation which (besides money supply & CPI data) peaks through from M3 reconstructed.

 

Unfortunately, we are totally toast, since the flow rate of the Gulf of Mexico/ Ocean Murder is now estimated to be 100,000 barrels per day with the tiny asterisk that says (*worst case).  This will join previous (*worst case) estimates at much lower levels.

 

Meantime, we've discovered the interlocking directorships that might have something to do with key wall street players mysteriously moving out of BP stock and buying up oil clean-up operations in the few weeks before the spill.  An obvious one here (although the link may not be up long once people start reading about it...so print it out and pass it on...).

 

Over at Surfing the Apocalypse a worthy post is under the header: "Environmentalist groups scrambling to hide ties with BP."

 

Monday WuJo Note:  The whole oil plot may have been written by one Gustav Meyrink in 1903!  Maybe the PTB read translations?

 

Better translation at Google's translation engine.]

-----

A Personal Wujo Aside:  Having Gustav Meyrink pop up in reader tips overnight is a kind of sync-wink from Universe since last week's Peoplenomics feature was titled "Tax the Golem" and was about taxing human-replacing technologies.  Which has what to do with Meyrink, you're wondering?  Oh...just that he wrote a little book called The Golem (!!!)  Universe dances with us in strange ways...

-----

To me, all these things pile up to answer the question "Why are we soooo screwed?" But let's return to the main thrust of today's financial libretto....

 

Recall that Friday the Dow closed at 10,450 and change.  Friday saw an intraday high of  10,513.75, and unless we see the Dow take that out for more than a few minutes (I'll be watching like a hawk, trust me) I will stay in my short positions and tell you what I told Peoplenomics readers on Saturday:  We are in a two month "crash window" now that should run at least through August.

 

Friday's 10,450 Dow close also hit smack-dab on Robin Landry's outlook so he passed along the following weekend note to his colleagues in the professional investing / money management community:

"Hi Everyone,

The market has reached the minimum target of 10,450 in the Dow, and a couple of my indicators are indicating a turn down is likely. There is still an alternate count that allows for the higher target in the 10,800 to be reached over the next few weeks and since we are nearing the end of the quarter, window dressing could hold the market up for awhile. The market has a history of making the high in August, so a decline for a week or so then another rally into August would not be out of the realm of possibility. I am monitoring the count and will send out another update as the wave count develops. Remember surprises will be to the downside so extreme caution is advised.

Robin  rlandry@allegiance.tv 

The Weak Ahead features housing numbers, although the only one I live for is the S&P/Case-Shiller numbers.  Wednesday, the Fed will announced a rate decision.  Other than yammering about the economy is "recovering, but still fragile, and some sectors...yada, yada, yada..." it's a non-event unless they up rates  (15% or less chance).

 

I suppose I could point out that the Fed may mention the possibility of raising rates in coming months because that M3 reconstructed chart I pointed to earlier looks like it has maybe bottomed temporarily.  So whatever the Fedspeak is for "cast a furtive glance at M3 trendlines" is, we might read that in it...which could spook the market which is always big on lining up for free (monetary policy) lunches.

 

If Durable Orders on Thursday or GDP guesses and consumer sentiment Friday turn your crank, ya'll come on by then.

 

I'll be the guy watching 10,513.75 today.  Oh, and that disorganized area of thunderstorms in the Eastern Caribbean which has a 20% chance of going cyclonic.  And reading those BP false flag posts...

 

What Did I Miss?

Where in the Constitution does the president have the power to appoint an independent administer money from a private company?  I musta dozed off during a civic class when I was young, because I just can't recall it...

 

Dim? Some!

Phrase that pays in Washington these days is "sticker shock" - the cost to the nation of the Obama administration's marvelous spending plans. Congress may be awakening to the use of calculators, but I wouldn't let 'em see your wallet.  China seems down with it, though.

 

Headlines are also out that Rahm Emanuel is expected to quite the WH as chief of staff this year.  Gee, maybe he can go help Feinberg run that $20-billion BP fund and make sure it's doled out to....oh let's not go there.  (echoes of ACORN are heard softly in the distance...)

Notice his departure coincides with our Hot Dates Nov. 8-12?

 

Run-up to War

I mentioned to Peoplenomics readers the departure recently of four guided missile subs....boomers retasked as cruise missile platforms out sailing about the world's oceans together for the first time ever.

 

Toss that in with headlines like "US, Israel warships in Suez may be prelude to faceoff with Iran" and you have the makings of release language all over the place this summer.

 

Fear Factor

And you know the push for war is really on full when al Qaida is rolled out to proclaim new attacks are coming.

 

Not that we're not deserving of a little scorn for the economic exploitation committed globally by our elites. 

---

Speaking of which, a worthwhile Russian television piece if you have the bandwidth: "American Crusaders: The rise of Christian nationalism in Post-9/11 America. Part 1." 

 

Templars vs. Muslims is perhaps not an entirely historical perspective to consider when mulling headlines on both sides....

 

Bot Run Out Today...

Clif ought to have the latest Shape of Things to Come report out late this afternoon...so grab a copy over at www.halfpasthuman.com and see if the linguistic outlooks for markets is as grim (although profitable for us bears) as mine (and Robin's) outlook.

 

Don't forget:  Just because we have a rickety time machine, don't blame us when the future shows up at predicted.  The future can only be predicted to the extent that mass consciousness has ordained it to arrive, which means the future is already 'in the bag' it just hasn't hit local clock-time yet.  Clear as a BP press release?

 

Oh, you know the very long-term and hugely impacting global coastal event we've been watching for a couple of years?  You see the MSNBC piece about how ocean rise could come in at 200 feet?

 

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Coping: Yet Another A Gardening Pitch

No time like summer to do the work to get ready for bountiful harvests in the future, regardless of what the economy does.  My friend Gary Seman, who's been an avid 'make do' gardener for years has put together a 70-page ebook on survival gardening using things like old tires to make raised beds and it's really worth the $15 bucks, IMHO:

 

       

 

What makes his ebook so interesting is that it is all based on a few hand tools and he has this back-friendly "no tilling" approach that saves a whole bunch of effort...to get there, he's big on kill mulches and such, too.

 

Also not to be missed is the vertical hydroponics work of 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...

 

       

 

You may get sick of me saying "Learn to Garden!" so much, and I'm certainly no expert on the subject, but short of running out of water, which is why you want to live on a creek or river if you ever have the opportunity to make a choice, gardening and full stomach is extremely important.

 

In some northern states, people tell me that gardening is a single-season hobby, but I beg to disagree.  Pick up a copy of Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long and start collecting useful "junk" like old storm windows.

 

I haven't put a picture up of our garden lately, but main crops that we're eating on at the moment are yellow squash (which mug whoever goes up to water them), more fresh 'maters than you can imagine, and for now, except for picking up some Shiitake's to slice up with the sautéed squash, not much reason to go to the store.

 

I came in from working on Saturday and Elaine had built these quesadilla's that were a sharp cheddar, square, fresh 'maters and fresh herbs.  Like to have blown the taste buds right off!  Incredible feast and better than anything I've ever had 'out'.  You know, this 5-minutes from garden to table stuff works wonders for wanna be epicureans. 

 

Yeah, sure, it's tempting to spend your time on other hobbies (ham radio happens to be my favorite time sink, followed by remodeling and tinkering in the shop).  Key point here is that most other hobbies have a negative return on time and money.  Bow hunting, or deer hunting is OK, if you pride yourself on 'one shot one kill' and fishing's fun, too (so long as the beer and sandwiches hold up).  But on a 'dollars and cents' basis, gardening has a very high probability of getting you more than you spend doing the hobby.

 

Hunting's not bad but it by the time you gear up (wanna buy an ATV, too?) red ink is flowing everywhere.  Ditto fishing ("No, dear, $15K is not an overpriced bass boat and you do near a 200 horse Merc to 'get out of the hole' quick...") going cash flow positive is very difficult. 

 

Yeah, sure, weird way to look at life (dollars and time in versus goods and savings out), but works for me.  So, unless you live on a ranch out in the middle of nowhere like we do - where wild hogs and deer wander through the yard not 50-feet from the BBQ, get a pencil out and show me the hobby that makes economic sense.

 

They tend to be few and far between.

 

Reader's Writes

Here's a good counterpoint to last week's discussion in which I concurred with an adjunct econ professor of a Big School, arguing that what's lacking in America right now is new production jobs where people actively make things of economic value.  A reader disagrees...

Your Luddite Robinson Crusoe Arguments are DFW!

I read your stuff all the time, so don't take this the wrong way, but your desert island economics is DFW.

You have 3 people fishing inefficiently. Now a boat magically appears (no maintenance, building etc. but lets forget that) and 1 person can do the work of 3 fisherman. You complain that jobs are lost and that tax revenue has gone down.

Why has tax revenue gone down? GDP has not changed, there are still the same amount of production/fish and gov'ts tax a percentage of GDP. Don't you think that the taxman is smart enough to adapt? An argument as simple as a sales tax destroys your argument that tax revenue goes down.

Your lost job argument is a version of the broken window fallacy where destruction of property makes everyone better off,  Here, inefficient labor makes everyone better off. Labor time has been saved and freed up by the fishing boat. You sound as if you'd be in favor of outlawing nets and allowing the use of only rusty hooks? Then everyone can waste time with their inefficient fishing methods. Or even worse, you sound like a coal miner who protested when railways were introduced into mines and miners (and their children) lost their wonderful jobs that gave a life expectancy of 28.

The problem is that your people on the island are too stupid to do anything but fish.

The problem with America is that they are all dependent on their corporate or govt mothers and cannot use their labor in productive ways.

Maybe we would be happier if everyone still tilled the land by bull and horse from morning to dusk as they used to (employment in farming dropped from 90% to 5% of employment in 40 years and nobody starved). I'd rather live in a world where robots did all the work, and I was free to enjoy life, to think of good ways to use my labor.

And as for this statement: "But has it occurred to you that everything in modern economics is DFW? I mean Dead Frigging Wrong?". Perhaps Professor Ure should read up on his Adam Smith. Ok, maybe economists should have stopped with Adam Smith, but for you to use these terrible terrible arguments is just DFW!

Hold up there a minute!  My main point is that as an economy comes to consumer super-saturation, the only way the economy can expand is by either massively increasing government size (kinda sounds familiar, huh?) or by mass capacity destruction, artificial shortages and rebuilding of production.

 

To argue the quants are somehow right in the formulistic approach is to deny the reality of the no jobs recovery, the pending global financial collapse and so forth.  It's to hold to "Magic Bullet" theory which says there's a 'magical solution' that won't involve either growth to totalitarian (all government employees) or creative destruction of assets which can then be recovered, rebuilt, or replaced.

 

Which is why, offers another reader, the PowersThatBe are so busy fanning all kinds of fear around the Gulf of Mexico spill, which may be a super-sized version of an asphalt volcano.

 

Remember the Report From Iron Mountain problem?  Government must constantly maintain "enemies" of sufficient size not only to control the population, but big enough to exact huge tribute in the form of taxes.

 

Ray Kurzweil has a neat vision of the hypertech future which is outlined in his book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology which goes to that "... I'd rather live in a world where robots did all the work, and I was free to enjoy life, to think of good ways to use my labor. ..." concept of yours.  Dream on and pass me that pipe...

 

What Kurzweil and others don't discuss is how we leap across the chasm to get to this Promised Land of higher hypertech?  Best I can figure it, we're treating Chinese and Indians as our "living robots" right now and your kind of thinking fails to address the underlying problems of economic imperialism and the institution of corporate feudalism (see today's first story) which will be ruled by a few corporate ultimate insiders who will own your butt. 

 

The robots are working in China and India yet the US standard of living declines.  Facts don't support your argument upon inspection.  By your thinking, we're already entering Nirvana and I just ain't seeing it.

 

Could it be that you suffer from the wage-slave delusion that "the corpgov massah's a good massah."

 

Wake up, dude!  In such a world you are a what?  Hint: expendable.  If you ain't making the rich richer, you're obsolete (useless eater).  Sorry to be harsh and break it to you this way.

 

Linguistic PS: Around East Texas, DFW refers to Dallas-Fort Worth, not 'dead 'effing wrong'.  In order to mean "wrong" you should have said "Your Luddite Robinson Crusoe arguments are Austin."  That way Texans would be on the wrong-headed page with you.

 

Monday At the WuJo

Here's some wujo to go with the cornflakes:

"NOW YOU'VE DONE IT!!!

I woke up and glanced at the digital clock: 1111. That is...11:11 P.M.

There was a time (back in NYC)...when I had an uncanny knack of looking at the clock just as it hit 11:11. (An Early Warning that Lunch Time was nigh.)

But what made this weird is that I woke from a Dream State into an Awake State...and the thoughts were...seamless!

That is, the Dream just continued...only now I was fully awake.

I had some INCREDIBLE Ideas...serious, breakthrough Ideas...and I thought of writing to you about some of them.

Then I thought: "Moron! Don't you DARE email this stuff...not before you see an Intellectual Property Rights Attorney."

This is HUGE!

Thanks, George. For this (sorry)...Wake Up Call!

Hmmm... when I wake up with IP on the mind, it usually means a full bladder and time to amble down to the bathroom....but send it along when you can.  I want the supercode for front running markets, the anti-grav and time machine parts and a Reuben with a Heineken.

 

PS: Stay away from windows till your coffee kicks in, ok?

 

A Father's Day Thought

Once a father, always a bank.

 

 

Send your comments to george@ure.net

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