FutureJacked

Decisions

2012-01-24T15:09:00.000-06:00

The last post was a wee bit disjointed. I am having some troubles coalescing my thoughts.

Here is where I am stuck - I continue to use the socionomic model as my guide to the general lay of the land, so to speak. Having been witness, as you all have, to the tech bubble and the housing bubble, and living in the waning days of the Big Government Bubble, the idea that mass herding effects drive events is not hard to accept.

Where I am stumbling is really what to say about, and how to prepare for, events in the early days of a steep and quick downturn in mood, when we are swept up in the vast river of mood and have to grab at a branch floating by just to stay afloat. I still agree with a variety of analysts out there that financial markets and the world system in general is quite vulnerable to a significant dislocation. Our systems are brittle and a mass stampede away from "risk" and away from trust, good will, harmony, a generally honest government, and all the other emotions that were considered as "givens" as our current way of life established itself, could result in some big failures, big dislocations, big headaches and, sadly, big violence.

I am also fairly comfortable with where this tide will carry us - a lot of violence, possibly insurrections, a severe degradation in trust between unlike groups, the degradation of civil structures, the rise of organized private violence in areas, mass poverty as the enormous debts run up during the last few decades comes unwound, the rise of angry religious cults, and in general, an ugly 14th Century feel to a lot of things.

I am not comfortable with is this ongoing rally period in the sense that I am not good at gauging how to take advantage of it via the markets or via positioning myself in a social or even geographic sense. Frankly, back when I was actively trading, I sucked at these types of markets. Now, not being in the market at the moment allows me to ponder what to do should we get this dislocation to the downside I expect.

Why worry about it, you ask? Well, the thing is, many of the choices and decisions that get made in a time of crisis or as a "temporary" fix, have a bad habit of sticking around and becoming the new structures we build our stories and societies around when we pass through the tear-down phase of the bear mentality and get back into a building-up, bullish mentality as a society. And frankly, I expect the tear-down to be significant when Primary Wave 3 engages to the downside.

When I recommend being a bridge-builder and active member in your local area, I am thinking in terms of you being like a seed that sprouts after a fire devastates a forest. Lot's of other competing organisms are out there. Much of the population seems to long for a final authoritarian clamp-down in this country. As a beliver in the Republic and as a believer in the Bill of Rights and Constitution, I continue to be sickened as policy after policy comes out of D.C., and frankly, out of political capitals around the world, that leverage technologies to spy on, harass, and crush those opposed to whatever public/private looting regime is in place at the time (Jon Corzine, et al).

Being a strong citizen, being someone who helps out others, who shows that free individuals can move mountains when they work well together, who values liberty - that is something that I hope can help offset this coming black tide. No guarantees, of course, but your decisions and actions in the coming Crisis will matter, it will help shape the mold into which our melted society will be recast in the years to come, a society that will then have to face Supercycle Wave C, but that is a tale for a different day...

In the Days Following a Plunge

2012-01-20T16:56:00.000-06:00

I’ve been mulling over what we in the U.S. might see in the short run should mood turn very negative, very quickly. The assumptions that go into the following thought experiment include:

Big pieces of the current system (finance, insurance, real estate, consumer spending, new business development, farming), where access to easy credit underpins nearly every single financial transaction or decision that occurs in the U.S., is “brittle.” By “brittle” I mean that things work very well and very efficiently as long as individuals and firms have access to easy credit to finance operations. Should that credit be choked off via bankruptcies in the financial sector (MF Global, anyone?) and the fear associated with such a bankruptcy, the removal of access to credit would be like removing the fuel in an airliner 50,000 feet up – things are great, until they aren’t.
Speaking of farming, in hand with the brittle nature of the credit system, modern farming continues to come up in my mind when I think about the vulnerability of the current way of life we have built for ourselves. The vast majority of people have no idea just how reliant most farmers are on credit to get a crop in. Modern farming is very productive, but very brittle as well – it is like an efficient factory relying on just-in-time inventory. Take out easy access to relatively cheap fuels and man-made fertilizers, take out access to credit to buy those inputs and vast portions of farming in the U.S. would plummet in productivity. The way we farm today is totally reliant on modern inputs. Most soils are in very bad shape and could not be very productive should farmers be forced to return to more robust, if less efficient methods of farming. That is a long way of saying food is on my mind. We won’t be starving here in the U.S. any time soon, but as goes credit, so goes modern farming in the short run.
The immediate result of a market collapse or major disruptions due to war will not lead to a Mad Max environment in the short term. Most populations handle short-term disasters or disruptions by being neighborly and dealing with it. A bank holiday is more likely to lead to a lot of pot luck dinners with neighbors or group meals at church or at the Rotary Club than to tanks in the streets – in the short term
War, even a war with a limited deployment of nuclear weapons – and even if some of those weapons went off in the U.S., will not result in an apocalyptic end-game of famine, shortage and environmental disaster. The wave count gives us a good chance at a war, but remember, you will still have to get up and be productive in some way, the sun will still rise, even if Teheran is nuked and refineries bombed in Saudi Arabia. Nuclear weapons are horrible, but they are not world-ending devices, despite the hype.

So what is my point here?

Well, I wonder about what happens in the month following a rush of events. How will we tell ourselves the story of our coming plunge in negative mood? It could be something like a banking collapse that results in bank holidays around the globe as regulators and financiers try and patch things up, a bombing campaign against Iran that results in blowback including a temporary closure of the Straits of Hormuz and some damage to Saudi Arabian petroleum delivery and refinery assets, anger directed by the “99%” against the “1%,” etc.

What would that mean to you and yours?

What Happens in the First Month After a Financial Collapse?

The short answer is, I don’t know. I have no idea how a highly interdependent global economy built on structures put in place in an era of cheap transportation fuels and extremely positive mood, high trust, and reliant on highly efficient movements of goods and credit would handle a new environment of very negative mood, low trust, expensive transportation fuels and little available credit.

There would of course be the initial shock. Many people are heavily reliant on debit and credit cards and carry far less cash than would have been the norm 30 years ago. What happens to the vast array of automatic bill pays and automated deposits that keep the wheels of commerce turning if regulators tried to implement a bank holiday? I haven’t cashed a physical paycheck in over ten years. How would credit rating agencies handle all the late payments on your credit score? Would there be anyone who gives a crap about your credit score a year later anyway? How would local businesses handle their cash deposits?

What happens when you make it home and see on the TV that some someones have bombed suspected nuclear sites all across Iran, along with bases and buildings belonging to the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution and Iranian Naval assets. Over dinner, you hear rumors being reported of fires at the Ras Tanura complex in Saudi Arabia and of Shi’ite uprisings in the east of the Kingdom that have caused damage to pipelines and infrastructure. You recall that you only had a quarter tank of gas in the car…

You make it to the end of the week. Your job will be affected, one way or the other, by these events. Are you in real estate, insurance or finance? You may have angry customers, worried customers, or no customers, depending on where you sit. Are you in long haul trucking? You may have real issues with fuel costs and maybe even fuel availability, especially as news of the U.S. involvement in Iranian regime change grows and rumors of fuel rationing spread.

Occupy protests would probably grow in intensity. Even now, no one is still sure of what to do with the anger expressed by that movement, but they would spread, especially as many workers will have been sent home on short weeks as small businesses worry about being able to pay employees or access their money and credit once the banks reopen...

And Then?

If a negative mood event kicks off in such a manner, there will be plenty to worry about. I do not know your situation, but please do keep a few things in mind:

If we apply socionomics, remember that mood is a herding event. It is tough, but you don’t have to participate. Be aware, but spinning around in worry and fear does no one any good.
Be a positive bridge-builder in your immediate area. Get outside, talk with neighbors. Organize a potluck dinner at your house or a block party or a neighborhood dinner at local church or school. Do something that allows people to share a little and get a benefit of a positive communal interaction – being able to share some beans or a ham that has been in your freezer since Christmas, but get a meal out of the deal that allows you feed the kids some fresh vegetables or a fresh dessert at a potluck can go a long way to helping your frame of mind.
Be aware that past wealth-building strategies may no longer work in this environment. Easy credit for real estate speculation has already dried up. Other strategies, such as internet businesses that rely on credit transactions and cheap outsourced manufacturing overseas will face the headwinds of bank problems, trade barriers and possibly high transportation costs.
Cash on hand is great, but don’t flaunt it. “Flaunt it if you got it” is a philosophy that already rings hollow and will got out the window in an era of deep negative mood. Blend in. Be helpful. Don’t rouse envy.
Have some board games and decks of cards. In times of trouble it might be best to turn off the TV and spend get your mind off the fear out there and focus on games with family and friends.

I don’t have “the” answer as to how to make money a month into a negative mood event. You will see how things are trending. Know these things move in waves. Be ready to think differently. There may be many very successful people with large sums in the bank that never see that money again. There will be vast upheavals in politics and law. In the early days of a plunge, the world won’t end, though it may seem like it at times. Be ready to do a lot more comforting, bridge building and befriending than spending time looking for the best angle to make a buck.

The will rise every morning. What you do with those mornings is what will define the future.

Further thoughts on how to handle a major credit and world crisis in the month following the first big sign of the drop?

Socionomic Trendspotting 2012

2012-01-05T16:57:00.000-06:00

Well, 2012 is here. That creaking noise you hear is the sound of the superstructure of Western finance, politics and popular society weakening. The world we here in the U.S. have constructed for ourselves, based on fractional reserve lending, fiat money, crony capitalism, enormous public and private indebtedness, world-wide military commitments, privatization of prisons and security functions, all slaved to a hyperactive and paranoid security state, is crumbling. When the mood that supports this worldview turns against it, either a spectacular crash is going to follow, or a long, grinding year of disappointment, anger and increasing tension.

In this edition of Socionomic Trendspotting, we will step back and try to see where the debris is going to fall, in an attempt to use a “macro” gauge like socionomics to help you plan on the “micro” level. I’ll try and adhere to Alan Hall’s Principles for Applying Socionomics and hopefully we can tease something useful from the trends.

Now, on to 2012…

The Maya Calendar Countdown

I’ve had a Maya Calendar Countdown at the bottom of the blog for several years now. At one time I thought this meme might grow into something influential enough to affect more than book and movie sales. I was viewing this as a vehicle that could possibly be used as an outlet for anger or even violence and maybe even serve as a large cult meme. Unless something significant changes, the “End of the World” in December, 2012, will probably pass with little to no related violence or organized trauma.

However, this topic can serve as a placeholder for something that could grow in 2012 and that is a variety of cults and gangs as more and more people become angry at “the system” and actually begin doing something about it.

Action Items: Like a lot of “alternative” movements, you can expect a lot of failures, a lot of bad press, some crazies and the occasional odd success as the “resilient community” meme and other movements struggle to rise up as our larger society begins to fail more and more people. Be aware of the alternative movements and find what is useful in them, but avoid the “true believer” trap.

Eat the Rich?

Will this be the year the worm turns for the “Masters of the Universe” who have, shall we say, not quite lived up to their fabled intelligence nor their fiduciary responsibilities in many cases over the past decade? Maybe not, but if mood does turn, I expect this to be one of the outlets people will use to express their anger.

I’ve set out the warning about show trials or scapegoating (in some cases, warranted) of the financier class in the past, only to be proven stunningly wrong by both mass mood and an Eric Holder. An Eric Holder is an inert form of matter currently occupying a chair in the Attorney General’s Office, an office that has spent more time worrying about Barry Bonds, Cam Newton’s dad and Roger Clemens than it has in pursuing the root of the rampant mortgage market frauds perpetrated during the Bubble, as well as the various frauds inflicted on the public by the big banks that get minor civil penalties but no criminal time.

The blatant travesty that was the MF Global Collapse continues to unwind and yet John Corzine is still free. Perhaps I am still too early, but I’ll say it again, the financier class has too much money and is too sociopathically arrogant in the main to avoid being scapegoated if mood turns sour.

Another reinforcement that this trend may be early can be found in The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior by Robert Prechter, “Bear markets of sufficient size appear to bring about a desire to slaughter groups of successful people…. …Such undertakings, particularly when sponsored by the state as most of them are, require immense cooperation. It might be postulated that major “C” wave declines are times when destructive social goals are achieved with wide cooperation, just as third waves on the upside are times when constructive social goals are achieved with wide cooperation.” (WP, page 270) Assuming we are in Cycle wave C, this iteration of negative mood hopefully won’t be enough to drive mass killings, but it might be enough to drive mass jailings.

Action Items: What actions can be taken if this trend does actually play out? The warning signs will be there and that makes me think this could take a few years to get traction – it will probably take a third party or a demagogue of some sort in one of the main parties to gain control or influence over enough of the levers of power to begin pursuit of some of the financier class that will get some of the blame for the economic malaise. If you are wealthy enough to worry about this, you probably have already taken precautions. If you are in some sort of support service for the financier class, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to begin compiling a database of documents and emails so that you have something to trade when the wolves come calling.

War (Good God, Ya’ll)

This topic is on my mind more and more. Going with the count from the Elliott Wave Financial Forecast, we are in Cycle Wave C. Referring back to The Wave Principle, we find that “The most intense conflicts, such as wars, are not associated with all large bear markets but typically occur during or immediately after the largest C waves in corrective processes of Primary degree and higher. A waves, regardless of extent rarely result in war.” (WP, page 267) This tells me to expect war. One can hope we can avoid it this year, but it is coming. Alternativley, I could be reading this section of the Wave Principle wrong and we should expect the big war some time towards the end of, or just after, Supercycle Wave C (or maybe we would get both).

If we look to the various “hotspots” where public mood is being pushed to accept war, the first name that comes up is Iran. With the consequences of the “Arab Spring” still bubbling along, one wonders if other Middle Eastern/North African countries might be added to that list as well. Other outlets for this expression of negative mood include China (though I regard this as low probability) or even intervention in the Western hemisphere (if, for example, Mexico were to implode and the U.S. were “provoked” to intervene against one or more of the cartels, in a replay of the “Pancho Villa Expedition” of 1916) or internally.

Action Items: I’m not sure if now is the time to plan for global thermonuclear war (you may need to wait until Supercycle Wave C a few decades hence) but I think you should at least think about war and the disruptions it could cause. Maybe we can avoid conflict for a few more years. Don’t get bogged down in partisan “news” about various regions, but do think seriously about the consequences of, say, a war with Iran that closed the Straits of Hormuz for some weeks or months and resulted in damage to oil refineries all around the Gulf, or other consequences in terms of rationing or further restrictions on liberties.

The Clashing Grind of Politics

I think it will be more of the same this year. I don’t see enough signs of the groundwork being laid for a successful third party structure and there should be enough mental inertia that allow the majority of voters to continue supporting the two-party system through the election cycle. Assuming a downturn in mood, President Obama should be ousted, despite his recent recovery in the polls. With his recent “recess appointment” of Richard Cordray to the laughable CPFB causing a lot of controversy, he may be giving his opponents a legal stick with which to attack him just as we are on the cusp of a downswing in mood.

Expect more of the same in terms of the product you get from your lawmakers, especially the federal ones, as well. The recent gutting of the Bill of Rights with the signing of the recent NDAA (on the 220th Anniversary of their signing no less), on top of the PATRIOT Act and other attacks on the foundations of the Republic, sends a clear signal that more, not less, authoritarianism is coming our way.

Action Items: It may still be too early for you to do much in politics, but if that is your thing, getting involved now may allow you to get some experience under your belt which will allow you to take advantage of the bottom that we could see in the 2016ish time frame. As for the rest, who knows just how ugly the authoritarianism is going to get. It could be bad. Be aware of your surroundings.

Thoughts on the Coming Year

It is entirely possible that 2012 may be 2011 all over again, just worse. Mood could slip less than I expect, bringing markets only slightly lower, not crashing down. Instead of an outright leap into the abyss, we could continue this agonizing slog towards it instead. Jobs would continue to be lost. Tensions would be high and rising. Dysfunction would reign in most every court of public life – and we’d just have to deal with it.

Alternatively, we could see a big Primary Wave 3 plunge that shocks the system and maybe gets us closer to the bottom more quickly – but possibly with a higher risk of things like war or mass violence.

I actually am tending towards the “more of the same” scenario, which can still accommodate big market plunges – there may be enough inertia left over from the dying system to carry this zombie economy on longer than you might think – especially if Europe tanks first and the U.S. gets a temporary benefit of hot money looking for a home.

My suggestions are ones you’ve heard before but bear repeating – be aware of your surroundings, keep a positive frame of mind, do your best to rationalize your finances, be prepared for disruptions of the basics of daily life (fuel, food, electricity, internet access, etc.) but don’t settle into a bunker mentality. Life is to be lived and in times of chaos, the seeds of a new dawn are sown. Be out there sowing those seeds while others are cowering in fear. We have a rough three or four years ahead of us – be ready.

A Review of Socionomic Trendspotting for 2011

2011-12-29T10:50:00.000-06:00

In January, I layed out the socionomic trends I expected to see play out over 2011 in terms of the "Aspects of Social Polarity" from The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior by Robert Prechter. Let's take some time here at the end of the year (how the hell did it get to be the end of 2011 already?) to go over the trends and see where I screwed up and where I was on track.

Alignment/Opposition

Opposition will increase in many forms – whether it is labor strife in professional sports and public unions or between the main political parties, expect opposition to rule the day in many interactions.
Action Items: Don’t expect to get huge projects that required many layers of agreement off the ground. If you need lots of permitting, complicated financing or political support – don’t expect it to be easy. I would suggest focusing on small, discrete projects that can be handled quietly and cheaply.

Review: While this is more of a long-term theme, I regard this as modestly successful and likely to be more so in the months to come. There is lots of talk about a "new Manhattan Project to fix..." energy, health care, etc., but we saw more headwinds than success in 2011. Whether it was opposition to fracking by activists and government agencies in the energy sector or the breakdown of subsidies for ethanol, the trend against "big fix" type activities seems strong and growing. As budgets tighten drastically, expect "big" solutions to problems get a lot of chatter, but little activity.

Benevolence/Malevolence

I’m not sure how far down the curve we will slide on this polarity. Expect a rough year for charities. Expect public discourse to get even rougher and don’t be surprised to see a rash of stories about serial killers or spree killers make the news. The recent spate of cop killings (which we discussed briefly here) might be a ugly foreshadowing of things to come

Action Items: Keep your wits about you and make sure you don’t get caught up in a wave of malevolent behavior. Heaven knows the world can be short on kindness in the best of times.

Review: I'm not sure how badly charities got dinged in 2011. While there is anecdotal evidence that charities have not had a great year, things are not as bad as I expected on that front, which is reassuring. Unfortunately, there was a 13% jump in cop killings, along with a host of ugly mass killings (such the one here), and a serial killer on Long Island is in the news as well. Malevolence is on the rise.

Clarity/Fuzziness

This one is easy to spot. Policies such as issuing more debt to try and “fix” a debt crisis is a screaming alarm bell for this sort of thing, no matter how man Nobel Prize Winners line up to support it. There will be a vast amount of glittering generalities thrown around when it comes to talking about more jobs and debt relief. Expect vast waves of unintended consequences from the programs that do get pushed through.

Action Items: Be careful to make sure any plans you make – be they business plans, bug-out plans, relocation plans, etc. are based on the best facts available. Leave the day-dreaming to others. Keep in mind the old country saying “wish in one hand, shit in the other and see which one fills up first” when considering an investment. There is a lot of dreaming built into financial statements and pro formas. Make sure you can spot it.

Review: Anyone watching the European sovereign debt debacle can see the power of fuzzy thinking hard at work. Expect it to get worse in 2012.

Concord/Discord

Discord should rule the day. We are seeing politicos play nice at the moment as we are in a significant rally in mood. When we pass Dow 10,000 once again, expect that to melt away into angry, bitter, partisan wrangling.

Action Items: If you rely on harmonious times for your income or safety – expect a decrease in both.

Review: We didn't descend into discord as deeply as I expected, so this is a miss for the year, but we should see it on the rise in 2012. We have a debt ceiling debate coming our way soon here in the U.S., so we may have a fine chance to kick off the year with acrimony and grandstanding.

Confidence/Fear

Fear should make a big, big comeback. Whether in terms of personal safety or investments, times should get stressful.

Action Items: If you have ignored me over the last several years when I say “get to know your neighbors, get plugged into your community – the actual real-life one, not the digital one” then please stop ignoring me and make those connections. People usually have less fear of those they know. Do what you can to limit fear’s deleterious effects on your life. When others are fearful, you can be looking for opportunity.

Review: Big miss here. People are still amazingly optimistic on the whole. I expect 2012 to change that tune in dramatic fashion.

Constructiveness/Destructiveness

Expect to see things crumble or be blown to bits, whether it is infrastructure or political entities. Money for maintenance is going to dry up. Anger will spark the detonation of bombs and the collapse of many current social and political arrangements. Burn Baby Burn will make a comeback.

Action Items: I see this as a theme that will be picked up by macro themes such as Peak Oil or the Climate Change movement. Watch for a push to the return to gravel roads (informed by devastated local budgets and by an eco movement out to limit the use of roads) or for allowing infrastructure to decay to promote restrictions on access to areas and a return of those areas “back to nature.”

Review: Another miss. I think I am early on this one. Revenues held up better than I expected and while the Occupy protests generated much media interest at times, they were not violent in any significant fashion.

Daring/Defensiveness

Retrenchment should be the order of the day. Again, this will be a tough era to see big projects through to completion.

Action Items: You should already have your defensive measures in place. Be ready to get daring while others get defensive.

Review: Miss again. Very little true retrenchment is in place on a mass scale. State governments have cut some, but consumers are still spending at a far higher rate than I expected and growth, not retrenchment, it still touted as the way to escape budget problems.

Desiring Power Over Nature/Desiring Power Over People

I think the Climate Change Religion (as opposed to the legitimate science of climate studies) is going to be the poster child for this. The Climate Catastrophe folks have their villain (carbon emitting activities), they have their Mein Kampf (Climate Change and the Failure of Democracy – read what they have in store for you, friends), they control many levers of power in the establishment and they have a high profile champion in Al Gore. They’ve suffered some setbacks lately, but watch as mood deteriorates. They will be a vocal, angry minority and they will know what they want – always a dangerous combo.

Action Items: Tyranny is going to be hard to impose in this era of open communications systems, but don’t worry, plenty of folks will try and impose it. Be watchful and be ready to run – early or fight - if you must in defense of the Constitution, your life and property.

Review: A hit, but not from the direction I expected. The climate change folks have suffered a number of setbacks and as budgets grow tight and in the wake of the so-called Climategate email releases, their many machinations are coming unwound. But, Congress came through for us and passed a bill that, even with the supposed protections built in, still allows the President to declare anyone a terrorist and have them assassinated or detained without recourse to protections enshrined in the Bill of Rights. It will get worse before it gets better.

Ebullience/Depression

If this model is correct, we should expect a lot more acceptance of depression or stoicism rather than the manic insistence that we should all be happy we saw in the 1990’s and most of the 2000’s. Ludes and other downers should make a comeback. Hopefully meth abuse will shrink.

Action Items: Be watchful of your moods. Don’t get caught up in the waves of depression that could very well sweep the country after an ugly financial or political event.

Review: Not sure it has traction yet, but I still expect a movement to rise up in psychology that calls for the acceptance of some types of depression or a move towards a new stoicism. We'll see.

Embrace of Effort/Avoidance of Effort

Expect a lot of ennui if mood truly craters. A lot of “it doesn’t matter” will be floating around, in tandem with a depressed national psyche.

Action Items: While others avoid doing the hard things – you should be embracing them. This is the ultimate contrarian play.

Review: Missed on this one. I think it is playing out, but the timeline may be longer than I expected, plus mood held up better than I thought. Always good advice, though, to be ready to work hard when others quit.

Forbearance/Anger

As the text says “A rising mood leads to social expressions of acquiescence, apology and tolerance. A falling mood leads to social expressions of resistance, recriminations and intolerance.” Don’t expect to see things like the Catholic Church apologizing for the Inquisition or other public self-flagellation by political bodies to apologize for crimes or atrocities committed decades or centuries ago. This will be an age where we’ll be making plenty of our own atrocities that our great-grandchildren can the apologize for down the road.

Action Items: If you are a member of a group that relies on income based upon historical guilt. Get ready to see that income wither away. Also, this is just another ingredient in the stew that will keep politics a seething mass of anger and futility for the near future.

Review: We are not there yet, but expect things to get hard-edged and unapologetic.

Friskiness/Somberness

Sigh. Watch as hemlines drop and fashion goes black, brown and ugly and people let their bodies go. It has been a fun ride in an era of short skirts, well-tailored suits, fun times and giddy excessiveness in parties and politics.

Action Items: If your business model relies on selling tiny amounts of clothing at a big mark-up or selling lot’s of sparkly rocks, expect to see a dent in your income. Fashion will always sell, but the trend is going to abruptly change, in my opinion.

Review: This is on its way, but fashion has not tipped over yet. Glad I was wrong here.

Happiness/Unhappiness

Pretty self-explanatory. Gonna be some good blues tunes that come out of this era.

Action Items: Don’t ignore the bad things, but don’t let yourself dwell on unhappiness. This too shall pass.

Review: If you are one of the long-term unemployed, you are living in quite an unhappy place, I imagine. A lot of unhappiness will stem from expectations built up that can no longer be met by current conditions. This will grow, I expect.

Homogeneity/Heterogeneity

Watch for a shift towards a lot of “tribalism” in marketing and in politics. This should work hand in hand with anger and secession to make quite the ugly mix on the political scene.

Action Items: Take time to read The Breakdown of Nations by Leopold Kohr for an idea of how smaller, heterogeneous political and social organizations might be able to flourish. The heterogeneity pole can put enormous strains on big systems that count on people all behaving a set way. Breaking apart some of those sclerotic systems might not be all negative. Think of ways to market and thrive in such an environment.

Review: We are not there yet, but I expect the coming budget battles to heighten diferences and draw lines between groups. When things get so bad that we are talking about real battles and not budget battles, then we will have arrived.

Inclusion/Exclusion

Tribalism will continue to march onwards and upwards. The worst of “exclusion” takes us skin-color-based violence, to the re-ignition of historical animosities and just aggravates an already ugly national political scene.

Action Items: Go to the U.S. Census website and look up your city and your state. Where do you fall in terms of your ethnic group in your region? What do the projections for ten years out say? What would happen if ethnic-based conflicts erupted in your region?

Review: Might want to take the action suggested above. 2011 didn't get us there, but be wary of the future.

Interest in Love/Interest in Sex

Get ready to get your groove on if that is your thing.

Action Items: If you are in the arts, plan to write that big best-seller or direct that movie focusing on self-serving pleasure and the thrill of the “hunt.”

Review: We are not back in the 1970s on this yet, but it is a social trend worth watching for, for those of you that it might affect.

Liberality/Restriction

Expect different regions to express this in different ways. Down South you may see a return of Blue Laws and an expansion of dry counties. Up in Yankee Land expect extremely restrictive gun laws. Expect more and more efforts to legislate behavior to more rigid forms.

Action Items: Be aware of the culture of where you live. This will be a cross-cutting theme in realms of politics, business, fashion and social behavior.

Review: Hard to quantify, but do note that almost every "solution" to a problem is more restrictions or regulation.

Optimism/Pessimism

This one is self-explanatory. While others are preparing for the world’s end in 2012, you can be buying their assets for pennies on the dollar, if you so choose.

Action Items: Buy when blood is flowing in the streets.

Review: Missed out at least on the levels of pessimism I expected to see. I continue to think that there will be some sort of 2012 craze towards year-end on top of all kinds of discord and confusion in markets and society. It will still be early for jumping in with both feet back into markets, I think, but be making your list of assets or items you want to invest in or support as other shy away.

Practical Thinking/Magical Thinking

Expect so much Magical Thinking as to make you puke. This will be everything from relatively harmless visits to a local Santero to help out with your love life or a business deal to truly pernicious magical incantations such as QE3 or other sorts of wishful fantasizing that just because you want something bad enough it will manifest itself with no consequences. Much of this has already played out on the national scene as budget deficits have continued to skyrocket, guaranteeing devastation in the near future.

Action Items: Think clearly. Feel free to indulge in the more harmless aspects of magical thinking (so you don’t stand out too much from the crowd) but base your actions on practical thinking.

Review: Well, the budget deficit is over $1 trillion a year. Europe proposes to fix a debt crisis with more debt and regulation. Magical thinking is alive and well, but this is only the appetizer, be ready for the full course in 2012.

Search for Joy/Search for Pleasure

I define joy as a deep and internal state of connectedness to the Source, to Divine Providence, with active aspects of faith, hope and charity. A search for pleasure is a road where you wind up like Hugh Hefner, a shriveled old shell of a once-vibrant man, subsisting on Viagra and gold-diggers.

Action Items: Indulge lightly as we descend this slope into hedonism, don’t get consumed by it.

Review: We have not moved towards hedonism on a large scale. Could get interesting once we do see it, though...

Self-Providence/Self-Deprivation

Watch as we recoil away from Hummers and McMansions to more humble digs and mass transit. In religious circles, look for a comeback of monastic environments and possibly more violent efforts such as flagellation. In politics, looks for “austerity” to rule the day in public spending and in general watch as society retrenches to a lower level of conspicuous consumption.

Action Items: Self-Deprivation, especially after an era of extreme excess is not the worst thing in the world. Use this wave of mood to clear out clutter and rationalize your budget.

Review: Hummer is gone. Conspicuous consumption is not as vibrant as it was. Expect to see a lot of retrenchment in spending paired with a moral justification for doing so. I also expect to see the rise of new monastic type communities of various faiths and practices. This type of community resurfaces in the U.S. periodically and I expect to see it again.

Sharpness of Focus/Dullness of Focus

This will be a tricky one to nail down. In the best of times, there is not a lot of sharp focused effort out there.

Action Items: If you work in manufacturing or the energy sectors (or in a research reactor!) be extra vigilant to make sure you and your people are doing things by the book. Cutting corners can mean injury, ruined equipment and regulatory nightmares. Make sure your QA and Safety folks stay on the ball.

Review: I'll have to wait to see year-end OSHA and FDA numbers before making a call here, but I think we are in the early innings of this polarity.

Supportiveness/Opposition

Another cross-cutting theme that should play havoc with any efforts to make big projects or big efforts succeed. There will be even more arm-chair quarterbacks out there ready to tell you why it can’t be done.

Action Items: Expect this. Build this into any timelines or plans you make. If you have important things you need to get done, keep the projects small and the group of people doing them limited. In politics, expect gridlock.

Review: Opposition continues to be a the dominant theme in political circles. This will only grow.

Tendency to Praise/Tendency to Criticize

Ditto from Supportiveness/Opposition. This will be a very tiresome aspect of this era of negative mood.

Review: Criticism is everywhere and expect that to increase.

Togetherness/Separatism

If we truly are facing a Super Cycle grade downturn, a lot of political entities are going to be shattered under the strain.

Action Items: Keep your eyes peeled for secessionist sentiment. If you live in Texas, you might want to make sure any assets you have in other states is disposed of within the next few years. Come 2020, you might be a citizen of the Lone Star Republic and need a passport to visit Little Rock or Los Angeles.

Review: This is another long-term call. As the months roll by and I watch the decisions coming out of Washington D.C., I am continually reminded of each Elliott Wave Financial Forecast, and seeing the "signficance to" column for this Grand Supercycle wave marked as "U.S. Survival." I am not advocating it, but be aware, this mood shift is going to be on a level no one living has ever experienced.

Summary of Review

Well, I was early (in my opinion) on a lot of these, but there were some good hits in there as well. I am still convinced we are on the cusp of a downturn of immense proportions rather than building a base for a large upswing in mood and markets. Be prepared.

Prechter on CNBC

2011-12-14T15:18:00.000-06:00

Almost sterotypical lead-in by Ms. Bartiromo, but nice summation of both the socionomic view of things as well as a market snapshot.

Boo-yah on Prechter demolishing the record earnings myth. Worth your time.

Cracked Gets Socionomics (Sort of)

2011-12-13T08:43:00.001-06:00

If the flailings of the Eurocrats and the Banksters are not enough to elicit dark laughter from you, you can always turn to the lighter fair offered up at Cracked. While the title is a bit overblown, as one would expect from a site that gets a lot of mileage out of video game humor and drunk jokes, it does show that maybe, just maybe, the socionomic way of thought is creeping into the mainstream:

7 Bizarre Trends That Predict an Economic Collapse
By: Pauli Poisuo, Cracked

If you popped out of a time machine at a random moment in history, how would you know whether or not the country was in a recession? There'd be obvious signs, like lots more ads for payday loan joints and offers to buy your gold for pennies on the dollar. But there are less obvious, much weirder clues all around you. After all, did you know that when the economy is bad...

Reasons #5, #3 and #1 jumped out as very socionomic-ish and #2 jives pretty well too.

Back in the Saddle

2011-12-08T12:52:00.001-06:00

Apologies for the complete silence for several months. I've had a tremendous number of irons in the fire, between kids, new day job responsibilities and trying to flesh out various options for one or more "crash business(es)" should the economy go sideways in a big way.

Part of the paralysis on getting posts completed and up has been the ongoing expectation that equity markets are going to catch up with my personal interpretation of where I think social mood is heading and that once we got going with the decline we could begin to survey the landscape for how to avoid too much damage and get ready to think about picking up the various pieces.

It has been like Waiting for Godot, so I'll wait no longer and give you my survey of where we are and where we could be heading should this amorphous beast we call social mood plunge deeply into net negative territory. I am looking at these particular aspects as it is my opinion that these will help frame the language and actions that will be chosen to act our, or express, the deepening negative mood.

1. The bando theme I followed for some time several years back looks to be finally stirring to life. A "Bando," in my interpretation, is someone who occupies a home that has been abandoned or foreclosed on and then left neglected. I can also apply to people who have been foreclosed on, but who remain in the house as they have not been served or removed by the Sherriff for various reasons.

Well the Occupy Movement is looking to take that concept nationally. One expression of that can be found via Occupy Our Homes, and their work to encourage people to "tak[e] back our neighborhoods from the banks." If nothing else, it has Bank of America sweating a bit, which always makes me smile.

Long term implication: When entire rotten edifice of bad debts begins to truly unwind, expect the newly (and no so newly) jobless, the broke and the angry to stop staring at vacant homes and begin occupying them. If these occupations get formalized in some way down the road, say via elections of radical third party candidates, then get ready for a wild ride in terms of proving title and expect a huge impact on real estate transactions in general. This may wind up being much more of a problem in some areas (say, Vegas?) than others, but at the very least expect a lot less respect for the rule of law in this arena, until the law changes. Hey, if corporate persons don't have to obey the law, why should corporeal persons?

2. A trend I worried over back when the Iraq war was raging full tilt could come back to haunt us and that is the vulnerability of infrastructure to attack. The vast majority of major infrastructure in the U.S. was built during a time of enormous optimism and positive mood. Vast numbers of electrical substations, waterworks, power lines, bridges, etc. are exposed and could easily be disrupted should people or groups of people get angry enough to try it, especially if they feel they have nothing to lose by doing it.

Watch as thousands upon thousands of soldiers, sailors and marines return to private life in the teeth of a depression (and yes, we are IN ONE right now, just the early innings of one). We've worried for years that if even the tiniest of percentages of soldiers trained in urban combat and counterterrorism efforts turn that knowledge loose here at home, you can expect the lights to flicker off on occasion, expect roads to be tough to travel and in general expect a lot more uncertainty in terms of basic utilities. Get ready for disruption. It is coming.

3. MF Global.

I can't even express to you how shocked I am that such a key player in the finance realm could have misappropriated client funds to the tune of either $1.2 billion or $600 million depending on whom you believe. This is the gravest of sins in the brokerage world and it reeks of cronyism that Corzine was running the firm when it imploded.

Talk about destruction of trust. No one who has money in "the market" is safe. Period. You can trust your broker all you want, but no one and nothing is safe and for those with real money in the markets, they have to be sweating bullets.

Where can you turn? What do you do with your money? Who is next?
The evisceration of all things financial is on the horizon. Who will be the next MF Global? When the next wave hits, expect the impacts to reach deeply into peoples' pensions, 401(k)'s and savings and expect those people to be very, very angry about that.

4. It is not all doom and gloom. One good thing about declines is that ossified traditions get smashed and new and vital institutions can grow up from the ashes and rubble. Keep you eye on science, especially medical science. There is a growing insurgency known, among other monikers, as "personal science" or "the quantified self." More and more people are realizing that big box science, especially health care, is not built to help people stay healthy, it is built to take sick people and process them like a widget. The incentives are not there for preventive medicine or for non-Big Pharma type solutions to medical problems. With the ability to track data, individuals are learning to tweak their diet and their habits to produce sometimes remarkable improvements in health and well-being. Big Science doesn't like it and calls it anecdote or pseudo-science. Those that see vast improvements in their life call it miraculous in some cases. And in an era of net negative mood, "experts" are going to take a fierce beating in all fields.

This is very disturbing to the Powers That Be. When you decide to be your own doctor, to be your own priest, to do for yourself (what used to be called a Good American, or the Pioneer Spirit) then you are unplugging from the Matrix and, at least for a time, the backlash might be fierce.

Famliarize yourself with the quantified self tools. In an era where access to health care might become uneven, to say the least, be ready to study yourself and keep yourself healthy.

5. Iran. Keep an eye on the current rumblings and the ongoing secret war that is already underway there. This could blow up in a big, big, big way.

In Conclusion

I'll try to be better about posting. We shall see. Don't get caught up in the day to day news, but do keep an eye on the trends. We are building the grooves in our minds down which the river of fear and anger that will flow in the coming years. Will the Occupy movement flame out or turn into a Third Party? Will war overseas and domestic terrorism shake your life and your career? Will corporations that look solid as a rock crumble into bankruptcy overnight when the stress becomes too great?

Be ready and be ready to face the challenges with a smile and a plan to help your little patch of the globe get along a little better. Times like this don't come around often. How you react will help tell the tale of your life.

Free is Good

2011-10-24T10:31:00.000-06:00

I'm a bit behind here, but wanted to make sure you have noticed that EWI is hosting a "Free Week" for their Commodities offerings. This is a great chance to check out one of their products that has had a long and accurate track record.

This is good through noon Thursday, October 27 (Eastern time), you'll get complete access to all of EWI's most-promising daily, weekly and monthly opportunities in the world's leading commodities, plus all the charts, world-class analysis, video forecasts along with a treasure chest of trading lessons and more! (Subscribers normally pay $49/month for these services.)

Learn more and get instant access to EWI's FreeWeek of commodity forecasts and trading education now -- before the opportunity ends for good.

The usual notice on this - I am an EWI affiliate. If you use the link above to go to Free Week and sign up for a free account with them, I get a small credit. If this makes you uncomfortable, please access Elliott Wave International via a web browser or by directly typing in the address. Don't ignore this fantastic opportunity.

Plus, the October Socionomist is out and the hot-button issue of "Democracy Under Attack" is the lead article. If we have the wave counts right and we are headed towards an era of deep negative mood, know this topic will be the source of a lot of conflict.

Occupy This

2011-10-14T10:20:00.000-06:00

Pic from Todd Dwyer, #ows in Austin, TX

Color me conflicted on the Occupy Wall Street movement/effort/open source protest. Having gotten myself worked up about the banksters and the Congress they bought fair and square, I can relate to the emotion behind it. They seem a bit amorphous to actually accomplish much in the way of changing bank, corporation or government behavior. From the outside, it looks like a bunch of people standing around, saying they are angry at the system and want to engage in "resistance" to that system.

While I am skeptical of the ability of #ows to accomplish much in the way of reform, the more I consider it, perhaps that is not the function of this group/movement. Perhaps, whether by plan or by the herding instinct that is the root of socionomics, #ows is one (of many) matches that may light a bonfire that could burn down 200 years worth of the development of the Central Bank/Nation-State/Corporate/Nanny-State model for governing societies and shaping world politics.

Aside from the Monty Python flashbacks I have when seeing some of the more fringe elements of this fringe movement, there is some real anger, real purpose and real grievances behind this - just as there was (and might still be in places) when the Tea Party movement sprang up.

Maybe #ows and, to a lesser extent now that it has been mostly co-opted, the Tea Party, are the early groups that will incite/act as an excuse for the entrenched elites to resort to force. Resorting to force will only amplify the anger and, assuming our read on social mood is correct, that anger will spread deep and wide. #ows and the Tea Party both showed the power of small groups to leverage modern technology to organize and spread a message. John Robb has chronicled the rise of what he calls the Open Source Insurgency and has even codified the parameters that Open Source Insurgencies should follow if they want to succeed. These groups have shown amazing abilities to thrive during the peaceful demonstration phase. If the guns comes out and the tear gas flies, we will see how they adapt to the next phase.

Keep an eye on this effort and try to use news outlets not related to standard corporate media. Their story on this is easy - whiny unemployed people who should get a job. The reality is far more nuanced. I personally suggest the following:

The Miiu.org page for Occupy Wall Street and related Occupy efforts (great summary source)
The Occupy Wall Street Journal (links at the top of the Kickstarter pitch - by the way, notice how the leveraged a community funding source to make this fly)
John Robb's GlobalGuerrillas site (especially note how he is following along with the #ows effort to resist Mayor Bloomberg's moves against them)

You are seeing the development of tactics that could very well prevail across the globe in the years to come as anger builds and needs an outlet. Here's hoping it all stays peaceful.

Brave New Subdivision

2011-10-07T08:09:00.000-06:00

It may take a few years, but as fear and anger build, more and more walls will go up and local groups will begin to take matters of security and basic services back into their own hands as the bureaucracy fails. This development in Pakistan, a country well down the path of failure, is on the leading edge of where housing developments will go in a world of violence, collapsed municipal finances and general uncertainty:

Pakistan gated community sparks controversy
By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times

The houses and manicured lawns slope up the artificial hill edged by unbroken sidewalks and white picket fences, as children play and residents exchange pleasantries.

This sprawling subdivision called Bahria Town — "Come home to exclusivity," it boasts — operates its own garbage trucks, schools, firehouse, mosques, water supply and rapid-response force — a kind of functioning state within a nonfunctioning one. And all supplied without the bribes you'd pay on the outside, residents say.

"I like living here," said Abdul Rashid, a sixtysomething retired government worker. "It's like you're in a little protected country — tidy, utilities work, the family can relax. If there's any problem, you just ring up security..."

The article discusses the standard rich vs. poor argument against this kind of development, which is not without merit, but that misses the broader point - the combination of a turn in mood centuries in the making, paired with technologies that allow for small groups to wield immense violence is going to drive people towards an almost medieval view of living arrangements.

This is just the first glimmer of what is to come. And these kinds of fortified towns don't have to be playgrounds for the rich. The ones that will probably prove most durable will be those grown organically, by groups of people without tremendous resources looking to secure what they have and build a better future for their kids. The walls that may go up could be enormous hedges around neighborhoods, or security systems based on cheap webcams, local wi-fi and volunteers who know how to use a shotgun. Those in the building industry will change with the attitudes of their consumers. This trend could get legs and fast in the U.S. if things continue to deteriorate in finance, politics and society.

Greasing the Skids of the Breakdown

2011-10-04T13:02:00.001-06:00

I've been dwelling on socionomics for quite some time now. We are trying to use that model to get a feel for what we'll face as over two centuries of optimism and progress get unwound over the next generation or so. There are other tools in my toolkit that I have neglected to discuss in quite some time. With the markets unraveling before our eyes, it is time to revisit another model that you should familiarize yourself with: megapolitics.

Megapolitics is a phrase revived by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg in their books Blood in the Streets, The Great Reckoning and The Sovereign Individual. Of the three, The Sovereign Individual is most relevant to our current needs and well worth adding it to your bookshelf.

The very short version of the basic thesis of megapolitics is that technology, especially the technology of violence, drives how large states can grow, how much input citizens have in those governing structures and what changes to expect when technology shifts the balance between offense and defense.

The same technologies that allowed the West to colonize Africa and sweep opponents from the field in battlegrounds across the world would lead to the breakdown of those empires as the technologies spread. A machine gun can wreak havoc on tribal opponents armed with spears or flintlocks, allowing for the conquest of tribes and empires that had lasted for millenia. Those same machine guns (and radios, and later social media connections), in the hands of "rebels" all of a sudden made empire an expensive proposition. Increase the ability for small groups to mount an effective offense (adding guidance systems to missiles, roadside bombs, the "flattening" of the globe and the enabling of small groups to finance their activities via gray or black markets, etc.), add in the "mental software" of open source insurgency theory and you have a recipe for the collapse of large state structures, or at the very least the "hollowing out" of countries as well as the means to mount effective armed resistance to "invaders" of various stripes.

In an era of positive mood bias, the dark extremes of this technology are generally ignored or glossed over. As we move into an era of anger and violence, the logic of the microchip - whether in a computer or smartphone that allows some individuals to be productive any place on the globe or whether mated to an explosive in the form of guided missile or controlled bomb - we could quickly see the "Kosovo-isation" of many parts of the globe, where grievances long-supressed get worked out in low-intensity wars that could go on for years. Mix this with the "need" for governments to raise revenues in an age of austerity and you can see where this could go.

I suggest you trek over to the library and check out a copy of The Sovereign Individual or purchase a copy at your bookseller of choice. We will be covering topics such as the one below more and more as we watch the old system disintegrate around us and the language that Davidson and Rees-Mogg have used to describe their thesis will come in handy:

Iraq Militants Brag: We’ve Got Robotic Weapons, Too
By Noah Shachtman, Wired Danger Room

U.S. forces used a combination of spy drones and bomb-handling robots to help beat back Iraq’s insurgents. Now, those militants have a warning for those American troops still remaining in Iraq: We’ve got robots, too.

In a slick new online video just released by the Ansar al-Islam extremist group, kafiya-clad engineers brag about their skill and designing and making weapons of their own. They show off homemade silencers, fire custom-built rockets, and solder their own circuit boards.

But the climax to the nearly four-minute clip comes when the camera focuses on a car driving in the desert; there’s no one inside the vehicle. Then a tripod-mounted machine gun fires off a few rounds; there are no fingers on the trigger. The car and the gun are remotely-operated — crudely robotic...

We've been living this technological revolution for many decades. Time to pay the piper. While we will focus on the breakdown aspects in the coming years, my read of this trend is actually quite optimistic. We just have to survive the transition crisis...

People On Ludes Should Not Drive

2011-09-20T10:42:00.000-06:00

One of the tenets of socionomics (as I read it) is that during periods of net positive mood bias, especially the massively optimistic phase that metastisized in the 1990s, a People will turn to caffeine, sugar, uppers and other stimulants to accentuate the buzz and excitement of a Bull era.

As we transition to a deeply net negative mood era, one can expect the "uppers" industry (both legal and illegal) to suffer, while "downers" get a new lease on life.

One example of this can be found in a recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). This survey is a great example of using a headline to simplify complex behavior:

National survey shows a rise in illicit drug use from 2008 to 2010
SAMHSA News Release, 8 September 2011

The use of illicit drugs among Americans increased between 2008 and 2010 according to a national survey conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) shows that 22.6 million Americans 12 or older (8.9-percent of the population) were current illicit drug users. The rate of use in 2010 was similar to the rate in 2009 (8.7-percent), but remained above the 2008 rate (8-percent).

So, there you have it. People continue to do drugs even when the Powers That Be say they shouldn't and the number of people is increasing according to this survey.

However, digging deeper, you can detect socionomics at work:

...An increased rate in the current use of marijuana seems to be one of the prime factors in the overall rise in illicit drug use. In 2010, 17.4 million Americans were current users of marijuana - compared to 14.4 million in 2007. This represents an increase in the rate of current marijuana use in the population 12 and older from 5.8-percent in 2007 to 6.9-percent in 2010...

...The number of current methamphetamine users decreased by roughly half from 2006 to 2010 -- from 731,000 people age 12 and older (0.3-percent) to 353,000 (0.1-percent). Cocaine use has also declined, from 2.4 million current users in 2006 to 1.5 million in 2010...

Now, from what my friends and the cops who taught my DARE class many years ago tell me, the effects of marijuana are generally to slow things down a bit, while meth and coke tend to pep one up.

The Socionomist has had a number of outstanding research papers on the Drug War and Marijuana Prohibition over the last year or so and I suggest you review them. The social trends driving the passions behind the drug war and drug use in general seem to be shifting and we may not recognize the legal landscape when it comes to drugs, booze and other mood-altering techniques.

In a recent issue of either the Elliott Wave Theorist or the Elliott Wave Financial Forecast, it was suggested that one way to play this move towards downers would be to open a micro-distillery. Not a bad idea at all in my opinion. Might be time to check the laws in your state regarding micro-distilleries and then try and hunt down Grandpa's recipe for White Lightning.

And as more and more folks turn to downers, always recall the words of wisdom from Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, a movie made during another net-negative mood period (1982): People on Ludes should not drive.

Defense on the Field

2011-09-13T13:36:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about what comes next. Events in Europe continue to weave a pattern and build a story expressing extreme negative mood. Here in the U.S., the popularity of El Senor Presidente and the ladies and gentlemen making up the Senate and House continue to plumb new lows. Items like that continue to show, in my opinion, that we are going to see the elites in politics and finance discredited to a degree most can't envision right now.

I viewed Robert Prechter's video presentation of his August Theorist recently. Watching him step through not just the bear case, but his projections for the near future makes for one amazing presentation. This only adds to the conviction that we best hang on tight. The overlay between current equity market patterns and the patterns formed back in the 1930's are striking. If his projections are correct, we have several more years until the "ideal" date for the bottom is reached and there will be massive unrest and uncertainty in society and politics between here and there.

Down in the trenches, we can see how the stress of this uncertain environment is making itself felt. Here is a Google Trends result for the search terms "apply food stamps"

And here is a Trends result for the search terms "buy seeds"

I view these as important as they relate to food. I may be pushing it here, but if we are all subject to mass herding and subconscious survival impulses as posited by socionomics, I'd expect food and food security to be a primal urge that would need expression in uncertain times. Even though most people are not going to grow more than a trace fraction of food in their own garden, this series of "higher highs and lower lows" year-over-year from 2007, give a glimpse into the collective mind.

The upward trend of the "apply food stamps" search terms is another indicator of stress. Expect that one to go exponential soon.
I hope and assume you have your defensive positions in place. For the few readers with considerable wealthy out there, you are probably as well hedged as you are going to be. For the rest of us, defensive positions will mean a lot of things in addition to money. These are things I've harped on before - know your neighbors, try to build up a network of friends you can rely upon, be active in making your community, your neighborhood or at least yourself resilient, have a few gardening tools on hand, pick up a few handy skills - you never know what you are going to need to be able to barter or trade in the coming years as we prepare to accelerate the plunge to lows in markets and mood that most can't picture right now.

If your defense is not set up yet - do it. Then, while others are scrambling, you can begin to plan to go on offense at the bottom. We are going to be able to build the foundation for great fortunes and great success in a few short years. But we have to be able to ride the storm out between now and then.

Batten down the hatches and best of luck.

Culturnomics

2011-09-07T08:21:00.000-06:00

I blog a good bit on Socionomics, a very useful model for behavior and forecasting. Just ran across a journal article (h/t Next Big Future) describing something called "Culturnomics," which appears to be an attempt to aggregate media sources to predict trends.

Here is the abstract from their article at First Monday:

Culturnomics 2.0: Forecasting Large-Scale Human Behavior Using Global News Media Tone in Time and Space
by Kalev H. Leetaru, First Monday, Vol. 16, No. 9, 5 September 2011

News is increasingly being produced and consumed online, supplanting print and broadcast to represent nearly half of the news monitored across the world today by Western intelligence agencies. Recent literature has suggested that computational analysis of large text archives can yield novel insights to the functioning of society, including predicting future economic events. Applying tone and geographic analysis to a 30–year worldwide news archive, global news tone is found to have forecasted the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, including the removal of Egyptian President Mubarak, predicted the stability of Saudi Arabia (at least through May 2011), estimated Osama Bin Laden’s likely hiding place as a 200–kilometer radius in Northern Pakistan that includes Abbotabad, and offered a new look at the world’s cultural affiliations. Along the way, common assertions about the news, such as “news is becoming more negative” and “American news portrays a U.S.–centric view of the world” are found to have merit.

No mention that I saw of Prechter, et al, or even the more odd-ball work done over at HalfPastHuman (caution: extremely high woo-woo content).

I am very intrigued by the concept of a "media civilization" and how that might affect social mood "patterns" for various places around the world. Not sure how well the "Culturnomics" hypothesis will hold up without a solid framework (like the structure the Elliott Wave Theory gives to Socionomics), but it is great to see that academia is beginning to take "tone" and "mood" more seriously as drivers of social change.

The growth of interconnected communications networks look to finally make it possible to build tools to create benchmarks of social mood - just as mood is plunging and, if the socionomic model (as I interpret it) is correct, just as societies and governments are clamping down on those communications networks. Sigh.

Broke Back Market

2011-09-06T08:07:00.000-06:00

Looking at my Yahoo! Finance page this morning, I see the 10 year yielding 1.941%, the S&P 500 down 2.49% and growing talk of an insolvent Europe facing the collapse of the Euro currency regime.

Take a moment and think back to 1999. If someone had told you that in 2011 the 10 year would be below 2%, that the DJIA, S&P and NASDAQ would have not made any net gains over that time, that rumors would be swirling about the imminent destruction of the Euro, that the U.S. would be fighting multiple wars overseas and that the U.S. debt would be over $14.5 trillion - what would your impression have been about what life would be like for an everyday citizen of the U.S. in that far-away year?

Tough times are coming. Hell, tough times are here for the over 16% of the population un- or under-employed. Things will get rougher in politics, society, the media and religion. You think people are angry and polarized now? Well, just wait.

Knowing worse is to come, take some comfort from the fact that even with the foreknowledge of rough times to come, it does not mean that life will be unbearable, or "nasty, brutish and short." Keep your head about you as we ride this wave down. There will be plenty of opportunities to do good to a neighbor, to learn a skill, to invest in your community and to maybe even plant the seeds of future wealth.

A Chill Wind from the North

2011-08-30T12:14:00.000-06:00

The Oil-Rich Alaska North Slope (image from DOE)

The petroleum engineer at The Oil Drum who posts under the handle "Heading Out" drew my attention recently to one of those potentially big stories that serve as a great example of the mountain of challenges facing those of us who will be manning the walls as the Great Collapse gets underway.

His post, with the fairly innocuous title of "Tech Talk - The Coming Problems for the Alaskan Pipeline" illustrates the enormous bind our society will find itself in as the credit bubble unwinds, mood turns surly and magical thinking rears its ugly head in policy circles.

Heading Out recaps the current situation with oil flow in the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline System (TAPS):

...In July of 2011, TAPS averaged a flow of 459,376 barrels of oil a day, which is down from the average over the past year of some 572,835 bd. And those numbers are becoming something of a concern. While the pipeline produced about 15% of the national domestic production in 2010, the pipeline requires a certain flow level if it is to effectively deliver oil.

The pipeline was built in the years from 1974 to 1977, and between then and now has delivered some 16 billion barrels of oil. At its peak on January 14, 1988, the pipeline flowed at a rate of some 2.145 mbd...

Then he goes on to describe some of the assumptions built into the engineering that went into the pipeline:

...When the pipeline was built it was assumed that it would pump a dry oil (without water content) and that flow rates would remain above 500 kbd. Neither of these conditions is likely to hold true in the future. The oil coming from the wells contains a small (0.35%) percentage of water with higher peaks, and flows are falling below 500 kbd at which level the water starts to separate out from the oil....

And then he addresses what happens if the trend of a decline in pipeline volume continues:

...A reserve is only a reserve as long as it can be viably extracted, which includes the ability to access and utilize the oil and gas. Should the pipeline stop flowing, and there are credible conditions discussed in the report that may lead to such an event, then the remaining oil in the North Slope will be unavailable, as will that currently held in the NPR-A...

According to the report, the danger point gets reached some time in 2020, not even 9 years away now.

Now, like many issues of resource extraction, the devil is in the details. The known corrosion problems on the pipeline could shorten the lifespan and an increase in production rates from, well, somewhere, could extend the life. Debate over details aside, what I want you to pay attention to is that this pipeline was constructed when the Grand SuperCycle trend was still towards optimism. This was still during an era when big engineering accomplishments could happen, with the implicit assumptions that funding will always be available to keep these grand projects up and operating.

When the world turns towards towards an era that will be impoverished, credit-starved and angry, large-scale projects become very vulnerable to failure. Look at the report. If the Alaskan Pipeline falls below roughly 300,000 - 350,000 barrels per day, the entire system could fail. That means going from at least 300 kbd to zero and that also means all that lovely oil up in the Arctic Circle is going to have to find a new route from wellhead to refinery.

The optimistic view is that this will either never be allowed to happen or that new facilities and infrastructure would pick up the slack. After the Great Collapse, those assumptions could very well ring hollow. Then multiply this by the nearly 47,000 miles of Interstate Highways that need keeping up, the levees along the Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio River valleys, rural airports, the national electricity grid and every other Big Engineering project that you see around you and jus think of the money and credit required just to keep it up as well as the vulnerability of it all to anger and unrest. This will be one of the biggest stories of the next decade, in my opinion, the decay of infrastructure and the response by local communities to the challenges that decay will bring.

Obsolete Software and New Operating Systems

2011-08-22T09:02:00.001-06:00

When, to paraphrase the words of the 43rd President, this sucker goes down, my main worry will not be the immediate rise of an overtly Fascist or Socialist guvmint that will impose martial law and set up internment camps. I'm also not immediately concerned about the total breakdown of the division of labor in the U.S., leading to famine next year, imminent death by radiation exposure from the Fukushima meltdown site, or any of the other extreme scenarios (well, aside from the extreme scenario calling for a turning of mood so deep and vicious that financial markets collapse to points that most can't envision today) being trotted out as to how "it" is all going to end and that right soon. That is magical thinking of the highest order. The DJIA could go to 776 tomorrow and we'd still have a continent-spanning country teeming with citizens (many of whom will be in an angry mood) with bills to pay or default upon, kids to feed, communities to dwell in and, in short, lives to be lived. The Great Collapse is not going to (immediately) wipe out your credit card debt or ignite the world-spanning war that will relieve you of the necessity to make hard choices about your life and lifestyle (that war comes later and it should be a doozy).

"Reforms," similar to what Diocletion did to Rome, or the breakdown of industrial farming techniques, are on the horizon and will impact you and yours, of that I am convinced. There will be vast changes to how we as a country do business and interact. The country (or countries?) on the other side of the Great Collapse is going to be barely recognizable to those of us living with the mindset and mental programming used to navigate today's America.

It is that gap that worries me. The years between the collapse of this finance-centric, debt-fueled, internet-businesses-will-save-us, enormous goverment interventions in private life, world-spanning military and financial empire mindset and the rise of what comes next will be a mad mixture of chaos and denial. This will be when the foundation of tragedies and tyrannies to come are laid and when the great struggles to restore human liberty will be fought.

Much of what will frustrate and enrage those who will be building future during this time of negative mood will be the denial of those who refuse to acknowledge the world has changed and, worse, the enormous layers of laws and penalties that will be brought to bear against those who will seek to refashion the world into something better. And so much of it will be so petty.

Case it point, straight out of Chicago:

If You Love Food, This Should Make You Angry

Kitchen Lore Blog

The State of Illinois is shutting down local, artisan ice cream makers for such terrible offenses as using fresh fruit instead of fruit syrup and fresh cream instead of pre-packaged soft serve mix. What, you say? How can this be? Health officials in this state are known for being overzealous when it comes to making sure that small, independent businesses follow obscure rules - and when I say small and independent, I'm talking about businesses that are often owned and run by 1-2 people renting space in a shared, licensed commercial kitchen. These are not corporations with large amounts of money who have the capital to hire lawyers or contribute significant sums to political campaigns. No, these are real people, individuals who do their best to follow labyrinthine food regulations based on the information that they're given by governmental agencies who don't always agree on what the rules should be...

The most bankrupt (on many levels) state in the Union is actively crushing small entrepreneurs and using a web of insane laws as the hammer.

But this isn't just Illinois. When this network of debt collapses in a heap, many people will be forced to turn to their own resources to get by. If the current logistics chains are broken and Wal-Mart or the local Mega Grocery Store can't restock on a regular basis due to the collapse of their supplier networks, then the "doers" in your local community will rise to the occasion. Bread will get baked. Food will get sold. Goods will get transported - but how much of that activity will be legal under the existing rules at the local, state and federal level? And how lenient are the bureaucrats going to be when they fear for their jobs if they don't enforce silly laws or fear liability or get leaned on by the existing corporate powers that be?

The coming era will probably be marked by a retrenchment in many activities and a return to more localized production of foodstuffs and goods. But just how much of this localization revolution will be legal? How many of the activities of the Maker Movement is technically illegal? When we see community fabrication plants spring up, how long before traditional manufacturers use lawfare to try and crush them?

What happens when much of your population still uses mental "software" shaped by growing up during the great boom in credit, the great expansion of government "help" and a striking decay in localized effort in favor of being a consumer suckled up to large corporate structures tries to deal with the up and coming segment of citizens who want to leverage technology for independence, localized production and even new currencies?

I don't have answers, but do keep this in mind. When you hear others railing and stressing about the macro scale things such as the collapse of Medicare or the destruction of public pensions, be more concerned about what the local helper in your Health Department can do to you and yours in a changed world.

For those who are not Elliott Wave subscribers, I wanted to post this chart, giving you an idea of what kind of potential we have for a plunge if the break in the long-term trendlines is sustained. This is an older chart, but gives you the picture of where we can go from here - deep into Free Fall territory.

More to come as I get time, but there are multiple levels we need to be planning on. First, obviously, is the financial and markets level - where do you put your money, what happens to your money or equities or bonds if the bank fails or a systemic crash won't let you access your account to trade or a moratorium is put in place by governments. The next level is community - what happens to you if you can't get to your bank account or you get fired and you still have a high debt load and low savings and unemployment insurance dries up, or this happens to ten of your neighbors along with city services drying up. The other level will be political - national, state and local - and what panicked decisions at high levels may mean for you now and ten years from now.

The problem is we still don't know what is going to happen when the big decline comes. I still don't have clarity on the politics that may ferment out (secession? radical parties? a decade-long muddle through? all the above?) nor am I clear on what will happen to those huge numbers of folks still living paycheck to paycheck, who are doing fine now, but couldn't keep paying the mortgage three months after they lost their jobs.

This is not 2008

2011-08-18T15:03:00.000-06:00

Well, as Bernard Baruch once put it, the market fluctuated again today, this time heavily to the downside.

But don't worry, this isn't 2008, just ask an expert:

Is This Lehman Again? No, But It Sure Feels Like It

by Jeff Cox, CNBC

More than whether the European debt crisis is exploding, or if the US is re-entering a recession, or what the Federal Reserve's next move is, the markets want to know one thing: Is this another Lehman?

..."You've got a risk-off trade and it's on steroids right now," Art Hogan, managing director at Lazard Capital Markets, told CNBC. "What we're having right now is panic, indiscriminate selling. History has proven these are not the days that you want to be selling on."

Hogan flatly declared "this is not 2008" and cautioned against joining the selling fray.

"These are the days you want to sit back and...make your wish list and look for those opportunities where stocks got washed out in this baby-out-with-the-bathwater environment," he said.

Well, if the bright boys and girls over at EWI are correct in their wave counts, then Messr. Hogan is correct, this is not 2008. This is 1937 or thereabouts, if not back in the weeks following the popping of the South Sea Bubble.

Markets are falling, the very solvency of the entire world system is being called into question, sentiment is cratering and it leaves one to wonder, is Mr. Prechter correct, and that we are headed into Free-Fall Territory (I've pasted in a video and some links directly from EWI, just in case you are interested in picking up some of the free offerings):

Prechter Discusses Market Forecasts on CNBC Closing Bell

"The problem is deeper than just a minor recovery or a minor recession."

Robert Prechter joins CNBC hosts Bill Griffeth and Maria Bartiromo on Closing Bell to talk about the still-unfolding forecasts presented in his New York Times bestseller Conquer the Crash.

We invite you to watch the interview below. Then download Robert Prechter’s free report that uses an 84-year study of stock market values to help you prepare for and understand today’s critical market juncture.

Download Robert Prechter’s Free Report To Discover How You Can Prepare For Today’s Critical Market Juncture

While we're sure you're reading countless articles and analysis about the market's recent volatility, if you're not reading what EWI's subscribers read, you're missing the valuable, prescient perspective contained in each issue of Robert Prechter's market letter, The Elliott Wave Theorist.

Access Robert Prechter’s free report and read in-depth analysis -- including an 84-year study of stock values -- that will help you prepare for and understand today's critical market juncture.

Download Robert Prechter's Free Report.

If We Ignore Him, He Will Just Go Away

2011-08-16T09:45:00.000-06:00

The MSM has no clue how to handle a Ron Paul that is doing well among many Republicans. Another example of the frantic, desparate efforts of the elites to pretend that all is well and things really aren't that different from the 1990s.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

h/t Zero Hedge

Are the Markets Undergoing a Criticality Accident?

2011-08-11T13:09:00.000-06:00

Watching the market action over the last week, the action on the equity market charts reminds me nothing so much as what we call a "criticality accident" in nuclear engineering. This is when the control systems for a critical system (typically a nuclear reactor) fail. Power excursions begin, resulting in wild power fluctuations and, if control is not regained, leads to the destruction of the critical system and leaves behind one hell of a mess:

Just an observation. Enjoy the ride.

Stone Dumb

2011-08-11T07:40:00.000-06:00

Ban short selling. Kill price discovery. Guarantee big gaps down in equity pricing. That sounds like a great idea for a region in the early innings of waking up to a banking and sovereign debt crisis...

Europe Considers Ban on Short Sellingby Stephen Castle and Louise Story, New York Times

BRUSSELS — A European market regulator is considering recommending a temporary ban on negative bets against stocks across the continent, in an effort to stop the tailspin in the markets, according to two people with knowledge of government discussions.

The European Securities and Markets Authority, a body that coordinates the European Union’s market policies, has been requesting information from member states about such bets against stocks, known as short-sales...

Translation of the above article: "But, but, but, it sounds nice and I really want it to work, so let's do it!"

Magical Thinking at work, friends. This really may be the Big One.

Which Way the Political System?

2011-08-10T12:27:00.000-06:00

CNN/ORC has a new poll out showing that, for the first time in their polling data (and going back to the CNN/Gallup polls stretching back to November of 1991 - see page 9), we have dipped below 50% of Americans who believe their U.S. Congressional Representative deserves to be re-elected:

CNN/ORC Poll Conducted August 5-7, 2011, Page 8

Readers of FutureJacked are well aware of the business-as-usual game typically played in this arena - it is always the Other Guys who are the problem. "Your" representative is a Good Joe, fighting the good fight for "our" interests in the face of a bunch of unreasonable and corrupt politicians from other districts. If that facade is cracking and if this is a trend and not a blip, then 2012 may be a bloodbath for incumbents. If the stock market is signalling the big shift into deep negative-bias mood for the U.S., expect this to grow worse.

I am still not sure 2012 will see success for the Third Party I keep expecting to erupt onto the scene. None of the existing Third Parties seem to be gaining any traction, though that could obviously change. Various, shall we say, non-constitutional threats to the system are probably not on the horizon at the moment, but that could change if we were to see, deep, deep cuts in military spending or an outbreak of violence similar to what the U.K. is experiencing.

For those contemplating a political career, it may still be a bit early to jump into the ring, though starting your non-profit organizing and propaganda arm needs to begin soon.

Free Access to Elliott Wave Financial Forecast

2011-08-08T14:41:00.000-06:00

Elliott Wave International is once again offering free access to one of their premium products, the Elliott Wave Financial Forecast. Below is their description of the offer. It requires a free sign-up, but no comittment.

As usual - I am an affiliate of EWI. If you don't already have one of EWI's free accounts, then if you follow the links below and sign up, I would get a small credit for this. I am all for full transparency, so there it is. That said, this is a critical time in the markets (and in society) and getting a free peek at the Financial Forecast is something I strongly suggest you jump at. If my getting a credit for this is a problem, then do not follow a link from my site, but go directly to EWI and sign up from there. I don't care either way - we are at a juncture as important as the wild rides we saw in 2008. Getting solid information on where this might end up is critical. Sign up, read up, be ready:

Elliott Wave International - World's Largest Market Forecasting Firm

From the Desk Of: Robert Folsom
Date: August 4th, 2011
Subject:

This brief message is all about you. To start with, however, I have to say something "about me." I've been with Elliott Wave International since 1992: That's a good long time, long enough to have seen lots of days when our staff did all it could to deliver forecasts that prepared subscribers for what's next.

Yet today stands above virtually all those others. I can scarcely recall a day when we've been able to offer 1) So much, 2) So immediately, that is 3) So urgent.

Here is where it's all about you. Earlier this year, The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast (EWFF) specifically forecast the juncture we've arrived at now -- it said most people believe the markets and economy are recovered and growing. But there were TWO parts to that forecast; the time has come for the second part to unfold. You're a few keystrokes away from what EWFF is saying now for free (new issue posts tomorrow, Aug. 5).

What's more, you're a few keystrokes from reading Robert Prechter's current commentary in The Elliott Wave Theorist, again, for free. He provides you with a context to understand the events of the past week and month, which you simply cannot find elsewhere (you won't need to wonder why the blue chips are now down on the year for 2011 -- you'll know why).

Finally there's the forecast in The Short Term Update: Earlier this week we alerted subscribers to action in the S&P 500 and Dow Industrials which broke below critical price levels. Perhaps you've heard some of the chatter on news and financial websites in the past 48 hours about a "head and shoulders" pattern. Yet Short Term Update subscribers got THAT news two weeks ago, back on July 20 -- along with a specific price level that would confirm the forecast.

This is a wealth of forecasting; you can have it immediately; and the moment is indeed urgent. I've never seen a day quite like it.

My colleagues here at EWI have put together a two-week free trial to all three of the services I mention above. Together, they we call them the Financial Forecast Service and they deliver the most comprehensive coverage of the US markets available anywhere. Now, if you are already familiar with EWI, you know that we NEVER offer free trials to these services. But you must act now as this offer ends Wednesday, August 10.

Find out what's next for the US markets.

Thanks for reading,

Robert Folsom
Elliott Wave International

About the Publisher, Elliott Wave International

Founded in 1979 by Robert R. Prechter Jr., Elliott Wave International (EWI) is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private around the world.

Future Shock

2011-08-08T14:17:00.000-06:00

The markets are going to hell, riots are tearing into London, the U.S. is downgraded to AA+ by S&P, spree killings and cop assassinations erupt across the U.S. and I've had no time to blog.

Well, we'll just have to make time.

I'll leave the obvious stories to your normal news grazing. Today I want to drill down on a nugget at the end of a story that, if you read it at all, you probably read for a far different reason.

Finding the Potential in Vacant Lots
By Michael Tortorello, The New York Times

This city contains 20,000 vacant lots, more or less. Probably more. Every year, demolition crews knock down another 1,000 houses. And the housing market being what it is, few souls are returning...

This is the kind of story I would normally take and riff on about re-purposing vacant lots through urban gardening or some sort of on-the-sly repurposing via planting things like raspberries, squash, strawberries - but without making it look too obvious as a cultivated area. Part of my standard spiel that you should be thinking about adding small amounts of resiliency to your life and your community, bracing for the day you may need to face a world where the division of labor has dramatically shrunk and you will be forced to do more with less.

However, there is a far more significant (in my opinion) item to be gleaned from this article - the mindset of the vast majority of people out there, woefully unprepared for a world radically different than the one in which they were raised or the one they are still told to expect.

...A man with a straw hat and a brown paper bag — Eddie Thomas, 55 — charged across the street. “When are you going to mow that place?” he yelled, including a few other words for emphasis. The answer, “Not today,” appeared neither to please nor surprise him.

Mr. Thomas lives in Ms. McGriff’s house, and Dr. Gardiner had met him in the yard before. “The first time we came out, he was very nice,” she said. “And every time we come back, he gets progressively more frustrated.” For this, Dr. Gardiner blamed him not at all.

With Ultra-Ex researchers visiting the site every week, “there’s 40 people walking around here, looking in the air, vacuuming the leaves,” she said. ”He’s sick of a lot of people coming up here and doing a lot of things, except the one thing he wants done. Which is to mow the grass.”

Driving away from Site 6 and Cleveland’s east side, you can imagine someone like Mr. Thomas cursing the unmown grass every morning and evening, for years on end. Until one day, he will look over from the porch and the grass will be gone. And a wood will have taken its place...

There are going to be tens of millions of "Mr. Thomas"'s mentioned in this article spread all over this country. As municipalities go bankrupt and services implode, imagine trying to explain to someone who grew up in the heart of the Baby Boomer Generation - a generation that saw vast wealth deployed in the service of making communities comfortable, drivable and beautiful - all without the citizens having to actively take part in that beautification. Millions of dollars in a budget to mow lawns? When the choice comes between paying cops or mowing vacant lots, I expect the lots will go umowed (and the cops unpaid a short time later).

In my view, the beating, raging heart of the coming wave of anger is going to be "little" things like the unmowed lots above. The expectation for all living generations of Americans is extremely high in what they view as the services local, state and federal governments provide. Imagine the anger that will build if the food stamp program implodes or the interstate highway system begins to crumble as maintenance money dries up, or levees go unrepaired after flooding.

This is where the "Green Religion" I expect to see rise up could come into play. News and philosophies are, in the mian, stories we tell ourselves to help us work out the emotional herding pattern we are bound up in. Stories such as the one above will get rebranded into glorious nature reclaiming her own. That power outage that lasted two weeks before you could get connected back to the grid? An energy-fast that is helpful in getting you closer to nature by turning down the noise of television and the internet. Who knows what tales we will craft to tell ourselves as the infrastructure crumbles. They will be dark tales, I imagine.

Don't be one of the ones left raging over things like unmowed lots. Either get to work repurposing it to our new conditions, or get over it.