This is an “overflow” page from prior Tips pages as they had gotten so large it was taking a long time to load. Same idea, just a new set of space to put pointers to things of interest. The most immediately preceding page is: https://chiefio.wordpress.com/t9/.
I’ve added a generic “T” parent page where older copies of the various “Tips” pages can be found archived.
While I’m mostly interested in things having to do with:
Making money, usually via trading
Weather and climate
Quakes, Volcanoes, and other Earth Sciences
Current economic and political events
(often as those last three have impact on the first one…)
And just about any ‘way cool’ interesting science or technology
If something else is interesting you put a “tip” here.
You can also look at the list of “Categories” on the right hand side and get an idea of any other broad area of interest.
This ought not to be seen as a “limit” on what is “interesting”, more as a “focus list” with other things that are interesting being fair game as well.
Musings from the Chiefio 
@E.M.: It was the same chem set!, my father bought it from the first apartment store to appear in the 50´s (1950), the chem set was from the US, and in order to read the booklet I had to begin translating it with the help of an english-spanish dictionary, and, because of that, is that now I am writing you in english language (sort of… :-) )
@E.M.: And about those sea currents (and its relation with the GMF): It would be welcomed a post from M.Vukcevic. Something is happening with the then called South Atlantic Anomaly, which now covers a big part of south america, extending from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to the peruvian coasts and beyond…
There is no data available on the web after 2010.0 (perhaps you could hack it out….)
Gillard is in serious trouble. Her party has been absolutely thrashed in every state election since she instituted the very carbon tax she promised not to institute. There are elections scheduled in March in W.A. I think.
By announcing early she has basically kicked off campaign season early. This puts her allies in a position of having to come out in public support and forces the opposition to have to campaign. This gives the opposition a chance to put their foot in their mouths, or more likely, gives the ABC a chance to spin their rhetoric to mean the opposite much like our media in the US does with Republicans. If she can force the ALP to make statements early, it gives the media there a chance to grind the statements up and spin them favorably for Gillard. If they remain silent, they run the risk of Labor getting out in front with early statements.
If you have a propaganda organ that is on your side, you are better off starting the campaign as early as possible. She has nothing to lose.
I’ve started writing “The Temperature Problem” (c) here:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/ttwt/
I intend it to ‘pull together’ over a period of time, so if you have ideas you would like to contribute ( i.e. free and if I ever publish the thing I don’t have to chase everyone down and get releases or pay royalties.) feel free to post them in a comment there. It may be a ‘pipe dream’ or it may turn into something of merit.
In any case, it looks like ‘something that needs doing’ to lay out all the things wrong with using temperatures and with the temperatures themselves in one easy read place. We’ll see how long it takes me ;-)
I expect the end stage to be an online PDF booklet that folks can download / read and hopefully maybe even pay for. (Initially it will be a Tip Jar item only. Maybe someday something more formal).
http://johnbatchelorshow.com/podcasts/2013/01/30/fourth-hour
The end of the “hour” (it’s actually 40 minutes, but 1 hr air time with commercials, this podcast is sans commercials) but the entire hour is good:
“Wednesday 30 Jan 2013 / Hour 4, Block D: Chris Drew, NYT, in re: Boeing was aware of battery problems before the fires. Even before two battery failures led to the grounding of all Boeing 787 jets this month, the lithium-ion batteries used on the aircraft had experienced multiple problems that raised questions about their reliability”
No one has mentioned the first hurricane/cyclone of the year…
http://www.sailwx.info/hurricanes/stormreport.phtml?stormnum=798
And did you notice the position of the moon during the last earthquake in chile Wednesday?
Lightshow –
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/four-volcanoes-erupting-concurrently-on-kamchatka-peninsula-a-880777.html
@Chuckles:
Neat video!
FWIW, if my “Lunar Tidal” theory (just recently gelled) is correct, as we are leaving a lunar minimum of force, we will be getting ever more of several things, all tidal related. After 50 year or so of specifically decreasing ‘trigger forces’, we’ve had opportunities for lava and crust stresses to slowly build up. Now that the ‘flexing’ and ‘tidal bulge’ forces are going up; we ought to get more volcanoes, and more faults letting go with big quakes. Oh, and colder weather too ;-)
All from the same cyclical shift of lunar tidal forces.
@Sera:
No, I missed it. (Busy at L.A. and then with meds…) So where was the moon when it went? (Looks like a 6.8? )
Perigee right over head ought to be the strongest. Especially on the new / full moon windows.
@Crosspatch:
Saw one report that one carrier “had changed the batteries several times prior to the failure”…. Not very promising when you swap them a lot and they still blow up on you.
Is it just me, or does it just seem like hubris to have ignored the (well publicized) history of flaming laptops, flaming cell phones, leaking batteries, and ‘battery a year’ laptop batteries?
(Personally, I’d have gone with a fuel cell… pretty damn reliable, and alcohol is very available. Weight pretty light too. Assuming they didn’t just want a small APU turbine on board…)
The Saphire project:
Global warming endangering wolverines:
http://news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-feds-warming-imperils-wolverines-134916931.html
Wolverines expanding in number and range:
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020260612_wolverinereturnxml.html
These people have no idea what the hell they are talking about. They simply take some bit of information and spin it however they need to in order to validate their world view. They can’t even keep their propaganda straight.
The moon doesn’t affect the Ocean now, it’s the Ozone hole, didn’t you know!!! lol
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/02/01/3680514.htm
Invitation to join a web presentation tomorrow:
Every closed loop path, however complex, can be characterized in terms of a parameter running from 0 to 2 Pi. Thus, the three coordinates (x,y,z) describing a path are themselves periodic signals of the same parameter, and may therefore be broken into Fourier components. We can then recombine the coordinates (x,y,z) of each harmonic component, and obtain a series of closed loops which together reconstruct the original loop. This paper will show that each of these loops is in fact an ellipse, meaning that any closed loop path can ultimately be broken into a series of ellipses, completing their circuits in multiples of the original parameter.
Interestingly, this concept could be applied to knot theory, since the invariant information about a given
knot is necessarily contained in the relative orientations of the ellipses comprising the Fourier series. It could be used as a tool for modeling electromagnetic structures that may exhibit the properties of elementary particles, and for designing a desired force characteristic, created by the actual geometry of a coil winding. One particular force this method of analysis could generate is the ?chiral force?, wherein repulsion or attraction between adjacent coils depends only on their relative handedness or helicity.
http://www.worldnpa.org/site/event/?eventid=599
It begins at 7 AM. I know that is late notice but spontaneous stuff is fun too.
@ EM:
The moon passed over Chile (relatively speaking) around 2:30 am local, and was certainly west by the time the earthquake hit at 4:15pm. I don’t understand why perigee would be the strongest position- If you were trying to rip apart a piece of paper, that already had a rip in it, would it not be easier to do this from the side, rather than above? Then again, astronomy is my strong point (Sera), and geology is my weak. And my calcs might be a little off- I’m not used to looking at stuff from the Southern Hemispheric perspective.
Edit: “I don’t understand why perigee OVERHEAD would be the strongest”.
Mars nuclear ship
http://news.discovery.com/space/private-spaceflight/icarus-interstellar-nerva-nuclear-fission-propulsion-space-exploration-130130.htm
with Li-ion batteries in the news a little bell went off in my head…recently I have had to go to a 100% manual wind up watch. Call me what you will but in the last year I have gone through 3 watches (electronic). Never had a problem before, had a digital watch for years and only discarded because I smashed it by accident. Now all of the sudden I am having problems, had a Seiko (analog face digital date) worked fine for about 3 months then the date started blinking in and out followed by a hard crash. Sent it back..still under warranty..they changed the battery and it was working fine. 3 weeks later same thing, so this time they just gave me a new watch (let me keep the old one which I gave to my bro-in-law who changed the battery and no problem since). 3 months or so later same thing, changed the battery, same results. So I said screw Seiko and bought a Force. Groundhog day. All 3 watches work fine on someone else.
Since then I have run into 3 other people (not looking, just by chance when caught winding my watch) with a similar situation. Now I am not sure what could have happened to my chemistry to cause something like this. It makes no sense at all to me…but it is what it is…at first I was thinking the batteries were nicad and couldn’t be related, but then I checked, lo and behold, they are Li-ion.
I wish I had my old watch to see what kind of battery it had…I guess it would be almost 10 years ago I bought it.
Not going back to an electronic watch to find out if another type of battery makes a difference, unless someone else wants to front the money. I like my wind up and I will still be able to tell time after a massive EMP.
Anyone else out there have a similar experience?
@Zeke: X,Y,Z….wouldn´t it be simpler to see octaves developing in space, like Birkeland´s currents, as CME´s?. We should know the laws instead of groping in the dark, seeking correlations with mathematical models. Nature is basically simple.
@Sera:
I could make a case for both ‘overhead’ and ‘off to the side’. Don’t know that there is ONE answer yet. For ‘overhead’ the uplift stretches the whole surface. (Think ‘balloon inflating’) While for ‘sideways’ think ‘tearing cloth’. My mention of perigee was just that THAT is when the gravity force is greatest (nearest). As it travels from side / overhead / other side as we rotate under the perigee moon, I think it’s the “close” that is more important than the moment of ‘directly overhead’. Basically, you get all three force paradigms anyway…
@Ralph B:
I’ve known other folks with the same problem. The person has some effect on the watch.
For me, I can’t stand jewelry. Any kind of metal contact, after a while is driving me nuts. Gave up wearing a watch in high school after having a half dozen of them break or just stop working… Dad didn’t do well with watches either.
Shock News – The Sun affects earth! http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/01/report-show-un-admitting-solar-activity-may-play-significant-role-in-global/
Oh noooooooooo Planting Trees is GREEN what a surprise better then windmills !!! http://joannenova.com.au/2013/02/do-forests-drive-wind-and-bring-rain-is-there-a-major-man-made-climate-driver-the-models-miss/
Planting trees is the way to go not CARBON TAX. If you look when most of the trees were cut it accelerated around the 1850s worldwide. Why it started to cool after the 1930s again. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=386315681465577&set=a.152651198165361.32995.152483204848827&type=1&theater
http://www.space.com/19537-venus-comet-atmosphere.html
Venus acts like a “Comet”
NASA didn’t tell the truth before http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2271525/It-better-die-unexpectedly-Columbia-Shuttle-Crew-Not-Told-Possible-Problem-With-Reentry.html#ixzz2JmjNdrU6
@E.M.: I just knew what the “malediction of the Celts” was: Rosacea, a skin redness and irritation, characteristic of the Celts and their descendants. My wife has it.
Australia $23.00 Ton
NZ $0.14 Ton
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/8252659/Carbon-credit-price-meltdown
This plane is finished I think?? Boeing Shareprice could crash soon, how low will it go? $20??? http://gizmodo.com/airplanes/
http://earth-of-fire.over-blog.com/pages/Relations_between_phytoplankton_and_volcanic_eruptions–8534231.html
Volcanoes and Plankton
Great Quake of S.F. on April 18, 1906 had the moon passing overhead about 12/13 hrs before the earthquake struck- kinda like the one in Chile. But the two quakes that happened in Italy last year (May 20th and 29th) both had the moon directly overhead.
OK, I’m lost.
You are being advised to cower under your desk and grab a pair of scissors. How sad.
E.M.
Seen this? Gets a mention at TAV.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/02/do-forests-drive-wind-and-bring-rain-is-there-a-major-man-made-climate-driver-the-models-miss/
My comment would be, as one with an abnormal amount of government decreed sacred weeds, we should not have the current severe lack of rainfall. /sarc off.
I’ll also add that, from vehicle temperature gauges, I have learned that the vehicle tells you that it runs cooler in open plains than in forested areas. Obviously the wind hasn’t changed but is boundary layering above the trees
Sera says:
3 February 2013 at 6:37 am
“You are being advised to cower under your desk and grab a pair of scissors. How sad.”
Could even work if you get a 500 Lumen tactical LED flashlight as well. Blind the attacker, runu towards him and poke the scissor in his eyes. THAT would have made a good instructional video.
Ralph B says:
2 February 2013 at 7:24 am
“Now all of the sudden I am having problems, ”
Maybe you are more electrostatically charged than earlier. Did you change to different, more electrically insulating shoes? Are you wearing fleece or other cloths that contain a large amount of plastic?
Just guessing.
Me, wear fleece? Not likely…I’m not very dapper. I wear cotton almost all the time but I am a known zapper (have been all my life, my wife knows full well to grab me first before kissing). Haven’t had a new pair of shoes in a long time…nothing changed there that is why I am at a loss. It really doesn’t make sense, the watch should be at the same potential as me. I don’t recall zapping any watch (I take off at night and don in the AM after showering. I am wondering though when Li-ion batteries started being used in watches. Maybe they are more static sensitive…could be that is why the 787 is having issues and they are missing some sort of static caused anomaly.
@DirkH: So E.M. is overcharged? Kind of the lithium cells in Boeing airplanes…Better if he wears a ground line… :-)
No jokes: We should need, once in a while, to walk barefooted on our gardens; it improves health.
Adolfo is correct, Bare foot walking in living soil is Delicious for the soul. Kind of nice on the feet too. ;-) pg
In the end, the pair found that cold plasma makes up between 50 and 70 percent of all charged particles within the farther reaches of Earth’s magnetic field. André says it’s now time to start updating space-weather models to take the extra cold plasma into account—at this point, for instance, nothing is known about how the plasma might affect solar storms. This influence is “not a minor thing in space weather,” André said. “It’s an elephant in the room.” –
http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/giant-veil-of-cold-plasma-discovered-high-above-earth/
http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/123962/Do_You_Want_To_Live_Forever__Documentary/ Living forever
Better version http://youtu.be/JtHgIJ6kalk
@ Ralph and E.M. “The person has some effect on the watch. For me, I can’t stand jewelry. Any kind of metal contact, after a while is driving me nuts. ”
Yup, my wife has the same problem. Watches stop. Metallic jewelry feels odd on her skin and makes a ringing sound in her ears. Interestingly, titanium seems to be OK with her — we got titanium wedding rings because of that. She was struck by lightning as a teenager and thinks that may be connected with her condition.
@sabretoothed: What about “solid” matter, as seen in light years instead of centimeters?, And the “double layer” of our skin?, etc.,etc. Relativity (i.e.:Relation to a set of parameters) indicates that, and do not forget “dimension” it is precisely that: Dimension.
Please click my name and read about it.
@Jason:
Spouse can only wear titanium now. No lightning involved…
@P.G.:
Yes, but don’t do it in the tropics… or a tropical forest…
There are a bunch of tropical parasites and worms that enter through bare feet and ‘do lunch’ on your innards… it’s a long list of diseases. So in the topics, where shoes.
(As I’m mostly barefoot most of the time, that really bothered me when I first found out what all lives in the tropics… )
@Sera:
Moon going over head starts applying force. Sometimes not enough so nothing happens. Other times, it reaches “enough” at overhead. Sometimes only being pulled on a few hours longer is “enough” so moon is past overhead…
Per Govt Advice: “Never bring a scissors to a gun fight.” …. (Though realistically, I’d use any advantage I could find… but a .45 ACP would be preferred…)
@Another Ian:
I’ll take a look. Out here, ‘plains’ are warmer than trees. Then again, our trees tend to be irrigated orchards. On a summer evening on a motorcycle, the orchard patches can be quite cool while the open areas are too warm…
@Adolfo:
Tetracycline extended use and the rosacea can be banished for a few years. Have to take it for ‘a while’ after the rash fades to assure no resprouting from spores…
@Dirk H & Ralph B:
My degree of ‘static’ varies more with the humidity than anything I change. Then again, my clothing changes style about once every 30 years ;-)
And the long knives come out in Australian politics:
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/02/wipeout-poll-labor-down-6-percent-polls-swinging-wildly/
http://www.news.com.au/national/pm-accuses-mps-of-trying-to-destroy-govt/story-fncynjr2-1226570172009
@Crosspatch:
well, maybe Australia can lead us out of the cold and dark… looks like they are hitting that “Aw Shit” wall first, and getting ready for a ‘Run Away!!!’ moment…
I wonder what the minimum economic scale of coal to liquids might be… Australia has a lot of coal, and, IIRC, expensive gasoline…
@E.M.: Thanks for your recipe to cure that “Celtic malediction”.
@Adolfo:
You are welcome. It is H. Pylori (yes, the same bug that causes ulcers). Any antibiotics that “do it in” will work – but realize that the buggers are stubborn and the eradication takes longer than simple symptom relief.
Initially a recurrence rate may be high ( as in less than 6 months) but with repeated treatment it turns into years. For me, last round was several years ago now. I suspect that initially there are spores in the ‘environment’ (like that old favorite coat collar…) and it takes time for them all to die out too…
http://h-pylori-symptoms.com/resources-2/articles/h-pylori-is-associated-with-rosacea/
They go on to list some other possibles, along with asserting that there are cases without H. Pylori. All of which is fine, except, tetracycline does in a lot of the other bugs too…
So my first approach would be a long course of prophylactic tetracycline (mostly because they hand it out like candy at the skin doctor …) and see where you stand.
Add in an elevated level of antioxidants for good measure (Vit-C & E and some omega-3 oils) and things ought to be fixed pretty quickly. IFF that doesn’t do it, then start looking at all the other possibles.
All I can really say is it worked for me. (It was the dermatologist who started me on tetracycline, so not my idea.)
@E.M.: Thanks again!
Within and without the enclosures are dozens of standing monoliths, but many more lie scattered about. The entire complex comprises an estimated 3,703,700 black, andesite blocks ranging from one to two metres in length, and formed by geological processes into polygonal structures of five-, six- or eight-sided columns. (Andesite is an extrusive, igneous rock, a type of basalt formed by volcanic action.) Average dimensions for the columns are 0.3-by-0.3-by-1.5 metres. These smooth-sided blocks weigh from ninety to six hundred kilograms, with an average, individual weight of about three hundred kilograms. In other words, the site’s prehistoric workers transported approximately 1,111,110,000 kilograms (1,224,790 short tons) of building materials 885 metres above sea level, up the precipitous slopes of Mount Padang. Added to their burden was a non-local source for their andesite, which had to be brought in from some distant quarry unknown to academic scholars.”
http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/mankinds-cradle-of-civilisation-found-in-java
http://youtu.be/CO-piXii00A NASA (Aeronautics and Space) Talking about Ice. This is simply unbelievable this talk. Funny how in 2007 they said the Arctic would be ice free by 2013 and now they are saying this in 100 years instead and saying that the arctic will be smaller in 100 years? WTF???? It’s funny that now, you or me can do exactly what NASA can do, go to the arctic or fly over it….
Short Argentina. NOW. Short the whole damned country. It’s in the handbasket and not far from hell. Supreme populist rookie economics mistake that NEVER works and simply drives the country over the cliff. Looks to me like Kirchner’s days are numbered in that government:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-04/argentina-freezes-supermarket-prices-halt-soaring-inflation-chaos-follow
Funny. Let me see if this works.
Find more videos like this on Vidders
Ok, that didn’t work. Try this
http://starcrossedgirl.livejournal.com/290985.html?mode=reply
Why the government can’t give away money: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-04/why-giving-money-away-costs-more-you-think
No El Nino and a hot Janurary … ocean cooling anyone? Could be a precursor to a jump down in global temps.
“Due to the rather large 1-month increase in the temperature anomaly, I double checked the computations, and found that multiple satellites (NOAA-15, NOAA-18, and Aqua) all saw approximately equal levels of warming versus a year ago (January, 2012), so for now I’m accepting the results as real. The most common cause of such warm spikes (when there is no El Nino to blame) is a temporary increase in convective heat transfer from the ocean to the atmosphere. This would suggest that the global average sea surface temperature anomaly might have actually cooled in January, but I have not checked to see if that is the case.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/02/uah-global-temperature-update-for-january-2012-0-51-deg-c/
TSI steadily declining at a rate of nearly 1w per annum.
Found via WUWT.
How many watts do we need to lose before we get to glaciation kick off point ?
Kid builds fusion reactor that works in his fathers’ garage:
http://main.aol.com/2013/02/04/conrad-farnsworth-builds-nuclear-fusion-reactor-garage_n_2617869.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000058?test=latestnews&ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000058
Blows up snowmen for fun! and is not yet in jail. Is there hope for the world? ;-)
Rewards for rent seeking. California gives away $2 million to each bidder for its high speed rail project just for bidding.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/02/losing-ca-high-speed-rail-bidders-get-2-million-payout-from-state/
8.0 quake Solomon Islands
@Crosspatch: OK, taking a look…
@Crosspatch: So I ought to bid?
@P.G.Sharrow:
Oh, that’s just too much ;-) (One hope it works…)
@J Martin:
IIRC it’s about 10 W.
We’re at 428 W and it’s pretty much over at 416 W. So 12 MAX.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/annoying-lead-time-graph/
Once the tip gets rolling, it doesn’t stop… we are too low for that now. We are into the ‘stable in cold’ range…
@Jim2:
Air is warm as the ocean is dumping heat fast…
Oh remember Sandy Hooks man http://radaronline.com/exclusives/2008/10/anderson-coopers-cia-secret-php/ Anderson Cooper has long traded on his biography, carving a niche for himself as the most human of news anchors. But there’s one aspect of his past that the silver-haired CNN star has never made public: the months he spent training for a career with the Central Intelligence Agency.
Following his sophomore and junior years at Yale—a well-known recruiting ground for the CIA—Cooper spent his summers interning at the agency’s monolithic headquarters in Langley, Virginia, in a program for students interested in intelligence work. His involvement with the agency ended there, and he chose not to pursue a job with the agency after graduation, according to a CNN spokeswoman, who confirmed details of Cooper’s CIA involvement to Radar.
@E.M. : Remember that warm current? still going up! and faithfully following the new contours of the GMF:
It started at the Solomon islands…
http://www.michaelmandeville.com/vortectonics/vortex_correlations2.htm Cycle stuff
Volcanoes produced CO2 in the past, but not today??? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130207115014.htm
Just announced by Reuters, on tests of device that topically treats headaches/migraines with electronic stimulation:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/07/bc-cefaly-migraine-treat-idUSnPn2073643+100+PRN20130207
Of interest to me as my lady and her sister are chronic sufferers of migraine for over 60 years.
http://www.cefaly.ca/
For company propaganda and nice pictures. :-) Canadian outlet/ sales. None in US. pg
@P.G.Sharrow:
The Kid had rather bad migraines. “Excedrin” (i.e. with caffeine) helped. But there is a drug, Imitrex? that pretty much cured him:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=imitrex%20migraine&kp=-1
At first it just dampened them, then, over time, they continued to decline to nothing. Now he doesn’t need it any more. Works for Sister In Law as well, IIRC (though she is not at zero yet, just much better).
Frankly, I’d try anything if I had one ( I can barely stand the regular kind of headache when I get one… that is thankfully rare.) As I understand it, the “problem” is over dilation of the scalp blood vessels, so anything that ‘tightens them up’ can be helpful. I’d also expect that “over breathing” as it lowers blood pressure might reduce the distension too. (That is why caffeine helps, it causes the blood vessels to tighten up. Kid developed a fondness for espresso once he discovered it was helpful ;-)
@Adolfo & Sabertoothed:
Interesting… so much to follow up, so little time…
An interesting story I just came across, it looks like the US has so much natural gas it can’t sell it, yet prices to customers are probably still much the same.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2269517/The-picture-space-shows-U-S-oil-field-burning-gas-power-Chicago-AND-Washington-cheaper-selling-it.html
@Simon:
The idea I liked the most was the comment that suggest plopping down natural gas fired generators and at least sending the electricity out. Probably a whole lot easier to string some wire to the nearest grid point than to lay new pipelines…
I believe the Obama administration is doing whatever it can at every level in every area to actively sabotage the United States of America. This is worse than incompetent.
http://enenews.com/report-former-manager-at-target-to-oversee-u-s-nuclear-security-we-sold-more-of-our-1-99-towels-than-we-expected-video
Actual article here: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/former-target-manager-nuclear-security-oak-ridge
@E.M.: Still climbing up:
Another LENR hopeful,
http://world.std.com/~mica/nanortechnology.htm
Interesting graph on the page, energy production of a dummy vs. the secret sauce.
@E.M.: The first consequences of that warm current: It has rained 42 mm. of rain on the Atacama desert in Chile (the “driest” desert of the world…)
http://www.latercera.com/noticia/nacional/2013/02/680-508005-9-mal-tiempo-en-san-pedro-de-atacama-deja-156-personas-damnificadas-y-onemi.shtml
Dr. Benjamin Carson gave a very interesting talk at the National Prayer Breakfast yesterday with President Obama in attendance. If you don’t want to watch the entire thing (but I think the whole thing is very much worth watching) you can skip to the 18 minute mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFb6NU1giRA
http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2013/violent-nabro-eruption-shown-to-pierce-stratosphere
Eritrea volcano went much higher then expected, guess it did something to the weather ;)
http://rt.com/news/north-korea-nuclear-volcano-757/
Volcanoes being activated by Nuke test lol?
@Adolfo:
So how long until the “Salt Drinking Lake” is wet again? ;-)
@DrikH:
Of all the interesting bits, that MIT is getting results and talking about it is one of the most important. IMHO. We don’t see anyone saying that are screwballs or frauds…
@Crosspatch:
Interesting because?… (Yes, I’ll watch it eventually, but videos take a lot of time, so get low priority without some kind of idea ‘why’…)
OH, and reaching back up thread a bit further: What? You have a problem with a towel salesman running nuclear security? “Clean up on aisle 7” and he’s good to go! ;-)
@E.M.: So you have remembered the Miguel Gonzales´paper “Salinas del Bebedero”:
Click to access salinas_bebedero.pdf
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1008016821250
He demonstrated that during every Solar Minimum it replenished with water, at the same time that the surrounding argentinian “Pampas” (plains where it is located) suffer of drought ; the salt basin is filled with water coming from the near andes, during these minima.
@Adolfo:
If anything is remotely interesting, I tend to remember it forever. ( I still clearly remember the first time I ever climbed stairs, at about 3 years old, or learned to run – summer about the same age)
So I’ll be remembering Salinas del Bebedero for decades to come… I’ll be watching / waiting for your news that the waters have started flowing there again… and that will be the trigger to put up an article about it (ref. you ;-)
FWIW, I have an “ill formed thesis” that when it gets wet, California will have a drought. I know, I could look up the historical dates and all and … well, that’s work ;-) So I’m just doing a ‘wait and see’. We tend to lots of rain and snow at the start of a cold cycle (50s) and then drought at the end ( mid ’70s) so expect it might need timing to the decade to get the ‘inverse match’ clear…
Interesting because he proposes interesting solutions to problems. He came from an absolutely impoverished family raised by a mother who could not even read. He is now possibly the world’s best pediatric neurosurgeon. He proposes a better (in my opinion) solution to health care and even to economics. Maybe reading this might help: http://ifawebnews.com/2013/02/07/ben-carson-cites-alternative-to-obamacare-at-national-prayer-breakfast/ but he talks about more than just health care. He talks about how government trying to make taxation “fair” does nothing of the sort.
Good intentions, unintended consequences. Removing unused rigs in the Gulf of Mexico killing fish and destroying their habitat.
http://www.local15tv.com/news/local/story/Explosive-Fed-Mandate-Killing-Thousands-of-Red/xj8T4zPamkOGc8fuT40W_Q.cspx
this seemed astonishing:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-a-demographic-shift-in-the-muslim-world/2013/02/08/54ce7bf0-7152-11e2-ac36-3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.html
@E.M. Warm waters have finally deviated to the northwest (following magnetic field declination lines http://ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/WMM/data/WMM2010/WMM2010_D_MERC.pdf ):
35 Ancient Pyramids Discovered in Sudan Necropolis –
At least 35 small pyramids, along with graves, have been discovered clustered closely together at a site called Sedeinga in Sudan.
Discovered between 2009 and 2012, researchers are surprised at how densely the pyramids are concentrated. In one field season alone, in 2011, the research team discovered 13 pyramids packed into roughly 5,381 square feet (500 square meters), or slightly larger than an NBA basketball court.
They date back around 2,000 years to a time when a kingdom named Kush flourished in Sudan. Kush shared a border with Egypt and, later on, the Roman Empire. The desire of the kingdom’s people to build pyramids was apparently influenced by Egyptian funerary architecture.
http://www.livescience.com/26903-35-ancient-pyramids-sudan.html
Several other places have picked this one up.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-genetically-virus-cancer.html#jCp Cancer virus
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1000-023
Do you think the Kamchatka and Alaskan volcanoes cause the global cooling periods, you can see the drop 7600 from the Holocene Climatic optimum when Kurile Lake was formed. When Tambora happened it wasn’t as bad, probably only the high latitude ones do the trick?
Still going on and up : Warm vs. cold:
Rains at 500 km. south where I live. And snow falling on the Andes (Ahhrgg, that will restore glaciers Al Baby said they would totally disappear! )
@Adolfo:
Saw on Al Jazeera last night a story about flooding in Peru. Looked like some places got hit pretty bad…
On glaciers: I’ve been expecting this. The shorter “atmospheric height” from less UV means the peaks of mountains are essentially ‘higher up’ in terms of weather. We ought to see more snow on mountains world wide…
@J. Ferguson:
Not astonishing in the wealthy Arab states ( to be expected…). But very astonishing in the more poor places. Looks like modern communications is moving countries ‘culturally’ to a rich educated set of behaviours even a bit before they are completely rich and all educated…
Perhaps that “internet thingy” is letting folks get a wider world view without much wealth… just the odd home PC or internet cafe…
@Crosspatch:
Destroying so much ‘artificial reef’ and killing so much life. Sigh… Just evil.
@Sabertoothed:
Nope. Volcanoes are short term events. The Holocene broad profile is caused by changes of orbital circularity and planetary tilt. ( Milnankovich) Intermediate cycles are driven by lunar tidal processes (as detailed here in many articles https://chiefio.wordpress.com/?s=lunar+tide )
There is some volcanic cycling as well, but it too tracks lunar tides, so the same ‘root cause’.
That cancer and virus story is interesting. One virus kills it, but in the side bar was another virus causing it… I guess details matter ;-)
@Ian W:
Kush was an interesting place. For one bit of time, they dominated Egypt. Not surprised to find pyramids there. Is strange to have so many small ones.
“it’s very possible that the North Koreans are testing for two countries.”
Looks like Iran possibly performed a nuclear test in North Korea today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-test.html
According to Batchelor, this may be the weapon that gets mass produced.
http://ec.libsyn.com/p/1/1/2/1120b939121524da/JBS_2013_02_11b.mp3?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d01ce8731d5c15555d1&c_id=5394053
Above link is audio.
Sun and Gamma ray – cloud maker?
http://www.thegwpf.org/study-swiss-alps-cooling-2000/
Alps cooling
E.M.
Re: possibly global fecundity easing.
I think your comments have it. On our trip down the Mekong to Luang Prabang a year ago, we found villages with an interesting mix of subsistence economies but also gensets fueled by river delivered gasoline, Satellite dishes (big ones), community TV’s and occasional cell service – came and went as we went from Chiang Kahn, Thailand the two days it took to get to Luang Prabang.
My suspicion is that the global percentage of the population “plugged in” as it were is rising rapidly. We saw the same thing in Cambodia – roadside internet cafe’s – dirt floors, little weather protection, but wi-fi service, beer, and tasty food. The locals are adopting the accessible practices of the more “advanced” world – and clearly expect their fewer children to live in a better world.
I feel that we are at the dawn of what will be a truly golden age.
@J ferguson we are at the dawn of what will be a truly golden age…..and that Roman Empire with all its rotten paradigms and its crumbling institutions is about to collapse.
The old way of central control of information, political thought and communication is ending. Everyone in the world can communicate with every other one. All information is becoming available to all.
“The new age will begin with a net that covers the world” Hopi Indian prophesy
The Educated Elite is no longer required to manage the affairs of men. 5,000 years of central control of Empire is obsolete. We Don’t Need Them.
“The last pontiff of Rome will be a Roman”. The last vestige of the Roman Empire is the papacy of Rome. Will the Cardinals chose a Roman this time? They know the prophesy. That string is nearly finished. pg
@P.G.: “In the extreme persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit [i.e., as bishop].
Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations:
and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed,
and the terrible judge will judge his people.
The End.”
And also the “Club of Rome”…..etc.
Looks like the pesky UN is looking for more rent …
I’m sure this global collection of nut cases can solve the “space weather” problem. Well, they did solve the “where do we get champagne and caviar” problem. I’m bettin’ they’ve shot their wad.
“A key problem that the UN can help solve is a gap–many gaps, actually–in storm coverage around our planet. When a solar storm sweeps past Earth, waves of ionization ripple through Earth’s upper atmosphere, electric currents flow through the topsoil, and the whole planet’s magnetic field begins to shake. ”
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/13feb_copuos/
Israel: Car is parked in regular parking space. WHILE the car is parked, city workers convert space to a handicapped parking space. Car is then towed for being parked in a handicapped spot.
That old volcanic spot near Tonopah Junction, southwest Nevada, has been very busy the last few days. About 80 quakes, 5.1 and down, 15km deep to surface. Maybe EM will get his small volcano to admire soon! pg
Crosspatch,
It’s funny. In driving you get a ticket and your car towed for failure to predict the future, but in climatology, you don’t even get your car towed.
Nuts.
Meteorite strike in Russia, injuries reported:
RIA Novosti: Meteorite strike in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region has injured at least 4 people; reports of damage
Dashcam video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7c-0iwBEswE
Sonic boom? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0cRHsApzt8&feature=youtu.be
More: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Omh7_I8vI&feature=youtu.be
Another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Np_mpGYSBSA#
More pictures of damage here: http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/
BREAKING — Meteorite impact in Russian Urals injured “more than 100 people”, RT reports.
Most likely from flying glass from breaking windows. That sonic boom was epic.
Maybe now somebody will start taking impact events seriously…
Sonic boom?….consult an electrician and he will tell you or even reproduce for you such a sound…
RT:It’s not been quite your average morning in Russia. People in the Urals region have seen burning objects raining down from the sky after a meteorite exploded above the Earth causing a meteor shower.
Now you know our Earth has a field around…ya know
That big one, 150 ft, that is a near miss today, must have had a little brother. Maybe even more to follow?
watch the skies. pg
@P.G. That´s precisely what the russians say:
Though the Bonds´meteorite is bigger….
See that the flash PRECEDES impact.
@P.G.: There is another meteorite sight at Cienfuegos, Cuba.
As I understand it, the “big one” approached from nearly due south. The Russian one is unlikely to be a ‘spawn’… There are always a lot of rocks out there. Something folks need to remember.
@Adolfo:
Yes, it is always the case. The “max heat flux” happens as the rock hits the dense enough air layer to vaporize most of it. Only a cold hard core survives that heat pulse and reaches ground to impact (or none of it does if the whole thing is softer materials than iron. As in Tunguska).
The “field” is a wall like layer of air… Take a rock in vacuum doing about 17,000 MPH and compute the heat flux as it goes to 0.8 bar. It tends to blow up then… It’s like hitting a wall at that point.
We get roughly two “Nuke sized” impacts per year. Just most of them happen over empty ocean, or with “3 guys on deck” seeing it in the distance, or hit empty parts of Alaska, Siberia, Antarctica, Arctic, Sahara, Amazon, Canadian Shield, … (NOT a ‘hypothetical’. There is a large field of ‘impact glass’ in the Sahara and folks gather a LOT of meteorites from Antarctic ice…)
It is ABSOLUTELY ordinary to have 2 or so events like the Russian one each and every year. Just most of the world is empty and nobody notices.
Maybe now, with global communications and dash cams / cell cams everywhere, we’ll finally get the “news flow” to gain mind share on the fact that we live at the bottom of a gravity well in a giant shooting gallery…
Meteor from North to South seen from I-280 in the SF Bay Area: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLpTOc1i8_8
As everyone will be staring at the sky for a while, it is worth reminding that there are many known “meteor showers” scattered over most months / seasons. In particular:
http://suite101.com/article/the-january–february-alpha-centaurids—a-minor-meteor-shower-a330663
As “the big one” that just missed us also was traveling South to North, it is possibly related.
It is worth remembering, too, that the solar system has been making comets for over 4 Billion years and that as they break up and fade out, they often end up as swarms of debris that make regular “meteor showers”. The ones in summer (early August in particular) can give “shooting stars” at a rate of a couple a minute for days. (They were a special favorite of mine as a kid. We would often go to the local “Drive in theater” the first week of August and see the meteors on the way home ;-)
Lights in the sky are not at all unusual, and if you live out where the sky is dark, you will get used to seeing lots of them. We live in a cosmic shooting gallery (as I’ve said a couple of times now…)
I guess we just have a generation of folks who have grown up indoors or under street lamps and don’t know just how active the night sky can be / is most of the time. I’ve counted ‘falling stars’ at rates of several per minute with bursts of one per second or so. But it helps to be in the very dark empty places under a dark early August sky…
If it doesn’t go “BOOM!”, it is mostly just minor ‘natural art’… If it does go “BOOM!” it is perfectly ordinary, but only a “once every few years” in terms of observation. If it goes “BOOOOMMMM!” and fries a few hundreds of square miles, that an every few hundred years event. If it causes extinctions on a continental scale, that’s every tens of thousands event. For planetary extinction events, it is more like every few 10s of millions of years….
Busy times: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/feb/16/russian-meteorite-sightings-cuba-california
http://scienceray.com/astronomy/do-diseases-come-from-space-comet-controversy/ the comet that comes close soon, which disease will it bring ;)
1 + 1 = 2, not according to the US Government: US plan for UN to endorse Khamenei’s fatwa? Shock in Jerusalem
DEBKAfile Special Report February 17, 2013, 1:59 PM (GMT+02:00) Tags: Iran nuclear Barack Obama Israel Ayatollah Ali Khamenei North Korea
From a British blog
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared Iran was a “nuclear state” during his Cairo visit two weeks ago. Saturday, Feb. 16, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shed more light by saying, “Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons but no power could stop Tehran’s access to an atomic bomb if it intended to build it. “
DEBKAfile: Iran’s leaders are therefore quite frank about the state of their nuclear program: the components of a nuclear weapon have been procured – defying Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu red lines – but Tehran has not yet crossed the threshold to assemble it – although this could be done modularly.
And if the Islamic Republic has acquired the components and knowledge for surreptitiously building one bomb, it stands to reason that three or five would be no object.
On Feb. 12, DEBKAfile revealed that Iranian scientists attended the latest North Korean atomic test. Six days later, the Sunday Times repeated the story, naming Mohsen Fakhrizade-Mahabadi, the senior Iranian scientist of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, as the official present. Our Iranian sources strongly doubt that Mahabadi was there because he is too afraid of kidnapping or assassination to ever leave Iran.
We also revealed how the Iranian-North Korean nuclear partnership worked and the division of clandestine labor between them. Their arrangement – to which Washington and Jerusalem prefer to turn a blind eye –assigns to Iran the development of small nuclear warheads for delivery by missiles and to North Korea the development of ballistic missiles able to land a warhead at any point on the planet.
The two governments work smoothly in tandem, regularly pooling the data obtained from advances in their respective programs.
One such advance was Iran’s successful launch of a monkey into orbit at an altitude of 120 kilometers on Jan. 28 and its apparent return it to earth. Washington tried hard to throw cold water on the Iranian feat, but Tehran countered by citing Western sources as confirming the launch.
A gap still remains in their accounts: Washington does not question the launch of a space capsule – only the monkey aboard.
However, the North Korean test of a “miniature nuclear device,” combined with Iran’s ability to launch a capsule with a monkey payload into orbit, add up to their having achieved a nuclear warhead capacity through shared technology.
After registering these menacing strides, officials in Jerusalem were dismayed to learn that instead of planning to cut them short, US President Barack’s Obama’s circle in Washington was studying a bizarre plan for the opposite objective.
It surfaced in an article published Tuesday, Feb. 12, by Ambassador Thomas Pickering, a veteran American diplomat who is influential in the framing of Obama’s Iranian policy.
This what he wrote: “In years past, he (Khamenei) issued a fatwa condemning nuclear weapons. Washington could take advantage of this fact by drafting a UN Security Council resolution endorsing the fatwa. This could be a small step toward boosting Khamenei’s international profile while simultaneously pressuring Iran to follow its own religious decree.”
Instead of dismantling these rogue nuclear programs, Pickering was proposing to legitimize Iran’s possession of a nuclear bomb capacity that only stopped one step short of assembling a bomb.
For the Shiite republic, UN endorsement as a nuclear power would be an epic triumph with ramifications for many years to come on its standing and the shape of the Middle East and Persian Gulf.
It would also endow Khamenei’s fatwa with false religious value – and not just for Sunni Muslims. Khamenei has neither the authority nor the erudition for issuing a binding Shiite fatwa either. Yet Pickering proposes extending the supreme leader a religious honor denied him by the leading Shiite clerics of Qom.
This fatwa has always been dismissed until now as a piece of propaganda designed to disguise the military aspects of Iran’s nuclear program and support Tehran’s claim that it was purely for peaceful use and research.
The stratagem floating around the White house for buttering up Khamenei and granting his edict international legitimacy just weeks before President Obama’s March 20 visit to Jerusalem is causing consternation among his Israeli hosts. It is a worrying pointer to the direction in which his Iran policy is heading.
If the leader of the free world can lie with such impunity, we’re doomed: http://climaterealists.com/?id=11157
I have recently looked and considered the housing market in San Diego County. The Feds, and the State politicians refuse to let the banks evict any ‘victims” who fell for their easy loans. As an example check out 92024 on Zillow. Zillow recently started listing the second loan amount, as well as the $ amount for being late in payments. Look at the pre- foreclosures. (Note pre as the feds and the state does not want the banks to take possesion of their property.) You will notice in the pre-foreclosures many who bought at a reasonable price pre 2001. A few years later. 04/05/06, they took out a second, often from several hundred thousand dollars to a million dollars. Many of these “victims” made payments for less then a year before stopping payments. Many are a hundred thousand or more late on their payments, and still the banks have not actually bought back the homes at auction.
I have driven by many of these “victims” homes. Most are being rented out to multiple tenants, while they, the “victims” are collecting rent, while they are paying nothing on the first or second, while they did who knows what with their hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the state of california is protecting these “victims”, and passing the bad debt to the average tax paying citizen.
Reply
@R. de Haan: Climate Cheating of course, but “leader of the free world”?…Souls cannot be touched or modified by any “leader”. Yes, of course, they are strong enough for torturing and killing human bodies, but has ever one of those elite´s butlers been capable of killing ideas?
There are no drones for this task buddy!
The liberal idiots are now going to stage a push for Obama to act on “climate change.” I got this from the League of Women voters. They have been hijacked by the socialists. Climate has nothing to do with voting.
“League of Women Voters
Tell President Obama to Lead the Climate Change Fight
“Climate change is not a hoax. More drought and floods and hurricanes and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future. And we can do something about it.”
These are the words of President Obama during the 2012 campaign, and we couldn’t agree more. People are dying because of climate change. Our families, our communities and our planet are all threatened by it.
Join the League by calling on the President, to take the historically necessary step of controlling industrial carbon pollution from new and existing power plants. The President can use his existing regulatory authority to make this happen.
The world has known about climate change for decades, yet little has been done to address the issue. The U.S. came close to enacting a comprehensive climate change bill in the early years of your administration when a good bill passed the House, but it was blocked by special interests in the Senate. With the current gridlock in Congress, it seems impossible that any legislative action will be taken to protect our health and our planet.
If President Obama doesn’t do it, it won’t get done. If the United States doesn’t lead, the rest of the world cannot follow.
Tell the President that saving the world is a legacy worth fighting for.”
http://participate.lwv.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6903
Obama considers himself the ruler of the “free world”. What part of free is not understood! Free men need no leader. We are not subjects. These “leaders” are hired help and need to be impressed with that fact, they are servants. pg
Jim2, now what were you doing joining the League of Women Voters? (:
I was also on their mailing list, and I think that is how I got on the mailing list for Independent Women’s Voice. They sent me an invitation to a “Women of Valor” event, awarding this Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack, who is apparently a renewable energy advocate (“R”). This was my response:
“A Woman of Valor works tirelessly for limited government, free markets, and personal liberty. She is a woman of good sense and good will. A Woman of Valor works tirelessly for the common good and always does the right thing for the right reason.” ~IWF
Dear IWF, Carrie Lucas, and Sabrina Schaeffer:
Thank you for sending this invitation. You seem to be unaware that energy mandates are destructive to the economy and expands government. Certainly this woman does not deserve this award. Perhaps you should study the effects of Australia’s carbon tax and the UK’s Climate Change Act on their economies, and begin to familiarise yourselves with what you are talking about regarding “renewable” energy.
@Zeke: Bravo!, anyway you have the first prize not only in this blog but in many. I guess those “free” women are desperate finding somebody who could slave them :-)
@Adolfo, Yes lol Did you know we are oppressed by all this prosperity and liberty?
CENTURY VIII-14 ~~~ VOLUME III
Le grand credit d’or, d’argent
l’abondance
Fera aveugler par libide honneur
Sera cogneu d’adultere l’offense,
Qui parviendra a son grand
deshonneur.
The great credit of gold and
abundance of silver will cause
honor to be blinded by lust; the
offense of the adulterer will
become known, which will occur
to his great dishonor.
http://www.ozarkmt.com/prophecies.htm
I got on the LOWV mailing list so I knew when off-year elections were held in my area. Those are the ones where the big bond issues are voted, usually, “for.” I didn’t expect to get inundated with liberal hog wash. Apparently, they don’t like ideas like photo ID or any of that “rubbish.” Instead, they appear to want any Thomas, Ricardo, or Enrique to vote – legal or no.
adolfogiurfa says:
17 February 2013 at 2:51 pm
@R. de Haan: Climate Cheating of course, but “leader of the free world”?…Souls cannot be touched or modified by any “leader”. Yes, of course, they are strong enough for torturing and killing human bodies, but has ever one of those elite´s butlers been capable of killing ideas?
There are no drones for this task buddy!
You’re right Adolfo but the problem isn;t the drones but the laws based on the big cheat that fleece us. It’s all about the money and legal theft. The drones come in when people refuse to pay up. http://climategate.nl/2013/02/17/habitatbankieren-belast-europese-bedrijven-voor-landgebruik/
Sandy Hook shooter wanted to beat Norway mass shooter’s “score”. Selected school because of a large number of defenseless targets available. Video plays automatically on landing.
http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Sources-Lanza-wanted-to-eclipse-Norwegian-mass-4288416.php
So apparently that asteroid that just flew past saw its orbit modified by the encounter. We couldn’t tell how much in advance it would be modified, I guess that would depend on the mass of the object and we were only guessing what that was. Anyway, it looks like as things stand now, it is on a collision course with Earth in 2080.
news.investors.com/politics-andrew-malcolm/021813-644829-asteroid-2012-da-14-missed-earth-narrowly-but-will-return.htm
@Crosspatch:
Oh Dear….
Well, maybe ;the Chinese will have functioning space defenses by then and not charge us too much if it is headed at North America….
So if Pres O. was up to snuff he’d bail on climate and tax the globe to fund an asteroid defense fund.
Hmmm, WOW! Monkey see monkey do. and damn Quick. Wonder if humans could do this 10 – 20+ thousand years ago. Something we have lost?? I would like my part back. :)
http://www.pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ai/ja/member-gallery/Ayumu-video.html
crosspatch says:Asteroid 2012 AD 14 may be on a collision course with Earth in 2080.
I guess I should get back to work on my experiment. After the spring gardening and pruning is finished.
2080 hum…m ! Guess we must create “Star Fleet” as well. I doubt that I will be still around in this body at that time. Another grand adventure! pg
EPIC WIN!
This is one of the best comeback lines of all time.
It is a portion of an ABC (Australian Broadcasting) radio interview between a female broadcaster and General Cosgrove who was about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military headquarters.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
So, General Cosgrove, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?
GENERAL COSGROVE:
We’re going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery and shooting.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
Shooting! That’s a bit irresponsible, isn’t it?
GENERAL COSGROVE:
I don’t see why, they’ll be properly supervised on the rifle range.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
Don’t you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?
GENERAL COSGROVE:
I don’t see how. We will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
But you’re equipping them to become violent killers.
GENERAL COSGROVE:
Well, Ma’am, you’re equipped to be a prostitute, but you’re not one, are you?
The radiocast went silent for 46 seconds and when it returned, the interview was over.
crosspatch says:
20 February 2013 at 5:20 pm
“GENERAL COSGROVE:
Well, Ma’am, you’re equipped to be a prostitute, but you’re not one, are you?
The radiocast went silent for 46 seconds and when it returned, the interview was over.”
lol !! Good thing I had finished my coffee. Best laugh I’ve had in a week. 8-) pg
Apparently you are not capable of making decisions for yourself. Only your superiors in government service are smart enough to do that for you. Apparently becoming employed by government or winning an election transforms people into a superior intellect whereas before they were too stupid to run their own life, they are suddenly able to run everyone else’s for them.
http://www.althouse.blogspot.com/2013/02/cass-sunstein-reviews-against-autonomy.html
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/mar/07/its-your-own-good/
Pollution-free coal: http://www.loudobbs.com/b/Researchers-May-Breath-New-Life-Into-Coal-Industry/-173482474316447917.html#02202013
I wonder if you’ve seen tallblokes site recently? He has a real interesting piece on the mathematical fit of planetary orbits.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/a-remarkable-discovery-all-solar-system-periods-fit-the-fibonacci-series-and-the-golden-ratio/
@Tckev:
I invite you to see these:
Click to access unified_field_explained_9.pdf
http://www.giurfa.com/unified_field.xlsx
On, I think it was, Fox News they had pictures of Scottsdale Arizona (right next to Phoenix) with a golf course covered in snow. Sticking on the ground. Very unusual…
But I’m sure it was that newfangled warm snow…
We had snow on Mt. Hamilton. More snow reported down in Riverside near L.A. (also very unusual). Man that warm snow sure gets around ;-)
I think the (politically) correct term/usage is ‘Warming Snow’ or just ‘Warm Snow’ with caps. Don’t want the true believers who might actually touch the stuff getting all confused and thinking about nouns and adjectives other complicated stuff. Who knows what thinking could lead to. Yeah, probably nothing. (:
http://pecangroup.org/archives/6317 Ancient city destroyed by rocks from space?
“Sunrun Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over Its Marketing
A California customer claims Sunrun is trying to “deceive consumers into leasing a system they otherwise would not have.”
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/sunrun-class-action-complaint?utm
Say good bye to a few metrics- “Average residential prices for utility (piped) gas, electricity, and fuel oil, U.S. city average and selected areas will no longer be published.”http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
Nice short video on graphene supercapacitors: http://vimeo.com/51873011
New all time record low temperature for the Northern Hemisphere. Nearly -100F in Siberia.
http://notrickszone.com/2013/02/23/northern-hemisphere-sets-new-all-time-record-cold-temperature-96-1f-in-oymyakon-siberia/
Models are currently calling for the possibility of snow in Florida next Sunday / Monday with snow as far as Gainsville and freeze to Orlando. Some interesting experiences coming up for spring break.
Expect inflation. With the increase in fuel and hamburgers, expect to see a major decline in purchasing power and wages under pressure to keep up possibly resulting in systemic inflation for the US. Fed can’t print fuel and beef.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/02/24/where-beef-cow-shortage-forcing-industry-to-make-rough-cuts/
Paluweh volcano’s lava dome crumbling away due to extreme volcanic earthquakes, a jaw dropping and very rare sight! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3foeTjsFesY
Pingback: It’s not a “warm snow” | Musings from the Chiefio
Russian Meteor:
Errata:
A Modoc county, California farm boy recieves Medal of Honor:
SSG Clint Romesha Bestowed the Medal of Honor (Official White House Feed HD)
Kind of important to our small community. pg
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/21/bees-flowers-electric-fields-communication bees and electricity
How UK members of Parliament are given thousands to push the green agenda:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2283558/How-MPs-pay-subsidised-eco-firms-set-insane-new-carbon-targets-send-heating-bills-sky-rocketing.html
BBC scare mongering: The earth under water SOON!:
Oh I wonder why the new hole appeared in the Northern Ozone layer???
http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=1386
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15105747
Why are scientists so dumb?
I read somewhere that that volcano was very high in CFC.
E.M. You may find this treatise on Li-Ion battery runaway interesting
http://www.slideshare.net/lewisglarsen/lattice-energy-llc-field-failures-and-lenrs-in-lithiumbased-batteriesjan-23-2013
Matches with your post of a while ago.
Crash ahead….
Ye’Ol Computer crashed and I’ve been going Cold Turkey the past few months. Found myself sipping tea at my brother’s house in Tulsa starring at his monitor. Never said “g’bye” so this litte note just is to let EM and brighter-side-of-the-weblog know what happened to a used-to-be-regular-commenter (not that I ever thought I was that birght;-) Blog-On Y’All! You’re the bestest I ever met. God bless and Keep Y’All!
Mike Murray, Huntsville, Alabama aka ‘Pascvaks’ (alas I don’t even read email anymore – the address is sill being paid for but I don’t check it;-)
@Pascvaks: You have to get anything, as anything now it´s a computer, even any decent phone, so manage to keep on giving us your ideas on everything. In your case I would ask any of my grand children to help me.
Perhaps your old computer, after receiving all that knowledge from you, decided to fly southwards to freedom from the coming Dollar-geddon
E.M.
FYI
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/03/wind-farms-turbines-break-like-match-sticks-in-medium-waves-and-their-capacity-is-overestimated/
@Pascvaks:
You could always get a Linux “Live-CD” and just boot off of that …. going “Cold Turkey” can be… umm… “cold” ;-)
Enjoyed your “being here”, and if you ‘take a break’, I understand. ( Heck, I’ve thought of doing it too… I’m close to being a ‘chucker’ on the cell phone and check email “once a month or quarter”, need it or not ;-)
So enjoy your vacation and we’ll keep the “net” working for you ;-)
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/02/05/1213154110.1.abstract
It makes you wonder what created all that CO2 millions of years ago.
From Louisiana State University
LSU researchers find new information about ‘Snowball Earth’ period
It is rather difficult to imagine, but approximately 635 million years ago, ice may have covered a vast portion of our planet in an event called “Snowball Earth.” According to the Snowball Earth hypothesis, the massive ice age that occurred before animal life appeared, when Earth’s landmasses were most likely clustered near the equator, precipitated relatively rapid changes in atmospheric conditions and a subsequent greenhouse heat wave. This particular period of extensive glaciation and subsequent climate changes might have supplied the cataclysmic event that gave rise to modern levels of atmospheric oxygen, paving the way for the rise of animals and the diversification of life during the later Cambrian explosion.
How come the BOM doesn’t update their Cyclone frequency graphics, don’t they have mega funding???????????? http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/climatology/trends.shtml
This is interesting in light of the Italian election ‘result’
Germany Bundesbank maneuvering for ‘re-denomination’ (failure of the Euro and re-emergence of national currencies.
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/berlin-in-a-corner-how-the-bundesbank-reduced-its-exposure-to-the-piigs-but-became-more-exposed-to-market-fears/
Any comments?:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130228155430.htm
[Reply: Why? Just because somebody finds a ‘third, unknown, transient radiation belt’ I ought to have an opinion on it? Don’t you know, “The Science is settled.”… there will be NO new discoveries allowed! ;-) -E.M.Smith ]
E.M.
Another FYI – for your English side!
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/03/monckton-explains-why-taking-climate-extremists-to-court-works-and-uni-tas-agrees-to-investigate/
Ohhhhhhhhh I see so Volcanoes make Sulfur Dioxide, but the 3million Volcanoes under the sea make no CO2??????????????? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130301123048.htm
Oh I seeeeeeeeee so now its the Sun???????? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/could-a-quiet-sun-cancel-global-warming/2013/02/28/156b9f3e-81c8-11e2-a350-49866afab584_blog.html
@sabretoothed : “QUIET SUN” WILL NOT ONLY CANCEL GLOBAL WARMING BUT GLOBAL WARMERS, GLOBAL WARMING POPE: AL BABY, AND WILL STOP GLOBAL CHEATING BY THE UN
Fake seafood- scroll down on the “Executive Summary” to see California (the worst offenders).
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2013/03/01/new-study-shows-59-of-tuna-sold-in-the-u-s-isnt-tuna/
@Sera:
“Fake” is a bit of an overstatement. For California it looks like most of the ‘issue’ is that we allow a bunch of various “rock fish” to be labeled “red snapper”. As those are all pretty much first cousins of each other, I don’t think I’d care (or be able to tell them apart without a species guide).
In the local sushi places (where we were tonight, BTW – Yum!) the one thing that P.O.s me is the nearly ubiquitous ‘fake crab’ in “California Rolls” made with pollack flavored with crab shell extract. Yeah, it tastes sort of like crab, and it is a good fish; but it just isn’t Crab. And yeah, somewhere on the menu it will say ‘imitation crab meat’… but still…
Oddly, the tuna, salmon, et al are pretty much always exactly as expected. It’s remarkably hard to pass one thing off as another to the tastebuds… At least once educated to sushi… (Once cooked though, it’s harder…)
At any rate, I’d say the referenced paper was more accurately about “slight variations in label precision” than ‘fake fish’. Though the substituting of a mackerel for “shiro maguro” could happen (as they are both called ‘white tuna’ in some areas) the realty is that ‘white tuna’ is a very different taste and texture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_tuna
So saying that it is a flat out fraud to call Escolar “white tuna” isn’t quite accurate. It’s been called that in some areas traditionally. And it was part of their ‘cuisine’. (Hey, these are the same folks who think poisonous Fugu is a delicacy…)
I’ve got to say that there’s no way a mackerel is going to look, feel, or taste like maguro in sushi, so I don’t know who was selling it that way, but the folks buying it didn’t have much experience…
At any rate: I want accurate fish labels as much as the next guy (and more than many…) but that article is, IMHO, hyping a lot and not allowing nearly enough for very similar fish to have different formal legal names and be functionally the same to the buyer. “Snapper” for example. The number of species of ‘rock fish’ would make the typical consumer’s head spin. No way I want that many labels in the store for fish that all taste and cook substantially the same. If every time I want to order “Snapper” it is a 20 minute exercise in fish species keys, well… (Sunfish is another one like that. Dozens of ‘species’ many of which are hybrids or gradations in a spectrum… all about the same in the pan… Many different only in terms of where a blue spot is on a gill plate or the banding pattern of stripes or… )
So while I like the idea that someone is ‘keeping them honest’ in labeling… I think the article also needed some balance on the other side. The local ‘sunfish’ have been called perch for decades, but technically are not a perch. I’ve looked up the “species key” a half dozen times and still can’t tell you what sets them apart. And don’t get me started on ‘Bluegill’… They could have done a better service by advocating for a more generic name like “Rock Fish” for use on the 30+? species of “snapper” in California rather than calling it “Fake Fish” to term them “Pacific Red Snapper”…
http://rockfishid.com/JohnPRODUCT.html
gives an idea…
Oh, this is even better:
From: http://www.spearboard.com/showthread.php?t=51551&highlight=fish+identification
A quote:
the Link to here:
http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/groundfish/RockfishGuide/using.htm
http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/groundfish/RockfishGuide/rockfishtoc.htm is the top entry…
Then you get to wander into ‘sub-species’ and spine counts and…
Oh, and many fish have color variation between juvenile and adult forms, and there are all those ‘variations’ noted in the key above… (that’s 1 of 3 steps)…
So do you REALLY want fish to go through that key or do you want “Gimme a rockfish”…
Do you REALLY care if it has 4 or 5 ‘vertical bands’ or if it is a ‘dark red’ or a ‘light red/black’ that is about the same color?
Do you think some Mexican making minimum wage will keep all those rock fish properly sorted by species? (Heck, I’m pretty sure I can’t do it, even with the ‘species key’). Does it really matter when they all cook the same and taste the same?
I know, you didn’t intend to step on this hot button… but I used to like fishing and they’ve now made it an experience akin to Biology Final Exams crossed with The Spanish Inquisition. You catch a fish, then take out the book that is our fishing regulations and start down the various species keys and catch sizes and limits and then get our your GPS as some vary by location and… about 1/2 hour later you may know if you have to put it back in the water… but it’s dead then, so you will be putting a carcass back in the water… unless the F&G Guy has already busted you for catching it and NOT getting it back in the water pronto…
And lord help you if you don’t know words like “caudal distal” and “anterior proximal banding” or even just can’t tell a blue-green spot from a green-blue spot…
EM, you said on your Druid thread that you believed there is a connection between the Hittites and the Germans.
I am reading a book about the Etruscans, and a decipherment of the bronze liver of Piacenza, which seems to be related to their constellations. While I feel this enormous affinity for the Etruscans and love to look at their sculptures and frescos, I also am interested in the similarities between all of the ancient constellations.
There is a passage of interest for you here.
http://www.andiskaulins.com/publications/etruscans/etruscans18.htm
“I have noted my agreement that Hittite is an Indo-European language, quite similar in fact to modern day Baltic.”
~Andis Kaulins
@Zeke:
Interesting link… I’ve got a couple of books on the Hittites. An interesting people. Definitely Indo-European language. Never tried connecting them to the Baltic language group. (It is peculiar in it’s own ways, with strong Finish/Ugric/Hungarian influences in some cases. Estonian is a Finish language group member).
So when saying “Baltic Language” you need to be careful what is meant. A language from the “Baltic Area” can be a Fino-Ugaritic relative and not indo-european. Where the formal “Baltic Language Group” is indo-european and includes, among others, Old Prussian…
Which is a very interesting connection, as Old Prussian has a relationship to German… mostly in that the German over ran and occupied them (leading to the new Prussian State that spoke a more German language where Old Prussian is a Slavic language…)
Which really mixes things up…
What often happens in history is that three things run in different lines, but sometimes mix, sometimes jump tracks, and sometimes have cohesion. Language, genetics, culture.
So in the “Hang Together” we have things like modern Japan. Fairly consistent language, culture, and genetics for a fairly long time. “Mix” we have the USA. About 1/2 German, genetically, yet not speaking German. (Minority English, yet we speak English). With a genetic mix that is bizarre, to say the least, and a culture only remotely related to anything else that went before on the planet.
So you have these Hittites. The are major PITA to ancient Egypt. Then just go POOF! from history. (Likely from a Bond Event drought of 100 year duration…) What happened? They didn’t just die out. (Major empires don’t do that. They move and mutate). So where did they go?
On the other side, a couple of thousand years later, we have several “new” Indo-European language groups ‘pop up’. Where did they come from? Candidates are Celts, Germans, Slavs, and a couple of others. We can trace Germans back through Goths and Sweden to a tap root in Thrace (near as I can tell, per some Swedish legends). We have Slavs traced back to near the same area. We have Celts scattered all over Europe weaving in and out (and even into Egyptian history from time to time). So who connects to whom?
Add in the fact that the ‘rate of change’ of culture and language is about the same as the time periods we are observing… well… It starts to be the case that a “German” doesn’t exist back then. Nor does a “Slav”. And a Celt might well not be speaking a Celtic language. (They are mostly known form a pottery style and metal works back then…) So we get to season with the notion that ALL of them might be Hittites, just seen through several thousand years of divergence…
In an “on again off again” exploration, I’ve tried to connect the Hittites more solidly to one or the other. It is frustrating. Not due to lack of ability to postulate a connection; but to the fact that the changes from drift of time are about the same as the changes from being unrelated…
Take “cases”. IIRC, Hittite has 4 of them. So does German. Russian has 7 IIRC. So a Slavic connection is ‘swimming up stream’ a bit in that it is trying to add more cases over time; where most languages simplify over time. Yet Sanskrit has evidence of just that. Adding / perfecting cases to make it ‘more perfect’ for literary effect. Plus the proto-Slavs had a lot of contact with Romans and Greeks, so could easily have decided to ‘flower up the language’ with some case adoptions…. Add in that German is a bit of a mess anyway and looks like it is the fusion of a non-indo-european language with an indo-european one (an indo-european pidgin that ‘grew up’; rather like English is doing now) and it is quite possible that the Hittites split into a couple of tribes, one that merged with some non-indo-europeans forming a German base (Eutruscans? Basques? Finns? Heck, maybe even Phoenicians – for which there is interesting evidence, BTW…) while another tribe runs into proto-Greeks and becomes Slavs…
The major problem is that Hittites are from about 2000 BC while proto-Celts and proto-Germanics are from about 500 BC. so 1000 to 1500 year gap… Early evidence for a group of Slavic or Slavonic people comes from about 500 AD, so a good 1000 years after Celts and Germanics formed up. So who is related to whom? Add in that the Germani look to have come from Goths that came from Thrace… that is near where Slavs pop up later… and there is the very real possibility that they share a lot… with a 1000 year gap… Oh, and we have Celts in Anatolia right on top of where the Hittites were… but also a thousand or two year gap. (They show up in the Bible as “Galatians”…) So we have Celts on top of the same place, and both Germans and Slaves leading back to ‘just over the water’. And a 1500 year blank spot to fill in…
At any rate, I’ve not written anything about it as it is all just rampant speculation based on taking frayed threads with darned near no evidence of similarity and weaving them together into something that looks good… Lots of fun, but not exactly, um, er, ‘reliable’…
There are just too many “times of chaos” at key points to make the lines connect, so end up making “leaps of faith” (and prejudice…) a bit too much.
At any rate, I continue to ‘tease’ at it from time to time. Hoping to figure out the Hittite Connection in the modern world… Probably need to do more with the Hittite gods and genetics ( if anyone has dug up and DNA typed any skeletons…) to make any progress. Take the cultural and DNA lines more than the language line. Or perhaps work it the other way. Run the Germanic peoples and the Slavic back to where they started, then draw links. It would be nice if we had more physical descriptions of the Hittites too. Build, hair color, eye color, other physical characteristics. The stylized stuff on statues isn’t much use…
Maybe I just need to take what I’ve got on Hittites and throw it at the wall, step back and look at it, and see if anyone has inspiration….
Oh, one other bit: The Hittites were the first folks big into chariots and may have been the first folks to work iron. Now it’s not a BIG connection… but Celts have always had a love of horses and chariots and were making way cool metal works way early. And Germans have been known for autos and metalworks too… So there are some ‘cultural connections’ here, IMHO.
At any rate, it’s lost to time now, near as I can tell.
Actually, this was the part that caught my eye (sorry, I thought that I had included that)…
“It seems that “white tuna” should be avoided in particular as “84% of fish samples labeled “white tuna” were actually escolar, a fish that can cause prolonged, uncontrollable, oily anal leakage.”
So I was down in Palatka, Fla (south of JAX) for my AFF class last Thursday and we did shashima that night. Long story short, I’ve had the trotskies and stomach pains ever since (took my last Imodium about five hours ago). Not cool for a fifty year old man who still works seven days a week. Making matters worse, the plane refused to take us up because of high winds and low cloud cover (plane won’t drop you unless there is a one mile diameter hole in the clouds above the landing area). I’ll email you a couple of pics of check-in and scrubbed flight.
@EM, that is interesting that you bring up the DNA rather than language. I know that there are human genetic studies worldwide and some research is bound to include the ancients. Although, the research on human genetics is being done by the wrong people for the wrong reasons (Galton Inst), and I am not as keen to search that out. I enjoyed your own speculations, and the further details, very much.
It is interesting to me how many undeciphered languages and texts there are. Perhaps this is where a more complete picture will be found.
@Zeke: Wanna a 500 years nap? (btw:not a sacrifice):
http://www.zurmat.com/2012/09/18/15-year-old-girl-from-the-incan-empire-who-has-been-frozen-for-500-years-she-was-a-sacrifice/
From Foxnews Business:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/2013/03/04/proof-fed-is-juicing-markets/
“Credit is super-abundant and stock market behavior is conditioned not so much by the fundamental performance of its underlying companies but by increasing doses of monetary Ritalin.”
A very nice graph at the start that visually demonstrates Fed action and Wallstreet reaction over the last 3 years. For the last 2 years the Fed has been directly pumping up the stock market. pg
@Adolfo,
Notice the sensitive scholarly deference to the practice of human sacrifice.
The Peruvians and Central Americans still light candles and bring fruit to volcanoes. NASA and EOS are no better at knowing when they will erupt, sitting like dolts at seismic monitors. All they have to do is set up infra sound sensors and watch the ionosphere for sudden changes above these areas, synchronized with observations of solar activity.
And here we fund people who are called scientists, who were supposed to understand and warn us about impending disasters from the Earth’s activity, and they have turned it all on its head, saying that we ourselves are the cause of the disasters. How great their potential was, and how dull they made themselves.
AGW models falsified by direct satellite observations?
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/03/man-made-global-warming-theory-is.html
@EMSmith; I think your SHTF moment may be very near:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/05/north-korea-vows-to-cancel-korean-war-cease-fire/
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/05/us-and-china-agree-on-north-korea-sanctions-after-nuclear-test/?intcmp=related
North Korean and Iran have allied to create useable nuclear weapons and missiles. They will act together when they attempt to advance their local agenda. pg
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/05/us-lawmakers-push-for-tougher-north-korea-sanctions/?intcmp=related
Should have added this link to the others, as it gives addition information to the whole. The Key is the North Korean military, Kim Jong Un has little say in this. pg
E.M.
You often comment about Al Jazeera English service here’s a program you may be interested in –
Head to Head Debates with Mehdi Hasan –
FRIDAY 8TH MARCH at 7.30pm – PROF RICHARD LINDZEN
Message: Al Jazeera English is launching a new discussion series called Head to Head, presented by Mehdi Hasan. Head to Head tackles the big issues of our times, from foreign intervention to faith and American supremacy.
@Zeke….But, indeed, everything that happens outside it is but a reflection of the inside; thus WE ARE TO BLAME. Contradictory? , so it seems, it just seems so. How do I distinguish, discriminate those forces which act in me?, If i do not have any control on them, I do not know what a “force” is, if we did then we would know what Pythagoras meant with his triangle…of forces, of course. Like Castaneda´s master Don Juan said: We are like sail boats with sails full of holes, we do not sense the air, its force, then we are taken wherever the sea currents may take us….
@Adolfo, Thank you, great thoughts.
All I can say with certainty about power is that it is not in the sacrifice of another person’s life, or liberty. That is weakness, a fleeting fantasy, and the sign of a culture in total decline and near destruction and collapse.
Only that which is given freely, from one’s own thought and will, is real.
@Zeke:
The DNA lets us find out where a people went, and with whom they blended, even as languages change, evolve, die… So my Celt ancestry can be found even though I now speak a Germanic language. I hope that, over time, we get a better library of haplogroups and haplotypes from various ancient language group peoples so we can sort it all out. But it’s hard. Not just because stuff gets contaminated in the dirt; but there are also things like the Chinese who would not let genetic testing be done on the Red Headed Tartan Wearing mummies from East China. I guess they were afraid the Irish would lay claim to the area… (no, no sarc. They ARE worried about territorial claims, even though it was long ago that they invaded the area and by then the Tocharians had already ‘blended’ with a local asian type).
So things like “Where were the Basque type historically?” can be answered by blood types to some extent and directly by gene typing for sure. Where the ancient Minoan folks Basque? If they were, it lends credence to the translations of “Linear-A” as Basque related… (There are all sorts of claims for “decipherment” of Linear-A; pretty much more fantasy than analysis… with results from Greek to Basque to Phoenician to…)
Basically, material culture shifts with fads. Language shifts all on its own, but also from invasions and empires. In the end, DNA too gets ‘mixed up’ via migration and such; but we can at least get some idea of percentages of relation… Best is to use all three.
@Adolfo:
Fascinating pictures and story. ( And yes, looks more like a ‘young couple got lost / trapped in snow event and froze’ then any ‘sacrifice’… Anthropologists always run to a religion fantasy and love blood and gore. Never just look for “the usual suspects” that still catch folks today. Avalanche. Lost hiking. Etc.)
@P.G.Sharrow:
Yes. Right after what looked like a market top and the classical “hard shorting”, next day The Bernanke” comes on and says, basically, “Fed will shove so much money at you that you will choke on it” and the market rallies on a short cover. “Never fight the Fed”. I’d just figures that being at zero interest rates were were kind of done with Fed Foolery, but looks like ‘not yet’…
The “game” is to so shove liquidity at the economy that the housing bubble can not deflate. This WILL work. Unfortunately, in the process, it will create many other asset bubbles, including one in stocks. (and the one that just finished in Gold, or maybe is just pausing…) The idea that the cure for Heroin is Morphine…
@Crosspatch:
Very interesting article… Only time to scan it tonight, but needs more…
Kind of hard to argue with “we measured it – IR is leaving”…
@P.G.Sharrow:
I’ve often said that the next nukes would be somewhere on an axis from the Middle East / Iran through the India / Pakistan border and ending in N. Korea. Given the “cooperation” between Pakistan and Iran on nuke design, and now Iran / Korea on delivery systems and testing along with SNM manufacture… it may well be that the reason I could not settle on an ‘end’ was that it will be the whole line that goes up…
Given that Obama is busy neutering our military capacity (in various subtle and some not so subtle ways) it is pretty much a given that eventually the Nut Jobs will figure they can get away with it, and then they will act.
So much hubris, so little historical wisdom…
@Tckev:
I’ll see if I can catch it. On AGW stuff, Al Jazeera are strongly pushing the Warmista Agenda. Not sure why (other than that as long as Coal is the Devil then Oil wins…)
@Adolfo & Zeke:
Well, some of us have a paddle and are paddling like crazy against both the winds and the tides… ;-)
@E.M. & Zeke: In order to have a frame of reference, axis of coordinates, we need a “point out”: I.E.: We have to put a few “things” aside, like our daily “fears” for example. (” I am not such a fear”), then we have, at least, two dimensions.
We usually walk through life like “zombies”, manifesting ourselves with no film or recording tape/chip for recording our actions, then all our life energy irremediably drains to the outside. If we could, at least, hear our voice, feel our hands, limbs and body, if we could “remember ourselves”, at least, in flashes along our days, some of that precious life energy would accumulate in our blood, something would be recorded in the iron molecule of our blood´s hemoglobin.
Then, we have, all what can be summarized in the unending process of expressing, externally or internally, our “negative emotions”.
Wanna increase our energy level, our frequency?, well, let´s try these “simple” exercises.
Free energy:
Inre Basque origins and Linear-A
Riveting thoughts and subject. I realize that there are conflicting individual claims of having translated Linear-A. But I want to point out that once you hear all of the Academics and Experts coming to a consensus agreement, and repeating this agreement in every book on the subject, you begin to start looking for alternative scholarship. And the experts do agree that it is impossible or not worth it to translate Linear-A, and all efforts in that direction are the work of cranks. So I do not mind looking at the research of the people who are outside of the consensus, if for that reason alone. (:
Probably living amongst the Basques would be the most incredible experience, and the best way to begin to get to the heart of the matter.
@ Zeke “I realize that there are conflicting individual claims of having translated Linear-A. ”
One of the people who claim to have deciphered Linear A (in the Phaistos Disk) is Steven Fischer. He wrote a book on the subject, “Glyph Breaker” which I found quite convincing, detailing his method. He claims it is a sort of proto-Greek, or rather that mainland Greek and Minoan at least share a common root. Used hardback copies on Amazon for 4 cents plus shipping. http://www.amazon.com/Glyphbreaker-Steven-R-Fischer/dp/0387982418/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362596578&sr=1-2&keywords=glyph+breaker
Oh, the same book details a translation of Rongorongo.
Thank you Jason.
http://phys.org/news/2013-03-evidence-comets-seeded-life-earth.html
New evidence that comets could have seeded life on Earth
Maybe diseases too, they were not that stupid in the past ;)
Magnets and Cancer? http://worldtruth.tv/korean-scientists-successfully-kill-cancer-with-magnets/
How the “System” works:
I am curious how the Solar cycle impact this,,,’According to recent study conducted by scientists at the University of Reading, the height of clouds changes by up to 200m during a day under the influence of a global ‘electrical heartbeat’ in the atmosphere.” http://www.messagetoeagle.com/electricalheartbeatearth.php
http://www.messagetoeagle.com/earthcloudsdropping.php or this one.
Unbelievable! A 4,500 years old city found in the middle of a 9 million people city:
http://translate.google.com.pe/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=es&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fprensaperuana.blogdiario.com%2F1148654520%2F
The tribulations of living in rural coastal California:
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2013/03/another-california-coastal-commission-horror-story.html
@David:
It looks to me like the reduce UV caused lower atmospheric height, so the clouds are lower.
Per the Schumann Resonance changing: I think we don’t have enough baseline to know what is normal for it. Solar changes change the ionospheric layers and all the rest adjusts. It’s been that way as long as Shortwave Radio has existed as an observed phenomenon. It’s undoubtedly done more before then, but who knows what. It is solar driven in any case.
@Crosspatch:
My neighbor planted 3 redwood trees about 20 years ago. They are now lifting the fence between us. The guy who bought the house from him thinks he’s going to take them out (as they are shallow rooted and ‘downwind’ is his bedroom….) I think he’s going to discover that The Redwood Commission / Coastal Commission / City Arborist / whoever will have “something to say”. (As I understand it, at least the City Arborist and the Coastal Commission have jurisdiction over his tree…. )
Any tree over some size ( like 30 inches?) is not to be touched without a lot of trouble. Even if you planted it. Lots of folks no longer plant trees. ( I put in giant bamboo rather than a tree…)
So we’ve regulated trees to the point where people are finding reasons to have fewer trees….
Never thought about the hole in the ground, though…
@Adolfo:
I don’t find it so unbelievable, after all, they found it. ;-)
Realistically, though, we know “modern humans” have existed for about 150,000 years and always like to settle where flat land meets water (even a tiny meadow in a mountain forest near a brook fits that description…) Then “stuff accumulates” and especially so where volcanoes kick out loads of dust and ash or floods deposit debris.
I’d expect to find all sorts of things of ages up to 100,000 years old at just the ideal places where we build our cities today. I’d be surprised if there were not things “in the mud”…
But it’s still a nice old city in Peru that they’ve found. I suspect that eventually folks will figure out that there have been people living all over the planet for about 50,000 to 100,000 years and even communicating with each other (just not quite as much as today) during that time.
@Sabertoothed:
There’s an article somewhere about a guy “in the west” also curing cancer with magnetic fields (variable fields of a particular sort on top of a fixed strong field, IIRC. It disrupts cell division so screws up cancer cells more.) This isn’t ‘really really new’, only ‘surprising new’. ;-)
Oh, and eventually the BioSci folks and astronomer folks will figure out that organic chemistry works the same in space as on the ground…
http://www.livescience.com/27741-african-american-earliest-man.html?cmpid=514627 A miniscule bit of DNA from an African American man now living in South Carolina has been traced back 338,000 years, according to a new study.
The man’s Y chromosome — a hereditary factor determining male sex — has a history that’s so old, it even predates the age of the oldest known Homo sapiens fossils, according to the report, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/why-brands-are-already-looking-google-glass-and-why-apple-should-be-worried-147435 Google Glasses, will be bigger then smart phone?
Ignore the climate change crap but greening desert is good http://youtu.be/vpTHi7O66pI
E.M.
This will likely be a series of FYI
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/inquiry-into-queensland-healths-failed-payroll-system-questions-contract-with-ibm/story-e6freoof-1226594691291
E.M.
And for your files
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/stonehenge-was-ancient-rave-spot-research/story-e6freon6-1226594050823
Thought you might find this interesting. http://news.yahoo.com/two-years-later-lessons-japans-tohoku-earthquake-130544397.html
I loved the line where the modelers didn’t believe the geological data because their models couldn’t replicate it. I wonder if there was a thought about a similar problem with climate models. Probably asking for too much thinking :)
“Too Big to Fail” or Too “Big to survive”?:
@Adolfo:
There’s a difference?
A basic concept I wish more folks would internalize… “DISeconomies of scale”.
Everyone has heard about Economies Of Scale. Less often discussed is that there are DISeconomies of scale too. There is an ‘optimal size’. Bigger is NOT always better.
Take the “hot dog cart”. The optimal size is one large cart (or maybe – just maybe – 2 or three with various family members or closely cooperating folks running them). Beyond that, costs rise and service drops. At the other extreme, steel making. It just keeps working better the bigger you make it. (Though lately some smaller scale tech has started to show up in ‘recycle’ steel processing).
I dearly wish more folks understood the DISeconomies of scale aspect. It would help them understand why putting control at State level instead of Federal (and maybe even at County level for many large States) is A Very Good Thing and why “To Big To Fail” is an admission that they need to be broken up into 1000 local banks…
Unfortunately, a “Larger than everyone else” getting full economies of scale needs to grow to the size where their DISeconomies of scale match the lack of economies of scale of their smaller competitors before the system equilibrates.
So we end up with a few (or one) giant enterprise limping along at the “just slightly better than lousy” level, since it could grow that large and since the surviving ‘dinky guys’ are now about the same competitiveness. 2 or 4 “medium size” would work much better, but are not a stable set.
It is one of those “nagging problems’ of economics that I occasionally think I ought to devote some time to solving … then don’t…
@Jon:
Much wisdom in that. Trying to think of a way to make it a useful posting… But right now I’m on the patio and “Sun and Tequila” are calling me ;-)
(I’m doing it for my health… honest… you saw the postings!!! )
@Another Ian:
At Last: Someone figured out that Folks Like To Party! and always have…
@Sabertoothed:
A bar in (NY?) has already banned them as other patrons do not want to be photo’d and posted on the ‘net…. I suspect a backlash is building (or hope it is…)
I’m already working on anonomysing tech. (Hat and sunglasses now ‘de regueur’ for exiting the house… V Mask and cape “soon”… Planting tall trees to cover the entire back yard with a canopy. Looking into metalized clothing to block millimeter wave scanners (it is already being sold…)
I’m presently sitting under a metal canopy rather than in the sun / open space in my back yard just because of such BS. (well, that, and the fact that it’s peak UV time and I’d burn to a crisp ;-)
The Surveillance Society, just say mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm transmission garbled….
@E.M. …trouble is that the owners of such Diseconomies businesses are simply psychopaths, they just don´t get that having a billion (or a trillion) more won´t make them happier, and they….as the majority of accepted science, do not know y=sin x LOL!
@E.M. I have found something really great, hear it (it´s free):
http://www.viperrecords.com/mart/Immortal%20Technique%20-%20The%20Martyr.zip
@E.M.
http://giurfa.com/dino.html
@Adolfo
There is much truth in the link you provided
http://giurfa.com/dino.html
I wish I had an answer, but I do not…
Communism is broken, capitalism is broken. What is in the middle? I wish I knew.
Bueno Suerte., mi amigo!
E.M.
FYI – call it QH2
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/health-payroll-boss-philip-hood-cannot-remember-why-ibm-became-preferred-contractor-to-install-failed-payroll-system/story-e6freoof-1226596449877
Your first summation seems to be on track.
Watched an interesting video last night, recorded by a friend off UK’s Channel 4 TV – ‘Secrets of the Stonehenge Skeletons’:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/secrets-of-the-stonehenge-skeletons
– Stuff in there that was new to me, and recommended viewing for any practising Druid (to add force to your denials that Druids were anything to do with Stonehenge, of course ;-)
It was on TV on Sunday, so it’s probably a fair guess that it was on the internet by Monday.
@E.M. YOU ARE AN ECONOMIST, as such you know micro and macro economics, you know of maxima and minima, however to understand what is happening now you gotto read the psychiatrists. You just solved it all by saying what is economies as dis-economies,…but make them understand. We are not going to fix the world….just run as far away as we can. :-)
Running away southwards:
Get far away from USA…its collapse will be messy: Jeff Berwick
Interesting article – medieval California.
http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/beautifully-medieval-california/?singlepage=true
@Jerry:
Yes, it is…
Does cover the inland / coastal divide fairly well. Needs a bit more on how the cities are not at all like the rural. And any historical parallel breaks down on the technology front. Such as importing socks made in China on machines in a factory sized to make all the socks in the world… There is an entire logistics and technology tail to those cheap socks that tells another story of industrial demise in the USA.
Also the degree of ‘dismal’ it presents is a bit much. (Some of the comments even worse). It’s not quite the old west nor are their roving bands at night. I’ve been to Oakland and various other places, even off the 99 to the side the author doesn’t like; and at night. It’s not all that bad. I’ve also seen worse and been more uncomfortable in Jamaica New York and outskirts of Miami…
But yes, there’s a shrinking middle class, growing poor immigrant cast, and the wealthy coastals…
@Adolfo:
That guy’s a bit extreme… “worst ever” for capital? Hardly. The World Wars were not so kind to capital in Europe and Japan… He’s also pushing a fantasy that he’s going to make a commune of folks with all the right beliefs. Never going to happen. Never will be stable. (People change over time, their children are not like the parents. The society changes.)
Yes, the “debt economy” is going to have troubles, but not the end of life as we know it. Yes, Greece is pretty bad, but that’s about as bad as it gets. Then things get fixed. Eventually…
We, in the USA, will also get to have the laundry list of “those further along” go ahead of us, showing why we need to “not go there”. Spain. Greece. France. Etc. With luck, that will be enough to get folks here to change course earlier. (Vis the present ‘sequestration’ as the opening shot in that process).
He does have one major “good point”: That the 40% of the economy that runs through D.C. is not good and not sustainable. (Maybe that’s the slogan we need… put the gov’t on a diet to make it ‘sustainable’ ;-) That doesn’t mandate a $Dollar collapse, just a simpering decline.
The biggest thing that will hold up the $US longer than most any other currency is just the sheer volume of them used in global trade. There isn’t anything that can take that place. Not the Euro with what the PIGS are doing. Not the Yen with what the BOJ is doing. Nor the Swiss Franc (just not large enough) nor any other national currency. Basically, if the $US collapses, the entire global trade system goes with it. The rest of the world won’t let that happen. (And if it does happen, being in a commune in Chile is not going to help).
At any rate, the news is announcing a New Pope has been chosen. So for at least a few days, that will be the Big News. At least one line of Doomsters had a prediction that the (now retired) last pope would BE the Last Pope. So one more “end of the world as we know it” prediction down the tubes…
I thought the prediction of the last Pope being the last Pope was because the one that has just been elected is the Second Coming. So we’ve had a re-incarnated Jesus dressed in Cardinal Red for a while, if that turns out to be true. Still, doesn’t bode well for the Vatican Bank, I suppose.
Another Nostradamus prophecy fulfilled: The new Pope is the first Jesuit to be named, the first “BLACK POPE”, as it has been always the superior of the jesuit order called.
Marketing Speak.
@Adolfo and others:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/nasa-solar-wind-energy-source-discovered/#more-11588
A post on NASA satellite data on the suns’ output. Acceleration of the speed and energy levels in the solar wind as it travels away from the sun. 8-) pg
@Adolfo:
Got a quatrain number for ‘black pope’? Interesting that the Jesuits had that name…
@P.G.:
Cyclotron waves, eh? …
E.M.
FYI QH3
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/ex-ibm-employee-terry-burns-played-major-role-in-contract-to-secure-ibm-for-health-payroll-system-inquiry-hears/story-e6freoof-1226597324320
@E.M:Century VI, quatrain 25.
Quote:
Through adverse Mars will the monarchy
Of the great fisherman be in ruinous trouble:
The young red black one will seize the hierarchy,
The traitors will act on a day of drizzle.
@E.M. About The Electric Universe:
adolfogiurfa says:14 March 2013 at 1:07 pm
“The young red black one will seize the hierarchy,”
“Jeune noir rouge prendra la hierarchie, ”
I am not sure if the translation of 1500s French to modern American English is totally correct. I should think that the “young black red” should be “new black red”. And “take” rather then “seize”. The proper translation of Nostradamus needs to be done with the French language as it existed in the late 1500s. I have found that the roots of English words and sentence seem to fit better then modern French. Maybe Mr. Smith, with his knowledge of language could give his translation of this quatrain. Oh yes, Pope Francis made his first appearance in the mist of a rainy day in Rome. pg.
@P.G. & Adolfo:
Yes, it takes “Old French”, at which I’m only marginal… But generally it has been my perception that the “Old French” meanings were what slid into English. (Much as you observed). The problem with Nostradamus is, IMHO, just that it’s all written as a puzzle. Anything fits after it has happened if you ignore a few bits. Then some parts are already cryptic and using imagery that may, or may not, be cognate with modern imagery. So we get to learn historical iconography…
Now, in this cause, Francis is not exactly what I’d call “young”… nor really “new” either. So we gloss over it with “maybe it means New World” or “He was young when…” and list career steps.
So it goes.
With enough “ignore these words and stretch those” everything fits somewhere.
Part of why I never got wrapped up much in Nostradamus. I have a bilingual copy of his stuff on the shelf somewhere. Spent a couple of days on it. Reminds me of jello sculpture…
The biggest issue I see in the quatrain is that reference to Mars. This is supposed to be some kind of internal war or fight. Just not seeing it. Through some kind of struggle or fight the “monarchy of the great fisherman” (that fairly clearly means Pope I think) will be in ruinous trouble. Well, they have their ‘issues’, but ruinous? And where was all the precursor conflict?
So once I have something that big stuck in my throat, trying to get excited about ‘red black’ vs ‘black red’ or seize vs grab vs take… well, it just doesn’t look worth it….
That’s why I like to look at the context when someone says “Look, this one line is a fit”. OK, you will get thousands of those… more as the lines are smaller. But what about the context? Oh, not so much match, eh?…
@E.M.: A T-10 ISSUE: About “fracking”: A question: What happens if a non-polar material is replaced by a polar material?…..Sinkholes for everybody! :-)
As I understand it, most of the gas is in rock types, like sand and shales, that are not dissolved in water. Sinkholes come when acid water runs through carbonate rocks. Lots of sinkholes in Florida. Not a lot of gas…
@E.M. Methane and water: non polar and polar. Apparently the second one would seem more “solid” than the first one, but is is not…
Be very careful as one thing is having an economic depression and another a soil depresssion :-)
THE GOD´s PARTICLE FOUND!, as announced by the BBC, it just costed 10 billion Euros (just peanuts!), but now they need a BAILOUT for funding and finding the elusive DARK MATTER ,though it was found many years ago by H.P.Lovecraft and described in his book The Myths of Ctuhlu and Gravity-the peculiar creation of your Saint Newton- . does not exists at all (it is but a local field).
What an intelligent way for paying bribes!
Wanna know how was the big bang?…Ask your wife when you had sexual intercourse with her and her “Giggs Boson” blew out and came out crying from her womb 9 months after.
Ya know, buddies, you don´t need a giant synchrotron to know how the Universe started…just look around..
Immortality? Is it not enough the nature´s trick of REPRODUCING UNIVERSES for you babies?
Provided each one has its parts (centers of energy) complete, each one IS A UNIVERSE…of course not everyone is neither conscious nor responsible of being one, there are a lot of fools around….looking for the impossible.
Something new popped up in my email:
————————————————————————————————————————————————
Has Space Station Spectrometer Found Dark Matter?
Has Space Station Spectrometer Found Dark Matter? Big news may be coming out of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting — specifically about dark matter, the mysterious and, until now, undetectable substance permeating the universe. Scientists are publishing a paper that discusses the findings from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle collector mounted on the outside of the International Space Station. The spectrometer was installed on the space station in May 2011 and was designed to detect the positrons and electrons produced by dark matter annihilations in the Milky Way. Though the researchers’ comments are measured about what the published research will reveal about dark matter, physicist Samuel Ting promises, “it will not be a minor paper.”
—————————————————————————————————————————————————–
This was connected to a promo for the company that created the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. I guess we will have to wait for more information. :-( pg
E.M.
FYI QH3
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/public-servant-shaurin-ranjanikant-shah-cant-explain-email-from-successful-health-payroll-applicant-ibm/story-e6freoof-1226598102233
@Another Ian:
Keeps unfolding like a soap opera…
@p.g.sharrow “Dark Matter” it is an invention to explain everything as produced by gravity; it is not needed as electricity explains it all. Now, I know you like something called the “ether”, ok., that´s the field of the macrocosmos, which holds everything together: If we could zoom out the universe out there in the end we would see a……human being, whether male or female, or any other three brains being like us.
E.M.
Yep, except I’m helping fund it!
QH 4
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/ibm-and-health-project-staff-in-contact/story-e6freoof-1226598581720
Looking at the sea ice reference page you can see Antarctica really taking off.NH has pretty much peaked…soon the bets will be on about how far the breakup will go. Baby ice talk all over again. Certainly seems like a cycle to me…North low, south high, then the pendulum swings the other way. Maybe that combining with the low sun is what tips us towards an ice age. Of course we shouldn’t worry since the new Pope fulfills various prophesies.
There’s some more research published about Neanderthals in the last week. Made the MSM here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2292247/How-Neanderthals-lost-Facebook-Big-bodies-sharp-eyes-left-mental-space-social-networking.html#ixzz2NjNxQTLn
@Verity Jones: Yes, there was a mistake with the only specimen available, it was recently discovered that such an specimen was of the Neanderthal´s Elite, known then as Bankers or Climate Changers, so it did not represent the majority of neanderthal people, who had proportioned bodies and were clever minded.
See? History repeats itself.
@Verity:
Amusing, if very speculative article. Since we have no idea what neuron size was in the Neanderthal brain, it’s all a load of speculative tripe (IMHO).
What evidence we have from “moderns” with a high neanderthal trait percentage (such as my “Owl Eyed” relatives with large hat sizes) is that despire our large sizes (over 100 kg) and big eyes we manage to be fairly bright and “social enough”… That implies their thesis is broken.
Heck, I’ve known very social cats and small dogs. IMHO, it doesn’t take hardly any brain capacity to be “social”. (Now look at who inhabits “social media” a lot and there seems to be confirmation of that thesis… ;-)
@Ralph B:
The Ice Age glacial entry cause is pretty well know, as is the exit. Just orbital mechanics (on million year time scales. Longer than that, you have to figure in land distribution from continental drift). I’ve done a few postings on it. Right now the “Polar SeeSaw” is what you are noticing. Next the PDO / AMO cycle will show up as more ice up north.
@adolfogiurfa LOL!
@EM. I should have added that I didn’t think much of their thesis myself, but as I was cooking supper and the oven timer just went off in the adjacent kitchen, I just posted and closed the laptop.
EM yes I have read your postings on orbital mechanics, enjoyed them and learned quite a bit…my thoughts were that with so many various cycles eventually they peak together like the rogue wave. Sometimes a few peak together and create a smaller rogue which could cause an earlier start or maybe in the case of a trough later start of either a warm period or ice age. Or like you have discussed earlier a bond event.
E.M.
FYI QH5
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/it-consultant-gary-uhlmann-said-he-warned-in-2007-that-system-should-not-be-changed-but-current-system-needed-support/story-e6freoof-1226599836574
Migratory birds that arrived in Germany on schedule have turned around and are heading back south:
http://www.thelocal.de/national/20130315-48551.html#.UUoeKxyG3Lk
This as the worst storm in 150 years socks eastern Europe:
http://belarusdigest.com/story/snow-storm-xavier-paralyses-belarus-13393
I have a feeling that the net result of the Fukushima nuclear reactor event is going to be an increased confidence in the safety of nuclear power and a return to faster construction. In the US we have the start of the second new reactor in a week and we should have four units under construction (all of them Westinghouse AP-1000 designs) by this summer.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN_Second_new_US_reactor_under_way_1503131.html
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-AP1000_construction_underway_at_Summer-1203134.html
In the UK, we have final go-ahead of the first two reactors in 25 years.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN_UK_new_nuclear_ready_to_go_1903131.html
Magic Mushroom lasts one year!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/single-magic-mushroom-can-change-personality-2363324.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23285-plutonium-tests-offer-hope-for-dark-space-missions.html
The future is looking brighter for missions to the solar system’s dark corners. Plutonium needed to power the spacecraft that cannot rely on solar power has been created in the US for the first time in 25 years – albeit in small quantities.
Some destinations, such as the outer solar system or the polar regions of Mars, receive too little sunlight for ambitious missions to use solar panels there. Instead, heat from the decay of the radioactive isotope plutonium-238 is needed to generate electricity.
Cyprus Bank ‘Tax’ Bail in may go global.
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/cyprus-levy-is-stealing-depositors-money-about-to-go-global/
An worrying view on what could happen globally.
@Ian W:
One does get the sense that:
1) Things are continuing to get worse, but at a ‘simmer slow’ rate.
2) The PTB / elite really want to get fingers into the pie of financial transactions / deposits.
3) Somthing has got to give…
The basic problem is too many bright people in positions of power with too much time on their hands and a desire to “be important and matter” when they really just need to be caretakers of the prior well worked out processes. (Like “just leave Glass-Steagall alone… and follow existing bankruptcy law that wipes out equity and hands the company to bond holders while wiping out their debt; instead of making it up on the fly each time)
We have too many people in power with a big “dick with factor” who can’t keep their hands in their own pockets.
http://www.smartgridnews.com/artman/publish/Business_Policy_Regulation/The-renewables-rollercoaster-a-wild-and-scary-ride-in-some-parts-of-the-U-S-5614.html
The renewables rollercoaster – a wild (and scary) ride in some parts of the U.S.
E.M.
FYI. QH 6
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/evidence-in-the-queensland-health-payroll-inquiry-is-pointing-to-a-focus-on-one-it-worker/story-e6freoof-1226603810031
Suspected comets over the US which we didn’t see coming, a hit on Russia, and multiple other reports of meteor sightings are starting to make me wonder if I should revisit the EM Smith post about 200 year meteor events.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that there was an increase in sightings of such things back in the days of the Maunder Minimum.
Jo Nova had a really interesting new article I would like to bring to your attention Most of Earth covered with life powered on hydrogen. Living Rocks?
I wonder what that will do to the theory of adiabatic oil. (The short version of adiabatic oil is that natural gas and petroleum are the result of on-going chemical processes deep within the earth.)
The Eco-nut will freak over this. GAIA is ALIVE!
DHS buys yet another 360,000 rounds of hollow point ammo. That’s over 2 billion rounds in the past 12 months. They refused to answer Congress on what it is for.
Forgot the link: http://www.infowars.com/dhs-to-buy-360000-more-rounds-of-hollow-point-ammunition/
Interesting take on Cyprus ‘bail out’ here:
“If democratically elected governments are willing to impose outright confiscation of up to 40 per cent of balances over €100,000 upon depositors in Cyprus, then why not another such hit tomorrow — in Spain, Italy or, most plausibly, Greece?
This is the most brutal display since 2008 of how far the euro-committed nations are willing to go to save the tottering single currency. It shows that the zone’s crisis will run and run, to the grievous disadvantage of almost everyone except the Germans.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2299078/One-nastiest-immoral-political-acts-modern-times.html
E.M.
If all is fair and I have an overdraft does this mean that it will be reduced by like percentage?
I hope sarc tags not necessary.
Could use it with the lizard lamp :P
http://se-led-belt.com/
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/03/one-drug-to-shrink-all-tumors.html?ref=hp
A single drug can shrink or cure human breast, ovary, colon, bladder, brain, liver, and prostate tumors that have been transplanted into mice, researchers have found. The treatment, an antibody that blocks a “do not eat” signal normally displayed on tumor cells, coaxes the immune system to destroy the cancer cells.
And so the Eurozone commences its crumble…
Just in case having seen what happened in Cyprus, you have funds in the Eurozone and you want to get them out…
‘Member States may introduce restrictions on capital movement, including capital controls, in certain circumstances and under strict conditions on grounds of public policy or public security. In accordance with the case law of the European Court of Justice, measures may also be introduced for overriding reasons of general public interest.’
Statement by the European Commission on the capital controls imposed by the Republic of Cyprus
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-298_en.htm
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/cyprus-the-mobsters-why-the-descent-into-global-panic-is-now-almost-unavoidable/
A full description here:
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/cyprus-the-mobsters-why-the-descent-into-global-panic-is-now-almost-unavoidable/
How long before Bernanke feels he should ‘cooperate’ with the IMF and the ECB?
@Ian W:
I have no money overseas. (Heck, I don’t have much money here, either ;-) That hat4uk link is interesting… the ECB hiding the capital flight statistics…
I’ve worked with a lot of different sorts of folks. There are “patterns”. Call it profiling if you like, but profiling works.
Asians in general, but Chinese in particular, are prone to rapid, intelligent, over reaction to threat, especially threat to money. The legalities and moralities are a nice to have, but when threat comes, disposable. All that Asian money in the EU will be (has been?) repatriated rapidly to Asia or recandled to somewhere else. Probably happened very early. Many “western” companies have Asian CFOs and board members.
French and Germans have had enough wars and despots run over their heads that they are not very trusting of banks anyway. Germans trust themselves and their government too much. So the Germans will be pulling their cash back to “safe” Germany. The French will be hiding it in gold in the door jamb or buying physical goods. (some sending it off to places like French Polynesia, planning to follow themselves if needed). They will not trust the EU banks.
The Brits are proper and trusting. But hard to convince to run to new ideas. So they stuck with their own currency. Tradition and all. So they are already a bit Aloof from the problem. Just need a few entries in the book keeping system and… there we go, those Euro thingies are now Proper British Pounds (worth about a shilling…)
Slavs tend to “quiet aggression”. Not trusting, but not building a lot of fantasies in the sky either. So not particularly bought into the original Euro-hype, but willing to “work it”… now not buying into the ECB-hype, and once burned (or seeing a fellow Slav burned) will quietly walk away with their hidden money. (Then a series of ‘unfortunate accidents’ will happen to those who need one…) They are ‘direct’, which is often interpreted as “unsophisticated” or even dumb by the French and Germans (and some Anglos). They are not dumb, they are quite bright, just not showy about it. Like many predators, best to look like a quiet unimportant sleeping furball… One eye open… So most likely a lot of Slav money drained indirectly and remotely from Cyprus and was the cause of the percent ‘haircut’ rising from 10% to 40% over the week.
The Southern Latin / Greek band. Life is good. Tomorrow will take care of itself. (Snow? Prepare? No snow here…) Even in wars, there is time for a party and some wine. While some individuals are rich, most ‘just folks’ are not. So it bifurcates. The Folks just don’t really give a damn about all that International Stuff and banking, and don’t have a lot of money to worry about. They care far more about their pension and home. The cost of bread and wine today. Thus the riots in the street when inflation happens and ‘entitlements’ threatened or work hours to increase. The Rich Few have people to take care of things. Each in a different way. If Mafia money was hit, look for a shortage of horse heads… Much of their money is “informal” anyway, so only the laundered bit is at risk. Easy enough, leave it in the Mercedes trunk with the armed driver…
So who’s left to get bit? The naive trusting Americans with a pile of corporate cash “in a safe bank”… with CFO’s meeting, too late, to discuss what to do. Apple has how many $Billions “overseas”? Lots of sales into the EU. Think all that cash is in €100,000 or less accounts? They will be moving cash deposits into T-bills and Bonds as fast as possible (if they are not already there); but leaving those sitting in the bank. The brighter ones will be renting safe deposit boxes and stuffing them with said bonds, cash, and valuables.. And “the little guy”. Folks who, through being frugal, have enough to live their “golden years” without working.
The real downside in all this is that the impact on the normal order of business is going to be large. Folks who would have just “Wired over $500,000” to buy a factory somewhere or a couple of big Caterpillar Vehicles, will now be looking at sizes of payments, liquidity of checks, maximum at risk in any escrow account. More transactions will be routed through non-EU banks. It will slow things down a little, but not too much. Expect more volume of trade to ‘settle’ in places like Switzerland and Japan, Caymans and New York. Which means more of ‘their money’ moving to those places to allow such trade and settlement The UK may pick up some of that business if they can show enough “distance” from the EU. Sweden and Norway are well positioned too.
So capital flight will take many forms, and happen in subtle ways. From Jews sewing more diamonds into that old coat, to Frenchmen packing a few more ounces of gold into the furniture, to the Mafia just letting the ‘dirty laundry’ stack up, to folks calling up their lawyer and getting the ‘recandle’ plan executed and “POOF!” their estate is suddenly Swiss. To the Average Joe putting down a credit card and buying a nice bit of jewelry or a new car (and thus offsetting his ‘bank account’ with a ‘bank debt’).
I doubt that the EU / ECB can even begin to gather statistics on it. You can call up your brokerage (where many retirement accounts lives) and have it converted to be denominated in a different currency if so desired. Get on an airplane and fly somewhere, do an online address change, and “POOF!” the account is in that jurisdiction. (So folks with that ability can “move” with an online address change. How many rich folks have a ‘vacation home’ somewhere else?) So a Rich Guy in Spain with a nice little beach front “shack” in Florida can do an online change and be a ‘Florida Resident’ for his “vacation” that just runs a long time… When do those address / location changes show up in statistics? Hmmmm….
So the EU will be busy trying to mop up that money and stop up all those drains. The money will just flow in other ways. Tell a Rich Guy he can’t take his $20,000,000 out of the country? He buys a $20,000,000 yacht with it inside the country, then goes on ‘vacation’ to somewhere else (where he can get ‘tired’ of the boat and sell it…) Are they going to prevent the buying of boats, jets, exotic cars, jewels and baubles, paintings and artworks, old books, …
One of my “Rules” is to immediately abandon any country (legal entity) that institutes “capital controls”. Like the “rule” on bankruptcy: ANY time the word bankruptcy shows up connected to a company or even just “exploring options”, sell and run. Hear the words “capital controls”, sell and run. The EU is now in that bucket. I hold no stocks nor ETFs with Eurozone contents. Click click, done. (Some weeks / months ago).
I understand their hiding of the capital flight numbers. They likely could not get the dials to sit still long enough to read them…
Our friends at Mises have things to say about the Cyprus mess
http://bastiat.mises.org/2013/03/the-cyprus-deal-and-the-unraveling-of-fractional-reserve-banking/
Isn’t a better name fictional reserve banking? ~ shackleford @ mises blog
Like that line about sovereign borrowers have been the worst. It is true.
I know you have a hobby horse of “fractional reserve banking”, but realize the alternative is ‘zero reserve banking’. It was an improvement over the prior art.
As long as any asset can be ‘hypothecated’ (pledged for a loan) and people are free to make private loans, you have “zero reserve banking” by default. Just unregulated and informal.
I pledge my Gold Coin to you for a loan of $US 1500. I then loan that to Jim as he hypotecates his old car to me. He loans it to Mary who signs a note on her house. She loans it to her kid for college in exchange for a promis to care for her in her old age.. 4 loans with “zero reserve”.
So fractional reserve is not particularly “evil” and those 4 loans created $6000 of “notional value” in those notes of loan. Was that value “not real”? It’s a bit vague…
This isn’t all that fictional, BTW. I first learned about this as a kid watching Dad draw up ‘promissory notes’ on real estate sales. Private notes hand written on a scrap of paper creating “money value” out of hypothecated dirt. (We sold a restaurant to some folks with one of those, and when they drove the restaurant into the dirt, they handed it back, and their house… ) It is very real. I also saw such notes hypothecated against other “deals”, so chaining too.
I strongly recommend reading about:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/business-panic-of-33ad-things-never-change/
It is a “real estate loan driven banking crisis” indistinguishable from hundreds of others through the ages and long before the era of Central Banks and Fractional Reserve Banking. It helps to understand the “issues” in a simpler context.
There are only 3 choices.
1) Zero reserve banking (or ‘whatever leverage the lender wants’ banking). Has not worked out so well. Having CDOs, SIVs, and CDSs outside the Fractional Reserve system was lethal.
2) Fractional reserve banking. Works much better than #1 with better stability and reliability. Still “has issues” with sporadic instability crisis events and is subject to parasitizing by powerful folks looking to dominate.
3) NO lending. None. Not a scrap. If you allow private lending, you are open to ‘chain loans’ and then get back into zero reserve banking, just without the bank. This could be called “100 % Reserves” if you like. You deposit $1000 in the bank, they stick it in the vault. You pay them a fee to protect it for you. The bank becomes a large safe deposit box and does zero lending out of your money.
It’s pretty clear that #3 is not going to lead to much growth of the economy nor allow folks to use things like credit cards (by definition it’s a loan) nor home mortgages nor buy a car on payment plans. Don’t see folks putting up with that.
It is also well demonstrated by history that #1 is prone to banking crisis events and instabilities. (What used to be called Financial Panics). It is clearly worse than #2.
So you are kinda stuck with #2 as the “least worst” choice.
Going to a gold standard or hard money doesn’t change any of that, BTW. Note in that 33 AD story that the money was silver… The problem is “loaning out long term with deposits held short term”. So you can have zero loans (which does fix that problem). Or you have some reserves ratio other than 100%. Either zero, or a fraction.
Which do you pick?
EM ….I know you have a hobby horse of “fractional reserve banking”, but realize the alternative is ‘zero reserve banking’. It was an improvement over the prior art…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My husband is on the phone discussing something just like that….
The problem I have with FRB is that fiat currency drives out real wealth so true capitalism is dead. Why would someone borrow money (earned wealth) from me at 10% when the Fed will lend them fairy dust at 1%? The second problem I have with FRB is the hidden inflation tax and the poor schmucks at the end of the food chain who get screwed. The third problem I have is FRB encourages war by providing funds that do not exist real time. And the fourth problem is it encourages bankers to recklessly gamble. All the leveraged buyouts of the eighties were a result of lending fairy dust instead of real wealth. All the purchases of dicey third world government bonds and giving mortgages to known losers were the result of lending fairy dust instead of real wealth. It is not THEIR money or necks on the line if they screw up it is the depositors and tax payers as recent events have shown.
That is the “parasitize by Evil Bastards for power”, not the fractional reserve.
Had we a fixed, invariant, 25% fractional reserve, money could be ‘relent’ up to 3 more times for a total of 4 times (called the ‘multiplier’) and no more. As banks would need to lend some amount just to stay in business, most of the time most of that ‘relending’ will already exist. Limited “make more from nothing” available. Limited power to corrupt and attract Evil Bastard Parasites.
In theory The Fed has a mandate to maintain stability and to not be political (why it is not a direct government agency… the only Evil Bastard you can trust less than a Central Banker is a Politician… IMHO…) In practice, it is strongly influenced by politicians.
Realize that your costs of banking will then rise. A Lot. Figure about $50 / month to have a checking account. About zero paid on savings. A fee for every check processed (i.e. a cut on the deposit of checks). Fee for services.
IF you are willing to have even more fees, and fewer loans available, make the reserves ratio 50% and you get at most a ‘double’ of the money supply.
Each time the money is loaned out, one way or another it ends up being deposited back in the / a bank and is then subject to a new “reserve” set aside and a new amount is available to loan.
It asymptotically approaches $200 or a double for a 50% reserves. In reality, unless you allow fractional penny accounting, at some point you can’t loan out 1/2 a penny and the loan chain ends.
Lehman was using 40:1 “leverage” (where the above example is 2:1 “leverage” – another name for reserves ratio) as they were in a market not subject to “fractional reserves” requirements from The Fed (Investment Banks were not subject to those rules, and could not go to the Discount Window; “Retail Banks” were subject to The Fed and did get to use The Discount Window. The repeal of Glass-Steagall let BOTH industries trade in the markets of the others, but left Investment Banks unable to use The Fed to cover liquidity issues. That is when the die was cast for the collapse. It also tied risky Investment Banks to Retail Banks via various markets. As of now, most of the old large Investment Banks are either gone / bankrupt (Lehman / Bear Stearns) or converted to Fed directed “Retail Banks” ( Goldman, etc.)
Typical “leverage” in Retail Banking was held between 10:1 and 20:1 most of the time and can be reasonably stable… provided you have a Glass-Steagall like wall between Investment Products, Retail Banking, and Insurance Companies. We had a finance industry that wanted to do European Style integrated banking, and politicians quite willing to throw away the lessons of 1929 – 32. Clinton signed it, IIRC, but Bush and Buddies were all in favor of it too. It was the “Pound of Flesh” extracted to vote in favor of the CRA that made Liar Loans and homes for everyone at ‘free money prices’ the law of the land and mandated banks to make bad loans. ( “Anti-redlining” and mandated low income loans). The first removed the smoke detectors, fire alarms, and broke up all the furniture. The second dumped gasoline all over it. The “clever” financial folks creating CDOs, and SIVs to take the garbage loans off the books of the banks lit the match. The rest was just waiting for the fuse to reach the gasoline…
OK, back from that sidebar on “how we got here”…
So now we DO have an economy based on loans and credit. You have said you don’t like Fractional Reserve. I asked “Which one do you pick”. You responded with “I’m not happy with what we have” in essence.
OK, if you don’t like Fractional Reserve, and reject it, as it creates “fairy dust money”, you will absolutely hate zero reserve banking ( ala Lehman Bros. pre-crash). Since we don’t have Glass-Steagall any more, ANY bank or financial institution could do that infinite loan chain in a zero reserves world, limited only by their willingness to ‘play chicken’ with redemption requests. So implied is that you reject “zero reserves” as an option.
By Default, that means the only one you (implied) endorse is “100% Reserves Banking”.
ALL home purchases, cash only.
YOU pay the bank a percent or two to hold your money in savings. (Custodial fee for vault).
YOU pay the bank a percent or two + $2 / check processing fee.
ALL car purchases cash only. No time payments.
NO interest bearing instruments (they are loans…) from Banks. (CDs, etc.)
An open question of allowing Muni Bonds and Treasuries. They ARE loans, but to a party that in theory does not loan the money on… So a “maybe”.
NO bonds from any agency that does money management (as it becomes a potential for ‘loaning on’ even if just via buying Munies and Treasuries).
NO private notes or loans allowed. (To prevent ‘chain loans’).
NO Credit cards. Debit cards only. $2 fee + 2% per transaction charges.
NO “time payments” or “layaway” buying (as that is a loan of credit).
Everything “cash and carry”.
There’s a few more bits, but that’s the bulk of it. It can work. (It was like that at many points in history for short times in small places).
You “good with that”?
There isn’t any other choice. Money held in reserves on deposit can be loaned out entirely, loaned not at all, or loaned at some ‘fractional reserve’ ratio. 0 to 100% is all you have to work with.
Pick the reserve ratio you endorse:
0%
100%
1-99% (state number).
Personally, I’d go with a 5:1 (20% reserves) and FIXED for all time (i.e. Fed can’t play around with it) for FEDERAL institutions and then let each State charter banks with their own rules. I’d also let private loans be a free for all. (As they always have been). Most folks don’t borrow money privately to relend it. Frankly, I’d be happy with just abolishing The Fed and turning banking over the individual States. When I was a kid “interstate” banking was forbidden. Things were stable and worked. (Though in Hawaii once I could not deposit my pay check at the branch of “My Bank” there, as it was the Hawaii charter and I was with the California charter… so they sent it via mail to California and I cashed one of “my checks” for spending money then came back in few days to cash another one…)
Then again, I’m a stick in the mud who thinks no bank needs to be bigger than 1/10th the business in One State and that they ought to be regulated so much nothing is ‘discretionary’ (and Glass-Steagall needs to be brought back along with the uptick rule…)
What is YOUR decision?
@EMSmith ; thanks for your above critique of reserve banking. I was wondering about repairs to the “system” Sometimes simple minded answers yield bad results. It appears that the Bureaucratic drive to up grade and improve things that were working, often result in disaster. I have been studying these things for over 50 years, specially the Historic records and contemporary writings of the results of the various systems that have been used in this country over the last 300 years..
As bad as Fractional Reserve Banking is, all the others are worse in their outcome. A repair of the control system is what is needed. pg
TOO BIG to FAIL is TOO BIG to LIVE!
We don’t Need THEM. pg
@P.G.:
Don’t know that it is a ‘repair’ so much as a “Put back what was there in 1960. It worked.”
The folks who designed the cure after The Great Depression did a great job. Then in the ’70s and ’80s the furniture breakers showed up wanting more “integration” and more leverage. Also the Social Engineers with the “Homes for Everyone Cheap” mantra (‘just use public money… and spank the banks if they don’t lend’ – i.e. CRA). Between those two, they broke it. Just back them out and break up the Monster Too Big To Succeed banks back into State Charters and all will be fine. Oh, and liquidate Fanny, Freddie, and Sally.. Get government out of the mortgage and housing business… (And every other business too…)
E. M. Thanks for the info. I am not an economist so I am going on what I read and see.
First I understand the money supply needs to grow with the population and economy. Gold does that to a certain extent thanks to mining but was sporadic. I understand that if the money supply is too tight it can stifle economic growth.
However here is something I think a lot of people miss.
According to my calculations and memory
#1 House price when I graduated from college was $20,000
#2 Minimum wage was $1.60 so earnings for two people was ~ $6,700/year at min wage.(we earned more as college grads but not that much more.)
#3 Nice 2 bdrm apartment was $100/month
#4 electric was $10/month, phone $10/month Groc + gas +spending money was $30-$50 (It was $50 in 1979 when I earned twice that as a single) Taxes were 10%, a car was $2,000 new so at 7% over 2 years it is $90.00/month or you buy a clunker outright So with the new car loan expenses were $2,900 and the tax was $670.
That is a base living cost of ~$3570 leaving up to ~ $3100 as potential savings (one person’s salary) That is a married couple on min wage could sock away around $200 to $250 a month fairly easily. This jives with my memory ( $100 a month board on our two horses plus over $100 in saving a month plus $50/month mad money for caving trips)
This means if we were frugal and got rid of the horses we could buy a house free and clear in SEVEN YEARS. Tell me how many young marrieds under 30 can afford a house WITH a mortgage at under thirty years of age today? This to me is the difference between a debt based and a savings based economy. Without FRB continually jacking up the prices and simultaneously devaluing my savings I could have afforded a house WITHOUT paying a G@^& D@&^$% cent in interest to the banksters!
There is a second point.
According to the small business bureau over 50% of the GDP and 50% of the US jobs is from small businesses. Hate to tell you but small businesses are completely frozen out of the loan loop. One very disgusted successful stone mason told me he could not even get home loan without having his son sign as co-borrower! (You should see the house he build drool…)
There goes the myth that the economy NEEDS FRB
So the question then becomes just who actually benefits from all that fractional reserve fairy dust financed loans.
The big boys transferring wealth from our pockets to theirs.
Then we have the up and coming generation. Since my parents went through the depression I was taught a horror of indebtedness. I only took out a car loan to establish a credit rating and then paid it off immediately. I never got a credit card until forced to because I was traveling for my company and had to have a credit car to rent a car. I never went into debt until I bought a house. Compare that to today when College grads have student loans and car loans and credit cards the day they graduate. The average credit card debt per household is $15,956. That is a far cry from socking 10% to 20% of your salary away in savings (actually mine went into buying AT&T stock forget the banks. I am a born and bred capitalist and started buying stock as a teen.)
Second, I agree that the legislation put in right after the Great Depression was pure gold. I have great admiration for Congressman McFadden. He was a banker so knew the ins and outs of the banking business. I figure SMALL is the best word in the English language. Keep our banks small, our government small and our corporations small. That way the intrinsic nastiness in the human race is kept under control and the sociopaths that always seem to rise to the top can not do as much damage.
About all those banking charges. Do you really think we get ANYTHING from the banksters for free??? I rather see the charges (and taxes) up front. And yes I remember paying a monthly fee for a bank account and $0.10/check. That is why I know how much I spent per week on groc + gas + books decades ago. You can keep the number of checks down to five or ten a month easy, just pay cash. I did it for years. Or get a fireproof safe, rottweilers and a shotgun.
…..
As far as a FRB system goes I think I would rather use how Mises suggested handling the problem. DON”T give politicians or bankers the power, leave it in the hands of the depositor and contract law then ENFORCE the contracts.
I recommend reading the whole essay it is really a hoot.
Morally I am in agreement with Rothbard. I rather see a checking account where the bank just handles the money and keeps it save and a second type of institution, with certificates of deposit or a mutual fund sort of thing where the depositor via contract allows the bank to lend out the money for a specified amount of time. However from a practical point of view I think Mises had the most workable solution.
Perhaps one more reason why current fractional reserve policies are so prone to the :”Evil Bastard Problem” is not so much the fractional reserve technique so much as the socialization of risk. What I mean is this: Modern banks are state corporate entities. The people who actually run the banks and make the decisions are effectively insulated from the consequences of their decisions. If the CEO forces through a risky loan scheme and succeeds he makes a bunch of money. If he fails catastrophically, the bank may fail, but the CEO keeps his accumulated wealth. Additionally, now that the Feds “insure” the depositors, even if the bank goes under, the depositors will get their money back from the government. This encourages depositors to be less diligent in choosing a bank with ethical and prudent policies.
Like Gail, I would personally prefer to have two separate institutions. A bank where I pay a fee for the services of checking and ATM access, and another business that handles my savings and investments. The money in my checking is 100% reserve. The money in my savings is at risk to whatever percentage I choose depending on which investment firm I pick. If I want extra insurance on either checking or savings, then I pay for a policy to that effect.
(Off subject, but Gail, you are a caver? Greetings! Me too — though I have slowed down a lot over the last decade or so. I spent most of my time underground in Florida and TAG, but the Ozarks are nice too! Don’t know if I would even fit in my harness any more, but I certainly don’t regret any of my time caving, especially on rope.)
Jason Calley, yes I am a pit popper too, or was in my younger days. Unfortunately a bad back pretty much killed caving for me a couple decades ago.
….
P.G.Sharrow ….
Yes the concept of Fractional Reserve banking has been around for centuries. As long as you have had FRB you have also had bank runs. Most people are (were) unaware that the money they placed in the bank didn’t stay there. They may have though their saving account money was lent out at interest of which they got a share, but very few were aware that not only was every cent lent out but for every $20 they deposited the bank created another $80 and lent that out too. Only a working reserve of 3% was actually left in the bank. (Down from the 10% the bankers originally found was needed.)
If I understand it correctly the ‘Central Bank’ was to be the lender of last resort and step in to help prevent bank runs. However that doesn’t always work so the next work around had the government step in and ‘insure the deposits’ up to a certain amount using the tax payer as collateral. As cyprus just showed THAT doesn’t always work either.
The US Constitution on money:
Interesting that the States are not granted the right to …coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debt… yet private bankers are now allowed to ‘print’ money as they please. Also interesting is the Federal government has the right …To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures…. again a right that has been not only given to bankers but a right the bankers are now telling the US government it DOES NOT HAVE (remember the audit the Fed fight and the US treasury/Fed fight ending on March of 1951 in something called “the Accord” [full details starting on pg 103 of A PRIMER ON MONEY COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND CURRENCY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
WRIGHT PATMAN Chairman 1964 ]
“”All the perplexities, confusion and distresses in America arise not from defects in
the constitution or confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, as much from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.” ~ John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson
Murry Rothbard does a nice explanation of why Mises idea of “Free Banking” that is competition between banks works better than cartelization of banking aka a Central Bank
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/frb.html
In looking around the internet I found something I consider truly amazing. Although after seeing the lying and truly dumb@$$ moves of the academics with regards to Climate Science and Looney Lew and his “Skeptics = Moonbats” psychology ‘papers’, I should not be surprised to find it in economics.
This is Testimony on fractional-reserve banking
Hearing June 28 2012 Fractional Reserve Banking
Statement of
Lawrence H. White
Professor of Economics, George Mason University
before the
House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology
United States House of Representatives
The guy, a professor of economics no less, does not know that Fractional Reserve Banking actually means the bankers CREATE money out of nothing! Instead he mixes ‘vault cash’ the money held by banks to take care of daily withdrawals with fractional reserve
What is even worse is one of the commenters (Paul Marks) ‘gets it’ and tries to explain and gets shot down,
Fiat fairy dust creation
Gail Combs says:
29 March 2013 at 10:44 am
“Q. When I borrow $100 from the bank as a private citizen, the bank makes a bookkeeping entry, and there is a $100 increase in the deposits of that bank, in the total deposits of that bank? ”
Not an increase in the deposits, but in the assets of the bank. A loan is an asset, a promise to get the money (plus interest) back in the future. And might become a Bad Asset when the debtor goes bankrupt before repaying it. Important distinction; I mention it because in Cyprus it were explicitly the deposits that got confiscated when assets went bad (the loans that the banks gave to Greece by buying Greek debt).
This distinction is important because it helps us to determine in which EU country deposits might be needed next to recapitalize the bank they are in. It is dependant on the percentage to which the bank relies on deposits for its financing. Here is the current pecking order:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-28/when-will-deposit-haircuts-take-place-other-european-countries-complete-bad-debt-imp
Of course, assuming the EU doesn’t change the rules again.
DirkH says:
29 March 2013 at 11:18 am
Gail Combs says:
29 March 2013 at 10:44 am
“Q. When I borrow $100 from the bank as a private citizen, the bank makes a bookkeeping entry, and there is a $100 increase in the deposits of that bank, in the total deposits of that bank? ”
Not an increase in the deposits, but in the assets of the bank. A loan is an asset, a promise to get the money (plus interest) back in the future…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I understand that, but thanks. Too bad the questioner, Mr. McGeer, K.C., former mayor of Vancouver did not make that distinction or that Mr. Towers, Governor of the Central Bank of Canada from 1934 to 1955, did not correct the wording. These types of mistakes lead to all sorts of misinformation and confusion.
Here is a great example from the US central banking system.
So what is going on is the Federal Reserve creates money, since ‘the Accord” I think they can do it without approval from the government, and uses that fairy dust money to buy government bonds. THIS is the ‘reserves’ in the fractional reserve. It is US bonds backed by the expected taxing of the American people in the future.
In Cyprus those bonds based on the ability to tax the Greek people are seen to be close to worthless, therefore the ‘reserves’ of their fractional reserve system get downgraded.
This is why the myth that part of Joe Plumber’s deposit is lent to Suzy Homemaker to renovate her kitchen is a large stinkin’ Crock of Bovine Poo
Mr. Morgan, the bank’s president of the First National Bank of Montgomery even admitted it in testimony in First National Bank of Montgomery vs. Daly (1969)
So when I say I hate Fractional Reserve Banking, I am referring specifically to that type of behavior. Banks using a bookkeeping entry to tie homeowners to a mortgage contract. That simple bookkeeping can then net the bank $193,255 over thirty years if the homeowner pays the entire loan off. There is also a darn good reason why most of the early payments are nearly 100% interest. In the first two years the bank gets $10,261.56 while the ‘owner’ would have accrued only $3,024 in ‘equity’
Mean while what has happened with those government bonds? The same thing the Fed (or private bank) uses a bookkeeping entry to ‘buy’ a contract on the moneys collected from the tax payer.
Again Primer on Money explains the mechanism
I think you can see how keeping what is going on ‘secret’ from the public benefits the bankers and the politicians.
A while back I did some more calculations looking at the Fed’s impact with regard to taxes in answer to someone supporting the FED. I never posted it but his view point was similar to EM’s
My answer:
Dude, I hate to tell you Fractional Reserve Banking has been dead for a long long time. What we have now is outright theft. The banks quit showing even a semblance of ethical behavior decades ago.
That of course is why they WANT you to believe Fractional Reserve Banking is needed. That we can not live without them. But it is a seductive fallacy based on their stealing our real wealth and hooking us on fairy dust credit instead.
The US has plenty of wealth. People could exist very easily on what they earn if the bankers and the government did not confiscate over 80% of their wages. Venture capitalists can loan wealth (not fiat play money) to businesses. Heck, most small businesses never borrow money from the banks in the first place, for the simple reason the banks will not lend them money because they are a bad risk. Stockholders lend money to corporations in return for a cut of the profits (dividends)
I already went through buying a house with saving vs debt. However although it was possible for an ordinary couple to do it in 1970 it is not possible now. WHY?
Let us think of the actual facts of the matter. Why do you HAVE to borrow money? The simple answer is because you can not buy what you need with your wages and you earn so little you can not save up the money to buy what you want. So lets look at WHY you can’t buy what you need on your wages either outright or through savings.
The last time (1991) I figured out how much I was paying in visible taxes – State, Federal, property, Social Security, medicare, sales tax – it came out to 64.4% of my wages. This is collaborated by this quote:
Don’t forget that Social Security at 15.3%, plus 2.9% at Medicare is really double that since employers consider it part of the cost of an employee. It is another political sleight of hand making main street think they are getting something for ‘FREE’
Then there are the invisible taxes on everything we buy. This is the hidden tax that is so difficult to figure out.
“A third of the cost of a gallon of gas is tax, half the cost of a pack of cigarettes and last I checked (20 years ago), there were 109 different taxes on a loaf of bread before you paid sales tax on the loaf and carried it home.’ – JB Williams
“If people need any more concrete explanation of this, start with the staff of life, a loaf of bread. The simplest thing; the poorest man must have it. Well, there are 151 taxes now in the price of a loaf of bread — it accounts for more than half the cost of a loaf of bread. It begins with the first tax, on the farmer that raised the wheat…” – <President Ronald Reagan
Depending on how you do the calculations you can get anywhere from 30% and up on that loaf of bread. I noticed that no one ever bothers to include Monsanto who sold the seed, or John Deere who sold the tractor and implements or the grain elevators where the grain is stored, or the grain traders who bought the wheat and sold it to the milling company, or all the tax on the hauling companies that moved the seed and grain and the farmers equipment around. Or the mining company or the steel foundry… gets real complicated doesn’t it?
Lets do the calculations
For every $100 I earn, after I pay my taxes I am left with $35.6. But when I go to buy a product about 1/3 of the cost is additional taxes! So in reality I get to keep and spend a measly $23.73 out of every $100 I earn!
It gets worse
This does not include the fact that thanks to wage devaluation I am actually earning 1/3 less than I was in 1971 when I first started working at a wage just above minimum.
Part of that is due to the cost of regulation.
In other words all the excess fat from the US economy has been trimmed and consumed by taxes, red tape and the banksters leaving most people in a perpetual debt cycle. Instead of being more wealthy than our parents many who retire are destitute with little but Social Security since pensions are essentially dead.
EM-
I wondered why the CPUC approved a concentrating (CSP) project with some energy storage last year with very attractive prices (for the investor that is).
Something about ” The marginal economic value of PV and CSP without thermal storage is found to drop considerably (by more than $70/MWh) as the penetration of solar increases toward 30% on an energy basis.” must of had something to do with it………..
Click to access lbnl-5445e.pdf
“Changes in the Economic Value of
Variable Generation at High
Penetration Levels: A Pilot Case
Study of California”
Andrew Mills and Ryan Wiser
………”Specifically, in this case study implementation of the model, the marginal economic value of all three solar
options is found to exceed the value of a at-block of power (as well as wind energy) by $20{30/MWh at
low penetration levels, largely due to the high capacity value of solar at low penetration. Because the value
of CSP per unit of energy is found to be high with or without thermal energy storage at low penetration,
we nd little apparent incremental value to thermal storage at low solar penetration in the present case
study analysis. The marginal economic value of PV and CSP without thermal storage is found to drop
considerably (by more than $70/MWh) as the penetration of solar increases toward 30% on an energy basis.
This is due primarily to a steep drop in capacity value followed by a decrease in energy value. In contrast,
the value of CSP with thermal storage drops much less dramatically as penetration increases. As a result,
at solar penetration levels above 10%, CSP with thermal storage is found to be considerably more valuable
relative to PV and CSP without thermal storage. The marginal economic value of wind is found to be
largely driven by energy value, and is lower than solar at low penetration. The marginal economic value
of wind drops at a relatively slower rate with penetration, however. As a result, at high penetration, the
value of wind can exceed the value of PV and CSP without thermal storage. Though some of these findings
may be somewhat unique to the specific case study presented here, the results: (1) highlight the importance
of an analysis framework that addresses long-term investment decisions as well as short-term dispatch and
operational constraints, (2) can help inform long-term decisions about renewable energy procurement and
supporting infrastructure, and (3) point to areas where further research is warranted..
For easier reading on old eyes.
………”Specifically, in this case study implementation of the model, the marginal economic value of all three solar options is found to exceed the value of a at-block of power (as well as wind energy) by $20{30/MWh at low penetration levels, largely due to the high capacity value of solar at low penetration. Because the value of CSP per unit of energy is found to be high with or without thermal energy storage at low penetration, we nd little apparent incremental value to thermal storage at low solar penetration in the present case study analysis.
The marginal economic value of PV and CSP without thermal storage is found to drop considerably (by more than $70/MWh) as the penetration of solar increases toward 30% on an energy basis. This is due primarily to a steep drop in capacity value followed by a decrease in energy value. In contrast, the value of CSP with thermal storage drops much less dramatically as penetration increases. As a result, at solar penetration levels above 10%, CSP with thermal storage is found to be considerably more valuable relative to PV and CSP without thermal storage. The marginal economic value of wind is found to be largely driven by energy value, and is lower than solar at low penetration. The marginal economic value of wind drops at a relatively slower rate with penetration, however. As a result, at high penetration, the value of wind can exceed the value of PV and CSP without thermal storage. Though some of these findings may be somewhat unique to the specific case study presented here, the results:
(1) highlight the importance of an analysis framework that addresses long-term investment decisions as well as short-term dispatch and operational constraints,
(2) can help inform long-term decisions about renewable energy procurement and supporting infrastructure, and
(3) point to areas where further research is
Newest on the continuing Cyprus Saga
And the contagion is spreading…
Canada Includes Depositor Haircut Bail-In Provision For Systemically Important Banks in 2013 Budget
ECONOMIC ACTION PLAN 2013
MORE POPCORN
@Gail:
Not seeing your answer to “Which do you want: 100%, 0%, 1-99% (pick number) reserves.”
You have quoted a lot of Mises that advocates for “near 100%” . Is that your number?
BTW, all currency and electronic money is “fairy dust” money. Fractional reserve or not not doesn’t change that. It just changes who does the creating.
1) Treasury can print “US Notes” and mint coins. (Some time around Kennedy was the last time this was done… I can look it up if desired.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Note They have a red seal on them. Fed Reserve notes have green.
2) The Fed. Via “bookkeeping entry”. Being done now (all the time, really) as they “buy” assets.
3) Member banks of The Fed – when new deposits (created by 1 or 2 above) come in and are “fractionally reserved”.
4) J.Q. Public via ‘chain loans’. Informal and often ignored. “Shadow banking”.
Number 4 can’t create currency ( M1 ) but it can create a kind of ‘notional money’ with a bond like character. A “bearer bond” if you will. This is officially discouraged.
Number 1 can “print without limit” and politicians do so love to print. So it, too, is officially discouraged. (Note the recent buzz about minting a $Trillion platinum coin…) We’ve put up elaborate rules and laws to try to prevent politicians from finding the “ON” switch for the printing press…
Number 2 has the bulk of the authority to create our “Fairy Dust” money (properly called “Fiat Money”) including setting rules about things like checking deposits and credit card limits and some other kinds of ‘money’ ( M2, M3, M…) but they also set the “Discount Rate” and the “Reserves Requirements”. So how much it costs a ‘member bank’ to borrow from them, and how much “reserves” the bank has to carry.
Number 3 can only “create money” to the extent #2 says they can.
So in large part the Fractional Reserve ability to create Fiat Money due to the reserves ratio is just a way for The Fed to make it easier to expand / contract the money supply without doing it all itself.
Again: It is ALL Fiat Money (as opposed to ‘hard money’ – metals). It is all “Fairy Dust”.
So who do you want creating that Fiat Money:
1) Politicians and The Treasury Printing Department?
2) The Central bank.
3) Their minion banks.
4) Anyone who wants to.
Pick one.
Or pick hard money. (Which has another whole set of problems.)
I understand you don’t like what we have. I understand inflation is an evil. I understand what it does to the economy and lives. Those are the REASONS but not the ANSWER.
So pick your answer: Who creates fiat money, and what reserve ratio.
Or gold standard, and what reserve ratio.
@Jason Calley:
I’ve not spent a lot of time underground, but some. Not the ‘crawl on your belly’ kind or roping in. More the “walk proven paths”. Still, loved it. Wonder where my carbide lamp has gone…
FWIW, we HAD a system somewhat along the lines of what you propose. “Investment Banks” did “risky” investments and “Retail Banks” didn’t. (Limited to savings, checking, home and car loans, and some direct small business loans IIRC). Retail banks were under the thumb of The Fed, investment banks not. Worked well until Glass-Steagall was repealed and we had two classes of “banks” both selling everything (and insurance too…)
That division of banking stabilizes banking. It doesn’t solve the Fiat Money Printing problem. (Near as I can tell, nothing fixes that, just changes the rate of decay toward zero… shades of Pascal…)
@Gail Combs:
“Yes the concept of Fractional Reserve banking has been around for centuries. As long as you have had FRB you have also had bank runs.”
ALL banking is “fractional reserve”. Did you read that 33 AD link? By definition if you take in money that you then loan out, you are doing fractional reserve. The only question is what fraction. If you are not making loans, you are not a bank, you are a bill paying service for a fee.
In 33 AD the reserve fraction was set by the individual bank (your ‘market based’ system from Mises) not by a Central Bank. You still had “Fairy Dust” money (though not Fiat Money as they used metals) in the form of ‘notional money’ on deposit receipts. At a later point in history (about 1700) these deposit receipts could circulate as currency. Some of the early ‘paper money’. At the start of the USA every bank issued it’s own ‘receipts’ and we had dozens of kinds of currency in circulation along with hard money.
None of that prevented inflation nor bank runs.
The Fed was set up so that any “member bank” could pledge their loan portfolio for ‘instant cash’ to handle bank runs. That’s why they essentially ended here. Any bank can hand out unlimited cash to their depositors just by having The Fed hand it over in exchange for notional title to the assets of the bank (i.e pledged loan collateral). This worked very well until folks started mandating bad loans be made (CRA) and others packaged them into sausage (SIVs) with a bogus A rating.
The current ‘banking crisis’ mostly comes down to folks discovering that the A rated “collateral” was mis-graded. The mortages were unsound and the Sovereign Debt was not going to be repaid as the Politicians and The People were treating it as one big “Party on the credit card” and planned to just repudiate or ask of every bigger credit limits and new cards to pay off the old ones.
A short trip down the history of banking panics in the USA pre-Fed pretty much shows that the creation of The Fed and Deposit Insurance did greatly stabilize banking. That is not in doubt.
I make no assertions about the relative value of the disease vs the cure…
Gail, you seem tremendously put out that the banks “create money out of thin air” as though this was some great surprise, unknown, and evil. It is absolutely well known, not at all a surprise (it is a design goal of the system), and the degree of ‘evil’ depends on the use, not the existence.
You have a choice: “Hard money”, or “Fiat Money”. Fiat money is, by definition, created “out of thin air”. Always has been. Always will be. You can change who does that creation, but not the fact of it. I’d rather not have it be the Politicians & The Press as that leads to Zimbabwe (and a thousand others.. including the German Hyperinflation). We could have The Fed do it all directly. Not much of a problem, really. They can “wish it into being” and make entries assigning it to each bank as their needs are manifest. Takes a whole lot of daily communications and paperwork. Or we can let individual banks do it with less overhead. Pick one.
BTW, as I’ve pointed out several times, the status of things is that ANYONE can create “notional money”. (Look at Bitcoin as a modern fancy version). In many ways “discount coupons” are a kind of notional money. As are “free drink” coupons. Any kind of I.O.U. is a creation of “Fairy Dust Money”.
Every time you use your credit card YOU create money. The bank grants you a ‘credit line’, but that is not an ‘asset of the bank’ until you buy something with the credit card. At that moment you create that much ‘notional money’ via an I.O.U. to the seller ‘insured’ by the Card Transaction Company (who eventually process it on to your bank / statement).. The Government didn’t print any currency nor issue a bond. The Fed didn’t make any bookkeeping entry. Your bank has not yet had a daily ‘fractional reserve’ cycle. You issued an I.O.U. promise to pay and signed it. (The seller later presents those to their bank who gives them an entry and the processing system at Visa or MC sorts them all to your bill and eventually some bank turns them into THEIR notional money).
Credit Cards are in one of the higher M numbers, but I’ve forgotten which one. When they first were created there was considerable discussion of what they meant for ‘the money supply’ and would this be destabilizing…
We’ve seen all those statements about banks making money out of thin air via a bookkeeping entry a dozen times already. It is rather like saying the sun rises in the morning.
FWIW, my “answer” is chop the banks up into little tiny ones, nothing more than a few branches each. Nothing interstate. It’s size that attracts the Evil Bastards and communities that keep them out. But I could be wrong.
Other note: I didn’t realize Canadians could be as stupid as Europeans…
@Kakatoa:
It all comes down to sunshine heating. Our largest load is AC, which is driven by sunshine but with a lag. So the energy at the PV cells arrives just a few hours before the AC peaks. Takes time for heat soak through insulated walls and roofs. Folks come home to a ‘hot all day’ house and turn on the AC and hit the AEK for dinner; after peak sun.
So a time shift of just a few hours via thermal storage pays a lot toward peak clipping, but only after you have begun clipping most of that mid-day rise with other solar…
Two types of banks.
One has 100% reserve and can not print money period. Two types of depositors – demand deposit for warehousing wealth and a savings certificate where you know 100% is being loaned out in the housing market/car loans…. These two types could be linked like my credit union does to give you a break on the cost of your demand deposit account. NO COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT CRAP law. It pretty much is a bank for Main Street who can’t and shouldn’t be gambling with their money.
Second type of bank is the gamblers bank. ‘Savings certificate’ only has a 20% reserve (the 1913 act had 18% I think) and there is NO deposit guarantee what ever but the rates are much higher. If you put you money in that bank you KNOW you are as naked as if you dumped it into ‘Rossi Ecat Inc.’
I have not checked but I think this is what the Depression era banking laws did. States to charter and regulate. No too big to fail. Federal government to stay out of it and no cross border stuff where a state has a 33%
interestusury rate so that is where all the credit card companies reside.OH, and a mandatory class on economics (and how to balance a checkbook) for all high school students. “BUT But but… I still have checks how can I be overdrawn Mr. Banker?” (I actually heard that.)
Problem is as soon as you hand over any law on banking to the politicians and their banker buddies they can amend it and we are back where we started.
I have seen the same sort of persistence on other laws. That is why I am so worried about the Food Safety Modernization Act. You can see the goal in HR875: Trojan Horse and A solemn walk through HR 875 The bill that passed was waterdown as was the original Animal Welfare law but you KNOW those nasty little one liners will get attached to popular bills and the first thing you know you have the original bill complete in it’s entirety.
For that reason I would go back to the Constitution. Metal money or silver/gold certificates and let the market take care of the actual value. I rather have a “slower” economy than the mess we have now.
@Gail Combs:
OK, 2 banks, one with 100% reserves the other with “market determined”.
That is (with the ‘no interstate; parts) rather like the 1960s or so set I said I advocate.
You then add two more bits. One is “doable” (and might or might not be better) the other can’t be. By Definition.
You say the first bank with 100% reserves and NO money creation is to make loans for cars and homes and things. You want to make that divide on the type of account in the bank. Well, when that bank goes belly up, and they have levered those ‘risk’ deposits 40:1 and are now 20 into bankruptcy, what “Chinese wall” is going to keep the courts and creditors out of that other set of deposits in that one bank?
So the bank, as a whole, WILL have some “reserve ratio”, even if only one class of deposits is allowed to be loaned. Stating no maximum reserve fraction on those ‘risk’ deposits just means they will be “levered up” a whole lot more to make up for the unleveraged “safe money”. The total risk profile of the bank stays risky. Essentially, money is fungible to large degree, so saying “this is my Blue Money, it’s special” doesn’t really work.
In fact, our present system of deposit insurance is a fancy version of a very similar thing. “Depositors” are to be made 100% whole if the bank has a failure. ALL the banks pay a fee into a common pool to provide the insurance. ALL their assets are ‘at risk’ to the insurance pool via ongoing mandates for more fees if the pool gets too low. It is a collectivization of that risk. So you want one bank where the only “reserves” are the savings / checking deposits; and the rest has an infinite multiplier rule.
Your bank takes in $1 Million, loans it to the car seller who buys cars, then FORD puts that $ M in the bank in a CD, which gets loaned out to folks to buy cars from the Car Seller, and the Car Seller puts it in the bank in a CD (since he got the cars from FORD on account that isn’t due for a while), and it gets loaned out for home mortgages, and the folks who SOLD their houses put the money in the bank in CDs (since they don’t need it all right now) and it gets loaned out… Repeat to infinity if desired… (There are practical limits that start to show up at about 100:1 but way past ‘reasonable’ levels). Pretty soon your bank has $100 Million of CDs and $100 Million of loans to be paid to it. They have NONE of the original deposit in the bank. Now their $1 M of checking & Savings folks are the only money in the vault. What happens when the Car Seller declares bankruptcy and defaults on his “car buying loan”? Do 100% of all CD holders get screwed? That’s $99 Million. Think the bankruptcy lawyers will be looking at the only money in the vault for their fees?
That’s the core problem. Once you allow ANY loans, the fungible nature of money means there is some risk attached to all of it. (You can apportion some, but as we’ve seen, that gets erased when the vault is empty…)
So you are back in the space where, with a bank making SOME loans, you need a ‘reserve ratio’ that causes flags to go up and somebody to police the thing (currently regulatory agencies and ratings agencies – though not doing a good job of it…) Having 1/2 be 100% and the other 1/2 be 0% just gives you “loads of risk to the whole bank”>
If you are going to have a 100% on regular savings / checking, I’d suggest having it be a “public utility” (or, gasp, perhaps government run… it’s simple enough…) Passbook savings at interest = real inflation rate. Checking at $1 / check. NO loans. Nothing Else. NO credit cards. Just passbook savings and checking (maybe a debit card / ATM). Then the second bank does CDs / auto -home -small biz loans and has a 20% reserves ratio. Defined risk. (Rather like the old Savings & Loans we had before THEY had a banking crisis in the ’70s….) Finally, “Investment Banks” for the cowboys. No government insurance, no limit to losses.
That’s a small increase in complexity on the 1950-60s laws via that segregation of CDs from savings / checking, but the only way to have them NOT exposed to a “fractional reserve” holding institution.
Hard Money:
Realize that using Hard Money does NOTHING to reduce the creation of “notional money” via fractional reserve banking or o% reserve banking. We had plenty of bubble and bust and bank runs when we had hard money.
All it really does is shut down the printing press at the government.
It also gives you a somewhat volatile money supply, subject to the control of mining companies and countries, a royal PITA on balance of trade issues (there’s a lot of gold at the bottom of the ocean from shipping it around the planet to balance books…) and your money supply slowly goes away as coins wear down. Oh, and as the economy grows, you get deflation of prices due to limited growth of mining.
But it can work, and does put fetters on the politicians. Doesn’t do anything to the bankers, though, other than increase the costs of guarding and shipping heavy metals around.
Testing new PC.
Please Discard
E.M.
Some more banking
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/IMF_WB/IMF_Crisis_Credibility.html
Eurocrash: smile and lie
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=83767
Spleen on a chip…
http://gizmodo.com/5992507/darpas-spleen+on+a+chip-solves-sepsis
@EMSmith; Another Bitcoin story:
“Just as Bitcoin explodes beyond the $1 billion mark thanks to Europe’s debt crisis, the emerging virtual currency was dealt a setback this week after a key exchange was hit by a powerful cyber attack that caused delays.”
Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2013/03/29/bitcoin-exchange-mt-gox-targeted-by-cyber-attack/#ixzz2PPaJTGyN
I am curious about this Internet “currency” that seems to be “open source” administered.
Another “Rabbit Hole” You might chose to explore, when you are bored, :-) pg
@P.G. What if BITCOIN IS REALLY THE NEW WORLD ORDER CURRENCY?, better to rely on a physical exchange as metallic GOLD or SILVER. PAPERS (Paper gold, derivatives, over printed “shares” are what, in a few days or weeks won´t have any value)
@E.M.
How about a nice brisk Heinrich Event drop to ice age temperatures by 2023? See some interesting back and forth here (if you haven’t seen it)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/02/global-cooling-methods-and-testable-decadal-predictions/#comment-1264443
and
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/02/global-cooling-methods-and-testable-decadal-predictions/#comment-1264726
It is actually a long discussion about correlation between glacial/interglacial and variations in geomagnetic field intensity. Seems the sudden determined migration of the North Magnetic Pole may not be good news.
Good article here;
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=3-years-in-bitcoin-digital-money-gains-momentum
“Cowrie shells, strips of leather, huge stone discs, decorated rectangles of paper. They all share something in common: at one time, people used them as currency. In 2009, when Bitcoin went live, ones and zeros were added to the list. ”
3 pages, 6 months old information. pg
And another non-financial that may be of interest.
An Alumin(i)um Fuel Cell discussed here:
ChiefIO, I think we have a problem with the definition of fractional reserve and what really happens.
Actually what happens is you get a double claim on the money. Joe the plumber thinks his $100 is safely tucked in his checking account while Susy Homemaker is spending it. This is the cause of BANK RUNS and why I specified a contract(FULLY ENFORCED) that states exactly what happens to the money that is deposited.
The other definition, which is what I am using is: According to the 9:1 ratio, they keep all of their deposits and loan out of thin air up to nine times the amount in fairy dust based on the actual money deposited.
This is closer to what actually happens. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago even states it: Banks do not really pay out loans from the money they receive as deposits. If they did this, no additional money would be created. – (Modern Money Mechanics last paragraph..page 6) You can’t get much clear than that.
My definition is backed up by statements by top tier bankers.
IT IS FRAUD and Morgan admitted it in a US court of law. Of course the Judge died mysteriously shortly thereafter…
In the system I talked of this does not happen. 10 individual gold coins are given to my financial advisor, he keeps one and facilitates a contract (based on future earning ie wealth) with a third party. That third party gets the 9 individual coins. He buys supplies giving five coins to a building supply and pays wages with four coins to a carpenter. The five coins from the building supply are placed in a warehouse account for buying more supplies and the four coins from the carpenter go to a financial advisor for investment. There is no multiplier effect and there is no fraud. Everthing is clearly spelled out in a contract and enforced by the government.
It is not like a bank it is like a mutual fund that has no legal right to use ten pieces of paper representing the same coin to buyten shares of different stock.
The Bank runs you mention are because depositors realized they had been defrauded. The bankers were lending out receipts for gold coins that was not theirs by right of ownership or by contract as an investment facilitator.
Technology that may result in 70% efficiency of solar EMF energy collection:
http://today.uconn.edu/blog/2013/02/uconn-professors-patented-technique-key-to-new-solar-power-technology/
Rectenna , nano scale, rectifying antenna that converts electron/photon vibrational energy to direct electrical energy. pg
@EMSmith this thread is nearly too long for me to load. pg
PG, I accidently cliked on your name instead of the comment here. What the hell are you building, and is that revolver for a six shooter cannon your holding registered?
@P.G.:
It’s been on my “to do” list for a couple of days… but I’ve been slammed with a “school work project” and trying to keep up with the digression into broken economics on the LENR thread…
I’ll “fix it” Real Soon Now ;-)
Impressively, the rectennas, because of their incredibly small and fast tunnel diodes, are capable of converting solar radiation in the infrared region through the extremely fast and short wavelengths of visible light – something that has never been accomplished before. Silicon solar panels, by comparison, have a single band gap which, loosely speaking, allows the panel to convert electromagnetic radiation efficiently at only one small portion of the solar spectrum. The rectenna devices don’t rely on a band gap and may be tuned to harvest light over the whole solar spectrum, creating maximum efficiency.
Was really interesting until the end of the article when they said they had not actually made a working device yet… OK, another “we’ve sort of shown we can do some of the things for our bright idea” press release… but at least they got a chunk of government money…
@David:
It’s an interesting experiment in anti-gravity and the gravity / electromagnetic interaction.
Registered? He don’t need no steeenking registration!
;-)
As this one was getting slow, there’s a new T11 page:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/t11/