Don't believe the hype

OPEC Interested in Non-Dollar Currency
Do you believe the behind the scenes leaked news that OPEC members want to support the dollar, or the posturing by Iran's Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Chavez, who have blatant political motives for creating a new world standard for pricing oil? I'll go with door number 1. Nevertheless, oil will price over $100 this week.

[Added 11/19/2007] Note that this was only the third time that a full OPEC meeting has occurred with all members and states since the committee was formed in 1960. What does that say?

Saudis don't want the US dollar to collapse

Saudi Arabia Won't Include U.S. Dollar in OPEC Talks
Good thing it was accidentally broadcast to journalists.

86% chance fed will cut rates in Dec: take the pain now or later?

Fed's Kroszner Says `Rough Patch' Won't Warrant Cuts
This is exactly what I was expecting in September, but instead of holding steady, the Fed cut rates by 50 bps. So now they are saying they want the economy to weather the rough waters of the coming months, and probably all of 2008. The 5-headed monster Fed is testing the waters by letting the Fed governors speak freely. First Poole says that only a calamity would force a change in Fed policy, then the 50 bps cut, then Miskin's the man to watch as his guidance has more closely followed what the Fed did, now Kroszner pops his head above water.

First the recession is imminent. Then there's a 30% chance. Now no one is sure.
One thing may be sure: earnings next year doesn't look too good. However, I'm investing in ROW stocks. That's stocks that sell to the Rest Of the World more than the US.

Hedge fund collapse? Why not banks and brokerages instead? Why not cities and towns?

Florida Holds $2.2 Billion of Debt Cut to Junk Status
This article goes over the how mortgage-backed securities are threatening some cities and towns that invested in them. But buried at the end is a little history on the collapse of banks and brokerages. Not exactly the hedge funds I was looking for, but tragic enough:

Potential losses by states are part of the subprime meltdown that shook up Merrill Lynch & Co., the world's biggest brokerage, in October. The firm reported a $2.24 billion third- quarter loss and an $8.4 billion write-down, leading to the firing of CEO Stan O'Neal.

Executives Step Down

The next week, subprime losses reported by Citigroup Inc., which at the time was the largest U.S. bank by market value, led to the departure of CEO Charles Prince.

In June, two bear Stearns Cos. hedge funds holding subprime debt reported losses of $1.5 billion. Bear Stearns fired Warren Spector, the firm's co-president for fixed income and asset management and the bank's stock lost 30 percent of its value in the following two months.

Michael Tsarion selling conspiracy

Michael Tsarion speaks on 2012 - The Future of Mankind at the Granada Forum in LA on Aug 3, 2006. This video is 2 hr 24 min 48 sec. There is a link to www.originsandoracles.com.

He mentions the conspiratorial movement/alternative history. While watching, I began to develop some rules about how to sell a conspiracy theory.

• Quote from greats to make your points.
• "Henry Ford said 'people deserve the government they get.'"
• "Einstein said that when the bees go, the humans have 2 years left." (Ian Crossland)
• MC Escher in Powerpoint slides.
• Break down words and make them fit your agenda.
• government = from the latin - to control minds
• sanity from the same root as sanitize
• Use other conspiratorial works as sources, even if they are fictional:
• They Live -- a conspiratorial sci-fi movie.
• Use other conspiratorial theories to bolster your own.

He tells a good story, though.

Timewave Zero

I've been exposed to Terrence McKenna's ideas of the novelty theory of time-- time goes through peaks and troughs that correspond to novel ideas and traditional ideas in history-- and found myself looking through his ideas once again, inspired by a youtube video about a talk he gave on "The World and it's double".

He talks about history and novelty here:

I did a Google search for terrence mckenna timewave zero and came up with this site, which says that the singularity will be "a suprahistorical order in which our ordinary conceptions of our world will be radically transformed." This caught my eye, but what I really want to know is what is going to happen after this event. What is the conception of the world that we will inherit?
Perhaps it will be a world that the ancients understood; that inspired the Mayans to create their long count calender; that got the pyramids built; in which religions and great ideas were caught, molded, and expressed. Perhaps it is the time the tower of Babel was built, and God struck it down, made men speak in tongues, and made us forget time and history. I see the end of history as just another cycle, to be replaced again at some point with what we have now-- novelty and tradition. Maybe it will last 1000 years; the 1000 years of peace that the Bible mentions as a precursor to Christ's return.
Terrence McKenna died in 2000 of brain cancer.

Bernanke: Fed will respond "as needed"

Bloomberg report.