In November of 2008 I had issues with some predictions of Gerald Celente.  In short, I thought his predictions were rather general and could claimed be as a “success”. While 2012 is far off his original predictions haven’t come to pass (yet).

Well, he is back with some very specific predictions for 2010:

For this year he is calling for:
- 9/11 size attacks
- Israel may attack Iran
- An economic crash in 2010 (when the stimulus money runs out)
- An elegance trend (pride in yourself)
- A not welcome here trend (when jobs dry up people start to target illegals)

With such specific predictions it will be easy to measure his success. In this crop I do think he is on target with the Economic crash. The terror attacks and Israel/Iran issue are constant topics, and could happen at any time. The elegance trend is an interesting concept but seems counter to an economic collapse, and the ‘not welcome here’ could fit into economic hardship.

With the article on my original issues with Celente’s predictions I also make a few predictions of my own:

- If humanity continues manned spaced exploration they will suffer shocking and unexpected losses due to technical error
- Every day items, such as phone / laptops / media devices, will continue to become smaller in order to provide convenience to users of the devices
- The earth will be subjected to numerous shifts in climate temperature
- European economies may suffer due to a lack of qualified younger individuals (specifically in Italy and German) to fill roles within the workforce
- I predict that if Celente is right I will admit it but if my predictions are more accurate, no one will come knocking on my door to predict the future

Thus far I’m batting 80% (no shocking and unexpected losses due to technical errors in space travel), however, what I find very interesting with his 2010 predictions is that things seem much more… well… realistic to his past prediction.

Thanksgiving is a very interesting holiday.

While originally a harvest festival, the event has turned into a day where people look at their lives and take stock of what they have.  Over the last several months I have really refrained from posting too many personal thoughts on the blog; however, I feel this is an appropriate time to share some thoughts.

I am thankful for (in no order) my:

• Wife
• Past failures and future successes
• Parents
• Job
• Friends who look out for me and provide direction in life
• My two cats, regardless of the fact that they drive me nuts
• Car – I mean, come on!
• Health
• Flexibility and options in life
• Access to information

This is the second day where the classic Deadwood quote come to mind: “No one gets out alive, Doc”

Sure, that sounds morbid for Thanksgiving wishes but the truth is that we, everyone, should be thankful for all that we have and we should be thankful every single day of our lives, not just one one day. All that we have, from life and friendship to material goods are precious gifts that can vanish in the blink of an eye.

I wish you all a happy thanksgiving. Even if you do not celebrate the holiday, I wish you the best on this day.

You know how, sometimes, there is a conclusion you’ve reached but are trying to avoid at all costs.  I’m not sure you try to avoid your newly realized opinion, maybe it has something to do with letting go of the past or simply trying to deny reality from setting in, but in the end there is just no getting away from it.  I’ve hit that point with the Venture Bros.

When Adult Swim launched the series very few watched, but as the story developed so did the fan base.  By the end of the first season the cult following pushed [AS] to order a second season which was, by far, the best in terms of story writing. Season three attempted to explore some of the secondary characters and move them into larger roles within the story. In my mind, S3 was a disaster of season that just didn’t flow with Season two…. and now Season 4 is continuing the same disastrous path.

Ok, here are my big issue:

• Sergeant Hatred replacing Brock was just, well, stupid. Don’t know where the Brock story line is going but the lack of him significantly takes away from the show.
• Now they “boys” no longer have clones they are mortal… I don’t want to watch them grow up, I want to see the stupid stuff they did in season 1 and 2. When shows seem to “age” their characters the story always seems to suffer to me.
• I really don’t care about the secondary characters though there is a bit of humor with henchman #21 talking to his dead friends head as if he was still alive
• There stories don’t seem to mesh and the series does not feel like it is moving forward.  Now it almost feels like 30 mins of “how much secondary crap can we fit in and call it an episode”
• The humor seems to be lacking. While there are a few one liners that have popped up the make you think humor that I loved so much about the show seems to be gone as well

I think the Venture Brothers, the show I loved so dearly, has gone in a different direction – one that I’m not willing to follow with. I wish that wasn’t the case but it is.  Thank you for the good times but you’ve lost me as a dedicated fan.

This is very scary - a missing laptop from the BlueCross BlueShield Association contains data on 800,000 doctors:

The Chicago Tribune reports that some 800,000 doctors are being warned about a laptop holding their personal data that has turned up missing from the Chicago-based Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

Nearly every practicing physician in the country is being cautioned as a result of the theft of the laptop from an employee’s car. At risk are the doctors’ business and personal information including Social Security numbers, addresses and certain identification numbers.

Stealing laptops is asimple way data thieves can tap into porous corporate networks. The granddaddy of all data breaches attributed to a lost laptop involved the Department of Veterans Affairs. The agency lost records for 26.5 million active duty troops and veterans stored on a laptop and external drive, which disappeared during a burglary of the home of a VA data analyst in 2006.

Laptop theft appears to be on the rise, says Jim Alves, executive vice president at Kaseya, which supplies programs that help corporations keep track of their tech gear. Kaseya has helped several customers in recent months recover stolen laptops, he says.

“Laptops and other portable devices are frequently lost or stolen, resulting in rampant data loss,” says Alves. “Users of personal devices do not often think about losing the item or having it stolen.

Suspicious.

Even more bad news for CIT Group:

CIT Group Inc., one of the biggest U.S. lenders to small and midsize businesses, said Tuesday its chairman and CEO Jeffrey M. Peek plans to resign at the end of the year.

Devastated by the downturn in the credit markets, CIT has been trying to avoid bankruptcy for months as it restructures its operations.

CIT has posted billions in losses as borrowing costs have outpaced the money it generates from lending to customers. As CIT’s customers have struggled amid the recession, they have fallen behind on repaying loans. That has forced CIT to set aside more cash to cover those losses, a problem nearly all lenders have had during the recession.

Some experts have warned that a total collapse of CIT would deal a crippling blow to an economy still bleeding well over 100,000 jobs a month.

Really, it’s just a matter of time…

The BBC would like to know what a lot of individuals close to me have been asking…

What happened to Global Warming?

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

So what on Earth is going on?

Good question, no? If that isn’t An Inconvenient Truth I don’t know what is.

Americans always had the “bigger is better” attitude. At the end of the 20th century the mentality that was pervasive through all aspects of society seemed to grow by leaps and bounds. Super size meals, 4500 sq ft houses for a family of three, and massive vehicles served as constant reminders of how American citizens were following the excess lifestyle.

The perfect example of this unsustainable lifestyle was the Hummer brand.

As General Motors limped into government bankruptcy, the company looked to reduce their product line in the hopes of finding a way of surviving after bankruptcy came to an end. Pontiac got the axe. Saturn was almost sold off; however, the deal fell apart, leading GM to pull the plug on the brand. Saab was sold off to a small Swedish company, and General Motors pushed off Hummer to a Chinese based heavy equipment manufacturing firm.

On Friday, October 9th, 2009, the deal finally closed.

What has taken place with the Hummer brand is a perfect example what is happening to the United States in general. American excess lead to an unsustainable lifestyle and, as a result, others are picking up our former assets for pennies on the dollar because our economy can no longer support itself.

I have no real easy way to begin this post, so I will be direct and to the point: The stress on the economy is worse now than it was last year at this point, and I fear the situation will become significantly worse in the very near future.

While I am not an economist, nor do I claim to have any economic knowledge others do not, looking at the data presented in the public domain really makes me to question what is going on in our economy – and – it makes me believe something isn’t right.

The media will point to improving economic numbers, but what is being reported as “improving” is less than encouraging. How about we look at what is improving by focusing on what is NOT improving.

Negative

• Port traffic is down 15% YoY (less goods going in and out)
• Hotel occupancy down 15% YoY
• Auto Sales down to spring 2009 levels after cash for clunkers ended
• Chicago and Dallas manufacturing activity down
• Debit 12T
• Unemployment roughly at 20% when looking at all stats and removing government assumptions
• GDP -.07 for the last quarter
• Dollar falling
• Oil at 72
• New Housing Orders Down

Positive

• Retail sales better than expected
• Higher Consumer sentiment
• Service Sector Grew last month

With all seriousness I have to ask the obvious question – How can economists say that we are currently improving? Just about everything is point to poor economic performance.

Do you happen to remember the trigger for our recession / depression? It was the banking crisis that started in late 2007 and came to a head in 2008. Has that underlying, fundamental, issue been addressed?

No.

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize- winning economist, said the U.S. has failed to fix the underlying problems of its banking system after the credit crunch and the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

“In the U.S. and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger,” Stiglitz said in an interview today in Paris. “The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis.”

…

Stiglitz, former chief economist at the World Bank and member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the world economy is “far from being out of the woods” even if it has pulled back from the precipice it teetered on after the collapse of Lehman.

“We’re going into an extended period of weak economy, of economic malaise,” Stiglitz said. The U.S. will “grow but not enough to offset the increase in the population,” he said, adding that “if workers do not have income, it’s very hard to see how the U.S. will generate the demand that the world economy needs.”

The Federal Reserve faces a “quandary” in ending its monetary stimulus programs because doing so may drive up the cost of borrowing for the U.S. government, he said.

“The question then is who is going to finance the U.S. government,” Stiglitz said.

The potential nail in the coffin is the U.S. debt. Remember the 12 Trillion number above? Yea, that. The Congressional Budget Office is well aware the debt is out of control and has waved the warning flag – the United States may be unable to service its debts.

If the ratio of debt to GDP continues to rise, lenders may become concerned about the financial solvency of the government and demand higher interest rates to compensate for the increasing riskiness of holding government debt. Eventually, if the debt-to-GDP ratio keeps increasing and the budget outlook does not improve, both foreign and domestic lenders may not provide enough funds for the government to meet its obligations. By then, whether the government resolves the fiscal crisis by printing money, raising taxes, cutting spending, or going into default, economic growth will be seriously disrupted.
…
The systematic widening of budget shortfalls projected under CBO’s long-term scenarios has never been observed in U.S. history.

The government is basically telling use that the United States is on the path to bankruptcy, if it is not already there.

Just to recap – The underlying banking issue is not under control, the government debt is nearly unsustainable, and our economic numbers do not point to a turn for the positive.

From my perspective, the economic reality we live in points to the United States sitting on the brink of economic hardship unlike anything this nation has ever faced.  As the US is the largest consumer economy in the world, the collapse would send shockwaves to every corner of the globe.

So, what could be the cause?

Since the banking system is basically bankrupt, and the FDIC is out of money, the collapse of a “too big to fail” bank could easily be the trigger…  As could a massive decline in the price of the dollar… or other world government deciding they will no longer loan money to the U.S. Basically major market event that would stress the financial institution has the potential to be the trigger for the next leg down in this economic cycle.

Such an event could come at any time, and what scares me the most is my fear that the trigger may be sooner than later.

Just some random thoughts…

Gran Torino is an AMAZING movie.  A movie that should have gotten a lot more attention than it did.  Yes, it did make 100M+ but no Golden Globes, Oscars or Critic Choice awards.  Not even nominations.  Clint got shafted big time.

Pineapple Express is very disappointing. Not much more to say than that. Oh, well, Rosie Perez looks exactly the same way today as she did when she made White Men Can’t Jump.

I’ve taken it on.  I’ve decided to read the entire House health care bill (H.R.3200 – America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009).  With so much news, information and misinformation about the bill I want to know the exact truth – for myself.  I plan on posting my notes (unbiased).

The economy is NOT doing well – don’t listen to what the government (or media) is saying. Why?  Several reasons.  Corporate revenues are falling, jobs continue to be lost, consumer spending continues to contract, personal income continues to decline, July Port traffic fell (US companies are not exporting good) and gold is rising.  In short, the stock market gains of the last several months is based on false hope as well as technical trading.

It is amazing what a few days of exercise can do in terms of how one feels about their physical appearance and capabilities.

I cannot stand my Dell laptop.  It’s an overheating boat anchor that is less than a year old.  I know who I’m never buying from again.

Anyway…

Sitting here with no ability to feel sleepy I thought I would share a few random thoughts that are just popping around in my mind…

1) WHY don’t the site archive links work!?!  I’m not sure if this an error with the template or something else with the DB.  I need to get around to fixing that.

2) I don’t have many friends but the ones I do are genuine.  I don’t need to talk to them for months, even years, and things feel natural… normal… and we have the ability to still sense what the other is feeling and know how to suppor them.  That’s a wonderful thing to have.

3) I’m so backed up on email it’s not even funny.

4) I’ve been progamming a lot for the past few days.  I really enjoy it (again). It’s funny because I HATED it when I was doing it for a career.  Now it’s enjoyable once again.

5) Love the Venture Bros.

6) On the topic of friends – I don’t care for people who claim to be your friend but do not extend you respect.

7) What seems to be with the whole “shaven head” thing celebs are doing these days?
I really, really like the current Dodge Challenger.  Sweet looking car (from the outside) but it’s a Dodge so you know there is bound to be mechanical issues.

9) I miss cooking.  Haven’t had the time and/or motivation.  I also miss yeswecook.

10) The week is dragging on and on and on.

11) I’m going to stop music production.  Time to sell the studio.  While I did a number of sweet tracking in the last 6 months I just feel like it’s run a course and time to move on….

Sleep well.