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Dow ? No Record,
Really The headlines are
everywhere.
"New
Day, New Record for Stock Market" touts Philly.com.
The Memphis Commercial Appeal headlines "Stock
market giddy as Wall Street continues its winning streak."
I will grant you that the Friday close seemed to be a record,
but upon closer inspection, you'll see it's not - at least not in
honest economic terms. Here's why: There are two ways to
consider the price of the stock market. One way is to take the
numbers at "face value" and base your decisions strictly on that.
The other way - chosen by more sophisticated investors, is to
look at competing investments based on how they perform in terms of
absolute purchasing power. Let me give you an
example from an economics class. A thirsty man in the desert
has one dime - and that's all the money he has (no one to borrow
from and so on) - and a seller shows up with one glass of water to
sell. What is the maximum price of the glass of water?
Right: 10¢. Now suppose we rerun our
little thought experiment is rerun, except now our fellow in the
desert has a $100-dollar bill. What do you suppose the maximum
price of the glass of water will be? Right: $100. Now here's the point:
The price of the water changed in nominal terms, but the
value of the water is always the same: At the edge o f
death from dehydration, a person will spend everything they have for
that glass of water; whether it's a dime or a $100 dollar bill
matters not. Now let's flip over to
the close of the stock market and see how this lesson may apply. We know that the stock
market hit its previous "all time high" with the Dow peak in early
2000. It closed at 11,723. The problem is that there is
a lot more money sloshing around the system now compared with
then. I want you to go to the
Minneapolis Fed's inflation calculator and plug in the numbers for
yourself. Click here and put in the first box "2000" and in
the "I bought goods or services for box, enter 11,723.00.
For the "Then in " box enter 2007 and press the "Calculate button".
If you can follow simple
instructions, you will see $13, 989.99. In other words,
to be a new high in terms of purchasing power, the Dow would
need to be there: 13,989.99, which means the Dow still has another
1,000+ points to run to event come up to the previous speculative
bubble's peak. Oh sure, you can argue
that the comparison doesn't take into account dividends, splits, and
what have you. But, I'm telling you that the comparison is
fair and that we're not talking about anything other than what it
costs to 'buy the Dow'. Besides, if you insist on counting
dividends, then I will trot out the commissions charged by brokerage
firms. Further, because so many
people participate in the market through mutual funds (which are
just the "Trusts" from the 1930's repackaged and renamed to get
around the previous connotations, I'd point out that such funds
charge hefty fees. Ever look at the list of fees? The
SEC has and they include: Shareholder fees: And under the heading of Annual fund operating expenses (charged
back to participants) you have: You're welcome to insist,
as many readers will, that a "New Market High Has Been Set".
But I'll just sit back and ask the more fundamental questions like
"What's the equivalent of that glass of water in the desert" that I
should be acquiring now for future use? There's no certainty to
be had, of course. So I will play both sides of the fence.
I've invested in the latest version of Office and decent computer
horsepower on the one hand, but on the other we continue to believe
in gold and producing agricultural land (and our well) as being key
assets likely to appreciate. If you doubt the wisdom
of this dual track approach, consider what has happened to high-end
DLP, plasma, and LCD TV's in the past two years. Prices have
come down markedly. On the other hand, farm land prices
continue to appreciate and fresh water seems like a good investment,
too. Witness the
fighting in
Louisiana over diversion of fresh water for oyster beds and in
Canada,
headlines advise that the "Looming water crisis 'big, big, big'". While I hold up a big
placard that says "You can't eat stock certificates", you're welcome
to revel in the "New Dow High" stories. Pig Recall Looks like some of that gluten spiked with an industrial chemical, may have made it to the human food chain after all, says a report today. I won't say "told you so" but we did ask the question early on..
Housing Mess A week ago, I told you to check out the Mortgage Lender Implode O Meter when it had 56 subprime outfits croaking. It's up to 62 today...
Inflation: 12.25% That's the latest from Bart's M3B - a highly correlated measure we've been watching since the Fed swept the official M3 number under the rug. Today it looks like about 12.25%. The ugly little truth is that CONgress has abdicated its Constitutional duty to control creation of "money" - and the Fed is leading the charge to inflate by reporting only cash - not the money created by debt (M3 and beyond) that has continued to pump up the economic bubble.
I mean think about it: how much of the economy today is digidollars and how much is M-1 type money? Absurd. But, then again, Ron Paul has been one of the few in CONgress asking those kinds of hard questions for years and look what it's gotten us.
Iacocca: Outrage Articulated I'm not usually one to pimp books, but my 'brain food' order from Amazon this week included the new Lee Iacocca book "Where have all the leaders Gone?" I suppose you want to know why? because Iacocca at 82 makes more sense than 99% of the folks in the District of Corruption. Mssrs Tancredo and Paul aside. Here's an extract:
Iacocca does a fine job of articulating what I would call the UrbanSurvival/Let's Save America mindset. He continues...
This is a short (192) book - no doubt a quick read. It's one of those books, like one reviewer wrote, that "I wish I'd read before the last election." If you read this site, you've got a few more brain cells than most - so if you do buy the book, you might consider passing it on to people who are hypnotized by the mass media-induced slumber which continues to paralyze this Great Nation.
I expect you'll also come
to understand that when it comes to picking leaders, I'll take a
fellow like Iacocca - a man who has been president of Ford and
Chrysler and who has started
the Iacocca Institute at
Lehigh University to teach leadership, over whatever dynastic
wanna-be's who are more worried about doing what's expedient for
their friends and PAC's than doing what the Framers of the
Constitution had in mind. For $15 bucks you get a book that's
a measuring stick and action plan. And why the hell we can't
get business leaders of the caliber of Iacocca and Perot elected
speaks to the level of sleaziness than we've allowed to gain a
cancerous foothold in the Land of the Brave. Amazon Link:
Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
Gonzales and the Clock We wonder if the clock isn't ticking for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, after reading reports in the LA Times that "GOP support for Gonzales continues to deteriorate". The problem, if Gonzales leaves (or is left) is who his replacement will be - the administration could appoint someone worse.
Press Control Russia's largest independent radio network has been told by the government: 50% of news broadcast must be positive. Vlad Putin's latest insanity ignores the definitional problem that generally, if it's good, it ain't news. The link is worth reading because Vlad Putin and you -know-who seem to have the same objective for the press. It smells like the media extension of "It yer not fur us, ur agin us" kind of thinking. No commenting on the Emperor's clothes, eh?
Castro's Meetings Although he's not been seen in public in nine months, Cuba's Fidel met with a Chinese leader Friday for an hour, say reports. Has Fidel gone Howard Hughes on us?
Walling Iraq There's not too much coverage yet, but we see the new wall that US forces are building around a Shiite-surrounded Sunni area in Baghdad, as becoming a major political football. Why? How is it we can secure Iraq with walls and can't do that on our border with Mexico. --- Research question: Do you have any links to data sources on the number of non-US military forces in the USA? I've been getting reports that there are lots of military from countries other than the US which are doing training here - and the numbers I'm hearing at huge. So please, if you have data sources or stories you've bookmarked, please send them along. Click here to submit.
With all the talk about a possible terrorist attack here, I'm getting a touch edgy about how many foreigners are here while the bulk of our Homeland Defenders (National Guard) are out of the country. Seems a little too pat....
Front Line Thinking I hold unbounded admiration for America's soldiers who are in places like Iraq and Afghanistan - and I appreciate how tough it must be to be out of the country when craziness strikes here, as with the shootings this week at VT. (Even though I disagree with the premise for the war - a callous bait-and-switch based on lies, I am 110% supportive of our troops on the front line.)
I'm also impressed with the simple & clear logic that comes from our front line. Take this example:
Common sense.
Speaking of reader emails, I got a very good letter from a reader earlier this week who is fed up with all the "sympathy for Don Imus" that's floating around the 'net:
Good points. When I wrote earlier that "But, even more importantly, a lot of folks are looking at Imus (a long time critic of the "offishal" story of 9/11) and writing thoughtful pieces like "First they came for Imus..." I was not (and do not) support his views - just reporting what was happening and the wide range of reaction to the events.
Not Quite Classified, BUT... The contents of this week's Peoplenomics Report is relatively speculative and has some interesting implications so I am taking the extraordinary step of asking subscribers not to repost, report, or discuss what's in the report, but rather as Constitution loving Americans, just read the report, and consider its implications. Thank you. More for Subscribers Subscription Information
Making Ends Meet Our ebook - "How to Live on $10,000 a year or less" is available at our Peoplenomics Bookstore for just $10.
Pass the Word to Your FriendsClick here to send the an email telling them about this site
Friday April 20, 2006 Food and Real Climate Change For more than a year, the web bot project - that predictive linguistics/future predictive project of the 'time monks' at www.halfpasthuman.com, has been talking about encounters with scarcity, which we take to mean shortages of this kind, or that, and we've tracked the term "shortage" in Google's news search engine since March of last year when the meme first appeared. Comparing the hits for the first 20 days of April 2006 (263, 900) with the first 20 days of April 2007 (407,689) we see a 54.5% increase in news items referring to "shortage" but whether that's a function of Google's search methodology, simply more content on the 'net, of just some normal cycling of word use among the general population isn't clear and could certainly be debated.
But, what is not debatable are things like food prices, clime change (for whatever reason) and my personal outlook for a growing planetary shift to lower protein diets as the effects of stripping out the ocean's fisheries and the high cost of raising protein sources (feed costs for cows and such) continues to escalate concurrent with rising energy and other input costs.
An email from a reader sums up one of those climate change related concerns - the outlook for the Gulf Stream. As you know, if the Gulf Stream slows appreciably, the climate in much of Europe turns markedly colder - but given a lot of global warming, we'd have to wonder if that's all such a bad thing. What's clear though is that the thermohaline conveyor system of the world's oceans is either starting to change, or will shortly.
Something to think about - like we don't have enough to worry about, is comparing how the Gulf Stream velocity looked in 2003, 2004, compared with 2005, 2006, and now 2007. As you look at the imagery, the thing to look at is the "organization" of the flow. In other words, the numbers of all the light blue eddies out in the Atlantic. And notice the breaks in the stream itself.
So why would an economics wonk be looking at pictures of Gulf Stream current velocities? Because, as we all remember from one of the classes we didn't nod of in, as goes climate, so goes food. As goes food, so go animal populations... and there's a lot of news about food lately. For example:
Spiked for Protein We're reading some disturbing things about the recent pet food recall today - namely that the FDA is now asking if the imported wheat gluten and rice proteins may have been deliberately "spiked" with melamine into order to boost their apparent protein content levels.
The Washington Post reports this morning that there may also have been spiking of corn gluten sent to South Africa. Why do I get the feeling that there will be lawyers and law firms all over this one shortly? As the old adage goes, "Follow the money".
While the folks in South Africa are being warned not to dump their possibly tainted pet foods, for fears of poisoning other animals, I'm left wondering if this might be a solution to out local coyote problems in the neighborhood.
Food Buys and Notes We notice that Kroger has announced plans to buy Scott's Foods in the upper Midwest (Ft. Wayne, In. area). --- Elsewhere on the food front, democorps are lining up with the AMA on the proposed ban on junk food ads aimed at kids. --- And while that debate continues, we note (with some glee) that strawberry daiquiris might have some health benefit! This is a yee-haw TGIF kind of story if there ever was one. Apparently this works with blackberries too, and we're planning to personal testing of bananas, limes, lemons, and whatever else we can find. I wonder if appletinis are healthy? As always, we will be careful not to mix our research with driving and there's a lot of research to do here...
Grilling Gonzalez OK, so it's not a food story - except with some literary license, as shark versus shark was played out on Capitol Hill Thursday. But the Chicago Trib's headline just seemed to fit the food meme. Makes it sound like haute' cuisine. And it was, for the hungry media, I suppose.
All But Lost As democrat Harry Reid told the president this week that the war in Iraq is "all but lost", SecDef Robert Gates in in Iraq saying in no uncertain terms that "the clock is ticking" for the Iraqis to get control of their own country. After bombs killed 191, Gates is asking for faster progress. Lacking that, there won't be anyone left to fight...
Dig This Tunnel The Russians plan something three times longer than the English Channel to link Russia and Alaska. OK, so there's maybe a little politicking with it and such, but you have to admit, it's a BIG idea. Just think: It would make it possible for Mexican truck drivers to drive all the way to China! Why, wouldn't that be a globalist dream come true? And in the summertime, just think of the new resorts up in the Bering Keys!
Freakonomics II Monkeys, as it turns out, are about as good at budgeting as humans, is one of the findings forthcoming soon in an update to the 2005 book Freakonomics. Monkeys apparently, with enough washers and wampum, will spontaneously invent prostitution. You gotta read the article...
April 19, 2007 More Oil in Iraq As we watch the market head toward what the futures point to as a lower opening, a couple of things seem to bear watching, and both relate to Iraq. The first is the series of explosions which have killed more than 180 people. Not that this means a lot, only that the civil war is running along at a fevered pitch and the recent/ongoing addition of more US forces to the region doesn't seem to have moderated the headlong rush toward utter chaos. The other point though is that there's a report out from the Financial Times suggesting that "Iraq may hold twice as much oil" as previously thought. Which makes the prize all the more worth fighting for -- take that as you will. --- On our southern oil flank, we read how Mexico's energy minister says "no privatization of oil" is planned, although we understand too well that Mexico's Cantarell is not a perpetual fountain of oil -- any more than the Saudi's fields are.
The Falls Church (Va.) News-Press Online edition asks the same kind of question we've been suggesting for some time: "The Peak Oil Crisis: Have the Troubles Begun?" --- Not that it's just oil, mind you. It's other natural resources as well. In India, for example, there's concern about water shortages. And in Australian, where there is a huge (century plus) drought ongoing, things are so bad that even irrigating farmland may have to be halted.
All of which reduces to a global awareness - starting to become visible only at the fringes where mainstream media aren't prone to looking - that there will be less food in our future. While "Suriname authorities to tackle food shortage in Amerindian villages", the crop losses in in places like Arkansas from the recent cold snap will likely result in federal aid being available to farmers. That doesn't sound like a case for lower food prices to you, does it? --- With all of this as background, we notice that the stock market futures (last time I checked) were pointing to a downward opening today. One reason? The continuing decline of the US dollar against currencies like the British Pound - where the US dollar is at a 26-year low. --- While there is plenty of reason to be concerned about the long-term outlook for the world as a whole, there's also a danger to getting worked up too far in advance of events. For example, those of us who naturally live "10-minutes in the future" anyway, have been inclined to take recent sea bird deaths, such as the one at Monterey Bay, and conclude that "Ah! The world's falling apart quickly!" More likely, the bird population just got ahead of itself and some birds starved - as happens with some species or other every year, anyway.
All of which is not to argue that species aren't going extinct - and a pending tree extinction in China due to overuse in luxury high end flooring certainly underscores the issue - but the fact is that what we likely have right now are the first "bumpings against the walls of the Petri dish". These will become more frequent over time.
Sure, the world's going to hell in a hand basket, but it's not getting there this afternoon. There's a whole regimen of product replacement and material substitution experiments to come, as humans try this alternative when that turns out to be in short supply.
Even when some of the new alternatives to oil consumption come along, to pick an example out of the headlines, they are often as dangerous -- or even more so --- compared to what they replace, but in different ways. "Ethanol raises ozone levels, US Study Says." See what I mean? Substitution blues.
The substitutes can be just as bad for you -- or even worse -- than what they were trying to fix. In the meantime, we're left as news consumers to try and sort the wheat from chaff - a difficult process at best.
To show how confusing it is trying to find the truth, take another example from the headlines: "Study finds Aspartame Cancer Causing" claims one report, while another offers "Sweetener study shows no cancer link in humans". We're left to wondering if the tests were only in non-humans, or what the heck?
Market Outlook So it's against this backdrop that we are watching the market put in what so far looks like a double-top. The Dow closed yesterday at 12,803.84 - a new closing high-- besting the February mark of 12,786.64.
My friend Robin Landry reports that his proprietary indicators show there's still a good chance of one more run into the record books before fall, but if the market fails to exceed 13,111.84 (roughly) then there's still a possibility of a double-top and if that is the case, then "How far is down?" would become the question.
Today, let's just blame and overnight pullback in Asia for the downside opening expected. Throw in a pinch of earnings jitters, too.
Paper Hanging While I sit on the sidelines watching the market try to make up its mind, I'm intrigued by the machinations of the paper hangers and money printers.
You need to look at the M-3b (M3 reconstructed) over at www.nowandfutures.com one in a while. At the moment Bart's chart shows it to be heading upward at an annual rate of about 12%
Although widely touted as "good news" by the happy-talk financial press, the March inflation report which popped up at an annualized one month 11% rate (all items), has me back to wondering about inflation yet to come. So too, Business Week headlines that "March CPI Won't Sway Inflation-Wary Fed". Seems great minds, huh?
What should scare any rational human (both of us?) is that we continue to live out something akin to the 1930's - only this time around, rather than fighting the top in the financial markets with protectionist legislation such as was the tariff battles of the 1930's, today's front is upstream in the currency printing department.
"What the hell does that mean?" you're asking. Just this: While the US and West are creating money out of thin air by borrowing it into existence with CDO's, MBO's, CMO's and the rest of the debt packaging alphabet, the Chinese aren't doing bad at their printing presses, either. A little note in the People's Daily Online offers that "China's MS supply up 17.3 pct in March."
That will definitely come as good news to Ben Bernanke and the Fed. Reason? China's M-2 Year on Year is actually down 1.5%. If China can stay with the high money creation regimen for a while, we might actually see an extension of the markets to new highs. Things fall apart, however, when the US is out on its own printing money like crazy and China doesn't follow suit. That would cause the dollar tanks even faster.
More Pet Food Problems Again, an industrial chemical has shown up in a different ingredient now as the safety checking of pet food picks up steam. This time the chemical melamine is showing up in rice protein concentrate used in some Natural Balance pet foods, says one report. I have half a mind to tell the cats here "If you want something, go outside and catch it!" But I won't...softy that I am...
Blackberries Back Still, having a big outage is not a comforting thing.
Wolfowitz Pressure More calls for his resignation from the World Bank as more details of his style come into focus. Board meeting today may decide.
Wednesday April 18, 2007 Concentration of Wealth If ever wondered why I go on at some length about corporatism, globalism, and the concentration of power in America, you need look no further than this morning's Reuters report headlined "Super-rich population surges in 2006: survey." This is the group of people who suffer through with a net worth in excess of $5-million dollars - and that group was up 23% in size last year. The report figures is you go down the food chain, to say household net worth of $500,000 or more, the gain was a more modest 9%. The report, at least what's covered in the Reuters report, doesn't get into what happened here in the real middle class. --- Don't get me wrong: It's not that I have anything against the ultra rich, and in fact I wouldn't mind being one. The sticking point, however, is that the super-rich have - in my view - representation that is massively disproportionate to their ranks. They can afford to be paying members of various lobby groups and PAC's which has resulted in excessive influence over the direction taken by America.
And example is our still leaking borders. Because the people who give the most to political campaigns are the rich & business owner class - and because they most directly benefit from exploitation of illegal immigrants - the borders still leak. That there's huge money to be made in the defense sector and in having cheap energy, we find ourselves engaged in wars here and there. And, as putting people in jail is a fine business employing a minimum of three lawyers per case, the alcohol lobby continues to hold certain God made plants illegal. If there was a way for rich folks to make money off pot, it would have been legal long ago. Not that I'm promoting drugs, mind you; I'm just saying that alcohol has resulted in more deaths by public policy than pot many times over yet alcohol is state-sanctioned and pot is not.
Try brewing some moonshine sometime and see how quickly the alcohol lobby's agents from BATF come a knocking at your door. I mean the agents are all good people and all - they're just employed in the business of enforcing laws. But, the point is that the alcohol laws are largely a result of the demonization of the home brewer and the "pay to drown your misery" control/tax/regulations imposed by the uberclassen.
America's a fine place, and none's better. But, we do have a serious structural problem as dollars override principles. As the old saying goes: In America, everyone is equal. Just some are more equal than others. --- When I come up with 'class equalizing legislative ideas, such as net worth related insurance premiums, or net worth related health care premiums, I admit quickly "That ain't gonna happen" because those who pay the piper call the tune.
From an economics point of view, once you get enough money coming in so that you can break even and have something left after food, shelter, clothing and (state sanctioned) insurance, it's surprising how quickly you can salt away money and move up the Power pyramid.
I'm all about "following the money" to try and using what I find, I try to understand contemporary events. I'm continually amazed that America has the highest incarceration rates of almost anywhere in the world. As one article notes:
I find myself asking (frequently) "Is there some relationship between the size and concentration of power and wealth at the top of the social order, and the incarceration rates and disenfranchising of the lower and middle classes down the social pyramid?"
My tentative conclusion has been that there at least appears to be some relationship: As the group at the top grows in relationship to the underclasses, the amount of power/control/dominance/exploitation of the lower and middle appears to increase. Result? The rich get richer and the middle/poor get screwed. Today's report on the fine growth rate of the Super-rich doesn't change my outlook here one iota. --- All that aside, there's a comeuppance in the wings as the US dollar has continued to slide early today but has now started to bounce up against other currencies like the Euro. Bloomberg had headlined that "Dollar falls to lowest since 2004 versus Euro; US loses shine."
Still, a number of readers hold hope the dollar will increase, or at least stop dropping as much as some analysts are warning of:
Maybe, but I'm skeptical - the US is spending more than it makes (am I the only one listening to our Comptroller General?) - so Elaine and I continue to hold some physical gold and silver as a hedge against the possibility that the paper-based assets will decline relative to the traditional physical assets such as gold, silver, producing farm land, and 100% paid-up rent producing real estate. No, we would not be buying a rental house now, unless, of course, we could pay it off 100% such that any income received could be adjusted (rents) to operate at a continuous positive cash flow under all reasonable conditions. But at some point in the future, the gold and silver might be partially converted to an income producing asset. Some day... --- Rule of Law and a Constitution are not matters to be taken lightly. We notice that Ukraine's Constitutional court is trying to figure out what to do with the calls to dissolve parliament there. Demonstrations of all stripe going on outside..
Challenge For the Dow Although lots of people have told me they think the Dow is "controlled" by the Plunge Protection Team and other unseen forces, I continue to keep an open mind on the subject.
What I'm not terribly open minded about are two interesting observations (and this is NOT trading advice):
1. The Feb 20'ish intraday high for the Down was 12,845.76. The close was 12,786.64. 2. In yesterday's action. the high was 12,837.40 and the close was 12,773.04.
Now, I find myself asking this: "Is this a double top?" Or, "are we about to break out to new highs? A call to Robin Landry (rlandry@charter.net) revealed that his indicators were still showing strength, but he's quick to note that can change at any time.
When I looked at the futures early this morning, it seemed like a lower open is to come, but punching through resistance often takes a second attempt. But like baseball, if stopped at the recent high often enough, that might be bearish. Should be interesting because as Landry notes, "We seem to be in the fifth of the Fifth and it's subdividing...
Gangland Japan
Floating Power What's this? Russian is planning a floating nuclear power plant. Wonder if Lloyds will write a policy for this one...
Still Flooded Parts of New Jersey continue under flood watch today...
Cat Owner Alert A reader reports another shortage - catnip!
Tuesday April 17, 2007 Inflation Super Shock: 11.35% Annual Rate We look for a major market hit with an inflation shocker from the Labor Department this morning - the inflation rate for March was up 0.9% - nearly 1% - and we pencil that out to an annual rate of 11.351%! Read 'em and weep:
The apologists for wild inflation can bather all they want about the so-called "core rate" myth - which asks you to suspend belief in everything and accept that excluding food and energy costs is a "right" way to look at inflation. Well, maybe if you have a crack problem. The compound 3-month rate for food is going up 7.4%, transportation up 8.3%, and energy? Ha! 22.9%. Too much candor, for sure. This raises the specter of a Fed hike next meeting, for sure.
Now, let me think...hmmm...what would be a fine investment if inflation is taking off? Hmmmm...let me think...oh yeah, gold!
A Question or Two About Gold I’ve been somewhat confused lately by the behavior of gold. It's been kicked down a few bucks again today, but last week its glitter was undeniable. Still, despite the $10+ rise last Friday, there is an underlying issue of why gold hasn’t popped up a lot more, given the seriously under-reported inflation rate (we'll get to the CPI in a few minutes).
As you may know, ever since the Fed hid the M-3 thirteen months ago, the creation of “paper money” in the system through excessive debt and the peddling of CDO’s and CMO’s as added gasoline to the subprime/predatory lending disaster that’s shaping up now.
Though a mutual friend (JB@fortwealth.com, website: www.fortwealth.com ) I had an opportunity to put a few of my questions to Jim Sinclair, the legendary gold bull behind www.jsmineset.com. The interview follows:
Visits to www.jsmineset.com are always worthwhile, as are visits to www.gata.org and the closely related Le Metropole Cafe, where people still talk about the Constitution, the responsibility of the Congress to create money, and where all this leads. --- Way back in about 1848, while he was bashing my great great great grandfather Andrew N. Ure for being an apologist of the British factory owners, Karl Marx did manage to get one thing right: The concept of owning the means of production.
To the extent that a person owns the means of production (hence my present holding of farm/ag land, and acquiring machine tools), they are autonomous. Store the value produced in something like gold, and you've got a workable strategy for a period of time like the one we're in.
While it's true that more money can be made in the very short term, by speculating in the various bubbles come and go (as in "internet bubble" and "housing bubble"), the trick is to steadily acquire a significant position. So as I position for what I agree will likely be a big bull market in 2016 or after, the "means of production" and the inflation-proof (resistant) aspects of gold make it my pick for winning strategy.
It's especially easy to like gold (and silver) if you were watching this site a few years back when central banks were unloading gold at bargain rates to sit on prices. Today, that chicken is coming home to roost as prime-minister-in-waiting Gordon Browns role in selling off half of England's gold reserves at just about exactly the bottom of the market comes to light. No amount of high profile meetings with Bush 43 can disguise the lack of financial insight provided by that move.
Our overarching strategy is incredibly simple: Minimize loss potential in all investments. For now, means of production and gold & silver seems like the "one decision" approach with the highest payoff potential out there. But then again, if you got sucked into a subprime loan, you've probably already figured this part out.
Housing Bust Notes "Foreclosure record eclipsed in March" says a San Diego headline. "Default notices hit 10-year high" notes another. Not to worry, that's only a YoY 802% increase...
The Future - Clearly Go ahead - be skeptical of my time-predictive friends. Say all you will about the web bot project "Can't work! Defies logic! (not true, BTW, it is perfectly logical), let me make a simple observation for you in three steps:
The rains continue - no let up in sight.
Case for Guns With 32 dead, the authorities are still trying to figure out the reason for the bloodbath that claimed 32 lives yesterday at Virginia Tech. Large numbers of UrbanSurvival readers are pointing out that if anyone one of the victims had carried a gun, the carnage could have been stopped.
Who Knew When?
WOT Say? The spin-worn phrase "War on Terror" is being dropped not just by Nancy Pelosi and the democrew, but now by British Development Secretary Hilary Benn: Shifting spin to follow. --- The standoff on war funding continues. --- Muslim cab drivers are facing penalties if they continue to deny service to people who are (obviously) carrying liquor -- in Minnesota.
Blazing Bidets Japan's leading toilet maker is offering to repair 180,000 bidets that have wiring issues which can cause fires...we couldn't make this up.
Not Such Great Lakes We read that global warming may have a hand in reducing water quality of the Great Lakes
Office '07 Adventure Yes, I finally got it working. Finally after 2-days of grief a Microsoft tech rep in New Brunswick figured the problem out in 3-minutes. "Bad disk. Here's the number of our replacement media department - they'll send you one right out." Yup.
"Meantime, to get you up and operating, download the trial version from the 'net and use your product key and then you're up."
Sure enough, it worked. There are some improveme4nts to the interface - and being able to highlight emails so I can prioritize them has been useful already. But, on the flip side, the computer runs slower - and I have decided to buy a Linux box this summer and start migrating you know where... open source. . Monday April 16, 2007 Web Bot Hit Developing: Major Flooding We're not sure if this is the flooding the future-predictive linguistics people told us about back in December as showing up this spring, but it's a close enough fit for home use. While the flooding is getting underway, I', sort of expecting it to get worse than expected, or for another round of it because of the linguistics reported to HalfPastHuman subscribers on December 8,2006 and reproduced here with exclusive permission. (Any reposting requires both a link to this site as well as www.halfpasthuman.com ). So here's what it looked like viewed from last December:
Of course, the flooding didn't come in January, but apparently that's when events/forces turned that result in what we have - and this peering into the future stuff doesn't come with an instruction book.
So, since we've been waiting for big big flood to arrive about in here, and having more than four months of lead time, seems like it's here and so there's some of the imagery to be thinking about. Privately, my bet is this is just the warm-up act because the Mississippi/Red River portion hasn't been met yet. I'm also looking for that flooded airport/planes stuff, too. That part notwithstanding, the flooding is THE story of the day as the National Weather Service is all excited about things:
In one sense, it is another stake in the ground for what we call "The George Postulate" which says that when something really big is going to happen, we get lots of advance notice - Like the four + months of lead time on the tsunami. So be watching today for floods and maybe some small airport flooded and planes washed around - that kind of thing. If the rainstorms stall, then Cliff might be right about the alternate version of events which would have 7-million impacted/displaced. Events later today and tomorrow should help us focus on that. If you see flooded planes, let me know...
By now, even a novice at interpreting web bot forecasts should be getting the idea how a 'release" period works. Not only are we seeing the predicted emotional releases gong on, but Imus has been released, and now the clouds are releasing...you are following this, right? --- And you see where a group of former generals has figured out that as the world runs out of food, water, safe places to live (they didn't mention bees, though) that we will see more fighting among humans? Quick! Look surprised!
Oh Crop, Continued Two emails about food and famine in the wings:
And if that's not enough for you to get worked up over (if you're not dog paddling around Bean Town), try this one on for size:
I'm not sure if it's mind control, or just a subconscious way that people are revealing what they think of contemporary events.. Lots of crop loss reports are popping up like this one.
Speaking of Imus --- Meantime, in the war, 6 cabinet ministers have quit over the lack of a US timetable for withdrawal. --- And the German Army seems to be preparing for action on American streets (while our forces are out of the country) if I get the underlying drift of this report right. --- Nigeria elections are being called "a sham". Gee, you think maybe because they have a lot of oil?
Constitution? What Constitution? --- Of course that's nothing compared to the massive database on private citizens being cobbled up by Texas governor (and Bush follow-on) Rick Perry. I expect my small contribution to a local democrat will be in there somewhere. Absolute power corrupts what? --- In Russia, anti-Putin demonstrators are being beaten.
Role of AIPAC Debated Here's an interesting and worthy read for you: "Soros adds voice to debate over Israel lobby" --- Say, here's a perpetual headline for you: "Israeli, Palestinian Leader Discuss Outlines of Statehood"
Office 2007 Standard Upgrade Hell Let me tell you how it went down: There I was, tired from working on this week's Peoplenomics report and debating whether I should start in on mowing the yard, or whether I should continue sitting in my chair for another hour and install my Office 2007 Standard upgrade. I opted for the latter, thinking this "power new user interface" should be on my computer. A bad move so far. My main consulting client had hinted that it might turn into a time sink, as he asked me "Why on earth are you doing that?" Now I'm wondering, too.
I knew I was in trouble when the file 'dwintl20.dll' could not be found. I tried everything in the bloody book and tried pointing the program at each of the dozen or so copies of this apparently crucial code that seem to live everywhere on my hard drive - but the Office 2007 Standard Upgrade wasn't convinced.
About 4:45PM I broke down and called Microsoft tech support and spoke to a polite young lady in southern India who cheerfully admitted that fixing problems like mine was what she did all day. After reading her my long litany of installed MSFT products, she announced that I would have to manually remove the existing copy of Office 2003. So I explicitly did as directed, backed up the registry, edited the registry, and rebooted.
It's about then that I heard the ice crack: Upon boot up from manually pulling things out of the registry ("Oh, you won't need that") the computer now went into a loop mode -- trying to reinstall FrontPage 2003 automatically -- such that I had about 10 seconds of opportunity before the computer locked up. It wouldn't recognize my copy of FP in the DVD drive of the laptop.
"I can see we will have to collaborate with my colleagues in our FrontPage section," she noted, "But they have all gone home."
"Gone HOME??? You have carefully stepped me through an installation to the point where my computer is broken, and this is a computer that runs my business, and now YOU'RE GOING HOME?" I was a little ah...perturbed. Surprisingly, I managed not to use any of the harsh unmentionable language that was going through my head. My swear-word processor was multi-threading in background mode.
"Well, I certainly understand how you feel Mr. Ure, but there is nothing we can do until tomorrow. Would you like us to call you back?" Was she kidding?
"How early can you call?"
"Any time tomorrow would be fine."
"OK, 12:01 AM my time," I suggested. "My whole life lives on this laptop and I'm in no mood to take a backup onto my desktop...so 12:01 AM would be fine. I can nap till then..."
"Oh, I meant during business hours." She didn't get that my business hours are 24X7 and I had some subscribers to update and this morning's report to crank out.
I settled on a 5:30 AM call (US Central Daylight Time, I confirmed). And that was two hours ago.
The next thing that will likely happen is that I'll be calling Amazon later today and asking about how to return a product which won't install on a system like mine, reduced by the Microsoft "help desk" to a worthless box that tried to reinstall FrontPage umpteen times until it ultimately locked up after 5 minutes or so.
Impatient, as it's about seven PM, I ask Elaine to bring me a tall branch water (which she kindly did) and then I roll up my sleeves and get to work at the command prompt level, killing everything offensive, deleting the old copies of FrontPage (2002 and 2003...and why 2003 didn't uninstall 2002 at the time of installation is just beyond me) and then finally getting to the point where I could reinstall Office 2003 and FrontPage 2003 to get back to where I started. some 9-hours earlier.
I finally dozed off in my office chair (now the Office chair) during the last reboot and stumbled off to bed about 12:45 AM. So if I seem a little testy this morning, maybe that's why. Have to admit though, it was kinda fun to see the c:\> prompt again. Sort of miss the little critter.
I will give it one more try today (if and when the MSFT folks ever call back), but to say I'm less than impressed with the powerful, new, user interface would be grand understatement. So far, it's vaporware here.
News from Elliott Wave International
Write when you get rich,
George Ure, The People's Economist
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