Signs of the Economic Apocalypse 11-7-05

From Signs of the Times 11-7-05:

The dollar closed at 0.8464 euros on Friday, up 2.1% from the previous week's close of 0.8287. The euro, then, closed at 1.1815, compared to 1.2066 the week before. Gold also fell against the dollar, closing at 458.00 dollars an ounce, down 3.8% from 475.20. Gold in euros would be 387.64, down 1.6% from 393.83 at the previous Friday's close. Oil closed at 60.58 dollars a barrel, down 1.1% from $61.22 the week before. The gold/oil ratio saw a drop in the relative position of gold, closing at 7.56, compared to 7.76 the Friday before. The yield on the ten-year U.S. Treasury note closed at 4.66%, up nine basis points (hundredths of a percent) from 4.57% at the previous Friday's close. In the U.S. stock market, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 10,530.76 on Friday, up 1.2% from 10,402.77 the week before. The NASDAQ closed at 2,169.43 on Friday up 3.8% from 2,089.88 at the end of the previous week.

The dollar strengthened last week based on higher interest rates in the United States. The euro weakened on the riot crisis in France. Combine the two and you have a 2% rise in the dollar against the euro.

Job growth was very weak in October in the United States, but most of the Mainstream Media is attributing this to the hurricanes.

Job growth weaker than expected

By Glenn Somerville

Fri Nov 4,12:49 PM ET
Only 56,000 U.S. jobs were created in October, about half the number expected as the impact of Hurricane Katrina faded, but wages grew at the strongest pace in 2-1/2 years, a government report on Friday showed.

Though the Labor Department also revised down total job growth for the two prior months, it said the October national unemployment rate eased to 5 percent from 5.1 percent, implying the job market remained solid.

"The underlying trend looks to still be in the 200,000 (jobs per month) range," said economist Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pa. "And if that is correct, conditions are okay, really."

Talk about spin. The quote from the Labor Department neglects to mention that the slight drop in the unemployment rate was due to so many people giving up looking for jobs. They should call it the Job Seeking Rate.

As for Naroff's statement, the "underlying trend" refers to a mythical number of what the job growth would have been had there been no hurricanes. So you can pick any counterfactual statement and label that "underlying." How about this one: what would all the economic numbers say if Bush hadn't gotten away with stealing the last two elections?

Financial markets were whipsawed by the jobs data.

Bond and stock market participants focused initially on low job totals and hoped it meant the Federal Reserve might be more likely to halt its campaign of interest-rate rises, but later grew worried that rising wages could fire inflation.

By late morning, U.S. Treasury prices reversed course and were showing losses for fear the Fed might instead extend its rate rises, while stock prices turned down on similar concern. But bond prices later recovered modestly.

STORMS MUDDLE PICTURE

Wall Street economists had forecast that 100,000 jobs were created last month. But the figures remain hard to interpret because of the impact of hurricanes Katrina that struck the Gulf Coast in late August, Rita that followed in September and Wilma that hit Florida in October after the monthly jobs survey was completed.

As many as 400,000 people are estimated to have suffered job losses or interruptions in the Gulf Coast, though many are returning to work at rebuilding in the wake of the storms.

"The underlying economic fundamentals remain sound as has been pointed out by the Fed," said Alan Gayle, a managing director of Trusco Capital Management in Atlanta, though fourth-quarter growth may suffer if consumers spend less.

"You can't have this kind of slowing in job growth coupled with rising energy prices and not see some adverse impact on consumer spending," Gayle said.

The Labor Department revised August and September data to show that 36,000 fewer jobs were created in the two months than previously thought. It said there were 148,000 new jobs in August instead of 211,000 and that 8,000 jobs were lost in September instead of 35,000.

The Labor Department's commissioner of labor statistics, Kathleen Utgoff, said last month's softer pace of job creation could not be blamed on the hurricanes. "Rather, job growth in the remainder of the country appeared to be below trend in October," she said.

The softness in the housing market in the United States shows the contribution of both microeconomic factors (excessive household debt, lower wages and inflation) and psychological factors (fear of future, pessimism). The psychological factors are easily manipulated, so it is of some comfort that they are still attempting to put positive spin on the economic news. When they stop spinning the bad news, that will be when they pull the plug on the economy. The rise in U.S. stocks must be a signal that there is still a little money left to steal before they pull the plug. On the other hand, polls are clearly showing that the U.S. public no longer believes the positive spin. According to the New York Times:

The spike in inflation, caused largely by oil prices, seems to have soured many Americans on the economy, despite its continued growth. In a recent poll by the University of Michigan, 60 percent of people said that they expected the next five years to bring periods of widespread unemployment.

Not since 1992 have so many people given that answer. In the middle of last year, fewer than 40 percent of respondents did.

Since a consumer economy with vastly inflated paper assets is propped up by psychology, the fact that the pendulum has swung over to pessimism and fear is ominous and will likely prove self-fulfilling.

...The widening of income inequality in recent years appeared to continue last month. Workers at financial, information and professional-services companies - who tend to be highly paid - all got big raises. Raises at factories, warehouses, tourism companies, schools and health care providers were smaller.

In his testimony this week, Mr. Greenspan said the country was going through "a very marked change in the distribution of income."

Speaking of lower wages, take a look at what Northwest Airlines pilots had to settle for in their latest giveaway: a 24% cut in wages.

Northwest union in tentative labor deal

Fri Nov 4,11:29 AM ET

The union representing pilots at Northwest Airlines said it reached a tentative deal with the airline on a 24 percent pay cut that would stall the carrier's effort to have a bankruptcy court void the pilots' contract.

The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) said late on Thursday that the deal, which requires the approval of its members and the bankruptcy court, would reduce pilot costs for the airline by $17.9 million a month.

The concessions in the temporary deal would amount to $214.8 million a year in labor savings for the airline. That amount is 60 percent of the $358 million Northwest is seeking from nearly 5,200 pilots.

Northwest, which is restructuring in bankruptcy, has said it needs a total of $1.4 billion in annual labor savings to survive. The carrier has asked for court permission to cancel the labor contract of any employee group that has not agreed to the concessions it says are required.

The airline said on Wednesday, however, that it would delay a November 16 hearing on the request to cancel contracts until mid-January if the unions representing its pilots, flight attendants and ground workers would agree to temporary concessions equal to 60 percent of the $1.4 billion.

...In addition to cutting wages by 24 percent, ALPA said the temporary deal would cut some international flying rates, reduce sick pay to 75 percent of regular hourly pay and eliminate domestic crew meals.

...IAM said it expects Northwest to ask for a 19 percent reduction in pay and sick pay of 70 percent of regular wages.

Northwest, which filed for bankruptcy in September, has said it must reduce its labor costs to achieve $2.5 billion in overall yearly savings.

Other carriers in bankruptcy, such as UAL Corp.'s United Airlines, have used bankruptcy to extract savings from their workers that might have been impossible out of court.

Northwest, along with other major U.S. airlines, has been battered by soaring fuel costs, weak revenue and low-fare competition.

As the pay cuts and layoffs spread throughout the middle class into the highly skilled technical jobs such as airline pilots, where will the consumer debt-driven U.S. economy go? My guess is that soon the whole country will look like Detroit:

Turnaround dreams take root in Detroit

By Stefanie Murray, USA TODAY

When Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans two months ago, another impoverished, mostly black city stepped in to help.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pledged that his city would host 500 families displaced from the Gulf Coast.

The offer came as Detroit found itself facing another crisis, the latest in a half-century of problems that mirror those of New Orleans: poverty, crime, poor schools, white flight.

Most pressing now is the city's dire financial situation. The Motor City faces an accumulated $300 million budget deficit and could go broke in 2006, its auditor general warned recently. Since July 1, 500 city workers have been let go, including police and firefighters. More layoffs are possible.

The bad news comes just three months before Detroit will be on the world stage when it hosts Super Bowl XL on Feb. 5.

Detroit once was the heart of the USA's industrial might and a symbol of its blue-collar middle class, but the city has been in steep decline for decades. Detroit's population has shrunk 50% from 1.8 million in 1950 to just over 900,000 in 2004, bumping it off the list of the nation's 10 most populous cities.

"We're just as flooded as New Orleans, except we are not waving white flags from the roof," says Robin Boyle, professor of urban planning at Detroit's Wayne State University.

A near demographic twin of New Orleans, Detroit also bears the grim distinction of having the highest poverty rate of any major U.S. city: 33.6%, according to the Census Bureau. The city's unemployment rate was 12.7% in September, more than double the national rate of 5.1%.

A steady loss of automotive and other manufacturing jobs has hurt: Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth estimates that since 1980, the six-county Detroit metropolitan area has lost about 83,000 jobs in what it calls the "transportation equipment manufacturing and primary metal industry sectors" - mainly autos and steel.

Many people in the city's well-heeled suburbs still view Detroit as a magnet for crime and drugs, and they come to town only to work, attend sporting events or be entertained at the city's three casinos.

"Detroit has always felt like a delinquent relative: They may embarrass you or make terrible decisions, but you're still family," says Ryan Keberly, a photographer in the suburb of Royal Oak whose blog highlights Detroit's homeless.

Hoping for a rebound

About 74,000 people work downtown, but only 5,300 people live there, a Wayne State study this summer said.

About 25% of the buildings in 140-square mile Detroit are abandoned, which is probably one of the highest such rates in the country, Boyle says. The blight is easy to see. As in many other big cities, tall buildings stud Detroit's skyline. From a distance, they seem like beacons of commerce - but some of Detroit's are vacant.

There are signs, however, of revitalization. The city last year announced an effort to raze or rehab 141 vacant buildings before the Super Bowl; redevelopment has begun at 86.

"It's not just a brick-and-mortar change," says George Jackson, head of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., a quasi-public agency that guides development and investment in the city. "There is a spirit here now, and you can feel it."

The city is on the "cusp of the biggest turnaround in American history," says Kilpatrick, who faces a tough election Tuesday in a bid for a second four-year term.
...Some Detroit residents say the city is making progress.

"I'm not going to lie and say Detroit isn't a tough city," says Keta Hackney, 24, who works downtown at McKig Cleaners. "But it's coming around. Slowly but surely, it's coming around."

Civic leaders are mostly optimistic, if not defiant, about Detroit's future.

They point to more than 60 new businesses - at least 23 of them restaurants - and more than 800 lofts and condominiums that have opened downtown since 2003. In 2004, 924 new housing permits were issued, up from about 200 in 2001, says Walter Watkins, the city's chief development officer.

New streetscapes were built and cement silos are being razed along the historically industrial waterfront on the Detroit River to pave the way for a 5-mile walkway, a new state park, housing and retail space. Cranes and scaffolding dot downtown.
Such redevelopment is harder to spot in many residential neighborhoods, where hundreds of houses remain abandoned and crime rates are high.

A Super Bowl 'blip'

The approaching Super Bowl has spurred some investment. But revitalization and the Super Bowl "are kind of coincidental," Watkins says. Boyle calls it a "blip," one that has served as a rallying point for the city.

Detroit's three casinos, which have been open for about six years, also spark considerable traffic and city revenue, as do its three major sports venues: Comerica Park, home of Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers; Ford Field, home of the National Football League's Lions and site of the Super Bowl; and Joe Louis Arena, home of the National Hockey League's Red Wings.

Major companies, including General Motors and Compuware, have invested heavily in downtown.

GM invested $500 million to buy and upgrade the 713-foot-tall Renaissance Center, the city's tallest structure, where it employs 6,000. Compuware spent $400 million on a headquarters for its 4,000 workers.

Adam Brook, owner of a luggage and leather goods shop downtown, agrees that things are changing. Nevertheless, despite the ongoing construction near his third-generation business, Cadillac Luggage, Brook says he can "count the number of people that walk by my window every day." He says he has barely broken even the past three years.

"What's wrong with Detroit is we have thousands of people who spend thousands of dollars here, at the casinos, but it doesn't affect me one bit," Brook says. "But hey, I love Detroit. It's the people, and what the possibilities are. It's killing me, but I love it."

As usual, this article from USA Today stresses the positive, upbeat message of hope. And why not? If the rest of the country's economy keeps growing, then eventually Detroit will rebound. But what if what's in store for the rest of the country is Detroit's fate? What will it look like? The Web site dETROITfUNK, featuring some beautiful photographs of Detroit - beautiful both because they are well-composed and because truth is beauty, and beautiful in the way all artistic depictions of ancient ruins are - can give us a sense of what's in store. In this case, you see the ruins of twentieth century industry and stately nineteenth century buildings. Not all of this photographer's work shows ruins, but enough of Detroit is in ruins that an honest look will include them. Here are a few examples:










Sometimes art can help us understand the numbers better. Bob Dylan saw this coming forty years ago. Here are a couple of verses from Desolation Row (Copyright © 1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music):

Desolation Row
Bob Dylan

They're selling postcards of the hanging

They're painting the passports brown

The beauty parlor is filled with sailors

The circus is in town

Here comes the blind commissioner

They've got him in a trance

One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker

The other is in his pants

And the riot squad they're restless

They need somewhere to go

As Lady and I look out tonight

From Desolation Row

…Now at midnight all the agents

And the superhuman crew

Come out and round up everyone

That knows more than they do

Then they bring them to the factory

Where the heart-attack machine

Is strapped across their shoulders

And then the kerosene

Is brought down from the castles

By insurance men who go

Check to see that nobody is escaping

To Desolation Row

The anxiety is palpable, and not just in the United States. The way in which the riots have spread in France could not have been foreseen, but are depressingly similar to the spread of the race riots in the United States in the 1960s. Those riots did not only take place in Detroit, Newark and Watts, but smaller versions of them took place in hundreds of smaller cities. The political elite were shocked and surprised; had not the country finally passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act? Why riot now? As can be seen by the photographs of Detroit, the consequences of those events are still playing out. One can only hope France reacts better than the United States did.

What is becoming evident to the public throughout the world is that their voice is not being heeded. Thousands took to the streets in Argentina to protest Bush and Anglo-American neo-liberalism, but those pushing these polices do not care about public opinion anymore. The Iraq War proved that. Strong majorities even in the United States oppose Bush and the neoliberal agenda, but that no longer matters and people can sense it.

The anxiety is playing out in the markets as well. Here's Al Martin:

And, in the market -- what you have seen mid-week is an unusual type of trade wherein the bonds (U.S. Treasuries) remain under severe pressure. Equities opened higher, but then were pressured lower at the same time the U.S. dollar remains slightly higher. Yet precious metals and fungible commodities, which had opened higher, came down and fell sharply in late Wednesday trades. That was led by industrial metals, by the way, and fungibles.

This is unusual economic confluence of circumstance. Interrelationships between all of these markets have all been stretched out the wrong way. The type of trade that we saw last week in the equities, the bonds, the metals and the dollars is called a depressionary trade.

A depressionary trade is when the bonds start to fall under nervousness over the U.S.'s continued ability to even service its debt. The dollar is still pushed higher under the belief that U.S. interest rates would have to be moved sharply higher in order to prevent the dollar from further rising using monetized debt.

Commodity markets, in turn, particularly industrials and fungibles, fall, in recognition that GDP is falling sharply and that the demand for industrial and fungible commodities is going to fall sharply.

We have mentioned this in the past, that industrial production and capacity utilization in the last 30 days in this country, for lack of a better word, has collapsed.

There should be no doubt of what these signs mean. We talk about them all the time, but people don't understand. Now we're seeing the results of this in the markets.

...European Central Bank (ECB) chief Roger Trichet made some remarks on Tuesday to the effect asking -- Will the Bush-Cheney Regime even continue to survive -- since all of the economic policies it is now pushing, the individual bills and amendments, are directly counter to what 80% or more of the American people want?

In other words, what there is an awakening in foreign central banks that the Bush Cheney Regime is not concerned about public opinion polls anymore. It is not even concerned with political popularity. And you have heard this all this week, the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Acts getting thrown back in the mix.

Now, all of a sudden, we understand what the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Acts mean. The regime doesn't have to be concerned about its political popularity anymore.

As Trichet pointed out, (and it's odd that the ECB bank chief has to point this out, since no one in the U.S. press points this out.), all of the remaining Bushonian economic policies, like the extra $70-billion tax cut for the Republican rich and the targeted estate tax elimination for the Republican rich, etc.–are designed as a last shot, as it were, in transferring as much wealth in the nation from the bottom 80% to the top 20%. Even the Bank of England has pointed this out. These foreign central banks can't understand why the American people aren't up in arms -- or don't see what this regime is doing.

... But it is unusual for this to even get in the news, for it even to be a news item. The only reason it has gotten into the news a little bit is because of the unusual size and the angst with which money has been taken out of this country this week. There is angst about it that you haven't seen before, as if there's another shoe to drop someplace. And that's exactly what the market is concerned about. It's odd: How the markets are trading is they're being roiled by a combination of all the aforementioned, but they're also trading like they're walking on eggshells, like there's another big shoe out there to drop.

Besides a possible Cheney indictment, what else could it be? We don't know what that shoe is. It's not even the Cheney possible indictment. It would have to be something bigger than that.

People think -- Oh, well, George Bush, there's still a democratic political process. Pro-Bush faction Republicans still have to bow to public pressure and what public opinion polls say. No. The Gallup-Harris poll showed that 81% of the American people wanted Hurricane Katrina and relief deficit-financed reconstruction spending paid for by budgetary reductions. How is the Regime financing this $100+ billion in spending? It is deficit-financed. No budgetary reductions, and no cut in pork.

Now, in another Business Week poll, 78% of the people are against this special $70-billion tax cut for the Republican rich for next year. Yet it's been passed. It goes on and on. 61% of the people are against the elimination of so-called targeted estate tax elimination. It's targeted, not blanket. This is a targeted elimination estate tax, only for those with a net worth above $10 million. Yet the regime has passed that.

53% of the American people want an immediate withdrawal of troop forces from Iraq, yet the Regime says we will be placing more troops in Iraq between now and the end of the year. The majority of the people want a reduction in spending on Iraq, yet the regime is going to spend $80 billion more in Iraq next year than it did last year.

It doesn't take much of a brain to understand that the regime is no longer concerned about public opinion. Why does it have to be?

We, the people, agreed with the P.A.T.R.I.O.T Acts. We, the people, gave the President of the United States the absolute power to cancel elections permanently with no interference from Congress or the Supreme Court. Can what is happening today come as any surprise to anyone? It's a natural progression. And the markets are reacting.

Could the "other shoe" for the economy have to do with the strange hysteria about Bird Flu or with some other "natural" disaster? Imagine what the travel restrictions Bush loves to talk about would mean for the economy, especially when the travel restrictions would apply to food as well as people. Add to that the possible "destruction" of millions of chickens and the economic consequences could be disastrous.

Next time you are in an airport in the United States, look at the number of business travelers. To make a single, national economy out of a continent-sized area, people and goods need to be able to move around at will. That, in turn, depends on low energy/transportation costs and freedom of movement. With rising energy prices and the growing clampdown, both of these things are at risk.

Now, in the "for what it's worth" department, we have the interesting experiments in the predictive power of web bots developed at HalfPastHuman.com. The idea is that future events seem to cast a sort of subconscious shadow backwards in time, shadows that can be identified in the collective discourse using web bot technology. The track record of this experiment has been surprisingly good. The results are summarized regularly on George Ure's web site, Urban Survival.

I can't tell you how many people have written to me this morning literally "freaked out" by the story this morning that use the precise phrase "restrictions on travel" which the web bot forecasts from http://www.halfpasthuman.com/ have been talking about for months.

First, the story: CNN is now reporting that "Sustained person-to-person spread of the bird flu or any other super-influenza strain anywhere in the world could prompt the United States to implement travel restrictions or other steps to block a brewing pandemic, say federal plans released Wednesday."

Now, the background: Since early July 2001, we have been using a proprietary software technology developed by our colleagues at http://www.halfpasthuman.com/ to learn up to 12-months in advance, what the emotional flavor of future events will be...

Besides catching significant aspects of the 9/11 attack, and the emotional flavor of events with good accuracy, the anthrax attack, the space shuttle disaster, significant aspects of the DC sniper case, a nearly precise call on the Northeast Power Outage months before it happened, the Sumatra earthquake, and more recently the quake in Pakistan which was characterized as a quake where we saw a "city sliding down a hill" - not to mention the hurricane forecast from January of this year which led to a city be "returned to the mud" (New Orleans, for sure), the comments about "restrictions on travel" have been showing up in the predictive runs for a long time - nearly a year.

Some examples, shared exclusively here with the kind permission of the software wizard and his apprentice at www.halfpasthuman.com:

• From the April 3, 2005 ALTA 405 series: "We do note though that the Terra entity has repeated references to the [rainwater] and [standstill] of earlier parts of this report, and has reinforced the image of [trucks] (waiting) in (mud) for (abundant/excessive/large) [rain clouds] to (depart). And, this section is cross linked back to the Populace entity and the issues of 'food restrictions'."
• The April 10, 2005 report continued the theme: "This 'restricted movement' period is seen as beginning this summer and stretching through to the end of the year if not beyond. While there are no indications of a general restriction, and rather merely lots of local restrictions all due to a variety of causes, we do note that the impact will be so general as to permeate the consciousness of the populace and is seen as arising in mainstream media. Within the more narrow focus of this specific data set, there are further descriptors which go to the idea of a 'fiat' imposed [period/span] of [restricted] (movement), which is then [lifted] as (redemption) of the [circumstances/set/setting/array] are (corrected). Hanging off of this set, mostly fully populated is another aspect set which shows that a [dichotomy/duality/opposition] of view point about the [incident] will form in which [government], that is, the upper echelon who imposed the movement ban, will perceive of this as just [regular/ordinary] business, and totally miss the profound change that develops from the Populace perception of the 'in situ' imposition."
• In the July (ALTA 905 series) run, things begin to come into focus a bit more: "One co-incident change is that the Populace/USofA is going to take up the cry that the 'rules are too strict'. This however is just hardly begun, when the rules are shown by our data of actually getting very much stricter in that a period of 'no movement' will be called for on a national level. While our data shows that this is a travel restriction sort of thing, it does not show any signs or indicators for terrorism or war, rather this seems to somehow be weather related. There are some small hints that disease will be referenced, but not as a primary motivator for the period of 'no movement'. We have to also note that this could easily be something on the order of a bank holiday, or a freezing of currency exchanges, as there are no clear indications that it will be a restriction imposed on the movements of humans. But clearly the data is indicating that a 'restriction of movement' will impact a large part of the population just as calls get started for the removing of the 'too strict rules'."
• In September, the ALTA 1305 series ties restrictions of travel and food: "These included the [rainstorms] seen as impediments to movement of food, as well as the now emerging summertime shakes. Leaving aside such details, we perhaps should focus on the emerging design pattern of restrictions on the availability of food and food types which is currently seen as being of long term duration within our modelspace. The entities continue to show dominating trends toward restricted food plants as we move the model through time at least as far as we are able to currently project which goes out to about February of 2006."
• Lastly, in the most recent of runs, October 29th, we see how this threat of travel restrictions will being to cast a shadow over the country in December: "The Populace/USofA entity is showing via cross links that the 'shocks' of November will lead to 'restricted movement'. This is being interpreted as that, rather than 'scarcity' as there are both appearing within the entity. The suggestion from the originating cross links is that a combination of 'secrets revealed' and a run-in with 'scarcity' will lead much of the populace of the country into a period of 'restricted movement'. This may well be indicating a very very bad holiday travel season."

...What's curious is the timing. While our friends at www.halfpasthuman.com with the future scanning technology don't have anything looking like a terrorist attack on the horizon, there continue to be troubling references in coming months to economic impacts, restrictions of travel, or some variant of that which linguistically translates to "encounter with scarcity." What drives it, we may unfortunately get a taste of before the end of the month.

The Global Upwelling

Along the same lines, our colleagues label the period we're in now (and will be for a year or so longer) as a period of growing "militancy" which will segue into a period of "conflict."

Hmm... Restrictions in the availability of food and types of food available, an "encounter with scarcity" in the near future, these things don't really sound that farfetched. The range of produce that has been available in the middle of winter in the north of the United States is not something normal in any sense. Such amazing availability of different types of food result from low energy prices. Petroleum is necessary at every level of food production, from seed to transportation to market. If the price of energy goes up sharply, and it already has, it doesn't take a web bot to see that this era of plenty will end. Of course, who needs web bots when we have George Bush's words and deeds to go by... The plans aren't secret anymore. With the PATRIOT Act, they don't have to be secret.

Then, if you add cascading personal and corporate bankruptcies to the mix as well as various natural disasters whose psychological effect will be multiplied by the media, and an unpopular war being fought despite the wishes of the public in all of the countries involved, then it is not out of the question that serious discontent will manifest itself among the public. The effects of that will surely not be good since the militarization of domestic law enforcement and disaster relief has already been put in place. Detroit, Fallujah, New Orleans, Gaza, the Paris suburbs, it is all kind of blending together, isn't it?