One Heads Up!

Archive for the ‘The Big Picture’ Category

July 3, 2010

To celebrate the oncoming “Day of Independence” I am reprinting an article in its entirety concerning what I have previously written: the true condition of our economy and the the truth behind the total BS we are all being fed. Here it is:

The bad news just keeps-a-comin’. Four reports were released today and all four were bad, but the worst of the bunch was pending home sales and the weekly jobless claims. Before Friday’s big Monthly Jobs Data we received the weekly jobless claims and once again they sucked. Seriously, you’d have to be a dumb as an economist to think this data series was getting better. Expectations were for an increase of 450,000 new jobless claims (yes, for one week) but the real number was 472,000. Of course this surprised only the truly fatuous in the economy: economists. Another “surprise” came from pending home sales. This report wasn’t just bad, but the worst EVER. Pending home sales plummeted 30% month-on-month, which was as I said – the worst ever. Of course the stock market was hammered again but rebounded off of support that we gave in Notes From The Pit. The double-dip is coming as well as a new bear market. Karl Denninger said this about the developments at The Market Ticker… The SPX, NDX, and Russell are all down monstrously from their higs, with the S&P 500 now back to levels seen the first week of September – of 2009. The Dow and Transports both broke their significant lows, confirming a Dow Theory SELL signal. We are now officially (back) in a Bear Market. A Bear Market that virtually every so-called “expert” and a whole host of prognosticators claimed couldn’t and wouldn’t happen because “Bull Markets last, on average, 42 months.” The problem with their claim is that we weren’t in a Bull Market. We are still in the previous Bear Market which began in 2007. The Government conspired with the banks and mainstream media to suck you into believing in a faux “Pax Americana” recovery that in point of fact never really happened. You’ve lost 36% of the “gains” – more than a third – you had off the March 2009 lows. You are now down 30% from the highs – still. Cramer’s “Getting Back To Even” has now been exposed as a complete load of crap – the correct thing to do for long-term investors was to get the hell out of the market in late 2007 or early 2008 and stay the hell out. Free market? What free market? Borrowing and spending 12% of GDP to try to prevent the market from excising the excesses of intentional fraud is a “free market”? Allowing “high frequency traders” to step in front of you with various artifices and frauds is a “free market”? Propping up housing prices to keep you from being able to buy a house at a reasonable price, consigning you to being a debt slave and unable to sell should you need to move for reason, instead of deflating houses to make them more affordable is a “free market”? Continuing to lie about the sustainability and ability to pay public pensions and salaries – in some cases nearly three quarters of a million dollars for a school superintendent – is a free market? What are you folks smoking? The policymakers and crooners are pretty-clearly running out of rope. Mark my words on this – when the full depths of the coming collapse in stock prices has run its course, and 30 year Treasuries are going at a 2% coupon, you’ll be “offered” to convert your 401k or IRA to them with some of your losses “put back”, with one proviso – you can’t touch it until you’re 65. At 2% you’ll be getting screwed but 90% of Americans are too stupid to realize it and will take the deal. That’s the marker on the government’s funding model imploding within the next two to three years, and the market will discount that event long before it actually comes to fruition. Although I said the following yesterday, I believe it still applies, “If Friday’s monthly jobless data is bad, expect the trio of Keynesian idiots at the Treasury, White House, and Federal Reserve to “float” the idea of MORE stimulus (read: waste more money!). “Floating” the idea will certainly be little more than smoke and mirrors as the plan is already surely in place. And what better way is there to get what you want in Washington than a well-timed “emergency?” Hmm, is the current stock market slide ringing any bells? “If the Fed engineers QE2 and the White House engineers more wasted porkulus spending, even John Maynard Keynes will roll over in his grave in disgust!” Behold the age of infinite moral hazard! Legalized accounting fraud on a grand scale began on April 2nd, 2009 when CONgress forced FASB to suspend rule 157 in favor of deceitful accounting. Trade well and follow the trend, not the so-called “experts.” Go to www.PitNoise.com for a trial

June 29,2010

Sitting in my car on Thompson waiting for the alternate side of the street parking time to expire before I can leave it and head back to the loft. NYC has its charm for sure.

For some time now I have been creating income for myself trading options. Over the years I have morphed into an options trader and am presently working with Dan Sheridan in Chicago who is my guru and who has taught me how to make steady income using techniques he has developed himslf with over 25 years as a trader on the floor of the CBOE in, of course, Chicago.

It hasn’t been an easy ride. Before I met Dan I had tried several approaches to trading, learning as I went. I made great money and felt I had it all figured out and beat, only to give it all back and more besides. I discovered that this is a common pattern among traders. Learning techniques is certainly important, but learning yourself is what makes the trader or breaks him/her. And that part is the most difficult. It takes a long time to learn to take your profits and wait, if necessary, for another opportunity. Sometime, no trade is the best trade. But in the process of self discovery and options education, I also ;learned some other startling truths.

The first is, it isn’t an even playing field. The huge players call all the shots and their motions determine where markets come and go. Also, there is the PPT, or the Paulsen Protection Team which will often come in and change a market direction (down) buy using our money to buy and send prices higher. So if you are thinking that we are working within the Keynesian or Friedman free market, forget it.

The second is that the talking heads on TV and the web, plus the editors of most papers, in fact almost all the media, are totally reactionary and completely wrong about anything you might hear them say. Right now there is alot of talk about how the economy is improving and how we are on our way back and how everything wil be just dandy. I believe this to be ignorant, irresponsible and perhaps even egregious. The truth is that the multi trillion dollar debt existing in the world economy right now cannot be satisfied, There isn’t enough money in the world to do that. The present economic policies are totally backwards, maktng the situation worse,  not better. Funding the corporations which got us into this is not a viable answer. What we needed to see was that money coming back into circulation. That is not happening. All this BS fear of inflation is totally nuts. Inflation would be a dream come true. That means that there is commerce, activity, increasing GNP!. What we are facing is the real probl;em and much worse, much more dangerous: deflation.

I don’t know what the world will look like ten years from now. But the possibility exists that it will have very little relationship to what we now know. The USA and Western European countries may have to become one political/economic  entity and the dollar, or the Euro or the Pound will be relics of history. We can thank corporate greed for this, but the pattern has been repeating throughout history for hundreds (even thousands) of years. Historic macro economic studies of the world economies bear this out. It’s just the same old same old. The phrase “It’s different this time” has been repeated for each of these patterns over the ages, but it never is different. Never. We do not seem to learn from our mistakes. And so it goes . . . . .

June 27, 2010

Recovering from the Vespa accident has given me time to re-evaluate certain aspects of my life and having felt more intimately than ever before my own mortality, a perspective I feel is more realistic, and even hopeful.

I’m not someone who likes to use the word “hopeful”, or even “hope” because it seems part of the concept of “faith,” something else I feel needs to be looked at more closely. My BS meter has always been on full power and that has created in me someone who often does not make the most socially desirable responses in conversations, and which frequently sees me offering up too much information in new relationships. I don’t hold back information which others might very well decide to when revealing facts about my life, history, successes and failures. I mean, why bother? I  pay attention to what people do, not what they say and I expect the same to be applied to me. I am not ashamed of my life, or my mistakes and in fact am proud of many of my accomplishments, some in the face of very difficult odds. So rather than try to remember what I said or didn’t say, what I revealed or didn’t reveal, what I felt or wanted people to think I felt, I just let it all hang out. I’ll never get caught in a lie if all I tell, say and do is based on truthfulness, as best I can conceive it.

Today’s comments are meant to be a short and simple introduction to what I am planning will be a series of daily (that’s the plan) blog type annals. Tomorrow, I will begin by discussing in detail some of the subject areas I touched upon .

It’s late here now in New York and I’m going to get to bed. Need to get up to greet the disintegrating stock market in the morning. More on that immense BS is also on the way.

Good night, and please feel free to leave comments anytime.

Bruce

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I’m told that I was very lucky.

On April 6 I was out in the early evening on my Vespa with my good buddy, Herman Estevez who was on his, and we were heading up from Soho on the West Side to cross Central Park on the 79th Street transverse towards our favorite sushi place on East 80th Street and 2nd Avenue. I was not in good spirits that day.  In fact, I was feeling distracted and depressed. On a few occasions up the West Side Herman would yell at me to sit  up straight and pay attention. I was not riding smart.

The fact is I’m a biker with a custom Harley I’ve been riding for almost 20 years. I’ve put over 100,000 miles on motorcycles riding all over the Country and I consider myself a pretty skillful, careful (and lucky) rider, never having any serious accidents. My spills were pretty limited and had to do mostly .with parking lot maneuvers where gravel was involved. But this was not going to be a good day. As it turned out, when crossing the Park at 79th, I suppose I must have phased out for a moment. I remember seeing the curb and wall of the underpass suddenly freeze frame in front of me and I was unable to even react. Next thing I knew I was sitting off the road, someone was asking me if I could stand, lights were flashing. I tried to get up and my right leg just collapsed under me. I had a glimpse of the scooter on its side up the road a bit, and the ambulance crew had arrived and were administering oxygen and doing whatever they had to do on my way to New York Presbyterian on East 68th Street.

Cat scans, X-rays and MRIs all indicated that I had head injuries (concussion with light bleeding inter cranial), a fractured tibia on the right leg with a 3″ hole right into the ligaments surrounding the cap, a pretty badly beaten up left leg which was colored black from the knee to the hip and was forming the mother of all hematomas, and some serious road rash on my right shoulder. Very strange.

You should know that I have outgrown my days of riding with no protection and had a high quality helmet and an armored riding jacket and gloves. The helmet got pretty badly banged  up but probably saved my life as the head injuries which lingered for a few days eventually healed leaving me with fewer headaches and really painful legs. The jacket showed no damage to the right shoulder so I’m totally confused as to how I got such a nasty road rash there, but what the H.

I spent 10 days in the hospital and was transferred to St Charles Rehab in Port Jefferson out on Long Island. My significant other, Trisha, lives on Long Island and I was being prepared to eventually be released to her care. Seven days at St. Charles learning to walk, stand up and sit down, and other pretty necessary activities left me wanting to get out and eventually I was folded into a car and taken to Trisha’s house in Huntington. I’ve been there most of the time ever since.

She has admirably put up with my fussyness, complaining and downright disgust on being injured and not able to resume my normal life. But in fact I have made truly remarkable strides in just the past 8 days and was able to remove my right leg brace and replace it with a lightweight, movable knee brace which allows me to walk and drive, things I am able to do thanks to Victor, my rehab coach out in Huntington, who has been working with me and getting me back in shape.

I am resuming my schedule of returning to my loft in Soho during the week, but my usual manner was to commute on my Harley Road King, which I am putting off for the moment because I don’t have the leg strength to feel secure with it. But soon!! The Vespa was totaled according to the insurance company and I expect I will be looking for some kind of replacement eventually. Perhaps a less expensive Piaggio (the larger wheels attract me).

The bottom line is that my anxiety/ depression seems to have evaporated as I feel grateful for my good luck in surviving and in healing so quickly. Trisha and I are reinvigorated working in our business together and my curmudgeoniness seems to be intact, but less so than previously.

Amazing what a serious bang in the head can do for you.

Read at least once a week: Regina Brett

This is something we should all read at least once a week!!!!! Make  sure you read to the end!!!!!!   Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio

“To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick.  Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer…

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie..  Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22.. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ‘In five years, will this matter?’

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time, time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come.

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.”   Its estimated 93% won’t forward this. If you are one of the 7% who will, forward this with the title ‘7%’.   I’m in the 7%..  Friends are the family that we choose for ourselves

The symptoms of infertility are not always obvious, though most individuals tend to suspect that something isn’t quite right when they show up to the doctor for testing. Some infertility is unavoidable. As we age, for example, our bodies become more likely to be infertile. Some symptoms of infertility can be symptoms of other conditions and, whether or not one is trying to conceive, they should have those symptoms investigated in the interest of maintaining good overall health. Men and women can both exhibit symptoms which may be red flags for a fertility problem.

In women, one of the most obvious symptoms of infertility is an irregular or absent menstrual cycle. There are various conditions that can cause a woman’s menstrual cycle to be upset or absent and many of them are linked to infertility. Normally, a woman bleeds for 3 to 7 days. If bleeding is heavy or light, one should consult with their doctor. Excessive cramping and less or more days spent bleeding than normal can also be considered as reasons to visit a doctor to ensure that everything is in order. The menstrual cycle is one of the most valuable indicators of potential problems.

In men, sometimes symptoms of infertility aren’t readily apparent. Obviously, impotence is a symptom that should be checked out by a doctor sooner rather than later. Impotence can be a symptom of other disorders, as well, and merits a doctor’s visit. Men may have a reduced sperm count or issues with their sperm which are impossible to detect without visiting a clinic. These problems may or may not be treatable but, if trouble conceiving persists for a long period of time, the male partner should have their sperm checked out to make sure that all is well.

Age, though it seems obvious, is a major symptom of infertility. When women are in their early 30’s, they have about a 20 percent chance of becoming pregnant during any menstrual cycle. When they reach the age of 40, that percentage drops to around 5 percent. The body is less likely to conceive successfully as we age. Women who do become pregnant at a later age need more medical attention than do younger women and the baby must be carefully monitored for health inside the womb. The older one is, the harder it becomes to have children.

Some of the other symptoms of infertility are other disorders. If one has illnesses which are chronic such as diabetes they may have a lower chance of conceiving. The same applies for hyperthyroidism. Individuals who have had STDs may also have a lower chance of conceiving and, when they do conceive, there may be a higher risk of certain birth defects. Smoking and drinking are also linked to lower rates of fertility. Generally, if one does not have such a condition but it seems impossible to conceive, medical intervention will be necessary to diagnose any potential problems and, hopefully, to alleviate them.

Reproduced from an article on http://www.defeatinfertility.com

This is our contribution to a similar question on XANGA:http://bfields1.xanga.com/

Saturday, 12 September 2009

What were you doing when you first heard about the 9/11 terrorist attacks?

I work at home and usually get up between 8:00 and 8:30. That morning I was still in bed when the first plane was making its approach from the north. I could hear its jet engines which were on full throttle as the plane drew nearer, waking me and sending a chill through my body. I live in Soho, only a handful of blocks from the World Trade Center, have a few hundred hours flying a Cessna myself so I realized that something was very wrong. First of all, no flight paths to La Guardia, Kennedy  or Newark bring large planes over the middle of Manhattan at what sounded like just a few hundred feet! I felt that it was coming right at me and I actually believed I was going to die. There was no place to go in the 10 seconds it would take for it to reach me, so I forced myself to relax and thought how grateful I was for the good like I have had. I closed my eyes as the roar shook my loft building . . . .and heard it pass directly overhead.

The roar slowly diminished . . .for about 5 seconds. Then it stopped. Stopped? I thought I heard a “thump” and immediately pictured a commercial jet making an emergency landing in the Hudson River. What else could it be? I imagined what was happening . . . .big yellow slides popping out of the aircraft, people sliding down to safety, a big story on the  evening news. “I’m sure they will all be fine,” I thought as I considered catching another few minutes. But I was sitting bolt upright and realized that was not happening. I threw on my jeans and a t-shirt (it was an absolutely beautiful day) and walked outside, People on the street were all looking in the same direction and it took a second to realize that the WTC North tower was in flames, “What kind of an idiotic pilot would let that happen?” I thought. I knew he had plenty of time to maneuver away from any buildings.

I was thinking “This might be intentional” but was very uncertain that such an event was too strong a possibility. That was, until we saw approaching from the West and suddenly turning North the second plane. Oh my God! The street was filled with incredulity and awe. We couldn’t believe what we know was now the fact. We were under attack.

What happened to us downtown in the next several hours, days and weeks is a series of stories that could be told for hours, so won’t be here. But to me, having not died as I expected on the initial pass, melodramatic as that might seem right now, what actually was happening seemed a lot, lot worse.

Bruce Fields
www.oneheadsup.org

A Note From a Friend . . .Worth Remembering

A friend of mine opened his wife’s underwear drawer and picked up a silk paper wrapped package:

‘This,”  he said, “isn’t any ordinary package.”

He unwrapped the box and stared at both the silk paper and the box.

“She got this the first time we went to New York , 8 or 9 years ago.

She has never put it on , was saving it for a special occasion.

Well, I guess this is it.”

He got near the bed and placed the gift box next to the other clothing.
He was taking to the funeral house, his wife had just died.

He turned to me and said:

“Never save something for a special occasion.

Every day in your life is a special occasion.”

I still think those words changed my life.

Now I read more and clean less.

I sit on the porch without worrying about anything.

I spend more time with my family, and less at work. I understood that life should be a source of experience to be lived up
to,  not survived through.

I no longer keep anything for “special days.”

I use crystal glasses every day.

I’ll wear new clothes to go to the supermarket, if I feel like it.

I don’t save my special perfume for special occasions, I use it
whenever I want to.

The words ‘Someday’ and  ‘ One Day’ are fading away from my dictionary.

If it’s worth seeing, listening or doing, I want to see, listen or do
it now.”

I don’t know what my friend’s wife would have done if she knew she
wouldn’t be there the next morning, this nobody can tell.

I think she might have called her relatives and closest friends.

She might call old friends to make peace over past quarrels.

I’d like to think she would go out for Chinese, her favorite food.

It’s these small things that I would regret not doing, if I knew my
time had come..

Each day, each hour, each minute, is special.

Live for today, for tomorrow is promised to no-one. . .