On my 'puter, in Firefox (@ 1600 x 900), the Blogtalk box is covering up the TickerCon scale. It is visible in Explorer though, along with a banner ad that I'm not seeing in Firefox.

FYI Karl

No TICKERCON shows on the left side in the forum header on my Android smart phone's browser.

It does show OK on the Market Tickers in the right hand column

The latest design looks good. Thanks

Jstanley: If you have ads blocked, that's what it will do.

PDAs don't display it on the forum.

Asimov: Okay, that's why. Thanks.

I had a website once with flickering tiki torches. It was badass. Still, I think smoldering piles of rubble are more appropriate in this case.

I feel like this is a nice visualization...

Karl, though I know you've said at some point you may shut the forum down and go into bunker mode, wouldn't you miss us bitching about the colors on the crash indicator?

LQ

3 year old piece, saved in my DB


http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/02/28/bec....
February 28, 2008 -- Updated 1744 GMT (0144 HKT

Glenn Beck: Don't follow herd on the economy

* Story Highlights
* Glenn Beck lays out the DEFCONOMY scale
* Beck ponders: Will the economy collapse into "The Greater Depression"?
* "Maybe now it's time to look at a worst-case scenario," he says
* Then again, maybe not: Be prepared is the key

NEW YORK (CNN) -- "The people who survived the Great Depression were the ones who had money to buy when everybody else was selling." -- My grandfather

I learned a lot from my grandfather, but that might have been the greatest lesson he ever taught me. He wasn't just talking about managing money, he was talking about managing life -- and his words have stuck with me since I was a child.

A few years back, I was taking a theology course and the professor recommended only the books whose authors he agreed with. I read those books, but I also asked that professor which books he thought had it completely wrong -- and I read those too. Then I made up my own mind. After all, following the herd is fine until they all run off the side of a cliff together.

Less than a year ago, a recession was the last thing on anyone's mind. In fact, over the summer, as I was questioning the conventional wisdom, I read an article on my television show that quoted a financial expert as saying, "It is the strongest global market that we've seen in the history of measuring these things."

That's when I realized how fast the herd was approaching the cliff.

But with predictions of a recession now more common than Fed rate cuts -- and that's saying something -- maybe now it's time to look at a worst-case scenario. After all, considering all sides of an issue, no matter how extreme they may be, doesn't make you a crazy person; it makes you an educated one.

So to understand what a real meltdown could look like, I turned to Nouriel Roubini, chairman of RGE Monitor and professor of economics at New York University's Stern School of Business. He's also a former adviser to the U.S. Treasury Department.

Professor Roubini recently laid out what he called the "12 steps to financial disaster." Unfortunately, they were really complicated, and I have severe ADD, so I've boiled them down into five phases that even a rodeo clown like me can understand.

I think of these like our military's "DEFCON" -- or defense readiness condition -- scale, except that this countdown could end in the meltdown of your bank account:

• DEFCONOMY FIVE

How you'll know we're here: The housing downturn turns into a free fall, making it the worst collapse in our country's history. That not only triggers massive numbers of foreclosures and lost household wealth, but it also sets off another large wave of bank write-downs.

Odds we get here: Roubini told me that it's "extremely likely, even unavoidable" that we hit this stage because "the excess supply of new homes in the market is like we've never seen before." Prices, he believes, "need to fall another 10 to 20 percent before that clears."

• DEFCONOMY FOUR

How you'll know we're here: Americans upside-down on their mortgages and unable to pay their home equity loans begin defaulting on other debt, like credit cards, car loans and student loans. In addition, bond insurance companies lose their perfect credit ratings, forcing already troubled banks to write down another $150 billion.

Odds we get here: High. Roubini says that 8 million households are already upside-down on their mortgages and he thinks we could see that number go to between 16 million and 24 million by the end of 2009. A lot of those people, he believes, will simply walk away from their homes and send their keys back to the bank.

• DEFCONOMY THREE

How you'll know we're here: Some banks begin to crack under the pressure of continuing write-downs and mounting defaults by consumers. A national or large regional bank finally collapses, triggering hedge fund failures and general chaos on Wall Street, potentially leading to a 1987-style market crash.

Odds we get here: Very good. Roubini says that we'll likely socialize the losses, "effectively nationalizing the mortgages or the banks." It would be, he told me, "like Northern Rock (the large bank in England that was recently taken over by the British government) times three." He thinks the stock market will head south throughout the year as fears about a severe recession are confirmed.

• DEFCONOMY TWO

How you'll know we're here: Most forms of credit (both to consumers and businesses) become virtually nonexistent. That results in a "vicious circle" of additional write-downs, stock market losses, and bank collapses, which leads to even less credit being available.

Odds we get here: Good. Roubini says that credit conditions are becoming worse everyday across a variety of markets and won't be getting better anytime soon. Without extra credit available, people might have to actually (gasp!) live within their means.

• DEFCONOMY ONE

How you'll know we're here: Welcome back to 1929. A full economic meltdown results in a complete failure of the underlying financial system. What will be known to future generations as "The Greater Depression" has arrived.

Odds we get here: Not likely. Roubini believes that this will be a "very painful and severe recession" that could last for 18 months or more, but it will be more like 1981 than 1929. Families may be eating soup again, but at least it'll be in their own kitchens.

Now, do I think any of what you just read will happen?

I have no idea, and that's exactly the problem. I'm not an economist or a stockbroker; I'm just a guy trying to make the best decisions I can, and picking the brains of real experts helps me do that.

But I do know one thing for sure: Depressions aren't advertised in advance. Last time around we went from the Roaring '20s to bread lines in a matter of just a few years.

Anyone who says that can't happen again either doesn't know history, doesn't understand how interconnected the world's economies have become, or is lying to you. While that doesn't mean you should panic, it does mean you should prepare -- something my grandfather would've done a long time ago. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

this should make ticker con go to below 0 we have a president that arguably wouldnt be able to pass kindegarten with the logic he posseses http://www.zerohedge.com/article/obama-c....

Good idea. The "Institute For Economic Reality" was running the "CRASH-CON" on clearcutbainbridge.blogspot.com during 2007. As usual, the IER was running about 18 months early.

http://clearcutbainbridge.blogspot.com/2....

Can we get an email alert on a change to tickercon status?

Eleua

I get this content cannot be displayed in a frame.

I searched android Market for "Tickercon widget" ...lol, nothing?!?! Just kidding.

So what historical events might the defcon ratings equate to, roughly?

For instance is Argentina 2001 a 2, a 1, or a kaboom? Germany 1923? Would only things like Russia 1917, med/near East 1200bc, Rome 476ad/1453ad etc count as Kaboom?

I need to calibrate my amplitude & frequency settings for quaking fear properly to the scale...

Well here's a quick version of the tray icon that was requested a while back. Anyone with a recent version of Windows (including XP) and the .NET Framework v3.5 or v4.0 installed (including most users since it's pushed via Windows Update) should be able to compile/run this.

Instructions:
1. Copy/paste the below code into a plain text file (using Notepad or whatever) and save to your hard drive. By convention it should have a .cs file extension but that is not strictly required. Note that Notepad will append a .txt file extension unless you use quotation marks around the filename when saving.
2. Open a command prompt: hit [Windows]+[R] and type "cmd" without the quotation marks.
3. Copy/paste the below command text into the prompt window (using [Ctrl]+[V] will not work--you need to use the right-click menu to paste), substituting the path and filename where indicated.
4. You should get output that says "Microsoft (R) Visual C# Compiler..." and no error messages.
5. You should find a .exe file dropped into the current directory of the command prompt. Copy it wherever, maybe link it into your Startup menu, have fun waiting for the nuke.

Note that I did not include any error-handling logic, so if you lose network connectivity or KD changes the URL format, the program will just crash. Use at your own risk. :)

EDIT: I found out that the forum does not like backslashes. You will need to replace any dollar signs ("$") with backslashes after copy/pasting. There are several in the command text and two in the Regex in the code. I also added unnecessary string concatenations to avoid the URLs becoming hyperlinks.

Command prompt wrote..

%SystemRoot%$Microsoft.NET$Framework$v3.5$CSC.exe /reference:System.dll /reference:System.Drawing.dll /reference:System.Windows.Forms.dll /target:winexe "C:$Path_to_saved_code_file$Saved_file_name.cs"

Quote:

namespace DRR.TickerCon
{
  using System;
  using System.Drawing;
  using System.IO;
  using System.Net;
  using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
  using System.Windows.Forms;

  /// <summary>The only class.</summary>
  /// <revision date="2011-04-16" author="DRR">Initial version.</revision>
  internal static class Program
  {
    #region Configuration

    /// <summary>The HTML page to scrape to determine the current status.</summary>
    private readonly static Uri _page =
      new Uri("http" + "://tickerforum.org/akcs-www");

    /// <summary>The format of TickerCon on-image URLs.</summary>
    private readonly static Regex _imageUriFormat =
      new Regex("http" + "://tickerforum.org/Defcon/($$d)-(on|bang).png");

    /// <summary>Refresh hourly.</summary>
    private const int _refreshIntervalInMilliseconds = 60 * 60 * 1000;

    #endregion
    #region State

    /// <summary>The tray icon refresh timer.</summary>
    private readonly static Timer _refreshTimer =
      new Timer() { Interval = _refreshIntervalInMilliseconds };

    /// <summary>The tray icon.</summary>
    private readonly static NotifyIcon _trayIcon = new NotifyIcon
      { ContextMenu = new ContextMenu(new[] { new MenuItem("Exit", Exit_Click) }) };

    #endregion
    #region Logic

    /// <summary>The program entry point.</summary>
    [STAThread]
    private static void Main()
    {
      //  Use a Windows message timer to periodically update the tray icon.
      _refreshTimer.Tick += (sender, e) => { UpdateTrayIcon(); };
      _refreshTimer.Start();

      //  Initialize the icon.
      UpdateTrayIcon();

      //  Start the message pump.
      Application.Run();
    }

    /// <summary>Updates the TickerCon tray icon.</summary>
    private static void UpdateTrayIcon()
    {
      _trayIcon.Icon = DownloadIcon(FindCurrentTickerConUri());
      _trayIcon.Visible = true;
    }

    /// <summary>Scrapes an HTML page to find the current on-image.</summary>
    /// <returns>An image URL.</returns>
    private static Uri FindCurrentTickerConUri()
    {
      using (var request = new WebClient())
      {
        var match = _imageUriFormat.Match(request.DownloadString(_page));
        if (!match.Success)
          throw new InvalidOperationException
            ("No TickerCon icon was found at the specified URL.");
        return new Uri(match.Value);
      }
    }

    /// <summary>Downloads an image and converts it to an icon.</summary>
    /// <param name="uri">The image to download.</param>
    /// <returns>An icon.</returns>
    private static Icon DownloadIcon(Uri uri)
    {
      if (uri == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("uri");

      /* TODO: Is there a more direct way to download an image
       * and convert it to an icon?
       */
      using (var request = new WebClient())
        using (var buffer = new MemoryStream(request.DownloadData(uri)))
          using (var image = Image.FromStream(buffer))
            using (var bitmap = new Bitmap(image))
              return Icon.FromHandle(bitmap.GetHicon());
    }

    /// <summary>Handles the Exit menu item to terminate the program.</summary>
    /// <param name="sender">Ignored.</param>
    /// <param name="e">Ignored.</param>
    private static void Exit_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
      Application.Exit();
    }

    #endregion
  }
}

Great visual! But what is the expiration timeframe of each level? That is, how long will TickerCon be at a given level without anything happening before it is dropped? Could be different lengths of time for different levels, for example 3 months for level 2, 1 year for level 3, etc.

"Alert states" always need some kind of expiration timeframe or they become discredited. The poster child is of course the TSA threat level which has been at orange since August 2006 and everybody long since stopped caring or even noticing. Apparently the whole threat level approach is about to be scrapped:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/01/26/t....

I sincerely applaud the reminder of financial risk but if it stays at level 2 for a long time (say, 6 months to a year) without any evidence that the Fed is losing control or any noticeable increase in capital-market volatility, TickerCon will lose any beneficial effect. It would be better to drop it again than to leave it high indefinitely.

Link to a compiled version of that code above:

http://www.denninger.net/tickercon.exe

Note that you need to save that somewhere and then start it on boot.

Updated the Ticker on this.

One??!?! Already?!?!!

Yes, due to risks over the long weekend I identified in TICKS yesterday (available to Gold donors)

It will revert to "2" if none of that happens after the FOMC announcement.

Fully agree and will probably hold an /ES short over the weekend.

This is way to scary. I don't know if it's better to hope we drop down now or if we are given more time and go back up to 2.

Personally I'd really prefer heading up towards 5, but I don't see us making there until long after we have hit the very bottom.

I liked TickerCon when it glowed red. The black/white motif is sorta boring.

Pika: The different levels have different colors... think of heat... 3 - Yellow - Warm, 2 - Red - Hot, 1 - White - OMG IT BURNSSSSSSSSSSSSSS