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Friday, July 23, 2010
Morning Update/ Market Thread 7/23
Equity futures are moving back and forth across the even line this morning with the dollar up, bonds flat, oil down, and gold slightly higher.
Regarding oil, it is currently at $79 a barrel and did almost make it to the $80 mark again yesterday. Last night I read an article showing a very high correlation between oil at or above $80 and the pressure that it created on equity markets and the economy. Going back to mid '07, if we look at the times that oil exceeded that $80 mark we will see that indeed the markets and economy have struggled greatly. The year spent over $80 from October of '07 to October '08 correlates almost exactly with wave A down that bottomed five months after oil fell back below $80. Again at the end of last year and early this year oil began to push $80, and the markets and economy have stalled again. I'm not saying that it's instant or that the cause and effect are directly related to that mark, but there is a strong correlation and we are pushing that point again so it's worth acknowledging and watching this demarcation line.
There is no economic news today, however, Standard & Poor's is threatening to downgrade Hungary's debt to junk (duh, but notice how they will only downgrade the less powerful nations even though many of the more powerful nations are as bad or worse debt wise), and today is the European "Stress Test" results, Ooooo, I can't wait. This is the one and only mention you will hear from me regarding these stress tests – it can easily be summarized in one word, JOKE. They are not fooling anyone but themselves… well maybe a CNBC "analyst" or two along with every Nobel Prize winning economist, but other than them no one else is that gullible.
Significant earnings movers overnight were AMZN which is down dramatically after recognizing that profits are pressured by price cuts for the Kindle along with higher expenses and opposing that weakness is Ford who posted strong gains, Microsoft, Verizon, and McDonalds.
Yesterday's 200 point romp indeed turned out to be yet another 90%+ day, this time coming in at a "weak" 90.5%. It pushed prices right into resistance at the SPX 1090 level. That was the 9th 90% up day since the April peak, the score is now 11 down and 9 up for a total of twenty – nuts.
We did not exceed the high of July 13th, but we did come close. That action is very close to eliminating a smaller wave 2 of 3 and probably indicates that a larger degree wave 2 is in progress. If that's the case, then July 1 was the bottom of wave 1 and the July 13th high was five waves into a wave 'a' top. That means that we may be working our way higher in wave 'c' which would need a sideways to down movement followed by another push higher to more fully draw in the bulls. A daily chart of the SPX shows that we are now progressing outside of the wave 1 down channel. Keep in mind that H&S target of 860, it is a large pattern and obviously just needs time to play out:
There is a rather large bearish divergence on the short term RSI that developed yesterday and is still in place. That contrasts with a significant bullish divergence on the daily RSI which this wave higher should work off. So I would expect some sideways action followed, of course, by a 90% chance of a Monday HFT ramp job.
Guns & Roses – Patience:
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Morning Update/ Market Thread 7/22
Equity futures are up substantially this morning with the dollar down, bonds down, oil and gold up. The media, who must always find a reason, are touting CAT and Ebay earnings, but neither stock is actually higher by any significant degree, in fact CAT was substantially lower on the report.
New Jobless Claims jumped from 429,000 all the way back to 464,000. The consensus, which has been very much behind the latest downturn, was estimating 450k. Here's Econoday:
The Labor Department confesses: it was holiday distortions tied to July 4 that held down initial claims in the prior week. Claims for the July 10 week jumped 37,000 to 464,000 (prior week revised 2,000 lower to 427,000). Despite the jump, the four-week average, at 456,000, is slightly lower than this time last month which does hold out hope for improvement in monthly payroll data.
Continuing claims fell 223,000 in data for the July 10 week. The four-week average for this reading shows only marginal improvement from a month ago: at 4.567 million vs 4.573 million in the June 19 week. The unemployment rate for insured workers fell two tenths in the week to 3.5 percent.
Weekly initial claims data will be distorted through the month of July, beginning with the opening holiday and in following weeks on calendar shifts for retooling in the manufacturing sector. Nevertheless, today's report isn't very good.
The four week average is down due to their seasonal manipulations. Continuing claims are down as people fall off the rolls and due to the end of emergency benefits which are in process of being restored.
Existing Home Sales and Leading Indicators come out at 10 Eastern this morning.
Want to get angry? General Motors, who we all just bailed out and who completely sunk GMAC, is now buying subprime lender AmeriCredit (ACF) for $3.5 billion so that they can recreate their terrific financing activity! On your nickel, I might add. This bailout was the worst of the worst. The media and meatheads blaming the unions, but the truth is that GM could have paid NO wages, no benefits, and no retirements and they would have still lost Billions due to their incomprehensible finance arm. They financed subprime mortgage loans, and they were responsible for blowing a price bubble in automobiles! Cars became so expensive due to their financing anyone with a heartbeat, that they went from three year financing with 10% down, to seven year financing with zero down. This is what created a bubble in car prices, a bubble that still exists. And just look at the industry now. Zero down, zero interest. Where is the financing cost? It's in the price of every car! Way overvalued, and we can thank our government's meddling for that. GM and Chrysler continue to block out real and meaningful competition, it's the de-evolution of our entire manufacturing base.
Looking at the wave count, it appears that the down move on Bernanke's concerns yesterday was a wave (b) of wave c of wave 2. By that favored count, this should be the final wave higher and it may take us into the weekend to be proportional with wave (a), as that wave lasted approximately two days. That said, the final wave can easily truncate at any point, so we'll see what kind of data we get this morning. Patience, it will soon be time:
Chambers Brothers - Time Has Come Today
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Graham Summers - The Stinging Critique of a Worker Bee
The Stinging Critique of a Worker Bee
A little while back, a Fed Economist by the name of Kartik Athreya, wrote a piece urging the public to only listen to economists who have PhDs from top level universities when searching for economic insights. Regarding other sources of macro-economic analysis, specifically bloggers, Mr. Athreya writes, "it is exceedingly unlikely that these authors have anything interesting to say about economic policy."
Obviously this paper was a lot of fun for me to read. So I thought I'd present some thoughts on Mr. Athreya and the group of "experts" he represents.
For starters, Mr. Athreya introduces himself as the following:The relevant fact is that I work as a rank-and-file PhD economist operating within a central banking system. I have contributed no earth shaking ideas to Economics and work fundamentally as a worker bee chipping away with known tools at portions of larger problems.Now, the primary thrust of Mr. Athreya's arguments is that one needs to have taken some form of graduate work on economics to provide any commentary on the subject that is "meaningful."
Seeing as this is essentially a "leave the difficult stuff to us experts," argument, I want to start with the self-description of the "expert" writing it. I wonder, when reading Mr. Athreya's self-description, if worker bees do in fact "chip away" at things?
I realize that bees make honey and build hives… but chip away? What do they chip away with? "Known tools"? Do bees use tools? Which ones are these? And what "portions of larger problems" do bees "chip away" at? Building hives? Making honey? How do you produce honey by "chipping away"?
More to the point, what on earth is Mr. Athreya talking about?
We're not even past page one of his "us experts are the only ones who know what they're talking about," diatribe and already it's not even clear that he has a firm grasp on how to use basic metaphors. And he is meant to represent the sort of people us ordinary folk should listen to when it comes to explaining things that are "very complicated"?
I also wonder if Mr. Athreya, when making his somewhat self-deprecating introduction, was aware that most "worker bees" are in fact sterile females? Moreover, did he intend, by using the "worker bee" metaphor, to imply that the Central Banking System is in fact a metaphoric "hive" of which Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is the "queen"?
I've written some pretty critical words regarding Chairman Bernanke and his policies, but implying that he is a large female whose only role is to sit around laying eggs all day is too rough even for my taste. A charlatan and a fool? Certainly. But a insect whose sole purpose is to lay eggs? That's a bit much.
Of course, I am making an intensive examination of Mr. Athreya's choice of words. However, if Mr. Athreya wishes to write a paper elevating himself and those of his profession as the only ones qualified to discuss difficult topics such as macro-economics, I would assume he would be intelligent enough to make a cogent metaphor (I am, of course, assuming Mr. Athreya was not aware of the implications of his "worker bee" self-description… for all I know he may in fact want us to believe he and his ilk are sterile females working for a queen).
However, in the interest of taste and decorum, let's set aside my analysis of Mr. Athreya's creative language and focus on the brunt of his intellectual argument. Rather than analyzing his entire essay, I thought it best to summate his points in a few bullets:1. Macro-economics is very hardMr. Athreya then goes on step further and points out that while many bloggers focus on the Financial Crisis, they fail to provide a similar amount of commentary regarding two other major crisis, specifically the earthquake in Haiti and the Tsunami in East Asia.
2. Only those with at least some advanced PhD-level coursework can comment on macroeconomics knowledgably
3. Everyone who pretends they understand macroeconomics without having pursued said coursework is doing the world a disservice and misleading the general public
He writes:I find the comparison between the response of writers to the financial crisis and the silence that followed two cataclysmic events in another sphere of human life telling. These are, of course, the Tsunami in East Asia, and the recent earthquake in Haiti. These two events collectively took the lives of approximately half a million people, and disrupted many more. Each of these events alone, and certainly when combined, had larger consequences for human well-being than a crisis whose most palpable effect has been to lower employment to a rate that, at worst, still employs fully 85% of the total workforce of most developed nations.I chose this passage because it shows, in clear terms, just how self-righteous and clueless economists like Mr. Athreya are. To be clear, I do not think ALL economists are clueless. Moreover, I do not think all economists AT the Federal Reserve are dolts. It is quite clear from several of the papers published by folks at the Fed that some of them understand exactly what is going on and that they are as fed up as the rest of us.
So, if you have a PhD in Economics or work for the Fed, do not think that the following is necessarily directed at you. It is, instead, directed at those Economists who, like Mr. Athreya, believe they are somehow smarter than the rest of us, when in fact the vast majority of them missed the biggest Financial Crisis in 80+ years all the while promoting theories and policies that have done severe damage to American savers, the value of the US Dollar, and American living standards.
Over the last 40 years, Americans has seen a dramatic decline in incomes, living standards, and generalized quality of life while their savings and wealth were transferred to Asia, OPEC, and Wall Street.
Indeed, when you adjust for inflation using the Bureau of Labor Statistics OWN data, REAL incomes have declined some 40%+ from 1972 to today (weekly earnings of $143 in 1972 are worth $746 in 2010 dollars… compare that to the ACTUAL weekly earnings of $355 today).
Between 1970 and December 2009, the US Dollar lost 81% of its purchasing power courtesy, at least partially, of the Federal Reserve and the economists who decide policy there. This, combined with the drop in weekly earnings, is why, in the '70s, only one parent worked and families got by whereas today both parents typically work and are struggling to make ends meet.
In plain terms, the Fed's policies eviscerated the middle class while funneling their money into Asia (per capita income in China doubled twice from 1978 to 1987 and again from 1987 to 1996), OPEC, and Wall Street (the financial industry's profits as a percentage of total S&P 500 profits rose form 10% to 31% from 1970 to 2003).
In 1979, the top 10% of income earners in the US took in 67% of all capital income (income from stocks, bonds and the like). By 2006, this group was snagging over 80% of all capital income. Talk about concentration of wealth in the hands of the few!
Economists like Mr. Athreya and their "very precisely articulated model(s)" are indirectly if not directly responsible for this happening. Their work was used to back up policies that were in fact horrible for the American people and their living standards. In plain terms, they dressed up a bunch of theories that were complete and utter CACA all the while claiming these theories were facts. And all 300+ million of us in the US have suffered because of it.
Mr. Athreya decries the fact that bloggers focus on the Financial Crisis instead of the earthquake in Haiti or Tsunami in South East Asia. He implies that this focus indicates bloggers are in some way not concerned with the welfare of others.
Unfortunately for his arguments, neither the earthquake nor the Tsunami were man-made catastrophes. The Financial Crisis, in contrast, WAS man-made (actually IS, since it's still going).
Moreover, the risks of the Tsunami and the earthquake were not well known to the experts well in advance (a handful of studies warned about a potential earthquake in the Caribbean, but the Tsunami came "out of left field" so to speak).
In contrast, as early as 1998, soon to be chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Brooksley Born, approached Alan Greenspan, Bob Rubin, and Larry Summers (the three heads of economic policy) about derivatives. She said she thought derivatives should be reined in and regulated because they were getting too out of control. The response from Greenspan and company was that if she pushed for regulation that the market would implode.
So, the Economists and experts knew a full ten years in advance what the risks were in the financial system. And they did NOTHING to rein them in.
Finally, neither the Tsunami nor the earthquake resulted in the Federal Reserve channeling TRILLIONS of taxpayer dollars into the corrupt bank oligarchs' coffers, often times paying 100 cents on the Dollar for worthless assets that are now poisoning the Fed's balance sheet and assuring that the very issues plaguing Europe will one day hit the US.
The Financial Crisis DID all of this and more.
In no way shape or form am I belittling those who were killed or continue to suffer from the earthquake in Haiti or Tsunami in East Asia. My primary point is that both of those incidents were natural catastrophes that could not have been prevented. The Financial Crisis, which wiped out $50 trillion in wealth and has resulted in millions losing their jobs, COULD have been prevented.
And yet, consumers are supposed to listen to the guys whose entire careers are meant to focus on forecasting economic events when less than one percent of them forecast the Crisis (despite those at the top of the economist food chain knowing a full decade in advance of the risks in the financial system)?
Truly, Mr. Athreya and his ilk are "chipping away… at larger problems." However, those problems are not economic models or unemployment, they are the following:1. That ANYONE listens to economists like Mr. AthreyaHowever, do not be alarmed, I am sure that as long as the Fed keeps publishing this kind of nonsense while funneling taxpayer money into the Wall Street banks, both of these problems will soon be fixed… permanently.
2. That the US Dollar still has a value greater than toilet paper
When that happens, we can all toast Mr. Athreya and his ilk with $100 beers and take comfort that the experts knew what they were doing all along.
Good Investing!
Graham Summers
Oh wait, I guess I do have more to add! It occurs to me, and I'd have to do a $257 million study to provide the empirical data of course, that the more one is educated in economics the larger their misunderstanding of the true dynamics become. I strongly believe that our money system and who control it is to blame. Those same central bankers also are responsible for funding and thus control our higher educational institutions.
The "science" of economics is closer to astrology than it is to any real scientific field. Modern day economists use linear formulas with their basis in the days of Adam Smith. Highly touted and respected economists like Keynes, Friedman, Greenspan, Bernanke, and Krugman (among many others) have been making grandiose statements and predictions all built upon piles of myths and misconceptions. Their track records are abysmal at best, especially when the real non-linear world begins to leave the center of the DEBT operating envelope.
In short, these people have failed to pull their heads out of academia where they are programmed with one misconception built upon the other, all supporting the current power structure – a debt backed money box that feeds the central banks.
Indeed it's time to advance the conversation – the place to start is by dismantling the Fed and sending people like Mr. Athreya onto the streets where they can learn the reality of economics and free their minds to understand the real world.
Morning Update/ Market Thread 7/21
Equity futures are higher this morning following yesterday morning's about-face. The dollar, however, is higher. Bonds are down slightly, and both oil and gold are higher.
Yesterday Apple reported record earnings and iPad sales that exceeded their entire lineup of iPod sales. APPL stock is roughly $12 higher this morning or about 4.7%. Intel and Apple appear to be leading the tech sector at this point. Google's stock, another tech bellwether, is not performing as well. Yahoo disappointed yesterday and is down more than 6% this morning. Wells Fargo profits are down year over year, but they beat expectations largely by lessoning their loan loss reserves – again taking more risk on the assumption that the worst is behind. Morgan Stanley also beat but mostly on trading profits. So far it seems to me that earnings have been largely disappointing with a few notable exceptions such as Apple. The second quarter, however, was only just starting to slow economically and thus I think the next two quarters will be important and will likely show more deterioration than is currently assumed.
Extended Emergency Unemployment benefits have now been reinstated. That will bring in an additional $10 billion per month into AAPL's coffers – err, I mean into the economy. If you think about it, that's a very substantial sum, nearly $120 billion a year. Of course it's all additive to our deficit and in the end simply progresses us to the day that confidence in our money is lost.
Additionally it appears that we now have "financial reform" via the "Dodd-Frank" bill. I personally do not think this accomplishes anything for the economy – it consolidates power in the wrong hands while failing to address current debt levels, derivatives, and the GSEs. The market does not appear to know how to digest it – there are many discretionary powers and delayed timelines so it is difficult, if not impossible, to know all the ramifications in advance. I was recently interviewed by a European publication regarding this bill, below are their questions and my responses:
1 - Does the new Bill target the roots of the crisis engine?
Absolutely not! It fails to target the debt and it fails to target derivatives – thus leverage in general will still be far too high. The true root of the crisis was not financial in the first place! The root of the crisis is found in our money systems and most importantly WHO controls them. The same private organizations are in control today as were in control during America's Great Depression. To truly address the roots of the problem, we must address debt, derivatives, and our monetary system along with who controls it and how.
2 - What do you think are the stronger points of the new financial reform?
It is very strong if you are a central banker and wish to keep your games rolling! It gives them more discretionary power while obscuring what is truly transpiring. This reform does not have any strong points for the average citizen. Placing "Consumer Protection" under the Fed, for example, is absolutely putting the fox in charge of the hen house! The "consumer" is saturated with debt as are our governments. This bill fails miserably once again at addressing this.
3 - What do you think are the weakest points of this Bill?
It gives discretionary power to those responsible for making the mess in the first place. It fails to address current debt, derivatives, or the GSE's (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). It does nothing to bring government deficits under control or to right government programs that are insolvent. In general, it fails to change the equation of WHO produces the money and how.
Additionally, the Fed now has the authority to impose new capital standards, regulate, and/or even to divest certain portions of those financial companies! Keep in mind that the Fed is owned by the member banks! Who are the largest shareholders in the Fed? The largest banks, of course! This gives those forces the power to regulate competitors or to even force them into disadvantaged capital positions – ultimately they could even force them to divest entities that the larger member banks could then pick up! This is inexcusable and a total mess for our nation and the world. It centralizes power further into the very hands of the organizations responsible.
True and lasting solutions will only come when we begin to think and operate outside of the central banker debt backed money box. Inside of that box the only answers are continually growing deficits or austerity – neither is the correct solution. When neither of those work look for "other historical events," like war, to follow and to distract.
4 - This Bill is comparable to the Blitzkrieg of the financial reform from FDR in the 1930s?
Absolutely not. The current problems now are far larger and far more complex than then – this addresses very little that is meaningful.
5 - One of the aspects that surprised is the expected delay between Obama signature and its application. For instance, the time to application of the so called Volcker rule goes from 15 month to more than 80 month, or even 9 years for certain aspects! A delay between 2012 and 2022! In pratical terms, that's almost a generation. What kind of reform is this?
It's no reform at all. It is meant to look like the politicians are taking action while actually doing nothing but turning over more power and control the central banks. The Dodd-Frank bill has gaps you could fly a Boeing 747 through. The economy is far more fragile than anyone wants to admit, so they are purposely not taking any action now so that they can hopefully not have to address another steep downturn on their watch. They will fail in that regard as another steep downturn is rapidly approaching and in fact is already in progress.
A Debt saturation crisis moves in 3 waves – A, B, C. We have experienced A down (late '07 to March '09), B up, and now C down has likely begun as the debt has not been cleared. Wave C down is the wave that brings about real and meaningful change and will cleanse the debts restoring historical income to debt ratios. The Dodd-Frank bill is not it – I believe that meaningful reform will not come for some time still, but that time is approaching. As events continue to unfold the people will become more aware of how they have been deceived.
For those masochistic enough to dive into the entire 2,319 pages of diversionary Dodd-Frank language, here is a link: Dodd-Frank Bill
Maybe I'll be proven wrong about the use of discretionary power and they will be used on behalf of the people – LOL, oh wait, that does sound laughable and completely implausible when looking at actions to date, does it not? The Fed in charge of consumer protection? LOL, and Dodd, of course, doesn't believe a real watchdog like Elizabeth Warren is qualified for that job! More wool is all I see, real reform it is not.
Speaking of wool, this morning the worthless MBA Purchase Applications Index rose by 3.4% for the prior week. The refi index rose 8.6% in yet another completely unbelievable one week swing. This index is still sitting on historic lows and I maintain that the way in which it is reported should be completely banned. Regardless, here's Econoday spinning it for all it's worth:
Homeowners are trying to lock in record low mortgage rates. The Mortgage Bankers Association's refinancing index jumped 8.6 percent in the July 16 week, making for a nearly 30 percent gain over the past four weeks. The average 30-year mortgage fell 10 basis points in the week to 4.59 percent, the lowest ever in the survey. Low rates are one of the few positives for home sales. The badly depressed purchase index rose 3.4 percent driven by demand for government loans which have low down-payments. Today's report, along with yesterday's rise for housing permits, are rare bits of good news for the housing sector.
Good news for the housing sector? Tell us another good one, I love Science Fiction stories! Ohhh, too bad, that's the only "economic report" for the day. Tomorrow we'll get Jobless Claims, Existing Home Sales, and Leading Indicators.
Let's take a look at a 3 month daily chart of the SPX with all my drawings turned off so that we can see the series of lower highs and lower lows. The most recent high appeared to be the end of wave 2 of 3. In fact, if we exceed the July 13th high, then it may turn out that was just wave A of wave 2 and that the recent decline was wave B with C started yesterday. That's an alternate scenario if we go on to make a higher high – so far we've retraced roughly 61.8% of the downmove, so a turn right here would not be unexpected and if so then the climb yesterday was simply a smaller wave 2.
The only truly bullish case I can make is if we exceed the June 21st high with both the DOW Industrials and Transports, then you would produce a secondary DOW Theory buy signal. I don't see that happening yet, but it's a possibility. The VIX was down substantially yesterday, that simply looks complacent to me. For now the SPX 1090 area is acting as resistance, while the DOW's magical and magnetically attractive 10,000 is acting as support.
With the dollar higher and bonds not far from making new highs, I still believe that the risk is squarely on the down side – that verified H&S pattern has a target of 860, the odds are very high that we will get there - it's simply a matter of time.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Morning Update/ Market Thread 7/20
Equity futures are down sharply this morning, the dollar is higher, bonds are higher, oil and gold are down.
Yesterday evening and this morning IBM, Johnson and Johnson, and TXN all reported sales that were below expectations and all are off significantly. Also this morning bad boy Goldman reported a very large miss with expectations for earning of $1.99 per share but coming in at only $.78 – an 82% drop in earnings for the quarter. What happened to their trading mojo? Hmm, why do I feel like I'm always being played by any report they release? JPM and BAC trading revenues fell as well but not as significantly.
Housing Starts came in lower than expected once again at a very anemic 549,000 units. Prior was 593k and the street was looking for 580k, that's a 7.4% one month drop on the heels of May's 10% drop and the largest plunge in history for New Home Sales. Here's Econoday:
Housing is still suffering from the end of expired tax incentives as starts fell sharply in June. But the good news is that housing permits rebounded, perhaps indicating a bottom for starts. Homebuilders again slowed the pace of ground breaking as housing starts in June declined 5.0 percent after a 14.9 percent plunge in May. The June annualized pace of 0.540 million units fell well short of analysts' expectations for 0.580 million units and is down 5.8 percent on a year-ago basis. The latest fall was primarily due to a 21.5 percent plummet in multifamily starts, following a 4.3 percent gain in May. The single-family component only slipped 0.7 percent after an 18.8 percent decrease the prior month.
By region, the decline in starts was led by an 11.3 percent drop in the Northeast Census region. Decreases also were seen in other regions with the Midwest down 6.9 percent; West, down 5.9 percent; and the South, down 2.4 percent.
The near term outlook is less gloomy as permits rebounded 2.1 percent in June, following a 5.9 percent drop in May. Permits in June came in at an annualized rate of 0.586 million units and are down 2.3 percent on a year-ago basis.
Clearly, the starts and permit levels are weak. But June's starts numbers are not as bad as at face value as the multifamily component is very volatile and led the drop. And the comeback in permits suggests that the post-tax credits decline is leveling off.
Oh yeah, it's a great report – lol. Check out that chart, in 2007 housing starts were only three times what they are now! Is this the bottom, the time to buy? Uh, not yet… Here's a reminder where we are, 2012 and after is the time to be thinking about real estate again, but have plenty of cash at the ready to take advantage.
Fundamentally also keep in mind that our population of peak earners has peaked and is in the process of crashing. The peak earnings and thus peak spending statistically occurs at age 46.5 in the United States and the Baby Boomers aggregate peak is now beyond peak! They also pulled future income forward in time, shifting that peak sooner via the massive use of debt. So, with peak earners/spenders in steep decline, and the Fed targeting 2 or 3% growth, what does that tell you? It tells me that the only way to create "growth" is via more paper. It's a completely ridiculous notion that a government would attempt to create growth with a shrinking population of peak earners (this is far more important than overall population size). This is just another example of how unsophisticated the Fed and our government is in understanding the economy – intentionally so, I might add.
Speaking of population size, the U.S. has 308 million people. China has 1.324 billion people, four times as many! Yes, it is significant that their total energy consumption just exceeded that of the U.S. – our energy consumption has declined the past two years which fits with the shift beyond the Boomer's peak. Harry Dent has done a ton of good research regarding demographics all over the world, if you are after more demographics information, his site is where you will find it - www.hsdent.com.
Below is his chart showing the Boomer's generational wave. Note the peak in the spending wave that has already occurred:
Next is a chart of his spending wave with the S&P 500 overlaid in front of it. Dent's spending wave was created by taking the immigrant adjusted births in the United States and moving them forward by 46.5 years to adjust to peak earnings/ spending. Again, you can see that the following generation does not produce positive growth in peak earnings until after the year 2022! Do not expect any fundamentally strong economic growth until after that time frame:
The markets appear to be continuing wave 3 of 3 of 3 down, yesterday appeared to be a small wave 2 and this wave should be a strong part of wave 3. Remember, this wave 3 is likely a part of the larger wave 1 which I expect will conclude somewhere near the H&S target of 860ish. This wave will also have subwaves within it, so don't expect a straight line down – the markets never move in a straight line!
Today the NDX is producing its Death Cross with the 50dma moving below the 200dma. The RUT and Transports are the holdouts for now, but even the Major Market Index (basically the entire market) has crossed:
Demographics – debt – housing - earnings – markets – politics… under pressure:
Queen and David Bowie – Under Pressure:
Monday, July 19, 2010
Morning Update/ Market Thread 7/19
Equity futures are slightly higher this morning. The dollar and bonds are close to even, oil is flat, and gold is down. This week's economic reports are dominated by housing data, the housing market index is released at 10 Eastern today. The LEI, which lags the ECRI, is released on Thursday.
Friday's 261 point plunge was the 19th 90%+ NYSE volume day since we topped in April – another HFT extreme, 95.7% of the volume was on the downside. The score is now 11 down, 8 up, which is a very dangerous combination.
Last week produced another key reversal on the weekly candle by producing a new high and finishing lower. This is often a sign of a coming decline. I think it is highly likely that wave 3 of 3 of 3 (of 1) began Friday. There is an alternative, but in either count much lower is likely dead ahead – the target of the H&S top is 860ish.
I want to point out that the EW people who believe we are in a new bull market (I believe they are just wrong) think that this pullback is wave 2, and that the rise from March '09 was wave 1. Thus they expect that once wave 2 finishes that we'll go roaring onto new highs in wave 3 up. That means that what happens after we arrive at the 860ish area will be critical. We will probably then bounce with them believing wave 3 up has begun, and people like me believing that wave 2 up has begun. I think the bears will be proven right, and as evidence I simply have to point at the levels of debt which are still obscene. This is why it is critical that we consider the true underlying fundamentals of the market. Then there are the people who believe that the economic data can continue to be bad, but stocks still rise like post 1932 during the depression… to that I agree, however, I do not believe that enough debt has been cleared yet for that to happen – that our timeline is longer than then as events are unfolding more slowly due to the larger scale of the problems and massive intervention.
For now it is clear that we just made a new lower high, turning right on resistance and once again failing to get over the moving averages. Speaking of moving averages, the 50dma is now nearly 2% beneath the 200dma on the SPX, this virtually assures that there will be no quick whipsaw on the death cross indication. Note on the daily chart below that the daily stochastics are just rolling over, so there is a long way to go to oversold on this timeframe. We closed beneath 1070 which I believe opens the door to get back below 1040 and to create a new low soon:
On the shorter time scale, however, we are oversold and can expect some sideways to up action following the large down move on Friday. Also, on the 60 minute chart below you can see that there is now a new down slopping Head & Shoulder's pattern that is worth approximately 120 SPX points… that slopping neckline will be in roughly the 1000 area by the time we descend to it and the target will thus be in the 880is area, very near the larger H&S target area of 860ish. I like it when multiple patterns target the same general area, the markets are talking loud and clear on where we are headed:
I was reminded that yet another long term indicator triggered a long term sell signal at the end of last month… that occurred when monthly prices closed below the 20 month exponential moving average. This is the 4th long term indicator to issue a long term sell signal in the past month:
Note that the gap between the Shanghai index and the SPX has yet to narrow – this gap should not be ignored, the world functions largely together and you can see that historically they work to close the gap:
It's been awhile since I updated the Point & Figure diagrams, below you can see that the SPX P&F is targeting 900 – again close to the H&S target area:
The DOW's P&F diagram is targeting 8,700:
Everyone was breathing easier over the cap on the BP well head holding… and then the truth emerges that indeed there are leaks coming from the sea bed floor. Tragic – my fear is that keeping the cap on makes the damage to the well worse, I would think they will have to uncap it soon. Fingers are crossed that they can kill it later this month. As I read what is occurring, the one thing that makes me extremely angry is the lack of transparency from our own government. This Admiral Allen has acted like a BP spokesman and his latest release provides zero information about what is happening on the sea floor – exactly what a BP spokesman would want to provide.
Obama's "debt panel" is finally talking… and what are they talking? Why austerity of course:
Obama's debt panel: Hints of an endgameNote the psychology shift – austerity is the plan now and not stimulus! Welcome to wave C, however, we must first wait… and wait… and wait… as the economy is "still too fragile." No kidding… and the deficits mount and mount while we hear the sound of the very empty can rattle down the road as it gets repeatedly kicked. Eventually an event or series of events will come along that draw everyone's attention away – unfortunately history says that those events will be very significant in nature.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- How to get the federal budget back on the right track? Here are just two ideas from the co-chair of the president's bipartisan debt commission: Rein in tax breaks. Set hard caps on federal revenue and spending.
Erskine Bowles, co-chairman of the panel and White House chief of staff under former President Clinton, has twice in recent weeks mused in public about what he'd like to see in a debt-reduction plan.
The commission has much work left, and Bowles only gets one vote. But if the commission can't agree on its own set of official recommendations, he is likely to play an influential role in shaping the advice given to President Obama.
Obama, for his part, has said he will deliver serious deficit-reduction proposals next year after reviewing the commission's report, which is due Dec. 1.
If Bowles has his druthers, no plan would take effect before 2012. "The economy is too fragile," he said at the commission's last public meeting and reiterated again at a jobs summit last week at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
And as I've been shouting since the 9/11 attacks, our reaction to it has been one of fiscal suicide. We spent and spent in order to "be secure," but in so doing we bankrupted our nation unwittingly in the end making our nation far less secure – oh, the end we have not seen yet, it's coming. "Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither" to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin.
Report: U.S. intelligence community inefficient, unmanageable
Washington (CNN) -- The September 11, 2001, attacks have created an intelligence community so large and unwieldy that it's unmanageable and inefficient -- and no one knows how much it costs, according to a two-year-long investigation by the Washington Post.
Ahead of the publication, many in the intelligence community worried that the stories would disclose too much information about contractors and the classified tasks they handle.
The Post article that appeared in Monday's edition says its investigation uncovered "a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine."
The Post investigation found that "33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001," or the equivalent of nearly three Pentagons.
"Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States," according to the Post, with an estimated 854,000 people holding top-secret security clearances.
Two years to study it and it's so unweildy that they can't even count the money spent...
To those who still believe that our reaction was appropriate all I can say is that we are all about to be spanked severely for our lack of clear thought, and none of us are going to like it. I already don't like it – from the perspective of a thinking airline pilot, it was a disgrace. Just yesterday evening I drove to the local store and passed a completely unmarked police car, with dark windows and hidden lights, pulling over a local in my small community… does my little town spend heavily on unmarked vehicles to pull over locals for speeding? WHY? Then my wife and I drove down to the Tacoma waterfront for dinner – passed the defense industry stop light cameras and permanently installed speeding traps (tickets by mail) to arrive at the waterfront. At the beginning of the waterfront drive – a police car. In the middle – two police cars. We go for a walk and see 3 more. Sweet, what a nice lifestyle, the land of the free – heck, I almost felt safe except for the fact that I am living in a total police state where the state does not have the means to pay for it. My local town deserves to be bankrupt. I was just reading how the city of Federal Way earns $2.2 million per month from automated tickets by mail – they are now addicted to that money… oh, and the DOD company that build them, they take 40% of the haul. Federal Way's court system is now so busy with cases that they are backed up and need to hire more judges – sweet!
Me? I moved out of the town of Lakewood due to this very thing and I'll be heading to another town that is not a police state, as far away from this type of crap as possible. If that town then proceeds to do likewise I'll move again. Hopefully the cleansing that's coming will cure this type of nonsense, but again I fear that we may only see more of it – I am on guard and make my opinions known to local politicians regarding these issues, I hope you do too.
Jimi Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower:
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Martin Armstrong – 2010, The Collective Conscious
Two things I want to point out that strike me in this paper…
The first is that he states in the opening paragraph that, "We are beyond hope, and it is a sad day that it is just impossible to ever make a difference or avoid a catastrophe." He continues later, "We are entering a new era where all that once was is coming to an end. The real issue is HOW do we rebuild what is going to collapse?" So, in his previous paper we are not going to encounter another Depression, but in this paper we are going to experience catastrophe and after the collapse we will have to rebuild!
Playing it both ways? Yes, this guarantees that he will be right regardless of outcome and can later quote just how right he was! I'm simply pointing out what I see, and I am seeing more of this. Still, Martin adds depth to the discussion and there is great value there as long as you keep it in perspective.
The second point is that Martin echoes Adam Smith's "Everyone acts out of their own personal self-interest" line, and that "COLLECTIVELY the sum of all actions is the real trend." Here I also disagree that it is happening. Is assuming more debt than you can repay acting in your own self-interest? Is voting for people who spend more than their government takes in acting in your own self-interest? Is allowing Wall Street to manipulate markets and buy politicians acting in our own self-interest? How about being underwater on your mortgage yet continuing to pay full amount on a debt owed that is secured by that underwater property – is that acting in your own self-interest (many are dipping into life savings in order to do so)? No, it seems to me that collectively we are FAILING to act in our own self-interest – that is the danger of this time! We have not forced the businesses to fail who should have failed, we have failed to recognize and to act in our own self-interest! And in fact that is what Martin describes to some extent when he says that it is impossible to avoid a catastrophe.
The fact of the matter is that our markets are not free and that people collectively are NOT acting in their own self-interest – they are acting in the self-interest of the few oligarchs who are obscuring and manipulating the markets, our economy, and our political system.
Martin Armstrong – Other People's Money, What Happens Now?
When evaluating possible market outcomes, I have learned that it pays to completely ignore people who discuss one outcome or another in absolute terms. Those who do will be right on occasion, but they will be wrong on occasion as well – of course they will only brag about the occasions that they were right. In his forecast, Armstrong says that we will not make new lows below the March lows – an absolute statement. Personally, I give the odds of making a lower low below the March low greater odds than 50% - I acknowledge that I don't control and cannot predict the actions of others. What I do know is that the debts have not cleared and that fundamentally most "assets" in America are vastly overvalued relative to the income available to support them.
In this paper Martin boldly states that those comparing now to the Great Depression are wrong, "…Not only was there a Sovereign debt crisis in 1931, but there was an advancement in technology that was eliminating jobs in the agricultural sector, the dust bowl, and the fact that the dollar was NOT the dollar but it was de facto gold! Most such events are NOT present today!"
Umm, let's see – sovereign debt crisis then and now, check. Advancement in technology eliminating jobs then, and I certainly think that jobs are being massively eliminated now both by advancements in technology and via off shoring (not to mention wage arbitrage), so double check on that one also. Dust bowl then was an environmental disaster caused by pushing the boundaries of growth and understanding that definitely impacted the economy – today we have an oil environmental disaster from pushing the boundaries of growth and understanding, again definitely impacting the economy hugely, so check again. And the dollar rising because it was gold then is a complete misread of history in my opinion – gold has NEVER in the history of mankind worked to keep the total quantity of money under control, it certainly did not during the "Roaring Twenties," a time of tremendous credit expansion – credit dollars that had NOTHING to do with gold! In fact, when banks issue CREDIT dollars and get repaid with gold certificates, what is transpiring is the consolidation of gold into the hands of the banks! The deleveraging of CREDIT necessitates a MECHANICAL (temporary) demand for the currency in which debt is issued.
So, Martin is flat out wrong in his depression comparison on all counts! From my point of view, the similarities are startling and would require a book they are so vast. The largest difference from my point of view is the sheer scale of the debt today which is far greater than it was then. Another area of difference is the free floating of currencies and the speed at which capital can now traverse the globe. Also, the layers of obscuring financial engineering make seeing the game that's being played all the more difficult now.
The largest overlooked SIMILARITY between now and the time of the Great Depression is the fact that WHO controls the money has not changed! It is the same central bankers now as then – gold standard then, no gold standard now.
All that said, there is still much value in reading and digesting Martin's work, that is why I continue to present it to you… BEWARE ABSOLUTES, and beware of over generalities like, "Some nations will suffer inflations and others will suffer deflations." No kidding… and a great example of why investing in this environment based on the "genius" of any single individual is strictly caveat emptor.
Graham Summers – I Thought Quantitative Easing Ended?
Let's see, two plus two equals ???
You have the largest banks that ARE THE FED who had ZERO losing trading days during the first quarter of the year, and now you see that the "Fed" is fueling their game directly. Graham is right, when are we going to do something about it? Again, I caution all "players" (gamblers) in this market that it is anything but a free market…
I Thought Quantitative Easing Ended?
Well, it's options expiration week again and as usual Wall Street is gunning the market for all it's worth. The bulls are falling for this shenanigan yet again, just as they did in June.
How'd that work out?
Tracking options week manipulations isn't easy because there are no strict rules: the action all depends on where the market is and the number of outstanding contracts at given price points.
For instance, back in April investor bullishness was at extremes. Consequently, Wall Street ramped stocks first upwards (the usual predilection) to shank the puts… only to swiftly reverse the action in the middle of the week to shake out the calls.
This whole system occurs courtesy of the Federal Reserve which openly and blatantly pumps the market on options expiration week. I've shown the below chart before. It's staggering that no one in Congress or any of the regulators actually bother following up on this. How much more obvious does Bernanke need to get?
Options expiration weeks in bold
Fed Action
July 8 2010
+$1 billion
July 1 2010
-$13 billion
June 24 2010
+$175 million
June 17 2010
+$12 billion
June 10 2010
-$4 billion
June 3 2010
+$2 billion
May 27 2010
-$16 billion
May 20 2010
+$14 billion
May 13 2010
+$10 billion
May 6 2010
-$4 billion
April 29 2010
-$1 billion
April 15 2010
+$31 billion
April 8 2010
+$420 million
April 1 2010
-$6 billion
March 25 2010
+$5 billion
March 17 2010
+$25 billion
March 11 2010
+$2 billion
March 4 2010
-$5 billion
February 25 2010
+$8 billion
February 18 2010
+$21 billion
February 11 2010
+$7 billion
February 4 2010
+2 billion
January 28 2010
-$4 billion
January 21 2010
-$39 billion
January 14 2010
+$56 billion
January 7 2010
+$1 billion
December 31 2009
-$1 billion
December 28 2009
+$35 million
December 17 2009
+$49 billion
December 10 2009
-$17 billion
December 3 2009
-$2 billion
November 27 2009
-$2 billion
November 19 2009
+$73 billion
November 12 2009
-$30 billion
November 5 2009
+$3 billion
October 29 2009
-$39 billion
October 22 2009
+$8 billion
October 15 2009
+$54 billion
October 8 2009
-$3 billion
October 1 2009
-$17 billion
September 24 2009
+$18 billion
September 17 2009
+$51 billion
September 10 2009
+$4 billion
September 3 2009
+$8 billion
August 27 2009
+$14 billion
August 20 2009
+$46 billion
August 13 2009
+$25 billion
August 6 2009
-$11 billion
July 30 2009
-$38 billion
July 23 2009
-$33 billion
July 16 2009
+$80 billion
Notice that on non-expiration weeks the Fed either pumps the system slightly or, more commonly, removes money.
However, once options expiration week hits, it's PUMP time. To whit, the Fed has NOT had a single options expiration week in which it HASN'T pumped the market in nearly one year.
Moreover, note that despite the Fed's Quantitative Easing Program ending in March, the Fed continues to pump $10+ billion into the system EVERY month when options expiration week rolls around.
Didn't Bernanke say he wouldn't continue buying assets from Wall Street after QE ended? More importantly, didn't QE end? Why is the Fed still pumping money into this system?
And finally… how many times does this have to happen before someone in power actually notices it? Seriously, we're talking about the Fed going 12 for 12 in the last year. And it's not like the pump jobs are even subtle: they're DRAMATICALLY larger that any other capital infusions the Fed makes during non-options expiration weeks.
Good Investing!
Graham Summers


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How about this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fujifilm-FinePix-S2980-Digital-Optical/dp/B006UD5K2Y/
Another option would be this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-PowerShot-SX150-Digital-Camera/dp/B005I8XMCC/
They seem to be about the same in terms of price and features, though from looking over internet forums, the Canon seems to be more reliable.
Hope that helps!
I can't see whether it is possible to delay the time in which the camera takes pictures, like a count-down, to take pictures of myself if no one else can? Sorry I don't know the correct term for it which is probably the reason why I can't notice it under its features.Yes, you can. The feature is called the 'self timer'

subset: commoncrawl


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The rising notoriety of women's MMA hasn't changed the complexion of Invicta FC 4 headliner Carla Esparza's gym – at least not yet.
Esparza (8-2), who meets short-notice replacement Bec Hyatt (4-1) at this weekend's event, still doesn't have a full-time female fighter to call a training partner, much less a part-time one when she works out at Team Oyama in Redondo Beach, Calif. There are women who train and compete in muay Thai and jiu-jitsu, but when it comes to MMA, she's mostly working with the men.
"In high school (wrestling), I was on the boys team, and then I went to college, and I was on the all-girls team," Esparza told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). "So I've definitely seen the benefits of having both, having women training partners as well as men."
Ronda Rousey's emergence as a star certainly has brought more attention to the sport. But it's anyone's guess whether that will translate to an influx of new talent in gyms around the country. A headlining bout between Rousey, now the first UFC women's bantamweight champion, and Liz Carmouche at UFC 157 could reveal the staying power of women's MMA.
Esparza plans to attend the Feb. 23 UFC event in Anaheim, Calif., and she said several colleagues plan to do the same. She once trained with Carmouche and hopes to see an upset.
Meanwhile, Esparza and dozens of other female fighters are doing their best to elevate the sport's profile in the all-women Invicta FC promotion, which holds its fourth event on Saturday at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kan. The event, including the headlining Esparza vs. Hyatt title fight, streams live via online pay-per-view ($7.95).
Each of Invicta FC's first three events reportedly drew in excess of 200,000 online viewers, which prompted immediate speculation despite the promotion's insistence that the figures were accurate. The all-female promotion has yet to strike a TV deal that might further elevate its profile. Invicta FC CEO Shannon Knapp repeatedly has said she'll hold out for the right deal that ensures longevity.
Meanwhile, the fights keep rolling. Esparza is unfazed that two proposed opponents have been forced to withdraw from Saturday's event.
"My game plan might switch up a little bit, but in reality, it's all pretty much the same thing," she said. "I'm going to go out there, I'm going to bring the pressure, and I'm going to beat down my opponent."
And despite the attention heaped on one future fight, Esparza thinks things will largely stay the same at the gym.
"I think the sport is growing and there are going to be more girls," she said. "I think it's going to be a good mix. I don't think it will ever be all women."
For more on Invicta FC 4, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.


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Tanaka impresses in first live BP session
Righty faced four hitters while working with starting catcher McCann
TAMPA, Fla. -- Masahiro Tanaka faced his first live hitters of the spring at George M. Steinbrenner Field on Friday morning, and judging by the baffled reactions from the batting practice group standing in, the $155 million right-hander is nearly ready for game action.
"Whoo -- I'm glad he's on our team," said Yankees catcher Austin Romine, who grabbed a bat to face Tanaka. "I think he threw a split and I had to turn around and ask what the pitch was. I've never seen a ball move like that before. It's special."
Tanaka said that it was his first time throwing to a batter since Game 7 of last year's Japan Series, when he came out of the bullpen and recorded the save as the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles clinched their first championship.
That game was played last Nov. 3 in front of a raucous crowd of more than 25,000, but there were no cheering fans in the closed ballpark on Friday morning: just lots of media, focused on Tanaka's every movement and watching for reactions from Yankees manager Joe Girardi and pitching coach Larry Rothschild.
"He looked good. I was pleased with what we saw," said Girardi, who watched from behind a screen in back of the mound. "His stuff looked crisp to me. The ball looked like it was coming out good. I thought it was a good day. I know it's early, but it's what you want to see."
The session marked Tanaka's first opportunity to team with catcher Brian McCann, who figures to receive most of his starts this year. Tanaka had twice worked with Francisco Cervelli and once with John Ryan Murphy while throwing bullpen sessions earlier in camp.
"It was good to be able to have Brian catch me today," Tanaka said through an interpreter. "But all the catchers, they all are a first time for me, so I'm actually looking forward to throwing to everybody."
Four hitters stood in against Tanaka: the right-handed-hitting Romine, left-handed-hitting outfielder Ramon Flores, right-handed-hitting outfielder Adonis Garcia and switch-hitting outfielder Antoan Richardson.
There were few swings, which is not uncommon early in camp -- generally speaking, pitchers are ahead of hitters at this time. Garcia rolled a ground ball to second base and Richardson fouled a few pitches off, the only contact that the group made against Tanaka.
Girardi said that he plans to have Tanaka make about six Spring Training starts, but the manager is not yet ready to announce the first part of his rotation. That will likely be revealed on Sunday, but Tanaka sounded as though he is ready to be included.
"I don't think I need that many [more] live BP sessions," he said. "I'd like to get into games more and try to build my arm strength through games."
Girardi reiterated that he has no plans to keep Tanaka away from American League East teams during Spring Training.
"I think it's important that he sees Major League hitters and has an idea of what he's going to approach," Girardi said. "You think about some early games -- what are they going to see him, one at-bat? Maybe they'll see him two at-bats.
"So I don't think that's necessarily a huge thing. We've got to get this guy comfortable pitching in surroundings that he's going to be in, and I think that's more important than a team not seeing him once."
As far as early impressions go, McCann said that he thought Tanaka was "absolutely as good as advertised." He believed Tanaka was throwing at about 80 percent in the session, and Tanaka estimated his effort to be a tick lower at 70 percent.
"I thought he was great," McCann said. "He worked all his pitches in there. His fastball command was there. His offspeed, I thought was great. His split has some great action on it. His cutter, his slider --- he was sharp."
McCann was particularly impressed by Tanaka's splitter, a pitch that some talent evaluators have ranked among the best in the world. McCann said that the pitch "really falls off the table" and comes off a motion that is completely the same as the righty's fastball.
That meshed with what Romine said he saw from the box.
"Tracking it in, I didn't know what it was until it was halfway in," Romine said. "You're going to see a lot of guys swinging and looking like fools on that pitch. I can already tell off of that.
"And his fastball was a good angle, down and away. Locking me up on fastballs away -- just the overall angle and consistency with all those pitches -- it's going to be something special."
McCann said that it was hardly his first look at Tanaka: the Yankees sent McCann video of all of Tanaka's 2013 starts, giving the catcher a pre-camp homework assignment. Now, his priority is to build a working relationship.
"We've got eight weeks down here to get that squared away," McCann said. "This was his first live bullpen, so we're a ways away."
Tanaka sounds like he will be ready for whatever challenges come next.
"I feel I'm getting used to this," Tanaka said. "I think I'm getting into the rhythm of this whole thing."


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Antitrust Case Filings
Antitrust Case Filings
To filter the list of cases, select desired options from the left navigation pane.
View the list of NAICS and SIC industry codes used by the Division. To view all industry codes, visit Census.gov.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1
|Case Open Date
|Incident Date
|Case Type
|Federal Court
|Industry Code
|U.S. v. Association of Engineering Geologists
|January 24, 1984
|Civil Non-Merger
|California, Central District
|Engineering & Architectural Services, Professional Organizations


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WBUR News
Support the news
Panel Sees Possible Delay In Eastern Mass. Casino License
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission says it may have to push back the timetable for awarding the sole eastern Massachusetts resort casino license.
Because of a possible conflict of interest, the panel on Monday cut ties with a contractor that had been helping review surrounding community petitions for casino proposals in Everett and Revere.
Commissioners had been hoping to award the eastern license by May 30 and while that timetable is still possible, a delay in reviewing the petitions could push the decision back to the end of June.
Such a delay could have implications for the state budget, which anticipates an $85 million casino licensing fee in the current fiscal year that ends June 30.
The sole western Massachusetts casino license is still slated to be awarded by May 30.
Support the news


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HOUSTON – The New York Red Bulls turned a big second half into a huge victory, scoring three times after the break to notch a 4-1 victory at BBVA Compass Stadium and jump to the top of the Eastern Conference standings.
After going into the locker room tied at 1-1, New York got goals from Thierry Henry, Jonny Steele and Lloyd Sam, besting a Dynamo team that remains on the outside of the playoff picture with 37 points. New York improves to 45 points, even with Sporting Kansas City for top spot in the East, and move closer to securing a high seed in the MLS Cup Playoffs.
Eric Alexander got the day started with a dazzling opening goal, playing a sharp give-and-go with Steele to draw first blood in the 14th minute. Alexander started the play down the middle, playing a wall-pass off Steele and curling a shot from 20-yards out which beat Dynamo goalkeeper Tally Hall, who was off his line.
Houston responded in-kind four minutes later with a pair of firsts from Jason Johnson and Alexander López to draw level at 1-1. Lopez, making his first MLS start since signing August 30, lofted a perfect pass into the path of the streaking Johnson. The rookie from Virginia Commonwealth University took a touch before pushing his shot past goalkeeper Luis Robles for his first MLS goal and Houston's momentary equalizer.
But early in the second half, Henry delivered a blow to Houston's comeback hopes, splitting the Dynamo's defense and giving New York a lead again. The Frenchman collected a ball from Bradley Wright-Phillips and, after a missed tackle by Houston defensive midfielder Adam Moffat, walked into the box and finished past Hall to give New York a 2-1 lead.
The Red Bulls stuck the dagger in in the 59th minute when Steele beat the offside trap and broke in on goal to make it 3-1. Wright-Phillips put a ball over the top and Steele beat the Dynamo back line, rounded Hall and calmly finished for the Red Bulls' third.
With the Dynamo pushing forward, Sam found a fourth goal for the visitors as the Red Bulls dissected Houston's back line with sharp passing. The four New York goals marks the most goals the Dynamo have conceded at BBVA Compass Stadium.
To punctuate Houston's rough day, head coach Dominic Kinnear was ejected by referee Chris Penso after disputing a hard collision between RBNY defender Markus Holgersson and Dynamo second half substitute Brian Ownby. He will miss Houston's next game, a trip to the Philadelphia Union, who are fourth in the East.
Houston, which switched to a 4-3-3 for the match, was depleted, playing without internationals Brad Davis, Boniek Garcia and Jermaine Taylor and injury causalities Andrew Driver, Eric Brunner and Corey Ashe. The shift pushed Will Bruin to midfield, but the changes did not prove fruitful.
New York played without a star of its own, missing Tim Cahill due to injury, but was able to overcome the loss and pull out the stunning victory.
While Houston travels to Philadelphia next week, New York will take a week off before hosting FC Dallas on September 22.
Houston Dynamo (10-10-7; 37 points) vs. New York Red Bulls (13-9-6; 45 points)
MLS regular season
September 8, 2013 – BBVA Compass Stadium, Houston, TX
Attendance: 18,501
Scoring Summary:
New York: Eric Alexander 3 (Jonathan Steele 6) 14
Houston: Jason Johnson 1 (Alexander López 1) 18
New York: Thierry Henry 8 (Bradley Wright-Phillips 1) 47
New York: Jonathan Steele 4 (Bradley Wright-Phillips 2, Thierry Henry 8) 58
New York: Lloyd Sam 4 (Péguy Luyindula 3) 88
Houston Dynamo: Tally Hall; Kofi Sarkodie, Bobby Boswell, Warren Creavalle, Mike Chabala (Brian Ching 80); Adam Moffat (Ricardo Clark 53), Alexander López (Brian Ownby 60), Will Bruin; Giles Barnes, Cam Weaver, Jason Johnson
Unused substitutes: Erich Marscheider, Alex Dixon, Anthony Arena, Calen Carr
New York Red Bulls: Luis Robles; David Carney, Jamison Olave, Markus Holgersson (Matt Miazga 76), Kosuke Kimura; Jonathan Steele, Dax McCarty, Lloyd Sam, Eric Alexander (Péguy Luyindula 70); Thierry Henry, Bradley Wright-Phillips (Michael Bustamante 90+3)
Unused substitutes: Ryan Meara, Marius Obekop, Ruben Bover Izquierdo, Fabian Espindola
Misconduct Summary:
NY: David Carney (caution) 45
Referee: Chris Penso
Assistant Referees: Jeff Muschik, Jonathan Johnson
4th Official: Daniel Fitzgerald


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Little Nina will be the newest addition to Sprout's portfolio of original series. The animated series will feature the adventures of Nina, the host of The Good Night Show, as a young Latina girl. The series is expected to debut mid-2015.
The network has ordered 52 11-minute episodes of the animated show that will take viewers into the vibrant, multicultural neighborhood of Nina and her best friend Star. The show's multilingual approach will incorporate English, Spanish, and sign language and will emphasize the value of communicating across multiple languages and appreciating other cultures.


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"shuffle" - really?
As an owner of the first incarnation of the so-called "shuffle" I've seriously considered complaining to the ASA about this misnomer. This device is not random at all but instead plays a pre-defined supposedly random order of tracks - as demonstrated when I listen to 10 songs, turn it off, turn it back on and have to skip past the same 10 songs in the same order despite being on "shuffle" mode both times.
Disappointing to say the least and the only reason I haven't gone elsewhere is due to the recharge-off-usb ability they've removed from the new one. Great move Apple - not.
Suffice to say I won't be buying another one, ever.


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So it's like this: You play as either a lady who throws Asian people at a line of hip "scenesters" or as a lady who rolls Asian people at a line of hip scenesters. Well, except for on Sundays, when the two ladies team up to throw Asian people at ninjas.
It's called Tokyo Crash Mobs, the latest puzzle game on the Nintendo 3DS eShop from developer Mitchell Company — and it is insane.
The developer compounds the loopiness of the human-chucking gameplay with a visual style that combines the sensibilities of animated GIFs with the production values of the Adult Swim program Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job!
It's set up where each stage is named after a day of the week, and you do something slightly different each "day," but it's basically just a match-three title that uses people instead of blocks and a line to a night club instead of an empty playing field.
I recommend you give it a shot.
What you'll like
The visuals and FMV sequences
I don't want to jerk you around. You're gonna play Tokyo Crash Mobs, if you play at all, for the preposterous graphics. It uses real actors as the basis for the in-game scenesters (that's what it calls them), which gives the whole thing a very surreal and stupid look.
On a few occasions, I actually blurted out "This is so dumb!" while playing, but that's a good thing.
That is what the developers were going for. You don't make a game about tossing people if you aren't going for a dumb-in-a-good-way vibe.
Everything between the levels is also an absolute delight. It uses short FMV movies with the live-action characters to set up the levels. Of course, they make no sense. The blonde lady is sitting alone in a lecture hall and is sad. Sometimes she falls asleep, and then the Asian character comes in and watches her. Am I making any sense? Because I shouldn't be.
It's a riot. After each level, it awards you a medal for your performance. I always receive the bronze medal which features the character hanging their head in total shame.
We don't get these games in the States, so maybe the novelty is lost on its native Japanese audience. But I'm from the suburbs. I don't recognize anything about Tokyo Crash Mobs, and I love that.
Solid gameplay
The visuals work, but they work better with a game that is actually pretty fun to play. As I said, it's basically just a match-three puzzler and a pretty good one for a $5.99 eShop download.
The base gameplay is usually all about zapping away the scenesters and stringing together combos, but the levels rotate different takes on that ideas. This keeps things fresh and interesting.
When I beat a particularly hard level, I didn't want to put the game down because I knew the next stage was significantly different. This messes with your comfort level and keeps the game engaging.
What you won't like
No multiplayer
As satisfying as the gameplay is, I really feel like the developer missed an opportunity by not including multiplayer. The basic game echoes classic battlers like Tetris Attack and Puyo Pop, and those games made their money with their competitive modes.
I think Tokyo Crash Mobs has enough going on to justify a purchase, but it's just disappointing that you can't take on some friends in head-to-head matches.
I haven't really felt this way about a game since WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! for the Game Boy Advance.
When I play Tokyo Crash Mobs, I feel like I'm starring into a beautiful mind riddled with attention deficit-disorder and a love for awkward public access television shows. I don't understand anything that's happening, but that's kinda what makes it fun.
Add on top of that a decent gameplay mechanic and a developer that knows how to keep things interesting, and you have a game that is easily worth its asking price.
Is this the best game on the 3DS? No … I don't know. Like Crashmo, I'd rather play Tokyo Crash Mobs than just about any smartphone game.
Score: 81/100
Tokyo Crash Mobs is available now for the 3DS in the eShop for $5.99. The publisher provided GamesBeat with a 3DS eShop download code for the purpose of this review.
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attacks, chemical weapons, civil war, Human Rights, human rights violations, nerve gas, sarin, Syria, U.N., U.S, U.S. Government, United Nations, United States, Weapons of Mass Destruction, WMD
Dead animals litter the area after sarin nerve gas attack by U.S.-backed rebels
U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria's civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.
The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.
"Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated," Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.
"This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities," she added, speaking in Italian.
Read more here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/05/us-syria-crisis-un-idUSBRE94409Z20130505


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Research magazine's June cover story, "Exploring Independence," looks at how ex-wirehouse advisors are finding that having a distinctive niche can be the key to a successful advisory practice.
Sometimes that means taking a very different tack from your earlier career. Independent advisor Brian Solik, for instance, describes himself as a "former Wall Street broker" and emphasizes that his services can help clients protect themselves from Wall Street and the IRS.
In "Six Conversations You Need to Have," experts weigh in on the most crucial subjects of advisor-client discussions. Areas covered range from the client's overall financial picture, to the type of relationship a client wants, to how to prepare for the possibility of a major market decline.
Some other highlights of the June issue: an assessment of the opportunities and risks in the shale gas boom; the final installment of Moshe Milevsky's important new book The 7 Most Important Equations for Your Retirement; and columnist Bill Good's advice on how to avoid the worst mistakes in seminar marketing.
Click through the following slides to preview the June issue of Research magazine.
"For a lot of former brokers," writes Contributing Editor Ellen Uzelac, "the transition to the independent space has resulted in creative, new business niches as they redefine themselves in ways that would have been largely undoable as brokerage employees."
Uzelac finds these indie advisors engaged in some rather diverse niches. Texas-based Peter Roth, for instance, specializes in helping business owners conduct exit planning. Craig Adamson is eastern Iowa's resident expert on retirement products. Brian Solik of New Jersey puts a focus on equity indexed annuities and cash value life insurance.
When Laurie Bachelder worked at a broker-dealer, she was unable to interest her bosses in developing a niche in non-tradtional investments. Subsequently, Bachelder formed a fee-only RIA to specialize in such assets. "If you own dressage horses and you're not comfortable in the stock market, why not invest in dressage horses?" says Bachelder. "Our specialty platform wasn't intended to replace traditional investing. It simply adds balance."
Six Conversations You Need to Have
Contributing Editor Jane Wollman Rusoff taps the wisdom of a panel of experts regarding six critical conversations that can help advisors meet investing goals and steer clients away from self-defeating decisions.
The subjects of such conversations include: the client's total financial picture; what type of relationship the client wants; how much money the client expects to spend in retirement; investment strategy and the importance of diversification; how to prepare for a sharp market decline; and whether an investment strategy is actually meeting client needs.
According to Jay Nagdeman, founder and president of Suasion Resources, a financial services marketing firm in Roseland, N.J., "The most important thing to remember is that this is a mutual relationship and that both parties need to be satisfied. Many times advisors are in sales mode and forget this. But the advisor isn't selling products or services; the advisor is selling trust." Nagdeman suggests advisors pose questions to clients, such as: "What was the best experience you've had with an advisor?" And, "What was the worst experience?"
Contributor Gerald Burstyn reports on the boom in hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," of natural gas from shale rock. The growing use of that technique carries substantial investment risks as well as opportunities, he finds.
Although worries about possible contamination of drinking water have gotten much publicity, Burstyn writes that "environmental concerns aren't even the greatest threat to this investing area." Rather, he suggests that investors keep a sharp eye on "historically low prices of natural gas and questions about how the industry presents its current assets and future prospects."
Significiant uncertainties arise in attempting to assess how much natural gas exists in shale rock and how much can be extracted for a profit. However, some experts argue that such doubts are overblown. "One can certainly not argue that the resources do not exist in large quantities," says Simon Rosenberg of Snow Capital Management. "Whether that is more or less than original estimates is beside the point."
What Is Your Financial Legacy — Today?
In the final installment from his new book The 7 Most Important Equations for Your Retirement, Annuity Analytics columnist Moshe A. Milevsky discusses how Solomon S. Huebner changed the perception of life insurance from a dubious "game of chance" to a rigorous field that makes serious use of the tools of economics and human capital valuation.
Writes Milevsky: "Professor Huebner's main idea, and the one for which he is recognized today, is that people should insure their human life value, which is the present value of all the wages, salary and income that a breadwinner will earn over the course of his working life. He argued every head of household had a moral responsibility to have life insurance to protect that capital."
Milevsky also recounts how Huebner applied diversification to a strategy of buying stocks in the depths of the Great Depression, stating "One share in 50 companies is better than 50 shares in one company, because it gives the spread of averages." Huebner profited handsomely from that insight, decades before diversification became a staple of Modern Portfolio Theory.


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Multiple sclerosis relay fundraiser crosses US
"I DID IT!!! 146 miles in 6 days!!! I feel so blessed to have been a part of such an amazing relay team. This was for those who live with MS each day," Amy VanDyke posted on her Facebook page a little before noon Monday.
Wisconsin resident VanDyke was part of a major fundraiser for multiple sclerosis research that is stretching across the United States.
She and 15 other runners are each running multiple marathons during MS Run the U.S., with the journey having started April 15 in Los Angeles and set to finish Sept. 6 in New York City.
Van Dyke's first leg of the relay was from Hudson to Wray, which is what she completed Monday.
But VanDyke isn't actually finished running for this cause.
She will run another leg in Illinois in August.
Run's origins
The nonprofit MS Run the U.S., Inc. was created in 2009 by Ashley Kumlien as a way to raise money for a disease very close to her heart -- her mother has multiple sclerosis and has suffered some of the debilitating effects that it can cause.
Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease in which a person's immune system starts to attack the brain's nerves, specifically the myelin sheath coating the nerves, which leads to scarring and nerves that don't always send signals correctly from the brain to the body.
That can mean anything from a loss of sensation in small patch of skin to full loss of control of limbs or loss of eyesight over a long period of time -- or in a very short amount of time.
Having been diagnosed with MS in 1980, by 2009 Jill Kumlien had been dealing with the disease and its effects for 29 years, and her daughter, Ashley, had witnessed this while growing up.
"My mom is very positive and has a great spirit and faith in God," she said, but added that she had some "significant disabilities" because of MS.
"It's hard growing up and seeing that" in one's mother, but then seeing others' mothers not have to face that challenge, Ashley Kumlien said. "That's my motivation: to do something for her." And in 2009, Ashley Kumlien became really serious about doing something about the disease and working toward finding a cure.
"I've always been a lifelong runner," Ashley Kumlien said. "I got the idea to run across America" to benefit research for a cure for MS.
She took that idea and ran with it -- literally.
Ashley Kumlien formed a government-approved nonprofit charitable organization, MS Run the U.S., Inc., to collect donations that would then be given to the National MS Society.
She found sponsors to cover the costs of her 2010 run, and then gathered a whole lot more in donations that would go to the charity toward MS research.
Her 3,288-mile solo journey began March 22, 2010, in San Francisco and ended in Sept. 28, 2010, in New York City.
Once she reached Colorado, one of the places she ran through was Brush, where she met local high school cross country coach Jeff Marcus.
Himself an avid runner, Marcus ran alongside her some in that first run across the country, and they stayed in touch afterward.
And it was personal for him, too, as both his mother and his mother-in-law have MS.
"It's larger than people think," Marcus said of the disease's reach.
Ashley Kumlien said she was running "nearly a marathon a day, six days a week, for six months" during the first MS Run the U.S.
Along the way, she raised thousands of dollars for MS research and brought many people to her cause.
Ashley Kumlien also became the 16th woman ever to run across the United States -- but in doing so, she went through 9½ pairs of shoes with only two blisters and burned more than 270,000 calories.
Keeping it going
While Ashley Kumlien enjoyed her run across the country, afterward she knew that she needed help if she wanted to make it an annual fundraiser for the charity.
"We fund our nonprofit through private donorships and sponsors," she said.
In order to attract more of those and further the cause, she needed another big event.
"This relay was my idea," she said. "I was interested in pursuing getting runners to do an endurance event and commit to fundraising" while doing it. What came next was figuring out how to make it work, and getting people interested in participating and sponsoring a relay-style run across the country.
"The difficult part was in the fall of 2012," she said. "There were not enough runners and no corporate sponsor yet. It was really difficult for me personally."
But things did come together.
"We got the runners, and we got the sponsor," she said, indicating the logo for Money Mutual, a national payday lender, splashed across the RV that travels with her and the runners along the way.
With those things in place, Ashley Kumlien continued to finalize the plan to have 15 runners complete a total of 22 segments of the run, with some doing more than one part of the journey.
The way it works is each runner commits a week of their life to running his or her segment and agrees to raise at least $10,000, Ashley Kumlien said.
She said that if the runners had done all the training and gotten the sponsors, she would then be able to "put it together and just enjoy" being along for the run.
Before the run
VanDyke was one of the people who decided to make both of the major commitments to be a part of MS Run the U.S.
She took on the hefty training regimen to get her body ready for a week of running marathons and covering 146 miles of ground.
While she already was a runner, VanDyke had been looking for something to give her running a sense of purpose.
She heard about MS Run the U.S. about a year ago when a friend at her gym mentioned something about it.
"I just thought it was a good chance to do something to help others. I like to run, and if I can help others with MS" she said, adding that she knew it was just something that she "needed to do."
"This opportunity is incredibly important to me, having become close with several multiple sclerosis sufferers," she said. "The idea of helping them and others was something I couldn't pass up."
But making sure she would be able to do the run took some planning and sacrifice -- by both VanDyke and those who love her.
Back home in Fond Du Lac, Wis., which is northwest of Milwaukee, VanDyke is a hair stylist with her own business, a wife and a mother of four, ages 20, 18, 16 and 13.
"I never could have done this a few years ago," she said.
But now the timing was right, and her family was on board with her plan to get in extremely good shape and then run across a distant part of the country for a week.
She said that because she is her own boss, she was able to have a work schedule that was very amenable to the heavy training she needed to do.
"It's really worked out well, VanDyke said.
She added that her husband and children had been "a big help," as well.
"I can't say I've done as much laundry or dishes," she said, laughing a bit. "It's definitely been a group effort."
Time to run
Before she left Wisconsin for Colorado, VanDyke said was looking forward to the trip as if it were a fancy vacation.
"I just went into it wanting to enjoy every bit of this week," she said. "I'll probably never have another chance to chill like this."
Each day during her leg, VanDyke was running about 25 miles per day until she reached Wray, which happened Monday just before noon.
During the run, VanDyke said she was drinking lots of water and eating bananas for potassium and beef jerky for protein, as well as consuming a carbohydrate-laden drink.
Ashley Kumlien said that water, electrolytes and "a good combination of carbs and protein" were important for the runners to take in.
"When you get it right, you feel so much better," VanDyke said of the special diet.
And even though VanDyke was the one running the marathons, she said that Ashley Kumlien was the one doing the work, making sure everything was going as planned as far as logistics went.
Ashley Kumlien said that the runners were responsible for their travel expenses to get to and from their start and end points.
"Once they're on their segment, we pay lodging and food," she explained.
A typical day for VanDyke during the run began early, with the alarm clock going off at 5 a.m. and running starting between 6 and 6:30 a.m., looking to beat the heat.
She would run for a total of about six hours, with a break every six miles or so for a little rest and a drink, according to Ashley.
Then they'd both head to the RV between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. and be finished with running or following for the day.
Then, it was time for VanDyke to slurp down a "recovery drink" to replace depleted electrolytes and nutrients, followed by interviews in the afternoon and then spending time with friends made along the way.
"The afternoon is really about relaxing," Ashley Kumlien said.
Bedtime was about 8:30 or 9 p.m. each night.
But there was still time for fun, too.
Ashley Kumlien made sure to take VanDyke for short adventures, such as a float trip on a Colorado lake.
"I want to go home with a nice tan," VanDyke said. "I've been on vacation, so I want to look like it."
At first, raising the $10,000 minimum seemed like a daunting task, VanDyke said.
VanDyke was able to get people, organizations and businesses to sponsor individual miles of each day, or "marathon," of her 146-mile run.
She had special orange tank tops printed with that day's sponsors listed on the back and the words "I run to stop MS" emblazoned on the front.
"Those are the people I'm thinking about when I go out there" to run, VanDyke said of her sponsors.
"How they do the fundraising is really up to them," Ashley Kumlien said of the runners.
She added that VanDyke had raised quite a bit more than her $10,000 minimum, indicating she had at least $12,300 as of Monday "with more still coming in."
"Initially, I thought the hardest part would be fundraising, but that surprisingly fell into place," VanDyke said, pointing to the support she received from her family and her community in Wisconsin as helping her achieve that big of a number.
"It wasn't as hard as I thought," VanDyke said. "I had never fundraised before. You never know what kind of support you'll get."
Instead, the hardest part for her wound up being balancing work, family and training in the months leading up to the run.
Lessons and fun
One of the things VanDyke said she learned through this experience was how wide a reach MS has.
"You may believe in this, but others might not," she said was one of her worries ahead of getting started with fundraising.
But she found out she need not have worried about that.
"I found out a lot of people have been touched by MS," she said. "I'm just happy to be able to help in some small way."
She said that it hadn't felt like work to do the running.
"I feel like this is almost a vacation," she said during her stop in Brush on Day 3 of her first segment and pointing to all the work she did training to be able to get there. "Here I just have to run."
"I'm really enjoying this," she said during her stop in Brush at Diggers Diner, which is owned by Marcus, the BHS Cross Country coach Ashley Kumlien had met during her initial run. "I'm thankful that I'm doing it. It could have gone either way."
VanDyke had a hard time pinpointing a favorite moment during the first few days of her run.
"Every day has been special in its own way," she said. "It was memorable from the time I got off the plane."
She did say that it was "fun" running with the Brush cross country runners and coach.
Marcus' 14-year-old son, A.J., was among those cross country runners.
"It was a cool experience," he said about getting to run along with VanDyke, adding that one day he might do a leg of his own.
And his father also expressed interest in taking on a stretch.
Jeff Marcus said that he may have to take on running one of the segments in next year's MS Run the U.S.
But VanDyke was quick to claim the Hudson-to-Wray stretch again for 2014.
"This is my segment," she said, a big grin on her face.
Ashley Kumlien suggested maybe Jeff Marcus could run the segment that goes through Pittsburgh.
He said he liked that idea, since that's where he's from.
"That'd be awesome," he told her.
Jeff Marcus said that as a coach, he tries to get his runners to be aware of the good that can be done by running for a cause, such as this.
"I think it's awesome what they're doing," he said. "It's not always about running and getting faster; it's also about a good cause."
And getting runners and running coaches like Jeff Marcus interested in participating is just what Ashley Kumlien wants.
She confirmed that planning is underway for next year's relay to keep raising money for research toward a cure for MS.
It's been an emotional but rewarding journey getting the relay going, Ashley Kumlien said.
"So far, every runner has said they're enjoying the experience," she said. "There've been a lot of tears. There's nothing else like this."
It's also been lucrative for the nonprofit and -- more importantly -- for the National MS Society.
"We've raised at least $112,300, with more still coming in, and all of that goes to find a cure," Ashley Kumlien said during VanDyke's stop in Brush, which wasn't even at the halfway point of the run.
That number still could skyrocket pretty easily, with several more months left for the runners to raise money for their cause.
(Editor's note: Times Staff Writer and Online Editor Jenni Grubbs has MS.)


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The envisionment of TK is to bring you what was promised by GSC for STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, instead of the gutted retail release we were left with. TK aims to cover every aspect imaginable from gameplay intended to genuinely scare the player, to graphics for the absolute best visual experience, cut mutants, absolute realism, optimisations, stability, and a complete game mechanics overhaul, all without breaking the story. The idea is to present the player with a complete retail experience for the purist that liked SoC but wished it was far more fleshed out. In no way what so ever does TK try to be like old beta or alpha builds of SoC, TK aims to enhance everything SoC already has - nothing more, nothing less.
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