Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Te Quiero Tanto

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Bailando

Friday, December 26, 2014

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Matt Lee vs Marie Harf



Is it even possible for North Korea to pay compensation with the sanctions that are in place against them?

Oye Abre Tus Ojos

Dow 18,000

To infinity and beyond!

Monday, December 22, 2014

New High

Ok. I give up.  The stock market will keep going up forever. 18,000 here we come.



Saturday, December 13, 2014

Dec 5 was the high













On Oct. 7, 2007, the Dow reached 14,165.   It did not get back to this level until March 5, 2013, 6 years later.

See also Seven Year Cycle Theory.

Friday, December 12, 2014

Top Cities #31

This is influenced by the skyline rating.  I am adding 25 cities at a time to try to "grow" this organically.

1. New York [1]
2. Singapore [3]
3. Hong Kong [8]
4. Chicago [7]
5. Toronto/Mississauga [10]
6. London [2]
7. Tokyo/Yokohama [12]
8. Sao Paulo [13]
9. Los Angeles/Orange County/Riverside [4]
10. Paris [5]
11. Washington DC/Baltimore [6]
12. Seoul/Incheon/Goyang/Seongnam [14]
13. Beijing [15]
14. San Francisco/San Jose [9]
15. Shanghai/Suzhou [20]
16. Zurich [11]
17. Bangkok [21]
18. Dubai/Sharjah [23]
19. Istanbul [19]
20. Moscow [25]
21. Houston [16]
22. Amsterdam (Randstad) [17]
23. Sydney [18]
24. Kuala Lumpur/Petaling Jaya, Malaysia [29]
25. Buenos Aires [30]
26. Mexico City [27] 
27. Boston [22] 
28. Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto [32]
29. Milan [24]
30. Mumbai [35]  
31. Dallas/Ft Worth [26]
32. Melbourne [33]
33. Frankfurt [28]   
34. Jakarta [39]
35. Guangzhou/Foshan/Dongguan [40]
36. Taipei [31]
37. Miami [41]
38. Shenzhen [43]
39. Madrid [34]
40. Philadelphia [38] 
41. Berlin [36]
42. Geneva [37]
43. Abu Dhabi, UAE [48]
44. Seattle [49]
45. Atlanta [50]
46. Copenhagen [42]
47. Tianjin [52]
48. Munich [44]
49. Oslo [45]
50. Montreal [55] 
51. Rome [46]
52.  Brussels [47]
53. Chongqing [58]
54. Rhine-Ruhr (Dusseldorf) [51]
55. Barcelona [53]
56. Stockholm [54]
57. Vancouver [62]
58. Tel Aviv [63]
59. Dublin [56]
60. Manila [65]
61. Vienna [57]
62. Rio de Janeiro [67]
63. Calgary [68]
64. Delhi [59]
65. Cairo [60]
66. Adelaide [61]
67. Las Vegas [72]
68. Helsinki [64]
69. Doha [74]
70. Auckland [66]
71. Brisbane [76]
72. Tehran [69]
73. Johannesburg [70]
74. Perth [71]
75. Riyadh [80]
76. Honolulu [81]
77. Bandung, Indonesia [73] 
78. Bogota, Colombia [75] 
79. Wellington [77]
80. Karachi [78] 
81. Bangalore [79] 
82. Lima [82] 
83. Canberra [83]
84. Lahore [84]
85. Santiago [90]
86. Chengdu, Sichuan, China [91]
87. Dacca (Dhaka) [85]
88. Marseille [86]
89. Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China [94]
90. Casablanca [87]
91. Hyderabad, India [88]
92. Kolkata (Calcutta) [89]
93. Medellin, Colombia [92]
94. Tunis [93]
95. Wuhan, Hubei, China [95]
96. Shenyang, Liaoning, China [101]
97. Chennai [96]
98. Dalian, Liaoning, China [103]
99. Wuxi, Jiangsu, China [104]
100. Nagoya [97]
101. Detroit [98]
102. Lagos [99]
103. Kuwait City [108]
104. Qingdao, Shandong, China [109]
105. Nanjing, Jiangsu, China [100]
106. Xi'an, Shaanxi, China [102]
107. Harbin, Heilongjiang, China [112]
108. Ningbo, Zhejiang, China [105] 
109. Jinan, Shandong, China [106] 
110. Xiamen, Fujian, China [107]
111. Brasilia [110]
112. Phoenix, AZ, US [111]
113. Changzhou, Jiangsu, China [113]
114. Belo Horizonte, Brazil [119]
115. Hefei, Anhui, China [114]
116. Ankara, Turkey [121]
117. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia [115]
118. Luanda, Angola [116]
119. Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China [117]
120. Changsha, Hunan, China [118]
121. Fuzhou, Fujian, China [120]
122. San Diego, CA, US [122]
123. Tangshan, Hebei, China [123] 
124. Seattle, WA, US [124]
125. Edinburgh, UK [125]
126. Busan, South Korea
127. Panama City 
128. Macau
129. Ulsan, South Korea 
130. Recife, Brazil 
131. Kyiv (Kiev), Ukraine
132. St Petersburg, Russia 
133. Daegu, South Korea
134. Gold Coast City 
135. Curitaba, Brazil 
136. Caracas, Venezuela 
137. Hanoi, Vietnam
138. Fortaleza, Brazil
139. Goiania, Brazil
140. Salvador, Brazil 
141. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
142. Yekaterinburg 
143. Penang Island, Malaysia
144. Kaohsiung City, Taiwan 
145. Suwon, South Korea
146. Denver, CO, US
147. Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, US 
148. Campinas, Brazil 
149. Pittsburgh, PA, US
150. New Orleans, LA, US

I omitted Benidorm, Spain and Balneario Camboriu, Brazil, which are both beach towns with massive skylines.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Ann Barnhardt Unleashed

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Unemployment Rate and Federal Debt















Hat tip: http://chartistfriend.blogspot.com/2014/12/whoever-said-slime-doesnt-pay.html

Did removing lead from petrol spark a decline in crime?

See: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27067615

Graph showing correlation between lead exposure and violent crime in USA

Leaded petrol was removed from British engines later than in North America - and the crime rate in the UK began to fall later than in the US and Canada.
Lead theorists say that data they've collated and calculated from each nation shows the same 20-year trend - the sooner lead is removed from the environment, the sooner crime will begin to fall.
Dr Bernard Gesch says the data now suggests that lead could account for as much as 90% of the changing crime rate during the 20th Century across all of the world.
"A lot of people would say that correlation isn't cause," he says. "But it seems that the more the exposure, the more extreme the behaviour. I'm certainly not saying that lead is the only explanation why crime is falling - but it is certainly the most persuasive. Unless someone is telling us that the brain is not involved in decision-making then lead has to be relevant to crime."

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Unasur

UNASUR is the Union of South American Nations, which is creating an intergovernmental union, similar to the European Union.  All of the countries of South America are members, except for French Guiana, which is part of France and the European Union.  Trinidad and Tobago (just off the coast of Venezuela) has been invited to join.

It has administrative centers in multiple cities.
  • The Secretariat of UNASUR is in Quito, Ecuador.
  • The South American Parliament will be located in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
  • The Bank of the South is in Caracas, Venezuela

Other important cities are:
  • Brasilia, Brazil where the UNASUR Constitutive Treaty was signed on 23 May 2008.  The Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (which promotes sustainable development) is headquartered in Brasilia.
  • Mitad del Mundo, Ecuador where UNASUR became a legal entity on 11 March 2011
  • Montevideo, Uruguay, the headquarters of Mercosur, which still exists separately from Unasur.  The city is also the headquarters of ALADI, the Latin American Integration Association
  • Lima, Peru, the headquarters of CAN, the Andean Community of Nations
  • Cuzco, Peru, where the 2004 South American Summit was held
  • Isla Margarita, Venezuela, where the First South American Energy Summit has held in 2007
  • Guayaquil, Ecuador, where the 2014 UNASUR summit was held, which announced the concept of South American citizenship and a single passport
  • Georgetown, Guyana, the headquarters of Caricom, the Caribbean Community, which is mostly made up of Caribbean countries but includes Guyana and Suriname, also part of UNASUR
  • Other cities where summits have been held are in: Bariloche, Argentina; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Campana, Argentina; Mar del Plata, Argentina; Santiago, Chile; Asuncion, Paraguay; Paramaribo, Suriname; Fortaleza, Brazil
Despite all this, it seems that UNASUR has a very small budget, has very little power, and doesn't really do anything other than hold meetings.  But it is an interesting concept.

Party like its 1929


Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Zombification

New diseases are generally investigated using experiments
on infected people, clinical trials or medical observation.
Unfortunately, because of the rapid zombification of scientists,
epidemiologists and doctors, society was left with only
one group of technocrats who remained uninfected: mathematicians.
Fortunately, during the time at which the outbreak
occurred, members of this group had not been invited to parties
and thus remained entirely uninfected.
A mathematical model for zombie infection was quickly
designed (Figure 1). As shown by the model, humans could
be infected by contact with a zombie, whereas zombies could
be created either through the conversion of humans or reanimation
of the dead. The model assumed that zombies could
be killed in encounters with humans, as often happened
when humans ran over zombies in their cars. Initially, such
deaths were assumed by authorities to be part of a concerted
effort at eradication of zombies, but were later revealed to be
simply a result of rush hour. Some drivers were surprised
when these recently deceased zombies returned to life and
attacked them. Other drivers simply handed the zombies
some spare change and waited for the reanimated creatures
to clean their windshields.
http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/rsmith43/CMAJZombies.pdf

Top Cities #30

Influenced by the Most Dynamic Cities of 2025.  Compare to the previous list.  This has 125 on it.  I may try to expand this by 25 each time.

1.  New York [1]
2.  London [3]
3. Singapore [8]
4.  Los Angeles/Orange County/Riverside [9]
5. Paris [2]
6. Washington DC/Baltimore [11]
7. Chicago [7]
8. Hong Kong [10]
9. San Francisco/San Jose [4]
10. Toronto [5]
11. Zurich [6]
12. Tokyo [15]
13. Sao Paulo [16]
14. Seoul-Incheon [14]
15. Beijing [20]
16. Houston [21]
17. Amsterdam (Randstad) [12]
18. Sydney [13]
19. Istanbul [22]
20. Shanghai/Suzhou [25]
21. Bangkok [26]
22. Boston [17]
23. Dubai/Sharjah [18]
24. Milan [19]
25. Moscow [28]
26. Dallas/Ft Worth [30]
27. Mexico City [32]
28. Frankfurt [23]
29. Kuala Lumpur [24]
30. Buenos Aires [33]
31. Taipei [35]
32. Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto [27]
33. Melbourne [31]
34. Madrid [29]
35. Mumbai [38]
36. Berlin [34]
37. Geneva [36]
38. Philadelphia [43]
39. Jakarta [44]
40. Guangzhou/Foshan/Dongguan [45]
41. Miami [46]
42. Copenhagen [37]
43. Shenzhen [47]
44. Munich [39]
45. Oslo [40]
46. Rome [41]
47. Brussels [42]
48. Abu Dhabi [53]
49. Seattle [54]
50. Atlanta [55]
51. Rhine-Ruhr (Dusseldorf) [56]
52. Tianjin [57]
53.  Barcelona [48] 
54. Stockholm [49]  
55. Montreal [50]  
56. Dublin [51]  
57. Vienna [52]  
58. Chongqing [59]
59. Delhi [62]
60. Cairo [58]
61. Adelaide [60]  
62. Vancouver [61] 
63. Tel Aviv [68]
64. Helsinki [63]   
65. Manila [64]  
66. Auckland [65] 
67. Rio de Janeiro [72]
68. Calgary [66]  
69. Tehran [67]   
70. Johannesburg [69]  
71. Perth [70]  
72. Las Vegas [71]  
73. Bandung, Indonesia [73]
74. Doha [79]
75. Bogota [74]
76. Brisbane [75]
77. Wellington [76]
78. Karachi [77]
79. Bangalore [84]
80. Riyadh [85]
81. Honolulu [78]
82. Lima [87]
83. Canberra [80]
84. Lahore [81]
85. Dacca (Dhaka) [82]
86. Marseille [83]
87. Casablanca [86]
88. Hyderabad, India [88]
89. Kolkata (Calcutta) [89]
90. Santiago [90]
91. Chengdu [96]
92. Medellin, Colombia [91]
93. Tunis [92]
94. Hangzhou [99]  
95. Wuhan [100]  
96. Chennai [93]
97. Nagoya [94]
98. Detroit [97]
99. Lagos [98]
100. Nanjing 
101. Shenyang 
102. Xian 
103. Dalian 
104. Wuxi 
105. Ningbo 
106. Jinan 
107. Xiamen 
108. Kuwait City
109. Qingdao 
110. Brasilia
111. Phoenix
112. Harbin 
113. Changzhou 
114. Hefei 
115. Jeddah
116. Luanda
117. Xuzhou 
118. Changsha 
119. Belo Horizonte
120. Fuzhou 
121. Ankara
122. San Diego
123. Tangshan 
124. Seattle
125. Edinburgh

Social Security will go insolvent by 2024

See: http://www.mrctv.org/blog/chart-social-security-s-end-date-fast-approaching-far-earlier-expected
http://dailysignal.com/2014/12/01/chart-shows-social-security-will-broke-10-years/
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/06/history-suggests-social-security-insolvency-is-coming-sooner-than-projected

"Aside from a short period in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the exceptionally strong economy pushed Social Security’s projected solvency date forward, Social Security’s financial trajectory has been decidedly negative. If the historical pattern of declining solvency continues, the Social Security trust fund could become insolvent in 2024, a full nine years sooner than currently projected.[5]".
[5]The historical trend rate calculates an annual decline in the projected date of insolvency of 0.83 years. This figure is calculated by dividing the change in projected solvency of 25 years (2058–2033) by the 30-year period over which that decline occurred (1983–2013).

 Comment:  I'm don 't doubt that SS has problems, but I don't buy the 2024 date.  Its based on the "historical pattern of declining solvency". The last I heard, the date was 2033.  After that date, it won't disappear, just decrease benefits.

Monday, December 1, 2014

Report on ISIS

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Reports/2014/11/profiling%20islamic%20state%20lister/en_web_lister.pdf

According to Dr. Usama Hasan, a Senior Fellow at the Quilliam Foundation, part-time Imam, and expert on Islam,
An Islamist caliphate, by definition, covers the entire ‘Muslim
World’… The hypothetical return of a Caliph in Islamic
jurisprudence implies a large degree of Muslim unity, with these
united Muslim masses willingly pledging allegiance to him. This is
the fundamental mistake of [IS], a fatal flaw for their theological
credentials. They may have been entitled to declare an ‘Islamic
emirate’ (as the Taliban did in Afghanistan) or even an ‘Islamic
state,’ just as Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Mauritania are
‘Islamic republics.’ But to declare a caliphate for all Muslims when
they rule over, at best, a few tens of millions Syrians and Iraqis out
of a worldwide Muslim population of 1.2-1.5 billion, is to destroy
any notion of Muslim representation or unity.
Comment:  I have very little knowledge or understanding of this, but it seems that declaring a Caliphate also means that it claims to rule over the entire Muslim World and thus it declares war on every other country in the Middle East.  How does the King of Saudi Arabia feel about this?

The Garbage Warrior



Earthships


18 Trillion Dollar National Debt








The National Debt reached $18 trillion on Thanksgiving Day.  I had predicted that it would reach $18 trillion on 11/1/2014, so this was slower than expected.  It reached $17 trillion in October 2013.

When will it reach $19 trillion?  It will take more than a year unless something unexpected happens, so I will guess about 3/1/2016, about 15 months from now.

What happens when the price of oil drops below long-term trend lines?

Oil-price-long-term-trend-120114
Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-01/oil-price-decline-pictures