Newsletter about the City Council meeting of January 7, 2014

This Newsletter and Agenda is about the Hickory City Council meeting that took place on the date listed above. City Council meetings are held on the first and third Tuesdays of each Month in the Council Chambers of the Julian Whitener building.

At right of this page under Main Information links is an Hickory's City Website link. If you click on that link, it takes you to our city’s website, at the top of the page under Quick Links you can pull down and you will see the Agenda's and Minutes link you need to click. This will give you a choice of PDF files to upcoming and previous public meetings.

You will find historic Agenda and Minutes links. Agendas show what is on the docket for the meeting of that date. The Minutes is an actual summary of the proceedings of the meeting of that date. You can also look to the right under The Hound Groups and you will find the link to the past history of Hickory City Newsletters.

Below is a summary of the agenda of the meeting. There were a couple of important items that were discussed at this meeting and the details are listed further below:

Please remember that pressing Ctrl and + will magnify the text and page and pressing Ctrl and - will make the text and page smaller. This will help the readability for those with smaller screens and/or eye difficulties.

City Website has changed - Here is a link to the City of Hickory Document Center
City Council Action Agenda - January 7, 2014


I began recording the City Council late last year, because of my desire that the City do it on their own as any modern 21st century community began doing long ago. I had people tell me that they couldn't make it to the meetings, but they would like to see what is going on. I was also told by some council members that my summaries did not truly reflect the record, so having a video/audio recording cannot be misinterpreted.

So below is the City Council meeting. With each agenda item of interest, you can click on the links and it will take you to that specific point in the meeting. You can always drag the marker on the video display to the point in the broadcast that you are interested in seeing.





Invocation by Alderman Danny Seaver


Consent Agenda:
A. Transfer of Cemetery Deed from City of Hickory to Tillis E. Rendleman Sr. and wife, Lucille Rendleman in Southside Cemetery

B. Approval of Application for Funding through the 2014 Urgent Repair Program (URP14) and Approval for Submission to the N.C. Housing Finance Agency. - The City of Hickory Community Development Department will apply for Urgent Repair Program funds for funding through the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency’s Urgent Repair Program. The City of Hickory will apply for $50,000.00 through this program in order to assist approximately 12 eligible homes with urgently needed repairs in an amount not to exceed $5,400 per housing unit. The City of Hickory will provide $5,000 in matching funds, available from Rental Rehabilitation program income.


C. Call for Public Hearing - For the Consideration of a Street Closing Petition for a portion of E Avenue SE, Hickory.


D. Budget Ordinance Amendment Number 12.
1. To budget a $100 Library Memorial donation in the children’s books line item.
2. To budget $47,142 of General Fund Contingency in the Stormwater Capital Improvements line item to cover additional costs to the storm drainage repair at

F. Avenue Drive SE. $124,005 was initially budgeted for the repair work however the July 27 flooding washed out part of F. Ave. SE and more of the 42" pipe. This required additional work that was not included in the original estimate. FEMA will not pay towards the cost of the additional work; therefore a budget amendment is necessary to make funds available to complete this project.

E. Grant Project Ordinance Number 5.
 1. To budget a 2013 Urgent Repair Program Grant awarded to the City of Hickory by the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency in the amount of $37,500 with a local required match of $3,750. The required match is provided by the First Time Homebuyers program income.


Informational Item
A. Report of Mayor Wright’s travel to North Carolina League of Municipalities Meeting December 12, 2013 (Mileage Reimbursement $194.36)

New Business - Public Hearings
1. Public Hearing - For the Consideration of Rezoning Petition 13-13 for Property Located at 730 5th Ave NE, Hickory. Express Business Systems request the property located at 730 5th Ave NE be rezoned from Medium Density Residential (R-3) to General Business (C-2). -  The subject property is currently a vacant lot. The Hickory Regional Planning Commission voted 6-2 to forward a recommendation of approval to the Hickory City Council. A valid protest petition was received by the Clerk’s Office on December 31, 2013. The protest petition will require a favorable vote of at least 75% of all the members of City Council to amend the zoning map. This public hearing was advertised on December 27, 2013 and January 3, 2014 in a newspaper having a general circulation in the Hickory area.

The Hound's Comment - It was good to see a neighborhood take action on an issue of interest to their community. There was a stark contrast in how the Claremont neighborhood families were received as compared to how we have seen some others received in the past. They made good points, but the points of contention they made were no more or less relevant than issues we have heard from other neighborhoods that have been summarily dismissed. This Council shows where their votes come from. I did find it discourteous how they noisily filed out without regard to the meeting continuing as soon as their issue was heard and voted upon in their favor. The issue was discussed for over an hour and a half. 


2. Public Hearing - For the Consideration of Rezoning Petition 13-14 for Property Located at 32 22nd Avenue NE, Hickory. - The City of Hickory has submitted a petition to rezone .88 acres of property located at 32 22nd Avenue NE, as well as an adjacent vacant lot. The petition is to rezone the properties from High Density Residential – 4 (R-4) to Office and Institutional (OI). The Hickory Regional Planning Commission voted unanimously to forward a recommendation of approval to the Hickory City Council. This public hearing was advertised on December 27, 2013 and January 3, 2014 in a newspaper having general circulation in the Hickory area.


General Comments
Alderman Seaver stated that he would not be present at the next Council meeting, he would be
out of town.

Mayor Wright commented that he found it interesting that when he drove to the meeting tonight
he went by the YMCA. The parking lot was full; they were parked all along Center Street, on both
sides of the street. Do you think New Year’s Resolutions has anything to do with that? Alderwoman Patton commented wait another month.

Mr. Berry stated that there was a swim meet.

The Hound Comments
Other than the item about the Claremont neighborhood and EDS system and the rezoning issue this was a routine meeting that would have been one of the shortest meetings.

It took me a while to get this out because my Internet connection was acting up, but it is now fixed. I also had work and other personal obligations including a family member who is in bad health, but I will not divulge that issue to the public at this time. May God Bless You All and we will keep moving forward.

Economic Stories of Relevance in Today's World -- January 12, 2014

No Jobs For Americans - Paul Craig Roberts - January 10, 2014 - The alleged recovery took a direct hit from Friday’s payroll jobs report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy created 74,000 net new jobs in December.                       Wholesale and retail trade accounted for 70,700 of these jobs or 95.5%. It is likely that the December wholesale and retail hires were temporary for the Christmas shopping season, which doesn’t seem to have been very exuberant, especially in light of Macy’s decision to close five stores and lay off 2,500 employees. It is a good bet that these December hires have already been laid off.                       A job gain of 74,000, even if it is real, is about half of what is needed to keep the unemployment rate even with population growth. Yet the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the unemployment rate fell from 7.0% to 6.7%. Clearly, this decline in unemployment was not caused by the reported 74,000 jobs gain. The unemployment rate fell, because Americans unable to find jobs ceased looking for employment and, thereby, ceased to be counted as unemployed.                        In America the unemployment rate is a deception just like everything else. The rate of American unemployment fell, because people can’t find jobs. The fewer the jobs, the lower the unemployment rate.                        I noticed today that the financial media presstitutes were a bit hesitant to hype the drop in the rate of unemployment when there was no jobs growth to account for it. The Wall Street and bank economists did their best to disbelieve the jobs report as did some of the bought-and-paid-for academic economists. Too many interests have a stake in the non-existent recovery declared 4.5 years ago to be able to admit that it is not really there.                    I have been examining the monthly jobs reports for a decade or longer. I must say that I am struck by the December report. Normally, a mainstay of jobs gain is the category “education and health services,” with “ambulatory health care services” adding thousands of jobs. In December the net contribution of “education and health services” was zero, with “ambulatory health care services” losing 4,100 jobs and health care losing 6,000 jobs. If memory serves, this is a first. Perhaps it reflects adverse impacts of the ripoff known as Obamacare, possibly the worst piece of domestic legislation passed in decades.                      I was also struck by the report that the gain in employment of waitresses and bartenders, normally a large percentage of the job gain, was down to 9,400 jobs, which were offset by declines elsewhere, such as the layoff of local school teachers...



More of the jobless are giving up on finding work - CNN Money - Chris Isidore - January 10, 2014 - The unemployment rate fell to 6.7% in December -- the first time it's been below 7% in five years. But the drop was for all the wrong reasons.                    The rate fell because many people got fed up, stopped looking for work and dropped out of the labor force altogether. (The jobless have to be actively looking for work in order to be counted as unemployed by the Labor Department.)                  In December, 347,000 people dropped out of the workforce. That pushed the participation rate, which is the percentage of the population in the labor force, down to 62.8%. That's the lowest it's been since early 1978.

The percentage of the population with a job or looking for work has fallen from a record high in early 2000 to the lowest level in 35 years in December.

What Caused the Crash In the Labor Participation Rate? - WashingtonsBlog - January 11, 2014 - What’s causing the crash in labor participation?                        Initially, the number of women not in the labor force climbed to a new high.  This is significant because the labor force skyrocketed in the 1960s when feminism encouraged women to work outside of the home:                        The Urban Institute notes [that] what’s happening is that workers aren’t entering the labor force at the same rates they used to. That’s especially true for women, who are much less likely to enter the labor force today than they were in 2002 and 2003. Many of them, the paper notes, appear to be enrolling in school instead or deciding to start families.                          Washington Post notes:         Americans over the age of 65 are much less likely to work than prime-age Americans. And since that subset of Americans is expanding its ranks, that drives the labor-force participation rate down.                    
Economists disagree, however, on exactly how much demographics are responsible for the current fall in the participation rate. The Chicago Fed estimated in 2012 that retirements accounted for one-fourth of the drop in labor force participation since the recession began. Other analysts, including Barclays, have suggested that aging Boomers could account for a bigger slice of the drop.
Meanwhile, a recent paper by Shigeru Fujita of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia staked out a more nuanced view: Demographics, he argued, didn’t play a huge role in the labor-force drop between 2007 and 2011. But since then, retirements are responsible for basically the entire fall of the participation rate. One possible reason is that many older Americans postponed retirement immediately after the financial crisis to rebuild their battered 401(k)s. By 2012 or so, they began retiring en masse.                 However, Zero Hedge and Bloomberg show that there are countervailing trends:

20,000 Fewer Women Held Jobs in December - CNSnews - Ali Meyer - January 10, 2014 - The number of employed women 16 and over declined by 20,000 from November to December, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.               The number of women employed dropped from 67,882,000 in November to 67,862,000 in December.                  Additionally, the number of women who are not in the labor force climbed to a record high of 55,028,000 last month. That was up slightly from the 55,026,000 women who were not in the labor force in October, and up 203,000 from 54,825,000 women who were not in the labor force in November.                        In December, according to BLS, the labor force participation rate for women was 56.9 percent, marginally down from 57.0 percent in November but up from 56.8 percent in October. The unemployment rate for women also decreased from 6.7 percent in November to 6.5 percent in December.



Employment Recovery? 1,600 Workers Apply For Just 36 Jobs At An Ice Cream Plant In Maryland - The Economic Collapse Blog - Michael Snyder - January 7th, 2014 - The stock market may be soaring to unprecedented heights, but things just continue to get even tougher for the middle class.  In this economic environment, there is intense competition for virtually all kinds of jobs.  For example, more than 1,600 applications were recently submitted for just 36 jobs at an ice cream plant in Hagerstown, Maryland.  That means that those applying have about a 2 percent chance of being hired.  About 98 percent of the applicants will be turned away.  That is how tough things are in many areas of the country today.  It is now more than five years after the great financial crash of 2008, and the level of employment in the United States is still almost exactly where it was at during the worst moments of the last recession.  And this is just the beginning.  The next major financial crash is rapidly approaching, and once it strikes our employment crisis is going to get much, much worse.                        Working at an ice cream plant does not pay very well.  But at least it beats flipping burgers or stocking shelves at Wal-Mart.  And in this economy, there is no shortage of desperate workers that are willing to take just about any job that they can find.  The following is how a Breitbart article described the flood of applications that were received for just 36 positions at an ice cream plant owned by Shenandoah Family Farms in Hagerstown, Maryland...                      Anyone that believes that the economic crisis is "over" is just being delusional.  It may be "over" for the boys and girls that work on Wall Street, but even their good times are only temporary.                         Of course most Americans are not fooled by the propaganda being put out by the mainstream media.  According to a recent CNN poll, 70 percent of all Americans believe that "the economy is generally in poor shape".                          And according to another survey, the economy is still the #1 concern for American voters by a good margin and unemployment is still the #2 concern for American voters by a good margin.                         In other words, "It's the economy, stupid!"                             The American people can see that mid-wage jobs are disappearing and that the middle class is being systematically eviscerated.  The following is a short excerpt from a recent Business Insider article...


David Stockman Interview on King World News -  January 11, 2014 - David A. Stockman is Former Director of the US Office of Management and Budget (USOMB), Economic Policy Maker, Politician, Financier & Acclaimed Author - After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street where he joined Salomon Bros. He later became one of the original partners at New York-based private equity firm, The Blackstone Group and in 1999 started his own private equity fund based in Greenwich, Connecticut. Defying right- and left-wing boxes, his latest book a New York Times best-seller, The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America (2013), Stockman lays out how the U.S. has devolved from a free market economy into one fatally deformed by Washington’s endless fiscal largesse, K-street lobbies and Fed sponsored bailouts and printing press money.
(Link to Interview)

From Non-GAAP To Non-Sense: David Stockman Slams The "Earnings Ex-Items" Smoke-Screen - Zero Hedge -Tyler Durden - January 11, 2014  - (Talks about manipulation of Earning Per Share through charge offs to create the illusion that P/E multiples aren't overvalued).



As traffic slumps and teen-oriented stores struggle, retailers suffer worst holiday season since 2009 - Marketwatch - Wall Street Journal - Andria Chang - January 9, 2014 - With the exception of a few bright spots, such as Costco Wholesale Corp., the downbeat forecasts for the holiday season have turned out to be a prophecy fulfilled.              A slew of retailers across a wide variety of industry segments, including American Eagle Outfitters Inc. AEO , Victoria’s Secret parent L Brands Inc. LB , Pier 1 Imports Inc. PIR , Family Dollar Stores Inc. FDO , Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. BBBY and Hhgregg HGG , have given disappointing forecasts for the quarter after ringing up disappointing holiday-season sales.                      American Eagle said strong  traffic and sales over the Thanksgiving weekend were not sustained, with results through Christmas week missing internal expectations and forcing the chain to offer profit-eroding discounts.                   A late surge in shopping in the week ended Dec. 28 also failed to stop industrywide holiday sales from seeing their slowest growth since 2009.

JP Morgan Pays $2 Billion to Avoid Prosecution for Its Involvement In Madoff Ponzi Scheme - WashingtonsBlog - January 6, 2014 - Bernie Madoff has said all along that JP Morgan knew about – and knowingly profited from – his Ponzi schemes.                              So JP Morgan has agreed to pay the government $2 billion to avoid investigation and prosecution.                        While this may sound like a lot of money, it is spare sofa change for a big bank like JP Morgan.                         It’s not just the Madoff scheme.                    As shown below, the big banks – including JP Morgan – are  manipulating virtually every market – both in the financial sector and the real economy – and breaking virtually every law on the books.

Who gets your digital fortune when you die? - Marketwatch - Wall Street Journal - Andrea Coombes - January 10, 2014 - Do you have a vast iTunes library? Maybe some e-books stashed on a Kindle or Nook? Do you sell items on eBay or use PayPal? Bitcoins? Got an online-only bank account? Email and Facebook?                         Americans value their digital assets at more than $54,000 on average, according to a 2011 survey conducted for McAfee, a security technology company — but few people take the time create an estate plan for their digital assets.                  Without a plan in place, you risk burying your family in red tape as they try to get access to and deal with your online accounts that may have sentimental, practical or monetary value.                      If you have, say, a Yahoo email account, your emails might be deleted before your family has a chance to review them. In other cases, maybe your family gains access to emails that you’d rather they didn’t see.                      Or, maybe you’ve been blogging for years, and your family wants to maintain your online writing as a sort of memorial. Without access to the accounts through which you manage that blog, it might be deleted before your family can act, or spammers might take over the comments section.                        These are the sorts of problems that a digital estate plan — one that details your online assets — can help prevent. Keep in mind that, given the legal complexities, a digital estate plan won’t guarantee your wishes are met. But it will help your executor as he or she attempts to manage and distribute your assets.

    

Internet Issues will cause delays

Will take a couple days to get the Newsletter about City Council out. Been having Internet issues, where signal comes and goes. Hard to upload and download under the conditions. Will have Newsletter up ASAP.

Economic Stories of Relevance in Today's World -- January 5, 2014

The Case of the Missing Recovery - Paul Craig Roberts - January 3, 2014 - Have you seen the economic recovery? I haven’t either. But it is bound to be around here somewhere, because the National Bureau of Economic Research spotted it in June 2009, four and one-half years ago.                It is a shy and reclusive recovery, like the “New Economy” and all those promised new economy jobs. I haven’t seen them either, but we know they are here, somewhere, because the economists said so.                    Congress must have seen all those jobs before they went home for Christmas, because our representatives let extended unemployment benefits expire for 1.3 million unemployed Americans, who have not yet met up with those new economy jobs, or even with an old economy job for that matter.                     By letting extended unemployment benefits expire, Congress figures that they saved 1.3 million Americans from becoming lifelong bums of the nanny state and living off the public purse. After all, who do those unemployed Americans think they are? A bank too big to fail? The military-security complex? Israel?                       What the unemployed need to do is to form a lobby organization and make campaign contributions.              Just as economists don’t recognize facts that are inconsistent with corporate grants, career ambitions, and being on the speaking circuit, our representatives don’t recognize facts inconsistent with campaign contributions....



Tipped workers often face different minimum wages - USA Today - Brian Tumulty - December 30, 2013 - ... "It obviously only works for a certain type of lifestyle — if you don't have kids or a mortgage,'' said Leidy, 35, a Cornell graduate who is single. "We have to pay for gas and insurance before we even start work.''                          Advocates for low-wage workers say minimum-wage laws shortchange employees such as Leidy.                        The federal minimum wage for tipped workers hasn't increased since 1991.                   Tipped workers — who wait on tables in restaurants, serve guests at hotels, cut hair in salons and park cars at garages — also have been overlooked at the state level.                    New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo hasn't acted on a recommendation the state Legislature made in the spring to convene a minimum wage board to hold hearings on tipped wages, according to Mark Dunlea, executive director of the Hunger Action Network of New York State.
"They are just stalling on it, and we're not happy,'' Dunlea said.                         New York sets different hourly minimums for various types of tipped workers, including $4.90 an hour for workers at resort hotels, $5 for food service workers and $5.65 for service employees.                         "The idea then is you are supposed to make tips on top of that to make the minimum wage that everyone else has,'' said Joann Lum with the National Mobilization Against Sweatshops based in Manhattan. "But as every bicycle delivery worker will tell you, you never know how much you are going to make in tips. On top of that, there are some restaurant owners who will take a portion of the tips, which is illegal, and they are left with even less."






Gov SWAT Teams Target “Rugged Individuals” Who Grow Their Own Food, Produce Their Own Electricity - SHTFPlan.com - Mac Slavo - January 3rd, 2014 - The dream of many Americans is to get out of the hustle and bustle of the daily city grind. And what better dream to have then to move your family outside of city limits to the countryside so that you can grow your own food, produce your own electricity with solar power, and live outside the purview of an ever expanding government apparatus?                          That was the goal for hundreds of residents living on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Many own their land outright and have been living on it for decades without so much as a peep from their local government. They’ve built their homes using whatever means they had available to them. They planted their own fruits and vegetables. They even set up their own personal power production stations using solar panels and miniature wind farms.                          And they’ve lived peacefully without violating the rights of those around them and leaving a very small “carbon footprint” to boot. For all intents and purposes, they achieved a life of independence and freedom.                  But the tentacles of tyranny are everywhere and no one is protected from their grasp.              Recently, agents of the Los Angeles county government started paying visits to these rugged individualists. They claimed they were “here to help,” as one resident puts it. But, as is generally the case when the government comes knocking, they were there for exactly the opposite.                 That was once a dream come true for many quickly turned into the new American nightmare.                   Code enforcement agents for the county showed up in droves. But they didn’t come alone. Along with them came heavily armed “Nuisance Abatement Teams” who raided the homes and land of these peaceful residents as they would those of a terrorist.





Arthur Laffer speaks about the United States Economy for 2014 - Economy will change because of politics
 

Hello '14 - Nice to meet ya

I've been taking some time away to get some rest as we ended 2013 and enter 2014. I think we are going to see some interesting things happen sooner rather than later this year. We've learned a lot and evolved a lot over the past few years. We'll keep moving forward in this year. In numerology this is a 7 year  (2+0+1+4)

2014 Predictions, Meaning and Symbols by Numerology Experts; 7 Things to Know About Year of 'Seven' - International Business Times - January 2, 2014

...For those interested in numerology and 2014 predictions and symbol meanings, here are seven things to know about 2014 and its link to the number 7.

1. Add 2, 0, 1, 4 and you get 7. Numerology.com describes the number 7 as "analytical and self-examining."

2. "We will begin to see a trend this year, through all areas of human life, to search for ways to bring us together," says the numerology Web site. Humanity will experience a more profound level of awareness, the site predicts.

3. "This number is calling for us to go within as opposed to keep looking for things in the outside world to make us happy," says numerologist Marcy Heller, resource person for USA Today. Self-reliance and reflection are key elements in Heller's 2014 predictions and meaning of the number 7.

4. "We're going to see a lot of things fall apart because we're preparing as a nation to go into a whole fresh start," says Dan Hardt, president of the Life Path Numerology Center in Indianapolis, another resource person for USA Today. Hardt's 2014 predictions seem to align with challenges that would encourage people to create something positive out of some mess.

5. "The 7 is spiritual, but not religious," explains numerology.com. The site says money is of little value to the number 7, which means people would tend to look into more profound causes instead of monetary gains.

6. People influenced by the number 7, according to the same site, are likely to be "in the military, most likely as analysts or strategic planners. More often, however, you will find them in the world of academics and science."

7. "On the negative side, the 7 can be cynical, verbally abusive, arrogant and oblivious of the pain and suffering of others," the site warns. This hardly reconciles with the "ways to bring us together" factor that the same site mentioned...

Cheers to 2014 - Numerology.com - Hans Decoz - The number 7 is the seeker, the thinker, the searcher of Truth (notice the capital "T"). The 7 doesn't take anything at face value -- it is always trying to understand the underlying, hidden truths. The 7 knows that nothing is exactly as it seems and that reality is often hidden behind illusions.

Welcome to the year of the Horse - (01/31/2014-02/18/2015) - Which happens to be my Chinese Zodialogical sign -

Goodbye '13 and with it its burdens

Ecclesiastes Chapter 1: 12-18

12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

15 What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.

16 I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.

18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

The Hound: There are many of us who suffer with the burden of worry, because we search for the truth and we study the ways of the World. I heard this message spoken yesterday and this message hit home with me about what I have witnessed over the last several years.

Reality: My Doctor asked me a couple months ago, when I went in for a routine checkup, what I did for fun. I told him that I don't have fun. I really don't have time for fun. I can't afford fun.

If I were as indulgent as many others I see, I would be dead now. These have been dead serious times in my life. I have lost a lot that I did not choose or deserve to lose. It was basically stolen from me and I am not happy about it. Now you tell me how you would feel. I live with knowing that it has happened for a reason. I have seen many people around me that have had the same happen. There is no solace in such a condition.

The Posse is coming folks... the Posse is coming. 

Economic Stories of Relevance in Today's World -- December 29, 2013

Art Cashin: (King World News) Director of Floor Operations for UBS Financial Services & CNBC Market Commentator - UBS has over $650 billion under management. Art has over 50 years of Wall Street experience, which gives him the ability to offer valuable insights to investors and traders. When he started in the industry, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was actually in the 700-800 range. He shares his analysis and gives the pulse of the market from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Art is one of the most respected people in the world when it comes to analyzing the action in the US stock market and provides an objective and unbiased view of the current market situation. His daily market commentary is read internationally by clients and peers.
King World News Interview - December 28, 2013 - There is no other alternative to the Stock market... will give some push, but there will be a pull back. Yellen (Fed Chief) will be tested in her first year. Mortgage applications have dropped off to levels when Lehman was deconstructed. Mortgage rates creeping up. Fed will have to reverse itself on tapering. Is the Fed in control? Have a history of poor forecasts. Markets may lose faith in the efficacy of the Fed. Europe has verbally held things together. Sovereign debt issue has not be solved. China is in trouble. They have to be careful. Their shadow banking system has created problems... trying to rein in... needs to be stabilized... every China government that has fallen fell because of food. India is concerned about currency flowing out due to Gold. Heavy duties and sanctions imposed. China has been a heavy buyer of gold. Concern for governments to control things. People should be concerned about western governments letting their Gold go. Central Bankers have let it go at low ($) levels. Geopolitics everyone thinks the world just goes up to the cliff, the World can go over the cliff. Austerity will lead to a backlash of protests. Geopolitical concers. Fed might be successful at creating velocity, which could lead to heavy inflation and then the Fed would have to taper at the "speed of sound." Hickory Hound: Taper = rising interest rates.


James Rickards: US 'Heading for Another Recession Soon' - Moneynews - Dan Weil - December 27, 2013 - While many experts were encouraged by the 4.1 percent economic growth reported for the third quarter, James Rickards, portfolio manager for the West Shore Real Asset Income Fund, wasn't one of them.                      "There is good reason to believe that the economy is heading for another recession soon, rather than the more robust growth economists keep predicting," he writes in The Darien (Connecticut) Times.                             "More than 50 million Americans are on food stamps, 26 million Americans are either unemployed, underemployed or have given up looking for work, 11 million Americans are claiming disability payments — effectively a new form of unemployment insurance — and labor force participation is at the lowest level since 1978."





Push of a Button: This Is How Fast They Can Lock Down the Entire Banking System - SHTFPlan.com - Mac Slavo - December 24th, 2013 - Late last week it was learned that some 40 million charge cards were obtained using physical processing systems located in Target retail locations nationwide. Though no details of the how the hack attack was executed have been released by Target, the FBI or other agencies investigating the breach, it is likely that the processing machines themselves were compromised. Target claims that the hack was sophisticated, but on the technical side, once hackers found a way into the credit card processing machines, probably via remote entry from servers somewhere in Eastern Europe or Russia, the theft of credit card data itself would have been fairly straight forward by using scripts or applications that simply capture the data and send it off to servers owned by the hackers.                           This was probably one of the largest credit card thefts in history, though it is not at all surprising. Two years ago we noted that cyber attacks would soon be targeting America’s e-commerce systems and just a few months ago it was noted that rogue terrorist groups were specifically working on sabotage operation to bring down the U.S. economy. While this latest attack on Target stores and their customers fell far short of crashing our economy or financial system, it proves, as did recent breaches of Pentagon military networks, that even the most highly secured systems in the world can be compromised.                               Furthermore, what this attack highlights is that with the right type of “event” the economy and financial system of the United States can be shut down… almost instantly...



Duke Grad Student Secretly Lived In a Van to Escape Loan Debt - Business Insider - Mandi Woodruff - December 27, 2013 - Yahoo editors have selected this article as a favorite of 2013. It first ran on Yahoo Finance on June 10 and was one of the most popular stories of the year. The article details the extreme lengths Ken Ilgunas went to in order to pay back his big student debt bill.                         By the time Ken Ilgunas was wrapping up his last year of undergraduate studies at the University of Buffalo in 2005, he had no idea what kind of debt hole he'd dug himself into.                        He had majored in the least marketable fields of study possible — English and History — and had zero job prospects after getting turned down for no fewer than 25 paid internships.                       "That was a wake-up call," he told Business Insider. "I had this huge $32,000 student debt and at the time I was pushing carts at Home Depot, making $8 an hour. I was just getting kind of frantic."                       Back then, student loans had yet to become the front page news they are today. Ilgunas could have simply deferred his loans or declared forbearance. He also could have asked his parents (who were more than willing to help) for a leg up. He could have thrown up his hands and gone to grad school until the job market bounced back.                      Instead, he moved to Alaska and spent two years paying back every dime. And when he enrolled at Duke University for graduate school later, he lived out of his van to be sure he wouldn't have to take out loans again.                            "I had no idea what I was getting into at the time. I didn't even know what interest was when I was 17," he said. "I just think that's awfully indicative of the incredibly poor personal finance education young people have at that time in their lives."                       In his book, "Walden on Wheels: On The Open Road from Debt to Freedom," Ken chronicles his journey out of debt.                          He was kind enough to share his story with us this week.                       He knew exactly where to go for work. Ken had spent a couple months working at a remote Alaskan truck stop the summer before graduating. So he called up his old contacts and landed a job there as a local tour guide, cook, and basically whatever the locals needed.                    "The day after I graduated, I was on a flight to Alaska and pretty much started work right away," he said. "As ignorant as I was, I did know that if I didn't deal with my loans, I'd have to deal with accumulated interest or delinquency or default. I wanted to pay it off as fast as humanly possible."                        It was a brilliant move for a 20-something needing to pay down debt in a hurry. "It's 250 miles from the nearest store, room and board were included, and there wasn't any cell service," he said. "You can amaze yourself with how much you can save when you reduce your cost of living. Almost every dollar I made went toward my student loans."