deconsumption

Look, It's Nuthin' Personal of Course...

Another whopper scoop from Michael Runge (whose economic news Furl archive is linked at right).

"Indonesia to halve LNG to Japan - Observers say move a sign of tough times ahead in energy sector"

Just so you know, "LNG" stands for "liquid natural gas" -- essentially natural gas that has been supercooled to liquid state for overseas shipment.

Oh, and one more quick comment in case you haven't been watching the news the last few decades: this is exactly the kind of thing countries tend to declare war over:

"Indonesia has notified Japanese companies that it intends to halve exports of liquefied natural gas to Japan by as early as 2010, sources said Thursday...With the soaring price of crude oil, and growing concerns over environmental problems, countries including China, South Korea and the United States have started importing LNG. This increase in demand from other nations, and subsequent reduction in LNG imports from Indonesia, is likely to have a significant impact on Japan's energy strategy, observers note."

(Hmmm...you think?)

"Japan hopes to compensate for the reduced amount with imports from other locations such as the Sakhalin-2 project plant in Russia. However, with the Russian government recently cancelling a permit for an oil and gas development project by an international joint venture, the prospects for domestic gas and electric company procurement have become increasingly gloomy.

....Japanese companies are currently negotiating with the Indonesian government on the assumption that imports will be cut by half in the renewed contracts. But with the Indonesian government suggesting it may call for further dramatic reductions, negotiations could become even more complicated, the sources said."

Natural gas is primarily used to generate electricity, but is also crucial for many industries, especially the petrochemical industry. I don't really know how important it is to residential heating for Japanese citizens.

So considering the "preferred customers" who are beating Japan out for these deals, it seems extremely unlikely that the Japanese can simply go all Operation Freedom on the Indonesians. Which leaves Japan in the rather unenviable position of having to either "out-negotiate" the likes of China, South Korea and the U.S. in the LNG markets....or kiss their economy goodbye.

But on second thought I suppose there is always that third option... You know, the one where Japan gets all up in the World's face and says "So that's how you roll, huh?" And then they finally, officially, and for real this time put the kibosh on the yen carry trade the way they've been wanting to. Then, should the world's economies begin to suffer immediate collapse again like they did back in March when the Bank of Japan merely threatened the same, well...that would likely free-up a fair bit of LNG in the global marketplace, wouldn't it?

It's a thought, anyway.

Oh, and by the way....do you remember a few years back when everone in the know about Peak Oil kept saying this is exactly the kind of thing that was going to start happening soon? Well, okay everybody...all together now:

I TOLD YOU SO!!!




[UPDATE 10/04/2006: Via LATOC comes this story from Front Page Magazine, entitled "Russia's Rising Oil Star" which outlines Japan's precarious energy situation. In fact it opens with the following paragraph:

“Japan’s overall energy approach lags behind the changes occurring in the world. The strategic importance of energy has a far greater importance than is appreciated in Japan,” the report noted. The report went on to say that the country’s very “existence as a state” could be jeopardized if it does not develop a more strategic approach to energy security."

Keep in mind we're now discussing the continuing viability of the second largest economy in the world....]

Breakfast of Chumps

I think I've mentioned before how it appears to me that all our problems and crises can in some way be traced back to our dysfunctional relationship with food. Food (and drink, of course) has always been the axis around which human societies and cultures have been constructed, and it's no different for us today. If we take a clear, unflinching look at our exceedingly bizarre contemporary connections to food, we'll see in microcosm how very far we have fallen as a species--and how very unsustainable and unstable modern "civilization" truly is.

Indeed, if you ever find yourself questioning how American society can be so very blessed and yet so very messed-up, you probably need gaze no further than into your bowl of Wheaties...

"Another unpublished experiment was carried out in the 1960s. Researchers at Ann Arbor University were given 18 laboratory rats. They were divided into three groups: one group received corn flakes and water; a second group was given the cardboard box that the corn flakes came in and water; the control group received rat chow and water. The rats in the control group remained in good health throughout the experiment. The rats eating the box became lethargic and eventually died of malnutrition. But the rats receiving the corn flakes and water died before the rats that were eating the box! (The last corn flake rat died the day the first box rat died.) But before death, the corn flake rats developed schizophrenic behavior, threw fits, bit each other and finally went into convulsions. The startling conclusion of this study is that there was more nourishment in the box than there was in the corn flakes.

This experiment was actually designed as a joke, but the results were far from funny. The results were never published and similar studies have not been conducted."

If it's true that all our cultural flaws stem from our relationship with food, then it follows that all our hopes for a cultural "revolution" must begin there as well. And as the definition of the word revolution means to return, or to come around again, it stands to reason that if we hold any hope for the continuation of healthy human societies we should begin this revolution at our very own dining tables (if we still have one, that is, in this microwaveable, fast food-on-the-go modern lifestyle).

The above passage was taken from a paper by Sally Fallon entitled "Dirty Secrets of the Food Processing Industry". Fallon serves as President of a non-profit educational organization out of Washington, D.C. called the Weston A. Price Foundation. The Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) has been leading just such a cultural call-to-arms in recent years, giving rise to a fast-growing movement of people who are striving to return to the traditional foods and food preparation techniques which human societies have trusted and validated over thousands of years, and which had been almost completely swept away in only the last century.

WAPF is pursuing this battle along two fronts.

On one side they're waging a tireless campaign to awaken people to the dangerous realities of the processed food industry. In this light WAPF works to expose the often "secret" or concealed processes and standards of this industry to public scrutiny, and to help explain the hidden health dangers these practices pose. In addition, WAPF tries to shed light on a body of suspicious, fallacious or even non-existant "research" which this industry has promoted over the decades--much of which has even come to be viewed as "irrefutable" dogma. All told, a very disturbing picture develops of an intentional and systematic campaign of deception which has unfolded over many decades; a collusionary agenda of food corporations, government agencies, and medical and health organizations to pass-off very low cost "fabricated nutrition" for the sake of easy profits.

More importantly however is that WAPF also strives, both through education and legislation, to help individuals to re-establish a more intimate and healthy relationship with what we eat.

The WAPF "manifesto", as it were, is contained in a book entitled Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. Despite the subtitle, "Nourishing Traditions" is actually a fairly classic and informative cookbook, outlining many of the time-tested food "processing" principles and techniques that have been used by human beings for thousands of years to uncover and enhance the latent nutritional value in the foods we eat. In this light it's often compared to the "Slow Food" movement which has been developing along parallel lines throughout Europe, although to my mind Nourishing Traditions and WAPF provides a far more extensive basis in Nutritional Science to support these practices.

In just the handful of years since WAPF was established it has seen countless chapters spring up throughout all 50 States, and more than a dozen countries worldwide besides. WAPF takes as its namesake Dr. Weston A. Price, a medical dentist during the early 20th Century who had made extensive travels throughout the globe to visit indigenous people. On these journeys he continually documented the superior health and bone structure of these widely disbursed tribes and cultures, which when compared to the rapidly declining health and nutrition he was witnessing in the "civilized" (read industrialized) world, was already revealing to him that there were fundamental flaws in modern culture.

The last thing I'll add is simply a couple of wisps of timeless wisdom that happened to come into my mind right now:

"Know thyself". And, "You are what you eat".

And seeing as how we've been talking about the need we have to forge new relationships with our food, it perhaps wouldn't be unwise to marry these two dictums as well.

"Know what you eat."

Priming the Pump

Scratch a financial conspiracy and you'll discover Goldman-Citibank underneath...

Running on Empty by Rob Kirby

"While I “welcome” cheaper gas just as much as the next guy, I also like to get my head around the reason[s] for precipitous price movements – particularly in prices of commodities that have such a profound influence in my life. After all, it’s often said that knowledge is empowering, isn’t it?

One person who did not “miss it” was Bill King – he of the King Report fame. Not only did Mr. King “not miss it,” he quickly understood the implications of the content of the article, namely that,

Goldman Sachs [on July 12] tweaked the composition of their “benchmark” Goldman Sachs Commodity Index [GSCI].

Prior to Goldman's revision of the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index in July, unleaded gas accounted for 8.45% (dollar weighting) of the GSCI. Now unleaded gas is only 2.30%.

So What’s Wrong With This?

As Bill King points out,

“Goldman's changes probably induced arbs, commercial hedgers, and other traders to sell September and October unleaded gasoline future contracts to avoid possible (settlement, delivery, etc.) problems.

September futures expired in August; October contracts expire September 29. So unleaded gasoline prices collapsed in August and September.”

I would like to “restate” what Mr. King said: What this means folks, is that hedge funds and institutional money that “TRACKS THE INDEX” were FORCED TO SELL 75% of their gasoline futures to conform with the reconstituted GSCI. And if anyone hasn’t noticed the timing of the price of the gasoline price collapse…just in time for November’s Mid Term Elections!

So don’t be fooled into believing that potential energy shortages have “magically been solved.” In all likelihood – much of the recent decline in the price of gasoline we have all “welcomed” has been the result of paper tricks being played on what amounts to a wealthy flock of sheep.

But in the meantime, filler up!"

Oh, and by the way: 42% of Americans believe the fall in gas prices is just political maneuvering.

Documentary: "9/11 Mysteries - Demolitions"

If you haven't seen it yet, Cryptogon.com just referenced the newest citizen investigative documentary on 9/11, and it's definitely the most focused and professional one yet. "9/11 Mysteries - Demolitions" was produced by a self-styled "conservative republican" and "amateur demolition expert" who purportedly set out to debunk the conspiracy myths and wound up creating a 90-minute expose on why it's even more unreasonable to believe these buildings were not intentionally demolished.

"9/11 Mysteries - Demolitions" was launched on Google Video on 9/11/2006, just a week and a half after I noted that the 9/11 Truth Movement seemed to have acquired a renewed force in recent months, and was fast becoming a rallying point for anti-establishment passions of all kinds. I think this social renewal is worth making note of, and that it can be attributed to two things.

One is that the formerly disorganized and disbursed 9/11 Truth Movement of old--the one that even Michael Ruppert finally lamented was a dead horse that could run no more--has now done what it's most stauch advocates have long been pleading for it to do, and found it's center of gravity around one fundamental point: the questionable "collapse" of the three WTC buildings. And I suspect that's an effective and fitting place to circle the wagons, because it's a nexus that resonates with a great many people on a very visceral level. I can still to this day recall the absolute mystification I had while watching events unfold on that fateful day that the collapse of not just one but both towers had happened so "perfectly". Several of the people I stood with throughout that morning remarked how it seemed like we were watching a Hollywood movie. I can even remember wrestling with the suspicion that perhaps the singular and strange "beauty" to these collapses might hint there really were perhaps some kind of higher forces behind them. Of course I never stopped to imagine there might actually be lower forces at work...

And the other factor that's most significantly responsible for the reawakening of the 9/11 Truth Movement is the development of services like YouTube and Google Video. I don't think anyone can argue anymore that, at bottom, we as a society give our attention much more readily to things which are presented to us in TV form. Indeed it's been acknowledged long ago that the highly centralized "control of the airwaves" is the primary reason why our world has so quickly become so monoculture--and "monoculture", as every permaculturalist is aware, is defined as a sustained battle against Nature. In this respect, unless the "establishment" can come up with an even more enticing way to communicate with people, internet video may very well be the "killer app" needed to usher in a truly global cultural revolution.

Anyway, on with the show:

9/11 Mysteries - Demolitions (Part 1 of 3)

9/11 Mysteries - Demolitions (Part 2 of 3)

9/11 Mysteries - Demolitions (Part 3 of 3)

Keepin' it Real

A few years back when I pencilled-out a post called Timeline for the Unfolding Crises as a way to wrap my head around the coming period of transformation, I wrote the following:

"Sometime in this period [2007 - 2010] the media may assert the belief that we are making real headway in correcting our oil crisis. This might be attributed to new investments in drilling and exploration triggered by the past few years of rising price-profits at energy firms, and which will be coming online during this period. Or there may be reports of large new reserve discoveries (probably invented, but no one will be able to verify them). It may also be touted that we have been offsetting consumption by adopting a kind of hodge-podge of alternative energy systems. Regardless, this feeling that perhaps all will be right with the world once again will be illusory and will not last long, since China/East Asia will continue to gobble up all the hydrocarbons that we are potentially pumping or saving—and out-negotiating us for import contracts."

Now oil prices have been declining for couple months now, but still I didn't actually think about the above statement until just recently. Up to now I figured the price correction we've been seeing was just a trading phase, perhaps even an orchestrated pre-election gambit to pacify the voters a bit. Certainly the markets were entitled to a counter-trend correction, and when markets change their course the media is always ready to parrot whatever flimsy excuse they can find to intellectually support what was already happening just fine without one. These kind of after-the-fact justifications are really just background noise, and good traders learn to "fade the noise" and stick to the underlying fundamentals.

But that isn't what I was alluding to when I made the above comment. What I was outlining was my belief that following an initial, preparatory phase in which the realization of our peak-oil situation begins to dawn on our society, we should eventually encounter a significant backlash of sorts--an intentional, reactionary counter-attack against this awakening which aims at undermining the message on a fundamental level. Of course such an attack can only seek to fly in the face of reality altogether, since it has no other choice. And if this kind of subversive action is to happen at all, it must occur sometime after our situation has become generally apparent, but before it has become distinctly undeniable. It would of course be media-driven, and would specifically strive to strengthen the very cultural illusions which are in jeopardy: "The whole crisis-show is over, folks. Move along with your lives just as they were before." A desperate head-fake. A short-lived turning-point in the larger crisis whereby the media is not simply grasping at straws to explain what the markets are doing anyway, but actually attempting to feed into society the misinformation needed to keep the game going a little longer...

Oil supplies could 'last 140 years'

"Abdallah Jumah, president and CEO of the state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Company, better known as Aramco, said the world has potentially 4.5 trillion barrels in reserves - enough to last 140 years at current levels of consumption.

"The world has only consumed about 18 per cent of its conventional potential," Jumah said, rejecting fears that supplies will run out in a few decades.

...Jumah said new technology and better recovery rates would make it possible to find enough new oil resources to add one trillion barrels to world reserves over the next 25 years.

Drilling is now going on as deep as 3,000 metres below the Gulf of Mexico and between 2,100 and 2,500 metres elsewhere. Experts say a newly discovered petroleum pool beneath the Gulf of Mexico eventually could yield anywhere from three billion to 15 billion barrels."

Of course the above story comes out of al-Jazeera, so it might seem reasonable to take it with a certain quantity of salt here in the Western world. And yet, haven't we been seeing a persistent shift in the "informational agenda" on this side of the planet as well? A gradual "testing of the waters" by newspapers everywhere which seems to be leading-up to just such preposterous broadcasts as the one above?

Yesterday's story from the Sacramento Bee (subscriber site) offers a telling case:

Gas at $1.15 a gallon? Some experts say maybe

"The recent sharp drop in the price of crude oil could mark the start of a sell-off that returns gasoline prices to lows not seen since the late 1990s -- perhaps as low as $1.15 a gallon, some analysts say....Crude oil prices have fallen about $14, or roughly 17 percent, from their July 14 peak of $78.40....But the overall price drop is expected to continue, and prices could fall much more in the weeks and months ahead.

For most of the past two years, oil prices have risen because the world's oil producers have struggled to keep pace with growing demand, particularly from China and India. Spare oil production capacity grew so tight that market players feared that any disruption to oil production could create shortages.

...Now inventories of oil are approaching 1990 levels.

Many of the conditions that drove investors to bid up oil prices are ebbing. Tensions over Israel, Lebanon and Nigeria are easing. The hurricane season has presented no threat so far to the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. peak summer driving season is over, so gas demand is falling."

Of course inventory levels mean very little--they can change in a heartbeat, and are only intended to alleviate very temporary supply "disruptions" anyway. And since we haven't had any severe disruptions for a while they're naturally being stockpiled back up again. So that statement means nothing. But if you look at the rest of the fundamental arguments which this spurious report is proposing, what is basically being said is:

--global warming is not going to impact our oil supplies (ever again..?)

--war and political strife are not going to impact our oil supplies (ever again...?), and

--a traditional seasonal decline of fuel cycles is also somehow supposed to lead us to believe that all our fears have been allayed and everything is returning to business as usual (never mind that in the next six weeks or so traders are going to start running prices up again based on the coming winter's temperature expectations. For an interpretation of the irrationality of seasonality, another investor's take on this effect can be found here).

I could trot out some of the other popular arguments that are being used to support falling fuel prices as well, but I'm not going to. There's really no substance to pieces like these. And yet they're not just noise either, because articles like the above are not merely trying to explain the recent oil price action, but to actually spin the fundamental facts in a presumed effort to lead people toward believing that somehow over the course of the last month or so all of our oil problems have been taken care of--and without our having to even lift a finger!

It was this that I was anticipating in the Timeline.

Now we may not actually be at this phase just yet. In truth I would want to see a continuation of this whole misinformation campaign for a while longer before I confirm that conclusion. But if we have reached such a stage then I would herald it as a significant signal that the next--and largest--wave of peak oil "shock" is about to break upon us. And that next leg-down, which will involve not just oil prices but the whole of our social acceptance of these issues, would likely be beginning sometime over the next few months. Exactly when is difficult to say, but I'd give it eight months at the outside.

To explain this argument I should first point out that when I wrote the Timeline the term "peak oil" didn't exist outside a handful of fringy weblogs. Yet as I explained a bit above, it's my belief that whenever a novel realization begins to dawn upon a society there frequently follows some kind of orchestrated, reactionary backlash against it. This is not simply a healthy challenging of a theory through argument and reason, mind you, but a deliberate campaign of misinformation or libel designed to obfuscate what would otherwise be clear and obvious facts. I don't think there's necessarily anything nefarious about this. Perhaps it simply represents a rather desperate but understandable attempt by all those who cannot or do not wish to relinquish the old "mental order" to reassert control over the growing new "rival ideology".

But I could also cite another similar factor that led me to this conclusion, along a similar but perhaps more approachable argument.

Most investors and traders are well acquainted with a predictable kind of "stair-step" pattern in price charts, the study of which goes back more than eighty-years. It's generally referred to by the term "wave theory". What "wave theory" asserts is that if you look at the development of market prices (of any kind) over time you begin to see a repeating pattern between significant trends and their counter-trends. Now keep in mind that market-action is only a statistical reflection of how the "social mind" of a particular group of people is itself changing and developing over time. (And I might add that financial markets provide an almost unparalleled study in this respect due to the sheer weight we place on the act of "putting our money where our mouth is"). So while in general price movements will tend to be rather aimless (or at least "formless"), at certain key periods the thinking of market participants becomes strongly influenced and interconnected by some idea. And during these phases, "wave theory" holds, prices appear to have determined or purposeful movements, and a familiar whipsaw pattern can be observed in case after case. Certainly it's a whole different ball of wax to actually make money predicting the precise beginnings, turning-points, and ends to these price-patterns, but nevertheless they do appear to show up with great regularity.

And as a final thought I should also mention that "wave theory" was itself only derived from other studies showing how identical patterns seem to occur in the development of a great many unrelated systems, even ones outside the realm of human influence altogether....

So these were the thoughts I had in mind when I was trying to imagine how the sudden recognition of our true oil situation would develop once it initially became apparent to people. And in summary I would say that while nobody who really understands our situation is actually being fooled by these types of stories, what's more important in my view is to realize that, as preposterous as they are, if they signal that we're indeed entering a "false-reactionary" or "misinformation" phase then it actually makes perfect sense from a larger point of view. And I would view this as a critical milestone or marker, because this phase will not last very long, perhaps a few months at most. And it will end when another event or series of events bursts all these little happy-bubbles that are being blown about us now.

Indeed if all this hold true then the next stage of awareness for our culture should be the decisive one, the one from which we can no longer return. It will usher in a long, undeniable awakening toward full realization. There may be some specific, dramatic event or series of events which everyone uses to absolve themselves of any personal blame, saying "well of course we have an oil crisis, that damn ______ did it to us!" Or it may just creep up on us slowly from our blindside to shove the mirror of self-reflection directly in our faces. But once it begins it will follow its course doggedly. Oil prices will defy all the old trading tactics, and oil disruptions will defy all our society's old presumptions. Ultimately these events should work over time to mercilessly sweep away most of the no-longer-viable illusions we were born into, and which we've been happily nurturing until now. And yet in truth this doesn't have to be a dark or frightening time (although our persistent denial of our situation would indicate it will be), it might just as well prove a period of rejuvenation, communality and creativity. But however it unfolds, by early next year we will know for sure whether the time of "world changing" is upon us.

Keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times!

Home Again Home Again Jiggety Jig

""If you have to eat two frogs, eat the big one first and don't think much about it."" ~ Mark Twain

I promised to give an update on my travels and travails in moving to a new location, so even though I tend to avoid autobiographical material on the website I think my own situation should prove instructive.

I'm not sure which frog was bigger really, moving to a new state or selling my old house--but I know that second frog is starting to assume monumental proportions. One thing I learned long ago is that if you wait to "get out" until after a collapse has begun in earnest you are too late--somehow or another the implosion itself always manages to cut-off any exodus. And I'm discovering that hard fact again with the implosion of the housing market.

Our home-buyer for the old Minneapolis house backed-out of the agreement two days before we were set to move. We don't know the exact reason but it's almost certainly a simple case of cold-feet. So now here we are in a new town, a new house (rented), a new life...and we're still saddled with an empty and unoccupied house back in Minneapolis. A house, keep in mind, that we'll have to heat and mow and weed. A house we'll have to pay to have snow-blown if it's not sold when the first snows hit. A house that has already started to acquire that "empty house" smell as my wife calls it. A house we have to have a security-system installed in because people have warned us that thieves might try to break into it to steal the copper pipes. Plus, we now have no real bankroll to put down on a piece of land should we find that perfect spot anytime soon.

To be frank, the real estate world boggles my mind. It seems so poorly arranged I don't know how much of anything gets done really. First of all you are expected to be moved-out of your home by the closing date, when you'll hand over the keys to an empty house to the new buyer. But you don't know for sure whether that buyer is actually going to show up for closing or not! This can and often does lead to the popular nightmare of cascading closing-dates: if I as the seller had agreed to immediately purchase another house, that new purchase is contingent on my original house closing going through smoothly and on time. If it doesn't I'll likely be forced to default on my own purchase simply because the buyer wouldn't or couldn't honor the bargain. And that in turn might prevent the person selling me my new house from closing on their own new house...and then possibly their seller's next purchase...and so on and so on and so on.... How this ridiculous state of affairs came about is beyond me, but I'll speculate that it only persists because housing markets have tended to rise year after year after year. In a declining market this kind of arrangement ties everybody's hands--including the hands of buyers--as my own situation will illustrate.

As you know I come from the world of financial markets, where transactions happen fast and this kind of nonsense won't be tolerated. When you buy or sell stock in the stock market it requires three full business days for settlement of the trade (down from five business days only a few years ago). That's regardless of whether the purchase involves twenty-dollars or millions of dollars in ownership change. And obviously there we're talking about the mere transference of electronically held shares from one one set of books at DTC to another set of books at DTC.

But when you buy or sell a whole real house, transferring truckloads of physical chattel and life-arrangements from one part of the world to another, it's somehow expected that the transaction should happen with the simple stroke of a pen. Unbelievable if you ask me. How could the real estate industry have gone this long without someone addressing such a fundamental impediment to business?

Which brings me to another anomaly, which is the concept of "earnest money". In any other transaction it's generally presumed that earnest money is "forfeiture money": money that a potential buyer puts down to insure that if she/he backs out of the deal that the any resulting inconveniences to the seller would be covered at least in part. But as it turns out that's not the case in real estate. In real estate, "earnest money" means nothing. Should the buyer reneg on the deal they simply ask for it back, and the seller cannot sell to another buyer until they give it back. All is not lost however, since you do get the right to sue the deadbeat buyer in small claims court for their earnest money, at which point it will have to be proven that they didn't have a good reason to back-out. But in general, it seems to me that a purchase agreement helps the buyer, by shifting substantially all of the liability in the transaction onto the seller.

But again, this is rarely written about in real estate columns because housing prices have tended to go up, and buyers have never been all that hard to find...so why make a big fuss?

Well in a declining market people are going to start making a fuss. And that's what my wife and I are doing.

Because (to finally get around to my story) what is happening with us is that after a couple years of convincing my wife finally came to realize that it would be a good idea for us to move to a small town. But by that time we were pregnant with our second child, so she demanded (against all my fears and concerns) that we wait until he was over one year old before moving. She felt it would be easier to move with a one-year-old than with an infant, since our first child was more high-maintenence as an infant than as an up-and-coming toddler. Well they say that generals always fight the last war, and I suspect that parents always raise the last child as well, because as it turns out it would have been much simpler and more beneficial if we had just moved last year. Our son is a whole different energy than our daughter. Not to mention we also would have caught the top of the housing market as well. But c'est la vie, and maybe it was all for the best.

But we finally did put the old homestead up on the market in May, just as the housing collapse had begun to set in. As I mentioned before we told our (thankfully very experienced and dedicated) broker to list at $10K below the "suggested" price. For a month we got a lot of interest, one second showing, but no actual offers so we dropped another $10K in an attempt to beat the Joneses to the punch. We all have that tendency to get an initial number in our head and think "well that's what the house is worth so I'll wait until we get what it's worth". Forever after then we associate that first number with "what might have been". But of course something is only worth what someone will actually pay you for it. So we re-listed, and the first showing we had made an offer. But it's worth noting as well that we had two additional showings--even knowing full well that a purchase agreement had already been signed--which indicated that we had indeed found our "drama pricing" (a slick term I ran across in an article a few months ago which is a glorified way of telling clients to under-price their property so that it will sell really quickly).

So life as they say was good, and I was feeling like we had really dodged a bullet. The only thing that troubled me was that the closing date was set for September 6th--six-weeks out from the date of the accepted purchase offer. Evidently it had something to do with the title company being "backed-up", which made no sense to me since the market had started to slow down months ago, and as I've already mentioned you can transfer a $50-million-dollars title to corporate ownership within three days but evidently a $200,000 house takes six weeks of paper shuffling, but whatever.... Ultimately we were in good shape since, as our agent informed us, we had found a perfect buyer: one with a pre-approved loan and no previous home for the sale to be contingent upon. We breathed a semi-sigh of relief and crossed-our fingers.

And lo and behold, as it proved, as the next month passed the housing market went from "slow down" to "the bottom is falling out". Our agent kept us up to date on the sinking prices around our area, and we felt heartened that perhaps we hadn't waited too long and had played our cards right after all in under-pricing right away. And that's of course when our agent got word that our buyer was backing out of the deal. This was bad he said, because house showings had dried up completely.

And then, just as a reminder of how merciless it is to be on the wrong side of a trend, what I call the "inevitable unexpected" occured; an outside event that couldn't have been predicted beforehand but which provides the necessary spark or catalyst to get things going solidly on course.

About a week ago there was a highly publicized shooting a block and a half down from our former home. Some teenagers shot another teenager walking home from bible school because they wanted his jacket and shoes or something. So evidently that's been on the frontpage news for over a week now. When we talked with our realtor on Monday he noted within just a few minutes' research that four homes on the block had dropped their prices in the week since the shooting. "This'll all blow over of course" he reminded us. "But not tonight. Tonight the neighborhood's having a Peace Vigil on the block. That oughta make the lead story on the local stations."

Ah well. This too shall pass. But to further illustrate that "collapses" are not simply "buying opportunities", and that chaos tends to engulf even those who might seem to profit by events, our realtor is advising us that our next course of action should be to sue our would-be buyer for damages caused by his flakiness. Part of me wonders if that is bad karma. But at the same time the simple fact stands that his flakiness has demonstrably cost us more than $12,000 so far as we've turned away eager buyers only to now have to drop the price to entice buyers to return.... So viewed another way it may be that we're simply agents for that person's karma coming around again. Time will tell.

In the meantime, I can only hope this post didn't come across too much as angry or complaining. And in that respect I'll relate soon how very confident I feel that eating that first frog--the actual move out of the city--was the tastiest thing we could have done.

NY Times Goes on the Defensive About 9/11

The "Mouthpiece of Empire" goes on the defensive about 9/11...so expect the usual biased framework and pretense to authority.

"Faced with an angry minority of people who believe the Sept. 11 attacks were part of a shadowy and sprawling plot run by Americans, separate reports were published this week by the State Department and a federal science agency insisting that the catastrophes were caused by hijackers who used commercial airliners as weapons."

The article proceeds with a rather half-hearted attack on the "demolition theory", since it's precisely this theory which has risen to the top of a wide heap of theories to make converts among even the more respectable segments of society who wouldn't normally sully themselves with such things.

Personally I don't think I'm going to even reference the NY Times much going forward. I'm realizing that I only do so anymore because it's become a kind of thermometer showing how poorly the "Matrix" is holding up under the ever-increasing heat of a world "awakening from the American Dream".

But look. I don't know what really happened on 9-11-2001 anymore than Jim Dwyer at the NY Times does, but unlike Dwyer I also don't pretend that I do. Still though, when a third or more of our nation's citizens (and vastly larger numbers outside the U.S.) believe there are serious doubts regarding the "official story", and when those numbers are quickly growing both outward and upward, then I think the wisest course of action might not be to continue to disrespect and discredit those people. The wisest course of action would also not be to offer a closely-structured debate about the "conspiracy theory" in the NY Times. No, perhaps a much wiser course of action might be to ensure that those questions receive a legitimate and dedicated open public inquiry with full disclosure of the evidence and details--so that at least the most serious and vocal of those proponents emerge satisfied with the explanation.

And to this day that has never happened. To this day the only investigation has been by a closed-doors commission of "insiders" for an administration that stands accused of having benefited from the WTC tragedy.

Now the NY Times chooses to continually frame these people in derogatory terms. Well, so be it. If I had a choice between investing in the NY Times or in "Weblogs of the World, Inc." I know precisely where my money would go.... But at the root of all this is not a question of whether the government was complicit in the events of 9/11 or not. What's at bottom, as they say, is the simple fact that ever-growing numbers of people no longer respect or even trust the federal government, no longer respect or even trust that a Constitutional "balance of powers" is operative, no longer respect or even trust that the NY Times and countless other social institutions are working for their best interests. It's this that I'd wager the Times is trying to stave-off. Now to those who've suspected this for a long time it might seem a trivial observation, but as I've often point out my tenure in the financial markets has taught me a crucial lesson: that the most successful approach is to simply try to watch what is actually happening in the world, and to let what is actually happening take precedence over "what I would like to see happen".

And to notice the 9/11 Truth Movement getting a second wind so many years later--long after even Michael Ruppert had called it a "dead horse" that would yield no new results--this to my mind is a dangerous sign. The ideology that is "America" is practically devoid of friends from without, and now appears to be fast losing friends from within as well. A year or more ago I related that despite a lot of revolutionary "talk" I didn't really see any evidence that America was actually headed toward revolution...but I'm now starting to sense conditions becoming more ripe. And one of the signs is how "conspiracy theories" continue to flourish and to gain adherents everywhere we look. Because for all the increasing attempts to discredit them, they nevertheless continue to be solid rallying points for the growing number of people who have lost their respect and trust for American government.

Indeed, if the current situation in Mexico has shown us anything at all, it's what can happen when a crowd of citizens demanding answers to a "conspiracy theory" gets ignored for too long.

[And as an addendum (and with kudos to michaelrunge), if you want more evidence that the public is approaching a dangerous degree of disillusionment with the people in power you'll definitely want to check out this 5-minute George Carlin video (give Carlin a couple minutes to kick into gear).

"Good honest hard-working people--these are people of modest means...continue to elect these rich cock-suckers who don't give a fuck about them. They don't give a fuck about you. They don't give a fuck about you. They don't care about you. At all. At all. At all."

Whatever your personal opinion of the direction Carlin has taken over the years, the audience reaction is telling indeed.]

Back in the Saddle...

...and I'll be updating soon on how the move went soon. But in the meantime, as Garrett Morris used to scream out the "news for the hard of hearing": "THE TOP STORY TONIGHT!"

And it has to be screamed out to get through all the white noise you'll find on the mainstream media, which is so overtly and conspicuously ignoring this story that it's probably grounds for legal action...."dereliction of duty" or some such, anyway.... And while granted they're not altogether ignoring it, still this is a story that should be headlining every paper and newscast this morning:

Mexican Lawmakers Sieze Congress by Force

"Dozens of opposition lawmakers took control of Congress Friday night — minutes before President Vicente Fox was deliver a major address — and refused to leave until heavy security surrounding the Congress was removed.

The lawmakers ignored demands that they return to their seats, shouting "Vote by Vote" and demanding that the country's top electoral court order a full recount in the July 2 race."

This wasn't a riotous public assembly, mind you....this is a revolt of Mexican public officials. This is a breakdown in the fundamental structure of government! And not in Italy or anywhere that people are used to this kind of thing--it's happening right here in the good ol' soon-to-be United Nations of North America.

Actually, the public assembly itself--which stood arrayed (far) outside the capitol by the thousands--rather sensibly stood its ground:

"...Earlier, riot police, attack dogs and towering steel barriers were used to seal off the Congress for several miles in every direction.

Many feared the deepening political turmoil over the July 2 election to replace Fox could explode into violence, but leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called on his supporters to peacefully gather in Mexico City's Zocalo plaza, instead of marching on Congress.

"We aren't going to fall into any trap," he told tens of thousands who waited in a driving rain to hear him speak.

...Fearing violent protests, authorities surrounded Congress for up to 10 blocks with multiple layers of steel barriers; attack dogs in cages, ready to be released; water cannons; and riot police in full protective gear. Entire neighborhoods were sealed off, preventing some of the city's sprawling markets from opening, and nearby subway stations were shut down."

Now it not all that interesting to note how leftish-leaning Americans will want to frame this story according to their own desires for political revolt against the NeoCon administration, but if you ask me that's less fruitful than spitting into the wind. But nonetheless it's important to remember that fundamental law of socio-political organizations which says that instability tends to spread.

And here's an interesting tidbit buried at the bottom of the article:

...The standoff comes six days before the top electoral court must declare a president-elect or annul the July 2 vote and order a new election. "

So a revolution is underway on our border, but as yet we're still being led by the nose to believe that it's far more important that we struggle to have an opinion about whether Pluto will continue to be called a planet or not.

Some day, long hence, some writer will sum up the mounting surrealism of our cultural-in-collapse so poignantly that it will become de facto for schoolchildren down the generations to read about us and laugh at how ignorant and naive people used to be in the olden times...you know, before "modern" culture came along and made everybody all smart and superior and stuff...