[Vo]:Re: Best of the best near-term horizon
Good point ;-) But their argument that city scale utility plants cost less per watt than rooftop residential installations makes sense, so it might be a win-win case. Michel - Original Message - From: Robin van Spaandonk [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 5:52 AM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Re: Best of the best near-term horizon In reply to Michel Jullian's message of Fri, 18 Apr 2008 01:36:24 +0200: Hi, [snip] Seriously though Jones, have a look at Nanosolar's latest declarations (last few days) and tell me if they still don't make sense to you: http://blog.nanosolar.com/ [snip] Quote: There is a reason why one of the world's largest power producers invested in Nanosolar. ...and that reason is that they want to continue selling power to people forever, rather than have the people harvest it themselves for nothing. ;) Regards, Robin van Spaandonk The shrub is a plant.
[Vo]:Re: Eye of the Gyre
Even better, let's close the loop! Instead of far away (e.g. Azores) seeding, we could use a second sea line (underwater pipeline) to reject seeds, process residues with fertilizing value, and any additional fertilizer, from the processing station (e.g. Bermuda, or a floating platform not unlike a deep sea oil platform) to a nearby seeding point which will ensure a complete spiral orbit of the crop. In the case of the NA gyre this would be some point between the US Atlantic coast and Bermuda, or even on the US coast, or even on the Bermuda coast. The processing station would be advantageously somewhere between, or at any extremity of a straight line between the harvesting point (the Eye) and the seeding point... What do you think, fellow Gyre Farming enthusiasts? Michel - Original Message - From: Michel Jullian [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 11:47 AM Subject: [Vo]:Re: Eye of the Gyre Indeed Vorts we can do better than this: zero ship time! We already found how to seed/fertilize directly from land (e.g. from the Azores, cf quoted post below). But _even harvesting_ could be done without any ship: we could install a fixed harvesting robot, or cluster of harvesting robots, at the Eye (where the crop converges automagically by vortical effect, remember?), connected to an underwater Sea Line (not necessarily resting on the deep ocean bottom: with an ad hoc anchoring scheme it could be arranged to float in midwater say at 100m depth to save on total length) which would convey the harvest, whether raw or pre-processed of fully processed to biofuel, to the nearest land (e.g. Bermuda). Michel - Original Message - From: Michel Jullian [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 12:46 AM Subject: [Vo]:Re: Eye of the Gyre I wrote: We seed the appropriate algae species directly off an island coast somewhere upstream e.g. in Azores, the field widens by diffusion and grows while it gyres clockwise in subtropical temperatures and insolation, and it concentrates again by vortical effect in the eye of the gyre SE of Bermuda a few hundred days later for harvesting... plausible? ...
RE: [Vo]:Stupid Academic stunt
-Original Message- From: Robin van Spaandonk [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 05 April 2008 03:13 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Stupid Academic stunt In reply to Dr Josef Karthauser's message of Fri, 4 Apr 2008 18:12:51 +0100: Hi Joe, [snip] I'm a little out of touch, I've not been reading my vortex mail. What's the current situation with Randall Mills' work? Is he still in business? Joe You can find his website at www.blacklightpower.com Thanks Robin, I had a fairly comprehensive response from Mike Carrell off list. Last time I read Mill's book I wasn't able to make head nor tail of it. I spent the last five years getting up to speed with the current conventions of high energy particle physics however, and so I going through the book again now, and it's making a bit more sense. It's early days yet though; I'm only at the introduction :). Joe Regards, Robin van Spaandonk The shrub is a plant.
Re: [Vo]:Re: Eye of the Gyre
Howdy Michel, I wouldn't want to be suspended way out there on a guywire when a catagory 5 hurricane comes visiting. Richard Michel wrote, Even better, let's close the loop! Instead of far away (e.g. Azores) seeding, we could use a second sea line (underwater pipeline) to reject seeds, process residues with fertilizing value, and any additional fertilizer, from the processing station (e.g. Bermuda, or a floating platform not unlike a deep sea oil platform) to a nearby seeding point which will ensure a complete spiral orbit of the crop. In the case of the NA gyre this would be some point between the US Atlantic coast and Bermuda, or even on the US coast, or even on the Bermuda coast. The processing station would be advantageously somewhere between, or at any extremity of a straight line between the harvesting point (the Eye) and the seeding point... What do you think, fellow Gyre Farming enthusiasts? Michel
[Vo]:Re: Eye of the Gyre
Good point Richard, neither would I, nor would any robotic platform... Maybe we could envisage sufficient flexibility in the mooring scheme (maybe some kind of semi-dynamic mooring, static most of the time, dynamic=motorized when needed) to move out of the way of the hurricane? Michel - Original Message - From: R C Macaulay [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 2:37 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Re: Eye of the Gyre Howdy Michel, I wouldn't want to be suspended way out there on a guywire when a catagory 5 hurricane comes visiting. Richard Michel wrote, Even better, let's close the loop! Instead of far away (e.g. Azores) seeding, we could use a second sea line (underwater pipeline) to reject seeds, process residues with fertilizing value, and any additional fertilizer, from the processing station (e.g. Bermuda, or a floating platform not unlike a deep sea oil platform) to a nearby seeding point which will ensure a complete spiral orbit of the crop. In the case of the NA gyre this would be some point between the US Atlantic coast and Bermuda, or even on the US coast, or even on the Bermuda coast. The processing station would be advantageously somewhere between, or at any extremity of a straight line between the harvesting point (the Eye) and the seeding point... What do you think, fellow Gyre Farming enthusiasts? Michel
Re: [Vo]:corn price and ethanol
Nick Palmer wrote: I think it was Steven who wrote about the sophistry of the argument about why food prices were rising (due to the diversion of corn production into making ethanol biofuel). In today's technology review http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/20641/ they are looking at the problems that the American rush to ethanol has caused. It appears as if only one third of the price rise is due to this however... Some analysts, such as C. Ford Runge, a professor of applied economics and law at the University of Minnesota, say that the use of corn for fuel rather than food could account for about one-third of the rise in prices worldwide. The other two-thirds is split between the effects of weather and increases in demand, he says. (Runge presents his argument in How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor, Interesting. From what I'd read elsewhere I would have expected that the main factor was the rise in the price of oil. I wonder about his claim that the big effects are weather and demand -- or perhaps he's attributing the oil price rise to rising demand as well? In any case, 1/3 of the increase is still a big issue. Look again at the price of rice: Up 147% in a year, according to the Wall Street Journal. If 1/3 of that rise is due to diversion of arable land to make biofuel, then biofuel production, alone, is responsible for a 49% increase in the price of rice over the past year. That extra 49% is a major problem for people who already can't afford enough food. The statement about the weather is interesting, as weather and biofuel production would both have the same effect, which is to decrease world grain production. I ran across a note in LeMonde the other day which bears on this. It seems that, during the past couple years, world cereal production has actually **DROPPED** (while world population has continued to increase, of course): La FAO relève également une légère baisse de la production céréalière mondiale. Après avoir atteint un pic en 2004, celle-ci a baissé respectivement de 1 % et 2 % en 2005 et 2006. La production des huit principaux pays exportateurs de céréales, qui assurent près de la moitié du volume mondial, a chuté de 4 % et 7 % sur la même période. Rough translation: The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N.) notes that there has been a slight drop in cereal production worldwide. After reaching a peak in 2004, it has dropped by 1% and 2% in 2005 and 2006, respectively. The production of the eight principle cereal exporting countries, which provide nearly half the world volume, has fallen between 4% and 7% during the same period. So, food apparently isn't *just* getting more expensive, as one might expect if a jump in the price of a raw material (oil) were solely to blame -- it's getting scarcer, as well.
[Vo]:Article: Dark matter may have been found on Earth.
Posted this out to Luke's Hydrino group: Recent article out in NewScientistSpace.com http://space.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn13726 Exercpt: This theory predicts that the Earth should be hit by more dark matter particles in June, when it is moving through the galaxy in the same direction as the Sun. There would also be fewer particles in December, when it is moving in the opposite direction. Intense scepticism That's exactly what the DAMA team reported in 2003, following the first phase of their experiment, which ran for 7 years with a 100-kilogram detector. Needless to say, Hydrinos weren't mentioned. I guess one could also argue that s[c]epticism has been misspelled. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
[Vo]:Re: corn price and ethanol
Good points. (your translation was excellent BTW, just one typo principaux translates as 'principal', not 'principle') I wonder, is the floating type of sargassum (S.bacciferum OR natans) edible? Other varieties definitely are, as a Google search on sargassum and edible reveals. Michel - Original Message - From: Stephen A. Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Vortex-L vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 3:56 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:corn price and ethanol Nick Palmer wrote: I think it was Steven who wrote about the sophistry of the argument about why food prices were rising (due to the diversion of corn production into making ethanol biofuel). In today's technology review http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/20641/ they are looking at the problems that the American rush to ethanol has caused. It appears as if only one third of the price rise is due to this however... Some analysts, such as C. Ford Runge, a professor of applied economics and law at the University of Minnesota, say that the use of corn for fuel rather than food could account for about one-third of the rise in prices worldwide. The other two-thirds is split between the effects of weather and increases in demand, he says. (Runge presents his argument in How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor, ... So, food apparently isn't *just* getting more expensive, as one might expect if a jump in the price of a raw material (oil) were solely to blame -- it's getting scarcer, as well.
[Vo]:Re: corn price and ethanol
(Marie-Antoinette, not Marie, you ignoramus ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegemite : Vegemite is a dark brown savoury food paste made from yeast extract, used mainly as a spread on sandwiches, toast and cracker biscuits, as well as a filling of pastries like Cheesymite scroll, in Australia and New Zealand. It is similar to British and New Zealand Marmite and to Swiss Cenovis. Never tried Vegemite, but I am very fond of its cousin Marmite, deliciously salty... yes, one can well imagine such stuff being made of sargassum :) We would call it dark sargassum. Should be quite successful in Bermuda, except in classrooms of course. Michel - Original Message - From: Jones Beene [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 4:47 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Re: corn price and ethanol Michel I wonder, is the floating type of sargassum (S.bacciferum OR natans) edible? Other varieties definitely are, as a Google search on sargassum and edible reveals. Not to wax sarcastic, or is that sargastic? but... ...as Marie might quip ... let them eat Vegemite...
Re: [Vo]:Re: corn price and ethanol
Michel wrote: (Marie-Antoinette, not Marie, you ignoramus ;-) Well actually, if she said it at all it was, Qu'ils mangent de la brioche. Nothing about cake. This may sound silly or irrelevant to the discussion but it's not. Her husband, Louis XV1, had gone to great lengths to convince French farmers to grow potatoes, so they wouldn't starve if the wheat crop failed. Potatoes of one variety or another are very forgiving of the climate they grow in, and yield far more calories per acre than almost any other crop. The vast majority of farmers refused and there was a very low yield of wheat for a couple of years running. That, coupled with debts from financing the American revolution, precipitated the French revolution. It's far more complicated than that, but those are the root causes (pun intended). The message is this. If traditional crops are not supplemented by something else, real trouble will follow. Using food crops for motor fuel is simply disastrous. M. Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
Re: [Vo]:corn price and ethanol
Stephen A. Lawrence (not Steven - sorry) wrote:- In any case, 1/3 of the increase is still a big issue. Look again at the price of rice: Up 147% in a year, according to the Wall Street Journal. If 1/3 of that rise is due to diversion of arable land to make biofuel, then biofuel production, alone, is responsible for a 49% increase in the price of rice over the past year. That extra 49% is a major problem for people who already can't afford enough food. and The statement about the weather is interesting, as weather and biofuel production would both have the same effect, which is to decrease world grain production Australia has been suffering form a six year drought which may, or may not, be related to expected climate change. As a consequence their rice crop has been dramatically cut by 98% (!) this article in the NY times yesterday reveals all. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/business/worldbusiness/17warm.html?_r=2ex=1366171200en=328ad25cda6f6fa2ei=5088partner=rssnytemc=rssoref=sloginoref=slogin Just in case you have to login to read it, here's a paragraph The collapse of Australia's rice production is one of several factors contributing to a doubling of rice prices in the last three months - increases that have led the world's largest exporters to restrict exports severely, spurred panicked hoarding in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and set off violent protests in countries including Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, the Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
[Vo]:The (possible) oil peak rolls on
The government office concerned with such things has predicted that oil prices will average about $101/bbl this coming year, if I recall correctly. Commodities traders don't seem to agree. As I write this, May crude oil contracts are going for $116.82/bbl. That's up $4 in the last four days. Sorry if this seems boring or off topic, but I'm finding this run-up in oil prices fascinating/horrifying. It's presumably driving the food price problems, of course. And in turn, the oil price run-up is no doubt driven in part by the nascent recovery in the U.S. stock market (which may very well sputter again, of course, due in large part to the run-up in oil prices). Leading indicators blipped up in March, for the first time in months, despite the stock market still being down. Ratios of coincident to lagging and leading to lagging are still both down, though, for whatever that's worth. Here's the text from the first page of the March leading indicators report: == [begin quoted text] • The leading index increased slightly in March, following five consecutive monthly declines. Money supply (real M2)*, index of supplier deliveries (vendor performance) and the interest rate spread made large positive contributions to the index this month, offsetting the large negative contributions from initial claims for unemployment insurance (inverted), building permits and stock prices. During the six-month period ending in March, the leading index declined 1.6 percent (a -3.3 percent annual rate), and the weaknesses among its components have been very widespread. • The coincident index also increased slightly in March, following a decline in February. Industrial production contributed positively to the index in March, more than offsetting the decline in employment. Despite this month’s gain, the six-month change in the coincident index has fallen to - 0.1 percent (a -0.2 percent annual rate) from September 2007 to March 2008, down from 0.6 percent (about a 1.1 percent annual rate) in the six-month period through December 2007. In addition, the weaknesses among the coincident indicators have been very widespread in recent months. The lagging index continued to increase in March, and as a result, the coincident to lagging ratio continued to decrease for the third consecutive month. • Since the middle of 2007, the leading index has been declining while the coincident index, a measure of current economic activity, has also deteriorated in recent months. In addition, the weaknesses have also become more widespread among the components of both indexes. Meanwhile, real GDP growth slowed substantially to 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, down from 4.9 percent in the third quarter and an average of 2.2 percent, annual rate, in the first half of 2007. The current behavior of the composite indexes suggests economic weakness is likely to continue in the near term.
Re: [Vo]:The (possible) oil peak rolls on
I'm confused. Perhaps someone on this list has the answer. Everyone who has discussed the issues here seems to agree to the following: 1. Increase in energy cost will drive up food and other commodity prices, which will reduce consumer spending. 2. Increased cost of personal transportation will reduce consumer spending. 3. The collapse of the housing market will reduce consumer spending. 4. The fed generated inflation will reduce consumer spending. 5. Loss of jobs will reduce consumer spending. Consumer spending determines the profit of companies. So, why then is the stock market going up? Ed Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: The government office concerned with such things has predicted that oil prices will average about $101/bbl this coming year, if I recall correctly. Commodities traders don't seem to agree. As I write this, May crude oil contracts are going for $116.82/bbl. That's up $4 in the last four days. Sorry if this seems boring or off topic, but I'm finding this run-up in oil prices fascinating/horrifying. It's presumably driving the food price problems, of course. And in turn, the oil price run-up is no doubt driven in part by the nascent recovery in the U.S. stock market (which may very well sputter again, of course, due in large part to the run-up in oil prices). Leading indicators blipped up in March, for the first time in months, despite the stock market still being down. Ratios of coincident to lagging and leading to lagging are still both down, though, for whatever that's worth. Here's the text from the first page of the March leading indicators report: == [begin quoted text] • The leading index increased slightly in March, following five consecutive monthly declines. Money supply (real M2)*, index of supplier deliveries (vendor performance) and the interest rate spread made large positive contributions to the index this month, offsetting the large negative contributions from initial claims for unemployment insurance (inverted), building permits and stock prices. During the six-month period ending in March, the leading index declined 1.6 percent (a -3.3 percent annual rate), and the weaknesses among its components have been very widespread. • The coincident index also increased slightly in March, following a decline in February. Industrial production contributed positively to the index in March, more than offsetting the decline in employment. Despite this month’s gain, the six-month change in the coincident index has fallen to - 0.1 percent (a -0.2 percent annual rate) from September 2007 to March 2008, down from 0.6 percent (about a 1.1 percent annual rate) in the six-month period through December 2007. In addition, the weaknesses among the coincident indicators have been very widespread in recent months. The lagging index continued to increase in March, and as a result, the coincident to lagging ratio continued to decrease for the third consecutive month. • Since the middle of 2007, the leading index has been declining while the coincident index, a measure of current economic activity, has also deteriorated in recent months. In addition, the weaknesses have also become more widespread among the components of both indexes. Meanwhile, real GDP growth slowed substantially to 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, down from 4.9 percent in the third quarter and an average of 2.2 percent, annual rate, in the first half of 2007. The current behavior of the composite indexes suggests economic weakness is likely to continue in the near term.
Re: [Vo]:The (possible) oil peak rolls on
Short answer: Because the stock market is not really going up ;-) Yes, it may look at first glance like there have been some small increases in the market, in terms of its listed valuation in $US ... ...but thanks to the continuation of the Bush record budget deficits, in terms of real worth on an international standard, such as gold for instance, the stock market has lost over half its value since Bush took office. cough, cough ... actually the market has lost most of that real value since he started his second term... Jones Original Message From: Edmund Storms I'm confused. Perhaps someone on this list has the answer. Everyone who has discussed the issues here seems to agree to the following: 1. Increase in energy cost will drive up food and other commodity prices, which will reduce consumer spending. 2. Increased cost of personal transportation will reduce consumer spending. 3. The collapse of the housing market will reduce consumer spending. 4. The fed generated inflation will reduce consumer spending. 5. Loss of jobs will reduce consumer spending. Consumer spending determines the profit of companies. So, why then is the stock market going up?
Re: [Vo]:The (possible) oil peak rolls on
Edmund Storms wrote: I'm confused. Perhaps someone on this list has the answer. Everyone who has discussed the issues here seems to agree to the following: 1. Increase in energy cost will drive up food and other commodity prices, which will reduce consumer spending. Yes, and increasing energy prices are what may very well kill the bull for good this year. We shall see. I think it's significant that news stories about oil still talk about demand much more than they talk about supply -- it's as though most observers haven't yet absorbed the fact that supply is not going to respond to increased demand, no, not this time... 2. Increased cost of personal transportation will reduce consumer spending. 3. The collapse of the housing market will reduce consumer spending. That's already happened, stocks have already fallen as a result, and stock market investors try to drive very far ahead on the road. The housing mess is already fully factored into stock prices, or so it appears; in fact some building stocks have actually been showing signs of going up again. As an outrageously out-on-the-end-of-the-bell-curve example, Comstock Homebuilding, http://www.comstockhomes.com/, is up almost 40% **today**. (If you'd bet the wad on Comstock yesterday you' be grinning today, that's for sure -- but yesterday they looked like going bust; you just never know.) 4. The fed generated inflation will reduce consumer spending. But injecting money into the economy stimulates spending, it doesn't restrain it, and in fact the increase in the money supply is one of the elements pushing up the leading indicators. (Looks like M2 is the one they use, don't ask me why; when I was in school it was M1, M1, M1, nobody cared about M2 or M3.) Inflation favors borrowers, it favors spenders, it favors people who buy today and don't wait for tomorrow. 5. Loss of jobs will reduce consumer spending. Yes, but job loss *usually* comes late in the downturn, and the stock market tends to turn up long before the employment data, because all the players are trying to outguess each other and get there first. So, reduced employment may actually encourage investors to get back into the market. The stock market leads the job market, typically by a number of months. Consumer spending determines the profit of companies. So, why then is the stock market going up? It goes up in advance of the changes in company profits. ** But wait, we need a caveat here: Anyone who listens to investment advice from me should have his head examined. ** OK with that said, let's move on: Last Friday, GE reported weaker results than expected and the market went down like a rock. It looked like a panic, and against a backdrop of skyrocketing oil prices, things looked very black indeed. That's how it usually looks at the market bottom, of course. This week, in stark contrast, a whole raft of companies reported earnings results, and they were all awful. In response, the market ... went up. Everything's heading up this week; it looks like spring. As I mentioned, even some homebuilding stocks are coming back from the dead; even the *airlines* are apparently bouncing back a bit. Of course, it could be just an upward blip before the *real* crash, or it could be that the market has turned the corner. Anyhow after seeing the market showing a little life, I dug out the leading indicators report and was surprised to see that the leading indicators had gone up this month, in spite of the stock market going down over the last few weeks (the market is one of the biggest items in the leading indicators, IIRC). There are other straws in the wind: Congress is about to pass a rescue package, which normally happens only after the need is gone. (I learned that in a management class I took a long, long time ago -- Congress's inability to act fast enough to do any good in battling a recession is so consistent, it's included in standard curricula dealing with business cycles.) Jobs data finally are showing rising unemployment, which usually happens not long before the market starts to recover (employment's a lagging indicator). So, my personal conclusion is that the market's heading up again, or if not just yet, it will be, real soon now. I'm not unique; I figure if I think it's heading up, probably a lot of other people do too, and some of them trade commodities. And if they think the market's turned the corner, they'll start bidding up oil, too, since a rising market will inevitably boost demand even farther. (Whatever time to refer back to that Caveat I mentioned, up above...) One last point: A war is very pro-business, because it injects cash into the economy at the same time that it drains consumer goods from the economy. It's very difficult to have a recession *and* a war at the same time. Bush has managed it, but even he
Re: [Vo]:The (possible) oil peak rolls on
Correction - not even half as they say... Way more than half of the value of the US stock market has been lost in the last few years. Thank you W, and thank you neocons for the most disastrous US Presidency since WWII. Like a bumper sticker seen recently: Never Thought I'd Miss Nixon - today's gold price - $950/oz. In April 2003, gold was as low as $325/oz If you had a $million stock portfolio back then, you would have lost almost 2/3 of its real value in international terms.
Re: [Vo]:The (possible) oil peak rolls on
On 18/4/2008 3:56 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: Edmund Storms wrote: I'm confused. Perhaps someone on this list has the answer. Everyone who has discussed the issues here seems to agree to the following: 1. Increase in energy cost will drive up food and other commodity prices, which will reduce consumer spending. Yes, and increasing energy prices are what may very well kill the bull for good this year. We shall see. I think it's significant that news stories about oil still talk about demand much more than they talk about supply -- it's as though most observers haven't yet absorbed the fact that supply is not going to respond to increased demand, no, not this time... IMO I think the oil industry is worried that demand will peak before supply peaks as the cost of alternatives drops. harry
Re: [Vo]:The (possible) oil peak rolls on
Yes Jones, the market has dropped from its recent record high near 14000, but presently it has gone up from slightly below 12000 to now near 12800 while all kinds of bad things are becoming perfectly obvious. Someone must be buying stocks without any concern about the real world conditions. I know that the market can be random and differences in opinion can caused reasonable variations, but the rise over the last 6 weeks makes no sense. All Hell is breaking loose that only the insane would ignore. Is this the weeding out effect just before the crash? Ed Jones Beene wrote: Short answer: Because the stock market is not really going up ;-) Yes, it may look at first glance like there have been some small increases in the market, in terms of its listed valuation in $US ... ...but thanks to the continuation of the Bush record budget deficits, in terms of real worth on an international standard, such as gold for instance, the stock market has lost over half its value since Bush took office. cough, cough ... actually the market has lost most of that real value since he started his second term... Jones Original Message From: Edmund Storms I'm confused. Perhaps someone on this list has the answer. Everyone who has discussed the issues here seems to agree to the following: 1. Increase in energy cost will drive up food and other commodity prices, which will reduce consumer spending. 2. Increased cost of personal transportation will reduce consumer spending. 3. The collapse of the housing market will reduce consumer spending. 4. The fed generated inflation will reduce consumer spending. 5. Loss of jobs will reduce consumer spending. Consumer spending determines the profit of companies. So, why then is the stock market going up?
Re: [Vo]:The (possible) oil peak rolls on
Thanks Steve, this is a very nice summary. However, even I, a nonbusiness student, can see the flaws when the logic is applied to the present situation. When the business cycle turns around, it is because some basic money making process is improved. In the process, consumer demand goes up because people have the money to spend, which causes a self-reinforcing process. All the factors in place now are also self-reinforcing, but in a negative way. I fear that this is the start of the crash that occurs when the supply of ignorant people runs out and no one is left to buy stocks. Ed Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: Edmund Storms wrote: I'm confused. Perhaps someone on this list has the answer. Everyone who has discussed the issues here seems to agree to the following: 1. Increase in energy cost will drive up food and other commodity prices, which will reduce consumer spending. Yes, and increasing energy prices are what may very well kill the bull for good this year. We shall see. I think it's significant that news stories about oil still talk about demand much more than they talk about supply -- it's as though most observers haven't yet absorbed the fact that supply is not going to respond to increased demand, no, not this time... 2. Increased cost of personal transportation will reduce consumer spending. 3. The collapse of the housing market will reduce consumer spending. That's already happened, stocks have already fallen as a result, and stock market investors try to drive very far ahead on the road. The housing mess is already fully factored into stock prices, or so it appears; in fact some building stocks have actually been showing signs of going up again. As an outrageously out-on-the-end-of-the-bell-curve example, Comstock Homebuilding, http://www.comstockhomes.com/, is up almost 40% **today**. (If you'd bet the wad on Comstock yesterday you' be grinning today, that's for sure -- but yesterday they looked like going bust; you just never know.) 4. The fed generated inflation will reduce consumer spending. But injecting money into the economy stimulates spending, it doesn't restrain it, and in fact the increase in the money supply is one of the elements pushing up the leading indicators. (Looks like M2 is the one they use, don't ask me why; when I was in school it was M1, M1, M1, nobody cared about M2 or M3.) Inflation favors borrowers, it favors spenders, it favors people who buy today and don't wait for tomorrow. 5. Loss of jobs will reduce consumer spending. Yes, but job loss *usually* comes late in the downturn, and the stock market tends to turn up long before the employment data, because all the players are trying to outguess each other and get there first. So, reduced employment may actually encourage investors to get back into the market. The stock market leads the job market, typically by a number of months. Consumer spending determines the profit of companies. So, why then is the stock market going up? It goes up in advance of the changes in company profits. ** But wait, we need a caveat here: Anyone who listens to investment advice from me should have his head examined. ** OK with that said, let's move on: Last Friday, GE reported weaker results than expected and the market went down like a rock. It looked like a panic, and against a backdrop of skyrocketing oil prices, things looked very black indeed. That's how it usually looks at the market bottom, of course. This week, in stark contrast, a whole raft of companies reported earnings results, and they were all awful. In response, the market ... went up. Everything's heading up this week; it looks like spring. As I mentioned, even some homebuilding stocks are coming back from the dead; even the *airlines* are apparently bouncing back a bit. Of course, it could be just an upward blip before the *real* crash, or it could be that the market has turned the corner. Anyhow after seeing the market showing a little life, I dug out the leading indicators report and was surprised to see that the leading indicators had gone up this month, in spite of the stock market going down over the last few weeks (the market is one of the biggest items in the leading indicators, IIRC). There are other straws in the wind: Congress is about to pass a rescue package, which normally happens only after the need is gone. (I learned that in a management class I took a long, long time ago -- Congress's inability to act fast enough to do any good in battling a recession is so consistent, it's included in standard curricula dealing with business cycles.) Jobs data finally are showing rising unemployment, which usually happens not long before the market starts to recover (employment's a lagging indicator). So, my personal conclusion is that the market's heading up again, or if not just yet, it will be,
Re: [Vo]:The (possible) oil peak rolls on
There is also a contrarian philosophy that seems to work for some investors: Buy when everyone else is dumping like terrified rats leaving a sinking ship. Often, when certain stocks seem to be tanking and headed for the worst, that's exactly the time when contrarians begin investing. Sometimes, it works for them. Does it pay to be a contrarian under the current circumstances? I suspect If I actually was a dedicated contrarian I wouldn't answer that questions. Trade secret. Considering the recent run up, I suspect some traitorous contrarians may have fessed up. ...or perhaps we're just witnessing another pump and dump scheme on a grand scale. Speculation is cheap. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:Re: Best of the best near-term horizon
In reply to Michel Jullian's message of Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:22:26 +0200: Hi, [snip] Good point ;-) But their argument that city scale utility plants cost less per watt than rooftop residential installations makes sense, so it might be a win-win case. Michel Well it does provide a ready market for panel manufacturers. That means that they can continue to develop their product, and hopefully at some point produce power shingles which can substitute for ordinary shingles in new construction, at little or no extra installation cost. If the resultant power is used as an adjunct to grid supply ( fed back into the grid when in excess), then battery costs can also be avoided, keeping the overall cost to a minimum. Granted this requires an intelligent inverter, but the cost of that should soon be recouped from the savings on the power bill, and as the market for them grows they will get cheaper anyway. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk The shrub is a plant.
Re: [Vo]:Re: Eye of the Gyre
In reply to Michel Jullian's message of Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:58:17 +0200: Hi, [snip] Good point Richard, neither would I, nor would any robotic platform... Maybe we could envisage sufficient flexibility in the mooring scheme (maybe some kind of semi-dynamic mooring, static most of the time, dynamic=motorized when needed) to move out of the way of the hurricane? [snip] It just needs to be submerged enough to get it out of the way. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk The shrub is a plant.
Re: [Vo]:The (possible) oil peak rolls on
In reply to Edmund Storms's message of Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:59:08 -0600: Hi, [snip] Yes Jones, the market has dropped from its recent record high near 14000, but presently it has gone up from slightly below 12000 to now near 12800 while all kinds of bad things are becoming perfectly obvious. Someone must be buying stocks without any concern about the real world conditions. I know that the market can be random and differences in opinion can caused reasonable variations, but the rise over the last 6 weeks makes no sense. All Hell is breaking loose that only the insane would ignore. Is this the weeding out effect just before the crash? Ed Everyone knows that the market always goes up and down rhythmically. Therefore investors try to guess when it is bottoming out. All the news over the last few months has been about the sub-prime crisis dragging the market down. That should finally have worked its way through the markets by about June-July, so investors are looking for the markets to bottom soon. Some apparently think that is already happening, and are starting to reinvest the money the got from selling high. That pushes the market up a bit and gives others the confidence to follow suit. This will result in a short term rise, until the real recession caused by wasting a trillion dollars in Iraq starts to bight. Then there will be a strong bear market in the medium term. True recovery may have to wait a couple of years, and may only come on the back of some decisive new technological development. ..so much for my prognostications. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk The shrub is a plant.
Re: [Vo]:The (possible) oil peak rolls on
The difficulty in understanding the stock market has it root in not recognizing exactly what it is. The stock market is a legal form of gambling. It IS the great game ! Of the gambling casino parlours in the great game.. commodities are the roulette tables. The players at this table operate similar to a duck hunter pulling the trigger today at a duck that will fly over months from now, hoping the duck will fly into the shot pattern. The original purpose of this parlour was to provide a way for farmers to insure next year's crop, or any commodity against sudden drop in market price below the cost of production. Oil speculators turned the crude oil market into a whore's market some 20 years ago when they begin trading crude futures. China got into the game 2 years ago by buying up strategic metals and stuff and such. Few can grasp they may actually be holding food grains commodity futures hostage. Wall Street is a private club where membership costs real money and the game is controlled by the house. A share of stock.. any stock is only worth what you can sell it for. It used to have some relationship with a company's net worth and/or assets and keyed to the dividend paid each year. NO MORE.. few dividends are paid out anymore and the value to the owner of a share is based on anticipating a share will rise like WalMart did. 25 years ago or a Google share. In today's world a share has a inverse relationship to the big buyers of stocks and bonds.. who are they?? pension trusts, insurance and banking.. but the largest holders of stocks and bonds are the shadows people of the hedge and derivitive outerworld ( similar to the underworld except no laws are ever made against the shadows) Little money received from an IPO actually goes into a capital account since it's another parlour in the great game and the money goes to the promotors in the form of both appreciation of share price and share set asides for founders. It comes as a great shock for Joe citizen to read an actual PL statement ( nearly impossile to fathom) to learn that a publically held stock corporation is in debt up to their eyeballs from the sale of BONDS , not common stock. It is possible for a corporation to survive for years without ever showing a profit.. just sell more stock and issue more bonds. Example.. Krispy Kreme, Starbucks, Home Depot, Lowes. What really surprises many is WalMart. Never to ever give a sucker an even break.. GE is the biggest , richest corporation on earth and a look see into many large corporate structures show a few ex-GE cadre .. like Home Depot.. ever wonder why?? GE morphed from a manufacturer under Jack Welch into a strange new capital corporation. Their fingerprints and DNA are across the world and behind the China trade and WalMart. Consider Goldman-Sachs and Merrill-Lynch.. when the 1st qtr 2008 reports were due.. speculation was G-S and M-L and Citi-Bank would look like Bear-Stearns on paper but the guys that print the paper can put anything on the paper they wish and BINGO.. G-S et al came up smellling like roses while Bear Stearns wound up in the tank and fished out by JPMorgan. Hmmm.. Now the plot thickens and the really serious poker players are placing their bets. It's sorta amusing when ya think about it It's all monolopy money to them since they print what they need. The world's greatest game of all .. If you're big enough, tough enough, smart enough to buy into the game.. they don't squeeze you out.. but invite you in.. unless.. unless .. you don't play the game by the rules.. OR.. they make an example of you.. like Enron.. go straight to jail and do not pass go... occasionally one of the players must be reprimanded , like Bear Stearns.. and gets a get outa jail free card but forfeits his cards for the hand. After all... one cannot be a gentleman and cheat at cards in the great game. So if Edmund Storms has difficulty reading the face cards.. it's because he is a scientist and not a stockbroker. Never play the other man's game. Fun stuff.. all that money and never enough.. ole Solomon lived the life too and wrote an amazing book on the subject in his later life. The poor simp chased his tail and tail to no avail .. grin Richard
