Darkness At The Box Office

As I watched "Hunger Games" with my daughter, nephew, and brother-in-law last weekend, I couldn't help but think about the alignment of the dark theme of the movie with the contracting cycle that we're in.  It's so fascinating that a book about teens murdering each other in a game is required reading for class in some schools.  Yes, the storyline is interesting, but the darkness of the story and the dark imagery throughout the movie is telling.  I had the same revelation sitting through the first Twilight movie. Darkness reigns for sure.  First, "Harry Potter", then "Twilight" and now "Hunger Games".  If I remember correctly, there's not a ray of sunshine in any of the movies....both literally and figuratively.  Yes, "Hunger Games" presents a message about a potential future for our country.  Some could argue that the movie depicts the 1% and the 99% very well.  My fascination is more with the fact that these dark themes are the mega-movies of the current and past decade.  As I've mentioned many times, Robert Prechter with Elliott Wave International has done significant research regarding movie and music themes and how they align with mass social mood. It would be hard to argue after watching thirty minutes of the world news at night that the world isn't in a "dark" mood.  The chart below places each movie along my "mass social mood barometer", the Dow/Gold Ratio.  Interesting alignment of the mega-movie release dates and their place along the "Great Contraction" cycle.  The real concerning point is that we're a long ways from the bottom of the contraction. Many more dark films to watch I'm afraid.

The Mass Social Mood Barometer (Dow/Gold Ratio)

The Cycle Continues On

"As this cycle continues downward, it will be important to know what you believe in. You will be challenged to stand up for what you believe in whatever that is. When you see the cowardly hooded white man on horseback heading down the road, what are you going to do about it?"
Random Roving, November 9, 2009

Fuggeddabowdit

"We tell ourselves we’re in an economic recovery, meaning we expect to return to a prior economic state, namely, a turbo-charged “consumer” economy fueled by easy credit and cheap energy. Fuggeddabowdit. That part of our history is over. We’ve entered a contraction that will seem permanent until we reach an economic re-set point that comports with what the planet can actually provide for us. That re-set point is lower than we would like to imagine. Our reality-based assignment is the intelligent management of contraction. We don’t want this assignment. We’d prefer to think that things are still going in the other direction, the direction of more, more, more. But they’re not. Whether we like it or not, they’re going in the direction of less, less, less. Granted, this is not an easy thing to contend with, but it is the hand that circumstance has dealt us. Nobody else is to blame for it.” – Jim Kunstler

The Federal Pez Dispenser

"Once Bennie fired up the printing presses, the government car companies decided to make subprime auto loans again and the Federal government started doling out student loans like a pez dispenser, all was well in the non-revolving consumer loan world. The debt outstanding has soared to $1.7 trillion, a full $90 billion above the pre-crash peak. So, after three and a half years of “austerity” and supposed deleveraging, consumer debt outstanding has fallen by 3%."James Quinn, "The Burning Platform"

Freudian Illusions

"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.” - Sigmund Freud

Crumbling Crystal

This forecast continues to play out right on schedule.  Does this sound like a church or a business?  "Hostile work environment"?
WWJD?
"Changes are planned at the landmark Crystal Cathedral after the founding Schuller family announced plans to leave the congregation.  The Rev. Bill Bennett assured congregants that Crystal Cathedral Ministries would hold services next Sunday.  'The congregation can basically stay where they wish to stay,' Bennett said.  He said the church would revert to what he called a more "traditional" style of service, with hymns and music. It is unknown who will take over as senior pastor. The church was sold to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange in February for $57.5 million, and the ministry has three years to find a new home.  Bennett's comments came after the senior pastor, Sheila Schuller Coleman, announced Sunday that she was leaving to start a new church.  'This is the last Sunday we will be worshiping in this building,' Schuller Coleman told congregants during an emotional 11 a.m. service in the 10,000-pane glass cathedral, designed by architect Phillip Johnson.  Schuller Coleman's announcement came one day after her parents, church founder Robert H. Schuller and his wife, Arvella Schuller, resigned from the Crystal Cathedral's board of directors, which oversees the ministry's trademark "Hour of Power" broadcast. The future of the show and the bankrupt Crystal Cathedral Ministries is unclear.  Schuller Coleman said she was leaving because of her family's "adversarial" relationship with the board. She pointed to the recent firings of her sister and brother-in-law, Jim Penner, who served as the executive producer of "Hour of Power" since 1999.  'My entire family has been experiencing a hostile work environment,'  said Schuller Coleman, who was temporarily removed as chief executive officer of the ministry last month.  The events immediately created a divide among congregants." Source: LA Times

"He said the church would revert to what he called a more "traditional" style of service, with hymns and music."

Religion will become smaller, "deeper", and more traditional.
Random Roving, January 1, 2010

The megachurch and megamillionaire ministers might have seen "the peak". Hopefully they saved all of those millions from the book deals. The trend toward more "traditional" might spark some old flames. Keep an eye out for increased religious conflict though."

Random Roving, January 1, 2010

A Complex Array Of Paper Currencies

"The con game is impressive. They call debt money. The entire foundation of the current monetary system is a complex array of paper currencies backed by sovereign debt. The problem for its managers is that the sovereign debt is crumbling."Jim Willie

Entire article:
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/jim-willie/handicapping-the-collapse

Evangelistic Contraction

"The North Carolina-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is laying off nearly 50 workers, or about 10 percent of its staff, as it shifts focus to its online ministry and other initiatives. Rhinehart says the workers losing their jobs are getting severance packages and career assistance.  About 55 workers were let go in 2009."Source: Washington Post

"The megachurch and megamillionaire ministers might have seen 'the peak'. Hopefully they saved all of those millions from the book deals."Random Roving, "Happy New Year 2010 is Here", January 1, 2010 

Article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/billy-graham-evangelistic-association-to-lay-off-nearly-50-workers-shifting-focus-to-internet/2012/03/01/gIQA5E4DkR_story.html

Shock & Sacrifices

“In real life our species has such a modest ability to deal with distant outcomes or to defer gratification that a bad ending is probably inevitable. We need, it seems, the shock of a Pearl Harbor to really gear up and make sacrifices.”
Jeremy Grantham

Occupy Destruction

For a long time I noted that when the tear gas appeared we will have entered a new level of the contraction.  That occurred last year. Check.  With the recent events in Oakland by the Occupy Movement, I believe we've entered the next "tick down" with protestors causing destruction of property.

"Officials surveyed damage Sunday from a volatile Occupy protest that resulted in hundreds of arrests the day before and left the historic City Hall vandalized after demonstrators broke into the building, smashed display cases, cut electrical wires and burned an American flag.  Police placed the number of arrests at about 400 from Saturday's daylong protest — the most contentious since authorities dismantled the Occupy Oakland encampment late last year."
Source: The Chicago Tribune

Energy Crunch

"A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity. While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India. One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest. By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD."
2010 Joint Operating Environment Report

False Storyline

"The false storyline of debt being paid down in the United States continues to be propagated by the mainstream press and decried by Paul Krugman. The age of austerity storyline gets full play on a daily basis. Total credit market debt in 2000 was $27 trillion. It skyrocket to $42 trillion by 2005 as George Bush and Alan Greenspan encouraged delusional Americans to defeat terrorism by leasing SUVs and live the American dream by putting zero down on a $600,000 McMansion, financing it with a negative amortization no doc loan. Paul Krugman got his wish as a housing bubble replaced the dotcom bubble. Debt accumulation went into hyper-speed in 2006 and 2007 as Wall Street sharks conducted a fraudulent feeding frenzy by peddling their derivatives of mass destruction around the globe. By the end of 2007, total credit market debt reached $51 trillion."
James Quinn, The Burning Platform

Hitting The Ceiling

“Those who remain unconvinced that rising debt levels pose a risk to growth should ask themselves why, historically, levels of debt of more than 90 percent of GDP are relatively rare and those exceeding 120 percent are extremely rare. Is it because generations of politicians failed to realize that they could have kept spending without risk? Or, more likely, is it because at some point, even advanced economies hit a ceiling where the pressure of rising borrowing costs forces policy makers to increase tax rates and cut government spending, sometimes precipitously, and sometimes in conjunction with inflation and financial repression (which is also a tax)?”
Rogoff & Reinhart

The Big Picture

"Linear thinkers in mega-corporations, mainstream media and Washington D.C. focus on retaining the status quo, their power and their wealth. They believe an economic recovery can be manufactured through monetary manipulation and Keynesian borrowing and spending. They are blind to the fact that history is cyclical, not linear. In order to have an understanding of what could happen in the coming year, it is essential to keep the big picture in focus."
James Quinn

Ignorance is Bliss

 “Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.”
Aldous Huxley