Fight, Flight, or Flow?
Let’s turn back the clock to our discussion in ShopTalk Sunday. Everyone has their own “TQ” – tactility quotient. Which is “the Zone” in life where the amount of “head-work” is properly balanced by the amount of “hand-work” one does. It’s different for everybody; goes back to what humans were bred for. Whether that little science project was managed by aliens, Anunnaki, or the law of large numbers is a matter of personal choice. Evidence is disputed.
In the same manner (understanding system templates) there are three ways to handle “contention” when reading any news story that comes along.
Take this Border and Tariff (and drugs, and job-jacking that started it all). Many people don’t understand how the current event-stream has the potential to increase domestic divisiveness. The “harder borders, tougher stance” – the fight stance – is supported by families who have lost loved ones to fentanyl, or they may have been damaged by the global communists who brought in DEI (and ESG) to neuter America’s common sense, massive energy potential, and ability to stage major “come-backs.”
The flight crowd doesn’t want to confront the FACT that Senator Joe McCarthy was at least partially correct when he pointed out where communism was leading. He was smeared by Hollywood, the liberal Northeast press, but in fact, China’s continued existence as the poster-child for communism is only enabled by American consumption. People in China make – says the World Bank – $12,614 per year. The corresponding US reading is $82,769 (2023).
The flight crowd instead *(obediently) follows the same (NE liberal press) herd-management and will bend over more or less on command. Immigrant invasion, side of drug trafficking, and the ongoing “least-cost labor centers” robbing America of its ability to stand on its own two feet.
The third way is not to become a partisan; choosing instead to notice (and calculate likely impacts) from dramatic policy change. Still armed (there is that Second Amendment problem lefties have been after for years), but willing to take a less frenetic approach to life. (In my case, it helps keep the blood pressure in-bounds.)
Today’s Pendulum and Change Indicators
In our judgment, the Pendulum’s swing to “extreme liberalism/communist goals” as slowed. With the elevation of Trump to a second term, we see it’s beginning to swing back toward the reasonable middle, too. A few stories in today’s news dribble will illustrate:
To us, this all smacks of returning to rational. But the quick-change artists still remain “on plan.”
There are, of course, stories closer to the middle that really require some serious contemplation. Take Harvard’s New Speech Rules Continue Their Pattern of Repression. On this gradient, the inference is that criticizing Israel is a kind of de facto “anti-Semitism.” In a way, it’s like picking over the Gaza mess which is just starting (in the news sense) to “scab-over.” But there’s also the matter of Free Speech – which includes the right to question assumptions. Zionism doesn’t want that scrutiny. But even with clear definitions, such stories remain complicated: Judaism is a religion, whereas Zionism is akin to a real estate movement.
Expansion and Real Estate
Meanwhile, at the Global High Stakes Poker table, the bidding continues.
We think we already can make this one out: China is running a “two-faces” operation against resurgent America: Smile to our faces, knife in the back (or Canal or South America) if they can.
Markets – Mid Morning Turn?
Maybe. The reason is today the Labor Dept. rolls the latest JOLTS report. Job Openings, Lay-offs, Terminations, and Separations. The market is in a position where a Big Surprise could tank the market or lead to an upside fireworks display.
Tomorrow, be ready for the ADP Employment report, Challenger job cuts Thursday, and the Federal numbers Friday. We would not be surprised by a revision to past numbers, so we will snapshot the BLS database numbers in advance.
After dropping below $93,000, Bitcoin is in a minor rally to the $100,000 resistance level.
Hell of a Chart
One of the best on recent inflation – from the NTY Fed site. Real good work here – tip of the hat.
We think if J. Powell would use a graphic (or two, like this one) for his post-Fed decision discussions, it would add much to Fed creds. Not everyone is out cruising the NY Fed Research groups to find multivariate middle charts, you know. In an age of multimedia, why do the talking heads not do more graphics? They convey a lot more…and faster….
At the Ranch: The 1929 Replay Rolls Along
Much is being made today in the popular press about how Trump orders creation of US sovereign wealth fund, says it could buy TikTok.
We’ve been scratching our heads about this one. Obviously, America is likely on the brink of a Second Depression, with the US Dollar now worth about 3 percent of what it was worth when the bankster cabal took things over in 1913. Since then, the Congress has abdicated its financial money creation role, and the inflation picture ahead is a dart toss.
But we’re starting to wonder if the (proposed) TikTok deal (and likely further ventures into Social media) won’t turn out to be – in retrospect – very much like the massive public works projects from the WPA and CCC in the Great Depression.
One can argue that TikTok can’t be thought of in the same manner as, oh, Grand Coulee Dam, for example. Grand Coulee didn’t come along until 1941 but the TVA was founded in May of 1933 – long before the power needs to make nukes had been quantified.
Thing is, what level of correspondence is implied from talking TikTok as an acquisition and, oh, the founding of the TVA for example?
Both could arguably be classed as “utilities” – because in many places, local and county governments have declared – in effect – that Internet access is a utility government should provide.
While I was working on the parallels to Smoot-Hawley (tariff) Act (enacted within seven months of the 1929 Crash) and Trump’s tariff raising walls around America, this “TikTok acquisition” could be a real temporal marker.
We know from messing about with time, cycles, and people more serious about it than me, that Future shows up in rhymes.
Interestingly, government did “show the way” with their two big data centers in Provo. One is the NSA’s site, known as the Bumblehive, more formally the UDS – Utah Data Center.. Another is the Wasatch Front Research Data Center (WFRDC). This second one is really interesting because it “eats” a lot of the “restricted information” that government has (projections of things ahead and behind that would almost certainly light your hair on fire because some data ain’t going to be pretty).
Leads us to wondering, to what extend is a big “utility acquisition” (and like the Smoot-Hawley Act) all independent coincidences?
Or does it ALL rhyme?
Something to think about? We are getting real close to another cyclical time marker – a year or two out perhaps? Lindbergh Kidnapping — FBI March 1, 1932. Secure your children.
Write when you get rich,
George@Ure.net
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