The solar wind tonight is 409 km/sec and there are sic sunspot clusters on the Sun. The
proton count is rather high at 2.9 per cubic centimeter. Several important dates are
approaching. On March 5th, Comet Pan-STARRS makes its closest approach to Earth
(1.09 AU), followed on March 10th by its closest approach to the sun (0.3 AU). As Comet
Pan-STARRS passes the sun, solar glare will make it difficult to see even as the nucleus
vaporizes and brightens. By March 12th and 13th, the comet will reappear in the sunset
skies of the northern hemisphere not far from the crescent Moon; think photo-op!
Something unexpected is happening on the sun. 2013 is supposed to be the year of Solar
Max, but solar activity is lower than expected. At least one leading forecaster expects the
sun to rebound with a double-peaked maximum later this year. Comet Pan-STARRS, now
visible in the southern hemisphere, is brightening as it plunges toward the sun. "Despite
lingering evening twilight and the glare from a nearly full Moon, Comet Pan-STARRS is a
3rd-magnitude object with a fine orange dust tail visible in both binoculars and small
telescopes."
Food Investor
Truth Frequency Network
BEM October in Boulder, Colorado
Jurassic Park
LONG BEACH (CBS SF) – Speaking from the prestigious TED Conference in Long Beach
Wednesday, Sausalito activist Stewart Brand said scientists are developing the ability to
reassemble an extinct animal’s genome, and even recreate the animal itself.
Brand, who gained fame after he campaigned to have the original NASA space photos of earth
published, and subsequently created the Whole Earth Catalog, said Wednesday that “deextinction” could be used to help restore organisms and habitats damaged human activity,
according to a report in the Marin Independent Journal.
A team of Harvard geneticists are currently working to bring back the passenger pigeon, which
has been extinct since 1914, according to the TED website. The passenger pigeon is
considered a keystone species because it aided the survival of the buffalo, according to TED.
Researchers believe it may now be possible to alter the genetic makeup of a close relative, the
band-tailed pigeon, to re-engineer the passenger pigeon.
The Jurassic Park-like science was already used to recreate an extinct variety of wild mountain
goat in 2010, but the animal died after just minutes due to a lung defect, reports TED.
Brand said he hopes advancements in the field will help reverse some of the damage done to
earth by humans.
“Humans have made a huge hole in nature in the last 10,000 years,” Brand said. “We have the
ability now, and maybe the moral obligation, to repair some of the damage.”
Brand was one of 50 speakers at this week’s conference. Videos from their events have
generated a huge online following for TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment,
Design.
Astronomers studying an unusual black hole system have spotted a never-before-seen structure
in the disk of matter encircling the system.
Black Hole Discovery Surprises Astronomer
Swift J1357.2, an X-ray binary system that regularly emits outbursts of high energy, consists of a
black hole slowly consuming its companion star. Matter from the doomed star falls into the
accretion disk, which surrounds the black hole, feeding it dust and gas.
While observing the system, a team of scientists noticed an unusual vertical feature traveling
through the material.
"It's the first time we can resolve such [a] structure in an accretion disk, and it might be
ubiquitous in X-ray binaries during the outburst state," Jesus Corral-Santana, of the
Astrophysical Institute of the Canary Islands in Spain, told SPACE.com by email . [The
Strangest Black Holes in the Universe]
A hidden structure
The black hole contained in Swift J1357.2 is one of the millions of stellar black holes that dot the
Milky Way galaxy.
About three times as massive as the sun, the behemoth likely formed when a single star collapsed
inward on itself. The resulting, city-sized body packed a great deal of mass into a tiny package,
creating a strong gravitational pull on nearby dust and gas.
Located in the Virgo constellation, approximately 4,900 light-years from Earth, Swift J1357.2
also contains a small companion star, which has only a quarter the mass of the sun. This
companion star orbits the pair's center of mass every 2.8 hours, one of the shortest known orbital
periods for such systems.
The black hole pulls material from the companion star into its accretion disk, occasionally
emitting the X-ray bursts that enabled scientists to find this otherwise hard-to-spot system,
researchers said.
Corral-Santana and his team took hundreds of optical images of the system using the Isaac
Newton and the William Herschel Telescopes, both of which are in the Canary Islands. Studying
the light produced by the accretion disk, the researchers noticed a periodic dimming in the
system, sometimes occurring over the course of only a few seconds.
"Since the orbital period of the system is 2.8 hours, those dips cannot be produced by eclipses of
the companion star. They are much faster," Corral-Santana said. "Therefore, they must be
produced by a hidden structure placed very close to the black hole, in the inner accretion disk."
The new find can only been seen in the outer, optical portion of the accretion disk, not on the
inside, where X-ray bursts originate. The X-ray emission, which shows no periodic variation,
unlike its optical counterpart, indicated a vertical structure was hiding the black hole, CorralSantana said.
Rather than appearing at a set, predictable time, the structure shows up over a steadily increasing
period, indicating a wave-like movement through the accretion disk.
"It is a wave produced in the accretion disk, moving outward," Corral-Santana said, "like the
wave produced when a stone is dropped in calm water."
The wave-like feature also provides information about the orientation of the black hole.
Objects in space face Earth at a variety of angles, or inclinations. They can be seen edge-on,
face-on or somewhere in between. Swift J1357.2 is the only one of 50 suspected similar blackhole systems found with an edge-on accretion disk — what scientists call a high inclination.
However, astronomers think approximately 20 percent of these systems should provide such a
perspective.
In order to see the wave-like structure in the accretion disk, scientists must have such an edge-on
view of the disk, or one close to it. A view from a lower inclination, closer to face-on, would not
reveal the sudden rises and falls in the total light coming from the system.
"Swift J1357.2 is the prototype of the hitherto missing population of high-inclination black holes
in transient X-ray binaries," Corral-Santana said.
Because Swift J1357.2 is the first such system to allow such an edge-on view, the presence of the
vertical structure takes on an added significance. No signs of such structures appear in other
similar systems, but that could result simply from their unfortunate angles. Such structures could
in fact exist in other, previously discovered transient X-ray binary systems, hidden only by their
observational angles
Radiation rings around Earth
The giant amounts of radiation the Van Allen belts generate can pose serious risks for satellites.
To learn more about them, NASA launched twin spacecraft, the Van Allen probes, in the
summer of 2012.
The satellites were armed with a host of sensors to thoroughly analyze the plasma, energetic
particles, magnetic fields and plasma waves in these belts with unprecedented sensitivity and
resolution.
The identical Radiation Belt Storm Probes will follow similar orbits that will take them
through both the inner and outer radiation belts. The highly elliptical orbits range from a
minimum altitude of approximately 373 miles (600 kilometers) to a maximum altitude of
approximately 23,000 miles (37,000 kilometers).
CREDIT: JHU/APL, NASA
View full size image
Unexpectedly, the probes revealed a new radiation belt surrounding Earth, a third one made of
super-high-energy electrons embedded in the outer Van Allen belt about 11,900 to 13,900 miles
(19,100 to 22,300 kilometers) above the planet's surface. This stable ring of space radiation
apparently formed on Sept. 2 and lasted for more than four weeks.
"The feature was so surprising, I initially foolishly thought the instruments on the probes weren't
working properly, but I soon realized the lab had built such wonderful instruments that there
wasn't anything wrong with them, so what we saw must be true," Baker said.
This newfound radiation belt then abruptly and almost completely disappeared on Oct. 1. It was
apparently disrupted by an interplanetary shock wave caused by a spike in solar wind speeds.
"More than five decades after the original discovery of these radiation belts, you can still find
new unexpected things there," Baker said. "It's a delight to be able to find new things in an old
domain. We now need to re-evaluate them thoroughly both theoretically and observationally."
On Aug. 31, 2012, a giant prominence on the sun erupted, sending out particles and a
shock wave that traveled near Earth. This event may have been one of the causes of a third
radiation belt that appeared around Earth a few days later, a phenomenon that was observed
for the very first time by the newly-launched Van Allen Probes. This image of the prominence
before it erupted was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.
CREDIT: NASA/SDO/AIA/Goddard Space Flight Center
View full size image
A radiation mystery
It remains uncertain how this temporary radiation belt arose. Van Allen mission scientists
suspect it was likely created by the solar wind tearing away the outer Van Allen belt.
"It looks like its existence may have been bookended by solar disturbances," Baker said.
Future study of the Van Allen belts can reveal if such temporary rings of radiation are common
or rare.
"Do these occur frequently, or did we get lucky and see a very rare circumstance that happens
only once in a while?" Baker said. "And what other unusual revelations might come now that we
are really looking at these radiation belts with new, modern tools?"
The scientists detailed their findings online Feb. 28 in the journal Science.
Atlantic Salinity is Off the Charts
The salinity level of the world’s rivers, lakes and oceans has been a growing topic in response
to global climate change. As NASA’s Aquarius instrument has shown previously, seasonal
salinity has been on the rise in oceans all around the world. This year, the picture is no less
striking, with deep shades of oranges and reds, at least in the image above, filling a large swath
of the Atlantic Ocean both to the north and to the south of the equator.
Launched on June 10, 2011 aboard the Argentine spacecraft SAC-D, Aquarius was specifically
developed to study the salt content of the oceans’ surface waters. Variations in ocean salinity,
one of the main drivers of ocean circulation, are closely associated with the cycling of
freshwater around the world. The data collected from these measurements provide scientists
with valuable information on how global climate change is affecting rainfall patterns around the
globe.
“With a bit more than a year of data, we are seeing some surprising patterns, especially in the
tropics,” said Aquarius’ principal investigator Gary Lagerloef, of Earth & Space Research in
Seattle, Washington. “We see features evolve rapidly over time.”
Aquarius was designed to cover the Earth from an orbit that takes it over all the world’s ice-free
oceans, taking a complete measurement of salinity levels every seven days. The detector on
the instrument measures the top 1 inch of ocean water in 240-mile-wide swaths as it sweeps
across the world overhead.
NASA has now received its first full year worth of data from Aquarius showing the varying
salinity patterns around the globe.
By studying the data, the research team has revealed some key findings. The Arabian Sea,
which sits against the Middle East, is much saltier than the Bay of Bengal, which is diluted by
intense monsoons and freshwater discharges from the Ganges River, as well as others.
The Amazon, which releases large amounts of freshwater into the southern Atlantic, will either
send a plume of freshwater toward Africa or bend up toward the Caribbean, depending on the
seasonal currents. Freshwater also builds up against Panama’s coast, carried down from the
central Pacific.
Some of the most saline-rich regions highlighted by Aquarius would be the Mediterranean Sea
and the North Atlantic Ocean. As for the North Atlantic, it is the saltiest stretch of water
anywhere in the open sea. This region becomes synonymous with the arid regions of the
world’s deserts, which receive little to no rain and evaporation occurs rapidly.
An expedition launched by NASA, the Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study
(SPURS), sent researchers to the North Atlantic last fall to investigate these salt-rich waters and
analyze the cause behind the high concentration levels. The expedition was also seen as a
move to validate the measurements taken by Aquarius.
“My conclusion after five weeks out at sea and analyzing five weekly maps of salinity from
Aquarius while we were there was that indeed, the patterns of salinity variation seen from
Aquarius and by the ship were similar,” said Eric Lindstrom, NASA’s physical oceanography
program scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington, and a participant of the SPURS
expedition.
Aquarius was designed to operate for three years, measuring the salinity of Earth’s precious
oceans. But Aquarius project manager Gene Carl Feldman, from Goddard Space Flight Center
in Greenbelt, Maryland, said “there is no reason to think that the instrument could not be able to
provide valuable data for much longer than that.”
He said the salinity measuring tool has been “performing flawlessly and our colleagues in
Argentina are doing a fantastic job running the spacecraft, providing us a nice, stable ride.”
Researchers plan to continue to use Aquarius for measuring the salinity of the world’s oceans
but wish to fine-tune the readings and retrieve more data even closer to coasts and at the poles.
Currently, land and ice emit very bright microwave emissions that block the satellite signal. And
at the poles, an added complication is that cold polar waters require much larger changes in salt
concentration to modify microwaves signals.
Still, Aquarius has been able to garner close coastal readings, producing valuable data for the
NASA researchers, who are surprised to see how close to land those readings actually are.
“The fact that we’re getting areas, particularly around islands in the Pacific, that are not
obviously badly contaminated is pretty remarkable. It says that our ability to screen out land
contamination seems to be working quite well,” Feldman said in a statement.
Salinity readings can be further affected by intense rainfall. It does this by attenuating the
microwave signal Aquarius reads off the ocean surface as it travels through a damp
atmosphere. Rainfall also creates roughness and shallow pools of freshwater on the ocean
surface, which can construe actual readings.
The team hopes to use another instrument aboard SAC-D in the future, the Argentine-built
Microwave Radiometer, to gauge the presence of intense rain simultaneously to salinity
readings. This could help scientists flag data collected during heavy rainfalls.
Ultimately, the team wants to combine the Aquarius measurements with those of the Soil
Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite operated by the European Space Agency (ESA).
This combination could produce a more accurate and finer-detailed map of ocean salinity.
The team is also set to release its first global soil moisture dataset, which will further
complement measurements made by SMOS. This dataset release will be in collaboration with
the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
“The first year of the Aquarius mission has mostly been about understanding how the
instruments and algorithms are performing,” Feldman said. “Now that we have overcome the
major hurdles, we can really begin to focus on understanding what the data are telling us about
how the ocean works, how it affects weather and climate, and what new insights we can gain by
having these remarkable salinity measurements.”
Source of Deep Sea Salt Water
Abyssal circulation dynamics. See text in DPO chapter 7.10. We did not cover this topic in
the dynamics lectures. Salient features: driven by localized sources of deep water and general
upwelling within the deep layer (Stommel and Arons, 1961). The upwelling creates a Sverdruptype response in the interior, with upwelling causing poleward flow. This is connected to the
localized deep source by the Deep Western Boundary Current. Thus paradoxically, most of the
deep gyres appear to flow towards the high latitude sources of deep water.
The deep upwelling can only be accomplished through diapycnal diffusion of heat downwards.
(Also freshwater diffusion must be important.) The vertical structure resulting from the upwelling
depends on the size of the diapycnal diffusivity.
Abyssal circulation. The circulation is depicted in maps from Reid (1994). In addition to the
deep expression of the principal gyres, the abyssal circulation is dominated by "Deep Western
Boundary Currents" that feed the interior deep circulation, which is largely cyclonic in the
individual deep basins. There are DWBCs leading northward from the Antarctic and southward
from the Labrador Sea and Nordic Sea overflow regions.
North Atlantic Deep Water. There are five sources of NADW, classified in a bit of an
oversimplification as: Antarctic Intermediate Water, Antarctic Bottom Water, Mediterranean
Overflow Water, Labrador Sea Water and Nordic Sea Overflow Water. Two of these are the
original southern sources, and the other three are the North Atlantic sources.
The deep circulation of the Atlantic involves flow of waters from the southern hemisphere into
the North Atlantic, modification and convection of these waters in the North Atlantic and its
adjacent seas, and outflow in a thick deep layer. This deep layer affects the world ocean, where
it can be tracked through its high salinity signature since the North Atlantic is the most saline of
all the oceans. The deep layer flowing out of the North Atlantic is called North Atlantic Deep
Water and is notable for its vertical salinity maximum, vertical oxygen maximum (actually two)
and vertical nutrient minima.
Inflow to the North Atlantic occurs in two layers - a relatively warm one and a cold one,
sandwiching the outflowing NADW. The upper layer is composed of thermocline and Antarctic
Intermediate Water (evidenced by a salinity minimum in the vertical at about 800 m depth,
resulting from its source at the sea surface near the tip of South America where surface salinity
is low). The AAIW can be tracked as a salinity minimum up to the subtropical gyre in the North
Atlantic. Because the North Atlantic is a very well-ventilated ocean, from top to bottom, it has
lower nutrients throughout its depths compared with other oceans. AAIW comes from the South
Atlantic where nutrients are higher, and it so happens that it can be tracked through the Gulf
Stream and on up into the subpolar North Atlantic through its silica, which is slightly higher than
the North Atlantic silica.
Most of us are familiar with "Old Faithful" in Yellowstone National Park. This famous geyser e
a column of water heated by volcanic rock deep within the Earth's crust.
A hydrothermal vent is a geyser on the seafloor. It continuously spews super-hot, mineral-rich
community of organisms. Although most of the deep sea is sparsely populated, vent sites tee
Tubeworms and huge clams are the most distinctive inhabitants of Pacific Ocean vent sites, w
at vents in the Atlantic Ocean.
The first hydrothermal vent was discovered in 1977. They are known to exist in the Pacific an
an average depth of about 2,100 meters (7,000 ft) in areas of seafloor spreading along the M
underwater mountain chain that snakes its way around the globe.
How do hydrothermal vents form? In some areas along the Mid-Ocean Ridge, the gigantic pla
moving apart, creating cracks and crevices in the ocean floor. Seawater seeps into these ope
rock, or magma, that lies beneath the Earth's crust. As the water is heated, it rises and seeks a path back out into the oc
seafloor.
As the vent water bursts out into the ocean, its temperature may be as high as 400°C (750°F). Yet this water does not bo
pressure from the tremendous weight of the ocean above. When the pressure on a liquid is increased, its boiling point go
Chimneys top some hydrothermal vents. These smokestacks are formed from dissolved metals that precipitate out (form
vent water meets the surrounding deep ocean water, which is only a few degrees above freezing.
So-called "black smokers" are the hottest of the vents. They spew mostly iron and sulfide, which
combine to form iron monosulfide. This compound gives the smoker its black color.
"White smokers" release water that is cooler than their cousins' and often contains compounds of barium,
calcium, and silicon, which are white.
Geologists are intrigued by how rapidly vent chimneys grow - up to 9 meters (30 ft) in 18 months.
A scientist at the University of Washington has been monitoring the growth of "Godzilla," a vent chimney
in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Oregon. It reached the height of a 15-story building before it toppled.
It is now actively rebuilding.
There are many other reasons why scientists want to learn more about hydrothermal vents.
These underwater geysers are believed to play an important role in the ocean's temperature, chemistry,
and circulation patterns.
Scientists also are fascinated by the unusual life that inhabits vent sites. These creatures who live in darkness,
from bacteria to tubeworms, may light the way to the development of new drugs, industrial processes,
and other products useful to us all.
British scientists have found a remarkable array of creatures, some of them new to science, in one of
the most inhospitable regions of the deep sea. In the first ever expedition to explore and take samples
from the "Dragon Vent" in the south-west Indian Ocean, remotely operated submarines spotted yeti crabs,
sea cucumbers and snails living around the boiling column of mineral-rich water that spews out of the seafloor.
Dr Jon Copley, a marine biologist at the University of Southampton who led the exploration of the Dragon Vent,
said his team found animals that had not been seen in neighbouring parts of the oceans.
"We found a new type of yeti crab. Yeti crabs are known at vents in the eastern Pacific and there are two species
described so far, but they have very long, hairy arms – ours have short arms and their undersides are covered in
bristles. They're quite different to the ones that are known from the Pacific," said Copley. "This is the first time a
Yeti crab has been seen in the Indian Ocean."
His team also found sea cucumbers, vent shrimps and scaly-foot snails. Sea cucumbers have previously only
been seen at deep sea vents in the eastern Pacific. "This is the first time they've been seen at vents in the
Indian Ocean and they're not known from the central Indian or mid-Atlantic vents so far," he said.
Deep-sea vents, also known as hydrothermal vents, are springs of superheated water that are powered by
underwater volcanoes. They erupt from the sea bed and are usually found a few miles under the sea surface.
The scalding temperatures and rich mineral content of the water give rise to vast rocky chimneys, which have been found
forms.
The survey was part of a larger expedition to study underwater mountains aboard the RRS James Cook, which
sailed from Cape Town on 7 November and returned to South Africa on 21 December. The exploration of the Dragon Ve
day burst in the middle of the trip.
Copley's team took hundreds of samples of 17 different creatures, all of which are now being shipped back to
his lab for detailed morphological and genetic examination. "Chances are that there will be several that are new species,
until we get them back into the lab and analyse them."
Copley's work builds on a Chinese expedition in 2007 that pinpointed the hydrothermal vents on the southwest
Indian ridge for the first time. This chain of undersea volcanoes joins the mid-Atlantic ridge to the central Indian
ridge. This part of the volcanic ridge is less volcanically active, so scientists think hydrothermal vents should be
fewer and more scattered here. It therefore raises the question of whether life there is significantly different.
Copley said that characterising the life at the world's hydrothermal vents was a race against time. "Earlier this
year, China was granted a licence by the UN International Seabed Authority for exploratory mining at deep-sea
vents on the southwest Indian ridge," he said. "The vent chimneys are very rich in copper, zinc, gold and uranium.
But we have no idea what's actually living there."
In evolutionary terms, hydrothermal vents were like the islands of the ocean floor, he added. "Just like the 19th
century naturalists used to go to the Galápagos and other islands to find species there that are different to
elsewhere and then use that to understand patterns of dispersal of dispersal and evolution, we can use deep-sea
vents to do the same things beneath the waves," he said.
"And we need to do that because the exploitation of the deep ocean is overtaking its exploration. We're fishing in
deeper and deeper waters, oil and gas is moving into deeper waters and now there's mining starting to take
place in deep waters. We need to understand how species disperse and evolve in the deep oceans if we're
going to make responsible decisions about managing their resources."
Wars R US Update
The following audio should wake you up to the threat we face from our own government. Gary
Franchi with WHDN news interviews Tangerine Bolen about a lawsuit her team filed to protect
themselves and you and I against unlawful arrest. LINK Remember, it was Obama himself
personally that had the overreaching clause of unconstitutional arrest and incarceration without
due process in clear violation of the 1st,5th and 10th amendments. It was then the Obama
Administration that immediately appealed the judge’s ruling to keep this power in the White
House. You may not see the effects now, but all subsequent presidents will have this power as
well. Anyone, and that means anyone, can be arrested and incarcerated or exported to a
foreign jail without trial, right to an attorney, or contact with your family or friends. You are just
gone. When did we citizens of the United States become enemies of the State?
Record Withdrawals in 2013
You probably haven't heard much about it from the mainstream media, but the latest figures
released by the privately-owned Federal Reserve (FED) indicate that America's largest banks
saw record cash withdrawals during the first full week of January 2013. As reported by
Bloomberg Businessweek and scant others, account holders withdrew a record $114 billion in
just one week, which represents the largest one-week withdrawal sum made in America since the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The data, which accounts for all cash withdrawals made from the nation's 25 largest banks, has
reportedly shocked many financial analysts who say they are unsure exactly what sparked this
minor bank run. Some have speculated that the December 31, 2012 expiration of the Transaction
Account Guarantee (TAG) insurance program, which was designed to protect smaller banks
from insolvency, may have played a role in triggering what appears to have been a wave of panic
withdrawals.
But since the bulk of these withdrawals were made at larger banks that were not covered by
TAG, this explanation hardly suffices. Another more likely explanation is that Americans are
simply unsettled with the current state of the financial system, and for all intents and purposes
are trying to protect their own assets from insolvency. This is further reinforced by the fact that a
similar run on "physical" gold escalated around the exact same time, suggesting that depositors
are anticipating rocky times rapidly approaching.
"[W]hat surprised analysts is that the withdrawals are from larger banks that were considered
safe," explains a report from AllVoices.com about the issue. "Expectations were for depositors in
small and medium banks to put their deposits in the bigger banks when the insurance program
ended," it adds, noting that TAG's expiration would have logically induced the opposite effect of
what actually occurred.
Though many so-called experts are reluctant to admit it as a possibility, this ongoing trend of
massive withdrawals of federal reserve notes and physical metal assets from banks and vaults
just might be the people's way of responding to the ominous writing on the wall, which does not
appear to spell any type of real recovery for America. To the contrary, a perfect storm of
attempted gun control legislation, ever-increasing taxes, inflation, reduced wages, and job cuts
may finally be getting the attention of a critical mass of Americans, who for too long have
ignored the progressive downfall of the financial system.
Billionaires Dumping Stocks
Despite the 6.5% stock market rally over the last three months, a handful of billionaires are
quietly dumping their American stocks . . . and fast.
Warren Buffett, who has been a cheerleader for U.S. stocks for quite some time, is dumping
shares at an alarming rate. He recently complained of “disappointing performance” in dyed-inthe-wool American companies like Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, and Kraft Foods.
In the latest filing for Buffett’s holding company Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett has been
drastically reducing his exposure to stocks that depend on consumer purchasing habits. Berkshire
sold roughly 19 million shares of Johnson & Johnson, and reduced his overall stake in
“consumer product stocks” by 21%. Berkshire Hathaway also sold its entire stake in Californiabased computer parts supplier Intel.
With 70% of the U.S. economy dependent on consumer spending, Buffett’s apparent lack of
faith in these companies’ future prospects is worrisome.
Unfortunately Buffett isn’t alone.
Fellow billionaire John Paulson, who made a fortune betting on the subprime mortgage
meltdown, is clearing out of U.S. stocks too. During the second quarter of the year, Paulson’s
hedge fund, Paulson & Co., dumped 14 million shares of JPMorgan Chase. The fund also
dumped its entire position in discount retailer Family Dollar and consumer-goods maker Sara
Lee.
Finally, billionaire George Soros recently sold nearly all of his bank stocks, including shares of
JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs. Between the three banks, Soros sold more than
a million shares.
So why are these billionaires dumping their shares of U.S. companies?
After all, the stock market is still in the midst of its historic rally. Real estate prices have finally
leveled off, and for the first time in five years are actually rising in many locations. And the
unemployment rate seems to have stabilized.
It’s very likely that these professional investors are aware of specific research that points toward
a massive market correction, as much as 90%.
One such person publishing this research is Robert Wiedemer, an esteemed economist and author
of the New York Times best-selling book Aftershock.
Editor’s Note: Wiedemer Gives Proof for His Dire Predictions in This Shocking Interview.
Before you dismiss the possibility of a 90% drop in the stock market as unrealistic, consider
Wiedemer’s credentials.
In 2006, Wiedemer and a team of economists accurately predicted the collapse of the U.S.
housing market, equity markets, and consumer spending that almost sank the United States. They
published their research in the book America’s Bubble Economy.
The book quickly grabbed headlines for its accuracy in predicting what many thought would
never happen, and quickly established Wiedemer as a trusted voice.
A columnist at Dow Jones said the book was “one of those rare finds that not only predicted the
subprime credit meltdown well in advance, it offered Main Street investors a winning strategy
that helped avoid the forty percent losses that followed . . .”
The chief investment strategist at Standard & Poor’s said that Wiedemer’s track record
“demands our attention.”
And finally, the former CFO of Goldman Sachs said Wiedemer’s “prescience in (his) first book
lends credence to the new warnings. This book deserves our attention.”
In the interview for his latest blockbuster Aftershock, Wiedemer says the 90% drop in the stock
market is “a worst-case scenario,” and the host quickly challenged this claim.
Wiedemer calmly laid out a clear explanation of why a large drop of some sort is a virtual
certainty.
It starts with the reckless strategy of the Federal Reserve to print a massive amount of money out
of thin air in an attempt to stimulate the economy.
These funds haven’t made it into the markets and the economy yet. But it is a mathematical
certainty that once the dam breaks, and this money passes through the reserves and hits the
markets, a different kind of inflation occurs. What do I mean buy that? Well, classic inflation is
caused by printing money. It makes gold worth more cash. It also makes eggs, bread, milk and
gasoline worth more cash.
This currency fabrication occurs in two ways. The easiest is called Quantitative Easing. It
means adding ones and zeroes to the Federal Reserve accounts from thin air. The more difficult,
but far more politically valuable method is raising the minimum wage. This action prints larger
paychecks, but results in the loss of about 5% of the workforce when it occurs. This wage
inflation adds zero value to the market, but decimates small businesses that rely on entry-level
workers.
Skilled workers do not earn minimum wage; however, they started at minimum wage and
worked their way up. So, when the entry level get a $1 an hour bump, the increase goes all the
way up the hourly wage scale to about the $20 per hour range. It adds billions overnight to the
cost of goods sold, without an offsetting increase in revenue. Bingo. You have forced layoffs.
No investors, let alone billionaires, will want to remain in the market when the stocks begin
sliding during the selloff. Buffett, Paulson, and Soros are dumping stocks, deciding to cash out
ahead of the stampede and leave Main Street investors holding the bag. These publicly traded
companies do not have the value their stock price commands. They haven’t had for more than 5
years. The Stock Market only climbed because these investors were in the market trading the
stocks.
The naked short traders dumped billions of shares each month onto the market for unsuspecting
Main Street investors to gobble up like bird seed. The stocks don’t exist. They’re called
phantom shares. Counterfeit. Borrowed shares that are never delivered to the buyer. Why?
Because the companies to whom the stock should belong never got the money from the sale, and
the people that are doing to dumping are also spreading public statements that the Company is
doomed, which drives the stock price down even further. That’s their payday.
In a perfect world, that little Company goes broke and delists from the Market. They never have
to deliver the Stock. They get to keep all the money and not report their income from these
phantom shares. These naked short traders have been successful in doing just that more than 10
thousand times in the last 5 years. Is it legal? No. Has there been a single prosecution of any of
these vampires killing their hosts? Not one. The cash flowing back into the current
Administration from the very largest naked shorters is at an all time high with no end in sight.
Citigroup, JP Morgan Stanley, and others are among a dozen institutional sources, and there are
twice that many foreign brokers doing it.
But Main Street investors don’t have to see their investment and retirement accounts decimated
for the second time in five years. They should cash out now and buy Silver or keep their cash in
their own personal safe at home.
Swedish King Charles X Gustav bears a little responsibility for the U.S.sequester. He
gets the nod this week for his innovation derived from the Swede’s logistical nightmare
of minting copper coins at par value with silver and gold dalars (named after the
Bohemian term “Tolar”first minted in the early 16th century). When you’re trying to
conquer Northern Europe and pay for a war, you don’t want your ships hauling around
a bunch of copper – even if you’ve got it in abundance –so you circulate notes instead.
And it’s the circulation of notes – or more precisely the idea of circulation attached to
money – that was vital to the king’s aspirations and what invites him into my
observation today.
Inexplicably, the other source of inspiration for today’s observations come from
Swedentoo: Per-Olaf Astrand (a Swede) and Bengt Saltin (trained in Sweden). These
two gentlemen together with famousDanes Dr.Johannes Lindhard and Dr. August Krogh
isolated the physiology of circulation with a functional discipline unknown prior to their
work. In turns out that living systems require gas exchange – inbound oxygen and
outbound carbon dioxide – to function. Lance Armstrong and other inspired Tour de
France cheaters notwithstanding, there are limits to this system’s function beyond
which more doesn’t do you a bit of good. How does a conquest-animated 17th century
Swedish king, a group of Nordic physiologists and Lance Armstrong all come together?
In a word: Currency.
Now let’s think about the mistake we make when we confuse terms and blend disparate
meanings for convenience sake only to add ignorance to our collective system
awareness. Currency is not Money. Money, properly functioning, is a temporary storage
unit of value. It is an artifact that says that, for a defined period, trading parties agree
that they will recognize an artifact that, though in and of itself likely worthless, is
imbued with representational value that can be held or exchanged to discharge future
obligations. Currency – literally from the English term curraunt describing something in
circulation itself derived from the Latin currentiadescribing the bounded flow of a thing
– only works in exchange. Whether it is the exercising muscle that can only metabolize
70mL/kg/min or the circulatable monetary supply (or M2: roughly $12 trillion when we
stopped counting in the U.S. around 2011), there are upper limits in systems beyond
which stockpiling actually does not lead to greater wealth but in fact leads to systemic
failure.
Close inspection of the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve in the U.S. highlights some
of the challenges arising from a blurring of the lexicon of money, currency, and assets.
While the utilitarian impulse (think Charles X) to issue a circulating currency that is
connected to copper and the expanding trade network built by war seems to
work when you control the flow of value within a limited geography (money across a
trade network), if you detach either the value base or the scope of exchange from
limits, flow ceases and stagnation happens. Take a look at the graph below and realize
that the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee has decided to continue “investing”in
U.S. Treasuries and Mortgage Securities to the tune of $85 billion each month. This
action evidences a systemic physiological ignorance.
When investors (and yes, I mean people like you with your retirement accounts,
pensions, etc.) are advised to keep some money ‘safe’ in low-risk assets, the argument
supporting this advice is that assets like U.S. Treasuries are ‘liquid’. In other words, if
you needed to sell them, there would always be a buyer at or near par value. However,
this notion of ‘safe liquidity’is an illusion that was exterminated by the current fiscal
policy. Injecting illusory money (backed by vast amounts of illiquid ‘assets’) for the
inflated purchase of cheap debt actually harms the real asset value of these instruments
and inflates the inventory of the same beyond what physiologists call T-Max. TMax or transport maximum is the concentration of a substance beyond which exposure
does not result in an increase transportation or utilization of the substance. In the body
this means that you can breathe 100% oxygen but your blood simply cannot carry more
than its saturation limit. In economics this means that the system can exchange a
certain volume of assets after which more cannot be absorbed by or liquidated into the
system.
Bill Gross, PIMCO’s notorious investment architect, reported that his fund decreased its
holdings of mortgage assets – assets that should theoretically be cash-flow generating
– in favor of more U.S. Treasuries. Bill understands the problem of liquidity around ‘risk
free’ assets. If you’re PIMCO with nearly $2 trillion in assets, the volume of assets you
hold actually presents its own market risk. If you ever had to sell them for redemptions,
you’d actually dump more supply than the market could buy at par and so the volume
of your ‘wealth’ would harm your value. He also knows that the Federal Reserve is not
buying real estate and Treasuries because it wants to ‘invest’ but rather to inflate their
balance sheet. When (not if) they start selling off assets, he knows that the pressure to
sell will be coming not when they see maximum investment return opportunities but
rather when they have to release the dam to discharge the gargantuan pool of assets
they’ve acquired. And when that happens, the over-supply of secondary sales around
these assets will devalue the assets he holds. Worse still, this could happen coincident
with inflation which would accelerate the devaluation and present fiduciaries like PIMCO
and real people – like you – with large amounts of worthless assets.
Behind this drama is the systemic failure to appreciate the difference between
utilitarian wealth and horded wealth. Utilitarian wealth evokes the principle that
greatest wealth happens at a saturation point where all needs, demands and aspirations
can be sated without restriction. Uncoupled from a sense of interchange and
interdependence, horded wealth creates the malignant illusion that perpetual more is
persistently better. Regrettably, horded wealth is also sucked into the monochromatic
world of ‘green’ where the only surrogate of stored value is that ubiquitous European /
Nordic innovation known as the dollar, dalar, and tolar. Utilitarian wealth understands
that certain values cannot be stored in, or denominated by, representational currency.
Because at the core, utilitarian wealth understands that current is a function of
conductivity and flow. Stymie either and you build up a static load that has to discharge
somewhere. It’s nature and in the end, it won’t let you cheat.
What were the Jews praying for when Jesus was being arrested, tried, convicted, and
executed by crucifixion?
What is striking about these prayers is this: If these ancient Jewish traditions are
correct--and I realize that this is disputed--then what follows below are the kind of
things the Jews in the Temple would have been praying for while the Tamid was
being sacrificed and while Jesus was dying on the Cross:
1. According to Jewish tradition, at 9a.m. and 3p.m., the Jews in the Temple would
have been praying for redemption:
"Look upon our affliction and plead our cause,and redeem us speedily for your name's
sake, for you are a mighty redeemer. Blessed are you, O Lord, the redeemer of Israel."
(7th Benediction)
2. According to Jewish tradition, at 9a.m. and 3p.m., the Jews in the Temple would
have been praying for the forgiveness of sins:
"Forgive us, O our Father, for we have sinned; pardon us, O our King, for we have
transgressed; for you pardon and forgive. Blessed are you, O Lord, who is merciful
and always ready to forgive." (6th Benediction)
3. According to Jewish tradition, at 9a.m. and 3p.m., the Jews in the Temple would
have praying for the coming of the Messiah:
"Speedily cause the offspring of your servant David to flourish, and let him be exalted
by your saving power, for we wait all day long for your salvation. Blessed are you, O
Lord, who causes salvation to flourish." (15th Benediction)
4. In fact, according to Jewish tradition, at 9a.m. and 3p.m., the Jews in the Temple
would have been praying for the resurrection of the dead:
Luke 23:34
Then Jesus said, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do".
Luke 23:43
And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you today you will be with me in paradise".
John 19:26-27
Jesus saw his own mother, and the disciple standing near whom he loved, he said to his
mother, "Woman, behold your son". Then he said to the disciple, "Behold your mother".
And from that hour, he took his mother into his family.
Matthew 27:46
Around the ninth hour, Jesus shouted in a loud voice, saying "Eli Eli lama sabachthani?"
which is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
John 19:28
He said, "I thirst".
John 19:30
Jesus said, "It is completed".
Luke 23:46
And speaking in a loud voice, Jesus said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit".