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Are you ready for “Variable Value Cash?”

Bad idea?  NSS!

An incredibly interesting report this morning because it is a topic that we first covered in 2001 – before 9/11.  It was theory then, but a retool version is making the rounds now.

This was back before we got around to naming our introspective reports Peoplenomics.  In the earliest days, still living on our sailboat, it was the UrbanSurvival Inside Report series.  It was still $40-bucks and one of the best deals in keeping ahead-of-the-curve, even then.

But the content was the same as now philosophically.  It was a look-ahead tool so we could all assess, model, and then live best with whatever came along  in the way of financial schemes.

One of the ideas we explored  back in 2001 was the whole notion of “re-charging money.”  And it seems that a variation of that is now making the rounds in the central banker circles.
When things like this come along, it is sometimes shocking what the implications are.  Not the least of which is being 15-YEARS ahead of acceptable economic thought..

But here’s the IMF and here’s this paper on Variable Value Cash.  When the SHTF, what do the bankers want?  Ever more power to diddle with the system!  Grab the Astoglide and read on…

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A longish report this morning.

And update on our Trading Model.

A number of possible resolutions to the present decline.

And a discussion of how 2017 is when we will have to work out how our financial world must face up to the problem of “Lifetimes piling up.”

Along the way, we’ll sort out whether the Talking Heads are right to be worried.  Or maybe we really are in Dire Straits.

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It is an odd topic to be on this morning, after being a guest on a highly regarded national radio show (Coast2Coast with George Noory) last night. 

Especially on a morning when speculation over whether the NK nuke test fired the Hydrogen “bigger bomb” material.

While the show always has an interesting assortment of people on, few bring their comments from previous years with them.  I happen to be an exception, I suppose.

But my optimism about 2016 could quickly fade late this year, or early in 2017.  So this morning a kind of summary of where we are in the rhymes of history and how you may wish to prepare for what comes next.

The two questions in the headlines today involve nukes and jobs…we’ll start with the North Korean nuke test…

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Yes, the banker class has been planning this since at least 2008.  We found a document to support that assertion.

Yes, we have made much in in the past couple of weeks about what is really going on with the global economic picture.  Most notably, we explained that the main reason why there has been such a huge – and sudden – trade in human immigration is for one very raw fact:

Immigration allows governments to “make-up growth.”

The mechanics of this are simple – and crystal clear when you review the data from our Wednesday report.

Today, we tackle a slightly broader issue:  How are some of the other ways that “Growth can be made-up?”  but more to the point….who’s been planning this?  The answer won’t surprise you.

After a few headlines of lasting importance and our ChartPack, of course…

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You see, there are two sets of migrations underway on the planet presently.

One of these is obvious, physical, and emotionally impacting:  That is the physical relocation processes underway in places like Europe, but oddly, not in the core Middle East.

The second migration is the “other” one – as people get “off planet” and into augmented mind “space” with social media and the [useless drivel] of social video games.

Still, in order to understand what lies ahead, pretend we’re standing at a busy traffic light.
One street is filled with physical refugees who are being manipulated into new locations for some unspoken agenda.

On  the other street are “presently-located” people who are spending the majority of their  waking hours in virtual spaces.

To make matters more complicated, the traffic light is showing green in all directions.  And the migrants themselves are all blind.

So stand by as we provide some economic insight into how the “Crossing Migrations of 2016” are likely to work out.

Sadly, most American – and Westerners, for that matter – have almost no appreciation for the fact we’re all being “virtualized.” 

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As something of a year-end retrospective, we check back on a few of this year’s views and outlooks to see how well we did.

Right at the outset however, one thing is clear:  While many of the Internet’s soothsaying and doom porn sites were predicting a bitter end to the financial world, Peoplenomics has the rare distinction of being more right than most – including a fair slice of those $300+ per year newsletters – in calling not only for no End of World events, but indeed a possible major rally to new all-time highs in 2016.

Beyond just getting what to do with our money right, we continue the task of squeezing the most value out of each dollar earned.  And again, the score isn’t bad… Plus our Trading Model absolutely rocked.

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Due to the proximity to the holiday – and the fact that most of our readers will be focused on prepping for Christmas and New Years, not the End of the World (EoW) we will focus only on markets present and where things seem likely to head in the New Year in this morning’s report.

Also:  Details of our Skype subscriber call-in Christmas Day.

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I don’t want to be a whiner who sounds perpetually negative about the outlook for America.
Our outlook for coming years is great, but ONLY if we actually figure out what isn’t working with our present system.

Using a formal process called “BPR” – business process re-engineering, we can quickly see that there are many ways to improve the caliber of government – and make it more responsible to the middle of the American political spectrum.

But that isn’t happening because the current system is – to put it in computer virus terms – easily exploited by special interests who have massive financial horsepower.
This morning, a short description of the problem, the tools, the obstacles to organizational change, and why we really are hopelessly screwed.

We’ll conclude with a short discussion of faux choice.

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(Shreveport, LA.)  Fed Day and Experiment time!  This morning we have a nice, short, to the point column.  Not one of those 3-thousand word diatribes that you go around all day wondering “Gee, what was Ure getting at?“

No sir, none of that for us.

Being just a few hours ahead of the rate announcement by the Fed – one which should parallel the moves done prior to the Great Crash in 1929, we will briefly hover over the problem described in our headline this morning…with some additional discussion about where the markets could go from here.

However, if currently rolling economic stories are any indication, this will be a day when the real “blaming of the Fed” and/or “blaming of Obama” gets going in earnest….
Oh!  The experiment:  We will also discuss an “Experiment with Luck” that needs a casino (got one handy here) and a Fed Decision and a cell phone to be carried out…

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This morning we look at how many of the expectations for the future, as seen in 1967 in the book “Report from Iron Mountain” have worked out.
It’s almost spooky how close the book has been at predicting the macro-trends.
Almost as frightening, in fact, as what is ahead for markets over the next couple of weeks.
No headlines today…we will stay close to our major function of keeping people “in the game” with their nest eggs bouncing into the future.  If with no smile on their face, at least a little more money to their credit than would otherwise be the case.
Instead, we will lay out a likely trajectory to the Second Depression low due in January of 2020.

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A report very much geared to the immensely important problem of where to park your retained earnings is on tap this morning.

While that would have been an easy question for us to answer back in 2003 when our Simple Strategy was to buy gold at $275 and put an equal amount of dough into U.S. Savings Bonds, the problems in today’s world are incredibly more complex.  At some points, rates will bottom and head up again.

More importantly, though, is that the whole matter of politics is in the process of blowing-over the existing ruling paradigm.  With a simple suggestion that we close immigration from Muslim countries until we can get some confidence in a vetting system, Donald Trump has again out-foxed all the other candidates by making himself the only one talking atthe gut-level that American workers understand. 

So coffee up… miles to cover and it’s as muddy a minefield as we’ve ever seen, especially given the Tuesday market action and next week’s pending Fed decision; the one we already are questioning as possibly being off the table because it may be too late…

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With the Holidays immediately before us, a few notes on personal futuring are in order.

Whenever you have people over for the holidays that you don’t see all the time, it’s a unique opportunity to got “knowledge trolling.”

By the time most of us get to “investing age” (which we define as having more than $50 bucks left-over on payday), we have some fairly concrete expectations about the way we thing the world ought to work.

However, as our investing results often feed back to us, our expectations are often wrong about the future.

So forthwith, some ideas of turning some of those otherwise dreadfully boring holiday get-togethers into incredibly interesting (and possibly profitable) investment trolling sessions.

The amazing part to me?  Everyone has a piece of the future – and oftentimes the non-investor doesn’t realize the value of what’s stuck between their ears.

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Now that TurboTax Home & Business 2015 Federal + State Taxes + Fed Efile Tax Preparation Software – PC/Mac Disc ($80, Amazon) is shipping and I’ve gotten it installed, it’s time to get serious about my “personal management plan” for 2016.

This is something that goes on all the time in real businesses:  There is a year-end review and the examination of all pertinent financial information is usually quite exhaustive.

Is it therefore any wonder than most corporations are extremely well-managed?  Hardly.  There is a combination of method and plan that leads to inevitable management success.

Odd as it may seem, however, only one-in-a-hundred of us “little people” bother to conduct this rigorous personal review for reasons that, frankly, don’t surprise me:  A laziness and lack of clear-headed thinking about the future.

While our other ongoing works (Functions of War, Iron Mountain II, part 2) are dandy mind-candy, they don’t have the hardcore payoff some of our other Lessons from Life have to offer.

This is one such Peoplenomics report…the kind that will help sweep the Nissan out of the driveway and replace it with a Lexus, if that’s what you want out of life.

After a few headlines, that is, and my explanation of contemporary climate hysteria including “How Trump Caused Global Warming.”

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