B4 the Bell Weakend May 15-16, 2004

[Drano]

Okay, partially answering my own question:

 

http://www.gulfnews.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=109436

 

"Arab League figures showed the per capita income in Qatar stood at $29,948 in 2002, one of the highest levels in the world.

 

In the UAE, it stood at $20,509, while it was estimated at $14,597 in Kuwait, $11,374 in Bahrain and $8,053 in Saudi Arabia.

 

Since the per capita income is calculated by dividing the gross domestic product by the population, the UAE's per capita was also expected to remain high last year as its population was projected to grow by five per cent while the GDP soared by 4.5 per cent.

 

Although it controls more than a quarter of the world's proven oil wealth, Saudi Arabia has been among the least lucky Arab nations in terms of living standards.

 

At the height of the oil boom in 1981, the Kingdom's per capita income peaked at around $16,400, the highest in the Arab world. But the income has sharply eroded over the past years because of a rapid growth in its population and lower oil prices and output."

 

I wonder what the average family size is in Saudi Arabia, to compute average family income? Presumably the sheikhs also have investment income concealed in foreign banks which would not be part of the GDP.

[Drano]

You know for all the bitching about the price of oil-it is really our fault is it not. I've posted for awhile now about the small cars in Europe that are fuel efficient cause gas has always has been expensive and heavily taxed. Yet over here the big gas guzzlers predominate and WHY?? Most 4 wheel SUV'S have never seen off road and have never had 4 wheel engaged

Absolutely.

 

I happen to know a former NFL player. He drives a Navigator. On him it looks small! He's the only person I've ever met who really needed a car that size for personal transportation.

[Guest]

"If we are currently in a crash (a decline of over 15% - about 1500 points) then the sideways price movement this past week has served the purpose of working off extreme Dover Sole conditions, facilitating the crash event. If we are in a Major Equity Market crash, I would label the DJIA's start on April 27th, putting us about a third of the way toward the minimum crash price target. If we are in a crash, most likely prices will decline into the 9500 to 9750 area, bounce back up toward 10,000 one more time, then fall hard to at least 9000. That's basically following one of several possible Elliott Wave counts. June 15th is a major Fibonacci turn date, the phi mate of October 9, 2002's Bear Market low. Could be a high or a low. But, if a high, this market is heading lower than anyone even wants to begin to think about."

 

Financial Markets Forecast and Analysis by Robert McHugh

[Madame Wrecked Him]

If the oil income were shared equally by all the people of Saudi Arabia, instead of just the sheikhs, what would the per capita income be? Serious question.

Drano, your question reminded me of a piece I read in the Guardian last weekend about the way a handful of opportunists essentially conned the public out of the shares they were allocated in the old Soviet companies they worked for. The upshot is that a handful of men became fabulously wealthy and the people were left with less wealth and earning power than before the Perestroika.

 

This was an example of sheeple being fleeced if ever there was one. It occurred in a short period of time and I doubt that Putin has the ability to address more than one or two token abuses.

 

While there is no denying the ruthlessness with which these people gained control of the economy, I was left wondering whether the Russian economy would have seen as much growth as it did, in the past ten years, had more power been retained by the people, who after all had no experience at all in management or entrepreneurialism. Besides, it was their lack of business savvy in the first place that was at least partially the cause of them giving up their shares.

 

So when you ask what the per capita income would be in SA, if the oil income were equally shared, I don't know whether this was what you were thinking of, but I suspect the dynamics of the business might be somewhat different.

 

If nothing else, I would recommend the article I linked above for some thought provoking background information on an area of politics and economics that I haven't seen covered in the media very much.

[catbox]

You know for all the bitching about the price of oil-it is really our fault is it not. I've posted for awhile now about the small cars in Europe that are fuel efficient cause gas has always has been expensive and heavily taxed. Yet over here the big gas guzzlers predominate and WHY?? Most 4 wheel SUV'S have never seen off road and have never had 4 wheel engaged it's an image thing nothing more. The Expeditions, Navigators and Humvee's etc are the extremes of gas guzzling, expensive crap usually driven by pencil neck yuppies who have a 6th sense because there is no sign of the other 5. Compared to the price of Cheese, Bread, beer, Bacon and Bourbon etc. oil is still cheap and yet most knowingly everyone seems to have succumbed to Detriots "Bigger is better and more costly scenario." On our local news tonite the lead story was on "The growing number of families who are going back to one vehicle" and how Vespa's and other motor scooters are becoming the second vehicle. The Sheeple are waking up except of course in Californicate where the Goobenor is a Cave man and the good Life is a rite until your plastic runs out!

Brian said:

"You know for all the bitching about the price of oil-it is really our fault is it not."

 

Word, B4.

 

Europe and other countries can be a real eye-opener for Western flolk. Little things like hallway light switches on timers point to an everyday awareness re energy. But we just seem oblivious. And seem to want to finger-point rather than look to what we as individuals can do. It's rampant and endemic. An arrogant sense of entitlement, which will be our undoing.

[Madame Wrecked Him]

Europe and other countries can be a real eye-opener for Western flolk. Little things like hallway light switches on timers point to an everyday awareness re energy. But we just seem oblivious. And seem to want to finger-point rather than look to what we as individuals can do. It's rampant and endemic. An arrogant sense of entitlement, which will be our undoing.

That is all too true. I often think the lack of care for the environment in North America is a result of years of subtle and not so subtle association by the right wing of all things green with communism.

[brian4]

You know when i was born in the 40's and raised in the 50's-when you left a room you turned the light out or your parents turned yours out. A brick was in every toilet tank to save water and the heat was turned down at night to the 50's so you appreciated your flannel sheets and warm blankets. Rain Barrels were not uncommon to collect water for the Garden and I remember my Dad buying the first new car of his life for cash in 1949 (cash was your only alternative) waiting for 10 months for delivery of the Pontiac Stratosphere-there was no instant gratification folks!

[Guest]

Lots of ads on the radio pumping oil futures trading.

 

The top is in on the energy sector.

 

I'll be shorting the OSX. Its had 3 - 4 day bounce off the lows.

 

The weakest are ESV, RDC and TDW, which look to appear to be breaking down from a long consolidation.

 

I originally thought that the break was going to be on the upside, and I was long on the sector until I realized that I was donging the bounces in a LT bear market.

 

Energy Hysteria is now near an all time high.

 

Expecting an Epic Collapse in crude and gas futures.

 

Bloomberg is already reporting some type of "deal" is being made with OPEC to start pumping oil madly to lower prices.

Mark, You have been saying that now for over a week. Not a long time I admit but I can see a situation where we continue backing n filling WITHOUT any spikes that takes up to $50/$60 over the summer.

 

I also could be wrong.

[PeakOil]

"If we are currently in a crash (a decline of over 15% - about 1500 points) then the sideways price movement this past week has served the purpose of working off extreme Dover Sole conditions, facilitating the crash event. If we are in a Major Equity Market crash, I would label the DJIA's start on April 27th, putting us about a third of the way toward the minimum crash price target. If we are in a crash, most likely prices will decline into the 9500 to 9750 area, bounce back up toward 10,000 one more time, then fall hard to at least 9000. That's basically following one of several possible Elliott Wave counts. June 15th is a major Fibonacci turn date, the phi mate of October 9, 2002's Bear Market low. Could be a high or a low. But, if a high, this market is heading lower than anyone even wants to begin to think about."

 

Financial Markets Forecast and Analysis by Robert McHugh

In that same article McHugh opines;

 

"The Federal Reserve has announced that they expect a stock market crash any day now. You missed that, you say? Didn't hear that report on any of the usual media outlets? Think news that huge should have been the headline on every newspaper this week? Well, it wasn't reported. So I'm reporting it here.

 

Oh, they didn't "speak" the words, no sage quote from a Fed governor or the venerable Chairman, but their actions did the talking. If you go the Fed's website, you'll see that they reported M-3 is up an astounding $104.8 billion in just the past two weeks! That computes to 30% annualized growth in the money supply! That's not a typo. Thirty percent per year, a $2.72 trillion increase to our current 9.1 trillion M-3 supply. The Fed was chartered to "maintain a stable currency." Yet here we see them inflating the value of our currency by 30 percent. Why? Have they gone loony? What is going on? The answer can only be one thing: The Federal Reserve has come to the conclusion that equities are at grave threat to deflate at crash proportions - and soon. The Fed is convicted that deflation in assets is so probable, that it is worth the risk to manufacture money at a thirty percent annualized clip. Hyperinflation by the US Central Bank, right before our very eyes. What's next, Dubya declaring martial law? Did you ever think you'd see this?"

 

WAP, WAP, WAP, WAP, WAP, ... ahhhh I love the smell of $$$ in the morning!

 

Chopper music

[brian4]

Yes catbox I agree- we had friends from Austria visiting last summer who when they left we loaded up with tinned Salmon for which they paid $4.- U.S. back home cost here was 97 cents Canadian. They also took home Vacuum sealed frozen Sock eye Fillets at about $4.- a Pound versus $25.- a pound at home for farmed Atlantic salmon are we spoiled or what??

[Hypertiger]

The FED is a facilitator...not a creator...

 

When a consumer swipes a credit card...that is the same as printing money...That is debt inflation...

 

Consumers consuming debt is the cause of debt inflation...The FED facilitates debt creation by consumers at their request.

 

When consumers consume all that they can consume that is it...The FED can not do anything about that.

 

The Federal Government also has a finite ability to consume debt for consumers...It has a different distribution network that is less diversified then the general market which is a far more efficient distribution network...as far as supporting the required amount of debt inflation to liquify the world...

[Guest]

Say Goodbye to Mr Rumsfeld:

 

In 2003, Rumsfeld?s apparent disregard for the requirements of the Geneva Conventions while carrying out the war on terror had led a group of senior military legal officers from the Judge Advocate General?s (jag) Corps to pay two surprise visits within five months to Scott Horton, who was then chairman of the New York City Bar Association?s Committee on International Human Rights. ?They wanted us to challenge the Bush Administration about its standards for detentions and interrogation,? Horton told me. ?They were urging us to get involved and speak in a very loud voice. It came pretty much out of the blue. The message was that conditions are ripe for abuse, and it?s going to occur.? The military officials were most alarmed about the growing use of civilian contractors in the interrogation process, Horton recalled. ?They said there was an atmosphere of legal ambiguity being created as a result of a policy decision at the highest levels in the Pentagon. The jag officers were being cut out of the policy formulation process.? They told him that, with the war on terror, a fifty-year history of exemplary application of the Geneva Conventions had come to an end.

 

 

The abuses at Abu Ghraib were exposed on January 13th, when Joseph Darby, a young military policeman assigned to Abu Ghraib, reported the wrongdoing to the Army?s Criminal Investigations Division. He also turned over a CD full of photographs. Within three days, a report made its way to Donald Rumsfeld, who informed President Bush.

 

The inquiry presented a dilemma for the Pentagon. The C.I.D. had to be allowed to continue, the former intelligence official said. ?You can?t cover it up. You have to prosecute these guys for being off the reservation. But how do you prosecute them when they were covered by the special-access program? So you hope that maybe it?ll go away.? The Pentagon?s attitude last January, he said, was ?Somebody got caught with some photos. What?s the big deal? Take care of it.? Rumsfeld?s explanation to the White House, the official added, was reassuring: ??We?ve got a glitch in the program. We?ll prosecute it.? The cover story was that some kids got out of control.?

 

http://newyorker.com/printable/?fact/040524fa_fact

[Guest]

i wonder how many sheeple would complain about gas prices if there weren't 6 foot high signs telling them how much it is?

 

all because one enterprising marketing guy at one gas station tried to get an edge over his competetors and we've had em ever since.

 

sheeple

[DrStool]

Financial Markets Forecast and Analysis by Robert McHugh

 

Oh, they didn't "speak" the words, no sage quote from a Fed governor or the venerable Chairman, but their actions did the talking. If you go the Fed's website, you'll see that they reported M-3 is up an astounding $104.8 billion in just the past two weeks! That computes to 30% annualized growth in the money supply! That's not a typo. Thirty percent per year, a $2.72 trillion increase to our current 9.1 trillion M-3 supply. The Fed was chartered to "maintain a stable currency." Yet here we see them inflating the value of our currency by 30 percent. Why? Have they gone loony? What is going on? The answer can only be one thing: The Federal Reserve has come to the conclusion that equities are at grave threat to deflate at crash proportions - and soon. The Fed is convicted that deflation in assets is so probable, that it is worth the risk to manufacture money at a thirty percent annualized clip. Hyperinflation by the US Central Bank, right before our very eyes. What's next, Dubya declaring martial law? Did you ever think you'd see this?"

I agree with McHugh about the stock market, but I can't say this any other way. This is just misinformation.

 

The Fed has zero influence over M3. If you follow the Feed report, you know that the Fed has been increasing its assets at a 4% rate for more than a year. This rate varies depending on what the Fed's guess is as to how much liquidity the economy needs. Back in 2001-2002, they grew it at 10%. For brief periods in the last year, up to 3-6 months, they cut back to 1%, and even went to a negative growth rate from January through March of this year.

 

There is zero correlation between the rate of growth in M3, and the rate at which the Fed pumps liquidity into the system.

 

Repeat.

 

There is zero correlation between the rate of growth in M3, and the rate at which the Fed pumps liquidity into the system.

 

Hell, the Fed barely has much control over M1, although there you can see the correlation between how much they pump and the response in the more narrowly defined money supply. When you move out to M2 and M3, which includes both retail and institutional money funds, and all manner of other financial flora and fauna, any correlation disappears.

 

What stoolies who follow the Feed report know, is that the larger M's respond most directly to GSE credit creation, as seen a couple months in advance by the MoGauge. The recent surge in M3 is tied directly to the enormous surge in the MoGauge in mid March.

 

It really annoys me when people carp and whine and moan about the Fed being to blame for everything that happens in the market. It's total bullshit. It's not that the Fed is blameless, but a steady 4% annual growth rate in the Fed's base is hardly extreme, and cannot in any way be related to a 30% rise in M3. M3 is not currency.

 

Furthermore anyone following credit measures closely, as we do, knows that broad based measures of credit have stalled in the last month. The effects show up in the crash up of short term interest rates. This appears to be a developing liquidity crunch. If ever the Fed were justified in opening the spigots, it would be times like this. Especially with a $54 billion payment due the Treasury tomorrow, of which only $33 billion is rollover. But instead, the Fed was draining big time on Thursday and Friday, perhaps in repsonse to the mammoth rise in M3.

 

Ironically, this draining comes at exactly the wrong time, and could be the very thing which triggers the stock market crash we have been waiting for. Instead of adding liquidity in the midst of crisis, the Fed has made a classic blunder by responding to something over which they have no control in the first place, the ballooning of M3. Even more ironic is the fact that the very forces which caused the broad money supply to blow sky high have already been working in reverse, and will continue to do so. The Fed is simply exacerbating the problem further by cutting back now, as opposed to flooding the system with liquidity.

 

I believe we have witnessed the final blowoff in the broad money supply. All of the forces now at work, including a less than accomodating Fed, could cause a crash not only in the stock market, but in the money supply as well, in the days ahead.

 

The Feed report, a regular feature of the Anals of Stock Proctology, will be published later this morning. Take a subscribatory and you can download your Anals just in time! Click the link below.To continue the discussion, click here.

[Guest]

You know when i was born in the 40's and raised in the 50's-when you left a room you turned the light out or your parents turned yours out. A brick was in every toilet tank to save water and the heat was turned down at night to the 50's so you appreciated your flannel sheets and warm blankets. Rain Barrels were not uncommon to collect water for the Garden and I remember my Dad buying the first new car of his life for cash in 1949 (cash was your only alternative) waiting for 10 months for delivery of the Pontiac Stratosphere-there was no instant gratification folks!

Ah....heated bricks and rain barrels.

 

We used the water from the barrels rather than well water to boil the clothes in the

 

lard rendering pot using home made soap. Home made soap requires soft water.