Sunday, January 31, 2016

Suburban hell

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Monday, January 25, 2016

$30 Trillion National Debt in 10 years

The accumulation of those deficits will deepen the gross public debt from $18.1 trillion at the end of 2015 to $29.3 trillion in 2026. By contrast, the debt stood at $10.6 trillion when Mr. Obama took office in 2009.  Looking decades into the future, the picture only gets worse, the CBO said.
“Beyond the 10-year period, if current laws remained in place, the pressures that had contributed to rising deficits during the baseline period would accelerate and push debt up even more sharply. Three decades from now, for instance, debt held by the public is projected to equal 155 percent of GDP, a higher percentage than any previously recorded in the United States,” the analysts concluded.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Humans Need Not Apply

Frederick Taylor vs Slackers

Thursday, January 21, 2016

New largest prime number found

https://www.ucmo.edu/news/cooper.primenumber2016.cfm

Missouri is the world leader in finding huge prime numbers.  The latest one is 2^74207281 – 1.  It is 22 million digits long.

A plan to improve transportation in Denver

http://reason.org/files/reducing_congestion_denver.pdf

One of the more interest ideas is to create 4 new north-south "managed arterials"/freeways on US-93, Wadsworth, Colorado Blvd/University, Parker/Buckley/Airport/Tower/US 85.  And 5 new east-west freeways on Arapahoe Ave/Baseline, 104th, Colfax, US 285/Hampden, Ridgegate Parkway/Titan Rd.  This would require building about 125 new intersections at a cost of about 35 million each, for a total of $4.2 billion.

The total cost of the plan is $52 billion, with a large portion of it paid by tolls.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Curitiba



Very interesting documentary.  The secret?  Dedicated bus lanes

What a difference five months makes

The projections in August 2015 were that the long-term national debt would stabilize at about 77% of GDP.  Now, the debt will reach 86% of GDP within 10 years and keep rising.

"The near record-high national debt is on an unsustainable path. CBO now projects deficits more than tripling, from $439 billion in 2015 to $1.37 trillion by 2026, with trillion dollar deficits returning by 2022 – three years earlier than prior projections. Debt held by the public, meanwhile, will grow by over $10 trillion from $13.1 trillion at the end of 2015 to $23.8 trillion by 2026. As a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), debt will grow from 74 percent of GDP in 2015 – already twice its pre-recession levels – to 86 percent of GDP in 2026. By comparison, August projections showed debt on track to reach roughly 77 percent of GDP, or $21 trillion, by 2025."
--http://crfb.org/blogs/deficits-rise-latest-budget-projections

Once trillion dollar deficits return, it will be almost impossible to ever cut them, because most of the deficits will be made up of social programs and interest on the debt.

I actually expect trillion dollar deficits to return next year, as a reaction to the "Greater Recession" (I just made that up).

Monday, January 18, 2016

Why go downtown at all?



 A video from 1965 talking about urban decay in St. Louis.

The suburbs surround what we have long thought of as the central city, the core area, but what will happen to the surrounding belt of suburbs if this core simply disintegrates and then
vanishes? Could the suburban belt just go on expanding forever leaving a bigger and bigger circle of nothing much in the middle, a bigger and bigger hole in the doughnut?
--http://nextstl.com/2015/12/why-go-downtown-at-all-presaging-urban-decline-in-st-louis/

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Sunday, January 10, 2016

David Stockman on the Debt Crisis




This is an old video from September but still relevant.

Eight year cycle

Could there be an 8-year stock market cycle?  Look at the following graph I pasted together.


This is of the S&P 500 from Yahoo.  The lower line starts on Feb 1, 2006, and the two peaks are Apr 30, 2007 and Sept 30 2007, and the lower black dot is Jan 1 2008.

The upper line starts about Apr 30 2014, and the last peak before the dip was June 30 2015, with the dip on Aug 31 2015, and the peak after the dip on Sep 30 2015.  The upper black dot is Jan 1 2016.

I would say, visually, that the two periods appear to roughly coordinate since Sept 30 2007 and Sept 20 2015.

Another link seeing an 8 year cycle.  It might be interesting to post news from 8 years ago.

Friday, January 8, 2016

Will 2016 be the first year the federal government spends $4 trillion dollars?

The official estimate for FY 2016 is 3,999,467.  

In October 2015, they spent $347.6 billion, and in November 2015, they spent $269.5 billion, so they are running short.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Crazy Intersection

A Second Look at the Federal Reserve

The decrepit FBI headquarters

The Hoover Building, the headquarters for the FBI, is falling apart.  Only 53% of the space is usable, and so much concrete was tumbling down on pedestrians below that netting had to be installed.  To repair it to make is usable would cost $1.7 billion.

The best option is to build a new headquarters at a cost of up to $2 billion while selling the existing site to developers for $500 million to fund it.  But they don't have funding for the difference.  So the formerly elite FBI is stuck in this rundown building for the indefinite future.

See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/digger/wp/2015/10/16/the-fbis-headquarters-is-falling-apart-why-is-it-so-hard-for-america-to-build-a-new-one/


Saturday, January 2, 2016

PI Theory

Martin Armstrong has a theory (the Economic Confidence Model) that there are economic cycles that last 8.6 years or 3141 days.  Before, I have speculated that there are 7 year cycles.  The cycle this time seems to be a little longer, so maybe the longer cycle fits better

The stock market reached an all time-high on either Jan 14, 2000 (DJIA) or Mar 10, 2000 (Nasdaq).  On Sep 29, 2008, the stock market crashed. This was 3182 days after the Dow high and 3126 days after the Nasdaq high.

The early 1990s recession ended in March 1991 (call it Mar 31, 1991).  Between Mar 31, 1991 and Jan 14, 2000 is 3211 days, or about 2.5 months longer than the 8.6 year cycle.

The early 1980s recession ended in November 1982.  Between Nov 30, 1982 and Mar 31, 1991 is 3043 days, about 3 months shorter than the 8.6 year cycle.

Before that, there was a recession that ended in March 1975. Between Mar 31, 1975 and Nov 30, 1982 is 2801 days, about 11 months short.

Anyways, projecting forward, 3141 days from Sept 29, 2008 is May 5, 2017.  According to this model, expect something to happen on that date, plus or minus a couple of months.

Why does it matter?  When the next great recession hits, expect government spending to soar again and the annual deficit to return to the trilllion dollar range.