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Published Monday - Friday about 8 AM Central Time Except Holidays....many major typos are fixed by 8:30 daily

Saturday July 4, 2009       07:30  AM CDT    Business news from UrbanSurvival.com's RSS feed 

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Frustrated America - Monetizing Misery

As I've written extensively in my lead-in papers to this Second Depression, this one's going to be different than its 1930's prototype.  It's going to be longer, worse, and cause more pain and suffering than any that have gone before it.  Not that any individual leader in government would will such a thing - in fact, quite the contrary:  all give lip service to fighting all enemies, foreign and domestic, but then miss the last point; namely taking a good look at themselves.

 

In case you've been sleeping, America is going down the crapper by fits and starts due to the fact that America's Framers had in mind the design for an 'independent' kind of America, one where self-sufficiency, freedom, minimal governance, and oh, did I mention the pursuit of happiness? was the goal.

---

I've proposed that there are seven major physical support systems which define the physical quality of one's life and that each of these has be undergoing dramatic change over the last year to the point where it's tearing the country apart despite the best intentions of those who would pretend to lead us.

  • Food:  Over the past year, millions of American families had to make the once 'unthinkable' decisions - "Do I feed my family or make this house payment?"

  • Shelter:  Thanks to the government-sponsored (starting with Greenspan et al and their 'easy money, non-regulation of housing lenders) we're still in the opening portion of the Second Depression with housing prices down nationally almost 33% (*S&P/Case-Schiller this week) since most markets peaked in mid-2006.

  • Transportation:  Ford skirted financial death, but GM and Chrysler have been bankrupted.

  • Communications:  Television, once mandated by the Communications Act of 1934 to serve the public need, interest, and concern, can now no longer be had "free".  You have to either buy an analog -digital converter, or put on the yoke of a monthly cable or satellite bill to get your news.  The corporate hijack of communications is nearly complete.  Where else, but in America, would the public supposedly have 'free access' to what goes on in Washington, but then have to pay to have a corpgov 'provider' move the signal to the home?  And it doesn't stop there:  Censorship of the internet is coming along nicely too, in places like Australia which are test beds for the limited or corporate domination of sheepish people.

  • Energy:  We've been fighting in Iraq - ostensibly for freedom - yet strangely as the energy deals come together for the multinationals, the war 'winds down'.  It's a shocking coincidence.

  • Environment:  Health care reform is coming, along with taxes on cow-farts, or anything else that Al Gore and his cronies can sell as ways to 'Save the earth from global warming'.  Reality check:  It's summer.  And in case you didn't notice, the "Health overhaul in Senate bill imposes penalty on those refusing affordable medical coverage."  Affordable?  In whose book?  Meantime, notice how the 'avoid crowds or swine flu might get'cha' meme effectively killed the "Tea Parties"?  Might as well set up an exchange to trade wife-beating credits while we're at it.

  • Finance:  The country is essentially broke.  Unbelievable as it is, the people who are trying to monetize misery are still spending far beyond the ability of the country to pay - unless, of course, they plan a massive hyperinflation starting as early as late fall this year.  Of course, that would fit nicely, since hyperinflation now won't take as much equity out of the pockets of the PowersThatBe since the weakest of our countrymen have already been foreclosed upon before paying back their mortgages with hyper inflated (thus widely available cheaper money) will be one of those fire exits that's been conveniently chained shut.

 

Not like UrbanSurvival or the IndependenceJournal (mirror site) is the only place you'll sense the rage.

"Hi George,

It's after midnight and I'm frustrated beyond belief in my own country! Last week the House passed the despicable Carbon Tax and Control bill under dubious conditions, and the SINate is now talking about forcing us all to have health insurance against our will. It's so un-American I don't even know what to do anymore - these cretins are stealing us blind, then forcing us to live in "approved" houses and forcing us to be registered and insured! We are not cars!

I suppose they figure that it's summer and nobody will notice........

I just don't know where to turn anymore - it seems that the system can't fall fast enough for me. As an autonomous human, I've never had health insurance, refusing it at every turn. NOT having it keeps me alert, since I know I can die from a single mistake. I have and will continue to refuse hospitalization and most "care", taking full responsibility for my own health. Surprisingly or not, I'm your age and in good health, and I work hard on my own stuff each day.

Now I find that marketable title for our homes will be taken without compensation - certainly a gross violation of the fifth amendment, though not without precedent. The following links clarify if you haven't seen them already...

"Under Cap and Trade you must "retrofit" your home or you can't sell (goodbye real estate market)..."

I read the Carbon Tax bill when it was only 1100 pages and haven't found an up to date copy of this garbage - even though I doubt most congresscritters read any of it. There are too many laws to fight - it seems there should be a moratorium on all change until we can catch up. Then maybe just one law a year, with a month between final form and voting in either house. That way we'd know what we are dealing with. It seems that if the bills haven't been read, then the vote is invalid anyway. Obviously politics doesn't work - does anything? I've already stopped earning money(and paying associated taxes) voluntarily since there's no profit left in it.

Or maybe - per Janis Joplin - "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.."

At this rate, we'll become the new North Korea, full of starving citizens and pariah state of the world. Maybe that's the plan.

If there's any hope left - please share - I'm doing my best and will be fine without the meddlers. Is there any hope at all? Is there any reason to do anything positive at all other than just enjoy the moment, squander my wealth, and max out my cards?

Thanks again for all your work,"

Bankster Field Day!

This reader email is one of just hundreds I've received over the past couple of months - almost all of them going to the idea that "We're good Constitution-loving Americans and what happened to the Country that we fought and died for?  The Framers never had in mind what's going on in the world today - where special interests have made millionaires out of virtually all of our 'leaders' who even have their own retirement and insurance plans - separate and apart from what's good enough for the electorate.

 

Am I the only one who understands that 'equal protection' under the Constitution is supposed to be more than a catchy positioning statement?

 

A reader in the Southeast shows his anger at the banksters when he notes (in previous emails) that not only are they trying to restrict credit (and up card rates) to get every last drop of blood from every penny of debt, but that they are right now actively denying credit and loans to what in previous times would have been superb lending opportunities.  Read this carefully:  The Banksters are restricting credit in order to push the country further into Depression 2...

"George, FYI I have been shopping for an equipment loan for several months now.

Our credit scores are 753 and 799. I am told by loan brokers these are very good scores.

Our net worth is north of 2 mill. We owe $120,000, zero interest, on three pieces of Kubota [farm] equipment.

We have a letter from the ********** state department of mining that says that we do not need a permit to sell sand and gravel. We have a 75 mile radius around the farm that gives us a monopoly on sand because of hauling costs. Sand sells for $36 a ton. We have a sand and gravel deposit in the middle of our ********** acre farm in the amount of 4+ million tons. Our cost of production with a $400,000 loan at 7%, amortized over 7 years, including all costs is $.50 per ton. Sand and gravel are as basic to civilization as any commodity you can name short of food.

We have been unable to find $400,000 (fully collateralized by equipment) for this project after months of looking by two competent loan brokers.

The local banksters will loans us $400,000 on the first deed of trust on the farm. Considering the value of the farm (comparative sales, large acreage, 3/4 mile river frontage, 3/4 mile highway frontage) is $2,500 per acre, $1,650,000 with no consideration for improvements, $*%^&^%* banksters think we are all IDIOTS.

They want it all and they want it now. Any suggestions?"

None!  Except I'd offer this as just another example of how the banking industry is causing - deliberately - the worsening crisis.  It's all being orchestrated by the PTB to see how much they can get away with this time around. The old Hegelian dialect at work:  First you plan your agenda, then you create a crisis, then you force acceptance of your solution.  Dress it up as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis and most folks won't get it.

 

If you have any ideas, please pass them along.  This is a fellow who has - as he notes - good credit and a marvelous opportunity to build a new business.  But, the long and short of his predicament serves to illustrate that banksters used to beg him to go into debt and today - as they drive the country down Depression road - they won't even give him the time of day without title to his Life's work promised.

 

Although hopefully I won't need it for a couple of years, this weekend's Peoplenomics report (out Sunday afternoon) spells out my answer:  Each of us developing a Personal Constitution since the one that was provided by the Framers is being shredded in Washington.

 

Bucked:  As In  Rhymes with...

My guess that hyperinflation is the way out of the collapse of America come into clearer focus this morning as Bloomberg reports that "India joins Russia, China in Questioning U.S. Dollar."

 

Journalistic Prowess

Reader spied...

"This paragraph from the Guardian UK gave me a huge chuckle this morning. Kathryn and Heather deserve a big raise for their clever use of The King's English....

"While optimism regarding the overall business situation remained firmly negative, according to the CBI, the rate of decline had slowed on that in recent quarters. However, business volumes fell at the fastest rate since March 1991, but are expected to start to rise over the next three months."

Up, down, and nowhere...all at the same time, huh?  Works for us...

 

Palin Rambles Out

I watched the resignation video of Alaska's governor Palin and after listening to it, what I walked away with was a sense of confusion.  Wonder how many cups of coffee she had?  A high speed flurry of...uh....disconnected phrases.

 

If she were going to run for president, why not say so? 

 

Ever go to a conference room meeting and see a colleague caught completely unprepared? And to make matters worse they don't have the nerve to say "Not ready" and let it go?  Instead they go off into gibberish -- which can be mighty entertaining, but it doesn't move the ball?  That's the Palin...er...'speech'.

 

I'll just put this down as another one of the predictive linguistics "strange disappearances" for the summer.

 

Will she and her family just 'disappear' off the public screen, or will she run for president?  Keep your eye on the greedy old party - a hint would be if they ask for their wardrobe back.

 

Terrible Tuesday or Interbabble?

(Definition)  Interbabble:  n.  (also v. as in 'interbabbling") Stories on the 'net which are endlessly frightening and entertaining, but which never work out but serve to waste your time when you should really be focuses on much more important, longer-term actions to improve your future...

 

Besides anger at the current state of affairs in America, a large collection of emails that can be lumped under the heading "Watch out for July 7th" have been landing in my inbox.  Here's a typical story that gets pinned along with the email:  "Crop circle depicts solar eruptions hitting Earth of July 7th."

 

This 7/7 date has been recycled on the net innumerbabble (sic) times - so much so that a reader writes:

About 7/7/05. A recent BBC program was put out to debunk this video and the narrator. Unfortunately, all it did was put it into the consciousness of the UK public sending the google video viewing through the roof.

Whoever is flying those little 'orbs' around that make crop circles seems to be playing the 7/7 meme, too, at least ifs you buy the headline that "Crop Circle depicts solar eruptions hitting Earth on July 7th".  Looks more like fallout in 8-lunar months, but that's just my take on it.

 

Not to blow all this off as interbabble, but I won't be hiding under the bed Tuesday...

 

If you really want something to worry about, pick a year like 2036...

"99942 Apophis (pronounced /əˈpɒfɪs/, previously known by its provisional designation 2004 MN4) is a near-Earth asteroid that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 because initial observations indicated a small probability (up to 2.7%) that it would strike the Earth in 2029. Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth or the Moon in 2029. However, a possibility remains that during the 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis would pass through a gravitational keyhole, a precise region in space no more than about 600 meters across, that would set up a future impact on April 13, 2036. This possibility kept the asteroid at Level 1 on the Torino impact hazard scale until August 2006. It broke the record for the highest level on the Torino Scale, being, for only a short time, a level 4, before it was lowered.[5]...

Now, that's a worry worth worrying on.  If the earthquakes don't get us first....mind you.

 

Unstoppable

WHO says that swine flu is 'unstoppable' according to a BBC report.

 

Call me a latter day Luddite, but you know, with intercontinental air travel comes what?  (Diseases, you ninny! Such as swine/novel/hybrid flu, all of which pale in comparison to the most dangerous disease of all: globalism.)

 

---Snip and save section --

 

Coping: Take Your Beatings Like a Prince...

Independence?  For whom?  A bit of history and a fine idea for America:

"George, the Fourth of July is today. That is supposed to be Independence Day. Unfortunately it is a day that also makes my heart heavy because it reminds me of what we have lost. An idea occurred to me that might be able to help our nation. Some time ago the European royalty had something called a whipping boy. The whipping boy was someone who took the beating for the prince when the prince acted badly. One can imagine with little trouble that people who can bear no consequence for their poor actions (because their whim is law) can't help but be morally challenged. I point to our "properly elected" and appointed government officials as my case in point, since our constitution (the spirit of moral law) is sadly irrelevant today. Perhaps if a few volunteers where publicly whipped (and properly attended to by medical doctors afterwards,) it would vicariously help our modern princes through sympathetic resonance, like it seemed to for the princes of yesteryear. A volunteer could be made up to look somewhat like one of our politicians after lets say 500 constitutional infringements or unethical actions. The volunteer could then read a shortened form of the crimes for which he would be whipped, bless the "prince," then take the whipping. I'm thinking around 500 misdeeds as the minimum or 1, we might run out of whipping boys, or 2 the focus would be lost in a confusing roar of activity. I know sympathetic resonance works, and the idea at least has some merit. I would actually volunteer to be a whipping boy once every couple of years on the mere hope that this would help my country or ensure our future, provided the whipping boy could remain anonymous."

Know what we need in Washington?  How's about "Jack The Whipper?"

 

Around the Ranch:  Weld, Weld Now

Along with finishing up a lot of smaller projects around the ranch on Friday, I took a little time to whack off a couple of sections of pipe and some rebar (5/8th's & 3/8th's) and welded up some tripod umbrella holders which should shade my hammock on my new deck I was telling you about a while back...Tell me if this doesn't look like pure Americana, huh?

 

 

Not sure which of the umbrella tripods looks best...the one which has the supports at the top of the pipe, or the one with the support a couple of inches down.  Whatever.  I intend having at least one glass of ice water in this lash-up today.

---

A sincere thank you to the 2-million Americans who are still at war, not to mention the police, fire, and medical crews that keep 300-million people safe on major holidays.  Safe -- that is --  from everything but Congress, fireworks accidents, and sunburns.  Oh, and ourselves.

 

--- 

Send comments to george@ure.net

---

The UrbanSurvival Mall:

Marching to the Wall

Have a blindfold and cigarette handy? The next year or so will see lots of people and entities being 'marched to the wall'. (Thanks; gotta light?).  Our biggest problem is who to march out first, but that easily solved thanks to a source of mine that keeps track of the Gnomes of Greenwich who have California lined up to march out next.  California defaults, the Gnomes make billions, and guess who is left behind to mourn?  Then shortly thereafter will come 'small investors' who can see the wall, but can't break out of the lock-step march towards it, either...  Ten-hut!  Forward march!

More For Subscribers              Subscription Information

 

MyGroPonics

My commodity broker JB Slear has nailed a great solution for people who living in apartments and condos who want to become at least partially self-reliant when it comes to raising food:  An ultra-high efficiency micro-hydroponics system using readily available local parts. 25-pages and plenty of pictures to turn you into a farmer no matter where you live (Great if you have back problems, too...)...or if you just want to fill up the back yard with MyGroPonics trees and feed the neighborhood... $10 bucks here...

 

Add to Cart    View Cart   

 

Maxa-Cookie Manager

Maxa-Tools has provided us with a free demo - which you're welcome to try - of their dandy cookie manager tool that I use here on all my computers.  It shows both the browser-specific and the newer browser-independent cookies.  Quite happy with it.

 

Here's the download link for the free demo:

 

www.urbansurvival.com/setupMCMstdGU.exe

 

Once you try it out, click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those pesky 'non-browser specific' cookies.  Bonus:  You computer may run faster.  I took over 1,000 cookies off my son's machine that he swore was clean.  It ran much faster.

 

Attn: Mac Drivers:  MCM does support the Safari Browser, but that does not mean it is compatible with Mac OS. Maxa-Tools only support the Windows world.

 

Help US Go Viral

UrbanSurvival has a dandy growth rate, but sadly, it's nothing like swine (hybrid) flu's growth rate.  However, if you'd like to sicken the PowersThatBe, just click here for a tool that may help.  (It'll pop up an email window if you use Outlook (or a few other email programs) then simply send a link to everyone on your distro list...

 

"Live on $10,000" Updated

What?  You haven't ordered the ebook "How to Live on $10,000 a year -- or less"?  Suit yourself.  We're all going to live it shortly, anyway.  I just thought you might like a heads up by reading about how to do it before you get pink-slipped.  But, suit yourself OR visit www.liveontenthousand.com or, click one of the following button:

 

 Buy Now

 

Yep - still possible.  I also took a bit of additional material that was pertinent from recent issues of Peoplenomics and included them.  The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the aforementioned dollar amount, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you make a little more than that and do some active savings...  Click here for the page with more details on it.

----

 Last week's report is here.    For back issues of this site, click here.  (Goes back to 1997!)

 


Friday July 3, 2009

Depression 2 Update: Seven More Banks Fail!

Oh, the joys of not having to get up with the first ring of the alarm clock!  But then, as I laid in bed this morning wondering what to write about, it came to me in a flash:  There have been numerous alarming signs and portents in the markets this week, if one knows where to look.

---

The FDIC announced seven bank failures after the market closed  Thursday, which brings the number of banks closed this year to 52.  But, if you count the number of branch offices closed this week it's 30 branches.

 

Founders Bank
Millennium State Bank of Texas
First National Bank of Danville
Elizabeth State Bank
Rock River Bank
First State Bank of Winchester
John Warner Bank

 

But what's even more alarming is that if you look back over the last year of "We're not in a Depression" bank numbers, you'll see that the number of banks closed is nominally up to 75, but if you count up branches, the banking system has shuffled ownership of 2,969 branches.

 

That FDIC seems to be doing a smooth job of it - making depositors whole in each case (so far), one can't help but wonder what's the cost of all this to be in the longer term, especially since the real guts of the second leg down in financial markets isn't expected till this fall.

 

When will FDIC have to go looking to recharge its coffers?

 

Meantime, at least the bad news was released after the markets were closed and has an extra day to contemplate what this all means.  Answer to that should be apparent to anyone with half a brain (Depression 2.0 may be real and George may not be so crazy after all...).

 

If you divide the total offices closed (2,969) by 51 weeks (since July 11, 2008 is the IndyMac failure - 51 weeks back) closings have been averaging 58.21 offices per week, although admitted the data is skewed a bit by the WAMU and Downey Savings failures.  Still, the count is the count.

---

 

Another one of the alarming stories this week to give 'cause to pause' was the NY Fed Funds Rate which, if you look at the June 30th data, had someone paying 7% for overnight funds.  The aberration, first caught on Karl Denninger's "Market Ticker" site admittedly does leave one asking plenty of questions (Like: Who'd pay 7% for overnight money in this environment if they didn't have a death-like financial mess to paper over quickly?), one can only pray that it was just someone needing quick cash for the end of Q2.  The worst fear is that this is all a set up for the next collapse of the derivatives bubble which will be easily apparent as the Dow goes toward new lows in September, which is what I fear.  Not to mention the possible banking and market holidays which could accompany that.

 

Make a note to self:  Finish spreading money around to 'safe' places.  A bit more in the Treasury TIPS paper, a bit less in the Big National Bank - going instead to a couple of local banks which have weathered at least one Depression previously.

---

A third area where alarming developments are taking place is well-described under the headline "Financial lobby gears up for effort against Obama plan."  While it's true that the Obama administration is trying to build a credible "Consumer Financial Protection Agency", it's more than equally true that the banksters are going to roll out all the big guns and pull out the stops since if this one goes through. it could have a Kondratieff cycle-long impact on the bankster coup - which means it could actually save America from financial interest/bankster domination for another 50-years.  Why, who'd want to be shackled with interest rate caps and such when desperation of common folks can be turned into optimized yields on past-due accounts?

 

You won't read much about this fight in the MainStreamMedia, however, since the banksters have brought most of the corpgov/ MSM media to heel by simple manipulation ad budgets:  "Ya'll either toe the line, or mother banker will slash advertising on your radio/tv/newspaper chain to zip and then where will you be?  Need to roll over a credit line to keep your LBO roll-up together?  Lay off on the coverage of interest rate caps, then..." Or some variant of this.  never 'spoken", but that's how the complex system works when you step back from it a ways.

 

Ah, the joys of having the best 'democratic republic' money can buy. 

 

Related?  "Washington Post cancels lobbyist event amid uproar."  You tell me.  I've filed it under "Cookie jars and fingers."

---

But there's another point of alarm, right there.  Groups like "www.firecongress.org" are popping up and they make it pretty clear that the world "revolution" which I've mentioned prominently ove rthe past year or so are starting to filter into the active area of language.

 

By the way, don't  forget to check out their poster - which you can print off on a good quality color printer and pass around:

 

 

Ballots beat bullets any old time.

---

Along about here, you may be figuring out that the reason the market dropped 223 points in Thursday's trading is that it's occurred to more people than just yours truly that there is not much stimulating going on from the over-hyped and over-sold 'stimulus' bill.

 

Well, duh.

 

Nassim Taleb - who wrote the famous book on statistical outlier events The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable  is being quoted by CNBC this morning as saying "The financial system is crashing and action must be taken by the US government to convert debt into equity to produce a more stable environment..."

 

Nice thought, that. But, in case you haven't noticed, at the current 'burn rate' the only possible outcome for the economy is to have runaway inflation, which is fine from the standpoint of the powers-that-be, since the people who were marginally ready to lose their homes, are in many cases already in default and the homes owned by the bankster class, so when prices start to go wild, they ought to sell like hotcakes and new and much higher rates since the public will be retrained into the borrow and refi industries, which will be retooled to maximize profits once again.

 

Graceful, ain't it?

 

Dollars Away!

It should come as no surprise later this year when the rest of the world (ROW) decides it has had enough and finally throws the dollar under the bus over the following year or two.  On course it will results in Weimar or Zimbabwe-like hyperinflation here inside the US as other countries devalue, but it's not like the signs weren't there and warnings offered.

 

Take, for example this weekend's headline that "China's Zeng urges more oversight of Reserve-Currency nations".  That'd be like us.

 

Like I said, it isn't like there haven't been warnings from the ROW.

 

Self-Inflicted Dollar Death

Of course, all the warnings from the Chinese (and others) about the dangers of watering down our US Dollar's purchasing power is bound to continue, since as the UK Guardian headlined this week "Banks of the US government."

 

Mighty depressing thought, since it was supposed to be 'owned' by "We the People..."  Not to mention that little sleight of hand on this holiday weekend, of all of them...

 

GM's Garage Sale

Want to pick up a huge parking lot, or a golf course?  Might get on the distro list for GM's upcoming sales.

 

Missiles Away

Four short-range rockets, to be a little more precise and all coming from North Korea.  Testing, testing...

 

Stop that Reiki Work

Seems the Vatican is trying to get Reiki use under control, says a NY Times piece.

 

Around the Ranch: Post-It Note Friday

Should mention that when the new version of Maxa-Tools comes out - the version which will take care not only of the browser-independent cookies, but also those crafty 1-byte tracking graphics, that it will be a free upgrade to existing Maxa-Tools Cookie Manager users.  The note from the cookie fighters:

"Hi George,

some of your clients are concerned, that they have to pay for MCM 3.4, because of the impression it is a "NEW" MCM.

It will be a major UPdate but ALL users of release V 3.X can update (a button in the about area) for NO charge.

would you mind to mention that in your blog please?

It looks like, that we can launch the product sometime next week.

Again, you will be the first in the US who gets an own STD version upfront. Also we provide you with a summery list of highlights."

Done!  Oh boy!

---

The Truly Mail product I told you about may not run yet on Mac's doing an imitation of Windows... they are working on those kind of issues...

---

"The Great American Bubble Machine" by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone is worth a read - and yeah have forgotten to mention it for almost a week when it came out earlier.

 


Thursday July 2, 2009

"The Recovery" and Other Tall Tales

The US jobs report came out a few minutes ago, but before we delve into the 'offishul' report and details thereof, some appropriate 'contexting' seems in order before the first cuppa Joe kicks in.  Remember: The jobs report is 'just a number' and, as such, is bound to be somewhat 'noisy'.  It's for this reason that a sane person looks at broader statistical data than these 'single points of light" (or darkness) when trying to make what former Fed deity Sir Alan called "judgments" about the economy.

 

For example, yesterday's report on the S&P/Case-Schiller housing numbers is a fine example because we're able to look at how far down housing equity has come since its statistical high in July of 2006.  Home equity is down almost a third in that time.

---

One of a 'conspiratorial bent' could come up with a very interesting question about here, as a friend of mine asked me late Wednesday:  "Don'tcha think it's kind of strange that so many Americans are first going to be forced out of their homes by declining home values, just before hyperinflation that would have (otherwise) made it possible for them to pay off their homes for pennies on the dollar when it comes along next year?"

 

Yeah....very much coincidental I'm sure, I told her, as I applied another set of ViceGrips to my left arm, since pinching myself in today's economic climate has become a full-time job with an increasing amount of overtime, of late.

---

Similarly, while the Obama administration has been heard whistling in the graveyard about the chances of the national unemployment rate going over 10% before 'recovery' sets it, the MainStreamMedia (MSM) has give scant coverage to the Metropolitan Area Employment report released by the Labor Department on Tuesday.  Care to  guess why?

 

Mine guess is simple:  It plain old sucks, especially this part:

"In May, 112 metropolitan areas reported jobless rates of at least 10.0 percent, up from 6 areas a year earlier, while 97 areas posted rates below 7.0 percent, down from 333 areas in May 2008. El Centro, Calif., recorded the highest unemployment rate, 26.8 percent, fol- lowed by Yuma, Ariz., at 23.3 percent. Among the 15 areas with job- less rates of at least 15.0 percent, 7 were located in California, 3 were in Michigan, and 2 were in Indiana. Bismarck, N.D., registered the lowest jobless rate in May, 3.5 percent, followed by Iowa City, Iowa, 3.7 percent, and Ames, Iowa, 3.8 percent. Overall, 148 areas posted unemployment rates above the U.S. figure of 9.1 percent, 215 areas reported rates below it, and 9 areas had the same rate."

So now, back to the broader context of this morning's report. In advance of it, we saw that unemployment in the Euro zone has just hit a 10-year high this morning, so don't be surprised by today's data  from the Labor Department:

"Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in June (-467,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Job losses were widespread across the major industry sectors, with large declines occurring in manufacturing, professional and business services, and construction.

Unemployment (Household Survey Data)

The number of unemployed persons (14.7 million) and the unemployment rate (9.5 percent) were little changed in June. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has increas- ed by 7.2 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 4.6 percentage points. 

In June, unemployment rates for the major worker groups--adult men (10.0 percent), adult women (7.6 percent), teenagers (24.0 percent), whites (8.7 percent), blacks (14.7 percent), and Hispanics (12.2 per- cent)--showed little change. The unemployment rate for Asians was 8.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted. 

Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who com- pleted temporary jobs (9.6 million) was little changed in June after increasing by an average of 615,000 per month during the first 5 months of this year. 

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) increased by 433,000 over the month to 4.4 million. In June, 3 in 10 unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more."

You may wish to pinch yourself here, since there seems to be little connection between economic reality on Main Street and political expediency in Washington where most of the recent 'stimulus' spending won't even kick in for months.  But that's because the democons and the republicorps want to pull out all the stops to ensure that some air of optimism can be pumped & pimped just ahead of the 2010 CONgressional elections.  But I digress; back to the fine points of the unemployment report where my favorite pair of numbers must be considered.

 

The first is Table A-12 U-6, where in the "Alternative Measures of Labor Under-utilization" section we can see what the more 'real' unemployment number is - this is the PhD's flipping burgers and former IT Directors working as Census takers type people: That's pegged at 16.5%, up another tenth of a percent for the month.

 

The other part of this morning's Tall Tale that most people don't get to is the CES Birth/Death Model.  This number is where some statistical 'mighty tall' estimating goes on, trying to guesstimate how many jobs were created that government didn't actually count, but knew must be there by statistical inference. 

 

If you click over here (link) you'll see the job creation in June was 220,000 and we're led to believe that 77,000 of these jobs were created in leisure and hospitality.  If that doesn't have you chocking on your coffee, consider that since the first of the year the CES model says more than 110,000 jobs have been (statistically) created in construction.  Cool numbers, huh?  Net year to date job creation in the CES model is 338,000, but more like 694,000 created if you back out the January drop of 356,000 in the model.

----

Mainstream economists (you know, the guys who have been so spectacularly wrong so far?) might correctly argue from their thought-constrained perspective that none of this really makes the case I've been arguing since 2000 - that America is really in a second economic Depression and whether we label it Depression 2.0, The Greater Depression, or something else that will emerge next year isn't the point.

 

What matters is that my view keeps being reinforced by inconvenient truth which continues to leak out and suggest that fleeing paper assets and buying tangibles hasn't been a bad strategy so far, and that further, when the next leg down for the economy becomes publicly visible late next month, it will again be too late to move assets around and batten down for the Bank and Trading holidays of the fall which keep popping up in the predictive linguistics work.

 

If there was one 'investment' I'd recommend to people of any income level right now, it would not be gold or silver (although you can imagine how they will do in the hyperinflation to come!).  It would simply be enough cash-on-hand to keep your household with basics like water & power, and lay in a six months supply of food, if you don't already operate the rolling-inventory supplies.

 

When oil gets up to the hundreds of dollars per barrel, the dollar has collapsed, goods from overseas have dried up, and troops back from 'the wars' will be protecting banks and supermarkets, a little hedging against that kind of world seems a reasonable 'insurance bet' particularly if you've studied the often recommended Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects by Dmitry Orlov, or more recently, Michael Panzner's When Giants Fall: An Economic Roadmap for the End of the American Era.

 

Granted, we may not go down either path, but given the likelihood of higher  taxes and government spending levels that will be 'required' to eventually pull the country out of its depreciated condition in a couple of years, buying creature comforts (like food) now and learning how to grow more, is the be-all, end-all of no brainers.

---

My friend Robin Landry whose outlook I share with you now and then, and who is another student of longwave economics, often reminds me that "What flips a good-sized recession over into a full-on depression is drought.  Which brings me to an even more important 'big picture' story than even this morning's 'jobs report.'

 

I talked to some friends in agriculture around the country on Wednesday and several things popped out of the conversation as big Red Flags that we should all be building contingency plans around:

 

This has me thinking back to the Dust Bowl of the 1930's Depression:

The Dust Bowl or the Dirty Thirties was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936 (in some areas until 1940). The phenomenon was caused by severe drought coupled with decades of extensive farming without crop rotation or other techniques to prevent erosion.[1] Deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains had killed the natural grasses that normally kept the soil in place and trapped moisture even during periods of drought and high winds.

Something to watch, since the prairie grass - and pretty much everything else - is shriveling up in much of Texas and Oklahoma. 

 

On the other side of the weather, several community supported agriculture operations in the Northeast have been sending out notices that tomatoes and potatoes are at high risk from blight this year.  One headline "Blight outbreak threatens Jersey tomatoes"  is reinforced by another that "Late Blight - The Irish Potato Famine Fungus - Is Attacking Northeast Gardens And Farms Now."

 

Yet more reports that cause worry?  Wells drying up...or reports of flows dropping - are starting to pop up in netversations.  And parched south/west Texas, "More communities impost mandatory water use restrictions".

 

No doubt, the drought will be taken by global warming promoters as further 'evidence' that global warming is a peril to humanity (like politicians are not?) and they'll put on a fresh stampede to tax farm animals in the mistaken belief that taxing cow methane emissions to hire more government workers is somehow an answer.

 

The bottom line comes down to the obvious: America has gotten too big for its resources, along with the rest of the world, yet we're stuck in a death-dance of advertising inspired excessive consumption which is required to sustain a failing globalist business model.  But those who would point the obvious must be either silenced or marginalized.

 

And those of us who are - and have already undertaken the personal transition to a different kind of life are investing in a few sacks of grain, a few acres of land, a few rounds, and a few books; not to mention soar panels since "You'll pay more for Power, study stays."  Of gee, who would have thought?

---

But don't let me get you down.  And try not to think through the implications of the White House 'pre-screening" questions for the Obama administration "Town Hall" meetings.  Ah, such choreography of the MSM...despite the efforts of a few to open questions up to more than whatever screeners pick.

---

There's an important dynamic at work in America right now - and it deserves, I think, some careful consideration as you head off for your Long Weekend whatever...best explained by using an analogy from medicine.

 

We begin with a description of how "shock" works.  Medically speaking, it comes in four stages and we're going through the socioeconomic equivalent of it right now.

  • INITIAL Stage of shock.  This is the part where the body (or in our analogy, the economy) discovers it has been mortally wounded and begins to react.  This was October 2008's first financial panic.

  • COMPENSATORY Stage of shock:  This is the stage we're just coming to now.  The body (politic) has done what it can to keep the patient (country) alive and 'living.'

  • DECOMPENSATING Stage of shock:  This is the part where the patient (public) and the body (politic) begins to sense that "oh-oh - this is not working..."  This is the part that starts up at the end of August and rolls through till year end and beyond...

  • IRREVERSIBLE Stage of shock:  From Wikipedia: "At this stage, the vital organs have failed and the shock can no longer be reversed. Brain damage and cell death have occurred. Death will occur imminently."  Seems the Western profits before humans global paradigm will go down this road, too.

 

On this last point, seems we get to that part in 2010...but those details will be in next predictive linguistics run from www.halfpasthuman.com due out about July 20th, or so.

 

Meantime, Cliff and I are tentatively scheduled to be on CoastToCoastAM with George Noory the night of July 21/22 to talk about the road ahead.

 

Just guessing here, but we probably will have plenty to talk about.

 

Wars and Rumors

"Report: North Korea test fires two missiles" says a CNN blurb. US Marines deploying to Afsmackistan.  (

---

Got a better name for the world's biggest heroin producer? Maybe Afgassistan for those pipeline routes?

 

Under Pressure

Find myself humming the David Bowie tune to this development:  The Obama administration is trying to pressure the new government in Honduras to bring back their old presidente.  Which Honduras so far has declined.  So next the "US suspends military relations with Honduras."

--

As I've been saying: No oil, no poppy fields, and only bananas and coffee?  War down there doesn't pencil out, especially since the US travel budget is being eaten alive my CONgresspersons who are gallivanting around at 10 times former rates.  Power from the People!  That's right...not to the people anymore....

---

Wonder how many of those congressional overseas trips were a cover for safe haven offshore bug out locations to insulate them  from the socioeconomic turmoil ahead...oh, let's not go there, shall we?

 

--- snip and save section ---

 

Coping: What's Write, Doc?

Reader sent in this:

"George,

You've danced around this and mentioned it for the past couple of days, but the solution is still sort of dangling out there. Might I ever so humbly request we come to closure on this Vaccination thing and put ourselves collectively in the best position we can?

What we need is a sample template for our doctor to sign with the most bullet proof wording possible saying that we cannot take any type of vaccine or flu shot. Certainly there might be a couple of medical and/or legal wizards in the group that can offer up a suggestion or two on the wording?

To open the discussion, I got a letter a couple of weeks ago signed by my doc that says:

"Mr Tin Foil is a patient of mine at the UFO Clinic in Roswell, New Mexico. He suffers from a compromised immune system and is unable to take any kind of vaccine therapy.

Feel free to contact me with any questions about Mr Tin Foil's treatment.

Signed Dr Zeta Reticula UFO Clinic, Roswell NM"

Perhaps the qualified and knowledgeable medical/legal wizards in the community can do a better job of wordsmithing, and make sure we have a statement with all the buzzwords and medical jargon necessary to send the ever so dedicated Gub'ment bureaucrat running for cover?

From reading your previous posts in the past two days, it seems like there should be something specific in the letter relating to a previous reaction to a vaccine, or a reaction to eggs, or a reaction that caused Guillian-Barré syndrome (GBS), etc.

I would sleep easier if we did a bit of collaboration on this and came up with a well worded letter template. There are several dozen insomniacs in my neck of the woods that eagerly await the results too. I even have Dr Zeta Reticula standing by with the anti-gravity pen, ready to sign!

Thanks,

Hmmm... good point.  My doc's note says:

"Our Patient, Mr. George Ure, is extremely allergic to many of the common components found in vaccines and is at serious risk for an anaphylactic reaction if exposed to them.  He should avoid all vaccines as they are life-threatening to him. Thank you for your attention to this important matter."

So there are two ideas you may wish to consider.  But the reader's right - what would be the 'right' words?  Submissions are welcome.

---

Of course all this mandatory vaccination stuff has caused me to open a larger "sticking it to us" file...and say, here's a good email about one fellow's experiences up in the Pacific Northwest:

"When my son was less than 2 he had a seizure that lasted for 30 minutes and was hospitalized for 5 days with a fever as high as 106. They could not (would not) tell me what it was. Then I remembered he had a vaccination a day or two before. After he got out of hospital they wanted us to give him phenol barbital everyday until he was six in case of more seizures. I didn't want to but the wife was scared. After two days he woke up screaming with red welts all over his body. The end of their attempt to make a toddler a drug addict. After that I refused all vaccines for him and his younger sister. Every year before school enrollment they would send notice saying vaccines were required and they did not have them and could not attend if they didn't get them. I replied fine, then they won't attend. They always let them in anyway. This was Seattle public schools. My son never had another seizure or any of the diseases the vaccines were to prevent. He is 25 now and quite healthy and rarely gets sick with anything."

All of which gets me around to this note from a pharmacist who wanders by here now and then...

"Hi George--

I'm a pharmacist by trade, and very interested in prevention of illness--

It is likely that just taking Vitamin D3 supplements when Flu arrives in your area could be enough to prevent catching the flu!

I highly recommend reading the entire fascinating discussion at the Flu Trackers website.

You may want to recommend that your readership stock up on Vitamin D3 (not D2) prior to this Fall.

---

Vitamin D appears to be essential to build one's natural immunity (cytokine immunity), that _prevents_ us from getting sick. This is why, for example, most 'common colds' are caught in winter; No sunlight--> No Vitamin D--> Low immunity--> more viral infections.

Here's another link to document what I am saying (see paragraph 6 in the link);

Personally, I take two 2000-unit Vitamin D3's (4000 units) per day for 5 days when I feel a cold coming on. It seems to prevent illness. I took one 2000-unit Vitamin D3 per day from about October to March, and had no illness, despite many of my co-workers coming to work with colds and other illness. People with heart or liver disease should talk with their physicians before taking high doses daily for months, but the 5-day course should be safe for most of us.

Constant use at that level during the sunny season may not be a good idea, especially since the skin makes its own Vitamin D with sun exposure (ie., Summer). Too much Vitamin D3 for a very long time can lead to heart or liver toxicity, though its not often seen (not as often as that caused by alcohol!)

Again, I strongly recommend to you and all readers to stock some Vitamin D3 before this Fall. If Flu comes to your town, start taking 1000 to 2000 units of D3 a day (If you have heart or liver trouble, consult your Dr first). Let me know if you want more information on this topic (or anything else related to medication issues).

--name withheld  RPh, CGP (*Certified Geriatric Pharmacist)

Yup, got our 1,000 IU bottles of D3 ready and a take a little sun every day - easy enough to do in near drought conditions.

 

Ure Who?

Another interesting email:

"Hi George, I`m from Ausie and enjoy your humorous slant on the current horror show playing at places all over. I do a little trading 'futures" have we got one, and I`m a sailor something in common. I have a great book on Ocean Navigation by a Charles Ure wonder if he may be related to you somehow he was the first Ausie to solo the Tasman [au to nz] round these parts, an army surveyor, very good sailor and exceptional navigator-educator. He was living at Mooloolaba Sunshine Coast Queensland, Maybe the Ure`s have a little salt in their veins."

Yep.  The Ure family was rumored at one point to be a sort of Scottish equivalent to the Don Corleone's of Sicily, if you follow my drift.  Penchant for Scotch and running guns in the lowland, stories have it.  And, since there weren't enough jobs in UK government to be had, a fair number were simply exported to Oz as criminals, while others went voluntarily.

 

A few ended up in the Dakotas and from there a branch moved to the PNW, while another 'division' headed to Utah and from there down to Phoenix. 

 

Most families have pretty interesting backgrounds when you get into some basic genealogy study - a worthwhile pursuit and it actually has helped me understand my kid's behavior better, LOL. I figure at least some human behaviors are hard-coded in our DNA firmware.

---

I'd love to read Charles' sailing exploits - will go snoop around Amazon for it - thanks.

 


Wednesday July 1, 2009

Home - Not So Sweet - Home

A reality check about the economy seems in order here.  The headline that "Home prices post 18.1 percent annual drop in April" got me to looking at the S&P/Case-Shiller Report (you'll need Excel to get at this) in a little more depth.

 

A couple of really happy places pop out of their data.  Seems that in Denver, house prices are down only 4.92%, Dallas is down only 4.98% and Boston's only down 7.71%.

 

But the screaming (don't jump out the window here) places include drops of  35.26% in Phoenix, 32.18% in Las Vegas, 27.27% in the Miami area, while what's left of Motown was down another 25.43%.

 

Sometimes I curse Excel for making bad news reporting so easy.  Sorry 'bout that. But it gets even worse.

 

The data in their spreadsheet goes back a fair distance and looks to have peaked in July 2006 (cell W238 if you're following along here).

 

Since then the biggest losers have been Phoenix where homes are have lost 54% of their value, down 52.1% in Vegas, Miami homes are down more than 47% while Motown's down only 43.2.

Searching for Nirvana?  Try Dallas down only 9% from the peak.  I'd give you Houston, too, but it's not in the sample.  Nationally, though, down 32.5% since the peak.

 

Next time you hear someone tell you that a home is the 'best investment you'll ever make' - kick 'em or at least point them in the direction of the good work of S&P/Case-Schiller for putting the numbers together.  They're a whole helluva lot more believable than numbers out of 'gummint' lately.

---

Construction spending figures are due out this morning. About 47-cents if my calculations are right.

 

Not to Be a Bear, But...

(Damn fine pun, that, huh? Or are you still asleep....)

 

A buddy who's a serious trader in EU Land caught this in the latest from Comstock Partners: "From this point we will see either continued recession or a recovery so weak it will still seem like recession."

 

How about that?  Someone besides yours truly is skeptical.  They have a solid take on things here and it's updated on Thursdays.  Try to overlook that more and more places are sounding Urban-like in their open skepticism of 'the paradigm'. 

 

Although it's a bit rickety, our time machine does allow us to groc the future now and then better'n most.

 

Markets

The market (as I expected) began the week higher, then turned lower yesterday mostly on that bummer of a consumer confidence report.

 

If you understand fractals here, let me point out out what's going on:

 

The decline from October of 2007 until March of this year was one leg down, and we are in two up, and then we get into three down shortly this fall till next spring then a bounce a bit at some point in 2010.

 

The market this week from the Monday high to the Tuesday low was also a downer, then a bounce should pop this morning, then another down when numbers hit tomorrow and then maybe up next week.

 

Now THE BIG SECRET.  The market is inscribing a whole sequence of what I call "Memorial W's"  Got it?  You remember "W" right?

 

Now We Can Leave Department

"Iraq approves BP oil deal, rejects other bids."   Of course, we all know this war was never about oil and the temporal association between oil deals and withdrawals of forces from cities is purely coincidental - you do understand that, right? 

 

Here's another glass of fluoride-laced water and some Prozac.  No connection at all, right?

 

More water and drugs?  Speaking of water....

 

MSM's (Mis)Adventures on the High Seas

Answer me this: How is it that the MainStreamMedia can report every course change of a North Korean 'suspect vessel' yet the stories about how Israel's naval blockade of Gazan's food aid gets about zip in the way of coverage by the MSM?  Agendas, agendas....tisk, tisk.    Paul Craig Roberts' article "Pirates of the Mediterranean" seems to be on point though...

---

BTW: We're still on for Israel bombing Iran in late October, though, right?

 

Why I don't Write Comedy

Headlines like "Jackson body going to Neverland" has me itching to write "It'll meet the economy, which left for Neverland a couple of years ago when the Bushies were still in office..."  But I won't, since it wouldn't be tasteful and I have to look at the Man in the Mirror...

 

Reason #2

"What to do with out wayward Governor" on the SC Now web site about the recent adventures of the miss(tress)ing guv has me wondering if the waterworks machines that put fluoride in SC's water could maybe be converted to inject something more useful...like an anaphrodisiac?  If you missed Organic Chemistry, that's the opposite of an aphrodisiac.  (I remember Anna...just said No!) [rimshot and groans from the audience]

 

Reason #3

With Al Franken now officially the Senator for Minnesota, I wonder if the other guy will have to hand over back pay or something?  File under Franken'sTime politics.

 

Reason #4

Russia's banning of all gambling and shuttering of casino's has me wondering just how far they will go.  Sounds like they're going through the modern analog to prohibition, except since no one wants to quite the hard stuck, they'll just quit gambling?  Help me here...Besides, wouldn't a ban on gambling mean shutting down their stock exchange, too?  Let's be real here...

 

Fluage

A couple of days back, the woman with flu-like symptoms reporting she had been offered a flu shot by her doc brought a detailed and interesting note from our consulting microbiologist:

"Hi George,

Ok, so there are only two logical conclusions regarding your reader’s comments about getting the flu shot while sick: A) it is a fabricated story that did not happen, or B) if it did happen exactly as stated, then she REALLY needs to change doctors & find an office with at least a pretence of competence!

No doctor or nurse should be so absurdly clueless as to suggest giving a flu shot to someone with active H1N1 (aka swine flu)! 1) As your reader pointed out, it would do no good 2) It takes 2 weeks (give or take) before an immune response from the vaccine would be raised 3) The CDC states clearly that a person should not be immunized while sick. The CDC website is not the least bit ambiguous (bolded italics are mine): http://www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm 

“Who Should Not Be Vaccinated

Some people should not be vaccinated without first consulting a physician. They include: • People who have a severe allergy to chicken eggs. • People who have had a severe reaction to an influenza vaccination in the past. • People who developed Guillian-Barré syndrome (GBS) within 6 weeks of getting an influenza vaccine previously. • Children less than 6 months of age (influenza vaccine is not approved for use in this age group). • People who have a moderate or severe illness with a fever should wait to get vaccinated until their symptoms lessen. If you have questions about whether you should get a flu vaccine, consult your health-care provider.”

One piece of worrisome news on the flu front is that an H1N1 variant has been identified in Denmark that is resistant to Tamiflu.

They claim it spontaneously mutated in that one patient & has not spread. Well, of course that person never coughed on anyone, or wiped his/her nose & then touched some money, an ATM machine, a shopping cart handle, a door-knob….sorry, I was rambling. Good thing that patient didn’t infect anyone.

BTW, & FWIW (sorry, couldn’t resist), you most likely will NOT want to take a vaccine made in dog kidney cells. The 2 allergen proteins in dogs are CAN F1 & Can F2. They are found in the saliva of dogs. These proteins are members of the lipocalin family of proteins and related to proteins found in animal urine (especially rodents) that are HIGHLY allergenic to some people. If these proteins are secreted into dog urine, then until it is known specifically which cells do the secreting, all kidney cells are suspect. If they are secreted elsewhere & simply being excreted in the urine, then the kidney cell-based vaccine will not be allergenic to humans with dog allergies.

And I am seriously allergic to dogs....or is that the plan?

 

--- snip and save section ---

 

Coping:  The Breakthrough Software Department

Although I've intended for UrbanSurvival (and it's mirror site & blog) to be mainly focused on how Depression 2.0 is rolling out - and has been since the internet bubble started to collapse in the late spring of 2000, it seems here lately that I've been getting the opportunity to be 'first in the world' to get onboard with cool new software.

 

Started a month, or so, back when the folks at Maxa-Tools gave me the world-wide rollout of the new Maxa-Tools Cookie Manager, which can be downloaded here:

www.urbansurvival.com/setupMCMstdGU.exe  The rave reviews from Windows users have been piling in ever since - most people find their computers run faster because they're able to clean out in some cases thousands of cookies of the browser non-specific type that clearing your browser cache doesn't get at.  The Flash super-cookies and such, too.

 

Now I've heard from Maxa that a new and even further improved version should be ready shortly and it's one that will address one of the sneakiest bits of spyware ever.  It's call the 'one byte' tracker. 

 

Here's how it works:  Suppose you go to a site and load up a page and let's suppose that the site has no apparent tracking cookie associated with it.  Can you still be tracked?  Why of course!  All the page that you've surfed to has to do is have a '1-byte' image source from some add tracking site embedded into the (for now) seemingly 'clean page'.

 

Follow this:  You load the page you thought was 'clean'.  On that page is an external imgage_source call that points to some ad-tracker's site for the image_source call, and when your computer's browser goes over to that site to pull down the image which was called, the image_source server snags your IP address and you're now on yet another list.

 

Sneaky bastards, huh?  Well, no worries, Maxa's next version of Cookie Manager will track those small-byte hidden graphics calls, too.  

 

Am I looking forward to it?  Oh, hell yeah!

---

Then there's the matter of email and spam and such.  Here's another break-through product which I haven't seen much about anywhere else...so read this carefully:

"Hello George:

Greetings from Chile.

I'd like to take a few minutes of your valuable time and communicate with you about something of great importance, IMO.

About two years ago I challenged my brilliant son to write a program to replace eMail as we know it. It is done, and it is ready for prime time. It eliminates all spam, all 'scripts' and other nasty things, and messages can be encrypted legally (so the odd person cannot read what is being communicated), it gives automatic read-receipts . . . and much more. (The 'legally' is a big deal - more on this if you wish to know.) In order to check out TrulyMail, please go to www.TrulyMail.com 

We hope you will be thrilled with what he has done. (I am.) He is giving it away 100% for free (forever) for the next 6 months. We would love it if you would help us with our roll-out by offering it to your subscribers. Questions are invited.

Warm Regards, John

There are a few limitations - like only be able to send 10 MB per day - I hope they have an upgrade path for folks like me who send lots of attachments to clients and such, and no, I haven't had time to see if it has a 'mail router' in it to where I can set up 'rules' so that email sorts itself into what gets down in what order...but those are nits, right?  It's a great combined feature set that seems to get around some of the issues with email...so give it a try and let me know what you think?

 

Replies and comments on both Maxa-Tools Cookie Manager (MCM) and TrulyMail will be forward to the development teams...and you and I will be asking "How come the Big Outfits" haven't taken care of these issues?  Easily answered, my friend.

 

Repeat after me here: "Follow the money..."

 

Tags, Weather, and Friends

Went down to the former Chrysler dealership Tuesday for the annual safety inspection sticker - no emissions check, just the basics out here in the East Texas outback: Brakes work?  Lights?  Tires looking like racing slicks yet?  That kind of thing.  As expected, no problems, except that the sun baked wiper blades could stand replacement - no problem and $20 to have it handled on the spot.

---

A lot of people would probably have driven up to the AutoZone or O'Reilly's store up town, and maybe saved $6-bucks by doing it themselves, but in George Land, a half hour to 45-minutes has time value, since I live Life like a foot-race with the Grim Reaper - the essence of a Type A personality.

---

Between the head of the service operation and the head of sales, it was concluded that one, getting ten drops of rain while driving to work from over near the Trinity River, has 11-more drops than the other.

 

Weather doesn't mean much to folks who live the box life:  Live in a box, get in a box to get to the office-in--box, and then inhabit a cubicle once there.  For some reason, I've always found myself when possible living in 'weather's important' environments.  Living on a sailboat, where it's a quarter-mile walk up the dock for a shower if you don't want too much mold growing aboard in the winter, or out here goat ranching, guess what's important?

 

People in Big Cities are thus out of touch - in many ways - with what's really going on a bit nearer the earth.

 

It's this time of year that I keep an ear really close to the ground about weather and farmerly talk.  heard Tuesday, from another friend who keeps tabs on about 17,000 dairy cattle up in the square states, that dairymen are only getting about 10 per hundred weight when break-even is up around 18/hundredweight.  Which means dairymen might be moving toward reducing their 'fleet size' by 400-thousand head nationally.  A drop in exports to places like Europe seems to figure into it, best they can figure.

 

If the Drought (see the weekly drought monitor map updated Thursday here), keeps up through the summer and there's some fleet...I mean herd-size reductions in dairy, then along about late fall or early winter, food prices ought to be going up - a far bit at that.

 

Adding to that, of course, will be oil which continues to firm in price - up to $71 this morning as fresh attacks have taken place in Nigeria.

 

Lemme put that MBA to work:  Hmmm...drought +reducing herds + high input costs for fuel - and by extension, fertilizer - and what happens to prices?

 

I called my commodities broker (JB) and told him to shop a few March 2010 lottery tickets for me.

 

"Lottery tickets?  I didn't know commodity brokers sold lottery tickets?" you're wondering about here.

 

Yep.  That's what I call grain (commodity) call options. $500 out of the money call options when you have a gut feeling that prices will be going up a fair piece over the next year.  Add in the 'stimulus' and you might - this is not a recommendation, mind you - have some fun.

---

Made another decision while visiting the former Chrysler dealership:  Noticed that they charge $70 an hour for shop time and I still have putting the new radiator in the old Daewoo, where Elaine tried to put a coyote or wolf through it on the way back from Dallas, couple of weeks back.  Just haven't had time to get to that part of my list since that part of my list doesn't work once the temp is above 80, or so.

 

Decided to let them do it...since they can do the change-out for an hour and a half of shop time, whereas I could piddle away most of the day and they have a few tools which I don't; namely the car lift and so on.  Don't mind an oil change, or tinkering on the red car, but putting in a radiator verges on real work.  I'll bring them the car and parts, and go about the rest of my list.

---

Also heard that the surviving dealerships that were not on the 'cut list' have blanketed former customers of this particular dealership with all kinds of promotions and ads aimed at cutting off their shop business, leaving the cut dealership in the .  The joys of predatory capitalism, huh?  So I'll have them do the radiator change-out...keeps the money in the neighborhood, anyway.

 

Speaking of Tune-Ups

One of the items that actually got done yesterday was re-linking the old (by several years mostly) content of the Exurban Living section of www.independencejournal.com.  If you go there now, down this link, you'll find a number of oldies but good's including Oilman2's "What If?" series.  Along with our 2002 adventure of buying this place in the outback sight-unseen over the internet. I've always had a wild-eyed gambler streak.

---

While we were watching the deer ramble through the yard last evening (looking for more tomatoes, I assumed) Elaine mentioned that one of the downsides of 30-acres is that you can end up with so much 'stuff' that it can become overwhelming.  Which indeed it can.

 

She even mentioned that one of the nice things about living on a sailboat was that there was a place for everything and everything was in its place.  I mentioned the Seasteading Institute's ideas and suggested returning to a 60-foot sailboat is always an option.

 

While she's promised to think about it, seems more'n likely it's just from the weather being too hot.  Come fall and something less than a cross between blast furnace and sauna outside, and she'll come back to her senses..  Still, a large sailboat again...ah.  But the reality is those get too cold instead of too hot.  So, what's a fellow to do?

 

Web Bot Project

Reader is asking:

George,

I recently read an article that said the webbot was being retired. Is that a true statement? If it is why is it being shut down?

I have recently gained interest in your webbot and kind of wan to see the project continue.

Thanks for your Time!

Nope.  Not shut down.  It changed form, since doing the week-after-week high immediacy values got to be a complete and utter bummer for Cliff.  It's now issued every once-in-a-while and is only $10-bucks at www.halfpasthuman.com.  More than worth it.

 

Thought everyone knew the 'rickety time machine' wasn't going to  weekly reports and would be more like semi-monthly, or so.  Maybe there are people who's caffeine uptake is lower than ours, though...

 

Curious Email

Have to admit it, this one has me stumped:

"George & Cliff: Just a word of thanks to you both for increasing awareness that everyone should be more self sufficient. Planted a garden at home & on my sister's farm. Bought jars, lids & canners, 2 grain grinders, wheat, Berkey water filter, cistern pump, rain barrels, food juicer, wood cook stove for cooking and heating. Checked the well for water quality. Food, Water, Shelter top priorities.

No one in my family or community is concerned so I figured someone needs to prepare. Hopefully I won't need some of this, but I sure hate to watch or endure suffering. I fear suffering more than death.

Still need a pellet gun for rabbits and squirrels in the yard and a chimney inspection."

How do you inspect a chimney with a pellet gun?  America wants to know!

 


Tuesday June 30, 2009

Wall Week, Day Two

The headline in the LA Times this morning that "States brace for shutdowns" not only covers the financial pain and agony ongoing in the Golden State but mentions the debilitating coming run on state bonds and such is spreading to other places, too.  Indiana and Colorado, just for instance.

 

Of course, California is now trying to get vendors to accept their IOU's.  All of which might work if it weren't for the fact that the vendors who take the IOU's can't just turn around and give IOU's to workers because Safeway and Vaughn's won't likely accept small business IOU's for basics of life like food.  Moreover, I'm not aware of any mortgage companies that will take IOU's, although there's a glimmer of hope with all these car companies that are offering to make payments for workers for a while should they lose their jobs and not be able to keep up the payments on their cars.

 

Which is nice, since those cars are becoming home for many Americans.

 

Make a note:  If you're thinking about buying a vehicle, rethink the family van since they offer more potential living space.

 

Contractions

"U.K. First-Quarter GDP Drops 2.4%, Most Since 1958" says a Bloomberg report this morning.

That's why around here, I refer to the U.K. as "Yuck!"  Which Zeus the Cat meows is diss respectful.

---

Let me put on my quack medicine outfit and pronounce to my attending colleagues:  "Nothing to worry about, just a few contractions, common when giving birth to a Depression...I say we administer a financial epidural, what say?"  (Injections of printing ink follow.)

---

I see where Massachusetts is still feeling the pain.  All the more case for epidurals, since liquor taxes are going up.

 

Troops Exit

Four killed in the exit from occupied cities in Iraq.

 

But since war is so profitable, we see that a Suicide bomber strikes at Afghan-Pakistan border and

Pakistan militants have abandoned a peace pact

 

Keep them Lords of War flying...

 

The Oily Truth Leak

A couple of people told me I was all wrong in my speculation yesterday that former vice Dick Cheney was talking about throwing away 'American sacrifice' in Iraq must mean the oil deals aren't secured.

 

But what's this?  Old George is right again with headlines crossing this morning that "Iraqi oil licensing round runs into trouble as foreign firms eye bigger cash rewards...

 

Well, gee, gosh-golly, who would have guessed, huh?  You ever wonder if we wouldn't have pulled out of Vietnam sooner if seismic studies had been more accurate early on?  I'm just wondering, here...

 

Another Crash

This time it was 153 souls aboard an A310-300 that crashed on landing in the Comoros archipelago.  Went into the sea instead.

--

Old airline saying 'crashes come in threes' has me bound to walking and driving anywhere for a while.

 

Market Numbers

The Consumer Confidence and Purchasing Manager Index are both due out this morning.  And, as I expected, the week got off to a good start yesterday with a 91-point pop up on the Dow.  As for a decline later in the week, that will depend on numbers like the June unemployment rate due out Thursday since no one (except fire, police, medical staff, security outfits, yada yada) will be working Friday. 

 

Come to think of it, expect short columns on Friday and Saturday morning this week.  I don't get paid by the word...

 

Bernie to the Max

Judging by the reports, the reports that "Bernie Madoff gets maximum 150-years in prison" is being touted as "sending a strong message" to people who might consider following in this $50-billion dollar path.

 

Sure does, alright:  Don't get caught.

 

Gotta Get One Department

Toyota and Aston Martin are coming out with a new ride.  For $32K you get Toyota engineering and Aston Martin trimmings.  Two feet shorter than a Mini, I don't know why they didn't call it an Aston Micro, but maybe that's why I don't do car branding.  "The iQ city car"?  Okaaaay.... almost too small for serious cruising for a James Blonde, though...

 

--- snip and save section ---

 

Coping:  Monetizing Failure - Fire Everyone!

The way I've got it figured, the most supportive thing a small business person can do is fire everyone who works for them.  Do it first thing this morning.

 

"You nuts, Ure?" you could be thinking about now.  Well, perhaps, maybe even certainly, but follow my logic which started off with this Jim Dandy email from a reader that gets us to the kind of Economics Lessons that no one bothers teaching (let alone discussing in a meaningful way) in the MainStreamMedia (MSM):

"My son and I read you daily -- never sure whether to laugh or cry; thanks

Yesterday (Monday's column) hit home -- my 'to-do' lists get longer despite the fact that my business is failing and I "should" have more time."

Yeah, you'd think so.  But that's because you don't understand how much work goes in to monetizing failure in America!

 

Lookie here:  The greatest things about America is that because of how corporate/government (corpgov) cannibalism works, even failure has been monetized.  I mean besides how certain Gnomes of Greenwich are going to make vaster fortunes in their CDS flim-flams when California is bankrupted.  Consider how monetizing failure applies to the typical small businessman:

  • Your business is failing, so you hire a consultant (I fixed company's P&L's and skinny down operations for a living.   Why, for enough money, I will even put on a tie, pack up my InFocus and head out on the road to lecture on how to squeeze money out of turnips.  However, if that fails...

  • You get to do all kinds of paperwork for those workers you laid off... keeps many state workers employed, including those who send paperwork back for failure to cross a 't' here and there and so forth.

  • And, should you deny the employees claims, then there's a whole appeals process.  About here, you start hiring an HR attorney (see how monetizing failure is starting to work?)

  • And once you scrape up enough dough to pay that bill, the tax folks will come around looking for their cut.

  • Since you've already spent the money you should have sent in for taxes, you hire a tax consultant/CPA to tune up your books to reflect the latest losses.

  • And finally after being bled dry on this front, the CPA may recommend bankruptcy and guess what?  You get to hire someone else!

  • And when you hire the bankruptcy guy, you have to come up with court costs, filing fees, and if you're lucky you're left with the shirt on your back and your homestead (if you're lucky) and then...

  • But wait!  Now you're upside down in your home and no one will refi you since you're on the Road to Loserville. 

  • Bring on the house repossessors and more cops to kick people out of home they once owned!  See how this is picking up steam?  Haven't even mentioned the banks green algae (in the pool) teams yet.

  • Bank now has to hire more staff in the REO (real estate owned - by the bank)  Department, too.  This is starting to really snowball...cool, huh?

  • You start paying a gazillion in fees to outfits to help you repair your credit so you can get something going again besides welfare and living under an overpass somewhere.

  • Even then, you're being monetized by the system because now you are not providing for your kids and the government has bevies of worker-bees who will come take your kids away and then file actions to have you found out as an unfit parent.

  • And once that happens, you need to fine a suitable public defender since you're flat broke and hungry and so you get into that system.

  • And then, since you're now really down on your luck, you become an easy target for the cops.  Not all, mind you - most of them are good-hearted folks, but there are some who have no scruples about 'shaking down the poor.'

  • So you take to drinking and that gets you into the rehab industry...oh we're having fun now.

  • Maybe you can help employ a few more folks in the 'job retraining industry' after that?

  • All of which can be stressful and drive you over the edge of sanity - and so that leads to long-term social case workers and maybe even a disability dispensation from Social Security.

  • Say, aren't you ready for some of that Section 8 Housing program help now?

  • How about one of those jobs as a prison guard? Let's get you into a training program for that.  Here, let's fill out some government loan and grant forms over here in the financial aid office...

 

See what a great country we have put together and how efficiently "the system" works?  Jobs for everyone, even if you're firing people.  Why, if you're a small businessman, with say five employees, you should really fire all five right away, first thing this morning.

 

That way, you can really help the social agenda because you'll be making more jobs for the consultants, state workers, HR attorneys, CPA's, bankruptcy lawyers, bankruptcy court folks, state and local social services workers, green pool cleaners, health departments, cops, jail personnel, rehab people (you'll get there, just give it time). Oh, and did I mention the 'education system' and financial aid folks?  It's just "Glorious!  Gimme a Hallelujah!" brother.

 

Tah-dah!  Fire everybody!

 

Create jobs for more people!   Support the new Amerika!  (See how graceful this transition to raw socialism is going?)  You know America is on her last legs when we monetize failure. But dang, don't let that outta the bag.  Why, that'd make you a terrorist, wouldn't it?

---

Not the kind of thing people like to think about, but when the 'overhead' load on the middle class becomes unbearable, there's only two ways to go:  Become a crook - life a phat life of billions and then at age 71 - if you're caught - and how many haven't been? - you get a nice government housing deal with health care, three squares and TV in the day room.  Don't even have to hire a security service to watch your place - even that's provided!

 

Or, you can work your ass off, eventually succumb to the pressure on small business to fail, and end up at the other end of the economic spectrum.  But gosh, with any luck, maybe you could be Bernie's cell mate.  You might learn a thing or two.  Only takes a laser printer and a little creativbity, wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

---
About here, I recall the Mogambo Guru screaming (as his medications wore off) "We are all so frigging screwed!!!"

 

We'll tolerate no bawling.  As long as there are sheep, this is a Land of Sheer Elegance.

 

The Quest for Reasonableness

There's a major sea-state change going on in America right now; subtle but important when considered at its full breadth. I speak of the changing relationship between us (humans/citizens) and non-us that 'issues law'.  A couple of things in the past 24-hours have brought this up to the front burner for contemplation over the second cup of coffee:

 

I called the Texas Health Department yesterday to ask a simple question:  As an adult (or so I allege, LOL) is there some specific law on the books in Texas that would allow for a private citizen to be forced to take an undesired vaccination? 

 

The first couple of folks I talked to didn't know the answer, but after a couple of hops through the phone-maze, I left a woman for a more senior person.  When she called back an hour or two later, we had a fine discussion and much of my worry was laid to rest.  There is, she assured me, nothing on the books now that would allow 'the government' to go door-to-door requiring vaccination of an adult.

 

My concern and inquiry was based on scary reports around the net that go to the idea of people being 'rounded up and herded into 'isolation camps' if they refuse some undefined injection at some point in the future.  "For adults, it's a personal decision," I was assured. 

 

That said, there are vaccination laws for children in school and for mandatory vaccinations for health care professionals for such things as meningitis and Hep A, and a whole slew of others. My EMT son in the Northwest was telling me recently about his vaccination list and frankly, sounded like he had more vaccinations than fishermen put on a steelhead punch card (most seasons).

 

My reason for inquiry - besides the fright-stories about the net - was heightened when I read how not only might flu vaccines be made in egg embryos (which I have some allergies to, along with a host of preservatives) but now I'm reading how Novartis is planning to cook up vaccines in dog kidneys - something that's also a concern since I am highly allergic (got a 2-dose EpiPen, and 75 mg to diphenhydramine hydrochloride to IV drip me with ready?) to certain kinds of dogs.

 

All of which relieved some of my anxiety (accentuated by my usual self-medicating with several cups of high mountain grown caffeine, LOL), except that there's a big "if" out there. 

 

That Texas is a 'personal choice state", if it only so for now.  What concerns me down the timeline a bit is that come this fall the central government may decide to overrule states of most anything they feel like, since the moment is...how should I say? ...opportune?... because so many states are being marched up to the Wall financially.  California comes to mind, but that's a whole other story.

 

I'm not the only one thinking this stuff through, making a few calls, and getting the 'facts' ahead of time.  Here's a typical reader note on flu:

"Ok, here is some stuff for you to contemplate at 3:00 am, as I have been doing for the past 2 weeks. Three of the four of us at my house have the swine flu. Two of us that have it , my husband and daughter, both got the flu shots last fall. I didn't because, well, just because. They are both way sicker than I am. In fact, the first 4 days my daughter was sick, she slept 23 hours a day (except for a trip to the doctor's office). My husband slept most of the day when he was first sick as well. They both have sinus infections and are on prednisone, cough syrup, asthma inhalers, and anti-biotics (to the tune of close to $500). All I got was a sore throat which isn't so bad (I have had strep throat that made me sicker; heck, I have had hangovers that have made me sicker than I am).

Ok, here is the odd part. When I took my daughter to the doctor, they wanted to know if I wanted a flu shot to "help me get over it quicker". I said no. They said "it would help boost my immune system". I said that I already know there is no vaccine for it yet, so a flu shot would do no good. They looked shocked, I mean mouth opened shocked, that I knew that. Now, I wonder why they were pushing the flu shot and why people who have gotten the flu shot are getting sicker than those of us who didn't. I mean, look at the death statistics. Most had pre-existing conditions, which meant they probably got the flu shot. On the plus side, the doctor's office said we would have immunity when it comes back worse this fall.

Oh yeah, one other "interesting" thing. My son did not get this. He has a friend who has the same thing going on. Everybody in his house is sick but my son's friends. I said they were both Typhoid Marys. They did not think it was funny."

While the Texas Health folks seem pretty reasonable, I can't help but wonder about the folks at CDC.  Although the WHO has this novel/swine/hybrid flu listed as a pandemic, the folks at CDC are only updating the state case counts once a week - for reasons unknown.  If you suspect budget, pr decision, or just too much work, one of those might be right. 

 

Globally, the WHO case count is now at 70,893 this morning - 6/10th's of a death per thousand.  That will no doubt come up a fair bit when (linguistically) the novel/swine/hybrid comes back for 'Round Two' this fall, but for now, seems that a letter from my doctor and a filled prescription or Tamiflu (a last resort to my way of thinking) is about all the preps that need doing, except maybe for finishing up that 3,000 word article on the mechanics of cytokine storming (the actual death mechanism in many novel flu cases) which I promised for a medical friend's journal...just more time on research needed for that.

 

Not to put too much emphasis on it, but the time of action and planning is, as I learned from living on my sailboat for 10+ years,  before 'the storm' -- not during.

 

Happy (?)  TD F 90-22.1 Day

Second item in my 'quest for reasonableness Monday' adventures: The phone happened to ring mid-afternoon and it was a reader in Prague (Czech Republic) calling to ask me what I thought of TD F 90-221 Day - which is today.

 

"Er...ah...fine occasion for a party..." I offered, not knowing whether a TDF90-22.1 should be petted or blasted with a shotgun, should a whatever a TD F 22.1 ever show up at the door.

 

"Well, as far as I can tell, it's only a means to get people to self-incriminate - and here I am trying to get ready for a trip to Shanghai and I have to get this stupid form done before I can travel..."

 

What ensued was a discussion of just what a TD F 90-22.1 for is.  Here's a hint for you:

 

 

A click on the graphic should bring you to the online form over at the IRS web site.

 

Long and short of it:  If you have more than $10-large ($10,000 if you don't know anyone under 40) in an offshore account, you might wish to consider whether to file this form - which according to the instructions:

When and where to file.
This report must be filed on or

before June 30 of the year following the calendar year

reported. The report is required annually. File by mailing this

report to the Department of the Treasury, Post Office Box

32621, Detroit, MI 48232-0621, or by hand-carrying it to any

local office of the Internal Revenue Service for forwarding to

the Department of the Treasury, Detroit, MI. Tax attaches are

located in the U.S. embassies in some countries. A filer can

receive instructions for verifying that a report has been filed

by calling the Detroit Computing Center Hotline at

1-800-800-2877.

Is the form reasonable?  I get into sometimes heated discussions with people I know who have offshore accounts - many with more than just a few bucks in them - because my view is pretty simple:  If you're an America, you pay taxes like the rest of us at the same rate or renounce your citizenship.  All pretty simple.  While I'm somewhat sympathetic to the claim that Americans living abroad are sometimes subject to 'double taxation', I'm much less open to the argument that "I'm a sovereign individual and should be able to have my money grow untaxed in an offshore tax haven if I choose to.  If you're a sovereign what are you doing in my country?  Go find yourself a sovereign rock and get UN recognition.   Then I might buy it - hell, I might even move there. 

 

Say, I understand Iraq is moving toward sovereignty...But, seriously - or mostly so -  in the meantime...

 

Far as I'm concerned, all wire transfers into, or out of, the United States should be subject to a 15% income tax holdback to level up the playing field.  This would also take some of the bloom off the rose for the "Gnomes of Greenwich" who profess poverty and slime under tax laws because wire transfers worldwide from overseas shell trusts is pretty much still the wild west, as anyone who has traced narco-dollars around knows.  That would clean up the war on drugs in the same stroke.

 

Anyway, form's due today and if you're worried about double taxation issues, do like I did when I was living offshore about 25-years ago:  Hiring a competent accounting firm to do the filings  The Miami office of these guys.  Worth the effort.  And they will remind you on forms like TD F 22-1...

 


Monday June 29, 2009

Lingo Lango Department

The 'Summer of Hell' Gets Rolling Now

Lemme see here, how is that 'summer of hell' meme working out?  I mean assuming you're not in Iran, sneaking a read of this infidel rag while being hunted by "The Butcher" because you got 'twitted' into attending a demonstration/confrontation with the existing power structure there.

 

Please note, linguistically that in the West, the Iranian situation is described as a 'protest' as in "Security forces attack Iran protesters."  On the other hand, in the JPost this morning we see the headline that "Khatami calls for harsh punishment of riot leaders". 

 

Seems to me if I were spinning in favor of something, I'd call Iranian participants 'protesters'.  Neutrality might warrant calling their actions 'rioting' awhile outright opposition might use a term like 'revolutionaries' and 'attempted coup leaders'.  See how easy it is to read this stuff?  Wonder why the MSM (MainStreamMedia) doesn't have the goanies to mention this, at least now and then?

----

I see this morning where Time Magazine is reporting on "The Honduran Coup: How should the U.S. Respond?

 

Let me help, if I may.  I can squeeze a three-minute strategic consultation in this morning, if anyone at State is interested... 

 

First, a check of the CIA World Fact Book, the indispensible source for responsible capitalists like me:

Honduras, the second poorest country in Central America, has an extraordinarily unequal distribution of income and high unemployment. The economy relies heavily on a narrow range of exports, notably bananas and coffee, making it vulnerable to natural disasters and shifts in commodity prices; however, investments in the maquila and non-traditional export sectors are slowly diversifying the economy. Economic growth remains dependent on the US economy its largest trading partner, and will decline in 2009 as a result of reduction in export demand and tightening global credit markets. Remittances represent over a quarter of GDP or nearly three-quarters of exports. The US-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) came into force in 2006 and has helped foster investment. Despite improvements in tax collections, the government's fiscal deficit is growing due to increases in current expenditures and financial losses from the state energy and telephone companies.

Next we summarize: poor country based on bananas and coffee plus "maquila" (sweat shops for Nortes would be closer, but not PC to the democons). 

 

Nope, nothing there worth invading over, so pocket the purple finger plans and stick to jaw-boning and let's keep our focus on countries which are either key pipeline routes with drugs galore r massive oil deposits.  The banksters will end up with Honduras in time, and we'll set off an engineered bio bomb down the road a bit to thin down the herd there. If you live in Honduras, might want to keep your distance from hogs and hens the rest of the year, just to be safe.

 

Think I'm kidding?

---

Some 'riot-lite' activity in India this morning over power and water woes.

---

Riots in Israel over the Sabbath opening of a parking lot.

---

Prison riot injures 7 at Pelican Bay State Prison in northern California.

---

China factory riot.

---

Markets likely to open higher, end lower this week - that according to my blindfolded dart throw of the week.  Data coming could be a bumming. Not only that but it's also....

 

California to the Wall Week

Lots more to discuss in today's "Coping" section (below) but here's a perfect example of how the Federal government is participating in the screwing of California.

 

Headline:  "Air Force tests fires missile from Calif coast."

 

Perfect example of how fast federal money is leaving the state - which wouldn't have a budget crisis if 100-cents of federal tax money came back to jobs and services within the Golden State.  But no, only 94-cents on the dollar.  Compared with many more republicorp suck-em-up states getting more than their tribute to Uncle back...  Seems like a violation of equal protection to me, but who asked?  I know - little early in the week to point to the Constitution and equal protection and all that.  Maybe we should revisit that one later.

 

Howdy Flu-dee

With reports out this weekend that the 'swine'/hybrid flu may have already infected over a million, two developments.  First, the US case count is at 27,717 building toward some magical number when the flu makers...I mean vaccine makers...will twist the arms of folks in power to demand mandatory vaccinations, which in turn, will have negative consequences (linguistically late fall maybe into winter), but it will be important because it will give a reason to clamp down on us rabble-writers in the population for 'our own good'.  Yeah, sure, you bet'cha.

--

Yes, I read about the "Journalist Files Charges against WHO and UN for Bioterrorism and Intent to Commit Mass Murder"  No, they won't dare put that in the MSM.

---

I just happen to be allergic to flu vaccines and have a letter from my MD....got yours?  May - or may not - be honored, but an ounce of prevention (I like self quarantine and quinine, thanks) is worth ten ML's of "cure".

 

Good Countries for Investment?

Curious article in the "World Time News Report".  What they've done is put together a map of the world with countries suffering deepest consequences of the global slowdown show in darker and darker shades of blues (Get it?  Slow down, get the blues? LOL) and countries where the depression won't bite - at least as hard.

 

To my simple-minded way of thinking, the countries less bitten should make better investment speculations...I mean, wouldn't you think?  Or, is it too early in the day for that?

 

Telling Headline?

Washington Times headlines "EXCLUSIVE: Cheney fears Iraq withdrawal will 'waste' U.S. sacrifices."

----

Translation:  oil deals aren't secure yet.

 

Wonder if they're building gulags in Wyoming yet?

 

The New Electrics

Feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and sharp on math, this morning, are we?  Well, if you're interested, a German scientist has posted a complete "Free Energy Documentation" online at Scribd (link here)

 

Once you sort through "Conversion of the Vacuum-energy of electromagnet zero point oscillations into Classical Mechanical Energy"  (3 Excedrin worth of reading) ya'll just build up the whole thing on a levitating platform and come on by to take us for a spin...we'll go up north and show it off to the time monks, while we're at it. 

 

Liars Poke Here

Some intelligent musings on the 60-Minutes piece about a new kind of lie detector that seems to evolve from marrying an MRI of brain activity with questions and some massive computational horsepower.  A sort of super-collider of lie detectors. 

 

Not going to be on the shelf down at the local precinct any time soon, since MRI machines aren't down to pocket-sized yet.  Besides, where we really need this technology is Washington, and you know it'd be banned there.

 

For our own good, of course.

 

--- snip and save section ---

 

Coping:  "Correct George" Weekend & "Beat the Reaper"

Occasionally, like all publications of more than a few words in length - and in particular, if a site has a little original content - which seems few do on the 'net, I'm bound to get a thing or two wrong, here or there. 

 

For instance, when I mentioned the Reconstructed M-3 over at Trader Bart's site, where you can find that stat which was conveniently thrown under the train by the Fed which really knew all this was coming about three years ago, I improperly attributed it to John Williams of Shadow Stats.  Nope; dumb George got it wrong:  M3 Reconstructed is Bart's original work (and damn fine, I'd add).  Running 16.3-16.4% annualized when I squint just so.  No wonder the Fed pushed it under the train...

---

Then there was Peoplenomics this weekend wherein where my 'source' of the revelations about how some of the 'Gnomes of Greenwich, Connected-Up' are likely to cut a fat hog when California defaults, called to point out that in my example it's not 1,000 people who have to buy the insurance (CDS's) - only 100.  Sorry, that won't make sense unless you read the Peoplenomics example about how in the derivatives world, people buy 'insurance' on things they have not interest in...

---

Someone else called to ask why I had forgotten to change the issue number to 408 and put the right date on both the main report and the accompanying ChartPack.

 

Details, details, details.

---

Sometimes I feel like a cursed man:  Given the occasional insight into the Big Picture and then busily setting about trying to fill in the blanks, but swarmed (just as one might be swarmed by Africanized bees of ill temper when messing about on the back 20) with details and minutia.  Not that giving credit to Bart is minutia - his hard work deserves recognition and I should slow down sometimes.

 

But the details...why they are like mosquitoes there are so many of them.  "Dad, did you send my check for school yet?"  Damn, another detail. Ugly one.

---

I live Life for the joy of free exploration of concepts and to piece the Big Puzzle of Life together.  But I found myself again this morning reduced to listing out most of every waking second this week in my Outlook calendar.  Seems about everything possible this week, from doing the wiring move so the new wall mural/diorama can be installed (followed by the wooden roof) in what we're calling the San Francisco room in the house remodel, to the client projects, to the truck's annual inspection tag...in fact everything down to the sitting time on the porcelain throne has been scheduled.  If my eyes look brown by Friday it's because my scheduling efforts have collided with reality.

---

Both Cliff at HalfPastHuman and I have been struck this week that 'Universe was just kidding about 'bringing some help along' as a relative of his who was going to be working on his projects won't be able to, and despite Elaine's resigning from a head-hunting search project, it seems like she has no time to provide back-up (or even filing) over here in my office.

---

There's a fuzzy 'feel' to modelspace between now and 2013 where the apparent sense of time goes all wonky...things get to feeling like they are speeding up; only to speed up some more.  till this 'moving in quicksand' feeling arrives.

 

The only way I've found to barely keep even is to periodically throw everything into Outlook and then simply click through the list in dogged, determined fashion, paying no mind to whatever new inputs come along that are just screaming for attention.

 

For example, my commodity broker JB called lat night to tell me "Silver's in fast trading which I haven't seen in a long time...something may be coming up this week...." 

 

"Yeah, yeah, get back to me when it pops over $15..."  Didn't mean to sound rude, but 3-minutes per phone call this week, unless you happen to be one of the folks with time blocked out in Outlook.

---

Every once in a while I get to thinking to myself "Maybe you're trying to do too much:  Write an award winning web site, keep up on the rickety time machine, write a cracker-jack subscriber column, write a novel, reconstruct a house with an almost Disney kind of interior to it, write a novel, build a goat ranch, stay active in ham radio, drill a well (60-' feet down now), keep the truck and two cars in roadable condition...and the to-do list stretches down many feet more.

 

Then I pause, take another hit of coffee and remember:  This is Monday and that's what Mondays are all about:  Make the list and plough mindlessly through as much of it as you can, ignoring that any projects on this list this week that you're dumb enough to get done will simply be replaced by more items next week, such that The List is Never-ending.

 

I think, in the end, that's why people die.  They wake up one morning and come to the realization that "OMG: My LIST is longer than ever and I'm 60-something years old!  Isn't there some point in here where I get everything done and I can kick back, get high, do creative writing and just stick to my hobbies with no deadlines?  A little el Don, or Remy, a cigar, a 14-days cruise with the wife with no phones ringing, a leisurely walk on the beach with no agenda whatsoever, and a chance to just appreciate Universe without nervously looking at the clock?"

 

Can't speak for you, but there are mornings when I feel like the Grim Reaper's standing just off stage with a stopwatch.  running some kind of sick perversion of "Reaper Reality" - and that gets me to wondering if television's inane 'reality shows' aren't just poor imitations of Life and Mr. Sickle.

 

The word for the feeling of overwhelmed, behind schedule, over-worked, under-staffed, and pushed to (and beyond) your personal limits while strung out on caffeine is Monday.  So if you feel like you've been set up as a contestant on a 'reality show', best I can figure is that's really close enough to the truth of the matter.

 

Wanna make a little side bet bet who gets the most done on their 'list' this week during this latest round of "Beat the Reaper"?  On your Lists, get set......

 

Peoplenomics Feedback

See details below, but the revelations this weekend about the gnomes of Greenwich really garnered some darned interesting emails.  Like this one for openers:

"Just to raise the question in your mind (not that I know the answer). There is a PBS online timeline of the repeal of Glass-Steagall here.

You’ll see that, according to the supposed left of center PBS, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin (a former Goldman Sachs alumnus of 26 years) spent about 4 years lobbying Congress to repeal Glass Steagall. He was the first to approach Congress in 1995 saying that Glass Steagall should be ‘modernized.’ And only 4 days after Congress voted for repeal, he went to work for Sandy Weill at Citibank. The PBS “Frontline” story leaves little wriggle room that it was Sandy Weill/Robert Rubin and a couple lessers who orchestrated the vastly bipartisan demise of Glass Steagall. The rest is history with regard to Citi.

A couple personal observations. I was with the FSLIC and FDIC during the ‘80s on bank takeover crews and in the ‘90s was interim CFO, CAO, or President of several insolvent institutions (a baby sitter). Money market institutions (investment banks) offered higher rates than banks and S&Ls. Had Glass Steagall not been repealed or, conversely, investment banks regulated, commercial banks would have simply gone away. That’s from watching our bank’s deposit liabilities run off day in, day out during the 90s.

Another observation. Glass Steagall regulated 1) interest rates and 2) reserve requirements. Initially, the target was a 10% reserve requirement (as I imperfectly recollect). But Greenspan, in the early ‘90s, made an administrative ruling that ‘sweep accounts’ were not considered deposit liabilities on a bank’s books. Well, take a $100M bank that must maintain $10M of tangible equity reserves (10%). It can offer commercial sweep accounts and pay competitive money market rates and not count the sweep accounts in deposits for purposes of tangible equity. Neat trick. If that bank can obtain $30M of commercial sweep accounts it will be a $130M bank but only need to maintain $10M of tangible equity. Greenspan’s Fed (with Ben Bernanke sitting in) wiped out much of the reserve requirements of Glass Steagall. I recall reading in the late ‘90s that the effective reserve requirement for banks was more in the 4% range.

Given that banks were thinly capitalized (regulatory and tangible equity), the coup de grace was, in my opinion, collapse of FNMA and Freddie. Banks that sold loans to FNMA or Freddie were required to own FNMA or Freddie stock. As I watched the slow motion train wrecks last fall on CNBC I recall catching a tidbit of information on CNBC that, on average, US banks write off of the value of FNMA and Freddie stock vaporized 11% of tangible equity capital. That day that FNMA and Freddie went into conservatorship, the vast majority of banks in the US likely became insolvent according to the definition of regulatory capital (at least based on what I heard on CNBC).

Now, if you want a really interesting conspiracy (THEORY!-G) , follow the Goldman Sachs tie ins to Clinton, Bush and the Fed. Paulson bails out AIG, Goldman collects $15B from AIG that would have been worthless, and Goldman pays out $12B because it had its best year ever!!!!! I wonder if they’d have had that good of a year had the taxpayer not bailed them out?

Thanks for all the good work,

Say, didn't AIG handle the retirement accounts of Congress?  Seems to ring a bell somewhere.  No wonder they'd be 'too big to fail', if my recall is right, huh? 

And another one:

"You really hit a nerve with this week's [subscriber] column ("Marching to the Wall") - AZ is in the same boat at CA- maybe not as much $ but the percentage is actually higher when factored in. here are some of the headlines that are local;: we are facing are first ever government shut down due to the way the constitution for this state is written: 

"Tax Proposals stall Action till Monday"

"Legislators seeking to avert AZ shutdown"

Your suggestion on a practice run is also interesting- now I just need to get with my husband to make a trial- we are in better shape than many, I now have some supplies ready, and we moved 5 years ago to the country between NM and Tucson- we have 5 acres and are hoping to do a geodesic green house- to help with planting. I do have a solar oven- and hand grinders for the wheat in storage- but I haven't tried any of them- I also have gotten medicinal herbs to plant- (got them in too late for this year) I guess it is about time to try some of the things I have prepared. I know that starting in October I will start making hard copies of all of the info in my computer!

Yeah...my point was that we no longer need an Internet bubble or a Housing Bubble to turn the economy around.  instead, we can go right to the loot and pillage stage of government with something near carte blanche because even once rolled and beaten, government will just print up more Band-Aids, LOL.  What a glorious scheme, isn't it? 

 

Missing "Dollars"?

Seen any 'dollar' stores closing lately?

"Why aren't people catching on to the Dollar Stores (or whatever derivative name is used) closing almost en masse? Wouldn't you think halfway intelligent people that are driving from location to location looking for a cheap dollar store and finding virtually every one of them closed, would wonder "Oh my, I wonder why all of the dollar stores in my neighborhood are closed all of a sudden?" - maybe its because China isn't sending us the cheap s--- anymore! Maybe China isn't sending us anything anymore! So frustrating....

I understand valium helps...little light blue pills like th....ooops!

 

Quote for the Week

Here's a good one:

George, thank you for keeping everyone so well informed. My brother just sent me this email dated from 1931. It is a quote from Adrian Rogers:

"You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."*

Adrian Rogers, 1931

Seems he was right on the money.

But, only as far as he went.  There's this Big Quote I carry around in my head (and drag out on overload Mondays like this money):

"Remember: You can have anything.  But!  You can't have everything."

Till the whole of society breaks out of the 'everything mindset' and focuses on a few quality things in each of our lives, we're all marching to the Wall...got a smoke?  There's not enough 'things' in the whole damn Universe to give everybody everything.  The simple math just doesn't work out.   In everything there aren't two everything's for ev everyone.  Simple and obvious, huh?

 

That we haven't figured that simple truth out is why we're (as the Mogambo says) 'so freaking doomed... Nice to dream about a simpler life, though and why Elaine and I belong now to the Society for Creative Anachronism.  Trying to find the New Renaissance...which I reckon you are, too.

 

Around The Ranch:  Here Kitty, Kitty...

Neighbor across the road called Sunday with the latest cougar report (No, not the 'party to excess' cougars that (used to?)  frequent Pullman, WA).  He reported that he found two more prints out by the mailbox, only this time the cougar was headed east.  The size of the paw print?  Measured 3 3/4" across.

 

Hmmm...no room for cougar hunting in Outlook this week.  Lucky cat...probably doesn't even have an iPhone.  Cougars are so damn backwards, aren't they?  Just walk around, snag dinner when it runs by, sleep...wonder if cougars experience Mondays?

 

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Chart of the Week!

Before the chart, a little background:

Once upon a time, a long while ago, I observed during my quest for 'truth' in economics, that the PowersThatBe, the talking heads on the teeve, and the other information sources that actively engage in the programming of humans not to think, had conveniently swept several trillions of dollars that disappeared in the Internet Bubble's bursting (since spring 2000) under the rug.  Surely, it wasn't unnoticed by the thousands of people who called brokers and said "Where is my money?"  "Gone, but hang in there as you're a long term investor!" was about all they heard back.

 

So one of our charts for Peoplenomics subscribers oughta be widely circulated - it shows that if you line up the peak of the Dow in January 2000 with the peak in early September of 1929, we're on a very very close replay track.  Much closer than even the chart shows if you were to back out inflation, and put in the effects of 1929 deflation, but that'd be real work, and I'm sort of lazy if the truth be told.

 

No, it's not a perfect replay of 1929, but history doesn't repeat exactly, it only rhymes.  So think of this as the rhymes and the crimes chart:

 

 

 

"George, that's only a coincidence!" your monkey-mind will protest. 

 

Why sure it is...you bet.  A 9½ year long coincidence...yessir....just a coincidence, I'm sure...

 

Write when you get rich,

 

George Ure, The People's Economist

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