Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

[Guest]

I coached hockey for 18 years. never seen anything like this. if a professional hockey player raises his skate above his head, it’s intentional. Petgrave was also the most penalized player in the league last year. it was a terrible tragedy, but will be worse if he doesn’t go to prison for manslaughter.

And if the equation was reversed, the player would be in prison and there would be riots.

Double standard barbarism.

[Higgenbotham]

Lottery Economy Update

I covered my entire short position in the last hour Friday.

Started a partial short this morning. This is about 1/6 of the size I was holding at the July high. The S&P futures are up about another 20 this morning and the market is at a weekly resistance line. My guess is that it will go through that line.

We're in the process of moving from about 15 miles outside the city to about 30 miles out so I won't have as much time to post for awhile. We can see cows from our back window - this is still primarily a farming area. There haven't been any problems in the current place we're living in, but I'm anticipating there will be. This is my first move in 18 plus years.

[Higgenbotham]

I added an additional 1/30 with the the S&P 500 up 40 and another 1/10 with it up almost 80. So I am 30% as short as at the July high.

No ideas as to how high they are going to take it or when it will turn down.

[Higgenbotham]

ECONOMY
Labor costs show surprise decline in the third quarter

PUBLISHED THU, NOV 2 20238:56 AM EDT
UPDATED THU, NOV 2 20239:24 AM EDT

Jeff Cox

The cost of labor unexpectedly declined in the third quarter, providing at least some relief on the inflation front, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

Unit labor costs, a measure of hourly compensation against productivity, fell 0.8% for the July-through-September period at a seasonally adjusted rate. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a gain of 0.7%. On a 12-month basis, unit labor costs increased 1.9%.

The breakdown reflected a 3.9% increase in hourly compensation, offset by a 4.7% rise in productivity.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/02/labor-c ... arter.html

The Federal Reserve can celebrate. Their mandate has something to do with inflation and employment. But in reality I believe what the Federal Reserve is really trying to do is protect corporate profits. More data like this will do that for them and Wall Street can celebrate too. No more interest rate increases needed, for now. They say they base their decisions on "incoming data".

[aeden]

https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/11/i ... tack-jews/
thousands now here
criminal negligence

https://twitter.com/rawsalerts/status/1 ... 4813783378
biden no border hordes climb the gates
FBI created a new category of extremists.
Taxpayers.

[Higgenbotham]

I took Physical Chemistry 469 with LS Bartell at The University of Michigan. Bartell worked on the Manhattan Project.

Below is from an oral history given by Bartell that I posted earlier this year. I didn't comment on it at the time.

How did I get involved in the Manhattan Project? Late in 1943 in my senior year, I was studying chemistry at the University of Michigan, and I got invited to the University of Chicago to interview. I suspected that it had something to do with the atomic bomb, because there’d been enough hints that such a thing might be made. But when I went early in 1944, I was interviewed by Glenn Seaborg himself. I was too shy to tell him I thought we were going to be working on the atomic bomb and some transuranium element that he had discovered, because I knew something about that. But the interview went well enough and after we had chatted for a while he said, “I’ll give you a job. When can you start?”

I said, “I can start today except for one detail. Next week I have my final examinations in my senior year.”

He said, “Wait here a minute,” and he disappeared. When he came back with a big grin on his face. He said, “I’ve relieved you of having to take any of those final exams,” which worried the heck out of me because one of the courses I took was economic geography to fill some requirement. I hated the course and didn’t even think that I was even passing it. But Seaborg’s story was good enough so I got a “B” in this course. I didn’t deserve a “B” in it for what I’d done. So I did start that day.

The first day I was given a little vial of ten grams of plutonium. I was told that it was worth, in today’s dollars, of something like twelve million dollars. And I was to take one-tenth of this, over a million dollars worth, and use it in my experiments. Now to a twenty-year-old kid just fresh out of college, this was mind boggling.

My job was to test various ways of extracting plutonium from uranium that had been irradiated in a reactor. It was fiercely radioactive. So I tested ways to decontaminate it, so it could be worked on with metallurgists. And that’s what I did.

When I was an undergraduate, I studied courses in radioactivity. I thought absolutely the most fascinating field in science was radiochemistry. And then suddenly I found myself in the field. After pipetting and precipitating and centrifuging and measuring and re-dissolving day after day after day, any aura of mystery or romance evaporates pretty quickly.

It turns out that most of the people on the project in Chicago were young Bachelor’s degree people. They were young enough so the draft boards would try to draft them. And the project was so secret that the draft boards couldn’t be allowed to be told how secret it was. So these people would go into the military, be inducted into the Corps of Engineers, and sent right back to Chicago to do what they had been doing before, which created a very interesting situation because in the military these guys were all enlisted men, not officers. When you have enlisted men, you have to have officers to tell them what to do. Officers didn’t have any Q clearance. They knew none of the secrets and weren’t allowed to know. Every now and then, they wondered what on earth was going on. They tried to pull rank and force an enlisted man to tell them what was going on. And the enlisted men would take great delight in essentially telling them to go to hell. Having been an enlisted man, I can tell you that is a great pleasure. I’ve been up for insubordination, but only once.

https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/voices/or ... interview/

I posted this history to show the urgency with which people were acting on the Manhattan Project. I don't believe the US any longer has the capability to proceed this expeditiously in an equally urgent situation. Also, it seems unlikely that equally qualified personnel could be found in an equally urgent situation. Look at this clusterfuck with the mRNA vaccines. Imagine the dopes involved with that trying to build an atomic bomb in 1944 - they probably would have blown themselves up.

[Higgenbotham]

My sister and I were talking this weekend about a guy from our home town who went into law enforcement. She said she had thought years ago that he was too much of a bad-ass to be hired for law enforcement. I told her that the main thing besides fitness that would have disqualified him from a career in law enforcement would be if he was too intelligent, that there are IQ thresholds that law enforcement personnel are not allowed to exceed. I've discussed this before, I believe. Anyway, I told her to the best of my recollection, a police officer is not allowed to have an IQ over right around 112. That's not codified into law, but it is practice that has been upheld by the courts.

Court OKs Barring High IQs for Cops
ByABC News
September 8, 2000, 9:32 AM

N E W L O N D O N, Conn., Sept. 8, 2000 -- A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.

“This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class,” Jordan said today from his Waterford home. “I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else.”

He said he does not plan to take any further legal action.

Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.

Most Cops Just Above Normal The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.

Jordan alleged his rejection from the police force was discrimination. He sued the city, saying his civil rights were violated because he was denied equal protection under the law.

But the U.S. District Court found that New London had “shown a rational basis for the policy.” In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover.

Jordan has worked as a prison guard since he took the test.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-bar ... y?id=95836

Is it true that there are maximum IQ cutoff points for police applicants?

R John

Former Criminal Attorney Prosecutor & Defense (2012–2016)
Updated 3y

There is no universal IQ cutoff. However the law has determined that police departments CAN if they choose, not hire someone because they are too smart and yes, some police departments do turn away people because they are too intelligent. Why? Intelligent people think about things instead of blindly doing what they are told like dogs. That is what police departments think makes a good cop, give him his bone, aka paycheck and you expect him to do what he is told without thinking or asking questions.

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-t ... applicants

With the PLA possibly making preparations to attack American cities during this crisis, smarter law enforcement personnel will be needed.

Terrorists plan to send a message to America by causing massive explosions and death during the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Days before the games commence, one terrorist decides to cause massive confusion and fear in a nearby town by targeting the police department. It is a race against time for Detective Sergeant Walter Anderson to find out who is behind the killings and to stop the planned conflagration. A New York Times Bestseller.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/balefi ... 1101229858

I picked up a copy of Balefire for a buck or two at a used book shop and it completely altered my view of the reality of power.

The book is about how a lone terrorist was able to stage incidents that made it look like the Huntington Beach Police Department was revenge killing criminals and even its own officers, which turned public opinion against the department as people demanded explanations and accountability. The book was written by a former police officer to show how a department's procedures and ways of thinking leave them vulnerable.

[Higgenbotham]

Started a partial short this morning. This is about 1/6 of the size I was holding at the July high.

I added an additional 1/30 with the the S&P 500 up 40 and another 1/10 with it up almost 80. So I am 30% as short as at the July high.

Added another 1/10 on Friday. Break even is 4303.

A few weeks ago, there was discussion about the gap around 4400 getting filled. It didn't. Markets are strange animals. After the gap wasn't filled and 4200 got broken through on the way down, I think most became convinced the market wouldn't fill the gap for a long time if at all. Now it looks like it probably will. I plan to increase my position to about 2/3 to 3/4 of its size at the July high if the S&P goes up to around 4400 this week. I think after this week there is once again a reasonable chance for a crash.

In mid-October we wrote in this space that October would be ugly but may only be a prelude to a deluge in November.

Last week we offered that a rally into a confluence of cycles in to November 9-11 region could

Be a false all-clear for a year end rally just before the boom is lowered ala 2018…on the 60 month cycle.

https://www.t3live.com/blog/2023/11/02/ ... mpossible/

That, and he's also mentioned a Gann 60 years from the JFK assassination. I've been watching a 62 month cycle that started from the August 1982 low to the October 1987 low. It doesn't always hit but I expect it can in November with possibly more weakness into December as he implies.

[Higgenbotham]

https://www.t3live.com/blog/2023/11/06/ ... t-rallies/

He discusses the sharpness of the rally. I believe it's lack of liquidity that is causing this, for various reasons that are evident.

[Higgenbotham]

Increased short position to 2/3 at S&P 4365. Anything additional added near here will be marginal. Breadth is deteriorating. Not that that is definitive. I'm leaving enough breathing room in my account to allow for being wrong.