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Soothsaying and Moneymaking

Lookout below!  (Remember: The Crash Window is open, yeah?) Every so often I'll get a note from a reader wondering "George for such a good economics and markets site, how come you waste so much time on woo-woo, web bots, and crap like that?"  I would think the answer is obvious, but at the risk of sounding redundant (again, LOL) let me spell it out for you...

 

Investors and speculators share one common trait:  They each build a mental construct of the future which - if it comes to pass as they think - will make them some money.  However, the reverse is also true:  If their construct fails to appear within the right timeframe, they either don't make money, or worse, lose money.  It goes without saying that a speculator is someone who is expecting a quick change of events and the timeframes used by the investor class are a little longer, but in the end, both eye the future, build their vision of it and pray for profits - which is to say - their vision of the future.

 

Oh, sure, there are other reasons to study the future, like not being in harms way when it arrives with mal-intent.  Or, the avoid the end of life for a while by not being under a mushroom clouds; that goes without saying.

 

So it's in this spirit that we look at a wide range of future predicting technologies which have the potential to do as well as my friend Clif's radial linguistic shift approach, or the more seasoned technical analysis approaches (including Elliott Wave theory), astrology, and to an extent, fundamental analysis.  Oh sure, I'm aware of the 'new kids on the block' who are getting into the space, too; among these, www.recordedfuture.com has gotten some funding from Google, while Lyric Semiconductor which is especially interesting with their  statistical probability / best-fit chip path.

 

Being something of an agnostic, each has pluses and minuses, strengths and weaknesses if you SWOT them out, but to date, only the radical linguistics seem to be able to pull out the 'turn dates' for 'game-changers' with some degree of repeatability, and even here, I think the biggest claim Clif's made is that the web bot project is only better than chance by a factor of two, although in certain areas, it's way beyond that.

 

Unlike television with its Nielsen ratings, or the web with its web log analyzer programs, figuring how these emergent technologies, as a group, will impact not only investment, but also 'life as we knew it' is something of a crap shoot.  First, all rely on the Internet, so anything in the future that could take down the net is problematic, and the, since the whole point of investing is making a buck, any failure of the market's settlement mechanisms (little goodies like a functional international banking system being alive with fund transfers working) are use-case assumptions which no one likes to think about because if more people did, the investment and intellectual property developing population of America (and other centers of financial monomaniacal behaviors) would be far more geographically dispersed on land and sea,  and be far more focused about issues of systemic reliability and catastrophic failure recovery modes.  But you probably figured most of this out on your own.

 

Out here in the East Texas Outback. it's with this framework in mind that we gather here each morning to set "the morning line", to put it in gambling terms, which the future always is when one takes a clear-eyed look at the beast.

 

To do this, I use Clif's work (a lot) because it foretells the outliers so well (quakes in advance, that kinda thing, or the Nov. 8-11 period) and on a rule-out basis, we can use other sources, such as the NY Times piece this morning under the headline "US Assures Israel that Iran Threat is Not Imminent" which gets me to the starting point of this morning's discussion, at last.

 

A skeptical reader notes:

"...Of course, if I were the Prime Minister of Israel, I'd have to be asking myself why should I believe the President when he assures me that Iran is still more than a year away from a nuke when this is the same President who was just proven to have lied to his own people about the persistence of the spilled oil in the Gulf. If I were the PM, I'd have my strike planners keep on working...."

In broadest general terms, Clif's work has a 'cloud' over things from the middle of next week on into early next weekend.  Take that with the Times' Middle East piece today and it seems forecast set up (when I read it, but click here and buy your own copy for $10-bucks) more of a financial kind of event than attack on Iran.

 

Which is not to say that I'm reading his work correctly, it's just that the way the market is acting, wee could very well be setting up for another "Flash Crash".  All that remains to be defined would be a 'triggering event'.

 

Much of what happens in the synthesis of multiple inputs around here should get even better for Peoplenomics.com subscribers next year, since I'm cobbling up an interesting synthesizer' which will attempt to take Clif's timing marks and use them in conjunction with planned news events.

 

As you may be aware, 80-90% of what passes for 'news' on a daily basis is predictable because most news events are timed./  Next week, for example, the 'news budget' for the week includes home sales Tuesday, Durable Goods on Wednesday, and so forth.

 

So if you take the market  wave counts from a fellow like Robin Landry, then add in the news budget, maybe option cycles from Robin Handler's Option Signal Service, some input from the astro-econ crowd, and top it all off with a sharp dart, the guessing could be pretty good.  In fact, if you asked me right now what I think will happen next week, I'd have to guess at a hugely disappointing weekly employment number again, but more likely any Flash Crash would be caused by intermarket arbitrage accentuated out of control by front-running/HF systems.

 

Got an interesting theory on this front:  The advent of HF trading seems to have had the effect of over-emphasizing a move in a security or index.  The analog in electronics would be to make a filter that expresses more gain as it becomes more and more sharp, as the bandwidth is reduced, which is algorithmically what's happening.

 

My theory is that the Flash Crash  phenomena will repeat at some point because when too many filters in a radio get 'too tight' the whole circuit can fall into oscillation...another way of saying runaway feedback.  Which means, in practical terms, that when enough humans are taken out of the decision-loop the HF trading platforms could entrain such that the whole collapse of the global finance system could be accomplished completely "hands off".

 

Damn, what a long winded exposition. How about we distill it down to a PowerPoint slide?

 

1.  Market in today's trading has a line in the sand of 10,303 (last week's close) and if that happens, then a Flash Crash is in the cards next week.

2.  Clif has a cloudy in the date mid-week next.

3.  The Iran War may not start until the Nov 8-11 period, in which case, the global economy, death of money concept rotates into highest probability.

 

There, easier to digest?  Makes more sense than muttering  P3 entrains minute 3 entrains minuet 3 at sub-minuet 3 on the wave count, doesn't it?

 

I just thought I'd give you the long version talking around that slide, since that's the kind of thing on the agenda this weekend when I go up to Oklahoma to talk with Robin Landry in more depth about his count.

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Market direction may change about a half-hour into this morning's trading when the Leading Economic Indicators come out.  Just remember the initials for this could be viewed as an anagram.  Gee, wonder what that might be?

 

As the Week Wraps Up

A reader summarizes it this way: "Did we just avoid WW 3?"

"Hi George! Wow, what a day. Three BIG stories. Firstly we have the story that the Obama Administration has "Assured Israel That Iran Threat is Not Imminent"

Thats pretty close to the US saying it will not support a military campaign of aggression against Iran.

The second story is about Obama himself. You would think that if someone just spent a week deciding whether to listen to The Masters, or save Humanity, that they would deserve a bit of time off. So,where is Obama? Thats right. Marthas Vineyard. For 11 days with the Fam. Sounds like someone is beat. How is the media covering the story, though? 'Obama family to begin their 6th holiday of the year.' Looks like Obama is about to be thrown under the bus.

The third and final story shows that maybe the message has already been received by Israel and they are backing down. Titled, "Israelis and Palestinians to Resume Talks, Officials Say," the article says negotiations will return for the first time in 20 months!

Mr. Ure... Did we just avoid WW3? Or is the propaganda too perfect?

Ask me around Thanksgiving.

 

Bundled Troubled

Another potential cause of another flash crash could be the story develop0ing about the Mortgage Electronic Registration System which keeps record of which properties go in which bundle of mortgage-backed securities.

 

A good background article here goes into speculation that 62-million mortgages could be 'off the hook' (or maybe not) but the key thing to keep in mind is this:  If we see a major change in expectations about delivery in derivatives, could that ripple through to other derivatives, too, such that the whole hundreds of trillions worth of paper-based debt all goes up in smoke?

 

Oh, sure, that gets us deeper into the Depression.  What changes is the rate of work-out.  I won't even try to summarize all the moving pieces in the derivatives world right now, but it all comes down to one thing:  Sudden change is possible and anything that quickly changes future expectations is a bad thing when markets are on the technical edge of the abyss.

 

My long-tail MBS bundling friend has, in the past, expressed high confidence in MERS but I expect the people in Dresden during WW II thought they had a good fire department, too.

 

The Credibility Gulf

Hmmm...whom to believe?  The White House happy-talk or the academics quoted in the Washington Post this morning who says the oil mess isn't going away quickly as some of the folks in Washington are trying to sell....

 

Temperature Tantrums

Oh-oh.  Since I wrote up the article earlier this week on global warming/catastrophic climate change in the wings, seems a new debate has broken out about flawed satellite temperature data...

 

Data for Readers

A couple...no, make that several... readers challenged my assertion in the column earlier this  week that president Obama is NOT a Muslim.  Just so you know the basis and can look for yourself, please click here.

 

Reminds me of the old newsroom joke: 'Let's try not to let the facts get in the way of a good story."  I'll leave it to you how to interpret that in this instance...

 

I routinely dump any and ALL  email that trying to hornswaggle me into right or left wing fundraising.  They get enough from the special interests as it is, no reason for me to add to their tills.  IRS will get their next check from me in 26.72 days, but who's counting, right?

 

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Coping: "The Time Has Come, the Walrus Said..."

A quick visit to the WuJo this morning, where hard science dukes it out with the woo-woo folks, with usually a draw resulting, but along the way monkeymind is massively entertained, so be it...

"Dear George,

I've been enjoying your news, even more than usual this week. [Miss a counseling session? -G)

I am particularly interested in all the odd little dreams your readers are writing about. The frog dream is very like some odd ones my daughter and a friend have also been having. They are full of warnings that sound like punchline--hard not to laugh at a frog who says the country is "easily inundated" --very Lewis Carroll.

Being of the Jungian persuasion, I find it hard to think of reptilian conspiracies and tend to think more about maybe kissing the little fellow, especially since he had a crown on his head. I'd love to know what frog princes mean in that dreamer's mind. The little greenie is archetypal--well, not major archetypal--but one of the minor ones: small helpful animals that talk, like the mice in "Cinderella" or the golden carp or the donkey or the crow of folk tales, for example. Small animals like this, especially if they offer some kind of warning, usually mean that the dreamer is being offered a choice, and if willing to take a chance on some better ethical quality in himself, will reap a reward.

Web bots strike me as little things with their roots in these minor archetypes. And taking a chance on Peoplenomics advice, with an ethical dimensional (as opposed to a numerical dimensional) aspect to one's actions certainly seems like something to consider.

In the folk tales, the actions of the ethical self, upon accepting the offered chance, always bring about a "transformation," and reward, or in alchemical terms, a transmutation. Interesting, I think that frogs are also one of those creatures that seem to be markers for climate change, potentially catastrophic microbes and/or pollutants, by virtue of their tendency to present mutations very quickly. I'm also enjoying the "interterrestrial" idea. I've always loved conspiracy theories. Once I heard a British commentator say that there's nothing wrong with conspiracy theories, as long as one gives equal consideration to what he called "cock-up" theories. I think I've got it, George: these awful interterrestrials who abduct people, mutilate cattle and collude with world governments are really out there, really involved in evil conspiracies, but they're real screw-ups. The bad boys usually are.

Thank you for the welcome whiffs of sanity.

Oh...er...sure.  Still getting time-shift notes, too...like this one...

"Hi George,

Another time/dimension shift story…

At the pistol firing range yesterday, when packing up to leave, I loaded a clip with JHP .45 rounds into my Sig 220, jacked a round into the chamber, and went to safety drop the hammer with the decocker. I was facing downrange, the gun muzzle down and downrange, and pointing toward the wall-floor intersection, 180 degrees from anyone in the range. At that moment I had a “fuzzydizzy” (fuzidy?) moment, seeing the decocker was mixed with seeing the hammer and not fully comprehending either, gun turned slightly to see it’s left side. There was a loud bang , I felt the recoil, saw the muzzle flash. (My bad, obviously my finger got into the trigger guard while handling. Oy! I’m a pistol instructor of mature age. ) Four witnesses standing behind me also saw the whole event. No Injuries. I, and they, saw me standing about 4-5 feet further downrange than the bullet hole, low in a side door. From where I was standing at bang time, the hole was behind and below me, but directed in the same forward/down direction, and it was my bullet hole. The vector of the bullet through the door indicated (notice the forensics) an origin back by the witnesses, about 12 feet behind where I was standing and from whence I came several seconds before. Yes, there was a lot of collective head scratching. And, lessons learned."

Not the place to be when time goes shifty-like.

 

One more on point:

George I couldn't help but notice a significant synchronicity of this story (about the girlfriend' and keys earlier this week) that I observed. Keys seem to be the more popular item that go missing for a time and then they are found later in time. So why are keys an item to go missing? Back to the story from one of your readers for a moment, "...On it I saw my girlfriend’s keys and it reminded me of how frustrating it was not having them..." I bring this up because i've noticed in others stories of finding missing keys that they were done looking for them or had mentally moved on to some other thoughts and for some reason the missing keys show up when you least expected... or did a difference in thought or emotional state UNLOCK the door (dimension gate) for the keys to reappear? As they say changing reality comes from holding a thought lightly like a breeze, its the subtlety that holds the most magnificent power of all. We must all be statically powered stargates and not even realize it, a power which TPTB are terrified of us finding this out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dude...you so didn't know that?  Why do you think religions were invented - to teach us that such states are universally attainable and there free for the taking?  And that's why the PTB always include a co-opted religious element that gets bent around, too and...oh, you know all this stuff, don'tcha?

 

Driving a Right?

Earlier this week I was bemoaning how driving out to be a right, not a privilege...and in reply to a note, our one-time Houston editor, of late in the wilds of Indonesia, offered this perspective having challenged state licensing himself in the not too recent past here in Texas...

"George,

First of all, there is a form of shock in which an individual is overwhelmed by the immense size of the problem at hand, and so chooses to "re-arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic" as a means of coping. This sounds very much akin to that problem.

As for the discussion about rights and privileges, there have been numerous SCOTUS decisions over the centuries that hold that transportation by any means is a right on the public roads. In fact, I have successfully fought nearly 100 tickets for no license, no registration, no insurance, and so on. The problem that so many people get tangled up in is the difference between words and terms.

The law defines certain words in common usage with special meanings, making them terms. We all think of driving as using your car, but under the law, driving is operating a commercial vehicle for hire, which is not a right. So you go to court and try to argue that you have a right to drive and lose. Now, if you use your private machine to go about your personal business, well, that's a horse of a different color.

Many common words are terms under the law. Vehicle, transport, operate, drive, and so on, all have special definitions in court. If ignorance of the law is no defense, then knowledge of it certainly is. You can fight, and I will attest that you can win, but be prepared. You will spend a lot of time in court and in jail. How much are you willing to invest in protecting your rights? You can pay the fealty and be a slave and take the easy road, or you can insist on your rights and, in the current environment, lose a lot of time and effort. A personal decision, if there ever was one.

One thing I truly enjoy about living in Indonesia is the ability to pay "uang rokok," or cigarette money. In most instances, a little grease on the palm makes the enforcers go away quietly and leave you in peace. I'm all for it, actually. Some people say that it's corruption, but I say show me a System that isn't. I just prefer my corruption out in the open where I can enjoy the benefits as well as the next guy. As the saying goes, ya pays yer money and you takes yer choice. I choose to stay out of jail anymore. I paid my price for liberty and got chased half way around the world for it. People never think about if everyone just stopped participating, the whole charade falls apart. Most folks just pay to get along with the least hassle, and that plays right into the hands of the enforcers.

So, you gotta ask yourself, did I fire five shots, or was it six?"

An additional thought:

In Thailand, they train elephants at a young age by tying a back leg to a stake. The elephant learns that it has limited range of motion when tied down. After a while, the owner doesn't need the stake. They just tie a rope around the back leg and the elephant won't move more than a couple of feet until the rope is removed.

Sampai jumpa, B"

All of which gets me - as long as we're on the topic of laws and rights and such involving travel, we are seeing a fine 'controlled explosion' of lawyering within the EU as France has now sent about 90 Romas (folks from Romania) back home with $450 dollars and advice to stay out of France.

 

What makes this so totally Keystone Cops-like is that the EU says people have a 'right' to move around within the EU.  Good so far?  But then, France turns around and says "only if you have an economic value and are not becoming a burden on the state"...so off go the deportation planes and here comes the lawyering.

 

What really seems to be going on as a globalist phenom here is that governments are trying to figure out how many layers of government are needed to run the world.  Everyone at each layer is firmly convinced their layer is most important and supersedes all.

 

It's a fine comedy to watch.  The cities in Europe have their little fiefdoms, then there are the districts, and then the countries, and then the overarching (over-reaching) EU itself.

 

Seen for what it is, the EU is just the first bastard-child prototyping of One World Government - an attempt to politically control different people with different languages, cultures and so on, into a controlled population.  What comes are goes (along with Amero currency rumors) is that other regions are looking at this, too, hence the periodic talk of a North American Union, which although not in the headlines here lately, I'm sure is cooking along just like the globalist TransTexas highway and so forth.

 

When you mow down the last tree to write about this stuff, it all falls perfectly back to its original starting point:  Why would a free man or woman subject themselves to the control of others provided their actions were not directly or in a harmful way indirectly impinging on the freedoms of other?

 

Simply put, whether it relates to driving, wandering around the face of the earth, or in my case, trying to figure out how to license a handmade motorized bike for my personal not-for-hire use, how much respect (and thus fealty) should be paid at any level? 

 

While I wait patiently for the excesses of government to collapse under their own weight and come back to the Constitutional basics, it's a comfort to be short the market which seems to be acting lately like it senses the stress developing from the internal contradictions which too many lawyers and too many control freaks tend to generate when they forget who the boss is.

 

Our NZ Skateboard Report

More follow-up...from our US IT whiz who is in NS:

"George,

I got to your daily missive around lunch time. I download it in the morning before I go to the client and read it on my laptop during my lunch hour as the client does not allow any external internet access outside of the .govt.nz domains. Which I may add means that I have not been able to read up on the particular incident. Not that it would stop me from having an opinion :)

First some background...

A couple of youtube videos of kids doing 80kph on a skateboard have been all the buzz here on the news. It was quite fun to watch these little daredevils (idiots as the local police called them) scoot around trucks in no-passing lanes shooting down hill on a highway.

However here in the NZ nanny state where health care is free and rationed the government goes through some serious effort to reduce the need for health care. Take the stairwell challenge! Hire house painters (falling off ladders is the number one cause of serious home injuries.) Quit smoking! Wear seat belts. All advertisements provided at taxpayer expense. One should not be amazed that they would ticket some kid for scooting down the street as it is a whole mess cheaper to issue a ticket than to patch them up when they wrap themselves around a lamp pole or a truck.

Think of it this way, the NZ government has issued a health derivative to their citizens that assumes all financial risks associated with a major health event. They are just protecting their investment by reducing the likelihood of the trigger event.

Welcome to your future!"

Crap!  I suppose this means I won't be able to make my own powered skateboard, either?  Damn.....

 

Landslide Video

Ever see one happening?  Amazing video out of Italy that a reader says might help put those reports in other parts of the world in context...

 

 

'Bout Them Bugs

Remember the other day I told you about the folks working corn who noticed a lack of bugs?  Got another report of it:

I'm in southern Oregon - and noticed a mid-west subscriber make note there a fewer bugs - it's true. We've noticed it too. Definitely fewer bugs this season. First a friend from the Northern California (Crescent City) coast asked me if I had noticed it - about two weeks ago, and it's true - there are fewer bugs. Weird.

Another offers this:

Same up here in the wonderful State of Maine! (Mainiacs - gotta love 'em - G) And I say wonderful, taxes aside, because we are truly having the spring/summer of our lives. Beautiful weather, warm nights, and very little rain. We have noticed:

 

• A gazillion fewer mosquitoes (yes it’s the state bird up here and yes gazillion!)

• Few if any Japanese beetles, the bane of my grapes, basil, asparagus, etc. these past 10-15 years

• Ticks, especially deer ticks, seem to be non-existent, so much for the $80 I spent on a 6 month supply of FrontLine!

• And lastly but surely not the least….bats!

 

Our usual two little nightly visitors, who scour our fields every night seem to be MIA! Many factors can influence this ecosystem…and one of the biggest seems to be water. Without if, the lifecycle of bugs and all who depend and detest them are affected. It’s gotta be some sort of conspiracy! HAARP, Aliens, GW Bush…somebody, help me out here!

In keeping with our public service mission statement (if you believe that, I have this bridge....) here's the answer from a reader in the upper Midwest:

"Tell him/her that they all ended up in the Ohio/Tennessee Valleys. We started with real good rain, then dropped off for almost a month and a half, with a new record streak of above 90 days, and most of the time a heat index of 105 or more. Too hot to tend to the garden right, even after dark, and the prodigious beans and potatoes from the earlier rains, and we had every conceivable chomper here looking for a good meal. lol"

You know, in some places if you catch grasshoppers and drag 'em through some melted dark chocolate....If you don't have time for a trip to Ohio or upper Tennessee, click here to order chocolate covered crickets online...

 

Time to go do real work now...see youi tomorrow if you get www.peoplenomics.com, or Monday if you don't...Sunday's Peoplenomics report will be posted early - Saturday morning, too since we'll be traveling this weekend...so plan on extra coffee and time to read "Move Over Marx..."

 

Send your comments to george@ure.net

 

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Reader Action Department:

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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 August 19, 2010

Web Bots/Around the Ranch

The Return of Catastrophic Climate Change

I reckon with all the all the rain we had here at the ranch yesterday, folks in this part of East Texas would feel some kind of solidarity with the people in Asia who've been plagued with rains, floods, and related land slides over the past few weeks.  But, the rain here was fairly localized.  Still, 2 inches of rain in an hour and 15 minutes is a fair bit, although the storm which dumped on us didn't make it as far as the 'official' recording station up at Tyler, Texas before blowing itself out.

 

Normally, raining at the ranch would not be a thing to take notice of.  With 4-million still homeless in Pakistan, or trains running off their tracks in China because of the recent flooding there which has caused a flurry of landslides and land movement, what most people fail to realize is that rain/weather change can add a lot to the cost of things we take for granted as being perpetually available.  Not necessarily.

 

Take, for example, the cost of apparel.  Lots of it is grown and sewn in Pakistan and the floods have done enough damage to the cotton crop to the extent that prices are expected to go up.

 

Not that trains were being derailed China only:  There was a train derailed and plenty of damage up in the area in and around Putnam County Tennessee overnight.  Not likely to get as much press coverage as the flood warnings this morning in the nation's capitol; people there are a little more dense.  And there are more of 'em per square mile than in Tennessee, too, come to think of it.

 

Even if you didn't read Clif's latest take on long-term data sets in the new "Shape of Things To Come Report" ($10-bucks, here and worth every dime) the outlook for the next couple of years is for more and more weather & Ma Nature crap to intrude which implies that along the way, hillsides will slide, cotton won't grow, and oh, by-the-by, the impacts on food will be immense and hunger becoming a global reality as the weather evolves from a four-seasons affair to a two-state marvel of too hot and too cold, too dry, and too wet.

 

This is all showing up now, if you're willing to look at it.  The Union of Concerned Scientists issued a press release which you squirrel away in your 'I told you so" file:

"Drought in Russia; Floods in Pakistan and China; High Temps in the U.S. Consistent with Climate Change Projections

A number of extreme weather events have been happening around the world this summer, including record flooding in Pakistan that has killed more than 1,000 people and displaced millions of others; the worst drought in Russia in decades, which has triggered wildfires and doubled the daily death rate in Moscow to about 700; and torrential rains in China, which have caused massive flooding and triggered landslides that have killed more than 3,000 people.

Meanwhile, here at home, residents in more than 15 states have been sweltering from heat waves that flared in June. Several East Coast cities experienced record-breaking heat last month, which was the hottest one on record in Rhode Island and Delaware.

The devastating heat, fires and floods we are seeing around the world this summer are consistent with trends that scientists say are caused by global warming, including temperature increases, increases in heavy precipitation in some parts of the world, and droughts in others.

The Earth's average temperature has been rising due to a build up of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. According to NASA, 2010 is on track to be the hottest year ever recorded. And the last decade—from 2000 through 2009—was the hottest recorded decade since worldwide record-keeping began more than 100 years ago."

After Copenhagen, there's been a fair number of people arguing that climate change was phony; the evidence says it's not.  And there's a contingent that says New Ice Age is coming - which it well could be - basing their thoughts on the worst snow in a decade in Brazil this winter (down there seasons run opposite ours).

 

Regardless of how the weather worries play out - flipping too hot, or too cold - is not the point.  The point is that humans do pretty well as long as they have calories but when they don't, things can turn bad in a hurry. 

 

There's just the tiniest bit of a creaking noise around the foundations of the global(ist) economic system if you listen and look carefully.  It comes in headlines like "Putin Bond Demand Sinks as Russia Drought Lifts Prices" and

Time Magazine's "The Curious Capitalist" blog by Michael Schuman which wonders "If another food crisis coming?" 

 

Seems to.

 

If the linguistics are right, we're only a week out from the next noticeable sea-state changes weaseling their way into headlines...with the bigger worries still out there for Nov. 8-11/12/13th.  Granted, food may not lead the way - yet - but it seems likely to come in the 'worry rotation' with some force in 2011. 

 

Nothing to worry bout then?  Only if you like to eat.  Like this reader who's noticing more change in the farm lands:

"We were out peeling corn to process last night and noticed there aren’t as many bugs around. Has anyone else commented on this??? We do see a few but no where near what there have been in the past. We have a farm with 115 acres of land so are more in tuned to this than others. "

Change is in the air and GMO leftovers are in the ground.  Shouldn't be too hard to connect all these darts.  Hmmm...Wonder if there are any weight-loss companies I could do a long-term short on?

 

Weekly Job Number

As usual, a Thursday morning highlight for the adrenaline-soaked day-trading crowd which got caught out with futures higher, but then turning lower with the jobs report data:

In the week ending Aug. 14, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 500,000, an increase of 12,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 488,000. The 4-week moving average was 482,500, an increase of 8,000 from the previous week's revised average of 474,500.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.5 percent for the week ending Aug. 7, unchanged from the prior week's unrevised rate of 3.5 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Aug. 7 was 4,478,000, a decrease of 13,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 4,491,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,526,750, a decrease of 1,500 from the preceding week's revised average of 4,528,250.

The fiscal year-to-date average of seasonally adjusted weekly insured unemployment, which corresponds to the appropriated AWIU trigger, was 5.010 million.

About here, I haul out my favorite Robin Landry-ism: "In a Bear Market, surprises are usually but not always, to the downside..."

 

Adding to the mess?  The Governator is planning to furlough 150,000 CaliWorkers.  The political needle to be threaded here:  How to get the workers to take time off without pay but bring 'em back just enough to keep them from all hitting the streets at once.

 

Notes on Financial MAD'ness

An email from my deflationist pal (Dr.) Jas Jain seems to fity nicely here, sincere there are all these trial balloons lately about debt forgiveness...

"Remember nuclear warheads race and proliferation? What kept things between the US and the USSR from going too far? MAD (mutually assured destruction). Would Capitalist Crooks destroy their own capital in order to wipe the debt obligations of American dopes, including the taxpayers? I don’t think so. Dopes who have bet on the US inflating away its debt are not doing too well, while those of us who have bet the other way are sitting pretty. I have been a gold bull for the past 13 years primarily because it is insurance against fiat currencies and gold is now behaving more and more like a currency. Gold could easily go to $5,000/ounce in a deflationary depression in the US!

Inflating away would be an economic suicidal move on the part of the US. It ain’t in the cards. Prolonged pain for American dopes is in the cards, i.e., backed into the cake. During this period of pain for the dopes Crooks and their agents like Bushes, Clintons, Gores and Obamas would do very well. Financial derivatives markets of 2010 are not the same as those of 1971 when the US was taken off the gold standard. The move was not unexpected by the markets. Amazingly, it is lot harder to inflate, as FDR was able to do on whims, in the absence of the gold standard! Bernanke wishes a 3-4% inflation rate but he can’t get there!!!!!!!!! Of course, he can’t utter a word to that effect because that would trigger a massive problem. The guy doesn’t have much room to maneuver. He has been turned into a paper tiger, i.e., he is impotent just as I had predicted. "

So, we sit back with our part gold, part Treasury position and a few selected shorts remembering what?

 

It's Only as Game

Speaking of web bot timing models (remember this next week, OK) and such, here's a sync-wink from Universe, maybe, in this reader note:

"Reading your blog is the 'morning paper' for me. I love that your wide variety of experience and open mind finds so many ways in finding linkages between what most people would consider disparate, unrelated parts.

In the fall of the empire, I am part of the circus. Video game sales, in fact. (don't tell anyone that I'm not much of a gamer! ;)) Anyway, the next installment of the popular Call of Duty series is subtitled 'Black Ops' and releases on 11-9-10. I find the timing and title interesting to say the least and thought you might too.

Yeah, damn curious timing, LOL.  Move along now, nothing to see here...and whatever you do, don't go on to read this...

 

Homeland Security - Gestapo Worries

Emotionally, this is hot, hot, hot.  But, go read what former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura is saying about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over at the Prison Planet site.  Seems Ventura was trying to shoot some video for a "Conspiracy Theory" episode at the Kennedy Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery and was barred from doing so...details here.

 

No doubt, there are two ways to look at this, depending on your ideology:  Protect the sanctity of the JFK Memorial on the one hand, or recall the quote

attributed to Huey Long (although it's disputed whether Long said it that way) that "If Fascism came to America it would be on a program of Americanism."

 

Or, maybe Ventura is onto something:  "The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists." -so said J. Edgar Hoover, former head of the FBI  now part of  what Super Agency?

 

Data Breaches

Don't know if you're interested, but your IT Department have find the Verizon/US Secret Service 2010 Data Breach (and theft) report worth reading. A kind of State of the Hacks...

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You know you're living squarely in three splitting realities when the word virus makes you wonder whether you need to update software, see a doctor about your rowdy raw dog running wild's latest unprotected exploits, or visit the CDC website to check on pandemics....

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Oh, and speaking of rowdy raw dogs on the net, "Cameron Diaz tops list of riskiest celeb searches" according to McAfee's latest research...Something about virus...

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Oh,  check this from over in the egg department - a recall of 380-million egs in four states.

 

Watching Obama Bashing

New poll out in the Washington Post this morning shows 20% of the US thinks president Obama is a Muslim.  He's not, but just goes to show you how a message repeated often enough morphs into 'reality' for people.

 

Attention Fiction Writers!

Be looking for the latest federal budget deficit update today out of Washington.

 

Here's a dandy trend chart which outlines the problem in case you don't feel like wading through the whole report to develop a Big Picture sense of things:

 

 

Ignore the 'extended baseline' model since that is based on lousy-t0-delusional assumptions.  The CBO alternative Fiscal Scenario is more meaningful by far:  See where it points to bad ---> getting to worse? 

 

In more honest times, we'd be admitting the arrive of Depression 2.  Nowadays, it's just a great recession.

 

If you have Excel open, build your own chart with the Fed's latest Charge-Off and Delinquency rates... freshest data here.

 

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Coping: New Zealand Skateboarding Notes

There's a really interesting case going on in Nelson, New Zealand, caught by our Canadian editor Tim, where a skateboarder has been fine NZ$750 for skateboarding in the street.  One the one side, you've got a policeman and on the other, a skateboarder...not unusual, but in light of the return of sudden catastrophic climate change to the 'hot things to worry about' we notice that this is just slightly nuts.

 

Remind me to ask our new Zealand skateboarding reader, a former Midwest US IT Director who (best I can figure) went to NZ, did a 'core dump' of the latest from the US and then fell victim to the odd sort of nationalism that prevents too many people from coming to NZ, even if they have hot skill sets for too long...

 

But this particular former IT Director for this particular government agency, is of interest because not only did he ride a skateboard to work every day, but because of the hills in his town (at the time -Wellington, if I recall right) were so steep that he rode a motorized skateboard at times.  We'll inquire as to whether - or how much - hassle he got from the local gendarmerie.

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All of this serves to demonstrate how government - everything from local to internationalist governments - get themselves at cross purposes to observed reality.

 

As you read the problem through, ask yourself does this make sense.,  Ready?

 

The world is facing a catastrophic climate change.  So we choose one of the following:

 

1.   One way to reduce pollution is by deregulating anything that that gets 80 MPG or more.  No licenses, no registration - NOTHING.  Hassle-free transport which encourages people to get serious about energy efficiency.

 

OR

 

2.   It's really too bad about the climate change which will kill off crops and leave us all malnourished in a few years, but we can not allow challenged to Detroit and the auto giants, who we bailed out (and let's not forget those de facto subsidies for foreign manufacturers in republicorp strongholds ( like Tennessee, LOL) via state tax breaks.  It's more important to keep up the charade of business as usual and continue the enforcement mentality of The System.

 

This is all the more real to me as I have been looking at one of the Golden Eagle Bike Engines for one of our mountain bikes.  Why?  Well, for one thing, they claim 225 miles per gallon for a 200 pound rider.  If I just lose a little more weight, I won't have to ride around naked to hit that mileage to weight ratio.

 

I'd have one today except that in Texas, near as I can tell, even the small 4-stroke Robin/Subaru 25cc engine would turn my bike into what the State considers a moped, even though I'd be making it myself from a kit.  Problem is that I want something which can be driven on the back roads of the county to get into town in a leisurely way.  According to the Texas State site:

"Definition of a moped – A motor driven cycle whose speed attainable in one mile is not more than 30 miles per hour and that is equipped with a motor that produces not more than two-brake horsepower. If an internal combustion engine is used, the piston displacement may not exceed 50 cubic centimeters and the power drive system may not require the operator to shift gears.

Driver’s license for a moped – A moped operator’s license is required for operators of mopeds. A person must be at least fifteen (15) years old to be issued a license to operate a moped. The department shall examine applicants for that type of license by administering to them a written examination concerning traffic laws applicable to the operation of mopeds. Effective September 1, 2009 an applicant for an original class M license must furnish proof of successful completion of a basic operator training course prior to the written exam. All applicable provisions of this Act governing restricted operator’s licenses for the operation of motorcycles only also apply to moped operator’s licenses, including provisions relating to the application, issuance, duration, suspension, and cancellation of those licenses. "

All of which could get me launched on a discussion of how much authority states should have over what happens on public highways.  There's been a tremendous conflict over whether driving is a right or a privilege. 

 

If driving is a right, then licensing would be different - a kind of registration.

 

however, even though paid-for by We the People, the authoritarians in government figure now that they have ownership of highways (possession being 9/10ths of the law, after all) and can back that up with jail time, guns, and a court-system that favors their side of any legal argument, that driving is therefore a privilege which they can permit or license as theyh see fit.

 

Just sticks in my craw.  Since when can't an individual with a little hustle and willing to invest a little sweat into a project build and operate a vehicle that's way more in keeping with the global picture?

 

Seems whether it's a powered bike or a skateboard, it's more important to keep up the Nanny State mindset of authoritarian control, than just do the right thing.  What a fool I am:  I thought that was the whole point in the first place.  Damn, I must be dumb.  Who gave away all might rights on this stuff?  Got a bone to pick with 'em.

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Wait!  I've just come to a Thursday Morning Hallelujah Moment.

"Government's like wine: Good up to a point, but then it spoils."

World's awash in vinegar just about everywhere.

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Related transpo note:  Seattle is running out of bike parking spaces. Having to put in more.

 

Depression Movies

From follow-up research on a recent post:

Hello George:

A few weeks ago, you had an article about how the movie Wall Street seemed to appear after some sort of crash.

Then, in the August 18 edition of your Daily Update, there was this:

"The predictive linguistics out of www.halfpasthuman.com's  "Shape of Things To Come" report have this big cloud over the global markets starting around August 24-25th...."

Now, here is where things get interesting: (Wiki Wall Street Disambiguation page)

* Wall Street (1929 film), directed by Roy William Neill (released Dec. 1, 1929) Black Tuesday was October 29, 1929. About 33 days between crash and movie release.

* Wall Street (1987 film), directed by Oliver Stone (released Dec. 11, 1987) Black Monday was October 19, 1987. About 53 days between crash and movie release.

* Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, a 2010 film sequel to the above, directed by Oliver Stone (to be released Sept. 24, 2010). If we go 33 days, something could happen around August 22 (a Sunday) or Monday, August, 23. The average is 43 days of the 1929 and 1987 movie, the minimum is 33 days and maximum is 53 days on a spread sheet.

43 days from September 24 would have been August 12, 53 days would have been August 2, and 33 days would land on August 22.

Again, just some fun with numbers. Odd how it seems to fall on what you wrote, though.

Hmmm...Hindenburg Omen, movie schedules, yep, sure all seems to fit.

 

Dimension Slips, Redux

I know, this week the columns have been a little light on the WuJo - the mental arts lessons where the woo-woo meets science, but here's one that I just could resist posting from a reqder down under in Oz:

Hi George, a rather odd thing happened to me last night. I lost my car, house & office keys about 2 and a half weeks ago. I had since given up and had most of them replaced. On my way home from work last night I stopped off at my girlfriend’s restaurant for some dinner. I had a carry bag with me that I have a satchel and book and a few other things in. I placed my bag behind the counter and proceeded to have dinner at a table nearby. I was at the restaurant for half an hour.

When I was ready to leave I walked over to the counter. On it I saw my girlfriend’s keys and it reminded me of how frustrating it was not having them. When I leant over to pick up my bag there they were! My keys were sitting right on top of my bag!

Now obviously I assumed my girlfriend or one of her staff placed it there knowing it was my bag but I asked all of them and eventually realised that they were as confused as I was. I have been to her restaurant numerous times over the last couple of weeks.

Very, very strange, perhaps they slipped into another dimension for a bit.

All of which is interesting because between the apparent time slips seems to be the possibility - as one reader p[uts it - that interterrestrials not extraterrestrials  may be what's happening:

In regards to your discussion in today's report (8/18) about the French ufo report, alien agendas and deals made with various countries' goverment officials, there exists an alternative explanation. We know that the PTB = Luciferian, Babylonian Mystery Religion officionados who would instantly cut a "deal with the Devil" if it meant furthering their own petty earthly desires. The so-called aliens may very well be the fallen angels and demons that are described in the bible and in many ancient legends. The "gods" of ancient cultures or the Annunaki described in the Sumerian texts are the extraterrestrials of today. In other words, they are not extraterrestrials, but perhaps interterrestrials. These aliens may originate from the same place as we do, but are not created in God's image, so would appear alien to us. Why wasn't the Book of Enoch included in the bible and what is a common theme throughout that book?

Also, if you haven't seen it, the movie "The Fourth Kind", which is about real accounts of alien abductions, makes a connection between the aliens doing the abductions and the Sumerian's Annunaki. Tres bizarre, but worth the time to watch it when you start to make the connections...

Please check out the following website for some very interesting discussion of the connection between the ET's of today and the biblical fallen angels and demons of yore.

So how do the two posts relate?  Well consider if you will the notion that as we move out to the 2012 period, the galactic ecliptic may be the place where one version of reality develops some Swiss cheesy holes into other realities.  The keys disappear and reappear story is of particular interest, but then too, so is the story a while back about the kid who tossed his keys on the floor upstairs and later found them the next day downstairs right under the room where he'd lost them.

 

About the only thing I'm really sure of is that the internet is certainly opening up new levels of awareness...One of the dreams posted over at the National Dream Center is kind of interesting though, long as we're talking about ET's, holes in reality, and such, especially because it involves water/climate change, a sort of topic du jour today:

"I was on a computer looking up news and events. I saw the usual day to day struggle we are presented as "news". A voice said to me "Do not worry, the end of the world will come when the Great Frog jumps onto the Earth". The screen was white and a silhouette of a cartoon or tribal styled frog with a crown slowly lowered onto a matching pillow shape. The voice continued "As you can see, much of your continent is easily inundated." The screen changed to a map of the USA that showed mountains and rivers. As I pressed and dragged a rectangular shape appeared over the eastern half of the country and a dynamic readout representing average rainfall appeared showing a number that varied from 45 to 65. The map changed to show the Amazon, again with no borders, just natural features. In this case the land was lush and green, as it is today. The same rectangle shape I dragged across the green of the map showed numbers in the hundreds on the readout in the middle of it.

My alarm sounded and I woke."

I know the popular buzz on the conspiracy boards goes to reptilians, but maybe this dream is hinting at something else.  Maybe our problems ahead are thanks to amphibians... except that maybe instead of working in water and air, like frogs, this particular form of amphibian works in more than one dimension?

 

Far fetched, but some other ideas that come to mind are here...

 

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Wednesday August 18, 2010

"Let's Pretend" Wednesday

We begin this morning by recalling the days of the Mickey Mouse Club on television when, as youth, we remember Disney Creative had come up with themes for different days of the week like "Anything Can Happen Day" which set a tone for a whole hour's worth of kid's programming.  And, since it would be a nice rhyme of vague familiarity, we'll unabashedly borrow the concept and present today's context for comprehending world events declaring this: "Let's Pretend Day".

 

For our first example, we consider the stories about how on Tuesday  banking execs claimed that they need more federal guarantees pretending that the banksters haven't already been to the taxpayer trough before, or, since they have, that we've forgotten about the people in Washington being hornswaggled and lobbied into ignoring the Voice of the People.  We could pretend that money is less dangerous than crack, or even heroin, but money's addictive powers trump all powders, liquids and smokes.  But let's pretend.

 

Another key feature of Tuesday trading was the federal report out revealing bankruptcies are up near five-year highs.  That should have scared the hell out of the market - which should have cratered, except that the market was off doing something else; playing its game of what?  "Let's pretend."

 

Then we have to consider the impact of the Federal Reserve (really neither) report which claimed that production was up to a preliminary reading of 93.4% in July and that Capacity Utilization was at 74.8% compared with the previous month's (revised) 74.1%.  Heralded as Great News.

 

The delirium inducing statistical crap was all it took - along with the conciliatory hype about backing bankster mortgages with more money from [you & me] the taxpayers to blow the market up nearly 200 points - briefly.  All of which would never have happened if everyone looked at the markets and the stats like I do - over several years and thoughtful - because if they did, they'd notice the production numbers were vis-à-vis 2007 data which was the100% high water mark, which means three years later we're still six point four percent under those levels, and on the capacity side, we were 10 percent higher at 85.1% during the 1994-1995 period.  Just between us, that isn't exactly the picture of robust health or much of an economic recovery going on.  But, put your hands together and let me hear you brothers and sisters!  "Let's pretend!"  Again?  "Let's pretend!"

 

I usually save my most acerbic comments about the health of the nation's banking system for Peoplenomics.com subscribers on the weekends, but as long as we're 'going to the couch' to confess our delusions, let's not forget that FDIC has stepped in to bail out, reorganize, or shotgun marry off 110 banks this year (so far), and on a branch basis FDIC has reorg'ed 934 so far this year, way ahead of last years 'to-date' figure of  817 branches at 77 banks.  Up 14.3% on a branch basis, or 42.86% on an institutional basis, but you know what?  Despite the investigation of the Old Southern Bank's failure which cost the government  (i.e.: us) something like $95-mil, "Let's Pretend!"

 

The predictive linguistics out of www.halfpasthuman.com's "Shape of Things To Come" report have this big cloud over the global markets starting around August 24-25th, and further clouds, possibly of the mushroom variety, over the Nov. 8-12 period with months of mourning to follow.  With reports that Russians will be helping fuel the Bushehr nuclear reactor early next week, and the headlines in Israel's Jerusalem Post this morning ("'Bushehr unrelated to enrichment'" claims from the Iranian side, I'm compelled to point you at the Google Maps satellite view of Bushehr so you can print off the 'Before" picture.  Might want a high res. screen scrape just in case it kinda, sorta disappears into a puddle of glass.

 

Then there's the report that one of the Saudi papers is endorsing the military option in Iran.

 

Is war at hand as a reason to rally?  Not in George Land but  "Let's pretend!"

 

As luck would have it, the theme of this morning's remarks could be applied to all kinds of stories in the news:  Whether it's something big like the wildfires in Russia  and extreme weather and diaspora going on in Pakistan where aid trucks are being mobbed while we sop up coffee, and on to the Tinsel Town buzz that Dr. Laura is hanging up her radio show.  But none of that really means anything does it?  Again, "Let's Pretend!"

 

National politics has finally broken the social contract, irrevocably.  Elaine mentioned to me just yesterday "Sure seems like these foreign TV news outfits have it right:  Obama hasn't made any major changes from the Bush administration polices on matters of war or the economy...he's just taken up the reins and gone down the same path.  Where's the change?" 

 

I dutifully explained there has been change: the lobbyist checks are being written out to the other party now, although I skipped pointing her to the Washington Examiner piece on how "Obama's war on lobbyists was just a lot of hot air."  Similarly I didn't mention the polls which show a majority of Americans disapprove of Obama, but in a larger sense, the whole Washington mess.

 

The markets today, having only some minor numbers to consider, may open mixed and then rally this afternoon, and maybe even into tomorrow before turning down  for the week's end.  If you were really worried about maintaining your life's savings, you would have fled to Treasuries or gold long ago, so it's a moot point but high drama nevertheless.  America is hooked on over-hyped drama...

 

With several financial channels are reporting more or less the same thing, we can rest assured that the paper-hangers will find some reason to try and stampede more of the gullible folks over to the 'great fools' side of equity ownership.  The touts and pimps will say the future's bright, that the decline to war won't matter, and that somehow the century-long systematic watering down of America's currency through deliberate inflation isn't a bad thing.  This on-average 2.3% compounded since 1913 isn't really taught, however.

 

Around here, we know better.  But since it's Wednesday, and I've got a number of chores to get done, and you might need to really do something around work today, here's how I think we need to approach this particular Wednesday:

 

Let's pretend.

 

Quakes and No Quakes

Being on edge following the Mariana Islands region quakes, the phone range yesterday afternoon with a buddy up in the Seattle area calling.  "We just had two, short sharp earthquakes I think..." he told me excitedly.

 

Nope.  A couple of F-15's going after what turned out to be a seaplane coming back from a weekend at Lake Chelan.   President Obama was in the Seattle area and the plane violated presidential airspace.   And the lesson about checking NOTAM's (FAA Notices to Airmen) before every flight is what?

 

Boom Ahead in India

And why might that be?  Oh, 61-trucks with 300 tons of explosives have gone missing in central India, Chinese news agencies are reporting.  Muslim extremists setting up a 'biggie"?  Don't be surprised.

 

 

A Dear Colleagues Letter

On the Centers for Disease Control website:

Dear colleagues: The ongoing oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has the potential to raise food safety concerns about possible health effects from contaminated seafood harvested from the Gulf. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with other federal and state agencies are monitoring the seafood supply for signs of oil contamination. For the seafood to pose a health risk, the food would have to be heavily contaminated with oil, and would therefore have a strong odor and taste of oil. Presently, testing of seafood from the gulf is being conducted by the Gulf States, FDA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

CDC recognizes the importance of anticipating, monitoring, and responding to public health hazards that may affect human health. CDC is monitoring for potential illnesses across the United States that may be associated with exposure to contaminated seafood. Persons who consume seafood contaminated by oil may experience the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. We understand that these symptoms are general, and that consumption of contaminated seafood might not necessarily be the cause.

Seems to me this calls for a letter back:

Dear CDC:

We're not idiots.  Where's the low-level exposure  impact study data over time since that doesn't seem to be available?  An MSDS sheet is not sufficient for 1.8-2.0 million gallons of dispersant in intimate proximity to the food chain is it?  I mean really?  Or, are ya'll still hiding behind the 'trade secrets' rule which seems by your actions to trump public health?

 

PS: OK, we are idiots.  But, we do remember the flu shot debacle...

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Coping: A New UFO Report

Since UrbanSurvival has been around a while (has it been 14-years already?) we have continued to gather an interesting assortment of contacts around various here and there places.  One of them sent out a summary document (English lang., .pdf file) that purports to be a new French study from the International Astronautical Federation.

 

The sender offered this heads-up: "...it is a rather awkward translation that fails faithfully to convey the original French idiom and is rife with English grammatical errors..." 

 

Still, a couple of paragraph (from the four-page summary)  certainly seems a to confirm what conspiracy theorists have written about since the Truman and Ike UFO occupant meetings back in the 1950's:

"The Sigma/3AF report finally agrees with COMETA’s conclusion that we are probably facing an ET presence. That conclusion was quite controversial for a semi-official study like COMETA back in 1999 and was criticized by many in the French press. Yet the Sigma/3AF Commission found no quarrel with it. “Thus, the central hypothesis proposed by the COMETA report still cannot be rejected up to this day and remains perfectly credible,” they wrote. “Many documents and materials examined by the authors of this report confirm it. We have therefore retained, among some others but only as a working hypothesis, the possibility that most of the craft observed can have a non-terrestrial origin.”

The report itself (12 pgs) is purported to come from the www.openminds.tv web site, but the site wasn't loading right when I checked, but further investigation and more visits are planned.

 

I think the key thing is that all of these developments are circling us back to the recent work coming out of authors like Leslie Kean in UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record which (since I'm reading it now) also focuses mostly on the French reports.

 

Somewhere in here, you might be wondering "Why would an economics geek/daytrader/marketing guy be so darned interested in UFO's?"

 

A little common sense, please!  As anyone who's spent more than a couple of years in America's corporate boardroom suites knows, the foodchain is everything.  And, if the UFO reports are correct and there has been decades long contact going on then it stands to reason that there would have been some kind of action plan or 'deal' cut between the apes (us) and the whatevers (them).

 

Thus, in order to make intelligent investments in anything it would be useful to know what the 'deal parameters' were when discussed with the off-worlders.  Everything in the contemporary headlines would change in fundamental context if the larger agenda was more widely known and discussed.

 

For example, what IF one world government has been ordered by off worlders who don't want to deal with 78-billion individual worker bees;  I mean one point of contact would make sense, wouldn't it? 

 

Or, what if some degree of terraforming has been ordered and what if - in turn - the weather anomalies we're seeing in Europe, Central Asia and South Asia are all part & parcel of that kind of deal? 

 

Or, what if we've been told in very specific terms "Don't go back to the moon - it's not yours it belongs to the Federation  of whatever the off-worlders would call it.

 

Maybe it's idle speculation, since the odds of getting the answer right are low, but nevertheless, we might find it interesting to at least keep our eyes open for the larger patterns to work out - just as a splinter or sliver  works itself out over time - out to where it can be observed first-hand and then removed.

 

That's what this latest flurry of reports seems to be - another inching of the sliver out...maybe not enough to grab onto it with the tweezers yet (or make the once-in-a-lifetime investment) but it's more grist for the mill, nevertheless.

 

On the speculative end?  Might just explain why despite the rotation of political figures in Washington, there's been no fundamental change in direction.  Could it be that world leaders are all operating in a narrow decision-channel of behaviors where radical solutions and change is actually off the table, removed by a larger agenda set by off-worlders who happen to have the ultimate high ground?

 

Worth thinking bout now and then because, as this morning's column started off, there's just too damn much going on which takes a "Let's pretend" basis to come anywhere near making sense.  Maybe with more than half the population on drugs, (curiously many are fluorine derivatives, right up through toothpaste) pretending may be all leaders need to do in order to carry out some 'other agenda'.  We've been blinded and bound without permission.

 

Just wish we could all noodle out what that agenda might be.  Troubling. in the meantime, is the answer to the question:  "Is there anyone or any organization that you'd trust to cut a deal with off-worlders?"

 

Nope, none come to mind for me, either.

 

Perhaps I had shouldn't have mentioned the groundswell of new data on this front.

 

Let's pretend, instead.

 

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Tuesday August 17, 2010

The Mythical Recovery, Redux

Before we get into the morning dose of 'numbers served up fresh' which will drive the market somewhere (if not crazy), let's look at some of the early West Coast Port Data coming in.

 

Port of Long Beach shows total containers inbound was up  32.5% in the month of July compared to July of last year.  While that could be construed as a positive for the economy, the fact that loaded outbound was only up 16.4% for the month suggests that the Balance of Trade picture may not be getting much better - and indeed, could be getting worse as we hit the bean this morning.

 

Same whiff coming out of the Port of Los Angeles numbers:  Inbound in July was up 21.02% compared with a year ago, while the outbound was only up 5.86%.  Again, bad news in the spread may be implied for the Balance of Trade, and what that means could be pressure to print up money and that in turn may be fueling the increase we've seen since the first of the month in the price of gold.

 

Inbound up at the Port of Oakland was up 16.8% for the month and overall activity was up only 16.3% in July compared with the more robust 21% increase seen in June.

 

Oakland, by the way, is a neat port to watch because their past years performance is shown on the same page making it easy for the not-yet-coffee-soaked writer (played by care to guess who?) doesn't have to do a lot of deep thinking to figure out that Oakland's biggest year ever in terms of container cargo was 2006, which corresponds to the peak in the housing bubble and such.    Call me lazy, but I notice these things.

 

But of more significance is that based on the YTD total for July, extrapolating things out for the balance of the year, Oakland oughta come in about 2,228,861 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU's) for the year.

 

If you've been sucked in to the right/left politico's ridiculousness, and you're a democorp, you might be tempted based on the Oakland data to conclude things will there be up 8.9% overall since last year.  And you'd be telling the truth.

 

On the other hand, equally true, it could be said with a straight face that no, this is still down 6.8% compared with Oakland's operations in  in 2006, which would be fine grist for a republicorp-led round of Obama-bashing.

 

The wizened market participant, or anyone with a 401(k), would have to look at the data and conclude, as we've just demonstrated here, that the condition of the country depends almost entirely on where you want to start counting from.

 

If you start counting from 2007 or 2008 things are arguably still bad, but, if you count from 2009, especially if you're thinking back on March of last year when the markets were totally in the crapper, you can argue this has been an amazing rally. Somewhere off in the background, try to ignore the cynical guys like me who point out that although 10,302 on the Dow Monday looks really good compared with March of 2009's 6,627 or so,

 

A check of historical data (weekly Dow, 1999) shows the Dow traded through this range the week of April 12.  Worse, just to keep even with the insidious inflation underway in America, you'd need the Dow to be at 13,585 just to maintain purchasing power equivalency with 1999.  But, I digress; you probably don't want to think about it, having swallowed the "It's a whopping 554.% gain since March 2009, fer cryin' out loud!"

 

Only if you were out...and except for the predictive linguistics around here in 2008, I doubt most brokers/money managers called their clients and put them short or on the sidelines on the way down. 

 

So we come back to the first - but biggest - point of the day:  The unit volumes  (or inflation-corrected price) - is the only honest way to make any kind of economic assertion and have it mean anything.  The month-to-month perturbations in the market essentially add up to mental masturbation with the objective of parting you from your dough.

---

As I've mentioned a couple of times now, the market put in a Hindenburg Omen (read yesterday's report if you missed it) and we're quickly coming up to what I'd suggest may be considered The Kurzweil Paradox of Economics.

 

"What the hell's that, Ure?"

 

Well, goes like this:  We can agree to begin with that one of the most overworked concepts in modern economic/BizSpeak is Ray Kurzweil's notion that The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology is going to show up, right?

 

"Get to the point; we exactly ain't paying by the word here..."

 

(Let me look into that...) OK: Well, there's this ugly problem (worse than my great-great-great grandfather's PR issues, since he was the inspiration for the novel Frankenstein) could have ever imagined:  We're about to run out of jobs for humans at just about the same moment that we need to be creating jobs like crazy to put all these newly unemployed people back to work so they can pay taxes.

 

The problem is amplified in this dandy Howard Hill piece "We Robot"  which mentions the human-replacement problems in the auto industry (for one) and brings up the ugly question (once again, if you fire off some neurons) "Who really got bailed out"?  The workers, or the machine owners?

 

The reason this is so critically important to start thinking about is that ever since the Industrial Revolution got underway, there's been this notion that humans ought to be taxed, but not only should machines be taxed at lower rates, companies are allowed under tax laws to write down a machines' value over time to zero (in as little as one year under IRS Section 179, LOL).

 

But human capital is not treated the same way.  In fact, if humans were treated like most machines, they'd be written off in 10-year or less.  Why, we'd be paid for our 'useful life and then go fishing.  I suppose the wholesale firings that accompany depressions, like the one we're arguably now in, may be the functional equivalent, except we starve and no time for fishing.

 

But it brings me to the larger question of "Shouldn't we be taking the machine output, which would be a form of production tax on machine owners so that workers who are displaced may be provided for?"

 

Howard & I started a conversation yesterday about how far the tax rate (on humans) could be pushed as we make the difficult transition to what could be a democratic socialist middle ground between outright communism and runway world-wreck irresponsible free traders who are only in it for the thing that matters most to them:  Money in their  pockets so that their culture of Elitism may flourish.  After all, no point being uber-rich if everyone is...they actually need the downtrodden and oppressed so they can claim superiority and some God-given "divine right to rule" crap when the truth of the matter is their on a hopeless ego trip featuring an inability to share and share alike and so forth.  But again, I digress.

 

Our main stage feature is the Producer Price Index and how you want interpret this, or the housing numbers to follow depends almost entirely where you want to stand as your statistical vantage point.  Things are either getting better, or we're still stuck in Depression Two. 

 

May I have the envelope, Please?

"The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods rose 0.2 percent in July, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This advance followed a 0.5-percent decline in June and a 0.3-percent decrease in May. At the earlier stages of processing, prices received by manufacturers of intermediate goods moved down 0.4 percent in July and the crude goods index rose 2.7 percent. On an unadjusted basis, prices for finished goods advanced 4.2 percent for the 12 months ended July 2010, their ninth consecutive 12-month increase."

Well, crap.  I always skip on to the crude goods level to see if inflation or deflation is in the pipeline:

"Crude energy: The index for crude energy materials advanced 4.5 percent in July. From April to July, prices for crude energy materials moved up 0.8 percent subsequent to a 10.9-percent drop for the 3 months ending in April. The monthly increase in July was almost entirely the result of an 11.7-percent jump in the index for natural gas. Prices for coal also contributed to the crude energy goods increase, rising 1.2 percent. (See table 2.)

Crude foods: The index for crude foodstuffs and feedstuffs rose 3.3 percent in July. For the 3- month period ending in July, crude food prices moved down 2.8 percent. This decline followed a 3.5-percent increase from January to April. About a third of the July monthly advance can be attributed to prices for corn, which jumped 14.6 percent. An increase in the index for slaughter cattle also contributed to the rise in crude food prices.

Crude core: The index for crude nonfood materials less energy decreased 1.4 percent in July. From April to July, crude core prices fell 7.6 percent following a 9.7-percent advance in the previous 3-month period. Leading the July monthly decline was a 6.7-percent drop in the index for iron and steel scrap. A decrease in the index for wastepaper also contributed to lower crude core prices.

Oh-oh...inflation.  You saw a week or so back where Wal-Mart had raised its prices about 6-percent in one month in one study (Virginia)?  Flip side: WMT profit is up and heading higher says their forecast.  All those wider aisles, thinner inventory levels and such are paying off.  (Does your team cheer three times a day?)

 

No rah-rah in the Housing report this morning, though:

BUILDING PERMITS

Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 565,000. This is 3.1 percent (±2.0%) below the revised June rate of 583,000 and is 3.7 percent (±2.2%) below the July 2009 estimate of 587,000.

Single-family authorizations in July were at a rate of 416,000; this is 1.2 percent (±1.2%)* below the revised June figure of 421,000.

Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 129,000 in July.

HOUSING STARTS

Privately-owned housing starts in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 546,000. This is 1.7 percent (±9.7%)* above the 9.7%) revised June estimate of 537,000, but is 7.0 percent (±7.5%)* below the July 2009 rate of 587,000.

Single-family housing starts in July were at a rate of 432,000; this is 4.2 percent (±8.7%)* below the revised June figure of 451,000.

The July rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 95,000.

HOUSING COMPLETIONS

Privately-owned housing completions in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 587,000. This is 32.8 percent (±6.8%) below the revised June estimate of 874,000 and is 25.4 percent (±7.3%) below the July 2009 rate of 787,000.

Single-family housing completions in July were at a rate of 490,000; this is 27.5 percent (±7.6%) below the revised June rate of 676,000. The July rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 91,000.

So here's my question:  If housing starts are so crappy, why are building material prices so damn high for projects around the ranch, huh?

 

If this is a recovery, the statistical bumps along the way seem wildly oversized.

 

Bolton's Timeline for War

There are reports that once upon a time UN rep John Bolton says Israel has until August 21st to attack Bushehr, down the road from the Persian carpet makers in Iran.

 

I didn't like his worldview before and even less now.  The SF Chronicle's site reporting that "Iran Threatens Israel's Existence if it Attacks" is certainly cause for pause.

 

But even more reason:  The Russians have crews helping out with the fuel loading, we presume.  Bigger question (which blows up into global war around November 8-12?) is therefore, how's Russia going to respond when their reactor workers are offed in the attacks?  Do they just sit idly by?  Not hardly.  So maybe the dominionists will get their bigger war after all.

 

Remember the Diaspora Meme?

Earlier this year, it wasn't clear to me how Clif's linguistic predictions about huge diaspora (millions upon millions) moving about Asia would ever come to pass this year.  But now that millions upon millions are homeless, moving around, and being stricken now with diseases like cholera, I can see it, and imagine you can, too.

 

Coming to Get Our Food

A reader with a sharp eye sends this about the UK Daily Mail article under the headline "EU to ban selling eggs by the dozen: Shopkeepers' fury as they are told all food must be weighed and sold by the kilo", noting:

 "I was under the impression that the UK was NOT part of the EU. If they are not part of the EU, why are they allowing this?  Here Senate bill 510/ HR 2749 is not too far behind."

It's really all quite simple and been coming for a long time...the toil all day for a measure of wheat and a measure of oil has been written of for what, 2000 years?

 

First We Taken Menhaden

(With apologies to Leonard Cohen for the poor pun of his "First we take Manhattan"):  South Jersey shore towns are starting to clean up what are thousands upon thousands of tiny fish that have washed up due to an oxygen deprived dead zone.

 

While the conspiracy boards are all a-twitter (sorry) with theories about how this might some way be linked to the BP spill, a quick Google search shows high temps are killing fish in Illinois, Topeka, Kansas, and South Carolina recently.

 

Hide The Sausage Department

I don't know if you've seen it, but the LA Times is running a series on the quality of education in the SoCal area.

 

At the same time, the Times reported this weekend that "Union leader calls on L.A. teacher to boycott Times".

---

The teacher union official's comments about judging quality by a test is interesting hereabouts because of our focus in the in-depth Peoplenomics report this past weekend about how despite 'selling' of higher education, it hasn't changed the fact that there are now more humans vying for each job out there and the major change in the demographics of the US workforce since 2000 is that more and more people are entering the workforce with a $20,000-$40,000 (or higher) debt loads on their backs.

 

Not only does the report outline the dismal performance of job forecasting 9which has fallen short of projections) but with a little easy one plus one equals thinking, you can see that one of the major reasons for the Housing Crisis (ongoing) is that so few young people can get well-paying jobs and their student loan debts are killing the country slowly.

 

Especially when the elites have no real answer to the Johnson administration sleight of hand (sleight of free lunch is more like it) that put Social Security into the general fund to pay for 'entitlements' and there went that money.  So, instead of a Great Society today we have instead a depression unfolding with people who ought to be retiring now working to 72 and beyond and kids swamped with inescapable (even through bankruptcy) debt, but you probably figured that part out.

 

Thanks Washington.  NOT :  Vote 'em all out in November.

 

Looking for a Worthy Goal

I know I've ragged on this point a lot lately, bemoaning how America lacks a higher goal... but go read the comments of sci-fi genius Ray Bradbury.  He's calling for a revolution of the peaceful and gets us somewhere kind....

 

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Coping:  Life In The Alternate Reality

A email from a friend of mine last week (or so) began "Say ya'll..." and then launched into an explanation of proper Southern grammar saying what he really intended was to say "Say, all ya'll..." but that's the first thing that came to my mind when confronted to two realities and a good old saying on Tuesday. 

 

There I was making plans for our little escapade (albeit not in an Escalade) up to Oklahoma this weekend when I discovered that I may have found undeniable proof that reality has split, but not evenly.

 

Seems on Google's map of how to get to our hotel up that-a-way, the hotel we'll be staying at is south of the freeway (I-40).  On the other hand, the Gatesian Streets and Trips (with GPS, although I don't get lost too often in my office here except when I'm really in the absent minded writer mode) insists that no, the hotel is on the north side of I-40.

 

I must have spent 5-minutes twisting my head, this way and that, trying to find the error of my ways.  But, time being money and all, and besides by now I was perspiring and my neck was kinking up; I decided to call the hotel.

 

A helpful young lady answered and I posed my Big Question.

"Yeah, I kinda noticed that the other day when I was looking up a gym..." she admitted.

"So are you north or south of I-40?"

"North..."

Aha!  Google apparently (at least during the part of the day when I was looking at it disagreed about where this hotel was really.

 

As a precaution, I sent this note to Robin Landry, so that he could have his friends up there all wear seat belts at work today, in case of any discomfort while Google gets the hotel moved.

---

 

Well, that was fine.  And then I got to talking to my brother in law (Panama Bates) about his excursion Saturday to the Gun Show up in Tyler, Texas.  "Anything new?"

 

Turns out pistol prices have been going through the roof, and we then had the usual debate about whether a .22 pistol is good for anything other than noisemaking, but Bates is convinced they have their place.  Not only did his Grandfather shoot two deer at once with a .22 LR round up in the mountains of Arizona where he and Elaine grew up, but he also noted that the .22 was the assassination weapon of choice in WW II, something most people don't think about during wars, as such actions didn't get turned into a lot of movies.

 

I opinioned that I wouldn't trade my Ruger 9 MM for much of anything and while my Glock's a nice piece of plastic, it's not nearly as 'steady feeling' as the heavier Ruger.

 

And then he stopped me cold...

"You should have seen all the new colors they have, too..."

"Guns?  What do you mean colors, Bates?"

"Well just that:  They had little .22 and .380 pistols and autos in just about every shade you could imagine...whole rainbow of colors.  There were pinks, reds, blues, some oranges and even a nice emerald green..."

I was afraid that American marketing would eventually come to this, but there I was...jaw dropped to the living room floor stunned by the surreality of it all:  People buy guns to do one thing...which is what?  Kill other people which oughta be a last resort.

 

But the idea of drilling someone with a .22 that to blue, or a mean green .380...well...it just shows to go you that people are getting progressively unattached to the reality of what killing people are all about.

 

Can you imagine the implications of this?  I must be super slow - losing my edge as a marketing guy for not seeing the potential of this earlier when I think it was Cheaper Than Dirt has a pink cammo stock Remington had caught my eye a while back.  Remember thinking "Hmmm...pink?"

 

They apparently had yellows, golds, browns...call me a traditionalist but it just don't seem right.  I swear we've dropped into an alternate reality that features rainbow-colored guns.  Why, seems to me this is a plot to put more and more colored guns out which will then be played with more by kids, which will then give the gun control lobby more reason to round up the Second Amendment rights we held dear....but that was long ago, eh, Comrade?

 

I suppose, if I have to go by gunfire some day, going with a nice puce piece would be good...I could go out laughing, because everyone knows that doesn't go with anything.

 

On last Southern phrase wells up:  "I'll be dipped & rolled in it..."  You think it we sprayed everything in the Army's inventory pink, we could kill Taliban more effectively?  Get 'em while they're laughing...

 

Smells in Florida

Had several people report from the south Florida region on Monday that they could smell something - no one was sure what - but something out of the ordinary following heavy rains down that way:

Good evening,

I am in Southwest FL. Yesterday (Sunday) and today, but mostly yesterday morning there was definitely a chemical smell to the air. My husband smelled it also. It smelled, to me, like agricultural chemicals such as you would notice in the garden section of a store. This was accompanied by two days of body aches and pains. I have felt like I have been poisoned. I chalked it up to chemtrails. Here, lately, when they spray, it is usually overnight, and at high altitudes. I can always tell when they have been spraying even before I get out of bed in the morning by how I feel. i just looked at a website called www.globalskywatch.com,   and the person who put the website together described the exact same symptoms that I have been experiencing due to these chemtrails. I am ready to leave the country because of the spraying, but to where?

hard finding a good spot.  The Diaspora Handbook, parts 1 & 2 is in the Peoplenomics subscriber library with some strategies and also of interest may be buying a sailboat and heading to the southern hemisphere.  Ideas in the January 2009 article "Retirement Dream: Escape to the Sea - A Good Idea?" will get you started.

 

Oh, but no worries about South Florida, especially since government now says things are safe....

 

Something Reptilian Here?

On the NOAA site: "New scales help public, technicians understand space weather."  Oh, not those kinda scales.  Check.  Pass me the Reynolds Wrap.

 

But the Real Worries Are...

....summed up in this email:

Hi Mr. Ure,

 

You may be interested in John Young's recent comments on surveillance, privacy, disinfo etc: (Link to site)

 

For example, on the policy of government disinformation, and also of 'secret' and 'top secret' security classifications, Young says:

 

“‘Top Secret’ is no longer “top secret”, ‘Secret’ is no longer “secret”, these are now throw-away terms. There’s something called ‘National Security Information’ that does not get out, and you will not see it on the internet. [...] Governments are the biggest leakers in the world, the US government leaks far more information than Wikileaks will ever be able to handle. Leakage is now a policy, and it is meant to divert attention from the other stuff — of “the dark side” I call it — which you will not ever see on my site or on Wikileaks.  [...] There are some things that are so classified that you don’t even know how they’re classified, you don’t know the terms that are used to classify them.”

If you're interested in this sort of stuff, the podcast with Sibel Edmonds is excellent.

Best regards to Zeus,

Foolish as I am, I believe an honest man still has nothing to fear in America, provided -- he doesn't rock the boat too much.  The only ones who need to worry are probably the ones with 'game changer ideas'...thinks like Tesla and his machines, Reich with his orgone devices and....oh-oh, those who can see into the future.... Hmmm....

----

Well, I'm going to go fire a few neurons off for a client today...check local regulations, firing neurons inside an incorporated area may be illegal. 

 

Say, that would cover any of us corpgov chattel anywhere in the whole country, wouldn't it?  OK, "Thinking Optional Tuesday" then.  Don't want to rock the boat too much.

 

---

Monday August 16, 2010

'What Went Up" Week

Mondays are usually exciting, but there's something particularly interesting about this Monday.  For one thing, the price of gold started off with a nice $7 pop to the upside when I looked.  "Excellent!" went the Monty Burns voice in the back of my mind.  Note to self: Consider renaming Zeus the Cat "Smithers".

 

Holding a boatload of short positions, the AP headline "Stock market apt to stay difficult for some time" set off another character voice, this one going "Yabba-dabda-doo!"  There was also a brief "Ah-OOOO-gah" of a submarine's diving klaxon in there, too...

 

A quick glance at the picture in Europe this morning showed a kind of mixed bag, with the UK and Frenchies being down, while the Deutschers were up a tad, and the barest little tad at that.

 

Starting off the week will be the NY Fed's Empire Manufacturing report, which has something to do with work in the northeast, although the double entendre with the US off manufacturing empire in the Middle East wouldn't be a bad play on concepts....

"The Empire State Manufacturing Survey indicates that conditions improved modestly in August for New York manufacturers. The general business conditions index rose 2 points from its July level, to 7.1. The new orders and shipments indexes both dipped below zero for the first time in more than a year, indicating that orders and shipments declined on balance; the unfilled orders index was also negative. The indexes for both prices paid and prices received inched down, while employment indexes were positive and higher than last month. The six-month outlook weakened; though future indexes were generally still positive, many fell in August, with the notable exceptions of the future employment and capital expenditures indexes, which climbed after falling last month.

In a series of supplementary questions, manufacturers were asked about their capital spending plans. Looking ahead to the next six to twelve months, 37 percent of respondents indicated that they expected to increase capital spending relative to its level in the past six to twelve months, while just 13 percent planned reductions. Of those predicting increased capital spending, 27 percent noted that "a considerable fraction" of the increase reflected investment that had been postponed because of the recession; 41 percent of respondents had given this same response in a similar survey back in January.

Another 46 percent of those surveyed this month attributed "some" of the spending increase to the recession. The most commonly cited factors behind increased investment were high expected growth in sales and a need to replace capital goods other than IT (information technology) equipment. The most widely cited factors behind steady or decreased capital investment in the current survey were low expected sales growth, low capacity utilization, and limited need to replace non-IT capital goods. "

Next: The Treasury Long-Term TIC flows will be out in a moment or two, but that's one of those numbers you can save for a time when you're having trouble getting to sleep.  They oughta work just fine and they're NOT habit forming.

 

Tomorrow, we'll into a full-blown numeric frenzy with more numbers than you can shake a pop-up calculator at:  Housing Starts and Building Permits will roll in, along with the Producer Price Index in the pre-open, then at 9:15 the Fed will roll Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization out, which I reckon will be flat (or within statistical noise, just to confound the FOMC further - like that's possible).

 

And speaking of the confounded FOMC: China seems to be getting more bullish on Europe and less so on the US according to a Bloomberg piece worth reading, especially if you play FOREX, which I stay away from like the plague, since you can get killed with either.

 

The quants get a day of rest since with the exception of an oil inventory number Wednesday, it'll be quiet,.  Bleeding economic indicators Thursday morning and basically nothing on Friday.  If you're looking for a three-day weekend ahead of the  Labor Day herd, this might be a good one to burn a day of comp time on.  No comp time?  Oh, that got outsourced, too,  I forgot...

 

Robin Handler's Options Signal Service summed up the arrival of "The Hindenburg Omen" last week this way:

As a reminder, the 5 criteria of the Omen are as follows:

1. That the daily number of NYSE new 52 Week Highs and the daily number of new 52 Week Lows must both be greater than 2.2 percent of total NYSE issues traded that day.

2. That the smaller of these numbers is greater than or equal to 69 (68.772 is 2.2% of 3126). This is not a rule but more like a checksum. This condition is a function of the 2.2% of the total issues.

3. That the NYSE 10 Week moving average is rising.

4. That the McClellan Oscillator is negative on that same day.

5. That new 52 Week Highs cannot be more than twice the new 52 Week Lows (however it is fine for new 52 Week Lows to be more than double new 52 Week Highs). This condition is absolutely mandatory.

Since this has been a kind of buzz 'round the net', it's now being pictured elsewhere as heralding the "Financial Doom" of American and other statements along those lines.  I'd remind you that collapse is not a single event, it's a process - and we just happen to be in it.

 

Slow as this morning is likely to be, I think I'll have another split shot Americano tall and try to figure out where all the cartoon voices in my head came from.  I can figure out the sub klaxon without help.

 

The War Pool

If I were a betting man, I'd bet the August 25th through 28th period will be a meltdown of some of Europe's banking (again) rather than an attack on Iran by the West.  Still, could be interesting in light of the military maneuvers which are gearing up off North Korea this week.

 

If you'd like to follow North Korea's side of things, you can click over to PCWorld and get their twitting details here; maybe they learned a thing or three from the US using Twitter during the Iran internal protests a while back, ya think?

 

Also,. there have been some internal political maneuverings going on which are leading to some speculation about Who's Who in line of succession in NK, as differentiated from the Who's Hu of China.

---

But while GTNW (global thermo-nuclear war) is not likely over North Korea.  Iran, on the other hand - second week of November, or so - is a different deal, entirely.  There's a lot of detail about how all that seems to be headed for a blow-up second week of November when it'll be lame ducks galore in Washington per the new "Shape of Things To Come" report from www.halfpasthuman.com which was released Sunday morning.  $10-bucks and worth it; just don't eat first.  Not happy stuff.

 

But even without the benefit of the plays spelled out there, we see Iran continuing to paint what are effectively larger and larger bull's eyes on its territory.  The Jerusalem Post, for example in today's online edition headlines "Iran to build third plant".  Geniuses.

 

So if you're in the office "Next Big War" pool, I'd talk up the idea of a Korea Peninsula showdown, but only as a tool to get the pot a little bigger, and I'd stick with the November 8-12 period for the real deal in the M.E.

 

As a kind of fine-tuning mechanism I'd be keeping an eye on copper futures on whatever commodity price sites you look in on, like INO.com here.

 

Food Hikes Are Coming

Sometimes those Shape of Things to Come reports from Clif just absolutely nail a coming trend in an amazing way.  Example: I've been telling you for the better part of a year to what?  "Put in a damn four-seasons garden!!"

 

More than a few people called me "Fear-mongering alarmist!"  when the truth of the matter  is that even a junior time monk learns to live a year into the future.  So, when the stories started appearing lately about all the crop failures in Europe and out of the Wisconsin Ag Connection, the headline was " August Crop Forecast:  Corn & Soybeans could See New Records" we'd already ordered our greenhouse and will get it set up in coming weeks.

 

If you don't have it handy, you might want to bookmark Senate bill 510 which is the "FDA Food Safety Modernization Act" which by some reads would make it illegal for individuals to grow their own food, save seeds, or share it with others.  Wonder how much dough the chemical farming/GMO crooks poured into this one?  Oh well, levers at the read to vote out the co-sponsors in what, twelve weeks, or so?

 

Related Article:  "Raids Increasing on Farms and Food Supply Clubs."

 

Is this the part where I say "Quick!  Look surprised!"?

 

Quake Spotting

Notice how active the USGS Quake List has been the past couple of weeks? 

 

Got an email from some outfit this morning referring to the "7.2 Marianas Earthquake" over the past week.  Biggest I could find on the USGS site was the 6.9 quake in the Marianas subduction region, but personally, I find the USGS rated 7.1 in Ecuador last week potentially more meaningful:  Chile quakes, then Ecuador...are they moving north?

 

Other sites may have slightly different magnitudes reported and, as the emailed evidences, slightly higher quake ratings, but we will stick with the USGS numbers.  The surest way to get data wrong is to use multiple sources which may lead to inaccurate impressions.

 

Related Development:  A new (previously undiscovered) fault down int he Haiti area....

 

Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite Department

Hmmm...maybe bed bugs are drawn to fresh apples...Big Apples...yeah...dats dah ticket...that'd explain why 1 in 10 New Yorksters have had bedbug problems, right?

 

Not MY Zeus

No connection between my editor (Zeus the Cat - ZtC) but just to be sure, I have taken his computer administrator rights away since a reader sent in the headline:

 

"Zeus Trojan steals $1 million from U.K. bank accounts..."

 

 

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Coping: Weekends and Movies

Seems like that new Sly move (The Expendables) is doing very well at the box offices around the country.  May have to go see it one of these days.  Salt was pretty good as was Sorcerer's Apprentice before that.  Trying to keep up on movie-going may be one of the last affordable hobbies. 

---

I've put my quest for an airplane on hold for a while.  Too hot to fly without air conditioning, and the planes that come with a/c are a LOT more expensive to fly.  Oh, sure, once you get up to altitude (if you're going somewhere, that is) the temps come down...at the rate of about 3-4 degrees per thousand feet of altitude, BTW.  Still, when it's 99 on the ground and you're staying in the pattern, the effect is more like broiling under one of those halogen light cooking rigs.

 

The only sensible way to fly in Texas, new Mexico, Aridzona, and the rest of the south in the summer is plan a cross-country trip of several hundred miles, leaving at first light and getting up to cruise altitude as quickly as possible.  Then, when comes time to land, make as quick a descent as possible to avoid heat stroke....

 

Coming to some of these realizations, I've decided to go on a couple of fcar trips.  They may be slower, but should be fun, nevertheless.  And the a/c in Elaine's car is great.  Our first weekend 'mini' will be up to Oklahoma to see Robin Landry & his wife.  Robin and I will no doubt be spending most of the time going over minute differences in how we count the market moves here lately.

 

Then, a week or two later (right after school starts) we're throwing darts at places to visit.  One, on my list is Mount Rushmore, which somehow doesn't have my likeness chiseled in the rock yet.  But we're open to suggestions.

 

The criteria should be fairly simple:  Where's a good place to go for splendid eye treats?  And within a reasonable drive from the midst of East Texas, too.  Don't recall seeing a central US poll of best places to visit.  Done caves, mountains and much of the West.  600 mile limit, please, although I am aware that Rushmore's a bit further, 1220.1 miles according to the Gatesian navigation software.

 

Been thinking about making a loop of it:  Memphis and Nashville for blues and some country on the eastern side of the loop, a pizza an d steak festival in Chicago, then come down the Western side through the Flaming Gorge park to Grand Junction, then on to Silverton-Durango if I can get train tickets.

 

We've got people to see in New Mexico, not to mention the Hill Country northeast of San Antonio, so not like once we get out on the road we couldn't just do a big amble of things.  Living in cheap, but hopefully not bed bug-infested hotels, would be in keeping with one of Pappy's greatest observations about the prices people pay for hotel rooms when traveling:  "Once you close your eyes and go to sleep, they are all pretty much the same regardless of price..." 

 

That's when I started figuring that the difference between a $750 a night hotel and a $250 a night hotel was $500 amortized over about 4-hours of being awake and in the room.  Coffee's pretty much the same in either case, and yes, you might get a $10-breakfast thrown in with the $750 room, but I can buy breakfast for 2-months on the difference.

 

Idle planning, at least for now, but once the weather cools off a bit, I'm starting to get that 'get up and look around' feeling.  Haven't done much of it for a number of years and there's something therapeutic about looking at the country from more than one perspective.

 

Maybe we just need to buy a company somewhere that's cool in the summer and then spend half our time at one end of the country, and half at the other.  That'd make the most sense and makes one, or the other, all a business trip.

 

Hmmm...

 

Curious Smell...

Had a reader call form Miami about 6:10 this morning with a curious observation:

"Have you had any other reports from the Miami area of people smelling oil or something unusual in the air this morning?  I have a good filtration system in my apartment and the filter has some activated charcoal in it, but when I went outside there was a definite scent of something - just a whiff that you got used to pretty quick - and I'm wondering since wee had a good rain yesterday if you have had any other reports?"

Nope, first one, so far.  But the reader asked if other people in the South Florida area are noticing anything today, especially if they go from an air conditioned/filtered building into the outside air, or if it was just his imagination playing tricks.  But, if that was the case, how come someone he was with also smelled it and mentioned it?

 

So, wonders a foreign press outfit, Did president Obama go for a swim in the Gulf, or not?

 

Curious Billing

Say: One reason this morning's column is a little ,shorter than usual is that a certain software/fire wall outfit sent me a billing for $64.95 for a recurring license.  Which would be fine, but I didn't recall having a subscription to renew automatically and let them pull funds out of PayPal without my specific OK.  I am one of those tight-fisted people that doesn't believe in recurring subscriptions and even encourage Peoplenomics subscribers to canel theirs so that my system can invite them to renew - not renew and then issue a refund if someone doesn't like it.

 

Anyway, I'm curious how many other people are finding an issue with 'billing agreements' that were not authorized as a subscription.  A logical follow-on question is whether such companies may be running into hard financial timers such that risking such a customer relations boondoggle would make sense, but I suppose we'll never actually know on that one.