December already

Yup, today is December First, or in Xanth, Dismember First. Or, maybe, Disremember First.

Gas yesterday 11/30 in Bemidji was 1.719, in GR it is still 1.899.

Some days I don't know why I bother looking at the news. Officials found 9 headless bodies in Tijauna Sunday. Over 4000 people have died in drug related violence this year in Mexico. A seige of Mumbai, India left 172 people dead over three days last week. A temp worker at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream NY was killed as Black Friday crowds blew down the doors at the 5AM opening. GM owned Saab and Ford owned Volvo are having financial problems and Ford and GM are asking the Swedish government for help. Chinese manufacturing orders dropped sharply last month. Black Friday sales figures appear to be down from last years. Since Black Friday can be 10% of a stores annual sales, and sales are already down this year, most retailers books aren't going to make it into the black. Japanese factory output is down.

Sunday while in Bemidji I noticed that I was approaching an odometer milestone, so I tried to photograph it. Almost succeeded; I was on a quiet stretch of road, getting into position, when three cars suddenly came up behind me, so the picture ended up being really poor, but here it is, Vger hitting 222,222.2 miles at 22 mph:

If only I'd been an hour earlier it would have been even better.

Pretty nice weather so far this winter. No snow to speak of yet, we haven't been below 0°F yet.

Codex Alera: Princeps Fury arrived in Friday's mail. Wow. Jim Butcher has outdone himself. In the penultimate book of the series he has opened up many more questions. He answered the question of Invidia Aquitane with a question. He answered the question of Attis Aquitane with a question. He answered the question of Raucus Antillus with a question. He answered the question of Kalarus Brencis Minoris with an final answer (I think).

Crazy Week

Winter is fast approaching and I'm nowhere near ready, mostly running in circles around here.  Nothing is winterized yet.  Had a tire blow-out on Vger.  Matt got the Head from Stripez off to the machine shop.  Starter died on the WC.  Muffler fell off RumJohn.  One of my credit cards lowered my limit, raised my interest, and penalized me for going over the limit.  My bedroom window is still open.  Propane tank is still empty.  Matt plowed the garden under.  People at work have been making changes without consulting with the affected personnel causing havoc and confusion.  People have been making "plans" and starting projects without planning.

I'm looking forward to a long rest.  Wish I could hibernate over the winter like a bear.  I'm afraid that I will keep looking forward to that rest for too long.

Gas was as low as 2.749, then went back up to 2.799, this morning at 2.769 (I filled up last night at 2.799, of course).  Economy is still in chaos, with 'most every government in the world printing money as fast as the presses can spin.

Economics

Quoting from www.thegartmanletter.com:

Dennis Gartman, the editor and publisher of the Gartman Letter,  has been in the markets since 1974. Born in Akron, Ohio, Gartman received his BA from the University of Akron and MA from North Carolina State University.  After finishing his graduate work in the mid 1970s, he worked as an economist for Cotton, Inc. analyzing cotton supply/demand in the US textile industry.  From there he went to NCNB where he traded foreign exchange and money market instruments.

In 1977, Mr. Gartman became the Chief Financial Futures Analyst for A.G. Becker and Company in Chicago, where he also served as an independent member of the Chicago Board of Trade, trading in treasury bond, treasury note and GNMA futures contracts. In 1985, Mr. Gartman moved to Virginia to run the futures brokerage operation for the Virginia National Bank, and in 1987 began producing The Gartman Letter on a full-time basis. 

"...we are more frightened now for the future of the global capital markets than we have been at any time in our thirty+ years of watching, commenting upon and taking part in them. We are fearful... and we mean this fully... that we have passed the tipping point; that things are now spinning out of control; that forces have been unleashed that cannot be stopped without some truly massive, truly strong-handed, governmental action including the closure of markets and limits upon bank withdrawals, et al. These are troubling times, and our fear is palpable and growing. Worse, these concerns are giving rise to the likelihood that the Left shall be in ascension, and that manifestly left-of-centre, interventionist government lies ahead here in the US and in Europe. Higher, rather than lower taxes will be the end result. Greater... indeed very much greater... intervention in the capital markets lies ahead. Trade and act accordingly."

***********************************************************************************************************

I'm not sure what to think.  I think that there is a lot of "spin" being placed on the news.  I think a LOT of companies did some VERY questionable things.  I think that a lot of companies should fail.  I think that quite a few executives should have their "Golden Parachutes" forcibly removed.   I also think that a result of the turmoil will be that Government will become bigger and more Socialist in nature (alreeady happening as the US begins to run more (formerly) private companies).  I also think that anyone who thinks that the US government can run a company more efficiently or effectively than they were run before has their head up their a*s.  

I have quietly wondered for some time if there was a revolution in the making.  Goverment has taken over more and more of the power constitutionally reserved for the People.   And the People have been vocal about it.  And the Government has doled out pacifiers to quiet the People, and has also taken some forceful measures to quiet the People who would not be satisfied.

But, in times of Economic hardship, People do not revolt.  They are too busy trying to feed their families and maintain their homes to revolt.  Oh, they may revolt at the end, when they have nothing to lose, if they are not too weak from hunger.  However, I suspect that the current combination of crisis, with the Financial Markets collapsing, food supply chains being broken, crackdowns on terrorism, and the general curtailment of personal freedom and the lack of personal responsibility, will combine to bring something like the Dark Ages back. 

The Dark Ages?  I refer to the general demographic decline, limited building activity and material cultural achievements in general.  I think that we will see a loss in our standard of living.  I think that we will not be able to travel as much.  We may be able to interact more in a virtual fashion (unless the tech police have their way).  There will be less freedom to choose our own path in life.  The creative arts will be curtailed.  

Check out this blog posting here on MSN Money.

Maybe it's the weather, but I do think I am being very pessimistic today, don't you?

Gas: Price at one station in GR is at 3.859 at 7AM although the other3 I passed were still at 3.799. The word on the street is that the price is expected to go to or over $4 by this weekend (Memorial Day). Price per barrel went briefly over $135, current price (Bloomberg.com) is at 132.90, although the rumor is that it will go over $141 in next month.

I have a feed for the gas price map at GasBuddy.com that I want to post here, but I need to figure out how I want to present it.

Gorgeous weather. Matt started to plow the garden last night, I'm hoping to finish it this afternoon.

Auction at Blackberry this weekend, need to finish getting the rake down there. They have a lot of equipment in the auction, I think I heard almost a dozen tractors. Saw one, a fully restored Deere on steel. I probably have a pic of it here.

I need to resume searching for a camera.

Gallup's latest "Cultural Tolerance" survey shows that more people think wearing fur is morally bad (39%) than people that think that divorce is morally bad (22%). Link to Gallup Poll results. Sad sad sad sad.

On a brighter note, if this weather continues the garden might be dry enough to plow and disc tonight or tomorrow night.

If society disintegrates a garden might be nice. Not that I think it is likely to do so any time soon, mind you. Some days I wish it would, other days I hope it doesn't. Not sure which it is yet today.

Yahoo! News: Zimbabwe issues new 500,000,000 note because of 165,000% inflation (as of February, no figures released since then).

Check out the new Windows Live! service, Skydrive. 5GB of space, free.

It appears as though power is out on the entire south side of Grand Rapids. We are running on our Emergency Generator Power right now at the Hospital. Made for an excellent drill, we have been having minor glitches with systems and connections going down whenever the power goes out, but it looks like this time everything worked the way it's supposed to. Didn't lose any systems or network connections. Only took 2.5 years.

Yippee!!

Edit

Went out at lunch time to fill the Gladiator, it had enough gas to get home but not enough to make it back to town. Power was off everywhere south of Highway 2, the gas station I wanted is one the south side of 2 and had no power. So, I went across the street to the north side of 2 for lunch. I was originally going to stop at BK, on the south side of 2, and get Whopper Jrs for $1.25 ea, but with no power that wasn't going to happen. So, instead of paying $3.00 for lunch for 2 I spent $22 for lunch for two. I think the Subway is the ONLY fast food on the north side of 2, and they were PACKED. I ordered the Big Philly Cheese. I'm hopeful that the sandwich I had was not a good representation, because it was horrible. The picture looks much better than my sub looked, and I could almost imagine that the picture (poster) might taste just as good.

By the time we got thru the line and done eating the power was back on, so we went to fill the Gladiator. I quit at $95 (broke) even though it wasn't full. My rough guess is that it will cost about $115 to fill that tank.

Just saw at Yahoo! that oil spiked at 126.98. Story also says that National average is 3.73. I need to do some math to correlate the price of gas with my paycheck, but I'm pretty darn sure that my paycheck ain't going up that fast.

On another note, I see a news item that ALL poultry in Seoul has been destroyed to try to contain an outbreak of Avian Flu (H5N1). More than 6.8 million birds have been killed in South Korea. Worldwide, 243 humans have died according to the World Health Organization.

High Fuel Prices. High Food Prices. High death toll in Burma (typhoon, greed). High death toll in China (earthquake).

Light, sweet crude for June delivery rose as high as $125.12 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange...
--AP News from Yahoo!


The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year....

Brazil now ranks fourth in the world in carbon emissions, and most of its emissions come from deforestation. Indonesia has bulldozed and burned so much wilderness to grow palm oil trees for biodiesel that its ranking among the world's top carbon emitters has surged from 21st to third according to a report by Wetlands International. Malaysia is converting forests into palm oil farms so rapidly that it's running out of uncultivated land.
---The Clean Energy Scam Time Magazine Thursday, Mar. 27, 2008

I don't like this picture....

Tuesday August 29, 2006

Saw some very interesting comments this morning from John Mauldin's newsletter and from Professor Nouriel Roubini of NYU. At this time, the fall in the housing market suggests to them that the US could be in for the worst recession (if not outright depression) since the Great Depression 77 years ago. Consider these points:
1. Approx 30% of all employment is related to housing, including contractors, building materials, real estate brokers and agents, and employees in the mortgage finance industry.
2. Still more people are employed by furniture and home appliance manufacture.
3. Guess who buys more Ford trucks then anyone else? Contractors.
4. The economic expansion of the last few years was powered primarily by home refinances.
5. This year the cost of borrowing for nearly 1 trillion dollars of ARM's is rising sharply.
6. Next year nearly the borrowing cost of nearly 1.8 trillion dollars of ARM's will rise sharply.
7. Rents are increasing to keep pace with the cost of construction.
8. The same indicators are occurring in Europe.

Hang on to your hats, this may be a wild ride. If you have the cash available when the roller coaster hits bottom it will be a good time to buy real estate.

Friday April 7, 2006

Doin' some diggin about fuel costs. It was discovered a few years ago that MTBE, an additive to gasoline, was contaminating groundwater. Some places, like California, banned MTBE, and so gasoline sold in CA has no MTBE but instead has ethanol added. As of this summer (2006) nearly all remaining oil producers still using MTBE will be switching to ethanol because of more bans going into effect.

This will have severe impact on our gas prices:
1. Ethanol costs more than MTBE even with the federal ethanol subsidy,
2. It costs LOTS of money to convert to ethanol because while MTBE was mixed with gasoline at the producers, ethanol cannot be mixed with gasoline until it is being loaded on the truck for delivery to the gas station. This is because of ethanol's affinity for water.
3. The U.S. does not produce enough ethanol currently to replace all of the MTBE. Right now the U.S. has the capacity to produce about 283 thousand barrels/day of ethanol. We are currently using 275 thousand barrels/day. We need another 130 thousand barrels/day of ethanol producing capacity
4. A refinery requires more production capacity to use ethanol blended fuels than MTBE. Most of our refineries have been at or near capacity for quite a while now, and it costs money to add capacity.
5. Ethanol must be shipped separately from the gasoline. Gasoline+Ethanol uses more volume to ship than Gasoline+MTBE. There is not currently enough rail or barge capacity to move the additional ethanol around the country.
6. Some ethanol could be imported, but ethanol is subject to 2 tariffs, one of 2.5% on the value and one of 54 cents/gallon. Since the federal subsidy for blending ethanol into gasoline is only 51 cents/gallon, that appears to be an expensive proposition.
7. An option is to reduce the amount of ethanol from 11% to 5.7%. The octane of gasoline is a function of the oxygen content. Ethanol contains oxygen. To reduce the Ethanol content requires that the oxygen content of the gasoline increase. This would be similar to replacing regular gas with premium gas, but a bit more complex. Because the gasoline may be transported via pipeline (as it is here), is may take over a month for the reformulated gasoline to make it to the pump.
8. Some of our gasoline (especially on the East Coast) comes from overseas. Many of these suppliers CANNOT ship MTBE free product.

So it looks like prices will continue to go up and that gasoline may occasionally be in short supply this summer. Better not plan on much travel. This is just the beginning.

You can check this info by visiting the D.O.E. website, most of this came from a publication available at http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/feature_articles/2006/mtbe2006/mtbe2006.pdf.

Wednesday April 5, 2006

Rant time.

I've been a bit P.O.'d lately (and it's about to get worse) because I'm allergic to everything green and growing, so I live on antihistamines. Nowadays preferably Claritin-D. So why am I getting P.O.'d? Because for the last year under MN law I can only buy 20 days supply every 30 days. Why? Because I might want to make Meth with it. Spring is starting up again and my eyes are getting swollen, etc, and there is not a lot I can do about it for another week or so.

Q1. Why am I presumed guilty without due process? I thought that the laws of the U.S., particularly the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, say that I am to be regarded as innocent until I am proven guilty. Why, then, am I presumed to run a meth lab just because I wish to purchase antihistamines?

Q2. Why the heck is making meth against the law, anyways? For that matter, if it is legal to use tobacco or alcohol, why is it not legal to use meth or cannabis? Tobacco and alcohol each kill more people every year than just about anything else I can think of, including "illegal" drugs. Why not make it a crime to make or use alcohol?

Oh yeah, they outlawed alcohol back in the 1920's. Funny thing was, it increased alcohol use and abuse, increased crime, increased organized crime, increased gang warfare. Since Prohibition was repealed and the manufacture and consumption of alcohol was regulated (instead of prohibited) all of those problems decreased...until we started a "war" on drugs. A "War" that, now, incidentally, prohibits me from buying my allergy medications.

Q3. Let's just extend this another step. Why is it assumed that just because I want to own a gun that I want to kill someone?

I think I just saw some statistics recently that doctors kill 10 times as many people every year as guns do. Anybody want to dig that info up for me? Scary. Maybe we need to outlaw doctors!!! How many people do lawyers kill every year? Maybe we should outlaw them also?

Q4. What has happened to the "Land of the Free"?

Check out these websites starting with the first one. I think you might get a bit of an eye-opener if you look at this carefully and honestly.

http://www.strike-the-root.com/61/victor/victor1.html
http://www.drugwardistortions.org/
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/

Monday March 27, 2006

More disturbing news. The following are quotes:

"The housing slowdown merits close attention because it may have more serious consequences than were first believed. New numbers from Moody's indicate a whopping 9.8% of all U.S. workers can trace their livelihoods to the housing market. Since 2002, nearly 40% of all newly-created jobs were in industries related to housing."

"...offshore interests also purchased 51% the U.S. government's publicly traded debt."

"...consider a small-scale example. If a person goes to a foreign car dealer and makes a $30,000 purchase, he expects to suffer the loss of his money. But imagine what would happen if the dealer sends him home with both the car and his money with the stipulation that he, or his children, can pay it back at some distant point in the future? Our car buyer would probably feel pretty flush, and would be tempted to spend the $30,000 on something else."

"...economists agree the U.S. is in hock so deeply we can't possibly pay our obligations at full value. The only solution is to significantly devalue our currency, primarily through inflation."

"...Inflation spikes are especially common during postwar periods. During the war, the government borrows whatever amount of money it needs to get the job done. Afterwards, inflation permits Uncle Sam to pay everybody back at a discount. We saw the "inflation solution" most recently after the Vietnam War ended in 1975."

And visit www.ntu.org and see how Uncle Sam REALLY spends your money!

Monday March 27, 2006

Interesting weekend. Didn't do much 'cept work on the Gladiator and watch slides.

Did the rear brakes on the Gladiator, wheel cylinders, shoes, hardware. Still pulls to the right. Guess I will try swapping tires next.

My Bro sent me four more boxes of my Grandmother's slides. Pictures from around the world. Don't have a clue where 99% of the pictures are from or who the people are or why the picture was taken, and I can't ask. They just go in the trash if I cannot I.D. them.

Did some fascinating economic research last week that others should look at also. Check out www.shadowstats.com and read the "Primer on Government Economic Reports". Then go to http://www.gillespieresearch.com and follow the links to interviews found on the lower left. For a different viewpoint see also http://www.speciousargument.com/blog.

Fortunately I'm not (generally) interested in having a fancy car or house or boat or [you name it] or even computer; I prefer to spend my time and money on more lasting things. However, I fear that as our economy globalizes that the gap between the "Haves" and the "Have nots" will increase. It is only reasonable to assume that as the cash flows out of the U.S. downhill to places like Iran, India, China, and the Philippines that as their standard of living increases that our standard of living will decrease, at least some and perhaps quite drastically. Prices of Energy, foodstuffs, building materials, will NOT go down but will continue to increase as resources dwindle and as our money decreases in real value. As the workforce becomes more globalized we will see more and more routine jobs (such as fry cooks, network admins) become lower and lower in pay and jobs that require original thinking and creativity (artists, musicians, inventors) receiving more and more.

Time to get back to my routine job.