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THE DON JONES INDEX… |
GAINS POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in RED |
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3/26/14…
15,119.20 |
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3/19/14… 15,088.37 |
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6/27/13… 15,000.00 |
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((THE DOW JONES INDEX: 3/26… 16,294.23; 3/19… 16,331.05; 11/19/12… 12,592.22)
LESSON for MARCH 26, 2014
If nerds seeking to
bamboozle the public have taken to blaming anything they don’t want to explain
on “the cloud”, politicians, too, are taking to the skies to float a mass of
allegations on this or that… this week, the concession to let the thousands of
Americans who want Obamacare but are befuddled by the paperwork (as opposed to
millions who want nothing to do with
it, period!) have a few extra days to wrestle with the forms and the Supreme
Court’s agony (the agony!) over
whether real or fake religious employers should have to pay for their employees’
birth control pills.
Nobody wants to
even mention the folly of slashing our military budget at a time when Russia is
preparing to invade Ukraine and then, perhaps, the NATO nations to its west.
The usual suspects
are taking advantage of this opportunity to open fire on their usual
target. Rep. Michael McCaul
(R-Texas) saw his opportunity to blast the Pubs’ least favorite politician...
and took it… on, of course, Fox News.
"(Military preparedness) is all being sacrificed ... on the altar
of entitlements. This president cannot take on mandatory spending, so all we've
done in the Congress -- and this President (sic) -- is basically cut discretionary
spending.”
“Millions of lives
have been spared, and many wars AVOIDED, simply by having the mightiest
military on the face of the earth,” posted blogger Rene Demonteverde.
“You're a fool if you think you'll ever see any of these "savings".
What you see is a country that is flat broke, with a military in shambles. And you'd better believe the rest of the
world sees it and is taking notes.”
“Let’s see now...”
blogged “bonaventure candes”
(referenced in last week’s DJI). “We
have an Iranian ship 50 miles off the east coast, the Chinese off the Hawaiian
coast, and Russia docked off Cuba. It looks like we are playing chess and are
surrounded. And Obama wants to decrease the US's pieces from the board ( reductions in the military). Either Obama wants a war or
is a stupid moron. So which is it? I vote for the second… (but)
it may be both. He wants war and is a stupid moron.”
Michèle Flournoy, a former top
Pentagon official in the Obama administration, has responded that the military
was unlikely to find itself engaged in two large simultaneous ground wars like
Iraq and Afghanistan anytime soon.
“If we got that prediction
wrong, there would be some risk in terms of needing to grow the force quickly
to try to cope with a second large and sustained ground campaign,” she said.
“It’s a calculated risk, but one that I think is reasonable.”
So much, then, for the
overwhelming NATO military superiority… don’t amount to a ditchfull
of beans if our allies lack the will to fight.
Or we do…
Now who, then, is
our Russian… is it time, yet, to use the word “enemy”?
And, if so, what do our own psych-ops think of this new
“enemy” who rules Russia like Ivan the Great... or, maybe, Ivan the Terrible? Is he a reasonable fellow… or, like those
olive oil wholesalers in Brooklyn against whom Don Corleone
threw up his hands in frustration at in “The Godfather”, a man with whom it is
impossible to reason?
Psychologists and occultists are experiencing
a windfall as they flock to secret corridors beneath nameless agencies and
black-box military bases to make the incomprehensible comprehensible. The shrinks note that he’s rumored to have
disposed of his wife in a mental hospital and exhibits various unmutual mental traits on his own. A German documentarian, Hubert Seipel, followed Russia’s neo-Caesar around and addressed the question of what exactly it is like to be
Vladimir Putin.
The scenes that Seipel compiled in “I, Putin” (aired on Germany's ARD
public television network Feb. 27th) offer a clear answer, reported Der Spiegel: “He's a lonely guy.” Playing hockey alone or with bodyguards
against whom, like Idi Amin’s
old swimming exploits, he always defeats, walking to a cabinet meeting alone,
swimming alone, visiting the chapel where he was secretly baptized… also
alone. “Indeed, no matter where he is --
even on a manly hunting trip with friends in remote Siberia -- there is always
something of a security buffer around him, leaving Putin to always sit by
himself,” the Germans concluded. His
only real friend is a black Labrador retriever named Koni.
This is a fellow who
desperately needs to get his rocks off.
The Big O should solicit volunteers… porn stars, NFL cheerleaders, Miley Cyrus, Kardashians, lonely
spinster librarians, anybody female (or, if necessary, just any body)… to go on a mission to
Moscow and help Vlad get over his bad marriage and
lonely guy syndrome.
Further
out on the fringe, Revelation13.net posts that Vladimir V. Putin was born in
St. Petersburg Russia, near the time of the first U.S. Hydrogen Bomb test on
Nov. 1, 1952. “Note that Leningrad is on the ocean, and the Antichrist rises
out of the sea in Revelation 13. And Julian Year 6666 is 1953; Julian time is
used in astronomy and science and counts days from Jan. 1, 4713 B. C.; and note
that 666 is the number of the Antichrist in the Book of Revelation.”
The West has taken some few
useful steps. Zygimantas Pavilionis, Lithuania's ambassador to the United States,
expressed relief that NATO participation in exercises with the Baltic states will not be on Sec. Hagel’s
chopping block. “I'm not speaking about
the boots on the ground. I speak about the air. I speak about the sea. The bigger, the better. We have exercises. We have information
sharing. We have a lot to share with you about, you know, the region. And we
have to do it.”
And the EU has pledged to
make up the difference after the United States kicked in a measly billion
dollars to replace the fifteen billion in bailout money that Russia had
promised ousted President Yanukovych – rescinded
after February’s liberation (in Washington’s view) or coup (in Moscow’s). Ukraine’s acting Premier Yatsenyuk
had gone, hat in hand, to the International Monetary Fund to help put in place the
economic reforms and painful austerity measures that the Fund requested in
exchange for its lucre… measures that go over with the Ukrainian people like a
plate of rotten Chicken Kiev.
Beyond throwing money at the situation, however, a cloud
of resignation has settled over our NATO allies – deeper and thicker than one
of Neville Chamberlain’s black umbrellas.
Reuters bemoaned Ukraine’s losing Crimea to Russia,
and President Obama’s apparent loathing of military action. Last week, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander
Europe U.S. General Philip Breedlove told reporters the alliance had no
military plans to support Ukraine if attacked, slinking away from our
commitment to the BM. An invasion of the
eastern Ukraine, as Dimitry Gorenburg
of the Center for Naval Analyses suggested in last week’s DJI, has been viewed as likelier and likelier, and likely to
lead to wholesale conquest and slaughter as “Ukraine's relatively small and
underequipped forces could take action but would risk inciting a much wider
Russian invasion that could overrun the country” and Putin would deter further
resistance to adventurism by cutting off gas supplies to Europe, turning his Mafiya loose to launch cyber attacks on hard and soft American
targets and, finally, raising the spectre of nuclear
war.
So is that what world domination comes down to… armies of
nerds in sub-sub-sub-basement bunkers hacking and cracking at each other to
cause the greater chaos behind enemy lines?
Cognitive dissonance
requires cognitive dissidence. One can
only dream that – should Russia invade the shrunken Ukraine by marching north
from the Crimea or West from Donetsk or Kharkiv
and/or deporting ethnic Ukrainians therein to Siberia or Six-Feet-Under - the
Big O will study the Globalfirepower statistics, grow
a backbone, commandeer a half hour… hell, fifteen minutes… of TV time and
(contingent upon Ukrainian willingness to commit to military resistance against
the invader) make the following proclamations…
“My fellow Americans…
“Given President Putin’s
military initiatives to conquer Ukraine, the rest of the former Soviet Empire
and its satellites and, then, the world, the United States stands prepared to
enact the following Ten Point Program, which legislation will be introduced to
Congress tomorrow morning…
One:
the United States shall not attend any conference, summit or enter into any
diplomatic negotiations with Russia until said offensive acts cease. All embassy personnel, businesspeople and tourists
will return to the United States and all Russian citizens in this country,
official or not, will be given two weeks to depart. No travel into or out of Russia shall be
authorized.
Two:
Russian assets held in American institutions shall be frozen, and the United
States will urge the rest of the world to similarly freeze said assets
Three:
effective April first, a six-month embargo of all Russian trade will be
implemented and NATO and the EU shall be urged to follow suit. The United States will increase development
and exports of petroleum to take up the slack… guys… Francoís,
Fritz, Clive… it’s getting warm and you’re not going to need so much Russian
gas for awhile.
Four:
the proposed 2015-6 budget, details of which have been previously leaked, will
be rescinded for revision, particularly in the enhancement, rather than
withering, of our armed forces personnel.
Correctional measures, including tax increases and service cuts, shall
be implemented, as needed.
Five:
effective May first, the military draft will be re-instituted and all Americans
17 to 21 years of age, male and female, will be called up for two years’
service. There will be no exemptions
(save in the case of grave physical or mental disability) and no deferments of any kind.
Six:
said call-up will remain in effect until the year 2020, after which only
seventeen or eighteen year olds who have completed high school will be drafted
unless Provision Five is extended by the President and Congress.
Seven: in
view of well-founded American unease at maintaining standing armies and the
possibility, should Russia choose to act in accordance with the practices of
civilized nations, of mischievous interventionism, military forces beyond those
necessary to preserve peace and freedom shall thereafter be deployed to
projects aimed at the rebuilding and maintenance of the infrastructure of the
United States.
Eight:
the status of our nuclear defense capability shall be raised to DefCon 3 and, should Russian troops cross the Don, to DefCon 4. Aircraft
and drone resources are to conduct joint exercises with NATO on its eastern
frontier, and supplementary naval forces will be dispatched to Bosporus, the
Baltic Sea and the Sea of Japan.
Nine:
provisional Declarations of War shall be issued regarding Syria, Iran and North
Korea, executable on the consensus of the President and the majority and
minority chairs of the armed forces committees of both houses of Congress.
Ten:
following ratification of Provision Nine, unilateral military strikes against
undesirable foreign nuclear facilities (hey, Tehran… hey, Kim!) and the
extraction and detention, by military force, of citizens of nations suspected
of war crimes (hey, Bashir!) shall be authorized.”
Admittedly, this is
fantasy, given the present state of partisan obscurantism on the part of both
Republicans and Democrats with passage of any of above problematical…
Unless a lightning bolt of
genius strikes the President and he adds this Eleventh Point…
“Moreover, should these Ten
Points be passed by the Congress, I will authorize the seriously misnamed
Affordable Healthcare Act (or Obamacare, as it has
been unpopularly known) to be immediately
repealed. Sorry, we goofed. We’ll go back to the drawing board on this.”
OK, Point Eleven is about
as likely to occur as are Don Jones’ odds of winning Warren Buffet’s billion by
acing every NCAA bracket, play-ins to Final Four. But he can dream, can’t he?
Dreaming of better times,
Don saw a significant jump in his own index.
Part of that was a correction of a Bureau of Labor Statistics correction
on gas prices… still down, statistically, but not for long. But there was also a better import/export
radio and a slight dip in the unemployment ranks, official and real, and a
modest wage increase of three cents for the month. Not enough to keep up with inflation…
especially with gas and drought-impacted food… but at least it’s something.
CHART of
CATEGORIES w/ VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000.00
(REFLECTING…
approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)
The sum of good things, less the sum of bad things,
equals the gain (or loss) to Don Jones.
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DON JONES’ PERSONAL ECONOMIC
INDEX (45% of total Index points) |
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1518.37 |
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Official # |
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1017 |
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Dow Jones index 16294.23 |
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sales n/d price n/d |
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http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/data
indicators/household index.html
and http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 51657 |
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http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm correct -1.7* |
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http://www.census.gov/foreign-
trade/statistics/highlights/congressional.html 192.5 J |
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http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/congressional.html 2316 J |
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http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/congressional.html 391 |
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We don’t often think about mud. Nor do we think about spring
blizzards. But they think about us! |
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Malaysian air
disaster? Terror? Ukrainian invasions? Imminent? Words for the week are “hurry up and wait”. |
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Politicians promise to do something about NSA
spying on millions of Americans’ phones and NATO allies instead of the likes
of Vladimir Putin |
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Still waiting a look at the
deposed President’s new digs in Russia.
Was he one of the mooks as got his assets
frozen? |
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We note, with much glee, the
upsets taking place at the NCAA tourney, and with little regret, the passing
of Fred Phelps, the Kansas minister who disrupted veterans’ funerals to
protest homosexuality. Bon voyage,
Freddie! |
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The Don Jones Index for the week of
March 12th through March 18th was UP 30.83
points.
Comments, complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC
donations): feedme@generisis.com
The Bureau of Labor Statistics corrected
its figures to reflect a 1.7% drop in gas prices for February as opposed to the
8.1% drop since February 2013. However,
they have already started rising, which increase will not be noted for a couple
more weeks.