The Internet Becomes a Small Town

Having grown up for part of my childhood in a small town, I became aware at a young age of the fact that there are few, if any, secrets that manage to stay secret. Privacy is an illusion as gossip and snooping are a way of life. Of course the facts are secondary to a good story and are among the first casualties.

The Internet is getting to be the same way, but with a goal of selling information rather than running other people down. Or is it?

One of the first things to catch my eye this morning was a report about how the Fed is planning to scour the Net for people opining on their policies. Are they soliciting viewpoints to incorporate into their decision making? No, they are looking to find who is shaping opinion and run a counter espionage style operation to control the public’s perception of them.

The fact that they have put out a request looking for a technology vendor to implement this is disturbing. Unlike a lot of people on the political right, I have no beef with the Federal Reserve. Well, until now. For this act alone, I think they should be disbanded. It smacks of being a government unto themselves and an Orwellian one at that.

Meanwhile, Facebook has been tracking every webpage that their members browse for at least a year. Not even logging out will stop this. As an immediate counter to this I have moved to using Internet Explorer solely for Facebook and will not be using my main browser, Firefox, for it anymore.

Combine that with the new “Timeline” interface and you have the world’s biggest snoop into people’s private lives. This is worse than knowing the old lady across the street is watching your windows, folks. Some websites will automatically update your status with your browsing their page under the new system. Since I was already winding down my Facebook usage to just gaming, I plan to take it all the way to that step pronto.

With those “features” in place, privacy settings are a moot point. It is clear there is no privacy where Facebook is involved and it creeps me out greatly. It is amazing how many people want your information. As much as tailoring advertising is supposed to increase sales, this has become ridiculous!

Time to roll down the shades, close the curtains, and maybe invest in virtual black out tape.

Productive Pain

Living with chronic pain is not pleasant, no matter how you look at it. But there is pain and then there is pain from actually doing things. The last two days I’ve hurt quite a bit because I’ve been doing some physical activity to make up for lost time.

It is all yard related, except for taking down my filthy blinds and deciding replacing them was easier than cleaning them. We bought some Colorado Blue Spruce and Black Hills Spruce pine trees to plant as a mini windbreak. Three of them went in the ground yesterday just in time for frost last night. The fourth and last one is indoors for the moment and awaits the removal of a diseased Asian Elm tree – if we can get a neighbor with a chainsaw to help out.

Speaking of sawing, a replacement pole saw and lopper finally was purchased a couple of months ago. Tuesday was my first chance to use it and I discovered to my dismay that my recent slide in health is worse than I realized. It was torture using it and one oak tree branch will take multiple days to get through.

No, it is not very thick being six inches in diameter or so. I am just that weak now. Oy.

Back to the frost. Last night set records for lows in some places around the area. We could use some global warming right about now. Pity it is junk science since humanity always prospers in warm periods.

Prosperity would be nice, but the coming storm is nearly upon us. China is going to be liquidating their U.S. treasury bond holdings. This shows that borrowing to increase our national debt is not going to work anymore. But that is not stopping the Fed from assisting in bailing out European banks. The insanity continues until everything falls down, I suppose.

At least the view from my window is nice with the blinds removed. It is amazing how plastic attracts dust that never lets go. I made the mistake of trying to dust them with a Webster extendable duster yesterday. The clouds of dust that arose could have felled a horse and drove me from the room.

I had purchased them close to twenty years ago to be able to vary sunlight since my eyes are very sensitive to light. But years of working on pain tolerance has helped a bit with that so I am ready to evict the things in favor of Asian blinds. Temporary plastic fake reed blinds (left overs from upgrading the dining room twelve years ago) will go up while I budget to get the real thing.

I’m thinking of painted bamboo ones but need to check my finances first.

Egad, the windows are dirty. Something will have to be done about that. Also have tomatoes to can today. So despite all the pain, at least it has been a productive week. That is something I have not been able to write down in some time.

That is worth the pain.

Storm Clouds on the Horizon

Many attribute the current recession to the housing bubble bursting.  Home financing and equity loans were the most glaring examples of the larger credit bubble problems that had built up.  This problem is not unique to the United States and has afflicted Europe as well.  Remember Iceland failing as the first indication of impending financial disaster?

Supposedly, things have improved in Europe, but this commentary in the Telegraph makes me wonder.  The M3 money supply contracted despite the dumping of stimulus money by U.S. and European governments in an effort to free up credit liquidity.  Instead, loans to the private sector decreased for the first time since 1983.  Reading the analysis and quotes presented is not an exercise for the faint of heart, as it presents a very gloomy picture for 2010.  Any time the word “deflation” is used, be afraid.  So much for converting dollars to Euros to hedge your bets, at least in the long term.
So stocks are now looking unstable if things don’t improve in the credit picture.  Where do you invest if you are one of the fortunate who has extra money or want to get out of the stock market?  Well, the gold bugs have pushed gold to $1,000 an ounce and there have been run ups in oil, copper, and eve lead!  A lot of people have moved their money into commodities but there is peril there as well. The key quote from this:

"It seems to us that if output declines, then input of materials ought to be down by a similar order," said High Frequency Economics economist Carl Weinberg.

I’m afraid logic has nothing to do with economic behavior these days.  Where to put your money is becoming like shooting a moving target in an increasingly faster carnival game.  I’d thought maybe the Euro for very short term and silver (as a bargain compared to gold) for longer term, but nothing looks safe.

Do you trust the Federal Reserve?  I’m beginning to think we have nothing but incompetency at the top of our financial and political institutions.  Finding out the shell game involving AIG being forced to bail out big banks such as Goldman Sachs doesn’t add to confidence in the system.  The cover up following that action destroys it.

So we have major problems yet to fully come into play and an utterly incompetent response to what has already gone wrong – all on an international scale, not just domestic.  No sector is seeing concrete growth, except for bigger government of course. Now is not the time to relax thinking we are in safer waters, rather it is a time to batten down the hatches and ride the coming storms out.