Jimbo989

Gold Wars, Part II: The Empire Strikes Back

In photography there is an hour before sunset where the atmosphere filters the long angle of the sun and makes the yellow more dominant, it is referred to as "the golden hour" . Photos taken then seem more beautiful because of the softness of the light and the way it makes the colors pop.
Perhaps the only bad thing about the golden hour is that in an hour comes sunset and darkness overtakes the land.

Financially we may be in the golden hour where the beauty of America still flourishes, but soon will come the darkness. Only gold will provide the memory of what was and a tool to relight the world.

First Solar Sell-Off Is Overdone

Solar power is not a monolithic industry, it is made of many technologies and has many different techniques. Solar power encompasses Photovoltaic, Thermal, and hybrid combinations.

Photovoltaic is all about the most bang for your buck, your ROI is determined by the cost per watt, multiplied by the lifespan of the device. Because of the inherently higher output of silicon cells, they will continue to remain the dominant pv technology until (and if) the cost of competing technologies can be reduced to such low levels that cost per watt is no longer a consideration. I doubt that such breakthroughs will occur in my lifetime. The real area of study (and possible financial gain) lie in the power storage technologies such as Lithium Iron batteries and supercapacitors. When you can cheaply and easily store solar electricity for long periods, it will make it easier to balance the grid based generating systems as well as making off grid systems more financially viable.

It is now possible to have a system installed in your home that will provide all your power needs for the life of the house - for about the price of an SUV. Unlike an SUV the home solar will not substantially decline in value over 7 years and has virtually no moving parts to wear out. The only weak spot is using a non-grid tied system requires the owner to have a substantial amount of lead acid batteries which require maintenance and will wear out after several years.

When the lead acid battery problem is solved, solar will take off like a rocket and since most homes don't have enough roof area to make thin film practical, I would expect silicon technology to maintain its substantial lead in market share.

FDIC's Watch List of 'Problem Banks' Keeps Growing

Are bank failures considered a leading indicator, or a trailing indicator?

A DIRE warning for the United States

For Econpro...

You might not have noticed because the 1st troop deployment was in October of 2008 and the economic panic was flooding the headlines, here is an excerpt from the Washinton Post:
Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security

By Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 1, 2008; Page A01

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.

www.washingtonpost.com...

As far as Cheney and the private prison industry, I suggest you use google

It Isn't Just Location: Housing and the Economic Recovery

To blame the media for the banks using 40 times leveraging of assets and massive use of credit derivitive swaps is to give the media and the banks a free pass. The banking sector collapsed because it no longer had cash reserves, its accountants allowed them to treat deriviatives as reserves, when in fact they were no such thing. The media shone no light on this, the media is in fact a puppet of the corporations that own it, the media is a handy to dog to beat, but they are in fact inept at investigation and spend far more time on missing white woman, dead children, and celebrities without underwear.

The economy has systemic problems, offshoring has reduced American manufacturing to a hollow shell, without good paying jobs Americans can no longer be the #1 consumer society, gorging on the worlds production, and they are forced to rely on debt to continue their consumption. Since housing prices have collapsed, homes are no longer a golden goose filled with equity to mortgage out and enjoy yet another spending spree. Problem 1 - the consumer is broke.

The banking system is rife with fraud, as AIG, and its practice of reinsuring its own policies through wholly owned branch companies has proven. As well as Goldman Sachs selling mortgage bond tranches as investments at the same time they were running an Index that supported short positions against the very same bonds they were selling as good investments. Problem #2 broken banking & investment system

The population demographic is shifting - the baby boomers have begun to retire and are no longer a fountain of money to be skimmed by every investing con available. Many boomer investors lost money in both recent bubbles and will not be investors or savers, but will instead require government assistance for the rest of their lives. Problem #3 aging population.

The Federal Reserve and their problematic money policies have managed to destroy the wealth of the nation, the double bubble economy of Alan Greenspan, followed by the attempt by Ben Bernanke to fix an excrement filled cake by frosting it with tons of money and charging the tax payers for the privilege of this outrage through a 4 trillion dollar tax payer funded bailout shows the true cluelessness of those in charge. Problem #4 the Federal Reserve.

As always catastrophe is never the result of a single event, but rather a series of factors, each compounding the other and amplifying the destruction, so our economy is shredding itself on a bed of broken razor blades built by our leaders in government and finance, who appear to be surprised the the victim is bleeding and attempt to deny it in every public forum available.

Until the basic problems are corrected, they cannot be a recovery, and at our debt levels and with our aging demographic and our levels of manufacturing, perhaps this economy has become the new normal. The bubbles of the past merely hid the true nature of our economy which is that it can no longer support full employment and that we are a nation that has overextended its credit limit.

I'd love to blame it all on the media, but I think they had many helpers pushing the economy over the cliff.

Microsoft (MSFT) saw its U.S. search share jump to 11.1% from 9.1% in the week following the public release of Bing, comScore says. Tire kicking, or is Microsoft on to something?

How much bottom line revenue does zune/xbox generate for Microsoft? How much of a fraction of their software sales does this represent? The problem with Microsoft is they made/make all their money off of licensing - write software once - sell multiple times using variants/upgrades. Market saturation has been achieved, the market has found their new offering (Vista/office2007) lackluster, the upgrade train is derailed.

Lacking any major improvements to induce current users to upgrade, there business model will fail. I see layoffs ahead.

Microsoft (MSFT) saw its U.S. search share jump to 11.1% from 9.1% in the week following the public release of Bing, comScore says. Tire kicking, or is Microsoft on to something?

Microsoft is a one trick pony - Windows is their entire business. Everything else comes from Windows, server software, office software, email software, etc.

Zune is proof Microsoft can't compete on a level playing field, the Xbox is proof that Microsoft can only compete by selling at a loss a heavily subsidized product.

How anyone who knows Bill Gates and his Empire of inept could think that they could build a search engine is beyond reason.

Bing,Zune, Microsoft the hallmark of stupid names for bad products.

I don't own any Microsoft stock or software.

Pricing Oil in Big Macs

An interesting point the author neglects, is a Big Mac contains almost as much actual oil as a barrel of oil, more actually if get the value meal and supersize the fries.

I think we should measure the price of open heart surgery in Big Macs, so we can understand rising healthcare prices. Does anybody know how to use powerpoint?

How's the View from Your Recession?

Most of the statistics are lies, if they come from government sources.
The whole country is sucking wind at this point, we will have a huge number of loans resetting until November 2011. Nothing will change until we get past that date. Unemployment is an avalanche falling down a mountain, it just hasn't gotten all the way down the mountain yet.

Demographics say, we are the new Japan - 2 decades of non-growth and now declining GDP. The treasury is empty and the fools are in charge, how can it be anything other than a roller coaster ride to hades?

I live in one of the better off states and our unemployment is officially 8% and more likely about 12%, I couldn't sell my house if I
threw in Angelina Jolie and my taxes haven't dropped though my home value sure as heck as has.

Next month we begin to see the dust from General Motors and the controlled collapse of the auto industries begin to blot out the sun. I can't wait to see the unemployment numbers next month. It should be interesting because of the forced closures of so many dealerships the pain should be nationwide, will the government stats reflect this?

I guess what I'm saying is I'm still alive so far but, its rather too early to say what the ultimate outcome is likely to be as this train is just leaving the station.

It's Not Easy Being Green Shoots

Legalize and regulate marijuana - it is the largest agricultural crop in the nation and is untaxed and unregulated. The revenue could be very handy at a time like this.

Legalize and regulate hemp - this single crop could add more to our economy than anything else that can be done on 3-5 year timeline. Hemp can provide food, oil for consumption, biodiesel or industrial use, fiber that can be used for clothing, shoes, carpet and many other uses such as reinforcing concrete and plastics. The bast can be used for paper production, or to make plastics or for mulch or a multitude of other uses. The crop itself adds nitrogen to the soil, while it smothers weeds and halts their reproduction, leaving the soil healthier for new crops.

Hemp can be locally produced and locally worked into profitable merchandise that can be locally sold. It does not require a great deal of petroleum to produce and it can replace a great deal of products produced by foreign oil, thus reducing the demands on our strained energy system as well as providing jobs and materials for our economy without the need for imports.

Hemp and marijuana can save this economy if we can convince our government that we should be allowed plant a seed.

Energy prices and peak oil will crush any attempt at economic recovery based on petroleum, this is simple math. We obviously need a non-petroleum based economy, hemp, marijuana and alternative energy are all components of the path we must choose.

Who will win? Big oil or the people of the world?