Ineptocracy

Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers. (Source:  Comment at http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/27/209810/new-tax-law-driving-expats-to.html)

NYSE Margin Debt

It will keep going up forever... or until the market crashes, whichever happens first.

Manila skyline

What is amazing is that there are so many cities around Manila with their own skyscrapers. The skyline index has 4 cities in the top 100 worldwide:  Makati, Manila, Mandaluyong and Pasig.

Meltup

Source: http://stawealth.com/images/stories/1dailyxchange/Fed-Balance-Sheet-VS-SP500-112013.PNG

SP500 at 2250, Dow at 20,000, Fed Balance Sheet at $6 trillion.  It's all well and good until the next crash occurs about October 1, 2015 (according to Martin Armstrong).

Animal spirits

Warning:  The following is NOT investment advice. YMMV.

What does this mean? Duh, put most of your money in to the stock market.  Not because of the fundamentals, but because this is the only asset going up right now.  And it will keep going up, until QE stops.  Not just a taper, but a full stop.  Which will be never.  So buy, buy, buy, until the animal spirits return.

Gold

Gold is still falling.  Why? It doesn't pay dividends and in fact has a negative return of about -0.2% per year, because there are storage fees.  Investors are desperate for yield.

Suspicious deaths connected with JFK

Marilyn Monroe - died August 5, 1962.  She supposedly overdosed on sleeping tablets, but many detectives believed that she had been murdered.  In a CIA report dated August 3, 1962, the claim was made that Monroe was threatening to pass on information that she learned from JFK.

J.D. Tippit - Dallas police officer shot on November 22, 1963 about 45 minutes after JFK was shot.  Oswald denied shooting him.

Lee Harvey Oswald - killed November 24, 1963 by Jack Ruby before he could be interviewed.

Dorothy Kilgallen - died November 8, 1965 of overdose of alcohol and barbituates. She was an investigative journalist who had interviewed Jack Ruby.  Just before she died, she gave her notes to her friend Margaret Smith, but the notes were never found.

Florence (Margaret) Pritchett Smith - died November 10, 1965 of cerebral hemmorhage. She had been having an affair with JFK. Her husband was Earl Smith, ambassador to Cuba when Castro took over.

Edward Grant Stockdale died on 2nd December, 1963 when he fell (or was pushed) from his office on the thirteenth story of the Dupont Building in Miami.  Some suggested that he knew too much.

Mary Pinchot Meyer.  Shot dead on 12th October, 1964, by a professional hitman.

Edwin Anderson Collins.  Died in a suspicious boating office in 1964.

Nancy Carole Tyler.  Died On 10th May, 1965 died in a plane crash, near Ocean City, Maryland.  She was the secretary of Bobby Baker, a corrupt politician who had close ties to LBJ.

Mary Jo Kopechne.  Died on July 18, 1969, on Chappaquiddick when a car driving by Edward "Teddy" Kennedy ran off the side of a bridge.  She was former roommates with Nancy Carole Tyler. 

Jack Ruby.  Died January 3, 1967 of pulmonary embolism while awaiting retrial for killing Oswald.

Lee E. Bowers.  On 9th August, 1966, Lee Bowers was killed when his car left the road and crashed into a concrete abutment in Midlothian, Texas. He had been drugged.  He had previously received death threats and he was a key witness to the assassination of JFK.

Karyn Kupcinet.  Murdered on November 28, 1963 in Hollywood, California by the mob.  

Hank Killam.  Supposedly committed suicide on March 17, 1964 by jumping through a plate glass window.

David Ferrie.  Died February 22, 1967 before he could testify.

Bill Hunter.  Newsman shot to death on April 22, 1964

Jim Koethe.  Reporter for the Dallas Times Herald reporter Jim Koethe was killed by a karate chop to the throat just as he emerged from a shower in his apartment on Sept. 21, 1964. 

Tom Howard.  Attorney for Jack Ruby.  Died of a heart-attack, aged 48, on 27th March, 1965.

Warren Reynolds.  Saw a man running away from the shooting of JD Tippit.  Shot in the head on January 23, 1964 but survived.

Betty MacDonald (Nancy Mooney).  Found hanged in her jail cell on February 13, 1964, only 2 hours after being incarcerated. She was a stripper who had worked for Jack Ruby.

Jack Zangretti, found dead on December 8, 1963, after being reported to have been dead for over 2 weeks after being found floating on a lake. He claimed shortly after the assassination of JFK, that Oswald was not the shooter.

Frank Sinatra Jr.  Kidnapped on December 10, 1963.

Earlene Roberts.  Had rented out a room to Oswald.  Died of a heart attack on January 9, 1966.

Lt. William Pitzer.  On October 29, 1966 supposedly committed suicide. He had photos of the autopsy of JFK.

Guy Banister.  Died June 6, 1964 of coronary thrombosis.

Rose Cheramie. Died September 4, 1965 of a car accident.  After having been shot in the head.

Eladio Del Valle.  Murdered February 22, 1967.

See also:  http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/1Dallas.htm
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread683402/pg1
http://www.jfk-assassination.de/articles/deaths.php
http://www.maebrussell.com/Disappearing%20Witnesses/Disappearing%20Witnesses.html

============

Update:  Lee Harvey Oswald supposedly tried to assassinate Gen. Edwin Walker on April 10, 1963, but failed.  Walker died in 1993 of natural causes.

Eddie Benavides was fatally shot in the back of the head in February 1964.  His brother Domingo Benavides was a witness to the murder of Officer Tippit.  Debunkers insist that his death was not mysterious.

See also https://www.jfk-assassination.eu/articles/deaths.php, which has a list of more than 100 people who died mysteriously who were somehow connected to the death of JFK.  Also https://preterhuman.net/docs/JFK:_List_of_Convenient_Deaths

The JFK Assassination

LBJ did it.

The EU's traveling circus

The European Parliament shifts back and forth between Brussels and Strasbourg once a month, at the cost of $250 million a year and thousands of days of wasted time.  85% of the MEPs hate the constant shuffling and want to just pick one location, whichever one it is.

But the constant shuffling will go on.  Because of the stupid French.

"The EU Treaty states that the European Parliament is based in Strasbourg. That's what the European Council of member states decided at the insistence of the French government. Only the Council itself can reverse that decision, and it must be unanimous. But the French government blocks any change that would call the role of Strasbourg into question."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/meps-want-to-end-monthly-commute-between-brussels-and-strasbourg-a-934400.html

More Brasilia

Dystopia in Brasilia

The Big Apple of Africa

Computer viruses being sent via airwaves

"Three years ago, security consultant Dragos Ruiu was in his lab when he noticed something highly unusual: his MacBook Air, on which he had just installed a fresh copy of OS X, spontaneously updated the firmware that helps it boot. Stranger still, when Ruiu then tried to boot the machine off a CD ROM, it refused. He also found that the machine could delete data and undo configuration changes with no prompting. He didn't know it then, but that odd firmware update would become a high-stakes malware mystery that would consume most of his waking hours.

In the following months, Ruiu observed more odd phenomena that seemed straight out of a science-fiction thriller. A computer running the Open BSD operating system also began to modify its settings and delete its data without explanation or prompting. His network transmitted data specific to the Internet's next-generation IPv6 networking protocol, even from computers that were supposed to have IPv6 completely disabled. Strangest of all was the ability of infected machines to transmit small amounts of network data with other infected machines even when their power cords and Ethernet cables were unplugged and their Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cards were removed. Further investigation soon showed that the list of affected operating systems also included multiple variants of Windows and Linux."

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/meet-badbios-the-mysterious-mac-and-pc-malware-that-jumps-airgaps/

It's alive!

See also: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2518217/Hackers-steal-personal-data-computers-using-SOUNDWAVES--secure-PCs-risk.html

Chicago in 1893

Most competitive cities

Here is yet another ranking of global cities.  There are 120 cities on the list.  These are the top 50.  The number is their score, out of 100. American cities are in bold.

1. New York 75.7 
2. London 73.1  
3. Singapore 71.2 
4. Hong Kong 68.1 
5. Tokyo 68.0 
6. Sydney 67.3 
7. Paris 67.0 
8. Stockholm 65.7 
9. Chicago 65.6 
10. Toronto 64.7  
11. Taipei 64.1 
12. Zurich 64.1 
13. Amsterdam 63.8  
14. Washington 63.2 
15. Copenhagen 63.0 
16. Seoul 63.0 
17. Los Angeles 62.7 
18. San Francisco 62.5 
19. Boston 62.3 
20. Frankfurt 62.0 
21. Melbourne 62.0 
22. Dublin 61.4 
23. Dubai 61.3 
24. Doha 61.1 
25. Brussels 61.0 
26. Oslo 60.8
27. Houston 60.7 
28. Vancouver 60.6 
29. Vienna 60.4 
30. Geneva 59.4 
31. Kuala Lumpur 58.9 
32. Dallas 58.6 
33. Atlanta 58.1 
34. Berlin 57.7 
35. Seattle 57.6 
36. Montréal 57.5 
37. São Paulo 57.5 
38. Shanghai 57.3 
39. Abu Dhabi 57.2 
40. Miami 56.5 
41. Tel Aviv 56.1  
42. Auckland 56.0 
43. Birmingham 55.8 
44. Incheon 55.8 
45. Warsaw 55.8 
46. Hamburg 55.7
47. Madrid 55.7 
48. Philadelphia 55.0 
49. Beijing 54.9 
50. Osaka 54.5 

Source: http://www.citigroup.com/citi/citiforcities/pdfs/hotspots2025.pdf

===========================================
Update 11/24.  Wow, that's a pretty good list.  It shows where the action is.  But I want to analyze it a little.  First, to take it up to 60, just because.

51. Busan 54.3
52. Mumbai 54.3
53  Budapest 54.0
54  Prague 53.9
55  Barcelona 53.6
56. Delhi 53.3
57. Lisbon 53.1
58. Milan 53.0
59. Moscow 52.5
60. Monaco 52.1
60. (tie) Santiago 52.1

Now, compare it to my last top 60 list.

What cities do I have that this list is missing?
Bangkok (I ranked as #13)
Guangzhou/Foshan (I ranked as #15)
Shenzhen (I ranked as #21).

What cities do they have that I am missing?
Stockholm (they have as #8)
Taipei (#11)
Zurich (#12)
Amsterdam (#13)
Copenhagen (#15)

I'll stop right here.  I can kind of understand skipping Bangkok, but how can you miss Guangzhou and Shenzhen?  And Stockholm as number 8?  Seriously?  I think my list is better.

Lee Harvey Oswald shot General Edwin Walker

Major General Edwin Walker

I just heard this theory for the first time today on the radio.  Briefly, Oswald was a communist who loved Castro.  He tried to kill Major General Walker 7 months earlier because Walker wanted to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro.  In this theory, Oswald killed Kennedy for the same reason, because Kennedy was involved in the invasion of Cuba.

That's all I know about it, except for this link that came up when I googled "Oswald shot major general":  http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/walker.txt.  It's a good read.

Here is info about General Edwin Walker:
"Oswald planned the assassination for April 10 [1963]. Oswald's wife Marina said that he chose a Wednesday evening because the neighborhood would be relatively crowded because of services in a church adjacent to Walker's home, and he would not stand out and could mingle with the crowds if necessary to make his escape. He left a note in Russian for his wife Marina with instructions should he be caught. Walker was sitting at a desk in his dining room when Oswald fired at him from less than a hundred feet (30 m) away. The bullet struck the wooden frame of the window, which deflected its path. Walker was injured in the forearm by fragments.

According to Dallas Police Department records, neighbors witnessed two men at the scene of the crime, running into a car and speeding away. To the end of his life, Walker believed that there was another man serving as Oswald's accomplice, and he spent decades attempting to learn the identity of that accomplice."

English is King in Rwanda

French is seen as a symbol of Belgian colonialism and the 1994 genocide.  English is seen as the language of the future.  Rwanda joined the Commonwealth of Nations in 2009.

See http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2012/10/language-rwanda

Kigali, Rwanda

Kigamboni, Tanzania

New capital of Equatorial Guinea

"Oyala (also known as Djibloho) is a city in current construction to be the future capital of Equatorial Guinea replacing the city of Malabo. It is a planned city which is expected to finish building on an unspecified date in a place chosen for its easy access and climate benign. It is to be located in Wele-Nzas Province, near the town of Mengomeyén.

The city was designed by Portuguese studio for architecture and urbanism IDF - Ideias para o Futuro (Ideas for the Future), and is projected to have around 200,000 inhabitants, a new Congress building, a number of Presidential villas and an area of 8150 hectares."

Note:  Other planned cities in Africa are: Abuja, Nigeria; Gaborone, Botswana; Dodoma, Tanzania; Yamoussoukro, Cote d'Ivoire; Konza, Kenya; Ramciel, South Sudan; and Lusaka, Zambia.

See also http://aftermath2022.blogspot.com/2012/12/equatorial-guinea-has-new-capital.html

Obamacare lets you stiff the doctors

What happens if you sign up for Obamacare, pay the first month's premium and then don't pay any more premiums?  You get an additional 3 months of coverage for free.  The insurance company pays for the first additional month, and doctors and hospitals are on the hook for the next two months.  I'm sure they will be thrilled with that knowledge.

Here is the language:
45 CFR 156.270 - Termination of coverage for qualified individuals.
(d) Grace period for recipients of advance payments of the premium tax credit. A QHP issuer must provide a grace period of three consecutive months if an enrollee receiving advance payments of the premium tax credit has previously paid at least one full month's premium during the benefit year. During the grace period, the QHP issuer must: (1) Pay all appropriate claims for services rendered to the enrollee during the first month of the grace period and may pend claims for services rendered to the enrollee in the second and third months of the grace period; (2) Notify HHS of such non-payment; and, (3) Notify providers of the possibility for denied claims when an enrollee is in the second and third months of the grace period.

Note: To "pend claims" means to delay paying them until a later date. A pended claim may ultimately be paid, reduced, or denied.

Another day, another all time-high

15,821.63 close on Nov. 13

Update:  on 11/14/2013 the Dow hit 15,876.22.

Who is Nial Fuller?

 
Nial Fuller is a highly regarded trader, author & coach living in Australia. He has over 10 years experience trading financial markets and is today recognized by many as ‘The Authority’ on price action trading. After starting this blog in 2008 he has become one of the most widely followed forex trading mentors in the world, attracting over 200,000 readers each month. 
http://www.learntotradethemarket.com/nial-fuller-forex-bio

Quants: The Alchemists of Wall Street

Shenyang

Liaoning has the nickname "Lion King".

Harbin is the Milwaukee of China

Harbin (哈尔滨): The capital of Heilongjiang province, Harbin is the country’s northernmost big city. Famous for its local beer and annual winter ice sculpture festival, Harbin is China’s gateway to neighboring and resource-rich Russia. Russian culture has also left its mark on the city, influencing everything from the local cuisine to the architecture. Today Harbin’s economy is focused on textiles and power equipment manufacturing.  (http://www.newgeography.com/content/002330-a-guide-china%E2%80%99s-rising-urban-areas).   Harbin was founded by the Polish Adam Szydłowski in 1898, during construction of the Trans-Manchurian Railway.

Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 30th most populous city in the United States, and 39th most populous region in the United States.  Milwaukee has a strong German and Polish influence.  During the cold winter months, Wisconsin is dotted with fishermen and ice houses. Milwaukee was once the home to four of the world's largest beer breweries (Schlitz, Blatz, Pabst, and Miller), and was the number one beer producing city in the world for many years.

Wuxi is the Cleveland of China

Wuxi, Jiangu province, has a population of about 6.3 million and a GDP of about $110 billion/year, making it one of the top 100 cities in the world.  It is the "city by the lake", Lake Tai, which is the 3rd largest freshwater lake in China (behind Poyang Lake and Dongting Lake).  It is an inland port city, relying on the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal.  It is a manufacturing center, with two large industrial parks.  Lake Tai unfortunately has a problem with pollution and algae blooms.

Cleveland, Ohio has a population of about 3.5 million in its greater metropolitan area (including Akron), and has a GDP of about $135 billion/year.  It is on the southern shore of Lake Erie (the 4th largest freshwater lake in North America).  (Lake Erie has a surface area of 25,667 km2, while Lake Tai has an area of 2,250 km2). It became a manufacturing center owing to its location on the lake shore, as well as being connected to numerous canals and railroad lines.  It is located by the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, which is infamous for being so polluted that it caught on fire in the 1960s.  Through the Ohio and Erie Canal, it was connected to the Atlantic Ocean, although the canal has been abandoned today.

SP500 and new orders

Umm, potential problem.  Keep an eye on new orders.

The Future as it used to be

Get rid of Stroads

A Stroad is a street-road hybrid.  They don't work very well.  Choose one or the other.

Labor Force Participation - Men

Obama gunna give me free gas

"As the battle over Obamacare rages in Washington, the White House is quietly using a little known provision of the law to roll out a nationwide network of free gas stations for minorities and the poor.

According to a report in The Detroit News this morning, the administration is using its authority under the Affordable Care Act to “improve transportation routes to hospitals” to dispense gasoline free of cost in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

The $2 billion-a-year program aims to distribute 40 million gallons of free gasoline each year through 70 new gas stations constructed in major metropolitan areas. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHS) will be responsible for operating the network, whose first station opened yesterday in Detroit."

http://www.theburningplatform.com/2013/11/09/obamastations/

Update: satire

Stock market crash next summer

"Among the many largely equivalent ways to define an overvalued, overbought, overbullish syndrome ... Shiller P/E anywhere above 18 (overvalued), SP 500 at a 5-year high and at least 8% over its 40-week smoothing (overbought), with bullish sentiment greater than 50% and bearish sentiment less than 20% based on  Investors Intelligence  figures (overbullish). ...   Notice that we’ve observed three instances this year – in May, in August, and today. ...  In any event, I continue to believe that it is plausible to expect the SP 500 to lose 40-55% of its value over the completion of the present cycle, and suspect that whatever further gains the market enjoys from this point will be surrendered in the first few complacent weeks following the market’s peak."
http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc131104.htm

The author, John Hussman, made a similar call in April 2007, and the market actually crashed in September 2008.  So he isn't predicting one, just saying that it is "plausible".

I still think that a decline in NYSE margin debt is a good leading indicator. It gave off a false signal in May, when it declined slightly from April, so it is not perfect.

The reason I say next summer is that the Fed will start to taper QE by next Spring.  I think that even a taper could cause a stock market crash.  I think the Dow still has a ways to go before it reaches a high, and will reach 16,000.

Warning:  your mileage may vary.

Obamacare ... fixed

Go to www.thehealthsherpa.com.  Enter your zip code to see available plans.  This was written by 3 hackers over a weekend, without any tax dollars.

See also: http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2013/11/in-which-we-openly-gloat-as-were-proven.html
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/11/three-guys-built-better-healthcaregov/71195/

Deficit dropped by $409 billion in FY 2013

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44716

"The federal government incurred a budget deficit of $680 billion in fiscal year 2013, which was $409 billion less than the deficit in fiscal year 2012. The fiscal year that just ended marked the first since 2008 that the deficit was under $1 trillion. As a share of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), the deficit declined from 6.8 percent in 2012 to 4.1 percent in 2013."

Good job guys!  Obama gets some of the credit since he is in charge.

Net interest rose only $1 billion, from 258 in 2012 to 259 in 2013, thanks largely to the Fed buying up government debt and then sending the interest right back to the Treasury.

Another high

See also: http://aftermath2022.blogspot.com/2013/10/djia-at-all-time-high.html

London Real Estate is the new Reserve Currency

Not the dollar, not gold ... a piece of London.  You can't create more real estate at the push of a button.

See:  http://azizonomics.com/2013/10/28/the-london-real-estate-bubble/
http://www.businessinsider.com/london-property-the-new-reserve-currency-2013-10
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/opinion/sunday/londons-great-exodus.html

"This is what happens when property in your city becomes a global reserve currency. For that is what property in London has become, first and foremost. The property market is no longer about people making a long-term investment in owning their shelter, but a place for the world’s richest people to park their money at an annualized rate of return of around 10 percent. It has made my adopted hometown a no-go area for increasing numbers of the middle class. According to Britain’s Office for National Statistics, London house prices rose by 9.7 percent between July 2012 and July 2013. In the surrounding suburbs they rose by a mere 2.6 percent. The farther away from London you go, the lower the numbers get. When you finally cross the border into Scotland, house prices actually decline by 2 percent.  The gap between London prices and those of the rest of the country is now at a historic high, and there is only one way to explain it. London houses and apartments are a form of money."

Chicago's addiction to debt

http://apps.chicagotribune.com/bond-debt/

"Between 2000 and 2012, Chicago spent $9.8 billion in general obligation bond proceeds with few restrictions and virtually no oversight. In a first-ever accounting, the Tribune found that nearly half of the money went to paper over Chicago’s growing budget problems. The city spent millions in bond funds on short-lived equipment such as Palm Pilot software, spare vehicle parts and items you might find on a weekend shopping list: trash bins, flowers, even bags for dog waste. That’s equivalent to taking out a 30-year mortgage to buy a car and making your children — or grandchildren — pay it off, with interest."

No problem, Obama will give them a bailout.

Dow and Monetary Base, Part III

There was a correlation between the Dow and Monetary Base of 4.9.  This means each billion dollars of printing by the Fed would increase the Dow by 4.9 points.  Then it dropped to 4.7.  Now it has dropped to 4.3.  There still is a correlation, it just isn't strong.  Since the Fed is still pumping at $85 billion/mo, the Dow should rise by 365 points by the end of the year, to about 16,000.

The new blackbird SR-72

Source: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/11/lockheed-martin-sr-72/

Almost all credit growth comes from the FedGov

The blue line is total credit market debt.  Prior to the crash, it was increasing at more than $1 trillion per quarter, separate from the government debt.  In 2009 and 2010, it shrunk even with the vast increase in government debt.

The red line is the increase per quarter in federal debt owned by the public.

If debt is good and recovery is defined as increase in the debt, separate from the increase in the national debt, then there is no recovery.

Quantitative Easing has almost no effect

The blue line is the month-to-month change in the Federal Reserve Balance Sheet.  The red line is the month-to-month change in the Excess Reserves of banks.  While the blue line is slightly higher than the red line, it is obvious that almost all of the increase in the monetary base goes to excess reserves.  What happens is that banks own treasury bonds on their balance sheets.  The Federal Reserve buys them, so now they have excess reserves on their balance sheets. There is no change except for the debtor - the US Treasury or the Federal Reserve.  They are equivalent except the Treasury pays 2-4% interest and reserves pay only 0.25% interest.

So why do QE then if it has no effect?  To starve the banks of interest.  If you don't have to pay interest or pay back a loan, then you can borrow an infinite amount of money.

So there should be a calculation that excludes excess reserves from the money supply.

M5 up 1.5%

This isn't an exact calculation, because it depends on what dates you use. Plus the numbers keep changing.  But here is a quick calculation as of 10/31/2013.

M2 (as of 10/21/13): 10,989.2
Public debt (as of 10/31/13): 12,187.4
Less Treasury debt held by Fed (as of 10/23/13): -2,106.5
Total:  21,070.1

This is up 323.8 since the 9/30/2013 total, or about 1.5%.  This is pretty high for one month, but this was exceptional because of the increase in the debt on 10/17/13.  My point again is that the public debt never has to be paid back since it is just part of the money supply.  And as long as the annual increase is less than 7% (thus doubling every 10 years), there is no cause for concern.