Tuesday, December 22, 2009

DEADPOOL #18 WRITER: Daniel Way PENCILS: Paco Medina



Maybe I was emotional that night when I read this comic (details will remain sketchy re: reasons of emotional responses), still the Deadpool comic (issue 18) written by Daniel Way and Art by Paco Medina kinda hit a nerve with me.

It was a uplifting and happy conclusion to a story arc that evolves around Deadpool trying to work out his next move (even for Deadpool and his conflicting split personalities a 'next' move is always an unkown), the guy is damaged mentally and of course physically (severally scared). It's a sympathy story for a guy that is messed up trying to do good (in his way). Although being a rogue character with split personalities and a motor mouth (sarcastic), underneath all that he just wants to be liked. So he tries to join the X-Men that are in exile (long story). A somewhat convoluted story of once known superheros trying desperately to retrieve their superhero status after media manipulation and pubic backlash (orchestrated by the evil guy Norman Osbourne who is now fabricated a legit oppression over the superhero community). Suffice to say the X-Men reject Deadpool as a new member. So he puts together a plan to convince them he is ok.

To cut a long story short the plan involves making himself look bad so they look good (so the media accepts the X-Men as hero's again), it works. He knows that he will never join the X-Men or ever be accepted in a societal sense. It's like his own acceptance of his character flaws and everything else wrong with him. So he just rolls with it and tries to do good (his way).

There is a moral in this arc somewhere, ambiguous, but with a character who has a mental disorder. It is a moral about expectations and acceptance that no matter what happens at the end of the day people (generally) want to see and do good; in all their different approaches. It's a respect to the rogue, the individual who does his (or her) thing and there is a method to their madness. Make sense? Who cares. I just love the idea that the complexities of life interact at various junction points, there is no straight line of expectations. In other words there is nothing better than ideas that evolve from chaos.

Just read the the series. Soon to buy in the MEC.research online (amazon) store

Don't You Forget About Me - Simple Minds (1985)



She has blue eyes and brown hair...

Investment update Decemeber 2009 (forward into 2010)

Long term plays are oil stocks and ETF's; some speculative plays and some of the most lucrative have been in biotechnology namley a small company called Biota (BTA) that produces the influenza antiviral Relenza in which Relenza is distributed through the drug making giant Glaxosmithkline (GSK.L). Since it's rival Tamiflu (produced by Roche) has been somewhat knocked out of the competition (due to it been ineffective against H1N1) Biota stocks will be held into early next year, depending on the (Relenza) profit made for the last quarter and how flu season pans out

Gold as a hedge against the US dollar, although for the time being with the USD gaining strength on a mixture of cautious markets and speculation on interest rates rises in the US, gold should settle into a support range. There are puts on my favorite currency (to bet against) the Australian dollar. This is short term option trading. The longer term is total USD weakness as the US ecomomy splutters into 2010. But a risk averse event and I am still seeing something unwinding in the bond markets, whether sovereign wealth fund imploding somewhere, or a goverment defaulting on debt or a war in the middle east. With central banks flooding the global economy with cash and shifting private debt onto public balance sheets. It's a fragile, very fragile global recovery; a major risk event in 2010 could economically unhinge everything. When Lehaman collapsed in 2008 and sent the whole market into meltdown risk assets like the AUD, stocks unwind positions dramatically. If something major occurred and it's more public orientated, then there will be quick shifts into safer commodities from risk assets. A build up of USD buying could be a precursor, something I am going to watch as the markets could reverse very quickly.

Oil price should remain steady with a potential price breakout as discussed in Oil on a 25mth cyclical bull run. Update 6 - potential of 'mega' breakout looming, in the meantime I believe the Lithium battery market is a new energy market that is creeping up (to attempt to offset higher oil prices). This is no real speculation pe se as lithium batteries are now being used in most portable hand held devises, like my Thompson MP3/Dictaphone and the PS3 controllers amongst other things (no need to replace the batteries built in lithium batteries that have a large lifespan). The industry that is going to utilize this is the car industry. China is a net importer of oil is of course looking at the electrical lithium powered car. So I am looking at well funded small lithium miners namely in Australia.

* MEC.research doesn't give investment advice, trade at your own risk

Monday, December 21, 2009

Caroline Trentini - Brazilian Model

Copenhagen flop, oil and the global economic recovery

There is a saying, 'deal with reality or reality will deal with you'. We all knew that Copenhagen would be a flop as goverments have become short term populist originated and are generally paranoid about economic downturns. A deal to cut carbon emissions was destine to be a failure and it has been. As populist icons like Barack Obama solidify populist paranoia on carbon trading - they have essentially KO'ed the carbon trading market and renewable energy sector. Regardless what side of the argument you lie on, whether you believe that the human race is contributing to global warming, or that it is a freak of nature that is just happening regardless of the tons of carbon that we admit into the atmosphere. The climate is changing and according to climate scientists rapidly, but you can see and hear about this daily. A chunk of Antarctica melting, harsher winters and extreme summers.

But as the world is heating up rapidly in an economic sense - inflation. The US has became a monetarist monster that has flooded it's economy with cash it's deficits have grown and so have prices. The obscene consumer price equation that removes food and energy from the equation underplays the problems that the US and the world faces in the next 5 years. If we throw the climate change issue away from the time being, which is fine, governments are quite happy to gamble with time regarding climate change. A shit stream of crisis/s are lining up (don't worry climate change is sitting in there too). The one crisis that is the fascinating is the looming oil crisis, or peak oil. Since most ecomomies are not interesting in stimulating research and developing into new energy systems or alternative energy systems (Copenhagen failure will guarantee that renewable companies will now struggle against high carbon admitters i.e carbon will be cheap again, with no binding treaty of cutting carbon admissions). Why would you set up a windfarm when it is still cheaper to run a coal powered station? Renewable companies will not really be profitable or sustainable against older energy producers and by retrospect carbon polluters. In saying this with the global economy attempting to power ahead using older industry fuel/oil orientated industries undoubtedly oil will rise.

You would be better off investing in oil.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

US dollar strength on growing risk aversion.

Will mild risk aversion turn into a storm? Greece got a downgrade of BBB + with it's debt to GDP at 112% of GDP.

The reasons behind current US dollar strength

Greece can't print money or devalue it's currency (it is part of the EU with a EURO currency) like Argentina did in
2001 and since 77% of foreigners own Greek Debt (bonds) the country is essentially fucked. The IMF and EU can intervene but they have to borrow from other large deficit (EU) countries to fund a bailout (which was written into the EU agreement that the Union wouldn't bail out individual countries). It simply cannot be funded unless the EU devalues the EURO (then you have inflation).

But a 'natural' huge devaluation of the EURO can only occur if the USD is bought on mass and the EURO collapses. But the USD is an unstable currency with the US looking very shaky in 2010

Or Greece can sell everything to foreign investors to balance their account deficits, literally sell off the country to outside interests. This is probably the only solution they have, but comes at a price; social turmoil, as overseas interests that buy public assets then restructure those assets to be profitable. Usually means job losses and cost cutting.

The rest of the EU is next.



Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Sirens and the victim - the power of seduction



In Greek mythology Ulysses made his men put wax in their ears (while he was tied to the boats sale, yes he wanted to hear and see the beauty) so they wouldn't be allured by the beautiful sounds and sites of the sirens that eventually lured men to their peril (drowned). History and it's mythology is a time capsule of accounts of seduction. Tiger Woods indiscretions are no different to the bitter lessons never really learned in history. In fact Woods being captivated by various women is classic textbook seduction. He, in someways, was the perfect victim of a seductresses. How could he resist? She gave him risk and excitement from the mundane. Yet it has cost him so much; his marriage, sponsors, even his career could be on the decline.

True power is not money or fame per se for a female, it is her power to seduce. She could, if she wanted influence empires (re Cleopatra) and reduce male power brokers to blubbering fools.

That you have to respect.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Will gold correct soon?

Some contrarian investors and academic economists have made the call ('put' in trading terms) that gold is now inflated and in a bubble - thus should reverse it's trend. Their theorized aspect here is that gold was a rush buy when the US dollar declined rapidly in March 2009. The analysis is somewhat correct but not entirely sufficient as gold generally have been on a steady incline; so panic buying cannot be solely placed in the equation. Essentially if gold was to correct significantly it should have already, this can be seen on the 7th July 2008 when the US dollar was at an all time low of 0.71 cents and gold was at 967 an ounce. The correction occurred when the USD gained strength on the 14 July 2008 from there gold dropped to 699 and the USD rose to 88 cents on the 10 March 2009. Gold overall closed at 723 in 2008 (October) and from December 2008 gold rose to the current market price (1,124 December 2009) and the USD weakened to 76 cents (December 2009).

This has been just over a year of gains for gold.

Within that 1yr period the corrections against gold have been mild, the reason being is that the USD is an unstable and weak currency, the US ecomomy is weak and usable and US deficits will eventually bleed into a debt crisis at some point. Gold tested highs this year (2009) on the back of risk aversion that never really abated. From Dubai, Greece and the rest of Europe there is a festering problem of sovereign funds defaulting. So from the last 8mths risk has been on and off which in turn has caused volatility within tight indices trading ranges, nevertheless gold has been a safe haven.

As discussed in Gold price breakout on a 'mini' crisis 2009 (update4) - 'mini' crisis is now here gold is comfortable in its trading range, a significant pullback would be to the 990 price, with the market unsure that a economic recovery has actually started and a strange form of stagflation is falling onto the US economy. Gold is still a buy.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Art: Photo (4)

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Christmas and Chanukah gift ideas 2009 - Tequila




Well Chanukah is first this year starting as of 11 Dec - 19 Dec 2009 then Christmas on the 25th December 2009 regardless of what your faith is (even if you are of atheistic leanings like myself), it's a good time to give gifts and receive them plus hanging out with family.

Anyway this year as a Christmas present I am going to give a bottle of Tequila (to a certain person), why? I dunno, maybe the whole peyote/point of singularity thing posted on this blog kinda has influenced the situation. Yes I know Tequila is made from a plant called the Agave Tequilana sort of like a succulent plant and it aint Peyote; nor will it make you flip into a another reality as peyote would, nevertheless it will cause some feelings. Or at least leave it in the bottle and put the bottle in someplace where everyone can see it, like the bottle above. What with the six shooters and 'revolucian' written on it. Very cool.

Oh yeah the bottle above is $1000.00USD

Australia's exports maintain slump, employment grows

Australian trade deficit added $3,808m to overall blow out figure of 16.18 billion. The nations income credits (exports) have collapsed at $44,323 in the September 2009 quarter.

Australian unemployment rate has decreased to 5.7% (goverment figures). At this point the Australian goverment deficits are evident of massive economic stimulus, the trade deficit is evident from slow export markets and a surging Australian dollar.

The Australian ecomomy appears to be solely run on goverment spending.

2010 could indicate structural issues with deficits and bond/sovereign debt issues.

ABS ref

New Blog name

Old name: morbius glass

New name: MEC (markets/evolve/culture). Research

Online dating. Is there any money in it?

We are not talking about the applicants more so the proprietor. I remember a few years back a person I knew thought about setting up a online dating site. I remember he discussed the basic idea with me and it was about the time when myspace was really taking off as a so called online social network. His online dating idea was going to be a similar to myspace with a touch of ebay. What the basic idea evolves around members would create their own pages not dissimilar to a mypsace page, this would be a free service. Then a member whether male of female would then allocate 5 favorites (male or female) to their dating list. What would then occur is that a bidding contest would take place, the top bid would be capped at $100.00. Although the monetary aspect was still to be worked out, but for the idea of creating a biding aspect on a dating site the $100.00 was the figure used. The 5 members would then bid into that range, the winner would then obviously be the sole contender and win the date. The online dating company would then organize a date, expenses paid; this would be a dinner and picked up by a chauffeur/limo depending on costs - the profit concept was not to completly match (with the all expenses paid dinner date) the bid amount (say $100.00); the money to be made would be the difference between the amount bided and the costs paid out for a the date. Suffice to say the idea remand just that, an idea and didn't progress any further from that point. But the question remains. Is their money to be made from the current online dating market?

The whole concept of online dating is that the members or participates keep utilizing the services, obviously it is unprofitable if one was to begin a relationship straight away (or relevantly quickly) from an online service's. The odds of course are extremely unlikely that a relationship could actually occur from online dating. Which I will explain.

The reasons for such low odds of a relationships from online dating occurring quickly (or at all), is the sociological, biological and psychological abnormality (online dating) as discussed in"Why haven't we met any aliens", we can't simply erode millions and thousands of years of social, cultural and biological traits with an electronic medium. Replacing natural human interaction with a pixel image and then creating expectations that the person you are online 'courting' is actually going to be suitable (even for a date). It's an impossible paradox, one that has occurred in the last 5 years of internet dating/social networks. Ideally in the male/female courting interaction process, you see your potential mate (or fling) in the flesh; meaning you can gauge from instincts and visually tune into the person attractiveness (if you are attracted to them). This as mentioned cannot be done with an electronic medium.

So from a business perspective and as trend people have become to reliant (for the time being) on the internet for social interaction, it has distorted and completly thrown the normal courting/dating process. Which means you would can't rely on the electronic medium in hope that it would then click into the expectation of meeting your partner. The odds are somewhat unlikely in fact almost impossible, until that is realized you may have spent an amount of money through a online relationship broker to find your ideal date. I imagine the turnover of clients/customers/members on online dating (depending on the current trends) would be quite large. Eventually, and I have discussed this with a guy I know who works heavily in setting up users networks, people will migrate away from the internet as a social interaction tool and it will be used more for commerce and reference/information.

Human nature is just to overwhelming in it's desire to work out friend or foe. The internet completly blurs out that inherit ability when it comes to online human interaction. So in conclusion. Network/social/dating sites are somewhat profitable for the time being on the internet, but can it last?

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Greece downgrade - may induce nasty market correction. The Korea Won amongst other 'risk' currencies will be slaughtered

Greece and Dubai are probably the start of sovereign funds debt/bond problems going into 2010 (domino effect). So a mild correction in markets that was forming may end up being a nasty one of course depending on central bank/goverment intervention into the new year. In the meantime all supports have held from the Dow to gold in light of a broad based sell.

Regarding the comment on the Bank of Korea saying that gold is 'illusionary' (in respect to other central banks buying gold to diversify from USD). I remember when the Korean Won collapsed in July 1st 2008 (shown on graph with the US dollar gaining strength). The Won and other 'risk'; currencies namely export based currencies will suffer if a another crisis hits and the one that is brewing being the bond markets of 2010. Gold is not just a inflation hedge but a 'crisis' hedge.

The question is can the USD be a support as a risk averse currency if markets all begin to dip negative again?

USD/WON

Monday, December 7, 2009

Very mild US Dollar strength and even milder correction occurring - USD/Oil graph

In the last quarter of 2008 starting in September. The markets corrected (significantly), which was lead on by the Lehman collapse (September 2009) and essentially the start of the global financial crisis . Risk aversion was on prior to the Lehman Collapse with the USD regaining strength and climbed to a high of 89.62 on the 2nd March 2009. Of course the US dollar strength was a mixture of the huge amount of risk aversion and selling that took place until markets stabilized in 2009. The oil price collapsed from it's high of 147 a barrel (7th July 2008) which was a prelude to global markets crashing and oil being sent down to 35 a barrel on the 22nd December 2008

There is now a very mild dollar strength coming through on the back of unemployment figures that were released on the 4th December 2009, I'll let market skeptics scrutinize these figures that were released (showing unemployment decreased rapidly in the US over the last 2mths), in the meantime the markets reacted on the precursor that the Fed Fund rate will tighten with the positive unemployment news. This of course won't happen, whether it was political/market motivated figures that were released in December 2009 (US unemployment deceasing), overall US weakness will continue with a Federal Reserve 0% interest rate policy and money printing maintained. We may see a mild correction on end year profit taking (equities), some USD strength albeit mild and oil move lower against a stronger USD. This will be very short term and the growing divergence between the USD and commodities, particularly oil will continue.


Thursday, December 3, 2009

Dow maintains trading range towards 11000

But danger ahead.

Dubai World default and the default issues of the Dubai sovereign fund may be the beginning of the problems with debt/bond markets leading into 2010. Essentially the funds that are connected to goverment i.e sovereign funds will start to feel pressure since goverments and central banks have become pseudo leaders to decaying companies, all bond markets may show quality issues as a recovery (from 2007/2008 credit crunch) for many companies will be negligible.

Still anything connected (business) to goverment may have debt refinance issues, that is essentially a warning of the massive liabilities that have been absorbed by the public sector from the private sector.

In the meantime the Dow is still showing overall gains despite glitches such as Dubai ( 27th November 2009 154.48 sell off) and the recent sell off of 86.46 on the 3rd December 2009. There is still however a tight trading range with a main support at 9,741

Of course a concerning issue (if you own shares) is the American Express stock price which was hammered (3rd December 2009 sell) from 41.89 30th November 2009 now at 38.81. A good bellwether to the underlying issue with banks write-downs as US unemployment grows in 2010

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Tiger Woods and his women



All photos from here

So this guy (Tiger Woods) has argument with his wife over an alleged affair and crashes the car. Something wrong with that situation as it stands (I mean he crashes the car and endangers himself and his wife! Sounds like an unstable dude). Still the Judean/Christian belief that women are the temptresses of men, hammers down on the woman in the mix of all this, kinda similar to the ex-NY governor Eliot Spiltzer affair if anyne cares. He (Spiltzer) can still give interviews while the women in question disappears (not literally) somewhat out of the media, probably a litigation hell storm hanging over her head that would wipe her of the face of the earth; plus a little bit of money to keep loose lips from sinking ships. Also a society doesn't really favour hookers with credibility (I am not saying that is a good thing... as I mentioned it's the old testament/bible hangover crapola)

Anyway back to Tiger Woods. Golf is horrendous game, yes I have played and no it doesn't turn me on. In fact I can do 1hr laying into a bag (boxing) and then dead-lifts and still not feel that achy, with golf I seem to be a able to dislocate my elbow and put my back out and not only that, I could actually hit a ball backwards when I was aiming for it to go forward.

So the point is if you are a guy like Tiger Woods (money) you are going to have other interested parties show... well interest. Usually these parties are women partying around you. You either roll with that all or have a breakdown over the attention (as he has). Although it is his poor hapless wife who probably just wanted to know what the truth was and this fucker couldn't cope with it; what a lame ass.

But the flip-side for his wife is of course the risk of marrying a power sportsman like Woods. She maybe or maybe not aware that the downside to a money spinner like Woods is that he is not going to be short female admirers. So nativity would be inexcusable in that sense.

In conclusion, who fucking cares. Still Rachel Uchitel (Woods apparent lap dancer) is getting some press out of this (she is an attractive woman); can she cope and flip this around to her advantage? Probably not against a guy like Woods, who can send out a human probe (all expenses paid) to scope out a golf course before he plays in a tournament, is serious power. So yeah he would crush her (legally) if she tried to cash in.

Australia trying to keep it's bond market afloat

Hence the recent interest rate rises of .25% as at 1 December 2009, with the current cash rate now 3.75%. On news of the Reserve Bank of Australia lifted rates for the second time in 2mths Bonds rallied as retail banks will start to increase their cash rates (Westpac bank adding .45% to their mortgage rates). This gave a lift to bond markets especially the 10 year bond at 94.78%. The reasons? Debt default fears and Australia falls into that category, as discussed in Australia - Export/import prices still falling . Australia has a widening trade account deficit and it's terms of trade is falling. As it will be an issue for it's sovereign fund as government will struggle to pay for debt and maintain tax revenues (with baby boomers retiring and a growing popoulation) - so overall it's fiscal deficit will blow out in the next 5 years.

Also unhelpful are the FX market distortions, namely becuase of a weak US dollar. Export countries may have no choice but to devalue their currencies to build up earnings from falling export credits. But of course this puts pressure on bond values as the market sees inflation creeping thus causing yields to rise. But regardless an oversupplied and value decreasing bond market constitutes to a global debt crisis brewing into 2010 as Dubai was the warning shot.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Alex Grey art


Big fan of his art. For a guy that took LSD 'trips' and earned a living (early in his career) as a medical drawer. The art that he has drawn and continues to draw is a nice fusion of the psychedelic journey into the inner workings of human beings.

Website: www.alexgrey.com

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Risk is back on as Dubai debt problems fades.

The funny thing about the market reaction to the Dubai (although not so funny when you were holding calls on all risk currencies!), is the commentary of analyst saying that it was 'knee jerk' or a 'storm in a teacup' etc. Still we had a nice juicy sell off. So the overall point (jitters) is there is still excesses in the system, no matter if Dubai was considered small debt (80 billion), the overall concern I would have is how an oil exporter can be so indebted and needs to be bailed out by Abu Dubai and UAE banks. In my opinion this is a warning and if you like a Black Swan event; which should be factored in as a follow on to debt/bond markets problems in 2010.

All market supports held with the sell off. Nevertheless it's a precursor.

Dubai fears overblown?

We shall see.

In the meantime some recovery in risk positions.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Some analyst playing down Dubai contagion

A certain analyst at a certain bank saying that 'knee jerk reaction' is occurring from the Dubai situation, what a fool.

Dubai was a long time coming, it's not the debt issue it's the exposure issue and it's a fear issue. Since the credit crunch was papered over with public monies the underlying shit is still floating around and a major 'freeze' on credit markets cannot be ruled out. Especially on the back of sovereign funds exposure to commercial property debt; creditors are going to get really itchy.

It's FUBAR time

The AUD is going down - risk currencies could all be toast

So parity (AUD) may not happen against the USD. I know calls (yeah...fucking shock) and longs are unwinding as I write this; if the debt implosion from Dubai becomes systemic risk (banks, brokerage firms, hedge funds...damn the whole bond market); risk currencies like the REAL, AUD, PESO, CAD, NZD...are all going down, big time.

Gold price breakout on a 'mini' crisis 2009 (update4) - 'mini' crisis is now here.

Some contrarian investors have indicated that gold is now over bought and that a correction is due. This correction would be the start of a risk averse environment for equities hence stocks being sold and gains in the US Dollar would then drive gold lower. This is true to an extent, as gold is a hedge against a weak USD and gold corrects when the USD strengthens, but gold now is becoming increasingly a 'crisis' hedge; in the sense that the USD can no longer been sustained as a risk averse asset, meaning the USD is now a very unstable investment.

So gold is now a heavily supported asset, central banks and goverment are trying to diversify into gold as the USD weakens further. With the Federal Reserve and US goverment obsessed about weakening the USD with continued money printing thus flooding the US economy with liquidity, as mentioned the stability of the USD is being questioned short term, near term and of course long term. The 'mini crisis that is now occurring is the anticipated commercial property market meltdown as discussed in Dubai World CDS spreads blow apart, the Dubai commercial market appears to be the epicenter at this point. As the property developer Dubai World is the first to shatter markets with debt defaults looming. This should ensure that all debt and interbank spreads from CDS (credit default swaps) through to the LIBOR rates will now widen. With banks revisiting the fear of the 2007/2008, think back to the subprime residential meltdown in the US with caused banks to write down assets in the trillions and froze credit markets; so the beginnings of another credit crunch have now occured and this could be a lot bigger in the size of losses. With the US markets on holiday (Thanks giving) Europe bore the brunt of a wave of selling, the USD strengthen then weakened and gold was bought on as a safe haven.

Optimal Tracker Filter trailing with gold price with little diversion. Gold is just under the upper Bollinger Bands set at 20, 2 days. Gold is now way above the moving averages of 50 and 100 days, this could indicate an overbought signal, however the price support for gold is still 1028 with a trigger sell at 990.

Finally the ATR is still showing low volatility with the gold price, which would mean there has been a steady buying of gold with little profit taking. This would reinforce that the flow of money going into gold is for protection as gold is seen as a safe haven or 'crisis' hedge, more so over the USD and other related assets.



*morbius glass doesn't give investment advice, trade at your own risk

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Morbius Glass photos (3)



self portrait 2009

Dubai World CDS spreads blow apart

An apparent 163 basis points to 522. In other words the market sees a BIG middle eastern property developer (commercial) sinking real quick.

I wrote this blog post on November 16th 2009 titled Stocks globally may rally whilst the global economy cracks up in which in indicated that rallies in stock markets could continue right into 2010 although some "heads up" events are on the calendar. It appears these 'events' could be sooner.

The possible bankruptcy of Dubai World could not only derail markets (risk aversion) but hammer down on CDS spreads across the middle east. Since the Dubai government invests heavily into private and public investments. A nasty default crunch could be settling in and the first of the commercial property collapses (it's coming).

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

AUD driven up by bank speculation...and declining USD

There must be a lot big call options on the AUD as it is on a sustained incline. US dollar weakness is persistent as the money pumps are going all out in the US.

AUD/USD parity should hit at some point next year, possibly between January or February 2010. But as the global economy starts to choke on debt (from stimulus fiscal and monetary expansion) banks and institutional investors are pushing the AUD forward on the back (as mentioned) USD weakness and Reserve Bank of Australia interest rates. So the RBA that likes to make money (hell it is a bank) are also steering the AUD upward (even with out interest rates) with talking up recovery and advising that credit expansion for households is ok. Kinda shocking when the RBA deputy governor Ric Battellino said that Australian households appeared to have the capacity "to sustain a relatively high ratio of housing prices to income". As we have learned from the credit markets melting down in 2007 and 2008 central banks have no conception of what credit bubbles are; but it's all business and the RBA has sold (profit taking) some substantial amounts of AUD in the last week or so.

But banks could be straining into 2010 when stimulus falls off and capital requirements set in.

So if you own calls on the AUD there is a lot of support for a parity in 2010

"London Calling" on a tripped out Friday night

No I hadn't taken any of this.

But after a date last Friday night I wandered around some desolate areas of Melbourne city. It was all stark buildings, flickering lights and what look like a lot of zombies. Suffice to say, this song fitted in very nicely as the narrative.

The Clash London's Calling

Monday, November 23, 2009

Mec.research Store - Human Givens: A new approach to emotional health and clear thinking by Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell



Please refer to an older blog post regarding an interview with Joe Griffin. Please click this link.

I am a big fan of his practical and sensible way of looking at psychotherapy for depression, anxiety, trauma etc.

*update June 2010

A bias towards psychological therapy that doesn't involve medication. Opinion: subjective to the individual. What works, will work; drugs or not.

"Yuppies, Rednecks, and Lesbian Bitches from Mars "



A graphic novel. What a title huh?

Actually the title sounds like my block of units...seriously! Except it aint from Mars

US dollar and stocks contiue to diverge as US Treasuries are stuck the middle

2 Year Treasury notes sell at 0.802 yields (lowest ever!) Demand was high (2yr auction bid to cover at 3.16), but there was not a massive buy up of 2y Treasuries. But why would there be? You have a declining US dollar (o% interest) and a surging stock market that is giving better returns (within tight trading ranges). With Treasures yields as low as they are and interest paying almost non existent, current market buying was due to squaring off funds into goverment debt prior to year end; on the premise that the market (equities) are currently overstretched and a pending correction is due. But as I mentioned in this post Dow breaks psychological 10,000 resistance - trading ranges reset the only thing that will correct the markets is something major. This could actually be the bond markets at some point. In the meantime markets will continue to rally, the US dollar will sink, gold and commodities will stay inclined.

In summary the bond market expects the US goverment and Federal Reserve to continue to support asset prices and keep interest rates low. So the speculation will continue in the stock market as stock prices will inflate with poor fundamentals attached.

Completely distorted markets.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

The Federal Reserve is on a roll and they are smoking some bad shit!

They (Federal Reserve) are watching as the 3mth bond yield dipped into negative territory. The money printing is going on overtime, it's brutal, check the USD tanked and Gold is (current) 1165. So it's all risk on (stocks). But the US treasury is about to issue more debt to the market.

But it's choked up and demand has fallen off.

The Fed will re-inflate assets markets till the endgame comes. It has too, if a sudden rush occurs from risk assets to risk averse assets like the US dollar and Treasuries the high yields on bonds will crush their value and with the Federal Reserve being the big holder that they are...fuck what an unrealized loss that will be; but the endgame, or the build up to the endgame, will be market flops on bond auctions (globally). Hence the Treasury yields all dipping in the last month or so as investors still buying up risk assets. But Obama needs investors to buy Government debt and the Fed have gone mad about driving down the yields on Treasuries.

The Federal Reserve and Obama administration are solely underpinning assets markets, and as I said, till the whole thing collapses. (Refer to article from the Telegraph reporting that Société Générale (bank) are preparing for a worst case scenario in a debt market collapse).

Either way it's a FUBAR situation with gold as the winner. Gold being an inflation and crisis hedge.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

There appears to be a lot zombie small/mid cap companies out there

With most indices holding within trading ranges and a lot of liquidity going into stocks you have to consider that from March lows 2009 there has been a substantial rebound.

The other day I looked (randomly) at a hand full of small/mid cap companies; from 'junior' miners, biotechs and tech development. I was quite shocked that despite the rise in all of their share prices these companies had nothing to show for it, in fact what I saw was businesses running on air. Ok, it was a ruff cross section, but when you hear some analysts say that the recently stock rallies are not backed with sound fundamentals. You just need to have a quick look at the market to see for your self, more so their earnings and risk.


P/E was non existent for some (they are not making money) and generally overstretched in various sectors connected to the share price. Interest cover ratio was frightening for the companies that I looked at, in most cases it was very negative. With a credit crunch No2 around the corner banks won't extend credit lines to zombies.

The overall earnings out look was negative. Yet all have gained by the recent stock rallies. So it must be ascertained that a reprieve was bought for these companies post stock market crash 2008 and 2009. Some equity raising in the current bull market via stock speculation (money from Federal Reserve/US government) and general speculation (valueless US dollar). Another aspect that caught my eye was long positions. Which was a worry when it appeared that long positions were responsible in supporting stocks prices but the overall volumes were thin. The other aspect is the bond and junk bond markets could be a precursor for a big dump in shares (particularly these small unprofitable businesses). If the is a huge bond/debt bubble looming and there could be a collapse in bond prices into 2010. These companies are history, banks won't lend and the market will pull out liquidity out of a lot of these stocks. For what I have seen (like I said it was a snapshot) regardless shows that there could be a lot of zombie companies that have been buoyed by the recent stock rallies.

There is a big unwind coming soon.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Morbius Glass photos (2)


Electro neon sex

Purple Magazine #12





This is the new one. It's heavy and expensive but dammit it's thick. Packed with photos and articles, there is just so much in there I have yet to decipher it all. The layout and photography is top notch, it's a decadent magazine but it s so stylized in a rustic kinda way. Hard to explain, definitely one of the more edgy of the current fashion/culture magazines. Terry Richardson's full spread (previewed in this post) is in this one, it's 3 top models doing a 3 way thing courtesy of Richardson's style ( nude photography). The embossed devil tarot imprinted into the background on the cover photo sets the stage for this current issue. Great stuff. Check out the Yoko Onno and Sean Lennon interview/article. This issue also comes with a photographic type journal called Debris photos by Ari Marcopoulo with a collection of nice stark city scape photography and urban photography, which I am a big fan of.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Generation X 1980's star goes bonkers in NYC




For all the Generation X'ers that read this blog and our collective fond memories of the 1980's. This report caught my eye. Remember the movies Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Weird Science? Where nerds and naked women ran hand in hand (maybe not so much in the movie Pretty in Pink but y'know what I am saying...). Well do you also remember the actor Anthony Michael Hall? The super nerdy guy that played those super nerdy parts in various 80's flicks. He went nuts in NYC from Gothamist

"Falzone, a Sirius Radio host and HuffPo relationship columnist, slapped the restraining order on her ex, who suffers from bipolar disorder. It states he must "refrain from assault, stalking, harassment ... menacing, reckless endangerment ... intimidation."

This comes after Hall kicked down her door during an early morning unexpected visit, which according to police reports was followed by him bashing her head against a wall."

Monday, November 16, 2009

Meridith Whitney on CNBC.com

Meridith Whitney bearish for 2010

Bank Stocks: Too Far Too Fast? - CNBC.com

Stocks globally may rally whilst the global ecomomy cracks up

As discussed in Risk aversion off. Risk now on we may see rallies right into 2010. With Central Bank policies of low interest rates and quantitative easing (money printing) namely the US Federal Reserve. The US dollar is on an absolute downward trend and may rapidly decline into 2010. Of course the flipside and now an accepted consequence of loose monetary policy (re-inflating credit markets with another credit bubble) to reinstate consumption again; is the abundant liquidity for Wall Street which is now causing immense speculation in stock markets. This can be maintained for as long as there is 0% worth on the USD.

In the meantime there are some heads up:

1. A bubble in government bonds, more particularly watching Japan's bond market as the government will issue more debt to fund it's huge deficits into 2010. This will add too supply coming onto the market thus causing yields to rise. In summary Japan may find it very hard to raise equity in the bond markets (as investors sideline on buying goverment bonds). We may see a slumping domino effect in other bond markets as goverments try and raise funds into 2010 and the colossal bubble forming in bonds deflates.

2. The new year 2010 should make the first on the commercial real estate writedowns as banks connected to the commercial mortgage backed security market start to post losses. Listening to reports on the amount of leverage compared to cash is mind boggling from Dubai to London and every other city in the world where investors borrowed big (with little cash) to build commercial property that in all retrospect is just sitting there.

3. With a US dollar going down this of course pushes up commodity prices this will effect food prices namley wheat prices. A real inflationary issue (globally) even if the Federal Reserve deny it, will effect developed counties (as it is now) and more so effecting poorer countries according to a Daily Finance report

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Daredevil (Comic) Writer: Andy Diggle Art: Roberto De La Torre


How good is the new Daredevil team (writer and art)! Keep this up and they will take this back to the top again.

...and Ninja's, how can you go wrong with Ninja's? Good stuff

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Jim Rogers v's Nouriel Roubini

I like Jim Rogers, Nouriel Roubini is ok. Rogers has better instincts regarding global markets than Roubini who is an academic; yes he made some good calls, but Rogers that has made some better calls, particularly gold and equity rebounds.

This slight slug fest originates around the weakening US dollar and it's effect on commodity markets. As Roubini refers to commodities as bubble markets, he also refers to the current stock rallies as a bubble. Rogers dismisses this and says that markets (both commodities and equities) have yet to reach previous highs, therefore are not in bubble ranges (say compared to the equity markets in 2008 - before the collpase). In a sense Rogers is right, yes markets are bubbly, but not completely in bubble territory and rise in commodities is responding to a weak USD. So loose liquidity is driving markets higher, including gold. If dollar weakness persists in 2010, yes gold will go higher. As discussed in Gold price breakout on a 'mini' crisis 2009 (update 3) - or just overbought?, supports are now in higher prices ranges and trading ranges are narrowing. If the Federal Reserve starts to tighten interest rates they will be hit with the long term bond losses (value collapses). Again Rogers is correct the only bubble so far is goverment bonds. That's our pending problem. Not so much equities or even gold going higher as the declining US dollar is not critical yet.

Article found here

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

A clueless business reporter

This guy is a market optimist of the most irritating kind. I remember when the recession (global) was just about to hit. Even when global economy collapsed in 2008. Reporters like him were echoing government and central bank rhetoric that we would all avoid a recession because of China being a buffer. They were very, very wrong. I'll tell you, if this guy was a fund manager and I have gave him some money to invest in the markets inspired by that bizarre optimistic banter, not only would I lose my money; but he would reassure me that 'don't worry the government will insure the losses' and then quietly '... which you'll be covering later via higher taxes'

Even worst is the markets are now deemed too optimistic, which mans that a correction could sweep through them at some-point. It's just that we have absolute US dollar weakness, hence the drive in equity markets namely lead from Wall Street.

But this fucking guy knows nothing, re:Australia
  • Australia's terms of trade have collapsed, meaning that credit to the country is out of whack to it's debits. In other words we owe more than what we earn.
  • The Australian government is precariously trying to please everyone. Unemployment for October 2009 quarter up-ticked to 5.8% from 5.7% last quarter, but this information comes from government statistician body, which of course underplays unemployment by smoothing out numbers, namely overly countering in part-time and casual as employed. This is trying to balance confidence in the markets. But regardless unemployment is higher than what they (ABS) report. Why? The government is slamming down on skilled business visas, in other words the Australian job market is shrinking. This can also be seen in bad debt provision and bank-write downs that began this quarter. More notably the NAB, Westpac and ANZ write downs.
  • Australian bonds like most government bonds will have quality issues. If Government is absorbing risk and it's income is shrinking from falling exports and tax receipts, why would I bother with government debt? As the Reserve Bank of Australia will continue to increase rates because they know that stagflation is already occurring in the Australian economy. This of course effects the value of bonds. This will be another income shock for the Australian economy.
  • So investors buy the Australian Dollar (I own calls on the AUD), this again effects the overall income of the Australian ecomomy as exports are too expensive.
  • With large deficits close to 80billion and a deteriorated bond market, inflation and export problems. The Australian economy will struggle. But most people know this, hence a degree of liquidity tightening towards end of the year.
It's obvious certain reporters/commentators have some plays in the market, but they are terrible investors as they rely on delusion of constant gains. Remember this is what got us into the mess we are still in (belief that market never goes down); the market works in two directions positive and negative. Government intervention tries to maintain the positive but that is like trying to hold back the sea. It's impossible. So at some point it will term negative. If you don't realize these things 1. you shouldn't invest in the markets. 2 you shouldn't write shit like that guy does.

I am down with this philosophy: refer to blog post: Misplaced optimism is deadly - Alain de Botton

I am going to have a coffee now.

Metal Magazine




Another cool fashion/culture/art mag from Spain! I dig it. Hard to fine but you can buy it online

Check out some of the art (very good) in their latest issue, on their website

morbius glass quote of the month – November 2009

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."

Anis Nin

This months quote is dedicated to people close to me that are going through some hard times.

And anyone else trying to see a better day.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Oil on a 25mth cyclical bull run. Update 6 - potential of 'mega' breakout looming

As discussed in Oil on a 25mth cyclical bull run. Update 5 - oil sits in static range with potential 'breakout', we got our breakout in October 2009 when oil reached high of $82.00 a barrel (WTI). This is from the September low of $65.00. There is a lot money going into oil on two main issues. 1. The global economy has stabilized 2. The US dollar is weak and oil, like like most commodities namely gold, is a hedge against a weakening dollar.

So the main driver of a high oil price is USD weakness, a mega spike in the oil price will be due to oil analysts shifting through a recent report that came in from a IEA whistle blower. This report was released on the 9 November 2009. It is an accepted aspect that the Saudis, US and UK have overestimate oil output for a long time. The reality is output is slowing quote rapidly (no new oil fields are coming on line). Of course governments do not like panic, since they have artificially propped up the global economy with stimulus, the reality is that the invertible (major oil decline) is on the cards.

Article found here re: IEA whistle blower The Guardian newspaper

In the meantime oil could spike into the high 80.00's on market driving the price high from the ex IEA employer reports. Regardless the price differentiates of the oil price to the supply out put (figures from officials) will always be a widening spread. As discussed the market knows oil is dwindling so there is potential for a 'mega' breakout in the coming months. If oil does spike, we could see other market jitters towards he end of the year. As a high oil price will dampening economic recovery, significantly.

Oil currently at 78.00



*MEC.research doesn't give investment advice, trade at your own risk

Monday, November 9, 2009

"Why haven't we met any aliens"

I remember years ago, to be precise 14 yrs ago, I was with this girl we were both in our early 20's. I guess you could call it a date. At the time the conversation drifted from various topics, until she dropped this line "I like the way some guys smell". It was out of the blue and I automatically thought 'did I or didn't I' put deodorant on before going out (actual I did, also with splash of Drakkar Noir). She proceeded to inform me that certain guys (me?) have a good smell. The date ended and I was perplexed what the hell she meant by all that. It was only in the years to come that aspects of psychology kinda fused with biology to create a sought of new science that studied primitive cues in behaviors animal or otherwise to determine the development of human culture and society. So you have, long behold, the unwashed t-shirt (worn by males) and the uni students (female) sniffing them. The experiment became a BBC science/biology trademark with it's rating system attached and the most 'nice' smelling t-shirt goes to the top of the scale. The whole basis of the new science called evolutionarily psychology sought to narrow down our behavior (from a primitive perspective). So it did look good on the surface as a new theory. Unfortunately for Evolutionary Psychology our culture is so intrinsically complex and diverse and unpredictable that evolutionary psychology, in my opinion, couldn't nail down a consistent test to our nature. The big blow up against the nature over nurture argument was of course the massive expansion of the internet and social network sites, dating sites and so on. We were able to replace thousands of years of cultural interaction and exchange with a digital medium literally overnight; which completely derailed evolutionary psychologists/biologists behavioral modeling (which relied on primitive mating signals) that was based on millions of years.

Anyway, Geoffrey Miller is an assistant professor in the department of psychology at University of New Mexico and author of The Mating Mind is one of the main proponents on evolutionary psychology when it become semi famous ( BBC documentaries) late 90's early 2000. Wrote an article for Seed magazine in 2006. Basically it's coming form a frustrated perspective as the whole concept of the "mating mind" had been reshaped via the internet. He makes some good points (in a sarcastic way), mainly discussing that humans simple cannot evolve with intervening aspects such as information technology that causes a form of deception in interaction, in his words a "fitness faked" world. He also indicates that a species that advances too quickly may eventually just self destruct.

But overall I don't really agree with him or his article, as I see environmental factors that have caused degrees of complacency in our culture - whether that be the reliance on the internet for interaction. Of course habit and trends in behavior change and they can change suddenly. But Miller sounds like one of these horrible interventionists such as the Keynesian type economic philosophy that has been implicated by government and pushed by certain academics. The degree of complacency (currently) in our society is unbelievable I would agree, but it is reinforced by status quo mentality influenced by government and governing bodies. We had a wealth induced (which was actually fake) environment, this lead to excess it also lead to a unbalanced aspect of power in our society. In other worlds everyone acted like they had equal power. Yes again it was faked via networking and so called social friendship sites. It is more a kinda bizarre twist on an overtly communistic type system where everyone through the internet has tried to create an equilibrium (you have in the sense a even playing field - the net) but at the same time brokering power. That's the problem. But I don't think it's the end of the world.

As I mentioned it is a faked system supported by government (more so now than the last 10 years) and like all economic/social systems supported by a governing body they eventually collapse (note the anniversary of the collapse of communism in Europe - The Berlin Wall coming down).

If you believe in self correcting systems which is what I what I believe, than eventually there will be a re-balancing. A natural cycle of culling excesses and reestablishing a new environment. One that we have never seen before and can only assume it will be similar to the cataclysmic changes that have occurred in our history.

In summary I have a lot of faith in human beings, our cultures, individualism and technology. We have an inherit ability to survive under stress. Yes adaption has been somewhat pushed away from us via regulation and an overly reliance on institutional control. But at the end of the day we work well together.

So the article below is a bit of a nerdy whine (and he sounds kinda depressive), still it's a fun read:

(side note - I actually think we will hear from Aliens in the next decade or so...y'know like a signal).

May 1, 2006

A radical explanation for a conundrum about extra-terrestrial life, and what it means for the future of humanity

The story goes like this: Sometime in the 1940s, Enrico Fermi was talking about the possibility of extra-terrestrial intelligence with some other physicists. They were impressed that life had evolved quickly and progressively on Earth. They figured our galaxy holds about 100 billion stars, and that an intelligent, exponentially-reproducing species could colonize the galaxy in just a few million years. They reasoned that extra-terrestrial intelligence should be common by now. Fermi listened patiently, then asked, simply, “So, where is everybody?” That is, if extra-terrestrial intelligence is common, why haven’t we met any bright aliens yet? This conundrum became known as Fermi’s Paradox.

Since then, the paradox has become ever more baffling. Paleontology has shown that organic life evolved quickly after the Earth’s surface cooled and became life-hospitable. Given simple life forms, evolution shows progressive trends toward larger bodies, brains and social complexity. Evolutionary psychology has revealed several credible paths from simpler social minds to human-level creative intelligence. So evolving intelligence seems likely, given a propitious habitat—and astronomers think such habitats are common. Moreover, at least 150 extrasolar planets have been identified in the last few years, suggesting that life-hospitable planets orbit most stars. Yet 40 years of intensive searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence have yielded nothing: no radio signals, no credible spacecraft sightings, no close encounters of any kind.

It looks, then, as if we can answer Fermi in two ways. Perhaps our current science over-estimates the likelihood of extra-terrestrial intelligence evolving. Or, perhaps evolved technical intelligence has some deep tendency to be self-limiting, even self-exterminating. After Hiroshima, some suggested that any aliens bright enough to make colonizing space ships would be bright enough to make thermonuclear bombs, and would use them on each other sooner or later. Maybe extra-terrestrial intelligence always blows itself up. Indeed, Fermi’s Paradox became, for a while, a cautionary tale about Cold War geopolitics.

I suggest a different, even darker solution to the Paradox. Basically, I think the aliens don’t blow themselves up; they just get addicted to computer games. They forget to send radio signals or colonize space because they’re too busy with runaway consumerism and virtual-reality narcissism. They don’t need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today. Once they turn inwards to chase their shiny pennies of pleasure, they lose the cosmic plot. They become like a self-stimulating rat, pressing a bar to deliver electricity to its brain’s ventral tegmental area, which stimulates its nucleus accumbens to release dopamine, which feels…ever so good.

The fundamental problem is that an evolved mind must pay attention to indirect cues of biologicalfitness, rather than tracking fitness itself. This was a key insight of evolutionary psychology in the early 1990s; although evolution favors brains that tend to maximize fitness (as measured by numbers of great-grandkids), no brain has capacity enough to do so under every possible circumstance. Evolution simply could never have anticipated the novel environments, such as modern society, that our social primate would come to inhabit. That would be a computationally intractable problem, even for the new IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer that runs 280 trillion operations per second. Even long-term weather prediction is easy when compared to fitness prediction. As a result, brains must evolve short-cuts: fitness-promoting tricks, cons, recipes and heuristics that work, on average, under ancestrally normal conditions.

The result is that we don’t seek reproductive success directly; we seek tasty foods that have tended to promote survival, and luscious mates who have tended to produce bright, healthy babies. The modern result? Fast food and pornography. Technology is fairly good at controlling external reality to promote real biological fitness, but it’s even better at delivering fake fitness—subjective cues of survival and reproduction without the real-world effects. Having real friends is so much more effort than watching Friends. Actually colonizing the galaxy would be so much harder than pretending to have done it when filming Star Wars or Serenity. The business of humanity has become entertainment, and entertainment is the business of feeding fake fitness cues to our brains.

Fitness-faking technology tends to evolve much faster than our psychological resistance to it. With the invention of the printing press, people read more and have fewer kids. (Only a few curmudgeons lament this.) With the invention of Xbox 360, people would rather play a high-resolution virtual ape in Peter Jackson’s King Kong than be a perfect-resolution real human. Teens today must find their way through a carnival of addictively fitness-faking entertainment products: iPods, DVDs, TiVo, Sirius Satellite Radio, Motorola cellphones, the Spice channel, EverQuest, instant messaging, MDMA, BC bud. The traditional staples of physical, mental and social development—athletics, homework, dating—are neglected. The few young people with the self-control to pursue the meritocratic path often get distracted at the last minute. Take, for example, the MIT graduates who apply to do computer game design for Electronics Arts, rather than rocket science for NASA.

Around 1900, most inventions concerned physical reality: cars, airplanes, Zeppelins, electric lights, vacuum cleaners, air conditioners, bras, zippers. In 2005, most inventions concern virtual entertainment—the top 10 patent-recipients were IBM, Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Matsushita, Samsung, Micron Technology, Intel, Hitachi, Toshiba and Fujitsu—not Boeing, Toyota or Victoria’s Secret. We have already shifted from a reality economy to a virtual economy, from physics to psychology as the value-driver and resource-allocator. We are already disappearing up our own brainstems. Our neurons over-stimulate each other, promiscuously, as our sperm and eggs decay, unused. Freud’s pleasure principle triumphs over the reality principle. Today we narrow-cast human-interest stories to each other, rather than broadcasting messages of universal peace and progress to other star systems.

Maybe the bright aliens did the same. I suspect that a certain period of fitness-faking narcissism is inevitable after any intelligent life evolves. This is the Great Temptation for any technological species—to shape their subjective reality to provide the cues of survival and reproductive success without the substance. Most bright alien species probably go extinct gradually, allocating more time and resources to their pleasures, and less to their children. They eventually die out when the game behind all games—the Game of Life—says “Game Over; you are out of lives and you forgot to reproduce.”

Heritable variation in personality might allow some lineages to resist the Great Temptation and last longer. Some individuals and families may start with an “irrational” Luddite abhorrence of entertainment technology, and they may evolve ever more self-control, conscientiousness and pragmatism. They will evolve a horror of virtual entertainment, psychoactive drugs and contraception. They will stress the values of hard work, delayed gratifica tion, child-rearing and environmental stewardship. They will combine the family values of the religious right with the sustainability values of the Greenpeace left. Their concerns about the Game of Life will baffle the political pollsters who only understand the rhetoric of status and power, individual and society, rights and duties, good and evil, us and them.

This, too, may be happening already. Christian and Muslim fundamentalists and anti-consumerism activists already understand exactly what the Great Temptation is, and how to avoid it. They insulate themselves from our creative-class dreamworlds and our EverQuest economics. They wait patiently for our fitness-faking narcissism to go extinct. Those practical-minded breeders will inherit the Earth as like-minded aliens may have inherited a few other planets. When they finally achieve contact, it will not be a meeting of novel-readers and game-players. It will be a meeting of dead-serious super-parents who congratulate each other on surviving not just the Bomb, but the Xbox.

Geoffrey Miller is an assistant professor in the department of psychology at University of New Mexico and author of The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Gold price breakout on a 'mini' crisis 2009 (update 3) - or just overbought?

The USD is not at critical stages as yet, so a USD collapse could be pending if the USD touches the 0.71 support. In the meantime the market knows that with 1.US unemployment coming in stronger at 10.2% (which is of course is under-read and unemployment is higher), 2. the Keynesian style stimulus program isn't working (i.e private sector is still shrinking) 3. Growing goverment deficits (adding the new Medicare and Medicaid programs) will blow out the deficits even more. 4. which means the Federal Reserve can only do two things 'print money' and keep interest rates at 0%. 5. This all equals inflation and with tax revenues (via government tax receipts collapsing) it will be a form of inflation that will accelerated with USD weakness. 6. Watch for a flop in US goverment bonds, which could come from oversupply.

The proof of inflationary conditions beginning in the US in the current gold price at 1100 (from trading range at 1090). Is gold near term overbought? Most probably, but supports are at 1028 and a possible trigger sell at 990

But with low volatility via the ATR shows an indication of a possible pullback of the Gold price, but also with low volatility it would also indicate that another upside breakout is possible.
May also indicate trading ranges are narrowing.


*morbius glass doesn't give investment advice, trade at your own risk

Thursday, November 5, 2009

When you are 'tripping' all points of reality become one.

One of my favorite scenes ever filmed in a television drama is when James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) in the groundbreaking series the Sopranos takes the hallucinogenic drug Peyote. Of course the Sopranos, in my opinion (and refer to my DVD recommendation link on this page), covered just about every aspect of contemporary society, it's complexities and the interaction of realities (with all it's paradoxes attached). But the drug taking scene when Tony goes down to Las Vegas to meet a friend of his nephew (who died in car accident, remember?), is one of the high moments (non pun) of the teledrama. Why? It's the scene after Tony takes the trip (Peyote) and proceeds to go gambling. We see, as the scene unfolds the chaos and pace of the casino is slowed down as Tony (and his lady friend wander through the casino in a tripped out daze. He (Tony) proceeds to bet on the roulette wheel and you see that he wins each time.

I love this scene:




So, is a hallucinogenic drug like Poyte able to remove the background noise of life and all it's distraction so one can methodically focus on a point of singularity. Such as the Roulette Wheel?

There has been some scientific work on hallucinogenics and the ability of a person who takes a 'trip' to freeze time of slow down time. This theory falls into the realm of the studies by a scientist by the name of Metod Saniga. The crux of the theory is that in time and space all points are as one, meaning that the past and the future all meet at one junction point. Hence the concept of time freezing in the preset (someone who has tripped out) or time speeding up - yet the person is still within the preset point i.e hasn't moved. Sure the theory has some basic explanation of space time and junction points, which was put together by studies of hallucinogenic uses and their experiences. He (Saniga) then theorizes that space and time generally do not follow our perception of time, as everything flows into singularity.

But can one gauge the future in a hallucinogenic state or using Sanga's modeling? That is the question

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Is the US dollar a risk aversion 'buy' end 2009?

Below is one of my favorite US dollar graphs. As it reflects weakness against the gold price. This was followed in The US Dollar and Gold showing a reflected 'crossover' patten. (update 1).As discussed in those blog posts regarding the USD and Gold, the USD and Gold crossed over as both assets began to diverge from each other. The first time occurred (on a monthly graph) in August 2007 and again in March 2009. After Lehman collapsed in September 2008, the USD gained strength sharply from risk aversion, gold corrected and fell to 706 on 27 October 2008, but steadily maintained it's upward rise (currently at 1088). Primary due to USD weakness and a diversification out of USD and into gold and commodities.

If you look at the graph carefully you'll notice that the extreme lows for the USD occurred in March 2008 (0.71) then as mentioned, risk aversion sent the USD soaring.

So in summary, yes the USD could stabilize and show some sideways type recovery, but for the USD to really gain strength we need the following, a substantial trade war (some shots have been fired namely Obama's tariff on Chinese tire imports and of recently Australia's duty 16% on Chinese aluminum - after China began dumping Aluminum onto the Australian market. China and Australia are essentially already having a trade war re: BHP fiasco), a conflict, a major economic meltdown or other collapse (US bank of otherwise).

Considering the last quarter of 2009 could see some correction in stocks and USD buying. The USD is still in a decline and hasn't reached critical as yet (assuming 0.71 we be the 'crisis' point for the USD).