Keeping A Wide Angle View On The World of Cryptocurrencies, Blockchains, Economics, Politics, Science And The Environment
30 December 2016
Interesting Weekend Reads for Friday through Sunday, Dec. 30, 2016 - Jan. 1, 2017 . . . Happy New Year Edition
Note: We will be adding linked articles and stories as this New Year's weekend progresses. Check back daily...
Video: Watch Tesla’s Autopilot use black magic to avoid a wreck (must see clip) (Red Orbit)
Hunting for the Origins of the Universe in Chile's desert (great video) (Bloomberg)
Hunting for the Origins of the Universe in Chile's desert (great video) (Bloomberg)
Labels:
Cafe con Leche,
Chile,
Russian Hackers,
Solar Power,
Spying,
Tesla,
Universe,
Utilities,
Venezuela
29 December 2016
Quote of the Day for Thursday, 29 Dec 16 by Albert Einstein on the Universe & Human Stupidity
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein
Interesting Reads for Thursday, 29 Dec 16: Vera Rubin, Nativism, Greed & More
"Devise your own paths": The enduring wisdom of Vera Rubin, groundbreaking Astronomer and working mother (Quartz)
Remembering Vera Rubin: The Trailblazing Astrophysicist Who Confirmed the Existence of Dark Matter and Paved the Way for Modern Women in Science (Brain Pickings)
As Populists Won 2016 Ballots, World's Richest Made $237 Billion (Bloomberg)
Greed Springs Eternal (Paul Krugman NYT)
The Wealthy Would Never Steal - A Credo For Trump's Party (Jonathan Chait New York Magazine)
Trump's Transistion Team Is Stacked With Privatization Enthusiasts (The Nation)
America's Market Sentiment Jumps Most Since Dot-com Boom: Chart (Bloomberg)
28 December 2016
Quote of the Day for Wednesday 28 Dec 16 by President Jimmy Carter on Mindless Consumption
“In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. ”
– Jimmy Carter
Labels:
Mindless Consumption,
President Jimmy Carter,
Quote
Interesting Reads for Wednesday, 28 Dec 2016: Cheap Solar, Cheap Wind, Marijuana & More
(World Economic Forum)
(24/7 Wall St.)
Stat Oil bails on tar sands, invests in Wind Power (Clean Technica) Related: Stat Oil wins out over 13 other companies for New York offshore lease of 79,350 acres for wind power farm (CNBC)
50 Tips on how to slow the Electric Car Revolution in case, for some perverted reason, you don't want humans to drive cleaner, more enjoyable, more exciting and safer electric cars (Clean Technica)
Review of the new Lucid Air $160,000 electric car (Yahoo)
7 Bad health and science ideas that should die with 2016 (Vox)
With the highest opioid deaths in the USA, drug companies flooded West Virginia with more than 780,000,000 pain pills over 6 years (2007-2012) (NPR)
Related: Former Delegate (and Pharmacist) Don Perdue (D) from Wayne County: "Distributors have fed their greed on human frailties and to criminal effect. There is no excuse and there should be no forgiveness."
(Natural Society)
The ten largest marijuana companies 50 Tips on how to slow the Electric Car Revolution in case, for some perverted reason, you don't want humans to drive cleaner, more enjoyable, more exciting and safer electric cars (Clean Technica)
Review of the new Lucid Air $160,000 electric car (Yahoo)
With the highest opioid deaths in the USA, drug companies flooded West Virginia with more than 780,000,000 pain pills over 6 years (2007-2012) (NPR)
Related: Former Delegate (and Pharmacist) Don Perdue (D) from Wayne County: "Distributors have fed their greed on human frailties and to criminal effect. There is no excuse and there should be no forgiveness."
(Natural Society)
(24/7 Wall St.)
(Naked Capitalism)
Labels:
Drug Abuse,
EV Cars,
Health,
Lucid Air,
Made In America,
Marijuana,
Opioids,
Science,
Solar Power,
Sta Oil,
Tar Sands,
West Virginia,
Wind Power
27 December 2016
Shaky Ground: Weekly Charts For Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), Gold & Silver Before Markets Open @ 9:30 12/27/16
A prognostication of sorts:
Readers of the news stories I supply to this blog will know about the recent demonetization of India's largest currency notes by Prime Minister Modi and the effect it is having on the lowest caste of poor people, and now India's middle-class. India is a notoriously corrupt economy built on cash transactions and now with less than a week, and bank lines still circling entire blocks, tens of millions of India's poorest people will not be able to turn in older, higher denomination Rupees for the newer notes Modi has declared "legal". Meaning many a poor person with worthless Rupee denominations no longer legal will pick up the torches and weapons Come 2017. Hence, I expect the protests and riots already taking place in India to take on a new fever pitch.
Reader of this blog's news stories would also know the shaky pilings the Chinese Yuan stands on at this moment as the Red Chinese Government continues to devalue it's currency to keep export pricing competitive, while "dark channel" money is being dumped on a runaway housing bubble like we here in the West went through in 2004-2006. Chinese authorities are running out of plays now, having their Central bank buy billions of shares of stocks on their biggest exchange to support it, devaluing the Yuan, building infrastructure projects with no tenants or cars using them, importing pollution of "dirty" industries from the West, instituting "corruption" campaigns which chase their wealthiest kleptocrats and Oligarchs to flee the country, etc. At the moment, millions of Chinese are fleeing major cities as air pollution has turned day into dusk. Hence, I expect something bad to happen to the Chinese economy in 2017 too.
In the interim, the US Dollar is at a 14 year high against world currencies. The dollar is king and our US Federal Reserve has already begun to raise rates, meaning the dollar will become even stronger against weaker currencies around the planet. Imports to America are about to climb in price. People shopping at Walmart will see that smiley face icon on "sales" signs soon change to an upside down frown.
Toss in the election of Donald Trump, and now the whole world is watching America's next move.
Meanwhile, in a flight to safety, Chinese, Indian, and even Russian Oligarchs and Kleptocrats have been fleeing Canadian and European real estate as "safe havens" and they are now investing in expensive American real estate and stocks.
Many a pundit predicted gold and silver would explode, and stocks would tank, on election day if Trump was named winner.
That never happened. Cash is king, the US dollar is supreme, and ill-gotten wealth from around the globe is now investing in our stock markets along with what Wall Street watchers expect will be tens of billions of repatriated dollars held by US based multi-national corporations in overseas banks.
And then there is Donald Trump™, former Populist on the campaign trail, who has pulled the biggest bait and switch operation on America's working class voters in my life time.
Unlike Trump™'s low information voters, Wall Street is watching Trump™, not listening to him. The markets have kept on rising on what Wall Street perceives as a "Swamp Friendly" and "Business Friendly" administration where the banksters, oil men and the military industrial corporatists have met - and are hired - by the new boss who is more connected to Billionaires than any President in our history. If you don't believe me, just peruse the stocks for banks, defense contractors and oil/gas companies. All of them have been on a tear since Trump™ was elected.
That said, the three charts here, one for a Bitcoin Investment Trust, one for gold, one for silver, all drawn in weekly Japanese Candlestick charts, are telling me that bitcoin, gold and silver are "basing" and possibly getting ready to break upward. (Let me clarify, Bitcoin has been on a steady upward trek for all of 2016, and may soon hit its 2016 high again.)
A breakout on any of these would mean the confidence in this "Trump Rally" is done.
So I will update these three charts going forward for readers of the 360 Horizon blog because this will be a major "tell" on how the world's leaders and countries perceive Trump™, and these three charts, along with the Baltic Dry Charts, copper and few more indicators I watch might tip us off if a Global Recession is ready to bust a move.
One last thought: as soon as Donald Trump™ takes the keys to the White House and tweets the first dangerously ill-informed Tweet at 4:00 AM in his first three months of "slumming" at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW in Washington DC, I am willing to bet bitcoins, gold and silver will quickly become the "safe haven" of choice around the planet and the next global Recession will be ignited.
I will update the following three charts on Fridays going forward.
Good day, good evening, whatever it may be wherever you are,
- Rock
p.s. When I use a solid line for a trendline, that means the trendline has been set in place for a good while.
Dashed trendlines signal trendlines which are in the process of being "confirmed" and are not as "probable" to trade off.
For instance, if we end this week with a higher low and higher high for the gold weekly chart Japanese candlestick, that temporary trendline will now become "confirmed" and I will change it to a solid line end of business on Friday.
If this does not make sense to you, leave questions here on the blog so that I might elucidate further.
(Click Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC) Weekly Chart Above To Enlarge)
(Click Gold Weekly Chart Above To Enlarge)
(Click Silver Weekly Chart Above)
Labels:
bitcoin,
China,
Donald Trump™,
Gold,
India,
Prime Minister Modi,
Recession,
Silver,
weekly charts
26 December 2016
Interesting Reads for Tuesday, 27 December 2016: Mosul Dam, Bitcoin Price Surge, Animal Photos & More
Islands of Mass Destruction: How China killed essential reefs and built military bases on top (Bloomberg Businessweek)
Mars rover Curiosity views spectacular layered rock formations which remind us of Southwest buttes in the USA (Geology In)
China Plans to Land Probes on Far Side of the Moon, Mars by 2020 (NY Times)
Our favorite Wired Long Reads of the year (Wired)
Why do I torture my kids … with classical music? (Vitaly Katsenelson's Contrarian Edge)
Prices Have Exploded Upward As Investors Chase Bitcoins As A Safe Haven (Coin Telegraph)
The Big Picture Blog looks at "Amazing Animals 2016" (The Boston Globe)
Grand Chess Master Gary Kasparov Interviewed About Putin, Trump, and Democracy - "Why Dictators Hate Chess" (Slate)
Trump Is Already Ditching His Movement (The National Review)
The Toughest Man in America (Alabama Political Reporter, Josh Moon)
Quote of the Day, Monday, 26 Dec. 16, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron….Is there no other way the world may live?”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
Interesting Reads for Monday, 26 December 2016: Best Nat Geo Photos 2016, Gravitational Waves, Best Song of 2016 & More
(click image to enlarge)
National Geographic's 52 best images of the year—curated from 91 photographers, 107 stories, and 2,290,225 photographs. (National Geographic Magazine)
National Geographic's 52 best images of the year—curated from 91 photographers, 107 stories, and 2,290,225 photographs. (National Geographic Magazine)
How the Navy’s Zumwalt-Class Destroyers Ran Aground (National Review)
Fascinating Graph To View: How Americans Spent Their Money In The Last 75 Years (howmuch.net)
Fascinating Graph To View: How Americans Spent Their Money In The Last 75 Years (howmuch.net)
Low Costs of Solar Power & Wind Power Crush Coal, Crush Nuclear, & Beat Natural Gas (Clean Technica)
23 December 2016
Interesting Reads for Friday, 23 December 2016: Obama Protects Atheists, Berlin Terrorist Shot Dead, How Life Began
Labels:
Abyss,
Arctic,
Atheists,
Berlin,
Climate Change,
Drain The Swamp,
Fault,
Fisheries,
Google,
Honda,
How Life Began,
Obama,
Siberia,
Terrorist,
Trump™ Hotels,
Unions
22 December 2016
Interesting Reads for Thursday, 22 December 2016: Sea Creatures, Millenials, Peak Cars & More
This Russian Deep Sea Fisherman Posts His Discoveries on Twitter and OH MY GOD KILL IT WITH FIRE (Gizmondo)
Peak Car Market: 32% of Trade-Ins On Car Lots Now Upside Down On Their Loans . . . Negative Balances on Trade-Ins Are Now An Average ($4,832) (The Detroit News)
Young Americans Living With Parents At 75 Year High (Wall Street Journal)
Is Age 30 The New 20? (Marketwatch)
How to Convince Someone When Facts Fail (Scientific American)
Smog refugees flee Chinese cities as "airpocalypse" blights half a billion people
China's Alibaba back on US counterfeits blacklist (BBC)
Trump Appoints "Death By China" Author Peter Navarro To Head Trade Office, Hints At Trade War With Beijing (Zero Hedge)
India’s Small Businesses Facing “Apocalypse” After Demonetisation Experiment KOs The Economy (The Guardian)
Strange Music, Owned By A Gangster Rapper, Enforces The Toughest "On The Road" Rules for Artists (Wall Street Journal)
Find the No. 1 Song on the day you were born (Playback.FM)
Labels:
Alibaba,
Birthday Song,
China,
Deep Sea Fish,
Demonetisation,
Facts,
India,
Millenials,
Music,
Peak Cars,
Smog,
Trump,
Upside Down Car Loans
21 December 2016
Interesting Reads for Wednesday 21 December 2016: Energy Storage, Science Rocks, Obama Blocks & More
It's Energy Storage's Time To Shine (Travis Holum - Motley Fool)
Ford To Close F-150 Kansas Plant For One Week To Decrease Slow Moving Inventory, GM To Lay Off Another 1,300 Workers In March (Reuters)
Does Elon Musk really want to create The Boring Company to build underground roads? (International Business Times, UK)
7/11 and Flirtey Beat Amazon and Deliver 77 Packages by Drones in Reno, Nevada (Phys Org)
President Obama Invokes 1953 Law To Indefinitely Block Drilling In Arctic And Atlantic Oceans (CNBC)
Alaska's Indigenous People See Their Culture Slipping Away As Sea Ice Vanishes (Guardian)
A Feminine Response To Iceland's Financial Crash (TEDTalk)
Carl Sagan on Humility, Science as a Tool of Democracy, and the Value of Uncertainty (Brain Pickings)
Donald Trump's War On Science (The New Yorker)
Trump Rejects Climate Change, But Mar-A-Lago Could Be Lost to the Sea (Bloomberg Business Week)
Labels:
Alaska,
Arctic Ocean,
Atlantic Ocean,
Batteries,
Carl Sagan,
Donald Trump™,
Drilling,
Drones,
Elon Musk,
Energy Storage,
Financial Crisis,
Ford (F),
GM (GM),
Iceland,
Layoffs,
Obama,
Science,
Sea Ice,
Solar,
Tunnels
02 September 2016
News You Can Use for Friday, 2 September 2016
Will Amazon stranglehold Fed Ex and UPS, and finally squeeze the life out of both of them?
The Amazing Story of a just deceased 92 year old janitor, who amassed a $8 million fortune by investing in stocks for the long term, and who left behind much of his wealth to his small Vermont town's library and hospital
US Auto Sales Fall 4.2% for August 2016; Carmakers Say Industry Has Peaked
The coming storm for global financial markets
China's Falling Rail Freight Volume Worries Leaders Greatly
Great Britain faces a retirement disaster in 10 years time
A Visual Capitalist Chart: Which Countries Are Damaged Most By Low Oil Prices?
Why they did it: Maddof and Enron's Fastow Explain the Biggest Frauds In US History
Why Lululemon Stock Is Falling In Thursday's (1 Sep 16) After-Hours Session
Iran signs seven oil deals with firms from Austria, France, Germany, Indonesia and Rusia
01 September 2016
News You Can Use for Thursday, 1 September 2016
Alien Like Clouds Over America's Northwest In A Slide Show
Utility Stocks Just Hit A Sigma 3 Deviation: Odds Of This Happening Are 1 In Every 1200 Years
Bonds Are Priced For Armageddon; Stocks Priced For the Golden Age
Earnings recessions such as we are experiencing now have always ended badly over the past 50 years
Iran's Middle Class Still Waiting For The Economic Recovery Promised By Leaders When Sanctions Were Dropped By The USA
Iranian Oil Exports To Asia Rise 61% Year Over Year Since Sanctions Dropped by the USA
Secretary General of OPEC, Mohammed Barkindo, to arrive in Iran soon to persuade them to join the "oil freeze"
Newly Expanded Panama Canal Benefits New LNG Exports From the USA: Also, New Spot Price Trade for US LNG Coming
South Korea's Hajin Shipping, world's 7th largest container ship firm, falls into receivership . . . ships stuck in ports worldwide which refuse to unload/load them
Labels:
Apple (AAPL),
Earnings,
Exercise,
Iran,
Jim Morrison,
Laurel Canyon,
LNG,
National Parks,
Oil,
OPEC,
Panama Canal,
Recession,
Sigma 3,
Utility Stocks,
Vietnam
31 August 2016
News You Can Use for Wednesday, 31 August 2016
Boeing, Apple Take Down the Dow 30 Yesterday In Trading
Gold hits 2 month low on hints from the Fed about outlook affecting rise in the US Dollar
Oil Discoveries Hit 70 Year Low
Oil slides to 3 week low on stockpile data
After Merging With BG Group In February 2016, Shell Is Now On A Tear To Sell $30 Billion In Assets
Warren Buffett's Berkshire buys more shares of Phillips 66
Ford Offers 0% Financing And 72 Month Loans
Japan: Unemployment Rate Hits 2 Decade Low
Thousands of new blue lakes appear in Antarctica
A Dozen Ways Michael Bloomberg Thinks Like Charlie Munger
Labels:
Antarctica,
Apple (AAPL),
Boeing (BA),
Charlie Munger,
Dow,
Federal Reserve,
Ford,
Gold,
Japan,
Michael Bloomberg,
Oil,
Shell
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