Spaniards Strike

"Spain's first general strike for eight years, a protest against the Socialist government's public spending cuts and easier hire-and-fire laws, had a limited impact beyond disrupting transport and some factories.  Spanish unions said 10 million people, or more than half the workforce, were on strike. The government gave no numbers."
Source: Reuters

Now that's what I call a strike. More than half the workforce. Wow!

"In a downward trending mass social mood, it's very likely that labor strikes will become very popular again. We might even see a professional sports strike in the next few years. An angry mob loves a strike and a picket line. The cycle will likely bring unions back to strength as fear and anger 'drives the herd closer together'."

Random Roving, November 24, 2009

Rekindling The Flames

Keep an eye on these old foes.
"Executives and traders in both countries have said that Chinese customs agents have blocked rare-earth exports since early last week, after a diplomatic dispute over Japan’s detention of a captain of a Chinese fishing trawler in waters claimed by both countries. Japan released the captain Friday."
Source: New York Times


"Rekindle, reignite...it's all the same thing. My prediction on this one was that when the tide lowers, it's easy to pick a fight with an old foe. It usually takes a small spark."
Random Roving, March 8, 2009

Dancing With The Sheeple

This blog can often serve as a confessional.  I must admit that my wife made me (yes) watch Dancing With The Stars with her.  As the kids say, "OMG".  Please bring on a root canal next time!  What will the anthropologists say in 100 years when they look back and examine our current culture??

The Next Golden Threshold

Gold has made another strong run and has quickly broken through the next psychological barrier, $1300 per ounce. $2000/ounce here we come!

Team Kahuna must be happy!

"So, then why is the gold price rising to new heights? Answer: For 5,000 years, gold has been the most desirable “asset” which human beings have aspired to own. The rising gold price is reflecting a dawning understanding of the fact that the “game” has changed; and – because there are no signs of panic in the various markets – the most logical driver of a rising gold price is that investors are feeling more optimistic than pessimistic about the future of humanity. Arguably, we are about to find out “why” gold has – from time immemorial – been the most desirable asset."
Brian Bloom

Reducing The BOOT Print

The Boogeyman is everywhere and he's "comin' to get us".  There's Al Quaeda, the Axis of Evil, all Muslims, Taliban, Pakistanis, Osama, Iranians, and whoever else we need to get the herd to come together.  The fear factor is very powerful and effective.  Newt is starting to use it to emerge as the frontrunner for Team Red.  The idea below is contrary to the fearmongering and lowering the "boot print" would solve the problem.  But, of course we can't.  FOUR percent of the worlds population consuming 25% of the world's oil requires us to control "the heartland".

"The U.S. spends more on maintaining overseas government operations than all the rest of the world’s nations combined. While the cost of ending our involvement in perma-wars, turning off the lights at military installations, canceling aid and subsidies to foreign governments will cause widespread pain and misery – both at home for the dismissed soldiers and overseas for our allies – doing so is likely to improve our security by dramatically reducing our boot print on the face of the globe."
Source: Casey Research

The Cyclic Poem

"History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man."
Percy Bysshe Shelley

When In Rome, Do As.....

"Throughout history governments have experimented with fiat money. They have done so because the benefits to the government and the insiders that invariably latch on to power are just so damn attractive. The Romans did it by debasing their coinage, but the modern version goes one better by completely disconnecting a currency from any value whatsoever, and then wantonly printing as politically motivated needs or wants arise."

Casey Research

Tricky Dick's Illusion

"The latest fiat system kicked off in earnest in 1944 when Uncle Scam, in Bretton Woods, NH, got the leaders of the world’s war-weary countries to agree to accept the U.S. dollar as their reserve currency. In return, the U.S. agreed that the currency notes it would subsequently issue would be convertible into a corresponding amount of gold. Then Tricky Nixon came along in 1971 and canceled the right of the bearer to swap the notes for gold. Overnight, the link between the currency and anything tangible was lost. That, of course, opened the door to all subsequent politicians to engage in the whole print, print, print thing. The keystone asset of the former system – gold – soon became a distant memory for the new crop of central bankers and, remarkably, to the bearers of the notes.  For any number of reasons, most of which related to the illusion of increasing prosperity, people simply stopped paying attention to what Uncle Scam was up to. Of course, that illusion was largely based on the increase in nominal wealth: if one year you’re worth $100,000 and three years later you are worth $150,000, the tendency is to feel richer even if your actual purchasing power has gone up by far less or even has declined due to a debasement of the currency. Today’s dollar is worth just 18 cents in 1971 terms."
Casey Research

IF

"IF" by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Principles of Life

The Fall Guys

"President Obama's inner circle will likely be losing some key players. CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante reports that sources say David Axelrod, the president's closest advisor, will move to Chicago next spring. Axelrod is expected to reassume his role as campaign manager in Mr. Obama's 2012 reelection bid. A potential, if not likely, replacement for Axelrod is current White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. The dominoes don't stop there. Rahm Emanuel, the president's Chief of Staff, may leave the White House as soon as next month."
Source: CBS News

"It was only a matter of time for the rats to start jumping off of the ship. It only makes sense for the budget director to leap first. Geitner and Rahm-bo will be next."

Random Roving, June 30, 2010

"The next four years will be very challenging on all fronts. As I've stated before, the economic cycle is must stronger than a political party or individual politicians. The psychology of the masses will drive the direction. I believe that the Democrats will be navigating the ship through major rogue waves. At the end of that process, the party will be in shambles. At that point, the masses will be disenchanted with both parties. At 'the bottom', there will be a third party that finally gains some steam and becomes a viable competitor. That party will probably be somewhere in the middle"
Random Roving, November 8, 2008

Darkness On The Edge Of Town

This coming November, Bruce Springsteen will release "The Promise: Darkness On The Edge Of Town".  It's six hours of film and more than two hours of audio across 3 CDs and 3 DVDs including a documentary on the making of the album "Darkness On The Edge Of Town".  As a 30 year Springsteen fan, I anxiously await its release.

Over the years, Robert Prechter of Elliott Wave International has made some great comparisons between mass social mood, financial markets, and the mood of music and movies.  He's presented exhaustive analysis on how music and movie themes align with the mass social mood of the people.  As I was reading articles about Springsteen's upcoming re-release of "The Darkness" record, I started to wonder how the timing of both releases would present itself in relation to the financial markets.

"Darkness was an angry record. I took the 10 toughest songs I had.I didn't want something with a broader, more compassionate overview. That didn't feel right to me."
Bruce Springsteen (Interview with Edward Norton at the Toronto International Film Festival, Sept. 2010)

The chart below presents the Dow Jones Industrial Average Gold Ratio with the two dates for the release of "Darkness On The Edge Of Town".  My hypothesis proves to be true.  Both releases align with a downward trending cycle.

Dow Jones Industrial Average Gold Ratio



DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN

They're still racing out at the Trestles,

But that blood it never burned in her veins,
Now I hear she's got a house up in Fairview,
And a style she's trying to maintain.
Well, if she wants to see me,
You can tell her that I'm easily found,
Tell her there's a spot out 'neath Abram's Bridge,
And tell her, there's a darkness on the edge of town.
Everybody's got a secret, Sonny,
Something that they just can't face,
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it,
They carry it with them every step that they take.
Till some day they just cut it loose
Cut it loose or let it drag 'em down,
Where no one asks any questions,
or looks too long in your face,
In the darkness on the edge of town.
Some folks are born into a good life,
Other folks get it anyway, anyhow,
I lost my money and I lost my wife,
Them things don't seem to matter much to me now.
Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop,
I'll be on that hill with everything I got,
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost,
I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost,
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town.

P.S. Happy Birthday Bruce!

Lonely In The Desert

As I said in my January 1 post, "Things built on 'sand' will continue to struggle: California, Dubai, Arizona, Florida, and Las Vegas. Golf courses and cities are not naturally aligned with the habitat of a desert."

Nevada just grabbed the #1 spot in unemployment.  Time for a casino trip?

Viva Las Vegas

Bright light city gonna set my soul

Gonna set my soul on fire

Got a whole lot of money that's ready to burn,

So get those stakes up higher

There's a thousand pretty women waitin' out there

And they're all livin' devil may care

And I'm just the devil with love to spare

Viva Las Vegas, Viva Las Vegas



How I wish that there were more

Than the twenty-four hours in the day

'Cause even if there were forty more

I wouldn't sleep a minute away

Oh, there's black jack and poker and the roulette wheel

A fortune won and lost on ev'ry deal

All you need's a strong heart and a nerve of steel

Viva Las Vegas, Viva Las Vegas



Viva Las Vegas with you neon flashin'

And your one armbandits crashin'

All those hopes down the drain

Viva Las Vegas turnin' day into nighttime

Turnin' night into daytime

If you see it once

You'll never be the same again



I'm gonna keep on the run

I'm gonna have me some fun

If it costs me my very last dime

If I wind up broke up well

I'll always remember that I had a swingin' time

I'm gonna give it ev'rything I've got

Lady luck please let the dice stay hot

Let me shout a seven with ev'ry shot

Viva Las Vegas, Viva Las Vegas,

Viva, Viva Las Vegas

The Great Maestro On Gold.....Again

"Fiat money has no place to go but gold."
Alan Greenspan (this week at the Council On Foreign Relations meeting)

Desperate Conversions

"By the year 1100, the hunger for specie was so great that the cannons of Pistoia's St Zeno Cathedral melted down their great crucifix and used it for money. German princes sold their imperial seals. English nobles exchanged their silver sword mounts, and french bishops converted their golden chalices into cash."

David Hackett Fischer, "The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History"