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B4 the Bell, Teuzleday June 22, 2004


Guest yobob1

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Guest yobob1

As previously noted on yesterday's thread today's Viagra injection came a little earlier than usual. Hmm does that mean we have premature pecker deflation? With the bubble so tightly stretched you have to watch out for the pricks. Just another boner of contention I guess. :lol:

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Today we'll look at Uncle Bucky with a 100 day MA. As you can see he's skipping lightly on top of that line.

 

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After yesterday's little smack down on silver, it for the moment seems to have stabilized. A little voice in my head is still saying we need to revist that $5.30 +/- level before we can clear the decks. Yesterday gold rose strongly into London's close only to have New York say no way Jose. The anomalous Hong Kong spikes recently noted have been absent for a few days.

 

Oil is hanging at about the $38 level. Locally gasoline prices have backed off about 6 cents, while diesel has dropped 14 cents.

 

As to last night's discussion of meat prices. Here top grade New Yorks, Rib or T-Bones run $7-$8. 1% milk is at $2.50 - previous recent low price of $1.90. Eggs have fallen back with Jumbo's once again under a buck. Chicken hasn't varied much and pork is about the same. Veggies fluctuate with seasonality, but no real strong variances are apparent. My favorite daily coffee (MJB Columbian - gold can) has gone up a buck (from $4 to $5), but it's done that several times in the last year only to fall right back. I normally have about a 6 month supply (of most dry goods) on the shelf at any time and when prices go up I don't buy. When they drop I restock the pantry. (as a general rule I don't let anything fall below a 3 month supply) It's a damn effective way of keeping your personal living costs relatively stable while constantly maintaining a fresh supply of "emergency stores" that will give you at least several months worth of food (don't forget things like TP, toothpaste, soaps and all of the other daily necessities). I do the same for meats and veggies in frozen form with the help of a vacuum packer and a freezer. Sounds like some extra work. It's not really. Instead of running to the store every 2 or 3 days, I rarely visit a grocery store more than twice a month. Any time I decide I want some particular food item, 99% of the time it's on the shelf or in the freezer. I avoid the freeze dried or canned emergency K-ration type food stores. Why bother when you can eat the same foods you normally do for less money?

 

I also still advocate several months worth of cash on hand, stored away from the matrix in real bill form as well as a percentage of your net worth in PMs for the ultimate backing. But hey it's your money.

 

As more of the people fall into the inflation forever camp, my belief in the deflation outcome strengthens. I run from consensus as it is one sure way to be just as wrong as everyone else. Contrarianism has served me very well over the last 5 years and I'm sure as hell not about to abandon it now.

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Moody's has discovered, like Hypertiger, that hyperbolic debt growth in excess of real economic growth leads to ... default, among other things:

 

Moody's Investors Service, which has no plans to change its credit rating for Japan from A2, said the country's debt cannot grow faster than gross domestic product (GDP) for "an unlimited time" without defaulting.

 

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has made reducing public spending a priority. Japan's yen-denominated public debt is near 144 per cent of GDP, the most among the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations.

 

The government plans to cut outlays for roads, bridges and other public-work projects by 3.5 per cent in the fiscal year that started in April.

 

"At some point, the economy will not be able to provide enough resources for the government to service its debt and avoid default," said Thomas Byrne, Moody's Asian sovereign debt-rating anal cyst.

 

[note:if you click the link below, you probably want to hit 'no' if it asks you for a language pack-unless you want the story in Chinese! :grin: ]

 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2...tent_341352.htm

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Moody's has discovered, like Hypertiger, that hyperbolic debt growth in excess of real economic growth leads to ... default, among other things:

 

Moody's Investors Service, which has no plans to change its credit rating for Japan from A2, said the country's debt cannot grow faster than gross domestic product (GDP) for "an unlimited time" without defaulting.

 

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has made reducing public spending a priority. Japan's yen-denominated public debt is near 144 per cent of GDP, the most among the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations.

 

The government plans to cut outlays for roads, bridges and other public-work projects by 3.5 per cent in the fiscal year that started in April.

 

"At some point, the economy will not be able to provide enough resources for the government to service its debt and avoid default," said Thomas Byrne, Moody's Asian sovereign debt-rating anal cyst.

 

[note:if you click the link below, you probably want to hit 'no' if it asks you for a language pack-unless you want the story in Chinese! :grin: ]

 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2...tent_341352.htm

HB:

 

Given the criteria that Moody's is using to rate Japan's credit worthiness, I can only assume that the United States is at the top of Moody's list for potential default candidates.

 

Or perhaps it is Japan's lack of a nuclear arsenal and a fleet of aircraft carriers and fighter jets (and the willingness to use them to control the world's oil supply) that has Moody's feeling pessimistic about Japan.

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Yobob, that's solid advice learned originally from my grandma who went hungry during the Great Depression. Now, Lady Fokker and I read all the circulars and even refer to it as "taking a position" when we see a good price. During the fall, we were able to buy boxed fruit juice at .79/litre, enough to keep us through to this summer- we laughed our way through the Jan-April run during which it was selling for nearly 1.50/litre.

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Berlin May 2004 ASPO report by Ruppert of FTW, who was there.

 

---

On the question of Saudi Arabia he(Simmons) was unequivocal. ?The Saudis are out of capacity. That?s my opinion? They have no infrastructure or extra pipes or gas, oil, and water separators (very expensive large globes used to separate what comes out of a water injection well). They have very heavy oil which, through a conventional refinery, produces asphalt. We don?t need asphalt. We need gasoline. It takes a complex refinery to make gasoline and it only takes 7-10 years to build one.?

 

After two years of study and two days at the conference, it was obvious that a crash building program begun today by Saudi Arabia would make no difference if most of the Saudi fields (especially the biggest ones) had already gone into, or were near, decline. As we have already seen in FTW, the uncertainty of return on investment was the principal reason why more power generating stations weren?t built in the US in the last five years. There wasn?t enough natural gas to run them and pay off the debt. The same cost-benefit issue arises in Saudi Arabia.

 

We?re back to money again.

---

?The Prophet Ali? Ali Samsam Bakhtiari, Vice President of the National Iranian oil Company (NIOC)

 

While a bit more reticent to express his fears about growing instability within the region, he was more candid in his assessment of the global energy picture.

 

In his presentation, Bakhtiari told the conference, ?The crisis is very, very near. World War III has started. It has already affected every single citizen of the Middle East. Soon it will spill over to affect every single citizen of the world.

 

Syria?s oil production is in terminal decline. Yemen is following. Major Middle East producers, including Saudi Arabia, will peak soon or have already peaked.?

 

Off the stage he was even more direct, ?The present war cannot be confined to the Middle East. It will soon spill over to the rest of the world. The final implications will upset the global applecart.?

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Yobob, presumably you also have a six-month supply of gasoline to run the generator that runs the refrigerator that stores the six-month supply of meat....

 

or were you banking on the crisis coming in the winter, or on global cooling? :P

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Another day in the planets biggest casino. Who gets their pipes cleaned today and who gets goosed? Autos, homebuilders, chips, financials or biotech -- place your bets and spin the wheel.

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hey all. some of you might remember me. aside from how obnoxious i can be some of you might remember that i am from the detroit area. i have seen a bit recently on china and how they are our number one enemy and how their red army has long classified us as enemy number one. this all fits in with my rampantly gloomy belief that we will be at war with china before 2010 (shooting war is what i mean, i know that we are at war with china economicaly already). i have also heard some other things relating to china recently....

in the spirit of folks like pd sharing anecdotes, i thought i would as well.

i am a security consultant to various companies in the detroit area. Our clients range from lawyers to painting firms, construction companies, automotive suppliers, etc... i see a lot in other words. i hear a lot. in the last 2 weeks i have heard tales directly from folks about how certain large automotive concerns operate.

1. if you do contractual work for them....get paid first. they will simply refuse to pay and if you bitch they simply respond with 'eat it. if you complain once more you will never do business with us again'. as you might imagine this bullying tactic works quite quite well in the detroit area. it's not just losing their direct business that is frightening but all the contacts related to that business. you are simply screwed and eat it. in response to this i know of at least one multinational autosupplier pulling every single bit of business they do with this giant auto concern. all of it. 30% of their business.

2. if you bid on large equipment supplier projects for certain large automotive companies you have to prove that you already have production facilities overseas and (this is a very big 'and' here folks) that you have plans to move existing plants overseas within a short time frame (often 3-5 yrs). it is utterly irrelevant if you can make your plants here competitive. you have to move overseas or agree to, otherwise you do not get the bid. period.

3. if you bid on equipment building projects.... this is the really nasty shit and i have heard two versions of this from two companies...one first hand the other second hand but so nearly identical to the first that i believe it.

anyway....this auto giant says 'we want these parts, the contract is now up for bid'. well, good american companies bid on the project. let's say for example that the lowest bid came in lower than anyone else at $8,000,000 (yeah, small job but stay with me). the large automotive concern says 'congratulations, you have the bid, could we see your full design specs please?'. the smaller company sees no real choice and hands over their proprietary info. 3 months later after beginning the tool up process for the contract (this involves quite a bit of time and money folks)they are informed that in fact they were mistaken in their quiant little belief that they had the bid. it comes out a few weeks later that somehow, magically, a chinese competitor came out with 'somewhat similar' design specs <cough, cough> and underbid them by 40%. this small american tool and die company is now deep in the red and in fact had to shut its doors. 35 highly paid skilled workers f***ed. 1 smart and hardworking entreprenuer ruined.

 

technology transfer and middle class decimation in america all with one stone.

it ain't all because we are fat and lazy folks. some of it is for other reasons....

 

Weilkommen zu Novus Ordum Seclorum

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In NY we are still enjoying the fruits of over capacity. In the last two years a Super Stop&Shop, Costco, ACME, Target, WMT have all opened in a five mile radius of an existing Shoprite. Every week shoprite offers 10% of your total purchase as long as you spend at least $50 (even if it is all sale prices)

Typical prices

Filet mignon $4.99/lb (your choice domestic or imported free range from Australia)

NY steak $3.99 (sames as above)

Maxwell house coffee 2 for $3.00

Berries (your choice) $1-1.5/lb

Whole chickens $0.79-0.89/lb (Perdue, tyson or free range)

 

Thank You, Mr Greenspan. Of course state and local taxes are up 17% off an already high base and regular gas is $2.38/gal which makes the above price breaks a drop in the bucket.

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I smell something burning.

 

It smells like pants on fire.

 

I think the rest of the world is smelling it...

 

and bonds and stocks are smelling it too.

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on another note....start paying attention at the grocery/retail outlets.

yesterday my better half and i were at tarrjay and she remembered that we needed some paper towels....'well hell' i thought to myself, 'how convenient that they have them here'. so i wandered on over to that section of the warehouse and sure as shit they had em. 2 sizes in fact.

8 rolls for $5.99

or

15 rolls for $11.99.

 

i shit you not. no sales on that larger size. nada. nothing. just their regular pricing. same for napkins. we stood there giggling to ourselves at first about how stupid they must think the average consumer is. giggling about how well trained the average american consumer was to buy the larger size because it was always cheaper. giggling that they must be getting away with this thousands upon thousands of times per day.

then we realized what it really meant that they were able to brainwash folks so well that they could pull this kind of switch so boldly and get away with it.

 

we stopped giggling.

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Berries (your choice) $1-1.5/lb

 

Grot: It will be blackberry pickin' season soon...chiggers and all. Fine way to spend a saturday morning with the family and a fine bb cobbler for desert on Sunday.

 

Yumm, yumm!

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