Vox Popoli

From SKI: The SKI indices have the gold stocks by the “pants.” A drop on Monday of 1% (the gold mutual fund USERX falling below 8.44) will cause a sell. A drop of 5% by Tuesday’s close will generate a terribly bearish triple sell. But the buy signal remains intact and USERX (the gold mutual fund) closed on Friday one penny over the critical point of 8.50! Furthermore, gold stocks need to rise 5% next week to avoid a sell signal. I expect the rise, remaining long from 8.36, but am ready to sell if so required…. In the bigger picture, gold stocks have declined and gone sideways for more than 4 months, as I sold near both the December and January highs. The next few days will end the critical period and establish the trend for months if not years to come (looks like years to me).

I haven’t previously followed SKI’s gold stock system, but I’ve been keeping an eye on it recently as a possible means of distinguishing between gold bulls like Adam Hamilton, who are expecting massive inflation in the coming years, and bears such as Robert Prechter, who is expecting deflation based on the Elliott Wave patterns. I tend to fall in with Hamilton, as the Elliott Wave patterns do not account for inflation, an omission that, in my opinion, has wrongly led Prechter to predict every market for everything to go down. He’s surely right about some of them, but it’s hard to credit ALL of them going in the same direction.

In any event, it can’t hurt to keep an eye on USERX at 8.51, which means that anyone in gold will be concerned about a drop to 8.08 by Tuesday’s close. Then again, to mix a few systems, if not metaphors, it’s interesting to see that as near as I can tell, the Elliott Waves for USERX look rather like a wave 5 of 3 up is about to take off, thus offering some support for SKI’s notion that USERX will rise to 8.93 by week’s end to avoid sending any clear signals.

If the gold stocks movement was echoed in bullion, this would have some interesting implicatons for Hamilton’s R/DMA system. A five percent rise by Friday would take us to a reasonable sell at $442 with an R/DMA of 1.132. A five percent drop by Tuesday would indicate a definite buy at $399 with an R/DMA of 1.025. That would take guts, and as usual, the more you know, the more you’re sure you don’t know anything. Since the last R/DMA signal was the 1.023 on March 3rd, I think the rise is more likely, probably to around $450 and a definite trader’s sell of 1.152.

From the Star Tribune: Analysts estimate that 30 to 40 percent of U.S. vehicle owners are upside down at trade-in. With credit-card debt and bankruptcies already running at record highs, auto loans are one more way for consumers to land themselves in financial trouble…. About 75 percent of Americans take out loans to buy new vehicles, said Bob Kurilko, vice president of marketing for Edmunds.com, an auto research Web site. Fifteen percent lease. About 10 percent pay cash. In the past five years, according to the Federal Reserve Bank, the size of the average vehicle loan has gone from $19,880 to $27,240 — an increase of 37 percent. Yet many consumers say they want to hold the line on their monthly payments. The solution: extend the term of the loan. The average length of vehicle loans has increased from four years to five since 1999, according to the Federal Reserve, and many automakers are offering longer terms than ever…. “It’s absolutely insane,” Kurilko said. The average deficit of owners who are upside down at trade-in is $3,700, he said.

It’s easy to think that the American economy is humming along when you drive around and see all the new cars and the big new houses being constructed in placed like Oakdale and Woodbury. But then you read something like this and realize that it’s all being funded on a tide of easy credit, which indicates a classic Austrian bust is going to be coming along soon enough. Even the Keynesians should be a bit concerned, since if I=S, there isn’t going to be much growth-generating Investment by entrepeneurs when the Savings rate is below one percent.

Truly, the $13 trillion in derivatives would tend to indicate that I=D, as in Debt. And of course, the article mentioned above indicates a large part of C=D as well. And we already know that quite a bit of G=D too, since the Government is borrowing $64 billion a month just to pay its bills. So, apparently, GDP = D+D+D. Who’s got a model for that?

I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps The Lord of the Rings wasn’t intended to be a critique of central banking.

UPDATE: Speaking of the humming economy: And here’s another twist: last week’s miraculous and widely applauded jobs report shows a preliminary, seasonally-unadjusted increase in government payrolls of more than half the 308,000 reported. We can see the wonks at work all around the beltway: “Heck, if we can’t make the jobs appear, well…we can just hire the workers ourselves!” The U.S. Government already employs nearly 22 million people. What’s another 159,000?

In my hometown, no less. Just in case anyone’s interested, St. Paul of the Fraters Libertas was kind enough to invite me to appear on 1280AM-the Patriot, from 2-3 PM on April 17, for the last hour of the Northern Alliance Radio Show. I’m quite looking forward to it, as their blog indicates that we appear to have complimentary sense of humor. I think I can guarantee:

1. Gratuitous slams on the Minnesota Golden Gophers Women’s Basketball Team

2. The Star and Sickle’s performance of a metaphorical Monica on the aforementioned.

3. Much-deserved criticism of Sid Hartman and his noted work in the field of economics.

I don’t know if they’re taking calls or not, but if they are, I’ll post it here. Also, if anyone knows where it’s being broadcast on the Internet, please let me know.

By the way, a little rumor I heard firsthand from a media honcho who is in a position, if not to know, at least be well-informed, suggests that Alice only has funding through November, and that Air America has not been successful in finding advertisers for their shows. Personally, I expect some sort of manufactured reason to close down operations before that, as Alice will need an excuse to avoid admitting that he got his head handed to him.

It’s no shame to get stomped by Rush, who, unlike Howard Stern, actually is the king of all media. But to be shown up by Bill Bennett? The Gambler may be good company in Vegas, but he’s not exactly the most dynamic individual I’ve ever heard.

Nate writes of the death-embracing Shiites: I think people confuse this mindset, with that of the great warriors of the past like the Vikings and the Samari. Blowing one’s self up on a passenger bus would hardly qualify you for Valhalla. The Viking Warriors didn’t need to be brainwashed for three days before battle in order to welcome death. It was simply who they were. Courage was simply their way. Much in the way that cowardice is the way of the people we are dealing with now.

I’m not sure about that, but Nate’s comment reminds me of something. Years ago, I was flying out to New York with my band to meet with TVT, and I happened to be reading a collection of old Viking legends. The tale of Arrow-Odd has stuck in my mind, as I kept cracking up while reading it, and one of my bandmates asked me what was so funny. So, I read a little bit of it and looked up to see everyone in the near vicinity staring at me with horrified faces, which, of course, only made me laugh again.

What I found amusing was one part of the tale, when Arrow-odd’s best friend is given a mortal blow while they are out a-viking. The friend has been secretly in love with a Viking princess, who happens to return his affections. Arrow-odd avenges his friend’s death, naturally, being the hero and all, then returns to his friend and listens to his final words, which are not quite as immortal as Mercutio’s, but nevertheless striking as he removes his armband and asks Arrow-odd to give it to the princess along with his death-greeting. Upon his return, Arrow-odd hands her the armband, as directed, at which point she recognizes it and immediately collapses at his feet, dead of heartbreak. The very next line, which I still remember clearly, was what amused me so:

“Arrow-odd threw back his head and laughed.” Now, that’s a warrior ethic! Death, be not proud.

Margot Miflin discovers intellectual diversity on Salon: I was sitting in therapy describing an in-law I like, and quickly heading for a “but.” “He’s a loving, caring, selfless man — but his politics are all about hatred,” I said. “He’s not educated, and more significant, he’s ignorant — he actually listens to Rush Limbaugh.” I waited for a “Whoo boy!” or a sympathetic smile, but my shrink just stared at me, expressionless.

“I assume you’re not a Limbaugh fan,” I ventured, assured that this woman, so nuanced in her thinking, couldn’t possibly be a Dittohead. She was so reasonable that I couldn’t imagine her getting off on Rush’s demented tirades. She didn’t seem square enough for his politics, and I was certain no hate radio fan was capable of her intellectual sophistication. Besides, she was an educated urban Jewish professional, and Rush’s audience consisted largely of white suburban males.

She held my gaze a few excruciating seconds longer. “Actually, I am,” she said. My moral compass began spinning wildly. I was suddenly sitting with someone new. The levelheaded sage in whom I’d confided for nearly a year had been replaced by an off-the-rack ideologue.

There’s a few interesting revelations here. Beyond the usual left-liberal nonsense about hate = not liberal, the idea that listening to Rush Limbaugh makes one ignorant is truly bizarre. Ignorance is a state of knowledge. There are surely many, many ignorant Limbaugh fans, just as there are indubitably ignorant Frankenfans. Indeed, Al Franken himself is a shockingly ignorant man, as he required 14 researchers just to come up with numerous assertions that I was able to refute off the top of my head. But ignorance and Rush Limbaugh listening can at most have a parallel relationship, not a causal one, and one might easily build a case for precisely the opposite position, as any Limbaugh listener would probably far exceed the average American’s knowledge of the current dramatis personae politiche.

Second, and more significant, is the unconscious confession of the belief that an ideological difference of opinion is fundamentally moral. This is why I regularly mock American liberals as moral supremacists, who despite their moral relativism will often assert that they are morally superior beings due solely to their ideological identification. It is a literally nonsensical point of view – and admittedly one that not all American liberals are foolish enough to share – but as most left-liberals will be quick to inform you, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds like yours.

But as this therapist no doubt thought secretly to herself, it’s always most amusing to watch the cognitive dissonance explode inside the dysfunctional mind of the liberal moral supremacist, who cannot abide the notion of a smarter, better-educated individual who subscribes to an ideology of the right.

UPDATE: Nate points out: Note the begining of the piece. It’s the key to the humor of it all… You have a woman who clearly views herself as in control, intellegent, articulate, educated, and in all aspects superior to the man* she is talking about… And she begins the piece with the statement: “I was in therapy”

Good point, Nate. While I have a reasonable amount of left-liberal friends, most of my immediate social circle is conservative or libertarian. I think one of them was in a bit of therapy a few years back, and she’s one of the only left-liberals in the bunch. I think that would make for an interesting scientific study. What percentage of Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians have been in therapy*



* Actually, it was another woman, but you couldn’t tell from the bit I quoted.

** Rehab doesn’t count.

I’ve seen these cartoons around before, but I didn’t realize that they had a blog. Many of them are quite good; I particularly liked the two that were done after the elimination of the Hamas leader. Check out Cox and Fortnum’s editorial cartoons, if you haven’t already.

As everyone who visits here regularly is aware, I am highly critical of the Bush administration’s prosecution of this undeclared – on our part – war. That being said, I’m pleased to give credit where credit is due, most especially when it is due the United States Marine Corps. This is one of the first signs of good sense I’ve seen since the brilliant execution of the capture of Baghdad in less than a month.



The head of the Marines First Division, General James Mattis, defended the attack, warning if rebels used places of worship in their war against US forces, his troops would not hesitate to strike them at sacred sites. “If they barricade themselves inside a mosque, we are not going to care about the mosque anymore than they do,” Mattis said.

It’s still far too soon to see if the War on Global Jihad will end in victory, but at least there are early indications that this will not be another Vietnam, where the politicians tell the soldiers how to fight.

The Evangelical Outpost slams Harvard’s school of divinity by using the cruel technique of quoting its professors: When the faculty gathered recently to discuss Mel Gibson’s “The Passion”, the reaction was unanimous — they hated it. That in itself is probably to be expected since claiming an appreciation of the movie would have required taking a courageously contrarian stance. But the attitude toward the reference material is rather peculiar and disturbing: “Although Gibson claimed “The Passion of the Christ” remains true to the history of the Gospels, [François] Bovon pointed out that this might be a hollow claim. “The Gospels are history and interpretation,” he said. “The Gospels are not our best sources to the history of the passion of Jesus.”

Someone should point out to Dr. Bovon that the Gospels are the only sources to the history of the passion event. You would expect that the former dean of the University of Geneva to have access to that type of knowledge. (John Calvin, who founded the school, must be spinning in his grave.) Harvey Cox, who proudly wears the label of “heretic”, also weighs in: “The problem is that much of this stuff in the movie is in the Gospels,” countered Cox. “It’s read every Good Friday in churches.”

This reminds me of my favorite, and only, experience at Harvard when I was up there for the weekend visiting a friend. At a party that night, we were listening to a pretentious hockey player pontificate about how fabulous the school’s hockey team was, leaving everyone present with the distinct impression that he was a member of the team. He was more than a little put out when I asked him why he was not in Minnesota, as the team was away playing the Gophers that weekend. He finally admitted that he was just an intramural player, trying to impress the chickadees, of course. From such nebulous stuff are our political leaders made.

Steven Vincent writes on NRO of Shiite martyrdrama: Unless you have the instincts of a pre-Reformation Catholic peasant-or Mel Gibson — it is nearly impossible to grasp this appreciation of suffering and death. But here it is not death as a redemptive power, death as spectacle — a public expression that seeks the admiration of man as much as God. This is what, in my mind, separates Shia radicalism from its Sunni counterpart. Wahabbi and Palestinian suicide bombers seek honor and glorification by killing their enemies; the Shiites’ spiritual apotheosis, on the contrary, comes from having their enemies kill them — a kind of suicidal exhibitionism that fetishizes Hussein’s fate at Karbala. Early Christians felt that the blood of martyrs nourished the Church; Shiites believe that martyr blood will embellish their own holiness and that of their families for untold generations.

Seen in this light, it’s not surprising that the first eleven of Shia’s twelve sinless imams died by unnatural causes, their infallibility apparently unable to detect the poisons that dispatched each to Allah. (The 12th imam, Mohammad al-Mahdi, disappeared down a hole in Samarra and won’t be seen again until Judgment Day.) Contemporary imams have likewise met grisly fates. Last August, a car bomb killed Mohammad Baqr al-Hakim in Najaf. An interesting Shia poster depicts the slain cleric along with over 60 extended family members — all of whom were executed by Saddam Hussein — superimposed over a bleeding map of Iraq. More prevalent is a poster that shows a stunned Moqtada al-Sadr cradling his father, whom Saddam’s thugs murdered — along with Sadr’s two eldest brothers — in 1999. In 1980, Sadr’s uncle, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Baqr al-Sadr, and his aunt, Bint Hoda, also met death at Baathist hands — a legacy of martyrdom that gives the 31-year-old cleric a spiritual authority his youth would not otherwise warrant among the age-revering Shiites.

I have no doubt that the Marines will give al-Sadr what he appears to be seeking, but this underlines the point that I was making about how “lowering the boom” is unlikely to have the effect that it would have in a less death-worshipping culture. I don’t know precisely what the effect will be, nor do I fear the effects of “Shiite anger” – what does it matter if they’re angry when they hate you already – but I find it difficult to imagine that a people steeped in a mindset so alien and warped by decades of suffering are going to respond as we think they should.

I suspect it may be as Dobson writes of an abused child. Whereas discipline corrects the behavior of a normal, loved child, it does not have the same salutary effect on an abused child that has been given reason to fear and hate the abuser. And yet, it’s hard to even conceive the possibility of showing metaphorical love in this situation, particularly through the unlikely device of the USMC. Well, it’s unwise to attempt to build a military strategy around a metaphor anyhow.