oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith

Reader's Journal and Dow-Oil Ratio

At long last I have updated Reader's Journal. The range of topics covered by readers is amazing and fun to read; as a bonus, there are several book and film recommendations, and thoughtful ideas galore. Here is a quick listing:

Harun I.
Financial Risks, Hedge Funds, parasitic subsidization of the wealthy's failed financial adventures

Bill Murath
Peak Oil, Disposable Houses

Don E.
Overbuilding, leadership

Lloyd L.
Public Pension COLAs

Peter J. G.
Retail space, US and Europe

Matt S.
The Fourth Turning (Matt recommended the book to me)

UKC
blissful ignorance, faith in a technical fix

Kip S.
Peak Oil, Cheap Oil

Paul M.
The Key to Good Health That No One Is Talking About

Michael Goodfellow
Income Inequality
History of Transportation, The Pursuit of Glory (book)

Fred Roper
Parallels between 1929 and 2007

Mega
The 70s Redux: oil shortages, rising crime and more

Zeus Y.
Black Swan, what we already know but are desperately trying to escape

Albert T.
Struggle between capital / labor, inflationary pressure

Helen
The Crude Awakening

Riley T.
Soylent Green

Fastwater
Theology and self-serving government

There are three important essays: One on the a priori connection between cheap oil and cheap food, another on The Great Unraveling, and an incisive satire from ever-reliable satirist Protagoras skewering Total Quality Management (TQM), the bane of large organizations.

Peak Oil and Soil by Eric Andrews

The Great Unraveling by Chuck D.

The TQM Diet (satire) by Protagoras


We also have a new Black Swan haiku from UKC:

Said the grasshopper to the ant, winter is but a once in a lifetime event and hence improbable. (Hang on, can the title be longer than the haiku?)

first frost of autumn
touches the butterflies wing
once in a lifetime

Lastly, we puncture the heavily-hyped illusion so beloved of foaming-at-the-mouth TV pundits--that the Dow Jones Industrials reached a "new high" in value rather than in just name-- with a chart submitted by frequent contributor Harun I.

This charts the ratio of the DJI and light Crude oil. Note that when oil was cheap and the DJI high in 1999, the ratio spiked. Thought the DJI is much higher in nominal terms, we can see that in terms of purchasing power of energy, it is pathetically low.

As the bumper sticker says: Don't believe everything you think.

Please go to www.oftwominds.com/blog.html to view the chart.