Financial topics

[gerald]

Ah --- The best laid plans of mice and men --- physics and nature have laws that are a little difficult to ignore

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... 7-14-33-47

HUGE SOLAR PLANT LAGS IN EARLY PRODUCTION

One of the reasons is as basic as it gets: The sun isn't shining as much as expected.

It had been projected to produce its full capacity for 8 hours a day, on average.

Operators initially expected to need steam from gas-powered boilers for an hour a day during startup. After operations began, they found they needed to keep boilers running more than four times longer - an average of 4 1/2 hours a day.

State energy regulators in August approved the plant's request to increase the natural gas it is allowed to burn by 60 percent.

It could take until 2018 for the plant backed by $1.6 billion in federal loan guarantees to hit its annual peak target,

When the $2.2 billion complex opened, Energy Department Secretary Ernest Moniz called it a "symbol of the exciting progress" in renewable energy.

hmmmmm

That's interesting. They say that the sun isn't shining as much as expected, but elsewhere we read California is in a drought. This seems like the most sensible explanation:

A little bit of inefficiency with mirrors can translate into a loss of power output ranging from small to significant, said Dr. Neil Fromer, executive director of the Resnick Sustainability Institute at the California Institute of Technology.

Faulty design.

Why would it take 4 years to ramp up anything? "Just get me through the next election cycle."

And just think about the complexity of the installation, how many mirrors, how many controls, how many moving parts? And what about, insects, dust, rodents etc. it is surprising how creative they can be. and having experience with them, they can really gum up things.

[John]

> My mother, who is 80 and not in any way a serious trader, has stop
> loss orders. Margin trading is at or near all time highs. You can
> do computerized trading algorithms on your home PC for your own
> account. The crash could be more sudden than any other US
> crash.

Your mother should not count on being saved by her stop loss order.
How many similar stop loss orders have investors set up? Millions?
Tens of millions? Whatever the number, they'll all be triggered at
once. Routers will be jammed. Servers will be jammed and crash. Web
sites will be like healthcare.gov on day 1 (only 6 orders processed
all day). Data base performance will plunge because of massive
numbers of record locks. Of those systems that manage to stay up,
orders will be prioritized so that the elite's sell orders will be
processed first. The whole system will be bogged down with multiple
crashes, just like the 1929 ticker tape. With everything bogged down,
the market won't fall more than 10-20% on the first day, and will then
recover the next day.

You say, "The crash could be more sudden than any other US crash."
That's not the real story. You have to distinguish between the panic
and the crash. "The panic will be worse than any other US panic."
The panic will be worldwide, and that day will forever be seared into
history. But the actual losses on the first day will be blocked by
overloaded, crashing computer systems.

Anyway, warn your mother.

[gerald]

aedens ---
The problems really become prominent, when the productive decide there is no pint being productive. Then who do the moochers and parasites live off of then ? Collapse and turmoil?
hmmm

I talk to a very few people who "get it". Unfortunately many people have never read Atlas Shrugged, and do not understand the meaning of "going Galt", and most that do understand do not have the economic circumstances or the skills. I believe that it will take many years for the productive people to quit. There is no benefit for the productive to quit other than simple hatred of the gov't. The fantasy of going Galt sounds appealing until one realizes the sacrifices that have to be made in lifestyle; and face it, the productive have a generally comfortable lifestyle.

It is apparent that the Ebola scare will not be the Black Swan event that many of us had initially feared; but there is sufficient distrust in the media and the gov't that more cases are In the US than we know. But it doesn't seem that a critical mass has occurred to overwhelm the health care system at this time. When a pandemic actually hits, and it will, the productive who have thought things through will no longer support the unproductive, and I believe that at such time going Galt will actually occur with a pandemic. However, in all likelihood it will be many years.

Unfortunately the latest executive order on immigration will push a few more productive over the edge. I find it hard not to take the plunge; but I still enjoy what I do, feel satisfaction, but think "Why continue?"

There is another "problem" with the productive, it may be unique to the productive, which was hit upon at some length in "Atlas Shrugged". That is the productive "want" to be productive and when they are not, they feel they need to be, ( like a curse ) -- some inner force. I am 70, supposedly retired, sold my business and put the assets into another less intensive business venture. Last year I invested six figures into the business which will have benefits for at least the next 30 years, why?. And still I am branching out into another endeavor. Why? These activities will not improve my life style, I probably have and have done what many could only dream of , and yet I push on ,. Why?

[Higgenbotham]

> This no shock to anybody who has been posting here but the "when"
> has run out of time on my clock.

What does this mean? Have you gotten out of the market?

It doesn't mean I've given up on a crash or am out of the market.

But what it does mean is back in 2004 or so I was talking to some people about the idea I had that the stock market and the economy were going to crash. This had to do with the real estate bubble that was going on at the time. At that time, even those who were predicting that the bubble would burst had no idea how big it could get or for how long. Based on demographics, the big homebuilders were predicting a boom that would last until 2012, for example. I remember another prognosticator saying that the stock market bubble would grow until 2012, for example. In 2004, that seemed possible to me, but not probable.

And I told people at that time that the bubble would burst as early as 2005 and as late as 2013.

That was my big picture view going back 10 years.

Even less probable, in my view back in 2004, was that once the bubble burst that they would ever be able to bring it back.

In Rickard's presentation, he talks about how every dollar of new debt is now returning 3 cents. I believe that is probably about right. That kind of number is telling us that it's not probable at all that the system would have held together this long. Very steady conditions are needed to keep from oscillating for long enough under the zero line to blow everything apart.

[Higgenbotham]

Regarding how the stock market can drop, I don't think it will be like anything that has happened before.

Panic isn't in the vocabulary this time in my opinion. This is just the Fed coming in and establishing arbitrary numerical values. Exactly how it's being done we don't know but it's about computers and the Fed basically saying let's put it here, let's put gold here, etc. Panic is when humans get scared and sell and there are no other humans to buy because they are all scared. In this market, the Fed somehow buys (or as some like to say the computers buy).

The crash happens when the whole system blows apart. When it does, I think the market will be closed like it was on 9-11 and, if they can, the number the Dow is at the second it is arbitrarily closed will be posted. Then if enough order can be restored so that the market can be opened again, it will be opened and the fact that enough order is restored to open it again will mean the same game will start again. If order can't be restored, and at some point it won't be, the arbitrary number will stay there as the last price. It might be 6,000 or 16,000 but it won't matter. There will be talk about when the market is going to open again but it will never open again as things continue to disintegrate.

What I notice is even those who believe there is going to be a crash believe markets have to continue to somehow work "properly", is the best word I can think of. They can just stop working and cease to function or exist. That's already basically happened. These are just arbitrary numbers at this point. I think Zero Hedge talks about this all the time.

The other thing I would think to add is that this all ties back to zero percent interest rates being set by the Fed for a long time, about 6 years now. Zero percent interest rates more than temporarily means the system has stopped working properly. The fact that money is paying no interest and can't pay any interest is corroborated by the fact that each dollar of added debt does nothing for the economy. Money or any asset that has no return in the long run is becoming worthless in the long run. By "worthless" I don't mean "hyperinflation". "Hyperinflation" implies something is going down and something is going up in a system that is still functional, as in positive returns can be achieved in some unit of measure. This is about the entire world as we know it ceasing to exist as we know it and money ceasing to have any function, whether it is sound money or not.

[vincecate]

Anyway, warn your mother.

Yes, I have.

[aedens]

http://www.intelligentliving.co/salt-wa ... -approval/

Truth is the powers that be want to make their money from black gold first which they can control in order to give them time to work
out how to meter such energy before its release.

Energy clusters will determine what, not who moves forward.

Aggregate is a bitch on a leash.

[bluebird]

Higgie - That is an interesting perspective that the market exchanges could be closed arbitrarily at some point in time. Nothing moves in or out. Mutual funds frozen, etc. That would be a panic. To carry this thought further... could you see money frozen in small savings accounts at local banks or credit unions too? People assume they have FDIC insurance that their money is safe.

[gerald]

Higgie - That is an interesting perspective that the market exchanges could be closed arbitrarily at some point in time. Nothing moves in or out. Mutual funds frozen, etc. That would be a panic. To carry this thought further... could you see money frozen in small savings accounts at local banks or credit unions too? People assume they have FDIC insurance that their money is safe.

Nothing is really "safe" just different degrees of risk, we live in a maze of mirrors and lies.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-2 ... ia-exposed

---- Disinformation Unmasked: The Alternative Media Exposed ----- This is an interesting illustration of this maze of mirrors.

"It is understood that with the overwhelming financial resources at its disposal; the One Bank has been able to (literally) buy each-and-every mainstream media outlet across the Western world, with all of these media outlets controlled within a mere handful of its 147 corporate fronts. We understand that because of this media oligopoly that, conservatively speaking, 99% of what is spewed by the mainstream media is irredeemably tainted – and thus cannot be relied upon."

---- as the old saying goes -- chose wisely --

[gerald]

and for your amusement ---

Explosive Excrement Topples Building In China, 15 Injured --- http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-2 ... 15-injured

When you understand the difference between the "Onion" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Onion -- and reality, let me know.

cheers