The Social Broadcast

I stood in Costco waiting for J, my iPhone tuned to Mercy by Duffy. Perhaps it was my childhood lack of socialization. Epiphany comes easier now since the Dot Com crash. Music played as christmas swirled around me, then I stood still and the invisible social broadcast came into focus. Observing the Broadcast can sometimes obscure the seer. It's a taboo and most people flick your presence to "off"; eyes averted, attention riveted on a trivial task at hand.

Like Chaos theory, a single tranmission into the Broadcast could ricochet off an observer, bounce down the social chain and create a seemingly unrelated action at the other end. The Wiccans and I played this game, but only one or two levels deep. Last year she implied that they manipulate language for its subconscious effect. Then I inadvertenly replied with a mixed message and for a second, she seized on the wrong one. She caught herself and laughed, "Oh, you're very good".

One more week in Seattle. The Crash is full-on now, its impact to jobs & safety will show up soon. It should fall somewhere between the Nikkei Crash (1990) and the Soviet Collapse (1989), i.e. it will last for many years although there will be brief periods of apparent recovery. But it's unlikely the U.S. will fully recover. Future historians will probably view the 2008-9 Crash as a continuation of the Nasdaq crash, discounting the brief recovery of 2003-2006 as peculiar to Greenspan's extreme antics.

As I noted in Nov, 2006, the housing crash began in Nov, 2005 as shown by the changes in inventory buildup. But the stock market didn't recognize The Crash until April, 2006 when the homebuilder stocks collapsed.

The IT industry peaked in 2001. It's been on life support since then, kept alive by a flood of cheap immigrant labor and outsourcing. I suspect the Indians will soon discover this for themselves. Congress outsourced two million IT jobs and today, Obama promised to create two and half million jobs. History will judge this as insanity. There's not much point in more effort (but don't tell the Indians that! ho ho ho). There's so many young Indians now that it's hard for an old white guy to get hired. The Indians hire their own and now control large tracts of the IT world in major US companies, as I discovered at Verizon & Cisco. I may take a teaching job.

I've noticed several smashed car windows in the past few days.
I suppose the crime wave is on but I don't have hard evidence yet.

J and I went to Confessional at Vogue Night. She didn't warn me so I wasn't dressed right; white USAF t-shirt and white khakis so she bought a leash and led me into the club. I guess it worked as we didn't get evicted. The crowd was smaller than the old Vogue but much better dressed in leather, vinyl, chrome, tattoos, elaborate haircuts and even some vampiric contact lenses and glow-stick accessories. The Monsignor recognized me but cut J's greeting short and moved on. Interesting.

The Rotunda

I spent a week in Charlotteville, VA in 2005, just before I began this blog. I wish I'd taken photos. I walked through the Rotunda and around the campus at University of Virginia.

Thomas Jefferson was prolific and thoughtful. A pictorial timeline on a Rotunda wall shows Jefferson's life and he probably accomplished more after his presidency than before. He founded the University of Virginia in 1819, ten years after leaving the White House; it was the vision for our modern university system and it violated mainstream thought of that time because it was a university for the people, not the elite, and why would anyone need (or want) that?

Amazing.

A seventy-six year-old man created the University system of the United States.

I think he'd be disappointed at where we are today.

Blueprint For The Re-Public

Designing a New America with communication principles.

I'll flesh this out over the next few weeks and submit it as a Defcon presentation for 2009.

Initial outline

i) The Crash
ii) Credit Cycle
iii) Hetereogenuity
iv) Schramm & Context
v) Cultural Diffusion
vi) Derivatives as communication failure
vii) Common language as a foundation
viii) Class hierarchy diagram of USA legal structure
ix) Expand upon points 7 & 8 for more concrete design
x) Gaming CalculatedRisk

Gaming CalculatedRisk

I gamed CalculatedRisk.blogspot.com

I had two goals -

i) Demonstrate that it's possible and fairly easy.
ii) Influence outcomes of The Pivot Point

1) The Evidence. In the preceding weeks I built up some interest by posting alternating humor and factual tidbits. Then in mid-November, I injected "Schramm communication model" into conversation and bound its context to certain, on-going topics. As I am the #2 Google entry for "Schramm model", my feedback was immediate and I tweaked the meme injection a bit over a couple of days. Here's the proof that the injection was successful -

Mid-November was the largest relative spike for "schramm model" in the past five years.
The Aug, 2006 spike reaches the same amplitude but starts from a closer point.

2) The Goal. I wanted to demonstrate certain aspects of the Internet and judging from the international bleedoff from CalculatedRisk, I succeeded. Naomi Klein's book, "The Shock Doctrine" touches on strategic potential of The Crash but not the tactical feedback mechanism. This is the feedback mechanism, a property which I defined as "diffraction" in 2005 - the disruption and release of mental bandwidth so that it more easily accept new ideas.

I chose CalculatedRisk because it's the right venue - it's bipartisan, focused on economic issues, has a critical mass, it was relatively easy and... its readership fits the pattern of "diffraction". CR readers are more aware and more concerned than the average citizen. They're ahead of the pack.

A second aspect of The Crash is the dynamic between The Common and The Different. After many years, I concluded that a major problem in the U.S. is increasing emphasis on "The Different" for marginal economic gain. Previous depressions show that once the profit breakpoint is reached, momentum will still drive societies into untenable actions. Eventually, the snap-back towards conformity (and profitability) can be dramatic. Nazi Germany, for instance. Real change in the United States would revolve around a new center of common interest, a shift back towards conformity, but most people won't give up marginal/fringe beliefs without a great deal of economic pain.

Keep in mind that I gamed CalculatedRisk with one person (me), a few dollars of software and $1K laptop.
Imagine what a well-funded government or organization could do.

I wrote up this entry as part of my 2009 Defcon proposal.
It's almost as kooky as my meme stuff at Defcon 13, 14 and 15 so my odds of acceptance are good!

Comparative Advantage Cycle

Our starting point is a group of people with no skills whatsoever. Under the theory of comparative advantage they occupy the same ecological niche in the economy and compete against each other. The level of competition is high.

As they develop skills, multiple niches evolve. People within the same skill set compete with each other. But within a static population, fewer people compete in each niche.





Eventually, certain niches evolve into monopolies and oligoplies. Competition is low enough that competitors have pricing power.





In a complex economy, inter-dependencies evolve between niches. Eventually, certain chains are dependent upon monopolies and oligopolies which can disrupt the entire chain and demand higher compensation. A reversal and decomposition of the niches is almost guaranteed at this point. This is the U.S. in 2008 during the derivatives collapse.

Synchronicity II

There are forces in the universe which we cannot perceive. After all, we are monkeys designed to travel in tribal bands of 150 or so, live in temperate forested areas and last for fifty or sixty years. It's no wonder the Incas thought stars were gods. Inevitable, really.

There are relationships which we perceive as a species. There are relationships which we can never perceive. But the most interesting relationships are those which some perceive but others do not. Or perceived wrongly.

Complex, gestaltic forces create empires. Counterbalancing forces bring empires down. Five monkeys, typing on a keyboard for eternity, could probably write a sequence, a set of instructions or words or concepts or actions or speeches to reverse our course. But we, with limited sight and lifetime, will almost certainly fail.

Perhaps that's how it should be.

Obama Vs SCOTUS Monster

Thrills.
Chills.
Large Legal bills!
(speaking of which, the divorce judge ruled in my favor again today)

Obama lawsuit to be reviewed by Supreme Court on Dec 5th. I'll go out on a limb and say they'll accept it and make a ruling.

"11/19/08 - Justice Thomas has decided to move this case to conference on December 5th. All 9 United States Supreme Court Justices will look at case and determine to 1) grant motion, 2) dismiss motion, or 3) hold a hearing on the motion."

Nikkei Retest

Nikkei broke through its previous post-Crash low (7900 in 2003). But even based on that low, the Nikkei lost almost 80% of its value over a thirteen-year period. Factoring in opportunity cost, the Nikkei crash probably ranks close to the 1929 DOW crash at a loss of 89% over four years.

A Fed duplication puts the DOW at 2800.

Nobody believes that's possible. Likewise, property values in the larger cities would fall 70% to match Tokyo. I expect the Fed to crack long before 2800 and start printing, though.

Citibank

On our last episode of SYSTEMIC MELTDOWN!

Ka-BOOM, there goes Citi.
Down almost 90% in eighteen months.
Toast, as predicted in Feb, 2008.

I had dinner tonight with M and his wife. In 2005, I'd mentioned the Housing boom and impending crash during dinner in Portland but tonight he admitted that he hadn't understood my point. I asked how much he'd lost. His face turned gray and grim and he said, "I don't know anymore. I can't bear to read my statements".

Bought some real cowboy boots for J. She was stunned but happy. Then she stripped off her clothes, put on the boots and a cowboy hat, knocked me to the floor, leapt on me and yelled, "Whoo hoo, ride 'em, cowgirl!".

Deficit = $1 trillion

Fiscal day #79.
$993 billion.

Obama says that we "can't worry abou the Deficit". Well, he's right about that. The people who should be worrying are the Japanese, Chinese, English, German, Australian, Korean, Vietnamese, Brazilian, Canadian, Mexican, Italian, French, Irish, Spanish, Russian, Taiwanese, Arab, African and a few guys in Antarctica & Iceland.

$4+ Trillion

Looks like "The Bailout" now exceeds $4 trillion.


Citibank made a new low today, now down over 80% from fifteen months ago.
Closing in on bankruptcy numbers!
Probably carries at least a quarter trillion in bad assets.


As predicted, it looks like the Feds are throwing in the towel on TARP -

"The Treasury Department isn't likely to ask for Congress for authority any time soon to use the second half of the $700 Troubled Asset Relief Program"

These guys are already in pretty deep with that $4 trillion in "loans".


Oh, and Holy Fricking Christ.
Double Holy Fricking Christ, anyone?

Hmmmm, yeah.
Yeah, I'm not seeing a real estate recovery here.

Ho ho ho.
Mer-ry
Christmas.

Obama Overdriven Meme

Remember our definition and fingerprint for an over-driven meme -

Conclusion - the "Obama Birth Certificate" meme looks similar; a small minority of people are using the Internet to drag the reminder kicking and screaming into the birth certificate debate. The story has received virtually no play on the MainStream Media in recent weeks.

Supply and Da Man

worldwide run on gold coins

"How could there be such a dichotomy between the historic high premium for coins all over the world and the low Comex price?"

Naked short-selling to manipulate the price?

As I noted six weeks ago about the John Law bubble,

"The savviest investors physically removed the gold and silver coins from the country"

Lawbama suits

Obama Lawsuits

Somebody finally collected the lawsuits together on one site.

Cultural Ego Shift?

I look for keyword counts which indicate a large-scale sentiment shift. Today I discovered an interesting pronoun shift. Notice that the shift doesn't show up in the "news" (bottom graph in each frame) but in the user-entry searches for Google Trends. Some of the shift is confirmed in Blogpulse.com/trend. I've been searching for shifts related to The Crash. Notice the "me/you" graph with an increasing "you" count from early 2006 until early 2008. Based on changes in housing inventory, the housing crash began in Nov, 2005.

Coupled with the increase in "should", I wonder if this could be a blame / peer pressure mechanism at work.